A/N: Hi! And thanks for opening this work.
Once upon a time I came up with a one-liner joke and then suddenly this happened, so… Yeah. Not much more to say about this except that I have a lot of free time on my hands rn, haha.
I'm not a native speaker so there are bound to be mistakes. Terribly sorry about that.

And just a friendly warning, the future chapters will include violence and offensive jokes!

The hot and humid weather has sucked all energy from the city. Even Gotham's underworld seemed to have vaporized with the heat. At least seemingly most of it. However, James Gordon knows he has two things to thank for the fact that he doesn't have to run around his ass in sweat all day. One, probably minor part, is the ridiculously high temperature and the other reason he doesn't really want to thank. It's a matter of principal. He knew a lot of good people who had fallen victim to the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"- way of thinking and he wasn't going to line up for it. Someone had been wreaking havoc in Gotham for weeks. Someone who scared even the biggest crime families to the point they'd rather call the cops than avoid them. Trapped rodents in a sinking ship, Gordon thinks and perhaps he isn't that far off.

"Jim?"

The darkly dressed man is a sight for sore eyes and Gordon's first instinct is to let a relieved smile stretch his lips.

"You got cooling on that suit too?" he asks trying to prolong the moment of easiness following the Bat's appearance before having to ruin it with talking about criminal activities, which frankly seemed to be the only thing he did do anymore.

"Something of sorts," the Batman answers quizzically as he watches Jim turn off the bright light.

"I'd almost lost hope. Bullock said even you're too afraid to come out of hiding," the detective says humming somewhat disapprovingly, but Bruce can see the thought had crossed his mind too.

"Not exactly," he replies. "I assume it's something to do with the man in red."

"Actually, it's got everything to do with the man in red. I assume you saw the catastrophe in the news. Of course, you did. It's all the press has been printing," Jim says and his stammering makes Wayne uneasy. Jim is about to continue his monologue but instead pauses to take a deep breath and massage his front lobes with his thick fingers.

"I'm guessing there has been a new development?"

"You'd think that when a man blows himself up with a handful of grenades that it would close the case, but I always forget this is Gotham," Gordon says and from the way the man is pacing back and forth fingers on his lips like he'd be smoking a make-believe cigarette, Bruce can tell the man feels like his investigation has hit a brick wall. The anxious mannerism of a trapped wild animal.

"He – or all that's left, no, some of what's left of him – has disappeared from the morgue," Jim says again stammering with his words slightly as he is uncertain how to present the situation without giving too much of an angle. He is in a desperate need of a fresh opinion.

"Are you saying someone stole parts of the body?" Batman asks and Jim frowns.

"Left behind were the limbs. Rest of it gone, with a bloody trail. The surveillance tape has been corrupted."

"Are there no witnesses?"

"No, deceased. Three pathologists and an armed guard. And it wasn't easy to watch, let me tell you. From the looks of it they had a real brawl. A bloody one at that too," the man's face is twisted oddly as he peers into the distance at nothing in particular while going through the scene in his head. Fat drops of sweat pushing through his skin.

Bruce couldn't believe he had been away just when something had finally happened. But he could believe exactly why Alfred hadn't alerted him. It hadn't been exactly easy convincing him to go to a conference in France in the first place, so he imagines Alfred had no intentions of saying anything that would get him to fly home early. Still he just hoped Nightwing or anyone for that matter had visited the crime scene on his behalf.

"Is there any idea as to why someone would steal his body?" he asks and Gordon stops his pacing.

"Maybe. Right now, we can make a few educated guesses but nothing pressing. But there appears to be something weird in his genes. We're just unsure what it is," he says slipping his hand into his trousers' pocket. Batman watches him fixedly as he pulls out a small plastic bag containing a finger. "I'm going on a limb here and I took a hell of a risk taking this but maybe you have the means to find out exactly what makes his body worth killing those people."

Bruce Wayne offers his gloved hand and waits patiently as Gordon second guesses himself before placing it on his palm.

"I mean, what's one missing finger at this point," the detective huffs out a laughter that sounds more frustrated than amused.

"I'll see what I can do," Bruce tells him after studying the iced finger. The first thing he notices is that the skin is heavily scarred even beyond the fresh burns and the tissue damage seems to be caused by something other than an explosion.

Gordon looks at the Batman studying the contents of the plastic bag. He can see sweat falling from under the black mask and he wonders if the man had lied to him about the cooling. It was an odd thing to lie about but in a way it summed most of the things he liked about his ally in one simple sentence. The Batman wasn't there to be a man but an ideology, something far greater than one man could ever be. Whether the person behind the mask had succeeded or not and whether Jim liked his work morals, he still found comfort in the Bat's unyielding passion towards helping Gotham. He could've used some of the confidence too.

He is about to make a remark about the humid and hot weather and how it was bad for his heart but doesn't. Instead he takes a few deep breaths before turning away.

"Good to have you back."

"Good to be back."

Meanwhile somewhere in Gotham's industrial district

"Uh, Nightwing?" Dick hears Tim's voice in his ear.

"I'm almost there, how bad is it?"

"I don't think this is Jason."

Dick furrows his brows even though there is no one to receive his gesture. "What? Are you sure?"
Jason's abrupt disappearance after their visit to the crime scene at the morgue had been more than enough to scare them. And during the few days they hadn't gotten through to him they had tossed around some pretty concerning ideas as to why their friend would disappear without saying a word. So, when Jason finally did contact them to ask for a little helping hand, DIck, Tim and Damian had all left to aid him without hesitation. Especially with Bruce's return right around the corner they really wanted to make it seem like they had handled things with ease in his absence. But now, their eagerness to look competent might have done just the opposite.

"Pretty sure he just tried to shoot me."

Well... Fuck