Chapter Text
Dick did not know very much about the new Speedy. (The fact that he still considered her new after how long she'd held the mantle was fairly telling.) They might've met before, on the field, but they'd never been formally introduced. Still, he knew enough to dredge her name up from his memory—Mia Dearden—and recognize her outfit: the red suit, the yellow hooded cape, the metallic arm and leg guards.
All of which was currently stuck in the massive glue trap in front of his TV.
Her bow and quiver had been spared from the trap, although that seemed to be due to her haphazardly tossing them out of the danger zone. There were arrows scattered all over his sofa. She'd wriggled her way out of the cape, half-sitting half-kneeling in the glue. Both her arms were free, which was impressive. She could probably extricate herself entirely within the next ten minutes, if she really put her mind to it.
"Hi, Nightwing!" she called brightly, as soon as she noticed him. "Hey, quick question, what the fuck is up with your home security system?"
"Shoot, sorry," Dick said, aborting his analysis of the situation in favor of actually doing something about it. "I'll, uh—there's a solvent for this, give me a sec."
Five long, awkward minutes later, they sat across from each other at Dick's kitchen table.
"So…" Mia started, as Dick sipped his coffee. He'd poured her a mug, but she hadn't touched it yet—probably because it was the middle of the afternoon. "Why the glue trap?"
They both looked over at the glue trap in question. Her cape was, unfortunately, beyond salvaging, bright yellow soaked through and still laying in the gloopy mess the solvent had turned the glue into. "It's supposed to be for when Tim visits," Dick said.
Mia blinked.
"He breaks in whenever he wants," Dick explained. "The first time he did it—well, did it at this apartment, anyway, he insulted my security system, so…"
"So you went out and bought a massive glue trap," Mia said.
"Well, that first one I got rid of pretty quickly," Dick said. "Caught a random burglar, which wasn't very pleasant for the guy."
"Please tell me you got Tim with it at least once. Please tell me there are pictures. You owe me."
Dick cracked a tired smile. He was really feeling the effects of her interrupting his four-hour afternoon nap, though he couldn't really blame her. "Haven't got him yet, sorry. I do uh—I think I still have the cowl footage from when… he was like a year into Robin, tried to do this flip I taught him, and" — he broke off into laughter — "so much went wrong all at once—toppled off the roof but his grapple misfired at the same time and—and then the gargoyle—"
Her grin was much wider and perhaps a little malicious."Okay, okay, don't spoil the rest of it, but you gotta send this to me. And I'll forgive you for…" she gestured towards the limp remains of her cape.
Dick rubbed his eye, still giggling. "Deal."
He was reaching the dregs at the bottom of his mug. He turned to the coffee maker to pour himself another cup, and was halfway through filling it when he remembered that Mia was Speedy and was wearing her vigilante outfit. That meant cape business.
"I'm assuming it's not urgent?"
She looked up at him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. She swallowed…a spoonful of sugary cereal. Did she pour herself a bowl? When? "What's not urgent?" she asked.
"What you're here for," Dick said. "I mean, if you want to break in for fun, that's your prerogative." Tim did that a lot. It'd be a little weird for Mia to do it, given that they didn't really know each other, but—
"Oh, right," Mia nodded. "Right, right, I forgot—there's a case I picked up in Star City, trail led to Blüdhaven, remembered this is your city, thought I'd drop by and ask if you could help with anything."
"Okay, lay it on me."
Apparently, Oliver Queen was running for mayor. Dick had the vaguest impression that this was something that had happened before, potentially multiple times.
Mia had taken to helping Oliver with his campaign, which involved compiling various statistics regarding Star City residents. One thing had led to another, and she noticed, about a month ago, that there was something weird going in Gladeview Medical Center, a private hospital at the south end of the city.
"So—they're like a newish operation, right. They've only been up and running for four, five years, which means they're absolutely not accredited to do transplants, and I was looking at their financial statements for the past year—" She paused. "You probably don't care about any of the specifics, do you?"
"I think I heard about this, actually," Dick said, over his own bowl of cereal. "This is the human trafficking ring you uncovered?"
Mia's face lit up. "Yes! You heard about it?"
"Babs mentioned it. Dinah stepped back from the Birds of Prey to help with that?"
Mia nodded, but hesitated. "Who's Babs again?"
It took Dick a moment to process the question. "Oh. Oracle."
"Oh! Right, Barbara. I forgot."
"It's fine. It can definitely be hard to keep track of, when everyone has at least two names."
"Yeah," Mia sighed, covering her face. "Oh, this is embarrassing. Oh my god. Dinah calls her by her name all the time. I know Oracle—okay, I haven't met her, but I talked to her through Dinah's comms once and it was really—"
"Hey," Dick said, gently. "She's actually running things from the Clocktower right now—so she's in Gotham. We can stop by for a visit one of these days, if you—"
"Wait, for real?" Mia perked up immediately. "Absolutely. Yes. I'm so curious about her set-up." She paused, then glanced down at the papers scattered between them. She'd stored them with her quiver, so they'd been spared from the glue. "Let's handle this first, though."
Dick snorted. "Yeah, let's."
"Right," Mia said. "So, we handle Gladeview Medical Center. We handle—it was a mess. The city wanted to prosecute the patients who paid for organ transplants, since it was all extremely illegal, but a lot of them claimed they didn't realize it was illegal, and sometimes it was a family member that knew and the actual person who got the organ didn't." She sighed. "And… I sort of get it, you know? The waiting list for organ transplants is so long, people die while waiting all the time… but also these organs had to come from someone who's being exploited, and they deserve justice, and everyone who could afford one of these illegal operations was a rich fuck anyway, and—" She took a deep breath. "It's complicated. I've been talking it out with Ollie. It's besides the point anyway—no one at Gladeview knew where they were getting their organs from. They were just… doing regular wire transfers and getting a regular supply back." She pushed a chart across the table, and Dick frowned down at it.
"This… huh." Given something to focus on, the last dredges of Dick's sleepiness vanished entirely. Typically, the most trafficked organs were kidneys. Parts of livers, corneas, and blood plasma was also relatively common. Having all of that on the list made sense, because they could be harvested without killing the person they came from. But the list also contained deliveries of lungs, hearts, pancreases… "Jesus Christ, how many people are they killing?"
"The delivery dates are also extremely regular," Mia said, pointing the column out. "There's no way you're getting a fresh heart on your doorstep every two weeks, unless…"
Heart transplants, obviously, required a deceased donor. Along with a whole host of other circumstances for the heart to actually be viable for a transplant, and on top of all that, a significant percentage of the population in the US had opted out of organ donation.
For this regularity to be possible, whoever was supplying the organs had to be killing to get them. He looked over the lungs, the stomachs, the intestines… all of this was a person that had to be killed. Each one was likely from a different victim as well, given how the deliveries were staggered.
Dick had been desensitized to plenty, at this point, but just seeing the numbers was enough to make his stomach churn.
"I see," he said, finally, voice tight. "Okay. What have you figured out?"
"Gladeview wasn't the only location this was happening in," Mia said. "There were other hospitals, in other cities, that were also in on it—there's a list here, just four of them across the country. They all had the same story: send the money off, the organs show up. They don't know anything about the supplier."
"And where was the money going?"
"To an offshore account, but it was a shell corporation owned by a shell corporation owned by a—standard stuff, and it seemed like it led back to Denver, Colorado. I don't know. Roy used his JLA connections to figure out a bunch of this. Owner named…" Her face twisted in distaste. "Reginald Harvard."
"...Someone has a sense of humor."
"Yeah, obviously not a real person, though we checked just in case," Mia said. "Anyway, tracing the alias was a dead end. I went to the actual facility with Dinah and Roy—and Sienna, even though we really tried to stop her—but they'd already abandoned ship by then. They knew were were coming, but Roy was able to pick out their trails. A group came to Blüdhaven, so… here I am."
It was Dick's turn to ask. "Sienna?"
"She's new," Mia replied. "Red Canary. Big fan of Dinah. We felt this was a little extreme—and far from home—for her, but she's stubborn and… she wanted to help." Mia wrinkled her nose. "Also I tried to tell her she was way too young for this and then she pointed out she's practically the same age as I am."
That comment made Dick pause to study Mia for a long moment. She was… what, twenty? Maybe twenty-two. Looking back he definitely didn't think of himself at that age as an adult. At the same time, he remembered enough to know that twenty-two year old Dick would have bristled at anyone questioning his adult-ness. He refocused. "Okay. So you're hunting specific people? Who presumably came here to lay low."
"Not just that," Mia said. She shuffled through the papers, then pushed forward a stapled packet—a printout of a chat log. "It seems like they want to reestablish their network. The ring wasn't just organ trafficking, but it looks like these guys were involved with that aspect specifically. More importantly, though, they're moving something important."
"What would they be transporting?" Dick asked. It couldn't be organs alone, since those didn't last long outside a human body. Money, maybe? Perhaps gold or jewels that could be liquidated… except a quick flip of the chat logs seemed to confirm whatever they had, they wanted to keep it.
"No idea. Nothing we could come up with made much sense, given the context, besides… magic, maybe. And the JLD's been busy with the whole…"
"The Untitled?"
"I still can't believe that's what they're calling themselves. Yeah. That. So we do have to be careful, until we know what we're dealing with." Mia sat back, tossing the her bowl behind her. It skipped across the counter and fell into the sink without breaking. The spoon landed in the sink as well a moment later, clanging loudly. "That's my spiel. Thoughts?"
Dick, who had been staring past her at his sink, focused on her face. She couldn't quite hide the smug look on her face, and he had to admit internally that it had been impressive. And terrifying. He didn't have that many bowls.
He smiled. "Yeah, I can help with that."
Despite everything Mia brought to the table, Dick quickly figured out their information was lacking. The abandoned facility in Denver had provided a wealth of information, hastily compiled into a database by the JLA, but much of it proved outdated or irrelevant. Dick and Mia had dedicated the weekend to going through the material.
Many of the victims hadn't even known they were getting organs removed. Instead, many had been offered a job opportunity and told it required a 'routine check-up,' or simply told that they needed 'emergency surgery' for some unspecified 'life-threatening health issue.' Then they'd be given some time to recover before they were sent off to work, where all the predatory aspects of labor trafficking would come into play. By the time he'd gotten to the PDF walking through recruitment tactics, including who to target and the most effective manipulation techniques, he'd had to stop.
He pushed his laptop further back on the coffee table so he could lean his elbows on it, rubbing his eyes. Mia, who had been sorting through her printouts on the floor, stood up to take a look at the screen. "Ah, yeah," she said, her grimace clear in her voice. "That… wasn't fun to read."
"They put together fucking tutorials," Dick said, face still buried in his hands. "It's… Jesus. I know how the manipulation works but…"
"It's different, when you see that someone made a flowchart on how to execute them? Yeah, it sucks." Mia flopped down on the couch next to him. "You don't need to read the whole thing, though. That's not really relevant to what we're looking for."
"I know," Dick said. "I just—it's—I wish I could have helped. That we did something about this earlier."
"Ollie's coordinating getting authorities involved," Mia said. Dick looked up at her, and she smiled reassuringly. "Since it's international it's a little complicated, but he's keeping me updated. We'll get the victims justice, best we can. And… I know we're focusing on the organs, but for the people trafficked for sex or labor? We've gotten them out."
Dick nodded, taking a breath. "Yeah. We're doing everything we can, and that's what matters."
"Right," Mia agreed. "Anyway, I'm realizing… something really weird. They documented everything really well, but I can't figure out where they're getting the hearts and lungs from."
Dick nodded again, a little more confident this time. "I noticed that. It does seem off." Every kidney was accounted for, complete with who the donor had been and how they'd been… convinced to part with it. The hearts, on the other hand? Along with the lungs, the stomachs, everything that couldn't be removed without killing the donor. They simply seem to appear in the facility's inventory, ready to be sent off. "Maybe they're just not documenting who they're killing to get these?"
"They noted down when people died during organ removal surgery," Mia said. "I think it's more likely that they just… stored the documentation separately? And either destroyed it or took it with them when they ran. Which brings up the question of why."
"Could it be to avoid prosecution? Lighter sentence because prosecutors wouldn't be able to prove they were outright murdering people."
"Well, they left all the other evidence behind. I don't think hiding the fact they were outright killing people is going to help them at all," Mia pointed out.
"…That's true. What does obscuring this evidence hide? Who the victims were, maybe?"
"I mean, similar background to the other victims, if I had to guess? Flown in from overseas, offered a life-changing opportunity in a 'developed country,' then they cross a border. It's the same story. After that, it doesn't matter if they get put to work or just vanish into thin air... I was looking into this earlier. There hasn't been any spike in disappearances in Colorado, so wherever they're getting their victims from, it's not local. We were also trying to figure out how they were disposing of the bodies, but we haven't been able to solve that mystery quite yet."
"Or," Dick said slowly, testing the theory on his tongue, "Since the hearts and everything are new, something they only started handling less than five months ago, they haven't had a chance to write everything down?" That was something else notable—they'd started selling stomachs in mid May, with pancreases following a couple weeks later and then hearts and lungs in quick succession after that.
"This new… thing is also how they ended up getting caught," Mia added. "Which means they were probably sloppier about it than they usually are."
"Okay. We have a theory. And that means… that's not going to help us track down these guys."
Mia groaned. "No. No, it doesn't."
"Okay," Dick repeated. "That's… okay."
"It's frustrating," Mia hissed, before abruptly pushing herself off the couch. "But. Yeah. It's fine, it's fine. Anything new we can figure out does help, even if we're not sure how the pieces fit together yet. We know we're looking for approximately fifteen people. We know they're transporting something important, that they want to keep, that's probably fragile, and… I think we need to stop sitting around, honestly."
Dick nodded, standing up and stretching all his muscles. He'd definitely been hunched over his laptop far too long. "I don't know how much patrolling would help," he admitted. "I've been keeping on top of the police chatter and they haven't noticed anything unusual."
"Well, it can't hurt," Mia said.
She was right. Spending his nights sleeplessly going through documents had been exhausting in a way that still left his body buzzing for action, so getting back into the routine of patrol would help with that. Maybe the break from focusing would be what he needed, for a fresh perspective. And as much as Dick wanted to believe in the BPD—all the effort he'd put into rooting out corruption—he still had to quietly admit it could be better. In numerous ways.
"Nightwing and Speedy, the Dynamic Duo," he said consideringly. "It has a ring to it."
"…It really doesn't."
In the end, they decided it would be for the best if Mia stayed behind in Dick's apartment. Her uniform was still in an… unfortunate state, and she'd quickly realized that it might be for the best if Speedy wasn't seen running around Blüdhaven so soon after she'd busted into Gladeview Medical Center and the Denver facility. "If they see me here, they might realize I followed them here," she'd said. "We shouldn't scare them off."
It was a good point. Dick had offered to let her wear someone's old costume from the Batcave—he thought some of Cass's might fit—but Mia seemed perfectly content with taking over his laptop, coordinating in his ear from the comfort of his apartment.
"Do you think I could pull off being Batgirl?" she asked idly, a few hours later. Patrol was going smoothly, as quiet as a night could be in Blüdhaven. "Like… my hand to hand is fine, but that's her whole gimmick."
Dick hummed thoughtfully, half-distracted by the bar across the street. "You could be Huntress, maybe? With her crossbow, and all."
Mia would have met Helena, wouldn't she? Whether Helena was really part of the Birds of Prey, or if she just showed up whenever she liked, was… unclear to Dick, but he was fairly certain she hung around in those circles, and Mia seemed familiar with their members.
The bar was busier than usual, for a Sunday night. That was enough to have Dick pause, and the number of faces he recognized made him linger.
Mia made a noise that sounded distinctly disgusted. "Eh…"
"Do you have something against Huntress?" Dick asked. He kept his voice light and playful, despite his curiosity.
"Not against her!" Mia answered quickly. "It's just… crossbows."
"You have strong opinions about the best way to launch an arrow?"
"They're called bolts when it's a crossbow," she said immediately, only to immediately go quiet. "…That probably answers your question, doesn't it?"
Dick snorted in response. In the bar, someone leaned against the pool table, only to immediately be shoved aside by someone else brandishing a pool cue.
Mia sighed. "I… I don't have anything against crossbows, necessarily. They're just… not very good. At anything. At all. Actual bows are just better in every way, but my classmates are convinced that crossbows are cooler somehow. Or more efficient, or whatever, and easier to learn—okay, they're right about that part I guess—and it's so painful. To hear people be so wrong. Actually, I'm extremely glad the movies didn't give Katniss Everdeen a crossbow, and yes I am offended that there was one on screen at all—" She took a breath. "I don't hate crossbows."
"Of course not," Dick laughed quietly. The two people at the pool table were arguing now, in ways that had Dick lean closer to the edge of the rooftop he was perched on. Both of them were drunk.
"I tried talking to Ro—Red Arrow about this," Mia said. "But apparently he'll defend using his favorite glass bowl as a projectile."
"He did like doing that," Dick recalled. If the guy with the pool cue kept up his gesturing, he was going to stab someone's eye out. Probably his own. "Said he called himself Arsenal because he could use anything as a weapon."
"That's… I kind of love that, actually," Mia said. "Was that something he did as Speedy too? Do you know?"
"I mean, you were perfectly happy with the idea of tossing my bowl around," Dick started, only to see that the pool cue-less guy winding up a punch. "Hang on. Hold that thought."
One damaged pool table, several shattered shot glasses, and pissed-off bartender later, Dick waltzed out the door of the bar. "So, where were we?"
"Is that something you do often? Stare at bars so you can break things up when a fight starts?"
"Just this one," Dick replied. "All their regulars hate each other, and the owner hates banning anyone because that means less business, even though I'm pretty sure no one's buying nearly enough to justify how they need to replace the furniture every other week. So here I am, protecting local businesses."
"The bartender didn't seem too happy with you there."
"She usually isn't," Dick sighed. "The first time I broke up a fight I came in through the window on her shift, and the glass shards… she had a bad time."
"Honestly? I'd probably hate you for that forever, too."
Dick grappled back up to the roof, continuing along his patrol route. "I appreciate the honesty. Anyway, where were we?"
"We were talking about… I threw your bowl because I didn't feel like walking to the sink. That's different from aiming your favorite bowl at someone's nose."
"Y'know, he was actually Speedy at the same time as I was Nightwing, for a while," Dick said. "We didn't work together all that much at the time, but… I helped him track down his daughter, and we teamed up on some other things. So Nightwing and Speedy were a duo, for a while."
"Oh, that's interesting. I didn't realize there was overlap there." There was a long pause. "Now I'm imagining Roy holding a baby in that stupid feather hat of his."
"Doesn't Ollie still wear those?"
"I said what I said."
Dick snorted softly. "You'd probably hate what I was—"
"Hang on," Mia said. "911 call. Fire, Three blocks to the east, one block north, grocery store."
Dick immediately adjusted his path, conversation forgotten. He arrived before the firetrucks, so he ended up helping the residents living on the floors above the store evacuate. Thankfully, the fire was contained enough that everyone could get out in time, and the firefighters managed to suppress it relatively quickly. Unfortunately, it had definitely originated from a cocktail molotov thrown through the window.
"We can search for the perpetrator," Dick said, once he was back on the roof and dusting the ash off his costume. "They're probably long gone by now, though."
"I'm not having any luck with the cameras."
"Yeah, in this area they all tend to be fake. If they do record, most people here don't like paying for cloud storage. I guess I could try to access them while I'm here, but…"
"Probably not worth it?"
"Probably not," Dick agreed. "I can always just keep tabs on what the BPD finds." When Mia didn't respond for a long moment, he clarified. "The Blüdhaven Police Department. BPD."
"Oh. Right." There was more awkward silence. "We're continuing the normal patrol, then?"
"Yep. And don't worry, you're not the first person confused by that acronym."
Mia cleared her throat, ignoring him. "Okay. Update on the other side of things, Ollie's campaign manager called him, so he has to get back to Star now, but the Justice League's started handling the branches of the trafficking ring that were actually 'recruiting' victims. Roy's managed to track down some of the runaways from the Denver facility, so hopefully we'll get a little more information about the guys we were searching for. And Connor's been accounting for all the victims, which might help us narrow down how exactly they were getting their hands on the more unusual organs. What about you would I hate?"
Busy absorbing the rest of the information, it took Dick a moment to parse Mia's question. "What about me would you hate?"
"You said I'd probably hate that you were something? When we were talking about Ollie's hat with the feather in it."
"Your memory's good," Dick commented idly. "Right, I was saying you'd probably hate the old version of the Nightwing costume."
"Oh, I need to look this up now."
"It's not terrible," he defended, preemptively. "I don't even think it's that bad. Not as protective as it could be, sure, but stylistically—"
"Oh my god. Holy shit. Your tits are out."
"Mia!" Dick yelped, scandalized, cutting himself off with a quick glance around to ensure he was alone. "It's not—"
"Oh my god," she repeated, breathless with laughter. "No, no, you're fine. I love it. This is great."
"Why do I suspect this is a bad thing?" Dick asked.
"I promise it's not. I love this. I need to get a boob window."
"I don't think you—"
"Holy shit," she said suddenly. "Jesus. Tim was fighting crime with his entire thighs out?"
"He—what?"
"Found photos of the two of you," Mia said. "It's kind of blurry, but I assume he's not running around in nude tights? Actually I don't know if that would be better or worse than—"
Dick aborted his next swing, slowing to a stop on the roof he was on. It was a taller building, just enough that he could see a sliver of the bay between the skyscrapers. Gotham glittered on the horizon.
"…Nightwing? …Dick?"
"Huh?" Dick blinked.
"You stopped moving. Are you okay?"
Dick blinked again. The view didn't change. He'd had a dream like this once, maybe. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine."
"Did I say something wrong, or…"
"No, you're fine," Dick said quickly. "It's just… Tim never really wore the shorts. You're…" He hesitated, but they're already dropped multiple civilian names on the comms tonight, and… any excuse he had to avoid saying it seemed to suddenly fall flat. "You're probably looking at a picture of Jason."
"Okay," Mia said. Her voice was cautious, but uncertain enough that Dick realized she didn't know. Of course she didn't know. How could she, when Dick had taken so long to realize?
"He's been missing. For nearly six months now."
"Oh."
She didn't anything else. Dick took a moment just to breathe and stare at Gotham across the bay. Eventually, he started moving again, examining the next building for the best place to aim his grapple.
It took another five minutes for her to say, "I hope he's okay."
"Yeah," Dick said. It felt painfully inadequate. "I hope so too."