Title: Paparazzi
By: Xmarksthespot
Disclaimer: I don't own YJ & I don't own this plot. The plot is originally from GraysonsGirl and her Teen Titan's story "Drive By Media". I have asked for permission to use the plot for my own Young Justice story.
Words: 2,500+
Notes: Thanks for all of your support! I appreciate each and every one of your reviews!
X-X-X-
"—or the paparazzi will get some interesting news about your childhood, Nightwing. Hired or not, I still have all the exclusive details that I'm willing to give out if I have to."
The money wasn't the problem – Nightwing figured as much before arriving into Selina's apartment that he would have to cough up some cash to get her to comply – but the idea that there's still someone bigger out there that still had hold of the strings pestered him. Selina wasn't one to orchestrate a plan like this, and she had no reason to, but the hero had foolishly hoped that she would've at least given him a bigger clue–optimistically, he was hoping she'd tell him who was behind the whole operation.
The supposed wedding was a month and a week away at this point, and Nightwing needed to find the culprit as soon as possible. There was no telling what the person behind this would do on the actual day of the "wedding".
With a turn of his head, he watched as Robin scurried through all the data they had, finding stores that he and Barbara were registered to – half of which he hadn't even heard of and were on the other side of the city.
"This person is everywhere," Robin suddenly said. "First they were in Star City, using a public library computer to register for cookware, then they were in a café in Keystone, registering for some gravy boats, plates, and bowls." He paused to scroll through the list. "They were even in Central when they registered for—er…ah-hem, clothes for Barbara," the boy said with a blush, quickly turning the page away from the revealing clothing onscreen.
Nightwing leaned back, resting his head against both of his arms. "So basically they're just toying with us – they knew that we would try to track them down…" The older hero sighed. "Either that or they're hacking into the system and changing their coordinates…"
Glancing at the clock on the screen, Nightwing pulled himself up. "It's getting late. You have school tomorrow, don't you? Get some rest, Tim. We'll continue with the search tomorrow."
"But I can still–" Robin was interrupted, much to his dismay, as Nightwing turned off the computer before he could continue.
"I appreciate the enthusiasm but even I had my limits back when I was Robin. I'm not going to make you go into overdrive, Tim. Besides, back then if my mark went down just a fraction of a percent, I would've had to hang up my cape until that grade went up, so I'm instilling Bruce's rule onto you," Nightwing lectured.
Robin sighed. "Fine, but you'll tell me if you and Barbara find something new?"
The older hero nodded, which was enough to convince Robin to change and head home for some much needed rest. But while Nightwing's shift had ended for the evening, Dick, with an obvious frown, headed upstairs to work on the company's files for the next few hours.
"Mr. Grayson," the secretary said monotonously through the machine, "Miss Gordon is here to see you. Should I tell her to come back another time?"
Barbara stood outside Bruce's office, somewhat pestered that she had to wait for Dick to confirm her arrival for her to enter the room. She had thought that being his fiancée would have given her some privileges. But then again, it was Dick who was supposed to have met up with her, but based on his groggy reply through the machine – followed by the nod of approval from the secretary – Barbara wouldn't be surprised to hear that he slept through the majority of his meetings today, if not only his lunch date.
"Morning, Dick," she joked upon entering the room, shutting the door behind her as she tossed her jacket onto a nearby chair. "It was nice seeing you today – thanks again for picking me up from the library, by the way," she said sarcastically and rolled her eyes as Dick gave her a muffled response through the sleeve of his suit; his head remained facedown.
Finally, the heir to Wayne Industries lifted his head, albeit reluctantly.
Barbara gave him a look before running her fingers through his hair and straightening out the bedhead.
"Sorry about that, Babs. Long night," Dick explained. "I'll just go freshen up a bit and then we can go."
"Are you sure? You look really out of it, Dick. We can always have lunch here at the cafeteria," the redhead asked.
Dick shrugged as he messily put away the documents he had been resting his head on away into the cabinets, locking them with a key. "Nah, I need a bit of fresh air anyway. Corporate smell gets nauseating after a while."
She smiled in response.
"Wait here. I'll be back."
Barbara nodded and sat herself down onto the chairs by his desk. Bruce's office – or Dick's temporary one – wasn't cluttered, which she had suspected, save for a photo of him, Jason, and Dick, sitting at one end of the desk, and an older one of just him and Alfred on the other end. However, just as she briefly studied the desk, something caught her eye.
She reached for the colourful pamphlet beneath the black and white papers, brows furrowed at the sight. It was a real estate advertisement…For Blüdhaven. She skimmed through the detailed notes stuck onto the ad, written by Dick himself in his, in her opinion, girlish handwriting. Placing it back where she found it, Barbara sat in silence, unsure of how to make of this news.
How long had Dick been thinking about leaving Gotham? She knew, of course, that now that they were out of high school, things were bound to change eventually. If it weren't for Batman's and the League's mission, spanning over several months both at Watchtower and across the globe, then Dick wouldn't have deferred his college admissions by a year in order to keep things running in Gotham. But Blüdhaven?
"You ready?" Dick's voice snapped the redhead out of her thoughts, causing her to almost jump from her seat.
Smiling and regaining her posture, Barbara nodded to the man at the door. The thought of only seeing Dick (as Nightwing) once every few days at Mount Justice – that is, if he continued to lead the team –bothered her more than she had wanted.
Still, as she left the building, Barbara chose not to say anything.
When Dick was younger, he used to jump everywhere he went – literally. It had gotten to the point where he would pop up in front of people's faces, scaring the daylights out of them, just as it did with Barbara the first few times. And even as he matured, he would continue to do that, though more with Barbara than anyone else really – according to her, it had gotten to the point where doing that was no longer cute, but rather creepy especially with a stranger.
She didn't mind, of course, but she wasn't quite fond of the contact or closeness as he was. And once Dick knew of this, well, he enjoyed using it against her. Shoving his face in front of hers, pouting his lips and giving her the puppy-dog eyes was his thing, leaning in as close as he could towards her until she would give into his demands. It was exactly what he was doing at the moment.
Sitting in the secluded corner of a local café – the owner promised not to allow any flash photography of the two, so long as his favourite customers keep visiting during their lunch hours – Barbara sat with obvious annoyance to the former Boy Wonder.
"Come on, Babs, there's something wrong with you – I can tell! You're not still mad that I forgot about lunch, are you?"
Barbara shook her head. "It's nothing, Dick. Really." She used her hand to swat his face away.
"Are you being bullied?" He questioned, this time leaning back against his chair. He took a sip from his coffee—liquid gold, he liked to call it: the stuff he learned to drink since the early days of being Robin, despite Alfred's constant insistence that too much caffeine at a young age would stunt his growth. He kept his sight on the confused redhead in front of him.
"What do you mean, 'bullied'?"
Dick shrugged. "Tabloids, Facebook, Twitter, etcetera," he listed. "I know there's a lot of negativity directing towards you and I'm sorry that you have to go through with it. I'm also sorry it took me this long to ask you about how you're feeling."
Barbara replied with a sincere smile and thanked him. "Honestly Dick, it's not like I use any of those social media websites. Besides, this isn't my first scandal with you—I'm used to it. "
"Are you sure? Then what's wrong with you?"
"Why do you keep insisting there's something wrong with me?"
"Because I can tell when you are. You make that…weird face when you look at me!"
Barbara gave him an offended look. "What weird face?" She asked, but when he looked away innocently, she rolled her eyes. She cleared her throat and decided to change the topic, saying: "Anyway, I got a text from Artemis just an hour ago. Did you know that Wally got an invite to our wedding, but not her? She's furious."
Dick, though unconvinced with Barbara's initial response, decided to continue on with the conversation. "Yeah, Wally texted me the same thing too," he said. He then lowered his voice. "That said, I think that the person doing this is after me specifically…"
The redhead sighed and tried to shake away the solemn expression on her friend's face. "We still don't know, Dick. It could be the team itself," she whispered the last part. Placing a hand onto his lap, she drew his gaze onto her. "Regardless of who the target is, I'm sure we'll figure this out soon enough. What was it that you used to say? Get traught?"
Dick smiled and placed a hand on top of Barbara's, squeezing it gently.
Flash!
The pair turned around, seeing the owner of the café with an old camera in hand.
"I'm sorry, I know I agreed that no photos are going to be taken," the older man said, "But I couldn't help but notice how happy you two look together—here." He handed Dick the photo. "Polaroid camera," he explained. "That's the only copy of the photo, so no stinking paparazzi can get a hold of it. Keep it, so you two can have something to look back on years from now."
"Are you just going to keep staring at it, Dick?" Robin asked, staring at the man who appeared to be at a constant battle with his inner demons.
"I-It's…" Dick stammered, but rather than finishing his thought, he waved his arms in the air as if it was enough. When Robin gave no reply, he gave a frustrated sigh. He dropped his head into both hands before lifting it back up after a whole minute, only to stare at the suit in front of him, and then furrow his brows and pace around the cave—again.
"It's the Batsuit," Robin enunciated. "You've worn it before—I've seen the pictures, Dick."
But Dick wouldn't accept Robin's words. "I was twelve and it was Halloween, Tim! I can't wear this! It's Bruce's."
Robin groaned, finding a seat on the nearby office chair and wondering where Alfred was—the butler was rather good at convincing Dick to do the impossible. "But Bruce—and Barbara—said that the crooks would get suspicious if Batman stops showing up and you've noticed how rowdy they've been getting!"
"But it's The Batsuit!" Dick exclaimed. "I'm not Batman! I'm Nightwing."
"And I'm not the future Mrs. Grayson," a voice said from behind, "but I still pretend to be her every day for the past three weeks—four, if you count the one week I was engaged to you from last year's scandal." Batgirl placed a hand on her hip and smirked. "So go pretend to be Batman for a night, Dick, and stop whining."
"But—"
Batgirl narrowed her eyes.
"Fine."
As Dick went off to change into Bruce's spare costume, Robin gave Batgirl a high-five.
"Maybe you should marry him, Batgirl," said Robin. "You're the only person, other than Alfred and Bruce, that he'll listen to."
Behind her mask, Batgirl rolled her eyes. "Robin, you don't want to know what happens to Dick when he doesn't listen to me."
Before Dick, as Batman, could come into the room, Robin made a sound effect similar to that of a whip's.
"I believe your exact words were: 'It means, ladies, that I'm getting married with Dick Grayson,'" Dick said, raising his voice an octave higher to (poorly) imitate what Barbara had said.
She exhaled. "I can't believe you overheard me say that."
Wally and Artemis had briefly visited again that morning, while on their way to Paula Crock's. It just so happened that while Wally and Superboy were with Dick, the girls had ended up ripping apart several wedding gifts that were sent to Wayne Manor—including one from a certain wedding designer.
"You don't want to marry me, Babs. Even with Vera Wang," he mimicked her again. "You're going to have to return that dress anyway."
"But Dick, it's a gift! Vera's not going to want it back anyhow," Barbara remarked, ignoring the smile she could see on Alfred's face in the rear-view mirror, as he drove them both back to her place—Dick had ended the day for M'gann and Conner. "Just let me keep that one dress. Besides…I kind of already gave Artemis the gift from Victoria's Secret."
Dick made a face in disgust, obviously imagining what Artemis was planning on using the contents in that box for with Wally, then hurriedly shook it away. "How about this: in the future, when you do get married, I'll pay for all those ten feet train and ruffled sleeved dresses that you wanted when you were a kid."
She laughed, just as car was pulling over into the curb. Pecking him on the cheek, Barbara said, "How sweet of you, Dick, but I want a thirty feet train." She opened the door, and climbed out of the car.
However, with the crowd of paparazzi still crowding viciously around her house, Dick decided to jump out of the car as well, tailing after her.
Barbara gave him a look, telling him to go back into the car since she was more than capable of handling a few photographers and reporters, but her friend insisted on leading her straight into the house.
"Mr. Grayson, Miss Gordon, over here!"
"Could we have a word, Mr. Grayson?"
"Miss Gordon, can we—"
Before Barbara could react, one of the photographers had reached out to grab her, missing her shoulder and instead, placed his hand onto her chest. Feeling heat rise up to her face, she squirmed away, but just moments before she could tell him off, she heard a familiar voice—
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF HER!"
—followed by the sight of the photographer on the ground with a bloody nose and a broken camera lying next to him.
Barbara turned around and saw a red-faced Dick with clenched teeth and a bloodied fist.
And in that moment, the paparazzi went haywire.
A/N: Ooooh, he's in trouble now...So I'm going to be adding more Dick and Babs in the next few chapters, so the clues for the case will more or less stay the same.
Clues so far:
1. Selina Kyle snuck into Dick's room back at the manor, stole his mother's engagement ring and sent it to Barbara, but she was doing it under contract, which means that the person behind this, regardless of Selina's knowledge, knew of their secret identities. 2. Mount Justice got a fax, so they know about the team and their whereabouts. 3. We have a copy boy, David Fields, working for some people who are related to Wayne Industries, and some who are rivals of Wayne Industries. 4. It was 'Dick' (or someone who sounds like him) who called the jeweller's, and it was a woman with no distinguishable accent who called the Reverend at church, now confirmed as a character named Kylie Nales and is not Selina Kyle. 5. There's a possibility that the person is doing this to distract the team. 6. The person knows all of Barbara's wants in a wedding because they had access to her wedding book. 7. The person behind this is an expert hacker. 8. The employer is rich. Possibly male. Possibly female. Selina referred to them as a him, but we still don't know. 9. There are many people involved. Selina's done her shift and now it's someone else's turn.
On the invite list now are: Lex Luthor, Oliver Queen, Dinah Lance, Wally West, but not Selina Kyle or Artemis.
Please review! :)