Black Dahlia || Dick Grayson [Titans] ✔️

PROLOGUE

Six Years Ago

I preferred the daytime, but damn if bad guys didn't have it right about the night. It was always easier to move unseen in the shadows. Something akin to a ghost beneath low lamp lights. I could get in and out of places without anyone ever noticing and it was exhilarating.

At first, anyway.

The lack of excitement in my break-ins were dull to say the least. But ever since I've made it a point to  make my presence known? The adrenaline has been mind- blowing. Half the stuff I have crammed in my little dingy studio space I didn't even want. They're just casualties of thefts of opportunity.

And whatever I walked away with tonight would be no different.

Christmas time in Gotham City isn't any less dark than the rest of the year. Rarely anyone put up any sort of Christmas lights, least of all the city officials. They were all too corrupt to care about making their dank city even slightly cheerful for its inhabitants. They basically made criminals' jobs easy.

Who needed a mask when the shadows enveloped you so perfectly?

As if to prove my point, four figures dressed entirely in black made their way passed the same jewelry store for the fifth time in less than twenty minutes. They didn't have anything to hide their identities and clearly no sense to hide their intentions either. Even if my mark hadn't been the same as theirs, I would've known exactly what they were up to.

For the sixth pass, only one of them returned to the front of the shop. I bent on the edge of the rooftop across the street, intrigued by whatever tactic they were about to employ. The dark figure banged aggressively on the glass of the shop, its rattling loud enough for me to even hear. It was a bold and odd choice on his part; and then I saw a beam of light from within the store.

The night guard.

"There's no way he's dumb enough," I scoffed under my breath. The guard came to the door shining his flashlight on the growingly aggressive person on the other side. From where I was standing, they seemed genuinely confused and then... they opened the door. "Wow. So they are that stupid, okay."

The person I'd been watching gestured wildly behind them and pushed their way into the store, almost as if receiving no resistance from the guard. I was expecting them to get thrown out almost immediately; get pushed around, something like the effort they employed against me. Instead, the guard made his own wild gestures at the would-be-thief, though his were more decidedly on the annoyed side. They must've known each other; the guard being the heist's inside man.

Apparently, I was doing the whole criminal life wrong.

I was growing more and more curious of the situation as I watched the two silently argue before it all ended abruptly. And I mean abruptly; one second they were arguing and the next I was watching the guard disappear sharply into the shadows behind him, his flashlight acting as a swirling vacuum in his wake.

His companion was frozen in shock for a moment before his fear kicked in. He threw the jewelry shop door open again in an attempt to flee, but barely made it three steps outside before being dragged back in. I just saw the edge of something metal glint in the slight light from outside, a cord of some kind wrapping around their ankles and pulling taut. I watched as the side of his feet went out from under him.

Then he was gone, too.

"Huh," I breathed out as I straightened on my feet. "Color me curious."

I stepped forward off the ledge, dropping down just a few feet before I landed a little joltingly on the freshly grown moss covered branch beneath me. With a slight bend of my knees as the branch curved downward, my shoes slid freely along the growth, making me feel like Tarzan as I tree surfed across the street. When the branch came to an abrupt halt, I jumped and landed lightly on the balls of my feet just in front of the door. I threw a quick glance over my shoulder just to make sure the branch shrunk back to its normal size and place on its tree.