JIGSAW

by Lis (a/k/a Ruby Lis)

COPYRIGHT: All characters owned and copyrighted by D.C. Comics/Time-Warner AOL. I'm just taking them out for a creative frolic. Promise to put them back where I found them when I'm done. Story is copyrighted by me. Please ask before archiving.

RATING: PG for a few cuss words.

SUMMARY: Nightwing and Donna Troy track down a threat to Roy Harper's life.



PART ONE

I stood in Donna Troy's penthouse enjoying the view of the city. It was a great view. She was in the kitchen behind me. I didn't want to turn around. If I turned around, we'd be face to face and I just wasn't ready to deal with that yet. Truth was, I didn't want to deal with this situation at all. I wanted it to go away.

We had just spent the better part of two months helping our best friend Roy Harper--a/k/a Arsenal--through his first round of chemotherapy. It was supposed to be his only round.

I fingered the bottles in my pocket. One was from a drug manufacturer. The other was from Roy's hospital. I felt Donna's eyes watching me. With a sigh, I joined her in the kitchen. I put the two bottles on the counter. She glanced at them, then me.

"Well?"

"You're right, it's been diluted."

Without a word, Donna scraped "Congratulations, Roy!" off the cake she was icing. She added another layer of frosting and some artsy swirls to cover the bare spot. So much for celebrating.

"What made you suspicious?"

"You remember Sharon?"

"Strawberry blonde, 5' 8", legs up to here?" She gave my shoulder a playful punch. "Your first roomie, yeah, I remember. I did help you find her, you know."

"She went through chemo a few years ago."

"And?"

"And Roy wasn't even close to being as sick as she was."

I picked off a frosted petal and popped it in my mouth. Donna slapped my hand away.

"Good instincts."

"If they had been good, I would have said something sooner."

I laid my hand across hers, forced her to stop and really look at me.

"What happened?"

"Dr. Masinov called with the lab results. The cancer hasn't changed. It's exactly the same, Dick. Exactly."



"So--" I walked behind her, kneaded her shoulders as I mentally put the pieces together. "--if the drugs were normal strength, they would have killed off the cancer. If they had been fake, the cell growth would have been off the charts."

"Mm-hmm."

"No change. So there was just enough medicine to pass for the real thing."

Donna nodded. "Just enough to cause some side effects." She turned to face me. "I want the person responsible for this."

"You'd probably kill him." I'd said it with a smile, half-joking.

"Wouldn't you?"

That stopped me cold. I had half-expected her to pat my arm, flash me a smile and tell me to be careful. What she hadn't said told me more than anything that she wasn't angry. She had passed that stage some time ago.

Some detective, huh? Took me this long to realize I was dealing with one seriously pissed off Amazon. Never good to be on the bad side of someone who can bench press a tank.

I started to say something quippy like "I'll try not to." Crack a joke. Take the tension in the room down a notch. Something cold slid into Donna's eyes. I kept my mouth shut.

She went still. Batman still. I had seen her kill. Self defense every time. I'd never seen her commit murder. She so often fell into the role of den mother or confidante, it was easy to forget that Donna came from a long line of warriors. Hunters. Women who could give you the look she was giving me while they speared your heart from a hundred yards away.

Unnerving but effective. If I didn't get answers soon, she would. I negotiated.

"Give me 48 hours."

"24."

"36."

"12."

I raised an eyebrow at that. Only the quirk of her lips beneath those too serious eyes gave her away.

"36." She agreed.

I followed her gaze to the living room. Roy was helping his daughter Lian tear off crepe streamers to hang from the ceiling.

"Want me to talk to him?"

She shook her head. I hugged her from behind.

"You sure?"

She put the bottles back in my pocket.

"You've got places to go and people to see."

I took the hint.