Cue sad chapter. Lights, camera, action! Please read and review, readers, I appreciate every one I receive! And if you want to read the new chapters fresh off the press check at around 10 or 11 pm central time. It's the usual time I wrap one up. Thanks!

Arual-san

000000000000000000000000000000000000

Cloaked in the shadow of night, the hallways of Birnamwood seemed to stretch on so much longer than in the day. The two wore socks to stifle footsteps but even Dick was extra careful not to make a sound when it would echo for several yards.

"All right," Dick started in a whisper, saying out the plan so that they were on the same page. "It's going to take a little time before the popular kids trust me enough to let me in on their secrets. In the meantime we can gather evidence as to what it is that they're smuggling."

Dick handed his partner a high-tech gadget borrowed from Cyborg's arsenal.

"It's a magnifying lens that will scope out impurities and imperfections in the framework of valuables," he explained, activating his own. "Artwork, furniture, diamond rings; it can analyze any known matter and find out if it's a fake."

With a new flashy gadget at his disposal, Gar also flashed his on at once and scanned it over his arm to find that the academy-issued pajama top he was wearing consisted of 96% cotton, 4% polyester. Had it been a standard mission he might've had the mind to direct the lens onto his leader's head to see what percentage of hair gel his normal electrified hair consisted of.

"Aren't there going to be like guards or something?"

"Three to be exact," Dick confirmed as if waiting for the question, "all over the age of sixty. They've all been at security for several years but as long as you stay sharp at all times they won't be any trouble to bypass. And turn your lens off; we don't need that light giving us away."

"You turned yours on first!" Gar hissed.

"Just to make sure that it was still functioning correctly." He might've been the Boy Wonder but even he had his limits and pulled out a map of the school. "It might be a very faint light but only switch it on if you're actually scanning something."

"Roger, roger." His lens went black and they were in darkness once again.

"So the dorm rooms are closest to the south wing of the academy that holds the library. That's where we'll be investigating today. That's-" – he paused to remember – "Tonneson's territory. He's got a limp in his leg but doesn't have any reservations about throwing his flashlight in a vital area to bring you down to his speed."

"Is there anyone nice here or do they breed meanness along with class?"

Dick didn't feel the need for unnecessary reply when they were supposed to be being quiet and Gar took his cue as they crept through the deserted halls. Dick could make out the map after his eyes had adjusted but it was straining. "Can you change into something with night vision?"

"Uhhh…there's some moonlight there by the window!" And Gar ripped the paper away so that they could see that a right turn was needed next. The great cedar doors of the library were open at all times but their time of skating through the place easy was over. If they were caught out of bed at such a late hour they would have to sacrifice their wrists up for more abuse and raise suspicion among students and teachers.

"Valuables," Dick reiterated before they separated right and left to cover the massive library.

Gar nodded. "Paintings, sculptures, vases and those fancy hanging rugs, got it."

The boys set off through the narrow corridors of the library and despite Dick's earlier warning were forced to blink the lens light on and off just to see when there was no longer any light from the moon. Even with a two man squad searching such a vast library would surely take up all of their time that night despite how quickly they worked.

Gar ran his lens over a Van Gogh, Dick over a Chinese Dynasty vase three times his size. Both returned negative results and they moved on from piece to piece all for a green light to appear on the lens to confirm their suspicions.

He'd gotten through a good twenty pieces before Gar saw the beam of a flashlight and a wheezing cough. The guard was only a few sections away in the Gardening section.

"Phhpt!" Gar whispered aloud, realizing how ridiculous it was. "Like anyone's going to sneak out for a secret late night read."

He may have been one of the underestimated Titans but he wasn't a Titan for nothing. He knew how to be sneaky and light on his feet. As the guard drew nearer and nearer Gar simply dropped down to the floor and rolled through the empty space under the shelf into the adjoining section.

The light flashed back his way.

Gar backed up into the shelf, stick straight, not daring to breathe. Any more lashings and his wrists could start bleeding.

"Dang kids," the guard Tonneson wheezed as he pocketed a scrap of paper and pencil left behind by a student.

Only when the guard moved away could Gar resume breathing. He continued scanning valuables, faster as if to make up for lost time. He got through another eight sections until he reached the end of the main wing where the rest split off into branches.

Dick was there waiting on the other end, finishing up scanning a painting. Even from several feet away Gar saw yet another red light.

The Titan leader caught sight of his partner and tapped the shut lens to check on Gar's progress. He was received by Gar with a shake of the head. Dick's end had not proved any better results but he wasn't discouraged, signaling Gar to move on to the next section.

They checked both ways as if crossing the street for when only the end of the shelf could cover them.

They stepped out, darted into the library's heart that was a circle for reading but one of them wasn't quick enough.

"Hey you!"

The boys jumped into the lowered reading section at once and silently, frantically trying to communicate without words they scrambled for the first exit from the circle. They happened to pick the same one and with the narrow space they got jammed.

Heavy footsteps pounded along the hall.

Panic mounting, Gar tried harder to squeeze through with his scrawnier frame but Dick kept his cool, shoving his teammate through first, breaking the jam and getting them moving. They'd gone into the same left wing but still broke up there to give the guard a run for his money.

It was a less used wing, not yet remodeled the frame of the main wing and for that they were at a disadvantage. Only when each of them had gone down the sections as far as they could did they realize that there were no connecting paths to other sections.

They had both reached a dead end.

Dick's eyes flashed between the gaps in the books until he could make out his partner several sections away but it was Gar that had the idea of climbing up the shelves to avoid detection. For the acrobat in Dick, such a thing was a slice of pie but the stifling sound of the socks was not without the disadvantage of making sock on wood just a little too slippery.

Gar wasn't so lucky. He slipped and a few books clattered with him onto the floor.

With the guard now coming Gar's way and no where else Dick slid back down to ground level. He peered through gaps and tried to signal Gar best as he could but Gar had pressed himself into the back wall. After all the times of real life-threatening danger why was he getting petrified now, why wouldn't he transform!? He had only seconds until the guard reached him!

Just when Dick thought they were caught, the little of Gar he could see seemed to vanish…but his pajamas were left behind and crumpled into a heap on the ground for evidence.

The guard caught up but when he did the pajama top came to hover menacingly in the air before him.

"Ghost!" It was too much for the old man's weak heart to take and he ran for dear life.

The threat had passed but Dick continued to stare at the scene through the many shelves at the unusual way it had gone down. When he reached the other dead end there was the crumpled heap of pajamas.

"BB?"

A green bluebird (ironically enough) materialized somewhere from the shelves. It changed into a boy with a tomato-red face and for good reason. He was wearing nothing but boxer-briefs.

Dick's eyelids drooped low and he kept it simple. "Why?"

Embarrassed, Gar gripped the back of his neck. "Eh-heh…my uniform isn't just a fashion statement or a standard issue from the Doom Patrol. I kind of need it if I'm going to be transforming."

"Kay."

"You see," Gar continued, grabbing up the pajama pants and putting them on, "the skin-tight spandex does this thing of tricking the shape-shifting ma-jiggy into thinking it's my real skin. I also don't have as many uniforms as you because I kind of need to…ingrain my own skin cells into the fibers with a lot of bristle brushing."

"Right," Dick said flatly, making a private note to never touch one of Gar's suits again.

"Y-yeah, crazy huh!" Gar burst out. "You don't know how many times I got caught sneaking around in the buff at night before I figured that out!"

"Too much information," sighed Dick but he added in a grumble that couldn't be lower, "At least you don't have Batman boxers."

"Hey…" Gar said as if considering and he got smacked over the head for it.

"You are NOT getting Batman boxers!" Dick ordered with much aggression after unintentionally giving his partner the idea. His mentor's autograph had been pushing it. "So help me, I will fire you from the team!"
"Fire me?" came back Gar in disbelief, fully clothed now. "I don't remember ever giving you a résumé!"

They argued it over back and forth, felt free to do so as they scanned the rest of the library with the echoes of the library when the poor guard had been scared out of his wits and was long gone. There was no one else in a long range.

They met up again after Dick had calmed down and Gar snapped shut his lens. "Nothing."

"Me neither, everything's the real deal." Dick had that look that he was thinking over other possibilities. "But this would be the perfect place to lift items from. It's the nearest location to the dorms and with good luck is easy to navigate through."

"Well, we'll just have to keep looking," Gar said, always his positive self.

The boys set out to return for their dorms for maybe a few hours of sleep. Their shock of seeing Batgirl in such form was now maybe compromised by their failure to gain evidence at the library.

Gar risked a glance at his partner. "Sooo…can I get Superman boxers?"

Again Dick's eyes drooped low. "Go nuts."

000000000000000000000000000000

It was Gar's time to find a social group now that he was flying solo in the daytime hours. Every school was bound to have a social group specifically for any student that walked through its doors and he only had to wait until the break between second and third to find his.

"And the Bat dropped Two-Face like-" – the bi-spectacled boy mimicked the action – "that!"

"I was actually at that bank with my folks when it was getting robbed! I actually saw him beat up those crooks!"

He had the best story of all seeing Batman's true identity but Gar only smiled and let them talk it up. He was only a visitor to Gotham City while the other boys had probably been there their whole lives and he was plenty happy just to be a part of it.

Dick passed him by but hardly spared him a look when they were no longer permitted to be friends in the public eye. The group Gar had selected appeared to be more fun, easier to gain access to, but that wasn't what this mission was about.

He joined the group of popular kids, all business. They couldn't hold out on him forever.

00000000000000000000000000000000

Three days in: Dick hardly felt like he'd made any progress when the secret information was still being withheld. Anyone that didn't know him well might've thought that he was taking it with grace but since he'd gotten back to his dorm room for the evening hard blue eyes hadn't left the computer screen for two hours. He'd hacked into the school's files to investigate the quarterly reviews of the professors when he could only inquire of them with concerns to marks for his work. Even then he couldn't probe very far very often.

He took a sip from his glass of water as he looked into the file on Professor Baxter and it gave him a moment to glance at the clock overhead.

Only then did he realize two hours had passed.

"Beast Boy must be having fun at his superhero meeting," Dick mumbled, hardly realizing what he said. All he had was his computer when he only wanted to spend as just little time as he could with his snobby new gang.

Disappointment greeted him yet again in that there was nothing abnormal about Baxter, not a change in his mannerisms or anything else he could discern. Dick clicked on the next file but his attention was yanked away to the sudden rattling of the doorknob.

Gar appeared and Dick jumped to his feet in shock. Half of the boy's face was swollen and that same eye had gone a sickly shade of purple. Blood leaked from his nose and he walked carefully, suggesting of more bruises underneath.

At once Dick rushed over, made his friend sit down on his bed. "Gar, what happened!?"

"Your new "friends" happened," Gar spat out, angry eyes narrowing at the thought. "They caught me alone when I was heading back here." The blood was leaking past his lips and he sucked back his sinuses to try to stop it. He gave a sniff but refused to cry.

"Don't do that, you'll make it worse." Dick grabbed the tissue box from the computer and shoved it into Gar's hands. Going the standard route, Gar plugged his nose with a tissue and tilted his head back.

"Keep at it," Dick said in concern, rushing out the door. It wasn't an injury any worse than ones they'd received fighting crime but that it came as such a surprise and from such an established institution somehow made it harder to bear. And this time Gar hadn't been able to use his powers; he had just been one small boy against three big jocks.

Dick returned with a cloth full of ice. Gar accepted it graciously and half of his face disappeared under it.

"Is there anything we can do about this?"

It was an angry question, full of doubt, and Dick wished he could say that there was anything that could be done. There wasn't, not with the discipline-happy school board and that Regis' father was an influential figure in Gotham. He himself, Batman's own protégé and Bruce Wayne's ward, was helpless to effect the situation in the slightest way. All of their work would be for nothing if Dick were to even try nudging the popular boys' attention away from their new punching bag.

Dick could do nothing but he did make his friend take off his shirt so he could put any other bruises on ice.

"If you still want to…" Dick threaded carefully, carefully as he dabbed the nasty bruise on Gar's back, but his grip on the cloth nearly slipped when Gar's face whipped back.

"I'm not going home!" he said with force, with so much more anger than a few minor injuries in that his leader was trying to go easy on him when he didn't want or need it. "I might be the baby of the Titans but I don't need you treating me like it!"

"It wasn't like that, I-"

But Gar jerked his head away as if he could bar out the words. He reached blindly for another tissue when the one he had was getting damp with blood. He came across the box and grabbed it forcefully.

With the force in which he grabbed it one of the other things on the nightstand – a photo frame – went flying.

The boys stared with the same wide eyes as it fell and it couldn't be told which of their faces was more horrified: Dick's for how much the picture meant to him or Gar's for his terrible guilt of ever dropping the precious thing.

Dick abandoned his ice pack and lunged for it but too late. A crack resounded through the room.

His friend's back was to him, kneeling on the floor, and that Gar couldn't see his face and how bad the damage was made it all that much worse. Forget his injuries, they would heal but…

"Only the glass is cracked," Dick said impassively, picking the frame up like he was handling fine porcelain. "Glass can be replaced."

As Dick sat back down next to him Gar was a bag of nerves in how drastically Dick's demeanor had changed after that picture had been in danger. His quiet was like a thick fog around him, enveloping Gar as it did him, and he seemed distant.

Bracing himself, Gar looked down to see the damage. An oblong 'Y' had cracked over the picture of the circus performers, severing through the mother's waist and running through the eyes of the young boy.

"I…I'm sorry."

"It was an accident." Dick's voice was forgiving but still a little down. He could've stayed minutes staring at the frame, still frazzled that the damage could have been much worse but Gar talked him out of it to relieve some guilt.

"Those are your parents?" Gar asked of him very hesitantly, wondering if he dared. "That little boy…?"

Dick nodded.

"Before I saw that picture a couple months ago, before we came to the academy," Gar continued in his friend's silence. "I always thought Batman was well…your dad."

Hearing that made Dick look away from the picture, remember that Gar was really still there.

"Don't take it like the whole Slade thing but…you two really do act the same. You both have that same kind of genius for the work you do and you were the best team I'd ever read about in any of the papers. You both even" – Gar gave a weak chuckle – "told me not to call you 'Sir'."

"He's not my father." And as Dick said it his eyes wandered over the image of John Grayson who was.

"Funny," Gar said but nothing in his voice confirmed his words, "you would think it would be a prereq for being a superhero…being an orphan."

Something in the way Gar said that made Dick look back at him a little differently.

"You too? But weren't Mento and Elasti-Girl-?"

Gar shook his head through the tissue on his nose and ice pack on his cheek. His friend had had misconceptions of his relations as Gar had him but he took it a little better when Elasti-Girl had been a great replacement for something that could never be replaced.

"Has it stopped bleeding yet?" Dick asked vaguely, getting a little closer to home.

When he was received with a negative Dick told him to just keep at it until it did. He moved the tissue box onto the top bunk and it was all the signal Gar needed to know that conversation was over that night.