Chapter 7:
"Haunting Memories"
The assassination attempt at the hospital made Dick think. Something sinister was going on.
He tried to put what pieces he had together, and he knew more pieces would come later. He didn't know if it was from the surgery or pressure from something else, but he suddenly developed a headache. So, he laid back down.
Barbara had told him about Tim's theory, and it had merit, but it was simple conjecture right now, nothing could be proven. However, in correlation with what the doctor said about two separate implants being attached to his right and left hemispheres seemed to point the kid being in the right direction. Someone wanted to destroy him. Once again-why?
"I normally don't get so antsy, but all this business wanting to murder me is making me excited," Dick said to Barbara.
"Let Bruce and Tim handle it, you just rest," she said.
Dick felt a tingle. "You know I love a good mystery, Barb."
"You're the only one I know, Dick Grayson, who enjoys a good mystery, even at your own expense."
"Especially, at my own expense. And those are the best kind, because the mystery revolves around me." That sounded vain, but oh well. "The danger, the intrigue, the suspense, and a diabolical villain—waiting to be revealed until the very last moment. It's all so exciting. If I ever do retire from the superhero gig, I'd like to be a novelist. I have so many stories to tell."
Barbara crossed a leg over the other, sitting in the chair next to his bed. "You wrote a novel once and it was so good that you even won an award for it. Unfortunately, you wrote it under a non-de-plume, so the committee didn't know who to give it to because you wanted to remain anonymous."
"I self-published. Everyone has at least one book in them."
"Yes, but this mystery is to be resolved later. You need to rest your weary little head, sweet prince. Let the others deal with things right now. Just relax, and no more reading field reports, it gets you too excited. You just had two brain surgeries in the span of a month. For normal people, that would put them out of commission for weeks, even months."
"Well, I'm not normal person," Dick said with a smug smirk.
"You certainly aren't."
Dick snickered. "Did you see the look Alfred gave us when he discovered us in the shower?"
"I was totally embarrassed," Barbara said. "And I have to agree with him, we were acting like over-sexed teenagers." Dick rolled his eyes and then sighed. "Don't huff at me, we'll get to the good stuff later. You just rest up and save your energy."
"Yes, dear," he said, then lifted the covers up. He shivered. "Did it suddenly get cold in here or is it just me?"
Barbara saw her breath. She shivered as well and rubbed her shoulders.
Suddenly, the door thrust open, and Captain Cold, one of the Flash's old enemies, stormed into the room wearing his winter regalia and holding his cold gun. He had created a "cold field" in the room, and in the surrounding area. "Salutations, Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon, what a pleasure it is to see you; both my targets in one place, how delightful," Snark said.
Another assassination attempt? Dick thought.
But before Dick could fully react, Snark fired his cold gun at Dick's legs, freezing him to the bed. He struggled, but it was solid. Barbara jumped to her feet, the chair tipping over, but Cold pointed his weapon at her, said: "Ah, ah, ah, sweetie, your prince's legs are already encased in ice. It isn't nice to give a guest a cold reception. If you want him to survive, you'll do what I say."
"What do you want, Snark?"
But Snark didn't say, and he just fired the cold gun at her, encasing her fully in ice.
Dick screamed.
x x x
Dick snapped his eyes opened with a start, sweating. He looked around wide-eyed. His hospital room was temperature controlled and there were no signs of ice. But Barbara wasn't in the room. "Barb!" he shouted.
Barbara rushed into the room. "Dick! What's wrong? I just went to vending machine to get something, you were sleeping."
Dick breathed a little hard. "So, it was just a dream? Thank god!" He put a hand to his face, wiping sweat. "More like a nightmare."
She went to his bed and held his hand, using a napkin she had on hand to wipe his face. "What was the dream about?"
"Snark, Captain Cold, burst into the room and turned everything to ice, even you."
"Why would you dream something like that?"
"I don't know. I feel like I'm losing my mind with all these dreams." He told Barbara about the dream with Cluemaster and Blockbuster and the munchkins when he managed to recall it after he calmed down. It had come back to him. But why did he just dream of Captain Cold? It didn't make sense.
"The doctor did say you might experience a few idiosyncrasies as your brain repairs itself. Maybe I'll buy you a toque?"
Dick snorted out a smile. "Are you saying my dream was saying my head is cold?"
She felt it. "Well, we lose a lot of heat through our skulls, and without that lovely flock of hair you usually sport, it could very well be. Dreams are strange. They can be meaningful, or they're just be a way for the body to tell you something you need to know." She then kissed the top of his head. "There, does that help?"
"I can feel the heat flowing through my body already."
Barbara's cell phone dinged and she reached into her pocket to check it. "It's a text from Damian. It says: Tell Grayson when able: Just encountered a creepy looking guy wearing a Grim Reaper Halloween costume on a rooftop. Disappeared when lightning flashed. Nothing to be concerned about. FYI."
Dick asked to see it and re-read it. "Creepy looking guy wearing a grim reaper Halloween costume, huh? That is weird." Dick's eyes grew wide, as if suddenly remembering something. His eyes darted from side-to-side. "Now why would I be thinking of him now?"
"Who?"
"He called himself The Reaper when I was Agent 37 working for Spyral. He was an ex-agent, jailed for selling secrets to the highest bidder, and murdering dozens of people for personal gains, judging them by his own standards. But he's dead, Spyral never leaves anything unfinished."
"How many missions did you have while you were with Spyral?"
"It felt like dozens, but there were a lot of correlations. The whole organization was a powder cake and it eventually self-destructed. I was lucky to survive the final onslaught and restored my Nightwing persona with a neutralizer device, so the Rogues never revealed my secret identity. It probably means nothing—the reaper thing—just an associative word connection."
The iPad beeped, a video call was coming in. Barbara picked it and answered it, and angled it so Dick could see. The communique was on a secured and encrypted network set up by Tim Drake in the Batcave.
Damian, dressed as Nightwing Junior, appeared on the screen. There was a background of furniture, he was probably in WingCo, what he was calling his hideout. The new condo he purchased outright in Bludhaven.
"Hey sport," Dick said with a smile. "Love the new costume, I've seen it somewhere before, but I can't quite place it…"
"Can it, Grayson," he said sarcastically.
Dick smirked. "So, what's up, kiddo? We got your text. So, you got a visit from the grim reaper? He's hounding you? He's been hounding all of us batboys for quiet sometime, but he can't quite pin us down."
"But he almost got you, Grayson. You're just one tough SOB, as Todd would say. I'm glad he failed." That made Dick laugh. "I'm not calling for any business, I'm about to go patrol again ,and wanted to check in, and see how you're doing?"
"Never better. Although I am having some weird dreams." Dick told Damian about both. "Hey, you're pretty good at dream analyses, D, you've helped me decipher some of my bizarre dreams before, even night terrors. What do you think they mean?"
Damian took a moment to think, then said, "I think you need to get more rest. You just had two brain surgeries, Grayson" —Damian put up two fingers— "Two! And you're thinking too much. Villains are popping into your head because you see villainy everywhere."
"That's what I told him," Barbara said. "But he won't listen to me or the doctor and Heaven forbid he listens to orders."
"I'm being ganged up on 'ere, shee?"
Dick Grayson tried to give his best New York old time gangster accent, but it sounded awful. Barbara rolled her eyes and shook her head and Damian just cocked an eyebrow incredulously.
"You need help, Grayson, serious help; good thing you have the best," Damian said, and he seemed to blush slightly afterwards. He cleared his throat. "Notwithstanding, I do have something to show you. I found this at one of my latest crime scenes before I encountered Todd. Look familiar?" He raised into view what looked like an enlarged pog with a 'G' on it with a clip on the back. "I wasn't sure it was significant at first, I thought it belonged to some kid's toy, but I took it for evidence anyhow. Then I remembered…"
Dick's face suddenly became very serious. "It used to—or one like it—clip on my chest straps of my uniform after I left Spyral. I thought I threw it away and burned my uniform after donning the Nightwing persona again. You found this…where, exactly?"
"Haphazardly thrown on the floor of a vacant building near the harbour that I was investigating for possible criminal ties. It was laying on top of a pile of trash, but fully exposed as if wanting to be seen. I received a tip that something was happening here, but it turned out to be false." Then he looked sideways and left the scene for a moment, returning shortly. He raised a small purple fabric bag. "I also found these at another fake crime scene. They're marbles with a 'boss'. Oddly enough, it didn't occur to me at the time, either, but when I placed all the marbles out" —Damian did exactly that onto a table, kept them from rolling, his phone showing them— "I noticed something, and something very specific and telling. Grayson, tell me if anything jumps out at you?"
Dick looked at them, but he couldn't see anything odd about them. They were just marbles, in multi-colours: blacks with blue swirls, black with red swirls, and reds with yellow swirls. But there were thirty-seven, not including the 'boss', also called a Shooter. The 'boss' was grey and green, an odd colour.
"Marbles never come in odd numbers, they always come in evens, and normally bought in packs of ten," he said. "These also appear to be crafted for professional use and customized." Then his eyes widened. "No, that's not possible…"
Dick became very quiet, but his face was serious. He put a hand to his mouth, one finger rubbed his lips, looking inwards.
"What is it, Dick?" Barbara asked with concern.
"Red and yellow, blue and black, black and red, and grey and green—they're all the colours I've worn over the years. Robin, two changes as Nightwing, and then as Agent 37, for which there are thirty-seven marbles. And then there is the 'boss'. Remember that guy I just mentioned, the ex-Spyral-agent…"
Barbara nodded.
"He also had a quark of issuing people nicknames and gave me the name: Boss, an endearment term, to say the least. I used to take charge and never got stressed, succeeding in my missions like a boss, as they say. As my identity had been exposed as Nightwing, I had nothing to hide, so Spyral knew exactly who I was and what I could do, so they sent me and my partner on some of most dangerous missions. He also used to repeatedly quote one my favourite movie lines every time I returned from a mission: 'I'm here to kick ass and crew bubblegum...and I'm all out of bubblegum.'"
"Now I remember. And also, didn't he have a crazy weapon?"
"Lightning gloves," Dick said, then all of suddenly his first dream came back to him. The dark shadowy figure behind a mask, standing above him on the wall, lightning striking when he raised a hand. "Jake Handles was his name, very smart guy, borderline genius with explosives and incendiary devices. He also had a side hobby: Fulminology, one who studies lightning or lighting strikes, creating adaptability gloves to generate the same effect with electricity strikes from the finger tips. He use them on his missions, then on some Spyral agents when he went rogue, frying them to a crisp. But Bruce taught me well and I managed to form a counterattack against them. He died in an explosion, after we rescued the hostages he took in revenge for Spyral ousting him, accidentally blowing himself up when he tried to fire a blast from one of his gloves at me. He was completely psychotic. He and Joker would get on swimmingly."
"It was through him you learned there was something sinister within Spyral, right?" Barbara asked.
"That's right," Dick confirmed.
"Is there a chance he could have survived the explosion?" Damian wondered. "In our line of work, we know villains never just lay down and die."
"After the explosion, he had a building fall on top of him. So, no; I don't think he survived. But, for the sake of argument, if you two are thinking that he's the one who did this to me? He would've had the resources, influence, and the knowhow to do it. He had some interesting people working for him when Sypral sent me after him. But no, I don't think he'd be behind this."
Damian gathered the marbles back into the bag, pulling the string tight. "Maybe we're reaching? Seeing things that are not there because we want to solve this mystery? We need to get more information. We've all be taught to be detectives, but sometimes things are not as they appear.
"But as Sherlock Holmes once said: Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth," Barbara put in.
"But if Grayson says he's dead, I believe him," Damian said, with an undertone of jealousy, Grayson noticed.
"The clues are too specific to Dick, Damian," Barbara said.
"Or they're not," Damian contradicted. "And we want them to be."
"Okay, okay, let's not argue. We'll just have to see."
With the situation seemingly settled, Dick leaned back in his bed. Then a thought popped in his head. "Oh, before you go, sport, let me ask you something: How much did that condo of yours set Bruce back?" When Damian told him, it didn't sound unreasonable, but when he told Grayson that Bruce had cut him off after the sizeable purchase and he was now using Grayson's savings, Dick was shocked. "I told you, if you were in any trouble, you could use my money, in moderation, but don't spending it like water."
"Don't worry, Grayson, I've already paid you back, and if you look at your accounts, for every dollar I spent, I made you a profit of fifty cents on the dollar. I did clean up the Wayne finances when my father was gone and you acted in Batman's place, after all."
Damian told him how much he made for Dick. "You made me that much in profit? You little genius! Thank heavens you're on our side. As a criminal, you'd clean house with every financial institution in the world. Maybe I should diversify my portfolio and make you my new business investor? I won't be doing the superhero gig forever, I'll have to retire sometime."
All of a sudden there was the sound of a clang in the background as Damien and Grayson talked, Damian had put down one of Grayson's escrima sticks on the table when he dealt with the marbles, but it had suddenly rolled off and to the floor. He picked it up.
"Take care of those, D, they're dangerous, and expensive."
"It's not like you can't afford an upgrade."
"That's true, but I won't be out of action forever. Give me some time to recover and I'll show you a thing or two."
"Looking forward to it," Damian smiled. "You know what they say: Heroes never die or truly retire, they only get proteges."
Dick looked surprised. "You want to be my protege?"
"I think the time has come that I begin to diversify my own portfolio and try new things. Besides, you did say, you'll be out of action for a little while. Nightwing Junior is here to say."
To be continued…
