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Dick hates the long cons. He understands their importance, and he’s good at carrying on a lie, but he hates it regardless.
There’s too many variables, too many things that can go wrong. Someone from his past—criminal or vigilante—spots him? His cover is blown. Someone recognizes him from his days among Gotham’s elite? Cover blown. Someone notices that his watch isn’t just a watch? Cover blown, and likely dead.
He prefers the ones that are one and done. The ones where he goes in and within two hours, they have their suspect. He was trained for this, true, but he prefers to be on the move. The rooftops and trapeze bars are out of the question in New York, but a classic foot chase never ceases to be a thrill.
Dick is wired up and making his way to the boxing gym down the street. The owner, a failed Wall Street stockbroker, is suspected of fencing priceless jewels. Dick’s job is gaining his trust and getting whatever information he can from the man.
The further he gets from the van, the less enthusiastic he is about the whole thing. A boxing instructor with a history of violence. If he gets caught, this is only going to go one way.
Dick sighs and sizes up the gym. It’s a small brick building with few windows. The building is relatively small, which hopefully means that it isn’t too busy. The less eyes on him, the better.
Dick reaches out to grab the handle, but something catches his eye. About twenty feet to his left, in front of the cafe, a man and woman are standing in front of a puddle. The woman’s hands are outstretched toward the man, her expression regretful. Dick guesses that she spilled his coffee, but he couldn’t care less about that.
The slope of the man’s shoulders, the swoop of his hair, the perfect posture—it’s all familiar. But… it can’t be. Dick has always prided himself on being logical, even at a young age. That part of his brain is telling him that he’s wrong, but Dick knows, more than most people, what kind of world he lives in. He’s had one of his brothers come back from the dead under unknown circumstances, so why couldn’t he ?
Dick’s lungs tighten as he watches the man smile at the woman. His arms extend toward her, comforting, placating. He picks up the discarded cup, bending at the waist like two decades couldn’t touch his flexibility if it tried.
He’d be older now, pushing fifty. Dick grieves, not just for him, but for the time they could’ve had.
Dick’s hand is frozen on the door as he watches the man walk away. Something clicks, and he darts away from the door, ignoring the voices in his ear and the anklet on his leg, and everything . He just needs to be sure.
Halfway down the block, Dick realizes he can’t see him anymore. He pushes through a group of people, ignoring their protests as he scans the street.
There, a flash of brown disappearing around a corner. Dick runs ahead, paying no attention to the FBI van pulling up beside him. He follows the man into the hotel.
He’s going crazy. Either that, or he’s a fool, running around New York, chasing someone who could just be an eerie lookalike. Or worse, this could be someone from his old life utilising Spyral technology to maneuver him into a vulnerable position. Catch him off guard, and he’ll be an easier target. It’s an old tactic, but it works. Taking advantage of someone’s emotions is an excellent way to knock them off balance.
The man turns to a door on the end of the corridor and slides a key into the lock. Right when he turns it, Dick slams him up against the doorframe. “Why are you wearing a dead man’s face?”
The man’s eyes grow wide, his face inches from Dick’s. From this distance, his eyes are disarming. Dick pulls back a little, but keeps him pinned.
When he was a kid, Dick was always complimented on his eyes and told how much he looks like his father. He’d loved it back then, knowing he and his father were so similar. Dick would even style his hair like his dad’s, just so the resemblance was obvious even to the blind.
This man is his father. It’s an indisputable fact. No technology on Earth, not even the things Bruce dreams up, can recreate the face of a man that is no longer alive this accurately.
Whether John knows that, Dick doesn’t know, and he doesn’t have time to ask, because the doors to the hotel burst open. Peter leads Diana and Jones inside, a look on his face that Dick knows means trouble.
“What the hell was that?” Peter demands, one hand on his hip and the other inching toward his cuffs.”Do you realize how much of a scene you just made?”
Truthfully, Dick doesn’t care. He can’t take his eyes off of his father’s face. He doesn’t care about anything else. This takes priority.
“Dick?” John utters. He’s clearly just as baffled as Dick is. It sends a jolt of warmth through him to hear his name fall off his father’s tongue.
“Dad?”
Dick had forgotten Peter was standing there, and only remembers when he hears Peter say, “What is going on?”
Dick and John both turn to look at him, and Dick cringes when he sees the looks on their faces. Jones’ face is carefully blank, but Dick knows him well enough by now to see the signs of confusion in his face. Diana is less reserved about her thoughts and, as a result, her bafflement is obvious.
Dick doesn’t want to tell them. He never meant to lose himself, and, as a result, he’d threatened his cover. They’d undoubtedly heard John call him by his real name, and heard Dick call John ‘Dad.’
He can’t give them a convincing lie; it has to be the truth. Or at least, partially. He's been hidden behind the shroud of half-truths his entire life. It's something he knows intimately, and something he can use to his advantage.