Nightwing: Brutality Chapter 2: Jagged Wound, a birds of prey fanfic

Chapter Two: Jagged Wound

It was the crack of dawn, a nearly audible sound in Bludhaven. The sun rose slowly, attempting to take its throne in the sky, battling the Blud's omnipresent clouds for dominance of its heavenly kingdom. The war would end in a standstill yet again today.

Sun streamed through the cheap blinds covering the windows of Dick Grayson's bedroom. The rays poured in-between the slats, giving the bed a glowing yellow veneer. White sheets, ruffled by a troubled sleep, covered Dick's stirring form. Dick sat up with a start.

"Barbara, NO!" he screamed.

Dick breathed in heavy and fast, marathon runner hard, and looked around. Sweat dripped from his face. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated and dark. He closed his blue eyes, and brought a hand up to mop his damp brow. He sighed heavy, and took just as heavy a breath. He sat there for a moment, his forehead resting in his palm, his body sitting up in bed. He finally brought his hand down to the mattress, and tipped his head back, stretching. Muscle pulled and tightened. Joints popped and cracked.

Dick looked at the clock; seven a.m. He had only been asleep two hours, and it was a fitful 120 minutes at that. Dick pulled back the sheets, and swung his feet to the floor. He planted them solidly, and leaned forward slightly, while gazing towards the window. The light stabbed into his eyes, and for a moment, he wished it were still raining, so the clouds would banish the harsh sun from the sky. Dick ran a hand through his sleep-tousled hair, and scratched the back of his neck, while looking down the blue pajama pants he wore. He yawned once, his hand not yet ceasing its scratching, and finally stood.

Dick walked to the bathroom, and disrobed. He started a shower, and stepped in, the water brutally hot. Too hot. The cold water wasn't coming through the shower again. I'd better call the landlord, thought Dick absently. He chuckled to himself, and smiled, shaking his head under the scalding jets. Oh right, I AM the landlord. Dick extended his arms in front of him, palms touching the shower wall, and pressed firmly. The water ran lava-like down his back. He pushed a bit harder, and worn muscle pulled on tired bone, popping and cracking undisturbed joints. Dick thought deep.

Dick still lived at 1013 Parkthorne Avenue in Bludhaven. He once was a tenant in this building, and secretly the owner, living near John Law, old foe Aaron "Amygdala" Helzinger, and the former landlady, medical student, and dear friend Bridget Clancy. Dick smiled to himself, remembering Clancy, her dark hair, her bright eyes. A few years back, Dick had bought 1013 Parkthorne from a land development agency. He sold the building to Clancy years before that. All the tenants he had known moved out ages ago, and 1013 was condemned to strip-mallhood. The land deal fell through, and the buildings on Parkthorne sat festering, decrepit. Dick repurchased 1013 Parkthorne partially out of nostalgia, like a grown man, finding a toy dear to him as a child. But Dick bought the property mostly out of need.

Dick was no longer on the Bludhaven Police Force. He didn't want to think about the reason why. The anger and pain was still present, no matter how much good he had done there. He still had Nightwing as a conduit of crime prevention, but he wanted more than that. Dick took a few tests, filled out the correct forms, permits, and the like, and within a month, was a Private Detective. With 1013 in his possession, Dick renovated the building, and turned it into exactly what he needed; the public half a respectable private investigation firm, and the other half, the side no one saw, a base of operations for Nightwing; the Aerie. A camouflaged compound equaled only by the Clocktower in New Gotham. It perhaps rivaled the Batcave itself. Grayson Manor, Dick jokingly called 1013 in private.

Over the past few years Dick Grayson Investigations, coupled with the activities of Nightwing, had severely affected the crime trade in Bludhaven. Dick discovered quickly that there are certain people who will talk to a handsome P.I., and not a masked man in black, and certainly vice versa. He used it all to his advantage. Information was key to stopping crime, and Dick had a wealth of it. He had done some good work over the past couple of years in particular. Simple things like bringing lost loved ones to reunion brought him the most joy. Dick refused to take cheating spouse cases, lecherous jobs playing no more than paparazzo to a straying husband, an unfaithful wife. There were plenty of shady P.I.'s around who could take on those assignments.

Dick stepped out of the shower and began to towel off. He caught his own reflection in the mirror and stared into it. He was no longer the laughing Boy Wonder he had once been. When gangster "Boss" Tony Zucco killed his parents, Dick became an orphan, with no one to care for him, without a friend in the world. Even the other performers of the circus his aerialist family, The Flying Graysons, traveled with could not help. The state would certainly not let this boy be taken in by a traveling show. Dick was going to be another lonely child, lost in the system, dead inside. But that's when he came. Bruce Wayne.

Bruce took in the young acrobat, and soon Dick discovered there was more to his new guardian than met the daylight. His billionaire benefactor turned out to be the Batman, the guardian of Gotham, thought by most to be an urban myth. Batman took young Grayson under his wing, and trained him, shaped him, molded him into a partner, an equal in Batman's eyes; Robin.

Years went by, and things changed, emotions and relationships altered. Robin emerged from the shadow of the Bat and became his own man. Taking the name Nightwing, he fought on, finally on his own. He operated out of Gotham at first, but when his heart was broken, and his mentor departed, Dick decided he needed to get away. Bludhaven became his new home; equal parts need of individual identity, and need of isolation from the past. The laughing boy on the flying trapeze had won independence. But that was a long time ago indeed.

Dick stared at his body in the mirror. His face was showing the signs of age. It had become harder, rougher, brows knit in worry and rage so many times, the emotions had left their signature etched into the granite of his forehead. His irregular sleep patterns led to the rings underneath his eyes, reminders of nights of rest sacrificed for justice found. His body was still firmed and toned, a lifetime of training had seen to that. But it covered with scars now, much like those once Bruce had; bullet wounds, stab wounds, scars from compound fractures where bone would break and pierce the flesh itself, finally exposed to the forbidden air. Dick's hands were covered with their own tales of fights, told in tissue, his knuckles a landscape of scars and bruises.

Dick frowned and sighed. He took a straight razor from the medicine cabinet, and lathered his face to shave. Yes, youth had escaped him, and many years had passed for Nightwing. It had been years since that terrible night that Selina Kyle, he and Bruce's old sometime-adversary Catwoman, had been killed. Soon after, Batman himself vanished. That night... thought Dick. That was also the night Barbara was --

Dick stopped, dropping the razor into the sink. Blood trickled from under his chin. He had cut himself deep.

"Damn," he whispered surveying the jagged cut.

Dick washed his face, took a bottle of liquid bandage from the medicine cabinet and daubed some onto the wound. Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl, the current Oracle, was the hub of knowledge and information on the planet. They had been lovers once, but after that terrible night, she was shot, paralyzed, and she and Dick began to fall apart. Perhaps he had cared too much about her. Perhaps he didn't care enough. Reasons unknown, intangible, but the pain of her breaking his heart was as real as any fist that had punched him, any blade that had cut him. Barbara ended the relationship, Bruce left, and Dick was alone. He left for Bludhaven.

Dick returned to Gotham, once, after the earthquake that had decimated the city. The Phoenix of New Gotham arose, and it was to be the last time Dick saw Barbara. He returned to Bludhaven. Barbara and he would chat, by mail, email, or over the phone, but that contact was few and far between. Nightwing would contact Oracle if information became too difficult to acquire on his own, but the love had past. "The Job" was their remaining bond.

Dick finished his grooming, and went back into the bedroom. He dressed in brown slacks, a white button-up shit, respectable tie, and suspenders. He looked as if he were living out a Philip Marlowe P.I. fantasy. He lifted a silver cigarette case from his dresser and gently opened it. It was filled with brightly colored Pixie Stix, each packed with sugar, food coloring, and little else. Dick smiled to himself. He didn't smoke, but had yet to kick this habit.

He combed his hair, while sucking down a red Pixie Stick, and thought on the previous night. He had been tracking T-Cool and his gang for the past week. T-Cool used to be a small-time 'banger, but had rose quickly through the ranks. That caught the attention of Nightwing. A small-timer doesn't usually ascend the criminal ladder that fast without a big-timer pulling them up the rungs. The big-timer had yet to show themselves, and that was frustrating to Dick. All crime in the Blud at once time was controlled by the gargantuan crime boss Roland "Blockbuster" Desmond. He had been the Joker to Nightwing's Batman. He disappeared off the radar years ago, and whether in hiding or dead, he didn't seem to be in control of Bludhaven any longer.

Could Blockbuster be back? Dick had thought. It was a possibility, but so far he had no evidence to support his theory either way. Over the past few months many former small-timers had risen up, taking out their rivals, assimilating the remaining gang members into their own. An amoeba, spreading out, a bacteria consuming Bludhaven. T-Cool had been one of the more surprising promotions. Dick found no connections in the piles of bodies left in the wake of these turf wars. As far as he could tell, all the gangs were autonomous now, finding what territory they could, then "planting their flag" as it were. It had only become a war recently. Someone new had entered the picture. Someone new was organizing the gangs.

He was going to confront T-Cool and his lieutenants traveling with him last night, when they happened upon poor Lulu. Lucy was a fortunate discovery to Nightwing. T-Cool had spoken the truth; Lucy no longer had a pimp. In Bludhaven, that was quite rare. Any girl hooking on her own was quickly absorbed by a pimp, lest they be driven out of town, or what was more common the case, killed and left to be found washed up on the beach somewhere. Lucy was different though. She once did have a pimp, and one of the more well known ones at that; Chad Dogg.

Chad Dogg, or C-Dogg for short, was the most prominent pimp in the Blud, or as prominent as one could be; catering to celebs, government officials, and crooked cops. Nightwing would pump him for information at times, but sometimes C-Dogg would offer it up, voluntarily, just to be rid of a rival, though he would of course call it an act of a "concerned citizen." He was Huggy Bear to Nightwing's Starsky, or Hutch. C-Dogg however had disappeared about a month ago. Lucy was one of his, that's how Nightwing knew her name. He knew many of their names. He thought by knowing the hookers by their real names, knowing them as people, he could feel more sympathy to their plight, and work harder to see they would never have to put up with the nightly abuse again.

From what Nightwing knew of Lucy, she wasn't a drunk and wasn't a drug user. The fact that T-Cool said she was still working but without a pimp, plus the sudden binge drinking could mean she knew, or maybe even saw, something she wanted to forget. Many people would drown their sorrows in alcohol. Many drank to forget, suffocating their memories in pools of Jack Daniels, or in Lucy's case, very cheap wine.

Lucy might know what had happened to C-Dogg. If he was dead, Nightwing could discover who his murderer was then work his way up from there. There was chance C-Dogg was killed in a random act of violence. It certainly wasn't an uncommon occurrence in the Blud. But he wouldn't put his money on it. There had to be a connection, and Lucy was the key.

Dick took the spent Pixie Stick from his mouth, and placed his comb back on his bureau. He tossed the Pixie wrapper towards a nearby wastebasket. It flew awkwardly through the air, its weight insignificant against even the lightest movement of air in the room. It fell short of its destination by about a foot, landing in a pair of Dick's shoes. Dick raised an eyebrow and smiled.

"Uh... I meant to do that," he said to no one.

Dick smiled as he bent down to pick up the wrapper and his shoes. Thank God I'm not that bad with Batarangs, he thought to himself as he let the wrapper fall gently into the wastebasket. Dick sat on the edge of the bed and put on his shoes, giving his bedroom the once-over; the bed, a bureau with a large mirror mounted on the wall above it, and a small desk with lamp, a picture of Dick and Barbara above that, made up the minimal furniture in the room. Pale yellow walls surrounded him, with only two exits; one doorway to his bathroom, one into a small den which led into a modest kitchen. Furnishings weren't that important to Dick. He spent so little time in the upstairs apartment anyways. His days were dedicated to the P.I. business downstairs, and his nights to Nightwing's Aerie, the supercomputers, training rooms, medical stations, and weapon vaults, hidden cleverly from sight throughout the building, and vehicle bays in the sub-basement. If a burglar were clever enough to find his way into the upstairs apartment, or the agency downstairs, they would never penetrate the walls of defense, the laser-trip wires, motion sensors, and heat detecting hardware that protected the Aerie.

Dick stood from the bed and double-checked his black hair, taming one or two stray strands. A tone sounded in his bedroom, from speakers hidden within the walls. Dick went over to the lonely desk, and touched the lower-left corner of the frame around the picture of he and Bruce. A seamless panel slid down, revealing a flat-screen monitor and small computer terminal sunken into the wall. Dick entered in a few passwords and a few commands, and came to his surveillance menu. He turned on the hidden camera at the front door of the agency. The screen revealed Lucy Scrawnhart standing, looking anxious, no doubt worried about being seen at a P.I.'s office. Dick returned the terminal to it's concealed state, and walked back over to the bureau. Time to work, he thought to himself, straightening his tie.

And time to get serious, Dick said aloud. He took another Pixie Stick from the case, and placed it between his lips. He put the case in his front shirt pocket, and ran a hand over his hair once more.

He went downstairs to meet Lucy.