Chapter Text
Lost Boy’s Chapter 8: Mistaken Identities part 4
Thankfully by the time Spoiler arrived in the very early hours of the morning, Nightwing had already finished typing up his report from his interactions with Danny. Noting in the cold calculating way he was taught the small slips of as of yet un-named powers; something close to density shifting, only when Meghan used that self-same ability it did not travel up his spine as a cold chill.
“Big lame that he didn’t wake up on my shift.” Spoiler voiced as she leaned over Nightwing’s sitting form—the man unknowingly mirroring Duke’s position over his laptop just hours ago (only their homework was different) Nightwing groaned as he sent off the document, rolling his neck and standing up. He pressed his finger to his lips as he stood, shifting the curtains to the side quietly. There was no slow but steady beeping any longer. Instead simply the quiet breaths of deep slumber. So unlike the shallow pattern from his coma.
“Awe!” Spoiler whispered. Nightwing hooked a thumb over his shoulder. They stepped a bit away and kept their voices low.
“Consider yourself lucky—from the moment he woke up the poor kid was the dictionary definition of anxiety.” He murmured, crossing his arms.
“Yeah but you like… literally chased him too.” She teased before adding, “why are we whispering, hasn’t he slept enough?”
The man lifted a hand to his chin in thought. “Well it’s not like we have a set game plan yet, or did Bat’s finally figure something out?”
Raising her hands skyward to accompany her shrug Spoiler rolled her eyes. Nightwing smirked.
“Thought so.”
“Hey, at least it’s a team effort!” Nightwing couldn’t agree more. It was a treat to work alongside his family again—being a lone vigilante was freeing in many ways—but it also meant he had to do all the footwork and also all the crimefighting (which could be exhausting) add that to literally never having backup close by and it could be a touch disheartening at times.
“Has Oracle or R.R. found anything about Danny? My comms have been off.” He didn’t like to write and listen at the same time. Like—he most definitely could, they were all multi-taskers. But oftentimes he’d find himself typing out words from the conversation he was hearing rather than his actual report.
Only as the question left his lips he clocked her confusion, it was subtle—she was Batman trained after all. But so was he, and for years longer.
“Mystery boy has a name?” Glee was swiftly replacing the previous momentary puzzlement.
It was Nightwing’s turn to show his own bemusement. “Yeah, haven’t you reviewed the body cam footage? Or the audio?”
Understanding filled her eyes above the purple mask. “Right… so-”
“—So you should probably catch me up.”
“Same to you! Why go over your report when you’re right in front of me? Nightwing cracked a tired smile (he had a night of patrolling afterward all this still)
“You first please—if I say anything else it’ll be by memory rote.”
Even though Spoiler’s mask covered everything beneath her eyes Nightwing could tell she was making a face. “Fine—first of all” She held up one finger, “all of our recording devices like—glitched out.”
Nightwing’s eyebrows rose and he could feel the moldable material of his mask shift with his expression. Bat tech couldn’t be incapacitated by normal means, or easily. “Blackout?” Maybe he’d been wrong—the leage of shadows was definitely capable of that. Though at what capacity they were involved was brought into immediate question—instead of Danny being a willing—
“You’re getting ahead of yourself there.” Spoiler tweaked his nose, “let me finish before interrupting again or I’ll do more than just boop ya!”
Nightwing wanted to mutter that she’d been spending too much time with Harley—but managed to keep that to himself.
“You’re thinking face is so obvious—but no, I didn’t say blackout or EMP or any of the usual reasons. Just… glitching, like staticky at times. The audio comes through clearly one moment, garbled the next.”
Comprehension clicked into place. “might be something odd tied to his meta abilities.”
Spoiler slapped her forehead with the heal of her gloved palm, “oh gosh duh! No one back at the cave even thought of that! Wat ‘bout you Oracle?”
“I… didn’t even consider it as a possibility truth be told.”
“Score!” The man teased. “Nightwing for the win!’
“Ya know it’s cringe to refer to yourself in third person right?”
“We literally all have to do it to keep our identities safe.”
“Yeah—but still… ya know what, no not today, today I’m going to stay on task. Moving on though, Red Robin looked into names that our boy—”
“—Danny—”
“—Right Danny, let slip while he was still around to actually physically hear.”
Nightwing didn’t even have to comb through his memory for the names, since he’d just completed his report. “A Vlad and the Fentons.”
“Yup, those are the ones. But there are no Vlads, nor Fentons tied to the Leage of shadows at this time… or at least that we know of. And Vlad is a pretty… specific and unforgettable—”
“—You mean unfortunate.”
“—name even without a last name tied to it.” Spoiler raised her voice, ignoring Nightwing’s commentary.
“Right right.”
“He’s been skimming obsessively through every persons’ history that pings those two names looking for any clues. Pretty sure he’s setting up an algorithm cuz there’s… a lot, suffice to say. While he’s been following those weak ass leads Oracle’s been digging into the rabbit hole that is … um…
“Phantom, Guys in White, and Red Huntress.” Nightwing and Oracle supplied in tandem.
“Once more to no avail.” Oracle added in, taking over for the moment. “Any information that pings our system over ‘Phantom’ is, shocking none of us, tied to Kal-el and the phantom zone. Unlikely there’s any ties there—but we’ve stumbled over weirder coincidences. So I’ve shot Superman a line. Just in case. I’ve also sent up the only sample of Danny’s blood that was viable, as our systems didn’t get a single hit. Which, by the way, was a chore unto itself with how swiftly his cells deteriorate! I might be the smartest outta all of you, but not with chemistry!”
“You’re so very welcome—” if Red Robin were in front of them at that moment he would definitely be bowing… to absolutely no one’s applause. “I had to bust out the ol’ catalytic agents in order to stop the hemoglobin from degrading.”
“And we should have that back in a few hours, along with some answers I’m hoping. In other news… There’s literally nothing that comes up in any search around whoever or whatever the guys in white are. And the exact opposite problem is popping up with this ‘Red Huntress.’ THERE ARE TOO MANY HEROS AND VILLIANS WITH ‘RED’ AS THE PREFIX!”
“Hey now—” Red Robin joined them on the coms—voice thick with exhaustion even over the line.
Everyone paused for just a moment.
“Huh- guess Red Hood’s too busy to step in and defend his naming game.” Spoiler snickered.
“Like we haven’t heard that exposition a thousand times before.” R.R. mumbled.
Nightwing huffed out an overly large put upon sigh. “So basically we remain firmly stuck on square one.”
“Also—having read over our beloved common-color scheme Robin—” Said vigilante sputtered over the comms, “can we just, for a moment, share some… idk—concern? Horror? Over the, and I quote “Vlad’s pet hunters’ comment—like wth is that supposed to mean? What in the world do they hunt?”
Nightwing was too preoccupied with mouthing the acronyms Spoiler just used in her every day talking to in-real-life people speech, to answer right away. Lips forming around the individual letters exaggeratedly. ‘W-T-F…I-D-K’
“You know who I’ve deduced could be tied to the specific term ‘hunter?’” Robin chimed in for the first time.
“Oh hey baby bat! What are you still doing up?”
“I am not a child with a set bed time Nightwing.” Their youngest hissed. “The answer is the league of shadows, who in fact, actively hunt people.”
“Ugh not this again.” There was a definitive thunk that transferred as Red Robin hopefully passed out finally.
Robin simply sniffed –audibly.
Nightwing dropped his playful demeanor with a well practiced ease, slipping back into a more serious air at the memory of a boy clinging to his hand while getting stitches replaced over a wound nobody living should have.
“I know why…some of us might still think that he has some sort of connection there—but… I don’t know what to tell you Robin—that’s not what I saw—that’s not what we saw today. Not what my gut instincts—"
“—It’s a good thing we don’t base our cases solely off of gut instincts then. There’s more evidence pointing towards league ties than not. Just because he’s tried to confound us with random names and titles means nothing!”
Spoiler and Nightwing traded looks.
“That’s enough.” Batman’s voice cut through the budding argument as if he were standing right behind each of them. “We can only go off of the facts as we know them and follow the evidence wherever it leads. None of you should need reminded of that.”
R.R. didn’t even take a beat to pretend to be properly chastised. “yeah. After all we’re calling in some extra, specialized help!”
Spoiler matched Nightwing's smile. “Black Bat is coming home?”
Black Bat is coming home.