Nightwing stood in the hallway with Raven and Beast Boy on either side of him. Raven stood still as a statue with her hood up. Beast Boy looked at her expectantly for a moment, and then gradually turned his gaze towards the floor. He scratched his head. There was a silence that lasted for a few seconds, but seemed to stretch on longer. Nightwing cleared his throat.
"So, Beast Boy…" he said. Beast Boy lifted his head and looked at Nightwing.
"I guess you got our message." Nightwing said.
"Yeah, I didn't answer before because my comm wasn't working right." Beast Boy said. "I could hear you, but I couldn't respond. I think it got damaged during a fight I was having at some point."
"Anyone I know?" Nightwing asked.
"I don't think so. Just some bad guys."
"Well, its good to have you back." Nightwing said. "And Raven-" he turned towards her, but she had left the room. "I guess she's busy with something."
"Yeah, that must be it." Beast Boy said quietly. He scratched his head awkwardly.
"Well, make yourself at home. You can have something to eat if you want, we just bought some food."
"Cool." Beast Boy smiled. "I'm definitely hungry."
"And you're just in time to help us with a mission. In a few hours, we're going to the morgue to examine Aqualad's body."
Beast Boy's smile vanished. "Not cool."
Shortly afterwards, Beast Boy and Nightwing were in the ops room. Beast Boy spent a few minutes looking around the old place, and occasionally stopping to examine old food packages from years earlier. Beast Boy picked up an old potato chip bag and looked inside.
"Tell me you're not going to eat that." Nightwing said. Beast Boy sniffed it and tossed it aside.
"Of course not. There's only crumbs left anyway."
"Like I said, there's fresh food in the fridge."
Beast Boy shrugged. "I hope you got tofu."
"Uh, no." Nightwing said. "Sorry. But we did get vegetables."
Beast Boy went to the fridge and got out some vegetables, and began preparing something. Nightwing sat down at the laptop and began looking over info again. After a few minutes Beast Boy sat down with some kind of vegetable sandwich and began eating. He put his feet up on the table. Nightwing looked at Beast Boy for a second, and then smiled.
"Good to have you back, Beast Boy." Nightwing said. Beast Boy smiled back.
"Same, dude." Beast Boy said. "It's been a minute." He took a bite of his sandwich, and then looked Nightwing up and down. "Nice outfit by the way. You, uh, changed your name too, right?"
Nightwing nodded. "I'm Nightwing now."
Beast Boy rubbed his chin and nodded. "Not bad, not bad. You know, I've been thinking of changing my name too. What do you think of Beast Man?" Before Nightwing could respond, someone else did.
"This sounds familiar." Raven said. She entered the room as they were talking. She now had her hood off. "I guess its kind of comforting that some things don't change."
Beast Boy looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. "Hey, I've changed. I mean, look at me." He moved his hand over himself. Raven looked at him.
"You have changed." She said. "You decided to stop wearing shoes." She narrowed her eyes. Beast Boy, barefooted with his feet on the table, wiggled his toes.
"Yeah, this just felt more natural for me." He said. Beast Boy's outfit was not that different from years earlier. Same black and purple suit with belt, with maybe a few minor alterations. The only big difference was the fact that Beast Boy no longer wore his gloves or boots, going barehanded and barefoot.
"Just don't get any more 'natural'." Raven said. "Its disgusting." This last part sounded a little more acidic. Beast Boy blinked, and took his feet off the table. His mouth downturned.
"Raven… are you upset about…" Beast Boy started to say.
"I'm not upset about anything except your gross feet." Raven said. Nightwing and Beast Boy both looked at her a moment, until she turned and walked away. She went to another corner of the room and did something else while the two guys sat there. Nightwing ran his hand across his hair.
"Sorry about that." Nightwing said quietly.
Beast Boy shrugged. "I guess its just Raven being Raven."
"She hasn't been like that until now." Nightwing said.
"Then, I guess it was something I said. Or did." Beast Boy slumped back in the seat.
"Beast Boy-" Nightwing said.
"Its cool, we've got more important stuff to talk about." Beast Boy said. "So… where's the hospital?"
Nightwing pulled up a map on the computer. "We're going in through the back. Raven, you should hear this." He called. Raven hesitated, and then walked over.
"It shouldn't be hard finding Aqualad in the morgue." Nightwing said.
"We're actually going to look at his body?" Beast Boy said. He made a face.
"If its still there." Nightwing said. "It would be good to examine it. If not, we can at least hopefully get the autopsy report."
"Ugghhh." Beast Boy said. "Going to the morgue, examining Aqualad's body, looking at the autopsy report. This all sounds like its going to suck. Remember when we used to fight mimes and stuff?" Beast Boy looked off in the distance wistfully.
"We never fought mimes." Nightwing said.
"I know this is going to be unpleasant." Raven said. "But it has to be done. We want to find the killer, right?"
Beast Boy sighed. "Okay, okay. But can I like, be lookout or something?"
"Lookout?" Nightwing said.
"Yeah, you know. I stay outside and watch while you two go inside and investigate."
"Watch what?" Raven asked.
"The hospital." Beast Boy said. "You know, in case any bad guys show up, and I can warn you."
"I doubt anyone else is going to show up there." Nightwing said.
Beast Boy raised his hands to his sides. "Look, I just don't want to see Aqualad like that, okay? I mean, we weren't best friends, but…"
"Its okay." Nightwing said. "I guess all three of us don't need to go inside. It would probably be easier to avoid being spotted if there's fewer of us."
"Yeah, and if you need me, you can just call me on the communicator." Beast Boy said. "I'll come running."
"Will do." Nightwing said. "I think we should wait until later, around midnight, before we head out. A lot of people will be asleep, and there should be less staff at the hospital, so that should make it easier."
"Good idea." Raven said.
"In the meantime, if anyone wants to rest up, now's the time. I'll be in my room if anyone needs me." Nightwing got up and folded the computer up, bringing it with him. Beast Boy stood up and stretched.
"A nap would be good." Beast Boy said. He passed by Raven, and she awkwardly stepped aside. He shuffled around her, and passed by. After a minute, all three of them had gone to their separate rooms.
Hours passed. Midnight came. In short order, the three titans gathered together, and headed out towards the local hospital, where they hoped to find answers. A clue that would tell them who the guilty party was.
By quarter after midnight, they were at the hospital. It was a large building with many windows, as is typical with hospitals. Beast Boy found a nearby rooftop to watch the exterior from, while Raven and Nightwing snuck around the back. After a few minutes, they made it to the back entrance. The area was more or less clear. A couple of ambulances parked nearby, and an occasional pedestrian walking along the sidewalk in the distance. Other than that, it was quiet.
The two titans approached the back door. The whole area was paved to allow vehicles easy access. This appeared to be the place where they bring in or remove dead bodies. It was a double door entrance, although it also had a deadbolt lock on it. Nightwing examined the lock.
"I think I can pick this." He said. "Raven, do you sense anyone around?"
Raven paused for a moment, and then shook her head. "No, not close by. I don't sense anyone in the room inside either. No one living, anyway."
Nightwing nodded, and pulled out some small tools. "Okay. This might take a minute, so you need to be on lookout while I work."
"Okay." Raven said. She knew that she could probably just break the lock with her magic, but they wanted to avoid destruction and violence tonight if possible. She watched as Nightwing deftly manipulated the lock with the metal tools he brought. In fact, it only took half a minute for him to open the lock, and the doors.
"Alright, we're in." he said. He moved into the doorway, and entered the morgue, with Raven following close behind. They both examined the room from where they stood. It looked sterile, but somehow slightly grungy. Maybe it was the smell of formaldehyde effecting their perception. Or maybe it was the knowledge that there were corpses housed in there. From where they stood, they could see that there were multiple rooms in the morgue. The room they were in was seemingly used for storing equipment, in addition to wheeling in bodies. There were shelves full of medical equipment and sharp tools. Various bags and boxes. And a drain in the floor.
One side of the room led into an office. Directly ahead of them, there was a corridor which presumably led to the area where the bodies were stored.
Raven turned to look at Nightwing. "There should be drawers with bodies in them somewhere." Nightwing looked around the room. He pointed to the office on the other side of the room.
"You can look in the office there for the autopsy report." He said. "I'll look for the bodies."
"I can handle looking at corpses." She said. Although there was a note of hesitation in her voice.
"I have a lot of experience examining wounds. And dead bodies." He said. "Besides, it'll save time if we divide the work."
"I guess you're right." She said. "We'll split up then."
"Only for a few minutes, hopefully." He said. "With any luck, it'll only take a minute to find the body and examine it." Nightwing started walking towards the corridor, while Raven turned towards the office.
Outside the hospital, a small bird flew around the top of the building. From below, most people wouldn't be able to tell that the bird was green. It flew around the perimeter of the hospital, at one point seeing Raven and Nightwing enter from the back. The bird, or rather Beast Boy, then flew over to a nearby roof top and landed. He shapeshifted back to his regular form, and sat on the edge of the roof looking down. He sat there like that for a minute, not hearing anything from his friends.
That probably means everything's okay, he thought. Unless they're not saying anything because they can't, which means its not okay. Beast Boy shook his head. I need to chill. I'm sure they're fine.
Beast Boy sat there like that for a few minutes. He got up and started slowly walking along the roof, whistling to himself. He sighed. "God this is boring."
As Nightwing walked out of the room, Raven headed for the office. The door was closed, but the light was on. There didn't appear to be anyone inside. Raven tried for the doorknob. Luckily, it wasn't locked. She opened the door and stepped inside. The smell in the office was not as pungent as in the first room.
It was a medium sized office, with a desk and a computer in the middle of the room. There were a few filing cabinets, as well as a bookcase against a wall. There was a cooler, and a bunch of cabinets along the wall with some medical supplies. The desk was slightly messy, with pens and staplers and various papers. There was also a stack of yellow folders at one end of the desk.
The computer might have the information they were looking for, but it may be password protected. For now, Raven decided to look through the papers. She grabbed a few of the random papers on the desk, hoping that one of them might be Aqualad's autopsy report. After looking through them for a minute, she didn't find what she was looking for. They were mostly just memos and official documents related to the hospital. She saw another loose paper that appeared to be an autopsy report. Which it was. She picked it up and looked at it, but it was about someone she never heard of. She was already starting to feel annoyed.
Raven took a moment to calm herself. She reminded herself that it would have been too much to hope for to find the report right away. She put the papers aside, and looked over at the stack of folders. They were filled with papers, and it could take a while to go through them all. She hoped that the newer ones were on top. She picked up the top folder and started looking through the contents.
The first papers she saw were just more memos. After flipping through a few pages, she saw some pictures of autopsies. Cadavers on tables, pale and lifeless. As she flipped further, some of the pictures were more graphic, featuring wounds and surgical incisions, and stitches. Raven frowned, but kept looking. She turned to the next page, and found a detailed autopsy report with a picture on the other page. It was Aqualad. Fortunately, the picture wasn't graphic (and she hoped she wouldn't have to turn the page to see if it got worse). But it was still unsettling to see him like that. There was a time when Raven had a crush on him, if only briefly. She remembered him being very good looking. But now… Her eyes turned back to the other page with the information.
It listed his height and weight, and date of birth. Along with the date and rough time of death. The injuries found on him were detailed as well. Slashes, likely from a blade. Bruises from blunt force. And a large hole through his abdomen where he had been impaled. According to the notes, that last wound likely came from behind, judging from the damage. Oddly, it appears that the big wound came while Aqualad was standing up rather than on the ground. So, Aqualad got into a serious fight, and was still standing, but then got attacked from behind.
Was there more than one person who attacked him?, she thought. She remembered that Nightwing said that Aqualad had gone into the sewer. It was possible there was just one assailant who managed to sneak down there.
Isn't it? Raven thought. She would have to talk it over with Nightwing… and Beast Boy. In the meantime, she pulled out her camera phone and took pictures of the pages. She couldn't just steal the papers after all. She then put the folder back, and decided it was time to rejoin Nightwing. I wonder if he's finished already? She thought.
Nightwing walked down the corridor alone. Up ahead there was another room. As he stepped inside, he saw that it was the room where the cadavers were stored. It was a larger room, with open space in the middle. There were metal doors along the wall, each housing a drawer with a body in it. Further ahead was another room, which looked like the area where the actual autopsy was performed. And further down the wall was another door that was marked as a bathroom. Nightwing didn't have any need to go in either of those rooms. Instead, he walked over to the drawers and immediately started opening them. He didn't want to waste any time. There was a chance someone could come in at any time, so he was going to try to be as quick as possible.
As he pulled out the first body, he couldn't help notice the smell. There were various chemicals to mask the smell of decay, and yet it still reeked of death. He pulled the drawer out, and looked at the body. Definitely not Aqualad. It was a bald man in his forties who had a serious head wound. Nightwing put the body back inside. He pulled out another drawer below. This one was a woman in her twenties. He put her back as well. He looked over at the other drawers along the wall, and noticed something. One drawer at the far end was open. Not wide open, just a crack. But it was still unusual.
He walked over to check on it. He opened the drawer and pulled the body out. This time, it was Aqualad. Aqualad's drawer had been left open for some reason. Was someone recently looking at it? Nightwing put his hand on Aqualad's naked, lifeless body. The body was still cold enough that the drawer must not have been open for long. An examiner may have been looking at it, and could be back soon. Nightwing looked around. He didn't see or hear anyone. He glanced into the neighboring room for autopsies, and saw nothing there either. He turned back to the body.
As Nightwing looked at Aqualad, he noticed that the face was mostly undamaged. The body had cuts and bruises though. He looked at the gaping hole in Aqualad's midsection. It was round, as if from a pipe or something similar. There were small wounds in his front abdomen, as if some rocks and gravel his penetrated his skin. There was also a small mark on his hand that looked almost like a burn of some kind. Not from fire though. More like a chemical. Nighwing moved his hand over to Aqualad's face. He wanted to look at the eyes. But he suddenly heard something. Footsteps, running.
Nightwing quickly turned, and saw someone running right at him from the other side of the room. He ducked just in time as the assailant jumped and kicked. The kick missed him and hit one of the closed drawers instead. It all happened so fast that he didn't have time to register what the other person looked like at first.
Nightwing backed up a step and quickly got into a fighting stance. For the moment he was bare handed, not sure if he wanted to risk the extra second it would take to pull out his sticks. The attacker turned and looked back at him. It only took him a moment to recognize the other person as she stood up.
"Bumblebee." He said.
Beast Boy stood on the roof, still waiting for a call, or some sign of his friends. So far nothing. He checked the time. It hadn't been long at all, but somehow it felt longer. He wondered what they were doing in there. He started to wonder if he should have gone in with them after all. I can handle a dead body, right? He thought.
He thought about changing into some other animal forms to amuse himself. But he knew that would be irresponsible. And besides… he suddenly felt something hit him hard in his back. It hit the back of his ribs, causing him to gasp and stumble. He turned, only to be struck in the face. He suddenly found himself in a fight.
Beast Boy tried to get up, but he was kicked in the face and chest repeatedly, knocking him back. Instinctually, he turned into a small cat, and the next attack missed him. He pounced away as the attacker came after him again. Beast Boy then turned into a monkey and flipped backwards to get distance. He wanted to know exactly who or what was attacking him before he decided on a specific combat form.
After a moment, Beast Boy managed to put some distance between himself and the opponent. He changed back to his normal form, but was crouching low to the ground, tense. He finally saw the attacker, who was in a similar crouched and tense position. It was a person, or at least something shaped like a person. They were clad in an all-black outfit that concealed their whole body and face. They wore something similar to a black ski mask, with lenses covering the eyes. Beast Boy and the strange opponent stayed in their crouched positions, having a standoff, so to speak. Then, the attacker pulled out a long knife. Beast Boy knew right then that he was probably looking at the same person who killed Aqualad, and now they wanted to kill him.