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“Pretty boy down!” Deputy Laura Jenkins called out the warning to the rest of the squad as she watched Nightwing practically pout in front of her. Two other deputies rushed over to where she was, scanning the area for whatever threats may have been the cause of the vigilante falling three stories onto a pile of trash bags, making sure they weren’t still threats. She, meanwhile, did a quick scan to make sure the man was ok. Which so far, he was. With the exception of a few bruises and being the most over the top drama queen Jenkins had ever seen.
She had never heard who started it, but somehow it had become a regular not so secret code phrase amongst the BPD and the deputies in the surrounding area. Anytime Nightwing went down, that was the phrase to warn everyone there may be a very real threat very nearby. Plus there was, occasionally, a vigilante who needed immediate medical attention. And he would never be happy about that. But due to his dramatics, the phrase fit too well not to stick.
Nightwing drug himself out of the pile of trash, muttering about losing his footing on that flip before he shot her and her team a two fingered salute and grappled away.
“Pretty boy up…” someone behind her whispered and she barely held back her snort.
~~~~~~~~~~
Deputy Jenkins was staking out a building with an officer from the BPD day shift. It was afternoon, not her usual hours to be working, but they’d been short staffed and called her in. Something about Officer Grayson’s partner being out on sick leave and the whole department being too short staffed to fill in otherwise.
Without much to do on these stakeouts, Officer Grayson was entertaining himself, bouncing a small juggling ball on the bottom of his foot while he held a handstand on one arm. She’d heard rumors the man grew up in the circus, but rumors or no, that was impressive.
Until he fell, anyway. He bounced the ball a little too high, lost control of it, tried to lunge, seemed to forget he was in a one armed handstand, and fell flat on his back, sprawled out in one of the most dramatic displays of defeat Jenkins had ever seen. It was all just a little too familiar, Jenkins didn’t realize she was speaking until after she did.
“Pretty boy down.”
She was kicking herself the second the words left her mouth, but stopped short when Grayson… gaped. He actually gaped.
He jumped up, wide eyed and flustered, brushing her off like he hadn’t at least partially deserved that comment.
“No!” he protested intelligently, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, that isn’t me at all!”
He laughed nervously, which only confused Jenkins. What wasn’t him? He wasn’t a pretty boy? From what Jenkins had heard, he seemed to like titles like that. She probably shouldn’t have said it in a work environment but from what she’d heard, Grayson probably would have taken it as a compliment. Why was he so flustered now that…?
Her eyes went wide as the pieces seemed to fit into place. There was a reason that phrase came to mind. There was a reason his dramatics looked so familiar, even if it may have been the first time she’d ever seen the man in the light of day. His hair was the right length and shade, body the right lanky, crazy flexible build under the vest of his uniform, the gymnastics and stunts extremely unique, and the voice… Exactly the same. Besides, who else could fall that dramatically?
Grayson, no, Nightwing, appeared to follow her thought process exactly through her eyes and continued trying to protest without actually protesting anything in particular. Secret identities and all. She wasn’t going to rat him out or anything, Nightwing had saved her life and her friends lives countless times on the job before, but now that she saw it, she couldn’t unsee it.
“Dude,” she cut off his aimless ramblings with a deadpan stare. “I’ve literally never seen anyone else fall that dramatically.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Not even two days later, Deputy Jenkins was walking out of a café in the suburbs of Bludhaven when a blonde woman walked right past her, tripped on her own feet, and cried in anguish as she went down. She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, gasping at the cruel universe and her now spilled coffee all over her front. Jenkins had never seen someone fall forward, land on their side, and spill coffee on their front.
And it was almost dramatic enough to rival Officer Grayson, aka Nightwing.
Almost.
Deputy Laura Jenkins narrowed her eyes in suspicion at the blonde who was still shaking a fist at the sky as she walked away.
~~~~~~~~~~
She almost could have dismissed the weird run in with the blonde had it not been for her shift that night. She was sitting in her patrol car eating dinner when a guy in a hoodie caught her eye. She wasn’t quite sure why he stood out to her yet, but something was…off. His hood was pulled up over his face so she couldn’t see much besides his hair. That much, this late at night, wasn’t unusual. But then he didn’t even look at her patrol car as he seemed to walk right toward it. It was almost… Intentional. People usually at least glanced at a cop car. Especially if they were walking toward it. To just…not? It was odd.
Then the guy tripped. And faceplanted. Dramatically.
Jenkins deadpanned. No. Way.
The guy was flailing on the ground like it had personally offended him. Then he got up, brushed himself off, seemed to scold the can he tripped on, and walked away. All without looking in her direction once. Despite that he’d fallen just feet from the front of her car.
This…could not be a coincidence.
~~~~~~~~~~
Richard “Dick” Grayson. It took all of one google search to find an article on the man, explaining his relation to Bruce “Brucie” Wayne, his life in the circus, and his current job as an officer for the BPD. Jenkins had never really kept up with Gotham’s socialite gossip, but she’d heard enough over the years to be familiar. The article went on to list Grayson’s many siblings and associates, two of which caught her eye immediately. Stephanie Brown, who was very obviously the woman from the coffee shop, and Timothy Drake-Wayne, whose hair was the exact color and length of the man from her dinner break.
Was Grayson really…? He was sending his siblings and friends to try to make it seem like dramatic falls were normal. He was trying to throw her off his trail. Which…was the most obvious thing he could have done to confirm she was right.
But if his siblings and friends were in on it enough to try to help him cover his identity, that meant… That meant they knew. And if they knew…
She opened a new tab and ran a new search, this time on the Gotham vigilantes. Who all lined up with Grayson’s siblings and associates almost perfectly. There were a few holes in her theory, like Barbra Gordon who didn’t seem to fit any current vigilante, or the Red Hood who didn’t seem to fit any brother or associate, but it was a solid theory.
Jenkins hadn’t been trying to figure anything out and she suddenly had the names of nearly every Gotham vigilante simply because Nightwing was a dramatic pretty boy.
She couldn’t help a smile. Nightwing might have been a dramatic pretty boy, but he was Bludhaven’s dramatic pretty boy and she’d die before she betrayed him. He was wasting his time trying to cover his tracks.
~~~~~~~~~~
Now, just because Jenkins would never betray their resident vigilante didn’t mean she was above messing with the man who was going out of his way to try to gaslight her. So when a teenaged boy she clearly recognized as Duke Thomas dramatically fell in front of her just three days later, well. No one could really blame her, could they?
“Stupid thing lost the Signal again…” she mumbled to herself as she tapped her phone in annoyance, plenty loud enough for the young man to hear. His eyes widened at her words but he didn’t otherwise react. “Oh well, guess I can’t call for a pick up, I’ll have to Signal for a taxi instead.”
She started walking away but noticed in the reflection of the drug store’s windows that the boy scrambled to his feet and ran back behind an alley. She’d bet money Grayson was there, watching the whole thing and waiting.
~~~~~~~~~~
Next week, as Jenkins was reading in the library, the blonde was back. But she wasn’t blonde today, she wore a black wig and enough makeup Jenkins almost didn’t recognize her. Almost. Had she not already been onto them, Stephanie might have gotten away with it. But she didn’t.
“Great book,” Jenkins sighed to herself right as Stephanie dramatically tripped three feet to her left. “Too bad my friend had to go and Spoil it for me. Really such a shame. And it was such a big Spoiler too.”
Stephanie, like Duke, didn’t last long before she made her escape, likely to meet up with Grayson.
~~~~~~~~~~
Four days later and Jenkins was starting to suspect they might have actually gotten the hint. She hadn’t had any more run-ins with Waynes, Wayne adjacents, or people falling dramatically in front of her. That is, until she went home after work to find a young woman standing in her apartment waiting for her. She pulled her weapon on instinct, but the woman didn’t even flinch, just waited for her to catch her breath as she realized why the intruder looked so familiar.
Cassandra Cain. Black Bat. From the few reports available on the Black Bat or Cassandra Cain, Jenkins was sure of two things. First, the woman before her was one of the kindest people in the Wayne family. Second, if she wanted her dead, Jenkins never would have known she was there.
She holstered her firearm and let down her guard, waiting for the young woman to speak.
“Not stupid,” Cassandra finally broke the silence, her head still cocked slightly as she studied Jenkins. She said it with such certainty and so matter-of-factly that Jenkins wasn’t offended, just accepted the fact as it was meant to be.
“Won’t tell.” Cassandra nodded, apparently satisfied with whatever she’d been looking for in Jenkin’s posture.
Jenkins just nodded slowly in response.
“No,” she started. “I won’t tell anyone. Your family’s secret is safe with me. But please tell your brother if he keeps pulling this stunt, I won’t be the only one to figure it out.”
Cassandra didn’t reply, just smiled like her brother was the most loveable idiot on the planet. Jenkins got the feeling Cassandra had already told him that. There was probably a reason the woman had never taken her turn to dramatically fall in front of Jenkins.
“Good woman,” Cassandra went on, her eyes soft. “Keep big brother safe.”
Jenkins nodded her response, her hand resting on her gun. “I will. I promise.”
Cassandra smiled, then slipped out the window like a ghost.