Chapter Text
He points his gun, finger hovering over the trigger. “Any last words?”
She grins, humorous glint in her eyes. “May some poor sap who isn’t me deal with this garbage.”
Dick laughs and scans her book. “That bad, huh?” He watches with a lovesick grin as Barbara Gordon, his favorite regular to his bookshop, laughs too.
She nods. “Yeah. That bad. Why someone would ever think this is a gift that would not immediately be returned is beyond me. God, I don’t know what about me would ever scream ‘please give me pirate tentacle smut in paperback format’ but whatever it is, I need to get rid of it now.”
Dick laughs again, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “It must be the blouses. Very ‘I’m a pirate princess who wants to be debauched by a tentacle monster.’”
She slaps his arm. “Oh my God, shut up.”
Dick lowers his voice into a terrible pirate impression. “Yee ho, Bar-ba-ra Gordon! Board my ship and… other things.” He waggles his brows.
Her head knocks back as she guffaws loudly. “You’re so dumb.” She shakes her head, still breathing through fits of giggles. “First of all, wouldn’t the tentacle monster be boarding my ship? I’m the pirate.” She hands him her bag of books. “And second of all, I think you mixed yeehaw and yoho.”
“See, that’s what I need to see,” Dick says, pointing at her with the first book he grabbed from the bag. “Cowboy pirates.”
“What are pirates if not cowboys of the sea?” Barbara asks in a deep, philosophical voice.
“What indeed?”
They laugh together again.
“Oooh,” Dick says, holding up a book. “Attempting to cook again?”
“I do more than attempt,” Barbara says with a scoff of offense. “Cass went on a Roy Choi binge and now demands authentic Roy Choi cuisine. And since we don’t live near any of his food trucks and restaurants, it is up to me to provide such luxuries.”
“Well, I wish you luck,” Dick says. “Those are some high expectations.”
She snorts. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
“Well, I wish you the best of luck,” Dick says. “And that will be forty-four eighty-three.”
Barbara sighs. “The things I do for good books.”
“You work at a library,” Dick points out.
She gives him a smile with a hint of something he can’t quite decipher. “Well, there’s some things that the library doesn’t have.”
“Like Roy Choi cookbooks?” Dick supplies.
Her smile falters and she sighs softly. “Right. Like Roy Choi cookbooks.”
“You better tell me what Cass thinks,” Dick says.
She smiles softly. “Will do.”
Dick watches with a soft smile as Barbara makes her way out and waits until she turns down the street before his face falls, hardened and determined.
He goes to the front and turns around the closed sign before slipping on his mask as he makes his way behind the door hidden in the bookshelf behind the counter.
At the sight of his return, the man restrained in the center of the room begins to tremble, the marks of his earlier torture no longer bleeding.
"Think of anything else yet?" he asks, tapping the knife against his glove.
The man's whimpers are muffled by the cloth gagging him.
"Oh, right. Silly me." He goes over and pulls it down.
"His mother," the man immediately says. "Martha Wayne."
He stills. "I'm listening."
"Martha Wayne has a criminal record."
He cocks a brow. "Now I'm really listening." He rests his chin on his palms, leaning in. "Tell me more."
The man leans in conspiratorily. "She was part of the ACT UP protests."
He deflates with dissapointment. "You mean the protests for accelerating life saving drugs during the AIDS epidemic?"
"…Yes?"
"That's not dirt. That's philanthropism!" He slams the blade of his knife between the man's legs who yelps at the sudden motion.
"Uh— uh— she's cheating on her husband with the butler!"
"She's not cheating! They're in a throuple. Everyone knows that!"
The man gulps nervously. "Ugh. You're useless." He yanks up his knife and stabs it into his throat. His bloody gurgles fill the tense silence of the room and he groans, annoyed and no more closer to finding something to blackmail Bruce Wayne with.
.-~*~-.
Dick was 12 when his parents fell to their deaths because of Tony Zucco.
Dick was 12 when his lifelong bloodlust began.
He knew, the moment he found his parents' killer, that he would get his revenge. Which meant playing the long game.
He was too young to be of use to Zucco and his organization, so he lied. Said he's 15, not 12, and his muscles gained from years on the trapeze help him pass for older even if his height didn't.
He spent most of his first year running drugs. He's quick and he knows how to be stealthy. He made good connections as he did and got to be known to be reliable.
He learned to understand the hierarchy of the mob, Tony Zucco being at the top.
He realized that there will be no quick way to reach his level.
That was, until he met Sonia.
He had heard of Tony's daughter, but he had never seen her, never met her.
But when they met and he didn't recognize her, didn't have the preconcieved expectation of her, she leaped at the opporutnity to have someone her age. Or, close to it.
While "Richard" was "16" (really 13) Sonia was 15 and had been born into the life. It wasn't rare that she met the cruelty of the men in her father's ranks, even with her relation to him, and Richard was something rare: someone kind who didn't want anything from her but her.
So she didn't tell him who she was. Said her name was Sasha and that her father was one of the enforcers.
And in each other, they found a reprieve from their often dark and exhausting lives.
Sonia wasn't able to keep her secret long, one of Zucco's men finding the two curled into each other's sides, innocently watching a movie together. They hadn't even kissed yet, weren't even holding hands, but this was proximity too scandalous to not be reported.
To Richard's surprise, Zucco didn't immediately kill him at his treachery. Instead, he laughs boastfully and claps Richard on the back.
"I've been keeping an eye on you, boy."
Richard tenses, figuring his act was up, that the man knew who he was the entire time.
"You're loyal," he says instead, surprising Richard. "You've done good work. My men say they can always trust you to get a job finished efficient and right. You know how to shoot a gun, kid?"
Richard's eyes go wide. "Some, sir."
"I want that answer to be a yes if you're going to be with my daughter."
And finally, Richard relaxes, lips quirking up just slightly. 'Understood, sir."
"Sonia," Zucco says. "I like him." His face grows stern. "Don't prove me wrong."
And so, Richard is allowed to court Sonia. He learns how courting works here, the sort of things he has to do to prove his worth and to prove his care. With every day that passes, Richard falls more and more in love with her.
He now has become a sort of apprentice to Zucco, being taught by him, being guided by him, being shown how to not fail the Zucco name. Sonia hates the things that her father makes Richard do. She hates the ways it changes Richard.
But in the privacy of just the two of them, he is soft and he is kind and she knows that he is still the boy she fell in love with.
Years pass like this. Richard growing "17" and becoming more and more known and powerful in the ranks. His connection to Zucco and his daughter are known and he's something close to respected and feared.
Sonia and Richard haven't done anything explicit together, nothing past kissing, and Sonia is relieved that Richard never pushes her for that sort of thing. In all honesty, Richard has no clue what he's doing and is following her lead on it all.
One night as they sit and watch the stars, Sonia confides in Richard that she wants to get out of there. That she wants to go to college and live life otuside of the Family.
Of course he supports her. He loves her. He wants her to be happy.
But he knows that he doesn't want and can't want that. Now that he knows he's being raised to take over. And knowing that deep down, even after all of this, his destiny lies in killing the man who killed his parents.
And isn't that cruel? Doing to Sonia what her father did to him?
Yet it doesn't feel wrong. It feels like it's exactly what he was supposed to do.
So he makes his way up the hierarchy and continues to prove his worth.
Zucco tells Richard that he's the son he wishes Sonia were. That he's a blessing that he didn't know he asked for. That he's the perfect heir, even if they're not blood, but they'll fix that soon enough.
Richard helps Sonia plan her out. It'll take time but he will get her her freedom.
When Richard is "19" (still only 16 really), they arrange a wedding for him and Sonia.
They don't consummate their marriage, Sonia saying that she doesn't want to ruin her future with an unexpected pregnancy.
And a future she has begun to build.
With Richard having an official tie to Zucco, his care for his daughter grows even more thin, and he brushes off her absence to university, Richard's silver tongued speech about the ways it'll make her more useful to the mob convincing the man enough.
Richard should have known it couldn't be that easy.
While Sonia is away, Richard so distracted with his training and his duties, she is murdered in her dorm by a rival family.
This is the first slaughter that Richard goes on.
This will not be his last.
The trail of bodies he leaves only further proves his dedication to the Family and along the way, gains him a lot more power as he usurps the rival sector for himself, making an example of anyone who defies him.
Zucco is unbothered by the death of his daughter and this is the last straw for Richard.
It's one of their regular dinners, just the two of them, Zucco having too much trust in the young man.
"Have I ever told you about my parents?"
Zucco wipes his mouth with a napkin, shaking his head with curiosity. "You don't talk about them."
"No. I don't." Richard takes a long pause. "They died."
"I figured," Zucco says. "Most don't come into this life with happy white picket fence families waiting at home for them."
"Their names were Mary and John."
"May I ask how they…"
Richard's lips twist sardonically, meeting Zucco's eyes. "You don't remember?"
Zucco starts to sway, the poison in his food starting to kick in.
"I have been planning this day since I was twelve years old." He raises his gun as the man continues to choke in front of him. "Long live the king."
BANG.