Disclaimer: I don't own Justice League Unlimited.

(A/N: Thanks to hhgbh for beta-ing.)

New Shoes

Chapter Four: Bad Fit

Even while redirecting precisely twenty seven communiqués to different stations around the Watchtower, J'onn still managed to notice Batman's frequency.

Except Batman was otherwise occupied on another mission.

Curious, he pushed a button.

"Watchtower."

"Um… hello?"

A young voice. Most likely Robin. J'onn tried to ignore how much he sounded like his child.

"How can we help you?"

"I… I was looking for Batman?"

"Batman is occupied at the moment. Is it an emergency?"

"Uh… kinda. I just want to talk to Batman."

"I take it this is Robin."

"I… yeah."

"Is something wrong in Gotham? I can send others down to help you."

"No, it's… y'know what, it's nothing. It's okay. When do you think Batman will get back?"

"There's no way to be certain. It could be days."

A quiet curse that a thirteen year old shouldn't have known barely made it across the channel.

"Is there anyone else here you could speak to?"

Robin paused for a moment. "Is the Flash there?"

J'onn paused. "Yes. I'll call him up here for you."

"Thanks."

After a few minutes of ineffectively trying to coax Flash away from his lunch, J'onn managed to get him to agree by telling him who was calling.

He still entered the command center with coffee in one hand and a burger in the other, but J'onn decided to fight each small battle one at a time. It was becoming somewhat of a chore to continually reprimand Wally for his behaviour.

The speedster flopped into a swivel chair and propped his feet up on the control panel. J'onn promptly brushed them off and pushed a button.

"Go ahead, Robin."

"Okay…" He paused for a moment. "Flash?"

"Yeah, buddy, what's up?"

"Oh, I'm glad I found somebody. Nightwing's on his way over, but he said he was looking up some leads first, and-"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down."

J'onn was silently amused at the irony, but continued working elsewhere.

Robin took some deep breaths. "Okay. Batgirl's disappeared."

Wally sprang out of his chair, dropping his burger on the floor and almost scalding himself with spilt coffee.

"She what?"

"Batgirl. She was out on patrol last night, but didn't report in. And Nightwing says that he tried to talk to her earlier on, and it sounded like she was fighting someone, and he thinks that whoever it was had to be pretty tough, because Batgirl's pretty good, y'know?"

"Yeah. I know. But he's got leads?"

"Yeah, but I'm not sure how well they'll turn out. That's why I'm trying to get Batman, but some doofus said he was out on a mission."

J'onn tucked 'doofus' away in the back of his mind to look up on Google later. He went over to Wally and pushed a button.

"Robin. This is J'onn J'onnz. I am going to send Flash down to help with your investigation into Batgirl's disappearance."

A grateful smile came from Wally, but J'onn's only response was a 'don't make me regret this' look.

"You are? I mean… good, you are. Not that we couldn't handle this ourselves."

In spite of the situation, Wally smiled. "I'll be down in a jiff, okay?"

"Okay."

With barely a nod in J'onn's direction, Flash ran to the teleporter and disappeared from view.

Dick's motorcycle roared into the cave and came to a halt beside the Batmobile. It was strange, seeing what was a new car to him in place of what he had known. Bruce had barely just changed cars when Dick had left as Robin, so this one always seemed new to him.

He put his helmet on the front of the bike and made his way to the computer, where Robin was tapping away.

"Find anything?" they both asked.

"No," they both answered.

Dick sighed. "All of my leads in Gotham aren't as in the loop as I'd hoped."

An equally heavy sigh came from Robin. "There's nothing on the police computer system either. There's not even anything on the internet. No rumours, no gossip, nothing."

He walked over to the computer and paused at the inclusion of a chair next to Robin's.

"Bruce change the policy on the number of chairs in the Batcave?"

The Boy Wonder tried to keep on tapping at the computer, but it didn't work.

"Tim?"

The boy sighed and turned to him.

"Promise you won't get mad?"

"That depends on what you did."

A toilet flushed at the opposite end of the Batcave, followed by the sound of running water. Dick cocked an eyebrow at Tim, whose head was sinking further and further into his shoulders.

A door opened, and the Flash stepped out.

"Hoo-eee! Even the bathrooms in the cave are…" he made eye contact with Dick and paused. "…swanky." Cautiously, Flash raised a gloved hand.

"Uh… hi."

Dick didn't acknowledge him, instead going straight for Tim. "You invited him along?"

"Well… we weren't exactly turning up a hundred clues a minute!"

"That's why I told you to call Bruce. Not him."

Flash, now beside them both, stuck his head between them, looking at Dick and trying his best to stay his cheerful self.

"Come on! You could always just give me a shot. Despite popular belief, I'm not that bad at the super heroic stuff."

"And I'm sure the criminals in Central City are quaking in fear at the sound of your name." He turned to the computer and started tapping something in over Robin's shoulder. "But Gotham is a very different place."

Flash fought the scowl. "Then I guess it's a good thing you guys are here to help me out," he said, nodding at a very uncomfortable Robin.

"Batgirl-" Dick's frown deepened as he stood to his full height to look at him. The intimidation factor was limited since Flash was the same height as him. "Barbara's life could be in danger. We don't have time to be looking over our shoulders to make sure you're okay."

"I seemed to do okay last night, didn't I?"

Tim's head, which had been following the argument like a tennis match, turned back to Dick.

Nightwing didn't have an answer for that one.

Satisfied, Flash slipped into the chair beside Tim. "Okay then."

After a few minutes silence on the computer, Dick spoke.

"And have you two found anything?"

"Well, I only just got here a few minutes ago. Gimme a chance."

Dick looked at him like he was Two Face. "So do you have any suggestions?"

He shrugged and leaned forward in his chair. "You guys use earpieces like the League, right?"

Robin nodded. "Bruce made us use them after the League started. They make my ear hurt."

"Me too. Itchy and sweaty?"

"Yeah, and he never gets the right fit."

Dick cleared his throat.

The two looked at him.

"Sorry," Flash said. "Anyway, we can track the communicators from the Watchtower. Or we could in the old Watchtower, I don't know about the new one."

Tim sat forward. "You think Bruce has one on the computer?"

The speedster shrugged. "I guess. I dunno, it's just a suggestion," he said, shooting Nightwing a very quick look.

Nodding, the Boy Wonder got to work.

Dick crossed his arms. "Do you really think Bruce would have something to track us on his computer?" He realised how stupid he sounded as soon as he said it.

Both Robin and Flash looked at him and spoke at the same time like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Yes."

After a few more minutes of tapping, Robin let loose an 'ah!' that drew both Dick and Flash's attention.

"You find it?" Flash asked.

Tim nodded. "But she's not transmitting."

"Yeah, well, you said she was fighting someone," he nodded at Dick, "so whoever it was probably destroyed it."

Now Dick leant forward, resting one hand on the back of Tim's oversized chair and the other on the control panel.

"Can you tell where she was last?"

A few more taps on the keyboard, and Tim smiled and nodded an affirmative, pointing at the screen.

"She was…" he frowned. "At the warehouse we busted?"

Dick turned and raced to his motorcycle as a red blur shot past him, the faint sound of Robin yelping in surprise going with it.

"See you there!"

His scowl deepened as he swatted away the kickstand with his foot and roared out of the cave.

Flash whistled when he saw the mess, and Tim smiled. It was weird to be around someone older than him like Nightwing or Batgirl but who still acted like he was thirteen. It made him feel a bit more justified in his goofing around. He could only imagine Bruce's face when he landed that one on him.

"Start taking this more seriously, Tim."

"But Flash doesn't!"

Cue Bat-glare.

"She sure put up a fight," the speedster continued, crouching and carefully inspecting broken pieces of crate. Tim thought it was a little weird how professional Flash was around a crime scene, but then again, he was a superhero. Batman had probably drummed this kind of thing into him as soon as they were on the same team.

Most of the time Tim had serious trouble picturing Flash and his mentor in the same universe, let alone being on the same team, so the idea of Bruce tutoring him was almost completely out of Tim's mental spectrum.

"You find anything over there?"

Tim snapped himself awake. "Uh, not yet."

With nary a whisper, Nightwing landed behind Flash. The speedster idly turned around to shout something to Robin and almost leapt up into the rafters as he yelled in shock.

"Geez…" Flash thumped his chest. "Like father like son, huh?"

"He's not my father," Dick said quickly, getting to work inspecting the area.

Tim rolled his eyes.

Could you be more of an ass, Nightwing? Please? Because you're nowhere near jerky enough yet.

Something shiny caught his eye, and he knelt down.

"Hey, I found something."

Flash zipped over and rested his hands on his knees as he looked down.

"Looks like her communicator," Tim said, pointing at it but not touching. "But it's crunched up pretty bad."

"Someone heavy…" Dick murmured, kneeling beside him. Flash adjusted position so his head was almost on the floor, looking side on at the communicator.

"Someone flat," he corrected.

They both looked at him.

"The communicator. It's been flattened into the ground perfectly. See? Usually when people step on stuff this hard it just breaks it. But this was squashed." He got to his feet and dusted himself off. "Know anybody with flat feet?"

Tim stroked his chin in a manner he though looked smart. "Killer Croc?"

"No, he's in the Maximum Security prison," Nightwing said, shaking his head. "I checked up on all our buddies after Batgirl disappeared. They're all accounted for, for once."

"But that's doesn't mean they couldn't have done this," Tim added.

Dick nodded, and Tim looked back down at the device embedded in the floor.

"Y'know… just because it's flat, doesn't mean it was a flat foot that crushed it. They could have used a flat weapon like a hammer or…"

"No, the dust dispersal matches a foot more than anything else," Dick said quickly.

Flash stood between them with his arms folded.

"So? Who do you guys think it is? This Killer Croc guy?"

"Maybe. But he wouldn't think to look for an earpiece communicator. He would just kill her," Dick said, looking very uncomfortable with the thought.

"Anyone else? You guys fight any robots?"

The two Gotham Knights cocked a collective eyebrow and spared a glance at each other before looking at him.

"No. No robots," Tim said plainly.

"Oh. Okay. Well… should we talk to Croc, or what?"

Nightwing shook his head. "There's no point. Without Batman's good relations with the Commissioner to back us up, we'd have to breach security, question him, get out again…"

"Hey, I'm the Fastest Man Alive. I could get us in and out before you could blink."

"No."

"But-"

"I said no." Dick looked to Tim. "I don't want to give Gordon any more reason to get suspicious than we have to."

Solemnly, Tim nodded.

Flash raised a hand. "Gordon?"

"Commissioner Gordon," Tim corrected.

"Oh." Realisation struck. "Oh, Gordon… okay. All right, no questioning Croc. But, uh… what else do you want to do?"

Nightwing looked out the window. "Let's get back to the cave. Maybe we can find out what Batgirl was working on before she disappeared."

The speedster beside him nodded at Robin. "Boy Wonder here's already done it. Zip."

"Well, we'll just have to go over it again more thoroughly."

Flash's eyebrows rose beneath his mask, Tim could tell. He'd seen it before with people new to the Bat-family. First, it was surprise at the blunt rudeness. Then, annoyance at said rudeness. Then, explosive argument. Then things die down again.

Rinse, lather, and repeat.

But, for now, Flash would just grin and bear it. Because that's how the cycle went.

"Okay then. Let's mosey on back to the cave, shall we?"

He took a step forward when Tim jammed a hand out.

"Freeze."

Both of the older men stopped and stared at him. Flash looked down at his raised boot and, seeing the mud beneath it, took a step back.

"Clayface?" Nightwing asked himself, walking over to Tim as he collected the mud up into a sample bag.

"If it is, he's one heck of a miracle worker," Flash said, scratching his head. "We blew him up in Gotham Stadium a few months ago."

Tim looked up at him as he sealed the bag. "By 'we', you mean-"

"The League, yeah."

"That's right," Dick said, nodding. "I remember it from the news. It was Gorilla Grodd, Shade and some others."

"Right. So, if he did come after Batgirl…"

"He probably did it in tiny pieces," Robin finished, wanting to end the discussion.

Flash scratched his chin and looked at the sealed plastic bag as Tim put it in his belt.

"Can Clayface even make something that solid? I mean, I always thought he was-"

"He can make things seem pretty real when he wants to," Tim said quickly, going for the doorway. He looked over his shoulder at Flash. "Can we go now?"

Confused, the speedster looked to Nightwing for some enlightenment.

But he was already gone.

The Fastest Man Alive sighed and walked to the doorway.

For the second time, the fluttering of batwings startled Wally awake. With sleepy blue eyes, he surveyed the cave.

The computer lit up the arguing forms of Robin and Nightwing. The way Robin had taken to Batman's chair made Wally wonder how easy it was to pry him away when the big man returned.

With a grunt of effort, he pushed himself up from where he was sat on the floor. For some odd reason, it felt warmer nearer the costumes.

Nightwing's barely hushed voice reached him first. "So you have no idea how to use the spectral analyser?"

Robin wasn't backing down. "Hey, I'm not the one who uses it. It's always Bruce and Barbara who do all the analysing and stuff."

"And Bruce never thought you would need to use it at some point?"

"He was teaching me, but other stuff kept us busy." He shrugged. "It wasn't a priority."

"Well, it is now."

"Look, if you think you can do it, go ahead!"

"I told you, I can't. Bruce has moved or replaced everything since I left."

"And that's my fault?"

Nightwing seemed ready to yell back, but then took a breath. "No, it's not. Sorry."

The Boy Wonder leant back in his chair. "It's okay."

"It's not okay. I'm just worried about Barbara."

"I know. But-" he stopped when he noticed Wally. "Oh, hey. Your power nap do anything for ya?"

"A little," Wally mumbled, his mouth feeling tacky. "I could use some food, though."

Robin smiled. "I'm not sure if we have enough food to feed you."

Feeling a little less uncomfortable in the cave, Wally smiled in return, then looked at the screen. "You having trouble with the mud?"

"Kinda," Robin said, turning back to look at the screen. "We don't know how to get the analyser to work."

Nightwing looked at him, eyebrow cocked. "Why? You think you can get it to work?"

"Hell no. I was just wondering what you wanted it testing for."

An obligatory glance was exchanged between the two Gotham Knights. Wally surmised that it must be a Bat thing.

"We… don't really know," Nightwing admitted. "We've never gone after Clayface like this before."

A sigh escaped Robin's lips. "Yeah. It's usually just 'when Clayface shows up, fight him'."

Wally nodded understandingly. "Well, you've sure got the right equipment for it," he said, looking at the table on his left overcrowded with beakers, test tubes and Bunsen burners. He was itching to see what kind of equipment a billionaire had at his disposal, and made a mental note to look at the table more thoroughly later.

"But without knowing what to look for, I'd just be wasting time."

Nightwing rubbed his eyes through his mask, and paused suddenly. "Barbara's computer."

Robin looked at him. "What?"

"At the police station."

Though Wally thought it impossible, Robin's face brightened even more. "Yeah… we might find something on it."

"But, uh…" Wally managed, pointing at the sample of mud in the machine next to the computer.

"We'll keep on trying to analyse it, but in case nothing comes up on that end, Barbara's computer is our next best bet."

After processing the information, Flash switched to happy mode. "Okay then! Since the police station won't be open until tomorrow, let's get something to eat, shall we?"

Robin seemed ready to object, but Nightwing shot him down. "No, he's right. We don't want Gordon thinking there's anything wrong. Not unless we have to."

Flash, still with his happy face, watched the exchange intently before point to the stairs.

"Hey, do I need to change before I go wandering around the estate?"

For what seemed the hundredth time since his arrival, Robin and Nightwing exchanged a glance before looking at him like they didn't know if he was for real.