When G got off the phone with Commissioner Gordon - a conversation both easier and harder than he had expected, if in different ways - he downed the lemonade Alfred brought him without comment and then headed back downstairs to the Batcave.
Barbara sat at the computers, doing God only knew what, and Robin was showing Sam how to throw a batarang.
"Guess the comms pass muster," he observed from the foot of the stairs.
Sam threw one last batarang at a target dummy before turning to G. "The WayneTech version of what we use. It'll do."
Robin bristled for a moment, but then seemed to get that Sam was teasing him. With a huff, he started off toward the dummy to collect the batarangs, and Sam took the opportunity to cross the cave to where G perched on the computer desk beside Babs.
"He should be in school," Sam muttered, loudly enough that Babs would hear him, too.
Not real subtle, Sam. But his partner didn't hear G's thought - or else ignored it. With Sam, it could go either way.
Still, G answered honestly. "He is."
Sam's posture relaxed, and G had to add, "Or I don't have any reason to think he's not - Bruce made me go to school and study and keep my grades up. If I didn't, I wouldn't be allowed to go out as Robin. No reason to think he's changed over the years. Babs?"
"He's in school," Babs confirmed. "All As except one B."
"What's the B in?" Sam asked.
"Phys Ed," Babs replied. "He holds back because otherwise he'd outperform everyone else in his class and be recruited for every sport known to man in high school, even college."
"But remember," G added, "this is an unusual situation - I wouldn't have gone to school if Bruce had been shot on my watch, either."
Sam appeared to think it over, then nodded. "Okay. But I don't like this, G. Not at all."
"I know." The thank you for going along with it anyway went unsaid, as so many things between them did.
G made a mental note to offer to take Kamran and Aiden for a long weekend one day soon so Sam and Michelle could have some couple time. It was small thanks for Sam's support during this trip, but G knew it was all Sam would accept.
He turned back to Babs. "You look awfully comfortable sitting there."
She glanced up at him, her mouth curving in a half-smile. "Ever since the chair, I've been working behind the scenes."
"Gotta use that eidetic memory for something," G murmured.
"Eidetic memory?" Sam repeated. "I thought that's practically nonexistent in adults."
"Practically nonexistent is not completely nonexistent," Babs countered. "I'll admit I'm not as good now as I was when I was younger, but …"
"But you're still damned good," G finished for her. "So, Ms. Behind the Scenes, what can you tell me and Sam that'll make our job easier?"
Sam could admit he was impressed.
For a civilian, Barbara Gordon gave a thorough briefing. By the time she'd finished, the information Robin had given was fleshed out enough that he had a working knowledge of the current major players in Gotham's crime scene and a good idea where to find each of them as well as where they liked to hang out, despite having never even been to Gotham City before.
G slouched back in his chair, apparently watching Robin moving through some martial arts katas. Sam had seen that look enough times during the years he'd worked with G to know his partner was sifting through the information they'd just been given, considering every avenue of approach.
"So how're we gonna play this?" he asked finally.
G looked up, his mouth quirked ever so slightly in a predatory grin, and Sam felt all his instincts kicking up in response. G had a plan. Now all they had to do was execute it.
G turned to Barbara. "Matches Malone."
"Cute nickname," Sam observed. "Arsonist?"
"Odd combination of insurance fraud and arson." Barbara glanced up at him with a grin before continuing without looking at any information on the computer. "Small-time, originally, but turned out to be something of a diplomat. He managed to prevent at least one homicide and a couple of gang wars, and probably a whole lot of other minor crimes we don't know about."
"Then he wound up dead," G said. "Accidentally self-inflicted gunshot wound."
Sam felt his eyebrows climbing up his forehead. "G, you know as well as I do there are no accidents when it comes to guns. You pull the trigger, the bullet's going in whatever direction the barrel's pointed."
"Until it's stopped by something," G agreed. "Or it ricochets. Which is what happened to Malone."
Drawing on patience developed over years of working with G, Sam asked, "How can he help us if he's dead?"
"Because Bruce made sure no one knew he died," G said. "Gave him a proper burial under an assumed name - don't look at me like that, Sam. His only known relative, a brother, died a couple of years before - and used his name and identity to go undercover in the underworld off and on over the years."
"You're thinking of going out as Malone," Sam said.
"Not quite," G answered. "I can't do his flat, nasal, North Jersey accent worth a damn. Besides, I don't know what his status is at the moment."
Now Barbara's fingers flew over the keyboard, reminding Sam of Eric Beale - no, more of Nell Jones, given Barbara's similar hair color. Then he laughed aloud at the photo that appeared on the screen.
"Seriously." Sam looked between Barbara and G. "Tinted glasses, striped shirt, and plaid suit?"
"To be fair," Barbara said, "the real Matches Malone dressed like that, too." After a moment, she added, "Looks like Bruce last went out as Malone two months ago. Got into a fight with members of the James Gang -"
"James Gang?" G said. "As in Frank and Jesse?"
"As in Toby and Billy," Barbara said. "They've been trying to move in since Carmine Falcone died."
"Criminals with a knowledge of history are at least a change of pace," G muttered. "What happened to Malone?"
"Got banged up a bit," Barbara answered. "Nothing serious, but it was a good reason for him to go dark for a while."
"And a good reason for Malone's nephew to scope out rumors about Batman before Malone shows his face again," G said.
Sam considered that. "Son of the dead brother getting into the family business. It could work."
But G was focused on Barbara again as she worked the keyboard - so Sam focused on his partner, studying G's expression. If G were going to lose it over this former crush, Sam wanted as much warning as he could get.
Thankfully, for the moment, G only showed professional interest.
"You're setting up my identity," he said.
"Mm-hm." Barbara didn't look up from her work. "How deep do you want it?"
"With any luck, nobody will go digging," G said. "At least not until we've got what we want. Still, no need to make things worse for Bruce after we're gone."
"You think he's going to recover?" Barbara asked quietly.
"Babs." G reached over to put a hand on her shoulder, and the look on his face was so open, so intimate, that Sam felt like an intruder and fought the urge to look away. "I think if anyone's stubborn enough to recover, it's Bruce."
"Enough to still be Batman?" Now Barbara sounded plaintive, and Sam wondered just how much of her life was wrapped up in Batman.
"I hope so," G said, and Sam couldn't help wondering if he meant it.
Barbara took a breath, let it out. "Okay. One identity. Two layers of backstop?"
G nodded. "I'm thinking Jamie Malone sounds good."
By nine that night, G had reviewed Bruce's complete file on Matches Malone, committing most of it to memory. He'd let Barbara drive him into town to spend a little time at Bruce's bedside while Sam bought clothes for their cover identities. Sam had flatly refused to buy both plaid suit and a striped shirt for G - "That's fine, I'm being Jamie Malone, not Matches." - but decided that keeping tinted glasses would be enough to cement a family connection in the minds of the people G would be mingling with.
Now, G looked dubiously at the shirt lying on his bed.
"Orange, Sam?" He looked up at his partner, who had opted for a charcoal gray sport coat over a Henley shirt, the coat cut loosely enough to suggest a shoulder holster beneath.
"It goes with the blue-blocker glasses," Sam told him with a straight face.
"There better be no photos of me in this outfit." G tugged his own Henley over his head. "Zero. None. Or I'll distribute that picture of you in your ninth-grade school play."
G enjoyed Sam's horrified expression. "How do you even know about that?"
G grinned and pulled on the orange atrocity. "Michelle likes me."
"I'll burn it."
"I have digital copies." G buttoned the shirt and tucked it into his jeans. A sport coat similar to Sam's, but in a light blue, covered his carry weapon. He didn't expect to need it on this … mission, for lack of a better word, but it was always better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
If that's not one of Jethro's rules, it should be.
"I brought your comms."
Robin's voice made G turn to face the newcomer - who wore a disgruntled expression along with his caped outfit.
"Problem?" G asked, taking one of the earwigs Robin offered and sliding it into his ear.
"I don't like guns."
G suppressed a sigh. He'd heard that refrain from Bruce more times than he could count - only with Bruce, it was more often phrased as, "I don't like guns or the cowards who use them." It was one reason Bruce had chosen to operate the way he had.
"I don't know that anyone likes guns," G said. "Collectors and history buffs aside. But they are tools, and sometimes, they're the right tool for the right job."
"Bruce says they're never the right tool."
"He's wrong," G said simply, and couldn't help smiling at Robin's shock. "Yeah, it happens - he's only human, despite that larger-than-life impression. But I'm not going to argue the point. He's made his choices and has to live with the consequences, just like we all do."
"You always get this philosophical before an op?" Sam asked, his tone deliberately light, G thought, to ease the mood.
"Not usually," G said.
"Good. I thought I'd been missing something all this time."
G chuckled and checked the comms, only mildly surprised when after his check, and Sam's and Robin's, Babs' voice came through.
"Oracle online," she said. "Be careful out there."
"Always," Robin said, and G had to bite back a protest.
Sam, though, said what G was thinking. "You aren't going out there with us."
"I'm your backup," Robin said with a stubborn lift of his chin.
G felt Sam tense beside him and understood. They'd been partners for years and knew each other's responses and thoughts almost as if they were their own. Throwing someone else in the mix would necessarily throw that balance off.
Still, G regarded Robin gravely and said, "The duress word is trapeze."
Sam stayed quiet while they got into the car - he took the driver's seat after a brief but wordless exchange with G - and started for the first of Matches Malone's haunts. When he finally spoke, it was in Hebrew.
"You sure about letting him come?" Sam asked.
"We couldn't stop him," G replied, also in Hebrew.
Sam grumbled, but fell into a brooding silence that was, G knew from long experience, no way to start an op. He searched for something to lighten the mood, found it, and switched to English once more.
"You speak seven languages besides English. I speak eight. How is it," he asked, "that the only one we have in common besides English is Hebrew?"
Sam chuckled, and Babs' voice came through G's earwig.
"No telling dirty jokes," she said. "Not unless you're going to share with the rest of us."
"Sorry, Babs," G said and turned his attention to the road ahead of them.