Confession is always weakness. The grave soul keeps its own secrets, and takes its own punishment in silence. – Dorothy Dix
"You can't be serious," Dick said. "Look at him!" He gestured at the skinny boy playing dress up in his old uniform with an angry sweep of his arm. "He's what, twelve? Taking him on patrol is one thing – at least you're there if things get outta control. But you can't possibly think that it's okay to use him as bait for a bunch of sexual predators, even if it is to take down the largest kiddie porn ring in Gotham!"
"I'm thirteen, asshole, and just because you couldn't hack it doesn't mean I can't," Jason cut in.
"Couldn't hack it?" Dick repeated in disbelief. "Look, kid, I've been training since I was old enough to walk. I learned how to fly before I learned how to ride a bike. You've been training for six months, and you've been on the job for what, a month? Do you really think you're ready for a solo mission, especially one as dangerous as this?"
"Two months, and I'm not a fucking kid!" Jason spat. "I grew up in Gotham, in the neighbourhood we patrol, and I know more about what goes down in this city than you ever will, Dick."
"Using my name like an insult – real original!" Dick sneered.
"He has a point," Batman interjected.
Dick bristled at the rejoinder, but when he saw the way Jason straightened at the tinge of pride in Batman's voice, it was like being kicked in the gut. He remembered what that was like, the yearning for approval, the unshakeable faith in His wisdom, the certainty that he would follow Him into Hell if that was what it took. Dick wanted to slap some sense into the kid, warn him, shake him, make him see that Batman was just as flawed and fallible as the rest of them, but he stood paralysed by the weight of countless years of experience. He closed his eyes and swallowed down the clot in his throat. If Batman had asked him to do this when he was Robin, he knew exactly how he would've reacted. Minus the casual swearing – allowed these days, it seemed - he would've done the same.
"Why don't you run along now and let the grownups talk," Dick said to Jason, though he kept his eyes on Batman. Even then, he sensed Jason's hackles rise a good inch or two.
"Look, old man-"
"Give us a minute, Jason," Batman interrupted.
Dick glanced over just in time to see hurt flicker over Jason's face before a stubborn frown replaced it. Yes, it was all so very sickeningly familiar.
"But-"
"Now," Batman commanded.
Jason let out a petulant huff, but he leapt up onto one of the overhead platforms and was gone before Dick drew his next breath.
"Two months! He's been Robin for two months, Bruce!" Dick exploded. "Covert ops are psychologically demanding, and they're tough even for seasoned cops. He's not ready for this kind of pressure. You're just setting him up to fail, and this time the stakes are a lot higher than one of your little pass/fail scenarios."
"How would you know what he's capable of?" Batman countered. "You haven't been back to Gotham since the gauntlet."
Dick's temper flared at the criticism, but he kept his angry retorts to himself. It wouldn't have mattered what he said about the good he was doing in Bludhaven, or with the Titans. In Bruce's eyes, he'd abandoned Gotham, and the Batman.
"These past eight months, I've trained with Jason, fought with him, bled with him. I know what he's capable of, and not only is he ready, he's willing."
"Of course he's willing; he'd jump off a bridge stark naked if you asked him to," Dick said with a roll of his eyes. The gesture would have been impossible to see behind his whiteout lenses but he knew it carried through in his voice nonetheless. "He has no idea what he's getting himself into. Have you thought about what would happen if something goes wrong, what situation that would leave him in?"
"Thoroughly," Batman said flatly. "He'll be on comms, and we'll have eyes on him at all times. If it starts to go south, we'll abort."
Dick shook his head. "You're unbelievable, you know that? I never blamed you for all those 'boy hostage' situations, but now, I have to wonder how much of that was preventable. How many times did I follow you down the rabbit hole, blindly trusting that you'd worked out every angle and planned for every contingency? Now I see you were just rolling the dice every time we stepped out the door!"
Batman's lips compressed into a thin, hard line, and his hands seemed to form fists of their own accord. Dick instinctively braced for an attack. After several more interminable minutes of glaring, jaw clenching silence, however, Batman turned away from him, and Dick knew the discussion was over.
"We're going, with or without you. If you truly care for his safety, you'll be there to watch his back."
Dick sighed. What chance did he ever have to fight Bat logic?
"Well, whaddya think?"
Dick turned around and just managed to suppress a gasp of horror. Batman was not so lucky – Dick caught the hitch in his breath even from two paces away.
Jason looked down at his threadbare t-shirt and holey jeans before eyeing them both apprehensively. "What?" he demanded. "Alfred made me throw away my old clothes, and the ones you bought me a few months ago still look too new."
"Where did you get those?" Batman asked, his voice carefully neutral.
"I'm afraid I gave them to him, Master Bruce," Alfred said from the top of the stairs. He descended a moment later with a tray full of tea and sandwiches.
Jason's gaze darted between the three men before it finally settled on Dick. "These are your old clothes, aren't they?"
Dick nodded. He had packed light when he'd left the Manor for the last time as a resident. At the time, he hadn't considered what would happen to all the things he'd left behind – he'd just assumed that Alfred would dispose of them. It didn't surprise him that Alfred had kept some of it, either as mementos or in the hopes that he'd return some day. It had to be Alfred – Bruce would probably have had a bonfire with his stuff, if he'd known any of it was still in the house.
"They're a bit big on you," Batman said, "but it does make you seem younger."
"And more vulnerable," Dick added, his lip curling with disgust.
"Yeah," Jason said as a positively predatory smirk slid slowly across his face. He fisted a hand on his narrow hip. "Those paedo fucks won't know what hit 'em."
"Language," Batman admonished, though Dick found that evil smirk on such an innocent looking boy far more disconcerting than the filth pouring from his mouth.
"I took the liberty of sewing a communications unit into the shirt, as I do with the uniforms," Alfred said.
"That's great and all, but what if they take my clothes off?" Jason asked.
Dick grimaced, but if Batman reacted to the question, Dick couldn't tell.
"Then you'll have this," Batman said as he handed Jason a watch. "Even if we can't hear you, we'll still be able to track you with this."
Jason put on the cheap-looking black plastic wristwatch with some cartoon character or other decorating the face. It looked like exactly the sort of thing a kid might wear. The knowledge that Bruce had planned this down to the last detail should have put Dick's mind at ease, but instead it made him feel slightly nauseous. There was something deeply disturbing about Batman putting that much time and energy into thinking about how he can dress Robin up as a child prostitute.
"What about weapons?" Jason asked.
Batman shook his head. "We can't take the risk. They're likely to search you, and if you're carrying a weapon, it will raise their suspicions. We want them to think you're an ordinary street kid."
Jason snorted. "Come on, Bruce, even ordinary street kids carry weapons. At least let me have a blade. I could hide it in my shoe."
"He's probably right," Dick said. "Even if they end up discovering it, it's plausible that a kid living on the street would have one, and it will help sell his story."
"All right," Batman relented. "But I don't have a knife to give you – at least, not one that would fit the persona."
"It's ok, I already took care of it," Jason said. He patted the high-top sneaker on his right foot with a grin.
"Next thing you know, he'll be hiding switchblades in his pixie boots," Dick muttered under his breath.
Batman sighed, but he didn't comment.
"All right, so come on, are we gonna stand here all night, or are we gonna do this?" Jason asked, bouncing unconsciously from foot to foot in his excitement.
Dick glanced at Batman. "Ready when you are," he said.
Batman nodded. "Let's go."
Dick perched on his rooftop vantage point and scanned the area with his binoculars. The streets looked empty, but there was life, if you knew where to look. Furtive movements in shadowy corners, the odd voice carried on the wind, the occasional person smoking in a doorway, shoulders hunched against the biting wind. Even in his thinsulate Nightwing suit, Dick was starting to get a bit chilly from inactivity. He swung his binoculars back to Jason, who was standing on the street corner fifteen floors below and shaking like a leaf in his tattered t-shirt and torn jeans.
"How you holdin' up, little wing?" he murmured.
"Like gangbusters," Jason said brightly, though he couldn't quite manage to suppress the chattering of his teeth. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He brought the pack to his lips, extracted one cigarette, and lit it with practised ease.
"Where did you get that?" Batman snapped, his voice tight with disapproval.
"It's all part of the image, right? Don't sweat it, B," Jason said. He took a deep drag, held it for a few seconds, and exhaled a long stream of smoke and steam into the frosty night with an obscene groan of pleasure.
"We talked about this," Batman insisted. "Lung capacity, stamin-"
"Seriously?" Jason interjected. "You're pimping my twelvie ass on a street corner at two in the morning, and you're gonna lecture me about the evils of smoking?"
Dick clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a hoot of laughter. "He's got you there, B," he said with a low chuckle. He felt a warmth in his chest when Jason shot a conspiratorial grin in his general direction.
Batman's irritated silence only made Jason smoke with more exaggerated enjoyment, and Dick couldn't help but shake his head at the sheer audacity of the kid.
"Heads up, we have company," Batman said.
Dick's attention snapped to the car rolling slowly down the street. It squeaked to a stop in front of Jason and the passenger side window rolled down like an open invitation.
Jason took a final drag on his cigarette before he flicked the butt away. He approached the car with a sultry, slouching gait and draped himself over the open window. "Hey man, you lookin' for a good time?" he drawled.
"How old are you, kid?" the john asked. His voice was low and gravelly, and though the ability of the omnidirectional mic to pick up sound degraded the farther the person was from the mic, Dick could hear him quite clearly.
"Old enough to know better, young enough not to care," Jason quipped. "You like what you see? 'cause I'm definitely diggin' what I see."
The john hesitated. "You a cop or something? I heard about these sting operations on TV. It's called entrapment!"
Jason snorted. "Do I look like a cop to you?"
"No, you look like a kid. Shouldn't you be home doing your homework?"
"Get rid of him," Batman said. "I ran his plates – he's not connected to the ring."
"Shouldn't you be home fucking your wife?" Jason retorted without missing a beat.
"What? Hey, fuck you!"
"Yeah, you wish," Jason said. He kicked the car door hard enough to dent it. "Get outta here, you sick freak!"
"What the fuck? You little cocktease!"
Jason kicked the car again. "Get the fuck outta here, asshole, before I start screaming and that crazy batfreak shows up! I hear he ain't too partial to paedos!"
"Fuck this, man, I don't need this shit," the john yelled as he peeled away with a screech of tires.
Jason flipped the john off and yelled a few more obscenities for good measure until the car disappeared around the corner.
"Crazy batfreak?" Batman said, and Dick could almost hear his eyebrow raising.
Jason laughed. "Hey, it got rid of him, didn't it?"
Dick chuckled. "Your reputation precedes you, B."
Jason grinned up at each of them in turn, and Dick couldn't help but notice how easy this seemed for him. He was so completely in his element that he looked like he belonged there, in those clothes, on that street corner. Maybe Bruce was right about this one –Jason was a tough, smart kid, and he was handling this like a pro, thinking on his feet, adapting to the situation. He smiled, feeling some of his anxiety ebb.
"Man, one customer in two hours, that's dire even for me. You really think they'll come?" Jason said. He paced back and forth a few times and finally drew out another cigarette.
"They'll come," Batman assured him.
"You keep smoking like that and you'll stunt your growth," Dick said.
Jason snorted. "I'll still be taller than you, old man."
"How d'you figure that, squirt, when you can barely fit into my old clothes?" Dick teased.
"'cause my old man was taller'n you, almost as tall as B, and bigger'n you, too. Ma always said I looked just like him."
Dick winced at the wistfulness in his voice, obvious even through the somewhat tinny mic. "I'm sure you'll-"
"Incoming," Batman cut in.
The three of them watched as a large black van with blackout windows rolled down the street and came to a stop in front of Jason. The passenger side window rolled down.
"Hey kid, how much for a blowjob?" the man asked without preamble.
Jason made a show of eyeing the man up and down. "For you, twenty."
The man grinned and jerked a thumb at the van's side door. "Get in," he said.
"Mind if I finish my smoke?" Jason asked.
"Hey, I ain't got all night, you know?" the man said impatiently.
"The van matches the description from the witnesses you interviewed, but I need to confirm that the plates match," Batman said.
"Stall him, Robin," Dick said.
"All right, all right, keep your pants on," Jason said. "Just gimme a sec." He moved to the side door and hesitated, his hand hovering over the door handle.
Suddenly, the van door flung open. Someone inside grabbed Jason's wrist and tried to yank him into the van. Jason jerked back instinctively, pulling the man into view. Dick caught a glimpse of a man dressed in black, with a black ski mask on his face, and a cold shiver ran down his spine.
"What the hell?" Jason yelped as he struggled to break out of the man's grip. "Get the fuck off me, asshole!"
Dick thought the struggle was an act – at least, he hoped it was. "Come on, B, we need a confirmation."
"Thirty seconds," Batman said.
The man reached for his belt and whipped out a gun.
Dick gripped the wingding in his hand so hard it cut into his palm. "Come on, come on," he muttered.
Jason moved to kick the gun out of the man's hand, but just then, the driver leapt out of the passenger side door and grabbed him from behind. Thrown off balance by the two hundred pound man clinging to his back, Jason's kick went wild and caught the gunman across the face. The gunman staggered back from the blow.
"It's confirmed, Robin, it's them!" Batman said. A mixture of relief and dread flooded through Dick, with queasy results.
The gunman howled in pain. "Ah fuck, I think he broke my nose!"
"Serves you right, you kid-fucking perv!" Jason retorted.
The driver locked Jason's arms behind him and the man with the gun slugged him in the stomach. When Jason doubled over in agony, the gunman cracked him across the back of the head with the butt of the gun. Jason went limp in the driver's arms.
"Ow, fuck!" the gunman yelled as he touched his bleeding nose. "Fucking kid!"
The driver dumped Jason unceremoniously into the van. "Violent little shit, ain't he?"
"Robin? Can you hear me? Make a sound if you can hear me," Batman said.
Dick thought Bruce sounded remarkably composed, considering how his own heart was hammering in his chest. He strained to hear something, anything from Jason's mic, but all he heard were the sounds of the men manhandling Jason into the van.
"This wasn't part of the plan. He wasn't supposed to be unconscious. Why did it take so long to ID the van?" Dick asked in frustration.
"I had to cross reference the registration with known members of the ring – it takes as long as it takes. Relax, Nightwing. He'll come to eventually, and in the meantime, we can still track him. Get ready to move."
Dick shot his grappling gun and swung down to street level, where he had hidden his bike behind a large dumpster. He heard the heavy van door slide shut followed by the roar of the engine as it accelerated away. A fraction of a second later, he looked up to see a dark, sleek shape take off from the rooftop of a building a block away. His bike roared to life a second later, and he sped after the van.
"Fucking kid," the gunman swore. He grunted, and Dick heard the unmistakeable sound of someone hitting a body, as though the man had deliberately kicked Jason's unconscious form.
Dick tried to concentrate on the little green blip on his screen, to take solace from it, but it was nearly impossible not to imagine all the things that could be happening to Jason inside that van. As leader of the Titans, it was sometimes his obligation to send his friends into perilous situations, but they rarely conducted covert operations like this. As he'd learned during those months between Robin and Nightwing, the costume accorded you a certain amount of respect, and fear of retribution from superpowered friends tended to reduce the chances of things like this happening to you. Granted, sometimes it also painted a giant target on your back, as his boy hostage days proved, but at least then you could fight your enemy in earnest, without pretense or pulled punches.
"Hey man, watch how you mark the merchandise. You know the boss don't like it when we bring 'em in all roughed up. The clients like to do their own marking, if you know what I mean."
"Will you look at my fucking face? Do I look like I give a shit what he wants?" The gunman grunted again, and Dick winced. "He's lucky I don't slit the little bastard's throat. In fact, I think I deserve a little somethin' for my trouble. He ain't pretty like some of the others, but hey, a hole's a hole, right?"
Dick bit the inside of his mouth so hard he tasted blood. "B, we can't…"
"Robin, wake up!" Batman hissed.
"Hey, I told you to lay off, man! You know how much shit we'd be in? You break it, you bought it."
"Come on, I'll be all gentle-like, no one'll even know."
"That's it, get your ass up here, you're driving. We're already barely making quota this month; I ain't getting less than top dollar for this one just because you can't keep your dick in your pants!"
The gunman sighed. There were sounds of shifting and grunting. The van swerved slightly in front of Dick when the kidnappers changed drivers, but then it righted itself.
"Well, at least you didn't mark his face…much. Hey wait a minute…I know this kid. Son of a bitch, I know this kid!"
"Whaddya mean?" the gunman asked.
"We had one escape, almost a year ago. Vicious little bastard almost bit clean through O'Malley's ear, and then he jumped out of the van going sixty down the freeway. I don't even know how the kid survived, but fucking hell, it's him all right. O'Malley's gonna want a piece of this kid, for sure."
"Hey, he's gotta wait in line, 'cause I want mine first!"
"Yeah well, the boss'll decide what happens to him. Now shut up and drive."
Dick snarled inarticulately, slamming a fist down hard on the handlebar of his bike. "Did you know about this?" he demanded.
"I…had my suspicions," Batman said in a strained whisper.
"Goddammit!" Dick swore as realisation hit him like a fist to the face. The reason Jason looked so at home on that street corner was that it probably was his corner, before Bruce picked him up. And that comment about how slow trade was…Dick wanted to kick himself. Actually, he wanted to kick Bruce, repeatedly, and then Jason for a little while, and then Bruce again for good measure. "This whole operation was his idea, wasn't it? You lied to me!"
"I knew you would never have agreed if you knew the truth."
"You're goddamn right I wouldn't have, because it's beyond reckless! How could you let him do this?"
"He'd been investigating their operation for months in secret before I caught him. He was obsessed with finding out where they kept the children. I knew it would be pointless to forbid him. Sooner or later, he would have tried this, with or without our help."
"So you just went along with it?" Dick asked incredulously. He found it difficult to believe that if he were in Jason's place, Bruce would have allowed let alone condoned such blatant insubordination. They were talking about a man who was so controlling that he'd actually fired Dick for having a life outside of his commitments as Robin.
"He has more demons than anyone his age has any right to have. I wanted to let him work through them in his own way, on his own terms. You remember what it was like, when we collared Zucco."
Dick couldn't deny that vengeance had felt good, but in hindsight, he wasn't sure that that was what he'd needed at the time. Still, it was Bruce, and he was trying, damn hard from the sounds of it. He let out a grudging sigh. Bruce was, well, Bruce, and Dick couldn't fault his intentions, even if he questioned his methods.
"So what's the pla-"
A low moan cut Dick off.
"Robin?" Batman snapped. "Can you hear me? Say 'help' if you're all right."
"Help me," Jason whimpered pathetically.
"Hey, look who's awake," the driver (now passenger) sneered. "Give it up, kid, we know who you are."
"He means they've kidnapped you before," Dick warned, just in case Jason took that the wrong way.
"What? How?" Jason asked.
"They recognised you while you were unconscious," Dick said.
"We're going to talk about this, later," Batman said. Dick had always been impressed with his ability to make any statement sound like a threat, and this time was no exception.
"I never forget a face, that's how," the driver cum passenger said. "You're the little bastard that bit O'Malley."
Jason groaned. "Come on, gimme a break already. I did what I had to do."
"That may be, but we don't appreciate being lied to," Dick said.
"Hey, it's no skin off my ear. I thought it was funny. But O'Malley, the boss man, I don't know what they're gonna do when they figure out who you are."
"I know what I'm gonna do to you, you little prick," the gunman said from the driver's seat. "You broke my fucking nose!"
"I'm sorry," Jason said. "I mean it. I just…I didn't know what else to do."
Dick sighed. "We'll talk about it later," he said in a less ominous tone than the one Batman had used.
The gunman snorted. "Beg all you want, kid; we're gonna fuck you six ways from Sunday."
"Cut it out," the passenger said. "Look, kid, you got out. Why'd you go back to the life? You know if it wasn't us, it'd be some other perv with a taste for the sick shit. What'd you think was gonna happen in the end?"
"Times are tough. Even rich folks don't carry much cash on 'em these days. Anyway, what do you care what happens to me, asshole?"
The man sighed. "I don't," he said simply. "Pull over, this is it."
The van pulled in under an overpass, right next to a dark sedan parked in the shadows. Except for the overpass, they were on an open stretch of road - no buildings, no trees, not a scrap of cover in sight. Dick was forced to stop a half-mile back in order to remain undetected.
"Can you see what's happening?" Dick asked.
"Negative. My line of sight is blocked by the overpass."
"I can't get close to them either, not without exposing myself."
There were voices coming from Jason's comm, new voices, presumably men from the parked sedan. Dick couldn't make out what they were saying. Then he heard the van door slide open, and the voices suddenly got louder.
"Get him out here. It's time to unwrap the presents," a new voice said.
There was a sound of boots hitting dirt, like Jason jumped out of the van. A child began to scream, and suddenly there were multiple young voices sobbing and wailing. Over the din, Dick heard Jason say, "Hey, get the fuck off her!"
"Robin? What's happening?" Batman demanded.
"No, leave 'em alone!" Jason shouted, his voice edged with an outrage that Dick found difficult to believe was faked.
Suddenly, they heard sounds of a scuffle, grunts and bitten-off curses.
"Ow, the son of a bitch has a knife!"
"Watch it!"
There was more grunting, and then, "Got you, you little shit!"
"Ah!" Jason gasped. The sound of his hitching, ragged breaths filled Dick's ears, and it was all Dick could do not to storm the van with every weapon in his arsenal.
"Robin? Are you injured?" Batman asked, his voice sounding more strained than Dick had heard it in a very long time.
"No," Jason whispered, though Dick suspected he had been stuck with his own knife.
"Someone shut those fucking brats up!" a voice snapped.
There was a tearing sound, like duct tape being ripped from a roll, and soon the crying was muffled.
"C'm'ere, smart ass," the gunman growled. "You think you're smart, don't'cha? You think you can pull a knife on me and get away with it?"
"Come on man, we don't got all night for your little games. Strip the punk down and let's go!" the driver said.
"Dammit, B, we gotta pull him out. Without the comm-"
"No, please," Jason begged. "At least let me keep the shirt…"
The gunman laughed, or a mocking, cruel imitation of laughter, anyway. "Trust me, kid, you won't need it where you're going."
"We planned for this contingency," Batman said. "He still has the tracker, and that's all we really need."
Dick ground his teeth. "How can you sit there and-"
Jason suddenly cried out. The sound was cut off abruptly, followed by loud noises from Jason's mic indicating rough handling.
"Robin, Robin?" Batman shouted into the comm. Dick's ears crackled from the noise, but he pressed the earpiece harder into his skull, straining to hear any signs of life over the din.
Finally, the noise stopped. Faintly, as though from far away, Dick heard a low moan. He recognised Jason's voice, and realised that his mic was no longer near him, which meant that they'd stripped him of his clothes.
"I'm ending this," Dick said, reaching for his escrima.
"Wait," Batman said. "You heard him. He said no."
"Are you kidding me?" Dick hissed into his comm unit.
"He's alive, and-"
"Help …" Jason whimpered. "Please, don't…"
"And he's all right," Batman said with undisguised relief.
Dick let out a shaky breath. He reluctantly let go of his escrima and resorted to gripping his bike handlebars so hard his fingers ached.
From a distance and through his earpiece, he heard the van doors slide shut with a heavy whump. A moment later, the two vehicles took off in opposite directions, the sedan traveling north and the van going back the way it had come. Dick had only seconds to get off the road before the occupants of the van saw him. He slid his bike into a ditch and flattened himself to the ground, praying they hadn't seen him as they roared past. He leapt up a moment later and pushed his bike back onto the road.
"The tracker is headed north, with the car," Batman informed him.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Dick demanded.
"I want you to follow the van back to Gotham," Batman said. "There's a chance they didn't switch vehicles. We can't be sure which one he's in."
"You just said that the tracker was in the car," Dick argued.
"Yes, but we also know that they've removed his clothing. This might well have included the watch. Robin's comm link is still live, but all I can hear is road noise. They could have transferred the clothes to the trunk of the car and left him in the van."
"Why in the world would they do that if they didn't know the clothes were bugged? That's pretty paranoid, even for kidnappers. If you're so convinced that he's still in the van, why don't I follow the car, and you follow the van?" Dick suggested.
"Negative, Nightwing. I'm already in pursuit. Call me if you find anything. Batman out."
"Godammit B, don't do this!" Dick shouted as the comm link went dead. He kicked his bike to life with more force than was strictly necessary and turned to catch the retreating van. Rage roiled in his stomach as he watched the green blip on his screen moving in the opposite direction. "He had the presence of mind to assure us that he was okay, what are the chances that he forgot to tell us that they removed the tracker? Now you've sent me on a wild goose chase, and for what? So that you can save the day all by yourself? Don't you think he'd have a better chance if he had both of us there when the fighting starts? I know you resent my involvement in any of your cases, but for god's sake, why did you ask for my help if you weren't going to let me help you?" he ranted. He knew that Batman had muted his comm link on his end, but it felt, if not good, then at least slightly less frustrating, to get it off his chest. Besides, there was always the hope that Batman had left the channel open, just in case.
He quelled the urge to turn the bike around, to follow the green dot speeding away from his red dot. He would obey orders, because that's what he did, but he swore this would be the last time he answered a call from Bruce. He sighed. Even as he thought it, he knew it wouldn't stick. No matter what happened between them, he would always come when Bruce called, end of story.
The hour back to Gotham on the trail of the black van definitely made it to the top ten list of most harrowing events in Dick's life, top fifteen at the outside. As unpleasant as he had found listening to those disgusting paedophiles oh-so-casually discuss sexually assaulting a person he considered family, flying without eyes and ears on the enemy was like flying blind, and he desperately wished he could still hear those degenerates talking. Actually, if he was going to wish to hear anything, he supposed he should wish for Jason's voice. If that monumental moron was still alive at the end of this, Dick was going to murder him, several times over.
Finally, when they hit the outskirts of Gotham, the van began to slow, its red brake lights glowing in the distance. Dick hung back as it pulled into an abandoned warehouse parking lot. He stashed the bike in a stand of bushes a half mile down the road and jogged back to the warehouse. By the time he got there, the van was empty and so was the parking lot. He crept cautiously up to the dark and silent warehouse. If Jason was in there, and that was a pretty big if, he was going to find him.
