Chapter Text
Carla
February 19
Thursday Evening
School Gates
Carla hears the click of the lock as the school gate closes behind her. First to arrive, last to leave. This has been her life lately; attending PTA meetings in the morning and making sure all the tasks around the production of The Importance of Being Earnest get completed before opening night in a few weeks. The other students left over half an hour ago and the sun is starting to set.
The skies above Gotham are gray but the sunset peeks through this evening as sirens blare the distance as she turns and starts her short walk home, it will only take about 8 minutes, but in a city like Gotham, anything can happen. Dressed in a Gotham High school uniform, she is easily spotted as a target for mugging. Mrs. Montgomery would drive to pick up her daughter happily, but with the unreliable schedule Carla follows, she feels like a burden if she expects her mom to jump at her call. Besides, the walk helps clear her head after a long day.
Before she goes, she looks up and waits. Within 15 seconds, she spots it: the tell tale swish of fabric silhouetted against the sunset. With a sigh of relief, she starts her walk home, knowing she’ll be safe.
Dick
February 19
Thursday Evening
Rooftop Across from Montgomery Residence
It will never stop infuriating Dick that Carla walks home alone without a care in the world. It is like she doesn’t understand that crime is lurking behind every corner in this God forsaken city, that her dark curls attract every creep in the city. Without him, she would have been hurt, or worse, almost every trip home she has ever walked. He knows he can never bring this up to her though, which just makes him more frustrated, but he has had the conversation with her a million times in his head. Unfortunately he has to keep it imaginary or else she’d wonder how he knows she walks home alone, and that would open the door to a lot of questions Dick can’t answer.
After watching Carla get buzzed through the gates into her family’s mansion, he shakes his head and starts repelling down to the roof of the building below. Dressed in his Robin uniform, he knows he is unlikely to be spotted in the low light, but he keeps his guard up regardless. He needs to be seven blocks over in about 10 minutes to report for nightly patrol with Batman, it will be tight, but at a full run, he can make it. He reaches for his watch to switch on all his patrol communication devices and recordings as he leaps between rooftops. The tell tale sound of static greets him before he hears chatter between Alfred and Batman across the lines.
“Glad you could join us.” Bat’s no nonsense grumble breaks into the audio.
Dick rolls his eyes at the mild reprimand. If Batman was serious he’d save it for when they were in person. “ I am three minutes out.” He gets no reply, but didn’t really expect one. Batman is a man of few words and they have lived in mostly comfortable silence for most fo Dick’s life.
As he approaches, he can see the outline of the batsuit two roofs away, monitoring the city below. He throws himself into the sky, flying like a bird. He has always been the most comfortable like this, unattached, flying through the night sky, above everyone and without a soul to hear him.
He throws a flip into the last jump for fun, showing off for no one, Batman would probably say it is an unnecessary expenditure of energy if he saw, but Dick loves the feel of it anyways. As he is upside down, he spots a glimmer of light in a shadow, he does a double take but can’t make it out in the darkness. He lands on the roof and before joining Batman, flips his mask’s visuals to night vision and checks out the source. Three men are in an alleyway below with at least seventeen guns and three cases of injection needles. From what he can see, there is a solid mix, from handguns to large machine guns – drugs and weapons:, a terrible mix to play with in Gotham.
Dick internally groans, the arms trading in Gotham has continued to grow no matter what they have done. It feels like a hydra, cutting off one source just makes two grow back. Last week alone they took down three different arms trades and sent eleven people to jail. Even police chief Gordon was glad that they were doing the work. Dick shudders at the idea of what all these guns flooding the city means, but in Gotham, you never know what people have planned; it is part of why their work is so important.
Dick presses his comm button on his wrist and lets Bats and Alfred know before descending the building.
“ Do not engage until I arrive,” Batman reminds him, as if they haven’t been working together for nearly a decade. Dick has to stop himself from rolling his eyes, he knows the protocol, he knows how these things work.
Fifteen feet above the ground Dick detaches his ropes and perches on a window sill. He works to keep quiet and slink into the shadows until he can see the shadow of Batman approaching the ledge of the roof, he will be down within seconds.
An eerie childlike laugh fills the alley way and all these creeps look around, unable to find the source. The three men throw a blanket over most of the guns but only reach for two pistols. Robin smiles, ready to get this over with. Back when he was at the circus, the ventriloquist taught him how to throw his voice and make it sound like it was coming from across the room. At the time, he thought it was just a fun skill, he didn’t know it would be so useful or that the laugh would become his signature warning. All the villains in Gotham knew that Robin’s laugh was a sure sign that Batman was going to show up and take them down; it made people react, and react quickly. It meant that all their cards were on the table and the Batman team would know what they are up against.
These creeps are in for a good fight, but the team needs to know what guns are loaded before they hop down. Their kevlar will protect them against two pistols, this will be over faster than Robin thought.
A large swath of black heavy fabric falls mere feet in front of Robin, Batman touches down and immediately sets after two of the creeps. Robin pauses just a moment to spot which direction the third guy is going and hops down after him. He lands about ten feet away and takes off on foot, pursuing the arms dealer. Dick reaches into his utility belt and grabs two birdarangs, flinging them successfully at the sleeves of the target, and fixing him against the brick wall of the alley way. Behind him he can hear Batman fight with the other two perps, he has no doubt Batman can handle that situation by himself. Dick approaches his captive, immediately grabbing the pistol from his hand and masterly disarming the gun. He takes a second to turn and see how Batman’s fight is going, he is glad to see it is practically over. One man is knocked over on the floor, moaning like he isn’t getting up any time soon and Batman has successfully grabbed the ankles of the other and is dangling him in the air.
Dick turns back to focus on his target, but is shocked when he hits the ground instead.
Fuck. The birdarangs loosened. Dick thinks as he processes that he just got punched in the face.
Dick recovers quickly and immediately grabs the man’s wrists, using his close range combat skills to cuff the man behind his back.
“ Punching children now, are we?” Dick asks as he pushes him down to his knees. By the time this is over Batman is adding his men to the pile and they hear the police sirens nearing the alley way. Alfred would have alerted them to their location and they will find three men neatly packaged for arrest when they get here along with their collection of goodies in the trunk.
Without a word Batman walks over to the car, grabs two of the needles and returns to Robin, nodding. At once they both use their wrist grappling hooks to attach to the ten story building above and are pulled into the sky, disappearing into the shadows.
Over the comms system, Robin can hear the grin in Batman’s voice, “ That is going to be some shiner to explain at school tomorrow, Rob.” Robin groans, he is completely right. Fuck.