Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sunbeams shone through the cracks in the curtains. Creeping up the room as the sun rose, they colored it a golden hue. A peaceful moment, one worthy of a painting. Yet the moment is lost. The door opens, and Daniella marches in, sweating from her early morning workout. Abruptly, the room is engulfed in the full glow of the morning as Daniella yanks the curtains open. The ambiance turns much more hectic, as she swirls around the room, picking up all her necessities to get ready for the day.

She was in, to put it simply, a bad mood. It was August 28th, a Monday, marking the first day of her sophomore year. The fact she was still subjected to attending Gotham High was a mystery unto itself. She knew practically everything her teachers attempted to teach her. If she could, she’d do ‘homeschooling’, and finish off her schooling early. Then she would be able to be the youngest and one of the few of the Waynes to manage to graduate high school. But alas, her father did not agree with her idea.

He desired her to befriend people, and have more aptitude in social situations. A useless hope. Any social skills or connections she could have gained were squashed the moment she realized her classmates were morons. She failed to have much in common with the spoiled children of Gotham’s elite. Her disdain for them has been made clear since elementary school. They didn't seem to particularly like her either, but she supposed she was glad the feeling was mutual.

Basking in the light of the morning, she fought the urge to groan in frustration. Her summer had been perfect. Every day had a new battle, a new injustice to overcome. She felt her skills had sharpened, and her mind cleared. Her father had patted her on the back the evening prior for her growth. Even her relationships arguably improved; she hadn’t had any fights come to blows the entire summer. Three months! That was the longest she had done that for, and in her opinion rather impressive.

Others may argue that was less than impressive. But those others (Drake) were just mindless annoyances in her life. They should just be grateful she hasn't stabbed anyone lately unless they wanted to be, which if that's the case she would be more than happy to break her streak for. It was a miracle she hadn’t punched anyone with how obnoxious her family was. Whatever. Seeing as she was going to once again have to see her classmates, she’d just have to pray she didn’t get into any fights, whether verbal or physical. Her Father was always angry with her when she fought civilians. She’d rather avoid his disappointment more this year.

Sighing, she trudged grudgingly over to her bathroom. Picking up her toothbrush, she had to take a minute to convince herself it wasn't worth it to call in sick on the first day. When she stared in the mirror, she felt a surge of gratitude for her past self. She had taken extra care to avoid any facial injuries the past month or so in preparation for going back to school. Last year, she had been the topic of gossip for the black eye she had gotten from a lucky punch. Somehow people were convinced she was a part of some gang and had been extra jumpy around her. Her siblings had found that extremely amusing. She didn’t share the sentiment; they weren't the ones having their lab partners slowly inching their seats away from them throughout the class period.

Whoever started the rumor had it out for her. It was a dangerous accusation to make in Gotham, one that had gotten many a person shot. She may not be in a gang, but there were people at her school who were involved in criminal activities, whether family-run or not. It had only gotten worse when word got out about how oddly muscular she was for a high school girl. She had felt a tad violated at the idea of her classmates staring at her physique while she changed for PE, as that was the only real time they would have noticed. Hopefully, the gossip would die down, as it was foolish talk. It made everyone give her a second glance, something she preferred to avoid. Despite what some say, she hated being the center of attention and had more introverted tendencies.

Well, this year will be different. She was going to stay under the radar this time.

…

Or as inconspicuous as the daughter of a billionaire can be.

Not very, she surmises, as she closes the bathroom door to shower. No more criminal rumors. That was the goal. Or at least all she could ask for.

* * * * * *

Sitting at the back of her English class, she struggles to stay awake.

New year, same school and classmates. The room she was in seemed to be more dreary than average. Most had some sort of personal twist to them, whether personal choc keys or school-issued posters, but not this one. The more her teacher drones on, the more a buzz fills her thoughts as her eyes try and close. She had strategically chosen a seat in the far corner of the room, away from the main sight of the room. Even with her attempt to be discreet, her hopes of leading an uneventful school life from this point on are ruined by the continuation of the rumors from last year.

What would be an unnoticeable spot is prevented from being so by the many unclaimed seats around her corner, forming a small island around her. Her classmates were akin to unreasonable sheep, blindly following frankly unfounded gossip. It was only her rumored to be in a gang. Not anyone else in her family, just her. The 15-year-old daughter of a billionaire who has absolutely zero need for any sources of income. More proof her classmates were idiots.

Most likely they were just bored and wanted something to talk about. There had been a lack of ‘drama’ at her school, with the grade's most theatrical couple still in a peaceful time. She figured her classmates were getting tired of talking about celebrity drama, and wanted something they could have constant updates on, and make their own discoveries about. It was vital to find out who had started the lie before the press got wind of it. She could only imagine her father's face after seeing his daughter on the front page of a tabloid with the caption “Gotham's Girliest Gang Leader ''.

Not exactly ideal.

Nor were the continued whispers surrounding her as she stared off in class. Straining her ears, she heard mutterings of how she was probably on some sort of substance at the moment. Ridiculous. She would think, after all the parties her classmates had been to, they’d be able to discern if an individual was high or not. Well, they were a bunch of self-absorbed teenagers, all used to daddy's money. Her standards for them would need to be lowered for her sanity. She didn't know how much lower she could put them, though.

“Daniella Wayne?”

She turned her head to the source of the query. Her teacher, Ms. Willis, was staring at her with one eyebrow raised. Daniella already disliked the woman. She was a middle-aged woman with a pointy face, who Daniella thought was holding on to her youth too much with her dyed blonde hair and comically heavy makeup. She looked like she was going to attend one of her father's galas, not teach a lesson on Animal Farm. Already she could tell she was going to be the teacher she would argue the most with this year. And she hadn’t even met all of her teachers.

“Yes?”

The blonde woman pursed her lips.

“I asked if you read the required reading over the summer.”

“I did. Little Women?”

Ms. Willis had a slight frown, seemingly displeased at her response.

“Yes, that’s the one. Do try and pay attention in my class, you will definitely need to in order to pass.”

With that, she turned her attention away from Daniella and back to the rest of the class. Daniella furrowed her brow. Even her teachers thought she was some sort of delinquent. How they believed this with the grades she received was past her. She may skip classes a bit too often, but not enough to where it is suspicious. Well, at least they were less likely to question her when she turned assignments in late. It was a small miracle none of them had reported her to the police from the gossip. The rumors had their advantages and disadvantages.

Still, it was annoying, as the surrounding empty seats made her feel singled out (which she most assuredly was). At least the gossip meant she didn't feel like she was obligated to try to make any friends. She wasn’t exactly interested in interacting with people who thought she was some sort of mob boss. They weren't jumping out of their seats to talk to her, either.

She closed her eyes and slumped into her desk. If she could stay awake in this class, that was all she needed. Suddenly, she opened her eyes again and sat up quickly. Her long dark hair had gotten in her face, and she scowled as she pulled strands out of her mouth. She needed a hair tie. It was probably a bit too long for her position as a vigilante (something she used to chastise Brown about), but she liked how it looked. The day was just not going her way, her hair was not today's problem.

Ridiculous.

SLAM

The low noise of her classmate's chatter ceases, and she flinches at the loud noise. She stares at the doorway, where a lanky, out-of-breath boy stands. On only one of his shoulders is a backpack strap. He was just asking for back problems. She hadn’t seen him before, but from first impressions, her opinion wasn't stellar. He leans to the side of the doorway and pushes stray red hairs out of his face. When he makes eye contact with Ms. Willis, a bright smile overtakes his face.

“Hey, are you Ms. Willis?”

The woman stares at him, appraising him, before a slight frown forms on her lips. She walks swiftly over to the boy, who stands awkwardly in the front of the class.

“That would be me. And who exactly are you?”

The redhead responds with a lazy grin,

“Dalton. Dalton Rios. I was just put on your roster probably, I sorted everything out down at the office before this, and they told me to go here...”

Ms. Willis nods her head slowly, still frowning, and walks to her desk to look at her computer. She lifts it and starts to scroll, clearly reluctantly. Daniella almost laughs at her clear irritation. Ms. Willis was eating this up, Daniella could tell the woman loved being dramatic. When she finally finds whatever she is searching for (her class list, Daniella figures), she lifts her head.

“Yes, you were just added,” She says begrudgingly.

She looks around the desks full of students and slows when she gets to Daniella. Somehow, her frown deepens even further as she gives an unimpressed look to Daniella. Daniella has to fight back a frown herself. Ms. Willis lifts her hand and points over to where Daniella is sitting.

“Well, there are some empty seats by Daniella. Why don’t you sit on her left, since she was paying attention, she should be more than capable of filling you in on what we have been talking about today.”

He follows her gesture and shifts his bag on his back.

“Ok, thanks, ma’am.”

Daniella was trying her hardest not to sneer. Her lonely corner would be interrupted by some new irritating classmate. Her displeasure only deepened as the boy made his way through the filled desks, smiling charmingly at his new classmates while he walked. She tried to ignore him when he sat down beside her, throwing his backpack down. It was hard to do, as when he finished settling in, he turned his head to her. She wasn't interested in talking. The boy, Rios, would soon wish he was sitting anywhere but there. No one liked the idea of being friends with the criminal.

He had not yet been made aware of the rumors, as he grinned at her without any malice.

“Hey, I don’t know if you were listening, but I’m Dalton, Dalton Rios. You’re Daniella, right?”

She looked at him apathetically.

“Yes, that is correct.”

She replied dryly, trying to give him the hint that neither she nor he should want him to talk with her. He did not seem to pick up on it, or if he did was not bothered by her feelings.

“Daniella, like Daniella Wayne?”

“That is me.”

Her father's notoriety clearly had reached him. He nodded his head, finally quieting, before asking,

“What’s up with all the empty seats here? You’d think there wouldn’t be this many in one spot.”

Twirling her pencil in her hand, she huffed.

“Well, one would think no one would be dumb enough to believe I’m in a gang, but our classmates always manage to surprise me.”

He stared at her, clearly at a bit of a loss for words. The stare he gave her was one a person would give to someone dancing while screaming in the middle of a street. Good, maybe he wouldn’t bother her if he thought she was crazy.

Her hopes were nipped in the bud when he began asking questions.

“They what? Why? Did you kill someone or something? Rob a bank? Bomb a locker-”

He continued to speak, listing off more outlandish reasons for her reputation. He seemed to get some pleasure at imagining why people assumed she was involved in organized crime. She raised an eyebrow at his outburst and noticed Ms. Willis glaring at them from over her computer at her desk. She shushed him.

“Shut. Up. We’re going to get kicked out if you don't stop-”

She was interrupted again as he continued rattling off ideas.

“Sic a dog on someone? Steal your math teacher's car? I had a kid at my old school do that, he wanted to run away to the airport and elope with some girl. Did you elope with some mafia dude? What about-”

No way was she getting sent to the principal's office on her first day back to school. Her siblings would never let her forget that. She kicked him hard, enough to get him to stop talking.

“OW! What’d I say?”

“It wasn’t what you were saying, but how loud you were. She was about to yell at us.”

Daniella hisses, while quickly gesturing towards Ms. Willis.

He looks over at her dumbly, before sheepishly smiling.

“Sorry, sorry. It's just… are you for real? Everyone thinks Daniella Wayne is in a gang? Daughter of Bruce Wayne, Daniella Wayne? That's crazy…”

He says, trying not to laugh at her. She rolls her eyes. She did not find this nearly as amusing as he seemed to.

“Yes, as I said, they aren’t very smart.”

“Who even started that rumor?”

“I’m not exactly sure. Now, can you stop talking to me? Unless you have an important question, I’m not interested in conversation.”

He looks taken aback at her words, before glancing away with an annoyed expression.

“Damn, sorry.”

She felt a little bad. He was being… sort of friendly, and she had responded with hostility. She reasoned to herself it was for the best. Even if he never believed the gossip, there was no way he would want to be dragged down by her less-than-positive reputation. Her gang allegations were heightened by her history of violence and anger. The anger she had let spill out once more. Still, at least she hadn’t physically fought with anyone yet. Or, at least, had not physically fought with anyone since enrolling in high school.

Dalton had thankfully turned away from her, now conversing with the boy on the other side of him (Luke Fletcher, or something of the like). She tuned out their conversation as she once more closed her eyes. The night prior had had a longer-than-average patrol. A new crime group had sprung up very recently. They had noticed them forming for a few months, but only now had they seemed to have gotten themselves organized. They seemed oddly capable for a relatively new gang. Daniella guessed they finally had decided on a leader, one who was quickly making his mark. Her patrol had run long because of them, as she had been tasked with monitoring their movement around East Gotham.

If she could, she was going to try and sleep through her classes. Last year, her father had gotten angry at her for all the times she had skipped class to sleep in the library and had even threatened to prevent her from patrolling on school nights. After that, any sleep she needed to make up was done on her desk, not on the floor of the non-fiction section. At least the librarian would have a better opinion of her this year. She glanced over to Rios, who was listening intently to whatever Fletcher was whispering into his ear. Rios looked over at her with raised eyebrows. Probably being indoctrinated into the Daniella gang conspiracy.

It was going to be a long day.

* * * * * *

“This is so ridiculous,” she grumbled, standing on the side of a building watching the streets below. The men she was watching had gone down to only two, as three had just left. That was the most exciting thing they had done that entire night. She was close to ripping her hair out.

“Your fault for not doing what you’re told to,” Tim responds over the comm. She can hear the pleased smile in his voice.

Once more, her job was watching the new gang, The Ivories. She had only learned their name that night, after listening in to a conversation between a few of the members. After getting home that day, she had been looking forward to patrol. Letting off steam was just what she needed. Her anticipation was diminished when she was assigned another night of sitting on a building. All because lately, she had been a bit more rebellious during patrols. She sometimes wouldn’t follow all orders and liked to be more reckless. It was only because she was constantly at her wit's end. She was bored, sue her, and wanted to get her energy out.

Drake's words made her fired up, and after making sure her comm’s mic was muted, she let out a string of curses.

“Woah, you trying to copy me? I’m flattered, honestly…”

“Ttt.”

A large figure walked up by her side. Turning her head slightly, she was greeted by the unpleasant sight of her older brother holding a chili dog like it was gold-plated. He pulled his helmet off and put it under his left arm. She rolled her eyes as he grunted as he sat down, and immediately began eating the chili dog.

“Red Hood, what do you want?”

Jason continued eating his food, ignoring the irritation in her voice.

“There’s a real good chili dog stand like a block from here. I needed a place to eat my food. Figured I swing by and take a look at these newbies.”

“Well, there’s not much to report on. They have been standing around like imbeciles for the past two hours.”

“You know why?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be standing around here anymore.”

He threw his wrapper at her, which she managed to dodge. It could be said she made a… squawk of sorts, but that wasn’t important. Jason laughed at her, and she responded very maturely by sticking out her tongue at him.

He took a large bite out of the chili dog.

“People still think you're in a gang?”

“... Yes, they continue to have the moronic idea that I somehow am involved in a gang.”

“I think you should just own it, you know? Like, get a tattoo and shit. How about one of a tiger with a gun mounted on its back? That’d be badass.”

“If I got a tattoo, I highly doubt my father would approve, or the majority of our family.”

“Wing would probably faint. Actually, that’d be funny as fuck. If you get a tattoo, you have to tell me when you’re gonna tell him, so I can record it.”

“I’ll be sure to keep you updated,” she quipped back, continuing to survey the men from her spot perched on the side of the building. Jason looked down at the men below thoughtfully.

“We need to figure out who the hell their boss is. They could be connected to some other villain around here. Knowing Gotham, they’re planning something fucked up.”

She paused and considered the idea. It wasn’t one she had really thought about, but she supposed seeing as it was Gotham, it was a definite possibility. After a minute, she responded slowly.

“I don’t think any of our major villains are involved. These men have only seemingly sold drugs and ones that aren’t very strong. Villains here tend to be interested in more lucrative businesses and are more flashy. They like being known for what they’re doing. This isn’t exactly the most impressive work.”

“Yeah, that’s true. I don’t know, I just feel like we’re missing something. They’ve been selling stuff for a few months, and definitely are gaining power but very slowly. It feels planned.”

“... Like a front?”

He points at her with a grin.

“Exactly.”

Nodding her head, she starts fiddling with the tools in her holster.

“I’ll bring up the idea to everyone when I get back to the cave. I’m assuming you won’t be joining us.”

“No way in hell,” He responded while taking another bite of his chili dog.

She was glad she and Todd could have a civil conversation now. As she has aged, she has in turn had better relations with the rest of her family. But even with time, there still was tension in the air. They were all too messed up not to be at each other's throats. She learned (through much trial and error) that she just needed to step back when she got too fired up at someone. Now, when she argued with Drake, and they kept pushing each other further, she could recognize she was likely going to be the one to say something truly hurtful. So, in those situations, she would just storm out of the room. Maybe it was immature, but she knew Drake appreciated it at least, even if he didn't say it. That way they could fume and cool off faster, and MUCH less blood was spilled. When she had mentioned her strategy offhand to Richard, he smiled and said, “I think that’s a really good solution for you.” She probably should work on her temper, but for now, the solution was effective in diffusing arguments.

After taking the final bite of his chili dog, much to the disgust of Daniella, Jason licks the remnants off his fingers.

“You’re a pig,” she says to him bluntly.

“Takes one to know one,” he responds, unbothered while standing up and stretching out his limbs.

“How mature. Aren’t you 24? When do you plan on growing up, pray tell?”

“The same day you stop being a brat.”

She glares at him as he pulls on his helmet. He starts walking away across the rooftop, before slowing his pace. He looks over his shoulder at her.

“Have fun doing your little busy work, I’m outta here,” He yells, and hooks down to the alley below. She crosses her arms in annoyance. She knew her father was only having her monitor The Ivories because he was upset with her. Having Todd of all people point that out was frankly insulting, though. The deafening roar of his motorcycle drowned out her thoughts, and she listened as it slowly faded away as he drove.

The way Drake and Todd were looking down on her duty, as Brown often so eloquently put it, pissed her the fuck off. She’ll show them both. She’ll show her father how capable she is. Turning her attention back to the two men, she listens in with a new, heightened focus. They’re both youngish, gruff-looking men. Her job was to watch them until they did something ‘criminal’ as her Father had said. The men had been standing around, clearly bored, for the last 2 hours, and she was so tempted to just jump down and try and interrogate one of them. Unfortunately, that idea wouldn’t be a very good solution in the long term, seeing as if they knew the bats were on their case they’d likely amp up the secrecy.

“When the hell are they showing?” One of the men below asks, a tall man with a large black beard.

“No clue, any minute now probably,” a stocky man answers, puffing on a cigarette.

“Better be, or we’re freezing out here for nothing. I ain't getting paid for this crap.”

So they were waiting for someone, not just loitering. Excitement filled her. Maybe she would get something out of this lead, one her father had assumed was useless. It seemed like it wouldn’t go anywhere. They had learned of it after listening to an especially drunk man rambling in the streets to anyone who would listen how he finally got a gig, and it was one that ‘spelled big bucks for him’. He was suspiciously absent from the small two-man posse hanging out in the alley. If the man hadn’t been exaggerating, something important was going to happen.

Her hopes were answered when a car rolled up by the alley. It was a beat-up gray car, one she wouldn’t give a second glance to if she saw it drive past her. A man exited from the driver's side, and in his hand was a small envelope. She craned her neck to get a better look and got down on her stomach to try and get the best view she could. The man was unremarkable but seemed pretty on edge. He kept looking around as he walked up to the two, mousy thinning hair topping his rather pointy head. When he entered the alley, he walked straight to the two men leaning against the alley wall.

“The moon shines even in smog, doesn’t it?” He says to them nervously, his hand tightening around the letter. They look at him appraisingly, before the stocky man puts out his cigarette on the wall.

“Yeah, freshens the air real nice,” he replies, his open mouth showcasing the many gaps in his smile. Immediately, the man with the letter relaxes and shoves the envelope at the two.

“Take it. You know what your job is,” he says hurriedly, quickly turning away and walking back to his car. He wants nothing to do with the men in the alley. The bearded man sighs and puts his hand on something on his side. Before she can register what is happening, a sharp noise sounds.

BANG

Daniella’s eyes widen as the pointy-headed man falls to the ground. Red pools around him, coating the alley. Dead. The taller man had shot him at point-blank range, right through the heart. She couldn't have saved him from her spot without blowing her cover, and he was most assuredly a criminal of some sort. It was only a consequence of the path he followed that he had met his end in an alleyway.

She told herself this, but the pain in her throat said otherwise. She grew up around death, she knew the scent of it like a child knows their mothers laugh. Yet, she felt guilt swell up inside of her heart. He must have had someone who cared about him. And now he was gone, a corpse in an alleyway. The only ones to see his death were a bunch of murderers, herself included. No one deserved to go out like that. She clenched her fists and watched the two men trudge over to his lifeless body. One eye on the men, she quietly murmurs into her comm, telling Oracle to have the police come to the street address.

The men reach the corpse's side. One bends down next to him, patting his pockets. The other relights a new cigarette, puffing smoke once again into the small alley. The flame is the only thing illuminating the night.

“Where the fuck are they…” the bearded man grumbles while turning the man over, before grinning.

“Bingo,” he exclaims, holding up a pair of keys and a wallet triumphantly. She glares at him from above, a cool fury washing over her. He had no care for the dead. Even when she had assassinated others, she never disrespected the bodies as he did. The man doesn't feel her rage, as he roughly steps on the dead man as he makes his way to the car, the other man following lazily behind.

“We really just gonna leave the body here?” The stocky man asks.

“Al, it's Gotham. What's one more dead? They’ll chalk it up to a mugging or some shit. That's what the wallet is for.”

“Huh, that's why you took it?”

“Nah, I wanted a new watch. Mine broke.”

Al barks out a laugh.

“You’re a piece of shit, Mark. Real piece of work…” He laughs, blowing smoke up above him.

“Well, that’s why I’m in the job. Get in, we need to drop this crap off,” Mark instructs after unlocking the car doors while picking up a metal rod from the alley. He walks over to the front and back of the car, knocking off the license plates and throwing them into a nearby dumpster. Daniella reassesses him after that. He must have some kind of brain in his head to think about the consequences of driving around a stolen car, or at the very least one with a recognizable piece on it. Jason had been right, there was more to this than she had thought. These weren’t newbies but experienced cons. The car pulls away and speeds off into Gotham.

She presses on her comm.

“I got some information.”

* * * * * *

Standing in the Bat cave, she taps her foot impatiently. Besides her, Dick has a stupidly wide grin plastered on his face.

“I didn’t get to ask you, how was your first day back? Any new friends? Favorite teacher? What did you have for lunch? Were you tired? What-” Dick cheerily rambles off questions to her, getting increasingly more bright with each question.

“Richard. How am I supposed to answer any questions if you keep asking them?” She inquired, one eyebrow raised. It was a skill she was especially proud of, as she had inherited it directly from her father, the master of it. Every Wayne kid had been subjected to it after doing something he had deemed ‘foolish’.

Dick answered her with a sheepish smile,

“Sorry, sorry. Uh, how about… any new friends? Or people to talk to?”

“Ttt. My classmates still believe me to be associated with criminal organizations. I have been given a wide berth at school, similar to last year.”

“Still? I mean, there were rumors about me in school, but they never lasted this long. Really, no one who doesn’t believe it? What about new kids?”

She crossed her arms.

“Well, there is one new boy in my English class. I would guess he just moved here and was told to sit next to me. He at least didn’t stare at me like I had three eyes, unlike others.”

Dick smiled.

“Hey, that’s a start! You should try and befriend him!”

“Do you truly think he will not be made aware of the gossip? In no world will he so much as look at me tomorrow,” She scoffed. He was always so optimistic, she was almost jealous. Maybe if she had a more positive outlook, people would never guess her to be a criminal. It was too late to change that, though, she figured, and she had no intention of changing herself for a bunch of ignorant high schoolers. Only three more years, and she would never look at another one of them again.

“Well… I guess it's not all bad. At least no one's gonna mess with you!”

“... I didn't consider that. Yes, I suppose that is true, there has been much less harassment ever since the hoax started.”

“Dani, you were getting harassed?” Dick asks her, with what she saw as an oddly unhappy tone.

“Richard, I am the daughter of Bruce Wayne. It does not exactly aid me in staying low-profile.”

“That doesn’t mean people should be harassing you,” He counters gently.

Always a sap. She huffs, and turns toward the med room, where Tim finally emerges from, sporting a new bandage on his arm from a knife wound. She stares at him unimpressed as he walks over, somehow already holding a coffee mug even though he hasn't left the cave yet. He yawned with a hand over his mouth and pushed his sweaty hair out of his face.

“Where’s Bruce, didn’t he want to debrief?”

Right on cue, her father walks in, with a bubbly blonde trailing behind.

“Yes, I did,” He rumbles, walking up to the computer.

The room seems to darken with his presence. He stands in front of the computer chair and turns to the group. Daniella stands on the far left, with Dick, Steph and Tim standing off to the other side. He starts to rattle off reports in a monotone voice, asking them about their own missions. The rest had actually gone out and patrolled, and were detailing all the crimes they had stopped. They even talked about a drug bust they did together, one she was unaware was happening that night. She was probably not told, as she would have tried and joined them. They had used a different comm channel than her own that night. That at least explained why it had been eerily silent the whole night, only interrupted by the occasional anecdote from Dick or Steph.

Her attention waned as she thought about what the next day had in store for her. School. More people would be talking about her behind her back. Literally. They would gossip about her in clear earshot, earshot for even someone who wasn’t a trained assassin. It was frankly insulting. Likely that was why they did it, to rile her up. Everyone wanted to see her in action. She could drop a pencil in class, and it would get around that she had tried to throw a grenade in the cafeteria. It was no surprise she was not looking forward to the next day.

“Daniella.”

Her father's gruff voice startled her from her thoughts. She blinked and saw everyone staring at her expectantly.

“Yes?”

“You had said you had gotten some information?”

She blushed, embarrassed at her inattentiveness. Steph and Tim snickered at her, and she gave a sharp glare to both of them.

“Yes I did,” she replies, refocusing, and proceeds to describe the scene she had witnessed, all of them wincing when she mentioned the shooting.

After finishing her recounting, Tim rubs his chin in deep thought.

“... I think you’re right, there’s something more going on here, clearly. Novice gangs don’t really use code phrases and take out the middleman like that. They usually can’t waste members so freely.”

Her father nods his head in agreement.

“Daniella, I have more tips on where The Ivories are supposed to be meeting. You’re going to be watching them for the foreseeable future until we find out what they’re planning.”

“Father, that is a waste of my time. It was a fluke that anything happened this time. I could be out there saving people's lives.”

“This isn’t up for discussion.”

“This is ridiculous and unfair. And you know it too! You’re only making me do it because I just have to sit there. No one else has to! We wouldn't even care about them if you weren’t trying to punish me!”

“Everyone else has earned my trust. You’ve lost it, again.”

“Just let me prove that I-”

“I have told you before-”

“There’s no reason-”

“Daniella-”

“It’s a fool's errand, why-”

“DANIELLA-”

“If you would just TRUST me-”

She was firmly interrupted by her father's harsh words.

“Daniella, a man died on your watch today. You might not have been able to stop it, but how can you expect me to trust you after that? I have told you, time after time. Earn my trust, don’t break it any more than you already have.”

The others had watched their back and forth like it was a tennis match, their eyes widening more with each response. She could tell just from a glance at Dicks face, he was thinking about interjecting. Her stance stiffened at the finality in her father's tone. She felt her eyes dampen, and she quickly rubbed them dry. Her father looks at her with dissatisfaction, frustration pouring out of him. His disappointment made her curl into herself. She hadn’t physically fought with anyone in months, but verbal fights…

She hadn’t stopped all of those.

“FINE. I WILL!” She screams, before running out of the room like a coward. She did that every fight. Childish. She felt even worse when she heard Dick yelling at her to come back, to talk things through.

She ignored her tumultuous thoughts as she sprinted up the manor's many stairs, and finally darted into her room, panting. Her door shook with the force she used to slam it shut, and she quickly locked it. Her breaths were heavy and harsh, and she groaned while dragging her hands down her face. What a way to start her school year. She would be lucky if she could even patrol the next day…

Flopping onto her bed, she sighed. New year, same old Daniella.

The day she changed was the day hell would freeze over.

A memory shot into her head. Suddenly she sat up, a reaffirmed smile creeping up her face. She had remembered the promise she had made to herself. If she were to be assigned a pointless job, she would make it important. The information she was going to find out would be indispensable. No one was going to make a fool out of her. Daniella Wayne was no joke, she was always all in.

* * * * *

In a warehouse somewhere in Gotham, a man sat comfortably in a chair, surveying the work in front of him. The smell of cigarettes lingered in the air as he held the letter up to his eye. He pulled out his knife, and effortlessly cut through the top of the envelope. Pulling out the contents, his eyes gleamed as he read the words written. A low laugh escaped him, and he put his knife back in his pocket. He was going to make a name for himself in Gotham, and no one was getting in his way to the top. The money he was going to make would put him on the map.

The letter told him exactly as he hoped.

Pausing his thoughts, he remembered what he had found out only that same day.

Daniella Wayne, is involved in Gotham’s organized crime, eh?

He stood up from his chair and started out the window. The night was dark, the stars not even visible with Gotham's smog. Yet it was his home.

He smiled at the idea.

His laughs echoed throughout the warehouse.

Chapter Text

“So this is like a weird question. But, you can tell me. Are you like… in a gang?”

Daniella looks up in disbelief at the brazen girl standing over her. The girl stares back at her unabashedly. She didn't have the faintest idea who she was. How someone could have such a lack of self-awareness was another marvel of the sheer audacity of the students at Gotham High. It was like she was a zoo animal. Continuing to stare at her, the girl tilts her head towards her, clearly prompting her to answer. Daniella shakes her head, frustrated.

“No. I am not. Where did you hear that?” She asks in return. It was lunchtime, and instead of sitting in the cafeteria like she did the year prior, she sat with her back to the wall of an empty hallway. Intermittently people filed in and out, staring at her and whispering to each other as they passed. The rumor seemed to have spread further that year, with now even seniors giving her double takes. Seeing as she was trying to hide herself, the fact the girl had found her meant she had been seeking her out. Gossip spread over which table she sat at and what she ate. She preferred to be unnoticed, but that was not going to happen with her reputation.

At least she could draw in the hallway, with fewer people bothering her.

“Everyone’s heard it before. I’m serious, you don’t have to lie to me. Are you in a gang?” She questions again, this time more impatiently. It was pretty insulting; she was being interrogated by some random girl for the sole purpose of fueling gossip.

“Just because everyone is saying it doesn’t mean it's true. I have told you and everyone else who has asked me this the same thing. No, I’m not in a gang and don’t plan to join one. Leave me alone,” She responded, agitated. The girl straightened back up and glared at her.

“Jeez, okay,” She replied while rolling her eyes, simultaneously tossing her hair behind her.

Finally, Daniella is left alone as the girl walks away, down the long science hall. She sighs and rests her head back on the locker behind her. The cool metal calms her. Her words had done exactly nothing to convince anyone who asked her that she wasn’t a criminal. When the girl got back to her likely giggling group of friends, they would ask her what Daniella had said. And the girl will tell them she has confirmed everything. No one wanted the truth, because the truth was not nearly as interesting as the fable.

It was only the second day of school.

Already she was being ostracized. That had to be some sort of record. At the very least, it was her personal record. Lifting her head, she glances at the sketchpad beside her. If she kept her activities mundane there would be less to scrutinize, she figures. Picking up the pad, she rifles through her bag to find a pencil. The sketchpad was one given to her by Pennyworth, for her 14th birthday. It was leather bound, its pages soft yet durable under the pressure of her moving pencil. She always had it on her. It was filled with color and detailed works. She dated all of her pieces, and getting to look back at each one and remember what she had been feeling at the time was one of her favorite pastimes. The sketchpad was one of her prized possessions, a raw look into her inner self. Because of that very reason, she didn’t let a soul look at its contents.

That included nosy siblings. Seeing as her family was full of people who loved to know everybody's business, the only real reason none of them had looked through it was because they were well aware of what would happen to them if they did. Let's just say, her new sketches would be drawn in a very red ink. That didn’t help her planned solo investigation. The second any one of them caught wind of it, her father would hear about it too. After the conversation she had had with him last night, she would prefer to avoid his attention for the time being. He didn’t even trust her, he had said so himself. Why would she ever want to tell him anything?

As she starts drawing, her eyebrows furrow as she contemplates her promise the night before. She had told herself she would investigate the gang properly, putting her everything into the case. But she didn’t have much of a lead. They were illusive, drug deals, and mundane meetings like the one she had seen the night prior could be traced back far. But when the trail got close to the top, suddenly it became murky, impossible to tell who was behind it all. It would be tough to discern. She smiled at the thought. She had been trained all her life to do things just like this; no matter who it was, she’d find out. There was something bigger going on, something she needed to find out.

Suddenly, her thoughts are interrupted by a sharp ringing.

She lifts her head in annoyance at the sound echoing through the halls. The bell signals the end of lunch and the start of her least favorite period. English. Packing up her things, she slowly begins the trek to the classroom. It’s in a terrible position (another reason for it being her least favorite class), at the very back of the school, right next to the boiler room. At random times during the period, she could hear the clanging of pipes shooting out air. The school was old, still made of brick, even in a place as dangerous as Gotham. She figured it was less because of trying to maintain their ‘grandeur’ and more because of the dean being cheap.

Walking into the class, she immediately scans the room. Ms. Willis’s frown was already plastered on her face, once again she was looking at Daniella with annoyance. She fought the urge to roll her eyes as she made her way to her seat. Placing her bag down, she tried to remember if there had been homework assigned the night before. It may have been the first day back, but knowing her teacher, they had some sort of assignment due. Well, if there had been any work due, she most assuredly had blown it off.

She felt a shiver down her spine and felt eyes on her again. She searched the room for whoever was staring. Her lips curled in displeasure at what she saw. One girl in particular kept glancing at her, and whispering to her gaggle of friends surrounding her. Mirabella Santana. Or, “Mira, Satan!” as she liked to call her in her head. Her wavy brown hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, kept in place with a fuchsia hair tie. The girl had annoyed Daniella since 5th grade when they had first been in the same class. She was loud and crude. She always asked Daniella insulting questions, like how could she be so smart if she had lived somewhere like Pakistan?

Simply put, she was someone Daniella had no interest in interacting with. Whatever she was whispering to her friends was solidifying that view. Her eyes narrowed at them. One of Mirabella’s group was the girl from the hallway, who was clearly telling them about their conversation. They would randomly glance at her and laugh loudly, not even trying to be discreet. It wouldn’t surprise her if Mirabella and her friends were the main spreaders of the rumors.

“Whatcha starin’ at?”

Slightly startled, she whips her head around to the voice.

Dalton was looking at her with a curious expression, leaning back in his chair. His uniform was missing a few parts, including the tie and jacket. He looked way too relaxed for who their teacher was. She turned her head away with an eye roll and pulled out her notebooks. Hopefully, he will learn not to talk to her soon. There was something about him that she couldn't quite put her finger on. It was like he was permanently unbothered, constantly fulfilled. It was unsettling. He hadn’t been in Gotham long enough; his carefree nature would be snuffed out.

He looked slightly irked at her lack of response. She paid him no mind, as she directed her attention at the front of the classroom, where Ms. Willis stood.

“Class, we will be doing our work based on a classmate's responses to the prompts I gave you all yesterday on Little Women. If you did not finish it, please raise your hand.”

So there was homework. And she was pretty certain she had never been given it. It didn't bother her too much, as she barely remembered the book anyway. She had read it months ago when Todd had argued with her over the meaning of all the burnt items and imagery throughout the story. Honestly, who did remember anything about the book? There was no way everyone had even touched it, much less read it in its entirety. She raises her hand into the air, and her eyes dart around the room to see who else failed to finish the work. Annoyance fills her.

“Ttt.”

The only other person to raise their hand was sitting right next to her. Of course.

Dalton had his hand half raised, having the self-awareness to look somewhat abashed.

Ms. Willis glowers at the two of them, though neither party shrinks away at her gaze. Shaking her head, she tutted while the rest of the class snickered at them. It was all very patronizing in Daniella's opinion, she acted as if she was scolding small children for tracking dirt in the house. Daniella quickly looks at Dalton to gauge his reaction. She was surprised to see the first signs of anger in him, as he gave the teacher a dirty look. Ms. Willis’s smile reminded her of the Cheshire Cat’s.

“Well, it looks like you two aren’t very good at following directions, are you? Daniella, I would have hoped as a Wayne you would be more dedicated, like your father. And Dalton, did you even read the book?”

He snaps back at her,

“Give me a break, how was I supposed to know we had summer reading? I didn’t even live here, I only moved a few months ago.”

“Excuse me! That is no way to talk to your teacher!”

Daniella watches the exchange with interest. She didn’t care about Dalton's anger, but rather the fact he had mentioned he hadn’t lived in Gotham until a few months ago. Maybe she did have reason to talk to him. He could potentially know something about The Ivories, or even be a part of it. It was a reach, a far one, but it was all she had to go off so far. At the very least, he might be able to point her in the right direction.

“...don’t know how they taught in California, but here in Gotham you only give the utmost respect to authority figures. That includes me,” Ms. Willis continues to snipe, the corners of her lip twitching. She creeped Daniella out, the woman was getting some sort of pleasure out of generating conflict.

“… Sorry.”

“Yes, sorry is right! You and Daniella will be working on finishing the questions in the hallway. I don’t care if you haven’t read the book, figure it out. Daniella supposedly has read the book, ask her.”

With those words, the two both glance at each other, mildly confused. Daniella slowly rises from her seat, pencil in hand, and awkwardly walks to the front of the room. Ms. Willis crosses her arms and nods her head to the door. They’re getting sent out because one of them couldn't keep their mouth shut. Wonderful work, courtesy of Dalton Rios himself. She wasn't entirely upset though, on the contrary, she was mildly pleased as she could interrogate him much better with no one around.

Stepping into the halls, she hears the loud slamming of the door. Looking back behind her, Dalton stands holding two sheets of paper. He’s shaking his head at the door before looking over at her.

“I swear I didn’t get this yesterday… Did you?” He asks her while inspecting the front and back of the sheet. It's covered in questions on both sides. Even if she had gotten it the day prior, she would not have had time to finish it. She hardly thought anyone else did too.

“No, I did not. Either someone forgot to pass them back to us, or she purposely withheld our sheets,” She answers, reaching her hand out for her paper.

“You think she’d do that?” He says in a tone of incredulity while handing her the sheet.

“She doesn’t seem to enjoy having us in her class already, so yes, I do think she would do that. We have both seen her, she’s not exactly a kind woman.”

He laughs,

“I guess. I dunno why she doesn’t like us, though. It's been a day, what could we possibly have done in that time?”

She shrugs in response, before sitting down on the dusty floor. He follows her motion; he himself sitting a few feet from her. Staring at the questions, she fights back the urge to go back into the classroom and yell at her teacher. They’re obscure, ones that could only be hoped to be answered with either a book or much easier, with the help of the internet. Unfortunately, her phone was still in her backpack. She sighs. Dalton looks up from his page and grins.

“So you’re as confused as I am?”

She folds the page in two, and responds without looking at him,

“These questions are impossible to answer without outside sources. Do you have your phone?”

“No, it’s still in my bag. I forgot to grab it. I have a watch, though, if we need the time.”

Said watch was rather uniform, with a black band and black face. She didn’t recognize the brand. That was odd, as she had memorized most watch brands from years of betting with her siblings at galas. Their tradition was to each bet on a brand, and whichever one had the most people sporting it would get to choose what movie they would watch after. Her go-to was Patek Philippe.

She smiled at the memory.

“What brand is it, if you don't mind me asking?”

“Oh, it's not a brand, I made it myself. I’m really into anything mechanical, doesn't matter what.”

She hums and continues folding the paper. Silence envelops them. After a few seconds, she breaks it with a question she has been dying to ask for the past few minutes.

“You just moved here, right? From where?”

He cheekily smiles at her.

“I thought you didn't want to talk with me about unimportant things?”

“Just answer the question,” she replies, her cheeks becoming a more pinkish hue.

“Fine, fine. Let’s see… I moved here a couple of months back from San Francisco. But I only permanently moved here about a week ago. We were going back and forth from there for a while, and now we’re here for good.”

It lined up with The Ivories timeline. Simple, less involved jobs for the past few months, and in the last week things started moving. She narrowed her eyes. She was getting closer and closer to the answer she wanted. If he kept being cooperative, he would play right into her hands. Her thoughts came back to one part of his response.

“We?”

“Me and my dad.”

“What part of Gotham do you two live in?”

“Oh… uhm…the East End,” He mumbles in response.

She grinned. She had him.

“How come you two moved here anyway?”

“No reason.”

“You can tell me.”

“... Sorry I don’t feel comfortable telling you that.”

Just one more push.

“Now I’m intrigued. I would never tell anyone, your secrets are safe with me.”

He gives her a confused and irritated look.

“No. I told you it's personal, leave it. I don’t trust you,” He shot back coldly.

She froze up at his words. “I don’t trust you”. She almost laughed at how often she was hearing that nowadays. Sucking in her breath, she clenched her teeth. Anger bubbled up inside her, one not sparked by Dalton’s remark, but a fury that had been brewing for a long time. Instinctively, she gets defensive.

“I don’t either. You’re some wannabe cool kid who’s more interested in bothering others than focusing on himself. Tell me, are you happy with what you are?”

Her last words weren’t directed at him, though her tone would not indicate that. They were a message to herself, a self-reflection. Here she was arguing with the only person in her entire school who had shown her any sort of goodwill. She felt angry at herself, lashing out at everyone. As usual.

It was what she was best at.

Dalton clearly missed the lack of bite behind her words, though she could hardly blame him.

“Shut up. You don't know me,” He growls back at her, crumpling up the paper in his hands.

“Ttt.”

The silence again enters the hall, and this time neither party is eager to break it. The tension is palpable, she feels like she could reach out and strum it like a taut string. He was looking straight ahead, his emotions unreadable. Regret fills her. He would be much less willing to admit to anything now. Her lead had been stopped by a wall of her own making. And she also simply regretted saying that to him. He seemed to have some sort of internal conflict from what she said, similar to what she had felt at his retort. She could try and apologize, but from one look at the boy, she could tell he wasn’t in the mood for her remorse.

Her attention refocuses back on the paper in her hands. She had folded it into a small rabbit. Restless, she starts detailing the origami with her pencil. She gives it eyes and a small nose, even drawing in fur. After spending what feels like hours (but probably only 30 minutes) on it, a classmate finally opens the door to tell the two to come in. Standing up quickly, she discreetly drops the bunny in Dalton's lap while walking to the door. That would be the closest he would get to an apology. She often gave art to people for special occasions. Whether that be birthdays or other milestones, she put great care into her craftsmanship. It was also a way to convey her repentance for whatever new awful thing she had said to someone.

Walking to her seat, she glances behind her at Dalton. His hand was curled around the origami carefully and protectively as if one wrong touch would turn it to dust. She felt a tug at her lips.

This was getting interesting.

* * * * * *

“What’s that?”

Daniella lifts her head up. She glances at the person who had entered the cave.

Tim.

“Just the crime map,” she replies smoothly, her eyes still on the bright screen of the computer.

It was getting late, almost time for patrol. She had managed to avoid her father since the events of the night before, telling Alfred she wasn’t hungry for dinner. She just didn’t want to deal with the strain that was still between her and her father. He wasn’t the best when it came to being tactful in conversation; she had no doubt he would have ended up bringing up their argument from the night before. She didn’t want to imagine how awkward that would have been, with Dick and Tim (who were still visiting) sitting at the table as well. The image alone made her shudder.

Her father never really knew how to advise her. He had had many teenagers under his roof before, but teenage girls? Cass had been adopted when she was 16, but she definitely wasn’t an average teenager. Daniella was the trial (she would be surprised if he didn’t impulsively adopt some new orphan one day), an unknown. It was constant uncertainty for him, something he hated: not knowing exactly how to act. Sometimes she just wished he would just… get it. Without feeling the need to analyze her every action. That was wishful thinking, Bruce Wayne was perceptive in many fields, but how normal relationships work?

Not in this universe.

“Yeah, I see that… Why are you looking at it?” Tim asks again brusquely, walking up beside her. He stares at the map, seemingly trying to determine why she would have pulled it up. She huffs, and exits the tab.

“No reason, I did not have anything much better to do with my time.”

“Sure,” He says, clearly not believing her. At this point, he knew not to pressure her for answers, as she would get hostile. Instead, he liked to slowly put the pieces together on what she was doing. It was like every choice she made was a piece to a greater puzzle; the puzzle being her real objective. He sometimes frightened her. He was always studying her, causing her to be on edge around him when she was in fact ‘up to something’.

Like right now.

“... Where are Father and Richard?”

“Dick will be down in a sec, Bruce is in his office. I think he’s working on something for Wayne Enterprises.”

“Do you know what exactly?”

“Hopefully the stuff I sent him to look over; some documents about investments.”

“How exhilarating,” she replied sarcastically, getting up out of the computer chair.

“You asked, I just answered.”

“I had hoped it would be something more important than ‘investments’ that was causing him to arrive later than usual.”

He rolled his eyes at her and abruptly sat down in the now unoccupied chair. Opening his own profile up, he began typing away at a mission report.

“I see you didn’t come down here simply for small talk,” She snarks at him.

“Well, you didn't show up at dinner. I think we both know why: you're too embarrassed to talk to Bruce. Why’d you go and argue with him again, anyway? It never ends well for you,” He shoots back, his focus still on the computer.

She snaps,

“It’s none of your concern.”

With that, she storms off to the weapons room of the cave. She was going to hide there until patrol started. She had no interest in talking to her father, brothers, or Steph when she finally showed up. There was a slim chance she wouldn’t end up punching someone soon if they so much as looked at her the wrong way.

* * * * * *

You would think the second time around, it’d be more tolerable.

Unfortunately, being sprawled out on a rooftop, trying to listen in on silent men had not gotten any less boring with experience. At least this time, she had brought two hair ties. With one in her mouth and the other still on her wrist, she delicately entwines her hair, slowly making one dutch braid. Now she really stood by what she had said to her father the night before: “Father, that is a waste of my time. It was a fluke that anything happened this time. I could be out there saving people's lives,”. Once again, the rest of her family was actually patrolling while she was doing a child's task.

This time, she wasn’t planning on fighting her father on it. She had somehow managed to avoid him the whole day, forcing Tim to drop her off in the Batmobile near her lookout spot before he went off on his patrol. It was petty, but she just didn’t think she’d be able to talk to her father without becoming enraged. She just felt it was all unfair, she had been doing so good. So she did her own thing once in a while when she was supposed to follow orders. Big deal, no one else had their patrol so carefully structured as she did. She was capable of doing things on her own, thank you very much.

She had looked at the crime map only a few hours ago for one purpose: to try and piece together some sort of connection in all the known drug deals across Gotham. It was pointless, though. The Ivories had no sort of calling card, so it was practically impossible to tell off the bat if something was their work or not. The best thing for her to do is just to sit on a roof in hopes that the men below do anything. Honestly, if they just switched to leaning on the other side of the alley she would call that success. But Al and Mark, the same men from yesterday, were still doing nothing. From the slight difference in the scent of tobacco wafting up, she guessed Al was using a new cigarette brand. Very exciting stuff. The only thing that was still keeping her there was the likelihood of a new letter appearing.

Finally, she had one braid done, effortlessly tied it off, and moved on to the other side. She loved having her hair braided, it always calmed her. Figuring out how to do all kinds of them had been her side project. She liked learning new skills, and adding how to style her hair was one she gladly put on her repertoire. Steph had been begging her to have a ‘girl's night’ with her, Cass, and Barbara, where she would have to braid their hair. Though she would never admit it, she had warmed up to the idea. The privilege of being invited to a small gathering like that was one she did not take lightly. So until that day came, she would keep practicing her techniques.

“How much for this one?”

She sat up quickly at the noise, her second braid only half done. She knew she must look like a maniac, practically crawling over to the edge of the building. But how she looked wasn’t currently a top priority for her, as she angled herself closer to the edge. The two were talking again, which likely meant something was going to happen. Or currently is happening.

“I don’t really know, ‘boss just told me to wait here again like yesterday. Better be good, though,” Mark grumbled.

“Yeah, it better be good. We wait here for fuckin’ hours just so some ass-kisser can give us a letter. Can’t even come on a schedule,” Al drawls, taking a large puff on his cigarette. His hand taps on his holster, where there’s clearly a handgun.

Daniella makes a quick decision.

Pulling on her capes hood, she conceals her entire figure. She hooks down by the street below, blending into the shadows made by the staircase leading to the building's doors. She crouches down, right by the alley’s opening. It’s risky being so close, but she has her reasons. The men continue complaining, creating a perfect cover for any noise she could have made. They don’t seem to be concerned about who might hear them. She guesses their confidence is for a reason; they likely have some influence in the streets around East Gotham. Couldn’t be too great, as she had never heard of them before this.

After another 30 minutes, in which she finishes her final braid, her main reason for standing so close to the men pulls up around 20 feet away from her.

This time, the car is an old black Nissan, the back window covered in duct tape. It parks slowly, the person in it clearly in no rush. She narrows her eyes and lets the shadows blanket her even more. Finally, after a few painstaking minutes, a man steps out of the car. He looks young, early twenties, with a short stature and a large hoodie not helping him to avoid that perception. She feels a twinge of something inside her. He looks nervous, biting his lip, clearly unsure if he wants to follow through with his job or not. His eyes rest on the letter in his hands. She readies herself as he makes his decision, his footsteps starting to move towards the alley.

Swiftly, she pulls out her knife and creeps up on him as he gets closer to the alley. Before he can notice her, she forcefully pushes him onto the ground, one foot on his back, a gloved hand on his mouth, and a knife to his throat.

“You’re going to give me that letter and go back to your car. Drive far away from this city, because the second those guys catch you, you’re dead,” She leans down and whispers into his ear.

His eyes widened even more than they had before. He nods slightly, trying not to move his neck into the knife. She tugs on the letter still in his hand by his side, and his grip loosens. Putting it safely into her pocket, she moves to stand up. The man seemed cowardly, she wasn’t worried about him reacting violently. Hopefully, he would get out of the business before he was in too deep.

“HEY!”

She sharply rolls her head with the heavy blow of the fist of a burly man. Pain flares across her face, and she falls back. Slapping her hand to the injury, her expression turns sour. That was definitely going to be another black eye. And from someone as annoying as him.

Mark.

Standing up quickly and leaping backward, she readies her stance. The man she had been holding down had scrambled up, and ran past the two men, practically throwing himself into his car. The screeching of his tires was grating on her ears. Al and Mark stood before her, and she only then realized how much bigger they were than her. They weren’t just thugs, they had muscle built from hard work. But she wasn’t concerned in the slightest, she had faced bigger and tougher hundreds of times before.

“Give us the letter and no one gets hurt,” Mark says, punching his other palm with his fist. She internally cringed at the action. He was trying too hard to be intimidating, in Daniella's opinion. To be fair, her definition of what she saw as intimidating had been greatly warped.

The two started stalking closer, and she remained silent, keeping her eyes on them as she took a few steps back. She knew they both had guns, and from the way their hands were dancing over them, likely were about to draw them. She wasn’t about to stick around for that.

Suddenly, she dove into the alley, the pops of gunshots going off as she started sprinting. Somehow she hadn’t gotten shot yet, but from the sounds of footsteps behind her, she wasn’t out of the woods yet. There was a tall chain link fence in the middle of the alley, a dead end for most. She hears the footsteps behind her slow their pace, clearly assuming she wouldn't be able to climb it fast enough to not get pulled down by the two. She smirked.

“What the fuck is this kid?” A voice behind her exclaims as she effortlessly climbs up the fence, not slowing down a smidge. Leaping off the top of it, she rolls with the fall and continues running. She looks back behind her, the furious faces of the two men staring at her as they clumsily attempt to clamber up the fence. Adrenaline is pumping through her as she reaches the street on the other side again. Not stopping, she ignores the shouts behind her as she rushes down the sidewalk, dashing by startled citizens. She hears yelling as people are shoved out of the way by the two very angry men chasing after her. The smile on her face as she felt the cold wind was wider than it had been in a while. She loved chases. Putting her limits to the breaking point, one mistake and it was over.

She takes twists and turns through the streets, dashing into side alleys and ducking behind walls. Curses follow her as she fakes them out, making her movement unpredictable. After around 5 minutes, she finally starts to lose them. With the distant sounds of shouts filling the night, she dips into an empty alley, with a few dumpsters. Quickly looking around, she pulls out her grappling hook. She hooks up to the top of the building, and awkwardly pulls herself over the edge. Just in time. When she looks down, she sees Al and Mark barrel into the alley. She fights back the urge to yell down and taunt them.

“Where did he go? I swear he went down this alley…”

“DAMN IT! How the hell did he do that?” Al yells, his voice laden with frustration. She watches him as he kicks over a trash can, and pulls out a new cigarette. He lights it with shaky hands, breathing out a large cloud of smoke.

“What’re we gonna tell the boss? That some kid stole the letter right in front of us?”

“... We ain’t gonna say anything. Boss asks, we tell him the guy was a no-show. You saw how he tore out of there, no way he stays in town.”

“And what if they find the guy?”

“It's our word against his, you saw that skinny little fucker. Who would trust he’d tell the truth, he’d just want to save his skin.”

“So do we, man,” Mark laughs. But still, he nods his head and looks around the alley contemplatively.

“How did that kid disappear anyway? Impressive as hell. Maybe we should try and recruit ‘em or something…”

“Yeah sure but, he stole a letter of all things and kept running too when he was getting chased. Must’ve known it was important.”

“... Maybe he was hired by someone who wants to screw us over. I don’t know, could have thought there was money or something,” Al ruminates.

The two slowly trudge out of the alley, firing off ideas, and Daniella lets out a sigh she had been holding in. She was sweating now, her hair had frizzed up from the braids. She sits down, leaning on her hands, tired. But she still had the letter in her grasp, which she held up in the moonlight triumphantly. There was something in there, something important. She feels pride bloom in her chest. The men hadn’t even considered the notion that she had been watching them for hours, or that she was a ‘she’ who was one of the local vigilantes. It was probably an impulsive choice to take the letter right in front of them, but no one could argue it was for nothing.

* * * * * *

“Dani… What are you hiding?”

Everyone in the dark room's gaze moves to her. Tim and Steph look up at her from over by the computer, and her father steps out from the medical room. She bites her lip, her face still concealed by the hood of her cape even in the cave. Dicks prompting was maybe well-intentioned, but she was not exactly appreciative of it. She turns the side of her face even further to the right.

“What are you talking about? I’m not ‘hiding’ anything.”

Dick walks up to her, and she leans away from him, irritated.

“Then why’s your hood on inside?” He asks her, his eyebrow raised.

“Why not?”

Her father's voice cuts through.

“Daniella, take off your hood.”

She grits her teeth. This is going to go great, she thinks to herself as she gently pulls off her hood. She feels her older brother's hand on her jaw as he moves her head over to get a better look at her eye. He whistles.

“That looks pretty bad. What happened?” He says, concern lacing his words.

“Nothing,” She replies curtly. Her father's eyes narrowed.

“Don’t try to lie. You got punched. You weren’t doing your duty, you ran off and got into a fight.”

“Father, that’s simply not-”

“No. Get patched up, and go to bed. I’m forbidding you to patrol for the foreseeable future. You disregarded direct orders.”

“WHAT?” She exclaims, fury emanating from her words.

“You heard me. The only reason I let you even go out on patrol tonight was because I wanted you to prove to me that you are capable of following orders. You ignored them, and now you have to face the consequences.”

“But I had a good reason to I-” She starts to protest, her fists clenching at her side.

“Daniella. Don’t,” He cuts in, silencing her with just one look. Turning sharply, he stalks out of the room. She uncurls her fists and feels her lips tremble. Dick sighs, and glares at the doorway her father left through. He puts his hand on her shoulder.

“Let’s put some bruise cream on that, okay?” He softly says to her, while leading her towards the medical room. As he rifles through the many cabinets, he glances over to her.

“I’ll talk to him, but can you try and just be on your best behavior for a bit? You two both need to cool off.”

She continues to remain silent.

“You know you can talk to me, right? Just call me, and I’ll drive down, no matter what.”

His speech is meant to be reassuring, but it only solidifies one thing in her mind. She rests her hand on the unopened letter still in her pocket.

She doesn't need anyone's help.

* * * * * *

Sitting on her bed, her hair dripping from the shower she had taken just before, she stares at the letter in her hands. It was creased in places, with dust coating the paper. She had managed to smuggle it upstairs without anyone noticing, very impressive seeing as Dick had been fussing over her for so long. Now the letter lay in her lap, daring her to open it. She breathes out.

“Screw it,” She says out loud, and rips open the letter. Her eyes glide over the letters, her brows furrowing with each new word.

Finished the prototype of the guns. They’re advanced, more than anything on the market right now. Manufacturing estimates in the next month or so. If successful, it should bring big bucks.

Had the guys sell some more Oxycodone, and made sure they spread the word that it was The Ivories. It's making decent cash, and keeping suspicion off us.
Tell me what you think.

She shook her head in disbelief. Jason had been right after all. ‘The Ivories’ was just a front, one to something going much deeper than simple drugs. An illegal operation manufacturing weapons, ones that were supposedly even better than what was available currently. She purses her lips. That wasn’t anything to take lightly if they were telling the truth. If they sold anything to the Joker or any other major villain around Gotham, it would be bad news.

She had to find out more.

* * * * * *

“I’ll be assigning partnerships for the project,” her teacher says, smirking. The class collectively groans.

Daniella couldn't even bring herself to be annoyed. At least she’d have a partner. For the past couple of weeks since getting her black eye, she brought silence into every room she walked into. She hadn’t even patrolled once in those weeks. The boredom was killing her, she hadn’t seen anyone in her family besides passing glances to her father since that night. Dick and Tim had left the same night, and Steph and Jason weren’t too interested in visiting the lonely manor. Cass was still out on her own mission.

“... Mirabella and Sienna,”

She felt restless. Still, she hadn’t told anyone about the possible weapons, and she wasn’t planning on doing that any time soon. But it made her a bit nervous, no one was looking into it.

“... Finn and Colby,”

It was her own fault. Her pride was what was keeping her from telling someone. Yet, she knew very well that there was no way she would let anyone else steal her case. It was the principle of things. And it was her time to figure everything out. All of her family had solved cases without outside help before, yet she was never allowed to do anything like it on her own. The second she got back into the streets, or got a new lead, it was go time.

“...and the last two,” Ms. Willis says, her voice laden with distaste.

“Dalton and Daniella.”

She froze. She has to stop herself from looking at him. They hadn’t even acknowledged each other since the second day of class, ever since her outburst. This was an opportunity. He knew something, not necessarily about The Ivories, but something. He had secrets.

And she was going to figure them out.

She let herself glance at him.

Suddenly, they were making eye contact. He was resting his chin on his hand, his hair falling gently into his face. Both of their eyes widened, brown eyes meeting bright green ones.

Chapter Text

“... Soooo. You know any good spots in Gotham?”

She stared at him blankly. He shot back an unimpressed look. Slumping back into his chair, he sighs.

“Look, I don’t know this city at all. I can get around and stuff, but I have no idea what’s what. So it’d be really great if you figured out some good places to go to for us.”

“... I can make a list,” She responds unenthusiastically. She regrets it the second she says it, as Dalton immediately brightens. The two had pushed their desks closer after Ms. Willis had announced the partnerships, and now were brainstorming ideas for the project itself. They were supposed to create a video showcasing five important places in Gotham, and spend a minute describing the history and what they enjoyed about the place. The footage had to be taken by themselves. In her opinion, it was absurd to expect a bunch of high schoolers to travel all around the city for a five-minute video. Especially seeing as the said city was riddled with crime.

Unfortunately, Ms. Willis and the rest of the class did not share her sentiment.

There was a buzz in the classroom as people excitedly shared ideas of places they would go and see, and coordinated their visits to be on the same day as each other. She kept her ear out to make sure to avoid the especially popular places. That seemed to include places like the Statue of Justice and Wayne Tower. She hadn’t been eager to visit her father's place of work anyway, so she happily crossed that one off the list.

Tapping her pencil, she finally made a decision. Ripping a piece of paper from her notebook, she began writing, hunched over her paper. Dalton tried to peek at it, angling his head in such a ridiculous manner that she had to stop herself from mocking him. He was unsuccessful at getting a look, as she just hunched over the paper even more, and he settled with waiting impatiently for her to finish.

She scrawls out five locations onto the paper and lifts her head with a smug look. Dalton takes the page from her desk and reads through the short list.

Gotham Public Library
Grant Park
The Clock Tower
Gotham City Hall
The Cathedral

He looks up at her with his signature smile.

“Hey, these look good! You thought of those fast. Any particular reason you chose any of these?”

“No, I just thought of the easiest places to get into and research. These are all public spaces, or you can at least buy a ticket for them.”

“Smart,”

He said while pulling out his phone. She glanced at it and saw he was looking up directions to the locations from Gotham High. She hated this project already. A self-described loner, she wasn’t one for social events. The description of social events, to her, included sitting in a car for a couple of hours with her classmate. A classmate she didn’t know very well, but had a slight suspicion, was involved in some sort of criminal activity. A classmate who thought the exact same of her. She huffed, her life could never be easy, could it?

“How do you want to get to these places? I can get us a ride if that’s easiest.”

She asked him while considering who she could ask and would be willing to drive her and Dalton around the city. Richard would be more than willing to do it, but he’d embarrass her somehow, probably by blasting pop music or bringing up something she did when she was younger. Todd would say no, and she didn't know how she’d explain to Dalton how her supposedly dead brother was alive anyway. Drake and her father were at work, and even if either said yes, would end up interrogating Dalton the entire time. Brown would behave similarly to Richard, Cass wasn’t in the country, and Gordon was always busy. That just left Alfred as an option, but she hated the idea of using his time like that.

“I have a car, I can just drive us around. I’ll drive you home too. Does that work for you?”

She raised her eyebrows. That was a surprise. To put it simply, he wasn't… well off. She could pick up on it decently easily, from the way he carried himself to his falling apart backpack. Cars were expensive, especially in a city. Maintenance, a place to park, and being broken into (it was Gotham after all) added up. He was staring at her with a slightly antsy expression, and she snapped out of her thoughts.

“That is fine, yes.”

“Great,”

He says, pausing with a thoughtful glance at the list. He seems to decide something right there, and looks back at her,

“I know this is pretty quick, but do you want to just film today? It’s like the only free day I have, and if we get it all filmed and edited today, then we won’t have to worry about it for the rest of the week.”

It was early to start the project. Personally, she would rather procrastinate the whole thing until the due date. She was slightly tempted to reject his request, mainly out of pettiness. But it wasn’t as if she had plans, she was still banned from patrol.

“Sure. Where should I meet you after school?”

He smiles again.

“Awesome. Just wait outside the school, I’ll pull my car up around. My PE class usually gets let out early.”

She nods her head while starting to clear up her desk. The clock was nearing the end of class, and everyone had already started packing up. Ms. Willis was chatting with Mirabella and her friend, glancing once in a while, ever so slightly, at Daniella and Dalton. Daniella narrowed her eyes. The fact the two were talking put her on edge. She frowned and responded to Dalton, while still staring down her teacher and Mirabella.

“Okay. If we get it done today, then she can’t try and pretend she lost our project and fail us. She would do anything to give us an F.”

He laughs.

“Wouldn’t put it past her. Remember, in front of the school. My car’s red.”

He stands up, his bag already packed, and walks over to the door. She stares off into the distance, trying to remember who was supposed to pick her up that day. Drake and her father were at work, and Richard was in Blüdhaven so that only left Alfred. She let out a breath she didn't even know she was holding. Canceling on the others meant a long-winded explanation. At least Alfred was more tactful with his inquiries. Pulling out her phone, she pushed on Alfred’s contact and put the phone to her ear.

CLICK

“Hello, Mistress Daniella. Is there something you need?”

“Hello, Alfred. I’m calling to let you know that I will not be needing a ride home, today.”

“Oh? And how are you getting home?”

“I’ll be back later today, before dinner.”

“...”

“... I have a project to do with a classmate. They will be giving me a ride home, there is no need for concern.”

“Please make sure to be home by 6:00, I will be serving your favorite.”

She grinned.

“Of course. Thank you, I will see you then. Bye.”

“Goodbye.”

Ending the call, she swings her bag over her shoulder. She was glad Alfred hadn’t questioned her anymore, though he probably somehow already knew who her partner was. And why she even agreed to be in a car with him. There was still something about Dalton that made her tense. He was always randomly very jumpy about certain topics for someone so chatty. He easily could make friends, and he did, but she never saw him try and hang out with them after class. It was like some sort of self-imposed isolation, one he didn’t even seem to mind.

The bell had rung while she was on her call, and she was the last one in the class, save for Ms. Willis. As she walks out of the room, she glances over at her teacher. On her wrist is a watch strikingly similar to Dalton's own. But what makes Daniella take a second look isn’t the watch, but her teacher's bright red bag. She recognized the design, a Birkin.

“Do you need something?”

She startled slightly, Ms Willis’s arms were crossed and an irritated expression was on her face. Daniella quickly replies.

“No.”

“Then leave, I have a class after this.”

Daniella picks up the pace and exits, not before taking one last look at her teacher's bag.

The classroom door is slammed in her face.

* * * * * *

“Oh my god…”

She mumbles, staring at the car. Pulled up in front of the school was none other than Dalton Rios sitting in a red convertible. The fact he had a convertible of all cars made it all the more irritating that she had to hang out with him for a whole day. She heard whispering all around her as she strode over to the passenger side of the car. The attention they were getting from her classmates made her want to claw her eyes out. Or maybe theirs.

Dalton did not seem to notice the scrutiny, or if he had, just didn’t care. She pulled on the door handle, finding it locked. She glared at him as he unlocked it, clambering in. Throwing her bag in the back of the car, she just hoped he would get the hint and speed away. She didn’t have to hope, as the second her bag was in the back and her seat belt clicked, she was thrown back as he accelerated. With one hand loosely holding the steering wheel, he handed her his phone.

“Can you pull up the locations on my phone? We’re going to the Library first, right?”

“Correct,”

She answered while typing the directions into the phone. The Library was where Gordon sometimes worked, and she just had to hope she wasn’t in that day. She really needed to memorize her schedule, the fact she hadn’t yet was honestly embarrassing. Hopefully she will have luck today.

She plugged the phone into the car's outlet, and the GPS appeared on the car's dashboard screen. Dalton reached over and tapped on the screen, pulling up a playlist. Mediocre rap music filled the car, and seeing as it was a convertible blared out into the streets as well. She scrunched her nose at the sound, she always heard it played by boys his age. She leaned back into her seat. At least the noise meant there was no need for conversation.

* * * * * *

“Shut up shut up shut up-”

She hissed at him, slapping a hand over his mouth. Dalton stops talking and gives her a very confused look. Ignoring him, she pulled the two down behind a desk and peeked out slightly.

There, sitting in her wheelchair was Barbara Gordon. She was helping an elderly man operate the computer, a strained smile on her face as he kept asking questions with obvious answers.

“How do you turn this thing on?”

“There’s a power button right here. It has the word ‘on’ on it.”

“How do you find the internet?”

“The search engine? You push the safari logo.”

“How do I push things?”

“With the mouse in your hand.”

“... How do I turn this on again?”

Daniella rolled her eyes but was secretly grateful for his list of questions. He was keeping Barbara occupied, who she had only noticed when she started talking with the man, as she was distracted by Dalton who had started blabbering again. Somehow, Barbara also hadn't noticed them. How was a mystery, as they hadn’t been very quiet for being in a library. Thankfully they had already taken the video. It was definitely pretty suspicious that she was ducking behind a desk to avoid Barbara, and if anyone saw the library footage, she would probably be made fun of for her poor attempt at taking cover.

“Why are we hiding?”

Dalton whispers, also trying to get a look at what she is staring at.

“I know that woman. If she sees me, she’s going to tell my brother, who really likes getting in my business. And when he gets in my business, everything goes downhill.”

“... Why am I hiding, too?”

“Because. Come on, we have the footage.”

She replies tersely, pushing him forward, out of the study room. Thankfully, Barbara hadn’t seen them. Daniella wasn’t inclined to let her, either, as she practically leaps out from under the desk and dashes to the exit. She picked up her pace, with Dalton trailing closely behind. Reaching the street, she didn't even bother asking him to unlock the car, and prompted to just hop over the side of the car into her seat. When he got into the car (after unlocking it), instead of driving away, he turned to her with an eyebrow raised.

“You know, you’re not really beating the gang allegations here.”

“Just drive.”

He hums, and pulls out of the spot, getting back onto the street. This time he doesn’t immediately turn on the music. She wished he would, she’d rather hear Travis Scott than Dalton Rios.

“You’re so secretive. Like all the time. Are you like this with your friends too?”

“I don’t have or need friends.”

That wasn’t exactly true, technically she was still friends with Jonathan, but he was older than her by at least 3 years. He tried to keep in touch, but there just wasn’t the same spark. She didn’t resent him for that, going on that mission was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and she was happy he took it. That didn’t change the fact it still hurts, to lose her best friend like that. Of course, she still had all of her other ‘friends’, but the majority didn’t attend her school or live in the same country as her. And she herself wasn’t great at reaching out.

Dalton just nods his head in understanding.

“I get that. Sometimes it’s nice to not have to rely on someone else, or be relied on, you know? It’s kind of like a free feeling.”

She did get that. She didn’t understand relationships all that well, and as selfish as it was, she sometimes imagined what it would be like to be rid of them. But every time she had that thought, she immediately rebuked it. Because she knew those people wouldn’t give up on her, and she herself would probably do anything for one of them.

She didn’t answer him, just letting the wind blow her hair around, lost in her thoughts.

* * * * * *

When they arrived at the park, she practically jumped out of the car. She was already sick of driving around, and it had only been an hour since school let out. Three locations after this one. As she walked over to the park, she tried to remember what she even knew about Grant Park. They hadn’t researched much beforehand for their video and were basically just riding off of whatever the internet told them. That was good enough for her, she didn't see the project as worth her time anyway. Dalton didn’t seem to be motivated either, as the rest of the drive had been silent, him once again putting on his music.

Walking up to the gate, he finally spoke.

“Aww, hello there! Who’s a good girl?”

She looks back and sees him leaning over a dog, petting it, and scratching its ears.

“What’s her name?”

“Lula,”

The owner answers, a tired-looking older woman with glasses. She’s smiling at him and the dog fondly. Daniella ambles over too, her arms crossed. The dog is adorable, as all dogs are, and it's taking everything in her not to join him in petting the dog. But she wasn’t about to show him a more vulnerable side of herself.

“Rios.”

He ignores her, favoring instead to keep cooing at the dog and talking with the owner.

“She’s adorable. What breed is she?”

“Oh, she’s a Mini Goldendoodle. Gorgeous, isn't she? Troublemaker too, I mean just last night…”

Daniella taps her foot as the woman starts rattling off a story of how the dog had gotten into her trashcan the night before. Dalton listened while petting the dog, sometimes asking questions to prompt her to keep going. By the time she finished her story, she was looking at him like she wanted to adopt him too. Daniella nudged him with her foot, clearing her throat. He got the message, seemingly, and ended the conversation easily, leaving the woman to walk away with a bright smile on her face.

“She was nice, wasn’t she?”

“I’m glad you had fun talking to her, but can we please just take the video? I have to be home by 6:00,”

She says, while entering the park. He walks by her side as she leads them to a more secluded area of the park.

She looks up at him finally, and asks him,

“Why did you talk with her for so long? The story was not so exciting that it needed the level of detail you asked for.”

“Yeah, but she seemed kind of down. People love talking about themselves, and I just felt like she needed cheering up.”

“So, talking about her dog?”

“Yeah, why not? I love talking about myself and the things I love, you probably do too.”

“I suppose.”

He grinned at her, putting his hands in his pockets.

“What do you do when you have time? What’s your hobby?”

“This does not seem very relevant-”

“Just answer the question. I’m interested, what does Daniella Wayne do for fun?”

“Not much.”

“I know you draw, I’ve seen that sketchbook you always carry around.”

She kicks a rock ahead of her as they walk.

“Yes, I do sometimes indulge in art.”

“What's your like, tool? Or whatever it's called.”

“Medium. And I prefer pencil, but oil paints are enjoyable as well.”

“Why, what's so special about them?”

Before she knew it, she was finding herself ranting about the many ways oil paints were simply better than watercolors. He was listening to her intently, asking her questions intermittently. She never prattled on like that to anyone. Half because she didn't like giving away personal details so freely, and half because most people didn't even try to humor her by having an interest in the small differences in paint pigment. She finally stopped talking, blushing slightly, embarrassed. They had arrived at their destination, a tall oak on a small hill Todd had shown her once while out on patrol. She cleared her throat.

“This is it.”

He walked around the perimeter of the tree, admiring it from below its branches.

“Cool. So what do you know about this park?”

She turns on her phone camera, filming the tree and a shot of the entire park. Putting it into editing software, the two pull up the Wikipedia page for the park. Thankfully, there’s enough information to get to about 40 seconds of content on a voiceover. The other 20 would have to be filled with a short anecdote of hers. Dalton gives her the phone to speak into. She clears her throat, and with a thumbs up from Dalton, begins.

“Grant Park always has a special place in my heart. My brother took me here once when I was 12, and we walked around together. He pointed out things from his childhood to me and bought us ice cream. It’s one of my favorite memories of him, and the park in turn.”

It was one of her best memories of Todd, though how she told it for the project was a bit different from reality. They had been out late on patrol, happening to meet up. She had been in a bad mood from school (mostly because of Mirabella) and called the park dilapidated. He had rolled his eyes and forced her to walk around, talking about the park in the past to distract her from her emotions. The ice cream had just been an added bonus.

“Which brother?”

She was brought back out of her memories at Dalton's voice.

“Huh?”

“Which of your brothers took you here?”

“Oh… uhm. The oldest one, Richard.”

From the look on his face, she could tell he was winding up to ask her a wall of questions. Before he could start, she blurted out,

“What about you?”

He looks surprised at her question.

“What about me?”

“What do you do for fun? You told me you enjoy ‘anything mechanical’, does that include engineering?”

“Yeah. I like building things, like my watch,”

He says, holding his wrist up.

“But mainly I just make blueprints for things.”

She freezes slightly. He doesn’t elaborate more, but she’s determined to keep him talking.

“Blueprints? For what sorts of things?”

“Oh, you know, whatever. Like I’ll do something, and think, hey couldn’t this be easier? Or I’ll want to be able to do something and just make a solution, so I can do whatever it is I wanted to do in the first place.”

“Do you have any of these inventions on hand?”

She probed him, fishing for more details. He was an inventor, had showed up a few months ago, and had a relatively nice car for his income level. It was all, well, suspicious. He didn’t seem to mind; he seemed enthusiastic at the idea of showing off to her.

“I wish! Man, I should’ve brought one of them. I can show you one tomorrow, though.”

“Is your house close? You could get a few of these inventions. I could wait outside, I’m interested in mechanics too, actually.”

“... Really?”

He asks her with such an upbeat tone, that she has to fight back a frown. She did know a decent amount about engineering, she could fix her weapons and the Batmobile if necessary. But it wasn’t as if it was a hobby, or if she could invent anything overly complex.

“Yeah. So how about it?”

“My apartment is pretty close… Okay. I’ll grab a few things from there, and then we’ll go to the last three places. I’ll show you how the stuff works after, deal?”

She smirked.

“Deal.”

* * * * * *

When they reached his apartment, she let out a breath. Dalton was a bad driver, plain and simple. It wasn’t from arrogance either, he would just get distracted and speed. He had to be blessed by some deity to have not died in a crash yet. When he ran a red light because he was explaining the mechanics of an engine, she had been very tempted to have him pull over and force him to let her drive instead. The only reason she hadn’t was because they had arrived at their destination only a few seconds later.

The apartment building was unremarkable, a medium-sized brick building in a seedier area of Gotham. She had learned he had a garage, so she guessed that was why he hadn’t sold his car yet. He clambered out of the car, running up to the building, promising to be back ‘in a minute’. She looked around the street from her spot on the passenger side. There were small groups of shady-looking men standing around, smoking cigarettes and laughing loudly. They weren’t necessarily doing anything illegal, but that didn’t stop her from being more alert than usual.

One laugh caught her attention especially.

Standing around with a group of tattooed men was none other than Mark himself, beard and all. She instinctively gripped her phone, and tried to get a better look at him without being too obvious. She didn’t need to worry, as was distracted. He had an arm around one of the guys’ shoulders, clearly bragging to the group. Leaning forward a bit, she attempted to read his lips.

Making… Money… end of… week

SLAM

She whips her head around, to see the cheery redhead sitting in the driver's seat once more. Her heart was beating a million miles per minute. The group of men had all looked over at the car. She turned away from them, not letting them get a good look. Dalton buckled his seatbelt in, and immediately drove off, passing the men without a care in the world. Typical.

Mark had been talking about getting money at the end of the week. If he was still associated with The Ivories (who she wasn’t sure even actually existed), that meant something was happening soon. She grimaced. She needed to suck up to her father that week, to be able to patrol again. Otherwise, she was tempted to sneak out if he denied her. Her priorities rested more on the safety of Gotham than her father's wishes.

“Alright, next place?”

“The Clock Tower. You see Wayne Tower? Just drive towards it and the clocks close by.”

He dips his head in acknowledgment, getting onto the main road again. She muttered a quiet prayer, one she had heard many times during her time living at the League. The thought of something after death was very comforting at the moment, seeing as she was being driven around by a maniac. He once again was swerving slightly, being distracted by every little thing they drove by.

“You know,”

He starts, cutting through the silence (filled with car horns directed at them).

“I drove across the US to get here, with this car. Took me a month ‘cause I kept stopping, and I slept in my car a lot. Funded it with the money I had made last year from working at a gas station. My dad wasn’t even with me, he drove a Uhaul out before me, and I drove my car because he said it was either that or he sells it.”

She makes a hum in response, and he takes that as her encouraging him to continue.

“It was amazing. My favorite part was stopping in small towns. You meet so many different people, every place is like a different taste of the country. I went to a lot of the national parks too. Honestly, the weirdest part for me was how empty it all is. Like sometimes I would drive for hours and I would barely see anyone else on the road. I don’t know, it’s just crazy to me. Eye-opening and all that jazz.”

He curses suddenly, slamming on the brakes. She glares at him as he sheepishly smiles at her. They had been very close to hitting the car in front of them. She shakes her head, exasperated.

“How did you even get a license when you turned 16…”

He gave her a confused look.

“16? I’m not 16.”

“... What?”

She short circuits at that.

“I turn 16 in February.”

“And you’re driving. Across the US. With no license, alone? And you’re STILL driving, not well, mind you.”

She snarks at him, fury coloring her words. Of course. At least it restored to her a small bit of faith back in the DMV. No one in their right mind would give him a license, much less sell him a car. Which did happen.

“How do you even have a car?”

“My dad bought it a while back, and gave it to me when he got a new one.”

“And he lets you drive it?”

“I mean yeah. He’s busy, though, it's not like he has time to drive me places. You’re rich with a big family, I don’t think not being able to drive is as problematic for you as it is for me. I got this, chill.”

He replies, clearly having felt she was attacking his dad. Which to be fair, she most definitely was. She huffed, turning her eyes back to the road. Immediately, she sucked in a breath. What she saw there made her yell his name.

“RIOS!”

He sharply snapped his head back to the road, and let out a score of curses as he forcefully spun the steering wheel and swerved. She was thrown to the side with the movement, her bag slamming into the car's side. Somehow, even while dodging a pedestrian in the street (and running a red light) his luck followed, as miraculously no cars collided with theirs. Loud honks and angry insults still followed them as Dalton righted the vehicle. Daniella sat up quickly, and spun around in her seat looking behind her, gaping as she took in what had just happened.

Standing in the middle of the crosswalk, staring at the car dumbstruck, was none other than Timothy Drake himself. Papers flew around him, and his coffee spilled out onto the street, pooling by his feet and dropped briefcase. She cringed in embarrassment at the sight. There was absolutely no way he hadn’t seen her. She groaned and shrunk into her seat, holding her head. How was she supposed to explain THAT to him?

Oh, yeah, that was me in the passenger seat of the guy's car that almost hit you, haha?

No, that would not fly with Tim. He was going to interrogate her when she got back and then snitch on her to the whole family. What was she supposed to say to her father? That she was in a car with some delinquent who couldn’t even drive properly, that almost killed his son? Who knows how he would react, all she knew was it wouldn't go over very well for her.

“... Whoops?”

She lifted her head and glared at Dalton. He looked mildly shaken, with one hand on the steering wheel as the other rested by his side. For once, his eyes were on the road, his stupid smile once again plastered onto his face. She felt like she was going to pop a blood vessel.

“WHOOPS? You literally almost hit my BROTHER! And you ran another light!”

She screamed at him, slightly hysterical.

He widened his eyes and winced at her words, whipping his head back behind him to try and get a look. She smacked his shoulder, getting him to look at the road again. Unbelievable.

“That was your brother?”

She shook her head slightly, laughing in utter disbelief.

“Yes, that was my brother! You could have killed him!”

“Could have, would have. But hey, I didn’t! I told you I got this.”

“... Try again,” She snarled at him threateningly.

“... I’m sorry for almost killing your brother.”

He seemed more upset that he almost hit someone related to her than the fact he could have killed a person. How he hadn’t run over anyone yet was incredible odds. Well, she supposed he could be lying to her, as with his driving it really wouldn't surprise her. She was very tempted to just have him park so they could walk to The Clock Tower.

Daniella suddenly felt a continuous buzz coming from her phone in her front pocket, and she reluctantly pulled it out.

Call from ‘Drake’

Nope.

She pushed the red ‘hang up’ button as fast as she could. There were some conversations that she was not exactly in the right state to answer. Dalton glanced at her, and with a concerned look on his face said,

“Hey, if he asks you how old I am, please say 16, okay?”

…

Oh my god.

He is actually a moron.

“That's it, pull over.”

“What? Why? What’s going on?”

“I’m going to drive.”

“HEY, this is my car! You’re not even 16 yet!”

“Says mister, ‘I almost hit your brother’. Either you pull over and let me drive, or I call the police and tell them your wonderful little story about driving across the continental US all by yourself at 15.”

He relented at that, grumbling as he pulled the car over. The two climbed out of the car, and quickly switched seats. He was still grumbling as he got into the passenger side. After sitting down in the driver seat, she held her hand out, and he begrudgingly placed the car keys in her palm. She smirked at him.

“Unlike you, I'm not useless. I’m a very safe driver. You can be in charge of directions, tell me where to turn from here to get to The Clock Tower. Use your GPS.”

“Just whatever you do, don’t scratch my car.”

“Sure.”

“I’m serious! I paid a lot to get it painted.”

* * * * * *

Outside the Cathedral, she shivered slightly. When she looked at Dalton, she frowned. They both were still in their uniforms (Dalton magically having his dress jacket again), but since Gotham High was stupidly old-fashioned, she was in a skirt when he got to wear long gray pants. It was 5:30, she would have to get back soon. Their video was finally fully recorded, and she would finish editing it sometime later that week. Not today though. She was feeling burnt out, half from the filming and driving and the other half from having to hang out with Dalton Rios the entire day. He just smiled at her, oblivious.

“We did it! Thank god too, it’s due on Friday I’m pretty sure.”

He starts to make his way to his car. She crosses her arms.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?... Oh, yeah! Hold on, let me get them!”

He says with a delighted tone. She watches as he runs to the car, pulling out his backpack and rifling through the pockets. He pulls out a few small things, puts the bag back, and comes back over. She looks at his hands as he opens them, showing her a few small devices sitting in his palm.

“Okay, so this one, I like to call it a ‘shelter’. I won’t get into the technical details, but it basically makes the user invisible, and whatever they’re touching with their exposed skin.”

She widens her eyes. That was impressive, if true. He lets her hold it, and she inspects it appraisingly. He had potential as an inventor. If his talent was nurtured properly, he could be a valuable asset. The device looked properly built, she recognized some of the parts in it from looking at the gadgets made by Lucius Fox. She was tempted, when everything was over and depending on if Dalton was innocent or not, to set him up with some sort of internship at Wayne Tech. She moved to press the ‘on’ button.

“WAIT!”

He exclaimed, covering the button with his hand.

“It has to charge up to work, and after you use it the batteries shot. It’s pricey to make, I don’t want to use it unless I absolutely have to.”

“How long is the charge time?”

“Five minutes, right now. When I have a bit more cash, I’m gonna buy some more parts to make a better, reusable battery. I think it has potential, but with the charging hassle it’s far from perfect.”

“This is very impressive, Rios.”

His cheeks reddened slightly at her praise.

“Oh, uh, thank you.”

She would have teased him for that but was distracted by a car passing. It was old and gray, with dark windows. No license plate, either. She sucked in a breath. It was the car the man from a few weeks ago had driven before he had been shot dead by Mark. She made a decision right there, pushing past Dalton and running after the car. It turned the block, and she sprinted to keep up, slowing only to peek around the corner. It had pulled up by an old, gray building. A few men got out and knocked on the building's door. It opened a crack, and the men and whoever was in the doorway had a hushed conversation before the door opened further, and they hurriedly entered.

“What are you doing?”

Dalton was standing behind her, also watching the men. She ignored him, in favor of walking over to the side of the gray building. He trailed behind her, peppering her with questions she didn’t respond to. Creeping into a side alley, she trudged further into the shadowed street.

“Daniella, I’m serious, what are you doing? This is shady as hell, let's go. Please?”

She pulls out her phone and turns on the flashlight. She squats down by a pile of trash, poking through it. It was pieces of scrap metal, some with nails in them. It appeared as if they were from metalworking projects, ones obviously given up on. They all had one thing in common though.

“I will leave you, I’m not getting shot in an alley. Come on, can we leave?”

They resembled gun barrels, very sophisticated ones. The kind that had no business being on the streets of Gotham, whether in scrap form or actual manufactured form. She took a few quick photos and sent them to her email. She’d add them to her case file when she got back.

THUMP

She flinched at the noise. Annoyed, she looked behind her.

“Rios, if you don’t stop distracting me when I’m trying to”

She paused.

Fuck.

THUMP

* * * * * *

Tim rolled his eyes.

“I’m telling you, pineapple on pizza just makes sense!”

Jason was getting worked up now, talking with his hands as if that would make his stupid opinion have any merit. Tim couldn’t believe the guy sometimes. He responds exasperated,

“Well, I’m telling YOU that you’re wrong. Both of you are so wrong.”

“Hey, you’re just being a hater!”

Steph exclaims, pointing her fork at him. He sticks his tongue out at her, and she responds with the same motion. Jason grins.

“It's two against one, Replacement. Majority rules, you’re talking crazy.”

He frowns at them, getting ready to fire off another retort, glancing over at Dick to get his opinion. His brother isn’t listening to their conversation, though, just staring at his phone with a worried expression. They were all gathered at the Manors dining room table for dinner. Cass was supposed to fly in that night, and they had all agreed to have dinner together. Dick had wanted to surprise Daniella that day by picking her up from school and telling her about the dinner. He had pouted when Alfred told him she wouldn’t be needing a ride that day.

Now, Dick was sitting at the table, chewing on his nails. Tim looks over at Jason and Steph, who seem unsure of what to do. Jason breaks the silence.

“Hey, Dickiebird, Demon Spawn’s fine. She’s probably trying to adopt another cat or something.”

Dick sighs, looking up from his screen.

“Yeah, I know. But she’s not responding to her phone at all. And she never puts it on silent, you know her.”

“She never puts YOU on silent. She definitely has done that to me, multiple times…”

“I just wish I knew where she was.”

Tim pipes up.

“I saw her today, actually.”

Jason gives him a questioning look.

“Where?”

“She was in a car that almost ran me over.”

Now everyone was staring at him, baffled.

“I’m sorry, what?! She doesn't even have a license!”

Dick was getting more worked up. Tim tries to calm him down.

“Oh no, she wasn’t driving. Some redheaded guy was driving, and she was yelling at him.”

“WHAT!?”

“Yeah, don’t know why. Kinda weird to be honest,”

Tim mutters. Steph gives him a pointed look that clearly says, ‘Dude, not helping!’. He looks away and gets an idea.

“Do you want me to just track her phone? I can do it right from here.”

Everyone stares at him again, albeit this time with even more concern.

Steph questions him, clearly mildly weirded out.

“... You can do that? From your phone?”

“Yeah. I put a few add-ons in it, I can track any of you guys' phones, just from the number.”

Dick shakes his head.

“... We’re going to come back to that later. Just track her phone, please.”

Tim nods, and boots up the app. He clicks on her number and starts the process. Everyone waits with bated breath.

“Uhhh,”

He mutters, furrowing his eyebrows. Dick stands up and walks over to Tim and his phone, prompting everyone else to follow.

“What the hell does that little red symbol mean?”

Jason growls.

Tim bites his lip.

“It means… The phone is probably destroyed.”

Steph lets out a breath.

“Well, shit.”

Chapter Text

When Daniella starts to wake, it's to a sharp, constant ache on the side of her head. Part of that aching isn't from the bruising on her temple but from remembering what had happened just before.

She tries not to groan as she pries her eyes open.

She’s tied up to a metal column, sitting on the hardwood floor. The room she’s in isn’t anything special. She’s been in many kidnapping-rooms, and this one wasn’t anything to write home about. It's gray and drab, though notably there is a boarded up door, besides the large metal one she presumed had been used to transport her in. The boards look old, and are hopefully fragile. She files the information away, and turns her head.

Also tied up to a column 6 feet away is none other than Dalton Rios.

He’s still slumped over, his breathing stable enough to where she doesn’t even consider him having any lasting injuries past a minor headache. Which was lucky, seeing as she saw how fast he had been knocked out. She had been annoyed at him for following her and whining for doing so, but it had faded when she saw him drop to the ground. A man had knocked him out, sneaking up behind them and getting in a sucker punch. She was no more useful than Dalton when she was knocked out as well. She scowls. So much for being a trained vigilante, a simple man like that had knocked her out.

“Ugh…”

She glances again at Dalton, who was stirring awake. While he did that, she took in their situation, and her new knowledge. The metal bits she had found clearly were important, as she wouldn’t have been kidnapped for inspecting them otherwise. Though, she supposed many people in Gotham had unchecked anger problems. Jason was exhibit A for that.

The car of the dead man was another nail in the metaphorical coffin, or for a better analogy, a nail pried out. It had pulled up in front of the very building she presumed she was now inside. Anyone could deduce what that likely meant; there was a link between them and The Ivories, and how large that link was would depend on whoever, or whatever, next walked through that door. Then another nail would be pulled, and she would be one step closer to finding the inhabiter of the still metaphorical coffin.

“...Daniella, is that you? Are you okay?”

Daniella stares ahead at the metal door while answering Dalton, who was currently tugging at the ropes and looking at her with a bewildered expression.

“I’m fine as someone can be while tied up. We seem to have been kidnapped, as you hopefully have already deduced.”

He looks around the room with wide eyes, as if he only now is realizing the severity of their situation (which he likely was, she didn’t peg him as the most perceptive). He curses.

“Why the hell would we be kidnapped for looking at scrap metal in an alley?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,”

She answers, unperturbed. Of course, she was lying. Her guess was much more grounded than his would be. She almost felt a little bad, he clearly was anxious. Which was a much more appropriate reaction than her own unbothered one.

He seemed to agree.

“You seem really calm for someone who’s tied to a column.”

“I’m a Wayne, this is not the first nor last time I have been kidnapped. And you don’t seem entirely stressed either. You're still trying to make idiotic jokes while tied to a column.”

He frowns at her words. She still had her suspicions about him; skirting around certain questions, an uncharacteristically nice car and a surprising knack for inventing. But she could put those aside for now, as they were both in the same position: tied up, kidnapped from an alley, and with slight concussions.

“Maybe if you had listened to me this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Please, you were useless in noticing the man behind you.”

“Yeah well-”

Suddenly, the two’s bickering stops. Their attention goes to the door, the handle turning from the other side of it.

A few men enter, filing in with serious expressions on their faces. She glares at them, to which she is given no hint of acknowledgment. She can feel Dalton's eyes on her, probably trying to gauge how he should react. Ignoring him, she continues scowling at the doorway.The last man finally arrives.

“...Dad?”

That gets her attention.

She whips her head to Dalton, who is staring at the man with wide eyes. He’s gaping at him, and she’s probably doing the same thing.

“Dalt! I’m glad to see you awake.”

“What?”

Staring at the man talking to Dalton, his supposed father, she squints to see the resemblance. His hair is a dark brown, graying up his head like ivy. It’s curlier than Daltons, which is more of a wave, but that was where the majority of the difference ended. Because she would have realized they were related just from the dark eyes, olive skin, and jaw.

Their smiles are different though; the older man's grin isn’t sincere and dopey like Daltons, but more akin to a dog baring its teeth.

The man walks up to his son, squatting down and clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“We have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”

“What is going on?! Why are you here, you have a job-”

Dalton begins rambling. His dad stands up straight, shaking his head as he walks over to one of the men standing by the door. Dalton stops talking, watching as the man hands his dad something in a large box. He opens it, and pulls out a large gun. Daniella cranes her neck to get a better look at it. It's black, with a huge barrel at the end. It was nothing like any gun she had ever seen, its design much bulkier.

“Take a good look, son. Notice anything?”

Dalton's dad brings the gun over to him, cradling it like it's a baby and not a deadly weapon. He holds it up to Dalton's eyes, and that was when Daniella was able to get a look at the small emblem on it.

DMR

“You built it?”

Dalton asks, in disbelief.

The man grins proudly as he shows off the gun.

“Well, I didn’t make it. I hired some people to make your blueprints a reality.”

He hands the gun back to the man by the door, who puts it back into the box. Dalton sits still, looking off in the distance with a horrified expression, having realized something, she guesses. His father walks back over to the tied up teens, grinning at the both of them. Daniella glowers at him, to which he barks out a laugh.

“Daniella Wayne. I’ve heard so much about you, not even just from tabloids. This one over here,”

He says to her, while gesturing to a now mortified looking Dalton.

“Has told me many interesting things. Not limited to you having an interest in… outside the law ventures.”

She glares at Dalton after he says that, who looks back at her, very sheepish.

That at least explained why she was here.

“You’ve met my son. His inventions will change the world. They need funding to get off the ground, which is where you come in.”

The man bends down in front of her.

“Invest in us, and you’ll see returns greater than anything your father has ever made. Tensions are growing with all of these new superheroes and villains. Countries want to be able to protect themselves if their heroes go rogue. My son's designs could reshape how we view superheroes; they’re weapons and, frankly, liabilities.”

“And you’re honestly foolish enough to believe I would be willing to help fund this?”

“I believe you’re a smart young woman, who knows she has a bright future. The decisions you make now can change your life forever. The ball is in your court.”

She shakes her head.

“Your information was poorly sourced. I have no interest in helping out criminals, which is what you are. I presume you plan to sell to those very villains you spoke of before? Get a kickstart to the weapons business? Kidnapping me was another bad move, by the way.”

The man’s expression becomes solemn.

“I implore you to rethink your decision. These inventions-”

“Are mine,”

Dalton cuts him off, while pulling at the rope tying his hands together. He stands up, still connected to the column with the rope. His dad walks over to him.

“Is that why you’ve been poking around my stuff? Asking about what I'm working on, to see my old blueprints?”

His voice cracks slightly.

“I thought you cared about me for once. Trying to turn your act around and shit, and it was all because you wanted to make money off my work?”

“Your inventions are wonderful. I am sorry I wasn’t able to see that before but now-”

“Now you can sell them,”

Dalton finishes for him. Daniella looks between them, the air in the room seems to heat with their fighting. She tugs at her own ropes. They don’t seem particularly tight, and she begins the process of getting out of them as she listens to the argument.

“Is that where you’ve been getting all that money from? The new car, my allowance, letting me go on a road trip by myself; all for this? A bunch of blueprints I made when I was an edgy 12 year old who thought guns and nukes were the coolest things in the world.”

“All of this is for you. Don’t you get it? If you join me, we can get out of this rut. Don’t you want to live in a nice, happy neighborhood, not some crime filled dirty street?”

“No. This is just like last time, you do something stupid, rope me into it, and we end up having to run from it. I’m done, dad.”

The room is silent, the only sound is the heavy breathing from Dalton and his dad.

She quietly unties her bindings.

Finally, the standoff comes to a close. Dalton looks away, staring at the floor and slumping to the ground.

“This is not the end. Daniella, Dalton, please consider what I have said. This does not have to be difficult.”

With that, the man exits the room, the rest of his silent group following behind. The door slams shut.

She waits a minute, not sure how to proceed. That was… a lot for her to take in. The both of them, as she sees Dalton had his knees to his body, still looking at the ground dejectedly. She looks up at the ceiling, checking for cameras. When she doesn’t see any, she stands up. She walks up to Dalton, and taps him on the shoulder. He looks up and stares at her blankly.

“... What? How?”

“I’m proficient in many skills,”

She replies, while pulling out a knife she had hidden in a pocket sewed into her skirt. He eyes it warily as she reaches behind him and cuts off his rope. He holds his wrists and looks at the rope burn on them, before saying,

“Still not beating the gang rumors.”

She rolls her eyes. Clearly, he was not in the mood to talk about what just happened. She decided to hold the subject for later, when they had escaped.

“What’re you doing?”

“Getting out of here. I’m not sticking around until they come back,”

She answers, slightly irritated at his question, while walking up to the boarded up door. She knew she was supposed to keep up the charade of normalcy, but at this point she’d heard enough. Pulling at the wood, she frowns. It was brittle, like she had guessed before, but not as much as she had hoped. Sighing, she motions for Dalton to come over. He gets up and walks to her side.

“I think there’s a door behind this. Best case scenario, it connects to the fire escape.”

“Worst case?”

“No door.”

He shrugs in response, while pulling at one of the boards.

“It's our best option I guess.”

Together, they start to tug the boards off. They were nailed in poorly, which almost made it more difficult to remove them. It's a slow process, and every one removed unearths a new piece of wood. They don’t speak, focused on listening out for anyone trying to come in. She had no idea what time it was, but she assumed they had been passed out for a few hours. If she was lucky, her family wasn’t aware she was missing. Of course, she was never that lucky, so she just had to hope they weren’t tearing the city up in their wake.

As more boards were tossed into a pile, a new part of the door was found. Finally, they only had a few left at the top, which she let Dalton pull off himself seeing as he was taller, she instead choosing to walk over to the metal door. The building was old, so there were gaps in the doorframe from lack of upkeep. She pressed her ear to one. The sound of footsteps filled her head.

“Rios, you better hurry up,”

She hisses.

He pulls the wood off even faster.

The door handle starts to turn.

She holds it, and it becomes a sort of tug of war between her and whoever is trying to open the door. Glancing back, she saw Dalton had gotten the last board off, and was now struggling to open the door. She cursed. It was all rusted over, practically sealed in place. The door starts opening as the person puts their body weight against the door.

“GOT IT!”

She lets go of the door, letting it fly open and the man behind it to fall forward at the release. She bolts to the now open door, seeing a platform for them to leap off onto the adjacent roof. The man who had fallen clumsily gets up and pulls out a gun, aiming it at Dalton who was holding the heavy door open. He pulls the trigger.

“DANIELLA!”

She ignores Dalton’s yelling as she takes the shot for him, stepping in front of him. She feels a pinprick in her shoulder but ignores it, instead pulling Dalton with her through the door. He shuts it behind them and they are rudely greeted by the night's chill.

“JUMP,”

She yells to him, before leaping off the platform herself onto the neighboring rooftop. He spits out a few curses as he makes the jump, landing less than gracefully. Getting up quickly, he follows her as she starts sprinting across the rooftops. She knows them like the back of her hand, but is pleasantly surprised that he seems to be able to keep up, albeit not very quietly.

Whatever she was hit with is making her feel lethargic, and her vision is blurring slightly.

They keep going like that for a while, before she finally leads them down a street and to an empty alleyway.

“That- oh my god, how are you not dying- that was insane,”

He says panting, his hands on his knees. She raises an eyebrow while leaning against the wall, watching him wince.

“Dammit, I think I pulled my shoulder prying those boards off,”

He continues, slumping down against the wall.

“What’s the plan, anyway? Cause I don’t think he’s just gonna let us run and snitch on him.”

“We’re not ‘snitching’ on him. Do you really want your father thrown in jail?”

She asks him, pretending to be mildly shocked at the idea. He looks down, gritting his teeth. Yes, she was being manipulative right now. No, that didn’t bother her. There was no world where she would tell the police, as that would just drag in Batman. And then it would all go bad for her when everyone realized how much she had been lying about everything. A screaming match would probably end up happening as well, between her and her father.

She’d rather avoid that outcome.

“No, you're right, I don't want that. I kinda like having a house, I mean I have an apartment of my own technically but-

“You have an apartment?”

“Well it's like my workspace. There's a couch and a kitchen, but that’s basically it. The rest is just tables, scrap metal, tools and stuff. It’s what I spend my allowance on, you know, his ‘dirty money’ that he gives me.

We can’t just let him do all that stuff though, and if that means he gets arrested so be it. But I’m going to talk to him first.”

Well, that helped her out.

“... We could stop him ourselves.”

He raises his head, a glimmer of hope shining in him.

“How?”

“You have all his blueprints, right? So you know the weak points. I have connections, abilities, and a large bank account.”

“You sound really sure of yourself,”

He remarks, but his eyes have a glint to them.

“I won’t tell anyone what's happening, you stop your dad and I get to take the credit for stopping everything. One condition though. We cannot under any circumstances involve anyone with a connection to Batman.”

“Why?”

“It's a deal or no deal situation, Rios. Make your pick.”

She watches him with bated breath. Finally, he relents.

“Fine. Shake on it?”

He sticks out his hand, and she reluctantly shakes it (making sure to put extra force into it).

“This is insane. Like stupid stupid kinda thing. I mean I know this is probably your jam but…”

He’s pacing around the alley, but she can barely hear him. She stumbles forward.

Of course.

* * * * * *

“Oh for god's sake,”

Dalton groaned, sliding his hand down his face dramatically.

Nothing ever went well for him it seemed.

The once very alert girl, Daniella, was on the ground, seemingly asleep. Her limbs were sprawled out in seemingly every direction on the floor. Any other time he would have just rolled his eyes and walked away, letting her wake up later and find him. But seeing as they were in an alleyway in Gotham, in a situation with less than ideal circumstances…

And he wasn’t a bad person.

“Come on, come on. Wake. UP!”

He nudged her with his foot, poking her in the head. But it was for nothing, as she continued to lay on the ground, her eyes closed and breathing even. Her dark hair surrounded her, strewn all about. She reminded him of Sleeping Beauty, a resemblance he would never tell her of, lest he wanted to lose an eye.

He wished the resemblance would end, specifically the whole “sleeping” part. They needed to get out of there, they might have escaped from his father's men for now, but they weren't the only danger they had to mind. Gotham was a cesspool. An honest-to-god pool of cess that must have been cursed by some malevolent spirit centuries prior. Finding out his dad was getting into more illegal things did do some good; it explained why on earth he would choose to uproot their little family from foggy San Francisco to even gloomier Gotham.

The sound of a car driving by the alley brought him back from his thoughts. They needed to leave, people were looking for them, and he wasn't inclined to let them find them. He knew he looked mildly crazed, he had lost his dress jacket a long time before. Now he was just wearing his dress pants and a white (now with gray dusty spots) collared shirt. With his red hair, all messed up, he had a distinct resemblance to an insane Archie Andrews.

Pursing his lips at his ruined clothes (the uniform had cost him a lot! Daniella was gonna have to reimburse him for that), he pushed his hair back out of his face, exasperated, and looked at the girl splayed out on the floor. He shook Daniella in a last effort, but she remained unmoving. Crouching down by her side, he frowned when he lifted her hair to reveal a dart in her arm. He pulled it out of her arm relatively carefully (carefully as a person can in a dirty dark alley), and slipped it into his pocket. It must have hit her when she had attempted to shield him while he was holding open the door. He felt guilty. She had protected him (even if only to fasten her own escape), and he felt a sort of obligation to do the same.

“Please don't wake up and stab me,”

He whispers, more to himself than her, as he lifts her up into a bridal carry. Shifting her in his arms, he’s surprised at how much muscle she has. He knew she could probably fight, but he hadn’t realized she was so dedicated to athleticism. He couldn't fathom why a rich girl like her would be. Well, that would be a good topic for their next conversation.

He stood up on a dumpster and lifted her onto the fire escape above. Pulling himself up, he grunted at the exertion. There was definitely bruising on his abdomen, and he thinks he pulled his shoulder. Here he was climbing up a random building's fire escape while Daniella slept peacefully.

No one could call him useless now, could they?

He picked her up again and climbed up the stairs, jogging (fast walking, really) up them as silently and quickly as he could while carrying a person. Reaching the final step, he arrives on the rooftop.

It’s pretty standard for a rooftop, from his limited knowledge of them, without any features sticking out to him. The less conspicuous the better he figures. Grey concrete covers the floor, and large rectangular shapes jut out disrupting the uniformity. Vents. Good, at least no one would be up there with them.

He slowly walks over to the other side, glancing around him. An ominous aura seemed to enter his surroundings as if someone or thing was searching for them. His mind pulled up images of the Joker and Scarecrow, two villains he may only have seen on TV but had nightmares of nonetheless. The dread seems to build. He squashes down the feeling. He had other things to focus on.

Like not dying. See, he could focus on important things! Like priorities. Priorities focusing on keeping the two alive. He grinned, after saving Daniella he was totally gonna rub it in her face when she woke up. The idea of her flushed and angry/embarrassed face made him want to smile.

...

That was definitely a new feeling. Probably one he should get rid of. He shook his head of all thoughts, he could work through whatever things were happening in his head after he ACTUALLY saved her.

While ignoring the blush creeping across his face, he also was simultaneously attempting to ignore the sound of Daniella breathing. She was never that peaceful, her entire presence was always a hurricane of emotions. Angry one second, despairing another, and then excitedly describing the intricacies of paint to him. She was a mystery he wanted to solve, a painting with colors he'd never seen. She intrigued him more than she had ever scared him.

Which to be honest was a lot.

When he finally reaches the other side of the roof, he looks down upon the streets below. They seemed to be in the middle of the city, a few blocks from his workspace. All he had to do was make his way over with an unconscious girl in his arms. Not suspicious at all. Especially because she was a well-known daughter of the local famous billionaire. Simple.

Hopefully, no one would look twice, it was Gotham; everyone had a criminal record.

“Hello?”

He flinched and looked over his shoulder.

Shit.

Two men stood about twenty feet away from him. The local vigilantes. One had a blue accented suit and mask to match, the other less stereotypically “heroic” looking with a red helmet and mostly black kevlar outfit. The two were exactly the kind of people he hoped not to run into. Heroes, who Daniella had explicitly stated not to let get involved.

He stepped forward a bit, pulling Daniella closer to him. It wasn’t in his plans to break their agreement so soon. He really hoped they weren't able to see her in the dark of the night, or they would most definitely try and take her. While he had a bit of a reverence for Nightwing, it was mainly because of his heroic persona. He didn’t have a death wish. He didn’t exactly want to be on the other side of the escrima stick.

“Hey, hold on a sec.”

He turned his face a little, watching them warily. Red Hood's arms were crossed as he stood back, behind Nightwing who had his arm reaching out to Dalton. How he was going to get out of this one, even he didn’t know.

He bit his lip while he eyed the guns on Red Hood's holster. Red Hood wasn’t reaching for them at the moment, but even if Dalton managed to get rid of them, the guy could most definitely fight. The man was known to have a bit of a soft spot for innocent women, but especially children, and seeing as Daniella made both of those criteria…

No way could he let the two see her. He would prefer to not have a new hole in his head. There were a lot of things he’d rather do. Like ignoring the way Daniella’s black eyelashes curved elegantly out, perfectly framing her eyes. And how her eyes were the most electrifying green he’d ever seen; a color he could sink into. Yeah, he needed to work whatever that was out. But also he’d like to ignore his caution towards the men behind him. He could write a library of things he’d like to ignore right now.

This was so stupid. He missed California, he could surf at those beaches (as cold as they were) without worrying about getting chemical burns from polluted waters. California had been simpler, he didn’t have to know about weapon dealings and people probably dying as a result of his father's actions. It was most definitely a bit childish of him to yearn so much for his less complicated past. But why shouldn’t he, after all he’s had to find out these past few hours?

Breathing out, he plastered on his most charming smile.

“Oh, hey. You need something?”

“Could you take a couple steps back, away from the edge?”, Nightwing said with a reassuring smile on his face.

Oh great.

Dalton knew how he looked. On the edge of a tall rooftop in the middle of the night, one step forward and he’s dead. Daniella would make fun of him if she could see him, having a superhero trying to talk him down from jumping off a roof when he was just trying to get home without getting arrested. His lips twitched in irritation.

“Nah I’m good, you get the best view of the city from here.”

“Sure, but still could you take a few steps back? We don’t want you falling,” Nightwing responds smoothly while taking another step forward. If he gets any closer he’ll most definitely see her feet sticking out.

“I’m good. I won’t fall, I don’t make mistakes like that,” Dalton says, agitation coloring his words. He was spending too much time with Daniella, her self-confidence was rubbing a little too much off on him.

Red Hood tapped his foot, barking out a laugh.

“Sounds like someone we know.

Wing, this kid seems fine, just kind of a cocky asshole. We should go back to looking for Demon Brat, who knows where she's run off to.”

Damn, tell it like it is I guess.

Nightwing seems to agree with Dalton's view.

“Hood, I’m trying to help him, that’s not helpful.”

“I don’t really care honestly; we have other things to do. If he’s not in danger we can leave.”

As the two vigilantes quietly bicker, Dalton turns his attention to figuring out how to get out of there. He needed them to just leave. If they were tipped off to the girl in his arms, he may be able to escape with his head (if missing a few gallons of blood). But, running would then make himself a number one priority for the Bats, that is until Daniella could explain everything to them.

Said girl in his arms decided that was the moment to murmur while still in her (mostly) unconscious state. A muted, unintelligible noise hums from her throat. Honestly, he would have laughed if the situation wasn’t so dire.

When he registers the noise, he freezes. His eyes widen, and he glances back at the men behind him. Their heads whipped to him, staring him down. The air turned hostile.

Red Hood’s hand curled around one of his many guns.

“...What was that noise?”

Of course. She always made things more difficult for him.

He responded quickly,

“What noise, I didn't hear a noise, did you hear a noise ‘cause-”

Nightwing stepped towards him.

“What are you holding,” He asked, his face suddenly serious.

This was how he died. This was it, he was dead dead dea-

He hears a click as the helmeted man raises his gun, aiming straight at his head.

“Turn around.”

He exhales and presses the button on his shelter, one he had kept on him from before. He glances at the screen, five minutes until it charges up. Five minutes to not die.

“Turn. Around. Now.”

Red Hood growls, anger spilling into his voice.

Dalton slowly turns, facing them while gripping Daniella tight, holding her protectively to his chest. Red Hood's anger seems to be rippling off of him in waves. Nightwings expression (not blocked by a stupid helmet, unlike other vigilantes) shows shock, which quickly morphs into a quiet fury.

“Step away from the edge. Put the girl down,” He commands, his eyes never leaving the girl in Dalton's arms. The seriousness in his tone is not lost on Dalton.

Dalton's hold stiffens even more, and he responds nervously,

“Look, this is all a misunderstanding. See she fell asleep, and since she’s my sister and all I figured I’d take her home and-”

The safety clicks off Red Hood’s gun.

“Try again. Give her over.”

“Okay she's not my sister but she did fall asleep- she always does that if you know her totally normal we were on the rooftop together and the stars just made her so tired and-”

Nightwing and Red Hood both stepped forward again. Nightwing was speaking in a low voice while holding his ear, likely speaking to the rest of the Bat brigade on an earpiece. That’s just what he needed, more highly trained vigilantes looking for him.

He steps back towards the ledge again.

“I will shoot you. Put. Her. DOWN.”

Dalton glances behind him. It was a good fifteen stories up, if he falls neither he nor Daniella would be walking away from it. At least she’d be sleeping, unaware of what was happening.

“What did you do to her?”

Nightwing snarls at him, his hands tightening around his escrima sticks.

“Ididn’t do anything. She was drugged, it’s not what it looks like, I swear.”

That definitely didn’t help him, somehow it made the already furious men even angrier. They would kill him, or at least seriously maim him if he didn’t give her up. It was almost odd how protective they were of Daniella. He knew Mr. Wayne had some connection to Batman but he didn’t know they were that close.

Red Hood spits out a laugh at his pleading.

“I think it’s exactly what it fucking looks like. You have a drugged-up girl in your arms on a deserted roof where no one would ever find you.”

His fingers twitch at the trigger, and Dalton blurts out,

“Shoot me and I fall backward. If I die then she will too, you can’t catch her from there. It’ll be a free fall until her death.”

The men stopped advancing, and a desperate frown appeared on Nightwing's face.

“Please, just put her down. You don’t wanna do this.”

“I don’t want to do whatever you’re thinking of. I told you, I wasn’t gonna try anything. It was an accident,” He answered while wincing at the worry that was in Nightwing's voice.

Here he was making his childhood hero beg for someone’s life. If his dad was a criminal again, he didn’t feel like he was much better.

They were at a standstill for a minute or two, neither party able to move. It was like a game of chess at the turning point, one wrong move meaning your loss. Nightwing had his hand on his ear again, talking quietly and rapidly. Red Hood was spitting out lines of curses at Dalton, getting increasingly more creative with them, while simultaneously continuing to point his guns at him. Dalton's eyes never left the weapon. The only reason he hadn’t freaked was because of the steady rise and fall of Daniella breathing.

He glanced once more at his shelter. Thirty seconds now. He grimaced, and suddenly threw Daniella over his shoulder and onto his back into a sort of fireman's carry. The vigilantes' attention became even more focused than before.

“Get your hands off her, you fucking piece of SHIT,” Red Hood yelled at him, his guns pointing straight at Daltons head.

Dalton felt his holster and pulled out two, large hooks. He always wanted to use these, and now was their time.

“…Look I’m telling you you’ve got it wrong. She’ll explain it to you in like… a day or two. Whenever. I’m not kidnapping her! If she was awake she’d want this!”

Jesus Christ if he didn’t already, he for sure sounded like a creep now. Nightwing and Red Hood agreed with that observation as they started to inch towards him, seemingly calling his bluff. See, they kept misunderstanding his intentions. He wasn’t bluffing.

He brought the device up to his eyes. 10 seconds.

“This’ll be a story we can all laugh about in like a month,”

He says casually, pulling Daniella tight into him, and steps off the roof. Nightwing and Redhood rush forward, hands reaching out as if to stop him.

Ready.

He slams the button while falling. He and Daniella become translucent to his eyes, but he was still able to make their forms out. Quickly, he turns in mid-air pushing himself off against the building's walls, and hooks onto the railing of the fire escape of the adjacent building. He grunts, pain shooting through his arm. He may work out, but he didn’t do so enough to where he could hold his body weight and another’s after falling with momentum. From the pain in his arm, he likely further pulled his shoulder muscle.

Any sound he makes is silenced, the only audible noise is the sound of the two vigilantes as they stick their heads over the roof and find nothing falling. He ignores them and shifts Daniella again on his back so she doesn’t slip off. Thank god he had caught them, or there would be two invisible corpses on the ground for a while. He could only imagine how that would smell.

Groaning in pain, he pulls himself and Daniella onto the fire escape. Shifting her off his back, he positions her over his uninjured shoulder. He makes his descent down the steps. He can make out the sounds of frantic yelling on the rooftop, and grimaces. That was going to be fun to explain to Daniella when she woke up.

Well, he was still going to rub it in her face. He saved her, she owed him now.

Chapter Text

“ STOP!”

Dick yells, to no avail, as he tries to run and somehow catch his sister. He and Jason sprint to the side of the building, desperate to save her. The concerns of his family buzz in his ear, but he pays them no attention.

How had things gone this wrong? She wasn’t even supposed to be out that night at all; she was banned from being Robin. Bruce wasn’t budging on that, even when Dick had brought it up to him and argued her case. That was why he hadn’t been back at the manor for longer than usual, and the only reason he had been there today was because of Cass. He had barely called Daniella in that time frame.

Seeing his little sister most likely fall to her death was bringing up some bad, old memories for him. Past regrets. With those in mind, he told himself, in those few seconds he ran to try and save her, she was going to be okay. No one was dying tonight. 

When he reached the edge of the building and looked down, he could almost believe himself.

“Where are they?!” Jason yells, pulling out his flashlight to shine down on the dim alley below. 

Dick looks around confused. There were no corpses on the ground or any sign of people for that matter. The only thing alive in the alley was a large, mangy rat hobbling down it. He glances over to Jason.

“They disappeared,” he says to him, in disbelief.

Jason looks at him and pulls off his helmet. Right after, he throws it across the rooftop, letting it skid and roll to a stop on the other side.

“DAMMIT,” He roars, his face twisting into a rage. 

Dicks face hardens, and he tunes back into his comm. He could feel himself slipping into his vigilante mask, his only way to keep himself grounded in moments like this.

Tim’s worried voice spills into his ears, threatening his attempts at keeping calm.

“Nightwing? Red Hood? Robin's status? Spoiler and I are a minute away-“

Dick interrupts him.

“The guy jumped off the building with her. We tried to run and grab her, but no one was there, they disappeared.”

Steph’s voice cut in,

“How the hell does someone DISAPPEAR when they’re falling ten stories? Who is this guy?”

“I have no clue, she’s never mentioned anyone like him to me. I took a picture of his face, Oracle, could you do a background check on him? He’s probably around Robin's age, high schooler, tall red-headed guy.”

“Is he like a Meta or something?”

“Possibly, but he kept looking at something he had on his wrist. Might’ve been some sort of teleporter. I don’t even know what the plan is, she’s missing, and we have no lead. ”

He can feel the Nightwing persona starting to slide off, and Dick Grayson's worry falling into place.

He hears soft footsteps touch down on the roof. Turning around, he watches Tim and Steph run over to him and Jason (whose eyes are turning a brighter green with every passing second). Tim bends down a little while making his way, and picks up Jason’s helmet. 

He hands it back to him.

“You’re probably gonna want this,” he says with a slight smirk.

Jason grabs it back with probably a little too much force.

“What even happened?”, Tim asks, his tone much less lighthearted than before.

“I’ll tell you what happened, some fucking red-headed BASTARD had Daniella slung over his shoulder and jumped off a BUILDING.”

Tim freezes and frowns.

“... Red-headed?” He says, his expression, one Dick recognized meant he was putting something together.

“Yeah, keep up, that's what I just said.”

“Could it have been the guy she was in the car with? The one that almost ran me over?”

Everyone stared at Tim, taking in what he just said. Dick was the first to answer him.

“... Yeah, actually, probably. I mean, how many redhead teenage boys does she even know?”

“That’s my next question, how does she know him? Because in no world is she hanging out with some random guy, she hates doing things that she thinks are ‘pointless’.”

“School, I’d guess. I don’t think she’d meet anyone other than there.”

Dick started to perk up slightly, realizing what Tim was getting at. A lead. They can work with that, it’s what his family does best. Detective work.

“Do we even know what he wants with her?”

“Nothing good. That’s why we need to find them before he can do anything.”

All of them stiffen at his words, himself included. He didn't want to even think about what could happen to her. How much he would have failed her.

Jason puts his helmet on.

“I don’t care what he does, cause either way, he’s gonna be six feet under the second I see him,” He says darkly, staring at Dick with a challenging look. Usually, Jason talking about killing people made Dick slightly uncomfortable.

This was not one of those times.

He nodded in response, his face hardening.

“He’ll regret ever even looking at her.”

* * * * * *

“Do you like Froot Loops?”

She gives him an unimpressed look, which he has the self-awareness to return with an abashed one.

“What? It’s not like I was planning on actually living here…”

Daniella rolls her eyes, looking around the apartment. 

It had one bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a tiny living space. From the sheer amount of stuff, she figured it was likely the ‘workspace’ he had mentioned before she had passed out. Her memories were a tad blurry on the details of the night before.

Every square inch of the apartment was taken up by some sort of clutter, mainly wires and half-finished projects. She had woken up in the twin-sized bed and had practically climbed over the many piles of junk in there to get out of the room. There, she had been greeted with the unpleasant sight of Dalton trying to find food in the overflowing cupboards, and even more unpleasant, the memory of why she was in the room in the first place. 

“Really, you should be grateful right now. You got to sleep in the bed, and I got the couch. Do you know how much oil is in those cushions? ‘Cause it's not zero.”

She must have made a face, because he started to backpedal.

“Well- It's not THAT much, I’m just exaggerating… So, how’re you feeling?”

Ignoring his lame attempts to distract from how disgusting his apartment was (she was decidedly not sitting on that couch), she instead moved a few boxes off one of the kitchen table chairs and sat down. He turned back to the cupboards, reaching into them and moving things around. She decides to respond to his question anyway.

“I am fine, nothing that will not heal on its own. And you?”

He looks back at her, with a slightly surprised expression, before grinning.

“My shoulder’s better, a couple of bruises, but otherwise I’m good, thanks.”

“What exactly happened? I only remember passing out in the alleyway.”

“Oh, uh, funny story. I didn’t know where we were, so I just carried you up to a rooftop because there was no way I was waiting around to get shot.”

“And?”

“Well, Nightwing and Red Hood saw me, and they were talking to me… and they noticed I was holding you…”

She was at a loss for words.

“Uh, let’s just say they weren’t happy. I jumped off a building with you also by the way, but I turned invisible so they don’t know where we are. So basically we kind of, maybe, have to watch out for Batman and the other bat-dudes.”

…

Daniella put her head in her hands and made a muffled groan. 

She was so close to reaching out and strangling him.

“Hey, look, all you have to do is explain everything to them next time, and it’ll be fine.”

“Rios, they’re definitely looking for both of us right now. They’re going to kill you,” She snarled at him, before amending her statement.

“They’re going to kill me .”

“I mean, they did seem weirdly protective of you, but I don’t think it’ll be THAT bad. It’s gonna be okay,”

He said to her, clearly trying to placate her. If she was a normal girl, who didn’t happen to be related to Batman, it might have worked.

Unfortunately for the both of them, she in fact just so happened to be Robin. 

“You have no idea how bold of a statement that is,”

She grumbles, before standing up. She managed to keep her more murderous thoughts at bay for the moment, but if he said one more stupid thing, she would have some trouble.

Walking into the cramped kitchen, she starts to pull open cupboards, more so out of curiosity than in an effort to be helpful. Her thoughts were going every which way, mostly surrounding how upset everyone was going to be at her by the end of this. She didn’t even want to think about Richard's reaction, much less her father's. 

They work in silence for a few minutes, taking stock of what’s inside the apartment.

She breaks it with a question.

“How did you already amass this many objects? I thought you told me you had only moved here a month ago.”

“Yeah, but I brought a lot of my old stuff here, and it's easy to pick up spare parts just lying around the city. I permanently moved here a month ago, but I’d been making the trip for a while. Got the actual apartment a couple of months ago, it’s pretty cheap because this area is so sketchy.”

“Fascinating.”

“Right?”

He was getting too comfortable being so mouthy to her.

She let it slide, in favor of asking him another question.

“... I am confused about something.”

“And you’re asking me? I’m flattered.”

“Quiet. Your father… he seems to have a criminal history as you said, no?”

Dalton's easy grin slips off, and a disquieted frown replaces it.

“Yeah, he does. Why?”

“So why did he not do a more thorough job of patting us down? I mean, I still had a knife on me. He just took our phones.”

“He probably thought it would earn your trust to be honest. Didn’t account for you being the least trusting person ever .”

“I trust people, you’ve just not earned it yet.”

His smile returned.

“ Yet . But I’ll get there one day.”

“You do that,”

She replied, feeling her lips twitch upwards. There was no reason for her to be in a good mood. The number of things she had to be concerned about was ever-increasing, and here she was making banter in the kitchen of a boy whose father had kidnapped her. An extremely loudmouthed boy. But even with that knowledge, she let herself enjoy the moment. 

After all, didn’t she deserve to rest for once, even if just for a minute in a disorganized kitchen?

* * * * * *

Walking down the filthy, seedy street wearing a hood and sunglasses, she felt a strange sense of comfort. It was her element, and she pretended to herself the trip was some sort of mission to further immerse herself in the relaxation. 

Which, if she thought about it, it was. An undercover mission specializing in procuring specific items, not limited to food in better quality and condition than stale cereal.  She stepped over a wet newspaper and glanced at the boy walking by her side. He had lent her a hoodie to put on to better disguise herself, and a pair of sweats to replace her school-issued skirt. They looked ridiculous, wearing practically matching outfits with sunglasses, looking around their shoulders like they were waiting for someone to pop out at them. That someone being a man dressed as a bat.

To be fair, there were many people in Gotham who were on edge because they were paranoid Batman would show up.

If anything, the two fit right in.

“Just a block more,”

Dalton says to her, in some sort of attempt to be reassuring. She nearly scoffs at him but is distracted by a man leaning against a wall, leering at her. His smile is yellow and doesn’t reach his eyes. She flashes her knife at him to see, while shooting him a vicious look. He frowns and finally looks away. 

Coward .

People generally were. Akin to an electric fence without a charge, most were never going to deliver on what they threatened. Of course, there was a chance they weren’t just talking. The man wasn’t one of those people, clearly, as he shrunk into himself further when Dalton put his hand in his hoodie pocket, acting as if he had a gun on him. With that, the man ran off into a side street. 

She grinned.

“Do you still have your wallet?”

Grabbing a box of penne pasta, she threw it into the basket Dalton was holding and continued walking down the aisles. He was looking at her with increasing worry as she ignored him, every so often glancing at the prices of the items she was gathering. She put a tube of toothpaste in the basket and finally answered him.

“Would I be getting this many things if that weren’t the case?”

He sighed, clearly in relief, and replied easily,

“Just checking, you never know. Making sure you weren’t thinking I could pay for any of this.”

“I already informed you I’d be in charge of funds, and I am carrying through on that promise.”

“With what? Card? Can’t people track you with that?”

She scoffed at his question.

“This isn’t the card my father supplies me with. I have my own funds, ones I have made absolutely certain he nor anyone else is aware of.”

“You know, you’re crazy,”

He says to her, grinning. Normally when people were calling her crazy, she got offended, but even she could tell he was saying it in a joking (and mildly impressed) manner.

“I don’t believe it's a crime to be prepared. Can you go grab some paper towels?”

“Yes ma’am,”

He replies, walking off after handing her the grocery basket. 

They were in a Target located in the middle of the city, only a few blocks from where they were hiding out. She had never really been to one, besides the time Brown had dragged her in because she found out the Halloween decorations were in (August, way too early in her opinion). She liked the store, everything was orderly and kept in theme. Looking at the shopping list in her hands, she starts to walk down the aisle.

Before she can leave it, however, a voice distracts her.

“Daniella Wayne?”

She squeezes her eyes shut and exhales. Slowly, she turns around, face to face with none other than Mirabella Santana. She had on pajama pants and a tank top, giving the look of having just rolled out of bed (which was likely). The girl was looking her up and down, a quizzical expression painted on her face. How she had recognized Daniella was astounding, she just hoped it was because she had heard her voice, not that she was THAT recognizable. 

Daniella glared at her defiantly, crossing her arms. Mirabella's eyes widened, and it seemed as if something had dawned on her as a wide grin overtook her face.

“Oh my god, are you skipping class?”

“And are you not doing the exact same thing?”

“Why are you buying groceries? Aren’t you, like, loaded? You have a butler for that, right?”

She asked, clearly ignoring Daniella’s annoyed demeanor in favor of getting an answer. Daniella turned away from her and started walking away, exasperated. Unfortunately, Mirabella didn’t take the hint, or more likely, didn’t care.

“Don’t run away from me. Does your dad know you’re here?”

“None of your business, Santana.”

The girl only smiled smugly in response, walking by her side.

“That’s like, so funny. Does anyone know you’re here? Did you run away or something?”

She glared at her, her hand tightening around the basket. She was seconds away from hitting her in the head with it and running. Her father always told her not to fight anyone as a civilian, whether verbally or physically. Even when she was justified, as in the other person hit her first, he would ground her and lecture her on how she shouldn’t resort to using her fists. Which was ironic, seeing as the man went out every night to do exactly that. She couldn’t remember the last time using only words succeeded in stopping a mugging.

“I bet you did. Are you gonna finally murder someone? I remember you used to threaten to stab people in elementary school. Is that why you're here, to buy a knife?”

Three seconds.

“Everyone used to take bets on when you’d actually kill one of your siblings, and you’d get shipped home.”

Two seconds

“I mean, they already call you a demon.”

One second.

“Is that why your mom ditched you? Because you’re insane?”

That’s it .

“Mirabella, what is wrong with you ?”

They both turn. Standing behind them is Dalton, holding a package of paper towels with one arm. It was lucky he had shown up, her fist had been raised when he had interrupted them. She’d never seen him so upset. He was staring unflinchingly at Mirabella, whose mouth was slightly open, in clear disbelief.

“Dalton? Why are you here too?”

He ignores Mirabella’s question.

“Why would you say that?”

“... What are you talking about?”

“I don't know, maybe the shit you just said to her? That’s messed up, apologize.”

She looks at him, taken aback. Suddenly, she smirked, her expression morphing into one that somehow made Daniella want to punch her even more.

“Oh, I get it. You two are like a couple.”

She could feel her face heat up. She cut in,

“No, we are not .”

“And you guys are just skipping class together for no reason? I know. You two hooked up last night after you took your little video, and now you’re hanging out and getting stuff because Daniella's daddy is gonna ground her when she gets home.”

“Mirabella, just stop. We both know you’re just trying to piss off Daniella, so why don’t you just save everyone the trouble and leave ?”

Mirabella snickered at him. 

“Chill out, don’t get so pressed. Just because I’m nice, I’ll keep this between us all for now. You two keep doing whatever this is,”

She says and walks off, her phone already in her hand. Dalton put the paper towels down and flipped her off behind her back. Daniella rolled her eyes.

“Mature.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t call whatever she’s doing to you mature either… You good?”

She brushes past him, walking in the opposite direction away from Mirabella. He keeps up, pestering her with reassurances.

“Hey, I’m serious. Don’t even listen to her, she’s just a jerk. She doesn’t know you.”

“And you do?”

“I’m trying, and I know you enough to know you don’t deserve to be talked to like that. No one does, it's messed up.”

She looks away from him, not responding.

“Come on, I hope you believe me.”

“We need bleach,”

She says, brushing him off. He seems to get the hint, as he just nods. 

Walking swiftly down the aisle, she can feel her heart beating. She isn’t used to people sticking up for her like that. Maybe her family would, but no one was saying any of those kinds of things in front of them. They were always away, almost separated from her day-to-day life, a line between Robin and Daniella that was drawn in the air. Whether they cared or not, there were practically no situations in which they could defend her when not on the field. 

So having someone argue in her defense like that…

It was new.

Her heart kept beating, even faster than before, as she found the cleaning supply aisle.

She watched him impassively while he tapped his foot, staring off into space in the checkout line. He was getting increasingly more agitated with every passing second. She sighed and finally relented.

“What exactly is the problem, Rios?”

He jolted, seemingly realizing only now that she was still there. He looked upset, his hands going up to his head as he answered her.

“I just remembered. My car, we just left it there. Oh god, it’s probably either impounded or missing all its tires… Dammit!”

“That’s the issue?”

“What do you mean, ‘that's the issue’ ?! I can’t buy a new car, AND how are we even supposed to get it if we’re hiding from two different groups!?”

“The cathedral is only a few blocks from here, we can go and see if your car is still parked outside it.”

“It better be, I don't even know what I’d do if it wasn’t…”

* * * * * *

She raised an eyebrow at him, as he attempted to hug his car while holding his car keys like they were porcelain.

“Oh my god, my sweet, darling baby, you’re okay!”

“Rios, you’re making a scene.”

He didn’t seem to care, as he started to practically bounce around the car, inspecting it for any damage. She scoffed, but let him have his moment. It was honestly a miracle the car was unscathed. Though he had put the top-up on the convertible, that didn’t usually stop people from breaking in. The fact it was seemingly untouched was amazing.

Suddenly, Dalton curses.

“What happened?”

She asks him, walking over to the other side of the car where he was kneeling down, staring at something.

She nearly laughed, only catching herself because she had seen how distressed he looked.

A bright yellow car boot was on the front right wheel. 

“Who the hell put a BOOT on my car?!”

“I’d assume a police officer.”

He groaned and pulled at the metal. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t move an inch. 

“Just leave it, there's nothing we can do,”

She said to him, turning away. When he didn’t follow, she looked behind her.

“No. You are not doing this in the middle of the street, in the middle of the day .”

Somehow, he had pulled a screwdriver out of nowhere and was now futzing around with the car boot. She watched him with mixed emotions as he screwed off a small piece of it, opening up to another screw. He untightened it, and the car boot fell clanging to the asphalt. He looked up at her triumphantly.

“... I’m not even going to ask how you know how to do that.”

She opened the car door and sat in the passenger's seat. He walked over to the driver's side and got in, whistling happily. He threw the grocery bags in the small backseat. 

Before he could start the car, however, she stopped him.

“You do realize how recognizable this car is, right?”

“... I forgot about that.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Let’s make one more stop before we head back. And also, don’t drive like a maniac for once”

“Hey!”

* * * * * *

Even after taking a shower, and putting on a fresh t-shirt and pajama pants (courtesy of Target), she could still smell the chemical-filled spray paint on her.  

She and Dalton had bought a few cans of black spray paint at an art store she was a regular at, and his now black car was safely parked a block away in a parking garage. They had spent the rest of the day planning out their move for the following night. She uncapped her pen and started writing it out on a piece of scrap paper.

“So to be clear, you left your blueprints in only two places?”

“Yeah. My locker at school, and in my room.”

“And you’re sure these are ones you wouldn’t want anyone getting?”

“They’re pretty lethal. Mostly I make them for fun, I didn’t really think they’d ever be made.”

“But you left them in your school locker.”

“Well, like I said, I wasn’t thinking about my dad going nuts and building them.”

She wrote the locations down, outlining their plan. 

He pulled up a chair and made a gesture for the paper. She let him grab it. 

After reading it, he looked up with a grin.

“You know, this is not helping you with the gang rumors.”

* * * * * *

Bruce frowned. 

The manor was silent, no one in it but himself. The rest were downstairs, deep underground in the cave. 

He never liked silence. It never meant anything good, just the ominous ticking of an unheard clock, counting down to what would break it next. Walking the empty halls, memories flashed through his head. 

His children’s laughter echoing throughout every room, a sound he hadn’t heard in so long, remained missing. A memory much too distant for its importance.

He was Batman, The Dark Knight, and one final name, his very first one, that he felt a disconnect from growing more and more; Bruce Wayne. 

Yet with all of that, still, he found himself missing something. 

The fractured family he had brought together, with all of its animosity and tension, was what kept him going out every night. They were what kept him holding on to his sanity, his rationale, through every new tragedy.

He turned his head slightly, glancing behind him.

Cassandra stood behind him, watching him with an analytical gaze.

His expression hardened as she walked towards the cave. 

He knew what he had to do, finally.

“We’re going to find her, Cassandra. Whatever it takes.”

Chapter Text

Tim could physically feel the thoughts in his head, swirling around and grazing the sides as if there was a whirlpool inside of him. He wasn’t certain if he had gained some sort of new magical sixth sense or if it was from the lack of sleep. It was probably the latter, but he couldn’t discount the former so easily. His life was always throwing curveballs at him.

That still may have been the sleep deprivation talking.

He blinked, for likely the first time that hour, trying to keep his focus on the bright screen in front of him. It was kind of difficult to do when he was running on four hours of sleep and five cups of coffee (Dick had cut him off). The anxiety he was feeling also wasn't helping.

Daniella had been kidnapped about two hours ago. In that timespan, everyone had searched painstakingly around Gotham, in hopes of finding any sign of her. It was like she had vanished into thin air. No camera footage, no phone, no nothing. Their only lead was the photo Dick had taken and the connection to the likely same guy she had been with a few hours before. If their morale had been shaky before, it was like it was on a fault line now. He’s pretty sure Dick had been close to a total breakdown by the end of it. He guessed it was from him assuming the worst (and blaming himself in the process), but mainly from having seen Daniella fall to what he had assumed would be her death.

Dick hated seeing people fall. He had… a bad history with falling (the nice way to say it). His brother was strong, but the image of a body splattered on the ground could leave him pretty rattled.

If Daniella had actually died that way…

Tim shuddered. He didn’t want to even imagine the fallout from that.

Barbara had been their savior in the end. She often was, but this time especially. While the rest of them had been out searching (fruitlessly), she had been figuring out the identity of Daniella’s captor. When she relayed the information back to the rest of them, a quick agreement formed. Tim, Dick, and Steph would go back to the cave in order to look over the details (and help deepen them) while Bruce, Jason and Cass kept patrolling. 

So that's where they were. And why Tim was loading up the file Barbara had sent him with Steph and Dick literally breathing down his neck. He was trying really hard to ignore them, but it was getting increasingly difficult. 

Steph leaning her elbow on his shoulder was the last straw.

“I know we’re all worried, but I don’t think being two inches from the screen is going to make anything load quicker.”

“Sorry, sorry,”

Dick says but doesn’t move even a millimeter. Steph doesn’t even bother responding, just digging her elbow in more.

Right before Tim can push her off, the file loads.

They all craned their heads, vying for a better look. It’s a short, basic summary, the kind of info you could get from a driver's license, making Tim want to know more. It's not enough . Not enough to be too helpful. Of course that wasn’t Barbara’s fault, she was busy trying to search for Daniella using the city's security cameras. The problem was the majority were broken or vandalized since so many criminals lived in Gotham and weren’t too happy with the idea of them being filmed all the time.

Dalton Mateo Rios

Age: 15

Sex: Male

Hair color: Red

Eye color: Brown

Height: 5’-11”

Residence: 57 Dalliance Street, Apt 24

Phone Number: 718-XXX-XXXX

School: Gotham High

…Driver's license.

“Oh my god.”

“What? Do you know something about this guy?”

Dick asks him, clearly worried. Tim looks him in the eyes, serious.

“I realized why he almost hit me with his car.”

“Is he a criminal?”

“No- Well actually I have no idea, I mean I guess kind of… but that’s not the point. Look at his age.”

He watches Dicks expression turn from concerned to even more alarmed as he reads it.

Steph laughs hollowly.

“You’re telling me Dani was letting herself be driven around by some guy who doesn’t even have a license?”

“Better question; what would make her stay in the car?”

Steph and Dick become even more solemn as they realize what he was getting at. Dick frowns and glances at the screen, then looks at Tim.

“... Blackmail?”

Tim nods, turning back to the screen. 

“I don’t know the specifics of what, but if I had to take a guess, it’d be that he somehow figured out about Robin. You know her, she wouldn’t hang out with someone she doesn’t like unless she has no other choice.”

“That would explain why he was so nervous when he saw us. He seemed to know Daniella could contact us easily, he even said she’d talk to us ‘when this was over’.”

Steph stands up (Tim can feel a bruise forming on his shoulder), and paces behind them.

“What does ‘when this is over’ even mean? And why would he drug her then?” Steph asks.

“Something probably went wrong with his plans, and he panicked. Easier to transport someone who's unconscious than not.”

Dick turns away from the screen, his posture stiff.

Tim's hands fly across the keyboard. Just by digging a little, he doesn’t turn up any new information. He begins hacking into the school files, which is more difficult than it should be, seeing as Wayne Tech had upped the security. Too many times tabloids had been made about students attending the prestigious high school, to where they had paid Wayne Enterprises to boost their security. Of course, it wasn’t too difficult for Tim; he had helped code it, after all. It was just irritating seeing as he had an actual good reason to access the data for once (usually it was to find dirt on his sister).

He half pays attention to Dick and Steph, who had started theorizing behind him.

“What does he even want from her?”

“Money maybe, he’s definitely not as rich as the other kids at Gotham High. I mean, the street he lives on isn’t exactly safe.”

“But why bother making her drive with him? That’d just attract attention…”

Tim can somehow sense the two were looking at each other in revelation.

“He could be looking for fame. They drove around the city yesterday, so everyone could see them. And that might have been exactly what he wanted.”

“She is the most famous person who attends that place…”

He gets through another barrier and is greeted by a practically tungsten firewall. After this was done, he might have to install a backdoor into the code so he can freely get in and out. It was absurd that it was this encrypted.

The conversation behind him continues.

“Did he drug her so she wouldn’t admit what happened to us?”

“At that point, he might as well have just killed her. Drugs usually inhibit people’s decision-making skills, or in her case, make them unconscious. I’m more worried about what he’s gonna DO to her. We both know what usually happens to drugged people around here.”

Tim clenches his jaw. 

Footsteps descend the staircase, causing everyone to pause in their thoughts. It's easy to tell who was walking down, as there was only one person in the manor who it could be.

Alfred emerges into the dark cave, holding a silver tray carrying a few sandwiches. His very presence seems to draw some of the tension from the air. 

He swiftly hands off food into the hands of Steph and Dick and gives them a sharp look when they start to protest that they aren’t hungry. Tim just glances at him with a half smile as he places a plate on the desk. Technically no food was allowed at the Bat Computer, but also technically Daniella shouldn’t have been kidnapped, so he felt it was reasonable. Alfred gave him a knowing look, but he turned away, walking back up to the other two.

“Master Dick, Miss Stephanie, has there been any news?”

Dick shakes his head.

“We got the guy's name and info, but no clue where they would be.”

Tim runs programs to break through the firewall faster, taking intermittent bites of his sandwich.

“Master Dick, I know that look. You cannot blame yourself for this.”

Dicks voice cracks ever so slightly.

“I’m supposed to keep her safe . I barely even TALKED to her the last couple of weeks.”

“While I am so glad you care about that girl so much, you are not her father. That is not your job, but a self-imposed role.”

… Well, that was a loaded response.

Dick loved everyone in the family, but everyone knew he had a different kind of bond with Daniella. An odd older brother/father figure, one that was awkward for everyone else to figure out. Tim was pretty sure they hadn’t tried to name it. He wasn’t sure if there even was the right label for it.

“She is a very brave girl. And with that bravery, there is also a stubbornness that I’m sure you can relate to.”

“What-”

Alfred continues, ignoring Dick’s indignant expression.

“You cannot bear the guilt solely to yourself. No one was made aware as to what may have been happening to her, how could you possibly be expected to know?”

“But-”

“You know he’s right, Dick. All of us should’ve been looking out for her more, especially since she got banned from patrol. She always gets all quiet and does dumb things when that happens, and someone should have checked in with her. I didn’t even text her. How can it not be my fault too?”

Dick quiets as Steph speaks.

Tim finally breaks open into the hidden data and lets out a breath. Endless amounts of information are available to him, which he expertly skims, easily finding what he is searching for.

…

“Hey, you guys might want to take a look at this.”

* * * * * *

Daniella looked at him sideways as he rifled through his bag, pulling open pockets and producing random pieces of junk. Junk as in specifically junk metal. Because apparently, he thought that THAT was a normal thing to have floating around your bag. They could’ve left five minutes ago. She huffed, glancing around the parking garage. He had pulled the car’s top down, insisting he needed the cold air to think. There were a few other cars, but no one else was around, making her feel slightly unnerved. 

“I swear I put them in here…”

She sighs, and he starts ripping open the pockets even faster than before.

When he finally manages to pull out the car keys, he does his normal action of smiling at her as if he was waiting to be praised.

"Are you finally finished?" She says, staring at him with a decidedly unimpressed expression. 

"I literally only looked in there for like one minute tops."

"Actually, it was five minutes and 24 seconds exactly."

"... Really? You counted that?" 

She rolls her eyes at his entirely serious tone. He believed her far too easily, in what world would she ever waste her time counting the seconds it took for him to find his car keys?

He still didn't seem to pick up on that, and just started the car with a thoughtful look. 

It was Wednesday night, and they finally were to extract Dalton's blueprints from the places he had left them. Thankfully, the list was much smaller than she had feared it would be, only encompassing two locations. Having to spend the day in the apartment with him had put her at her wit's end. He had kept trying to talk to her, not letting up until she finally held her knife up in a threatening manner. Even then, he had just laughed it off, but thankfully decided he didn’t want to be skewered and instead started fixing the leaky refrigerator.

They still had hoodies and sunglasses on, with face masks to further disguise themselves. They looked more than odd, especially seeing as it was pitch black out and so were their sunglasses. Hopefully, no one would try and look too much into it. 

He turned onto the street and made a sharp right turn, decidedly not in the correct direction. 

She glares at him.

"Where are you going, the school is that way."

"I'm starving, and I don't want to eat Target pasta anymore."

She tried to protest, but he drowned her out by simply blaring his music even louder. Every time she attempted to shout over the music, he pushed the volume button. It was childish behavior on his part, but clearly, he wasn't concerned about being called a fool by her. Which she did.

And he responded by not even looking at her, though she could tell he had heard her. His smile had widened, forming a mischievous arc.

He seemed to always know the best way to get on her nerves.

* * * * * *

Bat Burger was a staple of Gotham cuisine. Every foodie who visited (a bad decision in her opinion, no meal was worth risking meeting the Joker) had it on their list. Not for the taste, though Daniella admittedly had a soft spot for it, but rather for how iconic it was and the heroic theming. Standing in line, she let her eyes sweep around the room. She nearly choked when she saw the large poster depicting Red Robin. It was surprisingly accurate in the details of the costume, though she felt it was a tad generous in how towering it portrayed him as (he was the same height as herself, give or take a centimeter).

"Do you think it's weird for the vigilantes?"

She glanced at Dalton, who was looking at the poster as well, albeit with a much warmer gaze than herself.

"What are you talking about?"

"Like there's a literal poster of this guy plastered on the wall of a fast food chain based around him and his other... Teammates? Colleagues? Family?"

"... I suppose it might feel a tad unnerving."

"Imagine how Robin must feel. Wouldn't it be low-key creepy to have little kids playing with figurines of you that they got with their chicken nuggets?"

He says this while discreetly pointing towards a frazzled looking dad and his children, who somehow all had the same Robin toy.

"Robin is more of a symbol than a specific person. I highly doubt it would be odd, as she likely has less of a connection to the position than you may assume."

“Robin’s a girl?”

It wasn’t exactly a secret that the current Robin was female, but it wasn’t common knowledge either. She preferred to avoid cameras (mainly from trauma from Drake taking photos of her when she did something foolish for his ‘portfolio’), so there was a large part of the populace who weren’t privy to the fact. The many forums online speculating were ridiculous, though with so many wild theories going on ranging from her being male to secretly being an alien it helped her keep up the mystique.

She would have to remember to check later if Dalton was a conspiracy theorist or not.

“... That is what people say, yes. Why?”

“I guess I never realized there was more than one Robin.”

Oh my god…

There was no way he was a conspiracy theorist. She didn’t think he had the mental capacity to theorize anything.

“Rios, you’re going to choke.”

“Yeah and,” he paused to take another oversized bite of his burger, “I bet you know the Heimlich, so I’m good.”

“And why would I bother using it on you?”

“Cause you’re super nice and cool, and I’m super nice and cool. We’re the perfect duo, why wouldn’t you wanna save me?”

She rolled her eyes and had to push down the start of a smile. There was a warm feeling billowing up inside her. She was mildly concerned she was getting sick. Watching him continue to eat and grin at her only seemed to make it worse. She figured he was the reason she felt so off, his very presence making her feel some sort of feeling, one she couldn't name. 

She didn’t like it.

Suddenly, the feeling disappeared, and she could feel the hair sticking up on the back of her neck. Her posture became much less relaxed, instead alert and ready to bolt. Dalton gave her a confused look that she paid no mind. She glanced behind her shoulder slightly and quickly faced forward again.

Why me?

She tilted her head slightly and made a pointed glance to the left. Thankfully, Dalton seemed to get the hint, as he pulled his mask up, though still looking bewildered. He leaned in, and whispered,

“What’s happening?”

“The man who just walked in… under no circumstances can he see us.”

She watched him glance behind her quickly, then looking back at her.

“The really buff looking guy?”

She gave a quick nod while plotting out their escape plan.

Standing 20 feet away from the two was Jason. And he did not exactly appear to be in a good mood, she gathered, having noticed his posture, the one he held when he had been slighted. She wasn’t certain what had him so upset, and she wasn’t inclined to further anger him. Or get caught for that matter. She didn’t need anyone else meddling in her investigation. 

One was bad enough.

“When he’s distracted, we run. Got it?”

He gave a small thumbs up, before hastily putting his things in his backpack. They sat there for a few agonizing minutes, hunching over slightly so as to hopefully remain inconspicuous. She faced forward, not daring to look back in case Jason noticed her. Why he was there, she had no idea, but she wished he hadn’t shown up. She stared at Dalton, waiting for him to signal.

After another minute, he suddenly stands up and hastily walks to the back door. She gets up at the same time as him, speed walking out and pulling her mask up further.

“HEY! We don’t bus tables here! Come back right now!”

Now they were running, giving up on remaining inconspicuous, shoving the door open and emerging into the sharp cold of the night. Yelling after them was a disgruntled 20-something employee of Bat Burger, who obviously had not had a very good night. It wasn’t Daniella's problem, though, as she only picked up the pace, following behind Dalton and sprinting around the corner. Her heart beat even faster at the next voice in the night.  

“DANIELLA!”

She could hear the rage in Jason’s tone mixed with something else she didn’t recognize. She didn’t need to look. If it was meant to get her to turn back, it was the most ineffective measure he could try. She found herself feeling grateful for Dalton, as he had been the one to insist the car’s top be down. They both hopped over the sides, and he quickly unlocked the car and stepped on the gas pedal. For once, she didn’t chastise his driving as he made a very illegal U-Turn in the middle of the road, going in the very opposite direction of the restaurant.

With the cold nipping at her face, she felt her expression morphing into a breathless smile. She pulled down her face mask. Suddenly, she was laughing into the night. She threw her head back, staring up at the smoggy sky.

She felt eyes on her and turned her head to see Dalton, also maskless, looking at her elatedly.

“I’ve never heard you laugh like that!”

“I don’t believe I have either,”

She replies, finally quieting down. Still, a contentedness filled her, and she felt more free than she had in a while. She hadn’t done anything like that before. It was an adrenaline rush, like jumping off a building and grappling up at the last second.

“Who even was that dude?”

“He’s,”

She formed her response carefully. Jason may be her brother, but he was also legally dead. It would be more than confusing to explain to Dalton how Jason was alive without mentioning everything else messed up with her family.

“... A family friend.”

“Lemme guess, he’d snitch too?”

“Naturally.”

“How’d I know?”

His expression became suddenly serious, but his eyes thankfully were still on the road.

“Aren’t we, like, legally missing? Or at least you are, I don’t know if my dad would report me missing.”

“I don’t think the police have been informed yet. Santana didn’t bring it up yesterday, at the very least.”

“Yeah, then it’d be like GTA for us, four-star level.”

“... What?”

He shook his head and laughed while turning onto a street near the school. Normally she hated it when people made references to pop culture she didn’t know (it was mildly embarrassing to not know what Star Wars was, mostly because of the reaction of her family), but this time she didn’t think she’d even want to know whatever he was talking about.

* * * * * *

Breaking into the school itself was simple. She had a more than suspicious track record of doing it on quite a few occasions, so finding the window that never locks was child's play. It took a similar lack of effort to navigate through the halls where there weren’t any working cameras. The school was old and poorly maintained, the dean only ever bothering to keep up aesthetics rather than making sure the boiler worked.

The not-so-simple part was trying to find anything in his locker. 

It was honestly not surprising, she’d seen how (not) well-kept his apartment was.

“Huh, that’s where that went,”

Dalton says while holding a math textbook that seemed to have some sort of water damage. She was pacing back and forth behind him, bored out of her skull. She was still paranoid that Jason would come barreling around the corner and try to shoot her for running in the first place. Their relationship may have improved, but that didn’t mean he still didn't often get mad at her. And vice versa.

CRASH

She flinched and turned to look at Dalton, who was groaning on the ground under a pile of stuff. He raised a half-hearted thumbs up.

“I’m good!”

“You’re unbelievable sometimes…”

She picked up a folder off the ground, and started leafing through it. He started doing the same, and soon enough they had formed a pile of loose papers and folders that were nothing more than schoolwork and mindless drabble. 

They managed to get through everything with no luck.

“Rios, I thought you said they were here .”

“They were, I guess I might have left my folder somewhere…”

He lights up.

“English! I bet I left it there, that was my last class on Monday that I went to where I had to open my backpack.”

“Great,”

She replies unenthusiastically and starts shoving his things back into the locker. It probably would look suspicious if it had magically opened last night (though people would likely just assume it had burst from the sheer amount of things in it). He throws papers in with her, and in less than a minute they’re walking to Ms. Willis’s room.

The metal door is locked. She pulls out a hairpin from behind her ear and starts picking the lock. As sturdy as the door is, the lock itself is very ineffective. She opens it up in less than 15 seconds.

Dalton opens his mouth, clearly winding up to say something.

She cuts him off,

“Don’t you dare say it.”

“What are you talking about? I wasn’t gonna say anything…”

He replies, but his grin gives him away. She opens the door and pushes past him. Ms. Willis’s room is even eerie at night, the shadows bringing a whole new vibe to it. She pulls out her flashlight, lighting up the room marginally. Dalton walks in without a care in the world, whistling as he walks over to his desk. She continues to be on guard while he starts looking through the small bookshelf, a confused expression on his face. 

He looks up and says,

“Well, it’s not here.”

“Where else could it be? Was your father aware of this folder?”

“Nah, he isn’t. So I don’t really know where it could’ve gone.”

Daniella frowns, glancing around the room. She walks over to Ms. Willis’s desk and starts yanking open the drawers. They’re organized neatly, something she can appreciate. She kneels down to look through the lower cabinets. Dalton walks up to the desk as well, pulls open a file cabinet right next to it, and pokes through the compartments.

“What the hell…”

“What?”

She asks while standing up and walking over to him. In his hands is a folder, the one they’d been looking for, she assumes. He opens it and skims through the papers. 

She starts walking to the door, and says to him over her shoulder,

“If you’ve found it, we should go. We still need to go to your house.”

“I’ve found it, but it's missing a lot of shit.”

“And you’re certain they were in there in the first place? You’re not the best at organization.”

“Fair, but I’m sure they were in here, I looked through it on Monday. That’s why I brought it to school.”

He shrugs. 

“Whatever, they’re around. As long as my dad doesn’t have them, we’re cool.”

She watched him as he walked past her and out the door, one hand in his pocket and the other holding the folder loosely. She could understand the folder being on Ms. Willis’s desk, just another lost item having ended up there. But the fact it so clearly had been hidden, and the missing pages…

The Birkin bag too.

She didn’t like the woman.

Not one bit.

Chapter Text

She shivered slightly at the wind cutting into her skin while pulling her arms into her body. Gotham was cold in the day, and at night it was freezing (it didn’t help that she had spent her formative years in one of the hottest places on earth).

Though she wouldn’t voice it, she was glad they had eaten before, as she could think better on a full stomach. For example, how dead she was. Jason definitely had seen her, and while he hadn’t gotten too good of a look at the car (it was decidedly bland anyway), word would get back to the rest of her family. They liked jumping to conclusions more than anything, so she couldn’t imagine what genius theory Tim and her Father would cook up.

She glared at the road ahead of her. 

All she needed to do was stop Dalton's dad. Who was simply attempting to mass produce advanced weaponry to sell to anyone willing to pay. The severity of the situation was starting to get to her a little. She knew something was supposed to happen on Friday, she had overheard Mark say it himself. 

The decision her family would want her to make at this point would be to involve them. If the man did succeed, it could even end up involving other heroes whose villains had been sold the weapons. People could get hurt.

And that made it her chance. 

Friday would come, and she would have to figure out and stop whatever was going on by herself. Or as by herself as Dalton Rios would let her be. 

The temperature seemed to drop a degree, and she huffed and pulled her arms in even more while directing her glare to the boy next to her.

“Which ones are gone?”

“Hm?”

“The papers, which ones are missing from the folder?”

Dalton stared out onto the road, seemingly trying to remember. She grabbed the folder from the car’s center console and skimmed over the papers. She would rather have actually fallen off that roof than admit it, but the blueprints were expertly done, to where she would almost have believed it if he had told her he stole them from some sort of engineer. The only thing that prevented them from convincing her was that the majority of them were, frankly, useless.

Not one person had ever wanted a device that tells you what veneer shape you shouldn’t get depending on your head shape, but there it was, in all its glory, intricately detailed.

She raised an eyebrow at him, and he quickly glanced at the sheet she was holding, then let his eyes return to the road. She has noticed his driving had improved over the past few days, as fewer and fewer traffic laws were broken with each passing night.

“You like that one?”

“It is honestly shocking that someone could come up with something so utterly useless.”

“Aw, c’mon, it's funny!”

She kept flipping through the papers, not bothering to respond.

“If it gets made, I'll give you a tooth for one deal.”

She had to stop herself from punching him in the arm. Only because he was driving, and she wasn’t interested in getting in a car crash. That would be… special to explain to her family in the hospital.

Maybe it would be a good thing for her eldest brother to hate him. She couldn’t handle twice the amount of horrendous and ill-timed puns.

* * * * * *

She laughed quietly, in disbelief.

“Who’re those guys?”

Dalton motioned discreetly at the men loitering outside his apartment building. She wasn’t certain how to answer the question, because Daniella Wayne had never met Al and Mark. That was all Robin. It would be more than a little bit suspicious to tell him that she had stolen from the two before.

She decided to go with a half-truth.

“They work for your father. I saw them in the building we had been held in.”

He cringed at her words.

“God, I’m sorry about all of this. You shouldn’t have to deal with this because of me.”

“Stop it. If I didn’t want any part of this I can assure you I would have left a long time ago.”

She felt slightly guilty as his expression brightened with her reassurance. He shouldn’t be the one apologizing. Really, it was her who had dragged him in. It may have been his father, but it wasn’t as if it was Dalton’s fault the man was a criminal. On the other hand, it was most definitely her fault they were in this mess. She had been the one skulking around alleys next to buildings filled with people she knew for a fact would not be happy with her. They were on the run from not just his father, but her entire family. They were in mountains of danger, all because of her. Which meant all the more reason they were getting those blueprints.

She looked back at Dalton. He was still staring at the men while leaning against the side of an apartment building.

The car was parked a couple blocks away, and they were standing around scouting out his building. 

“My room’s attached to the fire escape. We can just go into the alley from the other side and climb up.”

She nodded and started walking down the block, him following close behind. In all honesty, she was getting sick of fire escapes. She kept having to use them lately and it was starting to get on her nerves. She needed a new way to get out, some sort of switch-up.

By the time the two made it over to the ladder, Dalton had gained an odd expression. She started climbing up, not bothering to wait for him. They were in a time crunch and had to worry about being caught by not just his father but vigilantes as well.

He clambered up, loudly catching up to her when she reached his slightly-open window. She raised an eyebrow as he put a hand on her shoulder to stop her from entering the room.

“Hey you gotta let me go in first, it’s messy and-”

She rolled her eyes and yanked the window open. Hopping through, ignoring his protests, she landed softly on the carpeted floor.

His room was small and very lived in for being inhabited for such a short time. The shelves were overflowing with clutter, though unlike his apartment it was not scrap metal but actually finished trinkets. The blue walls were covered in posters of musicians and games she had never heard of. She walked over to his desk in the corner, paying Dalton no mind as she heard him not quite as carefully climb through the window. 

The window shut behind him.

The desk had clearly been gone through, which wasn’t surprising but made her doubt they’d find his other blueprints.

Notebooks and ripped-out pages blanketed the surface like a tablecloth. Pens and pencils were peeking out underneath the mess, but what caught Daniella’s eye was the object on the lowest shelf, right above the desk, sitting in the very center staring her down.

“You kept this?”

She looked at Dalton as he shifted his weight from side to side, not looking at her as his cheeks turned increasingly more pink with every passing second.

“Well, uh, I mean…”

The origami rabbit was the same one she had given him all those weeks back. She felt her lips twitch upwards.

“I didn’t know you liked rabbits so much.”

“They’re cool,”

He says bashfully while looking away to his bed. She follows his gaze, her brows furrowing. There wasn’t anything special about it, just plain red sheets covering the twin-sized bed. He wasn’t looking at the blankets though, but the mattress they laid on. She glances back to the desk, and quickly shuffles through the papers. Mostly it was just homework, besides a few sketches for potential ideas. If anything important had been there, it was long gone now.

She abandons the disorganized desk and walks over to Dalton.

“What are you looking for?”

“This,” he replies while lifting the mattress to reveal a green folder with the words “Don’t Touch” plastered on in big black font. She can’t help but laugh. His desk had been practically turned upside down in search of blueprints, and yet their actual hiding spot had been left untouched.

“Not even a safe?”

“It’s smart if you think about it, you’d expect me to keep my best stuff in some secret locked-up place, but nope. Under the mattress,” he says smugly while holding up the folder.

“That is toddler logic.”

“Maybe you need to give toddlers more credit. Like, this worked. If you think a toddler could have done that too, then they’re pretty damn smart.”

“Fine, it was VERY clever of you to put weapon blueprints under your bed.”

“... Are you actually complimenting me or calling me a toddler?”

She shrugged in response, but her smile gave her away.

He playfully tossed a pillow at her, which she caught with (vigilante) ease. She put it back onto his bed as he opened the folder, flipping through the papers inside. 

They were exactly as he described, thoroughly detailing every step in creating weaponry. One showed how to effectively use light energy and transform it into electrical energy, therefore creating a sort of “laser gun”. She couldn’t help but get excited at the prospect. She of all people could appreciate weapons, and the many possible options had her envisioning their uses on the field.

The issue was that the way to create them was as accessible as being in the bedroom of a random teenage boy. He had been playing with fire by even creating them, let alone storing them in his own bedroom. If any of Gotham's villains had caught wind of it, well, he wouldn’t be running around with her, that's for sure. More likely he’d be living in some basement, forced to draw up plans for increasingly lethal weapons.

“Alright, that’s everything important. We should probably leave, my dad could be here any minute.”

Dalton pulled up on the window, but it didn’t budge. He frowned slightly, and pulled again, even harder this time. Still, it didn’t do so much as groan under the pressure.

“Rios. Why is the window stuck?”

He looked up with a frustrated expression, while still trying to pull the window up.

“This is an old building. The windows are probably older than both of us put together, they get stuck really easily.”

“Okay, and how do we get it un stuck?”

She could tell she was getting worked up. Every creak of the floorboards sounded like footsteps, not helping her stress.

Oh.

She grabbed his shoulder, much more harshly than when he had done the same.

“ Someones coming, ” she whispered.

His eyes widened as he whipped his head to the door. Footsteps echoed from a distant place in the apartment. 

“Here, closet, now,” he said while pushing her in, closing the door behind them softly.

The only sound in the small space was their breathing. It was dark, and they were squished together, her arms in front of her the only boundary between the two. She could feel her face warm up in embarrassment. Any other time she would have just opened the door and braved the situation, but it was vital that no matter what, the blueprints didn’t get in anyone's hands. She held her breath as she heard the bedroom door creak open, and heavy footsteps padding into the room.

The floorboards creaked, letting her know where the man was in the room. She figured he was by the desk, not just from where the floor sounded but from the groan he made sitting down in a chair, and the soft noise of papers being shuffled that followed. The man made a heavy sigh, and she heard papers being dropped back down onto the desk. She heard him stand up, and Dalton sucked in a breath as the footsteps became louder as they neared the little closet. 

Quickly, she felt for Dalton's hand and when she found it, yanked it down and put it on the door handle. Thankfully, he got the hint and she could feel him gripping it as tightly as he could. She let go of his hand and put her own over her mouth. The floor in front of the closet creaked, and she could hear breathing. She watched the door handle with bated breath as it jiggled slightly under Dalton's hold. 

“What the hell…”

She looked up at the ceiling (which she couldn't see in the dark) and waited as the door handle moved even more.

She flinched slightly at the loud thump of a boot hitting the door.

“Piece of crap house,” the man muttered, and she quietly let out a breath as he walked over to the bed, sitting down on it heavily. Her eyes had started to adjust to the lack of light, and now she could vaguely make out Dalton's face. He was staring in the general direction of where his father likely was, his lips pursed and brows furrowed. He glanced at her and made a thumbs-up with a grin.

“God, Dalt. How’d it end up like this again?”

Dalton's thumbs up dropped as his dad continued speaking.

“I’m going crazy. I mean, I’m talking to myself like you’re here.”

The man laughs, but it's hollow.

“It feels like ever since we left California, no, ever since she died, you’ve been so distant. I don’t know how to get my boy back. I used to read you stories at night and teach you how to fix things ‘cause you said you wanted to be me when you grew up. We wouldn’t be able to afford a Christmas tree but you’d still smile when all I could get you was some crappy toy from Goodwill.”

Daniella suddenly felt extremely awkward, caught in a one-sided heart-to-heart. She shouldn’t be listening to this, but plugging her ears might just make Dalton notice she was there. He was still watching the door as if he had x-ray vision. She didn’t want to ruin the moment for him. All she could do was listen and take in the man's words.

“I just… I don’t know what you want me to do. Every time I try to fix things I mess it up for us.”

He laughed again, this time wetly.

“Guess you’ve always been the fixer. And here I am pretending I’m all smart and stuff, while it’s really you. Don’t you get that, though? This isn’t for me, it's for you . Always.”

The man's voice becomes less wavering, growing stronger with each word.

“Your inventions are genius, and they’re gonna change the world. Just like I always told you. I need you to understand that, at least. I even got one right here with me. It’s incredible, you should see it.”

Suddenly, a ringing fills the room, interrupting the monologue. She listens to the man grumble before he answers the phone. She can vaguely make out a woman loudly complaining on the other end.

“Yes, Peggy. I’m coming right now,” he says in an exasperated tone as he stomps across the room, shutting the door behind him.

They wait 30 seconds in case he comes back, and they’re the longest 30 seconds of Daniella's life. She’s still pressed up against Dalton, and now without the looming threat of being discovered keeping her focus, she’s forced to notice how close they are. At least he doesn’t seem to notice, she can tell he’s still mulling over everything his dad had just said.

When she decides the coast is clear after they hear the slam of the front door closing, she throws the closet door open and tumbles out.

The first thing she notices upon getting out is the large, black gun lying on the bed. She picks it up, admiring the craftsmanship. Which wasn’t a good thing if they were being mass-produced, as higher quality meant bigger ensuing chaos. She looks over at Dalton, who is once again trying to open the window. He’s quiet, and she decides that if he wants to talk about it, he will. 

After a minute or two, he finally manages to open the window again, and motions to her to follow. She wasn’t certain if he had noticed the gun yet, and didn’t know how he would react to her taking it. When he exits through the window, she follows, attempting to hide the weapon from his view. He doesn’t look back, and she continues to follow him as they make their way back to the car.

He still hadn’t spoken as he put the key in the car's ignition. The gun was lying at her feet, and she glanced at him, uncertain of what to do. 

She was the absolute worst at comforting anyone, no matter the circumstance. Everyone else in her family could, and did so with ease every patrol. Meanwhile, she always seemed to make it worse with her stiff body language and poor wording. Tim had once compared her to a robot, and though she had brushed it off with an insult of her own, it had stung . She knew her social skills weren’t exactly good, but being compared to a machine made her irrationally upset. She couldn’t voice that though, as she feared letting anyone know how to hurt her would backfire someday. 

Dalton threw his arm onto the back of her seat as he backed out of the parking spot. It startled her from her thoughts, and she quickly glanced at his face again. His expression had softened slightly from when they had been in the apartment, but not by much.

“HEY! STOP!”

She turned her head to the yelling.

Al and Mark were running at them, their expressions furious. She was surprised Al could run, she would’ve thought his lungs had given out from all the cigarettes she’d seen him go through.

Dalton slammed his foot on the gas pedal, and she was thrown back in her seat as they accelerated. He was cursing as he turned the corner, skidding slightly. For once she was glad he was the one driving. He had a lot more experience driving dangerously than she could ever hope to have (she wasn’t even allowed to drive the Batmobile, even though she’d been able to drive for years ). The roads were practically empty as it was so late, nearing 1 AM, so thankfully less civilians were out.

BANG BANG BANG

This time she was the one cursing. She looked behind her to see two cars tearing after them. The convertible had bullet dents all over it now, lucky none of the shots had hit them. She guessed they weren’t aiming to kill but rather to hit the tires in order to stop the car.

“Oh god oh god oh god-” Dalton was muttering, the first time he had spoken words in the last 20 minutes. 

She gritted her teeth as they ran another light before promptly taking a hard left. The screeching of tires behind them made it clear it would take a lot more than that to lose the cars. She leaned down and felt around at her feet as she heard more gunshots ring out in the night. They may have been aiming for the tires, but with how much they were missing she was surprised they hadn’t hit one of their heads accidently yet.

She felt the gun and picked it up. It was heavy, and she turned in her seat while putting her eye on the scope.

“Is that one of my guns? Where the hell’d you get that!?”

“Your bed,” she answered, lining up her shot.

He whistled, and said in an admiring tone, “That thing is a beast, it’ll fritz out anything that needs even a bit of electricity. You just gotta get it inside the machine for it to work.”

“So it's perfect for taking out a car.”

She let herself sink into instinct. She hadn’t been allowed to use a gun in a while, and besides the few times Jason had let her borrow one of his in an emergency (begrudgingly), she hadn’t really touched one. But she had been brought up living in the League of Assassins, and the muscle memory of putting a gun together and aiming with a scope never left.

Breathing out, she stuck her tongue out slightly as she angled the gun to the grilles of the car. Ignoring the continuous popping of gunshots, she pulled the trigger.

Immediately after, a beam shot out and struck exactly where she had aimed. The car’s lights turned off and it kept moving, but she could tell it was slowing down with a lack of force keeping it going. She grinned and aimed the gun at the next car.

BANG

“SHIT!”

Her ears were ringing, but she squared her jaw and aimed and fired fast, and the second car went out too. Dalton turned another corner and the cars speeded by behind them, unable to steer. Pulling her face away from the gun's scope, she looked at Dalton who was staring at a spot right by her head with wide eyes. Lodged in the seat's headrest was a .22 magnum bullet. It was pure luck there wasn’t a hole in her head right now.

“Jesus Christ… are you okay? That was- insane, oh my god,” Dalton rambles while looking at her, clearly concerned.

“Just keep driving, they’re gonna be looking for us.”

He suddenly raised an eyebrow at her.

“Where the hell did you learn to shoot like that?”

“My father enjoys hunting, and sometimes I join him. I’ve always just had a good eye.”

“Bullshit. I know for a fact you’re vegetarian and have like a million pets. No way you would even let your dad go hunting.”

She sighed and put the gun by her feet again. Dalton still kept glancing at her expectantly, once again driving with only one hand on the wheel.

“You’ve read the articles before, I imagine. About my upbringing?”

He nods slowly. All he would know is her mother wasn’t exactly the best person, and that was enough.

“I grew up being expected to be the best at everything. I practiced harder than anyone to master every skill, which included riflery. At eight I was able to hit any moving target with ease.”

“Damn, that’s like… insanely impressive. You must’ve had everybody doting over you.”

She laughed at his words.

“Not quite. My grandfather is a very… Important man. He always wanted a grandson, to carry on his legacy, so when he found out I was a girl, he was more than disappointed. I could’ve conquered the world and he still wouldn’t have had anything good to say.”

He frowned, and grabbed her hand with his free one, surprising her.

“Well, fuck him. You’re the biggest badass I know, he doesn’t know crap.”

It was the most crass and blunt way she had ever heard someone refer to Ras Al Ghul. And she had met Jason Todd. For her, the fact Dalton had insulted him not simply for a hatred from having personally known the man but specifically for what he had done to her, was enough to make her throat catch. 

It was so, so small . And yet she has never felt so seen. So validated. 

And by someone not even part of her family, a boy who didn’t even know her. The past and present that felt all-consuming.

“... It’s still suspicious though. Like, even I’M starting to think you’re actually in a gang.”

She let go of his hand and smacked him on his shoulder, fighting a smile. He was laughing, the somber mood he had been in before had dissipated, being replaced by his usual demeanor of unbridled cheeriness.

Grinning at him, she didn’t pay attention to her surroundings, too caught up in the moment.

She didn’t even notice the flash of light breaking the uniformity of the dark.

* * * * * *

“I swear to god it was her . Look at the damn cameras or something, I don’t care, but she was there and alive.”

“And you’re SURE??”

“I wouldn’t be calling if I wasn’t,” Jason growled, frustrated. 

He knew Dick was stressed, but he was acting like he was the only one who had to see his little sister get kidnapped right in front of his eyes.

“Why would she be in a BATBURGER of all places?”

“No clue, she and Uriah Heep ran out, obviously because they saw me.”

“... Uriah?”

“David Copperfield? Written by Charles Dickens?”

“Never read it.”

Jason groaned. 

How am I the only person who's ever picked up a book around here?

It was like Dick was trying to annoy Jason, and it definitely was working.

He chose to just keep talking, not even wanting to bother asking how the guy hadn’t read any of the classics.

“I just don’t understand it, why would she run too? She’s stubborn enough to not ask for help but even she would at this point, you’d think anyway.”

“... We’ve been theorizing, and it seems like he has some sort of blackmail on her. Why else would she go along with him?”

“Like Bat-related blackmail?”

“It would make sense.”

Jason grimaced and kicked a rock as he trudged down the street. He had been searching the area for the past couple of hours, hoping to find Daniella. The sun had even started to rise. But he’d wasted his time, and after passing the same street a third time he figured he should probably tell everyone else about what he saw. He liked working by himself, but this kind of situation needed more than just him on it.

His phone kept dinging, Roy was texting him about something , and while usually he tried to answer him as quickly as possible, now was not the time.

“I’m gonna tell everyone else what you told me, and check the cameras or something.“

“I’ll keep looking.”

Jason could hear Dicks smile in his voice.

“Thanks, Little Wing.”

He hung up, and Jason dragged a hand over his face. 

While he said he would keep searching, and he definitely would, he was tired. The kind of tired three nights of practically nonexistent sleep makes. His phone kept buzzing in his hand, and he glared at it. He moved to put it on silent until suddenly it started ringing again with Roy’s contact taking up the screen.

He relented, and accepted the call, lifting the phone to his ear.

“What?”

“Check your texts, I’ve been messaging you for the past 10 minutes. You’re gonna wanna see this.”

Jason opened his messages and scrolled past about 30 texts telling him to open his phone.

Finally, he reached a link to a news article.

He nearly dropped his phone at the title.

“What the hell…”

* * * * * *

Gotham's New Bonnie and Clyde?

-CLICK HERE FOR INSIDER SCOOP-

TWO PERSONAL SOURCES

[Image transcript: Daniella Wayne seated in a convertible car with multiple bullet holes in it, laughing with another passenger, identified as Dalton Rios]

Chapter Text

Gotham’s New Bonnie and Clyde?

Vicki Vale

Last night was one of the quietest in Gotham this year, with all crime rates at their lowest since April 16th. While many Gothamites enjoyed a peaceful respite from the usual, some instead chose to take advantage of the calm and cause chaos.

Daniella Wayne, daughter of billionaire Bruce Wayne, was spotted on Orenda Avenue with classmate Dalton Rios at 2:04 A.M. In the image above, Wayne can be seen seated in the passenger seat while Rios drives the vehicle. Interestingly, Rios is not yet 16, meaning their nighttime activity is illegal without taking into consideration public disturbance laws. The car they were driving in notably had multiple bullet holes in it. 

Jane Chance, a nearby resident, recounted the scene she had seen moments before when the image was taken.

“I was woken up by loud popping [gunshots], which isn’t unusual for the area. What was unusual was, when I peeked through my curtains, I saw a full-on car chase zooming by,” said Chance.

Other witnesses to the scene backed Chance’s story, adding one of the cars involved was a black convertible, eerily similar to the one Wayne had been spotted in minutes later. Police were called to the scene as two cars had crashed into Bank of Helshman, located on Aimdus Street, a few blocks away from Orenda Avenue. 

The cars both seemingly had malfunctioned, leading investigators to speculate the same weapon had been used for both vehicles. Inside the cars were multiple crates of illegal substances, and even more worrying, many firearms were found as well.

Any person who had been operating any of the vehicles had been long gone by the time law enforcement had arrived. On the inside of both of the cars was a symbol of a white sun, the same as the rising criminal organization known as The Ivories.

The involvement of Wayne and Rios is unknown at the moment, but there is rising suspicion regarding their part in the scene. They have even been spotted together at earlier times this week, as classmate Mirabella Santana states.

“They were buying stuff at Target together, during school hours. I knew they were partners for the [class] project, but I’m pretty sure they had finished it the day before. Daniella admitted to me that her dad didn’t know where she was. I haven’t seen either of them in school since then,” said Santana.

From inside sources at Gotham High, reportedly neither Wayne nor Rios has attended school since Monday, September 25th. Questions have been raised on what the two have been up to, and if they could be classified as missing persons. Even more queries arise on the nature of the two's relationship. 

Wayne is known for being quick-tempered, as the Gazette has reported on the past of her physical altercations at her schools and her verbal arguments with others at galas thrown by her family.

As Wayne and Rios’s English teacher, Margaret Willis puts their relationship,

“The two are similar, argumentative, and unbothered by rules or punishment. I partnered them for a project as I would rather contain that behavior in one area. I never imagined they would get along so well, especially not to the point they would skip schooling together.”

Where Wayne and Rios currently are is unknown, but many have rumored in the past months of Daniella Wayne’s possible involvement in local crime. While it is all speculative, theories have only grown in volume with Wayne's recent actions.

“The girl likes attention is what I’ve garnered, and whether it's positive or negative, well, I don’t believe that is important to her,” said Willis.

* * * * * *

Tim put the article down and slowly placed his hands on his head. He groaned, trying not to pull his hair out. His sister goes missing, no one knows where she is for days, and suddenly she’s plastered on the front page of the Gotham Gazette. They had all been trying to keep it on the down-low, as they had assumed if she was being blackmailed, it might not end well to have the blackmailer (no way is Tim calling the guy by his name) get angry at her over having an arrest warrant out for him.

He looks up and watches everyone's reactions. Dick is, unsurprisingly, visibly stressed, pacing and holding the paper with tight hands. Steph and Cass are both reading the article on the computer, and he can’t see their faces with their backs to him, but their postures are tense. Jason had been the one to alert them of the article and was probably at some safehouse asleep seeing as he wasn’t there and how exhausted he had sounded on the phone. 

Bruce made a noise of dissatisfaction over his copy. It was pretty damning, in Tims's opinion the article didn’t seem to lean more unbiased than not. If he had read it with no knowledge of the situation, he’d have assumed Daniella really was some sort of criminal. Honestly, he just wanted to ask Vicki Vale how she had gotten so much information they hadn't. To be fair, if they had gone around asking for Daniella’s whereabouts, it definitely would have raised some alarms over her safety.

The article still frustrated him.

“B, did you piss off Vicki or something?”

Bruce glared at Tim, frowning while Tim raised an unimpressed eyebrow. 

“Vicki is a grown woman and a reporter, she is doing her job. I don’t believe she would let personal opinion cloud her writing.”

“So you totally did something to piss her off, and she knew you wouldn't sue for defamation if she wrote anything about you and the people related to you,” Steph said, while crossing her arms, turning in the computer chair. He was glad he was getting backed up here because he still hated arguing with Bruce like Tim was still his Robin. The man’s whole aura was resembling much more Batman than Bruce Wayne currently, which didn’t help Tim’s unease.

“... She and I got into a heated debate the last time I saw her. It’s possible she is still upset over it.”

Tim rolled his eyes. Dick stopped his pacing and glared at Bruce.

Oh boy

“We wouldn’t even be in this mess if you would have just talked with her instead of getting mad like always,” Dick snapped. Tim was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about Vicki, but honestly, it was applicable to both situations. 

“Dick, this is not the time to-”

“When is it the time, then? Because it seems like it's never the right time for you. This sure as hell didn’t happen when it should’ve.”

“...”

“You don’t even know how to deal with your own issues, why do you think you can deal with hers?”

“Let me remind you who her father is, Dick,” Bruce growled. The room was suddenly totally silent, and Dick started to almost shake in anger.

“And let me remind you who she actually goes to to talk,” Dick replied icily.

Tim and Steph made eye contact after Dick’s biting words, and Steph signed to him, “This isn’t gonna end well”. He looked over at Dick and Bruce again and silently agreed with her assessment. They were practically circling each other at this point, like two predators. 

Cass took her eyes off the computer screen and frowned at the two in the middle of the room. She walked over to them right before they both opened their mouths, ready to fight once again.

“Stop. Arguing is not helpful. We need to use the information to find Daniella.”

The two looked down at her, seemingly suddenly realizing they weren’t the only ones in the cave. They both glanced at Tim and Steph, who were giving them equally unimpressed looks. Dick huffed, and stepped back, walking over to the batcomputer. Bruce stood in the same spot stoically, but he didn’t try to continue the argument.

Tim made his way over to where Steph was seated at the Batcomputer. He waited for them to appear a little less angry, and highlighted the names in the article on the computer screen.

“This gang got brought up again, The Ivories. I don’t know why, but if they were chasing after Daniella, that means she had to have done something to anger them. Wasn’t she watching them for a bit? Did anyone ever take over after she… had to stop.”

Silence followed, and Tim sighed. He scrolled down the page.

“Well, they’re involved somehow. I’ll look over all the recent information about them, and see if anything comes up.”

He paused, waiting for anyone to interject, but no response. He decided to change the subject slightly.

“We know she went to a Target with him, but not which one. This girl, Mirabella, said she saw them there. I say we try to talk to her, see if she knows anything.”

Bruce nodded slowly, staring at the bright screen. It was early, around 6:30 in the morning, and Tim kept subconsciously raising his hand up to drink coffee that wasn’t there. He really needed to convince Alfred to let him put a coffee maker in the Batcave.

“I’m pretty sure Dani’s brought that girl up to me before.”

Tim looked up from the screen at Dick, who was furrowing his brow.

“And? What did she say?”

“She called her ‘the most irritating and discourteous person she has ever met’. So that’s a great start for us.”

“I don’t know how we can even approach her without it being creepy or giving away the fact we don’t know where Daniella is.”

Steph pointed at the other name mentioned in the article.

“Okay, what about this lady? Margaret Willis, Dani’s English teacher. She even knows that Dalton guy.”

“And how do we talk to her without it being obvious that Daniella is missing?” Tim asked her.

“Well, obviously Bruce has to be the one to do it. He’s the only one who would have a normal reason to talk to her anyway.”

Tim glanced at the man as she spoke, gauging his reaction. He was usually always unemotional, and it seemed after his angry outburst he had dialed up the impassiveness to 11. 

“I will call her while at work.”

“ Are you kidding me? Your daughter is missing, last seen in a car covered in bullet holes with some guy you've never met, and you’re going to work ?”

“Dick. What do you think will happen if I don’t go to work today? The press will speculate and it won’t help anything. The best thing we can do right now is pretend everything is normal and go about our days while looking for her at night and when the opportunity arises.”

It seems like all Dick wants is to let out his frustration by taking it out on Bruce, but for once the man doesn’t give in to their usual fighting in situations like this. Tim’s slightly impressed by his resolve. He knows if someone was trying to get into a fight so obviously like that to him, he’d give in easily.

Dick sighs and shoves his hands into his jeans pockets. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right… I just hate the idea of not knowing who Daniella is with or even just where she is ,” he stares at the ground angrily, ”and all I do know about the guy is that he’s been arrested before. Which isn’t exactly comforting. ”

Bruce paused at his words and looked at Dick, concern seeping into his face.

“I wasn’t made aware of that piece of information,” he says with an accusatory look.

Dick looks slightly surprised.

“Didn’t Tim tell you?”

He turns to Tim for confirmation, but he just swears and gains a sheepish expression. Bruce narrows his eyes, clearly waiting for Tim to speak.

“I forgot to mention it to you, I remember I told Dick and Steph because they were there when I found it- Damn it, I’ve been so stressed out I can’t even do simple things…”

“What's this about him having been arrested? For what?”

“I had been poking around Daniella’s school records, and I checked Dalton’s too. It mentioned he’d been arrested before, but he wasn’t jailed. Just put on probation for a while, some community service. I don’t know what he did though, it's like the records have been scrubbed from the internet. Even in the places where it should be, nothing.”

Bruce frowned, and stared off into the distance, lost in thought. Tim turned to the computer and read through the article again before Bruce spoke.

“Even with an arrest record, he got into Gotham High? That doesn’t add up.”

Tim considered the statement. His insomnia was getting to him, how did he not even think about that?

“Yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t add up at all . Did he pay off the dean or something?”

Steph piped up, “Haven’t we already said he’s probably not very rich? No way he could afford to do that.”

“Maybe he got in on grades?” Dick said slowly, tilting his head as he brainstormed.

“That’s possible. Still, you’d think the whole criminal record would scare off the school, I mean from what I remember from my time there, they’re not really interested in anyone who can’t line their pockets. Having some kid there that's poor and potentially will get in trouble? That's a no-go,” Tim countered.

Dick frowned and tapped his fingers on the desk. He suddenly turned and started walking away from the group.

“Where’re you going?” Steph called out.

He turned his head, and replied over his shoulder, “I need to drive around, clear my head or something. I’ll see you guys later.”

* * * * * *

“Uh, Daniella?”

“What?” She replied passively while deliberating over which protein bar she would purchase. She hadn’t been inside a convenience store in a long time, and seeing all of the unhealthy options made her remember why. 

A piece of paper was shoved in her face, and she quickly glared up at the person showing her it.

“What is this?”

“Look,” Dalton said while pointing to the front cover.

She sucked in a breath when she finally looked at it. Right on the front, in full color, was she and Dalton looking like they just went on some sort of joyride. Not a very legal one from the bullet holes. She had promised she’d buy him a new car by the end of this, but he’d just said he only wanted his current car repaired, not replaced. Ridiculously sentimental, but she didn’t care to argue over it.

“Man, they could have at least got a good angle. I look insane.”

“I imagine that was the goal, Rios,” Daniella responded while flipping to the page with the article and reading. Her frown deepened with every sentence finished. It would definitely qualify as libel, she was surprised it was even allowed to go to print. The bias was visible in the writing. She guessed that since Vicki Vale had been the author, it had been assumed her connection to Daniella’s father would stop any legal action. Which was likely true, she didn’t see her father chasing this. After all, it had some merit to it.

This made things even messier for them. Ignoring how her family was probably reacting, the article had name-dropped The Ivories. Meaning the whole group was probably even more upset. Dalton's dad definitely would know they had been in his apartment, after all his weapon was suddenly missing and one suspiciously similar had been used by the two in a car chase right by the weapon's last known location. If that didn’t make it obvious, she didn’t know what would.

“Of course the one time we lost our hoods and sunglasses the paparazzi showed up,” Dalton grumbled, while grabbing a bag of chips, “I swear to god they have some sort of sixth sense.”

“This is a mess.”

“What’s wrong with Ms. Willis anyway, she totally dissed us. I already know Mirabella’s just a jerk, but you’d think our own teacher would be more sympathetic or something.”

“We already knew she disliked us, I don’t know why this is a shock to you. Besides,” she said while bringing her items to the cashier, “we stole back from her anyway. She’s probably even more upset at us.”

“How would she even notice that though?”

She motioned for him to hand her his items while replying, “Some of the blueprints were missing you said. Do you really believe that she never even looked through the folder?”

“She probably reported me to someone for trying to make deadly weapons.”

“No, I think she’s trying to hide their existence. She clearly didn’t mention them to anyone, or it would have been mentioned in the article. She likely took some of the blueprints for herself.”

Dalton furrowed his brows as she swiped her credit card.

“Why would she need them though? She’s a high school English teacher, what would the motive even be?”

She picked up the items, slipped them into a plastic bag, and started walking to the door. His question was very valid; what did a high school English teacher need with any of this anyway? Even she didn’t have an answer for that. 

“I have no clue what she might use them for, all I know is it’s suspicious.”

“You know what we can do? Actually check through the folder.”

“I thought you said you had already done that,” she said accusingly.

He was unfazed as he replied, “Nope. Didn’t so much as touch it, to be honest.”

“What else could you have possibly been doing but looking through it, we’ve had literal hours of daylight to wait through.”

“I get distracted easily, it's not my fault.”

She rolled her eyes, exasperated as she turned the corner. The store was thankfully only a block from the apartment. The only reason they had been there was because Dalton had practically shoved her out the door, claiming he needed some fresh air. She didn’t think walking for two minutes counted as ‘fresh air’, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. She would already have been paranoid walking that short distance before, and now that everyone was on the lookout for them, it had increased tenfold.

It felt like every newspaper sitting on a doorstep was mocking her.

* * * * * *

Bruce stared at his computer screen as he scrolled through the pages of Gotham High’s website. Similarly to the school, it was outdated. Finding the teachers' pages was more difficult than it should have been, and would have deterred a less persistent parent. But he was used to patience, and after 10 minutes managed to pull up Margaret Willis’s profile. 

It was mundane information, mentioning only the woman's current role at the school and the college she had graduated from. He was more interested in the links to her email and phone number at the bottom. It was 9:30 on a Thursday, so he assumed she must be at her job as he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed the number.

It rang three times before it went through.

“Hello?” An annoyed voice drawled into his ear.

“Hello, is this Ms. Willis of Gotham High?”

“That would be me, yes. Who is this?”

“Bruce Wayne, father of your current student, Daniella Wayne.”

The voice on the other end became cold as she said, “Ah. The Waynes.”

“Yes. As I’m sure you’re aware Daniella’s absences have been marked as excused as of now, so I am wondering why you told the Gazette she was ‘skipping’, as you put it.”

She laughed.

“That was my impression at the time. I’m sure you read the article in its entirety. My other student, Mirabella, had seen the two out during school hours. Daniella herself had informed her that you, her father, weren’t aware of her whereabouts. Anyone would make a similar assumption in the circumstances.”

“And the girl, Mirabella, was she not avoiding her schooling as well?”

“Well, her parents had called her out excused before she failed to show up at school. It isn’t my business what students use their excused absences for.”

Bruce frowned as she spoke. The woman was not very agreeable, he doubted much would come out of this.

“... I was calling to ask about one of your students who Daniella was partnered with. Does the name ‘Dalton Rios’ ring any bells?”

“Mr. Wayne, I don’t believe I’m hearing this right. Are you asking me to disclose confidential information about a student to you?”

He sighed.

“Please, I’m calling as a parent, I want to at least know your honest opinion on the boy.”

“Then read the article. My statement there is all I can say on the matter. I hope you find it informative, I have a class to teach. Good day,” she said while hanging up.

Bruce sat there with the phone still to his ear, curling his fist around it tighter. He wanted to punch something, like his office walls. But he knew if he did that it would be noticed, and it wouldn’t be very helpful for the current situation or keeping his persona as Bruce Wayne. So he refrained from changing his walls and instead chose to slump in his chair.

All he knew was what he’d do. 

His simple plan.

* * * * * *

Daniella takes half the stack of papers from the folder, and Dalton takes the other. She makes him clear off the table beforehand, which he does with only mild complaining, and soon enough she is combing every bit of each paper. Some are more complete than others, ranging from sketches to complete works to lost pieces of homework. It's almost meditative as it lets her keep her mind off other things, solely focused on trying to sort through them. They make small piles, one for blueprints, one for papers that still are important, and the last for junk. She slips the veneer invention into the junk pile when he isn’t looking.

Soon enough she’s at the last paper. She only skims over it and is about to put it into the junk pile when Dalton grabs her wrist.

“Wait,” he says while taking the paper from her grasp. She watches as he focuses on small writing in the corner of the paper. 

“16… Bassett Street. Is that an address?”

“Let me see that,” she says while he passes her the paper. Sure enough, in the spot where her thumb had covered it, is writing.

She taps her fingers on the table as she puts it down, looking up at Dalton.

“Yes, that is an address. It’s in the East End. And you were not the one to write this?”

“I mean I didn’t even know it was a place, so yeah, not me.”

“Why would she write an address on a random piece of paper? This is just history homework.”

He shrugged while eating a chip.

“No idea. It's something though, right?”

She nodded slowly, but her expression remained uncertain. He was way too unquestioning about the whole thing. She remained wary, as it was too perfect. She tapped on the paper, right on the address.

“Let’s scope this out tonight.”

He looked up hopefully.

“So we drive?”

“Are you kidding me? Everyone will be looking out for your exact car. No driving.”

He gave her a confused look.

“Then how do we get to the place? Do you know where it is?”

“I know this city like the back of my hand. As for how we’ll get there, well,” she pointed at his shoes, haphazardly lying in the hall, “we can do it as the vigilantes do it. You enjoy parkour, right Rios?”

She couldn't stop herself from laughing at his unbelieving expression.

* * * * * *

He wasn’t as bad at running on rooftops as his reaction would have made her think. She had seen him do it before when they were running away from the warehouse, and he hadn’t fallen off at the very least. That was better than most, though that didn’t mean his abilities were impressing her.

She pulled herself up onto another rooftop and looked behind her to see him cursing as he almost tripped over a pipe.

“Are we close?” He asked as he finally managed to join her on the roof.

“Look,” she replied while pointing to a warehouse in front of her. It was plain on the outside, but from all the seedy characters hanging outside it and the cars very similar to the ones that had chased them before, it was definitely what she had assumed it would be. Everything was hard to see in the dark of the night, but it was all obvious. 

“What the hell. So our teacher knows my dad? And still hates me?”

“Shocking.”

“Hey, that's just uncalled for,” he said but he was still grinning. She sat down on the roof, and he joined her on the ground as they watched down over the scene below. Cars were being unloaded, with crates being carried into the warehouse. She narrowed her eyes when she spotted Mark’s bald head sticking out like a sore thumb in the crowd below.

“Isn’t that one of the guys we saw yesterday?”

“Yes, the one yelling at everyone?”

“Yeah, the ugly guy.”

Now she was the one grinning. She continued to watch as Mark yelled some more before stomping over to a car and hopping in. It tore off into the night as the other men kept working.

She turned to look at Dalton in the night.

“So what do you say?”

“What?”

“I was right. Our teacher was involved. I have been suspicious of her since this whole thing started.”

He sighed good-naturedly.

“Should’ve known from the start. You're always right, it's kinda creepy.”

“Believe me now then?”

“Well, I mean I have to.”

She frowned, slightly confused.

“What do you mean?”

He smiled, and looked up from the sight below, meeting her eyes. She held her breath.

“Cause I trust you, obviously.”

* * * * * *

“Wait for me to pick you up, Bella, it’ll only be ten minutes.’ Yeah right.”

Mirabella huffed as she walked down the street, in the pitch black of the night. She’d been hanging out with her friends, they went out to a nice restaurant and then saw a late movie. Everyone else had been picked up, and she was the only one left. She had been offered rides, but she had brushed them off saying her mom was almost there.

She had been ‘almost there’ for the past thirty minutes. 

Mirabella had walked the streets of Gotham many times before. It was a nice neighborhood anyway, so she wasn’t concerned about any crimes. If there were to be any criminals popping out, she trusted one of the local vigilantes would pop up. Hopefully, it would be Robin, she had been Mirabella's favorite hero for a while. Ever since she had saved her father from being killed by the Joker, Robin had cemented her position as Mirabella’s favorite.

A man whistling a tune startled her from her thoughts.

She glanced behind her to see a man holding a cigarette in his fingers walking uncomfortably close to her. She hastened her pace, glancing behind her again. The man sped up, and he took a drag from it as she grabbed her phone. She kept her head down and pulled up her mom's contact, ready to call it when a rough hand grabbed the device from her grip.

“What-”

She stared up in horror as a man with a large beard raised an eyebrow at her as he held her phone. As she sputtered in fear, she started walking backward slowly. She was stopped as she bumped into something behind her, and when she glanced back her eyes widened further.

“Boo,” the man said with a grin.

Opening her mouth to scream, it was quickly covered by a hand. She fought against his hold, making muffled noises as she punched and kicked. It was no use, as the man's grip on her only tight end.

“Damn I hate teenagers,” the bearded man in front of her grumbled as he pulled out a syringe. She struggled further as he walked towards her, and in the process ripped her phone keychain off. She kicked it away from her as the man's hold tightened more as her arm was brought up.

“Night kid,” the man holding her said as the other injected her with some sort of substance.

Her vision turned black.

Chapter Text

Her dreams hadn’t been very normal as of late.

Instead of fantasies of becoming Batman or proving her place as Robin, they depict her running around rooftops with someone else. Every time she tries to look at the other person, they disappear from view. They’re ungraceful as well, so she knows it isn’t her family.

She had another of those dreams the night before, as she had been having the past few days.

She opens her eyes and continues to lie on the bed for a few minutes, contemplating every decision she’s made in the past few weeks. Even when she was trying to sleep in, her body never let her. Which meant she was awake at exactly 6:30 AM. In normal circumstances, she would do her morning workout. Seeing as the whole city was keeping an eye out for her, she decided that wasn’t a possibility today. It hadn’t been for the past few days, anyway, so it wasn’t exactly novel.

After a solid 15 minutes of no movement, she slowly gets up, peeling herself off the bed. She changes into a fresh pair of jeans and a green long-sleeve shirt (which will soon be covered by a hoodie), grateful they had managed to make the trip to Target before everything went downhill. Even if said trip had led to a less-than-flattering article being written about them. She had to focus on the positives . Which was difficult when it was becoming so rare for things to go right for her.

It was finally Friday, everything before had just been leading up to that night. And she didn’t exactly have much to go off on. All she knew was that it was something involving Friday and “big money”. She wished Mark had just been a tad more descriptive when he had been bragging to his friends. She was wishing for a lot of things lately.

It could easily be assumed that seeing as Mark worked for Dalton's father, the whole thing was therefore likely connected. And from the activity from yesterday at the warehouse, she guessed it was happening there. If it wasn’t, well, they wouldn’t have much hope of stopping much of anything.

She shook her head, scolding herself for even daring to consider failure. Failure wasn’t an option for her. 

It hadn’t been for a long time.

Stepping over the many boxes that still littered the small bedroom floor, she made her way to the door. With her hand on the doorknob, she hesitated slightly to open it. She didn’t want to risk waking her current roommate. But if that was a necessary casualty, then so be it, and her hand tightens on the knob as she pulls it open.

She walks through the doorway and is immediately greeted by a very much not-asleep Dalton, fiddling with the gun from two nights prior. They had brought it inside, guessing that would be smarter than leaving it in the car. Which was parked a ways from the apartment, covered in a gray tarp. They’d be lucky if it didn't get stolen.

He looks up at her with wide eyes when the floor creaks under her (she was trying to avoid sneaking up on him because that’s what “normal people” do), and he’s slightly startled. The surprise quickly wears off as a bright expression replaces it.

“Hey, morning! What’re you doing up so early?”

She casually strolls over to the kitchen, replying, “I always get up at this hour. You haven’t been awake before me until now, so you wouldn't have been aware.”

“Huh. Do you ever get good sleep? We’ve been up pretty late these past few days. You kinda seem used to doing that, though.”

“You have no idea,” she says, amused. While he may assume she’s referring to all-nighters for pursuing some hobby, or something of the sort, her altered sleep schedule was on account of less usual reasons. 

Of course, he wasn’t entirely wrong in his assumption. Seeing as she wasn’t even supposed to be Robin the past few weeks, the nights she had been staying up were more out of spite. If she couldn’t be out, she would still be awake. And whether that meant drawing or considering informing others of the letter she had stolen, that wasn’t important.

She reaches into the fruit container (made of an old shoe box lined with paper towels) and grabs two apples. She walks back into the cramped living room, taking a bite from one.

“Catch,” she says as she tosses Dalton the other apple, with maybe a little too much force. 

Surprisingly, he manages to catch it, though nearly dropping the gun in the process. 

“Thanks,” he replies while setting it on the couch's armrest as he continues to inspect the weapon. He’d been obsessing over it ever since it had entered the apartment. If she didn’t know better, she’d suspect he was now more tempted by his father’s offer to join. But she’d seen his disgusted expression when the man had said it in the first place, so the idea never seriously crossed her mind.

They’re quiet for a few minutes, both intermittently taking bites from their apples. But unlike the many dinners she’d attended with her father, the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. There are no words on the tip of her tongue she can’t utter, nor tightness in the air as she’s watched, every movement she makes an admittance to something she never even realized she thought. It’s silent. But that didn’t mean there was a vacancy of feeling as well.

It was an odd sensation. Similar to the comfort her eldest brother brought into every room, but somehow worlds apart.

She’s brought back from her thoughts as Dalton suddenly speaks.

“I made us these… well, they’re basically like walkie-talkies,” he says while handing her a small, black piece of plastic.

She inspected it and was quietly impressed (which she was not going to admit) as he described it.

“Just put it in your ear and it’ll mold to the canal. It can pick up your voice, and anyone in hearing range. Mute your voice by tapping it twice, and mute the other person with three taps. To turn it off, all you have to do is tap it five times, and it’ll de-mold, so it’s easy to take out. It’ll be hard for anyone to notice it in your ear as well.”

“Is this what you’ve been working on?”

He smiles.

“Yeah. I had to rework an old design, but it was pretty quick. Cool, right?”

She crossed her arms, but when he offered her the bud, stuck her hand out to take it. He gave her a knowing look, which she decided to ignore as she pocketed the device. It’d come in handy at some point if she needed to give orders. Or if one of them got kidnapped because that seemed to keep happening lately.

“What’s the game plan for tonight, anyway? Before this we’ve had goals, but now? Nada,” he says while stretching his arms.

“... There is something I have been omitting.”

He lifts his head, and looks at her, waiting. 

She speaks slowly, letting the half-truth form.

“I didn’t think much of it at the time, but do you remember when we were driving around Gotham to film that video?”

“I forgot about that stupid thing… Do you think she’ll give us half credit if we turn it in late?”

She ignored him as she continued,  “A few men were standing outside your apartment. One of them happened to be speaking quite loudly, so much so that I was able to listen in. He had been bragging about how he was going to make money by Friday. That man just so happens to be the same as the bald man who works for your father.”

“Why’d you only tell me now?”

“I wasn’t certain if it was the same man, and I didn’t want to cause unnecessary stress if I was wrong.”

He nodded slowly, seemingly believing her. She kept her poker face, not giving away the fact there was certainly more to the story. His face became more confused though, and she could tell he still had questions. He opened his mouth to speak, and she blurted out her own question, one that had been in the back of her mind for a long time (long as in the past few days) to stop him.

“How do you even own this apartment? Minors aren’t legally allowed to own them. I understand how the money came from your father, but he clearly isn’t aware of this place as he hasn’t shown up.”

His expression becomes flustered, clearly not expecting the question. He avoids her gaze, his own queries pushed aside.

“Well… legally, no.”

“... And what does that mean?”

“Legally, Dalton Rios doesn’t own this apartment. Arthur Pierce lives here.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“And I’m guessing Arthur Pierce cannot be found?”

“Look, I may illegally rent this place, but I’m not making up all that government crap. That’d take too long. Arthur is a real guy, he’s friends with my dad actually. The dude will never know though, he doesn’t even have a phone. I think he’s on the run anyway, so it’s no biggie.”

“So you’re using a criminal’s information to rent this place. And somehow, no one will ever show up to arrest Arthur Pierce and find you here instead?”

He laughs, “It’s Gotham. I don’t think they really care, to be honest.”

“Still, it’s very… brazen of you. What does he even look like, anyway? Anything like you?”

“Nah, he’s this really thin, older guy, not much hair, unlike me,” he says while grinning, playfully tossing his hair.

She scoffs and is about to cut in when he starts speaking again. Her breath catches on his next words. 

“Also his head’s weirdly… pointy? You’d have to see it to know what I’m talking about.” 

It was an eerily similar description to the man she had seen weeks before. Except that man was no longer alive, and her last sighting of him was him on the ground, blood pooling around him. It was very possible he was mentioning the same man. And that would mean Pierce's death had been orchestrated by a man whom he considered a friend. She wasn’t sure how to bring up that tidbit and decided to just keep it to herself in the meantime.

She stared off, not looking at anything in particular. Dalton turned back to the gun in his lap but looked at her again when she spoke.

“You know, for a supposedly average person, you’re rather proficient in a lot of… more unlawful skills.”

“Like…?”

“Taking a boot off a car, creating guns, being practically a getaway driver, and using a man's information to rent an apartment, very much without his knowledge. And before, you said you didn’t forge an identity because it ‘would take too long’. Those aren't exactly the words of a law-abiding citizen.”

He stares at the gun’s barrel, not meeting her eyes. She seemed to have hit some sort of soft spot. 

While she’s debating whether she should change the subject or not, he decides for her.

“I haven’t been totally honest with you.”

That gets her attention.

“About what?”

“Why I even agreed to all of this. I mean,” he straightens up his posture, “I don’t regret it. But it wasn’t as noble as you might think, like just to stop, and hopefully kind of save my dad and everything.”

He hardens his grip on the gun.

“I… kind of have a record. Not really though, I mean it wouldn’t even show up on a transcript, just a footnote about probation.”

She waits for him to continue.

“It’s funny,” he says darkly, “cause it wasn’t even my own damn crime. I took the fall for my dad. Back in The City, San Francisco, he was roped up in some drug dealing business, convinced it’d make him loaded or something. Clearly, it didn't work.

“Anyway, one day he ran into our apartment, got on his knees, and started telling me he was sorry. I had no clue what he was talking about, and then suddenly the cops busted in, talking about drugs and stuff. Next thing I know, I just… say it was me. I only sort of knew what he was getting caught for, but he didn’t even flinch when I lied. Next thing I know I’m in some courtroom talking to the judge. Who was my dad's buddy, the whole court was corrupt, actually. Somehow I was knocked down from felony possession and selling of narcotics to possession of weed. All of it was scrubbed from the record.”

The more she listened, the guiltier she felt. Not specifically for his story, though of course it garnered a reaction from her. It was a very personal tale, and obviously, he still harbored resentment over it. She was sympathetic, it was not too unlike Todd or Brown’s childhood. She knew how much that affected them, making her sympathy stem from more of an understanding of how it all may impact him. 

The guilt derived from the fact he was admitting a secret of his own. One she guessed hadn’t been told to anyone else before, or he’d really have a felony under his belt. Meanwhile, there was no way she could say her real motive. Because if she was foolish enough to do that, she’d not only be admitting her own identity but the rest of her family, as it was easy logic to figure that out. He definitely had questions about why she really was there (and her own abilities), but had the forethought not to ask. She appreciated that.

“... So why are you doing this with me?”

“No one else can stop him. Even if the Bats did get involved, someone could get killed. But he wouldn’t kill me, and I know all his weapons. You don’t want any of the vigilantes involved, and I doubt they’d trust me once they dig up my record. This is my best shot.”

She nodded, understanding in full his view. His wariness of her family was reasonable; what vigilante would trust him entirely, never mind even letting him run around with them to stop some dangerous criminal? Freedom wasn’t always granted when working with others. She wasn’t too fond of compromises, she liked doing things her way, and it seemed he thought similarly.

“It's weird. You make me wanna talk like no one else ever has. Don't even know why, but...”

And there he went again, saying things that made her feel entirely weird . Indescribable, foreign emotions.

He was smiling softly, looking ahead at nothing. 

She was trying to do the same, but her thoughts were spinning too fast for her to fully join.

“... Do you have anything to see in the dark?”

* * * * * *

They take the long way to the warehouse that night.

Knowing her family is surely on the rooftops looking for them, she guesses they won’t be looking down as much. So that’s what leads to them walking down one of the nicer neighborhoods of Gotham as a shortcut, while constantly looking over their shoulders. She makes them walk fast because otherwise the neighborhood watch will surely see them and call the cops. If they haven’t already.

She wasn’t too fond of the idea of having to run away from Officer Gordon.

The street is dimly lit up, more so than other parts of Gotham, anyway. It put her on edge. Not helped when Dalton, who had been walking next to her, suddenly stopped, staring at something. She looks around, waiting for someone to pop out at them.

“We cannot stop like this,” she says to him, slightly annoyed.

He ignores her, squatting down to stare at a small, glittery, hot pink keychain. It’s in the shape of Robin's emblem, with some wording engraved on it in gold lettering. It was the kind of thing a seven-year-old might purchase at some tourist store in Gotham. So as to say, nothing she would have stopped for.

Dalton seems to think differently, as he picks it up. She makes a face, as who knows where the thing had been to end up on the sidewalk.

“Look,” he says to her, pointing at the words.

Mirabella

“... It’s just a coincidence. Throw it away,” she says, turning to walk away.

“I don’t think so. She was showing it off to me once, we have Bio together, the same exact keychain.”

“So she lost it. This is a nice neighborhood, maybe she lives here. We need to keep going, we’re losing time. Anything could happen now.”

He nods and pockets the keychain. She doesn’t know why he’d bother to keep it, but she’s not in the mood to argue. When Daniella Wayne has a mission, that is all she is. Meeting the objective is her only thought at the moment, and nothing is preventing that from happening.

* * * * * *

Except not having a solid plan.

“What the hell, it’s like a ghost town… I don’t even see a rat out,” Dalton exclaims.

Staring at the warehouse below, they had been expecting a sight similar to the night before. Cars driving around, crates being unloaded. Even just a few men standing around.

The silence of the street is practically laughing at her.

She makes a decision, and turns, looking for a way down from the rooftop. Dalton follows her down, clearly wondering what she’s up to. They end up on a side street, across from the warehouse. She picks up a rock, feels the weight of it, and winds up her pitch. Her throw is perfect, hitting her mark dead on. The street goes dark as the only working streetlight is shattered. After waiting a few minutes in case someone decides to come out and investigate the sudden lack of light, she sprints across the street.

She reaches the other side in seconds and slips into another side alley, one half the warehouse walls. She can hear Dalton’s footsteps behind her as she walks in deeper.

He starts speaking behind her.

“This is giving me flashbacks to the last time we did something like this…”

“Well, this time you’ll be on the lookout more, right?”

“I dunno if we should be relying on me for that,” he says, humorously.

“That's unfortunate because we most definitely will be.”

She stops in front of an electrical panel, and he almost walks into her. 

“What are we doing?” He asks, looking at the panel, puzzled.

“This.” She opens up the rusted door. “You’re going to turn off this breaker in five minutes, then go back to the rooftop. Just keep a lookout in case anyone shows up while I investigate the warehouse. Understood?”

He scowls.

“No way you’re going in alone, that place is probably crawling with people who will do some pretty bad things if they catch you.”

“I thought you said you trusted me?” She shoots back, not really paying attention to the argument as she plans out what she’ll do once in the warehouse. There was no way he could even stop her anyway, so she didn’t feel even a little irritation at his opinion.

“I do, and I also trust my gut. This feels like a bad idea.”

“People thought electricity was a bad idea too, and look where we are now,” she says while gesturing to the panel.

“... What I’m trying to say is be careful. I can’t stop you, but if being your lookout will be helpful, then I’ll do it. Find whatever's going on, and we regroup and take it down. If it's big, we go to the vigilantes. We can’t do this alone.”

“I’m always careful.” She replies, not responding to the latter half of his statement while starting to walk down the alley to a metal ladder, leading to the warehouse's roof. “Five minutes, got it? Then you go to the rooftop we were just on. Keep your earpiece on.”

“Don’t die!” He yells after her.

She feels her lips twitch, before going into “Robin mode”. She climbs the ladder rungs with ease, making her way quickly to the top.

The building was only about three or so stories, meaning her job was easier if she ended up going through the entire place. The top of it was flat, and the building was much longer than she’d have thought, so she felt very exposed standing on it. She swiftly made her way to the door to the bulkhead.

She slipped the earbud in as she waited for Dalton to shut the lights off. As the time ticked by, she started picking the door lock.

“3… 2… 1.”

She opens the door quietly and slips into the stairwell. Noiselessly, she descends the stairs, barely lit up by the light being emitted by the still-open door to the roof. She stops at the third floor and waits to hear any noise before going in. 

When there’s none, she creeps in, not daring to breathe. She puts her hand on the pair of glasses tucked in her pant pockets. She pulls them out and places them on her head. Immediately, the once pitch-black room is visible to her, albeit with a green tint.

The glasses that Dalton had given her for night vision were perfect for the job. He had apologized that they weren’t anything special, simply an old pair he had made for fun a while back. But she didn’t need them to be special, her only requirement was that they worked. Since she could see, she decided the job was done effectively enough.

Before her, she saw something that though not unordinary, was still unexpected nonetheless.

Countless crates are sat randomly across the floor, clearly not placed by people with much care. She looks around in case someone is there, but the area is seemingly devoid of anyone, besides herself. She walks up to one of the crates, and seeing a forgotten crowbar resting on the floor picks it up. It’s harder to be quiet now, on account of the fact she’s actively prying nails off a heavy wooden box.

A side falls off heavily and out spills tens of gun barrels. She doesn’t recognize the type off the bat, and guesses they’re likely built from one of Dalton’s blueprints.

“I’m on the rooftop, you got anything yet?”

“I will have to check my theory, but so far on the third floor, it seems to be housing mainly crates of gun parts. I’m assuming this is where they store their parts.”

“Okay, and that means they definitely have guns on them.”

“Naturally. I think that would be the case whether they were making them or not. What is your point?”

“My point is that you cannot get caught, under any circumstances, or you’re not walking away from this unless you’re really lucky.”

“Same to you, Rios. Though I feel you’ll need more luck than I,” she says while pulling another random crate open, deeper in the room to test her theory. She’s rewarded by the sight of gun scopes pouring out at her feet.

“You know, I don’t think you’ve ever actually called me by my first name.”

“You have to earn that honor, Rios.”

“Aw, c’mon! I’ve totally earned that!”

She lets him continue complaining, as it at least gives her something to listen to as she walks around the parameters of the third floor. Which, after a full swoop, had nothing of note on it.

The second floor was identical to the third, which she reports back to Dalton.

“Is the first also the same then?”

“I will check,” she says and descends the stairs to the bottom. 

It is the exact same. Crates upon crates, making her wonder how much funding the man had. And how well his current drug business must be doing to afford this. Was The Ivories really the only venture he ran? Or were the more, just under the surface that no one had bothered to check deeper?

She’s broken from her thoughts as she walks a lap around the floor, and sees a door. Walking up to it, she tests the knob.

Unlocked.

Slowly, she pulls the door open and is greeted by the sight of an office. She enters slowly and walks up to the calendar on the wall. Circled in pen is next Friday, October 5th.

“I have good and bad news.”

“Hit me,” he says, with a twinge of tension in his tone.

“We have another week it seems like. Next Friday is circled, I believe that is when they are to enact whatever they are planning.”

“...”

“Did you hear me? Next Friday, October 5th.”

“Yeah, I heard you,” he says, clearly distracted by something.

She’s about to ask when suddenly her glasses aren’t working how they used to.

Her eyes widen as she rips them off, and is greeted by a fully lit-up room. She curses quietly, and ducks out of the room, hiding herself behind crates.

Footsteps echo through the floor.

“What kinda jackass pulls the breaker, AND puts a lock on the damn electrical panel…”

She peeks out behind the boxes, watching as a man walks through the mess of crates, en route to the office passing by the spilling-out cases. He does a double take when he sees one, and she silently scolds herself for bothering to check the crates on this floor as well. He quickly pulls out his phone and dials a number as he starts walking to the stairwell to the next floor.

“Hello? Boss?”

She darts behind a new crate while his back is turned.

“Yeah, someone broke into the warehouse. Send some guys over, I don’t know what’s up. No, it’s only me. No one else showed up for the night shift. I’m heading to the second floor, gonna try and catch the guy in the act.”

He walks up the staircase, and she wastes no time in running to the door he had entered through in the first place. Her hood is up, but the cameras are definitely on in the warehouse now. They will soon realize she’s in the building and where. She can’t let them catch her, and picks up the pace, reaching the door in seconds. She pushes it open, and alarms start blaring as she runs through the ‘exit’ door. They blare into the street as she runs down a side alley, not stopping as she distances herself from the warehouse.

“Rios? You’ve heard the alarms. Run, meet me at Wilmore and Barter.”

The only sound is her running.

She tries again, her speed slowing slightly.

“Rios? Someone’s gonna catch you, we need to leave.”

Still nothing.

Now she starts running towards his roof, weaving through streets as her worry grows.

“This isn’t amusing in the slightest. At least say something.”

Her pace increases, and she clambers up a wired fence even faster than the time she had been running from Mark and Al.

“I’m coming to you.”

“Hello?”

“Please just answer.”

She continues asking questions for a few minutes, with no response. She finally closes in on the rooftop where he should be.

“I’m here,” she says as she silently climbs up to the roof. Anyone could be up there, and if he’s unresponsive, she’s assuming the worst.

A cry of pain rings out, shattering any doubts she may have harbored.

She almost reaches the top, and calls out, disregarding the fact she should be trying to remain hidden,

“Dalton?”

Chapter Text

He rubs his palms together, trying to create some heat.

The rooftop is cold, mainly because it's, well, a rooftop, which aren’t really known for their insulation. The wind picks up, and he groans, blowing out a breath that materializes into a sort of fog. It’s kind of a fun novelty to see, but his boredom is coming at him in waves, and he has to fight the urge to just join Daniella in the warehouse.

The only reason he doesn’t is because even he knows he’d be less than covert.

He pulls the keychain from his pocket and starts tossing and flipping it in his hand, trying to emulate the skill Daniella had with the same action. Of course, he wasn’t about to use a knife like her. He knew his limits. She did not, or at least chose to ignore them.

The keychain drops to the floor when he throws it up too high, and he huffs as he crouches down to pick it up. He didn’t know when he’d be able to return it to Mirabella, or if he even would. She wasn’t exactly in his good graces. Maybe he’d just throw it off the rooftop and let fate decide If she sees it again.

He feels a shiver go down his spine, one not from the cold, and he whips his head around.

It’s just him on the roof. 

It didn’t exactly feel like that though.

He stands up, and pockets the keychain again, his posture stiff as his eyes search for anything out of the ordinary.

He doesn’t find more than a plastic grocery bag that somehow had ended up there.

It was boring, standing on a roof and watching the warehouse. He hadn’t seen anyone so much as walk by in the past fifteen minutes or so. And the only person he could talk to was trying not to do so. Which was fair, they didn’t know if anyone else was in the warehouse with her, but it was still boring nonetheless.

He speaks, and to anyone watching he just looks like he’s talking to himself.

“Got to the first floor yet?”

“I’m there. It’s more of the same,” Daniella responds, and he can hear the sound of wood being pulled apart as she speaks.

“… Creepy. And there’s no one there?”

“Correct.”

He crossed his arms, thinking. So the warehouse was just that, a warehouse. It was storing thousands of parts, which would form thousands of guns. All of which had been designed by him.

He frowns at the fact. Everything felt like it was his fault.

It wasn’t as if he had wanted or even so much as approved of the manufacturing though, seeing as how dangerous the guns were (not to mention the cost of production). He had decided not to mention the machine gun with exploding bullets to Daniella. Even his dad wouldn’t be crazy enough to make that thing (he hoped), it was riddled with oversights, making it so the whole gun could just blow itself up randomly, instead of its target.

He was really glad he hadn’t bothered trying to perfect that one. He’s pretty sure Daniella would do a lot worse than call him an idiot if he had. And he wouldn’t blame her for it.

His current concern was more focused on where these parts were even coming from. They had to have been manufactured somewhere , and he’d like to find that out before it was too late. He tilts his head, considering the possibilities.

That weird feeling comes back again, and he swears he sees something in the corner of his eye.

He turns quickly, his breathing quickening as his eyes flit around the silent rooftop.

It remains just that, silent, but the ominous feeling still perches in the back of his mind. It reminded him of the feeling he had when he had been carrying Daniella that one time. Not a very positive one.

Daniella’s voice crackles over the earpiece, “I have good and bad news.”

“Hit me,” he says and looks around again as the foreboding feeling fails to leave. It stays distant, but not gone. He jumps slightly when something moves in the edges of his vision.

“We have another week it seems. Next Friday is circled, I believe that is when they are to enact whatever they are planning.”

That made him sigh in relief. He had no idea what the plan was going to be if they actually did have to do anything more that night. They hadn’t put too much thought into all of this. What exactly they were going to be stopping was still missing from the puzzle, and though it was obviously weapon manufacturing, the question remained what his dad’s final plan was with all of it? Selling, sure, but to whom specifically?

He was lost in thought, finally snapping out of it to remember Daniella was waiting for a response. He was going to answer her, but he got distracted again, this time by the light sound of someone dropping down from a ledge. Almost undetectable, but his earpiece amplified the noise.

“Did you hear me? Next Friday, October 5th.”

“Yeah, I heard you,” he answers, more dismissively than he would’ve wanted to, as he turns his back to the warehouse and surveys the rooftop, warily.

He reached up to mute the microphone part of his earpiece, he didn’t want to distract Daniella. She was in a dangerous position, they had no idea who or what may be there with her.

He calls out, “Hello?”

The only reply is the wind picking up in speed.

“This isn’t cool, I know you’re there,” he says as he slowly starts walking toward the middle of the roof. With the many buildings nearby, all the rooftops are close enough to where a person could jump from one to another. He’d rather not be snuck up on. Especially when he was five stories up.

Whoever’s there isn’t kind enough to just get it over with and reveal themselves. 

“… C’mon, last chance!” He shouts and steps forward again.

“I’m really good at fighting, so unless you wanna have to be carted away, you better come out and we can talk this through,” he yells. 

The waver in his voice makes it pretty obvious, in his opinion, that he’s bluffing big time.

He hears rustling and whips his head to the source. He breathes out when he realizes it is just the grocery bag. 

Now he really looked like a liar.

“Maybe I can’t fight, but I know someone who can. And I’m pretty sure they'd love an excuse to do it. So unless you want your head caved in,” he says loudly while finally reaching the middle of the rooftop.

Nothing happens, and for a second he relaxes, smiling and shaking his head at his paranoia. It was a ridiculous thought anyway, who could get up there and have him not notice?

Then alarms start blaring from the warehouse he was supposed to be watching and he practically jumps ten feet. 

“What the hell-“ He exclaims as he turns toward the building. Concerns flood his head, causing him to forget the reason he was up there in the first place. He starts to step forward, reaching to unmute his mic.

The second he moves, someone slams him to the ground so fast that all he can do is wheeze as the wind is knocked out of him and his arms are pinned behind his back.

He struggles in the tight hold, but the movement hurts his arms, and he hastily turns his head to get a look at his subduer.

Two black soulless eyes stare down at him.

He blanches as he realizes who’s on top of him.

“What did you do to her?” Orphan says, the ice in her tone making the night air pale in comparison.

“What?” He mumbles, his face half-smushed into the concrete. He scrunches his nose as he tastes dust.

“Where,” Orphan says again, pushing down on his arms only slightly yet the pain is tenfold.

“OW! Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, get off me,” he says as he attempts to get up but stops when she pulls his arm again.

He groans as he resigns to his fate. There was no way he was going anywhere, not till Orphan decided to leave that is.

“Rios? You’ve heard the alarms. Run, meet me at Wilmore and Barter.” Daniella says over the comm. He winces as when he fails to answer (his earpiece is still muted), she tries again, with more emotion than before, “Rios? Someone’s going to catch you, we need to leave.”

He must have made a face because Orphan's head is pointed at his expression, and he assumes she’s staring at him (he can’t really tell with the mask). The alarms are still going off, and his stress is only tempered because he at least knows Daniella is out and safe. Or as safe as running through Gotham in the night is, anyway.

“This isn’t amusing in the slightest. At least say something,” Daniella says, and that’s when he really feels bad. She probably thought he was captured or something.

… Which wasn’t an incorrect train of thought.

Orphan seems to somehow know he’s listening to something because she starts asking questions again while leaning down closer (which puts more pressure on his arms).

“Daniella… where?”

“Oh, this is about that,” he says and immediately regrets how casual his tone is.

Orphan leans down further. 

“ Where. ”

“First off, why would I even know that? I can’t just locate her with my mind. Second off, I swear to god I didn’t kidnap her, ‘cause I know you’re thinking that.”

He can tell Orphan isn’t amused.

She tightens her grip, and he already knows bruises will be left as he winces in pain.

She reaches to her ear, and he realizes she’s about to call for backup. That would be the absolute worst scenario, he had seen how angry Nightwing and Red Hood had been at him- he wasn’t too interested in repeating that. Much less meeting the rest of the Bats.

Batman sounded like the most terrifying of them all.

“WAIT! I’ll talk, I’ll talk, just- don’t call the rest of the Bat people over here yet. Hear me out.”

Orphan pauses, and slowly removes her hand from her ear, her gaze never dropping.

“Where.”

“She’s around. Literally, she’s probably a few blocks away. She’ll explain everything, just wait a sec.”

All throughout this, he has been trying to ignore Daniella, who had continued speaking at him. It was hard to focus on both her and Orphan's words at the same time, but he was able to discern that she was minutes (if that) from showing up on the roof as well. He’d just have to hope she’d be cautious, and not bring attention to herself.

Orphan speaks, “… Why would I believe?”

“It’s one minute, and it’s not like I’m going anywhere. If I’m lying you get to be the one to break my arm or whatever.”

She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t try to call for backup. It was weird she seemed to trust him even a little bit, like Daniella Wayne running away and hanging out with someone like him wasn’t a ridiculous idea. He's grateful anyway. Questioning isn’t really worth it at the moment.

He counts the seconds in his head, and the alarm continues to ring in the background.

After a minute, she starts getting impatient.

“One. Where ?”

He grits his teeth, “She’s close,” he says, but he doesn’t exactly believe it. She could be farther, she had been running for a while away from the other end of the warehouse. That wasn’t a quick jog back, especially since she had to give a wide berth to the area around the warehouse where people were looking for her.

Orphan once again presses down on his arms, while saying angrily, “Lies.” 

She reaches up to her ear, obviously giving up on him, and he doesn’t know what else to do but to start struggling as hard as he can against her hold. He can tell he caught her a bit off guard and even managed to dislodge one of his arms. But she twists the other one in a manner that almost breaks it and he cries out in pain. 

At least he tried, he thinks to himself as Orphan readjusts her hold on him.

“Dalton?”

A wide smile of relief paints across his face.

His knight in shining polyester arrives, hopping over onto the roof with ease. Daniella’s eyes lock onto his form immediately, and her shoulders slump in relief. When she registers the position he got himself into, and who was pinning him down, her tension returns.

“… Orphan.” She says unenthusiastically. “I see you’ve returned from your absence.”

“Dani.” Orphan replies monotonously, but her voice is much warmer speaking to her than it had been to him. Dalton can’t help but raise an eyebrow at the familiarity the two treat each other with, not even acknowledging he was still there.

Daniella walks over to them but remains on edge. He cranes his neck to get a better look as she walks in front of him, and catches her eye. She gives him a withering glare, clearly meaning, How the hell did you manage this?  

She sighs, the frustration in her tone evident.

“He is not a threat. An idiot, but not a danger to anyone, besides maybe himself,” she says easily while nodding to him, her arms crossed. He’d usually shoot back a retort of his own, but Orphan still has him pinned and he’d like to keep his arms intact.

“Then why run before?” Orphan asks, her tone suspicious.

“… I told him that we can’t interact with any of the Bats, under any circumstances. He was simply adhering to my orders, unfortunately, the ever-wonderful Nightwing and Redhood decided to show up while I was unable to explain things.”

Orphan stares at her, then follows Daniella’s gaze down to Dalton. Some sort of realization seems to dawn on her, as he feels her weight slowly stop pressing down on him. He takes in a large breath, relishing in the lack of pressure on his lungs.

“Man thank you, this is all one big misunderstanding, really-“

He stops talking when he feels a pair of handcuffs entrapping his wrists.

“Come. We will talk there. He stays,” Orphan orders while standing up and starting to walk over to the farthest corner of the rooftop.

Daniella nodded and looked down at Dalton, who was sitting cross-legged, fiddling with his cuffs.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she teases, snickering at his predicament.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

She grins and turns her head. He watches her catch up to Orphan, and the two start having a deep discussion the second they’re out of his earshot. Periodic glances are made in his direction, and at one point he can even make out Daniella saying “Rios”.

He decided now was the time to try out his universal lock pick.

Maneuvering his hands awkwardly, he manages to reach into his back pocket, pulling out the tool (he also finds one of his “shelters” , and feels slightly better about his situation because of it). It’s supposed to be able to go into any lock, and then mold to the shape inside. He hoped it’d work, or else he’d have wasted a lot of his spare time.

When he slides it into the lock and pushes the button on this side, he hears a click. The cuffs become loose, and he smiles triumphantly. Knowing his stuff works always pleases him. He puts the tools back in his pocket and locks the cuffs again. He doesn’t want Orphan to know about his ability to get out, he might need to save the trick for later.

He continues to watch Daniella get increasingly more heated as she argues with Orphan. She throws her hands up, but Orphan remains calm. They finally look over at him for the last time, and he's able to see Daniella's face. 

She’s obviously frustrated, but she drops her hands. Whatever she talked about with Orphan, she's resigned to their fate. They start walking over.

“C’mon, Rios, we’re leaving,” she says while going over to him.

“... Does Orphan want her cuffs back?” He asks, a smile tugging at his lips. The frazzled and annoyed look she gives him makes him shut up, but it's hard not to laugh.

Orphan watches them interact, still unreadable. She walks up to Dalton, kneeling down and moving to unlock the cuffs. She pauses, and he thinks she’s going back on her word.

“How did you get out?”

Her voice makes his hair stand up.

He tests his luck by replying, “... My secret.”

The cuffs fall off his hands, and he rubs at his irritated wrists as he stands up. Daniella's posture is rigid as she stares at the ground, and he jogs to catch up to her. Orphan watches them again (she seems to do that a lot), but he pays her no mind. He lifts his hand to put it on Daniella’s shoulder but stops himself. 

“Are you okay?” He asks, his hand still hovering awkwardly.

She sighs in response. “Are your arms still intact? Orphan’s technique is harsh when she wants it to be.”

He ignores the fact she most definitely just confirmed she’d fought Orphan before.

“What's the verdict? Why is she letting us go?”

Daniella frowns. “She’s not. She was going to alert the others, but I managed to convince her not to. We have three days from now, and then she calls it in.”

“Hey, that's still three days . Could’ve been three hours or something.”

“How’re we supposed to get anything done? The date was next Friday . In three days it's only going to be Monday.”

He lets his hand finally drop onto her shoulder, and she looks up from the ground and stares in surprise.

“Stop. Have you forgotten what you’ve gotten done already? In only a couple of days, we’ve stopped any new blueprints from getting into his hands, gotten in a car chase, and found where all the stuff was being manufactured. Now we just need to find my dad, reason with him, and if that doesn’t work we get him arrested. Which shouldn't be too hard seeing all the crap he gets up to.”

She doesn’t answer, but some of the stiffness in her seems to leave. He drops his hand and looks over to Orphan. He pulls his earpiece off and calls out to her.

“Hey, catch!” He yells and throws it to her.

She catches it with ease and looks at it in her palm.

“You can use that to contact Daniella at any time.”

She nods, pocketing the device. She cocks her head, and puts her hand to her ear, listening to something. She looks up at them.

“They’re coming. Run, use streets.”

Daniella makes a sort of growl next to him, and suddenly he’s being yanked over to a pipe, which Daniella precedes to scale down like it's a fire pole.

He looks back at Orphan apprehensively.

“... Are there no stairs?”

She shakes her head (he swears she laughs at him), and he groans, before nervously grabbing on and dropping down. 

* * * * * *

Steph leaps across to the roof where Cass is standing, watching over the side, staring at a warehouse. A loud alarm echoes through the street as she makes her way to Cass, Tim right behind her.

When she reaches the roof, Cass turns her head slightly, glancing back at Steph and Tim.

“See anything?” She calls out as she jogs over to Cass’s side. Tim hangs back, talking into the comm on some private channel. He’d been snappy as of late, she got that he was stressed and all, but everybody else was too. Didn’t mean he had to take it out on everyone else.

Cass nods her head as Steph peers over the side of the roof, watching the street below. Multiple cars are parked poorly, sticking out into the street like the drivers had been in a rush to get out. This seems to be the case as she sees about 15 or so people arguing in front of a warehouse. She leans down, trying to get a better listen as to what they’re talking about.

A man yells at a woman, who's hunched over a toolkit, “HOW THE HELL DO WE TURN THIS THING OFF ?!!”

She looks up at him with a pissed-off expression. 

“DON'T YOU THINK IF WE KNEW THAT WE’D HAVE DONE IT ALREADY!?”

She can’t help but snicker at the creative insults being thrown back and forth between the crowd. She can tell Cass thinks this is amusing too, as she shakes with laughter.

Steph smiles as she tunes onto a private comm link with Barbara.

“Hey, Oracle, could you find out who owns the warehouse on Bruton Street? Lotta weird activity going on outside it.”

“Sure. What kind of activity?” Barbara says as the sound of her keyboard clicks on the comm.

“Well some sort of alarm is going off, and it's not a fire alarm since there’s no smoke. A bunch of people are here, but they seem to have gotten here pretty recently, like they were in a rush.”

Steph hears Barbara hum, considering.

“Do you know how recently?”

Steph turned to Cass, who was glancing over at Tim. He was pacing and arguing with someone on the comm; Steph would bet money it was Jason.

“Hey, Orphan, when’d these guys get here? You’ve been over here for a while.”

“Five minutes.”

Steph relays the information back to Barbara. She gets curious as she speaks, and turns back to Cass when she finishes.

“... Why were you here for so long, anyway? The warehouse?”

Cass nods, and Steph notices her hand fidget slightly by her pocket. She’s about to open her mouth to question it, but before she can, she’s interrupted by Barbara.

“Arthur Pierce is the owner. He seems to have some kind of legal trouble, and might be on the run; he hasn’t been seen in a while.”

“Then why would he own a warehouse in Gotham?” Steph asks, confused about how the man would even be able to rent it.

“I was wondering that, too. They cracked down on who’s allowed to own large property around here on account of all the major crime organizations. How this guy would slip by, I have no idea.”

“Let’s put it on the investigation list, right under The Ivories.”

“I’d be surprised if we get to it anytime soon, not until we find Daniella at least.”

Steph frowns.

She was worried, she really was. Daniella may try and argue with Steph a lot (and succeed too), but Steph knew that at the end of the day, Daniella cared about her. And the feeling was more than mutual.

“No one woke you up because you needed sleep . And you never tell anyone where you’re staying either, so how the hell do you expect someone to come by anyway!?” Tim seethes, throwing his arms up. “I’m not a hypocrite . I’m used to not sleeping; it’s not my problem you can’t deal with it.”

She called it. He was definitely fighting with Jason, likely because Jason picked a fight and Tim bought into it. She caught Cass’s eye and gestured at Tim. Cass shakes her head and turns back to the street.

Barbara starts speaking again, this time on the main comm channel.

“Bad news. The girl who was interviewed, Daniella’s classmate? She’s gone missing; suspected kidnapping.”

Steph’s eyes widen, and she slowly looks over to Tim.

He’d finally shut up and was staring ahead, unmoving.

* * * * * *

Daniella shuts the door quietly.

She methodically locks the door, using every chain and key she can. Dalton watches her from the couch, and she can tell he wants to say something but has the foresight to keep his mouth shut for now. 

When she finally steps back, the door more barricaded than Fort Knox, she breathes in, finally able to calm down. She looks at her handy work, furrowing her brow. There weren't enough locks in the whole world for her to be satisfied, so this will have to do.

“... So. Million dollar question. What. The. Fuck.”

She looks over at Dalton, who is staring at her with a discomposed expression.

“No need to be crass. What exactly are you referring to?”

He sighs.

“Let’s not do this. How do you know Orphan, and also Red Hood and Nightwing!? ”

She looks away and starts walking to the kitchen, her shoulders hunched. She throws open the fridge and starts rifling through it. Though she wasn’t hungry, at least she wouldn’t have to look at him.

With her face in the freezer, he speaks.

“Bruce Wayne funds Batman, right?”

It was public knowledge if you knew where to look. Most people didn’t, so she almost hit her head on the fridge in surprise.

She pulls her head out and stares at him.

He tugs at the threading on the couch.

“You’ve obviously met the Bats. I know that, so don’t try and lie. And I get that that’s probably dangerous, so you don’t need to tell me or anything. Just… are you guys close enough to where you think they’d be searching for you right now?”

She nods.

He does the same in response, and leans back into the couch, throwing his head back.

“You know, you’re probably the most interesting person I’ve ever met. Like every single piece of your life that you tell me about is always the craziest possible thing ever.”

She walks over to the couch, her arms crossed.

He looks over at her, grinning.

“Makes life fun, no?”

* * * * * *

“LET ME GO! PLEASE! I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING!”

She throws herself at the door, a resounding “bang” echoing through the room as she does so. She cries out in pain, slumped against the door. Tears stream down her face, and she rubs at her eyes, puffy from her non-stop crying for the last few hours.

Mirabella didn’t know why she was there. One minute she’d been walking angrily down a street in a rich neighborhood, and the next she was waking up in a large gray room. She’d been hysterical, calling out for help and pounding on the metal door. She even tried to pull off the metal boards from the wall, hoping a door would be hidden behind. But the boards were seemingly brand new, and impossibly strong. 

Her fingertips were bloody from the effort.

She was hungry and tired, and all she wished at that moment was the door would open.

Her prayers were answered, as she felt the door she rested upon slowly push open.

She scrambled up, throwing herself at the opening. A hand popped out, shoving her away with such force she tumbled to the floor. She hit her head on the hardwood floor, and news tears fell as she looked up.

One of the men who had kidnapped her stood in the doorway, holding what seemed to be a microwave dinner and a water bottle. He dropped the items unceremoniously on the floor, the water bottle rolling to a stop at her feet.

“Start yelling when you’re done, and then you’ll get to go to the bathroom. You throw your food, you ain’t getting any more.” He barks at her, his scowl deepening with every word. “And stop wailing, I’m sick of having to listen to that shit.”

The door slams shut.

She stares at it from her place on the floor, her eyes wide. 

Now the tears really won’t stop.

Chapter Text

“Could you take a look at this and tell me if the screws are in right?”

She raises her head up from her book, to see a small device being shoved in her face. Her eyes cross trying to look at it.

“I can’t see anything if your grip is this shaky,” she says while pulling the device from his hand.

He ignores her jab, “I think they’re in enough, but I’m not totally sure.”

She holds it up to her eye, inspecting his work. To her, they seemed fine. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was even looking for. He had been trying to quickly make a new earpiece with the parts he had on hand all morning, seeing as the other one was in Cass’s pocket, and was nearly finished. Daniella herself was more than capable of upgrading and fixing tools, but she usually didn’t bother herself with creating things- unless it was a new Batmobile.

She’d drawn up blueprints for the car all the times she’d been grounded, enough to rival even Dalton's stacks of papers.

“Do you think it’s fine?” He asks, looking at the device in her hand.

“Acceptable,” she replies while handing it back to him, and turning the page in her book.

He smiles, and she narrows her eyes unconsciously as she gives him a suspicious look. 

“So what you’re saying in normal speech is that it’s well made and I shouldn’t be stressing about it.”

She rolls her eyes, not giving him the satisfaction of retorting. 

It was another quiet morning for the two of them, a comfortable waking hour of 10 o’clock and a breakfast of an apple for her and stale fruit loops for him. Eating together put an odd feeling in her stomach; at home, she’d be lucky if her father would eat with her once a week, too busy with work to sit at the table. Now, every meal was shared, and the banter that followed reminded her of the rare dinners with her whole family.

It was different, but not unwelcome.

She looks back to the book in her hands. The Catcher in the Rye was a book that gave her many emotions. On one hand, she could understand Holden’s general dislike for the people he met. On the other hand, he was a hypocrite and his adventure around New York was utterly reckless and poorly thought out. He was so casual about it all that it put her out of the book; too stark of a contrast to her own current experience.

She could understand why Todd defended its status as a classic, though.

“Has Orphan tried to talk to you yet?”

“… I haven’t had the earpiece in since last night,” she admits, avoiding his gaze. He was uncomfortably close to figuring out their identities at this point. If he really sat down and thought about it, the answer would be obvious. She wasn’t certain he hadn’t already put it together; she knew as foolhardy as he could be, he wasn’t intellectually lacking.

Anyone could put it together if they had the same information as him. She’d just have to hope he wouldn’t sit down and think deeper about it all.

“Are you planning to?”

She pauses, considering the question. “I’m not certain as of yet. I’m sure she’ll expect to talk with me at some point; when I am not currently aware.”

He hums thoughtfully. “You’ll figure it out. Or she’ll come and find us, anyway.”

She bites the inside of her mouth.

He meant the last part as a joke, but they both knew it was more than likely she would. As much as Daniella prided herself in appearing as if she viewed nothing as more than herself, Cass was one of the few people she truly respected. 

Namely, her abilities.

Even Daniella couldn’t beat her in a fair fight as of yet, though she was still training. She could hope for one day, one battle.

Her thoughts go back to the night before.

“Cain. I can explain.”

Cass crosses her arms, shaking her head slightly.

“Everyone’s worried. I knew you were okay. You would not be caught so easily. But why are you running?”

Daniella looks at the ground, avoiding Cass’s hard gaze.

“Look. None of this was exactly planned, alright? And you can’t tell anyone this, by the way.” She says the last part sharply.

“They think worst. Why would I lie?”

“Because,” she struggles to find the right words, “this is important to me. I roped Rios into all this, it's not the other way around before you start believing that.”

“What is this? ”

“... It's just some low-level crime organization, really.”

She knows she's avoiding answering any of Cass’s questions past surface level. And it's obvious Cass is aware of this as well.

Cass reaches up to her comm.

“WAIT!” She hisses, grabbing for Cass’s arm. She steps back when Daniella lunges and Daniella grasps air. “Please, just listen .”

That got her attention. 

“Why?” Cass says, clearly meaning why Daniella was so intent on keeping her family out of it. Truly, she had no good reason to keep on the run. She could have easily gone home and just contacted Dalton when necessary from the comfort of her home. Sneaking out had become routine for her at this point. Fighting crime without her family's knowledge wasn't anything new for her.

“Because,” she felt ridiculous admitting it, “I’m… enjoying working with Rios to take down the organization. It's stupid. Incredibly so. But I've realized that for the first time in years, I’m waking up excited to do something.”

The way Cass stares at her makes her slightly uncomfortable, as she looks through the hidden meanings in her body language.

“... I understand.”

Daniella looks up, surprised, relief flooding through her body.

“Thank you-”

“They need to know.”

Anger bubbles up inside her as her fists curl up.

“Why? No one seemed to care whether I was dead or alive when I was benched. No one even texted me. In what world does anyone deserve to know what I’m up to now if they didn't care when I was around?” She says loudly, almost shouting, stopped only when she realizes Dalton might hear her.

“We always care . Family has to,” Cass says, a sadness in her tone.

“They were under the impression I was kidnapped, freaked out, and then saw I was obviously fine. Can they not mind their business for one second?”

“You know that won’t happen. We are worried.”

She laughs without humor. “Well, there’s no need. If I’m prevented from continuing my investigation, and Rios gets hurt because of it, I will never forgive any of you,” she says coldly. 

“Why would he get hurt,” Cass questions, glancing over to where Dalton sat on the ground, seemingly attempting to release himself from his handcuffs. 

She really never missed anything.

“The organization… They know him. He’s not affiliated, but they’re after him. That's why I was passed out when Richard and Todd saw me, they tried to attack him, but I stopped them. I was knocked out in the process.” She answers confidently. Technically the last part was simplifying, but she wasn’t about to reveal how serious everything really was.

“So they are after you too?” Cass says, concern flaring up.

“No, I don’t believe so. I’m not the main target at least. And you know I can take care of myself.” 

Another bold-faced lie, seeing as she had been specifically kidnapped. But Cass didn’t need the extra worry.

Cass looks at her, and slowly says, “Rios. You care about him?”

Daniella decided to ignore the heat in her face as she replied, “There has been some level of good will formed, yes. Spending days together does do that.”

Cass slowly nods.

“Three days. Monday you return. Or I tell.”

Daniella frowns. Three days didn’t even make it to next week. In what world was that enough time to achieve anything of worth? But she can’t voice that, for fear, that Cass will retract her offer. 

“Deal.”

Cass steps forward, and suddenly Daniellas is enveloped in her arms. She slowly raises her own, hugging back.

“Be safe,” Cass says softly, and Daniella nods.

“Always.”

She closes the book suddenly, snapping it shut. Dalton looks up at her, curiosity on his face.

“We have three days.”

“Actually less than that.”

She gives him a withering glare, and he laughs in response. As if the deadline didn’t apply to him as well.

“As I was saying, we have three days. Which means we need to make the most of them. Today will be a research and planning day, and tomorrow an action one.”

“Alright, what do you need me to do?” He says, putting the earpiece onto the tiny side table.

“Well we both know you can’t plan,” she has to suppress a grin at his indignant expression, “and I know all the best places to get information that's not right on the internet's front page.”

“Yeah, that's not criminal sounding at all,” he mumbles.

She presses on. “Your job is to make all of your little gadgets work. And also, look around for a med kit. We’ve been lucky, barring a few scrapes, but this next place isn’t exactly safe. Even less so than the warehouse.”

His interest seems piqued. “Where are we going?”

“To the beginning.”

“Less cryptic, please.”

She rolls her eyes. “The building we got kidnapped outside of. Your father got there suspiciously quickly, and it was clearly in use. I’d guess it might be their headquarters. We break in, scope it out, then come back later to take them down from the inside.”

He raises an eyebrow. “That seems like a very shaky plan. Are you sure you’ve thought this out?”

“Don’t be mouthy. That’s why today’s a planning day.”

“Sorry, I trust your judgment. What kinda stuff should we bring, besides a flashlight?”

“How many weapons do you have lying around?”

He smiles. “Probably too many. Take your pick.”

* * * * * *

“Babs, I just feel like I’m going in circles. I mean, it's been nearly a week and we’re still playing cat and mouse with her.”

Barbara looks at Dick as he unloads, his hands pulling at his hair. He’s sprawled out on her couch, a place he’d been to many times before. She gives him a pitying look, turning back to the kettle when it beeps.

She pours them both a mug and slips in each a tea bag. It was muscle memory at this point, making tea for them at her apartment after a particularly bad patrol. One lump of sugar for her, four for him. She swirls the drinks with a spoon and finally ends it off with a bit of honey in his.

Really she shouldn’t be indulging his sweet tooth like this, but now was not the time to be thinking about that.

She brings the mugs out to the living room, placing them on her coasters (they were pieces of wood with crudely painted images of each of the Bats, courtesy of Steph). Dick sits up, grabbing his mug with a thank you.

“She never even told me about this Dalton kid. I mean, she used to tell me everything about her day. Especially her complaints.” A fond smile overtakes his face. “I remember when she used to get into fights with kids at her school, she’d give me a play-by-play after like it was a boxing match. Bruce hated that I was ‘encouraging it’, which I probably maybe was, but it was funny.”

“She’s older now. You didn’t think she’d stay ten, did you?”

“I know she’s older but, I don't know, I never thought she’d be doing all these things behind my back.”

Barbara sighs. He always had a habit of being like this. “Dick. The girl thinks the world of you. She’s not little anymore though. Ever heard of being a teenager? Actually, I know you do. God knows the amount of teenage angst you had.” She ignores his protests. “We know she’s alive, and she looked fine in that photo. She probably didn’t tell you about him because she didn’t think it was important. None of this is your fault, so you need to stop acting like it is.”

He frowns slightly, and she sighs.

“We’re all looking, Dick. She clearly doesn't want to be found though, and while that’s not great, it does mean she’s thinking for herself.”

“So you don’t think she’s being blackmailed.”

“... It’s possible. Very. But I’m not assuming the worst here. And you shouldn't either,” she says with a pointed look.”

“Easier said than done,” he says while swirling his tea. She takes a sip of her own as she waits for him to start again.

“... I’m scared. I know I’m catastrophizing, but if something bad happens to her, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Neither would I. Do you not think anyone else feels the same? Tim’s been sleeping even less, and we both know he wasn’t before anyway. Steph is constantly asking me for any updates, Jason’s been looking all over, and Bruce…”

“He’s him. Sorry, Babs, I haven’t even been thinking about that.”

“Don’t apologize. I’m always here for you, you know that.”

He smiles at her, before taking a large sip of his tea. He stands up and goes to set down the empty mug in her dishwasher.

“... I really should be going. I could be looking for her and I’m just lounging on your couch.”

She raises an eyebrow as he slowly exits her kitchen, looking for his jacket.

“When’s the last time you slept, ate, and took a shower?”

“Yesterday,” he replies easily as he walks over to the door.

“This isn’t healthy.” She says in a discontented voice.

He looks up at her, a strange expression on his face.

“When is any of this healthy? Until I know exactly where she is, I’m not stopping. Nothing is going to prevent that.”

* * * * * *

She stretches her arms over her head, fighting back a yawn. The glow of the computer screen was beginning to hurt her eyes. All day, she had been working on hacking into every place she thought may have information. That included the Gotham Police Department. Hopefully, Officer Gordon wouldn't notice her having looked into sealed records.

“You didn’t get any viruses on there, right?”

She looks up to see Dalton standing over her, trying to read the information on the computer. She sets the computer down and gets up.

“How low do you think of me?” She responds, walking over to the kitchen. She had skipped lunch, and that had finally caught up to her. Skimming over the contents of the cupboards, she finally pulls out a box of pasta.

“You making that?” Dalton asks, trying way too hard, in her opinion, to seem indifferent.

“Would you like some?” She says as she fills a pot with water.

“I thought you’d never ask. I bought some alfredo sauce, we could put that on.”

“That looks ridiculously unhealthy,” she says, eyeing the jar he’s holding up.

“Yeah, that's why it's good .”

“Uh-huh.”

It wasn’t bad. 

She wasn’t going to admit that though, and made a show of acting mildly disgusted by it. Dalton piled on a second helping to his plate, happily eating the dish.

“Did you find anything good in your stash?” She asks, twirling the pasta on her fork so perfectly even Alfred would applaud her.

“Have you ever used an Escrima stick?”

“... I’ve messed around with one, yes,” she replies. Seeing as it was her eldest brother's preferred weapon, he had on many occasions tutored her on the technique. She may not be as skilled as himself, but she could easily say she was adept with the tool.

“Okay, so you know how Nightwing has his, and they’re awesome. Well, I made a replica. With the electricity and all.”

“That sounds highly illegal. I am impressed.”

“I knew you’d like them. You can use those.” He pauses. “Actually, what am I doing in the plan? Because we both know I’m not exactly the best fighter.”

She pulls open the computer.

“I’ve found the blueprints for the building online. That includes exits, pipes, and the breakers. This time, they’re not on the outside. They are right here on the top floor,” she points to a section on the computer, “and you’re gonna turn them off. It's the attic, so no one should be there. I need you to turn them off, and this time break the whole thing. Then wait for me on the roof, and we’ll rendezvous and escape.”

“So you’re going in ? Isn’t that really dangerous? You could be seriously hurt.” 

“We’re saving lives. That’s more important than any potential harm befalling me, Rios,” she answers, colder than she meant. But it seems to get the message across, as he deflated slightly.

“I guess. Just, be careful.” He looks up at her. “Promise?”

He sticks out his pinky finger, and she fights back a grin at how childish it is. It was very him.

“Promise,” she says as they shake pinkies.

* * * * * *

A fist slams down on the table.

“I have been working my ass off for months . And what the hell have you been doing? Bitching at everyone who even looks at you,” he yells, staring her dead in the eye.

Peggy glares at him, pursing her lips. She stands up from her seat, and points at him, her hair, always in a pristine updo following down as she shakes.

“YEARS. I have been planning for this for years before you ever even considered moving to Gotham. Do not forget why I’m here; the only reason you have my help is because you promised I’d be able to get back at him. I could go to the police right now, I should have, really.” She raises her voice even louder. “But you promised he’d go down, and I am holding you to that.”

Mateo looks up at her from under his dark hair. He sighs, scratching at his beard with one hand as the other grips the gun on his side.

“I think you’ve overestimated your influence in these matters-”

“Your men failed to get her when she was right under their noses . I’m sure your son was close by as well. If this whole operation is run by bumbling fools, then I’m not sure I want any part in it.”

Her face is red from her emotions; her finger is still pointed at him in the same manner as a whistleblower.

He raises his gun in response.

“Sit. Down.” He says in a low voice, his dark eyes losing any light they may have had before. “Now.”

She stares down the barrel with wide eyes and slowly sits in her seat. Everything was becoming more and more real. She couldn’t remember when it had all progressed to this point.

“You schedule an interview without telling me, apparently terrorize my son in class-”

“Your son is an idiot-”

The safety clicks off the gun. He raises an eyebrow, daring her to continue.

He speaks more slowly than before, “You’ve managed to draw more and more attention to yourself. Why the hell shouldn’t I dump your body in some alley? Who is left to care, Peggy?”

She raises her chin, schooling her expression. It was a low blow. She had half a mind to stand up and slap him, only stopped by the gun held in his steady hands.

“I can tell you why you should keep me around,” she starts, her voice gaining confidence as she speaks, “no one else around here knows the elite like I do. The deals I’ve managed to get you are the only reason you’re in business. You know the only reason they gave you the time of day was because of me .”

The gun lowers slightly.

“You’re stressed. Everyone knows it; look at you. You went from well-spoken and clean-shaven to blending in with the subordinates. Let me help. I need to get what I want.” Her voice cracks slightly. “ Please .”

Mateo stands up, letting the weapon drop to his side. She breathes out, slumping slightly in her chair. His back turns to her as he speaks.

“He… he just can’t get hurt. That’s the deal, and you can do what you want.”

A smile creeps up her face.

“Of course.”

The door slams open, and their heads snap to the out-of-breath man in the doorway.

Mateo’s grip on his gun tightens.

“You know how we put the warehouse under old Artie’s name?”

Mateo nods slowly, his eyes narrowing.

“Well uh- someone else did the same. For an apartment. I figure that- probably a sign or something, right?”

A laugh echoes in the room. Peggy watches him warily as Mateo folds over, the gun still in his hand.

He looks up, wiping a tear from his eye.

“We think alike, eh?”

Chapter Text

She shakes her head in annoyance while putting her hands on her hips.

“This is not a stakeout, you do not need so much,” she says, staring at Dalton as he attempts to shove a bagel into his backpack.

“Last time we used everything I brought. Shouldn’t you encourage me to bring more stuff? Saved you, at least.” He replies without looking up, his backpack spilling open.

She sighs, nudging the bag with her foot. A few sheets of paper fall out onto the floor.

Her eyes narrow as she reads them.

“Are those blueprints? ”

“Yes, why?”

“Rios. Use your head for a second. Where are we going?”

He looks at her in confusion. “My dad's headquarters?”

She has to actively suppress herself from burying her head in her hands. “The headquarters of the man who is actively looking for the blueprints you are planning to bring.”

“... What can I say, I live on the edge. Besides, I feel better knowing these are on me.”

She rolls her eyes. She knew any arguments would be futile at this stage, and decided to comfort herself with the fact she at least knew he wasn’t bringing all of his papers. That was clear by the mess he’d left on the couch.

“Do you really need a Taser?”

“I’m prepared . That’s a good thing.” He shoves the items in further, struggling to zip up the overflowing bag. “Not all of us can fight like freaking Achilles.”

She decides to take the compliment. 

Huffing, she picks up the Escrima sticks, feeling the weight in her hand. They really were similar to her brother’s, the only noticeable difference being the color. While his were topped by his signature blue, hers were instead a dark green. Even the material wasn’t too far off; all she hoped was that the voltage output was close. It would be rather awkward to attempt to stun someone and find her weapon doesn't work as intended.

Her irritation ramps up when she sees him grabbing for the hot pink keychain.

“You cannot be serious,” she says, giving him an unimpressed look.

“It's my good luck charm at this point. And look,” he replies, holding up the trinket with a grin, “it has a Robin emblem!” 

She doesn’t even bother giving him a response, instead walking to the door.

She calls out to him over her shoulder as she unlocks the door, “If that is all, we can go. Night has fallen a long time ago.”

“Hey, wait, I have something.”

She looks back to see Dalton holding a small round object. 

“What does it do?”

He tosses it to her, and she catches it as he answers, “A distraction. Big one, if you know what I mean. Only use it if it's absolutely necessary because you’ve got five seconds for it to work.”

She crouches on the cathedral roof, hiding in the shadow of one of the many spires. She pats her pockets, making sure everything is where it should be. The Escrima sticks were attached to her hip, the glasses over her eyes, and her flashlight and building plans were both securely in her pocket. She was by all accounts ready, yet couldn’t rid herself of the strange feeling in her stomach.

She breathes out.

“Do you know where to go?” She asks, turning to Dalton, who stands behind her.

“Five rooftops down, take a left, another four and I’m there. Break into the attic, destroy the breakers, then get back onto the roof,” he answers, clearly proud of his memorization.

“You wrote that down as well?” She teases.

“Ten times, forwards and backward.”

She lets herself smile, a small respite from her constant worries. This was more dangerous than before, a legitimate hideout. She had tried to downplay the danger of what she was getting herself into to both Cass and Dalton. Breaking into a place she knew had lethal weapons in it, manned by people more than willing to use them, and practically alone, was something she wouldn't even be allowed to do as Robin. But it was far too late to back out now, not that she had ever considered the option.

A car drives by, bringing her back to reality.

Dalton's brown eyes are looking at her expectantly, waiting for her call. She was the leader in this situation. It was a role she always begged to have, but now that it was hers, she realized the strain it put on her. She was now effectively responsible for not just her own but his safety and the mission's overall success. 

“I won’t be talking much while I’m inside. The building will likely have many people in it; I’d like to avoid them noticing me.”

He nods with a solemn expression.

“We got this.”

* * * * * *

Jason punched the man with probably more force than necessary for a mugger.

But the blood dripping from his knuckles calmed him in a way more than anything ever had, so he had no regrets as he stood over the man. He was blubbering about how he had good reason to threaten the teenager with a gun. Jason was pretty certain he was probably on some sort of substance, or at least addicted to one. He’d been seeing a lot more drug use as of late, especially in poorer areas already riddled with crime. He was itching to find the main source of it, as when he took down one dealer five more sprung up, keeping him busy.

Jason wasn’t listening much to the man’s continuing cries. His voice annoyed him.

He shifts his hold, reaching up to turn on his comm. “Oracle. Mugger on 15th. Probably need some medical help too, this guy is pretty wired.”

The man struggles even more in his hold, his words increasing in volume. It was like he was speaking some sort of mantra, claiming his innocence. 

“I didn’t mean to I didn’t mean to I didn’t mean to it's not my fault it's not my fault release me-”

“How the hell do you accidentally mug someone?” He asks, almost laughing at the absurdity of the claim. He felt sorry for the guy though, he could relate in some ways to being this unstable. Not to where he was threatening random teenagers on the street, though.

He doesn’t get an answer to his question, as the man continues his nonsensical rambling.

Barbara speaks into his ear. “Got it. Police will be there in about seven minutes.”

“That's fast,” he says, surprised. While it was true that the majority of the major criminals were in Arkham currently, that never stopped crime in Gotham. The only difference was that there were fewer deaths, but petty crimes went up as all the henchmen were suddenly without a job. 

Gotham had been suspiciously quiet the last week or so, a bad omen. Quiet was not a good thing in the city. It meant something was brewing. 

“You know the city has seen lowering crime rates recently. It's worrying if I’m being honest. The only uptick has been drug dealings, specifically in the West end. Weird, seeing as the police station is over there too. Knowing here, it means something.”

He hums thoughtfully, his eyes narrowing as he considers what it all may point to.

“By the way,” Barbara’s speech becomes slightly lighter in tone, “Dick wanted me to pass on the message. Meet him on top of the old cathedral at 1:30.”

“Why didn’t he just text me that?”

She replies, amused, “he said you had him blocked. And I know you haven’t been turning on your comms either. You’ve only just now connected to the network.”

“... Forgot about doing that, actually. The blocking thing.”

The casual conversation is interrupted by the man he’s holding down flailing suddenly while Jason is distracted. He swears as he tries to overpower him and get his grip back, and in the chaos doesn't notice the man's hand snaking to his gun. His legs are kicking every which way, nailing Jason in the knee at some point.

The man’s hand reaches the weapon. When he grabs it, Jason widens his eyes in realization.

The man whips it up, clearly aiming straight for Jason’s head. Jason wasn’t too keen on facing death again.

He jumps backward, narrowly dodging a white beam. Diving behind a wall, the beams shoot by him, burning scorch marks into the cement road outside the alleyway. Whatever it is, the tech is advanced. Way too much for some random mugger to own. 

The beams don’t stop, and he’s forced to run to the next alley and hide, peeking out into the street as the sound of firing stops. His breaths are slow as he tries to stay quiet.

The man steps out, his head darting around, searching for Jason. His grip on his gun is shaky at best, and it's obvious from his abysmal aim. How do you miss a target feet away? Jason’s embarrassed to have been pushed back by someone like him. But with a gun like that, it’s hard to blame him for running. Anyone can be dangerous with the right weapon.

Jason grabs his own gun, filled with rubber bullets, and peaks around the corner again. 

The man is looking the other way, still muttering to himself (though more quietly, to where Jason can’t even hear him), and Jason takes the chance. He raises his gun, shooting the man's hands. He screams out in pain, dropping the gun in surprise as he pulls his hands into his chest instinctively. 

Jason takes the chance, and rushes him, pinning the man to the ground. He kicks the gun away from them as they both struggle against each other. Jason can feel where bruises will form as they wrestle; the man is not exactly small, in fact, he’s taller than Jason, but with less muscle. Jason at least has him beat in weight. The man struggles hard in his hold, and Jason has no choice but to knock him out with a sharp knock to the back of his skull. 

When the man's body slumps, he lets out a breath. He looks over to the gun, a few feet away, lying in the street.

He leans back against a nearby building and lifts his hand to his comm.

“Oracle, do you know anything about guns shooting out white lasers?”

“What?”

He sits up, putting his gun carefully back into the holster as he speaks.

“The mugger, his gun shoots these white beam things. It seems way too advanced for a guy like him to own.” A car starts driving down the street, and he has to speak louder to be heard. “We should be looking into this, if this guy had access to one, that means people like Penguin and Scarecrow could too.”

“That’s… not good,” she mumbles, and he can’t help but laugh a little. It was the understatement of the year.

“Can you bring me the gun? We need to figure out who could have manufactured it. If it’s alien tech, then we have a whole new problem on our hands.”

“Sure- FUCK! You’ve gotta be kidding me ,” he yells angrily, staring in disbelief at the street.

Where the gun used to lie is now scattered metal parts, and a car speeding away. He jumps up, quickly grabbing what he can and shoving it into his pockets. It's useless though, as they are all thoroughly destroyed after having been run over. He curses himself for not picking up the weapon sooner.

He glances over to the man still sprawled out on the ground. At least he’d stopped muttering. If that guy is their only lead, then God help them all.

“What happened?” Barbara asks, concerned.

“About the gun…”

* * * * * *

The alleyway is a bit more empty than the last time she had been there.

It had obviously been cleaned up after her failed attempt at snooping, as the haphazard piles of discarded gun parts had disappeared. The dumpsters were seemingly empty as well, which made her guess they had become more secretive in their manufacturing as of late. Likely in the lead-up to Friday, she surmised. 

She positioned herself by the side door, slowly picking the lock. It was exactly like the warehouse’s one, and just as easy to break into. She was mildly surprised they never invested in some higher-quality security. But she supposed it would be suspicious to have that level of security in a supposedly abandoned hotel. They seemed keen on staying under the radar. She guessed that was why all their places of operation were in such poor condition, at least outwardly.

Or possibly because they couldn’t be bothered to maintain anything.

“Do I just smash this box up or something?” Dalton's voice echoes over the comm. She unlocks the door the same second he starts to speak.

“Is it silver? Then yes. Make it unsalvageable, that should slow down any planned production.” She responds quietly, stepping back slightly to watch the door.

The telltale boom of the power going out, and the sudden lack of light being emitted signals her time to go. She grits her teeth and reaches for the door handle. She pulls it open as stealthily as she can, entering the gray building. Immediately she can hear muffled complaints and footsteps. She crouches low to the ground. It may be pitch black, but it wasn’t as if a lack of light impacted hearing. The room she enters smells of mildew, and from her research it should be what used to be the kitchen area.

The building was an old hotel, one that had gone out of business decades ago, rotting away until it had finally been purchased a few months ago by an unknown buyer. Daniella had a hunch for who it might be, but it might have been someone else simply slipping under her radar. Unlikely, but a possibility nonetheless.

She slips on her night glasses, and can finally make out her surroundings better. 

Rows and rows of rusted and dirty metal counters fill the room. The whole place is disgusting, the old messes never cleaned and a large pile of scrap metal in the corner makes it clear to her that not much cooking gets done in it nowadays. She scrunches her nose. Walking through the mess, it’s a challenge for even her to avoid making a sound, but she prevails as she reaches one of the exit doors.

She has memorized the layout and knew it connected to one of the hallways on the first floor. From there, the basement was connected to a maintenance room behind the lobby. It sounded simple, but she had no idea where all the subordinates were. Half of the battle would be getting lucky enough to make it to the basement door. The other half would be getting out unnoticed.

With her hand on the door handle, she slowly turns the knob, opening the door and peeking out through the smallest sliver of space.

The hallway is seemingly empty, likely because everyone else was busy trying to fix the outage. She wondered if the hotel rooms were used as places for any of The Ivories to stay. The hall smelled like it was in use, in that the smell of cigarettes still lingered in the air. Usually, it just seeped into furniture, but the fact it was staying in the hallway air was a dead giveaway. She wondered if it was from Al.

She stays close to the wall as she turns corners and continues on her way to the lobby area. Wallpaper is peeling off the walls; some particularly bad spots were covered with vandalized paintings. Seeing as the lobby was at the very front of the building, she was concerned that there may be someone present.

When she nears the lobby, she can tell her worries are very rational.

“Of course the one day I come round, the power goes out. What kinda luck do I have,” a voice mutters.

The woman speaking is holding a gun, her head turning to every sound. The lobby is less messy than other rooms, even sporting a couch and a coffee table. Across from Daniella is where the woman stands, next to the other hallway, leading to another set of rooms. The woman tenses when a water droplet hits a metal bucket behind her.

Daniella grins. 

She picks up a small piece of scrap metal that has found its way over to the lobby and throws it as far as she can into the hallway behind the woman. It makes a sharp noise as it bangs into the bucket.

“Oh fuck no.”

The woman’s grip tightens on her weapon as she shakily goes to investigate the sound, banging into things as she spits out fiery curses. Daniella’s glad she’s brave; it means she’s actually willing to move and not just cower and call for backup.

Daniella uses her chance, and darts behind the lobby desk. She quickly glances around to check if anything important is there, but it only has a few pens and a plastic plant on it. That didn’t surprise her, but she was still slightly disappointed nonetheless.

She had three objectives in this mission. The first was to effectively take out the power, thereby halting any ongoing production. Dalton had seemingly taken care of that. Next was to discover any unknown information. That meant going through every part of the building, and breaking into the basement was consequently a part of that. Finally, any general attempt at sabotage was fair game in her book. She just had to hope she’d have the chance.

Opening the door behind the lobby silently, she is greeted by the sight of pipes and the sound of water continuously dripping. She grimaces as she steps deeper into the room, making a beeline for the next door. Puddles of water dampen her shoes as she walks.

It’s a large metal door, but opens easily when she tests the handle. She guesses that no one has ever bothered to put a lock on it in the cocky assumption that no one would ever seek out the door. She feels a smirk climb up her face at the thought of being the first.

The door leads to a stairwell that's illuminated by small red emergency lights. Half are broken, and she keeps her glasses on as she descends, her left hand on one of the escrima sticks. The strong smell of iron fills her nose. It’s much cleaner than the other areas, she assumes it was likely the most used place in the building.

She finally stops at the top of a metal balcony-like structure, looking over a large room. It’s packed with what looks like machinery, expensive machinery at that. Clearly meant for mass production. Her gaze hardens as she stares down below. 

There was an entire factory beneath their noses all this time. She had no idea how it had been built without anyone discovering it before it could be completed. With the amount of wealth needed to create this, she’s starting to suspect they’ve had backers for a long time. Similar to the staircase, red emergency lighting lights up the room, giving it an ominous look.

Even more so is the man standing in the middle of it all.

“Stupid, stupid, STUPID!” He yells, slamming his fist down on one of the machines. It echoes in the room, loud enough to where she guesses he had been wearing brass knuckles. Around him are a few other people, standing awkwardly to the side as he throws his temper tantrum.

He looks up to glare at one of them, and Daniella’s eyes widen slightly. 

Dalton's father points his finger at the other man.

“You. Have they figured out the problem yet?”

“Let me ask,” the man responds, pulling his phone out of his pocket and dialing a number. Daniella gets lower on the balcony, trying to stay hidden.

The man seems to get someone to pick up their phone on the other side, as he begins to speak in a hushed and tense voice. Dalton’s father watches him, his gaze never leaving in the suspense.

The man hangs up the phone, and says uneasily, not looking at Dalton’s father, “The outage… someone broke the entire electrical breaker. It's beyond repair, it's like someone took a crowbar to it or something.”

Dalton's father freezes. His hands curl into tight fists, his rage obvious even from a distance.

He straightens up. “Tell them to look for the culprit. I want a full sweep of a building, they’re likely still in the building, or nearby,” he orders, his voice steady and commanding. She understood how he was still the leader.

She looks around a little more and sees a pile of crates similar to the ones in the warehouse sitting off to the side. The warehouse’s store had likely been from months of work, so the crates in the corner were probably from a week of labor. 

Her third goal had been sabotage. 

She felt this could qualify as “absolutely necessary”.

With her hand in her pocket, she pulls out the small dark ball. It had a button on the side, and she held it in her sweaty palm as she waited. The men on the ground floor were still talking as orders were barked at them. When their backs were sufficiently turned, she pressed the button and chucked it down into the crates.

She bolted away, flying up the stairs as she counted down the seconds in her head. 

BOOM

Yells and the later sound of a fire extinguisher being used echo up the staircase, and she can’t help but smile at the adrenaline of it all. Her feet pound up the flight of stairs, and soon enough she’s bursting through the metal door. She doesn’t stop, instead running with light feet through the mess of pipes.

She slows down at the lobby door and delicately pushes it open. 

The woman is nowhere to be seen, and Daniella guesses the order to sweep the hotel has been received by everyone. 

Blowing up the crates was probably a bad move. But at least she felt like she was doing something for once. She just had to deal with the fact she was actively being searched for in a pitch-black building.

“Was that noise what I think it was?”

Daniella makes a noncommittal noise in response to Dalton as she exits the lobby, moving like a soldier through the building.

“You’re gonna make my hair turn gray. Seriously. Want me to throw something off the roof, and get the dudes to go outside? I could hear them under me, I’m thinking they left though.”

“Try to break a window on the south side,” she whispers, finally finding the staircase in the hall.

“Got it,” he says, and a few seconds later as she starts to quietly ascend the stairs, she can hear shouting a few stories up. She assumes it was from the now broken window, and stays close to the wall as she moves up. When she makes it to the second floor, she can faintly hear arguing on the other side of the floor.

She doesn’t stop to listen, as she continues and darts up the next flight of stairs. 

She was going to continue, but the sound of screaming and someone pounding on a door caused her to pause. They sounded pained, whomever it was. Her instincts shaped from years of patrols kick in, and she dashes to the source of the commotion.

Her steps lead her to a large metal door. It was very out of place, and she guessed it had been installed recently. She quickly glances around, and when she sees no one, puts her ear to the door.

“ What’s happening? HEY! UGLY!”

Daniella could recognize that voice anywhere. 

Mirabella.

And in what seems to be the same room she herself had been captured in nearly a week before. She stood rooted to the ground, listening in disbelief to Mirabella's yells. She tries her hand on the door handle, but to her dismay, it’s steadily locked. And she can tell this one will not be picked so easily.

A bright light shines on her, and she shields her eyes in surprise, staring over at the source.

“ You. ” A gruff voice says.

“Me,” she replies as she backs away from the door, glaring at the man.

It was Mark. She had to stop herself from smacking herself in the head. How she could let someone sneak up on her, especially someone like him was a mystery. She blamed it on the distraction of realizing she was at fault for Mirabella's kidnapping. 

He drops the flashlight on the ground, bright enough to where the entire hall is partially illuminated.

She stops thinking the second he starts to lunge for her.

Jumping back, she pulls out her Escrima sticks and tries to channel her inner Nightwing as she blocks a punch with one. Mark's punches are powerful, and he reminds her of a boxer in how he holds himself. The quick jabs and hooks he's throwing are keeping her busy as she dodges and sharply hits him with the sticks. There's a knife on his side, which he pulls out at slashes at her. She avoids it mostly, but he’s a good fighter and manages to cut across her forehead. He keeps moving, and she’s starting to get worried about wasting time.

She turns on the electricity, praying that Dalton has actually been successful in his creation. When he throws a hard cross that barely misses, she whips up her stick, nailing him in the side of his ribcage. 

The electricity pulses through him as he cries out in shock, and loudly falls to the ground. 

She turns off the Escrima sticks, and checks his pulse, making sure the voltage isn’t too high. It seemingly wasn’t as he was breathing. He’ll likely wake up with a headache from hitting the floor and some bruising, but otherwise be fine. The knife had fallen to the floor as well, and she left it there, not bothering to pick it up.

Blood drips down her face, and she wipes it away in annoyance. Head wounds always bleed more than any others, making them seem much worse than they were. She couldn’t imagine what she looked like with a half-red face as she ran away.

“I’m here,” she says into her comm as she walks up the attic stairs. They had already been pulled down, she assumed that was what Dalton had heard.

“I’ll open the trapdoor.” 

She enters the attic and can hear the sound of metal being tugged. While he opens it up, she pokes around, taking in her surroundings. 

Dust covers every surface, and white coverings over what she assumes is furniture fill the room. What catches her eye is the breaker. She can’t help but appreciate his handiwork, it was efficiently destroyed, wires pulled and dents put into it. She wondered if he had brought a hammer in his bag. That wouldn’t surprise her; if he had tried to bring a bagel, a hammer hardly sounded far-fetched.

Light streams in above as the trap door is pulled open, and Dalton's head pops into view.

“Up here.” He says cheerfully, but his face falls when she comes into the light. “ What happened? Are you okay?”

“It’s merely a scratch, do not be concerned,” she answers indifferently as she walks over to a rope on the floor.

“You’re covered in blood. That’s the definition of concerning.”

She throws the rope up to him.

“Tie this to one of the poles up there,” she calls out while sitting down on one of the covered chairs. She stretches her arms as Dalton starts tying. It had been a bit since she’d gotten to fight, she’d missed the feeling. 

She sits there for a minute or so, waiting for him to pop back into view.

“Done.”

She stands up, and puts her hands on the rope, tugging it lightly to test it. When it doesn’t fall, she begins to climb up.

She’d made it to about halfway when Dalton yelled, 

“HEY!”

She hurries up as she glances to where he’s yelling. It was Al and Mark, and they looked furious.

“ Get back here! ”

Dalton sticks his arm out, reaching his hand to her. She grabs on, and as he pulls her up, she can feel something tug on her leg.

“Get OFF of her!” 

Al wasn’t letting go. In fact, he was pulling even harder, to where she was afraid of what kind of damage he might do. She kicks her leg, trying to get him in the head, but his hold is strong. 

Finally, she manages to hit his ear, and his grip slackens.

Dalton pulls harder, and she’s almost out when a knife comes flying up, stabbing Dalton in the arm.

He cries out in pain, letting go unconsciously. She falls slightly but manages to grab onto the rope, the man below smiling at Dalton’s pain. A strange anger bubbles up inside of her at the action. With one hand, she quickly grabs her Escrima stick and turns it on. She drops it, hitting Al in the face, and he howls in pain as he falls to the floor.

She shimmies up the rope and pulls herself up out of the trapdoor. 

Not before she gets hit in the leg with something.

She doesn’t have the time to figure it out as Dalton hands her a knife as he still cradles the arm with one lodged in. She sees the rope and watches with glee as Mark, who had been climbing up, widens his eyes comically as he falls, landing on top of Al. 

She shuts the trapdoor loudly and limps over to Dalton. Whatever had hit her, was affecting her movement and was seemingly spreading.

“Are you alright?” She asks, surprised at her concern. It was rare for her to earnestly care about someone, not in her immediate family.

He looks up with a grimace. “I’m fine, what about you?”

“I was hit with a stunning agent. We need to leave, right this second. They will find us and their weapons are much more deadly.”

He nods gravely as he stands up, throwing his backpack on. 

They begin leaving, and she finds it difficult to quickly traverse the rooftops as her left side becomes increasingly numb. By the time they make it to the tenth roof, she’s practically being supported by Dalton, who’s glancing at her in worry.

“Daniella… We need to ask Orphan for help. Who knows what you were hit with, it could be killing you for all we know. And my arm needs better care than my medkit can give.”

She knows he’s right, but can’t help the apprehension she feels at the idea. Asking for help meant defeat, and even worse, meant her father finding her. She’d voice her feelings but found herself struggling to untangle her thoughts and form words. 

“Shit shit shit Dani-”

He catches her as she completely loses her control over her legs. 

“We need help.” He says with finality, blood dripping down his arm.

“No. We really do not,” she slurs out, furrowing her brows at how she sounded. 

He doesn’t respond, instead picking her up into a sort of bridal carry. She glares up at him, her face gaining an uncomfortable heat.

“Just like old times,” he says cheerfully as he begins to walk with her in his arms, despite her sputtered protests.

“Does this not agitate your wound?”

“It isn’t deep enough to where that should be a problem. Besides, I’m more worried about getting caught by those two guys. They looked pissed .”

She frowns. 

For some reason, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to go wrong.

Chapter Text

Dick taps his foot on the cathedral’s roof. 

The air is grimy, a thick atmosphere that seems to squeeze his chest, making it harder to breathe. Even above the streets, Gotham’s scent cannot be avoided. He takes another deep breath while staring out ahead of him. There’s a distinct lack of normal city sounds, excluding the occasional noise of a passing car. It’s too quiet. Silence isn’t good for Gotham, it never has been. Usually, there would at least be a few people looking for trouble that he and Tim could confront while waiting for Jason. However, for whatever reason, none can be found. It should be encouraging, a sign that perhaps the city has taken a new leaf.

That would never be the case in Gotham. He knows that all too well.

Tim fidgets with his bo-staff next to him. He seems restless and agitated as the seconds continue to crawl. Dick knows he’s noticed the lack of crime in the area too. They all have, it was hard not to; there had been a slow decline in specifically drug deals in Gotham’s East side lately. As well as a new lack of people on the streets looking for roles as henchmen for larger organizations. There wasn’t anything obviously sinister about the change, in fact, it had been pushed to the back of Dick’s mind in the past week for certain reasons. One reason, specifically.

Now, standing on the roof, it’s harder to ignore.

“Why exactly do I have to be here too?” Tim asks him suddenly, clearly mildly disgruntled. Which isn’t an entirely unreasonable feeling to be having, after all, Dick had told him to meet him and Jason on the cathedral’s roof before grappling away. It was a bit dramatic of him if he was being honest. But the sooner he left, the harder it was for Tim to say no. It was the same with Jason, though that was more due to the fact he was practically uncontactable. Dick couldn’t be blamed for that one. Jason had been the one to block him, not the other way around.

Maybe he had sent a few too many texts asking for updates, but what else was he supposed to do.

He turns to glance at Tim, snapped out of his thoughts. “Because. I’ve been wanting to debrief with Hood anyway, might as well make it a reunion.”

Tim didn’t seem too impressed, but he didn’t attempt to press the matter further. That was all the better for Dick anyhow. He did not have any wishes to argue at the moment, not that he ever did. But he’d been especially attached to his family as of late. And he knew that with his current mood, he would be quick to blow up at the next person to irritate him. He’d rather avoid that outcome.

It was silent for another minute or two; both were deep in thought when once again Tim broke the quiet with a huff. “I really don’t see the point in me waiting with you. You can just relay the information to me later, it's not like Hood and I get along anyway. He’ll be even more of an ass with me there.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Dick says with a faint smile, Tim’s mouth twitching to form one of his own. “And I want you here. We haven’t really hung out in a while, and I’m sorry for that.”

Tim shakes his head, seemingly slightly confused. “We’ve both been busy, and you have priorities right now. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“Still. You’re my brother, and I care. I’ll make it up to you when this whole thing is done.”

“... Alright,” Tim replies, turning away from Dick. He can tell the boy is embarrassed. Probably because he isn’t great at taking kind words. Dick laughs affectionately as Tim crosses his arms with his back turned. 

They all need to work on confronting emotions. 

“ I’m about one minute away ,” a gruff voice crackles into the comm.

Speak of the devil.

“Is that Hood on comms? ” Dick replies teasingly.

“Don’t get used to it.”