Hi guys. I know it's been a while and my writing probably isn't any better. But please forgive me. I had some unfortunate things come up. But I'm back, and I hope you will all enjoy this next chapter.
To say that the second encounter with the orange and black masked man went better than the first would ban all out lie. But this time, there were no teammates, no heroes to observe the strangeness of the exhibit. Both men were eager for a fight, both men eager to figure out what the other man's weakness was.
This time they met in Bludhaven. It made sense. The masked man knew that Dick was Nightwing, he knew almost everything about Dick Grayson. It only made sense that the man would come to the hero.
It was supposedly a regular call. There was nothing out of the normal that might have tipped off the young hero of the dangers he was about to face. His bike sped through the city, narrowly avoiding traffic and running as many red lights as he could. As much as he loved soaring above his city, the Intel had said that there was a gang meeting in an abandon warehouse. How cliché. There were no building to jump across on the docks, it was one of two the parts of the city that had actual room to grow out and not up. This created his current situation of the bike.
NIghtwing ditched the bike in a nearby alley and sank back into the shadows. Contrary to popular belief, he was not a creature of life. But then again he wasn't a creature of shadows either. He lived in the gray. He knew that some things were better left untouched. He knew some people deserved to die, not that he would let anyone know that those dark thoughts plagued his mind.
He found the fire escape and slipped inside the warehouse. He looked in disbelief. The warehouse was unbelievably empty. There weren't boxes piled up in the corner, there was nothing there. It was truly an abandon warehouse. Nightwing surveyed the area quickly. Not a soul in sight.
"Batman to Nightwing. "
If Nightwing hadn't been trained as well as he had been, the sudden loud voice that jumped out at him would have scared him shitless. He put a finger to his ear and allowed himself to stand up.
"What's up Bats?" Nightwing responded. His paranoia was getting the best of him. He could feel something was wrong. He decided to duck out of the building and sat on the roof. It was a silent night and it was one of the few he ever received.
"Have you had any contact with Jason in the last 24 hours?" The bat's voice came out appearing cool and collected, but Dick knew something was wrong. There was the slightest hitch in his breath, he had rushed Jason, and he was contacting Nightwing.
The pair of men had recently made up and things were still a bit tender. They hadn't been avoiding each other necessarily; they just hadn't had enough time to work together.
"I haven't seen him since Saturday training with the team. He seemed a bit peeved at you to tell the truth. Why?" The ebony hair man asked through his comm link.
"It's been 20 hours since I've seen him. I thought he might have come and visited you," Bruce said with a sign of anxiety in his voice. Nightwing heard the small tell-tale voice that was saying something wasn't right.
"Did you two have an argument again?" Nightwing asked casually. Those two fighting was like putting two male tom cats in a cage that neither of them could get out of. The particularly sad thing was they were so much alike that neither of them saw it.
"Yes."
Nightwing nodded not surprised. Though he was glad to hear a note of regret emanating from the link.
"He's probably just blowing off some steam," Dick said ,"Don't worry too much about it. I have to go Bruce."
A shadow across the roof had just moved, and Dick hadn't. Which meant someone was on the roof with Dick, and he was standing behind him. Moving quickly Nightwing dove forward flipping into a somersault. Then spun around his eskirma sticks in his hands and his eyes darting to the masked figure in front of him.
"It's the Masked Mercenary!" Nightwing said a smile slipping on to his face. He still hadn't found any information on the man. He probably could have asked Batman to look through his villain files but that would have been an arrow to his pride.
"And you are still squawking," The masked man replied with an icy chill in his voice, "So tell me, Nightwing, how do you live being a hero but knowing you murdered Tony Zucco?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Nightwing snapped back. But he had reverted to his mask. The mask that he held in place when someone was getting to close to the truth. His teeth had clenched tightly and his white eyes had narrowed. These slight changed would have been missed by a lesser man, but Slade Wilson was not a lesser man.
"Isn't it strange?" The masked man asked looking as if he were on a midnight stroll. "That the very night that Zucco died, the new hero Nightwing appears?"
"Zucco had been getting sick for months. There was nothing anyone could have done to save him." NIghtwing said with his pulse starting to race a little.
"Yes. I suppose that's true. But how does a perfectly healthy man get so sick in a couple of months. You see, Nightwing, while the wardens of the prison might not have been paying attention to his symptoms, I was. All symptoms of Dimethylmercury. Now when would have Tony Zucco come in contact with Dimethylmercury?" The masked mercenary started to explain. His single eye staring down the young hero with a horrible look to it.
"Now only someone with great money and great expense could have purchased this kind of poison. There are exactly two people in Gotham who could have afforded that kind of poison from the black market. Bruce Wayne or some rich bastard. That was the part that caught me Richard. What would those two gentlemen need with a toxic substance? But then Bruce Wayne wouldn't need it, would he? No it would be his ward that needed it. The ward that had never gotten vengeance but had been suffocated with fancy parties and ignored by his adopted father who would never give up his bachelor life." The masked mad continued and he had slowly started pacing. Nightwing couldn't take his eyes away from the man. How could he have known all of this information that no one in the world knew.
"But the question was, Richard, how did the son of a playboy slip dimethylmercury into Zucco's system? It took me a long time to figure out this last clue. But then I saw you one night, you had just become Nightwing and you headed to a grave yard. I expected a dead hero, or a dead relative. But instead I found you at the grave of Tony Zucco. And from your belt, what did you pull? A small vile full of dimethylmercury and being the smart man I am, I put two and two together."
The man concluded his speech. NIghtwing blinked once or twice and had to remind himself to close his jaw.
"So…" Nightwing said composing himself quickly. "What are you gonna do with this information? You know who I am, you know what I have done. What comes next?"
"That's all you have to say?" The man sounded almost disappointed. "It took me two years to work that all out, and all you have to say is what comes next? Disappointing but not unexpected."
"You want me to say good job? To one of my enemies? To a man who has been stalking me for the last two years?" Nightwing said in disbelief. This man couldn't be serious.
"You have a point. Very well you want to know what comes next, Nightwing? I will tell you. You will become my associate. You will join me in building my mercenary empire. And you will become exactly who I know you are. "
Nightwing looked at the man with shock on his face, and then his composure broke. He had doubled up laughing. It wasn't the fake laughter that he associated with villains; it was the true, full blown laughter of someone who has heard something so funny they can't breathe.
"And why would I do that?" Nightwing asked through breaths of laughter. This man was crazier than the joker if he thought that would be happening. "You know who I am right? The golden boy of Batman's? The original Robin? How could you think…? Where did the assumption…?" Nightwing finally straightened up and was still snickering when the masked man responded.
The man raised an eyebrow behind his mask. "I'll tell you why you will join me. Because you will want to. I won't blackmail you. I will not hurt you. You will come to me when you realize that you want too. You will realize the hero life isn't for you."
Nightwing had enough of this masked man, he charged at him. But suddenly smoke enveloped him and when it was cleared there was nobody left to be seen.
When Nightwing arrived at his apartment he knew something was wrong. His long night of patrol had taken its toll on him and he had ignored all the calls that he had received. He knew it was bad when he looked at his personal answering machine that only few people had the number for. He stripped off his uniform and played the first message.
"Master Dick, Please come to Gotham as soon as possible."
That was strange, Nightwing thought. Alfred always left messages but he never left without saying why he was leaving the message, or leaving his number to call him back at. Dick hung his head. He headed to the nearest Zeta beam and was in Gotham within minutes. He made the long trek to the manor and looked at it with suspicion. Something was wrong. There was no annoying neighbor kid banging at the door saying he had almost pieced together who Batman and Robin were. There were no hounds barking, no sprinklers going. There was only silence.
Dick walked into the manor and turned into the living room. There was Batgirl, and Alfred. The looks on their faces told a great story. Some one had gotten hurt, and badly.
"Master Dick I don't know how to tell you this-"
Nightwing interrupted him quickly. "Where's Bruce? Is he alright? How bad is it?"
Batgirl looked at him. She was cowlless and there were tear tracks running down her face.
"Jason is gone."
"Gone where?"
"No, Dick, Jason is gone. The Joker got him. That bastard murdered him."
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