Chapter Text
As far as undercover gigs went, an assignment at a popular nightclub was cake. Most undercover jobs required extensive costuming and acting, which was time-consuming and mentally exhausting. In Dick's opinion, the only thing worse was an outdoor stakeout in foul weather---he'd harbored an intense dislike for any and all stakeouts since his early Robin days. His costume choices over the years hadn’t been tooled toward warmth. Ever an aerialist, he gravitated toward cuts and fabrics that were streamlined and light. They were great for flying, but useless in bad weather.
Dick should’ve appreciated getting a chance to dress down and blend into a familiar old environment. There’d been a time not so long ago where he’d enjoyed going to clubs, but this was far from being a night for fun and letting loose.
First off, the place was called the Crow Bar. The lit-up sign out front had a black bird perched on the rim of a martini glass, but that wasn’t what he thought of when he heard the name. No, he thought about the heft of the metal tool that’d gotten him out of the Mirror House. He thought about the blood that stained the curved end of it, old and flaking, and the tuft of black hair he’d found caught in the fissure.
Those weren’t the kind of thoughts that fostered a pleasant clubbing experience, but Dick was there on business, anyway. He was there because it was common knowledge that the Crow Bar attracted a certain type of clientele---it was popular for the twenty-somethings, and did a brisk business in under-the-table call girl service. The girls were young, and some of them purposefully dressed and held themselves to look even younger. Marcel Gibson liked them young and desperate, and Dick had it on good authority that the mob boss was a regular at the Crow Bar.
Marcel Gibson, also known as Mister Matchmaker, was an up-and-comer in the Gotham underworld. He mainly dealt in skin, gaining a reputation in some circles for being the man you went to when you had a lot of money and some very exacting tastes. If he didn’t have a trick who fit the client’s needs, he procured one. At least two dozen kidnappings over the past year had been unofficially linked to Marcel, but he’d slid through the fingers of the justice system like he was coated in oil.
Marcel watched the girls, and Dick watched Marcel. Mister Matchmaker had some information that he needed, and if he could get him alone, he’d provide just the person Batman wanted.
Unfortunately, the direct approach wouldn’t work. There were entirely too many people for that, so he’d have to take it at an oblique angle.
Dick’s gaze settled on the back of a woman who truly looked like she was there to dance. There were always a portion of the bar-hopping crowd that said that they went to clubs just to dance, but a large chunk of that group said that to sound less desperate. For the majority of club patrons, they had two reasons to be there: booze and potential partners. It was a peacock display, and Dick had shaken his tailfeathers with the best of them.
But this girl, she was dancing like she didn't want a partner. She didn't have a drink in hand, and she moved with precision---no sloppy careening, no flail-waving. There was a high chance that she hadn't been drinking at all. As he watched, a guy approached her. He couldn't hear the exchange over the music and the angle was wrong to read lips, but she threw her head back and laughed. Her potential suitor slinked away to find another lady to try his luck with.
The girl was at a perfect vantage point to discreetly watch Marcel. She had her back to him, but that was enough to admire right there---she had a pretty heart-shaped ass, wriggled into a pair of too-short, shredded denim Daisy Dukes. Her wavy blond hair was loose over her shoulders, a cornsilk ripple when she turned.
Blondes weren't his thing, but Dick liked a challenge. Plus, it'd work to his favor if he didn't have to keep up an involved conversation with her. He was there for Marcel, and there was no getting around that. He wasn't going to be taking anyone home. Hell, it’d been at least six months since the last time he’d brought home a near-stranger. It’d been empty and awkward, not the release and relaxation he’d been looking for. His secrets had multiplied over the years, layering atop each other, so intimacy with strangers could only be physical.
That wasn’t good sex. Not to him. So he’d taken a voluntary dry spell, focusing on the job Bruce had given him. Being the Batman of Gotham kept him more than busy.
He bought two drinks---a virgin mojito for himself, and a lemon drop for her---and approached the dancer. The beat vibrating through his ribcage reminded him of why he loved clubbing. He sidled up to her, pasting on his most winning smile. Dick was no idiot---he knew he was a good-looking man, and he knew how to use that to his advantage. There was a certain amount of pride in that, but he never let himself use his powers for evil.
"Hey there," he said, after weaving through the crowd with the drinks in hand.
The girl turned, and Dick's throat closed up.
It was Stephanie. The blond with the gorgeous heart-shaped ass in the Daisy Dukes was Stephanie Brown: former Spoiler, fired Robin, current Batgirl. Her blue eyes widened slightly in recognition, then a blithe smile spread across her face.
"Hi!" She chirped. "I'm Constance!"
And she was undercover.
Dick tossed back the lemon drop and handed her the virgin mojito.
"And I'm Robbie," he said, in such a way that meant and I'm not playing around, Stephanie. "Robbie Malone."
Her smile hardened. "Oh, yeah. I know the Malones."
This was not going as planned. Why was she here? Neither Proxy nor Oracle would have set her on this case. He'd made sure that they knew that this was not a mission for all the little vigilante boys and girls---Bruce had been adamant that this was his case. Tim was assigned to something else, Damian was with Alfred, and Stephanie was supposed to be working recon by the docks. Or something. Proxy wasn't big on keeping the Batmans and Robin in the loop.
But here she was, in the optimal position to watch Marcel. He was split between being annoyed and impressed.
"What are you doing here?"
"What does it look like?" Stephanie laughed, tossing her hair. "I'm working it!"
"I don't think you should be here," he said, voice tight. It was his Bat-voice, his serious voice, his listen up voice.
She didn't flinch. He took her by the elbow and steered her toward an alcove. It’d be easier to talk when they weren’t getting jostled by the other dancers. She jerked her arm out his hand, her eyes very bright.
"I don't think I'm who you think I am, Robbie. I have every right to be here tonight."
Each word was hard. Punctuated. I. Have. Every. Right.
"Aside from being underage and in on a fake ID?"
"I have this," she hissed, just loud enough to carry to him. "I figured it out. Let me work with you. You need a reason to get close to the Matchmaker without looking like a solo creeper, right? Right. Because right now, you’re solo creeper material. I saw you looking at me from the bar, and I said to myself, creep alert. Which I rescind, but my point still stands."
He hated it, but she had a point. Bruce would've sent her home regardless, but Dick wasn't quite as positive in his ability to handle the situation on his own---another point he hated to admit. Guiborg’s toxin was still working its way out of his system. His emotions were running high---this case was bad, this case was sick, this case needed to end tonight---so he had to acknowledge the risks he was taking. Stephanie wasn’t responding to the Bat-voice of authority, so trying to convince her to go would probably be more of a headache than it was worth.
"You follow my lead," he said in his best no-nonsense voice. "And you don't argue. This is a big deal, Connie."
"As serious as twelve dead prostitutes and counting," she agreed in an undertone. "I'm very aware of the dead hookers. You’re here tonight because you’re hoping that Mister Matchmaker over there will lead you to the back alley sawbones he and his crew have been employing, because you’re almost positive that it’s Sugar Tooth---aka Sander Sharp, aka the Tooth Fairy killer."
So, Steph hadn't stumbled into this one blindly. She'd done a bit of detective work on her own---a good amount of detective work, to have put things together. Neither Proxy nor Bruce would have assigned her to a case he was already working, so the newest Batgirl was showing a healthy amount of initiative.
He would have applauded it, but she didn't have a great track record when it came to the cases that she took on her own. The thought coated the inside of his mouth with a metallic aftertaste.
She must have picked up on that---it must’ve shown on his face. Stephanie set her jaw stubbornly.
“B-girl’s a prostitute’s best friend. She’s nailed more than one crooked pimp, so the girls are good at keeping her informed when their friends leave with a trick and never come back. One of B-girl’s contacts was Courtney Woodard. She was a part of Gotham County High’s class of 2009---if she’d made it until graduation. She dropped out of school in her sophomore year.” Stephanie glanced away, her eyes hooded by her long, mascara-thick lashes. “Courtney had a baby. Kept it. Never got her high school diploma. She was Sander’s eighth victim, and I went to school with her.”
She didn’t elaborate any further than that, but Dick got it. She’d pursued this one on her own, because this was something personal for her. It’d reminded her that despite appearances, she was one of the lucky ones. If her teenage years had played out just a little bit differently, Courtney Woodard could have easily been Stephanie Brown.
“We talked with the girls already,” Dick said, trying to steer the conversation away from the dead street walkers.
He’d found two of the bodies himself. An accidental killer and a thorough madman before his brief stint in Arkham, Sugar Tooth had only escalated since he’d gotten out. Like most serial killers, he was gaining momentum. The cool-down time between kills shrank, and his grisly methods became ritualistic.
The murders that he’d committed before Robin had hauled him in had been practice runs---experimental, but safe in their randomness. Now, Sharp picked up girls who reminded him of his twin daughters---blond hair, blue eyes, and big smiles---and cut and pulled and twisted until he completely ruined their mouths. The Joker had murdered his daughters, and their huge, frozen smiles had become the center of Sharp’s homicidal oral obsession. Removing at least four of his victim’s front teeth, top and bottom, prior to killing them was his signature.
The image had stuck with Dick. Gotham always found new ways to get under his skin.
“B-man talked at the girls. B-girl listened to them,” Stephanie said, with pointed emphasis. “You know what the COD was, don’t you? They choked to death. He pulled out their teeth, so they couldn’t bite down when he---”
“Yeah, I know. I know,” Dick interrupted, gently squeezing her shoulder. She looked nauseated. Well, she wasn’t the only one who got reflexively sick at the thought of Sugar Tooth’s final act of torture.
That’s why Dick wanted it to end that night. No more cut-up, violated girls. Not when the key to stopping Sharp’s spree was literally standing right in front of them.
The music switched over, the moody-slow grind picking up in beat. Steph took a cleansing breath, stepping closer to him.
"Okay,” she said, “So here's the plan---"
"I thought that we established that I'm the man with the plan.”
"I've been casing this for the last two hours. I have a plan. And it's a good one."
"On what kind of scale?" Dick said, massaging his forehead. He’d been so positive that benching Damian would be his biggest headache of the night.
"Have a little faith in me,” Steph begged, grabbing his wrist. “Just an eensy-weensy little sliver. That's all I'm asking. Okay?"
"I've got more than that," he said, and meant it.
Her very blue eyes flicked up to look at him intently. That little crease in her brow said that she was trying to figure out if he was being sarcastic or not. He smiled faintly, and she understood.
"Okay," she started again. "Like I was saying. The best way to make sure nobody pays attention to us is to make everyone pay attention to us."
Oh, Bruce was going to read him the riot act over this one. He could just feel it.
"Withholding judgment of this plan until you go on," he said, shaking his head.
"Thanks. Marcel's hired slabs of manmeat are keeping their eyes peeled for suspicious sorts, right?"
"Right."
"So, if we make it really clear that we're not interested in him, they're not going to be interested in us. We wait to turn the screws on Marcel until we’ve got a good angle. He’ll sing, and, well. It’s gross, but I’m Sharp’s ‘type’. If it comes down to that, I can be the rabbit.”
Years of conditioning kept his visceral reaction internal. The memory of Steph cut up and dead furled behind his closed eyes. He’d seen the pictures in her file, taken by Batman before he’d left her in Leslie’s care. Dick had opened the file exactly one time, when he’d been restructuring the Batcave’s computer system during the move. He’d read it through, from beginning to falsified end.
Then he’d buried it. Early in his training, Damian had asked him for access to his predecessors’ files---and Stephanie had been Robin number four, no matter how much they avoided talking about it. He’d lied and told him that the file was corrupt. Everything that Damian knew about Stephanie was what Dick himself had told him. As critical as Damian was of his father’s allies, he didn’t want to give him a reason to taunt Stephanie about her short, painful stint as a Girl Wonder.
Guilt swelled in his throat.
“It won’t come to that.”
“But---but look, I've studied up on you, Robbie. I know that distraction tactics are kind of your thing." Stephanie paused, giving him a wobbly-embarrassed smile. "Were your thing, before the Bat-thing became your thing. Think you can dust your old thing off for the next twenty minutes?"
He hated to say it, but the plan had merit. He'd been going at it from the angle that Bruce would have chosen, but he wasn't Bruce. Especially not right then, right there. If they---and it was they, at this point---were going to pull this thing together, he’d have to go at it the way he would’ve back in his fingerstripe days.
"Okay, I'll give. It’s a better plan than the one I was winging. But you still need to follow my lead. Trust me."
"I do," she said.
And the hell of it was, he could tell that she meant it.
Dick took a deep breath. The music swelled, the drop boomed, and he exhaled.
Time to put on a show.
He had to relax, had to push back the knowledge of who he was with and why he was there. Good thing was, Dick was a born entertainer. He could assume and drop a persona with ease, with or without the prompting of a spotlight. It was one part confidence, one part charisma, and one dangerous little dash of exhibitionism---mix it all together and you got a lifelong performer.
It was in his blood. It worked to his favor just as often as it worked against him.
Dick hooked his fingers in the belt loops of her Daisy Dukes and tugged. A flicker of surprise chased itself around her face. She took her own deep breath, sliding her arms around his neck as he pulled her in close.
“You have an unfair advantage when it comes to this,” she informed him, her hips starting to sway and roll with the beat. He guided her closer to him, his hands still curled over the arch of her hips.
“How so?”
Dick couldn’t help but notice how short her Daisy Dukes really were. A bead of sweat rolled down her neck and disappeared into the cleavage that he also couldn’t help but notice. Her club outfit was the girl-next-door kind of revealing, just shorts and a tank-top. Not too eye-catching, but enough to blend in with the regulars. Not a bad disguise, really.
But he had a hard time convincing himself that there was a wrong time for Daisy Dukes, so he wasn't a reliable judge of disguises.
“Are you kidding? This is the natural habitat for a guy like you. You’re like the muse that all club songwriters dedicate their music to. Just about any song that they play could be your jam,” Steph said, then gave a startled little buck into him as he slid his hands into the back pockets of her shorts. He rocked her against him, turning to keep a casual eye on the Matchmaker.
“While I’m flattered, I think that’s kind of an exaggeration.”
“I’ll prove it. Listen to the lyrics of the next song. If they’re in no way applicable to you or your life, I owe you ten bucks. I bet that you’ll even know all the words, though.”
Dick gave a snort of amusement, another twist and push angling them closer to their target. She had his leg between hers, her smooth thighs hugging his.
“I’ll take that bet,” he said. About twenty seconds later, the song changed.
The opening bars to LMFAO’s ‘Sexy and You Know It’ bounced.
And Steph had been absolutely right. He liked the song, and he knew all of the words---it was on his workout mix, because it made Damian look like he’d bitten into a lemon every time it came on. It was a good thing that ten bucks wouldn’t break the Wayne family bank.
“Girl, look at that body,” he belted, off-key and animated. Points for showmanship. “I work out.”
Stephanie beamed triumphantly, sliding her hands down his chest.
“I rest my case.”
He smirked cheekily back at her. “So, by your logic, ‘Sexy and You Know It’ is my theme song?”
“Hey, I think I can say that you are an aesthetically pleasing member of the opposite sex without it being weird,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “There’s a bigger age gap between you and Babs than with you and me.”
And, moving on. That was not something he wanted to think about, much less touch on. She’d been Tim’s ‘It’s Complicated’ for entirely too long for him to entertain that thought.
“You’re good at this,” Dick said, breathing in her dizzyingly sweet hair as she pressed her back against his chest and stomach. She wasn’t wearing perfume or anything---it was just the smell of her cheap, dollar-store shampoo. It was coconut-scented, cloyingly sweet when mixed with the tang of her sweat.
“I started making bad decisions at an early age,” Steph said with a breathless little laugh. She reached behind her, tracing the arch of his neck until her fingers knotted in the sweat-damp hair at his nape. His stomach muscles jumped at the feeling of her pulling his hair. She really was good at this. It’d been an honest compliment.
“You’re talking to the kid who started practicing on the tight rope as soon as he learned how to walk,” he grinned. He was beginning to loosen up, the seriousness of the situation momentarily dismissed. They had to really sell this, and that meant laughing and touching. Practiced eyes could see the difference between genuine laughter and heavy petting and forced, artificial attempts at seeming genuine. Fortunately, he loved dancing, and she was turning out to be an excellent partner.
He found himself wondering how Tim had survived dating her for as long as he had. When she got going, Steph was a firecracker. Back when Tim had told him that the girlfriend he’d only kissed a couple of times was pregnant, he’d figured that little brother Timmy had gotten tangled up with a girl a whole lot more worldly than him. Then he’d met her, and she’d seemed fairly conservative and bubbly, so he’d amended that pre-first impression. But the way her hips were rocking against him revealed a Steph that had definitely sown her share of wild oats.
Dick made a mental note of it. For future reference.
He sized up Marcel's bodyguards through the tangled nest of her hair. Tucking a loose hank behind her ear, he whispered, "They keep scanning the front. Think they're expecting someone?"
"Roger that, B-man. I'd go so far as to call that suspicious behavior."
The words had barely left Steph’s mouth when the front window imploded. Glass pelted the grinding bystanders. Screams drowned out the bass, and the crowd on the dance floor heaved like a single, undulating mass of terror.
Adrenaline spiked and sizzled. Their show had been canceled, and now it was time to cut to a different role. His first instinct was to keep Steph from getting trampled underfoot---a silly impulse, maybe, since she could more than take care of herself. But instincts were instincts, and protectiveness was hardwired into Dick. He pushed her against a wall, bracing himself over her. The terrified drunks were streaming for the exits, so they had to wait for the tide to thin a little before they moved against it.
“What now?” Steph whisper-shouted, struggling to be heard over the din.
“We figure out what that was---what the hell just happened. If Marcel’s gone, the mission’s a bust.”
Her mouth tightened and bunched. She didn’t like that answer. Well, neither did he, but another angle or opportunity to pin down Sugar Tooth would present itself. Marcel wasn’t the only mobster monopolizing on Sharp’s cheap, brutal talents.
The music cut with a squeal of feedback. A woman sobbed out a strangled plea for someone to call 911.
Steph focused on something over his left shoulder, her eyes bright and sharp. She ducked under his arm and slipped into the seething crowd. Dick followed---a well-placed elbow here, a respectful-but-firm push there---and she led him to where the explosion had originated. Several of the injured people were lucky---bleeding, but their lives weren’t in immediate danger.
One of the men hadn’t been lucky at all. He’d been standing away from the window, so the shrapnel had hit his back. One of the bigger chunks of glass pane must have caught him. The man moaned from the floor, the left leg of his jeans saturated and stiff with blood.
“Hi,” Steph said, pushing past his shrieking date and kneeling beside the injured man. Dick moved seamlessly behind her, swooping in to calm the frantic woman. He would have gone for the man himself, but Steph’s body language was screaming I got this, and they didn’t have a lot of time to screw around. Not with how quickly the sticky red pool was spreading. “I’m Connie. If you’ll let me, I can help you.”
Asking for consent? She might not have actually been a nurse---wasn’t her mom one, though?---but she did know the steps.
“Help,” he croaked, his face ashen. “I’m bleeding.”
“You sure are, sport,” she said, inspecting the chugging wound. She guided his hands beneath his knee, pushing them into his thigh. “Press hard. Your popliteal artery might’ve been sliced. Hence the blood and the bleeding. You---we need to---”
She twisted around to look at Dick.
"Condom!" Stephanie shouted, making a jerky grabby motion at him. "Stat! If you've got one, hand it over!"
He knew better than to question her. That was one of the things that training with Bruce did to a person---it sucked the backtalk and questions out of them during moments of danger and high stress. Asking questions wasted time. Asking questions got people killed.
Dick pulled his wallet from his back pocket---the contents of it adding up to a forged ID and the various credit cards belonging to Robert Thaddeus Malone---and found the 'just in case' condom he kept tucked in the billfold. Bruce stressed all levels of preparedness.
Stephanie tore the foil open with her teeth, pulling the condom long and tight between her pinched fingers. She rolled it, twisting it into a thin band. Keeping the tension, she wrapped it tightly around the man's thigh and knotted the ends together.
A makeshift tourniquet. Good girl.
"That'll hold until the ambulance gets here," she said, sitting back on her heels. She wiped her sweaty forehead with the inside of her wrist, bloody fingers curled carefully away. "You're lucky that Robbie here believes in safe sex."
Steph caught his eye and smiled. She looked a little bit like a kid with a good report card. See what I learned?
The paramedics burst in, giving them just enough clamoring noise and energy to cover their escape. He took her wrist and tugged gently.
"C'mon. That’s our cue."
It was Marcel’s cue, too. He started bellowing the keening, long vowels of wordless horror. Dick’s head whipped to follow the sound. The mob boss had moved to the front, kneeling inside the frosted field of shattered glass. He was bent over something---over someone.
A body. A young woman’s body. Marcel was covering her face protectively, but Dick didn’t have to see it to confirm her mutilation. Her matted blond hair was enough of a giveaway.
“My girl!” the big man howled. “THAT FUCKER TOOK MY GIRL!”
Dick tugged Steph’s wrist, this time sharply.
“Educated guess: Marcel and Dr. Sharp are no longer doing business together,” he said, more or less dragging her toward the exit. “We have to catch up with him, and we’ve got to do it now.”
“We?” She repeated in a surprised little whisper-hiss.
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “You have your suit, right?”
“Right. Suit’s in my car,” Steph said, doing her best to keep up with his longer stride. “I can be ready to go in forty-five seconds or less. I’m game for being a we.”
“Perfect,” Dick said, and signaled the Batmobile. “If there’s a trail, we’ll find it.”