Work Text:
Another Way
By Alekto
Summary:
Circumstances beyond his control force Dick Grayson into making a decision he never wanted to have to make.
Disclaimer:
DC and Time/Warner own Nightwing, Batman, Oracle etc. I'm just borrowing them for a little while - I'll give them all back when I'm done.
Author's notes:
I know next to nothing about proper US Police Procedure or martial arts - please be kind and bear this in mind when reading! A big thank you is due to Sandra for the time she put in beta reading this fic.
Rating: PG-13 for violence and language
On a roof in Gotham, after the earthquake, Batman and Nightwing talk:
"I figure if I could become a cop…."
>> "Great minds think alike. I've been using a police disguise myself lately."
"Not play at being a cop. Become a cop. As Dick Grayson."
>> "I'm not sure I like that idea."
"It's worth a try."
>> "It's dangerous."
"More dangerous than this?"
>> "You'll be blurring your two personas."
"What personas? Dick Grayson isn't a masquerade. Not like Bruce Wayne is."
>> "Exactly. You're already a master crimefighter. You'll stand out in the rank and file."
"I can tone it down."
>> "And deadly force? You'll be wearing a gun. How will you tone that down?"
"I'm working on that one….."
-from Detective Comics #725
Chapter 1
Broadly speaking, I'm not a morning person, at least not without several cups of coffee. I guess it's just a natural result of having spent so many nights out patrolling - first Gotham, and now Bludhaven. Trying to get by on just a few hours sleep doesn't help matters either.
That morning I was standing in line at the bank, thinking longingly of the next cup of coffee. I'd got to the stage where even the lethal brew that regularly lubricated the BPD seemed attractive. In front of me I could see the bank tellers' disinterested faces, bored already by the morning's routine. The only time I'd seen a flash of interest had been back when I first went in to check the balance on the account that had been administered for me since my parents' death. The fact that the teller started to address me as 'Mr. Grayson, sir' might give you a clue as to what that balance was. I think, to be honest, I was no less surprised. I should have had an idea, though: Lucius Fox, CEO of WayneTech and the man who had administered the account, was no slouch when it came to money.
The line inched inexorably forward. I stifled a yawn. Only hours before I'd had to have a very strong 'discussion' with some guys who'd figured that the 'Haven would be an ideal place for their particular brand of very illegal merchandise. Said 'discussion' had left them unconscious and tied up should the cops deign to arrive, their merchandise at the bottom of the bay, and me with a few more cuts and bruises than when I'd started. No one had ever suggested that being a vigilante was a safe career choice, but I'd managed to avoid broken bones or getting shot up this time around. On that thought I made a mental note that I needed to get the costume repaired after the kevlar had stopped a couple of bullets that I hadn't quite been able to dodge.
I yawned again and rubbed my hands over my face. My mind drifted and I could imagine one of those patented disapproving: 'what have you been doing to yourself' looks that I'd doubtless be getting from my partner - Amy Rohrbach - when I did get in to work looking half asleep….. again. Even she would be forced to admit that half asleep was better than drunk or stoned, I mused, recalling some of what I had seen of Bludhaven's finest. I'd told Bruce that I wanted to deal with Bludhaven's problems of corruption from the inside, that there had to be a few good cops in the 'Haven. There were some good cops here, but precious few. I was lucky enough to have one of the best of them as a partner.
"NOBODY MOVE!" The screamed order jolted me from my reverie. I turned around, berating myself for my inattention, and took in the incipient bank robbery that I'd been too tired and distracted to have spotted. I grimaced, knowing that I was *so* going to hear it from Batman when this little slip got out - as well as from Tim, Babs, Roy, Amy …..
"DOWN ON THE FLOOR!" a second voice shouted, cutting through the cries of fear and alarm.
Another bellow followed: "EVERYONE GET THEIR HANDS UP! NOW!"
People were getting down on the floor. I could hear a child start crying, other voices murmuring, praying 'Oh God, please let me get through this', 'Oh God, I don't want to die'.
I looked around, my mind assessing the scene almost automatically. Years of breaking up robberies will do that for you. There were three of them - all armed. The bank's own security guards had already been disarmed and were on the floor, being covered by a kid who could scarcely have been older than Tim, holding a submachine gun on them. The other two were chivvying the bank's customers into a huddle near the back wall. I tried to keep my head down, to stay unnoticed until an opportunity arose for me to act.
It didn't work. The leather jacket I'd thrown on over my uniform against the morning's chill wasn't much of a disguise - it was never intended to be. I was pulled at gun point from the rest of the customers.
Damn. So much for anonymity.
"You gonna arrest us, man?" one of them joked, the barrel of his submachine gun pressed under my chin forcing my head back. That close, I couldn't escape the stench of sweat and stale beer on his breath. There was the smell of something else as well ….. Crack? He giggled. I took in his pale skin, the crazy, too-bright eyes. "You wanna arrest us, pig?"
He was flying so high, he was in orbit - somewhere probably around Neptune, if I had to guess …..
"No one needs to get hurt here," I said, trying to reason with him, the presence of his gun making it difficult to talk. I had to be careful. I was Officer Dick Grayson here, not Nightwing.
"You ain't listenin' to me, cop!" he spat. "You ain't in control here. We are! You ain't nuthin', you hear me? Nuthin'!"
"Quit screwin' around, Carl!" I heard one of the others snap at him. "Get his gun and cuff him - we don't have all day here!"
Carl muttered some imprecation under his breath at the order, then turned his attention back to me. "Down on the floor, cop," he smirked. "Face down!"
I paused a moment, considering the situation. Carl, the one holding a gun on me, I could take down in a matter of seconds, no problem. The kid covering the security guards was on the other side of the bank from me, and had a Heckler Koch submachine gun. Between the customers and staff, there were about twenty people in the bank and if he opened up, some of them were going to die. There was no way I could guarantee getting to him before he fired. The third man, and apparently the one in charge, was busy emptying the contents of the cash drawers into a bag. For now, I had no choice but to play along. The rest of the customers and staff sat quietly, watching. I caught a couple of sympathetic glances from some of them, but mostly I got the idea that it was relief that I, and not they, was the target of Carl's dislike.
Carl took exception to my delay in obeying his order, grabbed my collar and dragged me to the floor. Moments later he'd taken my gun and cuffed my hands behind my back. He stood back up, muttering: "Shit-for-brains cop, you don't hear real good, do you? I tell you what to do. You do it!" As if to emphasize his point he slammed his foot into my side. Hard. I gulped back the instinctive gasp of pain. He kicked again. "You hear me, cop?" Kick. "You hear me?" I coughed, fighting to breathe. He reached down, grabbed a handful of hair and dragged my head up. "You hear what I'm telling you?"
"I hear you," I managed to gasp back after a few seconds. He grunted in what might have been satisfaction and let my head drop back to the floor.
Carl turned his attention to the guy I figured to be in charge. "You done yet, Marty? We gotta go!"
I heard rather than saw Marty return. Five minutes more and they'd be gone. The only casualty would have been my pride, and that I could live with, especially as I'd seen their faces and had two names for Oracle to work with. Carl, Marty and their quiet friend could expect a visit from Nightwing in the very foreseeable future.
Then I heard the amplified voice from outside. "This is the police! You're surrounded - there's no way for you to escape. Come out with your hands up!"
There was a moment's silence inside the bank. On the faces of the customers I could see cautious glimmerings of hope - hope that faded to fear with Marty's next words.
"Make sure the doors are locked, and get those blinds closed!" he ordered. "We've got enough hostages here, they ain't gonna rush us. And we've got one of their own to bargain with!"
I risked a glance at him and he met my gaze with a vicious grin of his own. I couldn't help thinking that things were going to get very messy before this was over …..
Chapter 2
"You in the bank. Come out with your hands up. This is your last warning!"
"We got hostages in here. You try anything and they'll be taking the bodies out in bags!" Marty yelled back in reply. He waited for a response but none came. With a snort he turned back to look at the frightened huddle that was the bank's customers and staff.
Outside the bank I could hear more cars arriving and the sounds of the BPD deploying for the siege that now looked unavoidable. One of the tellers must have managed to hit the silent alarm in time. It was the only explanation for the cops' presence. Marty came over to me and hauled me over to a desk so I was sitting, leaning up against it. My ribs ached but there was nothing like the flare of pain that would have most likely indicated a broken bone. I hurt, but had to admit that it could have been a lot worse.
"You're the cop," Marty began. "What's their next move? How are they gonna play this out?" I could hear the edge in his voice as he tried to sound calm, reasonable, in control of the situation. I'd dealt with enough madmen to know how dangerously fragile that pretence could be and the consequences for all of us if ….. when he lost control.
"I don't know," I answered warily. His hand lashed out in response, catching me high on the cheek as I tried to avoid the blow.
"Wrong answer, cop," he said. "I'm gonna ask again. If I get another wrong answer, people are gonna get hurt. Maybe you, maybe some of these others. All up to you, Officer ….." he leaned down to read the name tag on the shirt. "Grayson."
"Look, I *really* don't know," I pleaded. "I'm a rookie - I've only been on the force a few weeks." The nervousness in my voice wasn't entirely faked, as I hoped for the sake of the other hostages that Marty bought my excuse. If he didn't buy it.…. I started running through my options. It would be less than five seconds' work to get out of the cuffs: an apprenticeship with an escape artist and an internship with the Batman was more than sufficient for something as rudimentary as standard issue handcuffs. Marty was close enough that he wouldn't be too much of a problem, and Carl was still going around checking doors and windows. Their third man was still the gamble. I hadn't seen enough of him to have any clear idea of how quickly, or how ruthlessly he would react.
"What do they teach you at the Academy, *rookie*?" Marty spat out in disbelief. "Flower arranging?"
I started struggling for an answer: enough to satisfy him, not enough to help him. "I …. er…. "
The suddenness with which the phone rang on the desk behind me startled everyone. Marty looked at it, let it ring a couple of times, then picked up. "Yeah?"
I could just about hear the tinny voice of a police negotiator on the other end of the line, mouthing the usual platitudes from the play book. Even so, I could make out the uncertainty in her voice and wondered whose idea it had been to put her on. She sounded more like she should have been teaching kindergarten, not negotiating with armed robbers.
Marty's patience suddenly snapped. "Shut up, bitch! Don't tell me how it is! I tell *you* how it is, right? We got hostages here, remember? You get me a helicopter to the airport and a plane outta the country. You get that for me, or you gonna get a dead hostage instead! Hey, and top of the list we got a cop in here, so you mess up and he gets it first! You got an hour!" He slammed the receiver down and grinned at his colleagues. "Just like tee vee," he smirked.
I figured it would have been tactless of me to point out to him that on TV the bad guys generally lost.
From amongst the hostages I heard the faint, muffled sound of sobbing. I looked but couldn't make out who it was: with the blinds closed the interior of the bank had become a sepia tone twilight, dust motes drifting in the thin shafts of sunlight poking through the gaps in the shutters. To one side I could see Marty, leaned back on a chair, apparently at ease with the world until you saw the tiny movement of his fingers drumming against the side of his gun.
Right then, it was Carl who worried me more. He was pacing to and fro, making no pretence at calm. I knew it wouldn't take much to push him over the edge and start shooting. The soft crying continued awhile then faded into an oppressive silence relieved only by the sound of Carl's footsteps and the distant staccato of fingers against metal. The bank's clock, high on the wall, inexorably counted down the time to the deadline Marty had given.
With about ten minutes to go the phone rang again. Marty let it ring a few times, then got up, strode over and answered. "Wha'dya want?" he growled. I tried to listen, but the voice on the other end of the line was too faint for me to make out anything except that the speaker was a man. Whatever it was he said definitely wasn't what Marty wanted to hear, I decided, as with a string of invective he hurled the phone away from him. Before it hit the floor I was grabbed by the collar and wrenched to my feet. I could hear the ripple of frightened murmurs amongst the other hostages as with the barrel of a gun - the same gun that Carl had relieved me of - digging into the side of my head I was forced towards the door of the bank. Marty opened the door one handed and shoved me forwards so I was standing in the open doorway.
I had to squint in the morning sunlight, so much brighter than the imposed murkiness within the bank, but I could make out the dozen or so police cruisers and other vehicles arrayed on the street outside. There had to have been fifty or so cops out there, all with guns pointed in my general direction, and, if I had to guess, almost certainly snipers on the roof opposite. Marty was smart enough to know the score. The hand twisting the back of my collar and the pressure of the gun at my head kept me in position as his protection from the assembled artillery.
Beyond the police cordon I could see the outside broadcast vans from a couple of the networks, and my first thought was for Bruce, Babs and the others, my family, of how they would worry when they saw.
"I ain't joking," Marty called out. "I'll blow the cop's brains out right here, no problem at all, unless you get that helicopter down on this street right now!"
"We can't do that!" came the shouted reply from the police lines. I involuntarily caught my breath, tensing for the shot I knew had to be only seconds away. My instincts were screaming at me: 'do something, don't just stand there to be slaughtered!' but I knew I'd left it too long. Even on my best day I knew I'd never be quick enough to avoid the gun at my head, and as it was I was tired and stiff and my ribs ached from where I'd been kicked. I couldn't help but consider the irony. As Nightwing I'd been to other worlds, fought and beaten demons and would-be world conquering lunatics, and in the end I was going to get shot by some two bit hood.
"So long, cop," I heard Marty say without rancor, as if it was no more than business: go to the supermarket, rob a bank, read the paper, kill a cop. Like it was just another day's work.
I thought again of Bruce, of what seeing my death would do to him; of Babs, of all the things I should have said to her but thought I'd have so much time to say later. /Oh Babs, I'm so sorry./
From the police I heard a frantic shout. "No! No, wait! Don't!" The sound of the hammer of my own gun being pulled back was deafeningly loud next to my ear, and I wondered distractedly if it was true what they said: that you didn't hear the shot that killed you.
Chapter 3
I heard the shot.
To be clear, I heard several shots: a burst of automatic fire coming from behind me, inside the bank, accompanied by screams of terror. Orders were being frantically shouted by the cops gathered outside, all but lost in the chaos and cacophony. Bullets hit the wall near us, kicking up shards of stone far too close to me for comfort as the more trigger happy of the cops surrounding the bank opened fire. Futile shouts of 'cease fire' and 'stop shooting' went unheard, and all I could think was how glad I was for the poor marksmanship of Bludhaven's finest. Then I was being hauled backwards into the cover of the bank, half choked by the grasp Marty had on my collar. I struggled to keep my footing but with my hands still cuffed behind my back and a shove from Marty I stumbled and fell.
Within the bank was confusion. Those hostages I could see were grouped in a panicked cluster against the back wall, some clinging to each other for support, many sobbing in terror. Others were collapsed on the floor, bloodied, whimpering in pain or just lying there in stunned, silent disbelief. Above them towered Carl, gun in hand, screaming abuse, apparently oblivious of my and Marty's return.
For his part Marty walked over towards Carl, stopping only a few feet from him. Carl was too caught up in his own concerns to even notice his presence.
"Carl," Marty began, then when he got no immediate response. "CARL!"
Carl visibly started, then swung around bringing his gun to bear as he did. His spin brought his face into line with Marty's now levelled gun, held steadily in his outstretched arm. I fought down a brief, insane urge to snicker: Marty had definitely seen *way* too many Tarantino films.
"Shut. Up!" enunciated Marty with didactic precision. For long seconds it looked like neither was willing to back down: Carl panting, his face red and sheened with sweat, his eyes fever bright, and Marty looking so still that he might have been carved from stone.
"Cops are moving!" warned a voice I didn't recognise. It had been the first time I'd heard the final member of the trio speak. It was enough to break the deadlock between the other two.
Seconds passed, then a scared, patently false grin flickered over Carl's features. "Sure, man. No problem," he agreed in a transparent attempt at face saving as if it was what he had intended to say all along.
I could hear the phone ringing. I think perhaps it must have been ringing all along: I just hadn't noticed before then. Marty walked over and picked up. He listened a moment, then replied curtly: "no one's dead." He paused a moment, and this time I could see him actually bother to glance over at the hostages bleeding on the floor. "At least, not yet," he amended, before continuing. "That's gonna change unless we start seeing some co-operation. Clear?"
I studied Marty as he hung up. He appeared calm, at ease, unhurried … sated, almost. It was like he was a junkie who had finally managed to get his fix. Carl I could figure - Carl was dangerous, a loose cannon; but Marty was a cipher. I couldn't get a handle on what made him tick. I needed to know which way he'd jump if pushed. I had a feeling I was going to be pushing him before very long.
"Keep an eye on the cops, Vinnie," ordered Marty as he wandered over to the hostages. I caught a glimpse of annoyance from Vinnie's expression, perhaps at such open use of his name. Too late: I had names for all of them now, for whatever use it was as things currently stood. It did worry me, though, how unconcerned they were about our seeing their faces and hearing their names. It didn't bode well for our future as potential witnesses against them. On the other hand, perhaps they just didn't care and I was over-analysing.
Marty's gaze went over the injured hostages, then to Carl. "Which part of 'hostage' didn't you get, Carl?" he spat out in disgust. A couple of the hostages, braver or more foolhardy than the rest crawled over towards the wounded and started limited but well-meaning attempts to help them. The rest waited, fearful of any reprisal.
"Let me help them," I said, manoeuvring with difficulty into a crouch. "I know first aid and there's bound to be a first aid kit in here somewhere. Please, let me help them."
Marty who had turned when I'd started to speak, walked over to me and squatted down, staring at me eye to eye. "You worry me, cop. There's something about you that don't sit right," he murmured half to himself.
I had to admit, his perceptiveness surprised me. I'd had to make an effort when I'd attended the Academy, then when I'd joined the PD to be nothing too extraordinary as a rookie, despite the years of experience I'd garnered as Nightwing, and before that as Robin. I wasn't as bad as Bruce when it came to keeping the parts of my life separate. In many ways Bruce Wayne and Batman were two very different people: the vacuous playboy and the grim, avenging Dark Knight. I supposed that a genuine rookie would have been more rattled than I was, but right then I was more concerned about the people bleeding on the other side of the bank than playing a part.
He looked at me a while longer, considering. "You figure you can help them, then?"
"Well I had to do *something* at the Academy between 'flower arranging' classes," I replied, gambling that somewhere in Marty's mind there was a sense of humour.
He snorted. It wasn't exactly a laugh but under the circumstances it was probably as much as I could hope for. He turned to Carl. "Keys!" he ordered, and the keys to my handcuffs were duly handed over, and I was released much to the relief of my aching shoulders.
Vinnie got the bank's first aid box from behind the counter and threw it to me as I headed over to the wounded. The box was tin and must have been twenty years old at least. I didn't hold out much hope that the contents within would be of much use given the injuries I had to treat. I shrugged mentally: if that was what I had to work with, then that was what I'd work with. The burst from Carl's submachine gun had, I discovered, left five people wounded. Three of them weren't too bad, relatively speaking, just nicks for the most part: painful, bloody, but ultimately non-life threatening. A fourth was bleeding from a head injury: self inflicted, it seemed, when he'd caught his head on the side of a desk in a frantic lunge for cover. He was rambling enough for me to guess that he had to have been concussed.
It was the fifth, though, that gave me cause for concern. One of the tellers was holding her scarf against his side, but it was already soaked through with blood. On her face I could see fear and helplessness and the beginnings of panic. I crouched down next to her, offering her the best encouraging smile I could muster under the circumstances.
"Hi there," I said gently, as I reached out to take the bloodied scarf from her grasp so I could get a look at the extent of the man's injury. What I saw was not good: the bullet had gone into his abdomen. He was almost certainly haemorrhaging badly, and with even the best first aid kit in the world there was next to nothing I could do for him.
Something of my thoughts must have showed on my face as I heard the teller's muttered: "Oh, God. No. Please!" as she began to sob.
"No, stay with me here," I said. "You've been doing the right thing: don't fall apart on me now. My name's Dick Grayson, by the way, and I promise you I'm going to do my very best to get us all out of here alive."
She looked up at me, fighting back tears. "Sarah Howard," she said in return, then looked down at the man whose life she was trying to save. "And this is my fiance, Greg Petersen." The mention of her fiance's name almost broke her fragile resolve, and I could see her struggling to stay strong. I just hoped I hadn't been overly optimistic when I'd promised we'd all get out alive.
I stood up and turned to face Marty. "He needs a hospital," I stated.
"You do what you can here," he replied with apparent disinterest. "He can go to a hospital later."
"If he doesn't get to a hospital soon, he won't have a 'later'," I retorted, more sharply than was probably prudent under the circumstances.
"Well, how about I put him out of his misery right now?" Marty said, pointing his gun at the semi-conscious, pain-wracked Greg as if ready then and there to put actions to words.
"NO! No!" I yelled, dimly hearing Sarah's distraught voice echoing my protest. "No one's died here yet. It doesn't need to go that far." Even as I said the words I knew I was reaching, spouting cliches like a character from one of the old cop shows.
Marty smirked in response, enjoying the sight of my discomfiture, but he lowered the gun that had been threatening Greg. "I'm in charge, cop," he reminded. "Nobody leaves without my say so."
I nodded in mute acquiescence, then went back to doing what I could for Greg and the other hostages who had been hurt. About half an hour passed by the time I bandaged the remaining injuries and got back to Greg. In just that short time his condition had deteriorated markedly, and on Sarah's worried face I could see that she too had noticed.
"He's going to die, isn't he," she murmured, no longer bothering to hold back tears.
I didn't trust myself to answer with a lie. "If he doesn't get to a hospital, then ….. yes," I eventually admitted.
Neither of us said anything for a few minutes, then I glanced around to see if Marty or the others were within earshot. "Can you ask to go to the restroom?" I whispered, hating to ask for her help as things stood. "One of them will have to take you, and that'll leave only two of them here."
She looked at me aghast. "That's two against one ….. and they're armed," she replied. "You wouldn't stand a chance. What do you gain from getting yourself killed?"
"He's going to die unless I try something," I reminded her brutally, looking down at Greg who was now, mercifully, unconscious. "I'll have a better chance if I've only got two of them to deal with."
She was silent for a few seconds, then without a glance in my direction stood up and approached Marty. "Excuse me? Sir? I need to go to the restroom."
"Shit!" growled Marty in annoyance, but nonetheless took her arm and escorted her briskly through the door at the back of the room.
As soon as Marty left, I took note of the positions of the other two, working out what would be the quickest way I could take them down. Vinnie was closest: he'd come over to take a look at Greg's condition. Carl was further off, but not by much. With Marty out of the room, I had to act quickly. It had to be the best chance that Greg or I would have.
From where I was crouched next to Greg I threw a vicious, low side kick at Vinnie's knee. His pained cry as the blow struck almost drowned out the sickening crunch of the knee going out. Before he'd hit the ground I'd thrown the metal first aid tin at Carl, aiming at the hand holding the gun. I dimly registered his surprised yelp, the clatter of the gun hitting the floor and muttered silent thanks that it hadn't gone off. Vinnie was already going down, but I couldn't risk the chance of his gun at my back. Another kick made sure he wouldn't be getting up for a while as I turned my attention to dealing with Carl before Marty got back.
"GRAYSON!"
Marty's voice. Damn! I looked to where the voice had come from. Marty was there, his arm around Sarah's neck, his gun, *my* gun, digging into her side. I raised my hands, sick to my stomach at how badly I'd messed up. Greg was going to die; perhaps Sarah as well for her part in helping me; perhaps others of the hostages.
My head exploded in pain as a savage blow to the back of my neck drove me to my knees. The bank seemed to dissolve around me into a nauseating fractal blur. I felt another stab of pain as something struck my head, my side and then it seemed as if I was falling forever.
It was strange: I didn't remember the floor being so very far away…..
Chapter 4
"Dicky! Time to get up."
"Jus' another five minutes, Mom," I mumbled in automatic reply before my mind managed to catch up with what I'd just said.
Mom was dead. She'd died long ago along with my Father back when I was nine years old, but it had been her voice I'd heard telling me to get up.
And that was impossible. Wasn't it?
I opened my eyes to the shaded interior of the trailer where I'd spent the first years of my life. It was as I remembered, although now everything looked smaller somehow. Draped over a nearby chair I could see my Nightwing costume ready to put on. From outside I could make out the cheery music of a calliope above the casual chatter of people walking by.
"Come on, Dicky, hurry up" came my Mother's voice again. "We've got a big night this evening. It sounds like half of Gotham's going to be here."
I suddenly knew with horrible certainty which night she was talking about. It had given me nightmares for years. I scrambled out of bed and grabbed my Mother's arm as she headed out the trailer door. "You can't go on this evening. You mustn't, either of you. You just can't," I said desperately, the words sounding even to my own ears like the plea of a frightened child.
She smiled as if I'd said nothing more urgent that a vague comment on the state of the weather. With disconcerting ease she released the death grip I had on her arm. "Don't be long, now. Remember it's a big night tonight," she reminded as she left.
In the background the calliope's cheerful tune seemed to have taken on a note of mocking.
"Mother!" I called out frantically as I ran to catch up with her. To my eyes she was no more than strolling but somehow by the time I caught up to her we were in the ring, and she was about to start her climb to the trapeze platform high above. The calliope was much louder now, its notes ringing out above the hubbub of a Big Top that appeared to have become suddenly packed to the brim with the great and the good of Gotham City.
"You're finally dressed and ready! Good!" my Mother said warmly. "You know, I always said that costume suited you." I glanced down to see that I was clothed in Nightwing's distinctive black and arctic blue.
I paused, looked around in confusion. My Mother had never seen Nightwing, and for that matter, I had to wonder when exactly *had* I got dressed?
When I turned back my Mother was gone from where she'd been standing, then I heard the appreciative 'oohs' and 'aahs' of the crowd and looked upward to see my parents beginning their act on the trapeze.
It didn't make sense. I was sure I couldn't have looked away for more than a few seconds. My gaze followed them as they went into their act.
"Oh God, no. Please, not again," I murmured, helplessly watching their last moments as I had done in countless nightmares that had haunted in the years since I'd first seen this last performance of theirs.
A fanfare and gale of maniacal laughter from the calliope dragged my gaze to the clown who was sat at the keyboard. He turned to me as he played, and in the glow of the lights tracing my parents' aerial dance I could make out his pasty white skin, green hair and the sadistically eager manic grin etched across his features. The calliope's blare was now impossibly loud, sliding past any semblance of being simply music and into the kind of noise so strong as have an almost physical force. A throb of pain started in my head, in time with the noise, in time with my heart beat, but above it all I could still hear the laughter.
The sense of helplessness I felt receded in a wash of anger at the sound of the laughter and the sight of that grin. It wasn't going to happen again. Not this time. Not if *I* had anything to do with it. There was no way I was going to give that mad bastard the satisfaction of their deaths.
It was just that right then I wasn't sure whether I was referring to Boss Zucco or the Joker, but somehow, it didn't seem to really matter.
I tried to shout, to try one more time to warn my parents, but any sound I might have made was drowned out by the calliope's din, so I did the only thing left to do and started to climb towards them.
The simple action of climbing soon became mechanical: one hand above the other, one foot above the other. Higher and higher towards the roof. It began to feel like I'd been climbing for hours. The ring and the crowd had long ago faded into the surrounding dark. All that was left was the terrible sound, so loud that I seemed to be able to feel it in my bones and pounding in my head, the laughter that mocked my growing exhaustion, and the ladder stretching away above and below.
Eventually the pace slowed and finally I could go no further. My limbs shook with effort and it became as much as I could do to cling to the ladder. I hung there, suspended in darkness, panting for breath.
"Giving up so soon?" a voice behind me taunted, and with difficulty I twisted around enough to see the Joker, incongruously wearing Zucco's suit, lounging comfortably, apparently in mid air. "Bats wouldn't have given up so easily, but then you're not a patch on him, are you."
Despite my efforts, memories and old feelings of inferiority surfaced: the times Bruce had had to rescue his partner - Robin, the Boy Hostage; my later getting fired from the role; Bruce's choice of Jean Paul Valley -Azrael- over me to be Batman after Bruce was hurt fighting Bane. I glowered at him, a half-hearted denial of the truth of his accusation. "This isn't real," I finally ground out. "Just another one of your sick mind games. None of it's real."
It can't be real. Please God, don't let it be real. I can't watch them die again.
"Not real?" the Joker threw back with a moue of disappointment and matching shrug of seeming acquiescence. Then the familiar, wide mocking grin returned to his face. "Then seeing this won't upset you at all then, will it?" he completed, gesturing above me with a laugh.
My eyes automatically followed the gesture and scant yards away I saw my parents on the trapeze as the wires that had been half cut through finally snapped. I saw the fear and horrified realisation on their faces as they began to fall.
"NOOOOO!" I screamed, as helpless to save them now as I had been then.
"What now, Boy Blunder?" the Joker taunted between gales of laughter. "What now? Wait for Bats to rescue you? Again?"
Anger overwhelmed reason and with a strength born of rage I launched myself at him, fingers reaching for his throat. I had no plan of attack. I just wanted to silence the laughter. He grabbed my wrists mid leap in a grip that was like steel. I struggled, twisting and turning, but couldn't escape.
"No, don't," I protested faintly, wearily, aware now as I hadn't been before of how much I hurt. My head ached mercilessly, matched by a stabbing flare of agony from my side as I gasped for breath. I closed my eyes, fighting the wash of pain and nausea.
"Hush, Dick. Sh! It's all going to be okay," a voice soothed, quieting the mad laughter. Female. Not the Joker. Not my Mother, but vaguely familiar none the less. I could hear tears behind the words that seemed to hold a plea rather than a promise of safety.
I knew that voice. My mind finally dredged up the wanted information. "Sarah?" I asked, wondering whether the weak, scratchy voice that had asked the question could in fact have been mine.
The disoriented semiconscious fog I'd been trapped in began to recede and memory drifted back. Sarah Howard: bank teller. Greg Petersen: bank teller, Sarah's fiancé, and now, casualty. Then I remembered the robbery, my attempt to halt it, Marty's return with Sarah as hostage, getting hit from behind and then nothing. Just nightmares.
I opened an eye. I would have opened both but the other felt crusted over. Dried blood, I guessed, and wondered just how long it was that I'd been out. I tried to bring my hand up to my face in automatic response to trace the extent of the injury, but my hands were handcuffed once more behind my back. With the one eye that worked I tried to look around, but everything was blurred. As I forced myself to focus on people their images split, doubling or tripling as I watched. Damn. Concussion was really not what I needed.
Okay Grayson, I thought, time to stop lying on the floor so sit up and start getting a proper idea of the situation. I started trying to sit up on my own, but a hiss of pain I couldn't suppress escaped to warn Sarah of my intent.
"Don't move," she urged, holding me down with alarming ease. "You're too badly hurt."
Oh? When? That sort of thing I'd normally remember, I figured.
She must have caught my frown. "They carried on kicking you and hitting you even after you went down," she explained dully, as if any extremes of emotion had been long wrung from her voice.
I lay there a moment, considering, then looked back at her. "Help me sit up," I asked firmly.
She gazed at me with the sort of expression that women seemed to have developed for the sole purpose of directing it at men who, despite their advice, insist on doing something incredibly foolhardy. I'd seen it enough from Babs to be able to recognise it without difficulty. In the end, Sarah offered a faint shrug and helped lever me into a sitting position, propped up against the wall.
Just that simple action gave me ample warning of how hurt I was. The pain in my side that blazed agony at every breath was certainly a broken rib, maybe more than one. I couldn't tell for sure, or if there were any internal injuries. As far as I was concerned, everything just hurt. Add in the concussion, and I knew that realistically, sitting up was not among the most sensible of ideas. Then again, as most of the people who know me can attest: I manage 'stubborn' far better than I do 'sensible'.
I sat there for some minutes, waiting for the pain and the nausea to sink back to more manageable levels. The other hostages were watching me, either openly wary of what I might do or just watching me sidelong. Carl and Marty were lounging comfortably on leather chairs that must have been brought from one of the bank's offices. Vinnie was lying down, apparently still out. My gaze tracked to another supine form, its head covered by a coat. Greg. It had to be. It couldn't be anyone else. Damn. I turned back to Sarah. "I….. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this….. If I hadn't….."
"He bled out," she murmured. "They wouldn't let a doctor in to see him, not after you….. well, you know."
My fault. His death was my fault. I'd screwed up, and he'd paid the price for my screw up. I should have done something different, anything different. What the hell was the point of being a cop, being Nightwing, if I couldn't even stop a man dying in front of me?
"They set another deadline for their demands," Sarah went on, her voice devoid of emotion as if she no longer cared what happened to her. "A bus to the airport for them and their hostages by seven o'clock tonight, or they'll shoot someone. I don't think they can know about Greg yet."
I had to agree with her. When hostages started dying tended to be the trigger for when the cops opted for sending in SWAT teams rather than rely on negotiation. I was surprised that the cops hadn't seemed to have got a better line than they had on what was going on inside the bank, or maybe they had and they were just waiting for the right moment to act.
I looked up at the wall clock, managing with an effort to bring it into focus long enough to read the time. It was a quarter past six, and outside I could see it was growing darker. We'd been in the bank all day, and I must have been unconscious for hours. I looked through the faint gaps in the shutters at the gathering dusk.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sarah looking at me. "What is it?" she asked softly.
I wanted to answer, to reassure her that everything would be okay, that help was on the way.
Because I knew that bats came out at night.
Chapter 5
It irked me, I had to admit, the idea that to get out of a simple hostage situation I needed Batman's help, but it wasn't just me who was in danger in the bank. I ran back through the day's events in my mind. I'd played it too overconfident every step of the way. If the bad guys had been metas or one of the grotesque costumed madmen that Gotham seemed to breed in abundance, I had to think I would have acted differently, but instead they'd just been street punks with guns, and as it was I'd messed up.
All I could do, at least in the short term, was wait and think. With Greg dead, Marty was well and truly in a corner. He had too many hostages, especially now with only Carl to help him keep an eye on us. The cops, Feds, or whoever it was running the show outside were still likely to want to play nice while they thought they could get out of this without anyone -any hostages, that was- getting killed. Like Sarah pointed out, they couldn't know yet that Greg was dead or they'd most likely have made their move already and been in here.
The inside of the bank was getting darker as the light from outside began to fade. I could see some of the hostages watching dull-eyed as Marty went around turning on the old style green glass and brass desk lamps on some of the desks: a vain purchase on the part of the bank in its attempt for a safe, stable, old-fashioned image. In this part of the 'Haven, it was a wasted effort. Nice desk lamps couldn't distract customers from the unrepaired cracks of bullet impacts in the security glass protecting the tellers.
I glanced again at the wall clock as the time inched towards the 7.00pm deadline. Deadline, I mused, it was suddenly a very apt term. My head was aching and my mind was surely drifting if I'd started to consider abstracts like that. Dammit, Grayson, get it together. Concentrate! I still had to get these people -those that were left- out of here alive. I was guessing that Bruce would most likely be on his way, but that didn't mean I could relax yet.
From the other side of the room I heard faint groans that suggested that Vinnie was finally beginning to come around. For him to have been unconscious that long, I guessed I must have erred on the side of enthusiasm when I took him down. I peered over at him. Unconscious, he looked so young, and I felt a brief flash of guilt when I considered how much I had to have hurt him for him to have been out for so long. It had been his decision to pick up a gun, though, and been ready to use it.
Marty wandered over and crouched next to him. "Hey, Vinnie. You awake yet? You hear me?" he asked without solicitude, then reached down to shake his younger colleague. "Hey!"
"Wha--?" Vinnie eventually managed in reply, scarcely cognisant of his surroundings. Marty soon lost patience with him and abandoned his efforts to go back to his chair. His eyes scanned the crowd of hostages who dropped their faces, unwilling to meet his gaze. I didn't. I just stared back at him, knowing that one way or another I was going to take him down. From his answering smirk, he must have guessed my intent and discounted it as a nothing more threatening than a victim's impotent rage. Fine. I could live with that. Let him underestimate me for a change.
It was Carl, though, who for the time being was worrying me more. I'd guessed at the outset that he was flying on something, but with how long things had dragged on, he wasn't just coming down from whatever high he'd been on: he was crashing. Since I'd woken up he hadn't stood still for more than a few seconds. He was no longer satisfied with pacing. His every move was possessed of a jerky urgency, frenetic, anxious, starting at the smallest noise. With his submachine gun clenched in his hand it did not make for a reassuring sight.
Tap. Tap. Tap, tap. Tap.
It was so faint I wasn't sure I'd heard it, but moments later it came again. Tap. Tap. Tap, tap. Tap. I kept the satisfaction I felt from reaching my face. The cavalry had arrived: the BatClan, not the police SWAT. The code was something Bruce had developed years ago, derived from a combination of Morse and the various codes created by POWs to communicate between themselves in prison.
//Hidden in ceiling// I translated from the tapping. //Blink response if understood//
I let my head rest back against the wall behind me and blinked once in reply. With my vision playing up from the blow to the head I'd taken, I couldn't hope to see where Bruce had managed to gain a view of the room. It had to be some high resolution fibre-optic mounted mini-cam fed through a tiny hole that he must have drilled in the ceiling.
//Be ready. Takedown set for 1900hrs. Query: able to assist?//
I blinked my assent without a second thought. I knew that attempting any kind of rapid movement would hurt like hell -if I could manage it at all, given the state I was in- but there was no way I was going to sit on the sidelines for this one. Cracked ribs or no cracked ribs, I was in this for the duration.
It took nearly a full minute for me to get the lockpick from where it lay hidden in my watch strap and undo the handcuffs. By my standards, that was appallingly slow, but the handcuffs had been snapped on unnecessarily tightly while I'd been unconscious, robbing my fingers of the fine dexterity that would have allowed me to release them that much more quickly. I let the now empty cuffs rest silently on the floor behind me, and glanced up at the clock - only seven minutes to go.
At a couple of minutes before seven, the phone rang. Marty picked up. "Yeah? What? You expect me to believe--? No, okay, ten minutes, but if you're messing me around here…" He left the threat hanging. We didn't need to guess what he meant.
"Hey, man," began Carl. "What's the hold up? We gonna get out of here, aren't we?" Raw need and desperation were plain in his voice.
"Yeah. Just a few minutes more. Take it easy," Marty placated. "The bus taking us to the airport? Cops say it's got a flat. Kids playing around, throwing nails on the road. Go figure!"
Carl snickered his disbelief. "You gotta be kidding!"
"Cops couldn't make up something like that!" averred Marty. "Either way, in ten minutes we'll know. Get everyone up and ready to go, including 'hero cop' there," he said pointing at me. "I'm gonna stash the body. Don't want it found, at least until we're airborne."
"Sure, Marty," he agreed. With scant regard for propriety, Marty hauled Greg's body out of the room. I heard a barely stifled sob and looked over at Sarah. Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself and tears ran freely down her face as she watched her fiance's body being treated like so much baggage.
Carl chivvied the rest of us to our feet at gunpoint. Sarah dragged herself from her sorrow to help me. I'd planned to play up how badly I was hurt. As it happened, it didn't take much in the way of acting ability. I was leaning equally against Sarah and the wall behind me, dizzy with nausea and a pounding headache that had abated slightly while I'd been sitting, but had returned with a vengeance now I was moving. Each breath sent a stab of pain through my side.
My mind was working overtime. I kept my now free hands behind my back, but I'd decided to hold on to the handcuffs - better that than for anyone to notice them lying on the floor. I wondered where Bruce was, hoping that he'd have gone after Marty. Of course he would: it's what I would have done and he'd taught me. It was pointless to listen for any sounds of struggle. Batman could take out someone like Marty without even a whisper, but I listened anyway.
All I heard was a groan from Vinnie. Carl glanced briefly over to see his colleague finally regaining some semblance of consciousness. "Hey, you! Girl!" he ordered, using his gun to point to Sarah. "Help him get up."
Sarah looked at him a moment, then almost seemed to shrug before going over to Vinnie's side. She crouched next to him and took his left arm over her shoulder to lever him to his feet. He might have been scrawny but she staggered, having to support most of his weight while he gasped in pain. The knee I'd kicked was at an odd angle and swollen to twice its normal size. His face was pale and sheened with sweat as he struggled to deal with the pain his knee had to have been causing him, but he still kept hold of the gun in his right hand.
Then as I watched, I saw the expression on Sarah's face slowly change as her previous seeming diffidence gave way to fey determination as she eyed Vinnie's submachine gun. I stole a glance at the clock: two minutes to seven. Too early. Sarah was going to bring this thing down too early. I tried to catch her gaze, to warn her off but she was too wrapped up in her own plan to notice, whether to rescue everyone or simply revenge her dead fiance, I couldn't say.
With a scream of rage she made her move, grabbing for the gun in Vinnie's hand. I had to hope that Bruce had already dealt with Marty otherwise we'd all be in trouble. In the meantime, I did the only thing I could and went for Carl.
I threw the handcuffs at him, thankful not for the first time of the hours of practice I'd had to put in as a child throwing anything I could lay hands on from batarangs to guns. As a missile, handcuffs were less than ideal but they gave me the half-second distraction I needed to cover the ground between us. From my earliest days of being Robin, I'd been taking down thugs like Carl almost in my sleep and ordinarily, dealing with him would have been a matter of a few seconds' work.
Ordinarily, though, I wouldn't be trying to fight someone while nursing a couple of broken ribs and a concussion. To make matters worse, Carl knew exactly where I was hurting and where to target his blows. The adrenaline rush brought on by the fight was enough to blunt my perception of pain and lend a crystal clarity to my vision, but even so, I knew it wouldn't last. Carl had to go down, and quickly.
Normally I could rerun a fight in my mind, blow by blow. Not this one. It was too messy, too chaotic as I struggled to keep Carl's gun pointing away from me or the other hostages. In the background I dimly noted the rattle of gunfire, but couldn't spare the attention to see what had happened. I was focused entirely on taking Carl out of the equation.
After the events of the day, I was nowhere near top form, but in the end it proved to be enough as I managed to land a couple of rapid punches on Carl that dropped him to the floor. Staggering somewhat, I turned to see what was happening between Vinnie and Sarah. My head was beginning to swim as the adrenaline rush ebbed, and the renewal of the tearing pain from my side reminded me that I was still hurt and that before he'd gone down Carl must have got me at least a couple of times.
Sarah was having trouble with Vinnie. Hurt he might have been but he was still stronger than the slightly built, grief-stricken teller. Their frantic struggle for control of the gun had it waving around with scant regard for who it might end up pointing at. The remaining hostages were huddled on the floor, more intent on avoiding being shot by accident than trying to intervene on Sarah's behalf.
I stumbled over there, mildly confused as to why my right leg was suddenly feeling so unsteady. Dogged determination and the last dregs of adrenaline were the only things keeping me going. I got to them and with a burst of strength wrenched the gun from their joint grasp only to slam it firmly against Vinnie's head. He reeled and fell, dragging Sarah down with him. At that, my leg folded under me, depositing me next to them in an unceremonious heap on the floor. Somewhere in the background, the phone rang plaintively, unheeded, in the silence. I sat there, coughing for breath and just concentrated on trying not to pass out.
"Are you okay?" asked Sarah in a very small voice.
I would have laughed if I hadn't known how much it would hurt. Oh, yes, I was absolutely fine, just wonderful, let's all do this again someday….. "No," I finally managed to say after a couple of abortive attempts to catch enough breath to speak.
On the ground between Sarah and me, Vinnie was making vague attempts to get up. I reached over, relieved him of the handgun tucked into his waistband, then slid the belt off, rolled him onto his front and used it to tie his hands behind his back. Now I had time to think, I had to wonder what had happened to Bruce. I didn't think he could have been put off, or even noticed by the cops. I had to assume he'd taken care of Marty. I hoped he had, because I sure as hell didn't feel up to it. I gathered up and checked Vinnie's discarded weaponry. The submachine gun, now empty, I left on the ground. I decided to keep hold of the handgun just in case Sarah got any more ideas about revenge.
She glanced down at my leg. "You're bleeding," she noted quietly.
I followed her gaze and saw the blood seeping through my dark blue work trousers. I figured it had to have been from when Vinnie's gun went off during their struggle. It seemed to hurt more now I'd noticed it. Funny, the way that works.
A shriek from one of the hostages dragged my drifting mind mercilessly back to the matter at hand. Looking over Sarah's shoulder I saw Carl getting unsteadily to his feet, the gun in his hand wavering in the direction of the cowering hostages. Damn. I should have noticed it myself, but I'd been too preoccupied with Vinnie.
"CARL!" I yelled, and raised the gun I'd taken from Vinnie to cover him. Carl half turned towards me, his arc of fire still encompassing the hostages. "Drop the gun, Carl!" I ordered.
He looked at me, a slightly crazed grin flickering over his features, warring with the desperation I was sure I could see in his eyes. For the briefest instant I was reminded of another crazed grin: a face with white skin, green hair….. A face that wouldn't stop grinning however many times I hit it…..
No. Enough of that. It wasn't him. It was just Carl, another thug with a gun. I thought back involuntarily to long ago, to Bruce's lectures about the capabilities of various sorts of firearms. I could almost hear his dry, precise voice in my mind going through the weapon's specifications: submachine gun, Ingram, M10, fires 9mm para or .45'' ACP, noted as being hard to control unless fired in short, disciplined bursts.
Disciplined? Carl? Not a chance. If he cut loose with the gun he'd empty the clip in a couple of seconds, spraying bullets everywhere. I had to guess that was what had happened before, when Greg and the others were shot, when I'd been outside with a gun to my head. I couldn't let that happen again.
"Carl, drop the gun," I repeated. "Drop it or I'll fire." /Please, drop the damned gun. Oh God, don't make me have to do this./
Carl's expression didn't change. "Screw you, cop!" he spat out, and brought the M10 to bear.
Training took over.
I fired.
Chapter 6
I fired.
Carl shuddered, slumped to his knees and then to the ground, his expression one of hurt disbelief.
At the Police Academy they'd congratulated me for my marksmanship. I thought little enough of it at the time: it was just another hurdle I had to pass on the way to getting my badge. I'd spent hours on the range at the Academy shooting at the paper targets there.
But paper targets didn't bleed. They didn't look you in the eye as they crumpled to the floor.
"Oh my God!" The youthful voice behind me was quiet, appalled, familiar: Tim. I would have turned and said something but I couldn't take my eyes off Carl lying on the ground, bleeding into the cheap carpet. A slender, caped figure moved swiftly past me and over to him. He kicked away the gun Carl had dropped then knelt next to him and reached over to his neck to feel for a pulse.
I couldn't tear my gaze from Carl's face which was canted slightly towards me from how he had fallen. It was slack, unmoving. Eyes which only moments earlier had sparked with rage and desperation were hidden below half closed lids. I could only stare numbly at him.
A quiet, firm voice spoke to me from close by: "Give me the gun." Tim's voice, I noted dully. It took me a while to realise it was him: my mind was sluggish, preoccupied. He was crouching next to me, his arm outstretched. I looked up at him. His face was schooled into impassivity, his eyes blank and hidden behind the mask. My gaze fell to my hand which was still clutching the gun I'd taken from Vinnie. "Give me the gun," Tim repeated with quiet insistence, but now a shade of concern or sympathy had leeched into his tone. Concern for me? For others? All of a sudden I wasn't sure.
My gaze returned to Carl, and I felt the gun being gently teased from my hand. I didn't resist. Everything around Carl's still face seemed to be receding into a grey blur. Another face moved into my narrowing field of vision. Tim. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked, his concern now evident. I think he wanted to say more but was constrained by the mask: *Robin* didn't know Dick Grayson.
It took me a few seconds to work it out. Tim was concerned for *me*. That was nice of him. "I think I need to sit down," I murmured woozily as a disconcerting sense of vertigo washed over me.
"You *are* sitting down," came Tim's dry if worried reply.
"Oh," was all I managed to say in response. I was too tired to think of any kind of witty repartee. Everything around me was getting more and more indistinct. My side blazed with fresh agony at every breath, and my head pounded mercilessly.
Finally, too late to do anything but pick up the pieces, Bludhaven's SWAT team burst through the door, guns at the ready, accompanied by a cacophony of shouted orders. 'FREEZE!'. 'HANDS UP!'. 'NOBODY MOVE!'
Nobody moved.
I passed out.
*********
I couldn't be sure exactly what happened afterwards. All I could remember of the next few hours were odd, disjointed images, blurred together as if they were nothing more substantial than half remembered shards of nightmares:
The faces of an ambulance crew looking down at me, talking to me, asking me what hurt, the roof of the ambulance above them very bright and white…..
A hospital emergency room, more questions, the flare of pain from my side as gentle hands probed for damage, explanations I couldn't hear, the stab of a needle and the blessed sink back into pain free darkness…..
A darkened room, quiet except for the faint sound of machines, a familiar silhouette: black on black against a wall, the faint pressure of a hand on mine, a deep voice from out of the darkness, trusted, loved: 'It's okay. I'm here, son'…..
*********
When I next awoke it was pale daylight. The sun out of the window was low on the horizon, shading towards the orange of sunset. I'd been out all night and most of the day, it seemed.
Thinking about it, I felt oddly detached from my body, as if the latter was of no more than passing relevance. I'd been hurt enough times and ended up doped on pain meds before to recognise the feeling. A stray thought drifted into the comfortable fog of my mind of how badly I had to have been injured to warrant the use of what I'd heard Leslie dryly refer to as 'the good stuff' for the pain.
"Hi, Dick. Are you actually going to wake up for real this time?" came Babs' gentle voice. With effort I turned my head to look at her.
"Hi, yourself," I croaked faintly. She looked tired, dishevelled, as if she'd slept in her clothes, but nonetheless she managed a weary smile in response. She held out a glass of water which I drank greedily through a straw.
"I'll get the doctor, tell him you've woken up," she said after a few moments and left the room. I lay back, thinking, wondering if it had actually been Bruce there with me last night or if I'd just imagined it.
Babs soon returned along with a rotund, tweedy middle-aged man wearing an unbelievably ugly bow tie. I had to presume he was the doctor. "Good evening, Mr. Grayson," he began, his voice a rich, almost theatrical English accented baritone. "Miss Gordon warned us that you would be determined enough to wake up early from the anaesthetic. It seems we should have paid her more heed," he continued with a smile and a nod in her direction. "Anyway, down to business. My name is Doctor Francis Haywood, and I've been in charge of your care since you were admitted yesterday evening."
"What about Carl?" I cut in sharply. "What's happened to Carl: the man I shot? Will he be alright?"
Doctor Haywood paused, unflustered by the rude interruption, but looked over to Barbara as if for advice. She offered him a sad half smile and shrugged in reluctant acquiescence.
"Carl Webber died in surgery," Haywood eventually said.
I slumped back against the pillows, unaware before that moment of how tensed I'd been. The warm fuzziness of whatever painkiller I'd been given had all but faded just in those few moments leaving me with a dull but persistent ache around my middle and side, as well as the pounding headache.
It was nothing to what I felt inside: I'd killed a man. I'd taken a gun and intentionally shot him down. Carl was dead. There was no Batman around to administer CPR to bring him back as he once had the Joker when I'd beaten him to death.
Oh, God. Bruce. Did Bruce know yet?
Of course he knew. He was *Batman*.
I opened my eyes. Babs and Doctor Haywood were looking at me. "Dick--?" Babs began.
"I'm sorry," I interrupted her, "but I'd like to be alone for a while, if you don't mind?"
I caught the flicker of hurt on Babs' face as I turned away from her. For his part, Doctor Haywood said nothing, simply nodded and left.
I was left alone.
*********
My solitude didn't last long.
The knock on the door of my room might have gone unanswered, but the niggling detail of the lack of an invitation didn't deter Sergeant Amy Rohrbach from coming in. "Hey, Rookie," she said cheerfully. "You know, you look like hell!"
"Sorry, Amy, but I don't want to talk to anyone right now," I began.
"Wanting and getting are two different things, Rookie," she announced, "and right now you're stuck with me talking to you, so shut up and deal!"
Her tone was sufficiently unequivocal so as to brook no argument. In the short time we'd been partnered, I'd learned that there was no point protesting when she spoke like that. I did the only thing I could under the circumstances: I shut up.
"Let me see," she began, "you're sitting here, on your own, in the dark. Your girlfriend - who I might add has hardly left your side since they brought you down from surgery - is in the family lounge looking like she wants to hit something. The nurses have been fielding however many phone calls from friends of yours all across the country, many of whom saw you on the news with the gun to your head, all of whom are concerned as hell about you. Don't you think you should talk to these people?"
"Amy, look, I really don't want to talk to anyone right now," I pointed out.
"I can see that," she drawled acidly, then paused as if searching for words. "Dammit, I'm no good at this. I know you feel bad: you shot someone. I mean, it's not like you're supposed to feel *good* about something like that, are you? What I'm trying to say is - you did what was necessary. *I* see it that way. Goddamn it, from what I hear, the rest of the department sees it that way."
"Yeah, right," I said, unconvinced. "I should have been able to control the situation better, shouldn't have let it get as far as it did. It shouldn't have been necessary."
"Maybe so, but that's the way it went down and second guessing yourself won't do any good. You did the best you could - and a hell of a lot better than most other cops would, put in the same situation. Newsflash, Rookie: you're not Superman," Amy added scathingly, before going on in more moderate tones. "You did everything humanly possible to deal with the situation and managed to save a lot of people's lives. You should feel proud that they're alive because of you, instead all you can do is lie here and wallow."
"Dammit, Amy, I killed someone," I retorted sharply. "How the hell am I supposed to feel? What am I *supposed* to do? Just shrug it off? 'Whoops, sorry you're dead, Carl, but hey - shit happens?' Two people are dead because of me: Greg Petersen bled to death because I screwed up, and Carl Webber's dead because I *shot* him!"
I was shouting by the end, loudly enough to bring the duty nurse running. She started to try to move Amy out of the room but Amy was having none of it. Trying to stop Amy when she got in one of those moods was like trying to stand in the way of a force of nature.
The burgeoning argument was halted by the intercession of a stern English voice. "Ladies, this is most inappropriate behaviour in a hospital. If you would continue this disagreement, might I suggest an alternative venue than Master Dick's hospital room." I could have cheered: Alfred to the rescue. Chastened, the nurse muttered her apologies and left. Amy turned her attention to Alfred only to be met by an utterly implacable disapproving gaze that I knew from experience could deter even Batman.
Under that regard Amy stood little chance. She glanced over at me. "We'll speak later," she said evenly, then turned and left.
Alfred pulled up a chair and sat down. I opened my mouth to speak, but he raised a hand to forestall me. "I know you wish to be alone, but there are things that need to be said. Firstly, there are a great many people concerned about you. You may not be aware of how badly hurt you were during your contretemps with those fellows at the bank, so permit me to explain. As you have doubtless surmised, you have two broken ribs. What you may not be aware of, and indeed what warranted the surgery that was required after your admittance here, were the internal injuries." That got my attention. Alfred noticed my surprise. "I will spare you the details for now, but suffice it to say that you were haemorrhaging to an extent that could have been quite serious if not dealt with."
"I didn't know," I mumbled.
"So I gathered," he acknowledged dryly.
Silence stretched out between us: the kind of silence between long acquaintances that doesn't need to be filled. I'd wondered at the kind of meds I'd been given. If I hadn't been so distracted, I could have put it together and worked out that there must have been something more serious than a couple of cracked ribs. I'd had other things on my mind, though.
"Alfred," I began haltingly, "I killed someone. Shot him. Back in the bank."
"So I understand," he replied gently. I listened for any sound of censure in his voice, but found none. "I've managed to speak to the police as well as to some of the people who were held within the bank including a Miss Howard to whom I believe you spoke during the….. unpleasantness."
"Sarah," I murmured in confirmation.
"Just so. They all agree on one thing, that what you did was necessary under what were very trying circumstances, and that in the end your actions saved a number of people from being injured, possibly even killed."
"It still doesn't make what I did right, though, does it?" I argued. "I made a promise to Bruce. It's the most important rule I've lived by all these years and now I've broken it."
"You made another more recent promise as well, if you recall, young Master Dick. As a police officer you promised to protect the people of Bludhaven, and that I believe you've done to the best of your considerable ability."
I snorted, dismissive of any truth in Alfred's words. Ignoring my interruption he went on. "Listen to me, Richard." I glanced up at that: Alfred addressing me so was rare enough to warrant attention. "Yours is a character that is by its very nature willing to sublimate its interests and its own well being in the service of others. You took the decision to protect others, knowing what doing so would cost you. I in no way condone the killing of Mr. Webber, but in the situation in which you found yourself you chose to save those in need, and that is something you've always done, whatever the cost. The difference is that on this occasion the cost has to be borne by your conscience."
The comfortable silence dragged out again as I lay there considering his words. "You know, I keep running through it in my mind," I commented, "trying to work out what I should have done differently. I still don't have any answers," I shrugged ruefully.
"To questions like that, sometimes there are no answers," Alfred eventually allowed with the kind of sad reflection that so often came after long consideration of an insoluble problem. I had the sense that he'd been searching for answers to that particular quandary for a very long time.
"Maybe not," I said quietly, wearily, "but I still can't help thinking that there should have been another way."
-fin-
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A/N:
Well, that's the end of my first foray into writing Nightwing fanfic. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it, and a big 'Thank You' to those who've taken the time and trouble to write a review.
Finally, let me offer another very big 'Thank You' to Sandra for her invaluable help in beta reading for me.