Dick

Nightwing took the initiative to stroll up to the gate, but Jason's unexpectedly long gait stuttered his own and they reached it at the same time, and then reached for it at the same time, and then flinched back when the other did too.

Dick leaned back on his heels and stifled a joke—charming smiles never disarmed a disgruntled Jason—he watched hesitantly as the man flicked his wrist in a sarcastic invitation, and his helmet bobbed in a way that Dick was fairly sure meant he was rolling his eyes.

The padlock itself came to the rescue, twisting suddenly and grinding until the hook popped free and dropped into the dirt.

"Allow me," Zatanna said. She gave a sweeping gesture befitting her stage persona, winking, but lingering in her pose just a little too long, her sparkling smile vanishing a little too quickly when she straightened. She fixed Dick with a parting look of steely determination cocooned in a rare softness.

A gentle swell of affection blunted his unease despite his reservations and the serious doubts he had about how much she was downplaying each of their roles. He could only imagine having to watch from the sidelines on a mission like this, and her trusting him with that raw expression gave him a firm nudge down the road to forgiving her for that crack she'd made at Jay earlier.

Still, if Jason hadn't laughed when he did, Dick was still trying to dismiss the cutting words that had stayed wedged in his throat by the sound. If he'd been quicker to recover, he might have been able to capitalize on keeping the laughter going, but even though he was glad it happened, the noise through that stupid hood sounded sickeningly villainous.

Jason wasn't resuming his motion to open the gate. So, imparting Z with a return bow and a cocky salute, Dick pressed the palms of his hands against the mottled metal, and when it didn't outright bite him, he shoved both sides out of their way.

The shrill screech of the hinges was the first thing to finally supplant the whine of mosquitos that had plagued their group since Dick had removed his motorcycle helmet, and when the sound broke, the only thing that rushed back in to fill the void was a dry rattle twisting through the treetops behind him. It was a hollow, brittle sound, something he would expect in the fall from fading things, not a humid spring night.

Creepy, but just as likely to be his imagination as his senses when both kicked into overdrive for the mission.

Easing into his first few steps, he met a perfectly anticlimactic calm. Aside from the mellow breeze, nothing stirred across the sparse expanse. It was brighter even, now that they were leaving behind the densely woven canopy of the forest for a picturesque tableau that might even be worthy of the word serene.

Watchful, he cut a sharp diagonal into the property, aiming for the closest patch of grass to soften the grating sound of his footfalls. He'd taken the time to break in these new boots but they were still clunky from the rivets that had been added to compliment his shin guards. Stomping started up behind him, following the straight gravel path, jarring Dick even as he automatically matched pace to further mask his own sound, flexing his fingers to relieve the excess of energy, managing to refrain from looking back but only barely.

It didn't matter really. So what if the man had become even less appreciative of a furtive approach in the time he'd trained alone? It didn't matter for now and Dick could always guide them in that direction when it did. Jason was reasonable in the field. Surely Red Hood would be more cautious when they weren't traversing flat land with perfect visibility and limitless escape routes.

Except that each time his heavy boots scraped across the gravel he scratched away at Dick's attention. It was fine though. A stylistic choice.

There were going to be a lot of compromises in the coming hours if they wanted to make it back successfully.

But that was the way to get through to him. Dick was sure of it. Maybe even the only way. An unqualified success would be tangible enough that even if Jason spewed all he wanted about hating to be in proximity of a Bat, he couldn't argue with results.

If nothing else, Dick could rely on him prioritizing saving people. It was the first thing that Dick loved about him and still did.

The recent tip to Tim was proof that part of Jason lingered in there somewhere.

Spending the evening keyed up and second-guessing his every interpretation and expression was a given to which Dick had resigned himself, and it was a price he was more than willing to pay, but it didn't seem unreasonable that he'd taken the other man's presence as an implication that he'd at least try to work together. Speeding out of Gotham toward just the chance to mend fences was looking like a longer and longer road.

The night was young. Optimism.

The grating sounds angled further away, toward the far side of the gravel path, and Dick almost relaxed when he thought he could expect Jay to take to the grass as well, but it didn't happen. They shouldn't be separated when they were so exposed like this—

He lengthened his own stride a few inches, compensating with a drop of his hips so he could time his progress to hold the formation Jason had designed anyway. Maybe moving so far away was strategic, or Jason might have noticed Dick staring stupidly at him when he rolled up to find the man hoodless and leaning up against a normal car like that was just an everyday occurrence.

The stiff grass broke beneath his soles with the crunch of a frosted lawn. At least without the actual ice, Dick wasn't leaving footprints. It didn't make a difference, but as a matter of course.

He used to do ridiculous gymnastic stunts to avoid leaving tracks when the manor was frosty during his youthful unsanctioned jaunts. He bet Jason did, too.

Thinking of the manor, Dick put his finger on what was most out of place, feeling stupid not to have noticed earlier. The desiccated lawn was a little long but weedless, practically manicured to just over ankle-height and the hedges along either side of the stairway were still holding a mostly-uniform shape from the last time the place was kept. The architecture too. From the rapidly shrinking distance, Dick couldn't pick out so much as a chipped brick, despite the gate gathering all sixty years of rust and being overtaken by creeper vines.

"Kind of looks like a miniature English abbey, stuck out of time." He commented instead. The only sign of age was the lichen mottling the stone steps as Dick hopped lightly over them, turning his eyes up toward the now towering edifice.

He tried not to let his spirit sink lower when Jason only grunted. "Little gloomier I guess," he went on, chatting lightly as he bent to check the ornate door handles and pretended his lockpicks were suddenly the most interesting tool in his gauntlet. He squatted to tweak about in a lock he could have dismantled and reassembled before he was ten, feeling the tension in the tumblers as he tapped at the rusted metal, worried for a moment he might damage it. He didn't want to break down the door or find another way in. Actually, he had a distinct desire not to disturb anything in this place more than absolutely necessary. There was a reason he didn't watch horror movies or read the James Herbert novels Steph went on about. "But that's what you get for being haunted."

When the last tumbler surrendered, he yielded to his persisting instinct to look back.

Jason dropped further behind without his notice, only one foot on the bottom stair, his body half-turned back, his hood moving from side to side in a way that spoke to darting glances in too many directions.

Pitching his voice barely loud enough to be heard those twelve feet away, Dick asked "Hear something?"

A pause stretched between them before a suspiciously slow "No." White lenses turned back to him. "Done yet?"

Dick drew a breath and let it out slowly as he stood, snatching his patience back as it tried to squirm away. He returned to his task instead, yanking too hard at the unexpectedly loose hinges to throw one side wide while the other sagged to the cement and skid to a sudden stop. "I don't think the full moon's gonna help as much as we hoped."

Here was the sense of decay.

What little light filtered through the grimy windows caught on the dust particles drifting through the air and coating the pale green carpet runner that adorned the wood flooring in a lobby that belonged in a hotel more than a hospital. The lounge area to the right appeared expensive in design, but the sickly yellow cushions were sunken, stained, the pattern dulled to blotches, and the elegantly carved coffee table they surrounded sat too pompously to be fit for a place where so many family members said goodbye.

Did it help? Dick wondered. Did seeing the expenses not spared give the patients hope when they came? Or was all the extravagance a show for the glowing headlines that never mentioned how few people ever made it out of this pinnacle of modern and compassionate science whole? Dick was all too familiar with the value placed on a wealthy veneer, and it tightened his gut. Especially looking beyond the long strips of peeling wallpaper to a warped staircase that Dick knew from blueprints held the offices of all resident doctors. What the map didn't tell him was that the layout made it possible to enter the hospital and get a consultation without ever stepping foot where one might find a patient.

Testing out the floor, feeling one board beneath the runner sag, Dick tiptoed forward to check all four corners before breathing a sigh. The stale dust tickled the back of his tongue. He turned to cough the sting out into his elbow, his eyes tearing.

Jason came striding up and past him. "Liking the taste of that asbestos 'Wing—? The hell?" His head and shoulder jerked, dodging back, his hands flying to either side of his hood and wrenching it off.

Dick's hands dropped to his belt for projectiles, forgetting the firearms, and held his breath to swallow down a croak. "What?"

Flipping the helmet around to look at the lenses, Jason raised one wrist to his mouth to bite the glove off before returning to pick at the lens with his thumbnail. His nostrils flared and his lips drew tight in an annoyed scowl as he braced his helmet against his chest to work at it.

When he looked down without his hood, Dick saw a subtle curl to his bangs, white now but falling into his face just the same as always. A flutter lit in his belly. "Did the vision go out? Want a glowstick?" He probably shouldn't have been any shade of eager to witness their first ghost-related activity, but better than waiting for it.

"Just dust. A lot of it."

Dick hesitated, but maybe a trick of the trade was a safe enough topic. "There's a polymer that's good for—"

"It's between the lenses." Jason dismissed. "Double-paned." He swore again, quieter. He reached inside the helmet, fiddling with something until the faceplate gave a click and dislodged. The visor went into his jacket, the helmet went back over his head, and Dick went back to not staring. "In terms of the spook factor, I'm less than impressed."

Jason talked right over the sound of scuttling, but Dick whipped around to search the darkness, tapping the corner of his mask for a dazzling switch to night vision. Probably a mouse, but rationalizing didn't negate the fact that they really should move on. Getting familiar with the territory was important, but there was nothing to indicate anything but neglect here.

He was about to say as much when Jason started stalking around the outside of the room, drew in a deep breath and hollered. "Lucifer, I'm home!" He topped it off with a derisive snort.

"What the hell was that?" Dick snapped, catching that stupid eyeroll of Jason's before locking his attention back onto the set of double doors that led deeper into the asylum, waiting for their luck to run out.

"Trying not to spend all night wandering the hallways just to find the ghostly lair when we're exhausted and low on ammo. What?" In the corner of his eye, Jason's head tilted as he gave Dick a thorough once-over with a shallow smirk starting to crook the corner of his lips. "You're jumpy."

Dick didn't want to dignify that with a response, but one zipped out before he could inform his mouth of that. "I'm not; we're trying to get somewhere, not go looking for a confrontation with something out of Evil Dead." He clacked his teeth together before the inherent criticism could become more than an implication. He tried to soften it, muttering about not disturbing anything or anyone.

Jason raised his big shoulders and let them drop. "Guess being dead ruined my reverence for it." He sauntered over to the lounge area with his head tilted up to the balcony and Dick took a deep breath. Every time he thought he figured out the pattern to Jason's triggers, something would throw off his whole system.

Jason dragged his fingers over a chair as he passed, tipping and shaking it like he was looking for something that had burrowed in. "Zatanna said these things would be most powerful near the nexus. If we attract attention and gauge the strength of each encounter, we can use that to figure out if we're going in the right direction." He continued without looking back. "Unless you know something else I don't?"

"What?"

"Zatanna said she already told you all about this nexus shit. So is there anything else you want to clue me in on?"

Instinct suddenly tried to pull Nightwing a step back, up high, away. Red Hood's voice was steady, but his words slid together too smoothly, practiced, meant to test out an opponent. His hands were still wrapped around the back of the chair, and his stance could easily allow him to pivot if he decided to launch it at Dick. It looked weighty enough to do damage.

"You gave me a dead drop. I gave you everything I had at that time." Telegraphing his movements, Nightwing started casually for the other side of the room, fully turning his back, pretending to find the check-in desk remarkably enticing rather than focusing all of his attention on listening for the whistle of a projectile. "You're the one who ghosted after."

He'd thought not using Bat-tech to track down the vanished vigilante was respectful. Apparently he really was expected to read Red Hood's damn mind.

The tap of the two chair legs being resettled seemed to puncture the tension that had distended between them. "God, is everything just an opportunity for a pun with you?"

He couldn't read… anger in Jay's tone; but it wasn't exactly amusement either. It was something tinged with tiredness. Nightwing wasn't sure whether to grin shamelessly or make himself a smaller target.

He put the desk between them and bent at the waist to drop his elbows into the fuzzy dust, resting his chin in his hands innocently. "If I can help it."

Jason leaned back, apparently at ease, and returned to his stalk-through, making it over to the windows to scrupulously unlatch and unstick them.

Nightwing went about banking the heat in his gut with the cooler energy of an investigation, falling into familiar motions to keep himself in the moment. The desk stretched wide enough to fit an entire row of Tim's computer screens with enough room left over for the littered shells of caffeine he collected. He started hooking his fingers instead underneath the drawer handles, one at a time. All disappointments until he reached the bottom left, where a yellowed folder stood out brightly in his night vision.

"Hello beautiful." Cooing, he found, often improved his relationship with inanimate objects, especially ones with secrets. His remote control was basically surviving only on praise and pleading these days; he really had to remember to get batteries when they got back to Gotham. Batteries and cereal.

Nudging the folder to an edge so he could slip his fingers under the cardstock, something metallic slid around in the back corner, and Dick nearly whooped as he uncovered a ring of six dull brass keys tucked away. No one would ever convince him his compliments didn't work wonders.

Setting the ring onto the top of the desk for later examination, he swept a hand over the front of the folder before blowing off any leftover particles and delving into the contents. Only four pages, each with a different name in the heading. "Got something."

Jason finished his task while Dick stood to lean against the desk and start skimming, surprised when the man was suddenly craning his neck to read over Dick's shoulder. Jason had a big personal bubble most days, this was the second time he'd willingly come within arm's length, even close enough to touch…

"Keys. And… Looks like nurse rotations in the dayroom and wards, and schedules for Doctors Haversham, Wade, and Shipton." He squinted at the faded, typewritten text. There were columns listed out for the location and patient name. Gideon in the office; Patterson and Moll in the tub room; Dyer, Jackson, and a whole list in the electroconvulsive 'suite'—there was a terrifying use of the word—and a surgical theater. "Looks like Haversham was the surgeon, or at least he was the only one scheduled for it on September 16, 1959. One of the last days of operation."

"Keys aren't uniform and don't have numbers. Can't imagine what they'd just leave out here." Jay set the keys back on the desk exactly where Dick had put them, causing Dick to lose track of his hands for a second before the man reached back for the papers to read for himself. Dick let the folder leave his hands easily, rubbing his neck without something to hold.

"I think that's just how the fifties were. Less careful about stuff like that."

"Negligent." Whether it was an affirmation or a correction, Dick couldn't read. Jay's voice was too flat, distracted as he read. "That tracks. They didn't shut down suddenly though, did they?"

"Not that I saw, no. My reports said the funding dried up due to local politics." He'd thought for once he could ignore the paper trail of blatant corruption. It was a relief at the time to let his eyes glaze over the human happenings around the hospital, but now he wished he had more to offer on the subject. He didn't want to look underprepared. Jason had always been meticulous and always had a better instinct for the sleazy.

"Same. It's weird there were still three doctors on staff."

"Is it? It's a big place."

Jason shook his head without raising his eyes, still fixed on the last page of the schedule. "There's no way they kept three doctors on payroll when they could overburden one or two and make the orderlies and nurses pick up the slack. Not with a reduced patient pool and no one to bitch about it."

"You think it's suspicious?" Dick prompted, uncertain. "They had contracts with the state. Funds might have fizzled but it looks like they started out with a pretty penny." At least according to headlines.

Jason snapped the folder shut and passed it back, stepping away in the same motion. "Not relevant to demonology anyway." His shoulders rolled up, agitated. Dick sympathized. Seeing injustice that couldn't be cornered in a dark alley was still one of the worst parts of the job, one he hadn't quite figured out how to compartmentalize some days.

A puff of dust floated up as Dick replaced the papers, keeping his nose clear this time. He brushed his hand distractedly for where he'd set the ring of keys before glancing down at the barren wood, confused. Jason crossed his arms over his chest as Dick crouched down to check the floor, twisting his wrist to reach under it. Something light and quick skittered over the back of his hand and he jerked back in disgust, successfully pushing knowledge of all the venomous spiders in the region to the Unimportant column. Nothing that could bite through his glove, just that the material allowed for maybe too much sensitivity. Gross.

He frowned before looking over from his knees to the drawer again, reaching with embarrassment to where they glinted cheekily in his night vision. He plucked them up and straightened to dangle them playfully. "Ready to try these bad boys out?"

"You take them, start that way. I'll clear the offices upstairs and work east."

Dick turned his full body to face him. "You want to split up in a haunted house?"

Even the dust seemed to freeze in the air for a breath. "Fine."

"We can still start upstairs—"

"I said fine. Right behind you. Let's go." Jason took a single step back to allow passage around him in the direction he'd waved.

Dick tried not to let any emotion that might be misinterpreted show on his face and strode toward the back of the waiting room, inspecting the doors before selecting a key to try.

It stuck and scratched on its way in; each tumbler it clunked past felt like a threat against proceeding further, but it bottomed out and turned and Dick grinned. "Got it in one." The smile became less genuine when the key mocked him by remaining fixed in place. He squatted down to detach it from the ring and abandon it to its old home. So long as the door remained unlocked.

He stood and pocketed the rest of the keyring and touched the door handle itself, glancing back to Jason for his readiness.

Jay had his right hand laying lightly over the gun at his hip. Whatever jokes he had before, they were taking a backseat to the mission now.

Dick had to stop himself from reaching for his own escrima sticks. He felt naked without them, and he couldn't help but feel a little ill reaching for a pistol instead. He wasn't afraid of guns; Bruce made sure that he—that all of his Robins—were well-acquainted with them, able to differentiate between them, take them apart. But they still felt alien. Other. Teleporting up to the League's orbiting satellite headquarters felt more natural than the way his hand slotted around the butt of the pistol Jay lent him.

"You take salt."

Dick immediately shoved the gun back into his holster but his fingers felt twitchy when he reached for the shotgun instead. "Why?"

"Accuracy's gonna start to go with iron rounds when they wear down the boring in the barrels. Limits our options if we can't both keep range. Don't worry, it's just rock salt at 1500 feet a second. If you miss you'll just break all my ribs."

Um. "Fair enough." Dick felt a moment's peace before deciding that the longarm was worse. Both his hands were full. But then, it put a pistol back in Jason's hand and for some reason the familiarity with that sight helped. "I'll take point then."

There was a brief second where he thought Jason was going to argue, but he couldn't put his finger on why before he jerked his head toward the door without complaint.

He brought it up level to his chest and glanced back at Jason a final time to stage their entrance.

Jason hesitated, his gaze tracking from the door to Dick's hands and back. For a minute, Dick was self-conscious, worried that he was going to be corrected like a child on how he held the stupid thing or berated for doing it wrong. Instead, Jason nodded and wrapped his left hand around the ornate doorknob and waited.

Dick shifted to widen his stance and Jason jerked the door open, sidestepping and dropping to one knee to clear the entryway for Dick's shot down a dark hallway. It felt strange to have his arms extended in front of him instead of coiled to throw, but the breath was the same: measured, not interfering with accuracy.

Nothing moved. No shadows, no rats, not even a swaying cobweb. The hall was dead silent. A wall fifteen feet in front of them that held two brass plaques with arrows pointed to the left and right with no indication of what lay ahead down either path. Their burnished metal caught the filtered hint of moonlight from the windows behind them, but the darkness smothered any other sense of direction, all looking flat and claustrophobic in shades of green.

Frankly, the buildup and let down was starting to get on Dick's last nerve as he squinted around Jason's shoulder to peer into the darkness.

Dick let himself breathe naturally again, moving up past Jason, weapon still at the ready but tilted low again as he advanced, looking from side to side as he swung around to check visible corners and then progressed into the new area. He sensed Jason regain his feet, heard the door close but nothing else gave away his movements now, his boots silent as they left the wood floors of the waiting room and started in on tile that looked much more appropriate to a hospital.

Jason appeared in his periphery, moving forward on his right with his weapon high. Dick fell into step, and the moment they rounded each corner and found nothing to shoot at, Dick lowered his barrel again.

When Jason finally visibly let himself relax, he tilted his head back to ask. "Where to first?"

"Clearing the ground floor." Dick suggested, as per the family standard. He turned back to the other man and raised his eyes to where Jason's attention was: a giant hole in the ceiling where it looked like the floor had simply collapsed tiredly under its own weight, leaving splintered remnants littered around the floor. "…your call?"

Jason stared over Dick's shoulder, looking pensive before snapping back to the conversation.

"Ground floor works for me."

Choosing the path unobstructed by debris, they made their way without incident to the first door, what should be a dayroom if Dick remembered right. His heart beat harder in his chest when they got close enough to see that it was slightly propped open for them already.

This time when Jason stepped forward to take the handle, Dick crouched low to aim before it slammed open. He wasn't going to keep aiming to shoot a foot over Jay's head, no matter what the other man thought was best tactically.

"…Well fuck." Jason said.

Freezing air wafted out from the windowless, solid blocks of concrete not even painted to keep up the illusion that the building was a place of healing. If it were just that the blueprints were wrong, that would be one thing, but there was no way a stairway made sense. There should have been windows if they were following the maps he'd seen.

"Well," Dick tried, "the good news is the floorplans were probably right. Bad news is space is wrong." He'd been to Fate's tower, he knew this special flavor of disorientation. "Looks like we're caught in the gravity well. Bright side: we didn't know where we were going anyway." He tried to sound triumphant at the progression, rather than nervous.

A man with as serious a face as Jason Todd should not pout, but he got dangerously close and Dick nearly laughed at how much younger—almost cute—he looked for the briefest moment before he scoffed. "So we just check off rooms as we find them—"

Somewhere back down the hallway, a door banged into its frame, drawing both lines of fire. The echoing silence after the jolt unbroken until Jason exhaled long and slow and lowered his pistol.

"Alright, that jumpscare was a little better." Jason smirked and stepped forward.