Thanks to Kathy and Debbie for the beta!

Chapter 8

Batman grunted as he loaded another carton onto the hand-truck he'd found in the van. If he survived this, Leslie was going to kill him, while, at the same time, lecturing him on the idiocy of doing heavy lifting with a cracked rib—and Alfred was going to help her.

One more carton, he told himself. One more and he could rest. He imagined he could feel the injured rib slicing into him like a white-hot knife. Stop whining, he ordered himself. You've worked through worse pain. Just get those boxes secured. Using the line from his grappling hook, he tied the stack down to the hand-truck. Then, groaning a bit from the fire that streaked across his chest, he tilted the hand-truck and wheeled it toward the back wall of the van.

So far, so good, he thought. Now came the hard part. He gripped the handles of the hand-truck tightly and charged toward the doors at the far end. He couldn't keep from crying out as his injured body protested. The hand-truck rammed into the doors with a heavy thud. They shuddered slightly, but didn't give.

Batman eyed the opposite wall once more. It looked farther away now than it had previously. He steeled himself and tilted the hand-truck back once more, preparing his makeshift battering ram for another run.

"I wish we had the Batmobile," Nightwing admitted, as they turned onto Harlem River Drive in a rented BMW. "One day, Bruce will give me the new access code."

Daredevil leaned forward the distance that his seatbelt permitted. "The new one? So you had a code at one time?"

Nightwing kept his eyes on the road and wondered whether, if his face was as warm as it felt to him, Daredevil could feel the heat radiating off of it. "For all of three months," he admitted. "Then we had some stupid argument, I don't even remember what about. Probably me feeling that Bruce was still treating me like I was nine when I was sixteen; that was pretty much par for the course, back then. We each said a bunch of things we probably wouldn't have said if we weren't both in lousy moods to begin with. I finally told Bruce I was going to take a drive to cool off."

Daredevil groaned theatrically. "Please, tell me you didn't…"

"Afraid so. At least, I was smart enough to get into costume first." He sighed. "Bruce was so relieved when I made it back in one piece that he demonstrated his caring by ripping me a new one. And changing the code. Last year, I asked him if he could finally tell me what it was, just in case of emergency. He just gave me this look and asked me if I thought it was wise, after what happened last time." He shook his head. "I figured that blowing up at him would only hurt my case, so I backed down. But, hey," he added lightly. "Maybe after this, he'll finally see how it might be a good idea after all."

"You're optimistic," Daredevil smiled.

"Always."

They drove in silence for a few minutes. Then Daredevil chuckled. "Sorry," he apologized. "I'm just trying to imagine you—or well, anyone—arguing with Batman, never mind joyriding in his car."

"Yeah, well," Nightwing mumbled, "I've been fighting bad guys since I was nine. Getting into shouting matches with someone who I could be reasonably sure wasn't going to kill me was kind of a relief." He paused. "Okay, not really. Familiarity breeds contempt? Or, at least, a greater tolerance for glares and growls?"

"That works," Daredevil grinned. His face turned pensive. "I don't think my dad and I ever got into any shouting matches. Not that we always saw eye-to-eye, mind you, but I wasn't big on direct confrontation back then." He lifted his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. "One major point of contention was fighting: he was a prizefighter, but he made it clear that he expected me to use my brain, not my fists. Not even when other kids made my life hell because I wouldn't stand up for myself."

"Hard," Nightwing whistled. "I mean, I put up with a lot of getting roughed up because I… well, let's just say that by the time Bruce let me wear the suit, I had better moves than your average fourth-grader. Or college varsity wrestler, for that matter. Being Robin from the time I was nine and a circus aerialist for a few years before that, you understand."

"Yeah, I hear that." Daredevil was nodding. "Parkouring to the office would probably save me a bit of time on the morning rush, but it's…" he laced his fingers together behind his head and flexed them, "nnnnnnot the best way to maintain a secret identity." Nightwing laughed. Daredevil smiled for a moment.

"About my dad," he continued, sobering, "to be fair, I never told him how bad I got it from the other kids. He was under the impression that it was just name-calling and he'd remind me about 'sticks and stones'. Maybe if he'd known that it was more than that, he would have accepted my defending myself. I don't know. He didn't want me taking any steps down a path that would lead to my entering a boxing ring. Heck, he barely let me take time off from studying to play with the other kids." He sighed. "Which, of course, set me apart from them, which led to my getting targeted by the local bullies. Anyway, like I said, I never told Dad about it. There was enough to worry about on other fronts; I didn't need to dump anything else on him. So, I endured. And when I couldn't take it anymore, I'd sneak off to the gym when it was late and nobody else was there, and I'd square off against the heavy bag. It started off as a way to vent my frustrations with… everything."

He shook his head. "Again, my dad wasn't an educated man. We weren't at all well-off. There were some times when we were a month or more behind on the rent and living off of ramen noodles and ketchup sandwiches, but he always tried to do right for me. He'd talk about how he never got past high school and it was too late for him, but I was going to study and make something of myself. When I lost my eyesight, he didn't let me sit around feeling sorry for myself. He pushed me just as hard as he ever had, if not harder."

Daredevil exhaled noisily. "And, well, I knew he wanted me to keep hitting the books and I didn't want to tell him that, as good a student as I was, I couldn't just spend all my waking hours studying. I didn't want an argument. And thinking back, I probably did have some buried resentment toward him for pushing me so hard, even if, at the same time, I knew it was for my own good."

"Sounds familiar," Dick interjected.

Matt smiled. "Yeah, I guess it does. So… you could say that I just went along with what he wanted me to do, but then, I also went ahead and did what I thought I needed to without telling him."

Nightwing kept his eyes on the road. "To be honest, I'm not sure which one of us came up with the better dysfunctional coping mechanism."

"Neither am I." Daredevil was silent for a few minutes more. "What was it like?" he asked finally. "Driving the Batmobile?"

Nightwing laughed. "Absolutely incredible."

The first barrage had come without warning, a series of heavy impacts shaking the roof and walls of the van, the noise jarring his ears and the vibrations rattling his bones. If someone was trying to force their way inside—or, perhaps, crush the vehicle—it wasn't working.

After what felt like an eternity, the pounding stopped and Batman allowed himself a sigh of relief. It was short-lived, for the noise resumed almost immediately. Again, there was a short respite before the pounding continued. Finally, quiet reigned once more and he went back to his inspection of the premises, feeling hot perspiration under his cowl. He hoped that there were no security cameras in the van monitoring his situation. It was doubtful, given that the only source of light came from a few cracks where the metal panels that made up his prison were imperfectly aligned. Ramming the hand-truck into the doors was hot, tiring, and painful work. After the sixth run, he slumped to the ground and, convinced of the unlikelihood that he was currently under observation, pushed back his cowl to wipe the sweat from his brow. He debated taking a swig from the canteen, but decided against it. He wasn't very thirsty yet, just hot and sweaty. He forced himself to overlook the fact that increased sweat meant faster dehydration. He had a finite amount of water with him and no means of procuring more.

Unless…

Groaning, he hauled himself up off the floor and made his way to the sealed cartons. It was a slim chance at best, but perhaps there was something useful here. He ripped the top off and shook his head. Olive oil. If the rest of the crates contained the same, he was locked in with a small fortune in extra virgin olive oil. He knew that he should open the other boxes to check and he would. Soon. Right now, he needed to… to…

Batman smiled then. Actually, a crate of olive oil might be just the thing he needed.

"Well," Nightwing said dubiously, as they drove past a white wooden sign which read, 'Welcome to the Village of Ridgefield Park, New Jersey', "this is it. Probably a good thing we're in a rental car. I get the distinct impression the folks here don't see many Batmobiles cruising down Main Street."

"Could you crack open the window?" Daredevil queried. "I might be able to pick up a scent, now that we're driving a bit slower."

"Just a little," Nightwing replied. "The windows are tinted; I don't really want anyone seeing inside."

"Yeah, tomorrow's Bugle headline would probably read something like, 'Nightwing and Daredevil boost BMW. Spider-Man's involvement suspected'," Daredevil muttered. When Dick laughed, he added, "I only wish I was kidding. And since you've already got a reputation for joy-riding…"

Dick rolled the window on the passenger side down a crack. "Happy?"

Daredevil pinched his nose shut. "Not really. I think there's a landfill around here."

"I don't smell anything," Nightwing replied, sealing the window once more.

"Enhanced senses can be a double-edged sword at times," Daredevil admitted. "This is one of those times."

Dick sighed. "You're going to hate me in a minute. You know that, right?"

"You're driving there."

"I'm not sure how much of our surroundings you're picking up, but this is a small place. Very suburban, very quiet. I'm guessing that it would be hard to slip much by the neighbors. Not impossible," he added, "but since we can't very well conduct a house-to-house search, I'm thinking," he keyed a request into the onboard GPS system, "that the landfill might be a good place to start looking. Especially since," he smiled, "you told us earlier that Kingpin knows your identity. Does he know about your abilities?"

Matt frowned. "You know, I'm not positive. There are a few people who I've let in on the secret, or who figured it out on their own. They almost always start off assuming that I'm faking my blindness for cover." He smiled thinly.

"Hey. I know a guy who somehow manages to hide behind horn-rimmed glasses and a blue double-breasted suit in civilian life, with almost nobody the wiser," Dick retorted.

Matt's smile widened. "Duly noted. As I was saying, Fisk might know the whole truth, or he might think I'm faking it. It's not like I've ever sat down with him to discuss it."

"Ah. Because if Kingpin does know about your enhanced senses, and he knows that you can track someone by scent, it seems to me that holing up in a landfill might be a pretty good way to throw you off the trail."

Daredevil sighed. "You're making a compelling case."

"You're going to be okay?"

He sighed again. "Yeah. It'll take me a few minutes to get used to the smell, but it's not like Manhattan's a bed of roses either." He shook his head. "I guess you'd better crack that window open again."

Batman shook the bottle of olive oil he was holding, to assure himself that it was now empty. In the darkness, it was hard to tell if he'd managed to coat enough of the floor. The ventilation holes in the flooring were also a bit of a concern; the hand-truck wasn't going to travel as smoothly. It also wouldn't move as fast as he'd prefer; the metal was skid resistant.

Another barrage had hit the van while he'd been working. It hadn't done more than startle him, but he doubted it meant anything good.

He sighed. It would have to do. He went for another pass at the doors, trusting himself to remember where the oil coating started and release the hand-truck before he stepped—and slipped in it. The hand-truck careened forward, hitting the doors with greater force than it had previously.

The doors shifted fractionally forward and a crack of light appeared before him. A slight gust of air wafted in.

Batman stifled a groan. This was going to take a bit longer.

By the time that Nightwing found a place to park the BMW, the stench of the landfill was getting to him, too. He opened the door, got out and bent down to fumble with one of the compartments ringing the top of his left boot. "I think I might need to switch my nose plugs from my boots to my gauntlets," he admitted. "Need a pair?"

Daredevil's face was pale and he looked ill as he opened the passenger door and swung his legs out, but he shook his head. "Hold on to them, but I think I can manage. If I can just focus past the worst of it, I might be able to home in on a smell we can actually use. Or…"

Dick waited a moment for Matt to continue. Instead, the man in scarlet doubled over, heaving.

"Daredevil!"

Matt waved him off. "I'll be okay in a minute," he said. To Dick's surprise, he was smiling. "Do you hear that?"

Dick frowned in concentration. All he could hear were… "Sea gulls?" he asked dubiously.

"No." He emerged from the BMW and leaned heavily against the car for a moment, resting his head on the roof. When he straightened, Dick was standing next to him. "I think I've got it under control for now," he said. "I just heard a crashing sound from over there," he gestured vaguely to their left. "And now… tires on metal flooring…"

"You mean a car?" Nightwing asked.

Daredevil frowned. "No. I'm not hearing a motor and we're talking much smaller wheels. Like a cart, or maybe a hand-truck. This way." Matt strode purposefully in the direction he'd pointed out.

Dick followed on Matt's heels. A moment later, he was brought up short when a billy-club barred his path. "You don't want to step in that," Matt cautioned. Dick looked down, made a face, and nodded agreement. "In case you were wondering," Daredevil said, as they started off again, "this is why I prefer not to use nose plugs if I can help it." Before Dick could respond, he continued, "I just heard another bang. Come on."

Any other man would have passed out by now, whether from the exertion, the injuries, or the heat—which continued to climb as the day went on. Batman unscrewed the cap of his canteen and tried to restrict himself to one swallow. He ended up taking four. This wouldn't do. The water had to last him—at least, until he was out of here—and he was no closer to that than he had been an hour ago—if it had been an hour. He hadn't checked the heads-up display in his cowl when he'd started. And, while he could generally gauge the passage of time with reasonable accuracy, the way his head was pounding, it was too hard to focus.

He resealed his canteen and hauled himself up for another go with the hand-truck. It seemed heavier this time, harder to push across the skid-resistant floor. With an angry snarl, he thrust it before him, forcing himself to run the distance.

And then, his boot came down in the oil slick and his feet flew out from under him. He slammed into the floor landing heavily on his back and barely managing to tuck his chin down in time to protect his head from further injury. The hand-truck crashed into the doors, rebounded to within inches of his supine body, and then rolled away to bump less forcefully into the doors, rebound once more, slide again into the doors with a gentle tap, and stop.

Batman struggled to rise and managed to almost sit up before he slumped back to the floor. Drowsiness was setting in. Maybe conserving his strength wasn't such a terrible idea.

"The banging's stopped," Daredevil said. "I haven't heard it in about ten minutes."

"What about a heartbeat?"

Daredevil shook his head. "We might be too far away for that, still. Also… I couldn't help noticing when we fought that Batman knows ninjitsu."

"Among other martial arts," Nightwing nodded. "So?"

"Did he learn more from them than how to fight?" Matt asked. "Stick—my old sensei—taught me a bunch of other techniques that had nothing to do with combat. Not overtly, anyway. Stuff like acupressure, meditative healing… and slowing down your autonomic responses to conserve energy—or oxygen. If he has those same skills, it would make it harder for me to get a bead on him."

"Yep," Dick admitted. "He picked up a lot in the Far East. He's taught me a bit, too, though not everything. I've never tried tracking him by his heartbeat, but he's been known to fool my infra-red goggles before." He sighed. "So…"

"So, from here on in, I need you to see for both of us. I know we're heading in the right direction. We haven't veered off-course. But unless I hear—or smell—something else, odds are you'll spot whatever it was I was homing in on before I do." He grinned. "Lay on, MacDuff."

Dick smiled back.

For the next quarter hour, they picked their way past mounds of refuse of all descriptions and a few things they neither could nor wished to describe. "I've never realized how many people out there don't separate their trash," Dick muttered.

"Unfortunately," Daredevil replied, "I have. The dumpsters in Manhattan are every bit as bad, if not worse. Just on a smaller scale." He frowned. "Wait."

"You hear something?"

Daredevil nodded. "Faint. A grunt… coming from," he pointed to his right, "there. Not too far away, now."

Five minutes later, Nightwing let out a whoop. "I see the truck!" he exclaimed. "This way!"

Slowly, painfully, Batman picked himself up off the floor. In the dim light, he could make out the contours of the hand-truck. That wasn't the problem. The problem was getting it out of the oil without taking another fall.

He considered his options. Then, with a scowl, he unfastened his cape and spread it out on the floor before him. He took a cautious step forward, testing the ground before taking another.

"Holy Walter Raleigh, Batman!" a voice barely into puberty exclaimed in his mind. Despite himself, his lips twitched. The first time Robin had begun a sentence with the word 'Holy,' he'd been ten, and the word that had followed it very nearly hadn't been 'fuzz'. If the whole truth needed to be told, Batman had been thinking along the lines of the stronger phrase himself—which had probably led him to glower a bit more forcefully at his young protégé. The look on his face must have been exaggerated enough to seem comical, because for the next few years, Dick had been merciless with the sheer volume of items and historical figures to which he had ascribed sanctity. Batman had tolerated it stoically. It had still been better than the puns.

His fingers had just curled about the handles of the hand-truck, when he realized that he was still hearing Dick's voice—though it was quite a bit deeper than it had been in his memory. And it seemed to be coming from just outside the van.

"Batman? Are you in there?"

He opened his mouth to respond and was seized by a coughing fit. He slammed the hand-truck into the doors. "Here!" he rasped.

"Hang on!" Dick called. "Ma—Daredevil, help me get this junk out of the way."

In the darkness, Batman heard footsteps crunching on aluminum cans and the dull bang of heavier metals striking into each other.

"It'll just be another few minutes," Dick advised. "At least it's not like that cave-in in the Gotham catacombs, when we were worried that shifting the debris would bring more stuff down on our heads. This just looks like someone parked the van someplace relatively level and then when the next load of trash came, it got piled up around it."

"It might be worthwhile to see if Fisk has any connections with the sanitation department in these parts," Daredevil mused. "It would explain why, out of all the possible dump sites in this landfill, so much has been deposited right where this van is parked. A few more truckloads and there's a good chance it would've been buried before anyone thought to look for it."

Then, a bit louder, he added, "I think the doors are clear now—or they will be, as soon as we can get that chain off."

Batman heard the smile in his son's voice, as well as note of grim determination, when Nightwing said, "Leave that to me."

The padlocked chain that held the van doors shut yielded to the third lock pick that Dick tried. When he pulled the doors open, a heavily-laden hand truck rolled toward him. He stepped out of the way and it tumbled to the ground.

"Watch your step," Batman said hoarsely. "The floor's coated with oil."

"Great," Dick muttered. "Kingpin?"

Batman coughed and took a long draught from his canteen. "Not exactly," he said. With a groan, he struggled to rise. Something of his injuries must have been apparent to Dick, for the younger man nearly lunged toward him.

"Stay where you are," Nightwing ordered. "I'm coming in. Daredevil, get on his other side."

"I'm fine."

"Batman," Daredevil said apologetically, "You're not fine. You've got a broken rib and a hairline crack on your left collarbone. I can hear the edges of the fractures grinding together. Your breathing is labored and frankly? You sound like hell. Now we're going to get you out there. Then Nightwing's going back to where we parked the car. And then we're driving to a clinic I know where people like you and me can get medical treatment without having to answer a bunch of nosy questions."

"Wow," Dick breathed, as Matt climbed into the van. "I can see why they call you the Man without Fear."

Matt laughed. He had a feeling that the furious expression he was currently imagining on Bruce's face was only a pale shadow of reality.

"I suppose," Batman gritted through clenched teeth, "you're going to presume to lecture me about facing Fisk alone now." The two men were leaning against the side of the van. Bruce could see Nightwing's black-and-blue uniform, a small speck on the horizon, as the younger man headed off to get the car.

Daredevil shook his head. "That would leave me wide open for a retort involving pots and kettles," he admitted, "and when I did it, I ended up in worse shape than you are now, and I'd fought him before and I totally ignored everything I'd learned about his combat prowess on those earlier occasions. How are you doing?" he asked. "I wasn't exaggerating about your injuries."

"I know," Batman admitted.

"You said that Fisk went through your utility belt," Daredevil said slowly. "I'm guessing that means he got the data you extracted in the R&D lab."

Batman was silent for a moment. "No," he said with a smile in his voice. "He didn't."

Radar sense meant that Daredevil didn't need to turn his head to see the other man fumbling with his cape. "Damned collarbone," Batman grunted, as he ran his fingers along the edge of the garment. A moment later, he heaved a sigh that was equal parts pain and satisfaction, as he pressed a small object into Daredevil's hand.

"I knew that if I were captured, the belt would be the first thing they'd search," he said. "Fortunately, I have other options. Don't get too excited," he cautioned. "We still don't know what's on the drive."

"No," Daredevil nodded agreement, "but I refuse to believe that we all risked our lives last night to steal Fisk's embarrassing baby pictures. If we did, and if Dick wants to post them online, be advised that I'm not going to try talking him out of it."

Batman let out a long breath. "Noted."

"Sir?"

Wilson Fisk regarded his underling with an expressionless face and waited.

"We believe we know what Batman downloaded."

As Fisk listened, a muscle in his jaw twitched. "And you did not find the drive when you searched him?" he demanded.

"No, sir."

Fisk frowned. He closed his eyes and pondered the situation. For a moment, he regretted that he'd put out the order to various municipal sanitation departments in Bergen County regarding the specific location where they were to unload their refuse. It was only going to make the task that much harder now. "Send a team," he said finally. "By now, he should be feeling the effects of heat and dehydration. I doubt he'll be in a position to resist, but ensure that our people are carrying both tasers and tranquilizer guns, just in case. Assuming that he is alive, the team is to persuade him to divulge the whereabouts of the drive. If he has already succumbed to his condition, dispose of him."

"Um… sir?" The flunky tugged at his shirt collar nervously.

"Well?"

"I know something of the Batman," the man said. "At least, I've heard…" Something in Fisk's expression made him swallow hard. "Mr. Fisk, from what I know… it's possible that he might have escaped."

Fisk was silent for another moment. "Unlikely," he judged. "But if he has, send the word out. I know how I injured him. He'll need medical care. Have our people scout out every clinic, hospital, and private practice. I want the drive found and I want the man neutralized." He leaned forward, his eyes boring into those of his underling's with grim intensity. "…By any means necessary."