Chapter summery: Turns out Matt does have friends. And a night job?

"So how's life in San Fransokyo?"

"Not now, Bucky," Matt grunted as his fingers flew across his keyboard. He was in the middle of an important and complicated line of code, and he couldn't afford distractions.

"Aw, c'mooooon!" Bucky whined, voice so high it caused static. Matt winced and glared over his shoulder at the camera.

"I didn't think it was possible for you to become even more irritating," he ground out, "but once again you've proven me wrong."

Bucky beamed. "Good to see I can still keep you on your toes, Matty."

"Don't call me that."

"But for real, man," Bucky continued, ignoring Matt's scowl, "looks to me like you desperately need a break."

"I'm fine," Matt protested.

"Dude, I could carry luggage in those bags." Matt snorted. "How long have you been at that, anyway?"

Matt opened his mouth to reply, but then realized he didn't actually know. He looked down at his watch, a going away gift from his mother(well, from his mother and Terry, but Matt know his brother had had nothing to do with the gift outside of presenting it) and frowned.

1:32 am already? He had started working on the code as soon as his last class of the day had ended... which had been at 3:15 that afternoon.

Cringing, he turned back to Bucky, who was staring at him like a disappointed teacher(as if he even had the right).With a guilty sigh, Matt answered.

"About ten hours..."

"Matt..."

"Oh, like you've got room to talk!" Matt snapped. Bucky was just as guilty of late night engineering as him, if not more so.

"True. Still, you've got more responsibilities than I do," he pointed out. Matt rolled his eyes, but Bucky pressed on.

"Don't make me tell your brother," he finished sternly; a look, Matt noticed, did not fit the other genius at all. Still, God save him from the tender mercies of absentee brothers.

"Fine, I'll leave," he relented. He turned back to the code to find a good place to leave it for the night.

Five minutes later Bucky 'ahemed' and Matt hung his head.

"I'm goin', I'm goin'." He saved his progress and began shutting down his lab. "Happy?" he asked, once it finished. The only thing left on was the computer Bucky's digital face was currently occupying.

"Ecstatic. Now go home."

"Can't," Matt replied, pulling his bag out from under his desk and snagging his jacket off the chair.

"Why not?"

"Like you said," he threw the jacket on and grinned at Bucky. "I've got other responsibilities."

"Matt, that's not-" Matt shut off the computer before Bucky could finish his sentence.

"This is not what I meant, and you know it," Bucky hissed into Robin's ear. Robin sniggered at the other boy's frustration; it had taken him nearly a whole hour to break through the jamming frequency he'd put on his communicator.

"Maybe not, but you had a good point," Robin responded as he surveyed what he could from his upside-down postion. He was hanging in the shadows of an off-ramp in the grungier side of San Fransokyo.

Call him crazy, but it was actually making him homesick for Gotham.

"This may not be Gotham, but I can't just ignore my duties." He laughed when he heard Bucky's aggravated groan.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'll only be out for a little bit," he promised.

"It doesn't."

"Tough."

Bucky was quiet for a while after that as Robin leaped from rooftop to rooftop, keeping his eyes and ears peeled for any sign of trouble. It didn't take long to find some.

A scream echoed from an alley a few buildings away. The source, Robin found with growing anger, was a young woman being harassed by three men. All three were nearly twice her size.

"Hey!" Robin shouted, as he jumped from the roof and landed gracefully behind them.

All three turned as one, ready to pummel whoever it was that had interrupted their fun. There was a short stare-off between Robin and the thugs before one of them, the one on the right, broke out laughing.

The other two were quick to follow.

"I didn't know the circus was in town," the one in the middle said with a taunting grin. He was the biggest, and arguably the meanest looking of the three. Robin pegged him as the leader.

The other two confirmed it when they nodded along, still laughing.

"Ha, you're a joker aren't you," Robin shot back, smirking at the leader. "You sure you're not the clown here?"

Immediately all laughter stopped as the boss turned red in the face. "What did you just call me?" he snarled.

"What, you're deaf too?" Robin snarked. Boss looked like steam would come flying out of his ears at any second.

"You're gonna pay for that, twip," Boss growled. As if following some unspoken command, his two henchmen stepped forward in what the boy wonder assumed was meant to be a threatening manner.

For one raised in Gotham, it was nothing short of amusing. Bucky agreed, if his smothered laughter was any sign.

"Gimme your best shot."

Not particularly happy with this chapter, but at least I managed to get a little insight on Matt. Sorry for the lack of Hiro, but he and the gang will be back in the next chapter~

For anyone unaware, the Bucky in this story is Bucky Buenaventura; a character from the Batman Beyond spin-off series, the Zeta Project. Bucky is a genius that puts both Matt and Hiro to shame. Luckily, he's only a periphery character and his genius wont be coming into question at any point. Also yay for future slang~

Yes, this chapter ends in a bit of a cliff-hanger. I apologize, but I didn't feel the fight would be all that important.