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Chapter 1: Enforcer
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Enforcer ~ A player quick to fight who defends their teammates against violent members of the other team.
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The hype for that night’s AHL hockey game was good. The Gotham Rangers were up against a strong rival so it would have each team playing their best…and maybe being a little vicious, which was fine with Jason. Heck, he wouldn’t be upset if the other team beat the skates off Gotham, as long as Dick had a great time. ‘With me,’ he qualified because this night so wasn’t about a sports game. No, it was about him not having to share Dick with the rest of his family for a change. Seemed like it had been awhile since that had happened. Sure, Tim had been busy with college finals and WE work and YJ missions but in his absence Alfred had snuck in some Dick time, and Dad, the man seemed to have a sense …or maybe another type of tracker, to determine when he could snag some Dick time before anyone else got there.
So yeah, for Jason the hockey game was just the background noise. Being with Dick, that was the real prize of the night.
Dick discovered that the Gotham arena wasn’t so different than the one in his world, except for an Old Bay fries vendor, banners which had a different logo for the home team and there was no Calder Cup gleaming in a place of honor. Dick had been there for that playoff win by his universe’s Gotham Rangers. Hadn’t gone for pleasure but official reasons, as Brucie Wayne’s ward. There to prove that the richest man in Gotham, though he couldn’t make a personal appearance to support their home team, he could order his ward to be that ambassador. All by himself. Because he hadn’t been B’s first choice, he had asked Jason and Tim before he’d asked him and they’d both had excuses. Better than his own ‘I don’t want to be your poster boy’, because to B that was never going to be enough of a reason to shirk “our” civilian duty to Gotham. As if it weren’t enough that they spilled their life’s blood trying to not let the city destroy itself.
Dick shook away his disgruntled mindset. He wasn’t that anymore, a mascot for B to use like he employed Robin/Nightwing, all for Gotham’s good. ‘And none of it for my good,’ he morosely thought but knew that wasn’t fair either. He chose his path, maybe not being Brucie Wayne’s ward but the hero business. ‘And now I’ve chosen a different path, one that doesn’t owe this city a single thing.’ And it should have felt demeaning, to just be another unknown sports fan in the arena’s corridors, but instead it was liberating.
He and Jason had talked nonstop on the way to the game. Dick couldn’t even recall all the topics they’d covered but they had flowed seamlessly, like it used to with Wally. How it always was so easy to have fun with a best friend. He’d never have thought it could be the same camaraderie between brothers, instead of bitter rivalry. It made him want to sling his arm around Jason, draw him close and say something mussy like I love you dude. Course he didn’t. Maintained the macho standards known worldwide and kept that manly distance between them as he and his brother dodged through the crowd, all of the while determining which junk food they wanted before the game began.
They were in line for the Old Bay French fries, which Jason swore were to die for, when some guy dodged through the food line and dropped his arm around Jason’s neck in a stranglehold. Dick was about to go on the offensive, fight off the attack but Jason’s hand shot out, not to twist the arm around his throat free but to grab Dick’s wrist. Dick’s eyes flew to Jason’s and his brother winked at him, breaking through Dick’s panic.
Satisfied Dick wouldn’t go all Bat crazy, Jason released his hold on Dick’s wrist and patted the arm lightly resting on his throat. “Dude, someday I’m going to go all Bruce Lee on you when you do that,” Jason joked and the arm slid from around him, allowing him to turn around and face his “attacker.”
“You, Bruce Lee?” the tall, blond haired mid twenty-year-old man scoffed. “You couldn’t busta move without wrinkling your shirt, so I know I’m safe from an attack from you.”
Jason threw a fake punch toward the man’s stomach which had the man miming doubling over with the “impact”. After their play acting, they broke into easy laughter and warm smiles. Dick watched the two men like an outsider, wondering what it would be like to have the luxury to be so lighthearted, without it being all a show. Not some con to trip up the bad guy, just two friends clowning around. ‘You don’t have friends anymore,’ a bitter inner voice chided. What hurt more about that truth was he’d been warned of that possible outcome but he’d turned a deaf ear to the warning.
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“Aren’t there any lines you won’t cross?! You keep to this plan of yours, yeah, you could …maybe…possibly end up saving the world. But, if you keep playing us all like means to that end, what is for certain is you’ll have no friends to celebrate that victory with.” ~ Wally (Earth 16)
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What hurt even worse, Wally wasn’t alive to know how right his prediction was. Trying to lock away the memories of friendships that he’d lost, Dick watched his brother interact with his friend with a shameful amount of jealousy.
“Cooper, I thought you would be off skiing with some snow bunnies every weekend,” Jason taunted his friend.
His brother’s surmise made Dick wonder if he’d only gotten the invite to the game because Jason hadn’t known his friend was available to go with him instead. It made him shift back a step, feeling like some prying lurker who was bemused by some strangers’ antics.
The blond man, Cooper, only laughed at Jason’s guess as he tugged on Jason’s elbow, trying to jerk him out of line. Jason allowed him that manipulation. Dick numbly decided he might as well stay in line so at least he could choke down some French fries along with his jealousy. But as he stepped forward to fill in Jason’s absent space in line, his brother’s hand shot out and coiled around his jacket. Suddenly he was being unceremoniously yanked out of the line to tow in Jason’s wake.
Jason stubbornly didn’t let any of the wave of people cruising the corridors separate him from his brother. Which meant they got jostled and some dirty looks but made it to the other side of the corridor as a two-man unit. And oh yeah, Cooper was there too, making a small hole for the three of them to talk along the wall of the arena.
“Jason, you gotta join me and the rest of the gang in my box seats. Hot Kristy is there,” Cooper announced with a suggestive wave of his eyebrows and added on another incentive, “plus we have lobster tails.”
Dick felt the remnants of his lunch twist in his gut. What was cheap junk food compared to succulent lobster and apparently a girl Jason was interested in. Selfishly, he didn’t want to go to the box seat where he would have to share his brother but was resigned that was exactly what was about to happen.
“Another time, Cooper. I’m hanging out with my bro..” Jason bit off the word, feeling sick that he had to cover it up like it was just a commonplace slang affectation. “..who’s new in town. Don’t want to torture him too soon with your presence or he’ll think twice about his friendship to me.” The word friendship not brotherhood felt like such a betrayal that he couldn’t look at Dick and bear the sight of his hurt.
“Hilarious and yet so soul crushing,” Cooper mockingly drawled before pointing to Dick. “Once you’ve met more of Jason’s friends, you’ll be looking forward to my special brand of awesomeness.”
“And humbleness,” Jason quipped with a smirk.
But Cooper corrected him with a brazen smile, “Truthfulness, JJ. Truthfulness.” Then he gave Jason a shoulder bump and immediately got swallowed up by the flow of human traffic.
“Hey, you don’t have to turn down your friend’s invite.” Dick strived to smile lasciviously and sound lighthearted, “I mean hot Kristy is there and lobster.”
Jason was startled that Dick didn’t know he wasn’t tempted in the least bit to join Cooper, not when his little brother was there with him. “And pass up watching you have Old Bay fries for the first time?! No way. Come on, let’s get back in line so we’ll have our food before the game starts.” Dick followed his brother through the crowd, smiling like an idiot that his brother was willingly choosing him over his friend.
They were armed with fries and drinks when the buzzer sounded, indicating the game was about to start. “Our seats have a way better advantage point than the box seats,” Jason bragged, knew too the other unspoken plus to the placement of their seats: it was usually a pretty deserted section so he wouldn’t have to contend with anyone else vying for his attention or Dick’s. ‘Yup, I’m a selfish, greedy guy,’ he admitted, wholly unrepentant, as he sank into a seat. Dick claimed the one right beside him, signaling that he too didn’t desire a seat between them, guy code or not.
As Jason predicted, the game was intense. The Gotham team had made ten shots at the goal while the away team had twelve with neither scoring. Then, with two assists, one of Gotham’s top scorers slammed a puck through the goalie’s grasp. Jason and Dick simultaneously were on their feet, hooting and clapping when the victory music blared. The brothers exchanged beaming smiles.
Only moments later when the opposing team scored, they shared a grimace. And when the ref turned a blind eye to one of their team getting purposefully tripped, they just as enthusiastically shouted “Ref you suck!” with the rest of the crowd. Too soon the first period was over and the score was all tied up: one to one. “Ok, the fries were my pick, what’s yours?” Jason asked as he stood up. Not one to turn down more food, Dick came to his feet. “Pizza. This one stand used to have the best pizza..” then he looked chagrined, “But don’t ever tell Alfred I said anything was better than his cooking.”
Jason laughed. “What happens at Hockey stays at Hockey?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Dick grinned back as they loped down the stairs and hit the corridors surrounding the arena foraging for more food. The pizza was just as amazing as Dick’s always was on his universe. Even Jason had to concede that Alfred’s attempts at pizza didn’t match the masterpiece of this vendor. Once their hands were clean of sauce, they maneuvered through the oncoming crowds toward the company store. But along the way, numerous people called out Jason’s name, patted his back in passing, jeered him for not wearing a team jersey like he usually did.
Each call out, each pat was like a blow to Dick, proving that he wasn’t used to having to share his big brother with anyone other than their family. Jason knew so many people, was obviously well liked by the way they came up to talk to him, how they laughed together. His brother had always made it seem like his family was the center of his universe, but witnessing how popular Jason was, Dick didn’t think that was true. Jason’s family was just a portion of his universe. Yes, a major one, but not all inclusive.
And unlike Dick’s relationship with his co-workers, these people actually knew his brother. Well, not the Red Hood version of him but knew the Jason part of him well. They knew his big brother’s favorite foods, (like the Old Bay fries), that he had been to a game at the start of the season but not since, that he’d won one of the jerseys the other year, who his favorite hockey player was and some of the people even caught up on some work topics too. ‘They KNOW Jason, even better than I do.’ Dick sorrowfully realized and he couldn’t stamp down the hurt of that revelation.
While Jason was engaged in another powwow with his real friends, Dick slinked into the team store. He was impassively looking through the team jerseys when his brother’s voice spoke closer to him than he’d expected.
“You’re wearing that look. What’s wrong?” There was no jeering in Jason’s tone but all concern.
“What look? The ‘I can’t believe people pay this much for an AHL jersey’ look?” Dick tried to derail his brother’s perceptiveness, threw a smile into the mix to really sell it.
But by Jason’s narrowed eye inspection, he wasn’t fooling his brother one iota. “You know I’m going to keep hounding you until you tell me what’s got you wearing that ‘I’m upset and trying to be stoic about it’ face.”
“Oooohhh, that face,” Dick drawled, aiming for comical as he took a jersey off the rack like he was considering buying it. Because he could do misdirect, was a professional misdirector.
But that only hitched Jason’s worry higher, Dick’s over the top facsimilia of humor. Pulling the jersey out of his brother’s hand and putting it back on the rack, he coiled his hand around his brother’s elbow and steered him out of the store to an out of the way place beside a set of doors. “Ok, talk to me,” he command, his eyes were probing into Dick’s with concern.
“It’s…” Dick began to deny anything was wrong but his brother cut him off.
“…Not nothing,” Jason growled, didn’t want his brother pushing whatever was upsetting him down deep, wanted it out in the open so he could fix it. “Is it being here? Some memories of your…”
“Wayne!! You wayward dog! Don’t you know trust fund babies don’t have to work themselves to a bone,” a guy shorter than Dick and heavily tanned was making his way to their out of the way location. Dick morosely added him to the pile of people Jason could hang with instead of him. ‘Jason probably wishes he hadn’t brought me along tonight, that way he could sit with his friends.”
If Dick’s eyes hadn’t gone over Jason’s shoulder to the guy fast approaching, Dick might have seen the annoyance flashing across his big brother’s features at having another jerk interrupting his conversation with his brother. Jason was wholly pissed that so many people kept popping up wanting to talk to him, asking where he’d been, trying to pin him down to get together with them. ‘Damn it, I’m here with my brother. Can’t these bastards back off!’ Because, sure he’d hung with most of them a time or two, but he’d never known if it was the Wayne name they found cool instead of himself. And even the rich ones were sometimes snobs and just thought since he was in their financial elk it was acceptable to be caught in his company.
Turning to confront his latest “friend”, Jason pulled on a smile because he was Brucie Wayne’s son after all. “Trevor, thought you’d be scuba diving in some caves in Ecuador.”
“Been there, done that. I’m on to the next thing.” Trevor than deemed to notice Dick, but only to give him a condescending glance over.
Dick knew he’d been found lacking by Jason’s latest friend, who had dark good looks, perfect teeth thanks to caps and was decked out in a signed jersey of an NHL team. He also had sneakers on that topped out around $500 and a hair style sported in Men’s GQ cover models. Dick knew the man could undoubtedly find fault with his off the rack jeans and printed t-shirt, or his bored expression or maybe he rated Dick as wholly unworthy to darken Jason’s door.
“This your protégé? It does look like he’d benefit greatly from your fashion sense,” Trevor sneered with open malice. He could always spot a hanger on from across his yacht. Jason, meanwhile, had always had an idiotic tolerance for the common masses of Gotham. He figured it was due to his friend’s dirt poor backstory prior to becoming Bruce Wayne’s eldest son.
Dick was full up on this crap. No, he wasn’t about to defend himself or acknowledge this was his best attempt to dress himself into something extra ordinary, but he wanted badly to throw a punch. Had seen the rich treat the less fortunate like this ever since he’d become Billionaire Bruce Wayne’s ward. And he hated it. With a passion. He was ordering himself to not take a confrontation step forward, to let this all roll off his shoulders. On an internal loop, he kept reminding himself that this was Jason’s friend, and he had no right to dis their friendship.
He fully expected Jason to agree with his friend. Their family always teased Jason about being a fashionista while the rest of the family, except Alfred, were sadly lacking in that department. Instead, Jason’s stance went rigid at his friend’s dig at him, and his predatory step forward had his friend warily taking a retreating step back.
It turned out Trevor wasn’t wrong to fear Jason, whose hand shot out and twisted his friend’s jersey collar tight enough around his throat to fashion a noose. “Apologize to my friend before I take real offense.”
Hands struggling without success to loosen Jason’s grip and therefore breathe, Trevor was turning red in the face. His head snapped back as Jason gave him a shake and growled, “I don’t hear you saying you’re sorry. Or maybe just admit you’re a sorry excuse for a jackass and will aspire to dress less like a trust fund douche next time we see you.”
Dick laid a heavy hand on Jason’s shoulder, quietly petitioned, “Jason, let him go. He didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Oh, he meant a whole lot by it, didn’t you, Trev?” Jason cross-examined with rampant bias. “You think you and I are alike, but I know people rate above anything money can buy. But not you…maybe because you’ve bought everything you value.” With that, Jason pushed Trevor back as he released his choking grip on his jersey. Trevor did a whole body flinch when Jason patted him on the chest before flicking his hand down his sternum…which was accented by a tearing of fabric. “Ooopps…my ring got caught on your Jersey,” Jason said coldly, looking at the rip in the jersey in mocking horror, a hand to his open mouth. “Guess you’ll have to have your daddy get you another signed one next time he negotiates an NHL contract.”
“You’re a dick, Wayne,” Trevor spat as he tried to pull the ripped Jersey back together.
“Guess I was wrong, then. We are still alike in some ways after all,” Jason retorted before turning and walking away.
Dick was smart enough to go while the going was good. Pacing his brother, he saw the ring Jason had used to slice through the NFL Jersey, that it was a Wayne family ring with a thin spike that disappeared back into the ring’s setting when Jason turned the stone.
Jason, knowing his brother hadn’t missed his ring’s special features, smirked. “Have to get you one of these babies. They are gaudy but they come in handy when you’re an unarmed civilian.”
“You didn’t have to do that…endanger your friendship with him,” Dick quietly told his brother. “Sure, he was a snob, but I’ve dealt with them my whole life, as a circus freakshow and as an unworthy heir to the Wayne legacy.” His words had an immediate effect on his brother. Suddenly Jason stepped into his path and gripped his shirt, but in more a desperate clutch than a threatening hold.
“You will never call yourself either of those things again,” Jason decreed with a growl. “The world doesn’t know the first thing about you, so don’t let them shape who you think you are, Dick.” Getting a nod from Dick which was borderline shameful, Jason sighed. He hadn’t wanted to go all hard-edge on his brother, but it tore him up inside when Dick badmouthed himself, thought for a second that he wasn’t this amazing human being. “And besides, the only one allowed to pick on your fashion choices is me,” he teased and felt his world brighten when that surprised a chuckle from Dick.
“See, I knew you ached to buy me a Jersey to hide my unexceptional shirt,” Dick readily joked back, loved how quickly his family could forgive his insecurities …and end up picking on him themselves because that was fair game.
Jason released his fingers’ hold on his brother’s shirt and tried to smooth it down. “Nah…it’s…” he tilted his head at the shirt printed with a black and white sketch of a motorcycle that looked like a wanna-be art student drew. “…so …you,” he impishly finished.
“Ha ha, so funny…and true,” Dick retorted, giving his brother a shove on his shoulder to turn him around so they could start walking again. When they went to reenter the arena, the game was mid-play so they had to wait until another faceoff before the attendant let them back up to their seats.
Sinking down in his seat, Jason tried to concentrate wholly on the game but Trevor’s treatment of Dick and Dick’s unhappiness prior to that encounter wouldn’t shake free. He wanted this to be 100% fun for Dick, but he’d dropped the ball….er…puck somewhere along the way tonight. Trouble was, he didn’t know what was upsetting his little brother and as much as he could figure out a crime scene like a forensic pro, reading people was still an uphill struggle for him. Especially people taught to bury their every emotion, like B had drilled into Dick.
It shouldn’t have mattered that Jason was distracted at a benign hockey game, but it did. Because they were Waynes and trouble…yeah it always sniffed them out.
Dick, meanwhile, was all about the game. He had forgotten how much fun it was to watch things happening on the ice besides the fight over the puck. Action that the televised games never showed. So his attention wasn’t on the scramble for the puck, instead was focused on the two opposing players slamming each other up against the wall, unnoticed by the refs. Then some instinct, some residual bat danger sonar had his head whipping to the right to see a hockey stick slap into the puck with force.
Dick tracked the puck as it got airborne, saw it skim over the wall on the sidelines and realized that it was on a collision course with where he and Jason sat. His mind calculated the puck’s trajectory…. alarmingly right to Jason. It was happening in milliseconds, left no time to call out a warning, so Dick reacted all on instinct.
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TBC
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