cat_13145

Title: First meetings
Rating: PG 13, though I don't think there's anything to upset anyone here.
Summary: First time Dick Met Jason.
Author's Notes: This is technically set in my Renegade Universe, but it could work in any. Marie is an OC.

“Seash Waant!”

The words were said around a thumb and Dick had to blink.

“What?”

The child took her thumb of her mouth.

“You have to have a search warrant, else you can’t come in.” she said, very slowly as though Dick was stupid.

She could only be three or four, dressed in a faded T-shirt, and boys pants, probably a hand me down from a brother or someone.

It was far too late for her to be out playing house, yet something told Dick that this wasn’t a game.

“Oh.” He said, kneeling down so he was on a level with her. She nodded again.

“If you don’t have a search warrant and you come in, then it’s an illegal search and you can’t use anything you find in a court of law.”

She’s too young to know these words, let alone what they mean.

He smiled at her. “Well I’m afraid I don’t have a search warrant.”

She shrugs. “You can make one.” She said, pointing to a table where some brown paper and crayons lay spread about. She must have been using them. Waiting for someone until she’d heard him coming and gone and hid in the wooden box that was serving as her home.

Peeping around her, he could see an old red blanket spread on the floor.

“Hey!” A voice came from the other end of the alley and made him spin around.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“It’s O.K. Jason.” The girl said, very calmly. “I told him he couldn’t come in if he didn’t have a search warrant.”

The boy ran down the alley, slipped past Dick (who was still trying to process all this) and all but flung the girl back into the box.

“You a fucking retard? Don’t you know who he is?” at the girl’s puzzled expression, he added. “He’s Robin. One of those costumed freaks!”

The girl’s eyes ran over the Red, green and yellow of his costume, her eyes resting briefly on the none existence pants.

“Looks more like one of Ellis’s boys.”

Woodrow Ellis is a pimp off Second, specialising in underage boys.

Great! Now even 5 year old girls are criticising his fashion sense.

He took a long look at the boy. Probably only five or six, dressed in worn green jeans, a red T-Shirt and a blue demin jacket, that was at least a size too large for him, unlike everything else, which was at least two too small. A black duffel bag, half hidden behind the scrawny frame revealed the probable reason for his reaction. He briefly wandered if they tussled for it, what he’d find inside.

“What do you want freak?” The blue eyes, beneath a black fringe that wanted cutting, were doing a fair impression of a Bat glare. But Dick had seen the original.

“Nothing. I’m just looking to see if anyone saw anything in the street. A man was killed there.” As something flashed across the kid’s face, he said, casually. “You guys been here all day?”

. “Yeah, and what of it??” the chin was thrust out with a defiant sort of pride, but it also brought him clearer into the street lamp. A bruise over one eye offered an explanation for why these kids were sleeping rough tonight.

“You see anything?”

“Maybe.” The eyes are cautious, but Dick is impatient.

“You going to tell me?”

A fire suddenly blazes up through the blue.

“I ain’t no stoolie! And working for the Bat ain’t exactly got a great retirement plan!”

They both saw something. And it had to be something big; else they’d be trying to get some cash out of him for it. He debates for a moment trying to make the kid tell him, then the curtain in front of the box twitches slightly, and he could see the little girl kneeling there, looking at them both scared her thumb back in her mouth.

“If you change your mind.” He said, holding out one of his cards. He sent off a grapple, just far enough that they wouldn’t be able to see him in the near gloom, but that he could still hear them.

“Don’t be Mad, Jason. I’m sorry.”

A sigh. “I ain’t mad, Marie. It’s not your fault. It’s just…you have to be careful, O.K? Those guys are more dangerous than cops and we’re shit on the chariots wheel to them.”

“I’m sorry Jason.”

Another sigh. “Look just doesn’t talk to anyone while I’m not here. O.K.?”

“O.K. Jason.”
The thin face creases in a smile. “Here. Look what I got at the store.”

“Is it…?”

“Yeah. 4 litre tub.”

Dick withdrew as the kids tucked into their ice-cream dinner. He supposed he really should talk to the cops or someone about them, get social services involved. But after what had happened to him, he didn’t like the thought of putting a pair of kids who, for all he knows might have perfectly good parents somewhere around. So he doesn’t say anything to Gordon, when they meet up again by the Bat signal or to Bruce later when they’re back in the mansion

Year later, in a dark, cold cave, he’ll regret his decision.