Night Rider

26: Ignoring Doctor's Orders

Never in my life had I heard Arianna curse. Today was no exception, but for the first time I was thoroughly convinced it was going to happen. Repeatedly.

"Mother of poptart!" She screeched, slamming buttons on the computer.

I jumped, throwing my bowl of blueberries and accidentally showering Damian and I with them.

"No! DANGIT! FREAKING SHIZ BALLS. Backwards facing, fruit snack spewing A-HOLES!!!"

"Arianna! Calm down, what's wrong?" I yelped, shaking off blueberries.

She kept hitting buttons. "We're all screwed!"

"Well yeah, we know that, but what specifically this time?"

"Okay, okay. So I'm linked into the control aspect of those computer chips as of maybe an hour ago; I can't override anything from here because the server is closed, which is why we had to inject Bruce with the new nanos to hack the Cadmus ones, follow? Long story short, since I can minister what's happening, I can see that Superman just got put online to incapacitate, and I quote, -Batman & Nightwing-. The next command is sort of weird, but I get the idea that Cadmus wants to know what Batman knows, and basically we're utterly screwed because Superman is going to flatten our team and there goes our only chance to discreetly put the biggest hitter offline." She stopped typing and planted her face into the keyboard. "Cheese butts, we are so. Freaking. Screwed."

I glanced over at Damian.
"How confident are you in our ability to escape Alfred's supervision?"

Damian smiled devilishly. "Very."

"I don't know what you're planning," Ari said into her keyboard, "But I will literally go along with anything at this point."

Damian and I grinned wider before I threw off our blanket burrito and ran for the comm system.

...

"Hey, Jason, you there? This is Nightrider, come in."

Static on the other end of the line and then-

-"Nightrider, what are you doing?"-

Thank heavens. "We have a problem."

I could almost hear his exasperated face. -"S!$&. What kind of- no, don't answer that. I don't want to know the details. It's like you attract bad, you know that?"-

"I know, believe me I know. Can you help? We're going to need it."

-"... let me guess, the fate of us all depends on it?"-

"Yeah, basically."

He let out a string of curses.-"I'm coming."-

"One more thing, can you bring one of your spare helmets?"

-"Why?"-

"Just bring it." I clicked off. I hit Barbara's contact next.
She picked up sooner than Jason had.

"Hey Barbara, we've got a problem..."

...

As I was hanging up, Alfred walked in.

"Miss Walker, might I inquire what the bloody hell you think you're doing?"

Batman used to be the scariest person in the Wayne manor, but a well known fact exists in the family. A fact that doesn't seem to hold Damian back most days and generally makes Dick and Jason think twice about doing something stupid. Me? I've never been on his bad side so I didn't really believe Dick at first when he mentioned it to me.

Alfred is the guy who makes Batman eat his vegetables, metaphorically speaking, and I remembered the butler laser vision he had had trained on us all when we wanted to get off of bed rest.

"Uh, um, you see..." I stuttered.

Damian tried to save me. I owed him a hug and a bowl of blueberries. "Pennyworth, Father and Grayson are in trouble." He said coming up beside me, arms crossed.

Alfred narrowed his eyes. "Miss Arianna already informed me of the situation. I myself am concerned as well, but both of you are in no shape to leave this manor."

"But someone has to do something!" I risked saying.

"Well it certainly will not be the two of you. I have already informed members of the league of the situation. They will be here shortly. And you," his tone became cold, "will be resting like you should be."

"But-"

Alfred glared. "I will inform Miss Gordon of the situation when she arrives."

Just Miss Gordon. Either he hadn't heard my conversation with Jason or he didn't care to mention it.
I was going to go with the first.
And pray I could use that to my advantage.
"Okay." I conceded, and hoped Damian followed my lead. "Can we at least get into uniform so we can help brief when they come?"

"If it will console you to your infirmities, then I suppose that is fine."

Score! I nodded, glanced at Damian, who was scowling irritably, and shrugged. "Come on Damian, lets go see if Arianna and Park need any help downstairs."
I grabbed his arm and pulled him along after me.

"Walker-"

"Shh, Alfred's right." I said as I tugged him around the next corner towards the secret passage to the Batcave. "He won't let us go and that's final," another turn and we were out of earshot, "so that's  why we're still sneaking into this mission."

"Obviously Walker, how dull do you think I am? I could have convinced him if you had let me continue speaking."

"From what Dick tells me, I seriously doubt it."

Damian glared and pulled his arm out of my grasp. "Believe what you like, Walker. For now we have work to do."

"No kidding," I opened the study door and then the secret passage containing the party pole. A groan escaped my lips at the sight of it. "And here I was hoping I wouldn't have to slide down this thing again, it really can't be good for my concussion..."

"-tt-, Walker."

"Yeah?"

"There is another method for entering the cave."

I stared into the blank space of the party pole for a good minute before slowly turning around to look at Damian. My eye twitched.
"This whole time there was another option for getting down there, and you didn't tell me? I could have ridden an elevator down two days ago instead of having Dick carry me."

He shrugged, as if it was inconsequential. "Grayson childishly requested I not tell you if you inquired, which you did not, and I never saw a need to inform you otherwise until now. Lyn, this is of little importance to what we need to be doing right now."

"If we survive this, I'm going to murder him." I asserted. "Now please show me where this alternative form of transportation is."