April Yang and Dick Grayson share deep-rooted connections to Gotham, even if they prefer not to give them much thought and keep their emotions to themselves. When Dick turns up in Devon City, where April works towards becoming a surgeon, she inevita...
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Listen now—Dick Grayson hadn't put on the Robin suit since that night in the pizzeria, and it was only the day before today that he had taken it out of the case again. Evidently, his demeanour darkened after a night of interrogating thugs and beating them violently. He thought he was about to close this April-related case, put it behind him and really start trying to get ahold of Robin.
They drove from the hospital to an apartment building not too far away. Dr. Obbs had a two-level condo there, but it seemed like he was the only one actually living in the building. There was no security, the lights were off, and as Dick and April approached his doors, they discovered them to be already open.
Dick had told April numerous times to keep behind him, after trying to persuade her to stay in the car which backfired, but it obviously escaped her mind.
"Do you have it?" he asked absentmindedly.
April flinched and thought of all the possibilities. "Have what?"
"Your gun," he said. "Do you have your gun?"
After what April had remembered to be dozens of encounters in which she had felt not trustworthy in Dick's eyes, now she was the one to take a step back. She didn't know him, after all. April realised that she had found solace in his presence only because he was always there when trouble ensued—the angel guardian coincidentally there to help. Everything went to shit after he'd arrived.
"Dick," she mused, as he seemed paralyzed after he had realised what he'd asked her. "How do you know I have a gun?"
She knew, and hoped that Dick did too, that mere seconds would decide about their near-futures. If he'd hesitate two seconds longer than he eventually did, April wouldn't believe him. She would inquire further, because it was logically too, and soon make the connection to Robin's appearance in the pizzera. He would deny, of course, and April would start to doubt her theory, but he'd be long gone by then. Case would remain partly solved, and after a few weeks April would be found dead in an alley, a gunshots to the stomach.
But Dick didn't fail to lie fast enough. "Fiona told me," he said. "She begged me not to tell you I know, but given the circumstances..."
He realised, of course, that he was capitalising on Fiona's coma.
April hummed in response. "I don't know where it is," she admitted.
Dick's disbelief in April loosing a weapon was cut short by a bang inside of the apartment. Both of them knew the sound well, as April had heard it over and over again, as patients would sometimes fall out of their beds.
Barging in, Dick had his gun raised and ready to shoot. April, not too far behind, started to blink faster to adjust to the utter darkness of the room; It was somehow less bright than the hallway.
This could be the day, the voice bothered April again, Come home, it's been too long.
"April?" Dick's presence overshadowed the voices. "Is that the guy?"
She looked at the corpse's wrists first; Dr. Obbs had a signature hand-band that brought him luck during the surgeons.
"It's him," she said. Strangely enough for a doctor, April couldn't keep her eyes on the hand-band, or at least what was left of it, as much of the soft material had been scattered all over his arm's flesh turned inside out. "He has two fingers left," she stated. "He's the second victim."
After taking a deep breath, Dick turned his head just slightly to catch glimpse of April'd eyes shining in the dark. It was precisely when he reached out for her, which she obviously couldn't see, that something struck him from behind.
April heard the thud, but before she could take a step she felt something hit her boot. She could hear struggling with someone, or at least she believed that was it, but chose to pick up the object. A gun, she figured by touch, Dick's gun. Like an instinct, as soon as a body hit the light switch and turned on the harsh light, April extended her hands in that direction, holding the gun up.
It was the man that April figured was in charge; the very same that schemed with Dr. Verber. He stood so close to Dick that their foreheads almost touched, and they struggled with the blade that the man was holding.
Inches could decide whether Dick would live or not. As April's shot filled the air, her heart dropped, realising what she could've possibly done.
Hit by the bullet, the man's body collapsed on the floor, soon to bleed out. Dick shot out for April, instinctively lowering her gun and distancing them both from the dying one. She had shot through his neck aorta, so accurately that it became mush on impact. They watched in silence as he became one with the puddle of blood, and Dick braced for April's gruesome reaction to the fact she had just killed a man.
It did not come. She didn't think about it twice, really, instead leaping for Dr. Obbs' corpse, unfortunately discovering he had perished hours ago. Dick wondered why a person that has dedicated her adulthood to saving people's lives would take one so easily, only he had no idea he'd rather not know the truth. Quite frankly, it would be far better if he had never moved to Devon and meet April.
