So sorry for the long break in writing- beyond the expected excuses of a global pandemic, American Civil War, and work, I've also spent a silly amount of time organizing the Arkham timeline. The timeline on the Arkham-Wikipedia is incredibly flawed and incorrect and, me being the academic nerd that I am, I could not rest until a more accurate version was constructed. I'm still completing this masterpiece, but I know the timeline of comics/movies/books/games up to Arkham City for sure, so... I'll take your silence as applause. Thank you very much.
But I missed these characters so much and I'm so happy to be back to them! Enjoy this super long chapter!
I was never very good at sleeping, even in my own bed. Maybe it was because of how I grew up, worried for my dad and wary of the men posted outside our apartment. Or maybe it was just a genetic thing: I knew my dad's nightly scotch wasn't just for the taste. In any case, it meant that it took me somewhere between 30-90 minutes to fall asleep most nights.
Tonight, sitting on the fluffy white bed in Wayne Manor's guest room at 3:30 am, I struggled to decide if I wanted to sleep. I knew we'd be awake and in the Batcave again in less than three hours, so forcing myself to fall asleep didn't seem worthwhile. Continuing work while tired seemed far more pleasant than getting just enough sleep that I felt groggy. So, I sat cross legged on the bed and, with gloved hands, started combing through the shoebox that I'd taken from Black Mask's men. There were some bags of what looked like cocaine, but something about the consistency of the powder wasn't pure; it had been cut with something. Then there were the stacks of bills. Plain, fresh bills, all of them crisp and fresh from the bank.
As I tried to imagine what sort of transaction had taken place (was Black Mask buying for himself? Or, more likely, brokering a deal for another dealer in town?), a soft knock came at the door. I assumed it must have been Alfred, at this hour- did the man ever sleep? "Come in," I called softly, dropping the lid on the shoebox and sliding it down the bed. The door opened just a crack and Dick popped his head in through the crack.
"You decent?" he asked with a childish smile.
"Would it matter if I weren't?" I asked, noting that he'd come in the room before asking.
"Well, yeah," he said, opening the door further but lingering in the doorway, "that would be an unfair advantage."
"What do you want, Dick?" I asked with a smile, sitting back against the stack of fluffed pillows behind me. He stepped in the room and slowly closed the door behind him, leaning back against the wood of the door.
"I wanted to thank you," he said, keeping his hands on the doorknob behind him, "for not ratting us out earlier." I nodded with a tight smile.
"Sure," I replied.
"Jason'll be happy," he said, as if that would make me feel better about lying to Bruce.
"He'd better be," I smiled back. Dick leaned forward with a smile and took two large steps closer before halting suddenly.
"Do you mind if I sit with you?" he asked, looking at the bed with a smile. I eyed him suspiciously.
"Over there," I indicated, pointing at the end of the bed. He laughed softly under his breath and raised his hands in surrender, then took his seat. He fidgeted a moment, rubbing his hands and rocking in his seat.
"I, um… I wanted to tell you… he's why I left," he said. I furrowed my brow and cocked my head to the side, not understanding. "Way back, when we went out for drinks? Right when you were getting started? You asked me why I left Gotham… why I left Bruce. I did it for him."
"You…" I stammered, trying to understand what he was trying to say, "…left for him?"
"Yeah, I…" he said, tossing his hands in his lap, "I knew that, as long as I was here fighting with Bruce, he wasn't going to give Jason a fair chance to fight on his own. And he deserves that chance. So I left."
I felt torn. If that was truly his reason, it was both sweet and heartbreaking. It meant that he'd left Gotham out of compassion and empathy for Jason; but it also meant he was on his own not because he'd wanted to be, but because he felt obligated to be. "Dick, that's…"
"And then you showed up and ruined it all," he laughed softly as he looked up at me. I smiled, knowing that while he wasn't truly mad, I had been a wrench in his grand scheme. "I mean, I left so he could promote Jason- not so he could bring in some outside hire." I laughed under my breath, even though I secretly felt a pang of guilt.
"Well, sorry to be a pain in your side," I smiled.
"Good, you should be. Apology accepted," he said quickly, turning away and smiling towards the door. I smiled down at my lap a moment before raising my gaze again. Our eyes met and we smiled at each other a long moment. "Had I known you were joining, I might have stayed," he said. I smiled wider.
"No, you wouldn't have," I replied. He grimaced at me and raised his surrendering hands again.
"Geez. Call me out, why don't you," he smiled. I laughed quietly. He smiled back at me.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" I asked. He raised his eyebrows, clearly not having expected the question. "When I told you about Red Hood, when I told you I was investigating… you knew I was talking about Jason then. So why didn't you just tell me then?"
"Well… okay, technically, I wasn't positive it was him. That night, I'd told Jason to go home just before coming to meet you to look for Bruce. I thought he did. So, it was possible that there was some other asshole out there impersonating Red Hood," he said defensively. I sat up straight and crossed my arms over my chest, silently calling bullshit. "But," he continued, "yeah, I was pretty sure it was him. I'd taken him towards the Oblivion Bar to explain the importance of discreet reconnaissance in the Riddler case… guess the message didn't sink in…"
"Ya think?" I sarcastically asked. He grimaced at me.
"We're working on it," he replied, then smiled. "And now, you get to help."
"Well, you set the bar pretty low for me, so thanks," I smiled. He shook his head as he turned away. "But seriously," I pressed again, "why didn't you tell me? You were pretty clearly trying to get me to drop it… why didn't you just tell me?" He shrugged to himself.
"I just, um… well… I thought there'd be no talking to you about it. I thought you'd find out and immediately tell Bruce," he answered. I nodded softly, pursing my lips and dropping my gaze. "It's nothing about you, it's just… you're trying to carve out your place on this team, you know, and I get it. But I was afraid you'd think it was like… your duty to tell him."
"Which I kind of did," I continued his thought, feeling guilty.
"Well, yeah, but I'm glad you at least heard me out," he said, trying hard to smile and bring lightheartedness back to the conversation. I nodded and turned away. "What is it?" he asked.
"Nothing. You're right and all, I just… I'm still figuring this whole hero-thing out myself," I explained. "I don't really know what I'm doing." I kept my gaze low. It was hard enough for me to share these thoughts; eye contact felt too intimate.
"Can I tell you a secret?" Dick asked. I met his gaze and he leaned towards me on the bed, shielding one side of his mouth as if someone might overhear. "None of us know what we're doing." I smiled back at him with an exhale that might have been a laugh. "I mean, really," he straightened up, "there's a reason the cops love us one day and hate us the next. And Batman and I have always had a love/hate sort of thing… but that didn't stop him from asking me to stay when I told him I wanted to go to Bludhaven." I felt a smile rise on my lips at that thought and hoped that when I made mistakes or choices that Bruce didn't like, he'd still value me the same way. "This isn't like any normal job where he's gonna fire you for one secret or one mistake. Hell, I don't think you can get out of this job without serious maiming or death, so…" he joked, and I smiled. "You're in the family now, Barb. No turning back." I nodded, more easily matching his playful spirit.
"Thanks, Dick," I said with a grin. He nodded in turn and looked down at his lap. He slapped his thighs and stood up, making the sounds an old man might as he rose to his feet.
"Welp," he groaned, "we should get some sleep. Morning briefing is in just a couple hours. Alfred will probably try to get you up around 5:30, heads up." I nodded.
"Yeah, I'm probably not gonna sleep," I shook my head, grabbing the shoebox again and pulling it closer.
"You're gonna have to work on that," Dick advised me. "You'll have a lot of nights like these. I recommend training your body to expect a bunch of naps throughout the day rather than a solid block of sleep. You'll work better for it," he said as he turned and headed towards the exit of the room. "Oh, and Batgirl?" he said, turning back as he lingered in the doorframe. "Quit the library job. Even superheroes deserve to sleep in on weekends." I smiled at him as he left, pulling the door quietly closed behind him. I looked back down at the shoebox, trying to convince myself to get back to work. But I was too wrapped up in thoughts of Dick.
As counterintuitive as it was, keeping this secret and hiding Jason's training from Bruce didn't make me feel like the odd man out. I felt like an insider now, like what I was doing had a higher purpose. I felt like I belonged.
Last thing I remembered was lying back against the pillows, letting my thoughts drift to how we could train Jason, how we could work around Bruce. I must have drifted off to sleep. Alfred walking into the room around 5:45 woke me and I jerked off the pillows at the sound of the light knock on the door.
"Yes," I tried to respond, but the sleepiness croaked out of my throat as I blinked my eyes into awareness. Alfred stepped discreetly into the doorway, still keeping a respectful distance.
"Miss Gordon, Master Bruce would like to see you downstairs," he said, hands clasped behind his back. I nodded as I gathered up the shoebox from Black Mask's men, still lying on the bed with me. After he left the room, presumably to wake Dick, I hurried into the bathroom and splashed water on my face. It didn't help much, but it gave my features a livelier color.
Before going down the stairs, I cast a glance down the hall. The branch of the mansion leading towards Jason's and Dick's bedrooms was quiet, dark- perhaps they wouldn't be joining us? At that moment, the door at the top of the staircase opened and Bruce emerged, wearing a clean gray suit over a crisp white shirt, fidgeting with his cufflinks. His eyes met mine and he glanced briefly down at the shoebox in my grasp before nodding at me.
"May I join you?" I asked, shrugging towards the stairs.
"What have you learned?" he asked as he started down the steps. I stuck close to his side as I explained.
"We got the box off a couple guys that visited Port Adams late last night. They were colluding with a port authority guard; by the conversation I overheard, it doesn't sound like a larger conspiracy- maybe he was the only contact Black Mask's men had."
"Have you established any identities?" he asked as we walked towards the library.
"Not yet- but the men referred to the port authority officer as Geordie. I should be able to ID him."
"What about the box? What's inside?"
"All signs point to drug brokering. Bags of cocaine, laced with something else… I'll perform a composition analysis today, but I expect it's been cut with baking soda or another cost-effective agent." We turned into the study to see Alfred waiting for us with the secret entrance to the cave open.
"Anything else?"
"Cash. Just over $8,000 in fresh, unmarked bills," I said. "What I'm struggling with is, unless these drugs are of a very fine quality, there's no way $8,000 of cocaine would have fit in this box."
"So, you're saying he's overpricing his drugs?" Bruce asked with a look of seriousness at me.
"I'm saying something's not right. Give me the day to run some tests on everything in here. There's more to the story," I said. The elevator reached the bottom of the shaft and we stepped out into the cave, Alfred leading the way.
"What about Two Face? His men didn't show at the bodega on Founder's Island?" he asked, turning his attention to the Batcave as the lights flickered on.
"Not that I could tell," I answered. It was a truthful response- after leaving Dick and Jason on that rooftop across from Port Adams, I swung by the bodega on my way back to the cave. No broken windows, no disturbances inside, nothing indicating anything untoward. But then again, it was a cursory glance- it wasn't the level of attention I had hoped to pay towards the case last night.
Batman led me up the steps towards the Batcomputer, hitting the space bar and illuminating the screens. "And Red Hood?" he asked. I felt my heart skip a beat and my diaphragm tightened, but I tried not to let it show on my face. "Any sightings?"
"No," I said, feigning the sounds of disappointment. "But once I found Black Mask's men, I was pretty focused on getting this evidence and getting back here."
"Did you manage to interrogate any of them?" he asked.
"No," I answered, and tried to invent an excuse quickly. "I was working quickly. With a pinch of luck, the three of them will think it was Batman that took them down and not Batgirl. I've been trying to keep my existence hidden." Bruce studied me a moment, then nodded with a hint of a smile.
"Smart thinking," he said, turning back to the screens. He stifled a chuckle. "When Dick started… there was a time we were fighting some of Joker's men and he shouted, 'that's how Robin gets it done.'" I let out a stifled laugh myself.
"I believe I also signed off with a 'Wuzzuuuup,' but hey, I'm a product of my time," Dick shouted towards us as he approached in his pajamas with two cups of coffee in his hands. Dick held a cup of coffee out to me. I put the shoebox down on a lab table by the Batcomputer and peeled off the gloves I used to keep from disturbing the evidence before grabbing the coffee mug.
"Thank you," I smiled, raising my mug in a thankful salute before taking a sip. The hot beverage made me blush and gave me energy as soon as it hit my taste buds and I tasted a thick caramel creamer.
"Nightwing, why were you in Port Adams again?" Bruce looked at him. It wasn't an angry look, but it was definitely a suspicious one.
"Well I wasn't. I was in Bludhaven, near the docks, when I got a call from Barb. She knew you were busy, asked if I was around for an assist," he said, so casually that he might have believed it was true. Bruce nodded and looked to me, to confirm. I did my best to look embarrassed.
"I know you'd rather I worked independently and so would I. But I don't know that much about Black Mask's men and his operation, and Dick's been preparing for his men to move into Bludhaven for a while. I just didn't know enough to act confidently on my own," I explained, and I was even convincing myself.
"You did the right thing," Bruce nodded. "Dick can help you analyze the evidence- since it's his case anyway."
"Oh, Bruce, I've actually got a shift at nine," Dick started.
"Then I suggest you get to work," Bruce smiled at him as he turned and walked away from the computers. "We'll make a plan for Jones and Two-Face tonight, Barbara. Focus on Black Mask today." He walked back towards the elevator, Alfred following and saying something to him about 'Master Todd.'
I turned to look at Dick and he let out a heavy sigh. "Welp," he groaned, lifting his coffee mug, "like I said. You don't get a lot of sleep with this job." I smiled and turned back to the shoebox, putting my gloves back on.
"Go home, Dick. I can do this on my own," I said.
"Don't you have work at Wayne Tech today?" he asked. I shrugged.
"Yeah, but if I can get some of the physical pieces analyzed and into the system, I can do most of this analysis remotely from there," I explained. He grabbed a pair of gloves from the lab table and slipped them on himself.
"Then I'll help you get it in the system," he said. I could have argued, said he didn't have to do that, but our eyes met and he smiled in that cute way that told me, 'don't bother.'
"Thanks," I answered, tilting the open shoebox towards him. "Cocaine or cash?"
"Gee, I get to pick?" he asked sarcastically. I smiled back. "I'll do the cash."
"Oh, sweet," I said, grabbing the bags of white powder. Dick raised a curious eyebrow at me and I shrugged. "I thought you were gonna take the fun stuff," I said, carrying the bags to the table with a centrifuge and test tubes. I tested each of the bags, taking a sample of each powder and pouring it carefully into test tubes. I added some of the ionizing solution and put them each in the centrifuge, effectively separating out the chemicals for analysis. While I did this, Dick was moving around me, scanning some of the bills into the system and using a tool with an ultraviolet light to scan them for fingerprints. I connected the centrifuge to the computer and allowed the advanced machine to analyze each tube in turn.
"Well this is interesting," Dick said behind me. I turned to see him holding the ultraviolet tool over the bill with a magnifying glass positioned above it. "These bills have a crosshatching on them. They've got all the right watermarks, but there's a fine crosshatching across the entire bill."
"Crosshatching? As in, drawn?" I clarified. He nodded back at me.
"Yeah. These are counterfeit," he said.
"All of them?" I asked. He shrugged.
"Can't say for sure yet, but this one is. I'm scanning a random sample from each stack of bills, but this is the third I've seen like this. My guess is… these are all counterfeit. And from the same supplier."
A beep from the computer drew my attention back to the screen. Gazing up at the monitor, my brow furrowed. Each sample was unique, laced and cut with different substances. One was clearly cut with baking soda, another with baby powder, another with salt (all terrible ideas but hey, so was cocaine). More notably… they were all different.
"The drugs are from different suppliers," I said, scrolling through the analyzed data as it appeared on the screen. I felt Dick step up beside me, one hand on the back of the chair I was sitting in. "They're all laced with different substances, with varying levels of purity. No way one dealer would be this inconsistent with their supply."
"Especially not a dealer like Black Mask," Dick confirmed. "Man might be a criminal, but he runs a tight ship." I nodded, looking curiously up at him.
"So… Black Mask isn't selling drugs," I pieced together. "He's buying cocaine from different suppliers with counterfeit bills."
"He's money laundering."
Dick and I went our separate ways, each of us with just enough time to run home and change for work. I put on some makeup in attempts to hide the dark circles under my eyes and slipped into a green sweater and gray pencil skirt, then hurried to the office. Dick had promised he would look into known Bludhaven dealers to see if any had been caught with Black Mask's dirty money. "Maybe some will roll on him, if they realize he set them up," he'd said hopefully. I promised to analyze the rest of the cash and the shoebox itself for evidence while in the office to see if we could get any leads.
In my dark office in Wayne Tech's basement, I pulled the shoebox out of the tote I'd brought it in and ran some scanners over it. A few fingerprints that I immediately entered in the system. Some traces of white powder that, no surprise, turned out to be cocaine. A corner of the box that had been crunched in when it was dropped on the ground during our fight. Nothing spectacular.
Dick was right about the bills. Every bill that had been scanned in the system had the same incredibly fine crosshatching. It was such fine crosshatching that it couldn't be spotted with the naked eye, something done digitally. Whoever had done it must have had some good technology, and they'd been able to fabricate the feeling of paper currency well.
As the fingerprints ran through the system, I searched for the Port Authority officer that Black Mask's men were working with. "Geordie," they'd called him. Running through officers that were regularly scheduled for night shifts at the port, I easily found George DeAngelo. His familiar face looked back at me from his ID picture. I matched his prints to one of the sets found on the box. A few other sets had instant matches in the system: Kyle Dixon, who had three prior arrests for possession; Andre Simpson, who had spent several years in Blackgate for his affiliation with Black Mask; and Alexander Neill, who had records of a dozen investigations open on him but no prior arrests. But no prints from Roman Sionis himself; I suppose the boss let his henchmen handle the dirty work themselves.
My cell phone rang, and Dick's number appeared on the screen. I accepted the call and kept my eyes focused on my screen as I scanned the men's files.
"Did you find anything?" I asked.
"No 'hello'?" Dick asked, and I could hear him smiling through the phone. "And after that great night we spent together." My fingers froze, hovering over my keyboard, as I slowly blinked back my annoyance. I could just picture him, smiling proudly to his eavesdropping coworkers.
"Your name really suits you, ya know," I told Dick as I resumed typing notes for Bruce on the ID matches. "Do you have something for me or not?"
"Always straight to business with you," he said. "Want to grab lunch and talk about it?"
"No need," I said, skipping the pleasantries. I felt on a roll and I didn't want to slow down. "I've got three matches so far: Kyle Dixon, Andre Simpson, and Alexander Neill. You find any counterfeit activity in Bludhaven?"
"Yeah," he said, though he seemed a bit reluctant to talk about it. His voice lowered. "Just one. A recent arrest, but we couldn't pin anything on him. Bartender accused him of paying a pretty hefty bill with counterfeit bills, but we confiscated the money and responding officers couldn't see anything that would indicate the bills were counterfeit. They never sent it down to forensics though- just released the guy and returned the money to the bar."
"So, either it's a fluke…" I said, not really believing that was the case.
"… or the bartender knows about the scheme and wanted no part in it," Dick finished my thought. I nodded to myself.
"You've got the details on the bartender?" I asked.
"Yeah. I'll give them to you over lunch," he said naturally.
"I don't have time for lunch, Dick," I shook my head as I kept working.
"Not even a quick one? I thought we could drop some food off for my brother at school," he said. My fingers froze again. Dick wanted to meet up with Jason and talk about a plan for training. I slumped back in my chair. I did want to stay focused on getting more answers before the end of the workday, but this was important. I let out a long, aggravated sigh.
"What time?" I asked, consenting.
"His lunch period is at 12:15. Can you get to Gotham Academy?" I looked to the digital clock in the corner of my screen.
"I'll probably be late. I took the train to work today," I said, mentally trying to map my route to Gotham Academy via the Urbarail.
"I'll swing by and pick you up, I just left. Be there in twenty or thirty."
I wrapped up and printed some of my notes and grabbed my things, hurrying down the stacks of Wayne Tech products that had never been used, to the elevators. As the elevator carried me up to the lobby, I looked at the chemical profile of one of the bags of cocaine we had discovered in the shoebox. It was about 80% cocaine, and a purer quality of the drug than any of the other samples, but the remaining 20% was a powder I couldn't identify. I stared at the molecular depiction the Batcomputer generated, trying to compare it to a molecular structure I had stored in my memory. The elevator dinged and I stepped out, still staring at the sheet of paper.
I clumsily ran face first into someone waiting for the elevator. In the panic of the moment, I clutched the folder of documents close to my chest but dropped my purse.
"Oh, sorry," the man I ran into apologized as we stepped back from each other. We both hurriedly knelt down for my things, and I grabbed up my wallet and hand sanitizer, throwing them back in my bag.
"No, gosh, I'm sorry, that was… very clumsy," I tried to wave him off as I forced a laugh. He knelt down with me and grabbed my glasses case and Wayne Tech ID. We stood together and he offered me my things. I met his gaze as I took my glasses case from his hand.
He was just a bit taller than me, dressed in a textured white button up with a blue striped bow tie. His dark rimmed glasses matched my own, and his hair had either been styled to look messy or he'd just not cared enough to comb it before work. But more than anything else, I noticed his hazel eyes stared into mine with a look of stunned surprise.
"I'm… really sorry, I wasn't paying attention at all," I said, my eyes darting between his and the hand that still held my ID. He seemed to shake awake.
"No, I'm sorry I… should… I…" he stammered, clearly trying to figure out if he could have done anything differently to prevent me from running into him. I laughed a little, despite trying to hide it.
"No, really, it was completely my bad. I shouldn't be reading while walking," I said, shifting the purse straps on my shoulder. He smiled back and rubbed the back of his neck, somehow seeming just as embarrassed as I felt.
"Right," he laughed, then suddenly stopped and squinted at me. "Are you new?"
"Sort of," I answered the abrupt question. "I work down in product development, I don't really… interact with people a lot."
"That's a shame," he said quietly. I awkwardly shifted my gaze, looking to the ID still in his hand. "Oh," he said, awkwardly looking at it and then reaching it out to me. "Sorry, uh… Barbara," he read off the tag before handing it back.
"No problem," I said. I felt my phone buzzing in my purse- that would be Dick, here to pick me up. "I gotta go. Sorry again," I apologized as I began to step away.
"No, you're, it's," he stammered again as I hurried away. "See you, Barbara. I'm Daniel!" he shouted after me. I politely stopped for a moment and smiled back over my shoulder, giving a wave.
"Sorry again, Daniel!" I said, trying to stifle a laugh.
WOW that was awkward.
I tried to shake the incident out of mind as I hurried out of the building and to Dick's motorcycle. He was still in his police pants, but had thrown on a tee shirt to keep from looking too official on his lunch break. He proffered a helmet as I tried to stuff my folder of documents in my purse. I eyed him dubiously.
"You said you wouldn't get on my bike again without a helmet, so… just for you," he smiled. I smiled back.
"Dick, I'm in a pencil skirt." His eyes scanned me up and down, taking in my outfit. As his eyes met mine again, he smiled.
"Looks good," he said. "You want the helmet or not?"
The drive to Gotham Academy was a windy one. Even under the helmet, my hair whipped up behind me and tangled itself. But I was far more conscious of my bare thighs wrapped around Dick. I let the fantasy play out in my mind of him letting go of the handle of the bike, his hand drifting down to the skin of my legs.
"You got a specific time you need to be back at work?" Dick asked as we stopped at a light. I lightly shook my fantasy out of mind.
"No. Not specifically," I answered.
"Great. I don't have long, but we'll make it work," he said, revving as the light turned green. When we arrived at Gotham Academy's campus, Dick parked the bike on the curb and allowed me to dismount first. I removed the helmet and tried to tidy my appearance while Dick called Jason to let him know we were here. Within minutes, Jason came bounding down the steps of the school, running through clusters of students that were chatting and goofing around on their lunch breaks. He was cute in his light blue button up and slacks, even if his hair was a little disheveled and his clothes wrinkled.
"Hey Dick," Jason smiled, and cast a glance at me. "Who's this?" My eyes blinked uncontrollably with confusion. Um… what? OH, RIGHT. Jason had never publicly met me before. He was putting on a show for any onlookers, people that might have gotten suspicious.
Clever.
"This is my girlfriend, Barbara," Dick smiled cheekily at me. Of course… I forced a smile at Dick, but turned more pleasantly to Jason.
"Great meeting you," I continued the charade.
"Maybe let's talk more over here," Dick suggested, trying to stifle a laugh as he led us further off the curb and into the parking lot. I smacked him lightly on the arm when he turned back, the three of us in a circle.
"Always, with the girlfriend stuff?" I asked.
"Hey, you started it," Dick reminded me.
"Hey lovebirds," Jason interrupted us, "I've only got thirty minutes left in lunch period."
"Right, sorry," Dick said over my quiet protestations at the word "lovebird."
"So, B didn't give me any particularly weird lectures this morning… so I'm guessing that means…" Jason started, looking doe eyed up at me.
"I didn't rat you out," I confirmed, "and I'm not going to." Jason perked up and smiled at Dick. "But you're not off the hook, either."
"What does that mean?" Jason asked suspiciously.
"It means she's training you now too," Dick said, crossing his arms. Jason looked me over again, still a bit suspicious.
"And how's she gonna do that?" he asked, eyeing me. "B is still training you. How are you going to sneak around enough to train me?"
"There will be opportunities," I said vaguely, still not entirely sure how this was going to work myself. "But there will also be times where training me will be the only thing distracting him from discovering you." Dick nodded, and Jason seemed satisfied with the answer. I turned my body towards Dick. "Do we have any metrics in place for your training? Any tangible goals to reach as we're scaffolding your lessons?"
"Scaffolding…" Jason began to ask, but Dick interrupted.
"Alfred's got metrics on him in the computer. He's filed them in his personal folder under 'Tea Shipments.' Any files referring jasmine tea are on Jason," Dick explained.
"Get it? Jasmine Tea? Jason Todd?" Jason smiled over at me.
"Yeah, I get it," I quickly responded. "I'll check them out this afternoon. What's our plan for this week?"
"Well, last night was fun so I think we're taking tonight off," Dick said, and Jason's shoulders collapsed forward in disappointment. "Maybe we'll party again on Friday? What do you and Bruce have going on?"
"What's going on with the stuff we found at the port? Find anything out?" Jason excitedly asked me.
"Still figuring it out," I answered, pulling the file out of my purse and passing it to Jason, "but it's looking like money laundering. Black Mask is buying drugs with fake bills."
"Good fakes," Dick clarified. "But why, I'm not sure. Kind of a slow grind for a guy like him."
"Maybe there's something else in the works?" Jason asked as he rifled through the documents. I smiled- he looked so adult.
"Probably," I answered. "Maybe that's what you should spend some time on. This job isn't all about your street fighting skills, you know."
"You want me to help with the research stuff?" Jason asked, both perking up and getting confused at the same time.
"That's a good idea," Dick nodded. "How late you working tonight, Barb?"
"Typical day… wanna come by after school, Jason? We can work on some forensic analysis together," I suggested.
"Sure. I'll text Alfred and say I'm hanging out with Dick," he suggested as he handed the folder back to me. "I'll take the bus, see you there around 4?"
"I'll meet you out front," I said. The three of us quieted for a few seconds, content with the plan we had in place for the time being.
"Cool, then… I'll see you later," Jason said, turning to head back inside.
"How'd your math test go?" I asked quickly, stopping him. He waved me off.
"Easy. I told you, it was just stats," Jason answered, then rushed off.
"He's getting college credit for that class. Kid's smarter than he lets on," Dick smiled, shaking his head. I smiled over at him, then watched Jason hurry back inside the building. "I gotta get back or I'm gonna get chewed out by my Sarg. Wanna do me a favor?"
Dick drove us over the bridge to Bludhaven and pulled into his precinct's parking lot, stopping in front of the main doors.
"You're sure you're comfortable with this?" I asked as he got off the bike.
"Sure. I've seen you drive your bike; you're more careful than I am," he said, handing me the keys to his Ducati.
"That's oddly… disconcerting," I smiled to myself as I recalled driving my Batgirl-motorcycle on the freeway, weaving around cars at ludicrous speeds.
"Are you sure you're comfortable with this?" he asked, eyeing my long, unprotected legs.
"It's not ideal, but I'm fine," I reassured him, shifting my weight.
"I'll take the train home," he said, stepping intimately close. "Just, uh… bring it by tonight." I smiled pessimistically back up at him.
"Okay, remember: I'm doing you a favor right now," I said, poking a cautioning finger at his chest.
"Oh, and I will return the favor tonight," he said, winking down at me. I bit the inside of my cheek while I smiled, and lightly punched him in the stomach, making him lurch forward with a groan. I straddled the motorcycle, conscious of my tight skirt riding up my thighs. He smiled and watched me fit the helmet over my head. He blew me a kiss teasingly, knowing I had to accept the gesture as other cops in the parking lot could see us. I pretended to catch the kiss midair and put my hand to my lips.
"Bye, babe," I played along. He waved playfully at me as I revved the bike and pulled out of the parking lot, heading back to Wayne Tech.