So Far So Fast
Chapter Two
1
Friday, June 1st --- 9:24 PM
"Hello, residents of Jump City! I'm Dan Labrador, your duly elected mayor, and I want to welcome you to SEAlabration!"
Dick Grayson watched as the teenaged residents of the self-proclaimed 'murder capital of the world' gave a raucous, roaring cheer as a group strolled onto the stage.
"And tonight, gift wrapped and bow tied, I give Jump City's own hit band, A Stone Unturned!"
Teenaged girls screamed. Teenaged boys shouted. Thirty-year-old men jumped up and down.
Something was seriously wrong with this city, Dick decided. So he left the screaming crowd behind and decided to troll along the docks, as well as the tiny seaside shops, for girls.
It wasn't until he had passed the third shop down that he found a truly gorgeous girl. If there was one thing anybody could say about Gotham that had been good, it was that Gotham contained a respectable number of pretty girls.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw dark violet hair that went to her shoulder blades, long hair. Pale skin. He turned around, followed the girl.
It wasn't hard to do. She wore a black halter-top and black shorts. Under one arm, she carried a motorcycle helmet like one he'd never seen. In her other hand, she held a black case. A young woman dressed like that, walking down a street where the other girls dyed their hair pink or blue and dressed in bright, summery colors, just popped out at your eyes.
She walked almost soundlessly, despite wearing black heeled boots.
He didn't notice just where she was going (towards the parking areas) until he saw the barricades some thirty yards away.
Great. I find a good-looking girl and she's a hooker. This is just my luck.
Except she didn't talk to any of the people who rolled down their car windows for her. Odd.
Lavender Hair continued on, into a parking lot Dick vaguely recognized as the one he used. She didn't stop at any car, but just kept right on going until she came across a motorcycle.
His motorcycle.
She opened the black case and removed some tools.
For the first few seconds, as she made preparations to hotwire his motorcycle, none of it felt real. He pinched himself. Not only did it hurt, but it also left a mark.
This was real. Some girl was really going to hotwire his bike!
"Hey!" He cried. "What do you think you're doing? That's my bike!"
The girl looked up. He saw wide, terrified violet eyes and pale skin.
"That's my bike. Get away from it right now or I'll call the police!" He took out his cell phone, pressed three numbers.
4-1-1
He would do no such thing as call the police, of course. She hadn't even gotten to the wires, yet. The cops would blow him off.
Evidently, she knew it, too. Lavender Hair straightened and looked directly at him. The terror drained from her face. A pale purple eyebrow lifted, making the girl's thoughts quite clear.
But then her gaze jerked to her left. She looked terrified again.
Dick chanced a look to his right. Someone grabbed him from behind.
"Sir, please put down your cellular phone," said the voice of a young woman. The grip around his chest tightened for an instant. "I do not wish to harm you, but I will if I must."
He dropped his cell phone.
"Thank you. I assure you, we will not harm you."
The woman behind him let him go. He whirled, glimpsing her. But she was already turning her back, so he really only caught the impression of a mixture colors: red, light orange, green, purple.
He heard a footstep, turned again, but only in time to see Lavender Hair running away.
"Wait!" He cried. "Come back!"
But she fled into the night, and vanished.
Rainbow Girl, he discovered when he turned around, had vanished too.
On the ground, his cell phone lit up and played the Gotham Knights fight song.
It began to rain.
Crap.
Friday, June First --- 11:52 PM
Dick resisted the urge to grumble about his curfew— he was seventeen years old, he could drive, he could take care of himself— and yet his curfew was exactly the same as it had been when he'd turned sixteen.
Bruce had set the official, "you're grounded if you aren't home by this time" curfew at midnight. But experience had taught Dick to show up at least five minutes early. That way, Bruce couldn't claim that he hadn't been on time.
Bruce sat in that big purple chair of his, reading Blue Blood.
"Did you have fun?" He asked as he turned a page.
"Yeah. How about you? Have fun staying home and reading?"
"Of course."
And that ended the conversation. Dick trudged up the first set of stairs, located in the kitchen, and then trudged up the second set.
Ah, the loft. His loft. He hadn't had an entire floor all to himself back in Gotham, and he had to admit that it suited him. In one corner, he had a miniature kitchen. In another corner, a little shrine for his parents— a poster advertising their act, his mother's locket, one of his father's spare costumes. A single black candle that he never blew out.
It wouldn't do to forget his parents, to forget his father, to forget his heritage, his people.
He opened his window for a moment, letting in a rush of warmer air and the scent of eucalyptus. He stuck his head out the window, just looking around. And if he looked at the other rooftops, looked at the ground, at the trellis that reached the window and calculated distances, times, impacts, what of it?
A prickly feeling nagged at him, racing down the back of his neck, all along his spine.
Something just didn't feel right.
He surveyed the darkened neighborhood. He hadn't had time to learn which cars went where, but everything looked okay.
Wait. Moving shadow. There, on the sidewalk, just to the left of his house.
In Gotham, moving shadows were normal. The wind blew the trees, whose limbs shook, and the shadows of the limbs moved.
Jump City didn't have trees. Jump City was a desert right next to the sea. Nothing grew on the trellis that went up the outer wall of his house. He doubted anything had ever grown there, and felt certain that nothing would.
So there was no excuse for a shadow to be moving at midnight, unless. . .
He caught a glimpse of violet hair. That decided him. His gaze shifted to the trellis, within easy reach.
Distance, time and impact.
2
Saturday, June 2nd --- 11:14 AM
Tim did not term himself an early riser. In fact, he didn't term himself a riser at all, especially in the summer, and even less so during the summer weekends.
For Tim, waking was a necessary evil, heavy on the evil and light on the necessary.
Usually, the sound of his father turning off his floor fan and yanking the curtains open, accompanied by the sudden absence of white noise and presence bright light, was what woke him.
This time, bright light that made it through his heavy curtains did the trick.
Oh, wait. It might have also been, "WHAT IN THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING? YOU COULD HAVE DIED! YOU COULD HAVE GONE SPLAT ON THE GODDAMN SIDEWALK YOU CRAZY SON OF A BITCH!"
Somebody answered quietly, too quietly for Tim to hear.
"NO, THE FACT THAT YOU WERE A FLYING GRAYSON DOESN'T MAKE ME FEEL ANY BETTER! I DON'T CARE IF YOU WERE AN ACROBAT, HEARING WHAT YOU DID SCARED ME HALF TO MOTHERFUCKING DEATH!"
Tim groaned and somehow managed, despite his uncooperative, liquid-like muscles, to wriggle out of his bed and onto the floor.
He went thump. And somehow, he managed to wiggle along the floor until hew reached a pile of clothing. A quick sniff revealed that the clothing stank of sweat, but he didn't care. The jeans weren't as sweaty as the shirt, and he could go down shirtless. Going down in his boxers, though, when Dad was arguing with Dick. . .
Textbook case of Bad Idea.
He found Dad and Dick standing in the kitchen, glaring at each other.
Two faces, surrounded with dark hair and dominated by blue eyes, turned as one to glare at him.
"Uh? What's going on?"
The two answers came simultaneously: "Dick was being a jackass." "Fath is being a jackass."
"Um?"
"Last night, Dick decided to go raring off into the night after some purple-haired girl he claims tried to hotwire his bike at SEAlabration. Dick, being the genius he is, decided to go raring off by means of jumping out his window."
"Well. Um. Bad Dick, no cookie?"
Dad glared at him. Dick only threw back his head and laughed.
Dad's mouth thinned into a single line. "Dick, driving privileges removed except to drive Tim. I'm also pulling your sugar rights, because Tim had a good idea, there. Tim, stay out of our arguments from now on. If I want your opinion on how Dick should be punished, I'll ask."
Tightwad.
Saturday, June 2nd --- 9:02 PM
Tim followed Dick through the crowd. Dick had pestered Tim into coming to SEAlabration.
"The Rolling Clones are playing," Dick had said.
It turned out that Dick was right: the Rolling Clones had set up on stage, and were even now covering It's Only Rock and Roll.
The song reminded him of why he loved that band.
"This is actually cool!" Tim said. "I thought this was just some dumb 'let's advertise our crappy local bands' fest!"
"It is," Dick murmured. He was staring into the crowd.
Wait. Scratch that. Dick was staring at all the girls with weird hair colors.
"I thought you didn't like girls who dyed their hair?" Tim queried.
"I don't."
"Then why are you staring at girls with dyed hair?"
". . .Shut up."
Tim grinned. He'd gotten to Dick. That took a lot of work— Dick didn't usually get mad at his family. He'd get mad at teachers, at classmates, at people on the street, but never at his family.
Well, he hadn't really made Dick angry, but he had gotten under his skin. That took some work, too.
Part of Dick's alien-ness was how easily things rolled off of him. He was a show-off and a melodramatic, but he rarely gave a crap about what other people thought about him, or said to him.
Words are words, and deeds are deeds, he always said. No sense getting as angry over words as you would deeds.
Tim followed Dick through the boardwalk.
He saw a girl with purple hair, wearing all black and carrying a black back with her. She crossed in front of Dick, and Dick veered to follow her.
Something crazy was happening here.
"You!" Dick suddenly cried out.
The girl looked up at Dick. Tim noticed that she had purple eyes, too, and very pale skin.
"Who are you? Why did you come to my house last night? Why did you try to hotwire my bike? Why—"
"—Why are you asking these questions? Why are you following me around?"
"Because you tried to steal my bike, and then you came to my house! We nearly got robbed last week—"
"I know."
Dick stopped talking. "You. You know? How?"
"I've been watching you for a while. We think you're worthy."
"Worthy? We? What the hell is going on here?"
"We. The Acid. We bike. We've been watching you. You ride well."
". . .What?"
The best way to throw Dick off guard was to compliment him. Tim knew that for a fact, he did it all the time. Can you smile like that at my teacher? If you do, she might just pass me.
"You ride well. If you can keep up with us, Johnny will let you join."
"Keep up? But... You don't have a bike..."
"Yes I do." The girl smiled a secret smile. "Maybe if you join... We could be..."
Dick seemed transfixed.
Tim watched Dick stiffen, his head turning to look down at the girl. "What are you suggesting?"
"What do you think I'm suggesting?"
"Are suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"
"Yes."
And then Dick turned around walked to the mouth of the alley, grabbed Tim by the arm, and marched him down to face the purple-haired girl.
Oh crap, he wasn't supposed to know I'm here!
"See this? This is Tim. My kid brother. He's fifteen. He doesn't need to be hearing talk like that!"
"I didn't actually hear anything!" Tim said at the same time the girl said, "I didn't actually say anything 'like that'."
She said like that as though it were a cute, childish thing. Like she was making fun of his brother.
"I don't care! You do not talk like that in front of my kid brother!"
The girl took a step closer to them, and for a second, Tim could have sworn that the teeth in her sudden, pointless smile looked razor sharp and very pointy.
"I haven't been inappropriate."
"So I misunderstood you?"
She laughed. It took Tim a moment to realize that the dry, bitter sound her mouth emitted was a laugh. "Did I say that? I didn't say anything like that at all."
"Then you were being inappropriate."
"No I wasn't."
"Yes you were."
She looked at his older brother with a pouty expression. But Dick had his jaw set in that hard, straight line that said that he wouldn't hear any argument.
"Let's race," she said. "If you can keep up with me. . ."
"Then Johnny will let me join."
She nodded. "And if you join, then we can be..."
Dick nodded back. "Promise not to tell on me, Tim?"
"If you take me with you."
"Not likely."
"Well... What can you offer me?"
"Survival."
"Okay."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
He offered his hand to the girl. "Dick."
"Raven."
"You're on for a race."
The girl smiled. "Good."
Didn't I swear
There would be no complications?
Didn't you want
Someone who's seen it all before?
Now that you're here
It's not the same situation
Suddenly I don't remember the rules anymore
This night is mine
It's only you and I
Tomorrow
Is a long time away
This night can last forever
—This Night, BILLY JOEL