Making Waves

Chapter 8

Putting his faith in someone he barely knew wasn't something he was a stranger to. Dick had made the call countless times in battle to trust people to do the right thing. But this time, it felt like a waiting game. He had given Perseus free reign over almost half the city, and of course, he had kept tabs on her activity at first, but after a few weeks, there was really no need. From what he'd gathered, she was fast, efficient, and dedicated. Dick knew from experience that a lot of new heroes made the mistake of letting their guard down after a few nights without criminal activity, but it seemed that Perseus was an exception. She was out there most nights without fail. And so far, she had yet to cause any trouble or even toe the line Dick had drawn to create their designated patrol areas. Even when she caught him on her side spying on her, she never complained about the hypocrisy.

Perseus, he found out through researching, was the demigod son of Zeus and one of the greatest heroes in Greek mythology. Although perhaps mythology was not the most accurate term. Wonder Woman was quite secretive when it came to knowledge about her background, but what'd they'd gathered from her was that the Greek gods were a powerful extra-dimensional race worshipped by people in ancient times. They'd long since been killed by Ares millennia ago, but the Greeks and Romans continued weaving stories around them.

The one written about Perseus was interesting to Dick. The old hero had slain the Gorgon Medusa, rescued the princess Andromeda from a deadly sea monster, married her and eventually, after his death, was given a resting place among the stars for his bravery and honor. Dick had gone on somewhat of a tangent in his research, reading up on the stories of other Greek heroes, and it seemed like Perseus's was the only one that didn't end in tragedy. He wondered what that said about the real Perseus.

He had also looked up the name of her sword, Soteria. It was a little harder to find, but eventually, he gathered that Soteria was the goddess or spirit of safety and salvation. It was an odd thing to name a sword, but Dick got the sentiment. Repurposing a deadly weapon for good, which hopefully meant she would make do on the no-killing promise.

A Greek-themed hero wasn't uncommon in the league. There was a lot of symbolism and meaning to the mythology that heroes could take advantage of when creating their identity. At least she wasn't named after a more morally corrupt figure, like Medea, or he'd definitely have something to worry about.

And yet, even after all these signs of good judgment, there were still so many unanswered questions. Not that he was actively trying to find out her identity, but there were still so many unknowns. Dick knew his intuition was good, one the best really, and something was off.

He continued to contemplate as he slipped his costume on, securing his escrima sticks against his back and pressing his mask to his face. After assuring there were no gaps between his skin and material, he opened his back window, scanned his surroundings, and jumped out.

The weather was finally starting to get better, but the temperature still dropped at night so, on his way, Dick performed a few flips to warm up. He crossed over the blue line, the railroad tracks that divided the residential area from the business district, and used the rooftops to get as far as he could. Once the buildings had become sparser, he switched to the ground and snuck through alleys for the rest of the way.

Weaving his way through shipping containers and hopping a fence that read No Trespassing, he finally made his way to the docks.

This better be worth my time, he grumbled to himself.

The only reason he had even come to the docks was that someone he arrested as Officer Grayson let it slip, in an effort to reduce his sentence, that there might have been some suspicious activity happening here. It was immediately dismissed by the precinct because the criminal could not explain what said suspicious activity was, so Dick figured he might check it out as Nightwing. Worst case scenario, it was just some low-level runners looking for a discrete spot to do their dealings. I guess that'd actually be the best case, Dick corrected.