2. Swordwalker
Damian had landed in Gotham only two hours ago and he had already made a new friend. As he crawled out of the small shipping container that served as his trojan horse into the city, Damian bumped into a very surprised goon. As a result he now had a pair of brass knuckles and a spare switchblade at his disposal; his new friend had several broken bones and a concussion.
The tools were acceptable, but Damian needed more if he had any hope of infiltrating the Syndicate. He needed to regroup. The first step in this plan was to head to one of Batman's numerous safe rooms scattered around the city. The closest was now only several blocks away.
Crouching in the darkness with his elbows on his knees, Damian glared down the street. It looked like there was some sort of curfew in effect, because the only people in sight were thugs with guns. Some shambled in what Damian assumed they thought were patrols, others lit up cigarettes outside of what appeared to have once been a drugstore but now served something a little stronger than cough syrup and aspirin. Likely where the shipment he had rode in on was destined to end up.
If only he was here to simply break up an illegal drug ring. What he wouldn't give to bash a few more teeth in.
Damian ducked into an adjacent alleyway unseen, and began to scale a fire escape to get to the rooftops, where traveling would undoubtedly be a little less crowded. It would have been faster yet if he had a grappling gun, but hopefully one was waiting for him several rooftops away. This particular safe house was constructed on top of a Wayne Enterprises subsidiary that had been rebuilt several years prior. It was small, but it would do.
The rooftop was abandoned, as he had expected it to be. More importantly though, it looked undisturbed. The building itself looked like it had suffered some kind of attack, with many windows being blown out and re-boarded. If only whoever had done that knew that the building contained better treasures than dollar bills.
The entrance was hidden amongst some decorative architecture along the roof. Damian crouched and rotated a a stone rosebud out of the way to reveal the hidden entrance panel. Damian pressed his thumb against the scanner. The screen lit up a faint blue as a white line dropped down to scan his identity. Damian leaned back, preparing to head to the door that would be revealed, when the keypad beeped twice and lit up red. Access denied. Damian frowned. So, Bruce had locked him out. It wasn't surprising; he was supposedly dead, and who wouldn't chop the thumb off his corpse if they got the chance? Switching from the scanner to a keypad, he input his code directly only to experience the same results. Grinding his teeth together in annoyance, he activated the back door system.
"Override: Robin." He glanced over his shoulder as the machine considered his answer, eyes scanning the deserted rooftop. The lock made two quick beeps as the keypad flashed red and Damian returned his attention to it, grinding his teeth. Access denied. "Override: Wayne, Damian," he hissed a little more angrily. Again, the disapproving beeps and red lights. "Override: Wayne, Bruce."
That was a mistake. Damian heard a series of internal clicks followed by electrical micro explosions that rendered both keypad and the entryway itself useless. The safe rooms were impenetrable except through the main access, which was now sealed shut. A string of curses escaped Damian's mouth and he stood sharply.
The next closest safe room was clear across the city, and likely had the same protocols in place. For all Bruce knew there was an army of little Ibn al Xu'ffasch's being maintained by the al Ghul's. Heretic couldn't have been the only other one. The situation rendered his thumbprint and even his voice patterns a liability.
Damnit.
There was always the 'backdoor' into the cave, through deep tunnels and waterfalls. But it was spring, so half the underground caverns would be full of ice cold water. The Lazarus pit hadn't exactly expanded his lung capacity.
There was another option, though. Nightwing's equipment room would be closer, though potentially far more dangerous, if it had been found. But before those consequences even rang alerts in his mind, he was already moving towards that address as if compelled by something else.
Damian got within a block of the location when something caught his eye. He found himself standing on the top of the building opposite Grayson's apartment. Or… what was left of it, anyway. There was a gaping hole in the front of the building, like a wound, and it opened right into the place Dick had once made his home. Vandals had spray-painted giant arrows leading to it, along with various phrases; the boldest reading:
NIGHTWING'S LAIR. BIRDNEST. RICHARD GRAYSON LIVED HERE.
There were numerous other things that had been written by one person and covered up by the next; the city at large couldn't seem to decide if they liked one of their former heroes or not. Damian frowned, as he considered going inside. The equipment room was close, but then… maybe the apartment would give him some information, too. Damian climbed down the fire escape and crossed the street after checking both ways for any sort of activity, though this section of the city was surprisingly dead for what it contained.
The staircase was still intact enough to climb up. The door still on the hinges, though someone had pried off the number. Damian sighed. For a moment, he tried to imagine that everything outside was normal. He was just visiting. Dick would be inside and more than pleased to see him; he would try to offer a hug, but Damian would turn it down, off course. He was not a child.
Damian shook the thought from his head. He wasn't visiting a memorial of any kind. Grayson was still out there, and Damian was here to help with that. Maybe he'd even allow the hug when they were reunited… or at the very least, a hair-ruffle.
Maybe.
Touching the door with only several outstretched fingers, it swung open with a creak. The apartment was a disaster. Bricks and drywall crumbled to the ground. A ceiling beam had fallen and punched a hole in the floor, and it now stuck out of like some sort of grave marker. Diagonal scorch marks seared the room and left behind a wake of black carbon.
The initial destruction of the apartment had been initiated by the Syndicate or their puppets; subsequent vandalism looked to be the work of the average citizens. Damian frowned as he looked around. Most of Grayson's personal possessions had been taken, the rest were strewn across the ground. The place was practically bare.
Poking his head into the bedroom, Damian clicked his tongue disapprovingly as he saw the dresser drawers pulled open with most of the clothes missing- down to the underwear. He could only imagine the future ebay listings. '!RICHARD 'DICK' GRAYSON AKA 'NIGHTWING' BOXERS 4 SALE HERE. 3-PACK: PLAIN (BLUE), SUPERMAN (AWWW), CLOVERS. SMELLS LIKE STRAWBERRIES AND SWEAT!'
Ugh.
Damian picked his way over to the bed. A lamp was smashed on the floor, and the side of the nightstand was ripped off. He jimmied the top drawer open anyway, feeling along the top for the spare wing-ding he knew should have been kept there. His hand came back empty. There wasn't even a spare paper clip.
He moved to the closet to search for the hidden escrima sticks, but had the same results. Stolen. By the way the panels in the back of the closet had been ripped off, no doubt whoever had taken them had searched also for any other hidden goodies that were a physical link between Richard Grayson and his alter ego.
As he exited the closet, he heard a faint shuffling coming from the other room and froze. The apartment was silent again for only a moment, when there was the clear thump of someone dropping in through a (presumably broken) window. Their feet crunched glass on the floor.
"This is Nightwing's flat? What a dump." The voice wafted in from the kitchen, followed by the sound of feet scuffing dirty linoleum.
"I doubt it looked like this a couple months ago, genius."
Damian scowled as he listened to the two root around, remaining where he was. His hand dipped towards his belt and he pulled out the switchblade he had 'borrowed' earlier. He was wearing simply a shinobi shozoku, the common black ninja uniform that the al Ghuls regularly provided. It was sufficient, but he was starting to miss the padded and protective hug of his old uniform.
"Dude, look at this! How's that still here?" There was the sound of rustling near the broken television, but Damian couldn't see what the two had discovered.
"It's broken. What is it?"
"The newest Swordwalkers game! I have it at home. I would've thought he'd be busy, like, doing push ups or something. I can't believe he played that!"
"Doesn't look like he got the chance. It's still packaged up."
Damian had begun to cross the room in silence, but the name of the game the looter rattled off startled him. He remembered asking Grayson to order it while he checked up on his former mentor in the wake of the Joker's last game. It really hadn't been all that long later that… he'd gone away. One disaster after another; not even his own death could keep his life drama free.
"... Let's take the game and see what we can get for it. This place is too trashed, let's-"
"That does not belong to you." The man holding the game screamed as a knife slammed into his palm; the game clattered to the floor a moment later.
"What the fu-"
"Get. Out."
Damian watched from the darkened doorway of the bedroom as the two looters scrambled towards the exit. Thieves, not fighters. Damain ground his teeth together and listened to their footsteps echo down the staircase before he entered the room. He stopped beside the video game and squatted down, picking up the battered copy. He brushed off some of the dust and stood up, tucking it into his belt.
He cast one final look around and then left through the window.
It wasn't long later that Damian was squatting in front of the door to Nightwing's equipment chamber. He'd been here many times before, so it had been easy to find. It appeared like it had been undisturbed so far.
"I'm relying on your sentimentality for once, Grayson," Damian mumbled as he eyed the security panel with narrowed eyes, afraid of being locked out of this one the same way he had been barred from Batman's room. He didn't have the means at hand to hack in; though most of their systems were tamper proof anyway. Deciding to bite the bullet, Damian entered the latest code that Grayson had designated to him -which would now be many, many months old- and held his breath.
Three long seconds ticked by as the mechanism decided whether Damian's code was worthy or not.
There was no flashy light this time to alert him either way; just a faint click inside what appeared on the outside to be a simple maintenance door. Damian let out the breath he had been holding and stood, quickly entering. Inside was not some dingy room as the door outside suggested, but a high-tech room containing seemingly endless goodies. There was a workbench in the far corner with a monitor above it; a broken wing-ding and several tools were scattered across it as if Nightwing were to return at any moment to finish his work.
Damian moved further in, and some fluorescent motion sensor lights switched on with a faint buzzing sound. It wasn't a very large space, but big enough, and Damian knew there was more than just a few of Nightwing's goodies lying around. Or at least, there had been. Grayson had kept a spare uniform for him here, too, as well as a few other limited supplies.
The boy was kneeling beside a drawer with a small pile of equipment beside him when static broke into the room, followed by a voice.
"I was wondering when you were going to show up."
Damian jumped into a defensive pose to look around, but the space was just as empty as it had been moments ago.
"The monitor, numbnuts." Turning to the screen hanging above a work desk, Damian found himself staring at Jason Todd. He had his domino mask on, but there were small tears in it coinciding with several cuts on his face. He looked ragged in general, though that wasn't entirely unnatural.
"Todd," Damian greeted after a long silence, crossing his arms over his chest. His head tilted back slightly as he regarded the man. "Where are you? How were you made aware of my presence?"
"I've got my own safe houses, you know. And I rigged it to alert me if someone entered goldenboy's pad." Damian raised a brow. "Okay, Replacement did before he vanished." Damian snorted at this and snagged a rolling chair with his ankle, pulling it over to plop down into.
"Why has it been kept at all? The whole city is likely looking for this place," Damian said, casting his eyes around the room. "I saw what they did to his apartment."
"Thought about it. But it's a strategic location, and we can blow it up if we don't like who's inside. So try not to piss me off," Jason replied, a grin stretching across his lips. Damian sneered and glanced over at him, pleased to see one of the older man's front teeth were chipped. He hoped that the process had hurt. "And the apartment… yeah. First thing we cleaned it out. There was a photo of you and Dick at a fair. You definitely looked like you had a beard made out of pink cotton candy. It was adorable."
"I am not against returning you to the grave, Todd." Damian was surprised that Jason had taken the initiative, though who knew whose idea it had been originally. There had likely been things in Dick's apartment connecting many, many people into his life. Regardless, it wouldn't take a supersleuth to tie him back to the Wayne family. Todd had likely given them some time, at least.
"Hardly out of one yourself and already hurling death threats. Sounds like you got out of there pretty intact. So was your body still warm when they dropped you into the pit, or..?"
"Tt. I'm fairing better than I'm certain you did."
"Right. I'm sure," Jason drawled, and Damian could practically feel the eyes boring into him. He was tempted to cover the webcam. A silence stretched between them then, the room quiet except for the slight hum of the computer system. "For what it's worth… he grieved, you know. Went through a lot of ways to try and bring you back. Tim mentioned something about Frankenstein, but I'm not entirely sure he wasn't on drugs at the time."
"The Monster?"
"Huh? Yes-"
"No, Frankenstein was the last name of the Doctor. Common misconception for those that do not read," Damian corrected.
"Whatever. Not the point. He was pretty batshit. Asked me about the pit, the asshole. I heard you had a nice funeral, though. I don't know, I wasn't invited. But as far as the world at large is concerned, Damian Wayne is off in Europe getting culture or some shit."
"What?" Damian asked; this having gotten his attention. He sat up a little in his chair, frowning.
"Yeah. Couldn't have Robin and the billionaire's son die in the same week, after all," Jason deadpanned. "As if we aren't all fucked now anyway thanks to the original birdbrain."
"It wasn't his fault," Damian snapped, sitting forward to glare at the monitor.
"So that's why you finally came back. Thought as much."
"Well, clearly I had to. If I had been here to start with he would be freed by now and this mess would be over."
"You think it's so easy, huh? You think we haven't tried? Have fun eating worms again. There's a lot more going on right now than you even realize-"
"I don't care, Todd! I don't have time for this argument. Don't alert anyone that I have returned, I prefer to use it to my advantage." Leaning forward, Damian promptly ended the stream and cut off whatever snarky remark Todd's face had twisted to produce. The silence following was loud; or maybe his ears were just ringing. Damian stood, pacing across the room.
Maybe he'd been hasty in hanging up on Todd. They probably had far more information on the situation at hand than he did. But with Nightwing's computers at hand now, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out.
"I don't need any help," Damian told himself aloud, but a moment later he turned and sent a savage kick at the workbench. There was small metallic clang as something rolled off under the force, and Damian cocked his head to the side to look at it.
Maybe he wasn't ready to break into the Crime Syndicate's lair and drag Nightwing to his freedom. But there was something else he could do to keep the city's greasy fingers out of his life.
"Think it was the Demon Spawn?"
"He always did have a penchant for dramatics, even if he denies it," Jason told his companion as he looked across the street at the burning building. Flames in particular were curling out of the wide, wound-like hole in the side of it, causing graffiti to bubble and peel away.
"I guess we won't be getting another tooth brush out of there to sell online."
"Shut up. The brat would kill you if you heard you say that," Jason snickered, backhanding the other in the chest as he stepped away from the ledge. "Hopefully he's back at Nightwing's safe room though, where he can't have heard you."
"Think he actually is?"
"Hopefully."
"Do you even know how you're going to tell him, Jay?"
Silence at first, then a sigh. "I haven't the faintest idea."
A/N: Thanks for the reviews, favorites, and follows thus far. :)