Sneak Attack, Journalist Style Who: Dick Grayson & Vicki Vale Where: Wayne Tower, Midtown When: Saturday, August 25th, 2012 What: Dick comes into his office and is surprised to find an unexpected visitor. Rating: PG
Vicki came to Wayne Tower dressed a little nicer than she normally might have been. She tried to keep it simple, but when you had to charm your way into the office of the heir to the Wayne fortune, you had to do your best. Journalism was a lot more work than sitting behind a desk and typing out an article. It required footwork and for Vicki, this footwork required four inch heels that cost almost twice as much as her dress. Not that she thought Dick Grayson would notice, but a few security guards might notice how nice her legs looked in them. That was what she needed. The element of distraction was one of her best tools, a pretty smile, some batting of her blue eyes and toss in a hint of charm.
It all worked out rather well. She was in the office of Dick Grayson, who was, the secretary informed her rather secretly, the current interim CEO until he made a decision if he wanted to stay on or not. The office was expansive and she sat in a chair waiting patiently, one leg neatly crossed over the other and her bag sitting at her side, and her cellphone in her hand. She placed the tiles on the gameboard displayed on the phone’s screen, spelling the word, “Xenon” and giving her score in Words With Friends a healthy boost. Her friend from college, with whom she was playing with, would likely pitch a fit when she saw the monstrous lead that Vicki created with the word. Never ever challenge a journalist to a word game.
She heard voices outside and quickly shut the game down, putting the phone on silent and slipping it back in her purse. Vicki’s hair slipped over her shoulders as she turned her gaze to settle on the door, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the elusive Dick Grayson. She’d been requesting an interview for days, not to be done prior to Mr. Wayne’s funeral, but after. Rebuffed repeatedly, she knew the best course of action was to show up. It was hard to turn someone away when they were already in your office and perfectly aware you had empty time for the next hour or so.
---
It was amazing how much CEO work was really just kissing people’s asses and being a socialite. But instead of parties and frivolous small talk about the news, weather and latest gossip, it was all numbers, strategies and TPS reports. As Dick Grayson made his way to his office with an entourage he’d somehow not sent the right signals to (read: get lost), he paused outside the office door and said his final goodbyes. “Well tell your daughter if I can’t get you the time off next month, the pony’s on me, okay Phil? Great. You guys take care.”
He turned to his secretary, a man about Tim’s age who seemed to be strangely flushed at the moment and was otherwise seemingly a good kid. “Hold my calls, umm... Todd, was it?”
“Ted.”
“Sorry about that. Ted, please hold my calls. I need some quiet time in my office.”
Phil and the crew turned around at the elevator, and made some other golfing joke that he didn’t try to get, and Dick nodded, waved, and crept closer to his office door.
Dick was smiling and waving and laughing along with them, opening it without looking into the office as he finally found himself able to close it. He stopped smiling and laughing, and sighed, resting his head on the door. “You people are going to be the end of me,” he muttered.
Then he turned around, and only years of practice on the hard streets of the city kept him from showing more than wide eyes in reaction to the woman sitting in front of Bruce’s old desk. Blonde hair, blue dress, legs. Okay, it could be worse.
“I’m sorry, I thought I didn’t have any appointments.” What the hell, Ted? He walked over to her, hands in his pant pockets and trying to at least appear pleasant and not the extremely annoyed he currently felt. He didn’t offer his hand, though. “Please, stay seated.” He took a step back and walked around the desk.
---
“You didn’t at first,” Vicki replied, “I came and spoke with your secretary, he said that you had time available now, so he let me in.” Which was likely to get his secretary fired, but she would plead on his behalf if she really felt his job was in jeopardy. He directed her to stay seated and she did just that. He wasn’t telling her to get out of his office, so that was at least some glimmer of hope that she’d get her interview yet. Or he’d decide to give her the boot as soon as he knew who she was.
Waiting for Dick to face her again, she brushed some hair out of her face and introduced herself, “My name is Vicki Vale. I’m a journalist for the Gotham Gazette. I’d been trying to schedule an appointment with you for after the ceremony. I didn’t wish to intrude as the preparations were being made and your feelings regarding what happened to Mr. Wayne so fresh.” Funerals usually brought some semblance of closure, and she hoped that in Dick’s case, it had done something for him. She added, “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Grayson, I truly am.” While not losing family directly, she’d seen people she came to know well in Corto Maltese lose their lives in the name of freedom. Yes, Vicki Vale knew what it was like to mourn.
“I’m not here necessarily for a front page article,” she said to defend herself, hopefully, from him possibly accusing her of just wanting a story, “I have not been in Gotham long and I find the influence of Mr. Wayne and his company to be intriguing and I promise anything written would not be done as sensationalism. I’m a journalist and I work for a respected paper, not a tabloid.”
---
He sat down in the chair. Bruce’s chair. She was telling him things he already knew, thanks to Proxy. And even though he’d told his ‘invisible’ assistant that he’d handle it, he’d yet to do so. Because she was investigating the murder, and there was a very real risk it might lead her down the wrong rabbit hole - or more accurately, the right bat cave - he couldn’t simply ask her to leave. It was his job to play the role of shallow heir, as much as he might not wish to right now. “A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Vale. I might be willing to entertain an interview...”
At least she was pretty, and smart, and an interesting person. That alone would make attempting to take her on a few dates a little easier. She was already his type.
Grayson folded his hands and leaned forward with a practiced smile. “Mind if we start off the record first? I’m curious about your time overseas. It takes a strong person to throw oneself into the middle of a war, and it also begs the question why someone of your prestige might move to Gotham City. Is it the danger, or the reputation of danger that drew you here? And while I appreciate your attempts to find out who killed my father, I have no idea why you’re doing it.”
---
“Strong or a little too ambitious for her own good,” Vicki responded. Touché, Mr. Grayson. She continued, “Perhaps I’m a little of both. I came to Gotham because I wasn’t looking to be sent out of the country again. As you might imagine, various publishing companies were eager to put me back in the field. The Gazette offered me a position where I could settle down until I had...the itch to travel again.” It was the truth but more simply put, not involving her own regular trips to a therapist to deal with the mayhem and destruction she witnessed while in Corto Maltese.
Her eyebrows raised though, “I wonder why you seem to show little interest, Mr. Grayson. Not to accuse Gotham PD of not doing their job, but I don’t like stories with holes. Questions left unanswered, if I were you, I’d want them to do a lot more than conclude it was a mugging gone wrong. The woman who found his body missing, the severe lack of evidence pinpointing who the culprits might be. The son of Gotham falls in the dead of night, a city weeps and yet...nothing. The case intrigues me and sometimes, it takes someone from the outside looking in to see what is right in front of your nose.” Vicki tapped her one nose for emphasis and smiled.
“I don’t do this job to write articles,” Vicki admitted freely, “People want answers for terrible things that happen, so they can find peace. I don’t wear a police badge, but I like to think that what I write can do something.” Call her foolish or unrealistic all you want, but people read the news to stay informed, because the police didn’t call each and every house to do that.
This was still too much about her and she reached down to pull something out of her bag. It was a small voice recording device, “Are you ready to speak on the record now, Mr. Grayson?”
---
So much for keeping the questions on her. So it was going to be a dance. “That depends. What are your plans for after the interview?”
---
Vicki wasn’t sure of the question at first, but she gave it a thought, pursing her lips together briefly before stating, “That depends on the outcome of his interview. It’s a Saturday, Mr. Grayson. I could very well go home or make my way downtown to the office.”
---
“Well,” he leaned back and nodded. “I was thinking about going to this Tapas place two blocks from here. Great food and service. I always leave it feeling better than when I went in. Their cojonudas are out of this world.” Dick shrugged the thought away. “I just have this feeling I’m going to want one after this interview.”
Nodding once, he tried to make himself comfortable in the chair. “I’m ready, Ms. Vale. Fire away.”
---
“Don’t worry, Mr. Grayson, I’ll be gentle,” said Vicki with a bit of humor in her smile. The recorder in her hand flipped on, the little red light signaling that the interview had now commenced. Something seemed to shift in Vicki. The playful smile vanished and she sat a little straighter, her keen blue eyes now fixed on him and she was in “interviewer” mode which was still rather pleasant but now appearing more professional and less playful.
She started, “You’ve been gone a year, many say that you took that time to travel the world. I take it that your extended holiday was enjoyable?” A question to possibly put him at ease or maybe dig for where he ran off to. Maybe both. But nothing on Vicki’s face would guide Dick to any reason in particular.
---
“Very. Enjoyable and informative. I was sent to learn about our overseas holdings, but also to look for new opportunities. As you may or may not be aware, Wayne Enterprises seeks to expand the infrastructure in countries with emerging markets and create self-sustaining economies in volatile regions - a pathway to lasting peace and prosperity, as our mission statement goes. Also, the skiing in the Himalayas was quite a fun challenge.” Dick’s own voice and demeanour changed, but only slightly. His cover story had the added benefit of also being true. Just not the whole truth. I was obtaining my Doctorate in Vigilante Crime Fighting, he thought with a wry glance at her recorder. That he’d left so soon after Alfred died - Dick looked aside, at the currently blank tv monitor on the east wall, wishing he hadn’t left Bruce alone - was not something he liked dwelling on. His smile stayed in place, though his eyes couldn’t lie as well as his mouth.
---
Vicki paid attention, but knew whatever she hadn’t picked up on, she recorded it to gather later. She was lucky to get this interview, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t going to try to find another way to get to him. Where there was a will, there was a way.
“Did the death of Mr. Wayne’s family butler spur the sudden need to travel, or was this already part of your plans at the time?” she asked and added, “I understand that might be a difficult question for you to answer, but your departure is believed to be in relation to that.” To separate fact from fiction, and also as a way to read him. Vicki didn’t just look at his eyes, she studied his posture, small movements of his hands if there were any, little tells to see if she was making him nervous, uncomfortable, or compelled to lie. She wasn’t an expert in body language though, so she had to go with instinct.
---
“We were close to Alfred. He was family. It was... difficult when he died, though he’d suffered a few strokes in the last few years and we knew it was coming eventually. Bruce took it real hard. That man helped raise me as a teenager, but he was there for Bruce since he was ten, and... I guess you could say he’s the reason I didn’t leave sooner.”
Dick steepled his fingers and sighed. “Bruce didn’t want anyone around after that. I think Alfred’s loss hit him harder than anyone close to him realized. We thought we were there for him, but I also thought he needed time to... work things out. So I left.”
He didn’t like telling all of these private things to a reporter, but at the same time Dick felt a huge relief at being able to say it. And logically, he knew, this would help them control the narrative. It would humanize Bruce in a way he deserved to be known, so that his well-crafted shallow behavior, ‘The Act’, wasn’t the only thing people saw.
---
Everyone knew that Bruce was a notorious playboy until he secluded himself within Wayne Manor. She’d done enough research when writing the article announcing the man’s death to come up with a rather...lengthy list of women that were associated with him. “Losing someone you care about affects you deeply, I’m sure Mr. Pennyworth and yourself saw a side to Mr. Wayne that the public never knew,” she agreed with what he shared. The butler named Alfred was likely more Mr. Wayne’s surrogate father, than just a butler, and the man must have cared deeply for the young Wayne boy in order to remain with him for so long.
“So there was friction between you and Mr. Wayne before your departure?” she questioned, picking up on the fact that he implied that his remaining in Gotham only for Mr. Pennyworth. It wasn’t really giving her clues into what happened to Bruce, per se, but it was allowing her to see that he was more than just another wealthy playboy. Which was relieving to hear, it meant that there were other avenues for her to study.
---
“We had a pretty - strong - disagreement about my choice in careers. I wasn’t following closely enough in his footsteps, I guess. I went through a lot of places to get where I am now, which is to say that in a way, Bruce was right to be upset. Maybe not at me, but at what my choices might inadvertently do. He feared a Wayne Enterprises - and through that a Gotham City - that might slowly move away from his primary vision. We have great men and women that work for us, that understand our desire to build up the people of Gotham. Lucius Fox, especially, has been a stalwart friend and ally in helping us with this vision, something that was inherited directly from Thomas and Martha Wayne.”
His skin crawled. This was an unusual place to be in, straddling the truth that surrounded the deeper secrets of his and Bruce’s life, dealing with a reporter who was clearly not going to be pulling any punches. Dick was confident that during Bruce’s seclusion, the company had not gone astray. Not with Fox at its head. The man was a war horse, and himself would not likely retire until death.
“I would have been happy not to be sitting at his desk talking with you for another forty years. Bruce and I didn’t always see eye to eye... but he took me in from a very bad place. My parents were dead, the state institution for orphaned children was incredibly archaic and in need of reform, and he saw in me the same... path he’d taken. I wish I’d left under better terms with him, but... well, here we are, sitting at his desk, a few decades early.”
Dick had to bury his emotions. He’d been trained to do it. He didn’t like it, but he could do it. Turn them off. It was still too soon for him to be thinking of his adopted father as gone. He kept expecting to turn a corner, or look up at the skyline and see Bruce leaping off a rooftop. The look he gave Vale was measured, poised. There would be no piercing his armor, not by those closest to him, and not by strangers and reporters alike.
---
Vicki soaked in everything he said. Listening to what he shared and still watching him. He was very calm and likely well trained in interviews. He handled himself well, given the subject, and didn’t try to feign any sort of emotion to try to humanize himself, his words did enough of that on his own. “In your travels,” she started again, “Did you discover what he was trying to teach you here? Or was it something you learned upon your return? Do you feel as if you’re ready to take on the mantle? Wayne left a legacy, you have a large space to fill within the city’s heart.” She cocked her head to the side a little, mentally admiring the way the sun showing through the window and seemed to shadow his form in the chair. It was...interesting, to say the least, and would make for some fun wordsmithing should the opportunity present itself in the future.
---
“I think what is needed of me - by the company and by Gotham - is not to fill my father’s shoes, but to be a stabilizing presence in uncertain times. I’m sure you’ve seen the stock market’s reaction to his death. I’m here to show everyone that we have nothing to fear. The wheel in the sky keeps on turning, Wayne Enterprises remains a strong company with people-centered initiatives, and we aren’t going anywhere. I am simply the face on that promise.”
He smiled warmly, resting his head on his left fist,with his elbow on the arm of the chair. Grayson exuded confidence, though the more he talked about Bruce’s absence the less patient he became. “Bruce Wayne can never be replaced, but I’ll work hard to live up to his example.”
An image of a computer chip shaped like a sun appeared on the computer monitor at his desk, which thankfully she couldn’t see, and Dick realized Proxy had something for him. It was an escape. He needed one. Dick’s brow furrowed, hoping she wasn’t aware he needed one and was just giving him an excuse. Sometimes the amount of things she knew disturbed him.
“Vicki - may I call you Vicki? - I’ve been alerted to something I need to take care of. Is there any way I might be able to conclude this interview with you at another time? And I’m afraid I’ll have to take a rain check on the tapas as well.”
---
“Ms. Vale would be considered polite, Mr. Grayson,” Vicki smiled pleasantly and knew that he was either making an excuse or he was telling the truth and there was something he needed to take care of apparently. The interview was cut short, but no, this wasn’t going to be the last he’d see of her. She was scratching at the surface of something and while it might appear he only opened up to her about his relationship with his guardian, she knew there had to be more!
She turned the recorder off and then slipped it back into her purse. “Thank you for your time,” she said, rising to her feet and then extended her hand to him, “I’ll arrange with your secretary another time for me to visit so we can wrap everything up?”
---
He took her hand and shook it firmly, matching the strength of her own grip with polite measure. “I promise not to keep you waiting too long... Ms. Vale.” Dick walked with her to the door, decided to cut back on ‘The Act’ and stick to professional instead. Of course, her dogged devotion to the reporting was a quality he admired, and a part of him regretted being unable to make a dent in her own armor.
As their eyes connected, they were definitely locked in a battle of wills. Whatever she was looking for, she was nowhere close to giving up. He kept a smile on his face, but inwardly frowned at the challenge of leading her away from the truth.
He turned to his secretary. “Ted, something has come up. Could you pencil in Ms. Vale for a follow up interview at our earliest convenience? In fact, use a pen.” He turned to her with a smile. “One full uninterrupted hour should do, yes?”
---
“It was a pleasure, Mr. Grayson, thank you for taking me on such short notice,” Vicki replied politely. Their eyes met and for that brief moment, a small battle was fought but the two of them would have to call it a draw for now. She placed a smile meant for television on her face. They came to his secretary and a date was to be set for their next appointment. Hopefully, this wouldn’t lead to a cancellation but by now he was likely to have figured out that canceling appointments with her would lead to her inconveniencing him.
She nodded, “That would be lovely. I look forward to our next appointment then. I’m sorry you won’t be able to have your Tapas. But perhaps you’ll find a way to squeeze it in anyway. Thank you again.” Vicki made sure to flick a quick smile at Ted as she headed toward the elevator, keeping the purse firmly over her shoulder and ready to guard that voice recorder with her life.
---
Dick watched her leave, resisting the impulse to let out a low whistle. Impressive. He shook his head and closed the door, turning. As his smile vanished, he pressed a spot in on the wall of the office, opening a secret door. Affixing his mask to his face and moving into the private elevator, he pinged Clocktower. “Talk to me.”