Brothers In Arms (Batfamily) - Completed

Chapter 18 ~ The RAT

"Are you ready?" Nightwing asked while he grabbed his pair of escrima stick.

"Do I look like I'm not?" Robin replied coldly as he put on his black domino mask. Nightwing sighed and shrugged.

"I don't even know why I asked Bruce to let you come with me for once if you're going to act this way..." Robin shot him a death glare, but then shrugged and walked away. Tim approached near Nightwing, wearing a simple sweatshirt with a pair of blue jean. He handed his older brother a small USB key.

"Plug it in any computer which you are sure is linked to his database. I'm taking care of the rest, okay?" Nightwing gently ruffled his brother's hair and nodded. He then gestured at Robin to follow him. They climbed on Nightwing's motorcycle and drove away from the Batcave, squeaking the tires as they left.

They drove until they arrived close to one of Matt Jensen's secret base. It wasn't his headquarters, but they knew all the computers were linked to his database anyway. Nightwing hid the motorcycle in an empty alley, taking advantage of it not being illuminated by any streetlights. Robin shot his grappling gun to one of the nearest building and landed on top of the roof, soon followed by his older brother. The young boy was already scanning the area. "The place is heavily guarded. They are obviously waiting for an answer from Red Hood after what they did to his headquarters... But I see an entrance through the air vent. We could sneak inside the different air ducts."

Nightwing reached for his comm link and asked Tim to give them the blueprints from the entire ventilation system of the building and the young man did it in only a few minutes. "Be careful though, the both of you..." he said with a clearly concerned tone.

"We will," Nightwing whispered.

"I hacked every camera inside the building so I can guide you inside of it once you'll get out of the ventilation ducts. There are a lot of men inside, but I'll try to find an empty room with a computer in it."

"Only one question, genius," Robin suddenly said, pissed all of a sudden.

Tim sighed deeply, "Yeah?"

"Why weren't you able to hack his database from the distance? Why do we have to plug a USB key inside a laptop or whatever? We-"

"Because," Tim cut him off and replied with the same tone as his little brother, "The virus will completely infect his database and I'll be able to take control of absolutely everything without him being able to remove the virus or to counteract it since it isn't known by any firewalls because it's unique."

Nightwing smirked lightly at his brother's answer while Robin growled and shook his head frustratingly. "Alright, all clear, let's go." With that being sad, the older man shot his grappling gun at the building just in front of them and landed just next to the air vent. He carefully and noiselessly removed the gate while Robin was still scanning the area for any unwanted presence near them. After a few seconds, Nightwing slipped inside the air duct and crawled through with as less noise as he could. Just behind him, Robin started muttering. "What is it, again?" Nightwing sighed with annoyance.

"I should have been first, I'm way faster than you," the young boy whispered with the same annoyed tone. Nightwing shook his head but kept on crawling through the vent ducts, following the blueprints Tim had sent him on his gauntlet's tiny laptop. They kept on getting through the long corridors of vent ducts during some long minutes before Tim told them to stop where they were.

"It seems like there is an empty room just under you two."

"Thanks Tim," Nightwing whispered. Right after, he noiselessly started to remove the nails which were holding the gate closed. Once done, he jumped out of the vent ducts, soon followed by Robin. Quickly, they noticed a small dusty wooden desk with a similarly dusty laptop on top of it. The laptop looked really old but Nightwing walked towards it anyway. "Do you think it still works?" he asked his little brother.