Steady On Forward

“There is no reason to bench me!” Dick argued into the comms, as he sat down against a gargoyle moodily.

“I’m just saying I don’t think you’re in a state right now to be patrolling. At least take tonight off,” Bruce said.

“I’m fine! There’s nothing wrong with me, and I can decide to patrol if I damn well want to.”

“Nightwing,” Bruce sighed, and Dick could tell he was pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m not trying to be your enemy here. You were clearly shaken up last night, and you still refuse to come to the Cave⁠—”

“Batman,” Dick interrupted, mimicking his tone patronisingly. “I’m a grown ass man and I can make my own decisions. I’m. Fine.”

“Come on B,” Jason said, before Bruce could respond. “How much does it take to get you to take a night off?” 

Jason wasn’t thrilled that Dick refused to take any time off from vigilante business, but he wasn’t gonna take his choices away. If Dick wanted to throw himself into his work and ignore everything else for now, then Jason would back him. And he’d be there if things started to get bad. “How would you like it⁠—”

“I allow A to screen me for injuries or complications if something like that happens!” Bruce retorted.

“The fuck you do. You’re the master of brushing off serious⁠—”

“Hey.” Barbara snapped, interrupting them. “Does anyone have a secondary comm turned on?”

They all responded in the negative.

“There’s an extra signal coming in, hold on, I’m changing…okay I think I’ve blocked them from listening⁠—”

“You think?” Bruce butted in.

“Batman,” Barbara said, tightly. “I’m trying, but I’ll need to leave it on to try and track the signal, so I can’t be sure they won’t find a way to listen in if they know what they’re doing.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry Oracle.” Bruce sounded tired. “Thank you. Are you certain it’s someone using one of our comms?”

“Yes,” she said. “Nightwing, did you recover the one you lost last night?”

“Uh. Crap, no, sorry. I was just out of it and I wasn’t thinking⁠—”

“Hey. Babydoll. It’s okay, it’s not on you,” Jason interrupted him. “I looked briefly, but these things are so damn small and it was too dark, I figured it didn’t matter. We’ve lost ‘em before,” he said to the rest.

“Names, Hood” Bruce reminded him tersely.

“You need help getting that giant stick out of your ass, B?” Jason retorted.

“If someone is listening in right now, we do not need to give them any extra information about ourselves. Oracle, have you found the location of the signal?”

“No. They did something to the tracker, and it’s making the location ping in all different places. Hold on.”

“I’m heading back toward Gotham General to look around the area. The woman had a gun, and I kicked it off the building. Gonna check if it’s gone too,” Dick said.