"Why did you help me?" She poked at the straw of the water glass that was wedged between her legs. She didn't know how much time had passed since she'd first woken there and he hadn't offered her the information.
"Huh?" He looked up at her from where he'd been sitting half asleep on the floor at her bedside. It was too obvious that he hadn't slept, that he was stuck sitting listening to her nightmares all through the night because she was too scared to wake up alone again and for some reason he cared. She was scared of the silence too, she wanted to hear someone speak, to say something that drowned out the 'bang, bang, bang' that wouldn't fade from her mind, even if she was sure she wouldn't like the words.
"What even…" She looked down at her hands, so covered in bandages she couldn't use them to lift the glass. He'd changed them just that morning, neatly, professionally, how did he even know how to do that? "What were you doing there?"
He as quiet for a few seconds, his cheek bulging out where he poked it with his tongue, the anger she was so used to seeing from her caretaker flashing behind his eyes for just a moment before he tilted his head back to look at her. "Looking for you."
Despite the copious amounts of water she'd consumed, Steph's throat dried up almost immediately, her eyes fixing on him while his turned from her. "You knew, how did…"
"I suspected." A yawn escaped his mouth and he shifted his back against her bed, sliding a little further to the ground. "Couldn't spot ya anywhere else didn't think I'd find ya like…" he shuddered and she remembered the way he'd looked at her when he'd found her, the horror reflected back in his eyes. It was pretty obvious he hadn't thought to find what he had. It didn't answer her first question though.
"Why?"
He'd smiled at her then, a sad, sardonic thing that brought no light to his eyes. "Can't one former Robin wanna look out for another?"
O
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One year later…
Gotham cleaned up fast and it cleaned up well. Or, at least, as well as could be expected from a city like Gotham. Only a year had passed since hubris had thrown the city into anarchy and here it was. Shining with wealth from the tops of its highest skyscrapers while poverty and corruption rotted away its roots. Brilliant and dark, beautiful and disgusting. It was the dichotomy that he'd grown with, seen from both sides the way few could say they had.
As much as he hated the place he loved it still, as much as he strayed it was his home for better or worse. He was planning on sticking around for a while this time, a long while, see how much of that rot he could cut away.
He took his time strolling through the streets, keeping himself at ground level so he could get a good view of the Bowery. Best to let them steam a little before he showed up, not too long though, because there was always the chance someone would up and leave. Then he'd have to kill them, and he really didn't want to have to bother with going back and setting everything up again to replace them.
Every so often, more often than was entirely necessary perhaps, he unhooked the palm sized screen attached to his belt and checked the position off the pulsating purple dot. Gotham had healed from the war, but not everything had healed with it, there were things that never would.
He slipped on the helmet only after he'd entered the warehouse – because it had to be a warehouse, is Gotham it could be nothing else – through a back door that hadn't been on the plans – because he'd cut it out of the second floor wall himself.
They were already there, all the slimebags he'd 'invited' to this meet. She thought he'd gone a little overboard sending in the fingers of missing lieutenants in the invites, but they were going along with her plan for the other part so didn't have much of a reason to complain. He could hear them now, arguing about which of them has set the thing up, as he watched on from the darkness of the rafters. It was almost cute, watching them try to figure it out. Well, it was almost cute for a while, and then someone had to go and suggest it was the penguin's doing and irritation sapped that out pretty fast and he picked up the AK-47 from where he'd stashed it in a darkened corner beforehand.
"Well, there goes hoping you idiots gained any brain cells." Jason stepped out of the shadows and walked over to lean on the railing, propping his gun on the rusted metal. "It's my meet."
"And who the fuck are you!" The biggest of the bunch demanded, standing from his seat.
"Smoke him." Another said and two of the men standing at the fringes of their table moved to draw their guns, well, had to give that guy points for fast thinking, well, one point because that was a fucking stupid move however fast it was.
Jason pulled his trigger, let loose a hail of bullets on the bodyguards. Everyone in the room dove for cover, knocking over chairs and the table in the attempts to save their over skins. The rat-a-tat of the bullets echoing deafeningly in the open space while they cowered for the seconds it took them to get well and truly shocked before he released the trigger.
"You wanna die there's easier ways to kill yourself!" The one who's tried to order Jason's execution was again the first to act. God he was stupid.
"Yeah, like yelling at the guy who's holding the AK forty-seven." Jason trained the weapon on the man, a wry smirk they couldn't see forming on his lips. They didn't think it was funny, for more than obvious reasons. "Now sit down." He demanded. "I won't ask again."
The obeyed, those that could propping themselves on the what was left of the furniture, the rest stood at their previous positions around the table. There, not so fucking hard now was it. Jason took a step away from the railing and stood up to his full height, the screen connected to his belt burning his thigh. Now he could get this over with.
"Listen up you drug peddling scumbags. From now on, we will be running the drug trade. You four are the most prosperous street dealers in Gotham." Unfortunate proof that success and power didn't always go hand in hand. "So we're offering you morons a deal. You go about your business as usual, but kick up forty percent to us. S'a much sweeter deal than the scraps you get from Cobblepot and his freaks. In return you'll have total protection from both him and the bats, but I catch you selling to kids and you're dead, got it?"
He had to deal with these gutter stains for his plans to go smoothly, didn't mean he couldn't put some restrictions on them.
"Okay crazy man this is all very generous, but why the hell should we listen to you?"
"Because without us you won't have a drug trade."
And here was where things got tricky. His idea would have gotten the message through a lot faster, but if hers went off then maybe it would stick for a while longer. Jason flicked the trigger out of his sleeve and the T.V he'd set in the corner, hidden in dust, came to life.
At first his captive audience look more confused than anything else, then the buildings, various warehouses, suburban homes and abandoned tunnel offshoots covering the screen must have clicked.
"Look familiar?" He leaned on the railing again, cocking his head to the side and leaning casually against the railings again. "Those are your biggest in city suppliers. I'll give you a minute to memorize them," he paused, giving the scumbuckets a chance to let out a few curse words and mutter about hiding evidence from the cops. "Cause this is the last you'll see them."
At once, every building on the screen erupted into flames, those in less crowded areas spewing rock and rebar as they blew to bits from within. Millions of dollars there, the neatly stacked bags of poison burned and melted into nothing right before their eyes. Jason regretted not having time to install sound, but the sudden silence was, he had to admit, immensely satisfying in its own way.
He let them keep their silence, checked the tracker again while he had the seconds to spare, still in place, no new communications on the comm channels. All it took to get their attention back on him was switching off the T.V.
"Make no mistake, you're not irreplaceable, we're not 'asking' you to kick in with us, we're telling you." He aimed the AK again and before he'd even fired, they were ducking for cover, burying their faces in their arms as if that could have saved them if he'd actually been aiming for their damned heads. Jason snorted and dropped a smoke bomb, then, slinging the gun over his back, he disappeared.
O
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Steph had been both amazed and disheartened by how similar the Gotham she'd returned to was from the one she'd left. It was stupid, but for a long while she'd hoped that 'something' good could come out of what had happened. So much had stayed the same, too much.
The pier was in sight of the origin of the smoke and ashes than clung to her thick, triple weave reinforced kevlar coat, it was also in sight of Arkham, the dark, foreboding shape of the asylum just a boat ride away. If she turned her head, she'd see the tops of the stadium where she'd heard majority of the fighting had taken place. It was back in use now; there'd be a big game the next weekend.
Nothing to show for anything that had happened, nothing but fewer plots in a cemetery that had already been filling up way too fast. Steph dusted the ash off her shoulder and stood, shoving her hands deep within the pockets of her coat, hand closing around her burner cell as sirens screamed in the distance.
That was the whole point wasn't it? That Gotham refused to change, it was old and set in its ways, just like its protectors. Well she'd changed, she'd changed a lot.
The burner vibrated and Steph pulled it out of her pocket, ducking into and alley as she put it to her ear. "So, how'd it go?" she asked, forcing enthusiasm into her voice despite the anxiety bubbling away at her chest.
'Think they short circuited, I'd give em a couple days to think it over.' He said then gave a low whistle. 'Can see the wreckage at crown point from here, you finish the ammonium nitrate?'
"No." Steph lied, a grin forming on her face, that must have bled through in her voice and he gave an unimpressed huff that sounded more like a burst of static on her end. "Toldya it'd work out, those creeps car more about their money than their guys."
Jason hummed non-commitally, he'd really wanted to do things the messier way and no thank you, the fingers were bad enough, his plan was just plain gross. ''M heading back to base, 'f the nitrate's finished 'you're' picking up more.'
"Fiiiine." Steph kicked a beer can down the alley, listening to its scrapes echoing along. The nitrate guy was all the way in Bludhaven, and if it had been a dump before, after chemo it was a veritable hell mouth. Was worth it though with so many drugs of so many kinds off the streets, prices would need to be jacked up and there was just that much less to go around. That much less for little kids to watch their mothers shooting up on. "How long you think it's gonna take him to notice."
Jason scoffed. 'Look at the sky.'
Steph ducked her head out of the alley to see Gotham's smoggy sky and there, shining brightly against the sky, was the Batsignal. "Oh." She blinked up at it and stepped out of the alley to begin the walk back to their safehouse. "That was fast."
'You brought down the equivalent of a city block 'F he didn't see it he's blind, see you at home, Hood out.' And the line went dead. Steph ran a hand through her short hair, turning to her reflection in a storefront window as she strode by.
This was it, she was really back, and this time she wasn't a terrified girl watching a Crimelord meet she'd set up go to hell and drag the whole city along with it. She was stronger now, and she knew what she was doing, this time, she swore, something was going to change.
Her eyes turned from the glass, up to the Gotham skyline that stretched out before her. "Hello Gotham."
O
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The placement, far as he could tell, had been perfect, the explosive power just high enough to reduce the buildings to rubble without damaging the infrastructure of the surrounding structures. It hadn't been as simple as a rival drug lords taking out the competition. That was a level of professionalism they would've barely been able to afford let alone bother with. Let alone all at once.
There was no retaliation, nothing so much as tags in rival territories. If anything, things had gotten quieter. The owners of the warehouses all claimed no knowledge of what their properties had housed. So far, there was nothing to say what components the explosives comprised of aside from the barest traces of an accelerant.
No leads, nothing to trace, and so far, no one was talking. Bruce turned away from the glare of the bat computer's screen and its non-answers. He shifted his attention instead to the case standing innocently across the room, the eyes of the empty domino cutting deep passed the armor of the suit covering his chest.
Something was starting in his city, something big; he only hoped that this time he'd be able to catch it before it spread out of control.
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This is very similar to UTRH right now, but it diverges really soon. Dick will make his appearance in the next chapter