Next chappy! Yay! Hopefully everyone like the last one. HOpe this one is good too.
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Bruce/ Selina/Dick/Barbra
The car ride was awkward. Nobody said anything as Selina drove them downtown toward the crater that was Wayne Manor in a stolen pick-up truck. No one followed them. Nobody even look twice at the unmasked Bruce Wayne and the woman next to him or the two teenagers in the trunk. Bruce was surprised nobody recognized him.
Dick and Barbra sat in the trunk talking to each other. That kind of hurt. Dick refused to look at Bruce as he would not take off those dark sunglasses. Selina wasn't helping either. When she looked at him it was with this disappointed scowl. Bruce wondered if that was how he looked at the kids when the failed a mission...
"You can stop that."
"Excuse me?"
"Stop with the brooding thing Bruce. Nobody else is here but the kids and me. You can drop the whole silent Dark Knight act."
He hadn't even realized. It just came naturally now-
"You what? Let me guess what you're thinking." Selina cleared her throat before talking in a deep, mocking voice. "I'm Batman! Why don't I understand everything? Why won't Robin talk to me? Brood, brood, blah, blah, blah. If it bothers you so much then why don't you, oh I don't know, talk to him?"
"He won't talk to me either way. You saw him on the rooftop Selina. He held a gun at my chest and barely blinked. As long as he is using that weapon I have nothing to say."
Selina rolled her eyes, "Of course. This goes all the way back to your moral code. Batman doesn't like guns, and now his own little sidekick- sorry. Ex-sidekick, uses guns that don't actually have any live ammunition to save lives. Yes I can see the dilemma."
"Selina you don't know if he has actually-"
"Oh, God Bruce no! Of course not! You really think Dick Grayson is capable of killing people?"
She was silent for a few seconds.
"Truthfully? I have no idea. Nobody saw him for two years. God knows what happened to him. But I can only say that I haven't seen him do anything like it yet."
"Something is different about him. About all of them. And it has nothing to do with their maturity. They're hiding something from us, something they don't want any of us to know."
"Look who's talking." Selina mumbled.
Barbra knocked on the trunk window behind Bruce and slide it open to talk.
"Hey, Selina? Can you drop me off? I have to be back home by nine."
"Sure sweetheart."
Catwoman took a right and headed north downtown until they stopped in front of a town house. Barbra jumped out of the trunk, said bye to Dick and thanked Selina for the ride. She poked her head into the window next to Bruce.
"I'm glad you're back Bruce. Now I might actually get a good nights sleep knowing you and the others are back." She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "And go easy on Dick. He's been through a lot."
She disappeared into the townhouse. Bruce noticed Selina looking at him with a smug look on her face.
"What?"
"Nothing." She pulled out in reverse and headed back east. There was an awkward silence until Bruce noticed something.
"I didn't realize Jim moved."
"He didn't."
"So Barbra is living alone now or it with some guy-"
"Jim Gordon died Bruce."
That caught Bruce by surprise, "What?"
"They found his body a month after the Gotham explosion. A bullet to the head and washed up in the river. No one knows where he was or why or how, but my money's on Joker. Barbra was... well after you disappeared, and then Dick... I think it was all a little too much. She got lost in a bad way and me and a friend had to pull her out before it went to far and got seriously hurt. Now she lives with my friend Kate."
Bruce was silent. All this new information very hard for him to hear. Hear that Barbra would go that far... So much death had followed after the mentors had disappeared. Two million people, Alfred, Jim Gordon; probably Leslie and Vickie and Lucius too. He'd thought he'd lost Dick for a while. He was almost certain that he had lost Selina. It hurt to look at Gotham, especially the parts that were still rebuilding. Crime Alley was barren, The Narrows gone. Wayne Manor was reduced to nothing but a hole. The home his family built. The home he grew up in.
"When we get to the cave we'll have to reboot the computer to contact the WatchTower."
"You've tried before?"
She shrugged. "About a month after the explosion I busied myself with putting that old thing back together as best I could. Took me months to get it to work since it was just me. Everyone else was attending a funeral and cut themselves off."
"So you couldn't find the time?" You could practically taste the venom in Bruce's voice.
"Don't start with me Wayne. I was there when Joker pulled the switch. I was he one who had to watch him beat that boy until he was an inch from death. I was the one who found him and I've been the one taking care of him these past two months. And it was mostly thanks to Diana that we got Dick out of that hell hole you left for him. So excuse me for doing the exact same thing you would have done in that situation. I was looking for answers." The truck stopped suddenly, sending Bruce forward in his seat and Dick crashing into the truck behind them.
"We're here."
She cut the engine and kicked the drivers door open, storming into the wooded area surrounding the bed rock of the hill Wayne Manor used to sit on. Bruce followed her, without kicking the door, and Dick hopped out of the trunk.
It was getting dark and Dick was still wearing those dark glasses and leather jacket. The gun he had pointed at Bruce stood out in its holster on Dick hip; no attempt to hide it from the Dark Knight.
"Will you stop glaring at me?"
"Where did you get that gun?"
"Wouldn't you like to know."
Dick took off after Seilna, leaving Bruce alone on the road. Batman had made Robin take an oath to never use a gun; to never kill. Now he was questioning Dick's loyalty, as well as his sanity.
He walked into the small forest until he found the two next to the bed rock of the hill. Seilna pulled back a rock, revealing a metal panel on the rock wall. She placed her hand on the panel:
RECOGNIZED: CATWOMAN; O5.
The rock wall opened up to reveal a deep stairwell. It was one of the many secret entrances to the Batcave, and one Bruce had never told Selina about.
"How did you find this?" He asked her.
"How do you think?" She gestured to the teenage boy already walking down the stairs. They walked down 207 stairs exactly until they reached the main floor of the all famous Batcave.
Before, Bruce had been to concerned with finding Dick to get a good look at his cave. Now he noticed everything. Pieces of the rock walls and ceiling were scattered in rubble around the cave, parts of the platforms missing or crushed, most of the trophies and evidence cases he kept on the second level were broken. The robotic T-Rex he had been working on had been decapitated. The walk in closet containing all his prototype and spare suits was crushed under a plié of debris. All this the product of the bombing that had one off above them. Down below on the last level, a pile of wreckage showed Batman why calling the Batmobile hadn't worked.
A glass case off to the side held Dick's Robin suit. Or what was left of it. The cape had been torn short, rips and tears in the torso and legs. One of the gloves was damaged beyond repair and the mask was torn in half. The whole costume was coated in splatters and clusters of dried blood. Dick walked past it without so much as a flinch and went right to computer to reboot it. His hands flew across the key board, hacking into the WatchTower mainframe and opening up a secure call line just as easily as he had done four years ago just before he, Wally and Kaldur had freed Conner.
"There. Done. Can I go now?"
Selina smacked the teenager on the back of the head. "No. Now go get changed. We're meeting Oswald at ten and I am not taking you while you're wearing that God awful jacket."
Bruce stood off to the side as he watched Selina do her 'mother-cat' act.
"You're not the boss of me Selina."
"I am until you're eighteen and can make legal decisions for yourself. Now get!"
Dick mumbled something that sounded quit crude and Selina made a face that even Bruce waned to run from. Dick flinched and ran off into the back rooms.
"And don't let me catch you sneaking that gun under your shirt!"
"Okay! God!"
Selina sighed, "That's the most I can get him to do. He's never taken those damn glasses off, and he get fidgety when he doesn't have a weapon on him. He'll probably sneak a knife into his sleeve or something."
Bruce sat down at the computer, typing in the access code for his personal contact line.
"Maybe I should make the call." Selina said leaning on the chair. "It might come as a shock to whoever's up there right now when they get a call from Batman."
"We'd have to let them know at some point."
The screen buzzed to life reveling the giant face of-
Nobody.
The call had gone through but their was nobody there to answer.
"Maybe they're out to lunch?"
"I doubt it. Justice League protocol is that at least one member must always be on monitor duty. And I doubt that any of hem would just leave it unguarded."
A beeping in his ear went off. So the com links still worked.
"Batman here."
"Bruce? It's Oliver. Have you tired contacting the League? I have and nobody's home."
"I have the same thing. Have you tried the personal lines?"
"Tired calling Dinah three times. Then John and Hal. Nothin'"
"I'll see what I can do from here. If nothing works we'll have to take the zeta beams up from the Hall."
"Right. Going with the formal approach I see. Okay. I'll try a few of the others and call you back. Arrow out."
Bruce looked back at the computer, typing in a phone number he had memorized a long time ago.
"Calling up your old flame, Brucie?"
"Shut up."
Selina smiled and they waited as the phone call went through to voice mail, the voice of Diana Prince asking them to leave a message and number. Batman cut the call off.
"She hasn't answered for a over two months." Dick appeared from the shadows wearing sneakers, bleached jeans and a black t-shirt and a light blue jacket. "I tried calling her before Selina found me." He was still wearing the dark glasses.
"Any idea where she might be?"
"Nope."
Bruce scowled. Dick wasn't being very helpful and to be honest Bruce was getting tired of the boys attitude. He was also looking stiff, something Bruce noticed Dick did when he lied. The man stood up and looked at Dick, still towering over the youth.
"You're lying. You're not telling me everything."
Dick stiffened more and glared right back.
"Even if I was, why would I?"
"You're hiding something and whether it is about the League or the Team, you don't want anyone to know. What happened to the Justice League members Dick?"
The boy looked like he was about to yell, but stopped. He was silent for a moment before nodding and looking at the older man.
"I honestly don't know where Leaguers are. And I really don't care either. All I know is what I've heard from around Gotham and Bludhaven. Word is going around that Wonder Woman and a small group of other Leaguers disappeared near Metropolis's downtown a few months ago."
"Are you sure?"
"My sources don't lie."
Bruce decided to leave it there, the conversation long from over between the two of them. He put his fingers to his com unit.
"Batman to Superman."
"Superman. Wow, I cant believe these still work."
"Listen Kent. Arrow and I have tried contacting other members of the League. No answer form the WatchTower, Black Canary, Wonder Woman or the Lanterns. Dick told me he has information that Wonder Woman and a team went missing in downtown Metropolis a few months ago. We'll rendezvous there and look for any leads."
"Got it. I'll call Orin and the others and we'll meet you near the Daily Planet. Superman out."
I AM DONETH! so tired. was not expecting it to be this long. also new info about plot development! Where is the Justice League? Find out next time!
Tired now. review or I will throw Conner off a cliff in an upcoming chapter! HAHAA!
byebye