Summary: A fall. Pavement. Safe. Not necessarily in that order.
Character: Nightwing (with almost-cameos)
Rating: G to PG (1 dropped word)
Disclaimer: Not mine. DC's. Fair use.
Notes: Roughly spell-checked. It's basically raw-muse, as this was a three-am story that kept me awake.
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SAFE
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Safe's were tricky things.
Sometimes they had alarms, and sometime they didn't. And when they did have alarms, they weren't always in the usual places. Or the expected places, which did not, Nightwing reflected to himself, always mean the same thing. Being in the Bat business as long as he had, he was well trained in the art of safe-cracking -- hey, they'd got their evidence from stranger places in the past.
A safe was nothing. It was the alarms he had to worry about.
Which was why he was currently checking for lasers at the safe entrance. One could never be too paranoid on these jobs. And besides, he really had encountered a safe once with that particular defense, and Nightwing staked his reputation on never making the same mistake twice. Once was accidental. Twice, well, that was pure sloppiness.
Okay. No lasers. He was safe.
Ugh. Bad pun, even for you, Grayson.
Delicately, he reached into the safe.
His fingers had barely touched the papers before alarm sirens started blaring, and Nightwing let loose a soft curse. He knew instantly what had happened. Internal infra-red sensor, directed towards the contents. Of course. It'd been so easy up until now. He should've known, dammit.
He mentally shrugged and grabbed all the papers anyway. He'd already triggered the alarm. It wouldn't matter what others he started by grabbing the contents. Only problem: he didn't have any pockets big enough to hold paper this size, and with the alarms going, he definitely didn't have time to sort through them. And that meant he had to hold all of them with both hands to keep everything secure. And get out of here in one piece.
Did he mention he hated alarms?
Oh well. He gave another mental shrug. There was very little he could do about it, as they really needed these papers to build their case.
All he needed to do now was get out of here and build said case.
Like now. He could hear the footsteps of security pounding up the hallway towards him, flashlights racing towards him.
Definitely time to leave.
The vigilante stood smoothly and ran towards the window. He ducked his head a little as he went through, but he still felt small slithers of glass cut his face as he smashed through into the small balcony.
He hit the fire-escape with his lower body and went over, just as the security burst into the room behind him.
Bullets whizzed past.
A few nicked his Kevlar.
And then he was clear.
He tumbled down, head over heels, into a lazy flip, luxuriating in the feel of air rushing past. Except that with his arms wrapped around his torso, protecting the papers from flying away, there was no way he could throw out a jump-line.
It was only his skills between him and the pavement.
He grinned. Now this is the life.
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FIN
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Does any one ever really read author notes, or skip over them (like me)? :D
If you do, here it is: I've changed my pen name. I shall here-after be called "ArtisticAbandon". (See full notes in profile).
There. I'm done. :D