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“Tim?” Barbara says, turning from her view of the room to focus on the phone pressed to her ear. “You haven’t heard from Dick have you?”
“No,” Tim replies. Barbara hadn’t really expected otherwise but… “Why?” he asks, alert. “Did something happen?”
Barbara’s lips draw together, she glances towards her computer, and it sits, Dick’s communication channel still down and unresponsive. It’s been like that all day and usually, Barbara wouldn’t worry but— “It could be nothing,” Barbara says, and those words never hold the weight of reassurance they should. “He messaged me last night and he hasn’t replied since, something about going to help Mayor Zucco…”
There’s barely any pause. “Well, it’s not like we expected that to backfire.” Tim sighs, already sounding resigned. “I’ll come over—” there’s shifting over the line before he continues, “Give me half an hour?”
“Thanks, T.” Barbara crosses her free arm over her chest, glancing towards the window across the room. She doesn’t want to crowd Dick, but the lack of contact is making her gut churn and she’d be disregarding years of experience to ignore it. If Dick’s really just handling something incognito, she can apologize later, but for now…
“Don’t mention it. I’ll try Dick too, just in case,” he mutters, mind already audibly elsewhere, “See you.”
The line clicks off.
“That’s it?” Tim asks, reading the message over from Barbara’s phone. He doesn’t sound sceptical, but the question still makes her stomach churn with doubt. Maybe she’s overreacting, but ever since Dick got shot—
Tim glances up, expression breaking out as he assures, “Woah, I was just checking—” he brings a hand up to scrub through his hair, gaze dropping sheepishly. “Sorry, that was bad phrasing.” He glances up again, sending Barbara a look that’s nothing short of earnest. “It’s weird he hasn’t checked in, I get it.”
Barbara’s lips curve down. “I don’t want to doubt her, I know Dick’s really happy to have that connection to his dad,” she murmurs. The message really wasn’t much, just a throwaway about a favour he was doing. Hell, his radio silence probably isn’t even to do with Melinda. Dick’s so good at juggling passion projects sometimes he forgets he only has two hands to help people up with—Barbara’s probably letting bias cloud her judgment. “But he hasn’t answered, and his trackers are off.”
“It could be nothing,” Tim continues immediately, nodding, “But just in case it isn’t…”
“I’ll map his movements,” Barbara says, relief flooding through her at Tim’s easy corroboration.
“Get me his last location and I’ll go check it out,” Tim says, following her to her computer and Barbara sits down. Her fingers have been itching to find Dick all morning and it takes a couple clicks to have the programs up.
Tim pauses at her side, watching as much as he’s waiting and Barbara’s shoulders ease. “Thanks, Red. Really,” she murmurs and watches Tim’s lips quirk up from the corner of her eye.
He sends her a crooked smile. “I’m not about to let him slip, either. Don’t mention it.”
“Well,” Tim says under his breath, voice sparking through Barbara’s headset. “This place is cozy. Who doesn’t want waffles after a funeral service?”
Barbara snorts slightly, shifting through the trails she’s got of Dick’s movements. Tim’s wearing contact lenses and the feed is going straight to the corner of her screen; a murky view of the vibrant storefront easy to see as he walks. “You're missing a big market, T. It’s the only way I’ll take my waffle ambience,” she jokes. Then, “And stop talking to yourself, you're meant to be doing recon.”
Tim scoffs. Mutters quieter, “It’s Bludhaven, O, I’d get more second glances if I weren’t talking to myself.”
Well… true. “Be careful,” she says instead and Tim hums. “We don’t know what Dick was doing but he wasn’t in uniform. Check out the graveyard.”
Tim turns into the cemetery easily, walking through the rows at a steady pace. Barbara shifts through more of the files. “It doesn’t look like he was there for anything but the waffle house, but you need an alibi and I need another minute to sort through their lease,” she mutters.
Tim walks past several more gravestones before stopping in front of one with surety, kneeling down and giving Barbara’s camera a clear view of the blackened engravings. His gaze shifts to survey the surrounding expanse and he murmurs under his breath, comm barely picking it up, “And Mayor Zucco…?”
Barbara’s lips tighten, glancing towards her other screen. She glares at the open camera footage before looking back at her profiling efforts. “In her office. She showed up to work this morning, nothing suspicious except what we already know. She left without Dick last night. It doesn’t look like she’s been making a habit of hanging around that side of town though.”
“So... they were meeting someone?”
Barbara twists her lip, humming. “Looks like it.” She checks the programs she’s running but nothing conclusive has come of a surface scan, she looks at the deeper runs, still processing. “Dunno what they’re hiding but there’s definitely more behind their food service license.”
“Waffle time?” Tim asks, already standing again and Barbara sighs.
“Waffle time," she agrees. "Just do a sweep, T, and head back. We can try again once I’ve got their movements tracked.” Tim hums in her ear, walking back through the graveyard's steel gates and the waffle house’s signs glow a bright fluorescent pink even in the daylight. Tim crosses the road, drawing up to the window front and Barbara catches the bell ring in her ear as he walks through.
“Hi,” he says, voice bright, and Barbara frowns at the video feed, watching his icy reception carefully. Something makes Tim glance across the room and Barbara gets a flash of the interior, sleek stainless-steel accents make everything look clean and open, at clash with the classic red booths seating four patrons. Two are staring at Tim, their own table empty.
He looks back at the menu and the server remains tight-lipped as he wipes the counter down. Not so unusual for their city’s customer service score but even Barbara can tell he hasn’t looked away from Tim once as he considers the menu. “Y’know what,” he says, and the video feed shifts to the man's stare. “I think I’ll just grab a coffee.”
The man grunts, leaving the cloth and counter to turn and Tim shifts, letting his gaze wander the store casually. Barbara gets a clearer view of the interior as well as the two patrons that still haven’t stopped staring at Tim. Barbara’s fingers curl into her desk. “This is bad,” she mutters needlessly and it’s only a second longer before Tim turns.
The server hands him a to-go cup wordlessly and Tim hasn’t drawn his hand back fully as he breaks the silence to say, “First ones free.” He’s smirking and Barbara’s stomach knots itself further. Her facial recognition has already run a scan of everyone in the room but there’s nothing at first glance but a couple petty crimes.
“Thanks,” Tim mutters. Barbara shifts through the files for something to do as foreboding climbs through her; the bell reaches her ears again. Street stretching out as Tim walks and he mutters, “O.”
“I know,” she says, “You have three tails.” None of which came from inside the waffle house.
“Playing Jedi,” he says under his breath, still walking and Barbara sees what he means when he glances sideways. His followers all have hoods up and while Bludhaven isn’t exactly renowned for its scorching summers, it’s not cold, let alone robe weather.
They’re keeping close enough not to be playing up their subtlety either. “Walk faster,” Barbara advises. Something tells her their own subtlety was lost the moment Tim went looking.
“There’s only three,” Tim mutters back.
Barbara frowns at the screen. “And Dick’s radio silent.”
In the end, Tim’s pace doesn’t matter. The second he moves to cross the street his stalkers are on him. Barbara watches the first get a face full of hot coffee, drawing back with a hiss and both gloved hands to his face and then it’s the fast erratic frame of Tim fighting. Barbara’s footage shifts around as Tim moves, getting glimpses of the blows he darts around, the pavement, another figure down.
There’s a grunt and Tim whips around to the man at his back. Barbara catches Tim pull at the hood as he dodges a blow Tim sends, video framed perfectly on the way he crumbles and ignites—
Her pulse spikes. Vampires, shit. “Tim,” Barbara starts with urgency, but the cameras already shifted to the street ahead. Tim’s trackers already moving.
He only makes it as far as the opposite curb, whipping around again to the first vampire coffee soaked and angrier than ever. “Great,” Tim huffs as he dodges, video ducking low as he sweeps the vampire's feet. He’s turning, pulling himself over the graveyard fence and dropping to the ground.
“Wood,” Barbara says, tracking the scene worriedly. Not for the first time she laments on the lack of allies in Blud. “Remind me to get you a wooden bo staff.”
“No kidding,” Tim breathes through as he runs. The graveyard stretches out wide on all sides, but the city's industrial street sides aren’t exactly prime real estate for splinters either. The trees on the border are probably his best bet. “Right, graveyard,” Tim mutters, changing direction again as several figures emerge from the outskirts.
“No heat signatures,” Barbara informs, activating Tim’s distress beacon. “Aim for the hoods, it should distract them—”
Barbara’s feed flips skyward and Tim groans loudly. It shifts again but not before fear takes root in Barbara’s chest. The loud sound of fighting reaches her ears before she can make sense of the fast shift of the camera, she scans her computer quickly. “I’m sending Cassie.”
“I’ve—” more flashes of the graveyard, headstones, hooded figures. Someone leaps at Tim, fang first, eyes blood red and he shifts into another snarling figure, dodging—Barbara watches him block. “—Got it,” he finishes, jumping someone as they fall, dragging the hood back as he moves before it’s another vampire. In front of him, next to him. But that’s at least twelve by Barbara’s count, even with four withering in flames on the grass.
She holds off a direct alarm, fingers hovering, tracking each vampire through Tim’s feed. He’s breathing hard, but he hasn’t gone down since the first fall. The hoods aren’t a permeant solution though, and Tim’s still standing in the middle of a cemetery. “Too late,” she says and patches Cassie through his coordinates, she’s the closest to Blud and Barbara gets a confirmation pinging back almost immediately. “She’s on her way.”
Tim huffs, dodging several more—fangs, hands, claws. Tim hisses from something and the camera hasn’t stopped shifting to meet their attacks but suddenly he’s moving faster. Barbara can barely track the on-slaughter as he shifts between them. More than twelve. Shit, way more than twelve.
What was Dick doing? she thinks, then, a favour. It’s always a favourite and this one’s trying its best to pay itself in blood.
The feed jerks back abruptly, Tim’s breath leaving him audibly and Barbara leans forward, nails biting at her desk. Watches helplessly as the gravestone at Tim’s side gains several feet of distance—there are three figures stalking after him and then a loud gasp—thud, the feed goes black. “Tim? Tim!” He groans but the screen doesn’t blink to life again and Barbara’s heart pounds in her chest. Fuck, there aren’t enough surveillance cameras—
She shouldn’t have let him go by himself; Goddamnit. Where the hell is Cassie?
The screen is black and fear claws its way up Barbara’s chest, her throat, she—
“I’ve got him,” Cassie's voice breaks through several moments later and Barbara doesn’t relax from her stand. Tim’s trackers are moving but he’s still not looking anywhere. The screen’s black, Barbara hates a black screen.
She pushes her headset closer, listening carefully as she asks, “Is he okay?”
“He’s bleeding,” she informs, worry audible. Tim’s tracker’s moving fast. “They bit him, should I—”
“Bring him to the Manor,” she interrupts, turning Tim’s beacon off again. No one else managed to close in on Bludhaven and her throat tightens. “I’ll call Bruce. Is he—?”
“He’s fine,” Cassie says softly. “I don’t think he lost too much blood and he’s only—they broke his arm. A couple ribs.”
Fuck, Barbara thinks again. “I’ll call Bruce,” she says again then cuts the line. She already has so many calls to make, Tim’s distress beacon—
She calls Bruce. Tim's feed is black, Dick’s comm sits without answer on her computer screen and Barbara turns instead of looking at it. Her heart’s still beating hard in her throat, and she talks around it when Bruce’s line clicks. “Wonder Girl’s en route to the Manor with Tim, he just got ambushed by a bunch of vampires in Bludhaven.”
“What was he doing in Bludhaven?”
Barbara’s expression tightens, eyes flicking involuntarily to her computer. She screws them shut, recounts, “He wasn’t in costume, he was doing some recon for me. Dick—Dick’s trackers aren’t online, and I haven’t heard from him since he told me he was doing a favour for someone. I bet you can guess where his last location was.”
Bruce’s silence is severe, and Barbara’s stomach sinks again. Dick’s probably fine— “Tim?” he asks.
Barbara breathes through, “Cassie said he’s fine. Broken arm, broken ribs and they bit him.”
“Are you—”
“Already coming,” she says, pressing the phone to her ear as she moves, collecting her stuff efficiently. Grabbing Tim’s extra gear as she goes, God, they were so stupid. “I’ll be ten minutes.”
Her lights are off before the end call can beep through. Fucking vampires, why is it never anything convivial? Barbara pockets her phone, shrugs her stuff together in her arms and starts down the steps. They're fine, she thinks and tries to believe it.