Chapter Text
Dick Grayson entered his apartment, throwing his keys down on the counter and bringing his hands to his face. He took a breath, and for a moment, seriously thought about quitting the Bludhaven Police Department.
Dick Grayson had two full-time jobs, one as Detective at the BPD, and the other patrolling the streets as Nightwing.
He did a lot of good as Detective Dick Grayson.
He did a lot of good as the vigilante Nightwing.
He loved the responsibilities associated with both jobs, however sometimes, he needed a bit of a break. Not that he would give himself one.
Without flipping on the light switch, Dick made his way over to his fridge. He sighed as he looked at the contents, nothing but string cheese, olives, and a can of old beer. Reaching for the cheese, he almost dropped it when he heard a whistle to the side of him.
"And I thought my place was sad."
Dick smiled, inwardly mad at himself for not noticing him before. "I've been busy."
"I can see that." The figure said, looking at his badge. "Detective."
Dick's smile widened. "What do you want, Jason?"
Jason smiled, flipping on Dick's hall light and Dick noticed that he was in full Red Hood gear, minus the helmet that was currently lying on his living room table. Jason flopped on his couch, putting his hands behind his head and his feet on the same coffee table his helmet was on. "Can't I just be here to check in on my big brother? Why do I have to want something?"
Dick walked around and pushed his feet off the table, sitting in his ratty armchair with his string cheese. "Because all of the other times you've been here to visit you've needed something."
Jason put on a mock frown. "Dickie, first of all, I never need anything from you."
Dick's eyebrows just about reached the ceiling. "Oh really?"
"Yes," Jason shrugged, "I simply go to you to save time and secondly, if I really wanted to 'hang out with you' I wouldn't do it in this dump you call an apartment."
"Whatever you have to tell yourself to help you sleep at night, bud," Dick said finishing the last of his supper. "So what do you need my time-saving skills with?"
Jason's face darkened a bit as he sat up straight, looking at Dick. "Have you heard of someone called Maxwell Garcia?"
Dick sucked in a breath and stared at Jason. "Where did you hear that name?" He asked.
"You know him?"
Dick, stood up, pacing the small space between the television and the table.
Jason stood too. "By that reaction, I'm guessing you know him. Well, I've been tracking him all over the place and now-"
"Now he's in Bludhaven." Dick finished.
"Yeah." Jason looked at him. 'Stop pacing before you tear a hole in your carpet. How do you know that dirtbag anyway?"
Dick stopped. "I'm working the Garcia case."
"Wait." Jason tilted his head at him. "Like, doing summersaults from three-story buildings working the Garcia case or fancy whiteboards in a police precinct working the Garcia case?"
"Precinct," Dick answered.
"No shit?"
"No shit."
Jason sat back down and Dick followed suit, the two of them sitting next to each other on the couch. "So..." Jason said. "What can you tell me about the Garcia case?"
"Absolutely nothing."
Jason frowned at him. "That's not very nice, Dickface sharing is caring."
"And I can't discuss an open investigation with you, Jason."
Jason stood, pointing at his helmet. "But I'm the Red Hood."
Dick stood, matching him. "And I'm Nightwing."
"You can't tell me that you haven't gone out as Nightwing to do some justice to some low-lives you met as Detective Dick," Jason said, his voice rising.
Dick did his best not to raise his. "Look, I've gone out once or twice and taken care of somethings after the fact but I can't tell you anything cause you'd interfere and this is an active case."
Jason scoffed. "I'd interfere? Really? I'm not twelve fucking years old Dick I won't mess up your investigation. I know how to cover my tracks. Look, I've been tracking Garcia for months. He sells everything from drugs to kids and that is not acceptable in my book."
"It's not acceptable in mine either, Jason but that is exactly why I can't tell you anything."
Jason scowled at him. "Excuse me?"
"If I tell you where Garcia's hangouts are-" Jason made to interrupt him but Dick stuck his hand out, "if I tell you and you go in and kill him, all of our investigative work is over."
"So this is all about your investigation, then?" Jason yelled.
Dick looked like he'd been slapped. "No, you idiot it's so Garcia, his men, and all the people who he's sold to will go to jail and rot in a cell for the rest of their lives. If you go in there and kill everyone, all the people that Garcia communicated with will get off scot-free."
"Yeah, but if you don't do anything now, you're putting more people at risk!" Jason yelled. "He's selling kids, Dick. Kids! And you're going to sit here and tell me that you'd rather he go to a cushy all-expense-paid jail cell than get his fucking throat slit like he deserves?"
Dick's gaze went dark. "We don't kill people, Jason."
"You don't kill people, Dickie."
Dick turned away from him. "I'm sorry, Jason, but I can't help you with this. Not while I'm working the case at the BPD. I'll ask for reassignment, then I can help you."
"You won't know Jack-shit if you're not working the case." Jason argued.
Dick put his hand on Jason's shoulder, pleading with him. "Look, Detective Dick has some skills. Amy and I have been working on Garcia for a week and we're getting close. I just need you to give me time."
Jason shrugged off his hand. "I don't want your help, Dick. I'll find Garcia on my own."
Jason grabbed his helmet and made his way to the front door. Dick's voice reached him as he touched the handle. "If you're going to be killing people in my city, I might have to go after you."
It wasn't a threat, it was a warning. Jason paused. "As an officer of the law or as a nighttime superhero wearing spandex?"
Dick shrugged. "Either, both. I don't know." Dick paused, exhaled a breath. "But please Jason, don't make me chose between my city and my brother."
Jason opened the door. "You already have."
Dick wasn't sure if it was his fight with Jason or the fact that he didn't sleep at all last night that was giving him a migraine from hell but either way he needed it gone and fast. He couldn't afford to be distracted with the Garcia case. He couldn't afford to be before his and Jason's screaming match last night, but now the pressure was even higher if he wanted to keep Jason off of both the BPD and Bruce's radar.
Jason's relationship with Bruce was still on the mend and Dick didn't want his brother to do anything to jeopardize it. If Jason killed Garcia and all his men in Bludhaven, it would just widen that gap.
Dick just sighed and put his head on his desk.
"You look like hell." Amy greeted him.
Dick looked up at his partner, trying to manage a smile. She set down a coffee next to him on his desk. "Late night?"
"Yes." He sighed. "And thank you."
She grinned. "What was her name?"
Dick grabbed the coffee with two hands and took a sip. "It was Jason."
Her eyebrows shot up. "Oh." She said.
If Dick's head didn't feel like it was about to fall out he would have rolled his eyes at her. "My brother, Jason."
Her cheeks got red. "I was going to say, Grayson. If you managed to hide that from me for all these years I would have been very impressed."
He nodded at her. "Please, you know just about everything about me."
She squinted at him. "I don't think that's true."
He looked at her, "What's the status with the Garcia case?"
She scoffed at his obvious changing of the subject. "I have a voicemail from my informant. I asked him to piece together any information about where Garcia was and instead of calling me at a normal hour he left a voicemail at three in the morning. What happened with your brother?"
Dick sighed. "We need to listen to that voicemail."
"And your brother?"
"We had a fight."
"Over?"
Dick paused. "He wanted something from me that I couldn't give to him."
"Couldn't or wouldn't?" Amy asked, sitting in her chair at her desk across from him. She was facing him, elbows on her thighs and head in her hands.
"A little of both."
"And he got mad?"
Dick took another sip. "Very."
She sat up. "You know when my kids fight, I like to put them in the same room. I tell them they can't come out until they've apologized to each other and are friends again."
Dick raised his eyebrows. "And that works?"
Amy took a sip of her coffee. "Usually they're both so mad at me for putting them together that they work together to make my life insufferable but at the end of the day, yes. It works."
Dick smiled. "Justin and Emma are four and six. Jason and I are both adults now, I don't think forcing us together would do much good."
Amy rolled over to his desk in her chair and grabbed a picture off his desk. It was a photo of all of them. Bruce, Alfred, Damian, Dick, Tim, and Jason, taken at some gala hosted in honor of the Wayne family a couple of months back. Dick found the picture in the newspaper the next week and pathetic as it was, cut it out and put it on his desk. If he already had to hide the fact that he was Nightwing, he didn't see any point in trying to hide the fact that he was Bruce Wayne's heir. It didn't mean that he advertised it either.
"Which one is Jason?" Amy asked looking at the photo.
Dick pointed at Jason, standing in the back with a frown on his face. He was taller than all but Bruce and almost as menacing as him. Amy whistled. "Wow, you've got a nice bloodline."
"Amy you're married."
Amy shook her head. "Jim would understand."
Dick shook his head, smiling. "You were trying to make a point?"
"Oh yeah," Amy cleared her throat, "look, Jason is the next oldest right?"
Dick nodded.
"So he looks up to you?"
"I guess."
"Then just give him time. He's probably off trying to be independent and doesn't like the fact that you're not helping him. It makes him feel like you're not on his side. Just give him time to come around and when he does, try to explain to him again why it is you can't do what he wants you too."
Dick grinned at her. "You're pretty smart, ya know that?"
She shrugged. "Jim is a family therapist. I hear a lot of this crap at home."
"Does he appreciate you calling it 'crap'?" Dick asked playfully.
"He does if he wants me to do his laundry."
Dick looked at her incredulously. "You do the laundry?"
Amy took another sip of her coffee. "Don't give me that look, Grayson. In my house, if I want something done right, I don't ask Jim to do it. I love him, but he's clueless. Last time he did the laundry he mixed Emma's pink ballet outfit with Justin's white karate uniform."
"Ouch."
"Yep." She rolled back to her desk. "Want to listen to this voicemail now?"
Dick rolled over. "Yes please."
Amy dialed the number and waited for the voicemail machine to finish its recorded message. As she did, she put the phone to her shoulder and looked at Dick. "Look, whatever happens, I'm sure you and your brother will be fine. You're a great guy, Dick."
"Thanks, partner."
The phone beeped at the two of them pressed their ears close to the phone.
Jason Todd was annoyed with his family.
Actually, annoyed was a nice word for how he was feeling.
"What do you want, Tim?" Jason asked as he looked at his little brother on the balcony of one of his safehouses. He was a tiny bit agitated that the kid knew where his safe house was, but he figured he'd deal with that later. (And by deal with that he meant completely relocate and burn this place to the ground.)
"Why are you in Bludhaven?"
Jason scoffed and flopped his arms. "Are you kidding me right now? Did Dickie-bird call you and complain about me interfering with his case?"
Tim's eyes narrowed through his mask. "I haven't been in contact with Dick since I noticed you were here."
"Then why are you here?"
Tim walked into his house, the cocky little brat. "I heard you were working the Garcia case."
Jason turned to him. "You must have heard wrong. You see," he spat out the next few words, clearly still angry, "Detective Dipstick is working the Garcia case and told me to get lost."
"He told you to get lost?"
Jason shrugged. "More or less."
Tim took another step forward. "Well, I want to help."
Jason's eyebrows raised. "What?"
Tim took off his mask so he could look directly at Jason. "I want to help you take down Maxwell Garcia."
Jason's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"Maxwell Garcia and his gang are responsible for the disappearance of Katy Jones."
"And she is?"
"She was in my fifth-grade class."
"And you care why?"
Tim frowned at him. "Because I'm a normal human being Jason and I don't want what happened to Katy, who was super nice by the way, to happen to anyone else if I can stop it."
Jason liked the resolve he heard from Tim. "We'd be going against what Boy Wonder wants us to do."
Jason saw a bit of the resolve leave Tim. "I need to help. Maybe I can talk to Dick later. I can't just sit while Garcia is this close."
"Does Big B know?"
Tim shook his head. "No. And I don't want him to."
"Good." Jason looked him up and down. "You sure you want to do this?"
Tim gulped. "Yes."
Jason nodded. "Then let's get started."