Chapter Text
Bernard woke up in a cold sweat.
Somewhere in his dreams, a puzzle piece had clicked into place. He waited for the knowledge to fade, as it so often did, or be rendered nonsensical by the logic of the waking world, but it did not. Instead, as reality sunk in, Bernard further realized the gravity of what he had discovered.
He had spent the last evening- almost into morning, actually- poring over maps with his boyfriends and a handful of the various vigilantes that often accompanied them in their work, Tim having decided that a conspiracy theorist, with lots of practice connecting seemingly insignificant details together by red string- not metaphorically, Bernard actually had a corkboard in his room filled with thumbtacks and red string- was a good person to have on the team when attempting to triangulate the headquarters of an alien civilization squatting in some sparsely populated place on planet Earth. Disappointingly, it had been Roy, of all people, who discovered their hideout in the arctic… but in the wake of this epiphany, it seemed that Tim might be proven right after all.
Pulling a pair of jeans over his boxers and his warmest green hoodie over his “riddle me this, Batman” t-shirt (actual riddler merch that Steph had given him as a congratulatory present when he figured out his boyfriend was a vigilante, kickstarting his systematic breakdown of the entire batfamily’s secret identities as he tried to figure out why Steph knew about Tim before he did), Bernard barely remembered to grab his phone and a pair of gloves as he raced out the door.
The street outside was biting cold, but not cold enough that snow had covered up any of the Gotham city grime. Bernard slung a leg over his bike and raced breathlessly through the streets, panicked. As he reached the boathouse where the ramshackle team of vigilantes intended to depart from, he was almost certain he was too late. As it stood, he had barely tumbled into the batplane before it took off with a nearly silent grumbling purr.
Six vigilantes- or rather three bats, a leather-clad half kryptonian, and a crime boss and a rogue archer seated at the controls, whipped their heads around at him in varying degrees of confusion, disapproval and alarm.
Well, shit.
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Tim blinked at his boyfriend. Squinting his eyes, and determining that he was, in fact, awake and surprisingly well rested, he turned his head and blinked at his other boyfriend, in a silent inquiry meant to determine if Bernard was a benevolent hallucination. Kon, to his credit, reacted much more quickly than Tim had, snapping his head towards Bernard, before, in a blurring motion, appearing at his side.
Having presumably determined Bernard was not injured, Kon threw a look back at Tim, snapping him out of his confusion and into interrogation mode.
“Bernard, what- are you being pursued? Was there an attack? Hood, check exterior cameras-”
“No, I… no!” Bernard flung his hands up in a frantic, placating gesture. “I wasn’t attacked. I just- I woke up and I’ve figured it out and I had to tell you before you left.”
“Tell us that you woke up?” Steph inquired.
“No. I- the aliens, they aren’t just- it’s not safe. I figured it out and I couldn’t let you leave unprepared. Here.” Bernard pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of the pocket of his hoodie and thrusted it at Tim, who snatched it up. It was filled with scribbled and smudged notes, information about the alien race, and a notated transcript of a confusing coded message none of them had been able to make heads or tails of. As the puzzle pieces clicked together in Tim’s head, one of Bernard’s scribbled notes caught his eye, and oh.
There it was.
The force of the realization slammed into him, and he snapped his gaze up before calling out an order.
“Hood, disable all tracking devices on the plane, go into stealth mode, and I don’t care how many international borders you have to cross in the air, get us to the arctic now. Bernard.”
Cass snapped to attention behind him, followed by Steph in reaction to the tone in his voice. Tim whipped his handheld computer out of its bag and flipped it open.
“Tell me everything you just figured out. Something tells me we’re running out of time.”
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