Officer Richard Grayson.
The title had always been... questionable. Not only to Dick, but to his co-workers. To everyone else, he didn't act on his duty as well as he should. He would constantly disappear, come in late, and sometimes never even show up at all. It was only questionable to Dick himself because it had gotten him fired, once. Before the madness. Before the destruction of Bludhaven. Needless to say, after that, they needed all the help that they could get.
Tonight, Dick was actually in-office. He had already checked the streets... They were clear. Usually, he'd at least encounter looters in the city's still suffering state, but tonight wasn't that night. A little bit of relief, on one hand. On the other, He was a bit disappointed. Because, for all of the trouble it got him into... He still craved more action in the city. He hadn't fought a real threat since the incident in Metropolis, about a month ago. And even then, it didn't last for five minutes without someone else ending it prematurely. Now Dick was on his own. Again.
Getting up from his desk, Dick turned as he heard the door to the office opening. He smirked, a little, as she walked in: Lucielle "Lucy" Vreemond, the newest officer on the force. Training with his former superior, Amy Rohrback, she had graduated with top honors from the Haven Police Academy just last month. Of course, that's not why she always caught Dick's attention. She was around his age, if not only a few months younger... Tall, blonde, and nothing short of
gorgeous in all the right places. He had hated thinking that, at first, given that his hopes with reconciling with Barbara had still been very much alive... But in recent weeks, He had given up entirely. Their relationship had been rocky, as any of his relationships were... But the way she had left still left him bitter. At this point, He saw Barbara as a lost cause. It was time to move on.
His smirk growing wider as Lucy walked past him, with a subtle wink towards his way, Dick looked around at his co-workers, making sure they hadn't seen the small exchange between the two. Not only would it prove their points that Dick was, in their eyes, an unfit addition to the force... But it'd mean that Lucy would get fired, aswell. And he couldn't have that. At least... not yet.
Pouring himself a cup of coffee, Dick looked over, noticing Lucy carrrying a file box into one of the storage closets. Looking over once again, seeing that no one was looking his way, Dick quietly walked over to the closet aswell, and slipped in. Closing the door behind him, Dick turned, seeing Lucy as she turned around aswell.
"Miss me?", Dick asked, with another smirk, as Lucy gasped, not knowing he was there.
"Why, Officer Grayson... What would ever give you that idea?", Lucy replied, with a sly smile.
"Oh, it was pretty obvious. The way you fixed your hair. The perfume you're wearing, the kind I specifically told you that I liked...", Dick began, leaning in as their lips touched.
"... The way all of the buttons on your shirt were already halfway undone...", He contined, with another smile.
Lucy laughed, as Dick began kissing her on the neck.
"One would think you rehearsed all of that...", She said, kissing him back as he found his way to her face again.
Dick merely laughed himself, as they continued, unbuttoning eachothers shirt's, all while the entire police department was unaware of what was going on, inside their own locked storage closet.
"You insult me, Officer Vreemond...", He replied, with another kiss.
But the truth was... He
did rehearse all of that. He would never admit it, of course, but he had memorised every movement... every word or 'line'... as if it were an act. So he wouldn't get attached.
For the game... It's nothing but a game. This is just playing the game. Nothing more. Dick couldn't help but think something
else, as he and Lucy continued, doing things in the closet that would make Hal Jordan's hair stand on end. Something that almost gave him away, taking him out of the act... but thankfully, didn't.
God, why did I have to make it sound like something Bruce would say?
Hours later, He and Lucy said goodbye, as Dick was called in for a bulletin. It didn't take him a minute to get dressed again, as he rushed to his car, and sped off, towards his destination. From the report, it seemed that there was a disturbance on the East End. Or... the ruins of the East End. In a section that reminded Dick of New York's Chinatown, aswell. Even before he was alerted the more specific details of the situation, Dick knew which gang it was. And he smirked to himself, knowing it... Because he finally had them right where he wanted them.
Arriving on the scene, Dick rushed to one of his co-officers as they crouched behind a squad car.
"What's the situation?", He asked.
His question wasn't answered in words, but in bullets, as they both ducked, hearing them bounce off of the car's roof.
"That answer 'yer question?", The officer replied, in a thick western accent that Dick had mentally mocked too many times to count. "We got an anonymous tip 'bout an arm's dealin' that was goin' down. Said we'd better be prepared fer' the worst."
Dick looked up at the window of the warehouse the suspects were stationed in. It reminded him of an ancient chinese fort... And due to that, Dick knew the officers weren't going to make any progress from out here.
"Why don't'cha make yer'self useful fer' once, Grayson, and follow my le-"
The officer turned, seeing that Dick was gone. He looked, blankly, at the spot where Dick had been crouched.
"Well I'll be..."
Inside, the situation only grew worse. A gang of religious zealots, worshipping a chinese dragon God, had been plaguing Bludhaven's still destroyed state for months. No one knew where they hid, or why they attacked the city, but their assaults had left many of the limited resources to the city crippled. And tonight, they had enough firearms to wipe out the entire police force, if they had to. Many of them uncrating many technologically advanced state-of-the-art guns and grenades, some moved to the windows, opening fire on the police force outside.
"We're throwing ourselves a party!", One yells.
"Hell yeah, we are!", Another yells. "None of those rent-a-cops down there could've seen this coming!"
Except for one. But they didn't know that, of course.
"How much longer do we have to keep this up? I'm getting sick of wasting these guys! It's too damned easy!", Another laughed.
"Not long. We just need to load the remaining crates in the trucks out back. Then we're home free.", Came the reply from the leader of this particular assault.
"Hey, don't listen to him. Take your time! I could never get tired of this!", One of the first ones laughed, firing a machine gun at the cops below.
"Get that **** packed, man! The sooner we leave, the more we can shoot up later!"
"Hate to break it to you colorfully vocal gents, but..."
They all paused, hearing a faint voice behind them. A voice none of them knew... but would come to know all too well. And in a blur of motion, they all found
themselves under attack, as he made his prescence known.
"PARTY'S OVER!"
Nightwing spun, kicking another across the face as the punk prepared to open fire. Backflipping over another crate, Nightwing wasted little time in slamming his feet into another, before taking his escrima sticks and bashing two that were coming at him. One opened fire, hoping to blast Dick's brains against the wall... But they didn't know of Nightwing's agility, as he flipped, avoiding the bullets, before connecting a kick to the thug's jaw. Elbowing the one behind him, Nightwing took him by the arm, and threw him, slamming him into another one. A last one fired at him, from behind. Twirling his escrima sticks, Nightwing let the bullets bounce off of them once, before flipping into the air, and punching the thug with his knuckle, breaking the coward's nose on impact. There was a difference between them and him.
They weren't prepared for this. He
was. It seemed, these days, that Nightwing was prepared for anything and everything. And because of that... it took two minutes, flat, for Nightwing to take down the entire gang on his own.
The police force outside were aware of this, because moments later, the entire gang was thrown out of one of the larger windows, wrapped up in a thick, black cord, complete with an attached metallic throwing tool, in the shape of Nightwing's logo. Nightwing watched as they were arrested, from inside.
He breathed for the first time in those long minutes, letting himself know it was over. Well, for now at least. One gang down... One leader to go. Whoever it was... they were in for the beating of a lifetime.
As the arrests were finalised, and the gang members were hauled off in squad cars, Dick walked back onto the scene, back into his uniform. Lucy was there, aswell. Seeing Dick, she ran up to him, wrapping her arms around his neck as she kissed him.
"I was worried.", She said, as they broke.
Dick smiled again.
"Never be.", Dick replied.
"This bird's got wings."
"I guess that's one way to put it.", Lucy responded, sticking her tongue out.
"Wanna grab a bite to eat?"
"In a minute.", Dick responded.
"Need to talk to Amy about something first."
She nodded, as they kissed again. Dick turned, walking over to his superior, Amy Rohrback, as she arrived on the scene aswell.
"How'd you manage to get inside?", Rohrback asked.
"Um... We didn't, actually.", One of the officers responded. "That one guy... the one they always talk about. He did it."
Rohrback immediatley looked at Dick, as he approached.
"What I don't get is how they knew that we'd be here.", Rohrback said, aloud, thinking to herself.
"I think I can answer that...", Dick responded, before pulling something out of his pocket. A piece of paper. Rohrback took it, and read it, looking up at Dick.
"What the hell is this, Grayson?"
"Tapped phonecalls. From an officer here. It was an inside job.", Dick responded.
Rohrback's eyes widened.
"Who?"
Dick turned, looking at Lucy.
"Who else? The newbie."
Rohrback was speechless, as Dick turned to her.
"I've been keeping an eye on her for the past month. The way I see it, they needed an inside contact to tell them when and where we were going to try and take them down. Because they had that info, they evaded us. And this is the only time we ever even came close to getting them."
Amy looked at Dick, for a second.
"But how do you know it was her?", Rohrback asked.
Dick reached into his pocket, before throwing her a cell phone.
"
Look at the calls. Then look at the number on the challsheet I gave you."
Amy looked at them both. They were exactly the same.
"God. And to think I trusted that little..."
"HEY! What are you doing!?"
Dick and Amy turned, seeing one of the officers put cuffs on Lucy.
"I'M AN OFFICER OF THIS FORCE! UNHAND ME!", She yelled, angrily.
Looking at Dick, she put on a sweet face again.
"I think someone needs to lay off the drinks.", She said, indicating her arresting officer.
"Nope. Sorry, Officer Vreemond. He's quite sober.", Dick began.
"You're under arrest."
Lucy's eyes widened.
"WHAT?!?!"
"'Fraid so, sweetie.", Dick responded.
Lucy looked at him, angrily.
"HOW DARE YOU!!! AFTER EVERYTHING WE'VE BEEN THROUGH!!!"
"What, everything as in the cheap sex, or everything as in the months' worth of decieving? Hate to tell you this, Luc', but you really have a twisted view on dating.", Dick responded, a little bitterly in his own words, as he opened the door to the back of the squad car, allowing the officer to put Lucy in it. She glanced at him.
"I really did like you, Dick...", She said, as a tear came down her face.
Dick crossed his arms, as the door shut, watching as the car sped away. Sighing to himself, Dick frowned.
"Yeah. I liked you too.", He admitted to himself.
He had tried to make it through the entire situation without getting attached to her... but in the end, he failed. Which made what he just did all the more painful to do. But in the end, it payed off... She was a criminal, behind bars, and he was... well, one step closer to taking down the organisation she worked for.
"You gonna be okay?", Amy asked Dick, as he turned, looking at her.
"Yeah. No sweat...", Dick said, even though his pain was obvious.
"Well, I have some good news. You know that drug binge that you were working on, when you came back?", Amy asked.
"We found a crate full of them inside. These guys had connections to the same ring."
Dick looked at Amy, eyebrow raised.
"Really, now..."
It seemed that the arrest had payed off in more ways than one. Now, there was a reopening in a case Dick took to heart... And he could finally bring in the druglords that had plagued the city since the incident in Metropolis.
"I Love Lucy...", He said to himself, hours later, as he placed the mask on his face, and leaped out of an alleyway in the inner city. The drug case wasn't something for "Officer Richard Grayson" to handle. It was Nightwing's time to shine.
"What an irony.", He laughed... still trying to tell himself that it didn't hurt. Even though it did. He was tired of this... Tired of pretending he wasn't missing something in his life. Since Barbara had left, and his relationship with Kory had resolved, Dick's only form of dating had been exactly what he had done to Lucy: It was barely dating at all. But in the back of his mind, Nightwing knew he couldn't go on like this for much longer. He couldn't be like Bruce... alone, with nothing mattering to him except his mission. He
wouldn't. He needed something pure... Something meaningful...
The bachelor routine was getting real old, real fast. He needed something
real.
*)
