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This was totally Dick’s fault. Nothing you can say will change his mind about that. The whole language started with Dick so it has to be his fault. Dick took the whole ‘Robin’ thing way too far in the beginning. For the first few months out in the field he did nothing but chirp, or whistle or even rustle his cape to talk to B instead of you know opening his mouth and talk like a fucking human.
So the rumor went around that the Bat’s shadow bird wasn’t actually human, that it was a demon, spirit or something eldritch and otherworldly. So of course that meant that there was no way they were giving up that fear advantage by making Robin more human. No, of course not. So that left the bats with their own private language to use. Their teams learned parts of it, but only the Bats knew all of the complex signals of pitches, chitters, chirps and whistles.
It became the main way that the bat kids communicated. You weren’t allowed to ignore the bat chirps. You were completely okay to ignore anyone talking to you and not talk all day. But if you didn’t respond to a well check chirp in your vicinity Alfred would take away your cookies for weeks. And no one was willing to risk Alfred’s wrath and their cookie supply.
All this to say that it was absolutely Dick’s fault that Jason was in this situation right now. Jason was currently sitting in the conference room at the white collar office staring down the combined glares of Hughes, Peter, and Diana. Jones was not glaring he was looking at him in awe though so that was almost weirder.
It all started with the undercover mission. Dick had created a character for all around infiltration and mayhem that just happened to have the perfect skills for the current mission. However, he wasn’t able to go undercover for as long as the mission needed. Jason was the only one that wouldn’t be missed on the field or in his daily life for that long. So that left him as a suave Non- Violent Criminal Informant, art thief and forger working for the FBI for the last year and a half.
Jason never realized how much of his everyday habits included the bat language. When he was sleepy and working on his first coffee in the morning he never said a word. Instead he’d chirp or tweet his replies to any questions asked of him. It wasn’t until his second cup that his other language skills came back online. He’d had whole conversations with Peter on the way to work about their latest cases without realizing that Peter never understood a word of what he was saying. When Diana would glance after a particularly hot girl they passed on the streets Jason would whistle encouragement.
They all quickly got used to the chirps that meant danger, or bad guys on your six. Jones even started to use the hand signals for some of the most common warnings that Jason used with them. He found it easy to adapt to the habit from his experience in the Navy. They even grew familiar with the ‘all clear’ and the ‘everybody okay?’ chirps.
They had picked up even more than most of the teams that the Bats had worked with in the past. Which was fine, they just thought it was a Neal quirk or maybe even a code that Neal and Mozzie had used. They never thought of the remote possibility that it was actually part of the superhero community's languages.
They wouldn’t have known that either if it hadn’t been for the Giant Robot fight that broke out right over one of their crime scenes. No one honestly knows who was responsible for the three huge mechas that swarmed New York but they did require the combined efforts of the Titan’s and Young Justice to coral them away from hurting the city.
Which meant there were at least two Bats on the field. Which meant that both teams were using Bat code right, left, and center, twittering warnings, waving hands with instructions and whistling advice. All of that might, MIGHT even be overlooked. If it hadn’t been for the exchange in the middle of the action. Dick needed to run tactics with Tim so the two of them grappled to a place that was within easy listening distance of their hiding spot. It was only a few minutes of a quick exchange but it was more than clear enough this was the same code that Neal had taught them.
Even that might have been brushed off as a coincidence if it hadn’t been for the sharp warning whistle that made Jason take action. One of the bots had spawned about a dozen mini bots as soon as it got taken down. Two of those had gotten away from the heroes and were coming up behind his Team. Tim saw it but had his hands full with a different bot. So he whistled. ‘On your six, two incoming, hood.’
Jason moved before thoughts even crossed his mind. He stole Diana’s and Jones’ guns and whirled around shooting at the mini bots until they exploded. After those two were in pieces on the ground Jason sent the all clear tweet back and threw himself into the fray.
Peter stared at the burning pieces of Robot three feet away from him and tried to figure out how his non violent conman knew and used the superheros secret codes? He’d known that Neal could shoot but this good? He watched the man flip into the fight expertly working his way into the two teams and never hindered a hero just providing backup and helping them to finish the fight.
Then the final nail in the coffin. The eldest bat let out the ‘Everyone ok?’ chirp. Without even thinking Neal responded with his own chirp at the same time that Diana, Peter and Jones all said their name and the ‘all good’ whistle. That got the attention of the rest of the heroes.
What followed was a complex interrogation between the three bats inquiring how and why the feds knew any of the bat language in the first place and how much they really knew.
All of that led to this moment where he was facing the second interrogation of the day. Jones was the first one to break the silence.
“Is Nightwing single?”
Jason just groaned.