Thanks to Kathy and Debbie for the beta!

Chapter 9

The woman in the white nurse's uniform fastened the last bandage with a sigh. "Is there any point in telling you that you need a couple of weeks' rest before you try anything strenuous, or would I be better served going outside and talking to the brick walls?" she demanded.

Batman glowered. The nurse walked around to his other side and hooked up a smaller IV bag next to the one already on the pole. "I had the Punisher in here last week," she remarked. "He was almost as pleasant a conversationalist as you are. Thank you for considering the other patients and not swearing." She shook her head. "In all seriousness, your body needs time to heal. Until it does, you can't afford to take any more of the kind of damage I've just worked on. I'll… give you enough painkillers to last you a few days. They'll mask the seriousness of your injuries; they won't heal them any faster." When all she got from her patient was a noncommittal grunt, she sighed. "Stay here until the IV bags deplete; it'll be another couple of hours. I'll be back to remove the tubing when it's time." She met his angry glare with a level gaze. "I trust you know better than to rip it out yourself?"

What was it about medical staff that made them immune to the same scowls that gave hardened killers chills? Damned if he knew. Batman lay back on the cot with a grudging 'yes'. The nurse smiled.

After she'd left the room, Batman's gaze panned from Nightwing to Daredevil. "Not. One. Word," he growled.

"I see," Wilson Fisk replied. He ended the call. Then he punched a new number into his telephone.

"Spread the word," he ordered when the party on the other end picked up. "If Batman, Nightwing, or Daredevil are spotted anywhere in New York, I want to know the location. If they are on the move, I want the heading. If the observer is able to follow them, so much the better."

The delivery truck doors had been forced open from the outside, meaning that Batman had had help. Fisk frowned. He was positive that the truck hadn't been followed the night before, which made him wonder how anyone had located it. Although it didn't really matter, it would be useful information to have in order to prevent the same thing from happening again at some point in the future.

He sighed. Maybe he shouldn't have been so concerned that Batman's death appear accidental. A Teflon-coated bullet to the head would have resolved the matter quite handily. It would have been simple to get rid of the murder weapon. Among other businesses, he owned a scrap-metal processing plant—one which possessed the necessary equipment to convert a firearm into tiny pieces of steel in almost no time at all. It could do the same to a person, and Kingpin had considered making use of it for Batman's disposal. Ultimately, he'd decided that it was safest not to have the death occur on the premises of one of his holdings. He could have weathered the investigation, but he didn't need the added attention. And Daredevil—ever a thorn in his side—would have dug in all the more sharply.

So. Caution had won out, and now the Batman—and the data that he had stolen from Baron and Baron's R&D lab—had gone missing. A temporary inconvenience, to be sure, but one that Fisk wanted resolved as quickly as possible.

He forced himself to put the matter out of his mind for the time being and drew his attention to the files his secretary had readied for him in preparation for an afternoon business meeting.

"As long as I'm here," Matt said, as soon as he and Dick had helped Bruce inside the hotel suite and Dick ensured that the door was fully closed behind them, "I think we need to take some time to go over your case."

Bruce rested one hand on the back of a chair as he stopped, his posture tense. "I can't imagine you've had much opportunity to come up with anything new during the last day or so," he remarked.

"You'd be surprised how many brilliant ideas come to me just when I'm trying to fall asleep," Matt replied, not sounding in the least offended. "Look, once you get to the point where you can meditate past your pain, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you'll be blowing off any further business meetings until the Kingpin situation is resolved."

"Once it's resolved," Bruce snapped, "the legal matter might also be settled."

"I'm not disputing that," Matt said easily. "But if it isn't, then I'll be running around playing catch-up and far more likely to overlook something in my haste to come up with a defense strategy ahead of the court appointment. And frankly, Mr. Wayne, with the amount you're paying out in legal fees, I'm not comfortable doing any less than my best for you. Right now, we've both got some free time. Let's take advantage."

Bruce regarded Matt stonily for a moment. "I'm going into my bedroom to lie down," he said. "If you want to make use of the desk in there, you'll probably find it a bit quieter. Especially since Dick's probably going to want to watch TV in the main area."

"Hey, Worlds Away is on Netflix. If I can really get an uninterrupted 90 minutes to watch it…"

Matt frowned. "I don't think I'm familiar with that one."

"Cirque du Soleil," Bruce clarified. "Their films are primarily acrobatic ballets; music and movement with little to no dialogue."

"Ah," Matt nodded. "Not really the kind of thing I could follow, then, unless I was watching it live." He smiled apologetically. "My radar sense isn't much good at detecting movement on a screen."

"I'm hoping to get some stunt ideas," Dick said. "That and every so often, I see someone I used to know in the cast." When Matt showed his interest, the younger man added, "My parents and I were aerialists. We toured with Haley's circus during the regular season, but when we went down to Florida in the wintertime, we stayed in a trailer park with a lot of other circus people and I got friendly with some of the other kids in my line of work. Every so often, I spot one of their names in the credits."

"Ever wish you were one of them?"

Dick considered. "Sometimes, I guess. I mean, I'm not jealous or anything. I think I'm using my skills for something a lot more meaningful as Nightwing. And then I watch a movie like this and, for a little while, I think about the way it used to be: just dancing in the air, almost a hundred feet up, feeling like you're flying and not having to calculate the best place to land if you're going to disarm six armed thugs in five seconds flat." He shrugged. "Then I pick up a distress call over police band and I go suit up and take a running leap off a skyscraper."

Matt grinned. "We're taking an aerial tour of Manhattan before you leave town." Through the open bedroom door, both men heard a throat clear impatiently. "Meanwhile…" he added.

"Yeah," Dick said. "I'll leave you to it. Let me know if the set's too loud."

"Will do," Matt replied. Then he headed into the bedroom and shut the door behind him.

The movie was nearly over when the bedroom door opened again and Dick heard footsteps—a lighter tread than Bruce's—approach.

"Okay," Matt said. "He's out. Um… asleep."

Dick looked up at that. "Tell me you didn't just spend an hour and a half in there making sure he'd stay put."

Matt sat down in an armchair next to the sofa where Dick was situated. "No, I really did want to review his case." He leaned back, laced his fingers together, and stretched his arms over his head with a slight gasp. "Besides, the Night Nurse knew what she was doing."

"Clarify?"

Matt's lips twitched and a faint smile came and went on his face. "Going to her for help has one major advantage and one major disadvantage. The advantage: she knows the kind of stuff we do and the kind of people who would come after us if they knew we were… um… indisposed. We can count on her discretion."

"And the disadvantage?"

Matt sighed. "She knows just how stubborn we can be and how likely we are to develop selective hearing when it comes to expert medical advice. I'm speculating here, but I'd hazard a guess that when she hooked up that IV drip, it served two purposes: the obvious one—he was dehydrated and whatever else she gave him probably did kick in faster than had he taken it orally; and the sneaky one."

"Sneaky?"

Matt nodded. "From personal experience? When you're on an adrenaline high, you can do a lot of stuff you not only shouldn't be doing, but shouldn't be physically capable of doing. Just in case he had any adrenaline left in him after spending hours in that van, plus the drive back to Manhattan, that time he spent on the cot with the IV probably got rid of it."

"Oh, sheesh." Dick shook his head. "Well… here's hoping she doesn't compare techniques with the doctor we go to back in Gotham. I don't think Batman would appreciate anyone giving her any ideas!"

"Hey," Dick said some time later, "how much longer can you stick around?"

Matt shrugged. "Bruce zoned out in the middle of our discussion earlier. There are a few things I want to run past him before I proceed any further in planning my arguments, so I'm waiting until he wakes up. And yes, he's still in the other room. Snoring."

"You're sure?" Dick asked with a smile in his voice. "Knowing Bruce, I wouldn't put it past him to have recorded himself sleeping, just so he could play it on a loop and sneak out the window."

"If you actually believed that, you would have gotten up to check on him," Matt returned. "But if it makes you feel better, I'm picking up his heartbeat too."

Dick got up and walked to the window. "I've been debating something," he said. "That hard drive Bruce got; I know he'd like to decrypt it here on his own. And part of me is telling me I should respect that, or at least, wait until he's up to suggest an alternative."

"But…"

Dick smiled. "But Titans Tower is about forty minutes away if I take the rooftops to the docks and grab a T-Barge. From there, I can ask Cyborg to take a gander. He interfaces with computers, so it shouldn't be a problem. If, for some reason, he can't help, the Tower also has a JLA transporter. I can borrow it to get back to Gotham and deliver the drive to Oracle." He walked back toward the sofa. "Cyborg is usually faster, but Oracle's been briefed on what's going on. She'll be able to zero in on the most important stuff and possibly connect it with the other research she's been doing on Fisk and Baron and Baron."

"And you want me here to… what? Cover for you?" Matt gave him a pained smile. "I'm not sure that's my place."

"No," Dick sighed. "I wouldn't ask that. I just don't feel right about leaving Bruce alone without telling him where I'm heading. Plus, you were there when the Night Nurse went over those symptoms to look out for. If there's a real medical emergency, I want to know someone's here who can—and will—dial 911." He sighed again. "I have a feeling that if Batman had been bitten by a blue-ringed octopus, he'd be more concerned about his identity being compromised than about the effects of tetrodotoxin on his respiratory system. I'm not even kidding!" he exclaimed when Matt snickered. Then, more seriously, "You can stay?"

Matt nodded. "I was hoping to patrol a bit later. Fisk has a few people I can usually persuade to talk to me. But that wouldn't be until later this evening."

"Yeah, I should be back before it starts to get dark," Dick said, nodding. He grinned. "I guess they teach you all about being persuasive in law school."

"Well," Matt admitted, "I did study rhetoric, but the people I'm planning to speak with tend to respond better to the techniques I picked up at Fogwell's Gym in the 'Kitchen. Um… Hell's Kitchen."

Dick smiled. "I know."

Nightwing waited until he was on the roof of the hotel before he changed into costume. He was halfway to the docks when he suspected that his movements were being tracked. He wasn't positive, but it seemed like every time he glanced down to get his bearings, he could see someone looking up and speaking into a cell phone.

He frowned. Maybe Bruce's usual paranoia was rubbing off on him, but just to be on the safe side, he resolved to leave the Tower via transporter—and in civvies. If he materialized in Central Park and took the subway back to the hotel, nobody would be the wiser.

Cyborg examined the hard drive with an annoyed expression on the half of his face that could convey emotion. "I can see why Batman took the whole thing," he said sourly. "It's got one of the highest levels of encryption I've encountered to date. We're talking S.H.I.E.L.D-style precautions. Where'd he pick it up?"

"Um… Wall Street investment and brokerage firm."

Cyborg snorted. "Yeah, right."

"Which may or may not be connected with organized crime. Does the name Wilson Fisk mean anything to you?"

The other man drew in his breath. "Not someone whose bad side you'd want to be on."

"Too late."

"I figured. Be careful, Dick. He may not have powers, but treat him the way you would Luthor and don't underestimate the guy." His expression lightened. "Should be easy for you to keep in mind; they kind of look alike. Or would if Luthor put on a few pounds or Fisk lost some."

"Judging by the way things went down the other night," Dick replied, "that's not fat; it's muscle. Couple of punches from him and you might wonder if Lex's green armor might pack less of a wallop."

"You have to be kidding me."

"Well," Dick hedged, "semi-kidding. Either way, you'll want to know if anyone got the license of the truck that hit you. So, how long do you think it'll be before you crack it, Vic?"

"Any reason you aren't involving Oracle?"

Dick shrugged. "I'd have to leave New York to bring her the drive. You're here."

"So you don't mind if I discuss this with her? It'll go a bit faster and she probably knows what you're looking for."

"No, that's fine. I'll give her a heads-up that you'll be calling," Dick smiled.

Vic smiled back. "Check back with me tonight when you get in from patrol—you are patrolling tonight, right?"

"Probably."

"If you aren't, then check back with me when you wake up tomorrow. If I haven't cracked it, I'll have a better idea of how much longer I'll need."

"Will do."

On his way back to the Ritz, he called Matt's cell phone. "About that aerial tour you were suggesting? How does tonight sound?"

"You haven't said anything," Dick prompted. Bruce was sitting up in bed, his expression stony, while Dick and Matt lounged on opposite sides of the doorway.

"Would it make a difference?"

Both younger men appeared to consider the question. "Not really," Matt admitted. "Though truthfully, I don't need backup to shake down a few lowlifes; if you don't want to be alone—"

"—Yeah," Dick cut in. "I don't mind keeping you company."

Bruce glared at both of them. "I do not need a sitter!" he snapped.

"Good," Matt nodded. "It's settled then." He turned his head toward Dick. "Top of the Chrysler building at eight?"

"Suits me fine."

Dick waited until Matt left before he went into his own bedroom and pulled a small plastic case out of his desk drawer. He brought it back into Bruce's room. "This isn't approval," he said softly. "This is me realizing that if you're planning on doing your own reconnaissance, even though we both know it's a lousy idea with your injuries," he dropped the case onto the bed, "you'll probably have a better chance of limping back here if you restock your utility belt. I grabbed a few things at the Tower."

Bruce sank back against the pillow. "You and Daredevil know this city better than I do," he admitted grudgingly. "I'll stay in and await your report. Your full report," he added with a stern expression that was betrayed by the faintest hint of humor in his eyes.

Surprise flashed on Dick's face for a moment. Then it disappeared, replaced by a broad smile. "Yes, sir!" he said, snapping off a salute.

Bruce sighed. "Was that really necessary?"

Dick shook his head, still smiling. "I'll let you rest, then."

He was almost out of the room when Bruce called after him, "Dick? Thanks."

"Um…" Nightwing hesitated as he read the small sign in the bar window. "Do you come here often?"

Daredevil paused. "I suppose so. It's one of the better watering holes when you're looking to meet up with a certain crowd, why?"

"Do things usually get out of hand when you pop in?"

"Define 'out of hand'."

Nightwing fought to keep the laughter out of his voice. "There's a sign in the window that reads, and I quote: No Masks; No Costumes; No Nun-chaks; Violators will be barred."

Daredevil sighed. "I keep telling Josie they're billy-clubs," he said.

"She put up that sign just for you?"

"I guess it's kind of flattering," Daredevil admitted. "Or I guess I'd find it flattering if I could read it." He tilted his head quizzically. "Would you be more comfortable waiting outside?" he asked with phony solicitousness.

Nightwing laughed. "How many laws are we planning to break in there?"

"Are you just counting individual laws or each violation as a separate instance? Because if it's the latter, it really depends on how many people choose to get involved."

"Yeah, it'd be a little hypocritical to rack up the assault and battery charges but shy away from violating a house policy that might even be termed discriminatory. In fact," he let out a low whistle, "I'm almost sure that sign violates our constitutional rights or something."

Daredevil coughed. "Costumed heroes aren't protected under any anti-discrimination legislation in this country that I'm aware of. Sorry."

"You're sorry?" Nightwing echoed. "You mean, you're just going to let an unfair policy stand uncontested? Sheesh. If my best friend, Arsenal, were here, he'd be inside already staging a sit-in."

Daredevil tried not to laugh. He nearly succeeded. "Well," he said straight-faced, "as committed as I am to upholding the law, I suppose that the circumstances might warrant some form of unlawful protest."

"Darn straight!"

"You know something?" Matt grinned. "You're right. We shouldn't take this lying down."

"Nope!"

"We have every right to go in there!"

"Uh-huh."

"Besides," Daredevil added, "It's not as though I actually saw the sign myself. Or as though I'd let it stop me…"

The barkeep's expression hardened when the two vigilantes walked in. "Didn't you guys see the sign?" she demanded.

"Yes," Nightwing replied, "and you'll be hearing from my lawyer."

Before the middle-aged blonde woman could respond, Daredevil held up a placating hand. "We're just looking for information, Josie," he said.

Neither the barkeep's voice nor her expression softened so much as an iota. "I don't want any trouble here," she growled.

Daredevil shook his head sadly. "That's really up to your clientele, isn't it? If someone tells me what I need to know peacefully, we'll be gone in a minute—Nightwing! Dodge left!" As the words left his mouth, he flung himself to the right, as Nightwing reacted automatically to the order. The wooden truncheon whistled as it swung downward through the empty space where the two men had been standing. Off-balance, their would-be attacker staggered, made an effort to right himself, overbalanced, and reeled backwards, stumbling into another patron. The beefy man surged up with an angry bellow and banged his empty beer stein on the table. The glass broke and he lunged for the first man with the jagged remains. In less than three seconds, the room became a free-for-all.

Nightwing looked at Josie. "Would you consider that a nun-chak, too?" he asked innocently, gesturing toward the truncheon that the other patron still clenched in his fist. Before she could answer, he'd unholstered his escrima. "Because, if so… I guess you'd have to lump these in with it."

Josie exhaled loudly. "I just had the front window replaced," she pleaded. "I can't afford to keep doing it."

"Understood," Nightwing nodded. "In that case…" He flipped on top of the bar, pulled out his grappling line, and waited. When he saw a chair go flying toward the window, he cast the line, hooked the chair, and whipped it back, looping the cord around four brawlers and clipping a fifth with the chair in passing. He leaped lightly down from his perch to secure the other end of the line to the low railing that separated the bar area from the dining room and tied it off. Then he returned to his original position, readying a new line.

Daredevil seemed to be zeroing in on specific targets, while ignoring others. Nightwing figured that his crimson companion probably had a list of 'usual subjects' to round up. And since Daredevil apparently was managing just fine on the interrogation score—and was easily handling the few brave souls who were attempting to sneak up on him, Nightwing opted to keep watching the window and make sure that none of the brawlers got trampled or otherwise seriously hurt.

Josie observed silently, wincing when the odd patron flew into a wall or took a harder-than-average blow. When ten minutes passed and the window remained intact, she turned to the fryer.

Less than five minutes later, the only patrons left in the place were the fifteen or so whom Nightwing had managed to corral, three other men groaning on the floor, and the thug that Daredevil was currently interrogating. The others had fled, leaving behind some broken crockery, several smashed chairs, a two-top table cracked neatly in half… and an untouched plate glass window.

Nightwing jumped off the bar and started walking toward Daredevil. He stopped when he heard the clatter of plates and glasses on polished wood. He looked over his shoulder to see two glasses of water and a sampler plate of appetizers—wings, mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers, and chicken fingers—on the bar.

"Don't think I'm making a habit of this," she snapped. "But this is the first time in months that you costumed creeps have come in here and I haven't had to call the glass guy after you left."

Daredevil approached, disbelief etched on his face. "Don't tell me you're getting soft, Josie," he exclaimed.

"Only when you bring in quality eye candy," she shot back, giving Nightwing an appraising smile. "Now eat up and get out before you scare off any new business."

Daredevil passed Nightwing a disposable napkin as they walked out of Josie's. "You've got blue cheese sauce on your chin," he said.

"I'm not going to ask how you know that," Nightwing replied as he accepted the napkin and they turned down an alley.

"Radar sense shows a slight change in the shape of your jaw's contour, sense of smell picks up a concentration of the sauce and, while that glob is moving pretty slowly, it is moving enough for me to pick up the slide. If I had to guess, I'd say that you probably react to a few thousand sensory cues every day yourself without thinking about what you're doing." Daredevil shrugged. "For the most part, I don't think about how I notice what I notice unless someone asks me about it."

"I'm not making you self-conscious about it or anything, am I?" Nightwing asked, suddenly serious. "I mean, if I'm being annoying, you can tell me."

Daredevil shook his head. "I don't mind. And," he sighed and smiled sheepishly, "it's possible that I was showing off. A little." He reached up to catch hold of a fire escape landing and swung up into a handstand. Nightwing followed. "There aren't a lot of people who know that Daredevil is blind," he went on, as they continued their ascent to the roof of the low-rise. "When they find out, there's usually a period of time where it's almost like they…" He hesitated for a moment, weighing his words as he pulled out one billy-club and hit a stud at its base to release a length of cable. Taking hold of it, he spun the club over his head, extending the line further. "It's like they forget everything they saw me do before they realized I couldn't see."

The billy club soared over the alley to loop around the metal chimney of the building on the other side. A moment later, something whistled past him and he heard a dull clang as Nightwing's metal grappling hook snagged the roof railing of the same building. The two vigilantes swung over and calmly retracted their lines. "Maybe I was trying to pre-empt that just now."

"Maybe I can kind of relate," Nightwing replied after mulling over what his companion had said. "I mean, it's not exactly the same thing, but you know that I'm one of the few Titans without any kind of superpower. There've been times when I've been the only one. It doesn't happen all that often, but every now and then, someone on the team—usually someone new—gets… um… over-protective. It has happened, though." He sighed. "It's never fun when it does."

Matt nodded. "I can see how it wouldn't be."

"You find anything out in Josie's?"

"Yeah. No word on the contents of that drive, but Kingpin already knows that Batman's free and he's got the underworld looking for him. Chances are there's a car down below that's going to start tailing us as soon as we get moving, figuring we'll lead it to him."

Nightwing grinned. "And just yesterday, I was lamenting about how long it had been since I took anyone on a wild goose chase across Manhattan. And now, I'm about to do it twice in one day—I forgot to mention someone tried shadowing me on my way to the docks earlier." He frowned. "I know time of day doesn't matter much to you, but for me, the city looks pretty different after dark. Have there been any changes to the skyline in the last couple of years you want to mention?"

"A few," Daredevil said lightly. "I'll point them out as we go."

When the two vigilantes swung across the street and headed south, they pretended that they didn't notice the Honda compact that pulled away from the curb and joined the slow-moving traffic.

The streets were a bit different, as were the faces of the local lowlifes, but the crimes were the same—as were the thugs' reactions to vigilante interference. There was always someone who tried pulling a gun, a couple who resorted to blades, chains, or fists, one or two who tried to hide in the shadows… and a whole lot who broke and ran.

"Let 'em go," Daredevil advised, when a gang of adolescents high-tailed it down an alley, almost before their cans of spray paint hit the pavement.

Nightwing studied the wall critically. "I know you can't tell," he said thoughtfully, "but at least one of them has some real talent."

"Thanks for the tip," Daredevil replied. "I know a few people who might be able to reach out to them, maybe get them on a better path. I've heard about some companies hiring graffiti artists to create murals and such."

"Yeah. WE's done it before in Gotham. I can mention it to Bruce; if we are opening a branch of the company here, it might be a good PR move." He stifled a yawn.

Daredevil smiled. "I guess we can call it a night. Come on; we'll swing by my office and I'll return your favor from the other night. I keep some extra suits around in case I don't have time to go home after a late patrol."

"And then just take the subway back to the hotel with our tail none the wiser," Nightwing nodded. "Worked earlier, too."

Daredevil frowned. "Are you positive about that?" he asked. "Could you have been shadowed then?"

"No." Briefly, he explained about the transporter. "…So, unless we're dealing with people who can monitor that kind of activity, and were in Central Park when I showed up in civvies, and know what I look like in civvies… just, no."

"Okay," Daredevil said, smiling again. "Just checking."

The sky was starting to get lighter when they slipped in through the window of Nelson and Murdock. Dick changed quickly into the suit that Matt had handed him. It was a near-perfect fit and—much as he avoided suits and ties whenever possible—he had to admit that this one wasn't half-bad.

"Mind if I use your phone?" he asked after he'd changed.

"Afraid Bruce is worried?"

Dick shook his head. Then he worried that Matt might not have seen it. "No, if I were to call him at this hour, that would worry him. I want to give Cyborg a call," he explained as he picked up the phone. "See if he's got anything off of that drive, yet."

"Ah."

His former teammate picked up on the first ring. "Hello?"

"It's me." Dick said quickly. "Find anything?"

Cyborg took a deep breath. "You could say that. I think you should plan on paying us another visit later today. Bring Batman with you; he's going to want to hear this too…"