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This was not going well.
Teeth gritted, Dick held his free hand to his nose and grimaced at the familiar, coppery taste of blood trailing down the back of his throat. He was strapped to a chair, metal barrel of a gun pressed to the side of his temple. Still, they didn’t seem interested in trying to strap him down more than they already had. So, he was free to hold a hand to his nose and try to stop the bleeding.
At least it isn’t Tim, he thought to himself. (To be fair, it wasn’t Tim’s fault that he got kidnapped so often. Unlike Dick, he wasn’t known amongst the crime circles for being a bit of a pest when he got nabbed (thank the tabloids for Richie Grayson , protégé of Brucie Wayne ). Unlike Jason, he wasn’t still considered to be off-limits due to worries about him somehow being a Walking Dead or The Last of Us zombie versus just “Lazarus Pit” zombie. There was a difference. A weird difference, but a difference. No one had ever grabbed Cass, Barbara, Steph, or Duke. The one group who had gotten Damien quickly regretted it. With Tim, it was becoming so common it was an inside joke and also, somehow, a chore. They had a blackboard for whose job it was to go get him and everything inside the Batcave.)
Sniffing, Dick coughed once. “Interesting. The gods of Gotham can bleed.” The cartel leader mused, stalking around him. There was a cool sort of interest in her eyes, blonde hair tied back in a harsh bun like this one villain that Wonder Woman had faced off with once upon a time. What was her name? Rogue? Rouge? Rou...Roulette! That was her name! This wasn’t the same woman, obviously—Roulette was in jail and had been for quite some time after trying to mind-control half the Justice League women into fighting for her money. This was someone else—a tall, blonde woman with eyes the sharp gray of a steel knife, dressed in a sparkly blue dress. Not quite what Dick expected to see on a cartel leader, but not exactly unfashionable. Just—interesting. Especially because this was something he would have expected to see at one of his Gotham Prep peers’ quinceaneras. It was, quite honestly, a ballgown-style dress. Pretty, yes. Just—not what he expected to see.
“Interesting—moniker.” He forced out, voice nasally. “I didn’t know they called us gods . Something you came up with?”
Tilting her head to the side, eyes darting up and down, she hummed. Her second-hand woman still had a gun pressed to Dick’s head. “Well, I can’t take all of the credit, Nightwing. After all, I’m not the one who named myself for a Kryptonian god.” Pausing, Nightwing glanced up at her, wide-eyed behind his mask. “Questioning how I know that? Well, some secrets are best kept. Like your identity.” She crouched in front of him, skirts billowing out like a mockery of a Disney princess. With a cool smile, she tugged at his domino mask for a moment. One of her fingers slipped underneath the edge.
No. No, not like this. Please not yet. Dick stared at her. Sure, losing the mask wasn’t the worst thing in the world—but only if you were a singular hero. Someone like him, someone connected to an obvious group—that was a disaster. But with the gun to his head, he couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t stop her from removing his mask if he were dead. Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he held her gaze. Begged, silently, for her not to pull any further.
Suddenly, the cartel leader stopped.
A cold smile played on her lips. “Fortunately for you, I don’t want to know your identity. Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell anyone anyways. Gods are always so much more powerful when they are mysterious, when they’re... apart from the people who worship them.” She pushed herself up and smoothed out her skirts calmly, casually. Looking down at him, she continued, “And they do worship you, Nightwing. Look at your city. The murals, the ceremonies...” She stalked over to the window and stood looking out of it, silhouetted by the skyline outside. “Of course, this brings up my own issue. See, I would like to keep you alive, but it could be dangerous. You could escape. But I don’t know if I want to kill you, exactly.”
Blood dripped down from Dick’s nose, running down the side of his face. He wasn’t holding his hand to his face anymore. There really wasn’t a point to it anymore. Besides, it was easier to breathe when he didn’t have a hand holding blood to his face, and if she didn’t want his identity then he doubted she would keep the blood around.
“So what are you going to do, then?” He asked. As soon as he finished, the gun was shoved harder into the side of his head. Sucking in a breath, he glanced at the woman’s second-hand, the one holding the weapon against him.
“I’ll see if I can figure it out.” Tilting her head to the side, she turned and looked back at him. “For now, I think we’ll just leave you here. Chess.” The woman beside him pulled the gun away. “Knock him out. I think we need some time to think, without worrying about him attempting anything foolish. ”
Dick barely had a moment to think before pain shot across the back of his head, and everything went dark.
A needle poked into his neck, and Dick shot upright with a gasp.
His eyes landed on Bruce, kneeling before him in the cowl. “Nightwing.” He said, voice gruff. From the inflection, he was stressed. Just…trying not to show it.
“B.” Dick replied. Reaching up, Bruce touched the side of his face. Pain crawled over the side of Dick’s head, over his skin. Wincing, he turned away. Pulling back, Bruce fetched a small square of gauze from his belt and pressed it to Dick’s head, standing up. “How bad?”
“Few days’ worth of patrols on break. Looks more like surface wounds than anything, but we’ll see if you have a concussion back at home. Sorry about the needle. Adrenaline.” Bruce replied, tone clipped. Glancing around the warehouse, Dick spotted Jason and Tim standing in front of a circle of roped-up grunts. He didn’t recognize a single one of the women, though all of them were dressed similarly to Chess.
Other members of the group.
“We didn’t find the person responsible. Sorry for that.”
“Not your fault. She seemed…odd.” Letting Bruce tilt his head to the side as he wanted, Dick continued, “She called us the gods of Gotham. Said something about how she didn’t even want our identities, because we were somehow more valuable as something mysterious. Apart, that’s how she described it. Us.”
“I’ll have Oracle and Red Robin look into it. Maybe Orphan and Hood as well.” Nodding, Dick met Bruce’s eyes through the mask. “Are you alright?”
“Other than a hit to the head and my nose, I think the only thing wounded was my pride. I’ll be fine.” Dick replied, flashing a grin at him. From the way Bruce’s mouth twisted and the eyes of his mask narrowed, it came off a lot worse than he thought it did. “What?”
“Let’s get you somewhere you can wash your face. Signal threw up at school and I don’t think seeing you mimic a vampire will do him any favors in eating.” Bruce said, helping him stand and gesturing to his mouth and nose. By the women, Tim and Jason turned around. Tim turned away immediately, mouth drawing into a thin line and clearly holding back a laugh. Of course, being the one with very little care for conversational norms, Jason was the one who pointed it out.
“Goldie, you look like an extra on
The Walking Dead!”