Chapter Text
It was a cold, dreary evening in Gotham. Not that Gotham was ever anything but, really. I sat in a corner booth by a rain-streaked window that let in the flickering light from a broken streetlamp. It was the only illumination I had in this section of the coffee shop, the light above me having burnt out a week ago. I didn’t expect the owners to replace it quickly but this was getting ridiculous. Then again, I seemed to be their only customer, so maybe they just didn’t have the money.
I was on my third refill of the night, the sun had set an hour before, and still there was no sign of my contact. I didn’t know who to expect but, considering I was the only person in the place besides the owner and her wife, I figured it would be a safe bet that I’d know when they arrived. I wasn’t really sure how I’d ended up on this case. The Department of Extranormal Operations tried their best to avoid Gotham at all costs and with Batman’s strict no metas policy it was normally pretty easy. We usually dealt only with metahumans and extraterrestrial life, but rumors had spread of something above both GCPD and Batman’s pay grade so, here I was.
I checked my phone. 7:32 pm, 40% battery life. Another no-show maybe? A week of being stood up by this mystery informant made it all seem deliberate at this point. I’d been afraid of a set-up, not a hoax. I turned to signal for the check and gather my things and nearly smacked a man who was approaching my booth.
“Grayson?”
Dick Grayson smiled sheepishly at me. The corners of his blue eyes crinkled softly and his dark hair looked a mess. “Sorry I’m late, can I buy you another coffee?”
“Dick, you’re my informant?” It shouldn’t have surprised me, he was a detective and he’d grown up in Gotham. He still had family here, of course he’d know if anything strange was going on.
He nodded and sat down across from me, “I know it took longer than you were expecting.”
“What, did you run all the way from Blüdhaven? And why the hell didn’t you tell me anyway?”
“Honestly, wasn’t sure if you’d show up if you knew it was me.”
That was vaguely insulting. We’d dated, briefly, and sure I was still sore about the way things ended, but I was a professional, thank you very much. And I was very much over the fact that he’d run off to San Francisco without so much as a goodbye instead of breaking up with me like a grown man. Completely over it.
“Alright, fine, maybe I wouldn’t have.”
He smiled again. That damned perfect smile and those gorgeous blue eyes. Revolting.
“So, what have you got for me? What’s going on that’s abnormal even for Gotham?”
He ordered a cup of coffee and waited for the owner’s wife to leave the table before producing a flash drive from his inside jacket pocket and passing it over to me.
“This has all the footage, photographs, and police reports relating to the incidents in the past month. There might be more but as far as we can tell this all started a few weeks ago.”
“We? I thought you were working in Blüdhaven, not Gotham.”
“Babs called in a favor.”
Ah. That we.
Dick passed me a piece of paper before standing as the coffee was set on the table.
“Text me if you find anything out or need any help, alright? I’ll be around.”
I nodded, unsure what to say as he left. I never knew quite what to expect in Gotham City, and I never got anything that I could expect from a visit. I sipped the fresh coffee and turned the thumb drive over in my fingertips. I’d start working on the case, maybe even put Dick’s number in my phone, tomorrow.
For purely professional reasons, of course.