Chapter Text
Fitz had started his law enforcement career in Bludhaven, and then transferred to New York when it started to look likely that he was going to end up in the Bay. After three years with NYPD, he'd transferred to the FBI, and never looked back.
His current case—well, his current case was probably ruined forever, along with possibly the joints of his right knee and ankle. But before the small bomb that had dropped him two stories and then put one third of a parking garage on his leg, his case had been to track the money between shell companies which appeared to belong to some Middle Eastern gazillionaire dynasty that seemed to either think they were the avatars of death or possibly the head of a demon-worshipping cult.
It was hard to tell from the outside.
But now Fitz's leg was broken in seven places (to be fair one of the places was his knee and it wasn't so much broken as it was… torn, messily), and he was definitely on desk duty for the foreseeable future, which meant his lovely, organized, puzzle of a case was going to someone else.
And the higher ups were shipping him to Gotham.
"Is this a punishment?" he asked his supervisor.
"I'm never going to convince you it isn't," she said cheerfully. "But it's actually an attempt to keep you on the case as best we can."
Fitz sighed.
"The youngest Alghul family member recently moved to Gotham and married Bruce Wayne," Erin continued. "And there's some evidence of continued contact between her and her family, so."
Fitz sighed. "Gotham it is."
"Thing is, it's actually a real need," Erin said. "There's a social media site. You know BatWatch?"
Fitz cocked his head. "The hero tracker website? Sure."
"So it's location locked, and literally no one can figure out how. You have to actually be in Gotham to see the whole site."
"You're joking," Fitz said.
Erin shook her head. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to move to Gotham and go trawl through the last, like, ten years of BatWatch to see what Batman has done about the Alghul crime family."
Fitz buried his face in his hands. "You actually hate me," he whined.
Erin patted the top of his head. "Rest up," she said brightly. "You transfer to Gotham as soon as you're out of the hospital."
Fitz groaned.
The second-floor, one bedroom apartment the Bureau had found for him would do perfectly fine—he could get around in the wheelchair he was currently using and the crutches he hoped to graduate to soon. The elevator was roomy and worked (apparently a recent repair). It was only two lightrail stations away from the Bureau offices, when he was able to go in, and it had stable internet for the home office he currently had in place of a dining room.
Teammates, friends, and new coworkers finally cleared out after the moving day slash apartment warming, and Fitz cracked open his laptop. His new supervisory agent—although Erin was still lead on the entire Alghul case—had promised him that it was no rush, the decade backlog of BatWatch was one no one expected him to rush through. But he just wanted to see.
The Bureau had an account, which they'd given him free reign of—although Johannsen, his new supervisor had also said he was welcome to make his own if he wanted. Fitz didn't think he'd want.
He logged in, obeyed the prompt to change his password because it had been so long since his last login, and then stared at the screen.
It was straightforward. It was also ugly as sin. The default font was Comic Sans. It was all shades of black, grey, and yellow. He supposed he could understand the urge to create darkmode before darkmode existed, but yellow?
He just sat, took in the welcome screen for a bit, not really comprehending the pictures, and gathering the courage to see what was in each of the dropdown menus for filtering.
Batwatch
Post
For You:
Filter On:
Neighborhood
TheBowery
Burnley
CherryHill
Park Row
Robbinsville
Tricorner
UniversityDistrict
UpperEast
UpperWest
Brideshead
GothamHeights
NewTown
OldGotham
FinancialDistrict
FashionDistrict
Coventry
DiamondDistrict
Chinatown
BeaconTower
AparoPark
AmusementMile
TheNarrows
MonolithSquare
KubrickDistrict
Otisburg
IndustrialPark
Hero
Batman
Nightwing
Batgirl
RedHood
RedRobin
Robin
Spoiler
Orphan
Batwoman
JLVisitor
WayneWatch
BirdsOfPrey
VillainyAfoot
Interaction
Acrobatics
AnimalInteraction
AtStreetLevel
BatLecture
BirdsAtPlay
Flying
Injury
KickingAss
Miscellaneous
Questions
RooftopChat
RooftopArgument
RestaurantTally
SofteBats
StakeOut
Teleportation
VictoryDance
ModRequest
Media
Photo/s
Video
TextOnly
Reply
@lostluggage
Wake me up before you go go
Add another point to Mamacita's Pizza!
@thebuttsmatch
You know I'm right
Old picture, but I never posted it, and I'm feeling nostalgic for when Red was still Robin.
@RedHoodie
He can put my head in a bag any time
Your zoom lens is amazing! I mean, I hope it's a zoom lens...
@thebuttsmatch
You know I'm right
Sure. We'll go with that.
Sure, Fitz could do this. He could do this. He hovered over the 'interactions' menu, just to see what kinds of things the infamous vigilantes of Gotham got up to. Honestly, he was kind of interested in the Restaurant Tally. It was probably full of good recommendations.
Animal interactions was cute. Did they do that often? Obviously often enough to filter on it, Fitz figured. BatLecture. Sounded terrifying, no thank you. RooftopChat and RooftopArgument were apparently distinct enough to need different tags. SofteBats… why did that have an 'e'? VictoryDance, huh, guess it was good to know the terrifying Bat could do something so human.
Fitz clicked that tag, just for curiosity's sake. Then he grimaced. Turned out the Bat wasn't so human, or at least not in that way. The page was entirely filled with… others. He sighed, hovered over the 'hero' menu, resigned.
He was from Bludhaven. He knew who Nightwing was. Everyone in the world knew Batman. But the others? Apparently there were a bunch of teenagers too, and it took filtering by Robin to discover the girl was Spoiler.
Wasn't Robin a girl's name? Apparently not in Gotham. Wasn't Red Robin a restaurant? Apparently not in Gotham (he did a quick google, and yeah, turned out the nearest Red Robin franchise was in Jersey City).
Who the fuck was Batwoman?
WayneWatch? Were the Waynes so ubiquitous they got included? Well, that would make tracking Talia Wayne nee Alghul a little easier, maybe.
VillainyAfoot made Fitz snort. But the Red Hood tag drew him up short. He knew the Bureau had taken him off the Most Wanted list, but he was still a wanted fugitive. The law enforcement agencies of the world had just decided, that since he was ostensibly working with Batman now, he was a low priority for them.
He'd stopped putting heads in duffel bags, according to office scuttlebutt, and there hadn't been any murders attributed directly to him in months, maybe even years at this point.
But he was still a crime lord, running a deadly gang which also dealt drugs and sold illegal weapons in the heart of the most crime-ridden city in the country.
And Fitz, to all intents and purposes, was living right in the middle of his territory, snooping on him and his cohort on social media. How was this his life?
He clicked the Red Hood tag out of a morbid curiosity.
@HenchLife
Goon is demeaning, actually
[video id: Three henchpersons in combat gear and ski masks lean against a brick wall. Red Hood paces, helmetless but in a mask, before them, ranting loudly and waving his hands. Red Hood: This is what sick days are for, you lunatics! So you don't come to work sick! No one wants your germs! No one! You have sick leave! Take your damn sick leave! Why did I make sure you have sick days in your contracts if you don't take your fucking sick days? Sick days are for when you are SICK! Vacation for when you need a break! Parental Leave for when you have a baby! Family medical for when someone in your immediate CARE is sick! WHY did I write your contracts this way if you don't USE your TIME?]
Boss sure has opinions about compensation.
The video was broken, but the ID was bewildering enough. Fitz stared at the rant text for several long moments. He didn't even think he had different sick and family medical leaves.
Then he wondered about the broken video. He was an unfortunately suspicious person, and the fact that the descriptions said Hood's helmet was off made him wonder if it was a glitch, or if the video had been taken down on purpose.
Before he could think too much on it, his leg throbbed a reminder that it was time for his next pain pill. He shut the laptop and wheeled himself slowly to the kitchen, and his pills.
Cups were in too high of a cabinet, in the chair, and he didn't feel like wrestling himself to standing, so he drank out of one of the clean dip bowls Erin had left in the dish drainer. Then he wheeled himself to his bedroom to get into bed before the codeine made him so woozy he fell out of his chair again.
All in all, a pretty good start to his new placement, he decided.
Fitz woke the next morning to knocking on his door. "Just a- shit! Just- Hang on!" He flailed his way upright, dragging his heavily immobilized leg, and scrambling for his phone, which instead of coming to his hand, tumbled down between the bed and side table. "Goddamnit," he muttered.
"Mijo, it's the super," a female voice called. "I'm coming in, don't worry."
Fitz stared at the wall for a moment before resuming his struggle for his phone.
"Oh, Mijo, here," a little old hispanic lady he was pretty sure he'd seen the day before said, scooping his phone up and casually righting his braced leg in the bedding. "Do you need help? What were they thinking, moving you here alone?"
"I- uh," Fitz stuttered. "Just still groggy, ma'am, normally I do just fine."
"Hm," she said. "None of that Ma'am, now, Mijo. Everyone just calls me Abuela."
Fitz nodded sort of weakly as she wheeled his chair closer to the bed and casually helped him transfer as smoothly, or more smoothly if he were honest, than the nurses at the hospital, even.
"Oh, Mijo, you're so light!" Abuela complained. "Good thing I had extra."
"What?" Fitz said, as he was wheeled straight into his living-dining-kitchenette.
"Carlito was meant to come to breakfast this morning, but something came up," Abuela said breezily, parking him at his desk and gently scooting his laptop to the side without moving anything else. "So I have an extra portion of migas and beans, and they're just not the same refrigerated!"
From his kitchen counter, she produced a covered plate, which she plopped down in front of him, and brandished a fork.
"Uh, I- thank you," Fitz stuttered, entirely too steamrolled to even attempt a protest. He was also hungry, so there was that.
"You eat," Abuela ordered. "Do you need medication?"
Fitz nodded around his mouthful of something amazing. It was definitely eggs and beans, and something bread-y, maybe tortillas. He waved vaguely in the direction of the bar, where a row of little medicine bottles lined up.
"Hm," Abuela said, sounding grim, as she examined each pill bottle.
"Um," Fitz said. "I can- I mean, I'm really grateful, but if you have things you need to do— I can, I mean, I can sure try to bring you the dishes back."
"Nonsense," Abuela tutted, dispensing what certainly appeared to be the correct set of pills to include his daytime painkiller, his antibiotics, and the blood thinners to keep him from throwing clots after all the surgeries. "Are you taking supplements?" she asked.
"What?" Fitz asked, startled. Like, steroids?
"Calcium, iron," Abuela said. "You should take vitamins."
"Oh," Fitz said. He thought he remembered his doctor saying something about that.
"I'll have Nato bring you some," she decided.
"Oh, now, no ma'am," Fitz said. "That's- I mean, I'll get some, I promise."
Abuela frowned at him.
Fitz tried to hold her gaze and look perhaps less pathetic than she seemed to think he was. Being slightly pathetic at the moment, this was difficult, but he did his best.
"All right," she said. "But you call if you need anything," she ordered.
"I promise," he said. "I do appreciate breakfast this morning," he added. Then he flashed his best, charming good-old-boy grin and added, "I really can take care of myself though, I promise."
Abuela scoffed and patted his head fondly. She said something in Spanish that sounded skeptical, but bustled around picking up the few things Erin had missed last night, while he finished the egg-and-tortilla thing.
"You called this misga?" he checked.
"Migas, Mijo," Abuela said. "Fried tortilla, eggs, onion, jalepeno, and cheese. Served over refried beans."
"It's delicious," he said earnestly. "You are an excellent cook."
She patted his shoulder. "Thank you, Mijo. My number's on the fridge if you need me," she added, and absconded with his dirty dishes before he could do so much as turn away from the desk.
He heard his door lock click again, and he stared sort of blankly out the window for a few moments, gathering himself.
He should go wash as best he could in the walk-in shower, put on clean clothes, and see if he could get himself to the corner store. Barring that, he should read the briefing the Gotham Office secretarial pool had put together explaining BatWatch and the vigilantes it tracked.
Instead he pulled his laptop towards him and opened the site again, some kind of unexplainable fascination driving him.
Last night had apparently been a quiet night for crime, because his 'For You' page was full of #BirdsAtPlay and #Acrobatics tags. He was surprised to see that the vigilantes posted too. Or at least Nightwing did.
@robintrovert
Don't talk to me
Nightwing, Do a Flip! (Sorry… got a photo instead of a vid… wasn't fast enough)
@#2RobinFan
AlleyRobinFTW
Oh boy, here comes @NightwingOfficial to educate us about flips and tucks again…
@nightwingofficial 
formerly @robinofficial
I won't let you fall.
No, actually, this time we're right. That is a back flip! If it were a back tuck, my knees would be in—I've left them out to slow my rotation so I could land on my feet. Great photo though! Sometimes I'm making really weird faces in flip-stills.
@#2RobinFan
AlleyRobinFTW
OMG Nightwing! Hi!
@Nightwing'sBestAsset
If you've been on this site more than five minutes, you have no right to be surprised that Nightwing commented on a post which has these two things: a pic/vid of Nightwing and at least one acrobatics term.
This led Fitz down a brief rabbit hole of the #NightwingSpeaks tag, which was entirely used by the vigilante himself, and almost entirely to correct people's nomenclature about acrobatics.
Fitz made a mental note to go back down that bunny trail again later when he'd seen some videos of the blue-clad acrobat doing more flips, and reluctantly pushed himself back from the desk.
Bolstered strangely by this weird glimpse into Gotham's nightlife, it was time to try for the store.
The shower head had a handheld, and the whole bathroom was a wet room, so Fitz managed to clean the sweat of drug-assisted sleep off with only a little fumbling and swearing, and while his sister hadn't been able to come up from Haven for the move, Ellie had Shipt him about ten pairs of drawstring sweatpants, size triple x, in every pattern under the sun.
Resigned to his fate, Fitz pulled on the rocketship sweats over his braces, pulled the string until the waist was comfortable and he had enough slack to probably subdue a perp, and settled back in his chair.
He rode the elevator with a young man who introduced himself as "Nathan, on the fourth!" and who held the lobby doors for him with an easy grin.
"Which way to the corner store?" he asked.
Nathan beamed, "I'm actually headed there, if you want company," he said easily, tipping his head to the left. "Abuela sent me for some cleaning supplies, and I'm hoping Igraine knows where to get caulk since Dale shut the hardware store."
"Oh, do you work for the building?" Fitz asked.
Nathan sawed a hand. "I was meant to be Super, but I sucked, so Hood put Abuela in charge instead," he said easily.
"Hood?" Fitz startled.
Nathan nodded as though this were totally normal, for a crime lord to be interested in realty management. "I'm helping Abuela out while I finish school, then I figure, when Abuela's ready to retire I'll be almost competent enough to be Super again."
"What're you going to school for, then, may I ask?" Fitz wondered.
Nathan beamed. "I was economics, but Hood and Timmy talked me over to business instead. They said economics is just for finance bros who want to look good, and the real ground-level work is business, or even just other degrees obliquely applied."
Fitz blinked. "You've already lost me," he admitted. "But my degree is in criminal justice. I only ever wanted to be a cop."
Nathan's nose wrinkled, but he didn't say anything other than, "I admire your clarity." Then, looking almost guilty, he said, "It's not you, sorry, the Alley just." Nathan gestured vaguely.
Fitz nodded. "Doesn't like cops, I get it." He grinned to show no hard feelings. "Look, I'm from Blud. I get it."
Nathan boggled at him. Then his face creased with pity. "Oh," he said knowingly. Fitz felt a little condescended to by this child a decade younger than him. "You wanted to fix it."
Fitz grimaced. "It would take better men than me to fix Haven's force."
"Nightwing tried," Nathan said comfortingly. "And he couldn't do it either. I figure, that's sign enough." He held the door of the corner store too, though it had a handicap button.
Fitz wheeled across the threshhold into the weirdest corner store he'd ever seen. He'd expected something like a Seven Eleven. What he got was closer to a Bronx bodega, but even then he hadn't expected an entire fresh food section.
"Oh, yeah," Nathan said, seeing his face and grinning. "Hood's making the E-Z Marts stock fresh food. Said it's stupid for there to be a food desert in the middle of urban America."
"It is stupid," Fitz agreed mildly. Then he went to look at the fucking plums, in the middle of a Crime Alley convenience store.
Nathan laughed and peeled off to chat with the woman behind the register, probably about caulk.
The aisle of the EZ-Mart were wide and navigable by chair, and with a little wicker basket (wicker!) in his lap, Fitz didn't have a problem getting the vitamins his doctor had recommended, a bunch of bananas, one plum because he couldn't resist the color, and a couple of easy freezer meals to supplement his fabulous DoorDash abilities.
Igraine at the register greeted him cheerfully, welcomed him to the neighborhood, and gave him a card with the EZ-Mart's number on it. "If you can't get down the block some days, I know how it is. My Artie's happy to do deliveries after school."
"You named your son Arthur?" Fitz said, before he could stop himself.
Igraine laughed delightedly. "You're the first one since Hood to get the joke," she told him brightly. "I did indeed."
"That's wonderful," Fitz decided as he said it; he certainly had no room to judge about names. "Thank you," he added.
Nathan was on a stool changing one of the lights in the refrigerator case, so Fitz just waved and headed out the door on his own, his purchases in a bag hooked on the handle of the chair.
The three blocks back to the Blocks was longer without Nathan chattering beside him, but Fitz was glad to not have to carry his side of a conversation. The sidewalks were slushy but not frozen, and the sun was out, so it was actually a pretty day, to Fitz's standards.
There was a plaintive mew down an alley.
"Oh no," Fitz said quietly, looking up and down the street. He was a sucker, you could ask Ellie. Then he followed the noise down the alley to a trash pile.
No matter how he turned the chair, Fitz couldn't quite reach the mewling pile, so he finally abandoned the chair in a fit of frustration. Sitting in the slush, he finally managed to pull the pile apart enough to reveal a squirming mass.
The adult—the mother—hissed furiously at him, retreating to the shadows of the alley. She moved frenetically between the trash and the shadows, unwilling to abandon her kittens but afraid to get too close to Fitz.
Fitz scooped the fuzzy beans one by one out of the pile of metal bits, wires, and fabric, shuffling them as close to her as he could reach. They mostly wound up in the shelter of the wide cuff of his rocketship sweats, next to his heavily braced ankle.
The last kitten screeched when Fitz touched her, and he flinched back. She was a calico, all oranges and blacks and tans, and her eyes were two different colors. She looked like she'd been assembled from the spare parts of the rest of the litter—each of the others was a single color, tan or black or orange.
Her leg was wedged in what looked like a half-smashed soda can.
"Oh, baby," he whispered, and scooped her much more carefully into his lap.
She cried when he jarred her leg, and showed her tiny kitten teeth, but lay still on his good thigh while he carefully manipulated the can. He glanced at his chair in impotent frustration. His multitool was still in its holster on his belt, curled in his dresser where he wouldn't need it for six to eight weeks, probably. His cell phone was in the pocket of his chair, as far out of reach as his multitool.
"Well shit, darling," he murmured to the kitten, and tried to twist the can enough to loosen its grip on the kitten.
She cried softly.
"Hey, man, you okay?" someone called from the mouth of the alley.
Fitz looked up.
The teenager hovered awkwardly, like he was hesitant to come closer. "Like, you fall or something?"
Fitz sighed. "I'm- I didn't fall," he said finally.
The kid sidled closer, head tilted. "Oh, man," he said, seeing the kitten in Fitz's lap.
Fitz offered a lopsided smile. "Yeah, sorry, kittens were probably more than you were expecting. I won't blame you if you dip."
The teen's mouth curled crookedly into a shy little grin. "You know, I'm actually better equipped for kittens than getting you back into your chair?"
"Really," Fitz said.
The kid nodded. "My- well, let's say stepmom just for ease, she runs a cat rescue."
"Really!" Fitz said, delighted.
"Yeah," the kid said, pulling out his phone. "Hey Selina, it's Alvin." After a pause, he said, "Yeah, so I'm down in the Alley, and there's a litter of kittens. One needs vet care. Yeah," he said after a moment. "Yeah, sure." His head tilted as his stepmom talked to him for a bit, and then he offered Fitz that same, lopsided shy grin. "You're the best!" Then he hung up without a goodbye, and came to kneel beside Fitz. "She's on the way with a carrier and some things for them," he said.
"Thank you," Fitz said earnestly.
"She's stuck pretty good, huh," Alvin said, pointing at the kitten and the Zesti can.
Fitz nodded. "I can't get her out without hurting her more. Don't have anything."
"Got this," Alvin offered, producing a zippered case from which he drew needlenose pliers and a couple of different sizes of very small screwdriver.
"Oh," Fitz said, registering the camera case on the young man's hip for the first time. "Thank you."
The needlenose pliers, with the screwdrivers for leverage, got the can open enough to extract the injured paw, but the breaks in the leg were obvious, as were the many places the jagged edges of the can had torn open the kitten's skin.
She cried pitifully through the whole operation, but didn't fight or pull away, limp in Fitz's hands. "Oh, baby," he murmured, stroking her head.
Extracted, she draped limply over his good thigh, and purred. Fitz couldn't quite bring himself to stop stroking her ears.
Alvin said, "Hang on," and vanished.
Fitz just petted the kitten and tried to ignore the melting slush soaking through his sweatpants.
The mother cat, a skinny, scarred black creature with very green eyes, shuffled closer to snuffle her kittens. Fitz remained perfectly still. She nosed the injured one gently, rumbled a threatening little growl at Fitz, and hunkered down over the pile of kittens by Fitz's ankle, glaring.
Then her head swiveled towards the mouth of the alley, and she hissed softly, crouching flatter to glare over Fitz's shin.
Alvin, Igraine, and a preteen boy who was probably Artie emerged a few minutes later. Alvin had a can of catfood and a paper plate. "Hey there, Mama," Alvin said quietly to the cat, dumping the food onto the plate and putting it beside Fitz's socked foot.
She hissed at him, but shuffled closer to inhale the food.
"Hi," the preteen said. He carefully scooped up one of the kittens, lifting it to his face to examine it.
Igraine picked up another. "You're not keeping one," she warned her son.
Artie pouted up at her. "I know," he sighed, long-suffering. "No pets on the lease," he said, clearly mimicking her.
"They're too little to be separated from mom yet," Fitz told him. "So hopefully the rescue can take them all."
"Oh, Selina will convince the mother she's never been anything but a lap cat," Alvin said. "My dad jokes she's got a meta gene just with cats."
Fitz smiled. Alvin appeared to have a little of it himself. The mother, still eating the wet catfood like it was going out of style, was leaned ostentatiously over Alvin's left shoe, and rumbling a steady purr.
Speaking of purrs, the little creature still in Fitz's lap was vibrating an engine-roar all out of proportion to its tiny size, nuzzling his fingers sweetly as he rubbed her cheeks.
A beige sedan parked across the alley entrance, and an incredibly attractive woman got out of the driver's seat. She also appeared very fashionable, dressed understatedly but very well. It was the kind of casual effortlessness that Fitz had learned, in his days in the bureau, came with both a lot of work, and a lot of money.
Cat rescue didn't usually pay that well, unless it was a rich-lady's side hobby.
Alvin, scruffy and grubby, didn't fit with her. Though she was his step mom, so it was possible he lived mostly with the other parent. Fitz shook himself and made himself stop profiling his neighbors.
This was why Ellie said he didn't have friends who weren't also coworkers.
"Thanks for coming, Selina," Alvin was saying.
"Oh, like I'd pass up free kittens!" the woman said, laughing. Her walk was liquid and her voice was a low purr. "You've made a friend," she added to Alvin, nodding at the cat still draped across his shoe. The food was gone, but she was still leaning on his shin.
"I had the food," Alvin said dismissively.
Selina retrieved a carrier from the car, and started taking the kittens one by one from Igraine and Artie. "Hi there," she said to them all. "I'm Selina."
"I'm Igraine, that's my Artie, and this is Fitz," Igraine replied. "Fitz found them."
"Fitz also pulled the Zesti can off that one's paw," Alvin said, gesturing at the kitten still in Fitz's lap. "So she's going to need that leg checked."
"Oh, poor baby," Selina cooed, kneeling to examing the hurt kitten. "Look at your pretty eyes!"
Fitz, surprisingly reluctantly, offered the kitten to its rescuer.
Selina took her carefully, rubbing her ears. The kitten meeped softly. "Oh, sweetie," Selina murmured, and transferred her tenderly into the carrier.
Alvin gently coaxed the mother in after them. She let Alvin rub her ears briefly as she cuddled down in the cozy, round carrier with her babies.
Selina deftly zipped the cover. "Help me," she told Alvin, and they took the carrier back to the car.
"Now," Igraine said to Fitz. "Let's get you off the ground."
Fitz grimaced.
Igraine came and stood over him. "Trust me," she said cheerfully, and rearranged his legs so his bad leg was still straight out, but his good leg was flat on the ground beside his bad knee, and she was holding his wrists. "Ready Artie?"
Artie had unlocked the wheels of his chair and had the handles, directly behind Fitz.
"Oh," Fitz said, as Artie called, "Ready!"
Igraine pulled back, and Fitz braced with his good foot, using his own strength to pull himself up against Igraine's steady strength.
Artie tucked the chair deftly under his butt, and Igraine lowered him into it, and settled his bad leg back of the rest with comfortable ease. "Artie's grandad lost a leg in Vietnam and hated his prosthetic with a passion," she said. "And for the last ten years of his life he had a chair, because his balance wasn't good enough for crutches anymore."
"You've perfected the maneuver," Fitz said. "Thank you."
"Oh," Alvin said. "That was fast."
"We were coming back to help," Selina agreed.
Fitz leg was throbbing, and the whole seat of his sweats were wet and freezing, but these people had helped him, so he tried to smile gracefully. "Igraine and Artie got me," he said.
Selina clocked him instantly, of course. She smiled, said, "Then I will take these lovelies to get them warmed and fed. Al, you need a ride?"
"Nah," Alvin said, "I'm closer than not, and it's out of your way." He saluted Fitz witha jaunty wave, and told Fitz, "Glad you're not dead or a trap to mug me!" and then vanished around the corner again.
Igraine rolled her eyes companionably at Fitz. "Boys," she said fondly. "You need Artie to see you home? He wouldn't mind."
"Ma," Artie complained halfheartedly. But he flashed Fitz a shrug. "I wouldn't," he said earnestly.
Fitz waved them off. "I'm fine," he promised. "I've got a bottle of Tylenol calling my name, though. Thank you," he said, as earnest as he could make it.
Igraine waved him off. "We're all Alley, here," she said, inexplicably. "You call if you need anything."
Fitz had no intention of doing so, but he promised, and made good his escape.
Back in his quiet apartment, blessedly stocked with painkillers, Fitz rolled up to his desk and pulled up the superhero brief the office had made him, being 'not from around here, bless you.'
Even his insistance of his 'Haven origins had only gotten a laugh and an eyeroll.
It turned out he needed the brief. Batman, at least three different Robins (one of them prone to stabbing?), Nightwing, the Red Hood and the difference between Crime Alley, the Bowery, and the rest of Gotham, the new ones— Red Robin, Batwoman, Spoiler. Batman's 'no metas in Gotham' rule, and the junior league teams run by Batman's proteges (sons?). Three Batgirls, though there wasn't one at all right now, and the most recent was probably now the quiet shadow called Orphan.
It was almost worse than one of Ellie's soap operas.
Then he got to the section on villains and Rogues. Apparently there was a difference. That section explained why there had been a gas mask in his chair bag, and Fitz gently set the report down, rolled back to the living room, and put the gas mask back in his bag. Then he returned to his desk.
Red Hood had his own section. It laid out his sudden appearence, drastic rise to power, and then his apparent stabilization as he joined the Bats in protecting Gotham. He just did it a little (and not a lot, Fitz was not exactly surprised to learn. He was from Bludhaven!) more violently than Batman. Anita, who ostensibly ran the front desk but was Johannsen's right hand and ran the office like a particularly well-kept naval ship, had written in the margin of that section, 'Probably you'll like him. Most of the good ones do.'
The good what ones? Fitz wondered, considering her note. Then he wondered at her assumption that he would get to form an opinion on Red Hood. Was he that popular on BatWatch? Fitz would've figured the people of Gotham would've been more interested in, you know, the Bat of BatWatch. Or at least the birds. Nightwing was super friendly, and it seemed from his brief glimpses that Robin was good with animals, and none of the others had ever put a severed head in a bag.
Fitz, less reluctantly than he pretended for the audience of none in his apartment, opened his laptop and filtered the already-open browser instance of BatWatch by Red Hood.
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@thosethighholsters
No Butt Really
I know no one will believe me, and I know the picture's crap. But I swear that is @StabbyRobinOfficial hugging the Red Hood!
@stabbyrobinofficial
I don't even believe you, and I was there.
@hoodwinked
formerly @bustardwight
eat the rich
They can kick my ass any time they want.
@HenchLife
Goon is demeaning, actually
[image id: a slightly grainy still from a security camera, showing The Red Hood, with his thumb and forefinger jammed against the front of his helmet, as if—as is fact—he tried to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation and forgot he was wearing the helmet]
I know everyone thinks Hood and the Helmet are one and the same, but clearly Boss doesn't live in the helmet.
This post was from the same person as the broken video. Fitz considered that the security still had some kind of incriminating evidence and had to be scrubbed. Then he considered that he was paranoid, and perhaps @HenchLife was just terrible at attaching media.
Could go either way.
Still, Fitz thought. Red Hood seemed less… intimidating was absolutely the wrong word. Fitz could see the guns, could see the muscular build, could see the flat, pitiless gaze of the eyeslits of the helmet. Dangerous was probably the wrong word too. But the Red Hood seemed less threatening on BatWatch, less like he would kill anyone for crossing him, less like he was a loose cannon, and more like he was a vigilante determined to protect his territory.
Fitz had actually worked a case parallel to Nightwing once, when he was still on the BPD, though he doubted the vigilante had even noticed him, a beat cop with no prospects and more enemies than friends in the city. He'd been all grins and quips, until the rubber had hit the road and bullets were in the air.
One of the bullets that had impacted blue-and-black kevlar that night had been meant for Fitz's head, and the owner of the gun had gone down under a baton and 30,000 volts. Nightwing had, very briefly in the heat of the firefight, when civilian hostages had been in danger, been terrifying. Fitz had never forgotten the protective rage the usually-affable man had been capable of.
Red Hood on BatWatch seemed like another Bat, rather than one of the FBI's most wanted, an unhinged criminal mastermind who put heads in a duffel bag.
Fitz shoved his computer away and wheeled for the kitchen, more water, and perhaps a protein bar to settle his squirming stomach. How much of that was hunger and painkillers and how much was questioning everything he knew about the law would stay between him and the kitchen tile.
Fitz spent the next week mostly alone in his apartment, trawling social media.
He was actively aware this was not a healthy habit, and also actively aware it was his job currently and not just doomscrolling.
It was also hard to consider watching vigilantes do tricks to entertain children, punch muggers and then give them cash and escort their victims home safely, and eat an absurd amount of takeout from places Fitz was hoping were on UberEats to be doomscrolling.
He also went to the doctor and got his hard cast, which meant he could graduate from the chair to crutches, which made him feel slightly less helpless, and also significantly more useless, because he kept nearly falling over.
He was now considered hale enough to stumble to the office once a week, mostly to reassure Johannsen that the denizens of the Bowery hadn't eaten him yet, and offer his (so far mostly surface-level and not very useful) insights into BatWatch.
Anita and Johannsen had found his tentative exploration of BatWatch hilariously funny. Fitz could see it, but living in it was less amusing.
And that first week, when he swung stumblingly into the office, Anita greeted him with, "So have you met Hood yet?"
That she seemed to think this an inevitability was bewildering to him. As he had not, in fact, met the infamous Red Hood yet, he answered with who he had met, because the denizens of his neighborhood were some of the most interesting people Fitz had ever known.
(The voice of Ellie, always inside his head suggested that rather, these were the first people he had allowed himself to know, but he was a pro at ignoring Ellie when she said uncomfortable truths, even only in his own head)
This week, he had met, besides Abuela and Nathan, Igraine and Artie, and Alvin and Selina: a group of teenagers his father, who'd grown up in the suburbs of Dallas and therefore had played outside as a kid, would have referred to as a 'feral flock of children'; some kind of social worker who focused on drug reform at the street level; a young man so strikingly handsome even Fitz, who had about as much physical interest in other humans as a fence post, could recognize his beauty, who appeared to be some kind of math tutor of all things; and what he thought was the most terrifying woman he'd ever seen in his life.
And then he met the actual most terrifying woman he'd ever seen in his life.
He was taking a break from the screen to take a painkiller and eat some leftover dolmades out of the styrofoam when there was a knock on the door. "Hold on!" he shouted, and resettled his right crutch under his arm.
The door swung open to reveal an alarmingly well-dressed woman. Her eyes were already narrowed.
"Uh," Fitz said. She was wealthy, if the quality of her clothes was to be believed, and she was made up and done up as if she was going somewhere important. She was also, point of fact, familiar. "Can I- can I help you?" he asked Talia Fucking Wayne.
She looked him over, mouth turning slightly on one side in something that might have been cold amusement. "In fact I am here to help you," she said. "Move," she added, fully expecting to be obeyed.
Fitz, after a lifetime of being conditioned to obey women smarter and more powerful than he, moved.
Talia Wayne swept into his apartment, carrying a large bag that if Fitz could use two legs without falling over probably would've offered to take for her. She set the bag on his sofa and opened it.
Fitz closed his front door. "Ma'am," he said. "Mrs. Wayne," he added.
Her gaze snapped to him, shrewd. "Not useless," she said, nodding sharply. "Good."
Fitz, after a lifetime of being judged by women smarter and more powerful than he, decided to take this as a compliment. "Ma'am," he repeated. "What is happening right now?"
"Here," Mrs. Wayne answered, swinging Fitz deftly into the nearby armchair, and plopping something in his lap.
Fitz stared blankly at the little multicolored kitten. Her eyes were two different colors, and she looked like she was made of spare parts. She also only had three legs, the front left had been amputated at the shoulder. She mewed and pushed into his hands, purring all out of proportion to her size.
Fitz gasped, scooping her to his chest. It was his kitten. The one he'd fretted over in his painkiller-sleeps and wondered about after every #AnimalEncounter tag on BatWatch. He rubbed their faces together and cooed at her.
Meanwhile, Talia Fucking Wayne had unloaded every piece of kitten-care equipment Fitz would ever need, and some he'd never heard of, out of the bag, which appeared to actually be the fanciest cat carrier ever. She was standing before him with her hands on her hips.
Fitz looked up at her. "Wha- how?" he asked.
Mrs. Wayne smiled, and he was suddenly quite convinced she would use his intestines to strangle him if he ever hurt the kitten in his hands. "Selina sends her regards."
"I am so confused right now," Fitz said. "But I don't even care." He hugged the kitten to his chest and tried not to tear up.
Mrs. Wayne continued to smile her terrifying smile, and she nodded once, and said, "I'll see myself out."
She was gone before Fitz could figure out how to put the kitten down and get his crutches and follow her to the door. His mother would be appalled.
"Mew," the kitten demanded.
"Hi, baby," Fitz said, kind of helplessly, stroking her ears. He set her carefully on the floor, fully expecting her to flee under the furniture.
She did not. She headed confidently across the floor to where Mrs. Wayne had put her food and water bowls under the bar, sniffed them for a moment, and then turned to explore the kitchen. Her gait was ungainly, a little hopping lurch, and it was adorable.
Fitz fumbled his way to his feet and crutches, and followed, helplessly enamoured as she explored, tail up and crooked over on the end. She finally did her circuit of the living space, and jumped, clawed, and scrambled her way into his computer chair. Her missing forelimb didn't seem to stop her from getting wherever she wanted.
Fitz gently lifted her to the desk and sat in the chair himself. "Want to see BatWatch, baby?" he asked her.
She sniffed around his computer, nosed a few papers, and then sat on the mousepad he'd never gotten around to getting a mouse for, tail around her paws. "Mew," she said again, imperiously.
Fitz scritched her ears, and then opened his computer.
She loafed beside his arm as he scrolled BatWatch, and he found himself showing her posts as he went along. She turned her nose up at StabbyRobin with a kitten, but she purred like an engine when he showed her Red Robin eating ice cream.
"You want ice cream, or is that commentary on Red Robin?" he asked her. "I'm pretty sure dairy isn't actually good for cats."
He texted a picture of her and the computer to Ellie ("Look at your new niece!"), Erin ("I've replaced you with a better partner!"), and Johannsen ("I have a new supervisor to report to, but she seems to have the bureau's interests at heart"), and then turned the phone face down and got back to his exploration of last night's #RestarauntTally entries. He really needed to see if Mamacita's pizza was on UberEats.
The kitten kept him company as he scrolled and took notes, and nuzzled his hand every time it drifted into reach. His daily check of the #WayneWatch tag felt weirder than usual now that one of them had been in his living room, but thankfully they'd been quiet the last few days, and there was nothing new.
Then he returned to his current project, digging backwards into the #Nightwing tag, because someone had made a comment on one of his flips that it 'wasn't as cool as the time he fought the ninja.'
That had immediately pinged all of Fitz' investigative instincts, because the Alghul operative who had blown up the parking garage on Fitz's leg had been dressed in ninja-blacks.
So Fitz was trying to find the photo several people had agreed was cooler than the one Fitz had seen. He was scrolling, not really looking at posts, not really checking dates, just looking for ninjas, when a post caught his attention.
@extremebirdwatching
<3Nightwing
Not to be alarmist, but like. Has anyone seen Nightwing lately?
@Gothambulance
Wee-oooo wee-oooo
Last confirmed Nightwing sighting on here is dated eighteen days ago. Last time he was gone this long it was because the Titans were in space.
@ExtremeBirdwatching
<3Nightwing
Titans are in New York, without Nightwing. Tempest, Troia, and Flash II were on the news last night.
@Gothambulance
Wee-oooo wee-oooo
Arsenal wasn't with them either. They could be undercover. What, you think he's dead or something?
@ExtremeBirdwatching
<3Nightwing
I mean, I don't want to say it. But in the 'Haven no one's seen him since that girl killed Blockbuster.
@CondomMintKing
Anyone asked a bat?
@FruityBat
Dying for caped representation
Not to be alarmist, but Robin had a one-sided conversation on a fire escape near me three nights ago about wanting to 'keep looking for N.'
Fitz had to pause, scritch the kitten's ears, and remind himself that Nightwing was fine. Then he took stock of himself. He'd lost track of time, trawling, and it was getting late, and his leg hurt nearly as much as his stomach. "Am I too invested?" he asked the kitten, mostly talking about the lost time and the queasy stomach.
"Mew," she said dismissively.
Fitz stroked her back gently, watching her arch into the caress. "You sure?" he checked.
She huffed, butting his hand.
He obediently resumed scritching her ears. "So I'm not too invested, but I should watch myself, got it."
A knock at his window made him jump, and the kitten hiss.
Fitz shoved back the curtain to reveal the whiteout-lenses of a domino mask. "Jesus," he yelped.
"I am not currently practicing either religions, but my heritage is Jewish and Muslim," Robin said, clearly audible through the single-pane glass. "Jesus is not my deity."
Fitz reached a trembling hand forward and flipped the latch.
Robin raised the pane easily. "You have a kitten," he announced.
Suddenly Fitz understood how, despite how rarely he actually used the blade across his shoulders, this young vigilante had earned the nickname 'Stabby Robin.' "Yes," he said slowly.
The kitten, still poofed defensively on her mousepad, hissed at Robin. Fitz stroked her soothingly.
"I would like to meet the kitten," Robin said imperiously.
Fitz sighed. "You better come in, then," he said.
Robin climbed easily into the window without disturbing anything on Fitz's desk, Fitz himself, or the still-poofed kitten. He retreated several steps away and folded to his knees to sit back on his heels. He offered the back of one hand and made a familiar pspsps noise.
One orange and one black ear swiveled forward, and the kitten crept to the edge of the desk.
Fitz stroked her spine, and then gently lowered her to the floor.
Robin pspsps'ed again, and produced a cat treat from his utility belt.
The kitten's tail raised, head tilted in interest, now that the vigilante wasn't being scary. She approached deliberately, not cowering, but not rushing over, either. She took the treat delicately, and allowed a few head-strokes.
"What is her name?" Robin asked. "She is lovely."
"She is," Fitz agreed. He hesitated, and then sighed. He guessed he couldn't be the only startstruck fan the boy had met in his time in the yellow cape. "Her name's Batgirl," he admitted sheepishly.
Robin didn't say anything. He didn't even look up from the kitten.
Fitz could feel his judgment nonetheless.
Then Robin very carefully scooped up Batgirl and held her in front of his face. "You have an important legacy," he told her solemnly. "Those who bore your name before you are brave, and just, and honorable, and tolerate no exploitation. They stand for the weak, and defend the powerless."
"Mew," Batgirl replied.
Robin nodded, and set her down again. "Your human will need your support," the small vigilante added to the kitten, and then he stood up, still only just slightly taller than Fitz in the office chair, nodded once, and climbed right back out the window, once again without disturbing anything on the desk.
Fitz and Batgirl stared at each other.
"This is the weirdest fucking city," Fitz told his cat.
"Mew," Batgirl agreed, and went to investigate her food bowl again.
Fitz ran his hands through his hair, and shuffled out of his chair to take his nightime medications and go to bed.