Bruce trusted Oracle.

That trust was earned—years of precision, speed, answers pulled out of digital chaos faster than most people could blink. If Barbara couldn’t find something, it usually meant it didn’t exist.

Usually.

Tonight, the Cave was too quiet. Too many screens, not enough certainty. Bruce stood still while data scrolled past, jaw tight behind the cowl.

“…If it were in any system,” he said, voice low, controlled, “you’d have it by now.”

He shut the console down instead of forcing it. That alone said everything.

Bruce turned away from the Batcomputer and reached for a different secure line—one not tied to satellites or databases or anything that could be traced. Old-school. Analog. Personal.

Minutes later, he was standing in a space that didn’t look like a command center at all. No grand cave. No dramatics. Just a room built for thinking.

She didn’t look up when he entered. Didn’t need to.

Bruce exhaled, some of the weight easing off his shoulders. “Oracle’s blind on this,” he said. “Which means it was designed that way.”

He moved closer, laying out the problem piece by piece—not rushed, not simplified. He never did that with her. He didn’t have to.

She worked quietly. Thought quietly. Connected dots that didn’t exist on any screen.

Bruce watched, recognizing the shift before it fully happened—the way a dead end stopped being dead just by her being in the room.

After a moment, he nodded once, slow and deliberate. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s the angle I was missing.”

He straightened, already recalibrating the mission in his head. “When Oracle can’t see it,” he admitted quietly, “you’re where I come next.”

Batman was built on preparation.

But this?

This was contingency beyond technology.

And Bruce never walked away from her empty-handed.