Cereta's Web: Random Acts

Random Acts
by Lucy Gillam

It wasn't that he hadn't been shot at before. Not often, but there'd been a couple of security guards who were fast on the trigger, a few times he and Selina had stumbled into something bigger than they'd expected, not to mention that whole business with LuthorCorp in Midway City. It was only to be expected in their line of work.

And there'd been incidents at the shelter before. None he'd personally witnessed in his six months of volunteering there, but he'd heard of them: pimps showing up looking for their girls, drug dealers looking for people who owed them money. There'd been some close calls and a few injuries; it was only to be expected at a place like the East End Youth Shelter.

However, Dick had never expected to be pulling people behind an overturned table at the East End Youth Shelter, never thought he'd be trying to drag a terrified twelve-year-old to what little safety it offered while Mary Kay Turner's body was still bleeding two feet away.

He hadn't gotten her down fast enough.

"I know you're hiding her! I know she's here!"

The boy had come in looking for his girlfriend, a girl none of the staff, volunteers, or other kids had even heard of. Judging by the state of his eyes and the smell of his clothes, they weren't even sure she really existed. Still, the various attempts to calm him down had seemed to go well -- right up until he pulled a gun and shot Mike Coving in the chest.

Too far away to get to the shooter, Dick had upended a long table and pulled everyone he could reach behind it.

He hadn't gotten to Mary Kay fast enough.

Shitshitshit. He looked around the immediate area. Paper, clutter, could he throw a pen hard enough…clipboard. It would do. He hooked it with his foot and pulled it toward him.

Dick turned to the girl next to him, who was holding both hands over her mouth in an effort to stifle her sobs. He gave her his most reassuring smile. "Stay down, okay?"

The girl nodded, and he winked.

He gave a brief prayer of thanks for every one of Selina's long, frustrating exercises in using sound to figure out someone's location, and stood. Taking aim, he threw the clipboard like a Frisbee and hoped.

It hit the shooter square in the side of the head, and he stumbled, dropping his gun. Dick was already over the table and moving towards him when two of the shelter's regulars, both older boys, fell on the him and wrestled him to the ground.

The whole thing had taken less than a minute.

Dick saw a girl reaching for the gun and got there first. "Not a good idea," he said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sally McNeese in the office, already on the phone.

"Please," a small voice said, "over here."

Carrie, who was no more than ten, was kneeling by the prone form of an older girl, and Dick knew even before he got to her that it was Jenny, who'd always said Carrie was her younger sister. Dick had his doubts about the relationship, but had never pressed.

Jenny's eyes were wide and staring.

Dick took one of Carrie's hands, ignoring the blood covering it. "I'm sorry, honey." He didn't know what else to say.

Carrie's lip was trembling, her eyes already filling. "Who's gonna take care of me now?" she whispered.

Dick didn't have an answer.

The shooter was still screaming into the floor, but by now three boys were holding him down. One of them was twisting his arm pretty hard, but Dick couldn't bring himself to say anything. Right now, it was all he could do not to twist the boy's head in a similar manner, until a crack told him the kid would never hold anything again, much less a gun.

A hand touched his shoulder. Sally was standing over him, and she handed him a towel as he stood. "Press down hard."

"What?" Jenny was gone, what was the point in… Sally nodded toward his left arm.

"Oh." He pulled aside the fabric where he was bleeding. He hadn't even noticed. A bullet must have grazed him, and he hadn't even noticed. He pressed the towel over the wound.

"Who else…?"

"Paul," Sally said shortly. Dick looked around. He saw feet encased in ragged sneakers coming out from behind one of the couches.

"The police are on their way," Sally added. She smiled bitterly. "I think this might even get them to the neighborhood a little faster than usual."

Dick nodded. His arm was starting to throb, and Carrie was sobbing quietly over the body of the only family she had. It didn't matter how fast they got there. It was already too late.

***

The police were polite, even gentle, in their professional way. Of course, he was no one special here, not a known associate of Catwoman, not a mysterious masked figure these same detectives would probably like to talk to, even if there were little to no actual evidence against him, not someone who'd had several up-close and personal encounters with the Batman.

Here he was just Dick Johnson, a nice young man from a privileged background who was working off some liberal guilt by volunteering at the East End Youth Shelter two evenings a week. The girls seemed to like him, or at least clustered around him a lot, and the boys tolerated him because he could play a decent game of b-ball, but he was no one special.

Here he was just a witness, not a criminal. Just someone who'd survived when four others were dead, a barely-injured victim who'd been told as the paramedic bandaged his arm that he probably wouldn't have to testify, that the boy would either plead out or be sent to some place not quite as bad as Arkham.

Needing to get away for even just a few minutes, he instinctively headed for the roof. After taking a few deep breaths, he took out his cell phone to call Selina. It was unlikely that the shooting was breaking news in a place like Gotham, but it would be reported sooner or later, and of course she kept an ear out for things that happened here. She was reassuringly calm, which was exactly what he needed, and he refused her offer to come over, no, really, he was fine. It was a lie, of course, but there was no point in both of them losing sleep.

After he said goodbye, he sat on a stack of crates that were there for no apparent reason other than to give people who came up here something to sit on. The police were done with him, and he had no desire to deal with any reporters who were there, much less get his face on TV, but he supposed he should get back... Except, of course, there was nothing he could do. He hadn't been fast enough.

It was the shadow from the light by the stairwell that alerted him. He hadn't heard a thing, and the man was practically on top of him. Well, five feet away, but that was close enough.

I'm just tired. Too tired for this.

"Look, as much as I enjoy our witty banter -- well, my witty banter and your silent glares -- I've had a really bad night. Can we possibly just skip this? I'm not committing any crimes right now, and I can pretty much promise I won't be tonight."

He expected the usual silence in response, but Batman nodded at his arm and said, "You were hurt."

Dick blinked, then looked down at the bandage showing through his cut sleeve. "Bullet grazed me. Barely broke the skin, really. It looks a lot more dramatic than it is. Not like..." He swallowed. "It's nothing, really."

"You couldn't have saved them."

Dick looked back up at Batman. "Is that what you tell yourself?"

"Sometimes."

"Does it work?"

"Sometimes."

Dick looked away again and shook his head. "I should've…" He ran over those thirty seconds in his mind, seeing a dozen different directions he could have moved, not knowing whether it would have made any difference, or if other people would just be dead instead. "I should've been the one to take him down."

"You were. You created the necessary conditions, acted as need."

"No, I mean… I should have taken him down." Dick swallowed, not wanting to admit what he really meant. "What I did didn't hurt him. I wish I had hurt him," he confessed.

"You stopped him. It's enough."

"Do you tell yourself that, too?"

"Fairly often."

It was, Dick supposed, as close as Batman would ever come to admitting anything like a desire for revenge. "And does it work?"

"Sometimes."

Dick could almost hear a smile in his voice, and he felt himself almost smiling in response. He'd known Batman was human, known it from their first meeting and Batman's awkward attempt at being approachable. Still, this was new, this near-admission of actual emotion.

"So, wait," he said. "You came looking for me...to try to make me feel better?" Now there was silence, and suddenly the whole thing was too much for Dick to process. He stood, wincing a little. The bruises were already forming where he'd landed on his hip. "I should get home."

"Let the police take you. Or take a cab."

Dick smiled tiredly. "Yeah. I'll do that." He didn't wait for Batman to leave, just turned and walked toward the stairs. It wasn't until he was back downstairs that he realized he felt better.