"What the Hell did you think you were doing?!"

Those were the first words out of Batman's mouth the moment Superman and Wonder Woman appeared in their little clubhouse. The entire League was there, milling around as they asked each other why they had been called. Not a single one of them had expected him to be waiting in the corner if their looks of surprise were any indication. The rage in his voice was palpable, so no one could have misunderstood why he was here.

It wasn't all that hard to find their headquarters either. During his previous stay he had placed a tracker in their little meeting room and none of them had found it before he had left, or detected it since. He made sure to get the location the moment he returned to Gotham in case someone had stumbled upon the bug, finding the signal coming from Happy Harbor, Rhode Island. Returning was a relatively simple task, not to mention bypassing security and entering the building.

Of course, he had to assemble the entire team since he only wanted to say this once. How he accomplished that was best left unknown; you never knew when you needed to alert the world's most powerful superheroes at a moment's notice.

As Superman and Wonder Woman stood on the teleportation pad, the Dark Knight strode from his dark corner, looking every last inch like the wraith he had designed the costume to be. Never once did his eyes drop from the two heroes, his glare boring holes into them.

At the very least, the two had the good sense to look embarrassed if their bowed heads were any indication. That left one of the other heroes to speak in their stead. "How did you get in here?" Green Lantern demanded, his ring sparking with green energy as he held his hand up, ready to strike.

Batman didn't bother to look at the man as he answered, "That is unimportant considering—"

"Unimportant?!" Lantern's voice rose. "This is a secure facility. No one without access should be in here—and you're the only one that isn't supposed to be here."

If the green-glowing man thought nothing was impenetrable, then he was sorely mistaken. Batman didn't bother to respond to that though. "What you should be concerned about is that two of your teammates botched an undercover operation."

"Botched?" Flash questioned incredulously. "How? Where?"

The vigilante finally looked away from his two targets as he regarded the red-clad man. "Tonight, Superman and Wonder Woman made an appearance at the Dorsey gala. They're still wearing their evening wear in case you were wondering."

"We did not ruin your investigation," Wonder Woman protested then, stepping off the teleportation pad as she approached him. "You were leaving when we arrived."

Batman returned his glare to the Amazon. "I was leaving because there was no way I could glean any more information. You saw to that."

"What did you learn?" the Martian Manhunter spoke then. "We can address your concerns in a moment."

That did nothing to soothe the dark-clad man's ire, but he could respect the Martian's priority. He'd play along for the moment. Not bothering to look to the green-skinned alien, the Dark Knight reported, "Dorsey and a number of Metropolis' wealthy have been receiving shipments of those weapons you intercepted, the most prominent of them all being Jack Schroeder and David Townsend. If what they said is true, they've been doing this for awhile."

"Wow, Supes, they did this all under your nose too," Flash remarked. "That's gotta hurt."

To Superman's credit, he ignored the jab as he walked towards Batman, coming to a stop just behind Wonder Woman. "Did you find out how they're able to cancel out my hearing?"

Batman nodded. "Sound buffering tech and powerful ones too. Dorsey had to install them throughout his buildings. You had to be within three or four feet just to hear them."

"Hold on," Lantern spoke up then. "If you had to be that close, how were you able to overhear them? I doubt you were invited over just to hear them talk shop."

This time the vigilante turned his blank stare to Green Lantern. "I can read lips."

There was a silent moment before Flash leaned towards Hawkgirl and slowly whispered, "Creeeepy."

The Thanagarian ignored the remark. "Did you learn anything else?"

"Only that they're working for someone; none of them are in charge. It's likely these men are simply providing storage for whomever owns those weapons, along with the sound buffers and telepathy inhibitors."

"Telepathy inhibitors?!" Lantern exclaimed. "Those are definitely alien tech, no doubt about it." He then glanced to the Martian as he added, "They really wanted to keep this under wraps if they blocked Superman's hearing and J'onn's telepathy."

"Something big's coming," Hawkgirl said. "So who's the big boss? Any ideas?"

This was when Batman's scowl returned as he looked to the Kryptonian and Amazon. "They were just discussing him when these two arrived at the gala. Dorsey's butler interrupted the meeting to inform him and they all left. I don't have to tell you the rest since you have your own eyewitnesses."

"You can't be serious," Hawkgirl demanded before she turned a glare to the two heroes in question. They were looking even more sheepish now, not that it did anything to cool the Thanagarian's temper. "Did you two actually go to the—no, I won't finish that since it's obvious you did."

"Now that you have my report, they can answer my question," Batman said. "And you better hope your reason is a good one."

While Superman had the look of a reprimanded schoolboy, Wonder Woman held her head high in defiance, the proud Amazonian Princess to the end. "We only wished to support you during your mission," she answered.

Her righteous speech, her haughty tone, and her defensive body language revealed a lot more than the Amazon's words did. She may have believed that she was doing as she said, but there was an ulterior motive and he wasn't blind to what it was. Batman clinched his hands into tight fists as he felt his anger explode inside of him. "You're still angry that I refused your assistance earlier, aren't you?" he demanded heatedly. "So you showed up to what? Prove me wrong? How goddamn juvenile!"

"That is not how it was!" Wonder Woman shot back just as defiant.

Batman resisted the urge to continue arguing. They would only go in circles, especially with someone who believed their intentions were good. He had better things to do than that. "I don't care how you see it, the end result ended with Dorsey's arms dealer remaining unknown. That's on you." He then turned his head to Superman and continued, "And you should know better."

He didn't bother to explain why an investigative journalist would need to know the importance of keeping an undercover job just that; it was second nature and he could tell the Kryptonain got the message as his eyes widened. Finished, Batman blatantly ignored the heroes and marched to the teleportation pad. Standing on one of the circles, he then looked to the Martian Manhunter and addressed him. "You can send me back anytime."

"Very well," the Martian acknowledged. "How would you like to stay in contact in regards to the case? I'm sure we can arrange—"

"That won't be necessary," the dark-clad man interrupted. "The next time you want to discuss a pending investigation with me—don't. Find someone else that will tolerate your meddling."

There was a tense silence before the green-skinned alien nodded his understanding. "I apologize for the actions of my teammates. Where in Gotham would you wish to go?"

"None. You can send me to my hotel room in Metropolis."

Superman's head perked up at that. "What are you going to do there?"

"Secret identity, Superman," he snapped. "Bruce Wayne was already spending the night there and it would raise too many questions if he suddenly popped up in Gotham after being in another city for a few hours and left without his private jet."

"Oh, right."

A moment later, Batman heard a soft hum before his vision was blinded with white light. He was ready for this though, as the lens in his mask blocked out the light, allowing him to see his hotel room appear right before his eyes. The lights were out, so the room was bathed in darkness. Letting out a sigh, he grabbed his mask and pulled it off, cool air assaulting his skin and shellacked hair.

What a night.


"So, mind telling me why you decided to crash Dorsey's party?" Hawkgirl asked, coyly, leaning up against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest.

Diana had removed that eye-catching dress of hers and was back in her less than modest uniform. She didn't seem to be in the mood to discuss why Batman had stormed out of their headquarters like a pissed off brat, but that would not deter the Thanagarian. They were professionals and there had been a lapse in that area lately.

Unlike earlier though, the Amazon seemed ready to vent. "Do you not find it strange that a man with no powers at all would refuse our assistance when asked?" she began, working herself up into a fervor. With a stride that belied her Amazonian pride, she left her room, the redhead following her at a sedate pace. "Then purposefully insults us as to why he does not want our help?"

"We did recruit him," Hawkgirl pointed out. "We had already determined that none of us could do what he could. So why let some rude behavior get you out of sorts? I doubt this is the first time you've come across people like this."

Of course, Shayera had a pretty damn good idea why. Batman had flat out told the Amazon that she was incapable of doing his job and that had pissed her off. That Diana would purposefully put herself out in that environment to prove him wrong was surprising, but considering how well she knew the other woman she should have expected some sort of repercussion. Now though, she had to make the princess here see the error of her ways because she was getting on her high horse right now—and that horse was an extremely tall one at times.

And Diana was still ranting. "No man should look down on a woman. We are fully capable of doing whatever men can do."

"Of course," Shayera agreed. "I didn't know you were trained in the art of deception and disguise back on your island. Would have made it very handy last night if everyone had known that beforehand. We could have not even bothered with contacting Batman in the first place."

The Amazon wasn't able to ignore the jab. "There is no reason for subterfuge on Themyscira. No sister would dream of lying to another; and even if they did, the Lasso of Truth would reveal such lies."

"Yet, we were commissioning someone to use subterfuge, who specialized in it. Then you got in his way. In fact, we'd have a name of who owned all of those weapons if you had arrived a minute later."

Diana stopped walking and turned, leveling her with an accusing eye. "You're siding with him, aren't you?"

"I'm just calling it like I see it, Princess," the Thanagarian returned evenly as she caught up with the dark-haired woman. "And what I see is that you got mad that someone viewed you as less than capable, you wanted to prove them wrong, and ended up sticking your nose in something you should have stayed out of. What was the point of consulting this guy if we weren't going to let him do his work?"

Shayera could see the Amazon was mulling that point over in her head. Deciding to strike while the iron was still hot, so to speak, she continued, "Batman managed to figure out all of our weaknesses, remember? All while we had no clue he was out there. He knows what he's doing."

"You make an interesting point," Diana acquiesced. "But his delivery does leave something to be desired."

"You're talking about a guy who's idea of talking involves breaking people's arms and legs," the redhead said dryly. "Manners he lacks in spades. That's not even including the fact that he spends all of his time in a cave with a supercomputer that still makes all the stuff we have here look antiquated. Flash is still trying to build his own so he can play video games on the big screen."

The Amazon sighed. "It seems I have made a grievous error."

"No more than usual. Besides, all you did was burn a bridge with a guy we barely work with. I doubt it'll bite us back in the future."

"So where does that leave us?"

"As far as I can tell, we need to look into Dorsey's accomplices, Schroeder and Townsend. Considering we crashed one of Dorsey's warehouses, it's more than likely the other two will have to pull their weight while he's being scrutinized."

The corner of Diana's mouth twitched upward. "Then I suppose we should rejoin the others and determine our course of action."


Bruce thought he had washed himself of the matter entirely once he had given his findings to the Justice League. That was figuratively even though he was currently showering, turning his metaphor into a literal one.

His suit was packed away into a large, silver briefcase, a locking mechanism that would take a bolt cutter hours to cut through keeping it shut. For additional security, there were a few nasty surprises to dissuade more persistent persons. And for extra measure, the case was in the closet, out of sight for housekeeping to accidentally trip over it, or attempt to move it out of their way. While the maids weren't supposed to come into his room this late, or ever, the dark-haired man's paranoia demanded he not give the opportunity for anyone to try.

Shutting off the water, Bruce stepped out of the shower stall, grabbing the closest hotel towel and began to dry himself off. Though he wanted nothing to do with the case anymore, his mind was on a constant loop, replaying the conversation between Dorsey and his compatriots. Of all the people in the world, why would they want to store weapons? They didn't have ties to arms dealers—a background check prior to the gala had proven that at least for Dorsey. Perhaps further investigation into Schroeder and Townsend was needed. Regardless, these were alleged upstanding men who stood to lose quite a bit if this were to come out. To blatantly discuss such matters rooms away from a large party was ballsy, if not stupid.

Finishing drying his arms, Bruce moved down to his legs. It was possible arrogance came to play—Lord knew all three of those men had that in spades. The last time Bruce had spent any sort of time with Dorsey, the man wouldn't shut up about how great Metropolis was compared to Gotham. It had taken Bruce falling into a drunken stupor, not at all faked either, to get rid of him and his condescension.

Or maybe it was the jab at the man's smaller portfolio. He had been too drunk to recall what exactly had worked.

However, there was also the issue of the other technology they had access to. Sealing not just one building, but multiple ones from super hearing and telepathy was quite an undertaking and having it done without anyone noticing took serious planning. He wasn't surprised by the sound buffers and he imagined that's all the business tycoons did in this city since they had a flying boy scout that could hear them breath from the other side of town. In Gotham they were constantly sweeping for bugs because that was a very real, very logical action for those committing data theft. Implementing plans against a known strength of the Martian Manhunter, however, was something else entirely.

If that tech was already in use, not to mention the storage of these plasma rifles, there was no telling what else was being kept in those warehouses. In fact, he was betting that there was more to this than was discussed at that meeting.

Bruce paused for a moment. This wasn't his case, not anymore. This was a concern for the Justice League, not him. He didn't deal with laser guns and telepathy blockers and saving the world. He had given those heroes what he had found out; that was the end of the case for him.

Yet, he couldn't help but recall Superman and Wonder Woman's intrusion. How they barreled in headfirst without a thought. In fact, that was how they handled most challenges if his prior observations were worth anything. It was how his countermeasures had worked, provoking each and every one of them to act without thinking and springing his traps.

Could the League bring these men to justice? Eventually, he felt. Would it take them long to do so?

He found the answer "probably" to be unacceptable.

So what then? Should he find out what Dorsey and his friends were up to? Collect evidence against them and hand it over to the League, or the Metropolis PD? Bruce snorted before he wrapped the towel around his waist. As if Metropolis would take evidence from a vigilante. The Justice League might though.

He still had that lead on Townsend too, something he had forgotten to mention due to his anger over the unwanted intrusion. A smirk appeared on his face. There was going to be more repercussions from that incident yet to come, Superman in particular if his connection with Lois was as close as was reported. She would definitely torment the Kryptonian for awhile yet.

Walking out of the bathroom, Bruce made his way to the bed, taking a seat on it and incidentally found himself facing the closet with his "Batsuit" in it. Townsend was going to be receiving the next shipment and it wouldn't be all that difficult to track down which one of his properties it would be arriving.

Surely the Justice League could figure that out. After all, they did have some members that performed investigations. Superman was an investigative reporter by day, Hawkgirl was a self-proclaimed detective on her home planet, the Lantern was for all intents and purposes a space cop, and the Martian Manhunter used the identity of a P.I. at one point. They were fully capable of handling their own investigations.

Yet, it wouldn't hurt if he took a look and sentr them an anonymous tip either.

This wasn't going to leave his mind, not until he was sure progress was going to be made. A growl reverberated in this throat, much to his annoyance. Standing up, he marched over to the closet and forced the door open. Seeing the bulky silver case, he let out a sigh before he dropped to one knee and unlocked it.


A cool breeze blew by as Dick exited the building. Right behind him was Tim, trailing behind with a slump in his shoulders. He didn't really blame the kid either, he felt the same way.

Walking away from St. Mary's Rehabilitation Clinic, the two headed for a parked motorcycle. They had been visiting Barbara, who had been residing here for the last several months. The redhead had been through a lot lately, her initial injury notwithstanding.

It was tough, not just on her, but everyone around. What did you say to a friend that was now paralyzed for life? That you saw the very weapon that caused it cutting into her, severing her spin cleanly? It hadn't mattered how fast Dick had gotten her to Gotham Mercy, the damage had been done and there was no way to reverse it.

Even worse was the fact that after so many run-ins and arguments, the very man that warned them that this could happen had also supplied them with the equipment that could have prevented the injury to begin with. There was some sort of irony, or some other vocab word that described this to a T.

Reaching the motorcycle, Dick threw a leg over it, straddling the vehicle. Tim did the same behind him, adjusting his backside in this seat before shoving a helmet on his head. "Barbara seemed in better spirits," the younger man remarked after a moment.

"Yeah, she did, didn't she?" Dick agreed as he put on his own helmet. A moment later, he revved the motorcycle to life and eased his way through the parking lot, exiting onto the street a moment later before taking off. "When this is all said and done, she's gonna have better arms than me."

"Not a hard thing to do, Dick, when you have a set of girly arms," Tim shot back.

A smirk appeared on the older man's face. That had been a good dig at his expense, so he let it go—he had to drive after all. He'd give the younger man a noogie when they got to the shipping yard later.

That just so happened to be the place where they were storing their new gear. While it probably would've been safer to try and find a place of their own to store it, they lacked the access, not to mention the money, to do so. So, since their surprise benefactor was footing the bill, why let it go to waste? It wasn't like he took anything away if it stayed—in fact, it would be replenished every so often.

The rest of the ride was done in silence, Dick driving them through Gotham to the shipping yard and right up to the shipping container. Coming to a stop, Tim jumped off the bike and jogged to the doors, punching in the combination to unlock it and then pulled the doors open. Driving the rest of the way to the doors, the moment Dick entered the container, he killed the engine, dropping the kickstand down to park his bike.

Pulling off his helmet, he gazed at all the batarangs and grapples, and other weapons. Everything was as it was when they left it last night, so that was good. No one unwanted had found their stash. Ultimately, the dark-haired man's eyes found their way to the back where three costumes hung on mannequins.

On the left was his Nightwing suit, looking a heck of a lot better in armor instead of the spandex he used to wear. On the right was Tim's Robin suit with the same upgrade.

And right in the middle was Barbara's unused Batgirl suit. Every time Dick looked at it, he was torn between crying and screaming in anger. It just wasn't right that after all the work they had put in, all the danger they had braved, Barbara wasn't going to enjoy the spoils. It frustrated him to no end.

"You do this every time," Tim suddenly spoke, his voice low. "It sucks, I know, but you can't help how things went down."

"If Batman hadn't waited to give us this stuff in the beginning, then Barbara would still be standing," Dick retorted angrily.

"He did what he thought was the right thing at the time. And you know, he was right, we were in over our heads. Would you want to equip a bunch of dumb kids with the stuff they need that could still get them killed?"

This was an old argument that they had been through ever since they had found out about Barbara's injury. Dick had never expected Tim to side with the Bat on this, but he had. Barbara really didn't participate in these arguments either, mostly because Dick thought it depressed her too much to think long about it. The dark-haired men had pretty much stopped mentioning it to her since.

"Now quit your moping, we've got patrol," Tim said as he walked up to his suit.

"Since when did you start giving out the orders?" Dick replied snarkily.

"Since I became the only grown-up."

The corner of Dick's mouth twitched up. "Looks like someone's sounding like Barb."

Tim returned the grin. "Someone has to."


Red dots blinked over the hologram image of a map. Each dot was found along the coast, right next to the Metropolis harbor.

"These are all the locations of known warehouses belonging to Dorsey, Schroeder, and Townsend," J'onn intoned. "Setting aside the one Green Lantern found, these are the most likely places that would house more plasma rifles and potentially the security technology Batman uncovered at the Dorsey Gala."

"That's a lot of dots," Flash commented as he stared at the screen.

"Quite," the Martian agreed. "However, they all must be searched in order to uncover other leads about this weapons ring. There's no telling what else is being smuggled by these men and it's very unlikely they are only holding the technology that we know about."

"Agreed," John chimed in. "It'd be best if we paired off too, for backup. No one should stumble into a situation they're unprepared for."

"We can also divide the number of warehouses we have to look," Superman added. "One pair takes Dorsey's, another on Schroeder, and so on."

"Proposed teams?" J'onn asked.

"There's three of us with investigative backgrounds," Hawkgirl pointed out. "John, J'onn, and I. It'd make sense that we each lead our respective pair."

"Good point," Superman agreed.

"Flash and I will investigate the Dorsey warehouses," John volunteered.

"I'm game," the red-clad hero responded.

"Diana and I will do Townsend then," Hawkgirl said, earning her a small smile from the Amazon.

"Which leaves J'onn and I with Schroeder," Superman summed up. He then addressed the computer projecting the hologram. "Color code each location based on the ownership of the property. In response, many of the dots changed from red to either green or blue.

"That doesn't look so bad," Flash commented, leaning as far back into his chair as he could so that he could rest his feet on the table. "For a moment there I thought we were going to take all night with this."

"What, you actually have something else to do other than lounge in your boxers watching monster movie marathons?" Hawkgirl jabbed.

"You should give it a shot, Wings," Flash drawled. "There is no better feeling than not doing anything at all."

"Flash's hobby aside," John spoke up, "the sooner we get started, the sooner we find proof on Dorsey. They've probably been moving their stockpiles around the moment we found the first one, so time is of the essence. We need to be in and out fast before they even know we're there."

"To prevent word from spreading of what we're up to, right?" Flash suggested.

"That's right."

"Well then." Flash swung his chair to a side, the soles of his feet clashing against the floor loudly. "Good luck to the rest of ya; me and GL are going to bust some heads."

"Good luck," J'onn returned. "And be safe."