Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Well, Mr. Jeffries," Sophie – or rather, Ludmila Popova, official representative of a wealthy overseas tech consortium that was definitely not a thinly veiled front for any shady Eastern European government, no matter how much they were funded like one, wink nudge – said with a charming smile. "I must say you write a very clean code. My supervisors are pleased to accept this contract."

Her voice was lightly accented, just enough to pique Marc Jeffries' carefully cultivated interest in appearing worldly without triggering his American distrust of the foreign. They were in his little Silicon Valley startup, one of those ones with no walls and no comfortable furniture but lots of snacks. And a ping pong table.

"Pleased to hear it, very pleased," Jeffries said, beaming. "Let's just dot those Ts and cross those Is." He winked and pulled out a chair for her to sit in at the minimalist glass and steel conference table. Harry was left to pull out his own chair.

Jeffries circled round to the other side to sit and flipped open the cover on his tablet to sign the 'paperwork' that would whisk away every last bracket and comment of the MBGZ platform code and deposit it on Breanna's hard drive which, she had informed the team, she then planned to drop into the ocean.

TWO WEEKS EARLIER:

"It's my white whale," Breanna had seethed to Sophie, Eliot, Parker, and Harry in New Orleans. "We have to. We have to. Please please please, I'll never ask for anything again, please!"

She'd had to explain to all of them except Harry what MBGZ (or, EmBigs to users in the know, apparently) was. Harry knew about it because his daughter was on it: a social media platform that employed an algorithm that promoted the quiet voices and small creators. People loved it because it helped them get 'discovered' and 'feel seen'.

And its creator was looking to go public. Maybe even sell.

"Help me see where the bad part is," Sophie had said, head cocked as Breanna scrolled examples of user posts on the site across the screen.

"You know how if you don't pay for something, you're the product? MBGZ does the usual data harvesting and selling to ad companies – which, by the way, is reason enough to go after them—" Breanna spun in her chair to give Sophie an appraising look, which Sophie returned with a raised eyebrow and a gesture to go on. "—but they've also been experimenting on their users."

"Experimenting?" Eliot grunted. "How?"

"Tailoring the feed to see if they can influence peoples' moods," Breanna said darkly.

She was met with creased brows and frowns.

"So, like, they show someone a picture of a cat and it makes them happy?" Parker asked.

"Well, yes," Breanna said. "But more than that. Look." She put the reports she'd gathered on the screens. Graphs and data scrolled by. "Mood swings, behavioral changes, shopping habits – and look at this. A local politician, this guy Joe Smarm, had abysmal polling. He invested in MBGZ and next thing you know, his polls have turned around."

"A successful ad campaign—" Sophie began, but Breanna interrupted her with a dry look and a click on the screen remote to bring up the next slide.

"MBGZ discovered that when people see their friends have voted, they go vote too. So they put I Voted badges on the profiles of all the people who agreed with Smarm's politics, and shadow-banned posts about voting from users with opposing politics. And turns out friend groups share ideologies, and hey presto. Mr. Smarm for mayor."

"Is his name actually—"

"Not the point!" Breanna said, brandishing the remote. "The point is that Marc Jeffries, our very own Doctor Frankenstein, knows what he has on his hands and he's looking to sell for big cash so he can start on his next terrible project. Buyers who have expressed interest include…" She pushed the button again with a flourish.

"The NSA?" Harry said in disbelief.

"United Tech? That's a mob front," Eliot said, frowning.

"And I recognize half a dozen little side projects of various royalty and governments," Sophie said, finally seeing Breanna's point.

"Well I doubt the U.S. government would let this kind of sale go through to a foreign power," Harry started. He raised his hands defensively when Breanna glared at him. "But we probably don't want our own government having access to it either."

"Or anyone," Breanna said heatedly. "It's not just politics. There are users he drove to depression with this little experiment, just to see if he could. Nothing good is going to come of anyone having this much control over this many people."

Parker was scowling at the screen.

"What is it?" Sophie asked.

Parker whirled toward Breanna. "When we met," she said. "You were on the run for stealing Twitter."

"I didn't steal Twitter. I just sort of. Edited it. A little," Breanna said.

"Right, right," Parker said, as though the distinction didn't matter. "So why haven't you edited embs… imbiz… this guy?"

"Remember the part where I was on the run for it? I'm not Alec; I had a lot to learn. And anyway, even if I totally torpedoed every server MBGZ owned, Marc Jeffries would just code the damn thing again. But this?" Breanna clicked and the displays showed current media speculation and projections surrounding the rumors of Jeffries' planned sale or IPO. "We play our cards right, we stop him from ever doing anything like this again." She grinned at Harry. "We have a secret weapon."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. "You're thinking noncompetes, NDAs? Literally legally binding him?"

Breanna clapped her hands and pointed at him. "That's the stuff. Come on, we can do this!"

"All right, then," Sophie said. "Let's go steal a social media platform."

NOW:

"Um. Just a moment," Jeffries said, pausing with his finger hovered over the tablet's screen. "Uh, I have to take this." Nothing had rung, and Sophie could clearly see the tablet's screen when Jeffries stood and hurried past her. It still had the contract up, and a push notification too small for her to read. Then his phone rang. He stuttered in one direction, then the other, suddenly seeming to realize that his office building had no walls for privacy, and ended up hustling around a corner toward the bathrooms.

Harry turned to Sophie with raised eyebrows.

"Not good, I don't think," Sophie said.

"Could just be your run of the mill emergency," Harry said.

"No, he kept looking at us. The second he got that notification, I'd wager. Something spooked him and it's related to the deal. Breanna?"

"I've got him on security cameras," Breanna said over coms. "He's pacing. Oh, now he stopped. He does not look happy."

"Is he listening or talking?" Sophie asked.

"Listening now. He was talking before. Now he's looking something up on the tablet. He— he's searching for you?" Breanna said.

Sophie's mind raced. She had that feeling, the cold weightless feeling that told her a con was about to go very, very south. Salvage or flee? It depended on what Jeffries knew.

"Oh frack," Breanna said. "The profiles I made for you, the company website, all the identity trails I left – they're gone?!"

"Gone? How?" Sophie asked.

"I don't know," Breanna said. "How could— who the hell is he talking to?"

"What about me?" Harry said urgently. "My identity's legit on this one. We can explain this as some kind of… of server outage?"

"The servers are pretty clearly not down for anyone other than us," Breanna hissed. Sophie could hear her keyboard working furiously in the background. "And I couldn't hack his phone, but I hacked the phone company and whoever just called him? Doesn't have a phone number. Or even an IP address. Or— what the fuck."

Sophie stood. "Okay," she said. "We need to re—"

"Ms. Popova," Jeffries said, coming back into the office area. Sophie could see immediately that the deal was canceled in his mind. "Mr. Wilson. I'm afraid some irregularities have been brought to my attention. If you'd be willing to just wait a bit while my lawyers head over?"

"I'm afraid my flight leaves fairly soon and I do have other appointments to make," Sophie said reprovingly, already angling her body toward the door.

"He called security," Breanna said. "Silent alarm."

"You need me in there?" Eliot growled.

The fire alarms blared to life.

"Oh my!" Sophie said while Jeffries stared around in stunned confusion. "Quickly, to the exits!" She and Harry bolted.

"Hey, wait a second!" Jeffries called after them.

They made it out the pristine glass front doors just as a sleek black Jaguar screeched to a halt in the street in front of them. The windows were tinted but Breanna let them know Parker was at the wheel, so they dove in, Harry in the back and Sophie in the front, and Parker peeled away cackling just as the security truck rounded the corner headed for the building, tailed closely by a fire truck.

"So. What happened?" Sophie asked when they had all reconvened at the New Orleans base.

"I'm sorry," Breanna said, miserable. She was hunched behind a laptop, hood up and hands swallowed in the sleeves of one of Hardison's hoodies. "Someone sniped us. All the Wikipedia pages, websites, social media profiles – everything I created for Ludmila Popova and her company, just zapped out of existence. And I don't even know how."

Sophie shook her head. "That's a symptom. Not the problem. We were literally about to sign that deal. So why did Jeffries suddenly decide to check on our credentials? And why did he decide not finding anything was suspicious, and not just a weird glitch?"

"The phone call," Eliot said. "Whatever they told him spooked him."

"I couldn't listen in," Breanna said. "But. I was able to take a closer look at the phone company records on the way back home. Don't get excited," she warned at everyone's perked-up looks of interest. "Jeffries received an incoming call from no one. His tablet received a push notification from a server that doesn't exist. That shouldn't be possible with the kind of security he has. I mean, maybe Alec could do it. Maybe. But whoever did this has some serious tech skills."

"Government?" Eliot asked.

Breanna scoffed. "Better than that. And better funded. I asked Alec but he hasn't texted me back yet. And don't hold your breath; half the time he's somewhere with no signal, and the other half his phone's been run over by a tank or something."

"I'm still curious as to whether they wiped me off the internet," Harry said mildly.

"Well, no," Breanna said. "All your normal stuff is still there. And Alec's scrubbers are still running. So people can still see you're a legit lawyer but any involvement in, you know, the fun stuff, remains eyes-only."

Harry grunted in baffled acknowledgement.

Parker sucked down the last of the milkshake she'd been nursing for no longer than five minutes, showing no indication of brain freeze. "So Jeffries has a guardian angel." She flicked the straw to the other side of the cup. "Or another thief."

"A good point," Sophie said thoughtfully. "I suspect we'll learn quite a bit from what happens next at MBGZ."

"Isn't there something else we can do?" Breanna asked. "I mean, we’ve had cons go south before. We don't have to give up here, right?"

Eliot turned away to mix Parker another milkshake and Parker scowled at her boots. Only Harry looked at Sophie with hopefulness matching Breanna's.

"We'll see," Sophie said, not hiding her skepticism. "But it's their move for now. It'll all depend on the next play. And who's making it."

Their mystery opponent's gambit was revealed the following afternoon. Sophie and Harry returned from a shopping trip (read: training trip, where Sophie imparted to Harry the wisdom of crowds and how to read them) to find Breanna glaring at the display screens. They all showed one huge headline: Wayne Enterprises to Acquire MBGZ.

"You're kidding," Sophie said. "Wayne Enterprises? Really? They're our poacher?"

"Gotta say, I did not expect that," Harry said. "WE has a sterling reputation. My firm never represented them."

"That does speak to their character," Sophie murmured. "Are we sure they're the ones who sank us?"

"If it wasn't them, they just got hella lucky swooping in with this deal so fast," Breanna said. "For my money… it was them all the way. No way they moved that fast if they didn't know our deal was going to drop. Capitalists are capitalists, I don't care how many babies they kiss."

"True enough," Sophie agreed. "This deal – do we have details?"

"Looks like they're acquiring everything," Harry said. He'd picked up a stray tablet and was scrolling through the news feeds. "Code, servers, the whole kit and kaboodle. We won't get the nitty gritty from the news, though."

"Congress is flagging the buy," Breanna said. "That means they'll have a copy of the contract. Excellent. Easier to hack them than WE."

"I feel like I should be concerned about that," Harry said.

"Does an anti-trust suit have any hope of succeeding?" Sophie asked.

"Nah," Harry said. "WE isn't popular with certain parties in Washington. This is just saber-rattling."

"Our tax dollars hard at work," Breanna muttered.

"Well at least it will delay things," Sophie said. "That gives us time to plan."

"What did we miss?" Parker asked, bounding in from the courtyard entrance, Eliot close behind. Both were dressed for a jog.

"Parker. Cool-down stretches," Eliot growled.

"And why does Breanna look like she just discovered an antique Glenn-Rieder with a grasshopper lock?" Parker went on. She did fall into a backbend, though.

"That's not— never mind," Eliot muttered.

"I look like a grasshopper?" Breanna asked.

"She means you look like a kid on Christmas," Sophie interpreted. "And that is because… we're going to steal a social media platform. Again."

Sophie was right. The anti-trust suit did buy them plenty of time to plot their approach before the contract went through.

"And we do want to wait for the contract to actually go through," Sophie reminded them when they regrouped a few days later with the results of their preliminary research. "We can't target Jeffries again, so we need to make sure it's firmly in Wayne Enterprises' hands before we pull the rug out from under them. Otherwise he'll just bolt again."

"Their pet hackers will be on the lookout," Breanna said. "So any faces we have to put out there need to be, you know. Not Sophie and Harry."

"We can work with that. This is why we cross-train," Sophie said, unbothered. "Mr. Wilson, what have you got on that contract?"

Harry was grinning. "WE has good lawyers. Paranoid ones. So paranoid, they've tied their own hands, or at least held them out and patiently waited for someone else to tie them. That someone being us." He handed around copies of the contract Breanna had acquired courtesy of the United States government, relevant bits highlighted. Absolutely no one looked at theirs. Parker began systematically folding the pages of hers into paper airplanes.

Harry didn't seem to notice. "Just look at that noncompete clause. That's a thing of beauty, that is."

"This'll prevent Jeffries from just remaking his platform if we wipe it out completely?" Eliot confirmed.

"That it will."

Parker threw a paper airplane at Eliot, who caught it without looking before it struck the side of his head. "What if Wayne Enterprises just hires ol' Jeff back to recode it for them? That's not competing," Parker pointed out.

Harry looked gleeful. "That's the best part. The way this clause is written, they've actually made it so he can't work for them either! They're paying him an insane amount of money to hand over his stuff and then retire, even if Wayne Enterprises itself tries to hire him. Look at page forty-four, clause G."

All of them dutifully did so, Parker smoothing out the creases on her copy. Several moments passed.

"Is that what that means," Sophie murmured eventually. It was like reading another language backward.

"I don't know if they meant to do that, but if I was their lawyer I would have strongly advised against it. But the thing is, Bruce Wayne himself is overseeing this acquisition," Harry went on, shaking his head over the folly of lawyers who were not him. "He has a reputation."

"It's more-or-less a good reputation, though," Sophie said. "Lots of charity work, that sort of thing. The face of Wayne Enterprises, of course. But you think he's involved in the mechanics here?"

"That's the scuttlebutt. And the part of his reputation I was talking about is the part where he's extremely stubborn and has a habit of taking personal interest in niche projects and steamrolling his Board along with what he wants." Harry shrugged. "And those projects usually turn out pretty good, actually. The man is lucky. Or rich enough that mistakes don't matter. But a personality that strong, he's probably pushing his lawyers around too." Harry looked at Sophie for approval of this assessment.

"Well done, Mr. Wilson." Sophie nodded at Breanna, who brought up the photos and newspaper headlines Sophie had been walking her through as part of target research training. Bruce Wayne's handsome face filled the screens. "Bruce Wayne is as much our target as Wayne Enterprises," Sophie said. "He's cultivated a charming, hands-off, somewhat airheaded persona for the public but one does not remain majority shareholder and CEO of a Fortune 500 by being merely lucky. Lucky for us, that gives him plenty of levers. Breanna, would you do the honors?"

"All right," Breanna said, cracking her knuckles. "Lever number one—" She brought up a collage of tabloid headlines detailing Bruce Wayne's many romantic exploits. "—through eighty-two, approximately. The man gets around. Guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, I will give him this: the man does not discriminate."

"And interestingly, very few complaints from involved parties," Sophie mused. "Which is the first hint that there's something a bit odd about these flings. Normally you'd get some blackmail attempts, some messy breakups, some claims of sexual misconduct but there are far, far fewer than I'd expect from someone this high-profile, and the ones that do exist are clearly spurious."

"So, what does that tell us?" Harry asked.

"Sophie thinks they're beards," Breanna said.

"What, all of them?" Eliot said.

Sophie shrugged. "He's not hiding being gay, because he dates all genders. He's not attempting to manipulate stock prices with different matches, or go one way or the other for clout. But there's something staged here. I feel it in my gut. This," She gestured at the screens where Bruce sparkled on the arm of a brunette, a blonde, a redhead. "Is a show."

"Well if we need to seduce him at least it'll be easy," Harry joked. Parker and Breanna immediately put their fingers on their noses and chimed Not it in chorus.

Eliot looked back and forth between them and managed a choked, "Absolutely not."

"Well, it's an option, but not our strongest option. Breanna?" Sophie said, to Eliot's immense relief.

"Lever number two," Breanna said with a flourish. Several faces replaced the tabloid photos of Bruce. "Bruce Wayne's romantic encounters are actually mostly a thing of the past. He still has the occasional fling but once he started raising a family, Gotham had to find some new gossip fodder."

"A family? Those are all his kids?" Eliot asked.

"Yep. Hold on to your socks." Breanna took a deep breath and rattled them off. "Dick Grayson, 27. Duke Thomas, 17. Timothy Drake-Wayne, 16. Cassandra Wayne, 16. Damian Wayne, 11."

"That's only five," Parker said. "Who's the black and white one?" She tipped her glass at the only photo that wasn't in color.

"Jason Todd, deceased," Breanna said. "A kidnapping gone wrong. I put the details in your course packs." She nodded at a stack of folders. Parker and Eliot each grabbed one.

"Oh sure, you read her materials," Harry groused, taking the last one.

"She puts pictures," Parker said.

"And bullet points. In English," Eliot said.

"Anyway," Sophie said, before that could devolve into bickering. "There are some interesting interpersonal dynamics happening there. Note the differences in surnames, for one. We'll go over them in detail if we need to, but be prepared."

"Levers three, four, and five are pretty self-explanatory," Breanna said. An image of the palatial Wayne Manor came up. "Isolated manor location and a staff of one if you can believe that. Could be handy." The image changed to a headline from the night Thomas and Martha Wayne had died, and a headline about the kidnapping and death of Jason Todd. "Trauma, that Sophie says is still, er…"

"Informing his behavior," Sophie finished. "These were tragedies. Possibly ones we can use to prevent more. Especially since there are some things that don't add up about the death of his child." She could practically feel Eliot tense. "See page four." He did so immediately, his frown growing.

"Right," Breanna said. "And last, his charitable donations. Dude gives away so much money you'd almost think he's legit about it, and that's suspicious."

They all nodded; they'd seen plenty of that before. The pause stretched, though. One by one they looked to Sophie, expecting her to continue with next steps.

"Sophie?" Eliot finally prompted. She was staring hard at the photo of Bruce Wayne, taken from a distance as he had bent to say something through his driver's window outside of WE in downtown Gotham.

"That man is hiding something," Sophie said. "And I am looking forward to finding out what it is."

Chapter Text

They had to go to Gotham. Wayne Enterprises' security was good, but not good enough to keep Breanna out of their systems entirely; that wasn't the problem. The problem was that she couldn't find the code once she was in.

"They have to be keeping it somewhere else. Somewhere not on the network. Which is… smart," she said grudgingly. "But not very practical. If they're going to use what they bought, they're going to have to let it out."

"MBGZ is still up, though," Harry said. "People are using it. There's been nary a blip in service."

"I'm not looking for the code for the site," Breanna said. "I'm looking for the algorithm that parses the user data and makes decisions about what to show them. Social media isn't inherently evil, it's just how it's run. The site can run fine without that algorithm, and even keep the whole 'show the less popular users' mechanic. But it's not something I can just right click, inspect, you know?"

"No," Harry said.

"Well, the code we're looking for was explicitly included in the sale and explicitly covered in the noncompete clause you're so in love with. Maybe they're dissecting it, maybe they're planning on using it somewhere other than a social media platform, but whatever it is it has to be somewhere."

"Let's take a closer look, then," Sophie said.

So now they were parked in a Brick and Basil food truck within view of the impressive WE tower in downtown Gotham. Or rather, Breanna and Eliot were in the food truck. Parker was thirty storeys up employing one of her favorite covers for spying out the layout of a building: high-rise window cleaner. Sophie and Harry were back at a condo Sophie owned in the city under sufficient aliases to use as a base of operations; neither wanted to be spotted anywhere near Wayne Enterprises.

"I think that's the last of them," Parker said, a little regretfully, placing one final button cam in the corner of a window. It would talk to the other buttons placed around the building, creating as accurate a layout as possible. Certain of them – the ones placed on the board room windows, Bruce Wayne's office, and Lucius Fox's office – would also record video and audio of anything that happened in those rooms.

"We are up and running," Breanna said. "Server room seems to be just where I thought."

"You don't sound happy about that," Eliot said.

"Do you need me to go around again?" Parker asked. "I can absolutely go around again."

"It's just, it feels wrong," Breanna said. "Something's off. I got in, had a look around their systems, found nothing—"

"'Cuz they're not on the network, you said," Parker chimed in. "It was in the handout."

"And apparently they've taken no surveillance countermeasures despite having at least one decent hacker on their payroll, so now we can spy out any hidey-holes. It's just, you ever get the feeling something is too easy?"

"Finding nothing is too easy?" Harry asked. "And Parker's how many hundreds of feet above the ground right now?"

"Good point," Parker said. "This is easy."

"You want to change the play?" Eliot asked. He was leaning against the counter behind Breanna as she stared up at her bank of monitors, arms crossed, but he'd used his supportive growl so Breanna felt okay taking a minute to think about it.

"Not yet. Let's see what our little bugs turn up. I'm just gonna, you know, run my own security protocols again before we head back to Sophie's."

Eliot grunted in affirmation and went to do another perimeter check.

Bruce Wayne was getting tired of his phone ringing. This was an unfortunate circumstance for the very involved CEO of one of the most successful companies on the planet, particularly one who had just completed a very high-profile purchase of an up-and-coming technology. But at least this time it wasn't his lawyers or a particularly intrepid reporter who had somehow climbed the phone tree to his office line.

Bruce answered. "Barbara. What's wrong?"

"I don't only call when— no, you're right, I would have texted," Babs said.

"Is it about the MBGZ?"

"What else?" Babs asked. "I think those shady characters we swiped it from followed us home. Someone's playing around in WE systems."

Bruce grunted, unimpressed and unconcerned.

"Thing is," Babs went on. "I can't figure out what they're doing."

Now Bruce sat up and paid attention. "You can't?"

"I mean, there's the obvious probes for the code. They won't find it, I whisked it away to… more secure servers. But they're also leaving things."

"Like—"

"Not like malware. It looks like something I'm meant to find."

"It could be—"

"I know, I'll be careful decrypting. But if they're a message I can't figure them out. And if they're a trap or a bomb I can't figure that out either. It's like they got corrupted coming through. Maybe my firewall ate them—"

"Barbara."

"Yes?"

"If you need a rubber duck, please call Dick."

Barbara snorted. "Fair enough, sorry. That's not actually why I called. I just wanted to give you a heads up that I've detected surveillance being activated around Wayne Tower. Not good enough to compromise anything important, and I figured you'd spot it eventually, but don't kill it, okay? I've already given the audio detection on your office something boring to listen to."

"Okay," Bruce said slowly. "What are you planning?"

"I'm sending Tim over with a little present. I've gotta get to the other job."

The other job. The one Bruce was not doing because he was managing a… ugh… social media merger. Why was this his life.

Tim arrived before he could wallow too deeply, already talking as he entered Bruce's office with his eyes on his phone screen, and a laptop bag over his shoulder.

"The good news is, it's not the engineers we hired from Jeffries' operation," he said. He slung the bag onto one of the chairs facing Bruce's desk, flicked through one more thing on his phone, and then pocketed it.

"What isn't?"

"Whoever keeps trying to infiltrate the network. They're very good – I wouldn't have seen them, but Babs flagged their activity for me. I think it's the people we snatched the deal from."

When the news that MBGZ was selling hit, there had naturally been a scramble. Babs had watched the deal with interest to see who would come out on top, and raised the alarm when it appeared to be some sort of shadow government. Given what Babs had told him about what this software could do, Bruce had no problem agreeing to back Oracle's play with all the clout of Wayne Enterprises. It wasn't entirely unexpected that people like that wouldn't go down easily, though.

"Barbara said you were bringing something to help, and that I was not to interfere," Bruce said, wry amusement tugging at his mouth.

"I did." Tim grinned and patted the bag. "Here's what we're going to do."

Two days later, Breanna was hip deep in the very back pages of Wayne Enterprises' books, and she was not happy about it. "Do you think they're keeping an off-network server in these random early education centers Wayne apparently decided to fund three years ago?" she asked wearily.

Harry glanced over at her work. "Nope, wrong kind of assets. I think. Where's Milton when you need him?"

They were huddled together at the kitchen table in Sophie's condo. It was an industrial sort of place, one that might appear not to suit Sophie at first glance – until it clicked that the exposed rafters, the large open-concept kitchen, and the very large entertainment center with plenty of outlets in convenient places were perhaps not for her.

"Milton is busy with the Toronto crew," Sophie said. She and Eliot had rolled out a couple of the training mats and he was taking her through some flexibility and balance exercises. Parker was technically also participating, but what she was doing didn't resemble anything approaching the slow and steady stretches the other two were performing.

"Do you want me to steal it?" Parker asked, looking at Breanna and Harry from between her own legs, upside down.

"Steal… an early education center?" Breanna asked.

Parker shrugged. Somehow. "Or steal that laptop someone high ranking at WE has eyes on at all times, and that they lock in the safe when they go home?"

"The what?" Breanna spun to her surveillance. "The what? Where?"

Parker unfolded and wandered over to Breanna's screens, scanning for a few seconds before jabbing a finger. "There. And there."

"That's a briefcase."

"Reinforced plates between the leather, electromagnetic shielding, thumbprint scanner on the clasp, recessed hinges… it's like a cute little portable safe," Parker enthused.

"How do you know there's a laptop in it?" Harry asked.

"Why else give it electromagnetic shielding," Breanna said, picking up Parker's excitement. "Might not be a laptop, but it's something. Wait." She spun in her chair to arch an eyebrow at Parker. "How can you tell, about the shielding?"

"It's not obvious? Look at the drape."

"I don't— okay, fine, so this is something, something electronic that has been closely guarded, but also left in the building overnight," Breanna said, leaving the mystery of Parker for another time.

"In a safe," Parker said.

"In a safe," Breanna said, quickly flicking through her surveillance to confirm.

"On the thirtieth floor in Bruce Wayne's office."

"How do you know this?" Breanna demanded.

"I watched the whole thing last night."

"The whole— two days of surveillance, last night?"

Parker winked at her.

"Okay, so—

"Let's go steal a safe!" Parker shouted, and sprinted off.

"Parker!" Sophie called, looking up in sudden alarm from her pose. "Not the whole safe! Parker!"

They did it that night, even though Parker complained that waiting until everyone had gone home was practically cheating. Wayne Enterprises was not equipped with anything so deadly as a Steranko; just the usual physical locks, biometric locks, passcode locks, cameras, and human security.

Eliot was on standby inside the building just in case this latter feature became an issue, but knowing Parker, odds were good no one would ever even know she had been there. He was locked in a maintenance closet following Parker's progress on his phone, thanks to the security feeds Breanna had co-opted.

"Where did they find these security guys?" he muttered, watching another pair patrol down a hallway where Parker had been moments ago.

"Problem?" Sophie asked.

"No. It's just… these guys are all enforcers."

"Isn't that all security?" Breanna said.

"I mean like, mafia enforcers. Except not exactly. It's hard to describe. It's a—"

"Ooh, let me guess! A very distinctive manicure?" suggested Parker.

"Just crack your safe, Parker," Eliot growled.

"It's cracked and the laptop is cloned. Heading out."

"Anyway. Those guys, I'd bet hard cash they've all got records. It's an interesting choice for a company that could afford the best of the best." Eliot looked both ways and headed for the elevator where he was supposed to meet Parker. With Breanna covering the cameras, it was only a matter of walking down the hall. The elevator doors opened and Parker picked him up on her way down.

"I miss Hardison. You're so quiet," Parker griped as they sailed down the shaft.

Eliot didn't bother answering. It was a rare operation that didn't need him to hit anyone, but he wouldn't count this among them until they were safely back in the food truck.

"I did get a couple good looks at faces," Breanna said. "Let's seeee…" She was bored, just like Parker was. Too easy, too easy clanged around the back of Eliot's brain. Nevertheless, they exited the elevator shaft and the building with no other alarms blaring.

"Yikes," Breanna said. "You were right about the records. Boy howdy were you right about the records. These dudes have worked for some bad other dudes. Like. Roman Sionis bad. Oswald Cobblepot bad. Gotham bad."

"That tracks," Harry put in. "This being Gotham and all."

"These guys do all have perfect parole records, have done community service, that kind of thing. Looks like WE has a program," Breanna went on.

"Reformed, or made to look reformed," Sophie said. "Something to keep in mind."

That was nothing new; Eliot had handled worse. He kept his eyes open, his head on a swivel. The food truck was just around the corner. Parker was strolling along beside him, to all appearances completely nonchalant though Eliot knew she could be up a fire escape and out of danger in moments if necessary.

Nothing happened. They climbed into the back of the food truck where Sophie, Harry, and Breanna waited.

"Oo, gimme gimme," Breanna said, making grabby hands at Parker. Parker handed over the drive she'd used to clone the mysterious laptop. "Okay, this is an un-networked PC, totally safe, do not try this at home kids." Breanna plugged the drive into a laptop of her own.

Her scans ran. They quarantined a few spyware traps and pronounced the drive safe.

"All righty." Breanna shook out her hands and wiggled her fingers to limber them up. "Let's see what Wayne Enterprises has to hide."

"Oh, bingo," Oracle said. Across the city, several pairs of ears perked up.

"Bingo as in you have a lead on that warehouse fire at the docks?" Red Hood asked.

"Or a follow-up on the money missing from last week's bank robbery?" Nightwing asked.

"Does no one do their own casework around here any more?" Robin sniffed.

"The laptop," Batman and Red Robin said at the same time.

"The laptop," Oracle agreed. "Just got a ping from my little worm, zeroing in on them now. I'll send the cops—"

Robin scoffed.

"—because bats have no reason to be investigating a theft from WE," Oracle finished. "And yes, before you ask, I'm sending you all the coordinates as I get them anyway. Looks like they're still downtown. They must have turned it on immediately."

"Our security picked up nothing," Red Robin said, not bothering to hide the awe in his voice. "How did they steal it without us noticing?"

"They didn't," Oracle said. "The laptop tracker shows it still in the safe. But the worm – they must have cloned it."

"So not only did they break in, they broke in and took the time to clone the laptop on premises, and then put everything back perfectly and left no evidence," Red Robin said. "Okay. Great. Swell."

"Not no evidence. If there was no evidence, I wouldn't be able to tell that they're… less than two blocks from WE, huh? Interesting. Police are on their way thanks to a little anonymous tip. Let's see what security cameras in the area have to say about it. And in the meantime – B, are you and Selina on speaking terms right now?"

Batman grunted. "Good idea. I'll have Agent A add her to next week's guest list."

"Great. Now let's just see what we can see." Oracle went quiet as she scanned her array of cameras. Nightwing and Red Hood took the opportunity to switch com channels and focus on their own work, and Batman and Robin muted themselves a moment later to focus on something else, but Red Robin settled in on a rooftop to listen and wait.

"Nothing," Oracle muttered. "The security cameras have nothing to say about it, and I don't think they've been tampered with. They must have found a blind spot. But the cops are approaching… now. Uh."

"Uh?" Red Robin prompted.

"I have visual through their body cams but there's nothing there. They're exactly where the worm pinged. Oh, great, they think the tip was a prank."

"Hm." Red Robin hopped a few rooftops over, to the coordinates Oracle had sent. It didn't take long for the police to clear out, and then he drifted down the side of a building.

The pavement was slightly damp from an earlier rain. Little puddles pooled here and there in imperfections in the sidewalk and along the curbs. Red Robin pulled out a flashlight and focused the beam, scanning the area.

"Any footprints leading around a corner to a secret hideout, Sherlock?" Oracle asked.

"No such luck," said Red Robin. He looked up, because no one ever looked up, including the cops. "Nobody here but us pigeons. Is the signal still pinging?"

"Nope. It wasn't active long."

"They spotted it, then. And if I spotted a tracker worm, and if I couldn't shut it down—"

"Maybe they could."

"Please," Red Robin scoffed.

"Flatterer."

"Ah ha." Red Robin crouched at where his narrow flashlight beam had finally picked out something unusual: a slim black rectangle. "Battery." He slipped it into a pouch.

"Damn. Their next stop is probably a faraday cage so they can turn their clone back on."

"It's what I would do," Red Robin agreed. "Well. Back to square one."

"Ugh, we're on square like, negative two," Breanna groaned back at Sophie's condo. Behind her, Eliot just grunted as he hit a hanging bag again. Breanna looked at her phone sitting on the table next to the faraday cage she had the cloned laptop quarantined in. She flipped the phone over so the screen was facing up. Then she flipped it back facedown. She did not need Alec's help for this.

But the cloned laptop had yielded very little, and had only proved that Wayne Enterprises had some heavy hitters in their arsenal. Breanna had nearly missed that devious little tracker that almost made the jump from the clone to the actual Leverage network – and once she'd killed that she looked a little closer and found a freaking tracking worm.

That, she had not been able to kill. She'd jettisoned the battery and yelled at Parker, Eliot, whoever was closer to the driver's seat, to go just a second before their local police scanner indicated they were about to have company.

WE wasn't playing nice, and they weren't messing around.

"Hey," Eliot said from right behind her, and Breanna jumped and turned to glare at him. "You've been working on that all night. Take a break."

"Yeah." She dropped the glare and rubbed her hands down her face. "We have to think of something else. I can't hack them, we can't even find what we came to steal—"

"Sleep," Eliot growled. "Or I'll have Parker tranq you."

"Why would you have Parker tranq me?" Breanna asked muzzily. "You're standing right here."

"So am I," said Parker and Breanna let out a little yelp. Parker had appeared on the other side of the table while Breanna was looking at Eliot. She tsk'd. "You need more thief practice."

"She needs sleep," Eliot repeated.

Breanna sighed and started packing away her gear. "No one touch that," she said, gesturing at the laptop in its little signal-blocking tent.

"What happens if we touch it?" Parker said.

"The terrifying genius who programmed it finds us and tells the cops, apparently."

Parker huffed like that was a more boring outcome than she'd hoped for.

"All right," Breanna said. "Almost set, I just need to—" Parker's fingers twitched. "—go to bed. Good night." Breanna turned on her heel and marched to her room on the second level of the condo.

Eliot and Parker watched her go.

"I thought that was going to be harder," Parker said. "I was ready."

"She's stressed. She picked this job, she wants it to go well, so everything's a little heavier."

"Hm," Parker said. She flexed her fingers again.

"Do not," Eliot warned, taking a step away from her.

"You need to sleep, too."

"I can do that on my own. I don't need some Klingon—"

"Vulcan," Parker corrected.

"Whatever. I don't care what you and Hardison cooked up—"

"Fine. Not as fun as tasers anyway," Parker said. Eliot rolled his eyes at her, but still turned away from her to go to his own room. He still trusted her at his back. Parker smiled and put her drugged gloves away for another day.

The next morning, Breanna woke up to find Sophie the only one awake, leaning against the kitchen counter with a cup of tea and staring at the huge display surface across the open floor plan. On it were the photos of Bruce Wayne and all his kids. Sophie nodded at Breanna when she walked in, but didn't take her eyes from the screen.

Breanna grabbed coffee and began poking around for carbs. She settled on a bagel and was waiting for it to pop when Sophie finally spoke.

"Timothy Jackson Drake."

The bagel sprang up. Breanna caught it, then dropped it because it was hot. But at least she dropped it on the plate. "Trust fund baby?"

"Doubly so," Sophie agreed. "He was taken in by Bruce Wayne when his parents died, but he's still a controlling interest in Drake Industries."

It was too early for grifting. And where was the cream cheese? "You're thinking conflict of interest?" she guessed.

"Ooh, sounds exciting," Harry said, coming down the stairs. He was already fully dressed for the day, which was how you knew he had been evil once. "Whose interests are conflicting?"

Breanna waved her plate at the screens and caught the bagel before it could slide off. She considered the cream cheese, unearthed from the back of the produce drawer, and the knives. Too much effort. She took the whole container, along with her bagel, over to the table.

"Ah, you're thinking Tim Drake being on the board of Drake Industries, but raised by Bruce Wayne, is a legal issue," Harry said, rubbing his hands together like he was about to dive into a good meal. "It's not. They've got all their ducks in a row. It's more of a gray area if he's also on the board of Wayne Enterprises, but he's not. The case law is actually really—"

"It's eight AM. In the morning," Breanna said. She tore off a piece of bagel and dunked it into the cream cheese. It didn't dunk very well, so she just sort of scooped out a glob. Perfect.

"Do you know," Sophie said. "That Timothy Drake wasn't adopted immediately after his parents died?"

"Mrph," said Breanna, her mouth full. That was actually what she intended to say, too. She recognized the predatory prowl in Sophie's stride as she moved closer to the monitors, the better to stare into Drake's eyes; Sophie didn't need an intelligent comment here, she just needed to be egged on.

"Now, Wayne did petition to become Timothy's caretaker right away. Timothy would have been his ward. But Timothy had an uncle. Dear Uncle Eddie. He took control of Timothy's affairs and care."

"Whaaaat happened to Uncle Eddie?" Breanna asked. Abusive? Dead, like Tim's parents? Suspiciously so?

"Nothing," Sophie said. "He never existed."

Harry's eyebrows shot up and Breanna knew hers were doing the same.

"Timothy Drake was taking care of himself. He hired an actor when Uncle Eddie needed to actually make an appearance. The public story is that Bruce Wayne eventually officially adopted Timothy when Uncle Eddie died in a fire, but looking a little more closely, with our resources… Both his life and his death were faked." Sophie considered her Timothy Drake collage intently.

"But why?" Harry asked.

"He obviously didn't want to get adopted by Wayne," Breanna said. "And try telling the courts that. Squeaky clean billionaire with a great foster care record? Lifelong next door neighbor? What kid wouldn't want that. And it's not like they would put this particular kid into the system." She shoved another bite of bagel into her mouth to cut the bitterness. "He was too young to emancipate, so…"

"He did a rather good job of it," Sophie said. "He either is a prodigy or he hired one, which is interesting – but the big question is, why did he so badly want to avoid putting himself in Wayne's power?"

"You're thinking Wayne found out the uncle was fake and strong-armed Timothy back under his control?" Harry said. "For, hm, let's see. Shadow control of Drake Industries, maybe? The Drake fortune?"

"Yes. He invested a great deal of energy in Timothy Drake." Sophie clicked through the screens. "Even when his parents were alive, Timothy spent a lot of time with Wayne. Now, his parents were absent a lot, and I mean a lot. It could have been a mentor-mentee relationship. But look." She highlighted a few photos, both paparazzi shots and glossy, posed magazine shots. "The body language, the expressions, the way he looks at Wayne – it's watchful. Tense. It's hard to see, he's very good at appearing casual, the same way Wayne is. In fact, I'd say Wayne coached Timothy."

"And when you say coached… you mean groomed," Breanna said grimly.

"And the kid tried to get away," Harry said, equally grim.

"I'm not certain," Sophie admitted. "It doesn't look exactly like you'd expect in a case of abuse, but sometimes they don't." She cocked her head at the screens. "There's definitely something going on, though. Timothy Drake may need our help. And possibly we could use his."

"Okay, so, what, let's go steal a Timothy Drake?" Breanna asked.

"Yes," Sophie said. "Parker and Eliot are already on reconnaissance. And you and I—" she looked at Breanna. "Are going shopping."

"Shopping?"

"Shopping," Sophie confirmed, scrutinizing Breanna with one hand on her hip and the other tapping her lips. "I didn't bring anything at all in your size suitable for a gala."

Chapter Text

The gala was in a few days, but what Sophie Devereaux couldn't do in a few days with an entire downtown shopping and fashion district at her disposal wasn't worth doing at all. While Parker and Eliot did recon on the venue – and on Wayne Manor – Breanna and Sophie did fashion.

They ended up with far more than they needed for the gala, Sophie taking the opportunity to acquire some new pieces for her many, many costume trunks. On the big night, though, Breanna ended up in a damask evening suit dress, the narrow skirt hitting just above her knees, the bodice bustier-style with an asymmetrical peplum falling over the pencil skirt for a more interesting silhouette. The whole thing was a muted red, the damask pattern picked out in gold that made her eyes absolutely irresistible.

She'd had to shave her legs, but it was just about worth it. Sophie had even found her comfortable shoes and swapped out the boring jacket it had come with for a matching bolero jacket that Breanna was fairly certain hadn't had quite as many pockets when they'd bought it. Eliot, of all people, had helped her do her hair; half braided into cornrows with the other half falling free to match the asymmetry of the peplum – and conveniently covering the ear her com went into. He'd just muttered at her to hold still when she asked if he knew what he was doing, and she was happy enough to give her arms a break that she didn't push.

"It's perfect," Sophie enthused as Breanna presented herself for inspection.

"How come Parker doesn't have to do all this?" Breanna asked. Parker was already at the venue, setting up with the rest of the wait staff.

"You're closer to Timothy Drake's age. He's more likely to open up to you. Now, Harry and I can't stay – they know our faces – but we'll be nearby and with you on coms the whole time." She gave Breanna's jacket a little tug and smoothed her shoulders, for all the world like a nervous mother on prom night.

"I don't like it," Eliot rumbled. He was dressed for an evening of breaking and entering. "I'm way too far away to help if something goes wrong."

"It's the only night we're certain they'll all be out of the house, including the butler," Sophie said. "And we need Parker on site at Wayne Tower. Unless you don't think you can handle the manor's security." She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Of course I can handle it," Eliot snapped. Then, more quietly, "Parker walked me through it."

"Parker has her taser," Harry put in. "I'm sure she and Breanna can handle a couple of socialites." He was tossing a chauffer's cap from one hand to the other. He'd drop Breanna off at the Wayne Enterprises gala celebrating the successful acquisition of MBGZ and then sail off to a remote location to observe with Sophie.

"It ain't the socialites I'm worried about. It's Wayne's pet goons," Eliot said.

"The regular security are all on schedule to work the upper levels as usual," Breanna said. "Just like that first night. They'll never know Parker was up there. Gala security is a private firm, very above-board, clean as a whistle."

Eliot grunted. He knew this, and they would be fine. Parker wasn't exactly a pushover, even if he could wish he'd had more time working with Breanna on self-defense. "Fine. Just. Be careful." Eliot shook his head at the goofy smile spreading across Breanna's face and stalked off to start his part of tonight's job.

"Are you ready?" Sophie asked Breanna. "Remember, it's all influencers and coding staff that WE brought on. This is your forte."

"My forte is faking influencers, not being one," Breanna muttered. They'd agreed she couldn't go as coding staff, since the team was small enough that a new face would be recognized. Sophie tsk'd at her and Breanna waved her off. "I know, I know. I got this. Let's do it."

The gala was being held on the main level of Wayne Tower which was, apparently, a super fancy event venue, complete with red carpet and a thousand flashbulbs going off as Breanna exited the car with one last encouraging smile from Harry.

She ran the gauntlet – sorry, glided down the red carpet, pause there, perfect, turn to your left, give them just a little over-the-shoulder – and fought the urge to duck into a corner as soon as she made it through the doors. Apparently a Wayne Enterprises gala was a big deal. She was glad she had Sophie in her ear.

She was even gladder when Parker swung past her with a tray of champagne and a wink. Breanna scooped one up – it matched the gold thread of her dress – and waded into the crowd.

She'd done her groundwork well. Several gaggles of influencers recognized her from the profile she'd made (and made to look like it had been active for ages) and dragged her into selfies. She posed with them with a silent apology to Hardison's scrubbers, which were going to have to work extra hard later, and returned all the compliments they gave her with sincerity. They were gorgeous and glittering and welcoming – but they traveled in packs, and if Breanna was going to accomplish her goal tonight, she couldn't swarm with them.

The coders were happy to talk with her too, and it was easier to slice them off from the herd. None of them knew anything about WE's infrastructure or plans yet, though – the gala was a welcoming bash, so they hadn't really started yet.

The most difficult part was avoiding the investors and stockholders who seemed to think they owned the place and had no compunctions about interrupting conversations, leaning in close with casual touches to an arm or shoulder, or asking invasive questions.

All of it was exhausting, and Breanna hadn't even been there two hours. And she hadn't even spotted any of the Waynes. She slid behind a fat, decorative planter overflowing with glittering fake orchids and leaned against it with a heavy sigh.

"Any luck upstairs, Parker?"

"Someone has been advising this jerk," Parker said in Breanna's ear, but she didn't sound upset. She sounded gleeful. "He's changed things since last time I was in here. I think he got professional help."

"Not a problem, I take it?"

Parker just scoffed. Breanna pulled out her phone to see where she was. Her blueprint of the building, constructed for just this occasion, showed Parker several storeys up, on the R&D floor. Breanna had ruled it out as a secret server site, but they were hoping they could find files indicating WE's plans for that nasty influencing code – projects in development that showed ties to government agencies or politicians' agendas or… well, anything.

The app lagged, stuttered, and then sped up to keep up with Parker's blinking dot. Breanna frowned. "What are you doing?" she muttered. She opened her diagnostic tool to see what was distracting her phone's RAM. "What the fuck is that."

"Problems?" Sophie murmured.

"No, it's just. Something." She boosted herself onto the ledge of the planter, the better to gargoyle over her phone's screen, and began digging into the processes. Something was talking to her phone… messily. It was almost like someone was trying to install a process like those used to co-opt unsuspecting computers for crypto-mining, but she hadn't interacted with anything and there was no zero-click exploit that was getting through her and Hardison's security measures.

"Parker, is your phone acting weird?" Breanna asked.

"Didn't bring it," Parker said.

"No problems here," Sophie confirmed for both her and Harry.

Eliot didn't answer, but gave his com a tap to indicate negative, and that was interesting because it meant he couldn't talk but Breanna had more immediate fish to fry.

Whatever was landing on her phone wasn't trying to do anything. Yet. It was just circumventing her security and leaving pieces of itself all over the place. What kind of puzzle those pieces would amount to in a few minutes or an hour—

A sudden tinkle of glass as someone dropped a champagne flute and the abrupt stutter in the ambient conversation reminded her that she was at a damn gala and she didn't have time for this right now.

"I'm bricking my phone," she said, inputting the kill code that would suspend and secure everything and preserve whatever the fuck was happening for future dissection. "Temporarily. No one have any tech emergencies until I can get out to the truck for a sp—oh."

Someone had slid around the planter, head down, dabbing at his front with a cloth napkin, all with the decided air of someone on the lam.

"Ah," he said, noticing her. "Occupied, I see. Sorry."

"You're Timothy Drake," Breanna said intelligently. "Uh. Wayne. Drake-Wayne. Sorry. Hi. Um, did you need the planter?"

Timothy Drake winced. "No, it's fine, there's another one—"

"On the other side of the ballroom. It's fine, dude, I can give you a minute, you don't have to dive back in to the shark tank." She hopped off the planter and turned to go, Sophie murmuring in her ear a little slower, you've shown him you're willing to give him space— now. "I heard dish soap is good for champagne stains, by the way. Caterers might have some."

"No, it's fine," Drake said. "This happens at least once every party, though usually I wouldn't expect it from the wait staff." His smile was tired. "The old bump-into-the-target-so-you-have-an-excuse-to-talk-and-touch trick. I have another shirt upstairs."

"A classic," Sophie said in her ear. Breanna ignored her.

"The elevators are also across the floor," she noted drily.

Drake nodded ruefully. "Well spotted. Don't go on my account, though. This thing is big enough for— hang on, where did you get those shoes?"

Breanna grinned at him. "Amazing, right?" She was wearing gold Converse, a shade that matched the thread in her dress, and Sophie had woven red rosettes into the laces to match the florals picked out in the bolero. "Confession: I have a fashionista in my armory. I set her loose in Gotham earlier this week."

"Well I am more than happy to share my planter if you'll divulge the name of her customizer."

"Fair enough. He's this little old Italian man, runs a shop on fifth. Name's Arlo," she said even as Sophie gave her the details.

"Wow, thanks," Drake said with what Breanna thought might be a genuine smile. She'd thought that about the previous ones, though, until comparing to this one. At least it looked less tired.

"And I'm Brie," Breanna said, giving the name of her influencer persona. "Like the cheese, don't ask, my parents were… well, the kind of people who would name a daughter Brie." She stuck out her hand and Drake shook it.

"Call me Tim. And believe me I know all about quirky parents."

"Was that an invitation to ask, or just a clever quip?" Breanna asked.

"Just assume everything you've heard about Bruce Wayne is true," Tim said, with a dismissive wave. Breanna did not miss that this meant he was referring to Bruce as a parent, with no apparent indication that he'd considered she might think he was talking about Jack and Janet Drake.

"Uh, I hope not everything," Breanna said with a frown. "Like. Everything, everything?"

Tim cocked his head at her. "Why? What—"

"Tim! There you are," said a bright, male voice moments before it was followed by a bright, male body popping around the side of the planter. Breanna only had a moment to be annoyed, when he was followed by a redheaded woman in a wheelchair and oh no she was hot. Her hair was pinned up in soft curls, her thin-strapped dress, pale blue and sparkling in such a way that it looked wet, hugged her torso and legs before bursting into foamy tulle around her calves, just the right amount of floof so as not to get caught in her wheels. It brought out her soft, spring green eyes.

Breanna was being introduced and snapped to attention.

"—and Brie, this is my brother Dick and Barbara Gordon."

Breanna stuck her hand out toward Barbara, hoping her deodorant hadn't atomized. "Acquaintanced to please— wait. Um. Hello," Breanna said while Sophie rattled off Barbara's backstory in her ear.

Barbara shook her hand good naturedly. "Hello," she said. "Are you enjoying the party?"

"Yeah, it's beautiful. I mean. The. Orchids. Look at these orchids. Wow, that's a lot of glitter."

Calm down, Sophie advised in her ear, her voice low and steady. Remember your breathing. Breanna took a few subtle but deep breaths, and yeah, that did actually help.

"So are you one of our new engineers?" Dick asked, looking between Breanna and Barbara with an expression that said Breanna hadn't fooled him even slightly and he was very amused by it.

"Oh, no. Influencer, I'm afraid," Breanna said. Her brain was finally back on side enough to take in a few details about him. Dazzling smile she knew from the research photos, well-tailored suit, blue tie that matched his eyes and Barbara Gordon's dress.

"She's brieZ on MBGZ," Barbara said. "You know, she did that viral video on custom skateboard wheels."

"You follow me?" Breanna squeaked, instantly vowing to maintain the fake account forever.

"Just recently. I'm a little late to the game. I only saw one of your videos yesterday, but I guess that makes sense since you have so many views."

"Yeah, the algorithm's cooling me off," Breanna said with a little laugh. "Such is life."

"All right, well, I don't have an EmBig account, I just came here to drag Tim out of hiding," Dick said. Was it Breanna's imagination, or did his grin at Tim look a little intense?

Tim scowled at him. "I'm networking," he said.

"Well, network your way onto the floor soon; Bruce is giving his speech in a few. Nice to meet you, brieZ," Dick said, and sauntered away.

"That's going to stain," Barbara said with a nod at Tim's drying tie. "Flag me down if you need interference to get upstairs."

"Yeah, I'll be out in a minute," Tim said, and Barbara smiled at them both (Breanna's knees absolutely did not go weak) before turning back out into the crowd. "Sorry, I really should go get my change of clothes."

"No, no, you're good. It's just, uh—"

Time for the almost-touch, Sophie said. Almost to his elbow, then stop, respect his space. Breanna did as instructed.

"Your brother, huh? Whole family of intense characters."

"Oh, yeah. Dick's great, though," Tim said.

"Good. That's good," Breanna said.

"Babs is, too," Tim said shrewdly.

"Is she?" Breanna squeaked. She cleared her throat. "I mean. That's. Also good."

Tim laughed. "It was great to meet you. We'll talk." And he slid back out into the crowd.

"I let him get away," Breanna muttered.

"No," Sophie said in her ear. "You did perfectly. A few more encounters over the course of the night and we will be in very good shape indeed."

Breanna sighed, looking back out over the sea of people and bravely opting to fortify herself at the hors d'ouvres table first. She plucked up a bacon-wrapped something on a toothpick and twirled it gently between two fingers.

"Selina Kyle is here," Parker hissed, not in Breanna's ear but right next to her suddenly. Breanna jumped just a tiny bit. Nerves.

"Okay?" Breanna said, looking around to make sure no one else had seen. Parker drifted around the table, fluffing up the decorative greenery.

"Bruce Wayne's date?" Sophie asked, in Breanna's ear where she belonged.

"More like Bruce Wayne's security consultant," Parker said. From the way she was glaring daggers over Breanna's shoulder, it would seem the couple had made an appearance.

"Security consultant?" Sophie asked. "She's a socialite. I don't see anything about—"

"She's a thief," Parker said. "And what's really interesting is she's been stealing stuff from people all night."

"What?" Breanna risked a glance over her shoulder. Bruce Wayne was hard to miss; the crowd flowed around him like he had his own gravity. On his arm was a petite woman with a pixie cut in a slinky black dress.

"That's not the interesting part," Parker said. "She's stealing stuff, and Wayne is putting it back."

Breanna stared at Parker.

"She's good enough to make a lift without her target noticing, and he's good enough to see it and to replace it?" Sophie asked. She sounded like she was having a hard time believing it.

"Yes," Parker said simply. "And she will definitely recognize me if she sees me." She grabbed a platter at random, whirled, and strode back toward the kitchens.

"Wh… okay," Breanna said.

"I'm going to the basement," Parker said, back in her ear. "It's the only place I haven't checked and the only place that might have a stash of secret servers."

"I thought you said they rearranged all the security upstairs," Breanna said.

"Yeah, and?"

"Well, the consultant is down here, so are all the Waynes except—" The elevator dinged. "Never mind. All the Waynes. So… opportunity?"

"Oh, no, I already checked everything over again. Nothing we need up there. Took forever. I had to lock everything behind me and put all the keys back where I found them and everything."

'Forever' was apparently the not-quite-two hours Breanna had been here. And most of that had likely just been travel around the enormous building. That was Parker working cold on a completely reconfigured security system designed specifically to counter her last break in. Breanna felt a little dizzy.

"Then… are we done here?" she asked.

"Parker is. You are sticking around," Sophie instructed. "Check your pocket. The other one."

Breanna did as told and found Parker had slipped a phone in there. Breanna powered it on in her own custom-blended safe mode – there was something on the WE network she didn't want in her systems – while Sophie gave her her marching orders.

"Make eye contact with Drake a few times," she said. "Listen to Wayne's speech. Mingle. See what you can pick up."

Breanna sighed, squared her shoulders, and waded back in.

Wayne's speech was blessedly short. Breanna faded into the back of a gaggle of influencers and listened to him talk about connecting the younger generation, the hope of the future, etc etc. The speech made the investors happy, it seemed, but he didn't really say much of anything to Breanna's ear.

Tim listened attentively and applauded like a pro despite the fresh champagne glass in his hand. "Isn't he sixteen?" Breanna wondered, subvocal.

"It's not champagne," Parker said. "What I spilled on him was, but that's not. None of the Waynes are drinking tonight."

Breanna suspected that was not because of age limitations; there were some under-21s here amongst the social media superstar set and she herself had had no problem procuring a glass even if she didn't intend to drink any of it. She saw more than a few glasses in photo-ready hands. She hoped none of them posted anything incriminating, or else that they were actually drinking a very good imitation just as the Waynes were. But no one seemed to be checking.

"Does Wayne often host parties where he remains completely sober and all the beautiful young things get drunk?" Breanna wondered.

"If you believe the tabloids, he's usually the one doing the drinking," Harry commented. "Though I notice he's acting the part tonight, so who knows about those others."

Wayne's gestures were getting more expansive, his laughter louder. Nothing untoward, nothing ugly… but still. "Something to keep an eye on," Breanna muttered.

"Let us be those eyes," Sophie said. "You focus on Drake."

Breanna did.

It was oddly easier to find the flow of the party now that she had a mission to focus on. She could manipulate it to draw her into and out of Tim's orbit, she found. It helped that Tim was open to talking to her after their encounter behind the planter. They caught each others' eyes once or twice amidst the churning crowd with wry looks, but it wasn't until Tim was roped into a conversation with a suited, elderly white man that Breanna had another chance to talk to him.

The man had Tim backed up against a column, talking insistently at him, leaning in while Tim tried to lean away subtly.

Breanna bounced once, picking up the ambient music – all the younger crowd were dancing while the investors circled the edges of the floor like sharks – and made her move.

"Woo!" she said, stumbling between them as though she had simply twirled too hard. "I love this song! Tim, dance with me!" She jerked her head toward the dancing crowd invitingly, darting her eyes toward the man who'd cornered him with a quirked eyebrow that said 'This is a rescue.'

Tim shrugged apologetically at the man. "Sorry, Sebastian. Can't refuse a lady, you know." He accepted Breanna's proffered hand and easily picked up on her movements to twirl her toward the dancing.

"You don't actually have to dance with me," Breanna called over the music. "But you looked like you needed a rescue."

"It's appreciated," Tim said. "I'm not much of a dancer, but— let's get across the floor or Mr. Clark will just pounce again."

"What did he want?" Breanna asked. She and Tim twisted through the dancers, finding the thickest spots to obscure themselves from Tim's stalker.

"Politics," Tim waved it away. Off-rhythm, Breanna noticed. He hadn't been lying when he'd said he wasn't much of a dancer. Tim noticed her noticing. "Hey, put me in a ballroom with a string quartet and I'll knock your socks off."

A laugh burst out of Breanna. "I believe you! Very classy! Come on, let's put you out of your misery." She led them deftly out the other side of the crowd, with several detours where it was simply too dense, until finally they fetched up against a pillar almost exactly opposite to where they'd started, out of breath.

"Do you ever get to enjoy these parties?" Breanna asked.

"Oh, absolutely not," Tim said wryly. "Actually, right now, I should be—" He trailed off, looking around, scanning over the heads of the crowd.

"Your family?" Breanna guessed. Tim looked at her sharply. She shrugged. "They're a bunch of strong personalities. And you're… very responsible. Surely there's enough of them to have whatever it is covered while you at least catch your breath, though?"

"Well, probably," he admitted reluctantly. "And I did want to ask you about that video— oh, hang on, sorry." He pulled his phone out, hesitated for a second, then put it back in his pocket.

"Speak of the devil?" Breanna asked.

"You must be psychic. It's fine. Babs mentioned you review skateboards?"

"Sure, yeah," Breanna said. "I did a few videos – I don't skate too much, I just like the tech of it, you know?"

"Yeah, I wanted to ask, have you heard about that new dyeing process?"

"That's supposed to maintain the hardness for colored wheels? Yeah!" Breanna said. "It's an interesting idea, but—"

Tim's phone buzzed again. He sighed. "They really want something. Hang on." He looked at it. "Bruce saw me talking to Mr. Clark. Ugh. Hang on, I need to—" He gestured vaguely.

"Go on, do your thing. I think the coast is clear."

Tim wandered off, texting rapidly, looking up to scan the crowd until he spotted Bruce and beelined for him.

"Getting some control freak vibes off of Mr. Wayne," Breanna murmured into her champagne glass.

"That tracks," Harry said.

"And you can use it," Sophie said.

"I'm on it," Breanna said, finally feeling confident that she could, in fact, swing this. Tim clearly liked her company, and there was just as clearly something off about his family situation. Breanna squared her shoulders and waded back into the party with purpose.

Tim gave Bruce an unimpressed look when he finally made it to his side. There had been the usual detours – handshakes and hellos and oh since you're here, just real quicks – and it was all just so much. But he was used to it.

"What?" he asked Bruce. "I was mingling."

"Saw you speaking with Sebastian Clark," Bruce said. He had on his pleasant, vacant expression, and his pleasant, vacant voice. "How is the old man?"

"Still kicking," Tim said. Bruce gave him an eyebrow. "Not even a little interested in investing unless we back his pick for mayoral candidate."

Bruce snorted. "Not bloody likely," he said into his sparkling cider, the glass hiding his lips from any watching cameras. "And who does he have his eye on?"

"March."

"Hm."

"Bruce, this is supposed to be a party," Selina said, slinking up between Bruce and Tim. She passed Tim a plate with a beef croquette, a quinoa-stuffed mushroom, and two crostini.

"I'm so glad we invited you," Tim said, accepting the plate.

"You have excellent taste," Selina agreed. "Except you also invited Maria Powers and I can't for the life of me figure out why." She wrinkled her nose. "She trapped me on the way to the bathroom. The woman is nosier than an anteater and far less subtle."

"We invited her to rub her face in our excellent venue," Bruce said blandly. "Powers Hotels made a very good effort at swiping the International Cybersecurity Summit from us for next year, so I'm giving them the chance to steal some of our better ideas." He gave Tim's plate an interested glance and Tim hastily stuffed the whole mushroom into his mouth before it could vanish. "I thought you were bringing me—"

"That's his reward for you making him work when he was making friends," Selina said. "You can get your own."

Bruce sighed pitifully and Tim wolfed the croquette without remorse. "What about upstairs?" he asked around the mouthful.

"No worries," Selina said. She looked around. "Speaking of security, though, have you seen Barbara?"

Tim nodded. "Talked to her earlier when I changed my tie. Nothing new. She's got the whatever-it-is isolated. It's not stopping, but it's not getting anywhere either. Though, you know what, I see her right there, maybe you'd better ask her about it."

They turned to where Babs was making her way to their little alcove and Tim slipped off while their backs were turned. It wasn't that he minded working a gala. Galas were work, after all, and had been for his entire life. But Bruce's habit of wanting continual updates throughout the night was exhausting; you couldn't know the meaning of any information you'd gathered or interaction you'd had until the night was over, and the information was best parsed away from the glitter and noise.

He slipped back into the crowd with practiced ease and started looking for Duke. He'd probably be safe with him, at least for a little while.

Breanna managed to run into Tim several times more throughout the night – and he ran into her once or twice, too. They did finally manage to have a meaningful conversation about skateboard wheels and Breanna was pleased and a little surprised to find he had interesting and informed opinions on the chemistry of polyurethane, colored or otherwise.

They were interrupted almost constantly, of course, but Breanna thought she wasn't the only one making an effort to make sure the tide of the party threw them together again.

She almost adopted him into the crew on the spot one of those times, when he appeared out of nowhere and dumped barbecue sauce all over a guy who was reaching for Breanna's hair with a decided proprietary air.

"You better get that to a dry cleaner. Now," Tim suggested flatly, and gallantly offered Breanna his arm. She stuck her nose in the air and swanned away with him.

"My hero," she said. "Maybe not all billionaires are evil after all."

He grinned at her. "I'm not actually a billionaire." He led her out of the main room into a side corridor where it was a little easier to hear yourself think. At this point in the evening, they weren't the only ones taking refuge on the various couches. "Like, not even close. And also it's all in a trust until I turn eighteen."

"Oh," she said. "Bummer. You seem competent enough to handle your own trust."

He shrugged. "My parents didn't know that. And there's no need to contest it at this point."

"So your trust… administrator… person… is cool?"

"It's Bruce."

"Mm."

Something must have shown on her face, because he cocked his head at her. "You don't like him."

"I don't know him," Breanna shrugged.

"But billionaires are evil. Which, fair. But Bruce isn't. And he's only technically a billionaire. It's all tied up in his nonprofits and foundations, which… well, I won't get into it."

"I know, I know," Breanna said. "I'm keeping an open mind! It's just… well, what you said earlier, about everything they say being true." She hesitated, not wanting to push too hard, too soon. "They say a lot of things," she settled on.

"Oh. No, nothing like— Bruce is. Bruce." Tim shrugged. "He is a lot of things but he's not— bad."

"Okay," Breanna said. "And, not making any judgments here. It's just, I've seen a lot of, you know, not bad situations that are still hard. Or, maybe bearable, but not good. And I know a thing or two about pressure and it sort of seems, just from watching you at this really fun party, that you're, you know, under some."

"There a lot of pressure in the custom skateboard wheels industry?" Tim asked with a raised eyebrow.

Deflecting, Breanna thought. "Not for me," she said. "Because I know how to spot a bastard a mile off."

"Good," Tim said, and he sounded like he meant it. He did not seem to be picking up on the insinuation that she could help him.

"Thanks for hanging out with me tonight, by the way," Breanna said, sensing it was time for a subject change (or, sensing Sophie in her ear informing her thus.)

"I should be thanking you," Tim said. "I'm usually working the whole time at these things. Uh, if you can call schmoozing work."

"Better you than me. Don't they let you invite your friends, though?"

That seemed to stymie Tim. "Well, there's Babs."

"Who you've barely spoken to all night because you use each other to run interference," Breanna pointed out.

"Been watching her, have you?" Tim said with a grin. "Don't lie, I saw you staring from the hors d'ouevres table."

"That's beside the point," Breanna mumbled, willing her face not to heat. "Is she the only non-family member you have to socialize with?"

"It's not like I couldn't invite friends," Tim said. "It just… well, they're busy."

"Okay," Breanna said. "Can't argue with that if it means we get to talk chemistry." She gave him an easy smile and leaned back, telling him with body language she'd been practicing that she trusted him and they were having a light conversation. "Though, that bit might be over." She tipped her head at the doorway behind him, where Dick Grayson had appeared.

"There you are," he said to Tim. "Wycliffe's been asking after you. You should put in some face time."

Tim winced. "Gotham founding family," he said apologetically to Breanna.

"Sounds super important," Breanna said, with a flat look at Dick. "Well, go do your thing. Oh, hang on. You have my handle, but just in case." She slipped a card out from her pocket and handed it to him, aware of Dick's eyes on them. It wasn't the standard Leverage card. It just had a phone number on it; one of their burner numbers since Tim was still something of an unknown quantity. "Just in case you're feeling, you know. The pressure."

Tim looked like he was about to say something, but Dick quirked an eyebrow at him impatiently. "Right," Tim said. "Bye, Brie." Breanna watched him slide the card into his pocket, and they disappeared back into the party.

Breanna put her feet up on the sofa and leaned back. "I can't tell if that went well or not," she muttered.

"Hard to say," Sophie replied. "We can't expect him to trust you immediately, of course. But you did everything right. I expect he'll be following brieZ at the very least. We can go from there."

Chapter Text

Wayne Manor was dark, as expected. Eliot still watched it for a quarter hour before approaching, hidden in the treeline of the expansive estate with a pair of binoculars. There was a lot of open ground to cover and he wanted to be sure nothing would surprise him.

The manor's security was very good; they'd made the same choices he would have with such a huge building to protect. Normally, the crew would have made up some ruse to approach the manor legitimately rather than dodge all the cameras, but for the kind of search he needed to do he would need time. Based on what they knew of Wayne, no ruse would get them enough unsupervised access to the house. The man was paranoid.

Or smart, Eliot thought, carefully edging around where he knew the pressure plates were. Across town, in his ear, Breanna was making her grand debut. He turned the com down to the edge of hearing and focused on his route.

Breanna had given him a few toys: remote loopers for cameras that couldn't be avoided (good for no more than 30 seconds so be quick, she'd said. Eliot had rolled his eyes at her), bypasses for window security, and, most important, an EMF detector.

"Like for ghosts," she'd said.

"What," Eliot had said.

"Well, not in this case. In this case it'll detect any weird spikes in power usage. Like, all homes have a little background EMF. But a server bank? An electronic safe? A backup generator system? These are things that'll cause blips on there," she said.

It was a solid little device, with actual dials on it, which Eliot appreciated. He pulled it out as soon as he made it in through a ground floor window in a disused wing, the window security bypass having worked perfectly.

He would also need to look for regular safes – they were on the hunt not just for the code but for whatever WE planned to do with it. Paperwork, contracts, agreements; all were on his list for tonight, as were personal computers and devices.

In the past, these were the sorts of things he'd retrieve for a client, dropping them in the lap of whoever was paying him and moving on to the next job without much care for collateral damage. Tonight, he needed to be one part retrieval specialist, one part thief, one part hacker.

Good thing he had a lot of experience with the latter two, now.

The sheer size of the manor made things slow. Just because a wing was closed off and disused didn't mean he could ignore it. He prowled his way through galleries of sheeted furniture, suites of guest rooms, an entire disused servants' wing. Breanna's little gadget didn't make a peep.

It perked up a little when he made his way into the inhabited portion of the manor, but every chirp could be traced back to something innocuous; a game system, a washer and dryer, a stereo system.

There was a safe in Wayne's study, he knew from earlier recon with Parker. That should be his next stop. It would be just across the landing up ahead, down the stairs, right turn down the hall, second door.

He made it to the "down the stairs" part and froze. It was one of those moments when something had twigged some sense and he'd reacted before parsing it. A sound? A smell? Didn't matter. He eased down the stairs even more slowly, on high alert. In his ear, Breanna asked if anyone else was having tech problems. He tapped a negative and kept moving.

From somewhere in the depths of the manor, there was a scuff.

Not a creak of a settling house or the crack of a loose shutter or the click of an HVAC system. A scuff, of a foot against a floor.

Eliot prowled down the hallway in the direction he'd heard it. Around a corner, ahead – a light, spilling from somewhere down the connecting hall.

And then a series of rapid clicks. Eliot knew that sound, intimately. Click-click-click-whoosh. Someone had turned on the gas burner on a stove.

This house was supposed to be empty. Breanna and Parker had set eyes on every one of the kids, Wayne himself, and even the butler, who was waiting to chauffeur them all home behind the scenes at the gala with a book to keep him company. So who was in the family kitchen, cooking?

Eliot looked for a vantage that would allow him to see through the kitchen's open doorway without being seen himself, retreating back to the stairs, through the foyer, and down another hallway that he thought would end with a line of sight on the door.

He paused well back, still in shadows and away from the homey yellow rectangle of light spilling from the kitchen.

There was a man at the stove, big and broad enough to completely occlude whatever he was doing. But now Eliot could hear regular pop-pop-pops, and if that wasn't enough the smell would give it away. He was making popcorn the old-fashioned way.

Eliot faded back further and put a finger to his com. "There's someone here," he breathed.

The com made the little tone that indicated Sophie had isolated his channel to the command hub at the truck. Breanna must need to focus.

"Someone?" Harry asked. "All the Waynes are here."

"Someone comfortable with the place. He's making popcorn." The popping noise abruptly stopped and Eliot retreated further, waiting to see which way the man would go.

He turned down the hall. Eliot consulted his mental recon notes and what they'd been able to piece together about the manor from online interviews, puff pieces, and blueprints. There was a movie room down that way.

Eliot inched after the man, watching him navigate in only the dim lights that came from a few nightlights placed low here and there. He knew his way around, clearly. And he walked like—

Eliot stopped abruptly.

And the man stopped.

And the man turned.

Eliot had already ducked through an open bathroom door. The man kept going after a moment, loudly crunching popcorn.

"Eliot?" Sophie asked.

"They've got security here."

"Making popcorn?" Harry said, incredulous.

"Maybe it's his night off," Eliot growled. He was trying to catalogue his resources. He had a backpack with the Parker 3000 (a sleeker upgrade from the Parker 2000), Breanna's toys, spare com, and a fake ID in case he really wanted to make a last ditch effort to fool someone into thinking he was a termite inspector here at Wayne Manor in the middle of the night.

There would be knives in the kitchen.

Down the hall, a movie started playing, loudly. Eliot said several swear words in his head.

"Is that Star Wars?" Harry asked.

"He wants me to think he's distracted," Eliot said, running down the hall now back toward the kitchen. Fight? Retreat?

"Eliot, who is he?" Sophie said. Of course she would pick up on his stress.

"I don't know," Eliot said, and that was true. He didn't know. He wanted to confirm. Fighting would be one way to do that, but if he was right… giving the guy home court advantage would not be ideal. Eliot could win, he thought, but it would be messy and stealth for the rest of the con would be completely shot.

He needed a place to hide, and watch. He retreated up the stairs, to the spot where the landing opened into a mezzanine with a view of the sitting room below. If the guy's guard was up, he would do a perimeter check and would almost certainly pass through here to check the large French doors that opened onto the patio.

It wasn't long before Eliot's prediction proved accurate. Eliot watched the man cross the room and frowned at what he saw. The guy was younger than Eliot had thought, but his stride reinforced every other analysis he'd made: a body built for strength, not show; confidence; training of a very particular sort. He had some kind of weapons on him, concealed, but Eliot couldn't tell what.

Eliot sank back into the shadow just as the kid turned and raked his gaze over the mezzanine. He wished he could get a photo to cross-reference against known players later, but he didn't dare do anything that could draw attention. He'd have to settle for memorizing his face and keeping his eyes open. He doubted the guy left that distinctive white streak uncovered when he was working, but it would be harder to hide the intensity of his gaze or the stubborn set of his jaw.

The kid headed for the main stairs. There was a back staircase, though, and Eliot slipped down it before the kid even got close. He'd make for the study, just a quick look, and then he was calling it a night on this little B&E session.

He took only a moment to confirm the guy had gone up the stairs before moving on. He hated knowing someone else was in this cavernous old house, looking for him, but unless the guy was psychic there was no way he'd come straight to the study to check. He'd be methodical.

Unless there was something important in the study.

The team had quit asking him for updates; they knew he'd talk when he could. He gave the com a quick tap sequence to let them know he was all right as soon as he'd closed himself into the study. Then he looked around.

Pretty average rich guy study. Big old desk, big old chair. Leather sofa. Built-in bookcases. Grandfather clock probably older than most grandfathers. Portrait or two, one with, predictably, a safe behind it. Eliot nearly rolled his eyes.

His neck prickling, wishing he had Breanna or Hardison watching him through cameras that weren't there, Eliot eased the portrait down and let the Parker 3000 do its thing. He didn't watch it; he watched the door.

The safe swung open a minute later, and there hadn't been so much as a creak from the direction of the door. Eliot couldn't even hear the Star Wars soundtrack in here. These walls were good and solid.

He rifled through the safe's contents. Wills, adoption paperwork, insurance crap. He did take a few photos of the adoption paperwork just in case there really was something fishy going on there, but there was nothing relating to the MBGZ acquisition. It was clearly a personal safe.

He replaced everything with a sigh and then considered Breanna's EMF reader. It would make a small amount of noise. Probably not enough to be heard outside the study, if what Eliot himself couldn't hear was any indicator. He tucked himself down against the grandfather clock where he'd have a good view of the door without being immediately visible himself and turned it on. It gave a hesitant little chirp. Eliot waited and it went quiet again. He was about to call the study done when it chirped once more, twice… and then quit.

Something residual, then. Eliot gave it a lap around the study, but it only spoke up again when he was back where he started. There was an electrical outlet near where he'd been sitting; that might do it. He checked the bookshelves for hidden doors anyway, and tried to move the grandfather clock, but it was heavier than it looked and didn't budge.

And then a figure crossed the yard immediately outside the study's large bay window. Eliot's heart near climbed out of his mouth; he was lucky he was crammed between the bookshelf and the clock. The figure came into view again and it was, of course, his friend from before, clearly checking the security on the windows.

The manor had a lot of windows. It would take him a long time to find Eliot's entry point, unless he got lucky.

Eliot had never been one to rely on luck. He stood as still as he had ever stood and waited for the kid to move on. Then he made his way back to where he'd come in, and retreated.

Galas, Tim thought, were more exhausting than an entire night of patrol. He and his various extended family had retreated upstairs to debrief as the party broke up.

There were the usual complaints about overly-familiar board members and investors. Duke had retreated into a novel and was ignoring them all from a corner of the couch in Bruce's executive suite, a sure sign that he'd had enough of people for the night. Damian was listlessly twirling the handle of the foosball table, more tired than he was willing to admit. Cass had ditched her shoes somewhere and was rifling through the mini fridge for Capri Suns.

"Looks like your suggestions worked," Bruce was telling Selina as the two of them finished their rounds. "No signs of a break in."

"Perhaps they're biding their time," Selina pointed out. "A party is excellent cover, but some thieves prefer quiet and dark."

"Well, we'll keep an eye out," Bruce said. Tim didn't hear the rest of their conversation because Dick threw a water bottle at him.

"Hydrate," he said.

"Yeah, yeah," Tim groused, but he did crack it open and take a drink.

"So," Babs said. "Did you follow your new friend yet?"

"Brie?" Tim asked. "No. I'll get to it."

"I like her," Dick said. "I like the way she didn't look at me at all." He waggled an eyebrow at Babs.

"Really? I thought you'd be lonely without all eyes on you," Tim joked. It had been useful, though. Normally if Tim was cornered at an event, Dick would come over and be a dazzling distraction while whoever his partner was – Babs in this case – would make the signs asking if Tim was all right. It was kind of fun to see it reversed. The pair had naturally not missed a beat swapping roles.

"I'm glad you two are amused," Babs said. "Because that Brie is not what she seems."

That got both their attention. Babs brought up MBGZ on a tablet. "Some things don't add up on the back end with her popularity. Signs of bot activity."

Tim frowned. "Plenty of influencers resort to bot engagement to get started, I guess," he said, though he was disappointed. He hadn't thought Brie the type. She seemed so genuine.

"It's that, but it's also the timeline. Her profile goes back at least a year, that's all well and good, but the activity on it – well I just so happen to be in a position to see that her organic, definitely human, interaction is all very recent. Everything prior to a few days ago is faked. If I hadn't met her tonight I'd say she was a bot account publishing stolen or deepfaked videos."

Tim gave a low whistle. "That's a lot of effort. For… what? Clout?"

"For an invite to the ball?" Dick drawled. "An in?"

"Well if she was after anything more than a party, mission fail," Tim said. "Bruce and Selina just said there's no signs of tampering, and even if she is some kind of master thief, I saw her way too often over the course of the night for her to have slipped away to do crime."

Babs sighed and rubbed her forehead. "You sweet summer child."

"What?" Tim demanded.

"What do we know about the shady foreign government that initially wanted to buy MBGZ?" Babs prompted.

"Not a lot?" Tim said. "There was that lady, and the American lawyer. They had— oh. They had really good fake personas. And they played Jeffries like a fiddle." Babs had been extremely impressed by their operation, right before she'd torpedoed the whole thing. "But just because she faked an MBGZ profile and talked to me doesn't mean she's with them."

"No," Babs admitted. "But when I started suspecting, I tried to take a look at her phone. Since she was right there and all. She had bricked it. Not just turned it off, run a program that disconnected the damn battery. Why would an influencer go to a gala like this with a brick in her pocket instead of a phone?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe she noticed someone trying to hack it," Tim suggested.

"Ha. No. It was already bricked by the time I went poking. Which I think means she tried something while she was here, didn't like our countermeasures, and initiated security protocols."

Now it was Dick's turn to look thoughtful. "Isn't that something you can check though? Whether there was an attempt on our network?"

"Well, yes," Babs said. "But the thing is, we've been under constant… I don't want to call it attack. But something has been pinging around our system ever since the acquisition. It was business as usual last night. Which, if it's been her and her crew this whole time, tracks. Except…"

"Except?" Dick prompted.

"Why would she infiltrate the party just to do something identical to what she, or whoever, has already been doing remotely?"

Tim shook his head. "She had to be trying something else."

"But she wasn't, at least not from a hacking standpoint." Babs nibbled a thumbnail. "Which means there's no reason she should have bricked her phone. We have to be missing something."

"Hey guys?" Duke called from across the room. "Hang on, I'm putting you on speaker," he said to his phone.

"—dare put me on speaker," the phone said.

"Jason?" Dick asked

"Ugh," Jason said over Duke's phone. "I called you, dayglow, because I didn't want to deal with the whole goof troop. Fine, whatever. Someone broke into the manor tonight, thought you ought to know."

There was a general chorus of what.

"How many ambulances?" Dick asked, resigned.

"What were you doing at the manor?" Damian asked.

"None, and taking advantage of a top quality entertainment system without any annoyances hovering around," Jason said. "Not that I got to do that anyway. I spent the whole night looking for the hole in your security, you're welcome very much."

"Did you find out how they broke in, then?" Babs asked.

"Uh. Well. No."

"And you couldn't get them to talk?" Tim said. "That's unusual. Who are they?"

"I didn't catch them," Jason said, and Tim figured that was for the best because based on the way he sounded, Dick's ambulance question would have had a pretty different answer.

Damian scoffed, but Cass put a hand over his mouth. "Jason. Explain," she said.

"Fine," Jason grumbled. "Thought I was alone in the house. Noticed someone shadowing me. Whoever it was was good. I never set eyes on them. Didn't trip any alarms. Moved fast and quiet. Trained. Didn't take anything though. Didn't attack. Didn't open any doors we'd rather keep closed. The most I found was the lead broken in the family safe, but nothing missing inside."

They all knew Bruce kept a tiny pencil lead in the hinge of the decoy safe in his study. It would be broken if the safe was opened. There was no way around that – Bruce had to replace it every time he opened the safe, himself. All of the documents inside were, of course, forgeries and fakes or else unimportant documents available in the public record. Bruce kept anything actually important (and not bat-related) in Alfred's quarters.

"So, either they didn't find what they were looking for, or what they were looking for was just info," Duke reasoned. "Something they could learn, but didn't need any proof or hard copies of."

"I'll check security as soon as I'm back at the clocktower," Babs said, already turning to go. "There's no way they got to the house without showing up on camera or tampering with them"

"There's nothing obvious," Jason said. "I already checked in the Cave."

"Then I'll look for something subtle," Babs called over her shoulder.

"Right. Well. I'm getting back to my movie. Give me a heads up if you've pissed off any more black ops specialists though, yeah?" Jason hung up with no further ceremony.

The party well and truly broke up after that. Dick went to find Bruce to fill him in, and the others trooped downstairs to where Alfred was finishing supervising the clean-up.

Tim's mind chewed over the situation the whole way home, and by the time they arrived he had figured out what he wanted to do.

Jason was still in the movie room, well into Deadpool when Tim slipped in with a popcorn peace offering. Jason eyed it skeptically. "What?" he asked.

"Gonna do something dumb," Tim said.

Jason nodded and took the bowl from him, handing him his old bowl which was down to kernels. "Sounds about right. Where do I come in?"

"Are you up on the MBGZ case?"

Jason rolled his eyes so hard Tim thought he was in danger of spraining something.

"That's not a no," Tim pointed out.

"Yes, I'm up to date. Someone who can rob WE, break into the manor, and leave no trace is, shall we say, relevant to my interests."

Tim took Brie's card out of his pocket and held it up between two fingers. "I may or may not have been approached by someone involved. I think they're trying to social engineer me. I'm gonna let 'em. But I wouldn't mind some backup."

Jason snatched the card from Tim's hand. "Well this is cryptic."

"I'm gonna run some analysis on it, and a few other leads, see if I can't track down a physical location. Then I'm gonna go knock on their door and give them exactly what they want."

"Which is?"

"Timothy Drake-Wayne," Tim said with a shrug. "You in?"

"Why me?" Jason asked.

"You've encountered the person who I'm assuming is their muscle. And because the others will be more on board if two of us already have the plan squared away, and I think they would tell me I'm being stupid if I came to them first."

"You are being stupid. You should have more than one person as backup. And I'm assuming you were thinking remote backup?"

"Well I can't exactly show up with the Red Hood as my bodyguard, so yeah, just be nearby in case. Red Hood can always crash in and kidnap Tim Drake – Nightwing has less excuse. And I want to keep it small. These people have shown they can hit multiple locations at the same time. They have a crew. We need people ready at WE and the manor, too, just in case."

Jason shoveled a handful of popcorn into his mouth, crunching it while maintaining eye contact with Tim. Tim, used to these sorts of things, waited patiently. On the screen, Deadpool chased a guy down in a Zamboni.

"Needs salt," Jason said eventually.

"No it doesn't," Tim said. "I made it exactly to your preferences."

"You are so creepy. But fine. I'll back you up. Bruce'll probably even go along with it. But you have to be the one to explain it to Big Bird."

Tim grimaced. "Let's just… save him for last."

Jason cackled and turned back to the movie. Tentatively, Tim settled in a few seats away from him. When Jason didn't immediately banish him, he pulled out his phone and got to work.

"You didn't leave any cameras?" Breanna asked later, dismayed.

"No," Eliot said.

"No bugs, no wiretaps?" Harry asked.

"No."

"All right, Eliot," Sophie said. "You still haven't told us who it was that spooked you. Someone you obviously think would find any trace you left."

"Was it a thief?" Parker asked. "We were surprised by Selina Kyle at the gala. Maybe Wayne has another one in his back pocket."

"I ain't spooked," Eliot said. "I'm smart. We don't want to get into it with the League of Assassins, and whoever it was that was there, he was League trained. You can see it in how they move. Yes, he would find anything I left, and yes, he probably figured out how I got in anyway based on the window security doohickey—"

"That thing is made to just interrupt the signal," Breanna protested. "As soon as you took it off, everything should have gone back to normal."

"Look," Eliot said. "I don't even know how he knew I was there in the first place. Me. No idea how he… I don't know, heard me or sensed me or what." He met each of his crew's eyes in turn. "These people are bad news."

"All the more reason Wayne shouldn't have this code," Breanna said stubbornly.

Sophie looked from her, to Eliot. She quirked an eyebrow at him. Eliot set his jaw and glowered. "Could you neutralize this assassin, if we controlled the circumstances?" Sophie asked.

Eliot didn't grind his teeth, but it was a near thing. "Yes," he admitted. "But that's a big if. And it's called a League for a reason. Where there's one, more can show up like that." He snapped his fingers.

"All right," Sophie said. "And these assassins… they're bodyguards for hire?"

Eliot shook his head. "That's the unsettling part. They obey their leader implicitly. It's a cult. If they're here, it's because the Demon's Head wants them here, and Wayne ain't the Demon's Head. Could be they're controlling him. Or could be they've got a deal."

"Could this Demon's Head— I can't believe I just said that— already have the code?" Harry asked.

Eliot shrugged. "If he does and the deal's done, I don't see why he'd leave a Shadow out here. But…" He trailed off, thinking about something that had been nagging at him the whole trip back into Gotham. He knew what would happen if he said it, but now was not the time to be keeping information from the crew. "The times I've crossed paths with the League of Assassins, they've been all business. This guy—"

"Was making popcorn," Parker said, picking up on his line of thought immediately. "And watching Star Wars."

"The movie playing was a cover," Eliot said. "That's the move of a guy who knows how to use his environment, it's… well, it's a hitter move. But it's not a Shadow move."

"So, he's not an assassin?" Harry asked.

"He's definitely League. The way he moved, the paranoia—"

"Perhaps a survivor of the cult," Sophie suggested. Eliot did not like the intrigued look in her eye, but he wasn't surprised by it.

"I've never heard of someone escaping," Eliot said. And the kid had been young to be operating independently. Must have been trained from childhood. Indoctrinated since then. The odds he was an escapee were ridiculously low.

"Perhaps if I could watch him for a bit—" Sophie started.

"Sophie," Eliot growled.

"What? There are things here that don't add up. Whatever happened with Timothy Drake's adoption, this assassin who isn't one, Bruce Wayne's frankly alarming proficiency with pickpocketing… we don't have enough information, and there's nothing more dangerous than that," she said matter-of-factly.

Eliot frowned, but the others were nodding. He knew a losing battle when he saw one.

"I'm going to do a perimeter sweep," he growled, and stalked out.

Parker followed him without a word, knowing he'd know she was there. They took the elevator down (the normal-person way, not the Parker way). Parker waited until Eliot visually checked all the security cameras were still in place, made sure he recognized the doorman, and was about to begin a second lap of the outside of the building before snagging his arm.

"Come on," she said. "All night sandwich shop."

"What?" Eliot said.

"It's kitty-corner. Good sightlines. Good grilled cheese."

"Grilled—?"

She dragged him across the street to the little shop that was, in fact, open all night. The street was deserted but the lady at the counter recognized Parker. She didn't get a lot of late night/early morning customers, probably. She put two grilled cheeses in a white paper sack for them and Parker dragged Eliot out to eat them on the roof of the building, sitting on the edge just above the neon sign.

"Do you ever sleep?" Eliot asked. He was eating, though. The sandwiches were gooey and a little juicy. There was a tomato in there. Parker pulled hers out and draped it on Eliot's sandwich.

"Do you?" she asked him.

"I don't go out in the middle of the night making friends at sandwich shops."

"Weird." She swung her legs back and forth, kicking her heels against the brick of the building, and helped Eliot watch for shadow ninjas for a while. He took a long time to eat his sandwich, so when she was finished with hers she turned sideways and put her feet on the ledge, leaning her back against his shoulder and watching the taller buildings around them.

"You heard from Hardison lately?" Eliot asked eventually.

"Not since Amsterdam. You know, the tulip thing."

"Yeah," Eliot said. "Been a while."

"I miss him too," Parker said.

"I don't miss him," Eliot said. That was a lie, but it was a lie in their language, which wasn't really a lie at all.

"You worried, then?" Parker asked.

"No."

"Me neither." And she thought, as she often did, how lucky she was to have people who she could speak this language with. "You want to go back in?"

"Yeah," Eliot said. "Yeah, let's go back in."

"You gonna check our roof before you do?"

"Obviously."

Parker sprang to her feet and offered Eliot a hand up, which he accepted with a firm grip. "What if there's a shadow ninja up there?"

"There's not gonna be a Shadow up there. There's no way they could have followed me from the manor."

He'd needed to say it out loud, so that was good. "And if there is, I'll taze them," she said, patting him on the shoulder.

"That'd be a good start," Eliot grumbled, and followed her back down.

Chapter Text

Breanna's phone had joined the cloned laptop in the Faraday tent.

"Your face will freeze that way," Harry said, looking up from his newspaper across the table from her. Breanna pressed a thumb between her eyebrows where she knew there was a crease.

"I don't know what this is," she complained.

"Do you know what it isn't?" Harry asked.

She stared at him. They were the only two sitting in the common area of Sophie's condo. It was the day after the gala and the sun was, in theory, setting. It was hard to tell with the heavy cloud cover, though. A few fat drops of rain had begun to spatter the windows.

Breanna was trying to figure out what had happened on her phone at the party, but she was stumped. She was so stumped she had even texted Alec (on her new phone, initiated from a clean backup), but he hadn't texted back. Who knew what time zone he was in at the moment, though.

"Is it a tracker?" Harry prompted.

"No?" Breanna said. "At least, I don't think so."

"What makes it not look like a tracker?"

"Well, it's in pieces," Breanna said. "I think my security chewed on it. Whatever it is, it's corrupted. So I don't know if what I'm seeing is on purpose… like, it sort of looks like I was meant to find it. But I don't know why someone would do that unless it was a trap. Like, open this file and send all your bank info to a Russian hacker farm."

"And it's not that?"

"No, there's nothing to open. It's just… I don't know."

"So it's not a tracker and not a trap. What does that leave?"

"Depends," Breanna said, slouching down over the table and propping her chin on her hand. "If I wasn't supposed to notice it, there's a lot it could be. If I was supposed to notice it… maybe a ransom note?"

The storm broke suddenly in an abrupt gale that threw the rain against the windows. It was the kind of night that made you glad you knew where all your loved ones were – and Breanna did. Almost. Sophie was upstairs with Parker practicing makeup skills and Eliot had taken a call in his room. Breanna's gaze fell on her silent back-up phone again as thunder groaned just a few skyscrapers over.

"Well then, it didn't work," Harry said, shrugging. "Maybe when they re-did their security to try and Parker-proof the building they left something for you, too."

"But how did it find my phone particularly?"

"Maybe they put it on everyone's phones," Harry said.

"That would be rude as hell," Breanna muttered.

If Harry had a retort to that, he didn't get to make it. Instead, at that moment, there was, amidst the wind and rain and thunder, a knock at the front door. Of the penthouse condominium.

Harry and Breanna both froze, then looked to each other as if to check that they had really heard what they thought they'd heard. The condo had a private elevator and key-code stairs, both of which opened into a foyer that could be used like a front porch or waiting room. They hadn't been there long enough for Breanna to stick a camera out there, but she hadn't really thought it would be necessary; it wasn't like the GrubHub guy was coming up, and it wasn't like anyone who broke in would be knocking.

The knock came again and this time Breanna got up to go to the door.

"Hang on," Harry said. "Are you sure we should—"

"I'm just gonna peek," Breanna said, hushed. "Go get Eliot if you're worried."

Harry raised an eyebrow at her, but didn't leave the room. She saw him take out his phone and start texting as she turned back to the door, though.

The peep-hole cover squeaked slightly as she moved it aside.

There, dripping onto the marble floor of the foyer, in the middle of a widening puddle, hair straggling into his eyes, shivering, was Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne.

"It's Tim!" Breanna hissed. "Hide!"

"Hide?" Harry echoed. Eliot was coming down the stairs behind him.

"She's right, if he's involved in the WE acquisition he could know your face. You too, Sophie," Eliot said, as Sophie was following him down the stairs. "Send Parker down. You got this, Breanna?"

"Me? Got— Tim. Yes. Yes, I got this, okay, let me— no!" She scrambled across the room to her faraday tent, hovered madly around it for a while like a bumblebee faced with a perplexing floral print, then grabbed a throw from the couch and threw it over the tent.

"Nice, very subtle. Harry, go," Eliot said. Harry went, passing Parker on the stairs and catching up with Sophie.

"Parker, make sure Drake doesn't try anything sneaky," Eliot said. He was striding to the door.

"What are you—"

"A fucking perimeter check," Eliot said. He jerked the door open and Tim jumped.

"Oh," he said. "Is— is Brie home?"

Eliot softened. Breanna could see it in the line of his shoulders. Tim must look really pathetic. "Yeah, kid," Eliot said, using his 'calm the scared child' voice. "Get inside."

Tim edged past him into the condo, and Eliot slipped past him, leaving and closing the door behind him. Tim looked a bit nonplussed at that and peered around the huge open space owlishly. He relaxed a little when he saw Breanna.

"Uh, hi. Sorry," he said.

"Oh my god. I'll get towels," Breanna said. "Just— oh, this is—" She stopped, having been on the verge of introducing Parker only to find that Parker had vanished. Belatedly, Breanna remembered that she had been at the gala and had in fact spilled a glass of champagne on Tim so there was a chance he'd recognize her. She was probably watching from… somewhere. Parker-space. "This is my friend's place. Let me find the towels. Come in."

She knew where the towels were. She checked a wrong closet first just to give herself time to breathe.

"Here." She handed him a fluffy white towel. "Go ahead and take your shoes off. Um, I probably have a hoodie or something, hang on." He started to protest, but she was already bounding up the stairs. Parker would keep an eye on him.

Sophie met her in the darkened hallway, Harry hovering behind her. She shoved a pile of clothes into Breanna's hands, an earbud on top. "You've got this," she said, almost sub-vocal while Breanna pushed the earbud in. "Remember, he's lonely but suspicious, and hyper-aware of body language. Be as genuine as possible."

Breanna nodded quickly, smiled weakly at Harry's thumbs-up, and went back down.

Tim was pulling off his sodden sneakers with a rueful look on his face.

"Hoodie, as promised. Even found you some sweats," Breanna said. Thankfully, Sophie had not included underwear. Breanna didn't doubt she had at some point figured out his size and preferred style, and hell, she probably had some squirreled away somewhere, but that would be going way too far. "Uh, there's a bathroom—" She gestured toward it.

"Thanks. Seriously," Tim said, taking the clothes. "Sorry to just drop in on you like this."

"Super okay, dude, but, uh, I have some questions." She gave a significant look at the front door. "After you're dry, though."

Tim nodded and went to the bathroom to get changed. As soon as the door was closed, Breanna scooped up the faraday-blanket bundle, wincing as the electronics inside clattered around, and shoved it into the not-linen closet she'd checked earlier. When Tim came back out moments later, she was putting the kettle on.

"You want tea?"

"Yes, please," Tim said. The hoodie was actually one of Breanna's, black with neon Tetris blocks falling on the front, and it was as oversized on Tim as it was on her.

"Take your pick," Breanna said, opening the tea cupboard to him. "I'll throw your clothes in the dryer, if you want?"

"Sure. Thank you," Tim said. He'd been holding the wet bundle awkwardly and his dry clothes were going to get damp. "This is a good selection," he said when Breanna came back. He'd chosen an English breakfast tea, bagged, which was good because Breanna didn't quite have the hang of the loose leaf. She plopped tea bags into two mugs.

"My fashionista friend," Breanna said. "It's all hers. She won't mind."

"Was that who opened the door?" Tim asked.

"What, El— uh, Elmo? No, though he does appreciate a good tea. He's… another friend."

"You all live here? It's a great place," Tim said, looking around appreciatively.

"Just while we're in town. We work together a lot, so it's convenient. But… you didn't come here to admire the real estate."

"No," Tim said.

Breanna gestured to the couches pointed at the large display for briefings and settled at the other end of the one Tim chose, giving him space. Tim held his tea – sugar, no milk – between two hands, close to his chest, bare feet drawn up onto the cushion since his socks were in the dryer.

"Do you want to start with how you got my address? That card I gave you only had a cell number. And, you know, the elevator is key coded." Breanna asked, making sure to keep her tone light. "No judgment, just interested."

"Right. Uh. Well, the phone number reroutes, right?"

Breanna nodded.

"But it has to reach you eventually. I just sort of tracked it."

"That would require calling it. Doesn't look like you did."

"I have… a certain bit of custom software," Tim said.

"Okay," Breanna said, letting that go, remembering the elaborate con Tim had pulled to convince the authorities he was under the care of an uncle. "So that got you a general IP address. I know it didn't get you anything specific."

Tim nodded like that was a given. "Your videos. Once I had the general geography narrowed down… well, I know Gotham really well. Some processing revealed certain background sounds, angles of light… and here I am."

"I didn't film those in Gotham," Breanna said with a frown. She absolutely had, but according to the time stamps on said videos, she'd been posting for a year, and according to her cover story she was only in Gotham for the gala.

Tim looked at her over the rim of his mug. "I don't care that you fooled the algorithm," he said. "Just like you don't care that I hacked the elevator key."

Breanna nodded slowly. "All righty. Touché. Then what does bring you out in the middle of this godawful storm?"

Tim took a deep, shaking breath. "Bruce is busy tonight. He won't notice. And I didn't take any of his cars. Buses and walked the last blocks," he said. "I need help. And what you said at the gala, I thought… you might have experience. Helping."

Breanna nodded slowly. "You could say that. Yeah, we can help."

Tim stared at her.

"What?"

"You didn't say 'Oh, but you discovered my location and hacked your way in and you have more money than God, what could you possibly need my help with'," Tim said.

Breanna rolled her eyes. "What good does any of that do you when Bruce Wayne has more money even than that? And probably controls your funds too, anyway? Like he couldn't just hire whoever he needed to track you down." She frowned at him. "Like he hasn't done it before."

Tim blinked at her. "How did you—"

"I told you, we can help. It's what we do."

"You keep saying we. An influencer, a fashionista, and… Elmo?"

"You bet."

"And what would you need from me?" Tim asked, his tone neutral. He hadn't taken even one sip of his tea.

"Look, we just help. We have alternative revenue streams, don't even worry about that," Breanna said. "And depending on exactly what you need, our goals might align."

"What do you mean by that?" Tim asked. His gaze was wary, watchful.

"If you want to just be gone, out of his life, set up somewhere new where he won't find you, we can do that," Breanna said. "You'd have to leave your whole life behind, but you would be safe. But…" She sipped her own tea. "If you wanted to take your life back, make Wayne regret what he's done?"

Tim looked away, finally. "How do you know what he's done?" he asked, very quietly. "There's no record of it. He's really, really careful."

"Tim," Breanna said, her heart breaking a little. "Anyone who paid the slightest attention to your history should have had social services at your door a dozen times by now. Hospital visits, mysterious injuries, and I know you tried real hard to avoid him taking you in after— well, after your parents."

"You've done your research."

Breanna shrugged.

"Did you crash the gala just to target me?"

"No," she said. "We target evil billionaires. We help their victims. We were researching Wayne, and we came across you."

Tim watched her for a while. She took another sip of tea, wished it was coffee. "What if I hadn't come to you?"

"We'd keep doing what we do, and you'd be free at the end of it anyway."

"So I'm risking being here for nothing?"

"Well…" Breanna said. "If you can help, it would speed the process up. What do you know about the WE acquisition of MBGZ?"

Tim grinned, sharp enough to be a little startling. "Everything."

Eliot went up.

Rooftop surveillance in the middle of a storm wasn't ideal, but the weather wouldn't stop a Shadow. The Drake kid might be here legitimately – he'd certainly looked pathetic enough when Eliot had opened the door – but that didn't mean Wayne wouldn't find out and send security after him.

The large windows of Sophie's condo were one-way glass, so Eliot wasn't too concerned about a sniper. Drake had gotten to their front door somehow, so the elevator security clearly wasn't up to Hardison code, but if it was assassins he was dealing with the elevator probably wouldn't be their chosen avenue of attack. So, roof first.

He forced the roof access door open against the wind and stepped out, already regretting everything. The wind threw the rain into his face in a thousand stinging needles.

Sophie had a rock garden up here, and some very well-secured stone benches and planters, so there was a little cover an assassin might take advantage of. Eliot prowled around it, one arm raised to ward off the wind and rain.

It was impossible to hear anything in these conditions, so Eliot didn't know what alerted him, but he hadn't gotten this far by mistrusting his instincts. He turned, quickly, and caught just the barest flicker of something whipping around the edge of the stair enclosure. A trick of the rain and wind and dark? Maybe. Or maybe someone was hiding around the other side of the enclosure to attack when he went back in.

"Well, guess there's no one out here," Eliot said loudly, even though there was no way someone hiding across the roof at the stairs would have heard. It helped him get his body language right, though, as he stalked back toward the door.

He put a hand on the handle, braced for attack, but nothing came. He sighed and dashed around the corner of the enclosure instead. It was small enough he could get two walls in view at the same time—

No one there.

His annoyed exhale disrupted the water streaming down his face. He was soaked through, and he still needed to check the elevator shaft. He backed up a few steps to get more of the stairwell in view, just in case, when lightning cracked the sky and threw the whole rooftop into sudden harsh visibility.

A shadow with a red helm crouched on the roof of the enclosure.

Eliot's eyes widened, taking in weapons and gear, even as the shadow realized he'd been spotted. He rose to his full height – impressive even without his rooftop perch – and Eliot could see he was wearing body armor. Quality stuff, too, with some kind of red emblem across the chest. And plenty of hardware. Something tickled the back of Eliot's brain, something about a crime lord in Gotham.

"Forget you saw me," the guy said, voice artificial and amplified to be heard over the wind.

"Sure, if you get off my roof," Eliot shouted back.

The guy cocked his head. He stepped right up to the edge of the stairwell enclosure and then stepped off, dropping to the gravel roof just steps away from Eliot, and alarm bells sounded in Eliot's head. The way he moved—

"Maybe you're new here," the guy said. He pulled a gun from one of his thigh holsters. "So I'll give you—"

Eliot moved. He'd seen enough to know League training, even if the weapons didn't make sense. He closed the space, struck the hand still bringing the gun up to aim, went for an elbow strike—

But the guy had already shifted, flowing away from the hit, and then Eliot was on his back. He twisted out of the way of a hit that would have taken him in the head and kicked the back of the guy's knee as he lunged past.

Red Hood, Eliot's brain finally supplied. He'd made ripples in Eliot's circles when he'd risen to power as a crime lord in Gotham a while back, but nothing too heinous had come of it so Eliot hadn't paid it any more mind. No one had ever said he was a League of Assassins plant, though.

And the way he moved as they fought, blows exchanged in quick darts and flurries, each testing the other's skill when it became apparent this would be a fight and not a slaughter, that was familiar in a more specific way.

"I don't get it," Eliot snarled as the Hood attempted a grapple and they ended up in a lock, heads close as they struggled against each other. "You on Wayne's payroll or Ra's'?"

The Red Hood faltered – just for a microsecond, just for a breath – and Eliot twisted and threw him to the ground. He rolled and bounced up with a swipe to force Eliot to keep his distance.

Eliot held up Hood's own gun with a little wave. He'd snatched it from the second holster as Hood had gone down.

"Well I'll be damned a second time," Hood said. It was hard to tell, but Eliot thought he might have been laughing. "Your name isn't actually Elmo, huh?"

Eliot tossed the gun away and didn't bother to answer because what. He cracked his neck and shoved his dripping hair out of his face. The storm was moving quickly away, but the rain was still a drenching downpour.

"Not Elmo," Red Hood said. "Eliot. Spencer." And then he straightened out of his fighting stance and raised his hands.

Eliot didn't drop his guard. "What's it to you?"

"That's a pretty distinctive fighting style," Hood went on. "I studied you, you know."

"I should be charging the Demon's Head royalties, is that what you're saying?"

Red Hood definitely laughed this time. "Not under Ra's, but good eye. I ain't a Shadow. And I don't work for Bruce Wayne."

"Then what were you doing in his house?"

Now Red Hood tensed again. "That," he said. "is classified." The fingers on one of his upraised hands twitched and Eliot recognized a hand signal when he saw it. He jerked a step away to put his back against the stair enclosure, trying to see who Hood was signaling to.

He almost got his arm up in time to stop the dart to the neck that shot out of the darkness, exactly on target despite the ongoing rain.

"Now that's… what I would expect… from a Shadow," Eliot said, his words already slowing. He shook his head and squared up. The roof top was tilting, sure, but he could still—

"Are your tranqs expired or what?" Jason asked as Nightwing approached from the rock garden. He'd just arrived on the scene, but it was dark and rainy enough that Jason wouldn't have known he was there if Dick hadn't announced his presence over the com.

"No," Dick said. "He's got a high tolerance, I guess." It had taken Spencer way too long to finally succumb. He'd stayed standing even when he must have already been unconscious. Jason had tried to go over and ease him to the ground before he fell, and the guy had taken a swing. It was the kind of thing he'd expect from Bruce.

"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at WE," Jason griped

"Signal and Spoiler have it handled. Catwoman dropped in, too. Sounded like there was more excitement over here. Who is this guy?" They both looked down at the unconscious man, still scowling despite the tranquilizer.

"Eliot Spencer," Jason said.

"Am I supposed to know who that is?"

"He's a hitter." Jason pulled off his hood and ran a hand through his hair, letting the lightening rain cool him off. "But that's the least of it. He's the best at what he does. Retrieval specialist, bodyguard, black ops…"

"An enforcer," Dick said with a frown. He pulled out his zip ties. "Blackgate?"

"I don't think so," Jason said. "Here's the thing. This guy has a code. Dark past, new leaf, has spent the last decade righting wrongs. Or that's what I thought."

"Then what's he doing on security for the guys trying to get their hands on MBGZ?"

Jason shook his head. "No idea. That's why I signaled you. We secure him, get a few answers without worrying about concussions. Bonus leverage if something goes wrong with Tim inside."

Dick hummed agreement and knelt next to Eliot, who was lying on his side. He grabbed one of his wrists – and then threw himself backward as Eliot grabbed Dick's wrist in turn and tried to pull him down.

With his eyes closed, though, Eliot couldn't have seen Jason covering Dick. One gun clicked loudly, not far from Eliot's head, and he froze.

"Not expired, huh?" Jason said.

"They aren't," Dick said, eyes not leaving Eliot's. Their wrists were still clasped, as though Nightwing were crouching to pull Eliot to his feet after a friendly sparring match. But he could see calculation there, a little muzzy as he worked through the sedative way faster than he should have.

"Let go, Spencer," Jason said. To his surprise, he complied, releasing Dick's wrist and leaving his hand raised and open. He used the other to push himself to sitting, switching his gaze to Jason and the gun. His eyes narrowed in a way Jason did not entirely like.

Dick stood smoothly and stepped back. "Hood tells me you're in the good guy business," he said. "Gotta say it doesn't look like it from here."

Eliot's eyes stayed on Jason.

"Tell us about the crew you're running with these days," Jason said, since Eliot seemed determined to ignore Dick.

Eliot mumbled something low and hoarse, then had a coughing fit.

"Didn't quite catch that," Dick said pleasantly.

"Sorry," Eliot said in his slow drawl, still staring down Jason's gun. "Drugs, you know? I said, that's an interesting gun."

And then the gun was pointed at the sky as one of Eliot's hands drove Jason's wrist upward and the other struck his chest with an open palm.

Dick pulled out his escrima. "We just want to talk!"

Eliot and Jason were grappling for control of the gun. Dick didn't see what happened, but Jason went down to one knee and Spencer danced backward – Jason's gun in hand.

"I actually believe you," Eliot said. "Sedatives? Guns that shoot… I don't even know what the fuck this is," he said, successfully removing the customized nonlethal magazine from Jason's one-of-a-kind gun on the first try. "You're sure as hell not trying to kill me so I figure that buys you a word or two. But I'll hear 'em on my feet, thanks, and that is about as close as y'all need to get."

Jason and Dick exchanged a look.

"We have some questions about your interest in MBGZ," Hood said. "You—" he cut off abruptly as Oracle chimed in on his com. He and Dick both listened to her instructions as Eliot looked between them, confused.

"Okay," Dick said slowly. Then he looked at Eliot. "yIqIm. QInlIj yIjejmoH."

Eliot's eyebrows shot up. "bIQongtaHvIS vIjej'moh qInlIjmey."

"buy' ngop. pItSa' wISopta'," Dick replied.

"DaH jIbwIj vISay'nISmoH," Eliot finished.

Jason and Dick exchanged a look. Both moved their hands away from their weapons.

Eliot straightened from his ready stance, though with clear reluctance. "And how might you have come across those particular phrases?" he asked.

"We have a friend in common, it seems," Hood said. He tapped his ear. "She says Hardison says you're all right, so you're all right by her."

"Swell. Who's her?"

"ORACLE?" Breanna screeched. "I've been fighting Oracle??"

"So you've… heard of her?" the guy calling himself Nightwing asked. He and the actual Red Hood were standing in Sophie's living room, their heavy boots scuffing her floor. They looked absurdly large in their armored costumes. Eliot kept giving Hood's red bat symbol very interested looks.

There had been some question, at first, as to whether they were coming in. After all, they had given Eliot Hardison's passcode, which indicated they could trust each other, but Tim was an unknown quantity. But the two vigilantes had said Tim could be trusted, that he had been helping them. Helping them take down… Leverage.

("Could they have like, tortured that code out of Alec?" Breanna had asked.

"No," Eliot had said. "We have a different code for that.")

On the reverse side, the vigilantes, while acknowledging Eliot was trustworthy, had grilled him on the crew he was working with. Hardison had given that passcode to Oracle quite some time ago, and now he wasn't here. How had Eliot taken on this job? Was it possible they were secretly a shadowy government entity, and Eliot had somehow missed it?

("No," Eliot had said. "Because that down there ain't my crew. That's my family.")

Nightwing and Red Hood had exchanged a glance and that was that. Now they were all present, and Breanna was having a minor freak-out.

"Is she here? Is she here like, right now?"

"She says if you set up a laptop she'll chat in," Nightwing said with a small smile.

Breanna had never moved so fast in her life. As she got her digital ducks in a row, Sophie sidled up to the sofa where Tim was sitting. She dropped herself to the cushions next to him. "So," she said. "You're taking all of this very calmly."

Tim smiled politely at her and held out his hand. "You must be Brie's fashionista," he said.

"Oh, how could you tell?" she said. She shook his hand. It was every inch the handshake of an American businessman.

His eyes moved from her indoor shoes to her earrings to her silk scarf. "Lucky guess, really. And an assumption about pronouns. Brie said her when she mentioned you." There was a gentle question in the statement, a quick glance over at Harry, and Sophie nodded.

"You're correct. Really, though, are you holding up all right? This is all… a lot."

Parker had not come out and no one had seen the need to mention her presence to the newcomers, but the condo was very full even without her visible presence. Oracle had tuned in, nothing but a green mask on the laptop screen Breanna had set up, and the two were already deep in conversation that was somehow being conducted half verbally and half in rapid exchanges of text. Eliot had gotten a towel and was wringing himself out over the kitchen sink. Nightwing and Red Hood were still hovering, largely and damply. Harry had brought them both towels and was grilling them on vigilantism and legal representation.

As Sophie and Tim watched, Eliot came back over from the kitchen and flung a wet towel at Harry, barking at him to stop with the quiz bowl, they were in the middle of a job. He looked startlingly short, standing between Nightwing and Red Hood, and his presence set off another round of banter.

"I'm going to make some tea," Sophie said, her voice quiet and calm amidst the chaos. "I could use a hand, if you want."

"Uh, sure," Tim said.

He left behind the original cup Breanna had made him and followed her to the kitchen, getting cups down from the cabinet she pointed to. She filled the kettle with an expert eye and measured out tea. "Any allergies?"

"No," Tim said.

"What about them?" She tipped her head back at the living room.

Tim cocked his head at her. "I wouldn't know. You'd have to ask them."

"Hm," Sophie said. She kept on, anyway. "I think just a standard Earl Grey. Fortifying, on a night like this."

They moved around the kitchen easily, Tim pouring milk into the creamer without having to be told. Sophie found a package of shortbread to set out, as well.

"If nothing else, they'll be less noisy if their mouths are full," she said with a smile intended to include Tim in a conspiracy between just the two of them.

"Oh, I'm used to it," Tim said. Sophie raised an eyebrow at him. "Lots of brothers and sisters."

"Ah. Just the one sister, I thought," she said.

"Officially," Tim replied with a you-know-how-it-is smile of his own.

"Yes," Sophie said easily, regardless of whether she really did. When Tim moved to bring the tea to the table, she stopped him with the lightest of touches. "Timothy,"

"Tim's fine."

"Tim," Sophie agreed. "Are you really all right?"

He looked confused. "Yes? I told you, it was an act. Nightwing and Red Hood needed—"

"Yes, but it's not the kind of thing a normal sixteen year old can manage. And not nearly as well as you did." She tilted her head. "It's not the kind of thing adults should be asking you to do at all."

"Weren't you guys just going to ask me to do something really similar?" Tim asked mildly.

"Yes," Sophie said. "You've found yourself up to your ears in shady characters. But you've gotten rather lucky, it would seem, in the heart of gold department. No one will fault you if you bow out."

"I know," Tim said. "But there's no need to, right? You're the good guys. We're the good guys. The code is in fine hands and this is all a misunderstanding." He set the tray down on the table as he spoke and began pouring cups.

"All right," Sophie said.

"You don't trust me."

"I don't trust Bruce Wayne. Those two—" She nodded at Nightwing and Red Hood. "Have been vouched for by someone a dear friend trusts implicitly. You seem to be included in that group, though I'm not clear on the details as to how. But Wayne isn't. We know there's something… odd about him. Your history—"

"Bruce helped me. That's the truth," Tim said simply. "He's not an enemy. I have no reason to lie. Not in a room full of people who are this… capable. Who I think would help me if I asked." He extended a mug to Sophie.

"We would." Sophie accepted it with a smile, this one real.

At that moment the background buzz of conversation from the others went suddenly quiet, and it wasn't because everyone had noticed the shortbread. Sophie turned to see everyone looking at Breanna and the screen where Oracle's mask was displayed.

"Oh dear," Sophie said. She raised her voice. "Breanna?"

Breanna was hunched over the laptop, squinting at something. "I thought that was you."

"It wasn't me," Oracle's modulated voice said. "I thought it was you."

"I picked it up from the network at the WE gala," Breanna said. "I assumed it was you— not that I knew it was you at the time because, I mean, I do not think I have quite enough hubris to go toe to toe with Oracle—"

"Don't sell yourself short," Oracle admonished. "I couldn't catch you, either. And the code showed up just after the MBGZ acquisition – which is the same time you did."

"So what is it?" Nightwing asked, impatient.

"We don't know," Oracle and Breanna said at the same time.

"Can you build a quarantine?" Breanna asked.

"Already done. I see what you're getting at. Hold on," Oracle said.

"Quarantine? You think it's a virus?" Eliot asked.

"Maybe," Breanna said. "Whatever it is, it's corrupted. Chewed up by Oracle's security, and my security. We build it a little safe house, though, someplace isolated by the network—"

"And it's still chewed up," Tim said. "You'd have to rebuild it, or catch a new incoming signal."

"Not a problem," Oracle said. "Every time I scrub that thing out of the system it comes back within minutes. Someone's got a little bot dedicated just to throwing this at us. I just need to make this cute little quarantine room look like my network and the next one should arrive intact and safe."

"And you didn't do this earlier because…?" Red Hood asked.

"Because coms are going to go down for a few—"

There was a sharp hiss and two exclamations of protest as Nightwing and Red Hood's hands flew to their ears, and Tim flinched. They all pulled out ear pieces.

"Ow," Nightwing said flatly.

"It's nontrivial to spoof my whole network in isolation mode," Oracle said, not a hint of apology in her voice. There was nothing wrong with her connection.

"Oh," said Breanna to Tim. "I didn't even realize you had one in." She might have, except when things had started going down on the roof she'd hurriedly excused herself to the bathroom. And Parker had informed her that Tim had as well, so that explained that.

Where was Parker anyway? Breanna cast a suspicious look toward the ceiling.

"Oh," Oracle said. "It's a message."

Breanna looked at the file she sent, cleaned and secure. "Not just a message. An SOS." She looked to Eliot, panic in her eyes. "From Hardison."

Chapter Text

ONE WEEK (ISH) EARLIER

Hardison had not been expecting a supervillain.

He had fought supervillains before. Some of Leverage's targets definitely counted, and his activities since leaving the team had brought him up against some decidedly intense individuals and organizations.

But he hadn't been expecting a full on mask situation.

The job had seemed simple enough, but didn't they always. He'd caught wind of someone looking for a hacker to do a little smash and grab related to this whole MBGZ business. It had taken very little research – it would be an insult to call it hacking – to discover that the job was backed by old money in Gotham; old money that apparently didn't want the other old money that was Wayne Enterprises keeping control of that juicy little catch they'd made right out from under the noses of Hardison's own crew.

Well, that couldn't stand. He'd snatch up the Gotham job, wreck it from the inside as a little gift to the fam, then surprise them in time to help mop up whatever was left of Wayne Enterprises when Leverage was done with them.

It hadn't gone that way.

Instead, he'd showed up at the hotel his own personal shady characters wanted to run their op from – Powers Hotel Gotham, very swanky digs – set up in the room provided, and woke up an unspecified amount of time later in a completely different room of considerably less luxury.

None of his own equipment. No windows. Concrete floor. Wired internet connection. Very locked door. He noticed these things in that order, and even then, was only annoyed. He might not have his own equipment but he had an internet connection so these people were about to be made of regret.

The internet connection wasn't live.

Apparently, they wanted to make a sales pitch to him. That was where the masks came in: one guy with a plain white mask vaguely sculpted to look like a barn owl, backed up by a much bigger guy in black and gold. His owl mask had goggles.

"Consider this an admission exam," the white owl said. "Do well, and you may find permanent work in the Court of Owls. We're very generous to those who support us."

"Sure," Hardison had said, because why not. "Just get me some connectivity in here and I'll get you some code and we can talk terms. Be done faster than you can say… hoot, or whatever."

"That would be impressive indeed," the owl said. "We are not without resources, you understand. Attempts have been made. Our target has resources of his own. Good luck."

The owls had left and Hardison soon discovered what they'd meant by resources, both their own and otherwise. First of all, they clearly had some script kiddie on their side because when Hardison finally got internet access he found it was less internet and more LAN. He couldn't get out, he could only submit instructions and code that they would then execute.

He was hobbled, and he complained about it at length in the little chat window they'd given him to contact them with requests. Most of his equipment requests were denied and they never responded to his complaints that he'd have this done yesterday if they'd just left him in that damn hotel room.

"Look, countering WE's 'resources', as you put it, is gonna take creativity, ingenuity, and thinking on the fly. I need to be in there myself, not hacking by proxy and getting these… post-mortems or whatever about what went wrong!" he complained when the Owls gave him a folder – a folder, with little slips of dead tree in it! – giving details of what had happened when they'd tried to execute his code.

They ignored him, leaving him with the paperwork. He looked at it, of course, not expecting to gain much from it. But after a few tries, he found there was something to them, after all. Something familiar. Well-disguised, but familiar.

He started with a flare, a general call for help embedded in the next hack he submitted. The reply from the owls was swift, with little room for interpretation: Try that again and we start taking toes.

That gave him a good gauge of their level of tech competence, because they had spotted the flare but had not spotted the little message in a bottle he'd nestled much deeper in.

He had to be careful, and subtle; he liked his toes. So there wasn't much he could do to prevent his message getting shredded by WE's security measures. But he made it persistent and a serious pain in the ass, and he made it cling on to familiar systems like those horrible little sticker plants he'd found all over himself the last time Eliot had dragged him into the woods for some 'fresh air'. Hopefully that would get someone's attention.

That hope waned as days passed. Nothing in the post-mortems indicated that his message had been recognized for what it was; no one tried to get an encoded message back to him. The Owls were losing patience.

"It's not possible without a live connection to counter their hacker in real time. You're wasting me like this," he complained.

"If it's impossible, then our use for you is at an end," the white owl – who Hardison wasn't even sure was the same one as before – said calmly.

"There is literally no one better than me. Either you take a risk and let me work, or you don't get your little goody bag."

They did not let him work. They started withholding food, proving that they had no idea how to get the best effort out of a hacker.

After dozens of attempts and who knew how many days, he was running out of ideas. Probably time, too. Maybe… maybe the laptop they had given him could be a weapon? Maybe he could try again to pry off the vent cover high on the wall?

He checked the last post-mortem code they'd given him, searching, searching for some kind of sign.

The power went out with a mechanical clunk and the laptop went dark. Well, that might be a sign but it wasn't a good one. Had they given up on him?

A sudden thud right outside his cell made him jump. When the door swung open, Hardison hurled the laptop at it.

Parker ducked and Eliot, behind her, caught it. "Damn it, Hardison!"

Then Parker was leaping into his arms, clinging like a koala. "They have really good locks here," she said. "I don't blame you for not getting out."

"Thanks babe," he said. "Hey, Eliot, hang on to that laptop, I think I can— is that gunfire?"

"It's friendly," Eliot growled, not even glancing toward the distant bangs. Hardison noticed then that one of his eyes was swelling. Someone had actually landed a solid hit on him. "Let's go. Truck's outside."

Parker disentangled herself and grabbed him by the wrist to drag him out. Eliot handed off the laptop to her and took up rearguard, staring into the shadows like he could see through them.

Maybe he could, because a moment later he gave Hardison a hard shove, knocking both him and Parker out of the way of a grappling pair of bodies that came tumbling out of said shadows.

"Keep going!" Eliot snapped as he turned to deal with what turned out to be the black and gold owl and some guy in a red helmet.

Apparently Red Helmet was on their side because Eliot kicked the owl off him and gave him cover to get up – and then Parker was pulling Hardison around a corner. "You guys have made some friends," Hardison commented.

"You made us some friends," Parker said. She stopped at an intersection to get her bearings, sniffed the air, then went decisively down one hallway. Hardison still had no idea what kind of a building they were even in. One with hallways and good locks and bad lighting, that was all he had.

Oh, and an elevator shaft.

"Oh, come on, seriously?" Hardison complained even as Parker harnessed up.

"Yessss, come on." She gestured him toward her. Hardison grabbed on, like he always did, and cast about for something to distract his mind.

"What did you mean by I made you some—ahhhhhhh!"

It was over in seconds, but it always felt so much longer.

"I missed you so much," Parker said, giving him a squeeze. "And Oracle says hello."

"Oracle! Ha, I knew she was in that system. But how did you—"

"Explain it all later," she said. There was a door, now, and there was the food truck outside, Harry hanging out of the open door.

"Where's backup?" Parker asked, handing Hardison in. Breanna gave him a wave and went back to whatever she was doing like they hadn't just rescued him from dire straits.

"Just arrived," Sophie said. She passed Hardison an earbud. Oracle's mask was on the screens. She greeted him in Klingon and he grinned, returning it easily.

Then he frowned and looked behind him, to where Parker was clambering aboard. "Where's Eliot? He doesn't usually take this long."

"The people who had you are… not standard," Sophie said.

Hardison put his earbud in. "Do we need to go back in there and—"

"Negative," said Oracle's modulated voice. "Backup is present. Leverage team, retreat."

"Engaged," Eliot said over the com. "Go."

"Hold on," Hardison said, just as Parker said, "No way."

"I have my best people in there," Oracle said. "They will get out. Right now you're a liability."

"She's right," came Eliot's voice again. "Go." There was a grunt – exertion? Pain?

"Nah, man, you're just cleaning up in there, right?" Hardison said.

"Go. Now."

"Breanna," Oracle said. "I will take control of your systems."

"That won't help you drive the damn truck," Breanna said. "It's analog. But point taken. Guys?" She looked to Sophie.

"We go. Rendezvous at…?" Sophie said, glancing to Oracle's screen.

"I will send coordinates."

One more tight glance around at the crew, and Sophie nodded. Parker vaulted into the driver's seat, and they were off. Hardison collapsed into a seat next to Breanna with a sinking feeling, listening hard to the coms.

"Down," came the order from behind him, and Eliot hit the floor just under a strike from the owl guy. Red Hood's gun barked and something pinged off a piece of armor. The owl kept coming. Eliot had never fought anyone so relentless. Based on the heartfelt curse from Hood, he wasn't the only one.

"Where's Blue?" Eliot asked, closing with the owl again. The owl had brought out a couple knives, which was useful. An elbow strike and Eliot was able to grab and control the wrist – except it was like grabbing stone. The owl didn't drop the knife and the other hand drove for Eliot's side.

Hood was there to block it. A jab to the owl's neck, giving Eliot time to back off, swiping a gun from Hood's holster as he went, spinning for distance and then – there.

The bullet hit the owl's forehead directly. It had a chance to be lethal, even with the specialized ammunition Hood packed, but that mask—

The mask cracked in half and fell off in two uneven pieces. Underneath, the man's face was bone white and scrawled with dark veins. His eyes were golden.

"What the fuck?" Eliot wondered. Hood didn't pause. He punched the owl in the nose.

"Meta," Hood said. "Or something."

The owl didn't stop, and he didn't bleed, despite his nose now looking rather more crumpled.

And then it didn't look crumpled at all. It straightened and the owl merely shook his head in annoyance and kept coming. He was fast – faster than Eliot and faster than Hood, though working together they held their own.

He hit like a sledgehammer. Even Hood in his armor felt it, Eliot could tell. And Eliot, not wearing armor… well, he dodged. Until he couldn't.

Eliot went down under a blow to the ribs that had him blacking out momentarily. He still heard Hood mutter, "Oh fuck it," and the report of a gun going off again. When his vision greyed back in Eliot was on one knee with Hood standing over him and the owl was on the ground with the side of his head caved in.

It… did not look like a caved in head normally looked. The colors were…

"You good?" Hood asked.

"Possibly hallucinatin'," Eliot said.

"Sorry, no."

"Great." Eliot got to his feet painfully. That was a cracked rib, definitely. And there were a few cuts on his arm he hadn't noticed before. Stupid tiny knives. "Where's your friend?"

"Nightwing. Back the way I came. That thing… it introduced itself. Calls itself a Talon. Said something called the Court of Owls had business with the— with Nightwing. It didn't call him that, though. Can you move?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Eliot lied. "He injured? Nightwing, I mean."

"I don't know," Hood said, voice tight. He set off in, presumably, the direction of where he'd left Nightwing. The building was, they had discovered, an under-construction hotel, soon to be the newest and hottest. But for now it was a shell of shadowy, skeletal hallways. "We separated to try and track down these owl people, make sure there were no surprises while you got your friend out. When I found them, Nightwing was on the ground handcuffed and the Talon was explaining itself. But N wasn't— reacting. Fuck."

They'd rounded a corner into an exposed corner of the building. From Hood's reaction, this was where he'd expected to find Nightwing.

Instead, there was the owl – the Talon – they'd been fighting, mask still off, head completely intact. Somehow he had beaten them here through the twisting hallways.

He had Nightwing slung over his shoulder and was standing near the unfinished outer wall, plastic sheeting blowing in the breeze behind him. They were five storeys up, but Eliot did not like the way the Talon was edging toward that opening, angling Nightwing to cover his own vital areas.

Hood's guns came out, and the Talon's knives came out, and Eliot—

Eliot forgot. He was the crew's protector, the sole hitter on a team of squishy thieves, the one meant to take the hits as well, and that instinct had been honed for so many years—

Eliot shoved Hood out of the way when he saw the knife spin through the air, exactly on target for some serious damage, head or neck or chest. Later he would feel like an idiot. Hood was wearing armor and a helmet and Eliot was not. They'd been in a desperate hurry to save Hardison, he'd waved off any offers of side trips to supply caches. When had he ever needed armor, anyway?

Now would have been a good time for it. The knife sank into his shoulder and he jolted with a grunt, but didn't go down. Hood stepped in front of him, weapon raised, but he didn't have a clear shot. The Talon backed closer to the edge.

A small shadow dropped from above, using the edge of the ceiling to swing and kick the Talon forward into the room. Eliot, holding his shoulder so as not to jostle the knife, tried to see around Red Hood's bulk.

The newcomer was dressed head to toe in black, her face entirely covered by a mask with pointed ears. The Talon had not dropped Nightwing, but was now holding his limp body fully in front of himself as he backed away from the new threat between him and his intended exit.

"Friend of yours?" Eliot asked.

"Yeah," Hood said shortly, before diving into the fight his friend had started. She'd already closed with the Talon, taking advantage of his unwillingness to let Nightwing go to drive in a number of short, sharp strikes on any exposed body part left. Eliot steeled himself to move forward and help – a grapple was called for here, something to get Nightwing away – when a hand dropped gently onto his uninjured shoulder.

He jerked away from the presence that had loomed up out of nowhere behind him, grabbing the wrist and turning in to strike elbow and then chest. The strikes landed, but they landed on armor. Black armor, with a bat on the chest. He looked up into a cowled face, whited out eyes.

"Stand down, son," Batman said in a voice that out-graveled Eliot's own. And the tone – the command tugged at Eliot's hindbrain and he resisted it for an instant before remembering that this guy, urban legend or no, was on his side. Eliot stood down.

Behind him, Nightwing had been extricated from the Talon's grasp. He was sprawled in Hood's arms like he'd just caught him in a faint.

The other bat had just kicked the Talon off the edge of the building. Eliot's eyes widened. Batman was already striding past him to check on Nightwing. Something complicated was happening between him and Red Hood, but Eliot was quickly losing track of the finer points of the situation.

"The Talon isn't human," Hardison's voice said in his ear. "He'll be fine. You need to get out of there."

"Shouldn't you be out of range," Eliot mumbled.

"Man, I own satellites what are you talking about, out of range." Hardison made a disgusted noise. "Me and Breanna and Oracle are all up in their systems, too. We'll have a fix for Mr. Owl soon enough but for now… go with the nice bat people. We're waiting."

Eliot nodded vaguely. His shoulder really hurt. He started looking around for something to bandage it with, or maybe to stabilize the knife with, when suddenly the little bat was at his side.

"Stop," she said. "Sit."

"I can handle this," Eliot said.

"Yes. Quickly. Sitting." She pulled out a roll of medical tape and bandaging from her belt. Eliot nodded, and sat on the floor. "Black Bat," she said, touching her own chest briefly.

"Nice to meet you," Eliot said. "I'm Eliot."

She hummed in agreement and examined his shoulder. "Deep. Pressure. Remove later." She began applying pressure bandages around the knife, stabilizing it.

"Know a good doctor in town?" he asked, wry through his gritted teeth.

"Yes." She paused and looked directly at him, her whited-out eyes seeking his. "Thank you." She turned her head toward where Hood was standing with his arms crossed, his back to where Batman had Nightwing laid out on the floor and was examining him.

"Don't thank me. It was stupid."

"No," she said, checking over her work. "Look close."

He frowned at her, then looked at Hood again.

His armor had deep gouges in it. They matched the knives the Talon was using. (Black Bat's costume, he noted, was entirely intact without a scratch on it.) Could a thrown knife have pierced the armor? If it had hit a weak point?

"Bad knife. Very bad."

"You don't say."

Behind them, Nightwing was coming around. Batman supported him as he rose. "Standard perimeter while we move to medical point L," Batman ordered. "Injured parties with me."

"That's you," Black Bat told Eliot helpfully.

Red Hood stalked away to the opening the Talon had inadvertently made use of, fired off a grappling hook, and was gone into the night.

"Can you walk?" Batman asked Eliot.

"Yeah," Eliot said.

"Ribs," Black Bat said.

Batman looked more closely at Eliot, who scowled. Little bat was worse than Sophie when it came to reading things people didn't want read. He spared a moment for a fervent prayer that he'd never be alone in a room with the two of them together, then stood and met Batman's gaze without so much as a tremor. "I can walk."

"Fine," Batman said.

Nightwing laughed, his head still down, and mumbled something. It sounded like Fits right in.

Chapter Text

Eliot woke on an unfamiliar bed, tensed, and then heard Sophie's voice and relaxed. She was calm, and not far. Whoever she was talking to, though, wasn't any of the others. He cracked his eyes open.

Hospital room. Eliot tensed again. It was a small one, though, maybe more clinic than hospital? He was curtained off, but someone had dragged an old avocado green plastic-cushioned couch over to his area. Hardison was sitting on it with his head tipped back, asleep. Parker was curled on the other cushion, her legs over Hardison's, also asleep. No one was handcuffed to anything. Okay. That was fine, then.

He had passed out in Batman's car.

He turned that sentence over in his mind and frowned at the ceiling. It had been a very cool car, and he was very annoyed he hadn't got to see more of it. He didn't remember being brought to a medical facility of any kind, though, which meant he had also been very injured.

He shifted a little to try to get a look at what all he was hooked up to. IV, heart monitor. His shoulder ached but there was nothing sticking out of it any more. He spared a sigh for the shirt that had probably been cut off of him; he was in a hospital gown now. Another sigh for that. Now what was in this IV…

Parker sat up as soon as he made a sound trying to crane around to see the bag on the pole. "You're okay. It's saline. Hydration stuff or whatever. No drugs now that you're sewn up."

"Where are we?"

"A clinic," Parker said. "The batpeople like it. I guess this is where they go when they need a doctor. They're fixing up the blue one, and there's a bunch of them on the roof watching out for the owl guys." She sounded a little wistful when she mentioned the roof, but shook her head. "I do not like the owl guys."

"They are called the Court of Owls," Sophie said grandly, sweeping through the curtains. Hardison snorted awake. "If you can believe that."

"I believe it," Eliot said.

"The Court?" Hardison said. "Yeah, I wouldn't worry about them for a while." He inhaled deeply and rubbed a hand over his face, still talking. "They didn't give me much access when they had me, but it was enough to see what's what. Soon as I had an internet connection they were toast. I handed it off to O and Breanna, so if their financials aren't all pretzel shaped by now they will be soon." He stood up and came to stand on the other side of Eliot's bed from Parker, crossing his arms and looking down at him. "Like to see them kidnap any more devastatingly handsome hackers with nothing in their wallets."

"There's still the Talon," Eliot said. His shoulder twinged.

"Oracle's on it," Hardison said. "This is the kind of thing her people deal with all the time. Wouldn't be surprised if they already have a plan."

"One you don't need to worry about," Sophie said. "You have a broken rib and a serious stab wound."

"Do you have the knife?" Eliot asked. Sophie gave him an exasperated look.

"No," Parker said. "I tried to keep it for you but the biggest bat wanted it."

"The point is, you lost a lot of blood. And you were drugged earlier tonight, don't forget." Sophie looked at her watch. "Though I suppose it's last night now. Harry went back to the condo with Breanna—"

"Just them?" Eliot demanded. "Alone?"

"They have a protection detail. Would you believe yet more showed up? Another red one, and a yellow. There are so many of these vigilantes I really don't know how they keep any of it secret," Sophie said thoughtfully. "Though… if it were me… hm." She didn't finish that thought and Eliot didn't pursue it.

"Good," he said. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and made to stand. Hardison and Sophie both let out wordless protests, though Parker looked unperturbed.

"At least let the doc look at you first," Hardison said. "She's nice, not scary at all, maybe she'll give you a sucker."

"Hardison—" Eliot started, but was interrupted by the arrival of said doctor, looking unimpressed that Eliot was clearly about to make a break for it.

"Is it contagious?" she muttered. "Where do you think you're going?"

"To talk to a man about contingency plans," Eliot said.

"Definitely contagious. Well, give me two minutes and maybe you can do it with pants."

Eliot gave her the two minutes.

Eliot convinced Hardison and Sophie to stay behind while he talked to the bats; the bats were a paranoid bunch, part and parcel of the vigilante business, and it was definitely not a more-the-merrier situation.

He didn't convince Parker, but he let her think he thought he had. Hardison and Parker thought Eliot hadn't seen the look they'd exchanged, thought he hadn't noticed the very convenient drop ceiling. That was fine. Parker was discreet and Eliot could do worse as far as backup went.

Eliot followed Doctor Thompkins to a very back room, so back it was behind a door partially obscured by a filing cabinet.

"Batman said he wanted to talk to you," Thompkins said when Eliot asked if he was welcome in there. "He didn't specify when, but believe me, it'll go better now. Otherwise he'll give you a heart attack dropping out of some shadow later and you'll be right back here anyway."

She left him to it.

The room was dim, most of the lights turned down to create deep shadows in the corners. Batman was looming in one, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the clipboard he was examining.

Nightwing was on a bed much like the one Eliot had just vacated and, like Eliot, was in the process of escaping it. There were heart monitor sensors discarded on the bed and he was zipping up the back of his suit as he sat there. His mask was still in place, of course.

"Hey, you're all right," Nightwing said brightly when Eliot stepped into the room.

"So are you," Eliot said, though he let his skepticism show.

"Just a little drugged. It happens."

Eliot crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at him.

Nightwing coughed, lightly. "Ah, right. Did I ever apologize for that?"

"It happens," Eliot echoed. "What I'm more concerned with is that Talon. I got people to look out for."

"You don't need to worry about the Talon," Batman rumbled from the corner.

"Convince me," Eliot said.

"Hoo boy," Nightwing stood and casually stepped between Batman and Eliot. "Your hackers will have this info anyway. In fact, Hardison is why we have it at all so there's no point in keeping it to ourselves, B," he said pointedly. "The Talon is… not human." He watched Eliot carefully to see how he took this.

Eliot waited for his own reaction, thought of some of the things he'd seen, thought of some of the things he'd heard whispered in some very dark corners. "You sure?"

"They used to be human. But the Court does something to them. You saw. Cold will, apparently, slow them down, according to Court records. That's how they… store them."

"Store them. Wait, them? Plural?"

"Apparently."

"The Court is a Gotham problem," Batman said, dropping a cement block on the conversation. "Once you leave, they'll have no lingering interest in you."

"Sure," Eliot said slowly. "They definitely won't, say, abduct my friends in the course of causing Gotham problems."

"He's got a point, B," Nightwing said cheerfully. "Which is why I told Red Robin to give you guys some tools. Stuff that will help. Just in case. And Oracle and Breanna are definitely going to stay in touch. Oracle's already besties with Hardison, anyway."

Batman rumbled in a way Eliot was pretty sure was disapproval, but he didn't say anything.

"All right," Eliot said slowly. He couldn't deny he was very interested in those tools. But there were still pressing concerns here. "So what did they want with you?"

"Hm?" Nightwing asked, blithely pretending not to understand the question.

"The Talon was interested in you. Not in fighting me or Red Hood, not even in catching Hardison. After he – it – recovered, it could have gone after Parker and Hardison and we wouldn't have known. Instead, it came back for you."

"Gotham business," Batman rumbled, and it was, Eliot could admit, intimidating. But he'd never let that stop him.

"Nightwing?" Eliot asked.

Nightwing shrugged. "You know as much as I do."

Whether or not that was true, Eliot was willing to bet Hardison knew more, so he let it go. "All right," he said slowly. He considered, carefully, what he'd say next, thinking of how Batman had said son in the unfinished building earlier, and how he could see that the clipboard he'd been studying contained medical charts, and how despite being the leader of his little band, Batman was here, in this room, letting everyone else handle keeping watch. Because he'd given himself the most important job, closest to the most important thing. "If y'all need help, need an extra hitter. Well, I expect you can find me."

Nightwing grinned. "We'll keep you in mind."

"I would suggest informing us if you'll be working in Gotham again," Batman said. The subtext was clearly don't work in Gotham again without permission.

"Hey, you don't want us handling your corrupt fat cats?" Eliot asked mildly.

"Bruce Wayne isn't corrupt," Batman said flatly. He paused. "And his security has been patched."

Eliot glanced at the ceiling. "That wasn't a challenge," he said.

"Spoil sport," the ceiling muttered back. Nightwing didn't bother to hide his surprised look upward, but Batman tried to. He would have succeeded if Eliot hadn't been watching for it.

"Well," Nightwing said good-naturedly. "We think it's been patched. Oracle was very impressed with Breanna's little window trick."

Oh. So they knew about the manor as well as the crew's pawing around at WE. Well, that wasn't a surprise – just as Eliot had pegged Red Hood, Hood had surely realized that had been him the night of the gala.

"You guys got security on Wayne at all times or was this a special occasion?" Eliot asked.

"Just assume it's at all times," Batman said.

"Right." He could respect that. "Okay, Parker, let's go."

A ceiling tile shifted aside and Parker dropped down inches from Eliot's face with a pleased grin at Eliot's exasperated sigh. She whirled to face the bats. "You know, if you ever want to test those security measures, I'd be down," she said. "Invite Selina!" Then she turned again, wove her arm through Eliot's uninjured one, and sauntered out with him, leaving a delighted Nightwing to enjoy Batman's perplexed microexpressions.

Breanna had yet to meet Oracle in person – in fact, she was beginning to suspect she wouldn't be doing so at all, despite the veritable flock of bats she'd encountered thus far – but being let into the freaking Batbunker was a heck of a consolation prize.

A new bat called Red Robin had appeared at the clinic to escort Harry and Breanna back to Sophie's condo. Another one called Signal had met them there and the two of them had done a thorough security check on the place. Breanna had been a little disappointed to find Tim had left, but Red Robin said he'd been seen safely home and Breanna supposed it was better for a civilian to be well out of all this.

They'd left Harry with Signal, since Red Robin said he wasn't supposed to take one of them let alone two to the Batbunker. Breanna had dutifully roasted him for that ridiculous name while he'd blindfolded her.

But it was pretty cool. Oracle's mask avatar watched them from half a dozen huge screens while Red Robin looked through their equipment stores for certain toys he'd been instructed to equip Leverage with.

"So if you're not supposed to have me here… why am I here?" Breanna asked, looking at a display of several sharpened metal bats, all in slightly different sizes and more or less stylized shapes. Some looked sleeker, some looked more lethal, some looked silly. Definitely weapons, but why?

"Because you know your crew better than I do," Red Robin said. His head was in an equipment locker and he echoed oddly. A moment later he pulled out a small box with tangled wires overflowing the edges. "Like, how do I know if you need the bat-flamethrower or the bat-pepper spray? I don't. You can help." He passed her the box. "Can you try untangling those?"

Breanna, an old veteran of the headphone cord wars, took the box over to a work bench and got started. "What are they?"

"I… will know once you have them untangled."

Breanna snorted, and so did Oracle.

"Why not Harry, then?" she asked.

"The lawyer?" Red Robin asked skeptically.

"Be a lot safer than the hacker," Breanna pointed out.

"Hardison vouched for you," Oracle said. "I feel very safe."

"Yeah, hey, how do you know him anyway?" Breanna asked. She was still looking for an end of one of the cords.

"We met playing Final Fantasy XIV."

"Get out of town," Breanna said.

"Then I helped him take out a human trafficking ring in Greece."

"And the rest is history. Huh." The things she was untangling were headphones. Talk about anticlimactic. "Is that how you met Tim Drake too? And got all tangled up with Wayne Enterprises?"

"No," Red Robin said. "Do you have access to a lab grade freezer?"

"No, but I could probably get one?"

"Hm. That's a maybe, then." He set aside a box on one of the tables where he had also placed a few other gadgets.

"You didn't answer my question." Breanna slid her box that now contained three sets of untangled headphones across the table to him.

"Oh, my headphones. I was wondering where those — Coms! That's something you'll want." Then he was rummaging through a different storage bin.

"We work with Wayne Enterprises periodically," Oracle said. "They're one of the few financial superpowers in this city that is a force for good. Maybe the only one. So when we saw what was going down with MBGZ – or what we thought was – we proposed a partnership."

"And Wayne didn't think it would be dangerous?" Breanna asked.

"He… well, Bruce Wayne tends to be a bit of a thrill seeker. And he trusts us," Oracle said.

Breanna picked up the little earbud Red Robin pushed in her direction. "We already have these. We could just give you our frequency."

"We're more concerned with you being able to reach us if you need help," Red Robin said.

"What, like you're never going to need our help?" Breanna scoffed.

"I already know how to get in touch with Hardison. He can show you how to patch into our coms if needed. But take a few anyway in case you're short on time or equipment for patching," Oracle said.

"Fair enough." Breanna slipped the box of communicators into her bag.

In the end, she left equipped with communicators, trackers, some slick little pellets that would flash-freeze a Talon in its tracks (Briefly, Red Robin cautioned), and one emergency beacon for each member of the crew.

"Welp," she said as Red Robin led her back to the bunker's garage where they'd parked. He had the blindfold in his hand again. "It's been fun." She squinted at him, examining the cowl, the body armor, the bandoliers.

"What?" he asked. He sounded nervous, which was kind of funny.

"Nothing, just. Is that comfortable?"

He cracked a smiled. "You get used to it. Ready?"

"Sure thing." He let her put on her own blindfold, which was nice of him. "Home, Jeeves," she said when it was secured, and was rewarded with a surprised little laugh that was quickly drowned out by the roar of the bright red car as it sped out from the bunker.

It didn't take long to get to the condo, which Breanna thought was interesting. If he was serious about the blindfold, why wouldn't Red Robin just drive around in circles a bit to better hide where they were coming from? Well, she wouldn't point it out if he wasn't going to.

He pulled the car to a stop in an alley about a block from the building. The day was brightening, the very long night finally coming to an end.

"You can take the blindfold off," Red Robin said.

Breanna tugged it off and tossed it at him. "Well, thanks for the ride," she said, then paused with her hand on the door handle. Something was nagging at her.

"Problem?" Red Robin asked.

"Nah. Just feels weird to wrap up a job like this. We don't usually let the mark go."

"Wayne Enterprises isn't—"

"I know, I know. What a messed up job. And the whole owl thing? So beyond the scope of this project." She hefted the bag of goodies he'd packed her. "Still. If you need help with them—"

"Batman's call," Red Robin said. "And he won't. Call, I mean."

Breanna shrugged. "What, like he doesn't occasionally pull civilians into his—" She gestured with her free hand. "Stuff?"

"Not stuff like the Court of Owls."

"Well, that's good I guess. Hey, you know Tim Drake? He was working with you guys?"

Red Robin hesitated just briefly. "Yes."

"Don't let him get punched or whatever. Seems like the kind of kid who gets into trouble. I should know." She opened the door and climbed out, getting her bearings by the buildings around.

"Hey," Red Robin said through his open window. "For the record, he did actually want to be friends. He didn't want to think you were, you know. A thief."

Breanna raised her eyebrows at him. "I am a thief."

"I know. But so's… well, I know a lot of rogues. I think you'd be a good influence on Tim. If you wanted a friend. You should keep in touch."

"Well," Breanna said. "He does have okay taste in shoes."

"I'll tell him you said that."

"I'll tell him myself, you dork. Now don't you have some kind of dark garage to get to before the sun turns you into a pumpkin?"

Red Robin nodded. "Stay safe." Then he backed down the alley at a speed Breanna found frankly reckless. Before she knew it, the street had opened up and the car sped down a concealed ramp.

"What. Even is this city," she muttered. She hurried up the block before anything else weird could happen.

Sophie had returned by the time Breanna made it back. She and Harry were sitting on the couch having a gossip and a drink when Breanna plunked her sack of treasures onto the table.

"I got toys," she said. "Where's Alec? He's gonna want to see."

"On the roof with Parker and Eliot," Harry said.

"Perimeter check?" Breanna asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Of a sort," Sophie said. "We were thinking we'd leave this evening, if you're all wrapped up?"

Breanna looked around the condo, like she would suddenly discover a pair of socks that needed to be packed. There were no socks, just the faraday tent and a few odds and ends. "Not a problem. Does it feel weird, though?"

"Which part?" Harry asked. "The owl zombies, the bat vigilantes, or the good billionaire?"

"I believe she means the part where we didn't accomplish our goal," Sophie said. "Or, it feels like we didn't. The code is in safe hands and out of reach of anyone who would abuse it. Thanks to Harry's favorite little noncompete clause—"

"Which makes a hell of a lot more sense now," Harry put in.

"—and knowing that Hardison's hacker friend is keeping a weather eye out, I'd say our goals have been met quite nicely. Though, it is a good thing we came. Who knows how long it would have taken Oracle to find Hardison. And now we can take steps to make sure we aren't working at cross-purposes in the future," Sophie finished, gesturing grandly with her wine glass.

"And the toys aren't a bad haul, I guess. Hey, have we ever thought about getting a bunker?" Breanna asked.

"We had a cave once," Sophie mused.

"Oh, I need to hear about this." Breanna grabbed a juice from the fridge and dropped herself between Sophie and Harry. "Tell me all about the Leverage cave."

Sophie's rooftop garden was a lot nicer in the daylight, when it wasn't pouring rain. However, rather than sitting on one of the carved stone benches, Eliot, Parker, and Hardison were sitting at the edge of the roof, feet dangling. Hardison had taken some coaxing to join Eliot and Parker there, but he was between them and they wouldn't let him fall.

"Heck of a job," Eliot said.

"Heck of a job," Hardison agreed.

They were quiet for a while, watching the sun catch on the glass wall of windows across the street.

"Is Breanna okay?" Parker asked. "I mean. Jeffries. He's just gonna walk. With all that money from the deal. Since Wayne did it all above-board or whatever." She said "above board" with air quotes.

"She's fine," Hardison said. "I know her. It wasn't so much about punishing him as about removing the danger."

"Guess that's how you can tell she's one of the good guys," Eliot said.

They all mused on this for a few moments.

"Well," Parker said. "Good thing we're not good guys then."

"Good thing," Eliot said. They both looked expectantly at Hardison.

Hardison blinked, then grinned. "Aw, yeah. Let's go steal a man's retirement."

Epilogue

The doorbell chimed in the afternoon of a lovely sunny day, startling Alfred. There had been no alert at the gate, and he wasn't expecting anyone. Perhaps one of the children was and had forgotten to tell him. Lord knew there were plenty of their friends who could simply bypass—

"Mr. Pennyworth, I presume," said the woman waiting on the porch when he opened the door. She was brunette and dressed impeccably in a lilac pantsuit and spoke absolutely sparkling English. "My name is Sophie Devereaux. And I'm afraid I'm here on business."

"Ms. Devereux. A pleasure. I do apologize, but Mister Wayne is not expecting you. May I make you an appointment?" Appointments, after all, could be easily dodged later. Though, he had to admit curiosity; he was familiar with the case the family was currently wrapping up, and was under the impression that Ms. Devereux and her crew's part in it had ended, and that they had agreed to leave the Waynes alone.

"I was hoping, actually, to speak with you, Mr. Pennyworth. About Mr. Wayne's… stubbornness."

Alfred raised his eyebrows. "Indeed?" Well, he had a shotgun handy and any number of superheroes in shouting distance, if she tried to ransack the place. "I am an expert on the subject. Shall I put the kettle on?"

The kettle was duly put on, and Alfred was pleased to find his guest knew how to observe the pleasantries and civilities. They sat in the smallest parlor, which had a nice bay window overlooking the rose garden, and gently batted conversational gambits back and forth. Ms. Devereux waited until they had both sipped their tea before straightening subtly in her chair, signaling that she was ready to begin the conversation she had come for.

"And how do you know Mister Wayne?" Alfred asked, giving her the lead-in.

"We're in a similar line of work," Ms. Devereux said.

"Wayne Enterprises does business in several verticals."

"And Mr. Wayne in even more," Ms. Devereux responded smoothly. "He's very well-rounded, despite what his public persona seems, shall we say, crafted to indicate."

"One does one's best," Alfred responded dryly.

"He's raised such a fine family, on top of it all. Let me see. Richard, Timothy, Duke, Cassandra… though I don't believe I've met young Damian."

"It comes as a surprise to me that you've met the others."

"Quite briefly. Quite… chaotically."

"Indeed?" Alfred added a drop of milk to his tea, unflappable.

"A remarkable family. Mr. Pennyworth, allow me to be frank. I am speaking to you as the adult in this situation." She slid a tiny earbud across the table.

"And what might this be?" Alfred, who knew exactly what it was, asked.

"A lifeline. Should you, or anyone in your care who might be too stubborn to call for help, need it."

"How thoughtful," Alfred said. "I am certain you know, however, that the Wayne family is quite well connected with very good security."

"Yes, I'm familiar," Sophie, who had arrived at the door undetected and unannounced, said. "Do you know, Mr. Pennyworth, I have had reason to give Gotham's particular urban legends some thought recently. And I found myself thinking, how would I run such a large team and prevent so many secrets from coming to light? Well, I would need a particular skill set, people I trusted, and, most importantly, a great deal of money." She spread her hands. "As it turns out, it's a situation I know well. I'll even put on the occasional costume myself."

"Ms. Devereaux—"

Sophie held up a hand. "I'm not asking you to confirm or deny anything. For all I know, Mr. Wayne simply funds the bats. After all, they don't correlate exactly to his large and sprawling family. But I do know people, Mr. Pennyworth. I am very good at people. And I know the Batman does not trust easily. He is stubborn, isolationist, and paranoid." She nodded at the earbud. "And if he needs help, someone will have to reach out. My people have connections with his people. But you, I think, are the closest connection to him. You'll know if he needs us."

Alfred picked up the earbud and held it between thumb and forefinger. "A paranoid person would suspect this of being more than a one-way communication device."

"A paranoid person might give it to Oracle to examine, then."

"Oracle?" Alfred asked innocently.

Sophie shrugged. "Hypothetically." She set down her teacup. "This has been a delight, Mr. Pennyworth, but I have a flight out in a few hours. We are, as requested, getting out of Gotham."

She rose and Alfred rose with her. "Always a pleasure to hear a voice from home," he said. "Thank you for stopping by, and for your… concern."

Sophie smiled and allowed Alfred to escort her back out to the foyer. She paused in the doorway. "You know," she said. "You are a tremendous butler. But I fear the stage has missed out on one of the greats. Have a lovely afternoon, Mr. Pennyworth." She nodded a farewell and was gone, into a waiting car that also had not tripped any perimeter alerts.

Despite this, Alfred couldn't stop the pleased smile that softened his face. Well. Someone with that fine an eye couldn't be all bad, could she? She was certainly correct about Master Bruce. He pocketed the earbud, already knowing what Oracle would say, and shook his head with fond exasperation. If his charges would insist on befriending thieves and rogues at every turn, at least they did seem to acquire the ones that had some class.