Who: Jason, Tim, Dick, and Damian When: 6/22, night Where: Gotham roofline What: The paths of all four Robins cross one wet summer night in Gotham. This could end in mayhem or teamwork (possibly both). Rating: In spite of Dick's presence, probably still high for language and violence His tip on the dealers along 12th hadn't exactly panned out, putting Jason's teeth on edge. The small-timer had turned out to have thrown him the name of another small-timer; if sloppily-obvious Biggie K did anything more than sell to a handful of high schooler's, Jason would hang up his red hood.
It would have been easy to kill him. It even would have looked like the usual gang-related violence; a quick drive-by shooting, an ambush in an alley, and boom, no more dealer selling poison to kids. He really wanted to kill him...but he had been trained too thoroughly not to want more, the whole pie of the criminal enterprise. Someone was getting Biggie K his goods, and that someone was likely a lieutenant - someone who's removal wouldn't net another fat dealer in gaudy gold on the corner the next day.
If the enterprise in question was a little better organized, there would be very little contact between the inner circle and the street dealers pushing the wares; dropboxes and wire transfers were the way to go in the well-run criminal world. But gangs loved their rituals and loved their interpersonal contact, like a pack of dogs sorting out and refreshing the pecking order.
Biggie K could live another day, long enough for him to pack up on his corner and head downtown to meet with whoever was giving him whatever he was selling. Lurking on the corner of the rooftops, Red Hood nodded as he watched Biggie K amble down the sidewalk, and then took off across the roof, jumping to the next building's fire escape - it rattled under his weight, but he was already swinging himself up and over and onto the rooftop proper.
Gotham looked good like this, coursing along the rooftops, picking a route along them, jumping down and scrambling up and clinging to fire escapes. Or maybe it was just that it was fun, always had been, and it couldn't be taken from him; not the rush of the wind over him, the pounding of his heart in his ears, the edge of uncertainty if he'd make the jumps or plummet to his death.
Biggie K was slow, and that was only a problem when it started raining, pattering against his metal hood and trickling into the narrow gap between helmet and jacket, cold and wet against the nape of his neck. "Oh, hurry the fuck up, fat kid," he muttered as he crouched in the corner of another roof, looking down at Biggie K apparently trying to remember which way the meet was.
Or which building it was. Biggie K looked up and down the streets, then vanished into a warehouse. Jason sat back on his haunches, examining the narrow, shadowed streets, and his eyes tracked up above, to where one old hotel loomed up over a smaller, squatter stop - and the hotel had one of Gotham's many gargoyles jutting out over the lower roof. He remembered sheltering under that ledge before - or one very like it.
It was a hop and a jump away, and would get him out of the rain as he watched the door, waited for the leaders to show up or leave, whichever came first. And then, with dry guns, he could kick in the skylight and create a nice little power vacuum around the drug-running on 12th.