Chapter 14
Bruce shot out of the parking lot and loosened his tie. Lightning struck in the distance and the migraine behind his eyes threatened to grow. Rain pelted his windshield; he punched the wipers on.
“Call Alfred.”
While the phone rang, Bruce shrugged out of his suit coat, tossed it haphazardly into the back, and shut off the radio. Cars filled the streets and pedestrians waited under tightly clutched newspapers and rooftop eaves. He took two exits and made his way across the city as quickly as possible.
“Sir?” Alfred’s calm voice did little relax him.
“That meeting was completely unnecessary,” Bruce complained with a clenched jaw. “There was no reason why I needed to be there.”
“Sir – ”
“And why hasn’t Jason called back?” Bruce hissed. “I’ve called him four times. Did you hear him? He nearly compromised - ”
“Sir – ”
“They should have been out of there hours ago. What is Dick doing? I need to be there.”
“Sir,” Alfred spoke in a firm voice reminiscent of Bruce’s childhood, “Dick and Jason have worked independently for years. As has Tim. This is a delicate situation.”
Trees blurred outside the windows and Bruce glanced again at his dashboard. He imagined the older man’s patient yet exasperated face. “If this is a delicate situation then we shouldn’t have allowed Jason to participate at all.”
“Allowed?” Alfred repeated, as if the word were foreign.
“And has Barbara contacted us with anything new?” Bruce took a hard left turn down a winding hidden driveway. Signs marking the land as ‘private’ dotted the road. “What is she doing?”
Alfred sighed. “She has her hands full.”
Bruce knew that. Oracle had stopped accepting his calls hours ago. “I know she’s busy.”
“Do you, sir?”
He pulled into the garage and forcefully shut his car off. Bruce took a deep breath, closed his eyes and slammed his hands once on the steering will.
Inside, the house stretched out around the millionaire, empty and quiet. He navigated the long halls without thinking.
Alfred waited in the cave, hunched over a report and rubbing at his eyes in exhaustion. His suit remained perfectly pressed.
“As I was saying,” Alfred continued without looking up, “Barbara is keeping our communication systems up, providing back up to Nightwing and Red Hood, and scrubbing Tim’s face from all facial recognition programs. Stark has run Tim’s face through seventeen in the last two days.”
“I thought it was ten?”
His friend pulled out a file and handed it to Bruce without shifting his gaze from the paper in front of him.
Bruce flipped open the file and clenched his jaw. “Stark shouldn’t even have access to these last three databases.”
“Keep that in mind the next time you call up Miss Gordon for an update.”
“I know that.” Bruce replied evenly. Barbara could keep Tim’s identity safe. There was no one he trusted more to go up against Stark’s tech and connections. He just wished he could make her answer her phone.
“Good, sir.” The butler flipped a page and Bruce rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “Now, you need to put more faith in the men and women you train.”
“Stark is a menace,” the Gotham socialite responded hotly. “Who knows what the pompous asshole will try to pull. He’s a train wreck. I don’t know how S.H.I.E.L.D. worked with him at all -”
“Sir – ”
“Father?” Damian emerged from the far end of the room in Robin’s reinforced suit, removed his gauntlets, and stretched his neck to the side. A fine sheen of sweat covered his forehead and he drank heavily from a water bottle. “We're going?”
The young teen looked hungry at the prospect.
“We are not going,” Bruce started, “but I –”
“No,” Alfred interrupted. “Sorry, Master Damian, but neither of you will be taking a trip to New York.”
“But – ”
“But – ”
Damian and Bruce started at the same time.
“No.” He reiterated, finally looking up. Dark circles lined his eyes. “Going would be a foolish decision.”
“This isn’t a game,” Bruce pointed out. “What will we do if the Avengers decide to detain Dick, Jason, and Tim indefinitely? What if they somehow stumble onto their identities? What if they arrest them?”
“And what good would it be in any of those situations to have you there?” His longtime friend countered. “How could ‘Batman’ help at all?”
Bruce paused, mind spinning. He crossed his arms.
Alfred stood and patted Bruce’s arm as he passed. “Have confidence in your former charges.”
Damian pulled off his belt and perched on a nearby chair. His mouth turned down in a pout Bruce recognized from photos of himself as a child. “They get to have all the fun.” He mumbled and grabbed the solvent to remove his mask.
Alfred’s eyebrows rose and he sighed. “I don’t believe they are having much fun at all, Master Damian.”
Bruce walked over to the nearest print out of Stark’s garish tower and eyed the blueprints for the millionth time. He peeked under them and flipped through the personal files of employees they’d been able to get their hands on.
“Were you able to find out anything about this?” Bruce gestured to the last name on the list of medical staff. Unlike the others, no picture accompanied it.
Damian plucked the file out of Bruce’s hand and glanced at it. The skin around his eyes looked red and irritated from the mask and his blue eyes stood out starkly. “Nurse Ripley? What a terrible hack job. If Alfred hasn’t looked at this, I could.”
“Thank you, Master Damian.” Alfred smiled.
The teen nodded and kicked his feet out. His limbs looked long and gangly; he'd needed a new suit for a second time in the last six months. He disconnected his cape and let it fall unceremoniously over the back of the chair.
"Really though, what Dick and Jason need is some Avenger’s nemesis to show up.” Damian stated. He leaned forward enough to rest his elbows on his knees and finished his water bottle.
“Nemesis?” Bruce asked.
“Yeah.” Damian shrugged and bit at his thumbnail. “It would make it easier for Dick and Jason to slip away with the invalid if there was some nut-job threatening to blow up New York.”
Bruce frowned, ignored the jab, and flipped pages. Nemesis? He tapped his fingers on his thigh before pulling out his phone and scrolling through his contacts. There.
“I think you’re right, Alfred.” Bruce grinned and looked up. “Batman won’t be able to do much.”
The older man eyed him warily. “Sir?”
“I don’t think I can scrounge up an adversary for the Avengers, but I know I can find one for Tony Stark.”
“Father?” Damian asked.
“I think maybe Bruce Wayne needs to take a trip to New York.”