Protecting our leader.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

P.O.V of Wally.

Artemis had already left to go to her campus for the day, making freinds and learning. However, I had Wednesday's and Thursday's off, so I found myself standing outside Wayne manor as Alfred opened the door.
"Hi Alfie, is Dick in?" I asked.
"Master Wallace," He seemed taken aback for a moment before he collected himself, "Master Dick isn't here."
"Of course," I swatted myself on the head lightly, "He's at school."
"Actually Master Wallace," Alfred stopped me before I could leave, "Would you be able to spare a moment?"
"Ummm, sure." I answered, now confused as to why Alfred would want to speak with me, but he led through the manor to the lounge where Bruce was in conversation with Kaldur, Megan and Conner.
"Master Wallace shall be joining you're company." Alfred said, "I'll bring in drinks." And he left me alone with them.
"Take a seat." Bruce said, "We have a lot to talk about."
I calmly took a seat, but inside my heart was racing a million miles and my mind was whiring with reasons why I would be in trouble with Bruce, and the team of course.
"Dick has been kidnapped, we're-"
"What?!" I burst out before Bruce could finsih explaining but he gave me a glare and I shut up as he explained the rest to me.
"We're searching for him tirelessly, and going by all the information we have been given." He said, "The last people to see him was the team, when it had all it's members, and Damian. It was then believed that he had left to. To kill himself but we have now found that he has been taken by Deathstroke. Evidence has shown that Dick was taken out the back and to the treeline, shown by a brush of blood on a leaf, and Megan has now found a fresh looking tire print which is being anaylsed at this moment. Alfred has printed off multiple missing posters which are getting put up tonight, and we were going to call in you and Artemis tonight to tell you but as you are here now, would you mind helping in the search?"
"Of course I'll in the search." I quickly said, "He's my best freind."
"Try acting like it then." Megan said and we all turned to her.
"Now is not the time nor place." Kaldur said.
"There is no time or place." She bit back, "You've been avioding him for two weeks, and when we thought he had come back and you were there, you hid. What kind of best freind does that?"
"M'gann," Bruce cut in, "Kaldur is right, we can't argue about this. For now we need to think about finding Dick and that is all."
"I can get all the posters up now." I said, anything to get out of the room with Megan who is now glaring daggers at me.
"Thank you Wally." Bruce said and he gave me directions to the libary where the pile was stacked up.
I followed the directions to see a lrage stack of papers which all had Dick's picture on, along with his details and a reward for any information people can give about his whereabouts. Information $100 and actually finding him and bringing him in, $100,000. Not much for Bruce to pay, but for most people that would be life changing. I picked them up, headed back to my place and changed into better shoes for the speeds I would be going at, and flashed around Gotham, Star City and Metropolis putting the posters up in the most public places I could find. And I just hoped that we would be doing enough the bring him home.

P.O.V of Jason.

School was hell, and I was thankful when I got home and could help with the search again. Even Tim was bouncing on his feet as he waited for Bruce to give out the orders for the evening. Either that or it was the 5 coffee's he had since we got back about 4 hours ago.
"Wally had put up all the posters, that should get the public on our side." Bruce said.
"Either that or they all start trying to find him themselves so they can hold him for ransom." I scoffed under my breath but Bruce still sent me a glare as if he heard.
"The tire prints that have come up are generic off-road motorcycle prints. So that can't get us far apart from looking for a generic looking bike in area's we know Slade to hide out in, though the chances of him being there are slim as he knows to never return to where his enemies know him. So we need to keep an eye out for bikes, Dick, Slade and any other disappearances of important people."
"That does give us quite a bit to work with though." Kaldur said, "It means we'll find him quicker."
"It also means we could end up on a false lead easier." Bruce said, "Whilst these details zoom in on Dick's location the field id still wide enough for something to happen that we investigate to be completely unrelated."
"So whilst searching for Dick, we could just be looking into the case of bike theft." Conner said.
"But that could be relevant, he may have stole the bike so that we couldn't trace him." I replied, "There are many different outcomes to an infinite amount of situations."
"Let's get started then." Tim said, "Every second counts."
"Tim, the best we can do at the moment is just look." Bruce said, "We don't have anything to go on on where he could be."
"Then let's get looking." He said and, grabbing one of Bruce's spare belts, walked out of the cave and into the cold, dark air.
"Report to me before you turn in for the night." Bruce said as a dismissal and the team, Wally, Artemis, Damian and I all left as Bruce turned back to his computer to set up surveillance for the night.
Personally, I was surprised he was letting Tim come on this, he may be trained but he hasn't finished his training, even Damian has a better chance of survival than Tim, and he's 3 years younger. We all split off into pairs, Wally with Artemis, Kaldur with Tim, Megan with Conner and I was with Damian.
We circled the far west of Gotham in silence, keeping our eye on the streets below. Some busy and teeming with late night life, others empty and foreboding. It was above one of the latter that Damian stopped me and pointed at a figure in the shadows. We watched as he lit a cigarette and waited for something. But in the end a girl just appeared and they started stripping. I went to cover Damian's eyes but it would seem he had already turned away himself.
"Great spot Dami," I teased, "You found us some street sex."
"Shut it Jay." He growled, "He looked suspicious."
And I stopped, because he was stressed, and he wasn't that person that I used to think was my brother. He wasn't an emotionless person who shut everyone out, he was just a kid that needed protection and a loving family. Something he never got from us.
The rest of the night passed and no-one spotted anything, not even Bruce who had been scouring the south side of Gotham, the most crime ridden place. It's as if without Dick, the world had stopped working.

P.O.V of Bruce.

The night had proved useless, but come morning I had found a few articles of interest that the computer had found whilst I was out. Most of them looked like dead-ends, not something that shouted Slade, but I sent them forward to the team and hopefully they'd get on it as quickly as possible. But there was one, that even if it wasn't something that Deathstroke would do, that I wanted to solve personally. Robert Zuch went missing yesterday morning, the last person to see him had been his wife at dinner the previous night, he had then left (most likely to pay a woman for some company for the night) and hasn't been seen since. I wouldn't call him a freind, but I was close with him, and if Slade knew our identities, it may be a game he would play. The first thing I would have to do was talk to his wife, find out where he said he was going and follow that path until I found where something didn't add up. And that's what I was doing now.
I pulled up in the Zuch driveway and knocked on the door. A few minutes later Elizabeth opens the door.
"Mr Wayne, oh it is nice to see you." She cried as she ushered me inside, "I've had news reporters hounding me left, right and centre all night. Would you like a drink?"
"No thank you." I said, "I just hope that Robert is all right. Who knows what could have happened at the gala, and to think everyone was in masks as well."
The gala I was using here was one that Alex, another of the closer people in my life, had hosted last night and we were both invited to. Of course, I had told him I had to catch up on my work but Robert may have not said anything.
"Oh no, he declined to invitation to the gala." Elizabeth said as she poured herself a large mug of black coffee, "He said he had a few loose ends to tie up from work, some misbehaving wannabes he called them."
That shouldn't have been news to me, but it still was rather surprising and I could easily follow up on it. I sent a quick text to Alfred to load me his work addresses whilst Mrs Zuch got herself comfortable on the sofa opposite mine.
"As long as the detectives know this I think he should be back in no time." I said, "Gordon will make sure of it."
"I'm sure she will." Elizabeth replied and this time I blinked in shock.
Did she just get the genders mixed up or had Gordon become the name that of more than just the commissioner Gordon.
She must have seen my confusion for she than said, "His daughter has joined the force. She's heading the investigation."
Dick would have loved to here that, it would mean he might get to see her again. He has been crushing on her since he had met her, and though he tried to hide it, everyone knew. I was actually surprised she didn't herself.
"Thank you for your time Mrs Zuch." I said standing up.
"Leaving already?" She asked, mirroring me.
"Unfortunately so," I replied, "I still have a shed-load of work that needs to get done."
"Alright then." She led me to the door and waved me off as I drove back to the manor where Alfred had hopefully loaded up all the locations that I would be investigating.