Undercover (Nightwing!)

[Mary-Lou White]

Night in Gotham seemed to be the darkest kind of night there was. Perhaps it was because of the hulking concrete towers surrounding narrow, stinking alleys, but Mary-Lou White personally thought that it was due to the fact for that in every single vein-like crevice in the city there were hardened criminals waiting to commit atrocities. She shuddered against the chill that screamed up the streets, shrugging deeper into the cheap fur coat she was wearing and clutching her cup of coffee a little closer. The steam curled into the air, making it seem more like she was lining up outside some theater waiting for concert tickets rather than waiting around to potentially arrest a wanted mob drug runner.

She wished that she’d had the forsight to bring her iPod. She could really use some pick-me-up music if she was going to be standing around out in the street freezing her derriere off. However, it wasn’t feasible in the current circumstances. Her blue eyes were constantly darting around her for the signs of the mob consignment that was supposed to be arriving at the dive across the street at any moment, the wire she was wearing taped securely in place out of sight. “No sign yet,” she muttered softly against the rim of her styrofoam coffee cup, taking a sip to make it seem like she wasn’t talking at all.

“Keep a look-out,” came the reply. “It’s not 1015 hours yet, White.”

“Ten-four,” she replied, stamping her feet a little to get warm. Normally she wouldn’t have been working like this; undercover. She definitely wasn’t used to wearing the kind of outfit she currently had on, and her mother probably would have given her a good slap if she’d seen her daughter in that moment. Dressed like a common prostitute in a short red leather miniskirt with black stockings underneath, holes cut in strategic places and then held together with safety pins. Her usually glossy blonde locks were crimped and lifted atop her head like some kind of exotic fruit, and her fresh-faced look was replaced with wickedly smoky eye makeup and plump looking lips.

She was dressed, in a word, to kill. Which was a pretty good thing considering the car she had been waiting for had just pulled up. One man got out on his own, adjusting his tie and grinning at the doorman standing outside the club. The doorman ,looked unimpressed but stepped aside; the place might have been on the lower end of entertainment in these parts but it was neutral mob territory. Mary-Lou saw the chance to follow along. She stepped across the street as the door closed on Jimmy Salvatore, one of Ruby Ryder’s regular joes. Without a fuss she eyed the doorman who also let her through. Her cover charge would be held up by the city.

The inside of the club was filthy and depraved. Girls danced topless in cages on all sides, trying for all they were worth (and it wasn’t much) to earn a few extra bucks than the minimum wage they were hired on. Forgetting for a moment that she wasn’t a hooker, Mary-Lou blushed and looked away, but she soon remembered that she was supposedly used to much, much more than a few boobs in a bar. She followed Salvatore at a safe distance, hoping to make her frozen limbs worth the effort. She was so intent on following the small-time mobster, actually, that she had gotten a little too enthusiastic in her tailing. He noticed her following him and turned abruptly in a corridor that lead to the men’s room, pulling a gun and poking it between her ribs as his body forced her against the wall in the hall.

“You want something, sugar?”

She freaked, wishing she’d been paying more attention. “Actually,” she replied, thinking on her feet. “I was kind’ve hoping that you’d want something from me. Need a date?”

Salvatore seemed to relax, taking in her appearance for the first time and apparently thinking everything was in order.

“No,” he replied shortly. “Now beat it, toots.”

[Dick Grayson]

Dick Grayson remembered Salvatore. Two weeks ago he paid the gimp of a cop a good few thousand to stagger the response time to a drug related murder. He’d been disgusted with both parties involved but accepted. The money wasn’t for him. It never was. Regardless, there was never anything reassuring about the fact that he never used his payoff for himself. It was a few days later that he had decided that Salvatore would be put on the list. It wasn’t until the mob piece of trash had dropped by the other day to arrange another that Dick decided that Nightwing would have to handle this.

So, Dick tailed the car from above; keeping a safe distance to keep out of the mirrors. It wasn’t until he found a perch on the ledge of the club that he looked down to take in the setting. His jaw set momentarily as he looked at a nearby hooker or two that sauntered in after the mobster. Some a bit too eager than others. She looked too clean, too red-light for the red light district. She bothered with makeup. From atop that building Nightwing already zeroed in on a cop and beneath the mask and the hood, his glacial eyes rolled almost as if he were listening to a child prattle on about the likes of Barbie.

Wait one goddamn minute!

White? he asked no one incredulously. His stun outweighed his focus for a split second. It was enough to miss the detective entrance. He cursed under his breath and hopped to the building beside the club and proceeded to leap down the back of the building. His mind raced briefly, wondering who the hell was trying to set the blonde up for a suicide mission. He ripped off his mask and ripped off his gloves hastily as he tried not to run out of the alley and burst in. He checked his appearance in a window. He looked as common as ever, like any other thug that would act as security or even a hired gun. Focus! he berated himself as his features looked more stoic than ever. He nodded to the bouncer, who only questioned the artillery with a glance which was responded with a challenging expression that was worn by those that had the swagger that denoted a pair of balls that were required to do something like kill someone on the spot. It was a Nightwing expression sans the hood and the mask and the bouncer knew no better. So, without a second glance, Nightwing was inside.

It took a few moments before spotting Detective White as she started to follow too closely. He didn’t glance at the cages or the topless dancers. He would come back another night for that, maybe (probably not). He tailed a safe distance, stopping at the bar for a beer and he was given a bottle without question. He glanced about to find an employee entrance where he put on his mask and gloves, emptied out the bottle and found his way through the large utility space to a side door to the men’s room. He smirked momentarily to himself in a chilling way that would have been more fitting for an audience. He held the bottle tightly as he entered the bathroom as Salvatore entered one of the stalls. Without a word, he waited beside the sink. He ducked his head for a moment as he heard a flush and the sound of abused Italian made shoes that shouldn’t dare enter a filthy place like this. Salvatore was next to him. He could feel it and Dick wanted so badly to take him out right then but Nightwing wished to wait just a few moments longer.

“Keep an eye out, brother, some pig is playing whore out there. Too pretty, too blonde. Can’t miss her.” Salvatore then looked at the getup of the stranger. “Four hundred if you take her out.”

KRAAAAKKKAAASSSSSSSSH

The bottle shattered in the mobster’s face and a fist followed quickly, a satisfying crack across Salvatore’s jaw to send him staggering back. Nightwing rushed forward to snag the gangster by his hair and yank him to one of the stalls, only a brief plea of help yelped out in a whimper before his head plunged into the bowl and his own gun was pointed into his ribs with Nightwing’s hand waiting at the trigger, aching to pull.

[Mary-Lou White]

Mary-Lou had just been about to check in on her surveillance wire when she heard the ominous hiss of glass breaking on the opposite side of the mens’ room door. She looked, wide-eyed at the peeling dark grey paint on the entrance, the dingy ‘MEN’ sign taunting her as she quavered in indecision between calling for backup and entering forbidden guy territory. Deciding that it would take too long for someone else to arrive she spurred herself into action, pushing through the door and skidding in her haste across the grimey floor tiles in her ridiculous six-inch hooker-heels. But all her training couldn’t prepare her for what she saw – or, actually, didn’t see.

The bathroom was empty. A moment’s silence made her think perhaps she’d imagined the noise, but there was no imagining that Salvatore had come into this room. The sudden sound of a struggle came from one of the stalls and Mary-Lou leaped forward again, fumbling under her cheesy second-hand coat for her gun and drawing the weapon in record time. Gurgling noises issued from the stall and as she came around the corner Mary-Lou knew why. The person who called himself Nightwing – the same guy who had saved her backside from those two-faced cops a few weeks ago – was now holding Salvatore’s head into the toilet bowl. With a gun on the mobster.

Her training kicked in without a hitch. Cocking her weapon and holding it with a professional competence, Mary-Lou aimed it at Nightwing without hesitation.

“Gotham PD!” she yelled in a ringing tone. “Drop your weapon!”

[Dick Grayson]

It had all happened so fast. In those split seconds from the top of the club into the men’s room it had all been such a blur to Dick Grayson’s mind while in the setting with Nightwing it would slowly sap through his memory. It was a demented thought but when one balanced two very different personalities it made perfect, twisted sense to him. Still, in the first seconds of hearing Mary-Lou’s voice it was like the world snapped into perspective as if this was all a dream. Sadly, this form of waking up was no where near as pleasant as he wished. He was in a dream of doing something horrible and now had a gun pointed at him. His lip curled in a dark snarl as he quickly repositioned the gun to the base of Salvatore’s skull as he pulled him from the toilet. “Back off Barbie or he dies!” a ragged growl tore through as the world clicked back into Nightwing’s near demonic vision.

With that, he stood, dragging the mobster up with him. His blue gaze ran colder than before; possibly a bit of twisted betrayal shown through that polar gaze. It didn’t display hurt, but rather the scorn of someone who chose not to listen to him. He kept Salvatore close. He hated hostage situations; as a cop and as a murderer. If the blonde had waited only a few more moment in hesitation and this would have been avoided. The mobster struggled to breathe, clamoring for air as he was nothing more now than a soggy, winded, human shield. Nightwing would have preferred to just leave Salvatore a corpse, but plans change.

Just a meager annoyance for now.

The florescent light flickered with an obnoxious buzz as he kept Salvatore’s weapon poised on the back of his head. “He isn’t getting out of here alive. You want to add more to that it’s up to you,” he warned.

“What are you waiting for, bitch!? Shoot HIM!” Salvatore gasped desperately before Nightwing lost his temper and slammed the crook into the side of the stall head first and releasing his grasp. The gangster stumbled forward, scrambling to get up.

[Mary-Lou White]

Mary-Lou was normally the more docile woman in her family, or at least the part of her family that live within city limits. Her cousin was the real firecracker, leaving the often flakey blonde to wander along through life at only pace her kitten-heels could afford her. In recent months, however, that had been starting to change. Mary-Lou had started asserting herself at work, to a certain extent. Seeing cops starting to die around her had made her realise she had no desire to be next, and the drilling she got from the pig-headed men in the Department made her spine thicken and her skin toughen a little more each day. When the masked man sneered at her and called her Barbie, then, well. Mary-Lou just got really ticked off.

She couldn’t let him shoot Salvatore. He was the key to their whole sting operation; they needed him to talk and set off a chain reaction that would have half a chance of working. Sure, he was mobster scum, but he was low-level mobster scum. They needed the bigshots like Ryder behind bars in order to make any kind of a real difference. Mary-Lou narrowed her eyes as the guy warned her to step aside, her gaze flickering with hesitation at Salvatore as he pleaded with her to make a move. She flinched slighty when the mobster was rammed into the wall and stumbled but recovered quickly. This was her chance.

Stepping over the mobster without hesitation and knowing without having to turn that he would make a run for it, Mary-Lou drew back the arm holding her gun. In a bold move she brought the butt of her gun back, swinging her arm with all the force she could muster to pistol-whip the masked man across his jaw. Her weapon at the ready she then pointed it at the guy’s chest.

“This is White,” she said, lowering her chin so that her backup on the street could hear her. “Suspect due to exit. Complications within. Prepare to make a double arrest.” She then looked back at the guy she had at gun point, wondering why he had bothered to save her the first time – she was sure he recognised her somehow – and why he was willing to kill her outrght now. “That’s Detective Barbie to you,” she said to him, her anger unusual and strained. “You..." She struggled with the expletive. “Asshole!”

[Dick Grayson]

Oversight was one of Dick Grayson’s worst enemies. Sadly in regards to this flaw it carried over to Nightwing at times. This was one of those moments that he could never really fathom, nor he was sure anyone else would have expected. He barely had time to scowl as Detective White stepped over Salvatore. Damn it. So much for a distraction. Before he could truly curse this miscalculation, yet another inaccuracy reared its head and the butt of the gun cracked across his jaw and she could almost feel a crack near rip across the bone. Fortunately Nightwing was used to hits like that. He withdrew the impulse to gasp in pain or even to clutch where swelling was sure to start. He had a move to make now and as she radioed in to her backup.

Did he let this supposed double arrest happen?

Part of him honestly did. It was a sickening idea to be tossed in the pen with the likes of the people who killed cops that suffered the same fate as them. It was also more than irking to know that his complete agenda was starting to tumble down like a long string of dominos; each clacking with the soft, harsh whisper that denoted a certain amount of doom with each tilt. Sadly, it would have been a good release for Dick Grayson. He could stop all of this madness. He could finally have all of this over with and accept the doom that was his future in either situation. But, there was all of those people that Dick Grayson had struck deals with, let slide, provided back-up. All of those low lives that he had plans for. Was Salvatore really worth it? Was Salvatore worth all of those people getting off scot-free? Gotham PD could never really get them all and that was if they had an army of honest cops. “They’re going to let him go,” he said in a cold tone as he looked down at the gun and back at her, “the people who tried to gun you down last time, the people that put you in that ridiculous getup and put you undercover, the guy that let the dispatch on the squad for his last drug shipment. They’re going to let him go then kill the both of us.” His words clenched with quiet, snarling pain that whispered with every harsh rasp while his jaw continued to swell.

His hand uncoiled around Salvatore’s gun as he released it from his grasp. There was a distinct empty clack from the weapon. His eyes widened behind the mask. A loaded glock never sounded like that. It was then that he heard the click of a gun’s safety and Nightwings gaze shifted to the mobster that was straining as he stood but held his real weapon with a professional steady that would have sent Dick Grayson cowering. Nightwing only narrowed his eyes as the gun pressed against the back of the cop’s head. His breath was still shallow, recovering from nearly drowning. “Drop the God Damn gun,” he breathed, to the brim with more than enough aggravation for the night. “Or shoot this fucker and I might not kill you. That sound good Detective Barbie?”

Nightwing’s gaze shifted from Salvatore to Detective White. He didn’t know how good the Kevlar that was under his jacket was. But now was a good as a time as ever to test it out. His blue gaze bore into hers as if trying to relay some sort of silent plan that was more than likely about to get ignored. “Do it.”

[Mary-Lou White]

Oh dear.

Mary-Lou hadn’t really thought about who was waiting in the patrol cars parked strategically around the area, waiting for her to call for ‘back-up’. She hadn’t really considered what would happen to him after she did her thing; who would take him to MCU or who would process him. But she should have, and that point – now so obviously stapled to her proverbial forehead by the mysterious masked man in front of her – was never so painstakingly made as it had been right this second. Namely because before she’d had time to turn her gun to the mobster who now had the barrel of his gun snuggled against the back of her head.

She looked at Nightwing for what seemed like forever, her forget-me-not eyes wide with shock. Salvatore’s growled words being her prickled at her skin, and she knew instinctively that he was going to kill her even if she did fire her weapon. The command from Nightwing to shoot him prompted her and she pressed her lips together, preventing the girlish squeal of indecision that threatened to undermine what little control over herself she still had left.

She was over-thinking it. There was only one thing that she could do, and so she did it. Squeezing the trigger on her GPD issue glock, the round sliced through the air and lodged itself in the grimey tiles of the men’s room wall behind Nightwing’s left ear. It had been a close call, and she was glad she’d been working on her aim for the last couple of months. Before Salvatore could realise that she hadn’t actually shot the strange man, May-Lou ducked to the side, away from the gun trained on her. She was quick enough to move her head out of the way but she wasn’t quick enough to move her arm out of the way of the bullet Salvatore sent in her direction. The slug slipped into her upper arm even as she slipped on the tiles in surprise at the heat from her wound.

[Dick Grayson]

“No!” was the only reflex response as the bullet plunged into Detective White’s arm after he’d followed his direction. She did good. That was the worst part with this. She did her job, did everything right, was a good person, and this was what happened! All because he lacked the foresight to check that first damn gun. His lips curled into a snarl in the likes of which that had never really crossed even Nightwing’s features. For once Dick knew his emotions were fully aligned. Both felt that undeniable murderous white-hot rage and as one launched himself at Salvatory, drawing the club from its holster and cracking it across the mobster’s skull.

The edges of his vision sizzled into a tunnel of hatred beneath the mask as he shoved Salvatore up against the wall, his knuckles white beneath the leather and ironclad gloves as he clutched his collar. Their faces were inches apart before head-butting the mobster and swinging the club to bash into his ribs several times until he heard a telltale crack. Another short swing across Salvatore’s skull and in a fluid moment, brought it against his temple harshly; only somewhat satisfied when he fell to the ground.

Quickly he turned and dashed to the fallen detective in the stall. His features drained of their fury for a moment as he evaluated the damage. Gunshot wound to the arm, relatively deep thanks to her being in a cartoonish whore getup that left no room for Kevlar. His breathing was shallow but steady thanks to the adrenaline brimming in his veins. “Going to get you out of here,” he said in a tone that was a rather identity threatening mix between Nightwing and his mousier self. With that he scooped her up, a hand ripping a paper towel on his way out to compress on the wound tightly as he threw his shoulder into the door that he’d entered through and into the kitchen and out the back door, his feet picking up pace as he started heading for the hospital. “Radio when we get to the hospital.”

[Mary-Lou White]

She was confused. What had happened? One minute she thought she was in control of the rather interesting situation and then it had escalated into something out of a movie. Mary-Lou had underestimated Gotham, and it’s respective criminals. She hadn’t exactly thought herself invincible per se, but she had definitely not considered that working in this line of work could possibly get her shot. The now mind-numbing realisation that it could also get her killed was only now sinking in. Shivering against the cold and horrifyingly unhygienic tiles of the men’s room floor, her blue eyes glazed in a way that clearly gave her away as being in shock.

The sounds of Nightwing beating Salvatore to a pulp didn’t register with her, nor did the gruff voice that explained to her what was happening. Mary-Lou merely lolled her head against the rock-hard shoulder that bolstered her, murmuring something unintelligible by way of protest when she was scraped up off the floor like a fried egg stuck to the grill. Her feet thwacked into the door frame as she was carried out of that revolting room, the busy kitchen a blur as they pressed through. Finally they were in the cold, welcoming bosom of the night and it was only then that she managed to have some sense about her: the chill she was experiencing, she now knew, had nothing to do with the cold.

He wasn’t going to leave her there for the other cops to see to, and she was suddenly glad. They probably would have put a bullet in her head and left her for dead. In her relative lucidity even someone as flaky as she knew that she wouldn’t die from a gunshot to the arm for hours. “Hospital,” she echoed as the weirdly rocking motion of his harried footsteps on the pavement conveyed her hence, almost like she was trying to remind herself to do it when she arrived at Gotham General. It didn’t work, though, because even as she looked up at a seemingly familiar jawling Mary-Lou passed out.

(Sorry for the closer, it just seemed that passing out was something that she would do in that kind of a situation. I have a fun plot idea though, I'll tell you about it when I catch you on AIM. )