May. Finishing the year with a bang, but having to leave town for a while p.3

Itziar was waiting outside when the Project Club got to her house. The young woman sitting on the porch steps next to her must have been Miranda. When the five got out of the car, the woman sprung up. She waited for them with arms crossed and an intense look of disapproval fixed on her face.

"Okay, look," she said when they arrived. "I'm grateful that you tried to help me. Really, I am. But what you did? Never should have happened. And I never asked for it."

"She doesn't think I should have called you," explained Itziar. Her mild manner contrasted with her sister's snappy intensity.

Miranda turned on her. "You had a group of children infiltrate a private facility! What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking about you!" Itziar exclaimed, matching her sister's volume, in a voice they had never heard from her before. "About how you were worrying yourself sick for weeks! And driving all of us insane!"

"Itziar, I was torn between whether or not to go to HR with this. It was not a job for your school friends."

"Well I was done hearing about whether you should quit or not!"

"Well you don't need to anymore, 'cause I'll definitely quit now!"

"Um, actually," interjected Dick. "We need you not to quit. At least not until after tomorrow."

Miranda turned to him. "Why?"

"There's some information we need to get, and it'll look really suspicious if you quit right before we go in to get it," replied Dick.

Both sisters peered at them.

"You're going again?" asked Itziar.

"What you kids need to do now is lay low," said Miranda.

"Look, we don't care if you think we're doing the right thing or not," Dick said. "All we need from you is to tell us where Accountancy is, and at what time there's the least amount of people-"

"Absolutely not," stated Miranda, opening her eyes wide in astonishment that they were even asking. "I'm not gonna help you get hurt by some rich businessman with a grudge."

"How can you not want to do anything about this?" Raven asked her. "What about the people it's defrauding?"

Miranda turned to her. "Sweetie, I'm angry too, but this is not your job. Get out of high school and become auditors, if you want! But right now, you need to drop it."

"We're going to see this through whether you want us to or not," Dick stated. "If you don't help us, it'll just be a little bit harder."

He was emboldened by the change in Miranda's face. His declaration had given her pause. She stared at him, hesitating, but ultimately said, "I can't," and went inside her house.

Dick didn't say anything, nor was he deterred. He just turned his gaze on Itziar, silently questioning her.

"…I'll see what I can find out," she said, and followed her sister in.

"Nothing changes," Dick told his friends. "We wait until tomorrow to see if we get the info from Miranda. If we don't, we go in without it."

The next day, Itziar texted them that Miranda said the best time to go to the building was after six, as most people started to leave their shifts. She also sent them a hand-drawn map indicating where Accountancy was. It was on the second floor. Dick had everyone memorize the map.

The man at the front desk boredly waved them in when they said they were following up on the teen research study, as Dick had been counting on. They got to the second floor and found Accountancy empty. Once inside, they followed the plan: in silence, Dick locked the door they came in through, Kori blocked the door with a chair for reinforcement, and Vic started a computer. By the time Dick opened a window to the outside, just in case, Victor was locating the employee clock-ins for the last year and was downloading them onto his pen-drive.

Gar and Raven leaned against Vic's car, looking anxiously up at the relevant window.

'"Guess this establishes us as the least athletic members of the team, huh?" Gar commented. "We're gonna have to find our roles in the team."

Raven sent her terrible cutting glare down on him. "Why? You're already the guinea pig."

Gar visibly deflated.

"I really hope they don't actually need the grappling hook. I mean." Raven looked around. "This street is packed. They're gonna climb down the side of the building like an out-of-uniform baby branch of SWAT?"

Moments after she said it, the rope was thrown down the window, and their three friends climbed down. First Kori, then Victor, then Dick.

"Get inside," said Raven, unnecessarily, because Gar was already opening the backseat door. By the time Raven got inside the car, Gar was stretching towards the front seat, pressing the button to start the car.

As their friends rushed to the car, Raven could see they hadn't used the emergency exit for the sake of it—a security guard appeared on the window just then, looked frantically around, and shouted at Vic's car when it sped away.

Dick realized then that they shouldn't have sped away. They should have left calmly. Or they should have ducked down and waited, and only driven off a while later. Or someone else should have learned how to drive so that he, Vic and Kori could have ducked into the back seats and another person would have driven away calmly, after waiting for a while. But all that strategy came too late, and what was done was done.

"Oh God, okay," went Vic, speeding out on the street. "Where to?"

"Mine," said Dick.

Gar was the first to notice the car that got behind them was following them too closely. Before he could voice a concern, however, the driver started flashing blue lights. For the second time that week, they were being pulled over.

"Oh," went Dick, a single sound, like a deflating balloon; the sound of an unforeseen happening.

He hadn't thought they'd chase after them so quickly. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Vic slowed down the car reluctantly, like he fought against the inevitability of events.

"I've got no choice. I have to stop." Vic said helplessly, mainly at Dick, though Dick wisely hadn't protested.

He parked. They waited as the same man as before got out of the car.

"You don't have to let him search the car, though, right?" Dick asked, desperately. There was no time for him to kick himself. "You can say no? Right!?"

"Wait," said Gar. "That's not even a red light."

"What?" returned Dick.

"That guy doesn't have a red light, it's just some blue lights from his dashboard," Gar said rushedly. "If a car's unmarked and the guy's out of uniform, you don't have to stop your car, you can keep going if you call a station to tell them why!"

"You're absolutely sure?" confirmed Dick, whipping around.

Vic, however, took him at face value. "That's good enough for me!" he said, and he brought his foot down hard on the gas pedal.

Gar watched the man stumble in confusion, run back to the car and start chasing them again. "Who's calling the cops?" he asked.

"I am!" said Kori, and started typing 911 immediately. "I am foreigner, they will more readily believe I got confused."

Vic took a sharp turn on Elgin Street.

"Why did you take Elgin Street?" asked Raven. None of them lived through here.

"I don't know!" returned Vic, and they all realized he was only focused on driving the car, and possibly losing the man chasing them, and wasn't thinking of a destination.

Kori's call went through. "Hello," she said, slowly and clearly. "I am trying to ask if a car is under the cover. It is trying to stop me with lights but it does not look like the polices."

Raven and Gar shared a look of admiration. Kori was exaggerating broken English on purpose.

"What kind? It is…" Kori turned around to look at the car. "Orange. It is orange. …The license? It is RV 459. …Yes, thank you, I shall wait."

They had to stop at a red light, with the car right behind them, still blaring its dashboard lights at them. The five could see out of the corners of their eyes the other cars turning to look at them, wondering why they weren't stopping, but they refused to turn to acknowledge them. At least until Gar's attention was turned to an advertisement for an amusement park. "Ooh, they're opening Jump Park already? Huh."

Raven and Kori, the latter with her phone still pressed to her ear, turned to him with a disbelieving look, that spelled out We are still currently on a literal car chase. Gar appropriately cast his eyes down sheepishly, resolving to stay in the present.

Kori snapped back to the call. "Yes, I am here. …There is no record of that car?" she asked, and all of their hearts sank. To hear that made this real. "So I do not have to stop? …Hello? …Yes, I shall wait."

"I don't think they're gonna tell you outright you don't have to stop," Gar told her.

Kori covered the end of her phone. "They told me it must be an administration mistake," she whispered back.

"Yeah, right," went Raven.

"Guys?" asked Vic, gripping the steering wheel too tight. "Where the fuck am I going?" he demanded, reminding them all that they were still just driving around with no direction.

"Hold on," said Dick, and took out his own phone.

"Who're you calling?" asked Gar.

Dick ignored him as the call was picked up. "Hey, Bruce? Just a question, if you had to go with something really important to police you really really trust, who would you go to?"

"…What?" cried Bruce on the other side.

"We're going out the avenue now," warned Vic.

"Take the interstate!" said Raven.

"No, go to the suburbs!" cried Gar.

Vic gripped the wheel and looked close to collapse. "I can't make decisions right now, I'm yielding the wheel to whoever yells louder!"

"Dick, where are you?" asked Bruce.

"I'm at a friend's house, can you answer this rhetorical question?" Dick returned.

"If we go to the suburbs we could end up on a dead end!" shouted Raven.

"If we take the interstate we can get trapped in a traffic jam!" argued Gar.

"It's past seven, what jam?" returned Raven.

"Tell me what to do now!" bellowed Vic.

"Bruce, come on," Dick urged.

"I'd go to Gotham, and I'd ask for my friend Jim Gordon," Bruce finally said.

"Gotham. Got it."

"This is just a question, right?"

"Sure!" Dick ended the call. Then he yelled directly in Vic's ear. "Floor it till Gotham City!"

The car followed them soundlessly for a good twenty minutes after they left Jump City. Then it turned around, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

Kori stayed on the phone the whole time. The lady at the other side had ended up telling her they didn't find any record of the license plate she'd given out belonging the any police in the country, but to pull over anyway, since it must just be a mistake. Kori only ended the call after she informed them the car had turned around.

Dick got a single text from Bruce after their call was over.

Please tell me if you're not okay.

Dick replied, I promise we're okay.

After a while on the silent, empty road, Gar asked them to put on some music. It was Dick's turn with the aux cord, but they all remembered his taste for hip hop and death metal and considered it considered it too much for their already strung out nerves, and collectively decided to bump it to Raven's turn, who tended to have chiller pieces. She came through with a series of string pieces with soft vocals.

"What's this called again?" asked Victor.

"Carnatic music," Raven replied. It helped relax all of them a great deal.

It was another two hours until Gotham City. Gar even dozed off on the way. When they got to the sign, 'Welcome to Gotham City – Home of the Blackwolf' they shook him awake.

Jim Gordon was reaching the end of his night shift when he was told a group of five teenagers wanted to see him. "What'd they do?" he asked.

"No, sir, they walked in themselves. Say they need to deliver something."

Gordon's interest was piqued, and so was his wariness. He shook himself awake and put his guard up after he sent for the group to come inside his office. It was paranoid, yes, but one couldn't be too careful in a world of costumed super-powered individuals, who Jim opined seemed to get younger and younger every year— Blackwolf or no Blackwolf watching over them all.

He was even more intrigued when he was met with five perfectly regular teenagers. The boy who seemed to be their leader turned to him immediately. "Commissioner Gordon?"

"That's me."

"Sir, my name is Richard Grayson. Bruce Wayne is my uncle. We uncovered fraud in a medical research nonprofit that paid employees to pretend to work full-time while generating revenue in tax breaks and stealing members' contribution and donations for themselves. We got threatened and intimidated on the process of getting evidence, twice, and we want to tear down these people, by principle, and for our own protection."

Dick had known that with the adrenaline they were all carrying he would surely come on too strong and overwhelm a tired cop in the middle of his night shift, so he was willfully trying to slow down. Seeing Gordon's face, he could see plainly that he was failing.

"Whoa, whoa, slow down," said the Commissioner, taking off his glasses. "What do you mean evidence? What's the evidence?"

Dick presented the drive Victor had loaded up. "Records of all the employees who clocked in to the building for the past year," Dick said, trying his hardest to speak slowly. "We also have their tax forms and screenshots of the so-called researchers hiding they worked there on their social media. We had to give up the original folder… but we can send it to you now."

"And what do you mean you were threatened?" the Commissioner asked next.

"Both times we left the Foundation, we got tailed by a car pretending to be a police car," said Gar.

"We were pulled over, and the first time the guy straight-up told us we'd regret it if we kept digging," said Vic.

"What happened the second time?" Gordon asked, almost too afraid to ask.

"We kept driving," said Kori. "I called the station and was told they could not find the car in a record of police cars."

Gordon looked at all of them and asked the best question. "Why did you do this?"

The kids looked at each other. "I guess because we could," said Dick.

Gordon put his glasses back on. "Right. Send me all the files you've got. Meanwhile, you're under threat. You'll stay in this station until we figure this out."

Dick looked up from inviting him into their Cloud. "Uh, we have school tomorrow. In Jump City."

Gordon peered at him. "Who did you say you are again?"

Dick smirked as he re-introduced himself—he was glad to discover the Commissioner had taken the case for its own sake, not because he'd name-dropped Bruce. The second time he said it, it got through to Gordon.

"You're Mary's kid," he breathed. Dick's heart flipped; he hadn't realized the Commissioner had known Bruce for that long. Gordon nodded to himself, seeming more convinced. "That explains a lot. And who are the rest of you?"

Dick introduced his friends and said, "This is my… team." He thought it sounded better than Club.

They arrived in Jump City at the break of dawn and with a police escort.

Jim Gordon had an officer drive Vic's car back, demoting Vic to shotgun, which Gar, in the backseat with Raven, gleefully pointed out. Gordon himself rode shotgun in a police car before them, with Dick and Kori in the backseat. Another police car flanked them, with the other three officers who would complete the guard Gordon had assigned each of the kids. As for the Commissioner himself, he'd stay in town until the Foundation was down.

In the first car, Kori pulled out her phone. "I shall text Itziar, before she does not see us until next year."

Gordon had told them they wouldn't go back to school until the issue was resolved.

Dick told her, "You did great, Kori. Really."

Kori was overwhelmed by the look he was giving her. "We all did."

"Yeah…" he admitted, looking away. "But thanks for, you know, meeting me halfway, early on."

He smiled at her. As always, the rest of the world ceased to exist to Kori.

They pulled up on Wayne Manor. The five exited their respective cars and gathered up.

"No, no, no," Gar was saying. "I wanna hear it again how you liked the songs I chose."

"I said that your selection surprisingly didn't make me wanna jump out of the moving car," said Raven. "It's not a compliment."

Gar snickered. "I have great taste in music and you know it."

"Your taste in music is, according to yourself, everything, so even you are bound to get something right."

Dick smiled, basking in the normalcy of it all. Among many other things, he was glad Gar and Raven seemed to be back to normal.

Then he spotted Bruce, staring at him from second-floor window, kind of looking like a gargoyle, and his smile soured.

Victor came up behind Dick. "You gonna be okay?"

Dick felt strangely protected. "It's alright," he told him.

When Bruce came out of the car, Gordon crossed the yard to meet him. They shook hands and talked on the porch.

Bruce always looked vaguely out of place like whenever he stepped out in direct sunlight. The entire time he talked to Gordon, he looked directly at Dick. Dick gulped, but stood a little straighter. There was a high chance this has been their last mission ever. He intended to savor it.

He turned to his friends. "We did a good thing, guys. Go home, enjoy the early vacation, and stay alert for the news."

"I'm gonna catch up on so many video games," said Gar.

"Enjoy it while you can," said Vic. "We're still gonna have finals, just later than everyone."

"I only wish to sleep," said Kori.

"Good luck," Raven told Dick, glancing at Bruce.

They moved to the cars, and their respective officers moved with them.

Soon after his friends left, Jim Gordon wrapped up his conversation with Bruce. As he walked past Dick, he told him, "We'll be in touch."

Minutes later, Dick sat on his living room couch, awaiting the lecture. But Bruce just stared at Dick, like he wanted him to explain.

"Jim Gordon told you everything, right?" Dick started.

"About the case, yes. But I want to hear it from you. What is this all about?"

Dick sighed. "I guess I can't keep you in the dark forever. Me and my friends, we're, uh…"

"Taking vigilante justice for a spin," finished Bruce.

"Pretty much, yeah." Dick always hated how it sounded when other people talked of it. No one really got it. Not all of it.

"I assume this wasn't your first case."

"No, it wasn't."

"I mean, the sudden excessive training, the coming home with cuts and bruises, the weird out of the bluequestions, the shine in your eye like you're single-handedly saving the world…"

"…You knew something was up," Dick surmised, dejectedly.

"Of course I knew."

Dick shook his head. "Look, I know it's dangerous, and I know it's not what I should be doing-"

"I assumed you were being careful, though. I think I taught you better than to not be."

"Well… Yes, you did."

"And you're not too prideful. You kept your head in this. You called me, even though it meant ruining the secret. That's impressive for a fifteen-year-old, you know that? Especially when that fifteen-year-old is you."

"…Why does this sound like constructive criticism instead of the prelude to a four-year grounding?"

Bruce sighed heavily as he sat next to him on the couch. "Dick, honestly. You were never going to be normal."

"…Okay?" Dick returned, not knowing whether to be offended.

"What kind of guardian would I be if I tried to stifle your natural propensities? I would only get you to lie to me. And if you're using your abilities to better the world… what more could I want?"

"Are you serious?" Dick couldn't believe his ears. "You're really gonna let me keep doing this."

"I'm not going to pretend I wasn't worried sick tonight, and that I didn't want to kill you myself when you came back."

"Right."

"But… I don't think this is going to end here. And I'd rather know what you're up to."

Dick began to smile.

"I'm going to need some things to change," Bruce warned. "If you're serious about it, and I don't remember you ever not being serious, about anything… I'm gonna need you to be honest with me. At least about where you are. And what order of people you're pissing off." He leaned back. "You've been equipping your friends with some command of self-defense, right?"

"Yeah, we're all training."

"Then I have nothing to worry about," Bruce concluded.

Dick gave him an incredulous look. He still thought his uncle had a lot to worry about, but he wasn't going to ruin his own case.

Bruce saw his expression and put a hand on his shoulder. "Look. I didn't actually expect you to join some club. Not the way you started this year. Not after Rex. But I also knew if I didn't push you to do something, you might let all your abilities go to waste. I figured forcing you to take an extra-curricular was one way to get you to wake up and do something of your own."

"Wait, you… planned this all along? Like some long ruse for me to grow into myself?" Dick stared at his uncle, whose face was always an unreadable mask. He narrowed his eyes. "…I hate that I don't even know if you're bullshitting me right now."

Bruce sipped his coffee, hiding a self-satisfied smile inside the cup. "Get some sleep, Dick."

Dick watched his uncle stand and walk out of the room. "You could point out that, while you're fine with it, my friends' parents still don't know about anything about this."

"That's not my problem," Bruce stated.

"Bruce," Dick called.

His uncle came back.

"Do you think we did it?" Dick asked. "That we're gonna run down the organization? And the people who orchestrated this will go to jail?"

Bruce said, "I trust Jim. I think he's going to do something. And I believe some people are going down for it. Maybe not everyone who was involved will."

"Like the family that started all this," said Dick, bitterly. "They'll go to another town and open another sham charity."

"You can't clean the whole world in one sweep, Dick. That I can tell you right now." He stopped and observed his nephew. "Is that what you set out to do? Save the world?"

Dick answered honestly. "I didn't stop to think about it. I just wanted to do something."

Dick thought it was the wrong answer, but he looked up to see Bruce smiling.

"How much do you remember from Hebrew school?" he asked. "Remember tikkun olam? Putting the world back together through acts of loving-kindness? It's not about completing the task, it's about not giving up on it."

Dick began to smile too. "And that's enough?"

Bruce pressed his nephew's shoulder firmly. "Yes. That's enough."

End of May.

End of Year 1.

AHH IT'S DONE! Can't believe I get to press 'complete' on my baby… I am currently quite emotional. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the ride! Please let me know what you think!

Year 2 is just in need of editing, but I need to get my life in order so I don't know when I can commit to start posting it. I prefer to start posting only when I know I'll be able to (at least mostly) adhere to a weekly schedule, so that I know I'll keep posting through writer blocks and existential crisis… Don't know if you agree but a longer wait for more regular content seems better to me.

Alsoo, I've been making moodboards for my Team Titan OC's on my tumblr (the-lighthouse-lit), check it out if you wanna know what they look like in my mind/what they vibes are. It's aesthetics plus some trivia. The specific tag is #tcouh oc (Also, feel free to reach me on tumblr if you're a guest here and have questions. If you have an account here I'll just PM you back!)

Thanks again for reading and look out for the sequel!

~The Lighthouse