Who: Dick Grayson - some NPCs Where: Random Gotham City boys home - pick one - orphans are rampant in Gotham as we all know When: TODAY - LIKE RIGHT NOW. What: Dick is gem and we love him. Warnings: Sick kids
Dick's first week on the new job was proving to be a test of everything made him Dick Grayson, and everything that added up to make him Nightwing. People were hurt and suffering and while it wasn't his fault, it was his symbol that had started this somehow. He wasn't crazy enough to take the blame, but he was more than willing to take on the responsibility. He had been working almost around the clock, cops were sick all over town and even though he was the new guy his take charge attitude was earning him both respect and annoyance from his peers.
Some listened, some didn't, those who didn't he hoped would survive. Though he wasn’t sure what survival was at this point, there were some sick people out there - sick people that no one wanted to panic. There was no way to keep it out of the news but if they didn’t stop referring to it as a ‘particularly violent flu strain’ he was going to ask Bruce to broadcast it everywhere. It was hard to increase police force when anyone who had so much as a sniffle wasn’t going to be much help. It was hard to increase resources, it was hard to increase things that just weren’t there. He was Officer Grayson, he was new, but he had a presence that much was obvious.
He was driving around the streets following ambulances, checking in with the Bat team and doing what he could to stay healthy. He didn’t have a death wish, that wasn’t his style, surgical masks and latex gloves, hand sanitizer and an abundance of caution was all he really had. He was washing and disinfecting everything he could, whenever he visited anywhere. People would go to the hospital and in his mind he just watched in all unfold like some terrible game of pandemic (he always won that game when he played!) and in his mind the red dots were just getting bigger and bigger as they spread across the globe. His mind was racing constantly with images like that, wondering just how bad this would get. Wondering if he’d catch it, hoping he didn’t, and wondering if they’d lose anyone. It was hard not to think like that, even as he pulled up outside of his third childrens home visit. The lights of his squad car flashed as he double parked - there were perks - and put the surgical mask around his head, he didn’t secure it in place yet it was just hanging there near his chin. He put the gloves on over the cuffs of his Gotham City PD uniform sleeves, all crisp and pressed, his badge on his chest and gun holster at his side. The gun itself was sitting in the center console as he stepped out of the car. He reached in for it at the last minute and secured it in place at his side.
He didn't enjoy having a firearm on his person, it went against everything he’d ever been taught and everything he truly believed in. But he found that 90 percent of the kids he encountered - especially those that lived in Gotham City childrens homes - were not quick to trust, giving him a statement along the lines of 'if you're a cop where's your gun?' so he suffered through. He grabbed a bag that had been sitting on the front seat before he closed up the car and walked up the steps of the brownstone, one of many on the block, and secured his mask in place as he knocked on the door.
The adult in charge, a woman in her mid fifties looked tired and concerned catching a glimpse of the “masked man” on her doorstep, behind her five curious faces no more than age 11 looked at him strangely. “Ma’am, I’m officer Richard Grayson from the Gotham City PD, we got a call that you’ve got someone sick here?”
She looked at him and then around his shoulder to the street to see if he brought any medical personnel with him. He smiled behind the mask, it reached his eyes, at his smiles often did, “We’re all doing double duty tonight, you said it wasn’t an emergency,” he said hoping to ease her fears a bit. She nodded and let him in the kids parting like the Red Sea as he stepped in and they all started talking at once. Where was he from, did he ever arrest anyone, has he ever shot anyone. She told them all to hush up and said that the kid in question, Jeffrey, was 8 years old and upstairs in bed with a fever and a cough. He nodded and asked when the symptoms started and took mental note and a count of four other boys, teenagers, who were sitting around an aging TV with an aging X-Box game barely paying attention to the cop that had just walked in.
He opened up his bag and pulled out a long clear plastic cylindrical bag of masks, like one might use to fertilize a lawn and dropped to one knee as he asked questions and the woman answered them, it all sounded innocent enough and he was doing a tally of what would happen if every person in this house got sick. He handed out masks and candy, the kids more than happy to run around like bandits. He was probably too late, but he wasn’t going to just put a bright red sign on the door and walk away, not if he could help it. He went into the den, and asked the teenagers about any symptoms they had, they all gave bored answers and took the masks looking at him like he was out of his mind, his blue eyes meant business, and they could tell even as they swallowed their reluctant pride and put the things on. “Can you point me in the right direction?” he asked the woman, he didn’t want her going up with him, he was going to be taking the boy with him - he already knew that much, but if he could alleviate contact with the kids in this house, it was something.
She informed him that kids got sick, and that when one of her boys got something, they all wound up with it eventually and he told her not to panic quite yet. Calming her fears for a little while at least.
He went up in the direction she pointed and into a room where, yes, a little boy was lying in bed. Cowboy pajamas and a spaghetti western on the television in the room. The room had three other sets of bunk beds in it, and he knew what all of this meant. “Hi, Jeffrey, I’m a police officer I’m here to see if we can make you feel better.”
The little boy coughed, and Dick wanted to run, he really did, but of course that wasn’t how he handled it. The kid wondered aloud why they would send a police officer to make him better, and Dick said he was going to call a real live ambulance, with the sirens on and everything. The kid looked terrified, Dick said it was just so he could see a doctor right away, lots of people were sick and sometimes the hospitals were faster. Dick didn’t know this kid’s story, for all he knew his parents had died horrible deaths in a hospital but he didn’t know what else to say. He knew how to talk to kids without parents, that was second nature, but sensitivity was harder when you were in a hurry. He explained that he had to go because he couldn’t get the other boys in the house sick, and he seemed to understand that (except for Jacob, because Jacob was always picking on him).
Dick crossed the room and put a latex gloved hand on the boy’s forehead, it was hot and the boy was shivering. Dick was about to ask him if he could put a mask on him, and then help when the boy sneezed too close for comfort, but Dick - Dick just laughed and said bless you. And helped the kid with his mask, and then a pair of gloves that were way too big for him. He told him he would be right back with men in space suits to help. Like astronauts. The kid looked mildly impressed by that.
Once he left the room he spoke into his radio that he needed an ambulance and a quarantine team at the address. He spoke with a heavy but clear tone, they gave him a rather modest ETA and he was impressed.
Then he had to deliver the news to the woman who was probably a saint, and the only parent these kids had, that her house was under quarantine, and that if she needed supplies to call him directly (he gave her the number he hadn’t given to the Gotham PD - the one that went to Batman if it didn’t reach him) and that he would see to it that something happened. He also informed her that he’d be taking the sick boy upstairs to the hospital. He pulled the red “Under Quarantine: Contagious Disease” sign out of his bag and filled out the “fill in the blank” lines, and signed it with his name and badge number. He told her to wash absolutely everything, including the kids, and what to do if anyone else started showing symptoms. She implored him to tell her what was happening, he said he didn’t know. He honestly didn’t know, but that it was spreading. He implored her right back to do everything with an abundance of caution. They engaged in some preliminary discussions, what it meant to be under quarantine, what would be expected of her and those that lived there and what to expect in return. He said they weren’t being abandoned, but that they needed to get a handle on things before they got bad - or worse -. She listened, or at least pretended to through her worry. But her kids were none the wiser, running around in masks being loud and crazy. Damian had been that age practically yesterday in Dick’s mind, and it was a bit much for him at the moment. But he kept it together, she made a remark about him having kids, and she chuckled and shook his head. No, no kids. But he was a big brother, and that was almost as complicated. Especially here, all those kids had lost their damn minds at least once in the past couple of months.
His radio went off then and he was informed the ambulance was there, he thanked her for her time and went to open the front door. Two paramedics in hazmat suits came up to the door carrying gear and a stretcher, Dick waited until they were inside and he posted the red sign on the door. He refused to equate it with marking them for death, but it was hard not to. When he got back to his car he disposed of his gloves and mask in a sharps container and washed his face and hands. The kid had sneezed on him. His eyes, his ears, who knew who else had breathed on him or what. Who knew what was about to happen, to them, to his dysfunctional family from the depths of God knows where, and this city he’d been reluctant to call “his” but would always call home. To Selina. He hadn’t heard from her - he thought the worst. He picked up a different radio then and put it on a secure channel. “Bruce,” he said almost somberly. It wasn’t his Bruce, it wasn’t his father, but he was a man who needed his father just then - any version of him he could get - he didn’t know if it would just end in the uncomfortable way all of their conversations had since they’d been introduced, but he needed to try.