2014.06.23 - Burning the Candle at Both Ends

It took work, but he got the message out via Alfred, who was told not to 'spoil the surprise'. He was working this angle hard, and had handled Julius -- again -- once he was out of sight, dropping him like a stone. It was how he found the bug, actually. Planting the poison capsule that, when struck, would seep into the mouth of Julius and give him the sleeping death so he could not speak of anything he saw or heard between Dick and Jason.

So he waited, now, at the delivery point -- after making a good show of roughing up and beating everyone there and setting fire to the cargo they'd been smuggling in to Bludhaven. Roland'd given him the clear. He'd understand.

He flipped a cellphone over and over in his hand, while he waited with the bagged and tagged BPD officer, humming an old Kansas song under his breath. Dick would be here. Alfred would make sure of it.

He just had to hope he could pull this off.

Alfred had directed Nightwing to the area, letting him know there had been odd chatter over the BPD lines about a potential shipment, which they naturally said would be coming in via an alternative route as everyone had paid their 'toll' into the city. When the entire force is taking a paycheck from the smugglers, it wasn't difficult to get goods in and out.

Nightwing knew Bludhaven. He knew it better than most people would ever want to know a city this corrupt. Since his split with Batman, he'd patrolled the city nightly, venturing into Gotham only when they absolutely needed support. And with the talent of the agents under the Dark Knight, that was few and far between.

More over, he had studied BPD tactics while working with Marin. How they got their goods in and how to read between the lines. So he was here, perched on a building overlooking the warehouse. His comms were tuned into the BPD frequency, but he was watching the area as well. Zooming into every vehicle that passed by to run the driver against facial recognition.

The lines were silent. Nothing came in or out. Jason waited patiently... and then less patiently. He got up. He paced to a window-- letting his mask flip to lowlight, letting head and ambient light open up his vision as he scanned nearby rooftops.

Then he saw him. He gave a little wave, and beckoned him down.

"Olly olly oxen free."

Nightwing saw the familiar shape of the hood in one of the windows and returned the greeting with a flicking signal of finger signals. That he's doing legwork is a testiment to the state of Bludhaven, that he's checking every shadow is testiment to his training. Dick descends from the roof but doesn't cross by way of the street, favoring an approach with a well placed grapple fired right through the window and a zipline high enough over head that any passers by may not even see the shadow as it rocketed in through the window into a roll that ends with him standing.

"You'll have to forgive me being cautious." Said quietly, watching the contact Alfred said would be waiting for him here.

The Red Hood held a finger to where his lips would be, and then turned his phone so the screen was visible. ''Don't say anything. Julius is bugged.''

And then he reached up and undid his mask.

"No," he said aloud. "I get it. You don't know me, I don't know you. But I think we can be friends."

Jason lifted the helm away, and let it dangle from his fingertips. He gave his crooked grin, and tilted his head, saying, "You're shorter in person."

Even if Nightwing didn't recognize his brother, even if by some stretch of imagination he was unable to see an older man standing in front of was the young boy he helped train and mourned dying, the facial recognition software in his mask would tell him it in short order. Batman was, if anything, efficient when it came to staying ahead of the surprise curve.

With that helmet dangling from Jason's fingertips, Dick looks down at it and works his brow into a series of furrowed lines. Fists clinch at his sides, eyes lifting to look onto the eyes of a man he knew, but doesn't know. His mouth opens to say something, but remembers the message on the phone and instead twitches his lip into a sneer, mouthing, 'you're a dick.'

Because who puts someone in a position to be unable to express the overpowering gratitude at having their family back.. more over.. who would continue the charade and let their family go on thinking they were dead.

Grayson very rarely gets 'angry', but this is one of those moments. Angry at Joker all over again... Angry at Bruce because there's no way he didn't know this. Angry at Alfred because the old man would never send him here if he didn't know... and angry at himself for being angry in the first place.

Jason's grin goes wide, painfully happy at having the upper hand over somebody-- over someone. Bruce's -- the NegaBruce of a lost world -- letter still on his person like a talisman, he reminds himself of what they're doing here.

"So. I got something you need to see here. Or rather, someone you need to talk to."

He jerked his head, and gestured to the bloodied Julius, who had a hood over his head. "I've taken the liberty of giftwraping him for you. Don't want him to get to close, possibly be able to ID you, mask or no mask. I think you should talk to him."

''He's here to lie. Interrogate how you please, but pretend you don't know me.'' He put his helmet back on and pocketed his phone again. "Hey, Jules. Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey. You with us?"

The crooked cop gave a groan, and then grumbled. Yeah, he was awake. "You want to make him sing?" The Red Hood asked.

Nightwing watches the grin widen and sets his expression into something dark despite his intentions otherwise. No amount of acting is going to cover the fact that he's staring at a ghost, the ghost of a dead brother no less. Nor that he's being played against whoever has the cop bugged.

''Oh Jason. Still trying to play by your own rules.''

Dick sighs quietly and looks to the bagged police officer laying in a bloody heap on the floor of the warehouse. From his belt, Nightwing takes one of his grapple guns and points it right at Jules chest, hitting him midsternum where the clothes will eat most of the damage, but it's still like getting punched in the lung. "You're the next rung on the ladder." Matter of fact growl, surprisingly close to that of their father's when fueled by his anger. Without any indication that he's otherwise, it might well be easy for the cop to think the Batman is here.

"Who's above you." He makes a show of reloading another grapple into the gun, snapping it into place with an audable 'clickclick ching'.

Julius lies.

Julius lies like a cheap rug to does to hide a stain. He'll tell Dick anything but the truth. What he says is immaterial -- it's all false, and it's all singing the same song. THere's no Blockbuster. THere's someone else. Some fake out that'll sink because Blockbuster said it was alright to sink them. Jay knows.

"What he says matches up with what I've uncovered," he says to Dick, knowing full well that every word they say is going back to Blockbuster. "But some more digging might be in order. I was hoping you and I, we could be friendly on this. I know I'm impinging on your turf, but that's not my intention." Yes, actually, it was absolutely his intention. Every step of the way.

Nightwing glances sidelong at Jason, his brother, and then at the lying cop laying on the ground at his feet. The grapple turns over slowly in his hand, but after a moment he clips it back on his belt and turns towards the window. "I don't guess I have a choice, do I?"

He doesn't, not really. Because the alternative is turning his back on information that Jason has made certain he can't get without him out of petty spite. Dick isn't spiteful. Jason knows that and he knows he'll have to go along with this...

But he doesn't have to make it easy for him.

A small device like a car key comes off his belt, the button in the center is pressed like a button and a short wave, powerful, but ultimately low yield EMP goes off in the room. Cellphone, bug.. anything not lined in lead to protect it is now about as useful as a box of nails in a house of glass.

Nightwing crawls out the window and grabs hold of the zipline that will take him back across the street to the roof from which he originated. "I don't know what rock you crawled out from under, but you clearly didn't learn anything while you were there."

Well, there went everything that wasn't in his helmet. Dammit, Dick. He leaves the man where he lays, and in the morning, he'll be in a coma he'll never come out of. The hazards of doing business with the Red Hood.

He follows after Dick, muttering to himself about over-priced showboating, and as soon as they're up on the rooftop, he responds with, "Missed you too, asshole." And he did. Just... not enough to do the big reveal until now. He was busy. "I came to see you, but you were pretty fucked up at the time."

Nightwing waits on the roof, leaning against a stairwell down into the building upon which they're standing. "You do realize that I almost shit myself, right?" Pointing across the street at the warehouse. "I know you were going for 'look it's me, you can trust me', but next time why don't we do the 'hey guy, I'm not dead' thing when I've got somewhere to sit down, huh?"

Dick shoves Jason, trying to stay angry... trying really hard to stay angry. It's just not something he's very good at. He's never been the angry one. "What the hell, Jason? How is th-.. I mean I'm glad, but how?"

Jason shoves back -- he's big and he's broad, getting thick as hell over the years...he grew up bigger than Dick, and he's not shy of throwing that bulk around a little. But it's playful, almost affectionate.

"I had to think fast," he explains. "Blockbuster has me over the coals. He's moving on Gotham and I'm the new lieutenant. I was keeping this from Bruce, and... I hadn't figured how to tell you yet. Dealing with Bruce was hard enough. And that little shit he and Talia popped out, Jesus Christ...." He shook his head.. "I was working this beat to keep out of his way and trying to figure out how to hit you up for the 'so I pulled a Jesus, how are you', but.... then Blockbuster decided to move on Gotham and I had to move with him."

Mostly because he's still planning on leveraging Blockbuster's might into making Gotham his. Or at least, that's what he tells himself at night before bed when he thinks about being stuck between Blockbuster and Batman.

"As for the rest, as for how..." His grin faltered. "Don't know. Don't really want to find out, either. Don't look gift second comings in the mouth, you know?"

Nightwing is no slouch, but he's never been known for his physical presence either. The shove steps him back onto his foot and he's considering going back in for another round when he thinks the better of it. More so when Jason explains the position he's in.

"You have got to be kidding me, Jason... you're seriously considering playing this out to the end? What do you think that psycho's going to do when he finds out you're not on the up and up?" Let alone what Bruce is going to do. Blockbuster is a murderer and Jason is, even if by association, advocating it. The old man doesn't do well with that sort of blind eye.

Family talk... Dick rubs both hands down either side of his face, "Yeah." About Damian, even if the little squirt has started to grow on him a little, "Someone had to be the impish sociopath of the group... And you were off consorting with Saint Peter." Might be too soon for dying jokes.

Give him a break, he's just been told the afterlife is real. He's earned one.

"So Bruce knows? Who else knows?"

"Bruce definitely knows. I'm in and out of the cave. We..." this time he glances away. Their relationship's only gotten more complicated.. "We aren't really talking right now. Just-- relaying through Alf. Damian knows, obviously. And some punk ass kid named Vorpal who is training in Gotham with Bruce's okay, I guess."

He found a stretch of wall to lean against, crossing his arms over his chest. "As for the play--of course I'm going to see it through to the end. Guy's gotta go down and things have to change. He's... he's unlike anything you've ever seen. It's like Bane and Riddler's unholy mutant lovechild. Genius and monstrosity in one figure."

Nightwing shakes his head at the knowledge Bruce knows... that Alfred knows, even Damian...and VORPAL? Vorpal finds out before he does? Talk about a slap in the face. Not that he's got anything wrong with the purple cat, but this is family.

Dick leans heavier against the wall and stares up at the stars over Bludhaven, "I'm not taking him for granted, but he's not different just his own brand of crazy. Of course he has to go down, they always do, Jason.." Looking back to his brother with a frown.

"But you've got more invested in this than before. What's your end game?"

"No, I think he's legitimately terrifying. And not crazy. Not like-- Joker or Riddler or Two-Face. He's not illogical. He's grotesquely rational." And thus, useful in his own right. He and Jason see eye to eye: there is no defeating crime, merely controlling it.

"As for the end game, it's Gotham's safety. That's what I came back for. This is my home."

A Crime Alley punk, born and bred. Gotham's sewers are in Jay's blood, and the streets are his bones. He was born there. He should have died there.

Nightwing just stares at his brother and knows, without a doubt, that something is different about him. Whatever happened to bring him back, the punk kid he was is not the man standing here now. This is someone who thinks like their father, two or three steps ahead. Scheming to achieve an end, rather than instinctively going at the problem with a hammer and chisel.

Jason says Blockbuster is legitimately terrifying, Dick thinks the Red Hood might be just as bad.

Arms crossed over his chest, the eldest son shrugs and blows out a quiet sigh, "Alright. So where do the rest of us fit into this? You could have filled us in from the start and we'd have been in a far better position to help you." Send out feelers, test the waters of what is going on behind the curtain.

"...when I got here I was pretty much set on killing Bruce, Joker, or both," Jason points out with cool collectedness, staring out over the skyline. "When that didn't pan out, I... found myself something else to do. Privately."

Bruce didn't know, and he liked it that way. For a thousand reasons, not the least of which was the conflict brewing in his heart. Blockbuster offers freedom to do as he sees fit, but a life devoid of family or friends. Bruce demands he follows a creed that got him killed, but loves him. Somewhere, something has to give. Jason just doesn't know what yet.

But he's committed, now. And here they are.

"Blockbuster is fully expecting me to turn on him, and has said as much. He's upping my timetable. Wants me to double agent. He has no idea who I am, or who I was, and that's fine. I'm dead. He won't find 'Jason Todd' anywhere-- Bruce did a damn good job in making sure none of existed in any official records or DNA databases, so no matter if he goes sniffing around, there's nothing to draw him back to us. So now I find out what to feed him from your end, and I feed you what I can. Our friend was bugged -- a tooth implant. Glad I was thorough. I wasn't supposed to know he was wired."

"So triple agent, then." Nightwing can't help finding it, just a little, amusing. Amusing the darkest sense of the word, but still... Like father like son, it would seem. Except Batman would never put them in this kind of danger. If Blockbuster finds out, he'll bring the thunder down on the whole family. Which is fine, they're trained for that, but this isn't the kind of guy who plays at things for the fun of it.

Even the Joker wouldn't shit where he eats.

Dick nods solemnly, but keeps his eyes locked on the second Robin, arms crossed over his chest. "I really don't have a choice." That much was true. Even if he could pull Jason out of this, and from history lessons he was never very good at getting through to his brother, it's the only thing they've got going for them where Desmond is concerned.

"But we need to get this done before it spills over into Gotham. You know what happens if sewage from Bludhaven gets into his streets?"

"That's the point. He's going to make a play for Gotham. He wants me to 'get in good' with you and Batman. That's... the entire point. It was only by reminding myself that if he sneezed he could snap my neck that I didn't laugh when he said it," Jay said, as flippant as ever.

He glances over, and then says, "You gonna back me up when I tell Bruce what sort of shitstorm is coming and that I'm balls deep in it?"

Dick kind of saw that question coming. Of all the kids, Nightwing is the one Bruce is most likely to think has thought this all through... he'd probably support any of them, but if Dick is backing it? No question.

His hand comes up to rub either side of his nose, eyes always on his brother. "Is there another option?" Rhetorical question aside, he nods and waves his hands in a half defeated, half accepting gesture. "Yeah, I'll back you up. Of course I'll back you up."

"There's always another option. The question is, 'can I live with choosing it'." Jason says helpfully. There's truth there-- something lurking in the shadows of those words, that Jason doesn't feel like shining a light on right this second.

"In the mean time, you have false leads to chae and I have to run back and pretend I don't know my 'boss' is spying on me, shake a few tails and get back to Gotham unshadowed. But I'll get a safehouse set up here, and when I do I'll let you know. The Thai place on Bleeker's still around, right?"

He knows it is, but-- some part of him still needs to twist the knife for both of them. To remember what was had... and what was lost.

"I'll be in touch, alright. Stay safe, Dickiebird."

Nightwing knows the option, but it's one he wouldn't even consider. He also knows Jason.. maybe not the man he is now, but the boy he was and he knows the struggle to keep from making it.

The name of the place hits, but Dick's all out of shock and awe tonight, the pain will have to sit deep inside him as he watches his returned to life brother run off to play both sides like a violin. A part of him really hopes it works out the way he wants it to, the other part of him isn't sure that the end results will be any better. Blockbuster is going to find out, one way or another, so they're just borrowing time until then.

"You too, Jay bird."

Dick steps back off the ledge and catches himself on a railing, flipping down to the alleyway where he left his bike. "Red herrings... this is turning into a bad spy movie."

There was a pop-hiss of a grapple gun, and Jay gave only the barest salutes before he was flying skyward-- as much as bat as he had ever been a Robin. If he had concerns or worries, he didn't really share them before he left. He just flew.