“Catcher”
Chapter Three A: Dead Ghost Walking
“What!”
Dick turned away and walked toward the window, and Superman couldn’t grasp the concept. Dick Grayson, Robin, had killed? Impossible. The boy was the best there was. He wouldn’t have—He couldn’t have…but he must have, Superman realized as Dick once more stared out the window.
“What happened?” Superman managed to ask.
Dick shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“Yes! Of course it—”
“Bruce won’t care,” Dick murmured. His shoulders began to shake, and he looked like the little boy who lost his parents all those years ago. “He’ll kick me out, and he’ll—”
Superman pitched forward. “That’s not true!”
“Isn’t it?
‘Every life has worth.’ He’ll have to turn me in,
“Why?” Superman pressed. “Why will Ra’s come for you? Why are you even here, Dick?”
Dick rubbed his cast, uncertainty twisting his face, and he hurried toward the door. “I—I think I’m going to work out a little.”
“With a broken arm?” Superman said skeptically. “Dick, you have to know that if you were ever to leave again, you’d take Bruce’s sanity with you.”
Dick halted just before the door. “He lived through it the first time.”
Superman
couldn’t believe the ignorance of the boy and clamped his hand over Dick’s
shoulder to turn him. “Dick, you’ve been back in
Now that Superman mentioned it… “Not once.”
“There’s a
reason for that,” Superman said with a tiny smile. “Take a look at what’s
happen to
With a pat on Dick’s shoulder, Superman left the boy to his own devices.
*^*^*
Dick stared at the shut door and shook his head. There was a never a “good” reason to kill. Bruce taught him that. What he did was wrong, and nothing he could do could change that. Nothing he could do would take back the betrayal Bruce would feel the moment he found out.
The boy pushed the thought away. Right now, he couldn’t be distracted by it. There was no redemption anyway, so why dwell on it? Instead, he took a brief detour to the monitor womb, where he checked to see the security camera in the interrogation room. Sure enough, Batman, Flash, and Wonder Woman worked over Deathstroke, but the man was a master assassin. Most likely, J’onn wouldn’t feel comfortable invading his mind, so the façade still held. And maybe Slade wasn’t prone to the effects of the lasso. Who knew?
Dick pulled his flashdrive from his cast and quickly downloaded the appropriate files before clipping it back in its holder and hiding it once more. Then, he headed into the gym, where the gymnastic equipment was set up. Dick briefly wondered if Batman had ordered it up but didn’t care as he shed his coat and rolled up the one sleeve that wasn’t impeded by the cast. His hands didn’t grasp the bar as easily as they should have, but he could still make do, even grunting past the pain.
Jumping onto the high bar, his troubles seemed so distant as he concentrated on the old routine, his body reacting as if he still did this every day down in the Batcave. It had been three years, and yet, it was just yesterday. God, how he’d missed this.
As the sweat began to seep into his T-shirt and drip from his forehead, he began to flip for the dismount when the doors to the gym opened.
“I still don’t see why we have to be here.”
Dick’s good hand slipped from the bar.
“Just because the freak went after Robbie McLamester doesn’t mean we have to—”
His reflexes took over, and Dick flipped with the momentum but still almost broke his right leg slamming into the mat.
Dick snorted under his breath. He really should do these routines with his catch—spotter. Yeah, with a spotter.
“Wow, Robbie, still the Boy Wonder after all these years, huh? Great move by the way. Maybe you teach the rest of us how to be that lame.”
“
“Hey, after what he said to Wally, he could use his head deflated.”
Dick pushed onto his knees and raised his dark eyes to see his four former teammates standing before the mat, their eyes condemning him in their glares. Dick shook it off. After having the two most hard-nosed men each act like his father, everyone else’s hard glare seemed like a happy expression.
“Why are you here?”
Aqualad took a step forward to hold out his hand. “Our mentors wanted to make sure we weren’t going to be targeted, too, so they figured it would be best if we came here.”
Dick looked at the hand and then pushed up on his own, keeping his face stoic through the pain in his throbbing arm. “No, why are you here? Don’t you have somewhere else to go other than the gym?”
“Okay, fine. I get you’re an ass now. That’s not cool, but I get it,” Kid Flash spat as he zipped in front of Dick. “But you don’t get to tell us where we can go and not go. You’re not the boss of us.”
“So you what? Just decided to come in here and pick a fight with me?” Dick asked, turning toward the refrigerator at the edge of the room. “You have nothing better to do in your lives?”
“No, we don’t,” Donna’s soft voice objected, and he heard her approach from behind. Even as he reached for a water bottle in the fridge, a gentle hand rubbed his shoulder. “We came to make sure you’re all right.”
“Oh, now you care,” Dick laughed dryly and freed his arm with one jerk. As he walked away from her, he mumbled, “Where were you two years ago?”
Kid Flash stood in front of him, and Dick took a half-step back at the closeness. “What happened two years ago?”
Dick took a long swig of his water before letting out a drawled sigh. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, all right? Just—Just leave me alone.”
“If nothing matters,” Aqualad repeated slowly, “then why won’t you just tell us?”
Dick stared straight into the calm violet eyes before blinking once. “Don’t you need to wet yourself every hour? You’ve got to be close now.”
“Oh, that tears it!” Speedy growled as he notched an arrow and pointed it directly at Dick’s chest. “No one makes fun of Gillhead but me!”
As Dick pushed past Aqualad, a hand upon the other’s shoulder, the former Boy Wonder realized he was right. His hand came off dry, and Garth would start gasping soon enough. Without warning, he proceeded to empty his entire water bottle over the Marine Marvel’s head. A thwang of an arrow signaled Speedy’s attack, and Dick reached out just in time to snatch the arrow’s rod just before Donna’s face.
Speedy missed his target by at least three feet.
He shouldn’t have, and as Dick turned and saw the reddened eyes, he strode forward to whisper for only Speedy to hear, “Say what you want about me, but at least I’m not a drug addict.”
Dick saw the yellow fist before it came at his face and caught with his good hand. Swinging around, he jammed his elbow into Speedy’s gut and kicked out with his back leg.
“Dick, stop it!” Wonder Girl shrieked.
Speedy flipped back to land his feet and pulled an arrow. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You only wish I didn’t,” Dick retorted.
Giving a battle cry, Speedy charged toward Dick, using his arrow like a dagger.
Wonder Girl chastised, “Roy!” but
he still attacked. Dick ducked, blocked, and avoided, though the hook of the
arrow snagged the shirt for a tiny tear. Dick then gave a roundhouse kick to
Speedy, leaving the Amazon to resort to, “Wally, take Dick! Garth, get
“Ooooh no. I’m not getting Dick!” Kid Flash protested
and slapped Aqualad in the shoulder. “You take Dick.
I’ll take
“No way!” Garth hit him back, his strength causing Kid Flash to stumble back a few steps. “Why do I get Dick?”
Luckily, the doors to the gym opened a second later.
“He’ll eventually talk, no matter how much he—”
Dick never saw Batman as he entered the room, never saw the rest of the Justice League as he dropped to the ground and kicked out Speedy’s legs. As the slightly older teen fell, his arrow snagged Dick’s T-shirt and tore it from the boy’s body, revealing his chest and back.
*^*^*
Batman stopped as the tearing of cloth stole his attention from Superman, and his eyes focused upon his former protégé’s now exposed torso. What he suspected never reached the evil truth of reality, and he realized now why Leslie had been so insistent to make him promise.
She was right. He had failed the boy.
Long, aged lashes carved Dick’s once immaculate skin, running down his shoulders to his sculpted abs. Even worse, burns accented the boy’s scars, as if someone had lit a metal rod and went down each lash mark.
Batman’s hands shook in tightened fists, and he forced himself to keep his eyes trained upon the boy’s scars.
Ra’s had his son flogged.
This was his fault, and damnit, Ra’s would not get away with it.
But none of that mattered at the moment. What he stared at was only the scars he could see. He couldn’t even imagine what the boy was feeling, what the boy had felt, what the boy would feel, and he didn’t know if he had the ability to tackle that.
He would have to. Somehow, he would have to get through to the boy, and at least he knew why he had such a problem.
This was between them.
Donna gasped. “Rhea…”
Speedy looked up from the floor; his eyes widened. “Oh, God…”
Dick started, and Batman actually felt the parental need to step forward as Dick’s eyes trembled, and his mortified body trembled. He glanced down at his exposed chest, the pink scar tissue raised upon his skin, and he flinched, as if remembering every snap of the whip echoing in the braying laughter of his tormentor.
“Dick…” Black Canary gasped, and her heels clicked against the floor as she rushed forward.
Wonder Woman, even with what she had seen in war, could not do anything more than put her hands over her mouth. Superman simply turned and flew from the room, and Green Arrow followed less than a moment later. Both would work their frustrations out—Superman in the heavens, Green Arrow on the streets. Green Lantern’s aura glowed a venomous green light, while Aquaman moved to his own protégé’s side, patting the wide-eyed marine marvel on the shoulder.
“Come along, lad,” he murmured, but the boy would not budge.
Flash zipped to Kid Flash’s side and took both he and Wonder Girl by the arms. Before they could even protest, they were out of the room.
Slowly, Speedy rose to his feet. “Dick…dude…I didn’t…”
Batman saw the attack before Speedy could even gasp. Dick’s eyes shot open, and before Black Canary reached them, Dick shot forward. As the tears seeped from his haunted eyes, his fist cracked against Speedy’s cheek. Dick pounced, but a hand clamped down on his shoulder and tugged back.
“Stop!”
Dick twisted out of the fist’s hold. “No!” he shrieked at the Dark Knight, who made an effective barrier between Speedy and him.
“It’s—It’s all right,” Batman comforted, but Dick struck out.
“No! It’s not all right!”
“You’re right. It’s not.” Batman whispered as he caught the flippant fist, and even as the words rolled over his tongue, Dick’s fight eased. “It’s not right, but I promise you, it will get better.”
Dick didn’t seem to hear him. The boy’s eyes dropped from his own, and he freed his hand from Batman’s to bend for his tattered shirt and try, somehow, to cover the scars. Batman didn’t hesitate as he unclasped his cape and draped it over the boy’s shoulders. Dick sought solace in it, closing the edges and effectively covering the evidence.
*^*^*
The boy
hadn’t moved from his windowsill since they returned and he threw on a long-sleeved
T-shirt and sweatpants. He clutched his legs to his chest and simply stared out
the window toward the
Alfred had checked Dick a few times, even left him a sandwich and a glass of milk, but when that failed to get a rise from the despondent lad, Bruce knocked on the door. Dick didn’t turn to him as he entered and took a seat on the boy’s bed, though his arms about his legs trembled slightly. It was then, observing the boy’s silhouette in the moon’s light, Bruce saw just how much the boy had grown. His sculpted muscles, which had been toned even when Dick was thirteen, were now defined under his long-sleeved shirt. His face had aged with whatever was left of his baby fat disappearing against his cheek bones, and his height! Where the boy had once reached the Dark Knight’s chest, he now rose to Bruce’s shoulders.
But the eyes—they were the most changed. What still glistened with the innocence of youth was now haunted by the horrors of reality and what no child so should ever witness or endure. As Dick stared out the window, Bruce could only guess what he had seen or what he wanted to see.
“I’m…I’m not the same kid who was taken three years ago,” Dick muttered, breaking through Bruce’s thoughts.
The older man nodded once and followed Dick’s gaze, hoping to see what the boy saw but only catching the faint city lights. “That fact has not escaped me.”
“Then why don’t you realize it and simply let me go?”
“Why do you stay?”
Dick let out a growling sigh. It was a fair question, and one Bruce knew the boy wouldn’t answer. Whatever Dick was hiding, he kept it buried where Bruce couldn’t touch it and Batman didn’t even know to look for it. Where once Dick would blurt his emotions at a simple greeting, he now kept them locked away from those the truth would hurt—and from himself.
“I won’t ask, but I will listen if you wish to tell me,” Bruce began, hoping Dick would take the bait. The boy didn’t, and thus, he pushed, “What happened doesn’t change how I…care about you.”
“Is that what this is?” Dick demanded. “ ‘Caring?’ At least Talia tells me she loves me.”
Ah, the crux of the issue. For all of Dick’s shields and barriers, the boy could still be easily manipulated by his insecurities, though Bruce had planted them himself unconsciously.
No, Bruce scolded himself. He couldn’t dwell on that now.
“You and Talia are close.”
Dick shrugged effortlessly. “She’s my catcher.”
The term, Bruce remembered Dick using from time to time but not directed toward Talia before. “Catcher?”
“Yes. You know—my mom and dad used to say that to fly, you had to be able to trust the other people to catch you. You had to trust them to always be there for you and catch you, especially if you fall. They would save you.”
“And Talia is that person?”
“Now.”
Meaning someone else once filled that role.
Bruce sucked in a sharp inhale. He had filled that role. When Dick’s parents died, he had caught the boy and had been there for him all but once, and that one time cost him a son.
“How did she become your catcher?”
Dick continued to stare out the window. “By being there when you weren’t.”
The words stung true. The boy hadn’t said the words to hurt, Bruce knew. He had simply spoken the truth, but that hurt the most. He had wanted to be there for the boy. He had wanted to save Dick, and all that he did—all his searching, his work, his mission—he’d sacrificed everything for the boy.
Yet Bruce couldn’t save him.
“I…don’t know what you went through, but—”
Dick still had yet to meet his eyes. “Anything I have to say you wouldn’t want to hear.”
“I already suspected that,” Bruce said, “but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t listen nonetheless.”
The boy’s body seemed to shrivel when he blew out a sigh, and he gently lowered his forehead to his knees. “What’s the point, Bruce? Why are you even here? Is it the guilt? Because I don’t blame you.”
How could the boy not? He had said such less than a month ago.
Dick raised his head again, and this time, he tipped it back against the wall. “What you saw…I just wasn’t strong enough to stop it.”
There were
many times the urge came to Bruce. The first time being when he saw the shocked
and horrified boy on the side of the center ring, his body and mind unable to
process what had occurred. At the time, the only support Bruce could give was
his jacket and a reassurance that things would get better. The second time the
urge came was when he found the boy at the hands of an assassin, circled by his
peers at the
The third was when he fought the boy in the woods.
He didn’t actually give into the urge to embrace the boy until now—as his hands slipped over the boy’s tense shoulder and held the raven mop to his chest.
“If you weren’t strong enough,” Bruce eased, “then you wouldn’t be alive today.”
Dick said nothing, did nothing for the longest time before his face eventually curled inward, and his arms came up to grab Bruce’s torso. He didn’t cry. Whatever tears he had dried long ago upon his cheeks. He did tremble, however, and he eventually pulled away, his face turned toward the window again.
He never met Bruce’s eyes.
Bruce kept his hands trained upon the boy’s shoulders. “I want you to be my partner again.”
It wasn’t meant as a question. It wasn’t meant as a command either. A statement. A fact.
Now the boy freed himself from Bruce’s grasp. “I—I can’t.”
A deep frown carved Bruce’s face as that sharp ache he familiarized himself with in Dick’s absence once more plagued him. “Can’t…or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
“Why?” Bruce demanded.
“I just can’t!” Dick screamed as he stood and moved away from Bruce.
Bruce took a deep inhale. He wasn’t like he hadn’t expected this, but the outburst—it told more of the story than Dick could ever. “We all make mistakes, Dick. Some are worse than others, but we are defined by our ability to persevere.”
“Not every mistake can be forgotten or resolved.”
“That’s not our place to decide.”
He pushed the boy too far, gave a little too much, though Bruce doubted Alfred would believe that.
“And just when is it our place?” Dick argued. “It’s okay for us to break the law by being vigilantes or breaking and entering or violating national security, but it’s not okay to…to…” His voice drawled out as he lost strength, and the young man seemed like a boy again, uncertain of his future, uncertain of present and longing for the past.
“It’s not okay to…?” Bruce prompted, but Dick hung in the middle of the room, shaking his head.
“If you knew the truth, you would feel differently—about me, about everything.”
Bruce never took his eyes off the utterly devastated boy, and what he suspected, he now knew. Heaving a deep breath, Bruce patted Dick on the shoulder as he passed. “Do you honestly think I don’t?”
Now, Dick’s weary eyes met Bruce’s, and Bruce knew the whole truth, even though he knew none of it.
“No matter what Ra’s did to you or made you do, I know you. You wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t have to. It was one mistake. Don’t let it consume you.”
As he walked out, the boy called back, “Bruce?”
He turned halfway around. “Yes?”
The boy shunned away to hide the tears that finally crested, not that he needed to. He never needed to. “I broke my vow to you.”
“And I broke mine to protect you, but we’re still here, Dick. That’s all that matters.” As the boy retook his position at the window, Bruce left the room. “That’s all that has ever mattered.”
He shut the door behind him, aware he would not get anymore from the boy. He’d pushed Dick enough and probably receive Alfred’s wrath because of it, but he didn’t get what he wanted, what the boy needed. Hopefully, that would come soon. He only hoped it would be before Ra’s decided to attack once more.
“I should take from the cease-fire of shouting that Master Dick still occupies the house?” Alfred asked as he put a casserole dish in the oven.
Bruce slipped into one of the bar seats at the kitchen counter. “He’s keeping something from me, Alfred.”
“Is that new, sir? When he first became a part of this family, I believe you were disheartened that he never told you about the elephant he used to have.”
“This is not about pets. He thinks he failed me, and he won’t tell me how. All he does is stare out that damn window, looking for God only knows what.” Bruce, himself, averted his eyes out the French doors and stared at the well-manicured backyard of the manor. “I…I think he’ll leave again if I can’t reach him in time.”
Wiping off the counter and setting down a coaster, Alfred prompted, “Might it have occurred to you to ask the young master just what he is looking for?”
Bruce snatched the glass of water once Alfred sat it down. “He won’t tell me.”
“Then perhaps you should employ the help of others in whom he might confide.”
Slowly, Bruce pried his eyes from the lawn to meet Alfred’s, which twinkled with wisdom. “One day, Alfred, you’ll have to explain to me how it feels to know everything there ever is to know.”
“It is rather tedious at times, sir, but one makes due for those in one’s charge. Dinner will be done at seven. I suggest you coax Master Dick out of his room by then.”
Nodding, Bruce headed toward the study to make a few calls.
*^*^*
Laying stomach-down on his bed, Dick crossed his socked feet at the ankles and pretended to read the chapter Alfred assigned him for homework. After all, what did it really matter if he knew the difference between Henry the Seventh and Henry the Eighth? The latter continuously got more media coverage with multiple TV shows, movies, and even a parody, but that mattered little four centuries after the man’s death.
He was about ready to give in for the week when a whirlwind flipped Dick’s book he pretended to read several pages forward. The teen looked up to see a smirking redhead with sneakers in his hands and red boots on over his jeans.
“Get up and get dressed. We’re hanging out,” Wally West ordered, his smile never wavering.
Dick blinked once, twice, thrice before narrowing his eyes. “Do you have selective memory or something?”
Exasperated, Wally shook his head, and before Dick could protest, his books were thrown upon his desk and his sneakers were in front of his face. “Look, you might not be my best friend, but I’m definitely yours.”
“No you’re not.”
“Uh, yeah I am or else I wouldn’t be here right now.”
Well, Wally had him there.
“Look, there are two ways we can do this,” Wally began with an exaggerated heaved sigh, and his words increased in speed. “Either you come with me or I’m taking you. Simple as that. Your choice—or not your choice, considering…so, make your choice already, huh? Huh! Huhhuhuhhuh—too slow!”
By the time Dick blinked, he stood
amongst four other civilian-dressed teenagers. Donna Troy stood on his left, a
red tank with a jacket covering her top and ending at her waist. Red boots gave
her a few inches to make her taller than Dick. To his right Garth wore a simple
navy vest over a turtleneck and jeans, while
“Thought you might want these,” he said handing the articles over.
Dick took the jacket reluctantly before pulling his arms through the sleeves. Lifting each foot onto a mall support beam to tie the shoes, Dick growled, “What are you guys doing?”
“What do you think?” Garth said with a barely contained smile. “The JLA decided it was all right for us to hang together again, and we thought we’d celebrate by actually doing it!”
“‘Decided it was all right to hang’?” Dick echoed. “What do you mean? When has the JLA ever told us we couldn’t meet?”
“After you went missing,” Donna replied as she took Dick by the arm and began to lead the group through the Gotham Square Mall corridors. “The JLA deemed it was too dangerous for us to stay together even as friends, let alone a team.”
“When she
says ‘JLA,’ she really means Batman,”
“And maybe he was right,” Donna said, glaring over her shoulder. “We did lose our leader.”
Dick ducked his head.
“That
wasn’t our fault!”
“Enough!” Dick shouted and clamped his hands over the sides of his head. “Why are we even here? What’s the point of this? What’s the point of anything? Look, if you guys want to hang, fine, but leave me out of it. I’m not a part of this team anymore. We’re not friends, and I just want to—”
“What is
your problem?” Wally demanded, zipping to cut in between Dick and Donna. “We
did nothing to you. We didn’t abandon you that night, all right? We were there,
and I’m sorry we couldn’t fight off those ninjas, but that’s not our fault. And
I’m not blaming the Bat like
Dick stared noncommittally at his once best friend for a few tense seconds. No one had talked to him that way since Ra’s, not even Batman, and a small smile teased his lips. “Bruce wasn’t right, okay? He just didn’t want Ollie, Diana, Arthur, and Barry feeling what he was.”
“That’s not
what the Bat thought,”
“You don’t know him like I do. Trust me. He cares more than you give credit for.”
“That I don’t doubt,” Garth agreed, hitting Dick in the shoulder. “After all, for him to abandon—*cough*” What began as a single dry wheeze became a fit, and the tumbling water of the fountain behind him drew Garth nearer until the boy stripped off his vest and leapt right in.
Wally held back a snicker of laughter and zipped to tease Garth while Donna moved to the edge to coax him out—or try to at least. Dick stuffed his hands into his pockets and leaned his back against the wall of the Banana Republic to watch.
“So, how long have you been on drugs?”
“Nope,” Dick said easily. “Just making conversation.”
“Then don’t.”
Dick fought back the smile trying to curve his lips at the sight of the security guards dashing through the mall, and Donna fitfully tugging on Garth’s arm and trying not to get wet. Wally zipped about the mall, tripping the guards and sending them crashing into a kiosk of picture frames.
Taking one glance at Roy, Dick declared, “So, heroin, you say. Not a bad choice. I picked you for a cocaine man, but I guess I was wrong.”
“Long sleeves. You’re hiding
the marks.”
A tense
silence swallowed any other words as Dick simply watched Donna finally pull
Garth against her chest and out of the pool before flying onto the second floor
to avoid the swiftly rising guards. A reminiscent smile crossed his face as he
remembered a conversation he had with
God, how he missed them when he was with Ra’s.
“…Dick?”
“Yeah,
“Don’t…Don’t tell G.A., okay? He’ll throw me out, and—and—”
As he heard
the words, Dick cringed. He had spoken them to
“Yeah, all right. I won’t.”
A relieved sigh blew the tips of Dick’s hair.
“But get off it, okay? And don’t go out on patrol stoned.”
No, Dick
really didn’t think he did, and he doubted
Sighing, Dick pushed off the wall. “Come on. Let’s collect Wally and find Donna and Garth.”
As they moved away, a trembling hand gripped Dick’s shoulder. “Y’know, none of them get it. None of them understand.”
Even though
He and Roy, though? They were wards to millionaires.
Just what the hell was a ward anyway? They weren’t sons. They weren’t really “friends,” with Bruce and Ollie being their guardians. They were “charity cases.”
Sighing,
Dick hit
*^*^*
“It doesn’t matter. I’m just going to change in another hour anyway, so why—”
“Because we’re going to eat, and you can’t sit in the food court soaking wet,” Dick declared as he accepted Garth’s wet clothes over the top of the dressing room and deposited them in the garbage. “The security guards will still be looking for you and Donna, so we’re going to have to keep a low profile.”
“What about Wally?” Garth asked.
A red zip came to a stop just a few inches from Dick. “What about Wally?” Wally echoed.
Dick hardly held back the grin from his face. “I don’t think we have to worry about him. The guards won’t be able to catch the human lightning bolt.”
“Slowpokes, all of you.” Wally returned the grin. “By the way, Donna says she’s done.”
“She and Roy find a different enough outfit?” Dick asked as the door opened and Garth exited in a pair of jeans and a jacket.
Wally
nodded. “Yeah, and she dropped her hair from the ponytail.
“Hey!” Garth shouted.
“It’s nothing personal,” Wally assured. “And no matter what I call you, nothing is as bad as wearing those short pants.”
Rolling his eyes, Dick flopped open his wallet and pulled out his credit card. “Go. Just go.”
Wally accepted it easily and zipped about the prince of Atlantis to steal the boy’s tags before exiting once more. Garth looked down at his new outfit—jeans and an overjacket with a T-shirt underneath. “How do you guys live like this? It’s so…confining.”
“And dry?” Dick smiled.
“Well, yeah, that too,” Garth relented and shook his head. “Dick, there are just so many times that I feel…trapped up here. The air—It’s everywhere. It’s like it strangles me, and I just…”
“—can’t breathe,” Dick finished. Inhaling sharply, he led Garth from the room. “I—I can relate.”
Garth snatched Dick’s wrist before they entered the main store. “Dick…it wasn’t easy, was it, being that insane topsider’s heir?”
Dick blinked at Garth and saw the concern shimmering in the compassionate Atlantean’s eyes. He opened his mouth to answer and saw the shadow move under one of the dressing room doors. “You do realize that there are six billion topsiders, right?”
“Yes, but not every one of them is insane, and don’t change the subject.”
Sighing, Dick looked back at the shadow. No one had come in and out of the dressing room since they entered. “Garth…it really isn’t easy being the prince of seventy percent of the world either, but we all do our best, y’know?”
“Yeah, well, with Arthur, Jr. now, that’s not really true…”
“I know. I feel the same way with….”
Garth’s eyes became bright violet. “With whom?”
Dick started. “Garth, would you, uh, mind if I just meet you guys at the food court? I have to hit the bathroom.”
Garth blinked but nodded. “Not too hard, all right?” As he headed out, he stopped at the doorway and looked back. “Dick, don’t go back. Without you here, there isn’t much to keep me topside, and Aquaman likes that too much.”
Dick snorted. “Yeah, Bruce is the same way.”
As much as the JLA approved of their friendship, it caused many problems, including making their protégés targets on a larger scale than they would be with just their mentors. But they needed this. They weren’t normal kids living normal lives, and they needed each other just to keep sane.
He needed them to keep sane.
Dick let his thoughts slide as he headed farther into the corridor and stopped just before the shadowed dressing room. He made sure to stay completely silent until the door creaked open, and then he pounced. Grabbing the person by the collar, Dick shoved his opponent against the back wall.
When the shock wore off, Dick furled an eyebrow at the boy he held in his arms. The person was younger than him but not by much with black hair dusting upon his brow and glowing eyes—were they reddish brown?
“Okay, just who are you, and why have you been following us?”
The boy trembled in Dick’s hold and hesitantly raised his eyes. “I—I didn’t mean to—”
“Who is it? My father? Is he trying to keep tabs on me?”
“B—Bruce Wayne?”
“Don’t play the idiot. Ra’s doesn’t think I can handle this, is that it?” Dick responded to the boy’s fidgeting by slamming him against the wall again. “What is he—”
“I thought you were Dick Grayson!” the boy finally shrieked. “He used to go to my school. I—I thought it would be a good story to write for The Bristol High Beat.”
The accent
wasn’t that of a Gothamite. It was too crisp and
clean. His stuttered speech was practiced, and the
Just who was this kid?
“The paper?” Dick echoed. “You’re stalking me over a high school paper?”
“Hey, every year one kid makes reporter of the year!” the boy exclaimed, his voice indignant as he brushed off Dick’s hands. “If I interview you, I’ll get it this year, not Winnie Masters, and if you knew Winnie Masters, you would totally—”
The words were lies, but this boy, Dick could tell, was no threat. Shaking his head, he cut the boy off. “Look, whatever, okay? Just stop following my friends and me.”
“But what about my story?” the boy lurched forward to snatch Dick’s sleeve. “Can’t you just answer one question?”
Rolling his eyes, Dick freed himself from the boy’s painfully tight grasp and headed out the door. “Yeah, while you were worrying about girls and forgetting to do your homework, I was kidnapped by a deranged four-hundred-year-old who trained me to lead his League of Assassins. Oh, and also help to destroy the world as we know it.”
The boy narrowed his eyes and pushed past Dick in a furious stride. “You could have just said you didn’t want to answer the question.”
Dick let out a growling sigh. Like he really needed this now.
Shaking his head, Dick followed the boy out, but as he left the dressing room area, the boy had already disappeared. Dick wondered how he could have left so quickly but let the thought go. One less worry for him to dwell upon.
Dick stuck his hands in his pockets and weaved through the cosmetic section toward the store exit when his sharp eyes caught the flicker of completely white hair before a rack of jeans off to the side. The tall man, dressed in a long trench coat, stood with his back to Dick before his boot heels clicked upon the floor, and he strode out of the store. He blended into the crowds of Gothamites hustling about the mall corridor.
Dick waited until a pierce of anxiety stabbed his gut before his leisurely promenade became a bustling jog, and he dashed after the man. A flash of white hair here, a trench coat there, and Dick barely kept the man in his sights.
It couldn’t be, the teen told himself. There was no way this man could be here.
Yet as the man passed under a sign
for a
He felt the knife sinking into the flesh.
Only once the man turned and disappeared into the crowd did Dick breathe, and he ran forward to the four-way corridor of the mall. Standing before the fountain Garth previously occupied, Dick looked left, then right, whirling on his heel. His eyes frantically danced upon the shoulders of the Gothamites, never laying upon the white hair.
It couldn’t be, he reiterated to himself. It wasn’t possible.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it? It was possible.
“Dusan…?”
To Be Continued…