Part 11 – Gotham and the Clocktower

Dick shifted nervously on the ledge. His constant movements were making Jason nervous, even though he knew Dick

"You can handle this," Jason snapped at him.

Dick glared back at him. "You still haven't told me what you're going to be doing."

"I'm going to Gotham to gather some info. When I came to Bludhaven I left my information guys in the lurch. I need to remind them that they still need to pay up; information or body parts," Jason said.

"And you need to take Roy?"

"More like, I want to kind of shove Roy back where he came from. You know Oracle sent him."

Dick nodded. He did know that. Roy hadn't been able to hide it very well. He still looked pale, either because of Jason's earlier mention of body parts or from the idea of Oracle.

Dick bounced on the balls of his feet, ready to go. "Alright, I guess I'll have to steal the gun shipment from the society that you want all by myself. What are you even going to do with all those guns?"

"I have no idea. But, better in my hands than theirs."

"You could give them to Batman," Roy suggested, reminding them that he was standing there and also was itching to leave.

Jason and Dick shared a look, both imagining Bruce Wayne opening the door to a couple of crates filled with guns.

"I think that'll give him a heart attack," Dick mused, "and he'll spend ages trying to track us down."

Jason snorted and pointed out, "like he isn't already?"

They had a quick laugh about the idea of leaving Bruce guns as a 'gift' before Dick jumped off the building to go intercept the shipment.

"You sure you want to do this?" Roy asked Jason.

"Let's just get it over with before I change my mind."

The clocktower where Oracle resided was situated high above the buildings around it. Jason and Roy entered silently. Jason had to hold the archer back at a few points, silently indicating little trips and traps set up. He was interested to see that Oracle had both cameras and technology as well as tripwires.

Roy almost triggered a tripwire more than once.

The moment he entered the room, Jason's eyes were drawn from the monitors to the wheelchair.

"Have you installed rockets in that yet?" he questioned.

As soon as he spoke, the chair whipped around. Barbara's glasses hid her eyes as she pulled out an escrima stick and pointed it at them.

"Arsenal. Why did you bring him here?"

"Gosh, I feel so wanted," Jason quipped, taking a step forward. In comparison, Roy took a step back.

"What are you doing here, Red Hood?"

"I need something from you." He was determined to keep it short and simple. In and out.

"What's that?"

"You're going to write down a statement about what happened the night you broke up with Dick. As much as you can remember and maybe even events leading up to it."

"What?" She was angry. "Why would you want that?"

"Barbara, it's important," Roy said, trying to calm her. He was unsuccessful.

"It's also private. What happened between me and Dick should stay between me and Dick."

"It can't," Jason stated. "But before I tell you anything else, I need your statement." Barbara frowned, uncertain of what was going on. One of the last people she expected to be in her clocktower was the Red Hood. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important."

Roy nodded quickly in the background. Barbara considered him for a moment before turning to Jason.

It felt like a very long time before she spoke. "Take the hood off and I'll give you my 'statement'."

Jason didn't give himself time to think about it. His hands reached up and he pulled it off, ignoring Barbara's sharp intake of breath as his face was revealed. He was wearing his regular domino mask underneath anyway and he tried not to think about what she was expecting to see.

A Robin long dead.

"I want your statement in writing," he stated.

Barbara nodded. "I'll do it now. Just sit and wait."

"No. Give it to Roy and he'll bring it to me. I'm leaving." Jason turned to the nearest window, ignoring the shocked cry of 'Jason' from Barbara behind him.

Jason rolled his eyes as he heard Roy apologise and say something about him being 'grumpy'.

Dick was grinning ear to ear as Jason walked into the pre-approved warehouse they had acquired. Scattered around were crates, presumably holding weapons.

"I got them!" he announced cheerily.

Jason made a disgusted face. He didn't need happy-Grayson right now. Unfortunately, because his hood was still off and in his hands, Dick could see his expression.

Dick's smile fell. "Did I do something wrong?" he asked.

Jason just walked past him and started checking the crates. It seemed like the information had panned out and all the weapons were there.

"Red Hood?" Dick questioned. "Is everything okay? I did get everything, right? Is it the talking? Sorry." Jason turned to say that it was kind of annoying when Dick added, "Catalina told me that my constant preaching was unnecessary."

Jason thought that was kind of unfair. Now he couldn't tell Dick to shut up without feeling like that woman. "Don't compare me to her," he growled.

Dick's back straightened like a person being given an order. "Sorry."

Jason huffed out a long, annoyed breath. "It's just Gotham, okay?" The worst part was that, even though he was telling the truth, he could still see the seed of doubt in Dick's expression. "Okay, I'll be more specific. It's the Bat. Sometimes it feels like I can't escape him."

"Did you see him?" Dick asked in a worried tone.

Jason shook his head. "No. But I did have a little run-in with Oracle."

"You okay?"

Jason snorted at the way Dick started subtly looking for injuries. "I'm fine. Come on, tell me how you got this stuff."

Jason quickly learnt how to tune out the sound of Dick's voice as he spoke on and on about how he pulled off the heist. It was mostly facts and odd little observations and Jason noticed how Dick wasn't telling the story about how he managed to get one over on the society but more like reporting about the bad night the guys guarding this loot had.

Dick's self-confidence was about as rock-bottom as the rest of his life and he was hiding it like a pro, with a grin and showmanship.

Sometimes it sucked having an acrobat born to be in the centre stage as a brother. Said acrobat was always using that skill to hide his own injured feelings.

Roy snuck in early in the morning, when Jason was making himself something for breakfast but Dick was still snoozing away.

"I have Barbara's statement right here," he said, waving an envelope. Jason snatched it from his hands and pulled it out.

Jason liked Barbara. There was a kind of kinship there, even before he had died. It had only been made stronger by how they had both had something taken violently by the Joker. Despite that kinship, Jason was annoyed by Barbara's actions towards Dick. Obviously, Barbara had thought that Dick had been cheating on her however Jason wondered if she had ever talked to Dick about the kiss. The statement contained facts and Barbara had been careful to leave any of her feelings out of it, noticeable by the missing pieces.

It didn't matter. Jason didn't need to know how betrayed Babs felt or how devastated Dick probably was. All Jason needed to know was who had been in control of the whole encounter.

It certainly wasn't Dick, whose relationship with Babs had been destroyed in a moment.

The statement made it clear that it wasn't Barbara, who had tried to regain control of the situation by dumping Dick. However, not contacting him again showed that she wasn't in control over the situation at all.

Catalina had been the one to appear in the restaurant. She had been the one to instigate the break up by causing a scene and she had been the one left with Dick when all the dust had settled. The whole thing screamed planning on Catalina's part.

She had cut Dick off from his friends and family. She had forced him into a relationship and undermined his sense of worth.

"So," Roy said, nervously rubbing at his hand. "What's the verdict?"

"She's certainly abusive and emotionally manipulative," Jason said of Catalina. His voice was hard and Roy shivered at the sound of it.

"Are we going to take her out?"

"What's this 'we'? Stay out of this you hero archer." Jason pulled out his gun. "I'm going to take care of this my way." He didn't want an answer to his other suspicion. This was enough. He didn't think he could handle any more.

Roy darted forward, clearing the space between them in a moment. "Wait! Can we at least let Barbara know that Dick didn't cheat on her and how Catalina's plan to break them up succeeded? She tried to make me spill the secret while writing the statement and she kind of deserves to know."

"Are you going to tell her?" Jason demanded to know. "Because I haven't the faintest clue how to even breech the subject."

"We have to find a way," Roy insisted. "And we should probably let Dick know that we know."

"Not until we've dealt with her." The way Jason said 'her' made it clear that he was talking about Catalina.

To his surprise, Roy agreed. "Oh yeah. There's no way Dick'll let us deal with her if he knew."