Laughter - JayDickWeek2017 - Day 5: Bruised and Bloody

A/N When I pictured this scene playing out in my head before I wrote it down, it was far more traumatic that what I managed to depict. I guess I'm just not so good at writing this sort of thing. And it didn't go as planned. Pesky characters, doing whatever they want. *le sigh* Enjoy!

"Jason's missing."

"What?"

"I just found his bio-tracker at the docks, in a pool of blood. He's been taken."

"Holy shit." Dick shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around what Bruce had just told him over the phone. The Batman had called him in Bludhaven at 3 a.m., and Dick had immediately knew there was a problem. Bruce never called unless there was a problem.

Batman finding Jason's tracker without Jason himself was definitely a problem. After the time the Joker kidnapped (and then blew up) Jason, Bruce had made them all implant trackers into their arms so that they would be easy to find if anything ever happened again. They'd come in handy, so when Jason came back from the dead and the Bat family slowly wormed their way back into his good graces, the Red Hood had begrudgingly agreed to getting the tracker implant.

For it to be at the docks without Jason, that meant that somebody had surgically removed it. Jason wouldn't do that to them, and it would be too painful a process for him to do it to himself anyway. So somebody had taken Jason, and they obviously didn't want him found.

"But who knew about the implants? Other than us, I mean?"

"I don't know," Bruce admitted, and that worried Dick more than any other response he could have given.

"Do you think it could have been... him?"

Bruce let out a sigh. "Probably. I can't think of anybody else who could have done this. I've got Tim and Damian searching the city, but we need more eyes, and hands."

Dick nodded, though he knew Bruce couldn't see it over the phone. "I'm on my way now." Dick jumped down from the roof he'd been standing on and straddled his motorcycle. It was usually a thirty-minute drive to Gotham City, but if he broke every driving law ever made, he could be there in ten.

When he got to Gotham (it only took in eight minutes), he met up with Bruce to better coordinate the search. Bruce told him which sections had already been searched and told him that the rest of Gotham had been divided into four sectors and which one of those sectors was his. Dick was getting back on his motorcycle to start looking when Bruce stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Dick," he said, and Dick could tell that Bruce was worried – far more worried than he'd been in a long time. "If we don't find him in the next two hours, I'm calling Superman." Dick's eyebrows shot up into his hairline. The Batman was considering asking a super powered alien for help in Gotham? Dick suddenly realized that the situation was much worse than he had first thought. "His enhanced senses should be able to help locate him if we can't."

Dick hesitated, but he eventually nodded. Bruce seemed to sense his astonishment and he sighed. "I can't let this happen again, Dick. I can't let the Joker take him from me a second time."

Dick swallowed around a lump in his throat. "From us. He can't take him from us," he corrected, and drove off toward his sector, more afraid for Jason than ever.

An hour later, Dick had searched half his sector and found nothing. He had just made it to a small slum neighborhood just outside the east side of Gotham, and he doubted he would have any better luck there. As he ran through the neighborhood, fearful thoughts streaming through his mind, he heard laughing off in the distance, at the far edge of the neighborhood. At first, Dick brushed it off, but it continued. Dick had never heard anyone laugh that long in his life, and as he got closer to it, he realized there was a bit of a maniacal edge to it. It wasn't the Joker's laugh, he knew, but the resemblance was close enough that Dick couldn't help but check it out.