Chapter Text
If your being perfectly honest with yourself, it’s not the typical story that would interest you in any kind of way.
Young boy orphaned at 12, adopted by a reclusive billionaire, raised with every comfort, and becomes a darling of the media.
Then he leaves the city he was raised in, and his adoptive father and all the wealth he’d come into to become a beat cop in Bludhaven.
Much less glamorous then the life he had laid out for him as the heir to the Wayne fortune.
You’d think in Gotham, a city where men run around in bat suits, and other men dress up as clowns to kill hundreds, this story manages to be the one that captivates people. Your editor describes it as a “VIS”, Very Important Story, and it takes everything in your power not yo roll your eyes.
People will talk about anything besides the horrible things happening all around them. They’ll obsess over men in red tights, and women with solid gold bracelets, and bats and robins and cats. Then of course, prodigal sons who almost never show their faces.
“You’re our hot shot, and this is going to be our showstopper,” Jack is an older man, one who doesn’t get excited often, but now he’s pacing around his desk, making you dizzy as he walks in circles. He’s nicer than your last editor, albeit less experienced and less talented in the least offensive way possible. “I’m handing it to you on a silver platter, you have to do it.”
“Oh,” Your eyes widen, “You’re giving me a choice?”
He keeps on the megawatt smile that’s beginning to scare you. “Yeah of course.”
“Why is that?” You lean forward.
“Okay, okay,” He raises his arms, “You got me! There’s one thing that I haven’t quite put together.” You lean back into your chair, “We haven’t gotten him to agree to an interview just yet.” You twirl your pen into between your fingers for a couple of seconds, trying to keep a blank expression. “But I think that with you as the writer, there’s no way he can say no.”
You click your tongue, thinking to yourself, There’s about a million, and half of those are perfectly good reasons. but then again, you’re partial to a challenge when the opportunity is given. You know he’s not really asking, he’s trying to be as nice as he can but he needs to us from you. The desperation seeps through his eyes and his smile that he’s trying to keep plastered on his face.
“Okay, seems easy enough,” You shrug, and the look in his eyes changes. You can tell he likes your confidence, however misplaced he may think it is.
And so starts the phone campaign. It starts with a call to the Wayne industries offices, who of course direct you to the press office, who give a firm “no comment.” On any reasoning for Mr. Graysons sudden reapearrence in Gotham, and therefore there is no reason for any interviews.
It’s then you realize that your going to have to take a slightly different approach to this then you first thought. The article shifts, from something shallow about why he’s decided to reappear in the Gotham social scene, to something that on the surface seems a bit deeper: a profile, about the life and times of Richard Grayson. The heir to the Wayne fortune, Gothams favorite son, the playboy, the would be activist.
Of course that draws no more interest from anyone who could possibly put you in contact with the man you need to speak to. The days draw on longer as you sit at your desk, watching YouTubers eat copious amounts of food, waiting to finally be brought off hold by someone who could get you in contact with Dick Grayson.
Then from out of nowhere, you find a source send a few emails and suddenly you have his personal cell number all typed into your phone waiting for you to press the call button. Admittedly, your nervous, not because he intimidates you but because it feels a bit invasive, calling him on the phone, beginning for an interview.
“Hi, Mr. Grayson, I’m a reporter with Gotham Magazine and we would love to do an interview with you, for a profile we’re building about your work in Gotham and Bludhaven. If your interested, you can call me back at this number and we can talk about whatever it is your comfortable with.”
And from there it’s simply a waiting game.
You write articles in between of course, things about restraunts coming back from Joker attacks, Superman’s favorite places to frequent in Metropolis, and then something about how to potty train your cat for an online exclusive.
All the while Jack paces around your desk not so subtly reminding you than you told him you’d would take care of this. You tell him you tried, that you tried to call, that you left a voicemail, and then another one, and then another one, and then an email, and another quick voicemail. All in all it’s two weeks and you’ve just about given up when your laid back in your apartment, pulling your sweatpants on when your phone starts ringing off the hook.
You let it go to voicemail, thinking that your not really in the mood to talk to anyone who’s not making a stupid decision in a horror movie. But then, it rings again, and you walk over to the dresser to check the caller ID.
It says, “Gold Rush.”
It’s the number you’ve been calling for three weeks.
You press the answer button and then ceremoniously drop the phone onto the ground.
You curse, pick it up, and hear the voice on the other end.
“So you’ve been looking for me?”