Disclaimer: Short version: Not mine, never gonna be mine, how about we pantomime. ;-) Long version: Any names, places, etc that have any relevance to persons, living, dead, or imagined, is largely coincidental...except in the DC Universe, where it does actually resemble that universe. Despite that, I don't own anything in that universe and can't afford the money to do so. Nothing's gained from this story but a little bit of peace from my muse and perhaps the enjoyment of readers. Okay now?

Summary: A lunch-hour break is a time to relax and recharge, right? But this is Blüdhaven. Things never go to plan. Especially when a psychotic gunman is on the loose...

Rating: PG for light swearing.

Timeline: Dick is still an officer with the BPD. Just after no longer being a rookie.

Category: Action all the way, with a bit of everything at the end. 1st-person (Dick's) POV mostly, but also a bit of everything later.

Syntax: Sentences in italics are thoughts, and in speech it's emphasis. Underline and bold are also used for emphasis and extra emphasis respectively. And, in the words of Aussie Nightwriter, please forgive me for writing with an accent.

Feedback: What, like I'd say 'no' or something? Of course I want it. Action really isn't my strong-suit.

CALL OF DUTY
High Noon

Part One
Crowds

Don't you just hate it when life never turns out the way you plan?

Case in point: I'd spent the night on the town as Nightwing, thinking it'd be a light night and I might actually get some decent sleep. Instead, I got to bed about one hour before dawn, and I still felt like I had sandpaper for eyelids when I woke up later that morning about nine-thirty. It was still waay too early to be up, but I had the shift running from ten am till seven at night all week. Don't ask me how I got myself dressed and to work in one piece, let alone on time...but I do know that everything just went downhill from there.

First there was "Inspector" Arnot coming over to grill me about something – don't ask me what it was, I tuned out everything from the "hello" to the usual "get to it, Grayson." Then I had both Rohrbach and Gannon to deal with. Both of them shoved "proper police procedures," quote unquote, far enough down my throat to give me indigestion for a week. I'd apparently misfiled some paperwork yesterday, so both of them gave me theirs to do as well as me having to redo all the misfiled forms. And let's not get me started on the cases everyone delights in giving me. If I saw one more of the cases "no one else can solve" that's actually simpler than kindergarten stuff in the next six hours...I'm going to scream. Long, loud, in the station-house, and they could lock me up in a rubber room and throw away the key for all I cared. I just wanted something I could actually sink my mental teeth into.

The day only seemed to get marginally better when Gannon took pity on me and told me to go for a late lunch. And I said it only seemed to get better because I already knew I was being lulled into a false sense of security. Not that I'm complaining, but this is Blüdhaven I'm talking about. This town wouldn't know an easy day if it got socked in the face with one.

And even though I knew that little home truth better than most, I still allowed myself to relax a little as I walked down the street, my favourite Gotham Knights jacket slung over my uniform, "off-duty" for one glorious hour. I had an hour of no worrying about some corrupt cop or some forms I'd rather to avoid, let alone hiding exactly how much I know about police work from the other side of the fence. For just one sweet hour, I got to be me, simple Dick Grayson, just another regular guy walking down the street for lunch. Well, a guy as regular as I can be, considering the theoretical conflict between upholding the law in the day and breaking it each night I did my Nightwing thing.

I was whistling softly to myself as I strolled down the sidewalk, one of those Romany tunes my Dad – my real one – taught me before he passed on. More and more of those tunes seemed to be coming back to me lately, and I certainly weren't gonna complain. A guy needs to be in touch with his past to figure out what do now and in the future. Or how did Alfred put it? Something like: "He who doesn't learn the lessons from the past is doomed to repeat them in his future"?

Yeah, whatever.

So, anyway, I was walking down the street towards my lunch destination, this neat little deli I'd found about two months back. This was shaping up as my third visit in all that time – and probably the twenty-second one attempted. The place is run by this Asian couple, Southern Chinese if I'm not mistaken, with the help of their daughter. She's the one who speaks like a native both English and Mandarin while running the cash register and acting as a go-between between America and her parents.

Today, I was planning on consuming their house special. It was a hot piece of chicken schnitzel crumbed with their special blend of breadcrumbs, cheeses, and spices, topped with a few slices of cheese just beginning to melt – at last count, there was three different types of cheese in there. Add to that a few rashers of bacon and another lot of cheeses, and then a few sauces of homemade and exotic blends. On top of that put the usual blend of salad-makings like lettuce, pineapple, tomato, red onion, something they called "beetroot", and even a bit of olives. Put all that between a special bread roll made with parmesan cheese and Italian herbs, and you had their house special. Even my stomach was satisfied with that as my main course and a swig of water on the side. That was no mean feat, considering that Alfred often told me that my stomach defined the theory of black holes – everything went in and it was never full – and of course everything Alfred said was gospel or something.

I made it to just two small blocks away from the deli before something happened that quite literally shot all my fine plans to hell.

Why can't I just once have a normal lunch like everyone else?

Now let me make one thing clear before I continue. I have never been able to figure out why most people say a gunshot sounds like a bang. I've always thought it more reminiscent of an awfully loud crack, like a whip cracked right next to your ear at extremely high velocity...no matter how close (or far away) you are. The only difference is that the closer you are, the more whips involved.

Being in the middle of a crowd when you're really not expecting it just makes it worse. The fear that someone just got hurt hits you right between the eyes like a bullet all of its own and you're left shocked and stumbling mentally for a crucial split second. And then the screaming starts, whether people were hurt or not, and suddenly your own fear doesn't matter so much as everyone else's does. A scared crowd is one of the worst things someone could face in this world, especially when you're charged with protecting them.

Today was no exception. Whether I'm a vigilante or a police officer, one of my all-time nightmares has to be a psychotic gunman on a crowded street. There's just so much potential there for some innocent to be hurt, especially when the said gunman has no particular target in mind and just shoots without caring who or what they hit.

So of course I leapt into action...by starting to run while everyone else hit the dirt. I had already figured out that there was just one short block between me and the shooter, and I also knew that on the other side of the block was one of the busiest streets of Blüdhaven during lunch. That ain't gonna be pretty.

Incidentally, I also knew that the gun wasn't exactly a common model. Hell, it wasn't even on the "domestic" market yet, and hopefully never would be. It was a weapon so advanced it came with its own ammo in nine round lots, usually with three clips in reserve. The clips were released and inserted at its base so that a professional could reload it in one second. All told, it had the firepower of a .357 Magnum available in a gun half the size and weight of a Colt .45. Some weapons specialist designed it about three months ago and started selling it on the black-market for half a mill a piece. Since the guy had come from Bristol, Connecticut, I'd personally nicknamed it the Bristol when Batman showed one to me.

Besides the question of where my shooter had come across the gun, the only curious part about it was that the shooter hadn't used the silencer that usually came with the piece. Our reputation aside, why the hell would you want to call attention to yourself when the BPD headquarters was only a few blocks away?

Pushing the thought away for another time, I darted across the road and increased my pace to a brisk run, easily dodging around the people rushing away from the scene – and the voyeurs that were running towards it. The adrenaline was already pumping in my veins, tempered only slightly by the fact that it was the middle of the day and I wasn't in my "nightsuit".

I was still running across the block – why'd they have to make the stupid thing so big anyway? – when I heard the next shot, from the same gun as last time, immediately followed by someone's terrified scream. It was a girl by the sound of it, probably older than fifteen but certainly no younger than twenty – girls around that age bracket always have a incredible set of lungs for screaming.

I immediately increased my pace to a loping run, the type of effortless run that looks lazy but really lets you move. But speeding up was the easy bit; slowing down when I finally reached the end of the block was a little harder, and I crashed into at least two people before I managed to grab hold of a light-pole and swing myself around the corner. By now I was hearing more screams and people crying, but more subdued like people didn't really want to be heard. Not that I blame them. If there was a gun in the vicinity with some whacko on the trigger-end, I wouldn't want to be heard either.

Finally I slowed down and came to a stop, hugging a nearby building as I took in the scene. I still hadn't thought to pull my own piece yet, and absolutely had no plans to do so until I saw the lay of the land. Besides, with what I was now seeing, using the power-end of my gun was always going to be a last resort.

The street was sheer chaos in motion. There was movement everywhere as everyone tried to get away, out of sight and out of danger. It was all one big moving mess, no real sign of forethought but rather just the full-on pandemonium of people that had suddenly found themselves where they didn't want to be, and either dropped to the ground or were racing in all directions towards anywhere else. Problem was that everyone seemed to have picked a different place to go to – especially the cars. The sound of squealing brakes and burning rubber covered the terrified cries of the populace. Man, I'd hate to be the one paying their insurance and repair bills right now.

Still, as far as I was concerned, it was better that the public were running away. Not only would it mean fewer innocents in the shooter's line of sight, but it also meant that the inevitable shock at what was happening would be held off for a few extra moments while they ran. Of course, the shock was going to hit and hit hard the moment the danger was past and the adrenaline stopped flowing, and I wanted them as far out of danger as I could before that happened. Besides, even if the gunman had a target, it was unlikely that he'd be able to spot them through the crowd. And even if he did, he'd be as hard-pressed to shoot them just like I'd be hard pressed to try and shoot him myself. But if he was some kind of psycho who didn't care who (or what) he hit... Worry about that later, Grayson. You've got work to do!

Right. So where was the shooter?

Right on cue, there was another shot...up the street and across the road, about one hundred metres away. Right from where that latest surge of people had come from, if I had to guess.

I turned and moved in that direction, careful to keep a few people or cars between me and the open area around where I now knew the gunman had to be. Not that I normally advocate using the public as a screen to hide behind, but I needed something to cover the fact that I was the only one here running towards the shooter. If the gunman saw me coming, especially if he saw the uniform my jacket was never intended to hide, I'd be finding myself on a lead-lined, all expenses paid ticket to my own funeral.

Even with the BPD's rep being what it was, I'm yet to find a criminal with a gun who really wants to see a guy on the Force. Even a crooked cop can be more trouble than they're worth...but that's another story.

Peeking through the forest of torsos and arms as I moved let me finally see the shooter. I couldn't see enough to pick out his identity this far away in these conditions, but I saw enough to identify him later. He was about Bruce's height, maybe slightly taller, with dark-blond hair, and was either well tanned or ethnic in origin. He was also wearing jeans, a white shirt, denim jacket, sneakers, and holding the Bristol in his right hand...pointing it at the sky above even as he was laughing about something. Laughing...the idiot's laughing. Laughing with that peculiar kind of note in his voice that the Joker had down pat. That note is something I've heard far too often in my nightmares to mistake it for anything else. He's psychotic. Dandy. Besides the laughter, the fact that he was still standing there shooting with a BPD building so close was already saying volumes about his mental health anyway.

Great. Psychotic on a power high on the wrong end of a gun. Just what I don't need.

I realised right away that I was going to have to get a lot closer and be lot less crowded before I could even consider taking him down. Of course, I'd much rather use my fists – or my feet – than my gun, but to do that I'd have to be within striking range...and I'd kinda prefer if he didn't have the gun when I did it.

And then it happened.

I knew it! Talk about a false sense of security. Even as I watched, the whako gunman pointed the gun almost right at me and pulled the trigger with another laugh.

Damn. What is this, 'hit on Grayson' day?

TBC...