Forgotten Bonds

Thirty-Seven - Authentic Flight

March 12th, 2009. Thursday, 8:33 pm. 

Dick ran out of the interior warehouse and into night, breathing in the air deeply as the excitement surged through his entire being. He pulled out the locator from his utility belt and found the location where the girl was being kept. He put the locator back into his utility belt and in a swift motion, he pulled out a grappling hook and shot it towards the roof of the nearest building. Smoothly, Dick lifted into the air; flying upwards to the roof. He landed gracefully, laughing to himself. He felt so alive. It had been too long since he felt this. 

The feeling of flight. 

The feeling of being completely free and weightless in the world. It was different than playing on the high bar. This was true freedom; this was true flight – and the best part was the fact that he was going on a mission that suited his style. 

Saving someone. 

He wondered how many contracts that Slade got which dealt with saving someone. How many people had he rescued? Were most of his contracts assassin ones or were most of his contracts ones that required his other skills? Dick didn't know, but he rather hoped that Slade had spent his energy helping more people than killing them. 

Perhaps it was just idealistic thinking, but Dick had seen that Slade's contracts always contained something that had a glimmer of helping someone. While Slade's thinking of taking out a mafia boss didn't really set well with Dick, he did see that Slade didn't take out innocents. It had always been someone who had a long track record of evil. 

It seemed that Dick truly had to search to see those enlightening, interesting, and perhaps even in his own odd way, chivalrous qualities of Slade. 

Dick landed in crouch on the edge of a roof, looking down at the traffic below. There were speeding cars, honking horns, and pedestrians walking along the crowded sidewalks. Dick just couldn't hold back the grin that was plastered all over his face. The people below didn't know that right at that moment, Robin was back in business. But, of course, he wasn't going to announce his presence to anyone and it wasn't like they'd recognize him in this outfit. 

He looked far different than Robin, but he was still Robin at that moment. He wasn't going to give that part of himself up yet. While the alter ego of Robin might be lost, that didn't mean the hero Robin was lost. Somehow, Dick had to convince Slade to let him do more than just criminal work, even though he had yet to see Slade do anything other than kill in a contract. But there was this little stirring in his heart that was telling him Slade wouldn't require that of Dick. He did want to please the man, but they still had conflicting morals they needed to work out. But somehow, there was this reassuring glow inside Dick's heart that said the future held bright things. 

And one of those things was to save this little girl. 

Dick pulled out his locator again. He quickly read that the coordinates were just a roof away within a large business building. Dick quickly shoved the locator into his utility belt and stood up. With another grappling hook shot across the alleyway, Dick swung over to the other roof. 

Carefully, Dick crouch walked to a window in the roof; peering into the building. He could see a number of men in black suits walking by in the hallway below. Dick could tell that these men were powerful, with high upper body strength. They had guns at their hips and weren't afraid of letting them be seen. 

Dick pulled away from the window, lying back against the slanted roof. He glanced around until his eyes caught sight of a power box switch. He crawled to it, digging into his utility belt and pulling out a hacking device. He opened the box and set the device next to it, starting it up. Wires automatically writhed from the back of the device and burrowed into the box, connecting to the inside wires. Dick couldn't help but smile. Slade made the coolest stuff ever – no doubt about it. A schematics screen appeared on the device of the nearby security. With a smile, he started working on shutting it down on the small keypad. He was grateful for the hacking training he'd received under Slade. As a Titan, the team's general approach was to bust into the place, 'guns a'blazing' so to speak.