A/N: I hope the delay will be worth it. Enjoy.


"Maybe if I could bring a new identity in the game, I could make this alright. I just need a fitting attire, a new name and new weapons. It would take time, but it can be done. [...] I need something with character, but nothing with dead or kill or something like that, something to do with the night, the mystery that can be found in it, something that sounds impressive, something like… Nightwing."

Getting so caught on to this idea, I lost track of the time. I guess when you are preoccupied with redemption you barely notice when the night completely falls around you. I looked at my watch and notice that is a quarter past midnight. The police station is indeed open the 24 hours of the day, but the administrative floor isn't, where I am currently. I would say that I am surprised that no one stopped by and notified me how late it was, but really I'm not. Shaking physically my head I begin putting away the fourteen unfinished reports from today. Meantime, my mind wanders to my to-do list; the design for the nanotechnology armour; aka the suit, is done, the weapons are also completely designed, along with their respective ammunition, and the only thing that isn't thoroughly done is my signature eye-mask with a little variation from the Robin one. I have already tried the full mask with Red X and it's such a pain to talk through it, not to mention the sweat everywhere is completely disgusting. I tiredly rub my eyes and begin packing my messenger bag to handle some files and my laptop home. I doubt I will manage any work completed, but for the sake of my obsessive perfectionism, I pack them anyway. I get up my seat, stretch myself and begin walking to the exit stairs that would conduct me to the operational floor. Naturally, make sure I shut the power off the light of the admin-floor.

As I reach the op-floor, I recalled the early days when I had a field job and typically departed early from the station in favor of having some drinks with colleges, which right now they seem so distant, now arriving "late" home because I was working has become a habit. That is if you could call home an empty loft, with barely enough furniture to classify as a habited place. The trip I undertake to my loft is easy enough, I merely need to take the bus in the corner across the police station and hang in there for a good twenty minutes. Seeing said bus through the windows of the station, I run to get out, squishing myself between the many officers that are idling, barely catching the bus. One of the only good things is that the transport, either by train, bus or subway, for anyone in this city, is free. I walk carefully to one of the many empty places on the bus, hoping not to fall down meanwhile the driver transfroms into a Formula champion. I ended in the third row on the right, next to the window. The road it's clear like it usually is on the nights. Another reason I like about getting home late, is the fact that there isn't a single soul on the streets, besides the casual homeless man or women and the gangs here and there. The road is silent and soon enough the bus is turning to the right on Rayson St. where I see the building I'm currently living in. The building is nice in its own way, and the silver lining is that it hasn't been a crime scene in years, unless you count the suicides. The suicide rate is higher than ever, quite disturbingly so. But, nobody seems to care enough. I mean, every day is sort of a little battle on the streets, and everyone is hyper alert on not getting killed when you cross the street to purchase food from the little shop that looks more like a prison than a store.

Remembering that I don't have any kind of edible items on my loft, I get out of the bus and instead of entering straight to my buiding I continue walking to said little shop, right at the corner of the street, just to get some bread, ham, cheese, orange juice, and chamomile tea. Indeed, tea, not coffee. It is quite a pleasant drink, and it does soothe my nerves and helps my insomnia. Arriving there I knock loudly against the metal framed window and rapidly I recognize Nico, which I guess I could call him the clerk of the store.

-Good night, Nico, I would take the usual. - Nico already has my bag of groceries ready and delivers them to me through the window.

-56.77.- He barks at me, with a thick French accent, that doesn't quite fit his Russian appearance, but I'm not the one to judge, at least not anymore. Hastily I pass him two notes, a fifty and a ten, and he shuts off the window, nearly escaping my hand.

-Hey! Nico, my change! - I yell at him, to no avail, because I heretofore know , that he is only going to keep it. Instead, he solely looks once more through the window and smiles at me, waving me off. I return the grimace because securing my things fast enough is a little more important than not having them at all.

I turn to ultimately go to my loft, rapidly getting to the building and in a bat an eye I'm at the sixth floor of it, in the fourth door in the corridor, on the sinister side. Trusting the keys through the locks I let myself in and immediately I replace all the locks, four in total, just to proceed to leave my messenger bag and groceries in the countertop. I turn on a streaming service I pay instead of cable, I change rapidly into some sweatpants and a sweatshirt, make myself a sandwich with a tall icy glass of orange juice and rapidly let the series take my mind away for a couple of hours.


-DICK! - God, it is 6 am and he is already bickering around. Nonchalantly, I close my pocket size notebook and place my pen along with the notebook in the secret coat pocket of my blazer. I'm pretty sure that the squeak Damian just uttered does not belong to a human being. He has a terrible high-pitched yell. The squeak one might say you could hear from a rubber duck, or a dear aquatic specie.

-Yes, Damian? - I let my cool facade wipe through my features, not allowing him know how disturbing his squeaky tone is. I see his grin growing under the hairy caterpillar he calls moustache. I'm never going to keep a moustache.

-Bring me a snack, would ya'. I'm starving. I need you in my office. - Crap. He only summons people to get to his office when he haves something on them. Has he seen my sketches? No, he hasn't, and if he did well, I hope he doesn't possess the brains to act on it. More for show than for anything else, I get up my seat quickly to get him his beloved snack, crisps. Which are bloody expensive, I mean I presumably could manufacture them from starch and they would be cheaper and healthier, the sodium they have on them is outrageous, but then again, I'm not the one eating them. I ran from the vending machine right to his office, armed with two packs of crisps and good tranquil face. Precisely as I arrive at his office I see Benton leaving Damian's office, who is leaning on his chair that looks like it's going to crack and is silently asking for someone to have mercy and let it go to a better life.

-Ah! Finally! You acknowledged who is in charge, right Dicky? The good guys will always win, just look at me! I started at the bottom, and now I'm deputy chief. Justice has been delivered. - He gets up, snatches the crisps out of my hands, puffs his chest and looks at the ceiling, exactly like when someone in a lame movie tries to look deep and mysterious and fails miserably. Naturally, I'm willing to maintain my place in these headquarters, so I smile. Mischievously.

-Absolutely, Damian. As far as I'm concerned, Benton is the boss. And that Tom is the deputy chief... Damian, you are troubling me, is Tom alright? - I merely said that because, well, one needs to have a little fun in life, right? And he is a douche bag. I think he deserves it, and no, I'm not passive-aggressive. Nor salty. His face suddenly makes me remember Benton's because they suffer from the same condition. When they get mad, they turn swollen. A little victory for me. See, Slade I nevertheless got it.

- Shut up! Robin, Benton just made me Deputy Chief, which means I will need all the reports I gave you yesterday, digitized by five in the afternoon. Printed and signed. Understood?- So much for a little victory.

-Affirmative, Damian. - I let myself out of his office before he can ask me something else and swiftly go to my desk, where I still need to make some sense of the transcripts from the fourteen reports I accumulated from yesterday plus the ones I know are coming today. I should have worked at home, that's for sure. I have a long shift ahead of me.


It's nearly my deadline and after some serious use of my Ph.D. on hieroglyphics I almost managed to put together all the reports "digitized." Suddenly I heard the unmistakable footsteps of Damian. Suddenly gathering the thirteen reports, I printed, I rapidly check they contain all my signature and place them in their respective folders, six on GREY folders and seven on BLACK folders. I place them at the front of my desk and face my favourite manatee.

-Damian, there you go, thirteen reports ready to go to the analogous archive, they are already reviewed, and the digital copies are already at the database, I uploaded them a little over an hour ago, their authorization number is printed at the right corner on each one. – With that I hope he doesn't notice the only folder its empty at the other side of my desk, which I honestly cannot comprehend, I will be needing to "figure out" most of it.

-Nice try Dick, I see you didn't get the fourteen, but with you thirteen it's an advance. I need that one before you go today. - Busted. But, lightly? What going on? Did Benton finally scold him? Ha! I would love to, I would even pay to witness it. With a new-found pity for Damian, I found myself responding amicably, even friendly.

-Right on, sir. – And he smiled at me. His not so ivory white teeth showed behind that little caterpillar he calls moustache. He limited himself to accept the finished reports with him, turned around and left discreetly. It is possible that I should have treat him differently, from the begining.

I merely grabbed the fourteenth report and begin "figuring out" whatever officer Bayle-Trent tried to describe of thievery, judging the GREY code printed in the top left corner. As I continued trying to make sense of the gibberish written on there I perceived Damian coming to my desk again. Which is quite odd, considering he was with me less than fifteen minutes ago.

-Dick, I will demand you to do the follow-ups for the last month files. – So much for being nice with him, now he is going to asign me even more work. I search his entire face, for an ounce of smugness, realizing there is none, but there is indeed something setting me off. I wonder what it could be. Anyway, doing the follow-ups is not my area of expertise, but it does let me stop being confined to the administrative floor. I could walk around the entire police station, from the administrative floor to the analogous archive floor and even to the operational floor, op-floor for short, where there are the typical four little jail-like cells, holding each one up to five infractions simultaneously, and the registration area where the officers obtain all the data of the caught delinquents and of course the cubicles where they are interrogated and where lawyers either save or sink their clients, hell I could even go to courtrooms to see the trials.

-Are you promoting me, sir? – I asked politely, but honestly, I couldn't contain myself. I could make some serious change from the inside and work as anti-hero from the outside. Integral action.

-Something like that, but you still get the same payment kid. – With that, I saw two newbies officers bringing a bloody cart full of GREY and BLACK files. I probably didn't calculate the amount of work I would have to do. - You have a week Dick, for them to be done. If you need anything my office is open. –

-Thank you, sir. - Well, look at that. I need to buy him snacks way more often.

-Dick, let me finish, from nine in the morning to noon, Mondays only. – Of course. Still, better. With that, he left my desk, and his two lackeys trailed after him.

To finish that fourteenth report I decided to append a scanned version of the chicken scrawl filled format to the file for the poor someone who will have to follow-up in this case. Printing all of my papers, I returned to my desk to put them together in their respective folder.

Now to begin with the unholy number of follow-ups I need to do, in theory, I need to check if the suspect or accused is still on custody. If it is, then I need to check if the'll be prosecuted or if they were released, and by what means, lack of evidence or bail.

I grabbed the first BLACK folder and read it. It is about a protester, a poor guy named Erick who got arrested during a convention pro-Slade. The interesting detail is that he was a silent protester, his poster only said "SLADE is an AUTHORITARIAN." He didn't quite insult him, which will make his release easier. I get up and conduct myself downstairs to the op-floor, and I begin making my way to the office of the director of procedure, officer Newlead. She is the one who takes care of the debates between the lawyers and the prosecutor, and decides if its fair to grant a bail, to relaese the suspect or to send him or her for trial. I discreetly tried to see if she was in there, but I only saw two persons seating, presumably Erick and his lawyer, but there was no trace of officer Newlead. I begin asking around for officer Newlead. Finally, I see her walking down to the registration area, and asked her if Erick was the one seated on her office.

-Yes, it is, officer?-

-Oh, Grayson, Richard Grayson, ma'am.-

-Very well, officer Grayson. Now, tell me, why the enquire?-

-Right, I'm doing the follow-ups for now, and Erick is one of them.-

-Alright, you will be working with me closely, come with me.- She gracefully dumped in my arms what weighted like four full boxes of reports. We entered her office ans she took her seat, meanwhile I stood awkwardly at her left side. I faced Erick, who isn't older than nineteen years old and looked like he had one of his worst nights in here. I turned to his lawyer, a woman with black, framed glasses, hair, incredibly pale skin, and a quite stern look. Officer Newlead explained the defendant lawyer that his client did a crime, no. 89 in the Criminal Code of Jump City, which by the way establish that anyone who speaks up with the intention of insulting the one in charge of government, aka Slade, will receive one year of prison, nevertheless the circumstances, intensity of the act or age or gender of the aggressor. So much for liberty of speech. Then Officer Newlead took a mouthful of air, and said something that surprise me even more.

-But, Ph.D. because of your argument about not his desire to insult, in a strict interpretension, but to inform his fellow peers I will allow a bail, grounded on the article 15, that as you already know allows that if the crime doesn't exacly shapes exactly as the ine written, the director of procedure will allow a bail or realease. I will allow a bail, of 30,000, to be paid in full.-

I couldn't believe that because a technicality this guy would get free, don't get me wrong the law is well wrong, but one should honor it, it is a black and white matter. If the majority of the people doesn't follow the law, what kind of society will that be?

-Of course, officer Newlead. We will proceed with that, would you lead the way? - As she said that, in a formal tone, Erick's face lighted up and the attorney's face was full with a well practiced smug-polite smile.

While the officer gets off her seat and accompanied both of them to pay their bail, I placed the boxes O. Newlead commissioned me with on here desk and filled by hand the follow-up. Just as I was going upstairs to upload the follow-up, everything about a certain attorney set me off, but I dismiss the though thinking I'm just paranoid as always. As, bloody, always.


A/N: Hope you like this chapter. Feedback is always welcome.