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jenn0wow · 5 months

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Batgirl: Ignite

Grayson’s back in Gotham and Nightwing meets Batgirl for the first time

Link to part two: https://www.tumblr.com/jenn0wow/737515489538064384/batgirl-ignite-part-two

After discovering a 100 year old university secret and taking down a cult of brainwashed sorority girls, Barbara Gordon has set her sights on off-campus crime this school year. However, her investigations on a mysterious string of arsons gets interrupted by Nightwing, who has a job to figure out who she is and stop her. Meanwhile, Barbara’s school life gets interrupted by Dick Grayson, and her quiet life on campus gets disrupted.

——————

There’s always something burning. Like breath, like life, fire persists in small ways until one day the whole world ignites.

Something invisible yet thick and sticky like gasoline and cigarette tar hit Dick Grayson as he walked off the plane.The airport was miles out from the city, but the feel of Gotham lingered in the air and felt like poison to his body. After months of fresh Turkish air, this was a shock to his system. However, he couldn’t help, but feel comfort in its familiarity.

It wasn’t shortly after Dick Grayson walked into the terminal that his phone started to buzz. Unknown caller. He rolled his eyes and held the phone up to his ear.

“You’re using a burner phone,” He said, there was a dryness to his voice. “So what do you want?”

“You don’t normally pick up my calls.” Bruce said. He was right. Dick usually wasn’t one to pick up his calls, at least not anymore. “How was your trip?”

“Good. Wish it was longer. If you wanted to do small talk, you should have called me on your personal phone.” Dick said, a bit harsher than he wanted to come out, but he didn’t totally regret his tone. He kept walking through the terminal to baggage claim, not slowing his pace to focus on the phone call. He didn’t feel like giving Bruce all of his attention.

There was a pause. A clearing of the throat. “I need you to do something for me. If you do it, I’ll let you disappear into oblivion like you seem to want to do nowadays.”

Dick rolled his eyes. “I’m not trying to—I’m done with that, remember?”

“I know you’ve seen the news. That girl.”

“Batgirl? I’m surprised you haven’t done anything about it by now.”

Dick slowed down, trying to remember what he read about her. The sorority bloodbath at GCU was the only thing of note, but that was months ago. Bruce wasn’t a person to let things go or get past him.

“The Justice League and larger events in Gotham have taken up my time….It’s harder to do things when--,” He cleared his throat. “She’s too dangerous to keep roaming around for too long. I don’t have the time to do it myself. I don’t trust Jason to do anything by himself yet. You can do it however you want to, but find out who she is and put an end to this whole batgirl situation.”

“How much of an issue is she, really?”

“It’s not really about the issue she is now, but about the issue she will be later. We don’t know who she is, her intentions using that name, and how inexperienced she is. She’s a liability, Dick.”

Dick paused, staring at the baggage carousel, unsure what to say. After everything that went down last year, he swore to never wear the Robin suit again. He wouldn’t put on a mask ever again. Truthfully, he didn’t want to see Bruce again. He sighed, knowing the price he had for the work he was being asked to do.

“This is the last thing I’m doing for you.” Dick said. “And I’m not doing it for free.”

“I’ll send you the details.” There was a pause, quick but sustatianal. Like Bruce has to convince himself of what he was about to say. “Glad to have you back in Gotham.”

Click.

The call ended. The usual.

However, that was one of the longest conversations they’ve had in years.

—

Bruce sent him the basics about this girl. At first, she was on his minor watchlist as it seemed she was just taking over petty crimes like minor assault, in a homemade costume.

But, then she uncovered the biggest scandal at Gotham University and stopped a mass murder of a whole sorority. It was pretty high profile. The only way someone could do that is if they hacked into the school’s system.

Now she’s leaving the small area she once patrolled around the college area up north and expanding into side streets, neighboring areas, taking on more than just campus crime. And she did it all under that name…

Batgirl.

Commissioner Gordon wasn’t very happy with a rogue vigilante that Batman didn’t have under control.

From his reports, she’s violent, making robbers and creeps unrecognizable by the time the cops got there. Not great PR for Batman especially with this new Robin he recruited. His relationship with the cops is already shaky.

It takes a crazy person to willingly put on the mask at such a grown age—without much or any connection to Bruce at all. It had to be craziness and a stupid amount of hope motivating her. Some blind yet perfectly calculated sense of Justice. A tragedy that follows them like a shadow.

Dick knew the type pretty well.

He watched her from an adjacent roof top, just above the one she was perched on. She crouched on the edge of the building, looking through a dinky pair of binoculars-probably bought from a hobby store. Not rich or tech savvy, check. That doesn’t really narrow anything down.

“Last week, two bodegas caught on fire after attempted robberies. Unsure if anything was stolen as nothing could be recovered.” He heard her mutter.

Was she talking to someone or herself? Perhaps a “man in a chair,” someone behind the scenes. He then caught sight the voice recorder in her hands. Herself.

“These bare similarities to fires last month, but unsure if they’re related.” She kept muttering.

He jumped down to her roof and walked up behind her. If she’s distracted, it would be so easy to just…

He crept up closer to her and ready to grab her cape.

She snapped her head around quickly at him and dropped the binoculars. “Shit.”

He went to reach for her and She quickly tumbled out of the way.

She started to climb up the small ladder that went up to the next door building, but Nightwing pulled on her cape. She’s yanked off the ladder and slams her back on the roof. Nightwing pulls on her cape again to restrain her, but one button by one it snaps off.

“Smart.” He said.

She stands up, rolling her shoulder out to release the pain.

“Who the hell are you?” Batgirl turns towards him, posturing herself up a bit.

“I’m actually here to ask you the same thing.”

“That’s an obnoxious answer.”

“Look, I’ll make this really easy for you. I have orders from Batman to get you stop doing this whole batgirl thing. If you just stop, I don’t have to out who you are.”

She seemed startled by him saying Batman as if she forgot he existed.

“You said that like you know who I am, but you don’t know who I am, though.” Batgirl said that unsure if that was true.

“How do you know? You don’t know what I know.” Dick said, studying her whole get up. It was impressively made, for someone doing it by herself.

“Okay then who am I? Who do you think I am?” She sort of stood there, pretty confident.

“Well, I know you’re a student at Gotham U.” Dick said, knowing that was his only lead.

“Okay and out of all 1,560 students attending Gotham U, who am I?”

“Can I get three guesses? 20 questions? Okay you called my bluff. I don’t know exactly who you are, but probably by tomorrow I’ll figure it out anyway. It would just be easier for us both if you just tell me now.”

Batgirl nodded, knowing that was also a lie. “So who are you? Like what’s up with this whole get up? Should I call you bird man? Bird boy? You work for Batman so Robin 2.0? Dark Robin?”

“Wow, why didn’t I think of Dark Robin? How original and not stupid. Right now I’m calling myself Nightwing so you can call me that.”

Batgirl cocked her head to the side. “Nightwing?” She scoffed. “Okay…”

“What? Nightwing is a cool name. Nightwing is awesome. At least it’s original, unlike Batgirl.”

Batgirl looked him up and down. “Oh, I know who you are.” She said. “You’re the old Robin.”

“Old Robin?” Somehow he felt offended by that word choice.

“I realized that little back flip you did earlier was suspicious. There’s not many heroes who really know gymnastics like that and the new Robin is a little clunky, more about scrapping than theatrics.”

“I wouldn’t say a flip is theatrical. It’s about style and it helps with the force behind your movement.”

She rolled her eyes and turns around to walk off the side of the building. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing, but obviously you’re insecure about it.”

He caught her by the arm and she instinctively swung her leg up, but he dodged. “That was unnecessary.” Dick said, “I’m trying to give you a chance out of this.”

“You say that like I have a choice.” She said, something burning in her voice like it was burning down deep within her. “I don’t wanna stop. So we’re gonna have to do this the hard way… if that’s okay with you.”

Those last words sounded vulnerable, exposed, juxtaposing all earlier interactions.

There was a pause in the air where he didn’t know what to do. “Yeah, that’s fine with me.”

“Good.” She then twists his arm and pushed him away with her foot.

He stumbles back and catches his step. He smirked. Admittedly, this was fun. He hadn’t fought someone who wasn’t a homicidal maniac in a long time. Well, he wasn’t actually 100% sure if she wasn’t one though. He took out his escrima sticks and went to charge at her, but she was already charging towards him.

Batgirl swipes her leg at him again, and he ducks. She then jabs her hand at his neck, but he’s able to block her several jabs with his escrima.

To his surprise, she grabs onto the ends of the escrima and uses what force she has to connect them together. Nightwing looks down at her confused.

“I thought that’s how it worked.” She studies it for a moment and he pauses a bit confused. She then grabs onto it and hops up, kicking her legs into his stomach.

Nightwing lets go of his escrima from the shock and she grabs onto it before it can fall to the ground.

“Okay, so I’m a little out of practice with this fighting thing.” Nightwing said, picking himself up off of the ground.

Batgirl was fiddling with the stick, trying to pull it apart to make it two again. He could tell her hands were shaking. Was she nervous? She didn’t seem like it.

“You gotta twist it and then pull.” He said.

She twisted and pulled. “Oh, thanks.”

“Can I have them back?” He said, hoping she’d be reasonable.

“Oh, yeah.” She threw one real quick and he caught it. But, before he could process that he had the first one, the second one was flying towards his face.

He ducks, but the stick hits him right on the forehead. He winced and then opened his eyes to find her gone.

“Great work, Nightwing.” He said to himself, picking up his other stick.

Even with his defeat, he wasn’t mad nor truly disappointed. He wasn’t sure was he was feeling, he just couldn’t help, but smile.

That night, he got back to his apartment and iced his forehead. He opened up the laptop that Bruce lent him for this mission. He had set up a database of all the students. He took off all the legacy students, all the students with any sort of money in their family, and then looked at the list. Still too many to narrow it down. At some point he’ll have to go through and study this list, but he’d rather wait until it’s shorter. He looked at the time. He has three hours until his first class.

#batgirl #barbara gordon #dick and babs #dickbabs #dick grayson #Nightwing #batgirl x nightwing #fanfic #dc comics #dc comics au #Batman #robin #gotham

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