Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Thursdays always seemed to be a bad day for Clint. A handful of his friendships and relationships ended on Thursdays, the clown happened on a Thursday, the Avengers had partially disbanded on a Thursday that one time, and just last week--of course on a Thursday--his apartment had been absolutely trashed.

It was probably a good guess that this wouldn't be the best day of his life, just due to it being a Thursday, but it was already shaping out to be one of the worst days of his life. And it was only seven minutes until it turned Thursday, too.

Wednesday, 11:53 PM.

It was supposed to just be a Hawkeye mission, not the Hawkeyes mission, but Kate had insisted on coming with him at the last minute. He didn't blame her or anything, he just wished that she would actually tell him the real reason she was tagging along with him on all of his missions. It wasn't just for fun, or for the Hawkeyes bonding time, it was to keep an eye out on him. He couldn't be mad at her (something that he had to repeat a lot) because he probably would do the same thing if he was in her shoes. If she lost pretty much all of her hearing in one night, due to an ass in clown makeup with one of her own arrows, he'd be wary and keep an eye out too.

He had gotten confirmation from a couple of his informants, who he now knew he could trust thanks to this, that some sort of sale was going to be going down tonight. Well, tonight as in early as hell Thursday. Of course. The informant couldn't give him any hints or even had any clue to what the sale actually involved, but no matter what it was it was probably a good idea to keep it off of the streets.

"What are you doing, old man?" Kate signed at him, mouthing her sentence at the same time. She drastically emphasized the 'OLD', pulling her fist down for as long as she could. Or until she was satisfied with how long it was, which  never happened. She was wearing one of her original Hawkeye outfits, sunglasses at night and all. Over the last couple of years she had made a few changes to the costume, but always eventually went back and rotated through all of her costumes. No matter what it looked like, there was always purple. The Hawkeye signature colour.

The two of them were crouched down on the corner of an abandoned building, with all of their gear laid out before them. This included their two bows, a large array of everyone's arrows, and a couple of knives. The wind was a bit more brisk tonight, the type that nipped at peoples ears, especially if that person (Clint) refused to wear toques or hats on this type of mission-or any mission lately, really. While it was cold being out in the open, the corner of the rood broke a lot of the wind for them.

Due to it being very very late September, there hadn't been a single flake of snow yet. The only thing that lived as a reminder for the white traffic hell soon to be raised upon them was just the sharp bite breeze, and the face that if someone was up as early as these two were, they could see their breath. While this meant that there weren't any icy patches on the road to worry about slipping on, it did mean that were beautiful coloured leaves that could crunch at any step.

This time of the month also meant that it was getting darker sooner, but the glow from the neon street signs below theme seemed to fill in for the light from the sun pretty fine. That, and the windows with their lights on around surrounding buildings gave them enough lighting to see each other, and all of their equipment.

'I STILL NOT THAT OLD' Clint made a big show of sighing, shoulders raising all the way up to his ears, then started to sign back. He was going to mouth the words as he signed like he usually does, but his mind was too busy on other things.

Other things being 'how to get into the van on the streets below them'.

It seemed like a pretty easy job if it went as planned, but there was a small problem of an entire team surrounding it. There were some standing right outside of the van, some across the street, and some way further down the streets keeping a far away eye on it--and this wasn't even counting the people inside who would probably be guarding the shipment. Whatever was in there was important enough to need a whole team standing watch.

A whole team that could definitely be taken down by the two archers.

While the team looked pretty experienced in guarding things, they definitely weren't doing a very good job of blending into the street. That, or for whatever reason they didn't feel the need to blend into the street. Either way, most people trained to be big and buff for knife and gun fights were rarely prepared to be shot at by a bow and arrow.

"So. Are we just going to hop down there and give them hell?" Kate asked, signing way less words than that, but it was the flaming look that she got in her eyes that conveyed the meaning pretty well.

Clint wriggled a flat hand out, 'SORT-OF'.

"We need to take out the people guarding the van, and then take a good old look in there." He explained the start of his plan, but he didn't really have anything else to say, as he didn't exactly know what the rest of his plan would be. He could figure it out later, when he actually knew what was in the van. 

Kate nodded, turning the other way to look down at the streets, then turned back at him to continue her thought.

'THAT A LOT PEOPLE FOR ONE CAR.' She signed, eyebrows scrunching together. Concerned. 

"Are you sure that whatever's in there isn't like a pandoras box situation or some shit? Like we're not just going to open it and kill the entire world or anything?" She continued on again, miming an earth exploding at the end. He was sure there were some interesting sound effects to go along with it, but his hearing aids weren't picking up on it.

That... was definitely a good point though. And something that he had thought of. Absolutely.

Clint stumbled his way through a couple of different starts to a sentence, not exactly sure how to phrase anything. After about a minute of fumbling he eventually settled on 'WE SEE LATER' paired with an exaggerated grimace.

Kate elbowed him in the shoulder, laughing under her breath.

Jeez, what he would have given to hear her laugh again.

'THEY CAN'T BE MAD IF WE DIE FIRST' She grinned, officially setting their airtight plan into place. The two will try their very best, and if anything bad happens they try to die before they can take the blame for dooming the entire world--to the face at least. Awesome!

He took another glance down at the streets, taking note of the people who had moved around since the last time he looked. Two of the people down the street had swapped what side they were standing on, and a completely new person was standing where someone else used to be. This meant that they could either just teleport people in and out of there, or they had just swapped a person in and out of the truck. Given that the latter was much more believable than the former, he was now sure that there was a person in the truck.

Kate was right, though. Unless they were just being crazy overprotective of normal illegal cargo, this had to be something special.

'OK.' Clint finally signed at her, picking his quiver off of the ground and clipping it on his belt at his hips.

'FUN!' Kate signed, her two fingers tapping her nose, then her other hand's pointer and middle finger. She then picked up her own arrangement of arrows and her bow. The two of them tended to share their trick arrow stash, so they had separated out an equal amount of them beforehand.

"Alright. We'll both drop down there, I go left, you go right. Once we are finished taking out the people on the outside of the truck then we can take a look at what's inside and decide what to do after that." He signed and mouthed, slowly rising up out of his crouched position and pointing to where he was talking about.

Thursday, 12:03 AM.

The two matching birds shot arrows to the building across them, using the rope that came out of the arrows as a way to hop down without breaking their legs, like how a spider uses their webs.

It was all going to plan, really.

This would have been the point where someone unsuspecting would say 'woah, this is so easy!!' and then immediately get thrown off of a building, or out of a window. But so far, nothing like that was going down yet! The yet wasn't there because Clint was aware that something was going to happen, it just needed to be thought of simply just because it was a Thursday.

Clint wasn't going to lie, the oh so familiar feeling of his fists colliding with someone else's face felt surprisingly relieving. Fighting was a muscle memory for him, a comforting pattern that he could just fall back into and let his fists and bow do the work. It wouldn't be something he would say to anyone, but it did feel like it let off some of the pressure and hurting from his ears.

After taking out most of his portions of the goons, Clint finally got close enough next to the van to begin formulating a plan. After this last person was taken out he'd need to either pick the lock, or just straight up take the back doors off of its hinges to get in. From where he was standing, and he could almost touch it with his fingertips, it didn't seem to be letting off any weird vibes or sounds, so that was a good sign.

Grabbing another arrow out of his quiver, he quickly nocked it onto the bow string and pulled back to the corner of his jaw, getting ready to aim it at the last person standing on his side of the street. The persons mask covering their mouth wiggled and moved around a little bit, indicating that they were saying something he couldn't understand.

Something about fun? Yeesh. He didn't really care right now, the person didn't seem too worried about what they were saying, so he was guessing it was a taunt or a rude comment of some kind. He could talk to them later, after they were stuck to the concrete with some silly putty glue combination that Spidey had helped him make, and the van was thoroughly searched through.

Before he could let the bow string slide across his finger tips to let the arrow loose nicely, a loud "CLINT!!" startled him. He didn't even have enough time to let down his arrow, or even blink before he was forced to understand what the yelling of his name meant.

A bright shine filled the Archer's vision as he was thrown like a ragdoll forwards from the blast.

Thursday, 12:17 AM.

He couldn't focus, couldn't think. He had heard a crack when he hit the ground. Heard multiple cracks as he rolled across it, too. Heard it? Felt it? He really wasn't sure at this point. Something had exploded. Something near him. And that something near him had not only hit him with the blast, but with shrapnel and other things too, judging by how his entire body felt.

Oh god. His head felt like it was going to explode. Like someone had dug arrows straight into his head at all sides and were just stirring his brain around in there like it was some kind of magicians trick with the box and the swords, except he wasn't even expected to be able to dodge any.

Spots danced aggressively around his vision, trailing around after the smoke and dust around him went through loops of settling, and blowing back up into the air again. He couldn't tell if he was stuck underneath anything. Was he even alive? Was this what being dead felt like?

Everything looked red, too. Was it his eyes? Or blood, or was something on fire? If something was on fire this close to him, he was probably screwed.

He needed to stay awake. He knew that. Who knows what he'd miss, or what could happen if he just stayed lying down and conked out. So, despite what felt like horrible horrible ringing in his ears, his throbbing head, and the other entire salad mix of pure pain has was getting from everywhere, he kept his eyes wide open.

Thursday, something something.

Wheezing in a breath that was mostly filled with blood and ash, a realization dawned on him. Kate.

Had she been in the blast radius? It was her who had warned him, right? It had been her who had yelled his name.

His thoughts still felt like he had been dunked, drowned in, and sent spinning through a bog, but some flashes of memories were popping into his fuzzy head.

The van.

Fuck. That thing had to have been fucked full off explo

Explosions.

Explosion.

He couldn't hear

'HE CAN'T HEAR.'

He could only feel his ear dripping blood down one side of his face, feel the wheezes of his lungs, and only feel his vocal chords scratching dry at him for trying to yell 'HAWKEYE'.

Thursday? ..?

Clint wasn't sure how long he had passed out for. His body was still screaming in agony, especially his throat now.

Something had definitely changed, though. That, he was sure of. It felt easier to breathe, like there weren't as many things piled on top of him anymore, or as many things covering his head. Instead of the solid rubble from earlier, his face rested on something smooth. Not soft, but smooth and lumpy.

And the smell....

Oh boy.

The oh so familiar smell of a dumpster. In his time as a hero he couldn't count how many times he had landed in one of these. This time was different, though. How had he ended up here? Last time he checked he was supposed to be dying on the sidewalk and road, not dying in a dumpster.

Pretty much prying his eyes open with as much strength as he could muster, he was half expecting to see a villain standing over top of him, ready to deliver the final blow. Whoever set the van to trap him here to finish the job off.

His eyes adjusted, but they only needed a little bit of time. The sky was still dark, so luckily he hadn't been at this until dawn.

The dumpster was just like any dumpster he'd even been in before; filled to the brim with garbage bags, gross food juices getting all over his clothes, which he would then need to wash about a thousand times to get the stench out, and it was in the corner of a random alleyway.

He definitely had a concussion, though. Not only did his head feel like it had been run over by a large truck, but it was like he couldn't even read the bill board looming above his head. He knew it was supposed to say Spider-Man, but all he could focus his eyes on enough to get out of it was 'Superman'.

Clint wasn't a stranger to bad concussions and bad injuries, but usually he knew the setting around him if he got injured in a fight. Ending up someplace completely different, but not in a kidnapped way (or at least he didn't think it was in a kidnap thing) was definitely a new thing for him.

Letting out a cough, which he was kind of glad he couldn't hear due to just the gross way it felt, he lay there in silence. Thinking was hard right now. Moving was hard right now. Doing anything was hard to do right now, but he needed to get a move on. Who knows what other explosions were planned for him.

Moving his arms around in the trash was hard, but he finally got them near his pockets. His quiver was holding on by a thread with only a couple of arrows left, and only now did he get very thankful that there weren't loose arrows poking out of his back right now. Who even knows where his bow ended up at, and his phone felt like it was shattered to a million pieces in his pocket. Was that from the explosion or something else? How it broke didn't matter right now, though. What mattered was that he can't call anyone he knew for help from just right here anymore, and it was probably going to be a hell of a lot harder getting help if people didn't know ASL, or didn't have a pen and paper just handy on them.

Slowly crawling his hands up to his head, he let his fingers move across his hair and skull. With how wet it felt he was surprised if he could even be called blonde right now with how much blood covered his hair. One of his hearing aids was no where to be found, and the other one had only left a small piece to remember it. Great.

The blood coming out of his ears was probably not the best sign for his ear health, and he was pretty sure a good portion of his face had been scraped up pretty bad. Guess giving himself rugburn from scooting across a pavement sidewalk wasn't the best choice for his skin.

The aching from his chest and body hadn't gotten better, but it also hadn't gotten worse, either. He didn't even want to check for any injuries, let alone think of it. He already knew it was going to be bad.

Clint inhaled and exhaled a sharp breath in, forcing his hands and arms to push himself into a sitting upright position. The absolute nausea and pain that his head and chest was worth it, due to what he was able to see now.

Almost all of the street lamps were burnt out, with the exception of one flickering on and off across the street. Only a single street sign was visible, and it appeared to have been absolutely destroyed with graffiti. Something about crime (which seemed to be the trend of all of the graffiti that he could see). Also, it could have been his concussion, or his loss of blood, or the pain talking, but was that a person?

Their silhouette was barely visible against the dark background of the building behind them, but they appeared to be looking back at him. Their head was tilted to the side, casting two large spikes coming off of his head in the shadow behind them. They quickly moved across the empty street, not looking either way, as there were no cars to be nervous of. How deserted was this area?

Shit.

'Get a move on, Clint.'  The archer thought, his breathing and heart rate frantically increased as the person slowly made their way towards him. He needed to get out of here, for all he knew, this could be one of the people the person that wanted him dead.

Clint scrambled backwards in the dumpster, adrenaline letting him push and pull himself despite his multiple injuries. He tumbled out of the metal box of trash, scratching himself up on the concrete once more.

He didn't dare take a look back at the person chasing after him yet, just stood off the ground as fast as possible, and tried to start running.

The dark blurry edges of his vision crept in, serving as a reminder that he was pushing himself too far, but he didn't care. His eye sight got darker with every attempted step, but he pushed that out of his focus, instead choosing to focus on his boots hitting the ground with every step he took. The absolutely wonderful combination of a concussion, blood loss, panic, multiple bad injuries, and finally aggressively standing up after lying down all seemed to hit at once.

He only got about a step and a half more before he fell over his shaky legs, and he was face to face with the ground again.

The last thing he could see through his groggy thoughts and swampy vision was the figure standing off to the side of him. Given a closer look than he had before, the spikes atop of their head almost looked like ears. Bat ears?

Chapter Text

Thmmmuuuuursday? Friday?

Clint's senses begrudgingly came back to him, some taking much longer than others. No matter which ones came first, they all felt like trying to run through thick molasses if he actually tried to make any sense of them.

After what felt like a couple of hours of doing practically nothing, things became clearer.

Waking up in a sterile white room was something that was not an unfamiliar feeling for him. This had happened more times than he would have wanted it to, but it was something he had been forced to grow used to. Unlike the literal god, or the super soldier--or any of the super powered people he had worked beside--despite how much he could keep up with them in fights, if he got hit hard enough it was hard to just recover from it like they could.

He wouldn't be here for long, though. Tony or SHIELD would track him down soon enough, and he would be on his way to a different--more secretive--medical room.

One of the things nagging at his brain though, was the person from last night. The room was practically empty, devoid of details or personality, or things to just look at, so he was left with his thoughts.

He hadn't seen them before, nor heard of anyone that could have resembled them. They were a completely new person, a complete unknown. Other than the fact that they brought him to this hospital, he had no idea what their motivations were. For all he knew, this guy could be straight up evil and just decided to bring him here to toy with him. Which had happened before, kind of, but he wouldn't get into that right now.

He needed to search them up, find everything he could. And send a message--because this was taking longer than he thought it would--meaning that he had to track down something with access to the internet. His phone was currently sitting shattered into a million pieces in his pocket, so the next best thing would be to pickpocket someone, or find a computer that they used for documents and whatnot.

Clint was snapped out of his scheming by a nurse walking into his field of view.

How-?

Right. His hearing aids were still blasted to hell.

Opting to just be an ass instead of trying to awkwardly explain anything, he turned on his side. Forcing his back to face him.

Once he was sure the nurse had left the room, and was hopefully further away from his room, he began his evil scheme by trying to sit up.

It hurt way more than he was expecting it to. Apparently his adrenaline had helped out a whole lot more than he thought it was last night. While he had been able to jump out of a dumpster last night, he was struggling to even sit up now. Exhaling sharply through the pain he finally got himself situated upright, and started to shift his legs over to the edge of the bed.

Standing up also wasn't the best experience in the entire world.

Steadying his breathing, he looked over to the things he was hooked up to. One of them looked like an IV, and he really didn't know what the other thing was. He wasn't well versed in the medical equipment realm, but he knew for sure that through all of his many hospital stays he hadn't seen the other things before. Either it was a different design of something he was familiar with, or it was something completely new.

No matter what it was, he wasn't going to deal with taking it off right now. It would have to come with him on his little adventure! He wasn't planning on leaving the hospital just yet. Just needed access to whatever he could find a search engine on.

Carefully rolling the two things--luckily they were both sort of on the same rolling cart thing--behind him, he slowly made his way over to the door. There was a reinforced window next to it, and through the metal grids it looked like any regular bustling hospital. Complete with doctors running up and down the hallways, guests walking to visit other patients, and just a whole lot of people. Hopefully he could fit right in.

Taking a deep breath and carefully placing his handle on the door handle, Clint began to turn it.

Nothing exploded--again--or started flashing when he opened the door, so that was a win.

No one stopped and stared at him either as he stepped out into the hallway, so this was going as great as it could! Small victories were good.

Ignoring the aches and pains shooting up his legs and chest as he walked, he made his way closer to the big sign with directions at one end of the hallway. The walls on either side of the hallways were bare with the exception of small room signs beside doors, but there weren't any windows, or paintings.. or anything really. The sign was the most interesting part of this area, and all it said was:

'Gotham General Hospital:' Hm. He hadn't heard of a place called Gotham before.

'Rooms 2--' blah blah blah, room numbers, whatever.

'Rooms--' more whatever..

'MRI: room 204' cool.

'X-Ray: Rooms 205-210' cool cool cool.

'Food Court -->' good to know.

'Filing room: room 213' Bingo!

From what he could decipher from this well weirdly labeled sign, and the sign obviously placed hidden next to his door, he was in room 201. So in theory it shouldn't be that long of a trip.

He just had to make it there unnoticed--dragging this behind him--hope there was something with access to a search engine on it, search something up, and then figure things out after that. Easy peasy. Staying unnoticed would probably be the hardest part of it out of everything if he was being honest. As soon as he got into sections where it should only be employees, things were going to get a bit iffy.

His free hand that wasn't holding onto the tech was helping him brace himself against the wall, fingers moving over the bumpy paint. These walls were somehow less interesting than the ones in the previous hallway, which was saying a lot. It was like they spent less time making these hallways feel nicer than they spent on the others, which he guessed made sense. They needed injured patients to feel nicer more than they needed employees to feel nicer. Hm.

If he was actually in the sections of the hospital where he was allowed to be in there would probably be hand rails across the walls, but as he obviously wasn't, the walls would suffice.

Placed neatly above a plain door, a sign backlit with LED's read 'FILES'. He had finally made it on his long treacherous journey. Following only the map of numbers in his mind, and the back of his hand... not walls and clearly labeled directions. Or at least that was what he would be telling people, if he was ever going to share his misadventures about here.

The door handle opened smoothly in his hand, the Archers luck finally seeming to turn around. Apparently they didn't care too much about keeping the files safe. He would probably have to make a suggestion to actually have passwords or locked protection on this room once he got out of here. Having files just out in the open definitely was going to bite them in the butt, like it would now.

Luckily for them, he wasn't here for the files. He was here for the theoretical computers or laptops hiding behind this door.

The door was hard to open, and he had to push his entire shoulder against it to actually get it to swing open. It was like a large weight was trying to warn Clint of something. If it was, he wasn't going to listen.

The room was dark. Pitch black. The kind of darkness that made you think that something was waiting to pounce from the shadows, or trick your eyes into thinking something was moving. Feeling behind the wall on either side of the door didn't come up with any light switches, and he wasn't carrying his handy dandy Avengers™ flashlight that everyone just carries with them, so moving around in the dark it was.

Even as his eyes adjusted to the dark it was still hard to see, he was only able to make out the vague outlines of a few filing cabinets, and a desk. This was a crazy small amount of files for a filing room for a hospital. Huh.

Using the light from the screen of one of the devices he was dragging along, he made his way over to the desk. He didn't bother sitting down at the chair, knowing that he would have a hard time sitting down and an even harder time standing back up.

Running his hands over the wooden top of the desk, they finally hit a cold metallic feeling rectangle. Score!! Lifting up the top, it felt like it almost blinded him.

Like earlier. With the van.

Brushing that off his mind as fast as possible, he got to work. Only squinting his eyes a bit.

Logging onto the laptop, if you could even call it that, under a guest profile, he dove straight into whatever search engine it had. He needed answers. Desperately..

'Bat themed person?' Clint's fingers danced across the key board, trying to type as fast as possible.

When it finally loaded, it brought up a list full of names. Names that he had never heard of. At all. Among these names were 'Batman', who he suspected he had the pleasure of running into last night, 'Batwoman'. 'Batgirl', 'Orphan', and then a lot more that were suggested as being related the search for these people.

Who names themselves Batman willingly???

Ah. He couldn't judge, he knew a Spider-Man, and an Ironman. At least he himself wasn't called Hawkguy. Then he really couldn't judge.

Still, who was this guy?

The websites and posts that popped up when he clicked on Batman seemed to go on forever. There were a multitude of websites claiming to have all of the information regarding this guy, some forums with theories about him and his identity, and a whole lot of posts with blurry pictures or drawings.

Some of the information dated back about fifteen to twenty years, and he had never even heard of him.

Just as he was about to start typing something else into the search engine, the light to the room flicked on. He would have to ask them where the hell it was hidden, because he obviously had no idea where it was, but obviously this person did.

Shit.

Clint didn't even bother closing the laptop cover, just went to duck and cover behind one of the tallest filing cabinets he could find, hoping both he and his tech he was attached to were out of view.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

He kept his heartrate as calm as possible, trying not to set off a heart monitor if he had one. Staying hidden was his best bet. He was in a weird restricted area, using a laptop that wasn't even his, in a room supposedly filled with other peoples medical files. If he did get caught the best option would be that he gets arrested.

That was the best option.

He's done things like this more than a hundred times, no sweat. Well. Emphasis on the things like this. He could list a whole shit ton of times where he has had to hide behind filing cabinets, but he could probably only count the times he's been in the dark, badly injured, hooked up to medical things, without his hearing aids, and hiding from someone who was currently flicking a mysteriously hidden light switch on one hand.

Clint stayed as still as he possible could, eyes flicking around what he could see when the lights were switched to the on position. There were a couple more roes of filing cabinets--which still weren't as many as a place like a hospital should have. Seriously, what was up with that???--and a sort of average sized window, blinds drawn, tucked in at the back.

Hmm.. a definitely very good plan was forming in his head..

That 100% did not involve jumping out of a window. That would obviously be insane, crazy, and something he has never done before. Yup.

Showing no signs of leaving, the figure in the doorway just started to flick the light switch a couple more times. With every darkening of the room, his plan formed a little bit more.

Bruce Wayne:

It had only been about a day since his run in with the blonde guy in the dumpster, and interesting things were already happening.

After making sure that it wasn't Ollie--due to the arrows laying around, and the obviously similar hair--he thought it would just be the average victim of a mugging situation. The first thing to point to a different outcome was the fact that the guy, after seeing him, had jumped out and tried to run after already looking like he had gotten into a fight with a freight train. He brought him to the hospital that night, which brought along the second thing. He wasn't responding to anyone asking him anything and he was way more injured than Bruce had originally thought he was, so maybe he got into a fight with a gang of freight trains... and now he was dealing with reason number three.

"What do you mean?" He asked, deep voice sounding very unimpressed, and a little bit concerned.

Oracle's voice crackled over the comms, accompanied by the clacking noise of keys being pressed on a keyboard, "well. Our John Doe has not only stayed a John Doe despite ours and the hospital's multiple attempts to find his actual name--or anything about him really--and he's... gone missing."

A long sigh was let out as Batman stopped running along a rooftop. His cape flicked around to him due to his stopped momentum, as if asking what he was doing.

"Gone.. missing?" Without even seeing his face, Oracle would be able to tell he was raising an eyebrow. It was something in his voice that just screamed 'I'm doing stuff with my eyebrows!!', which helped when the entire upper half of his face was covered by a cowl.

"Yeah. Doctors found his room empty. He had only been officially awake for like an hour." She spoke, voice cutting out to go direct someone else for a second, leaving him with that information.

He mulled it over, beginning to hop over the building tops once again. This guy had somehow escaped Gotham General, while injured, and probably on enough pain meds to last him a couple of days.

They weren't dealing with a metahuman, nothing in his blood or his behaviour from last night indicated anything like that, so he had to have been trained. Very well.

"Were there any signs of a struggle?" He asked, keeping his focus on the streets below him.

A long pause from the other end.

"No, he wasn't taken... I have heard some whispers from nurses that he went on a short journey around the hospital before jumping out a window. So there's uh, that." She spoke carefully, letting out a silent chuckle after she informed him about the window.

"Why didn't the hospital just say that?" Bruce asked, eyebrows angling underneath his cowl. Which was expressed again through his voice,

"I'm trying to look into that, don't worry. For all I know they could have just been embarrassed for whatever reason." Oracle answered, followed by more keys being clicked. "I suggest checking it out for yourself, though."

"Alright." He let out a sigh, grappling in a different direction than he had been going earlier. "And here I thought it was going to be an easy night."

That got him a long, long, laugh from the other end.

"Check in if you need or find anything, see ya then." She clicked out of their line, going to go collect some more research.

The hospital looked like the average hospital, nothing really stuck out to him at first glance. It was bustling with activity, like it always did around this time, and nothing seemed too out of place..

Except for the completely covered window on one of the sides of the building on the second floor. It wouldn't have stuck out to anyone unless they were actively searching for it and staring at it, like he was. The blind was pulled all the way down on the inside, but there was no reflection at all. Meaning there probably wasn't any glass left on it.

So the whispers that Babs has heard were right. At least it wasn't from a higher floor, like he had originally thought. That was a relief.

Getting up there was easy, getting in there was easy, but what he found in there wasn't as easy to explain. There were only a couple of rows of filing cabinets, a lonely desk, lonely laptop, and some lonely medical equipment that was probably supposed to be attached to someone right now. Great.

The dark knight crouched lower to the ground, cape flowing out around him as he inspected the equipment. It was probably exactly where their John Doe had left it, as they probably hadn't had time to clean up in the hour it had been. Other than pull the blind down, their John Doe probably didn't crash through a window and blinds, but leave the blinds somehow intact, and the window smashed to oblivion.

"Oracle?" He whispered into his comms, taking a couple more big looks around the room.

"What's up?" She answered, only about a minute later.

"Patch into my cowl cam." He spoke quietly, moving his head around so she could get a good look of the room. "Can you give me any information"

"Oh! Okay... what you're looking at seems to be what's left of the physical files from the GG, a lot have been destroyed with all of the constant raids and attacks.. Uhh.. hm. Those medical devices seem to be an IV, and one of your Wayne Tech 'heart monitors and more' things." She explained, clacking away on her keyboard, letting herself think for a moment.

"..ah. Those are his, though. The John Doe's. He apparently ripped the IV and other things straight out of him." She continued, sighing.

The Bat sighed, standing up form the equipment to go look further down the room. "Okay. So John somehow just simply gets out of his room, comes here, doesn't look through any of the filing cabinets, rips out the medical tech, jumps out of the window, and isn't just on the ground down there." He thought aloud, eyes scanning over the room once again.

"Why would I go to a file room if I didn't want to just look at the files..." Bruce continued his thoughts, until his eyes landed on the desk. "...score."

Who's first thought once they wake up in a hospital would be to go find a laptop? Apparently their John Doe's.

Once he opened the laptop, he was honestly kind of surprised at what he found. There were no files open, no weird hacks, no messages just 'Bat themed person' on the search engine.

One of Bruce's eyebrows raised. Not only did he break out to search something up, but to search up that? He had to be from somewhere very, very, very far from here. Not that he was happy about it, but Bruce had found that news of his Batman persona tends to spread very, very, far. Sure, Bruce was a very famous billionaire (not that he was happy about that, either.), but Batman seemed to be a popular topic among a lot of parts of this world. This wasn't helped by the formation of the Justice League, where he actually started pulling Batman to a lot of other places.

"...B? Still there?" Oracle asked from the other line, voice clearing a path through his thoughts.

"Yes." His gravelly voice responded rather quickly, closing out of the tabs on the computer before finally closing the lid. "Tell the others to keep an eye out for a blonde man, about-"

Oracle began typing, before interrupting him with more information. "6'3, no name so far, and he's either ignoring everyone, or his hearing is impaired in some way.

"He does seem to be an archer, and will possibly still be in his wrecked clothes. Mostly black with purple accents, and especially tell them that he will most likely not know who they are, or that they are wanting to help. Assume that he is very well trained, and knows how to take hits. A lot of them." Bruce finished, standing up off of the ground. He got everything he needed from here, now they just needed to actually find the guy.

"Alright, I'll go inform the masses. Good luck with the search!" Oracle spoke quickly, and after a couple of mouse clicks she was gone to inform the others.