Scarlet Justice: Identity - Young Justice Fanfiction

Confusion and Confession

Dick's Pov

The sun eventually rolled around, and I gave up trying to sleep. The previous night had been rather...interesting, and I had no idea what to think anymore. I shook my head and cleared my thoughts.

I didn't bother checking up on Tim and Cassie and headed straight for the city. She had come over as soon as we had stepped foot into the cave. I guessed Tim had called her beforehand. 

It took just over an hour to reach Bab's apartment on the cleaner side of town. I hid my bike in the alley next to the building and made my way to the first-floor apartment. I automatically started checking my pockets for the keys she had given me a couple months back only to realize I had left without them.

Sighing I knocked on the door, hoping she could hear me. For all I knew, she could be working already, which meant I'd have to break in.

I knelt, ready to easily pick my way into her place when the door swung open. I barely could catch myself, as I found Barbra crossing her arms and shaking her head at me. "Well, at least you're my height now."

"Shut up," I retorted. I stood, dusting off my knees and moving past her into the living room. "Do you have any coffee left?"

"Jerk," I heard her mumble. "It's in the far right drawer. Good morning by the way."

"We've all had a rough night. How are you?" I didn't bother to turn in her direction, I could tell she had stopped moving. The events following Bruce's return had in a way shocked her. But I could sense the anger coming off her in waves as soon as I had mentioned it.

"I'm holding up," She responded, folding her hands in her lap, and watching me push the button on the coffee machine. "I shouldn't be the one you're worried about, though."

I nodded, acknowledging who she was trying to talk about. Tim hadn't really known him, and that fact haunted the kid. Tim thrived on perfection and analysis. If he didn't know what to do with himself considering the situation, he would crumble to pieces.

"I think we should give him some time," I said quietly, as Babs rolled to a stop in front of me. "It's Bruce's problem, anyway, he needs to figure this out."

"You know that's not fair," She chided, taking the coffee mug from the counter and placing it into my hands. Before I could respond she had turned and disappeared around the corner. "He's suffered just as much loss, and he feels more than guilty for what had happened. He always does."

I followed her chair to the office space where she became the Oracle. I closed the door behind her, taking a seat to her left. She still had last night's reports and previous maps from the last mission on her screens. A picture of her and her dad sat on the far right.

I smiled at the memory. Taking a sip from the warm mug, I watched as she moved quickly, closing old windows and bringing up the files she had saved from our previous 'League raid'.

"Basically, I'm playing K's stalker here," She started, pulling up her old social media accounts, all the way down to deleted Facebook friends. "I've kept a post on any movement with a heroine in red. I've pulled up nothing, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything."

I nodded, observing the maps she had closest to me. "Any Scarlet-related news is being filtered through one of Bruce's modified algorithms. From there I cross reference anything she's ever posted, tweeted, even texted with apartment rents within a time frame of four months. Anything in the surrounding tri-state area will ping my system. And I can hook up your laptop to it if you'd like."

"Yeah, that sounds great," I almost smiled at the words I had just heard. "This is amazing, Babs. Thank you."

"Hey, I miss her too," She murmured quietly, without turning to face me. She paused, stopping her work for a few seconds. "I know you don't feel comfortable with whatever the League had said to you in the Tower yesterday."