Nightwing jumped through an open window and into a group of thugs guarding the museum. "It's the Bat!" one screamed only to be corrected by his comrade.
"No, you idiot, it's Nightwing. This is gonna be easy."
Nightwing began whaling on all of the thugs and in no time the man was eating his words. Suddenly, a heliocopter's blades were audible, a blinding spotlight focused on Nightwing, and chatter came over the Tyger guards radio channel, filling the monitor womb at the Watchtower. "All freaks are down. Nightwing is clear." The update made most of the Team frown that Nightwing was being followed so easily by Hugo Strange's eyes in the sky. The piercing sound of a payphone ringing nearby broke them out of their revelation. Quickly typing in some numbers, Batgirl began to hack the call and answered Nightwing's question before he could even ask.
"No, you should definitely not answer the phone." muttered Batgirl. "It's being traced to the area where Zsasz was last seen." she added to Nightwing's questioning grunt.
"So, it could be someone that he's hunting calling out for help." Nightwing growled through his communicator, startling some of the Team's younger members.
"Or it could be Zsasz trying to make a hostage call to you. Don't let yourself get sidetracked."
"An innocent person could be dying right now, Bar-Batgirl. Do you think I want their death on my shoulders?" Nightwing argued.
"Damn it, Dick! You are dying! If you don't find the cure to your blood poisoning soon, you will die. Along with countless others who have excepted blood transfusions from Joker's blood!" On the security camera footage, the lenses in Nightwing's mask visibly narrowed. "You have to choose one life or many." she finished sadly. "What would Batman do?" she tried to add helpfully.
"I'm not Batman." was his only response, his voice taking on an even grimmer quality before he shut off his comm link. Batgirl sighed, looking down at the keyboard in the monitor room.
"Sometimes, Dick, you make it really hard to be your gi-friend." Miss Martian sensing her distress began to sheperd all the of the Team's younger members out of the monitor womb, despite their protests of "We're part of the Team too!" and "We won't know what happens to Nightwing now!"
Once all of the younger members had left the room, Artemis voiced her thoughts first. "I know that look you have, Wally had it all the time that I was undercover. The two of you are in a relationship, aren't you?" Batgirl's head whipped around. Along with most of the Team's senior members. If the two of them were in a relationship they were very subtle, unlike when the time when Nightwing (then Robin) and Zatanna were in a relationship. Then again, kissing each other in front of six other people, seven if you count Red Tornado on New Years kind of destroyed any chance that there was of keeping their relationship quiet.
"I'm not-we're not-Yeah, we are." she sighed sadly looking back at the screen.
Meanwhile, had hacked the lock on a heavy metal door and began to run through the halls of the museum somewhat regretfully. He knew that turning off his comm had hurt her, but he was not Bruce. After nearly having his head taken off by motion activated metal bars in the floor, he jumped through the window, raining glass all over the floor. He hacked another lock to deactivate the metal barrier and continued down the halls at a slightly faster pace to make up for time lost. For the record, "dinosaur" wasn't the greatest password for a prehistoric wing of a natural history museum. It made sense, though, he reflected, as he almost got hit by a roaring, animatronic T-Rex. Reacting quickly, he jumped on its head and flipped down into the shadow of a pillar. Three thugs were guarding the doorway into the next room and torturing what appeared to be a cop if the writing spray painted on his shirt was correct. Without hesitation, he tossed a batarang at the group stunning one, and electing cries of, "It's the bat!".
He made quick work of the remaining two thugs and swiftly freed the cop, whose shirt, on closer inspection said "Dead Cop".
"Your safe for now." said Nightwing in an uncanny resemblance to Batman.
"Thank God." replied the relieved cop, visibly relaxing, or at least as much as he could trapped in a maximum security prison.
"You may want to hold off on thanking him until you've answered my question." replied Nightwing. "Who are you?" he demanded.
"Sorry, 'Wing, I'm a cop, Gordon sent us in here as a strike team, from the 13th precinct, I've been in here since the beginning."
"If you've been in here for that long, you'll know the code." hypothesized Nightwing looking at the cop.
"Oh yeah, yeah, he said, uh, what was it?" Nightwing's smirk, which had been from the officer's nickname for him began to fade as the cop struggled to remember the password.
"In order to save the rest of your strike team in here, I need the code. Now!" he growled in completely uncharacteristic impatience. "Didn't this guy know that as they spoke, people were dying?" he angrily thought. Then, he saw the officer's intimidated face and realized that he was acting like Bruce, demanding the information.
"It's...Sarah! He said to tell you the code is Sarah."
"You're safe officer." he said brightly, trying to make up for his previous treatment of the man.
"It's Jones, Nightwing. Elvis Jones."
"Gordon did tell Batman about sending your team in."
"Yeah, he did. Wanted to know what was going on in here." the cop laughed despairingly. "Guess we found out. There were ten of us...hopefully there still are."
"Batman told Gordon that it was too dangerous to send you in here!" Nightwing growled, mostly to himself, but the cop still heard him though.
"Yeah, Gordon was dead set about knowing what was going on, wouldn't even listen to Montoya's disagreements." he supplied.
"Stay here. If the rest of your team is alive, I'll find them." he ordered before taking off down the stairs and into the next hall. Reaching a fork in the hall he followed the spray painted writing that said, "New recruits, that way." However, his progress down that hall was blocked by yet another security gate. Quickly, he pulled out a remote control batarang, flung it through the air, and nailed the button controlling the gate. Before the gate was even fully opened, he sprinted through the opening, pelting down the hall.
As the high ceilinged room ahead of him came into view, so did another member of the 13th precinct. "Help...me." was all the man was able to struggle out before he was shot in the back by none other than the Penguin. Nightwing pulled a batarang out of his belt and was ready to hurl it at the villain, but the rogue stopped him short.
"Eh, eh, eh, I wouldn't do that if I were you." sneered the short man. "Show him what we got, lads!" he crowed, stepping to the side, to reveal Mr. Sickle clutching a choking police officer by his neck.
While the Penguin laughed loudly, Nightwing turned his communicator back on, muttering to Robin, "I guess we know who Mr. Sickle is working for now." referring to the many penguin tattoos on his chest.
"So Birdboy, you here for the cops, the Iceman, or me?" he leered at Nightwing from the safety of the balcony and a hostage.
"I was just here for Freeze and the hostages, but now I'm taking you down too." he growled.
"Woah, aren't you scary acting like a big boy, trying to be like your old man, eh. Well guess what, it's not working, lad." he laughed at the vigilante below him.
"Oh, it will."
"Will it really?" the man cackled yet again, and gestured for one of his henchmen to light his cigar. "You see here, I'm what you might call, ah collectah," he motioned for the same henchman to take his cigar back, as it was making him difficult to understand. "If someone wants it, I like to think I've got it. If I don't have it, I'll get it." he smiled. "So here's the deal," he continued, "back there I've got a cabinet back there with the big bad Bat's name on it just waiting to be filled. Unfortunately, you'll have to do. You'll make a great hostage." "As luck would have it," he cackled waving his umbrella around, and almost hitting one of his henchmen, "here you are standing there, right where I want you." The wide man continued after a pause. "So, are you going to be a good boy and give up nicely?" He grinned.
Nightwing was fuming. "You're not giving orders here anymore Cobblepot." The revolting man bared his teeth.
"I was hoping you'd say that. Look around you. You see all these horrible psychopaths are begging to join up with me. Unfortunately for them, I only take the best. And today, the best was whoever could kill Batman. Now it's whoever can catch you." he let the words sink in. "Come on out lads, it initiation time." he swung his umbrella behind him, hitting one of his henchmen right in between the legs, before guffawing and walking down the hall. However, Nightwing was more preoccupied fighting off the vicious hoard of psychos to notice this exchange.
"...and that's why sometimes he makes it so hard to not be angry with him!" wailed Barbara sobbing into M'Gann's shoulder, with Artemis nearby. Tim knew about Dick and Barbara's relationship and was completely unaffected by this new revelation, Connor and Kaldur were stunned and were awkwardly standing in the corner, both rather inexperienced with relationships in general. "Sorry about unloading all that onto you guys." sniffed Barbara, wiping some tears off her cowl.
"While I do love new blackmail material," muttered Robin, "Dick's turned his comm back on and might need some help."