On the rooftop, Batgirl was on high alert.
If her previous stance could be considered cautious, her current state was pure survival instinct, dialed up to extreme.
Her leg still throbbed with a deep, dull ache after kicking Nightwing's forearm and it hurt like hell.
It was a sharp reminder of the sheer density behind his defensive guard.
But she couldn't show it.
She couldn't let the pain breach her expression, couldn't afford to look weak or defenseless.
Not after that night.
It was a promise she had made to herself a long time ago, forged in a moment of vulnerability she vowed never to repeat.
Dick, realizing he had gone overboard, noticed the subtle micro-tremor in her leg.
Even though she refused to let it show on her face, the physical reality was obvious to someone of his caliber.
He sighed at his own lack of delicacy.
He could have taken a dozen easier, softer routes to de-escalate things.
Raising his hands in the air, Dick put his hands up in a theatrical mock surrender, flashing an apologetic, sheepish grin to ease the tension.
"Alright, my bad. I'm sorry for scaring you."
Batgirl's expression didn't shift an inch.
Her eyes remained cold behind her cowl.
"Oh, come on," Dick pushed, leaning his weight to one side. "You ditched me back there without so much as a goodbye. I'd say I managed to even the score."
Still, no bite.
She remained rigid, her weight carefully balanced on her good leg.
Dick sighed again, letting his arms drop slightly. "Listen, I'm sorry for scaring you, okay?" He emphasized the word deliberately, aiming a harmless, playful jab at her pride to see if he could crack the mask. "And I'm sorry about your leg. But once more: you ditched me. So technically? That one's on you." He scoffed dramatically, rolling his shoulders in a deliberate effort to inject some levity into the cool night air.
And it worked.
To some extent, at least.
Batgirl slowly straightened up.
Her guard remained firm, but the aggressive tension in her posture eased a fraction.
Dick offered a quiet, internal sigh of relief.
Raising the stakes with a headstrong superheroine was a terrible strategy—especially when she happened to be someone he had a massive crush on back in the day.
"Listen," Dick said, his tone shifting into something more pragmatic. "The way you scanned that device... I know you recognize the tech. You know who's responsible for this." He stepped forward, keeping his hands visible. "So here's the pitch: we work together. More hands on deck, less time wasted. What do you say?"
Nightwing extended the offer cleanly, but before she could cut him down, he held up a finger. "And before you drop the classic brooding hero tropes—'I work alone,' 'I don't have time for a sidekick,' or 'I'm not mentoring the new guy on the block'—save your breath. You don't have to babysit me. Like I said: extra hands make lighter work."
Silence stretched across the roof.
Batgirl didn't answer immediately; instead, she looked at him.
Really looked at him.
She took in the unshakeable confidence, the natural posture, the fluid, razor-sharp instincts he'd displayed during their brief scuffle.
This guy was an anomaly.
There was no question about that.
He carried himself like a veteran, and yet, he was still so nonchalant at the same time.
To make things even more irritating, he wasn't wrong.
She couldn't cover every corner of the city alone, not with hardware this advanced hitting the streets.
Closing the gap between them, Batgirl stepped directly into his personal space.
She crossed her arms, tilting her head slightly as she measured him up from head to toe.
Dick didn't flinch.
He crossed his own arms, chest puffed, chin held high, holding her gaze with a calm, amused smirk.
For several seconds, neither moved.
It was a silent, stubborn standoff between two people who clearly possessed absurd amounts of stubbornness.
Beneath the calculated distrust, an unspoken thread of mutual respect quietly anchored the moment.
"You talk too much, you know that?" she finally broke the silence, her tone dry.
"It's in the genes, madam," Dick replied without missing a beat.
"And why should I trust you in the first place?" she countered, narrowing her eyes. "For all I know, you could be some sort of fucked-up psycho acting benevolent right up until you stab me in the back."
"That's the beauty of it," Dick said cheerfully. "You don't."
"Oh,"
Batgirl raised an eyebrow.
"You don't have to trust me," Dick continued, his playful tone settling into something straightforward and honest. "Keep your guard up. Spy on me. Hack into my background if you've got the clearance and the hardware. Run my DNA if you can catch me. But know this: when things go completely to hell, I'll have your back."
The statement was delivered with such unvarnished certainty that it cut straight through the defensive walls she had built.
She stared at him, searching his face for a tell, a hint of deceit, anything that signaled an act.
Finding none, Batgirl let out a quiet, defeated sigh and brushed past his shoulder, walking toward the ledge.
Dick's shoulders slumped slightly in disappointment.
Guess I pushed too hard too fast, he thought, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Gizmo," she said softly.
Or maybe not.
Dick paused, turning his head. "What?"
"You wanted to know who's behind the modified hardware and the tracer," Batgirl said, stopping at the edge of the roof without looking back. "It's Gizmo."
"Gizmo?" Dick repeated, pulling from his knowledge of this world's public database. "You mean that brilliant little midget? The former CEO of Gizmo Inc. who was busted for pipeline-distributing military-grade tech to international syndicates? The guy the Guardians of the Globe dragged out of his bunker last year?"
Batgirl gave a single, firm nod.
Dick rubbed his temples, letting out a heavy groan.
Of course it was Gizmo.
Back on his original Earth, the little bastard had manifested in half a dozen different forms across various timelines, but they all shared the exact same miserable traits: tiny stature, terrifying genius, and a complete lack of moral boundaries.
"And let me guess," Dick added, glancing at her bad leg. "You had a personal run-in with him recently that didn't end with a polite exchange of business cards."
Another nod.
"Fantastic," Dick muttered. "Just great. So, what's the play? How are we tracking him?"
She shrugged, her eyes scanning the horizon. "I don't know."
Dick blinked, taken aback by the blunt admission. "You don't know?"
"I don't know where his current laboratory is," she clarified, her voice hardening with quiet resolve. "It's going to take time to trace the supply chain back to his hideout. But make no mistake—I will find him. Those weapons cannot stay on the street."
Dick nodded, his expression turning serious. "Agreed."
Before they could plan any further, a sharp, rhythmic ping sounded from her comm.
It was a priority alert signaling an active crime in progress a few blocks over.
Without a word of farewell, she fired her grappling hook and launched herself off the roof into the dark night.
Seeing her ditch him for the second time in an hour, Dick rolled his eyes toward the heavens.
"Unbelievable," he muttered, pulling his own line from his belt.
He leapt after her, catching up within seconds.
Side-by-side, they moved seamlessly across the skyline, vaulting over HVAC units, clearing alleyway gaps, and parkouring over rooftops as their joint night patrol officially began.
*********
Meanwhile, miles away at the high-tech Headquarters of the Guardians of the Globe, the atmosphere was entirely different.
Inside the central war room, the team had gathered in full force.
War Woman, Immortal, Darkwing, Aquarus, Red Rush, Martian Man, and Green Ghost were all present.
The only one missing was Omni-Man.
But given his usual detachment from daily operational meetings, no one thought much of it at first.
Immortal stepped into the center of the room, his heavy boots echoing off the polished floor as he turned toward Darkwing. "Alright, Darkwing. You called an emergency assembly. What's so urgent that it couldn't wait until morning?"
Darkwing frowned, looking around at the assembled heroes with genuine confusion. "What are you talking about? You sent the priority distress signal to my visor ten minutes ago."
The room went dead silent.
The realization was nothing short of a physical blow.
None of them had called the meeting.
Decades of combined combat experience kicked in instantly, and every hero in the room shifted into a battle-ready stance, their senses flared for any sorts of traps.
"Someone must have breached the internal comms—" War Woman started, raising her mace.
Before she could finish her sentence, Red Rush's eyes widened.
His perception of time slowed to a crawl as he picked up a blur of red and white descending from the high ceiling grid at terrifying speed.
Driven purely by reaction, Red Rush blurred forward, slamming his shoulder into Immortal to shove him out of the trajectory.
A devastating, air-shattering fist whistled through the space where Immortal's head had been a microsecond prior.
The force of the displacement wave shattered the glass panels behind them as the attacker slammed into the reinforced metallic floor, cratering the deck with a deafening thud.
Dust and pulverized concrete swirled in the heavy air.
As the debris settled, the figure slowly rose from the crater, turning his head toward the group.
It was Omni-Man.
His eyes were cold, hollow, and completely devoid of humanity.
The utterly detached, unmoving expression on his face caused the ambient temperature in the room to plummet into ice.
"Omni-Man?!" Aquarus yelled, his water-cannons arming instinctively. "What the fuck are you doing?!"
Omni-Man didn't answer.
He simply locked his gaze onto his teammates, bent his knees, and launched forward again.