Work Text:
It had been sunny and warm that day – a rarity for Gotham.
The weather made the girl’s friends chatty and energetic, despite their encroaching college midterms. Between classes, a couple of the other girls – her roommates – elected to walk off campus to a certain cute coffee shop – something she should have known was a mistake in this city. Still, she went along happily, trading gossip back and forth until the sound of a deeper voice reached their ears from just around the next corner.
One of them shushed the others as the trio paused just around the corner from the alleyway, holding their collective breaths as what was obviously a drug deal of some kind was hashed out. Money was discussed – in the millions.
She clutched her friends’ sleeves in a death grip and yanked them back and away from the alley. Suddenly, every quick step seemed too short and every strained breath too loud. Her heart hammered like a death drum in her ears and her breath didn’t steady until the girls were almost back to the center of campus.
“Did – did you –”
“I didn’t hear anything,” her friend immediately responded.
The other nodded, face pale. “We didn’t hear anything and neither did you, understand?”
“I – but they were talking about a drug trade on the eastern side of Burnley tonight. No, don’t shush me. They – I can’t – they said millions of dollars. That’s so much, we have to – have to tell someone or else all those—”
One of her friends clapped a hand over the girl’s mouth. “Shut. Up,” she whispered, glancing around.
She frowned. No one was even here save one slightly rumpled, half-dead looking boy who was frowning at his laptop like it had personally denied him coffee.
Out of nowhere, one of her friends cracked a hesitant joke to which the other offered a shaky laugh. They continued talking about nonsense, refusing to acknowledge either the incident or the third member of their group for the remainder of the school day.
----------------
The girl stared out the bus window, conflicted, for the entire ride back to her shared apartment. It was situated right between Burnley and the Bowery – near enough to Crime Alley that the effects of such a large drug inflow would surely be visible even from her own third-story window.
Her musings continued as she speedwalked home from the bus stop, giving an extra wide berth to everyone she passed. She finally stopped at the corner of the block, in front of her own dirty brick apartment building. The next street was all that separated her from the next district over.
She shuddered.
--------------
Inside, she paced the length of the apartment. There was really nothing that could impede her stride, sparsely furnished as this place was. Still, despite its shortcomings, this place was something. It was warmth and safety. It was comfort enough to keep her satisfied.
Her roommates too. They were happy with their setup and definitely terrified that she might wreck what they had with the knowledge she had gained that day. It made sense, but… if she just let bad things happen, wouldn’t that cause the remaining good to vanish sooner anyway?
She paused before the large window opposite the front door. Dusk had begun to settle, casting the buildings before her in dark shadow. What of the people out there? Were there people so lacking and desperate for comfort that they would turn to drugs to feel better for just one night? Was desperation enough to make them fall prey to a deadly addiction?
What a question.
She did know the answer, of course, and someone… someone had to do something about it.
Her phone was in her shaking hand in a moment; numbers pressed in before she could change her mind. “Hi, I need to, um, report something to the police.”
----------------
An hour later, she was pacing again, checking the window every so often. She hadn’t been asked to give as many details as she had been expecting. What if the police showed up to collect more information? What if the bust was all going down right outside her window?
She checked outside again. A single streetlamp illuminated the scene in a dim orange light. A couple guys smoking. No officers.
She resumed her pacing. Surely they would need more information. They had to deal with this all tonight, which meant that her information would be…
Wait.
She stopped and darted to the window again. There were more guys than she thought, and now they were all headed together across the street toward her building.
Oh.
She backed away and drew the blinds shut.
Stupid.
Of course there were corrupt cops. This was Gotham City.
And of course they had to be the ones she contacted.
The bad guys were coming to get her, and as if that wasn’t enough, she had shown her face in a fully lit window like a lighthouse to the criminals.
She peered out the blinds. Something – many somethings – glinted in their hands.
She swallowed hard. No time for panic. No time for panic. If she did that she would die.
Could she run?
No, she’d never get far enough ahead to make it somewhere.
Fight?
She dismissed that thought quicker than the first. There was no way. She didn’t know the first thing to do against knives or whatever it was those men were carrying.
Those… knives.
Knives.
Her voice came in a strangled whisper. “They’re going to kill me.”
Her breaths came faster.
Hide? She needed to hide.
Where??
Table, couch, chair, nothing. Under her bed?
She shook her head. She had to breathe. She had to… to…
Call someone! Who?
Roommates out at a party. They wouldn’t be a help anyway.
Friends? What could they do?
Her family lived in Metropolis. If only she had stayed there with heroes like Superman to come whenever she—
She gasped. “Of course! The Bats all live here, and, I mean, they all gotta have the same area code, right? And they gotta have friends too and anyway there’s like a million of them, and some of them protect kids and I could look like a kid! Surely I could—”
A loud noise from downstairs.
The men were inside.
She dashed to lock the door and backed away into the corner of the room, whipping out her phone to press in the Gotham area code and then seven more digits.
It rang twice before a sharp voice answered. “Whaddya want.”
She didn’t have a script ready. “I, uh, I’m in trouble, I need someone to come help—”
“So call the police.” The line went dead.
“No, no, no, come on! Okay, okay next number.” It rang for what felt like an eternity as shouts echoed from downstairs.
Voicemail.
Next number.
An automated service.
The girl was nearly hyperventilating now as she typed in another random number. “Please, please, please, God, please let it be someone, please.”
“Hello?”
“Please!” She was nearly in tears. “Please, sir, I’m trying to find—I’m in trouble! These men, they’re trying to get in, they’re—”
“Slow down! Is this a prank call? I can’t understand half the words—”
“They are coming to kill me!!”
The line was silent for the eternity of a second before a curse cut through and then, “I know somebody. My boss might—where are you, kid?”
She recited the address automatically, praying it was the right one. She couldn’t remember.
“Okay, okay, hold on, I gotta call and see. But stay there, keep the door, ah, you know. Locked. Uh. Be right back.”
He hung up.
She stared at the phone in her hand, unable to breathe.
Loud footsteps echoed in the stairwell.
She couldn’t move – could only sit there frozen like a cornered rabbit.
Her phone rang.
“Hello? Hello?”
“Okay, boss is comin’. Keep your window open.”
“What?”
“Y’know the glass hole ‘n the wall? And stay back from it.”
Window.
Her eyes shot to the blinds even as her door handle rattled.
She lurched to her feet, phone still in a death grip, to do as she was told. It was one of those windows that swung out all the way instead of sliding. She’d wondered why before, but at the moment she couldn’t care less as she cranked it open as fast as she could before stumbling back to her corner.
Heavy pounding started on the other side of the door.
“Okay, and stay calm, a’right? You can do it.”
The terror coursing through her body strongly contradicted that idea.
The whirring sound of a grappling line cut through the air, followed immediately by the red, brown, and black figure of a helmeted vigilante swinging through her window. Red Hood gave her one glance before unhooking the line and placing his back to the wall beside the door, pulling out a gun and turning the lock.
“Stay low,” he muttered, turning his attention back to the door.
The door that was no longer pounding.
The girl’s gaze cut back and forth between the man in her apartment and the door which only barely muffled the sounds of thuds and sharp cries.
They both started when the door opened to—
“Hood!”
Was she dreaming, or was Red Robin in her doorway?
“Watch it, Red, I almost shot you!”
“What are you doing here? This isn’t your territory!”
“Close enough!” Red Hood swore. “Why are you even here? Trying to steal my job some more?”
“These were stragglers from my drug bust, I just— hey, hey, wait, who’s that? She’s…”
Red Hood turned, and now she really began to cry, gasping through sobs as tears ran down her face.
There was more swearing as they both stepped over toward her.
“Are you okay?”
“Are you injured at all?”
“Just breathe, okay.”
“Get back, you idiot, you’ll freak her out.”
“I’m trying to help!”
“Well do it right!”
----------------
Somehow, the two did manage to calm her down and get her story in full. The police showed up – supposedly the trustworthy guys this time – and the rest of the time passed in a blur until her roommates showed up again to get an earful from both vigilantes, who apparently decided to tag team their lecture.
At some point, the man on the phone had hung up, apparently satisfied at the outcome of the situation. She barely noticed it was all over until she was going to bed.
She woke up the next day exhausted and still shaken, but better, and somehow made it to her first class on time. Genuinely, she felt more confident and secure than she had in a long time, despite the night before. She had three new contacts in her phone, and she knew she could use them for any trouble maker, from the crooks around town to that weird rumpled boy from the day before who kept side-eyeing her. Weirdo.
No matter what, she knew that she could call someone, and they would come.