Chapter Text
Willis knows this isn’t supposed to be so frustrating. He spent his time on the street and it served him nothing but a cold dinner of ash and tears. It made Willis feel useless for the first time in his life and he swore he would never feel that way again.
Recently it started creeping back. That same feeling of uselessness.
He knew why too. A certain Mobster sticking his fingers in pies trying to get hired hands any way he could.
Willis payed his time, he just wanted to be left alone. He didn’t know whether it was a blessing or a curse the cops didn’t bother him too but he didn’t feel like testing his luck by going to them with the threats.
Cathy didn’t know they’d gotten worse.
He’d come home with that nasty hit to the head once after that He greeted them with Brass Knuckles and a bat. Willis wasn’t absolutely sure they’d had guns on them but he’d cracked skulls fast enough they couldn’t get to them if they did.
It was a nightmare learning he was still just as quick in a fight after all this time. Then again Willis had been born in Gotham. Maybe it was just in his blood. Coming home that night and seeing Jason asleep peacefully in his bed, with his books and action figures was enough to convince Willis that it wouldn’t be in his son’s.
So he tabled the threats, avoided them, shook off tails for 6 months and now that he’d gotten confirmation that he’d made it. He’d made it into the Wayne Enterprises Engineering program. He was going to take advantage of the housing they offered too. It was a completely different neighborhood, on the Upper east side. It was close to Robinson Park.
It was safe.
The blackmail threats wouldn’t do any good to a thug who wasn’t around. It was at least 40 minutes to Cobblepots part of the city.
So Willis came home high Friday night with three tickets clutched in his hands and a determination to have a good time Sunday with his son and wife over the weekend and put all of this nonsense out of his mind.
Catherine was there to greet him with a smile that looked like someone had covered the sun. Willis came in shutting the door with a click behind him and setting the tickets to the side, with a promise not to forget about them.
“Is everything okay?” He said first hoping she would just tell him and he wouldn’t have to needle her. Catherine’s face pinched and smoothed a millisecond later with a painted smile.
“Fine why wouldn’t it be?” She said shrugging reaching to kiss his cheek. Her voice was just a touch flat and Willis’s hands on her shoulders stopped her from moving back.
“Honey I know you better then that” He sighed and held her feeling the way his Catherine melted into him. Her nails dug into his hips and his tangled her hair.
They didn't’ talk for a few minutes, Willis being patient enough to wait. Whatever it was he could feel how she needed this, and he wasn’t going to take it away. Not so soon.
Although if he waited too long there might be marks in his skin from her nails. A thought that excited him a little too much, and Willis broke the silence with a chuckle
“What’s funny?” Cathy murmured and he snorted fighting off the smile trying to figure out how he could even tell her.
“Hmm I mean . . “ He shrugged ”For all you know I was thinking about the last time you had your nails in my back . . .“
“Willis!”
“What? Your holding me like a purse you snatched!”
“That is not funny!” She protested but her eyes were sparkling even though still dimmed. Willis just smiled glad to put a little light back in her smile and pulled away
Catherine shakes her head and the mood settles again, but not as heavy. She walks to the sink and pulls a glass from the cabinet filling it before she turned to face Will again.
“So?” She asked sipping. “What was it today?”
Willis freezes, and somewhere on his leg Bruises sting with the weight of an accusation.
“What do you mean?” He frowns. Please don’t let it have reached Cathy he thinks horrified.
Catherine’s look is enough to school him and he flinches away knowing he’s been had. “Alright i get it. I just didn’t want you to worry . . .”
“. . . I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t get a call from Louis at the office. He said a guy came to see you and you might be home late.” Catherine states swallowing the water like it’s a life line as her gaze centered on the wall. Willis swallows wishing his mouth didn’t suddenly become so dry.
“I just-” He starts but it dies quickly and Willis sighs the exhaustion pulling on his shoulders. “I didn’t want you to worry . . but It’s gonna be okay.”
“How is it going to be okay? They’re following you to work now Willis” She snapped and the glass clinked where she slammed it and water sloshed up from impact.
“Because I got in.” Willis smiles and her whole face rearranges. He watches her struggle to talk and almost starts to laugh if not for the way a hesitant joy starts to spark in her eyes.
“Are-Willis are you serious? You got in?” She repeats his words almost hopefully dumbfounded.
“I got in” He whispers.
Catherine launches at him and he catches her- like he’ll always do- they go spinning, laughing back and forth at the absurdity and Catherine’s hands find his face pulling him into a kiss that leaves him floating in place with an angel in his arms.
“You got in . . we’re gonna be okay” She breathes, Willis nodding again grinning.
“We’re gonna be just okay” He murmured again and he pulls her in this time feeling how her hands slid into place around his neck. He broke the kiss and Catherine leaned in, finding a place just under his chin with her head.
They sit like that a few minutes and it’s peaceful, good, and everything Willis needed in that moment. The only thing missing was little Jason who was fast asleep.
Willis reached over and snatched the tickets smiling again. “Think we can surprise him tomorrow at dinner?” Three shining examples of Knights baseball tickets gleam in the soft yellow light.
“Oh you big softie” She laughs after a moment to read them and Willis winks
“Only for the two greatest things in my life” He says waving the tickets teasingly “And sometimes my wife”
Her slap gets a laugh out of him and they sit there for a while after that. Talking, dancing a little, and slow stepping to the bedroom.
Willis goes to bed happiest he’s been in months with a snoring Catherine close to drooling on the other side of the bed.
It’s curious how quickly things fall into a shaky routine. A single night doesn’t end the same.
There’s injuries and those vary every time Dick comes home. It’s the information that really cements a schedule.
Dick hates it. Loathes doing it. He still cannot deny that it’s the most useful part of all of this. Without it he thinks he might be lost.
It starts as simple folders but it’s starting to become a pile. Dicks had to send Alfred to fetch more because Dick Wayne seen in public shopping for folders is a weirdly specific headline Dicks not keen to have attached to his name.
Regardless.
Every night he does this. Like getting stitches or changing bandages it grows from simple duty and diligence to something that is permanently a fixture. Forever a fact of his life.
Dick Wayne ties perfect stitches. Dick Wayne keeps excellent records of the criminal underground of Gotham.
It’s a current case files working tonight that he’s wishing yielded more noteworthy things like real names and locations. There was a hit being discussed on a form former criminal but Dick hadn’t caught just who yet.
It was frustrating as well to realize that one of the two thugs he’d eavesdropping at the Lounge were in fact a former employee of Wayne Industries.
"Master Dick? Are you down here?"
Alfred's voice echoes off the cave walls, sourced from the top and Dick glances to the stairs. Alfred has entered at the very top looking down expectantly.
"You need me for something Alfred?" He asks knowing instinctively it's not like the Butler to simply stay quiet which means he's expecting Dick to know already.
"I would assume you remember your date with Miss Grant approaching. You've yet to pick a venue." The old man grumbles down the stairs and Dick waits, like he's bound to do letting the butler take his time. No. Dick doesn't let him per se more that he waits patiently because he has no intention of telling what is essentially his adoptive 3rd dad take his time.
God help if he ever did decide to tell Alfred what to do. Dick doesn't pity the future foolish version of himself stupid enough to try.
"What were you going to say?" Dick asks the moment Alfred graces the bottom step, now within mere feet of the little alcove he's built down here. It's not much just a table and chair but there's soon to be a file cabinet if Dick continues the way he has and a few of his favorite pens already have found homes here.
Alfred stands stiff backed and proper raising an unassuming eyebrow "I said, you are still required to pick a venue for your outing scheduled with Miss Catherine Grant come Sunday."
"I've picked it out" Dick protests and that eyebrow doesn't even twitch. Dick sighs, "I did. I got tickets to Gotham Knights. It's crowded but just the sort of thing a rich billionaire could have a niche interest in."
Alfred's eyebrow remains stubbornly lifted. "That require you have interest in things other than punching criminal lowlifes into unconsciousness in the late hours of the evening Master Dick." Alfred states primly.
Dick tries not to deflate.
"I mean it's too late to refund those tickets. Guess they will have to do"
"Yes. What every young woman would love to go see. Baseball." Alfred snipes again and this time when Dick shoots him a look there's a twitch. Just at the corner of the mustache and all at once Dick realizes he's being put on.
"Go on, I'll be up in a bit I'm sorting these notes i picked up tonight." Dick snorts but lets the issue drop. He's not going to call the butler out on his sense of humor but it makes him smile the moment he turns his back. He hears the footsteps echo of the older man and the whole way up Dick has a genuine, if a little tired, smile.
He finishes categorizing the changes to the cave in order of implementation and then sits down to pour over the information he's concluded from tonight's stake of the Lounge and a few seedier alleyways. He types one simple entry into what considered his "lead" filings or the current investigations he's making, each one marked by a small symbol indicating a finished line of investigation or an open one.
ᴄᴜʀʀᴇɴᴛ ᴏᴘᴇʀᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱ: Ⓘ
JW BLACKMAIL:
ᴜɴᴋɴᴏᴡɴ ʙʟᴀᴄᴋᴍᴀɪʟ ᴏꜰ ɪɴᴅɪᴠɪᴅᴜᴀʟ ᴏɴʟʏ ɪᴅᴇɴᴛɪꜰɪᴇᴅ ᴀꜱ ᴊᴡ ʀᴇᴄᴇɴᴛʟʏ ᴀᴄᴄᴇᴘᴛᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴɢɪɴᴇᴇʀɪɴɢ ᴘʀᴏɢʀᴀᴍ ᴏꜰ ᴡᴀʏɴᴇ ɪɴᴅᴜꜱᴛʀɪᴇꜱ ʟɪᴋᴇʟʏ ᴀ ꜰᴏʀᴍᴇʀ ᴄᴏɴᴠɪᴄᴛ ɴᴇɢᴀᴛɪᴠᴇ ʀᴇʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱʜɪᴘ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴏʀɢᴀɴɪᴢᴇᴅ ᴄʀɪᴍᴇ ᴀꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʀᴇꜱᴇɴᴛ ɴᴏ ᴘᴏꜱɪᴛɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏɴɴᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴꜱ ᴋɴᴏᴡɴ ɪɴꜰᴏʀᴍᴀɴᴛ ᴋɴᴏᴡɴ ᴀꜱ ᴡᴇᴀꜱᴇʟ ᴄᴜʀʀᴇɴᴛʟʏ ᴇxʜɪʀᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴡᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏᴡ ʜɪʀᴇᴅ ʙʏ ᴄᴏʙʙʟᴇ ᴘᴏᴛ ʟᴇᴀᴅɪɴɢ ᴏᴘᴇʀᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
Talk of escalation. Need to find who JW is.
The chatter is everywhere.
The way it roars around them in a dull static, hundreds of voices bleeding into one large wave of sound. Dick will never be over it, and how it brings him straight back to being 8 learning the ropes of a trapeze and performing in front of a hundred or more.
“Cat got your tongue?”
He laughs brightly, not even having to fake it and throws an award winning smile her direction.
Cat Grant is everything Clark had said and then a few things more. The sharp blonde was highly intelligent and charming in the way a viper was. Everything she did had an aim to it even if it was just walking.
She was also frustratingly stubborn.
“So Mr.Wayne do you bring all news reporters to Gotham Knights Stadium or just the pretty ones?” Cat continues on without an answer to her earlier question, politely bullying her way into annoying an answer out of him if she has to.
“Alright you’ve made your point.” Dick points out and snorts “No just . . it’s been a while and I kinda thought this was a neat spot to do an interview”
It’s not entirely a lie. It was an interesting spot to do an interview.
“Point succeeded, What about it has been a while? A while since you’ve been home? Or a while since you’ve been on a date?” Cat asks and her smirk is damning to a man with secrets to hide. Dick hides his amusement behind his megawatt smile.
“Oh not dating” He grins, knowing exactly which question he’s choosing to answer and with what. “I just brought back this wonderful lady the other night? Very nice she was a Ms- well it’s hard to remember now that I think about it…”
Cat’s expression never sours but there’s a definite flicker in her smile. Dick tries not to grin too much.
“What about you Mrs. Grant?” He asked putting the ball in her court now. “Why are you not more upset that we’re here to see the Knights?’
“What?” Cat snorted glancing out across the crowd and it’s loud static still buzzing all around them in a cacophony of voices. “You figured me for a Meteors fan?” She smiles, nice and pretty leaning forward with a gleam in her eyes.
Dick feels like he’s suddenly stepped on a landmine.
“Well I-”
“May be Metrops home team but not mine. I’m born and raised metropolitan but I like a team that actually plays well you know?” Cat continues, bulldozing past his attempt at a reply and curls one manicured hand neatly under her chin. “What about you? You weren’t born here. Why root for the Knights.”
Looking for a story hook then he thinks and hums.
“Well no, but I was raised here since a kid and that kinda makes it home” He points out “Gotham’s in my blood as much as anyone else's.”
He doesn’t point out that his blood’s been all over Gotham. Too many hard hits those first months made sure of it.
The crowd seems to surge in noise for a moment and Dick’s attention is stolen as he looks down where center field is being set up. There’s a poke in his arm and he looks to Cat who’s got a curious look.
“Mr.Wayne-”
“Please, Mr. Wayne was my father.” Dick’s practically giddy at the way Cat’s face positively sours this time, and tilts his head “Call me Dick.”
“Alright Dick.” She huffs and rolls her eyes “You agreed to this interview the least you can do is being a little candid with me.”
“Aww but you make it so fun to play.” Dick teases winking and she stammers right there, not turning red but not in her best form either, words escaping in half said mutterings or the hiss of indignant sputtering.
Dick waits until she gathers her composure through gritted teeth and an intense narrowing of the eyes.
“Alright now. Let’s watch the game, I’ll ask my questions and then you’ll treat a girl to a good Lunch after, sound good?” She orders back straight eyes narrow and Dick gets that small feeling again. Like he’s an antelope staring down the mouth of a lioness.
“Yes Ma’am” Dick salutes and everything and Cat Grants indignant sputter makes it all worthwhile as they delve into casual conversation just a few minutes before the game starts.
Dick almost settles into the interview but it’s not long before the game starts to draw to a close and he’s uncomfortably reminded that he has to go through a whole lunch now with Cat Grant and her ever more pressing questions and it’s only been 2 hours and he’s exhausted.
“Well Grant, I believe I should go bring the car around or get the valet” Dick makes his excuse and executes it getting a side eye but taking the nod as permission.
“I’ll come with you.” Cat smiles. Her teeth are on display in a dazzling white line. Dick grimaces just beneath the facade of a neutral expression he’s put on, where Cat cannot see.
“Sure.” He nods politely but silently Dick is concerned.
Dick is well aware enough to reason that he could leave her. Ditch her. A part of him wants to, forget all of this and go back to the manor and it’s case files down in the basement.
The other reminds him that Richard “Dick” Wayne needed to be a public face in order to get better funding for WE new subsidiary he’d managed to open. It also reminds him that both his mothers would be disappointed that he’d stood a lady up, whether she was a crocodile in sheep's clothing or not.
The crowd’s noise fades until it’s quiet and calm. There’s a child and parents scattered near the concessions. Two men who look like their chatting statistics from the enthusiastic hand gestures back and forth. All exits and Entrances noted and checked.
Dick leads Cat Grant down, hands in pockets, nonchalantly as he can until they hit street level where Dick will have to walk a quarter block just to get to the private garage. The street isn’t too crowded.
Dick stares down it anyways, months and years of instincts screaming in a quiet place. He halts. Cat’s voice becomes nothing, growing quieter as he pushes it out of focus and looks around.
Dick doesn’t see anything. He sees folks walking home, he sees a parent holding their kids hand as they cross the sidewalk, two men-
Two men. Coats Dirty. Arguing with a man who’s mantling in front of a woman and boy. The boy shoved behind like a chick behind it’s mother and Dick feels his stomach drop.
The men are reaching into their coats.
One of them was fired 2 days ago from Wayne enterprises.
“Catherine-”
The shots ring out before Dick can warn her, warn anyone-
All he sees is an alley way- blood- his hands are wet
Screaming-
Cat is pulling him-
A click echoes as something slides into place and Dick’s mind clears, everything shoved behind a wall until Dick can pull himself together. He stares for one second more at the scene and then he’s moving.
It doesn’t take a genius to know that the Man is gone. He isn’t breathing, the shot is a straight hole in his chest directly where a heart is no longer beating.
Dick doesn’t waste time with it and looks to the woman. Young, mid 20’s maybe early 30’s and the gunshot isn’t centered quite as much but her shirt blooms with red, becoming scarlet by the minute.
“Dick Wayne what are you doing?” Cat’s sliding to her knees beside him hissing but Dick strips to shove his coat jacket at her
“Put pressure- hold it there while I make sure the gunmen are gone” He orders and glances up and over, past Cat towards the wall of a decrepit building behind them.
Muscles seize and Dick’s staring at himself.
A mop of black hair. A little voice that cries, shaking frame kneeling with bloody hands at the side of the man- his father,
flashes of blood soaked knuckles and a gun, crying out in rage and sorrow. Two broken motionless figures in bright colors highlighted by a single spotlight. Sitting alone in a whirlpool of devastation.
Dick grabs the boy and to his surprise there’s not a catatonic reaction but a fight in his arms. Twisting, wiggling, viciously slamming an elbow into Dick’s jaw like this kid has all the strength in the world.
“Hey- Hey calm down we’re trying to help-” Dick knows better but the words tumble out not thought out and rushed anyways.
“No! NO!” He screams loudly. Dick hears the echo of it in his own memories. Flashes of fighting with bloody hands and something in Dick snaps. He screams more, the sound tearing through the air.
He buries his face into the kids hair and pulls him against his chest, burrito the boy against his front while Dick lands on his rear in custom Armani tailored slacks.
The kid tries to scream and fight, clawing but there is no purchase to be made like this, no getting free and he tires quickly and then-
The first sob breaks forth, and Cat’s wild eyes meet Dick’s.
He echoes her grief and shock back.
“I know” Dick whispers, and he wraps his arms more securely around the little boy. He’s skinny in Dick’s arms, so small curled into a ball like this. Ebony hair, that dips just down to his ears. Dick can see a faint splash of freckles across his cheeks.
He’s slumped against Dick’s front. A small force of grief sobbing into Dick’s dress shirt, leaving wet stains of snot and tears that Dick can’t find the energy to care about at this moment.
“Dick?”
Catherine’s shaking voice interrupts Dick’s focus and he snaps his gaze up, defensively.
She’s staring down at him shaking and Dick realizes that she’s not holding a jacket to the woman. The woman who’s- There’s two paramedics there lifting her and Catherine is looking at him expectantly with a uniformed man beside her.
“I’ll take him.” Dick’s saying the words before he hears them. “I’ll take him, please”
“Are you sure Mr. Wayne?” The uniformed man asks and Dick nods. The boy in his arms isn’t moving but a small voice rises up.
“I-I want to go.” He says and thought he's hoarse the kid's voice sounds almost dead, the sort of dead when you have no energy left to be anything else. “Dad says I’m supposed to stay with Mom when he’s not there.”
Dick swallows the acid bubbling at the back of his throat and exhales the panic that chases it.
“Alright.” He says and lifts both of them at the same time. “Cat. You take my car and meet us there. I apologize for this but it seems we won’t be able to make lunch today if that’s alright?”
“Wayne I think you’ve gone Crazy.”
Dick looks down at the bundle in his arms, wrapped limply around Dick’s waist and then back at Cat. Her eyes flick downward, then up. She swallows hard and steps back slumping.
“Yeah I know.” She breathes. “I’ll meet you there.” Her hand comes up neatly catching the keys Dick wrangles from his pocket one handed and Dick turns toward the ambulance where the woman is already being loaded.
This feels like a dream. Like a horrible twisted nightmare playing out again and again.
Is Dick here? Or is he saving himself?
He curls into the back of the ambulance, going numb and the boy shifts in his arms nails scratching roughly against skin as he peers up.
Haunted blue eyes that match the ones made so long ago meet Dick’s. Dick looks away quicker then he should and doesn’t look back for the rest of the ride.