Batgirl struggled to pull herself together. "What do you need, Nightwing?" she questioned in a steady voice.
"Well, I'd like to apologize for ignoring"-crunch-"you. That's not something"-pop-"that a good"-"Kill you! Kill you! Kill you!"-"boyfriend does and I'd like to make it up to you.""Aaaurrgh!" "How about dinner at Giulianno's at seven-"Beat it freak!"-"next Thursday?" he smirked flipping over a thug charging him. While he had knocked out around twenty of them, but there were still thirty left, and they were all very angry that he had knocked out their comrades.
In the monitor womb, Batgirl had a twin smirk on her face. "That's up to you, Hunk Wonder." she replied flirting back to him. Robin hunched farther over the keyboard he was typing at and muttered something about not being payed enough for this gig, much to Conner's confusion. There were still some references he didn't get, even at Five years old. Tim's mumblings, however, were cut off by Artemis.
"Wait, wait, wait, are you flirting?" gasped Artemis.
"Yeah?" replied the other female vigilante worried that she was in trouble for something.
"I just didn't know you had it in you." muttered the older woman once she realized how silly she sounded. Tim just face palmed much to Conner's relief. After being temporary den mother for the newbies, that was something he understood and speaking of the newbies... He was pretty sure that Batgirl was done crying and punching Robin, so it was probably pretty safe to let them back in.
Nightwing cackled and took out the last five guys with a drop kick, flip, two punches, and an uppercut, before contacting Alfred. "Agent A, I've found Penguin." he informed the British individual that most of the members of the Team had heard earlier.
"And Mr. Freeze, have you located the cure yet?" the elderly man interrogated Nightwing through the line. Nightwing winced.
"No, the situation is worse than we originally thought. Penguin has a supply of the Titan formula."
"He's got what? How the fuck did he get that off Arkham Island?" demanded a young and rather angry voice.
"Hood, good to hear you." chirped Nightwing.
"Why the hell are you in Arkham?!" the younger antihero growled, ignoring the older vigilantes greeting.
"Nice to see you to, Red Hood." muttered Tim, annoyed across the line.
"Shut it, Replacement." growled Red Hood.
"Hey, stop calling Robin that. He has a name you know." Nightwing said, defending his younger brother.
"He deserves-" started Red Hood before he was cut off by Batgirl, much to the Team's amusement.
"Just shut up, Hood." she growled.
"Oh, so now you're-"
"Stop."
"Oh, so now you're here Bru-"
"Hood, the Team is listening in!" interrupted Barbara, as Batman growled, at the same time, "No names in the field. Let's focus on the matter at hand, though. Nightwing, report." he drilled out.
"Penguin has somehow got Titan off Arkham Island and is injecting his thugs with it."
"I'm going over there now," muttered Red Hood. "I need to smash some faces in anyways."
"Negative." said his mentor. "I need you patrolling Gotham. Firefly is still on the lose."
"No he's not I shot him,-"
"Jason!"
"-out of the sky. You have to let me finish my sentences Red." he snarled to Batgirl. She was saved from having to argue back by Batman.
"Hood, patrol Gotham, Batgirl and Robin keep monitoring Nightwing, Huntress, where are you?"
"Turning around from Bludhaven now." replied a female voice that the Team had not heard of before.
"Get to Arkham." ordered Batman.
"You got it, Boss." she muttered sarcastically.
"How long has your comm been on?" wondered Robin aloud.
"The whole time." she dead panned, long enough for Batgirl's horrified embarrassment to sink in, before turning off her comm. As Batgirl sputtered, trying to justify herself, much to the Team's amusement, Batman ordered Nightwing, "Get the cure before more people get hurt." before signing off.
Pulling a remote control batarang from his belt, Nightwing hurled it over an arch and down a hallway. Maneuvering it so that it hit the open button, he ran through the opening security gate, casually trod ding on an inmate as he did so. Reaching yet another locked gate, he pulled out his cryptographic squencer and easily cracked the password. Again, the words dinosaur and Jurassic we're't the most creative passwords for a museum. He ran up to a service elevator, flipping over the wall onto the floor, and shot a remote electrical charge in the power outlet, sending the elevator up. As the elevator approached a halt in front of a wall, he examined it with his mask's detective vision. Straightening up, from his previous crouching position and pulled out an explosive disc and placed it on the wall. Once again crouching, in the corner tis time, it detonated and he jumped out of the elevator and took off. His progress was halted shortly by a wall, which he collapsed using an explosive disc and continued down the following hall.
However, as he reached the end of the hall it became apparent that there was a wall of ice obstructing his progress. He blew the wall up in time for him and the Team to see a cop running across a sheet of ice, dodging blasts from what appeared to be Mr. Freeze's gun. The only problem was, that it was the Penguin that was wielding it "Hold still lad!" he cackled as he fired shots at the officer. The man almost made it across the ice sheet only to get frozen two-thirds of the way to Nightwing. As Nightwing started to rush down to help the poor man before he got hypothermia, his legs were pinned to the floor beneath him by one of the Penguin's better shots.
"Stay in my birds eye view, Batbrat!" he squawked. "You wouldn't believe the fight that the old Snowman put up. Still I got what I wanted," he reasoned, "and that's all that matters." He grinned, his selfishness disgusting the Team. Nightwing strained against his restrains of ice, but they held firm. The villain smirked at his discomfort. "When you're done here, feel free to come join me in the Iceberg Lounge so I can kick your arse again." chuckling, the small man began to walk away. "Oh, and enjoy the Copsicle." he threw over his shoulder as he left.
Once Nightwing was sure that he was gone, he pulled out a Batarang, agonizingly slowly, he chipped away at the ice entombing his legs. He could already barely feel his feet, which made him all the more sympathetic for the various officers he had noticed trapped in ice around the room. "Help me. Please." begged the most recently frozen one from the running position he was stuck in. Finally managing to free his feet, he lightly hopped down onto the ice sheet below him, taking careful notice to move slowly as it protested underneath his weight. "The ice looks unstable, I should move slowly, take my time." he mumbled half to himself, half to the Team. When he finally reached the officer he chipped away the ice much faster, now that he wasn't bending over and had practice.
Once the officer was free, Nightwing wrapped an arm around him and grappled over to where he had been frozen.
"T-T-Thank you." the officer stuttered shivering.
Nightwing nodded in acceptance and asked, "Are you from the thirteenth precinct? Where's the rest of your team?"
"There were two more guys in this room," the cop paused, shivering, "Penguin froze 'em up and went after me. I ran and well, I guess you saw what happened."
"I'll get them." he reassured the cop. "You wait here and warm up."stepping lightly across the ice, he spotted a raft above the water. Speaking aloud to the Team, he reminded them to; "Always observe your surroundings, tools could be hiding in plain sight." He lectured spotting a decorative raft hanging from the ceiling. In less than a minute he was pulling the raft over to one of the frozen men and was chipping him out.
As he began to move towards the final frozen police officer the one on the raft began to shiver. "S-S-o cold. Where d-did Penguin get t-that gun?" he stuttered. Nightwing continued to look ahead and narrowed his eyes behind the mask. "He stole it from Mr. Freeze. I'm getting it back." he promised.
"P-p-please, someone help me!" the final frozen officer yelled, panicked. He breathed an audible sigh of relief, when Nightwing chipped him out of his icy prison.
"Stay here and get warm." he ordered.
"N-no problem sir. There are more of us!" The Team was unable to decide whether the police officer's stuttering was from the cold or fear of Nightwing, who in the moment, uncannily resembled Batman.
"If they're alive, I'll find them." he responded, before entering a hall nearby.
The sound of thugs voices were audible from the end of the hall and as soon as he reached the end Nightwing subtlety grappled up onto yet another indoor gargoyle. "-you betcha Mr. Cobblepot. Freeze's suit is in the case. I'm looking at it right now." the leader reassured his employer through a walkie talkie.
"Good. Make sure it stays that way." the Londoner demanded, as Nightwing slowly began to knock out the thugs. "The Birdboy's on his way and the last I saw him, he didn't look happy."
"He's here!" a panicked thug yelled.
"Why are you waiting around, then? Find him!" the man screeched into his walkie talkie. Soon there were only three thugs left, standing back to back. "You three are the only people left between making me happy and very, very, very, sad." informed the Penguin. "And if you make me cry, I'll make you cry!" he screamed. Penguin's happiness, however, didn't stand a chance. Nightwing knocked two of them out at the same time and punched the other thug in the face before squeezing a pressure point to knock him out, before grappling to a balcony where hostage cops were all crouched.
"I saw you clear the room man, nice work!" said one enthusiastically. "The name's Tom, Tom Miller." he supplied, clearly excited.
"You're part of Gordon's strike team, I saw your file." Nightwing remarked.
"You have?" the officer said, obviously surprised. "I mean, yes sir. Cobblepot's set up a fortress in here. Someone ratted us out. Me and the boys got dragged down here and beaten the crap out of." he finished.
"There are two of you still unaccounted for. Do you know where they'd be?"
"Have you tried the Iceberg lounge? Cobblepot liked to drag us down there and beat the crap out of us some more." The cop informed him. Nightwing nodded before grappling away. Just barely audible to the Team, he whispered, "As they say, out of the frying pan and into the fire."