Chapter 3

Left.

The driver's style was nothing short of haphazardly as Dick felt them speed through the busy Metropolian streets. The van's movements were extremely sharp and jerky – the moneybags flying all over the place – while Dick heard klaxons going off in all directions. He couldn't help but roll his eyes. As if you can out-drive Superman.

'What's so funny kid?' Dick redirected his attention towards the apparent leader of the burglars – now promoted to captors – sitting on the other side of the van, still wearing that stupid red mask. Dick shrugged: 'Obviously nothing.'

Another left. Followed by a right.

'Boss how long until-' the pink-haired burglar suddenly stopped talking as a rumbling noise very much unlike the traffic outside was heard.

Although Gotham's main villains rarely resorted to these tools, the city's general evildoers were enough of a fan of these weapons that Robin could still easily recognize the distinctive sounds they make as they go off. Bombs.

The red-masked burglar/captor gave a sly smile towards the pink-masked one: 'That answered your question?' He received the same smile back: 'Yessir! That'll hopefully keep him busy some.'

'You didn't…' Dick couldn't help but mutter.

'Yeah we did.' Dick slowly looked sideways towards the burglar with the yellow mask sitting next to him. 'Planted them on the cashiers and told them to dance. Let me tell you kid they were suddenly so lively I wish I could have been there when it was time for the grand finale!'

The sadist was smiling at him as if he just shared some wonderful fucking news, but Dick could do nothing but grit his teeth and glare as Bruce's words echoed in his ears: ' Just keep your head down and don't fight back. Don't draw attention to yourself; let them underestimate you until you find an opening to strike.'

Dick hung his head back down and closed his eyes as he breathed heavily in an attempt to regain control over his emotions. They're OK. Everyone's OK.

He let his focus fall back towards the van's movements. Taking a left on a roundabout. That would take them currently towards the New Troy borough – the same area where the Daily Planet is located.

'Feeling comfortable, are we?' Dick looked up toward the person who spoke – the blue-masked man sitting across from him – and had to think about that one as he struggled to find any pain-relieving position on the build-in folding chair he was currently sitting on.

The burglars had extended the rope holding his arms behind his back to loop around part of the van's structure. Furthermore, they had some leftover handcuffs, which they used to pin Dick's feet against the van as well. This meant that his legs were forced into a weird angle behind his centre of mass, making it near impossible to keep any kind of stability in the rashly moving van. His balance was held purely by the coarse ropes tied around his wrists, cutting off any circulation with every movement while scraping them raw in the process.

'Honestly, I've been less comfortable during corporate soirées.' This wasn't a lie. The vehicle veered sharply to the right. Ugnh, slightly less of a lie.

Another sharp turn and Dick felt the nose of the vehicle tilt slightly upwards as the traffic noise diminished, meaning that they likely reached the bridge connecting New Troy with the other side of the river.

The leader felt this change as well and frowned as he carefully moved towards the front of the van. He opened the little sliding window: 'Hey, where are we? There wasn't any bridge on the escape route we planned.'

A voice answered back: 'Sorry boss, y'know what traffic in Metropolis is like. I had to deviate a bit. Good news is there's no alien freak in sight yet.'

'Didn't answer my question Grey.' Dick heard the getaway driver softly groan. 'If you really wanna know, we're now headed to the snob district.'

'What?! Why?!'

'Don't worry bossman, we'll get there eventually- WOAH!'

The car suddenly veered to the right and Dick could feel the two wheels beneath him lift up, no longer in contact with the ground. The turn was much too sharp for the van to be able to regain its balance and soon all the unbound passengers were flown against the side of the van as it overturned.

Dick felt a pop followed by an immense pain he wasn't unfamiliar with spreading from his left shoulder. His body had been thrown violently away from the seat on impact; however, the bonds fully absorbed the movement and the force combined with the weird angle of his arms had caused his shoulder to dislocate painfully.

He now hung limply from the top of the van – the pressure this caused on his arms and shoulder almost unbearable – as the men beneath him started to find their bearings again.

'WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED OUT THERE?!' the yellow-masked burglar exclaimed.

The red leader quickly scanned his surroundings before looking up, making eye contact with Dick. He looked then back at his colleagues: 'Yellow, Pink, with me outside and find us a next ride! No, leave the money! Go!' They nodded and exited the vehicle.

Blue, grab the kid!'

'What?! But boss we have no time!'

'Else we have no money, just get on with it!'

'I'll help!' A voice yelled out from behind the back doors. A head concealed with a grey mask popped around the corner: the getaway driver.

'YOU! WHAT THE HELL 'D YOU DO?!' Grey ignored Yellow's exclaims from outside the van and outstretched his hand towards the blue-masked man. 'No time, just hand me the keys for his feet!'

Blue looked back towards his leader. 'Augh let's move people!' he groaned and stepped outside as well.

Dick tried to squirm away from the two men attempting to free him, but any small movement was excruciating and he quickly decided he'd much rather remain into the hands of petty criminals than to bear this pain a minute longer.

He hung limply as he waited for the two burglars to finally free him from his bonds. Blue succeeded to cut through the now bloodied rope around his wrists and just as Grey released the first of the two shackles around his ankle, the van suddenly started moving again.

'Why the fuck are we moving?!' The blue mask exclaimed.

'THE HELL IS THAT CAR DOING?!'

'STOP IT HIT THE BREAKS!'

'OH NO THEY'RE GOING TO FALL!'

Multiple voices – not just the burglars' – were exclaiming from the outside of the van.

'MARK! TOM! SHIT HURRY UP GET OUTTA THERE, YOU'RE BEING PUSHED OFF THE BRIDGE!'

But it was too late. The three passengers felt the van's nose pointing downwards and not a second later, weightlessness overcame them as they plummeted towards the river.

'SUPERMAN!'

He had perched himself on top of one of the higher buildings of Metropolis and opened up his super hearing to the maximum of his capabilities, hoping to hear any sign of the multi-billionaire's heir.

The Kryptonite shards imbedded into his arm were starting to burn again, but Superman didn't pay it any mind.

Come on kid you weren't unconscious when they dragged away so don't be stubborn now.

…

Superman!

It was a faint cry in between overpowering noises of panic, but the integrated alien abruptly opened his eyes as he finally heard the voice had been hoping to hear for the last fifteen minutes.

Thank God, took you long enough.

With as much speed he could muster, he followed the sound of the loud ruckus to a large bridge connecting a borough to the rest of the city. Some of the bystanders spotted him approaching and yelled frantically while pointing towards the water.

Superman didn't stop to smell the panicking flowers as he immediately dove into the water – he saw enough of the damage on the bridge to deduce where the little robin could be.

He sincerely hoped he was wrong.

As he looked around in the water, he quickly spotted what looked like a stereotypical getaway van. It was sinking nose-first at a fast pace towards the bottom of the river and Superman could faintly hear gurgling noises coming from inside.

Hold on kid!

Superman quickly reached for a tear in the body and tore it away to-

BOOM!

The shockwave ripped through the waters, the force of the blast causing the water around the vehicle to instantly evaporate, creating a haphazard chasm of rapidly expanding and contracting pockets of water vapour and debris. Superman could only watch as the van was being ripped apart in that split second of chaos.

Not a second after the start of the explosion, the van and its passengers were gone. The sudden and contrasting silence and stillness of the water surrounding him giving the illusion that everything had been nothing but a dream, a figment of Superman's sudden morbid imagination.

As his eyes followed the last pieces of debris slowly floating deeper toward the riverbed however, that feeble illusion was broken: his super vision spotted the distinctive Gotham Academy pin Dick was sporting earlier that day.

He slowly reached for the pin, afraid that any and all pressure would break the only thing remaining of his nephew in all but name.

A few hundred metres downstream of the explosion, a car was parked at the side of the river. Two strongly build men clothed in suits and sunglasses were leaning against a Lexus LS 500. The black-haired, chocolate-skinned man was idly playing with a lit cigarette in between his fingers, the other bald but bearded, peach-skinned man held a device in his hand resembling a small cell phone.

Although the men appeared relaxed and at ease to any passerby, when they would look closer, they would see the tense lines in their body as the eyes behind the black-haired man's glasses were lazy but steadily scanning the surface of the water.

They too had seen the car fall off into the river – they would have been blind to have missed it – but contrarily to the people on the bridge, the two men already expected this to happen.

Then, the bald man calmly rose up to his feet and started to slanter upstream following the river, his gaze still fixed on the device. His partner extinguished his cigarette, put his hands in his pocket and followed suit.

After a few paces, the bald man stopped walking and looked up towards the river. There, a few strokes away from where they were standing, they saw small air bubbles rise to the surface of the water, forming ever growing ripples.

The dark-skinned man grinned as he approached the edge of the water and crouched down towards the ground, his hands draped lazily on top of his thighs.

The air bubbles increased more and more and through the ripples, the men could see a shape slowly rising up towards the surface.

Suddenly, a head broke though, gasping for air as it struggled to stay above the water. It was the head of an adult man, his semi-long brown hair almost fully obscuring his eyes as he spotted the two men waiting on the banks of the river.

He then looked back down towards the water with panic, reaching toward where another shape was still visible. He groaned as he tensed his muscles and suddenly, another head popped out of the water. His face was only partially visible – a small portable scuba set concealing the bottom part – but the face was clearly that of a teenager. He appeared unconscious.

The conscious man shifted his body to a backstroke position as he placed his younger charge against his chest, trying to keep them both afloat as he made his way towards dry land.

The moment he felt his back connect with the earth, he let out an enormous sigh in relief and felt his whole body relax, the ordeal finally over.

'Well done sport. You made it look easy.'

He looked back in the direction of the voice and locked eyes with the crouched down dark-skinned man. His head fell down again as he removed the small scuba gear from the boy's mouth: 'Very funny.'

'Grab the kid.' This was the other man that spoke.

' You grab the kid. D'you know what happens with suède when it gets wet?' He gestured to his shoes.

'Take them off then.'

'…Fuck you.'

After a few seconds, the now barefoot man approached the older one and grabbed hold of the teen still draped over his chest. He placed one of his arms in the crook of the boy's knees and the other arm looped around his back, his hand gripping his shoulder to hold him more securely.

As he lifted him up and started to walk away with the target, he felt a hand take hold of his ankle: 'My payment.'

The henchman sighed and nodded his head towards the white Lexus a little ways off; his partner was already halfway there.

'It's in the car, so if you get your lazy ass moving, you can come collect it.' He shook the hand off his ankle and walked off in the direction of the car as well, the man lying in the water struggling to follow suit.

As the older man got up, he felt something shift around his neck and he held it in front of him. It was a grey-coloured mask.

The object fell to the ground as the traitor looked back towards the bridge one last time: 'Sorry Mark. It was strictly business.'

As he turned around towards the car again, the thud of a silenced gun sounded.

'Funny, I think my partner was just about to say that.'

In the last moments of life, Tom saw the peach-skinned man put away his gun as the multi-billionaire's child was placed in the car.

Then he would know no more.