DISCLAIMER: I'm Batman. Therefore, I don't own Batman. And I don't even want to own Lex Luthor...
ONLY HUMAN
By clcman
"Years of fighting an almost god-like being... Now it's just man against man!"
-Lex Luthor, Batman: The Brave and the Bold
"There's nothing mere about THAT mortal!"
-Joker, Batman/Superman: The World's Finest
Chapter 1: High Stakes
"Fold."
Bruce Wayne continued to study his cards as another of his opponents pulled out. Counting the community cards, he had three eights, which wasn't too bad. The last two players, on the other hand, could be an issue.
One of them was Veronica Sinclair, a well-known pro, whose tendency to bluff, bet highly and come out on top had earned her the nickname "Roulette." She wasn't the problem.
The problem was a shorter man with a rather long nose dressed in a (rather ridiculous-looking) black suit, top hat and monocle. He sat at the head of the table, studying his cards intently.
"It's your turn, Ozzy" said Bruce.
Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, known throughout the underworld as "the Penguin" shrugged and readjusted his sleeves. Bruce was not so foolish as to miss the fact that Cobblepot had just tucked away a card, but it wouldn't do to call his host out on a little thing like cheating, would it?
Beside him, Sasha Bordeaux ignored the game, continuing to study the remainder of the room, doing her "bodyguard of the richest man in Gotham" thing.
The assorted sounds of the Iceberg Lounge filtered through Bruce's ears. The chatter of groups of socialites on the upper balcony, the various casino games going on on the lower floor, a bit of classical music... Bruce had put them out of his mind, but not entirely. While he trusted Sasha to keep an eye on things, it would be unwise to run too many risks. One did not get into either of his lines of work without being a little bit paranoid.
Cobblepot looked at his cards again and smiled as he raised the pot. Bruce wouldn't need any training at all to detect the confidence rolling off of him. The probabilities here were not in his favor, and the smart thing to do would be to fold and save his chips for later.
"All in" said Bruce, pushing all his remaining chips into the pot, a stupid-looking smile on his face.
He wasn't here for the money.
Cobblepot and Sinclair each looked at him for several seconds, then looked at each other, then at their cards, then back at him. Cobblepot shrugged.
"I'll match that" he said, dumping in the rest of his chips.
Cobblepot looked at Roulette, and she put her hand down.
"Fold" she said. She may have had a habit of high-stakes bets, but everyone knew that you didn't challenge the Penguin at his own table if you knew what was good for you.
Well, almost everyone.
Bruce smiled. His prediction had been correct. Cobblepot was confident enough in his stacked hand. Of course, being an innocent idiot Bruce Wayne wouldn't know those sort of unofficial rules. One of the many perks of having such a reputation.
The players placed their hands on the table, checking the cards.
Bruce's three of a kind wasn't a bad hand, considering who he was going up against. But it wasn't good enough.
Cobblepot chuckled as he placed down a flush. "Sorry, Bruce old chum" he said, sounding not the least bit sorry as he collected the pot. "Better luck next time."
Sasha glanced at him and rolled her eyes before returning her gaze to the rest of the room. Bruce had to agree with her. How could one man be so arrogant, as if his cheating made him better than everyone else? Still, you didn't become a feared Caped Crusader unless you were smart enough to pick your battles and only fight the ones you could win.
(Bruce would concede that Cobblepot had swapped his cards out very well and had obviously put in a lot of practice. Only a true professional would even be able to catch him, and then only if they weren't intimidated by Penguin's thugs.)
Roulette grumbled and left the table, as did another player. They'd both obviously lost enough for one night.
"So, another round, Wayne?" asked Cobblepot.
"Eh, why not?" said Bruce. He wasn't here to win, after all. He was here to earn a reputation, and a reputation as an easy mark would suit his purposes. Once they started trusting him, he could start collecting better intel, and funnel that to Gordon and Harvey through 'anonymous tips'.
Who said being Batman was all about leaping off buildings and punching people?
A huge man in a tuxedo approached the table. Based on how uncomfortable he looked in a suit, Bruce would guess that he was one of the thugs hired by Cobblepot as 'security'.
"Uh, boss?" he said to Cobblepot before leaning over and whispering something in the man's ear.
"Of course" said Cobblepot. "I'll be there right away." He turned to face the rest of the table. "Sorry, chums. It looks like I've got some business to take care of. Carry on without me."
The other players looked relieved that they might actually have a chance the next round.
"See you again tomorrow night?" asked Bruce.
"Of course, Brucey" said Cobblepot, forcing a smile.
"Well, I feel like another game" said Bruce. He motioned to a waiter. "How about another round, on me?"
The rest of the table cheered, but their joy was interrupted by Bruce's cell phone.
"Excuse me" he said, looking at the caller ID. 'Barbara.'
"Yet another girlfriend, Wayne?" asked one of the men sitting next to him. Sasha glared at the guy but said nothing.
"Hey, darling. It's me" said Bruce in an extremely cheerful voice as he answered the call. He'd studied long and hard to figure out how rich playboys who did nothing with their lives acted, and it was almost second nature to him by now.
"Bruce, it's Barbara" came the reply. "We've got a situation. How soon can you get suited up?"
Bruce put his hand over the phone and turned to address the table. "I've gotta go. Emergency. This should cover everything." He tossed a pair of hundred dollar bills to the dealer.
No one asked what the emergency was. No one really cared.
Bruce stood up and began to walk towards the door, as fast as he could without drawing attention to himself.
"Another 'situation'?" asked Sasha.
"Yeah" grunted Bruce, hanging up the phone and re-dialing with the proper encryption. Not that his normal phone calls weren't secure, but that was richest-man-in-the-world-with-a-semi-scandolous-private-life secure. He needed Bat-secure.
"Good kind or bad kind?" asked the bodyguard.
"The Bat kind" replied Bruce.
Sasha nodded and pulled out her phone, calling Alfred to bring the car around.
"Oracle. Give me a sit-rep" said Bruce, his voice becoming much more serious.
A few miles away, Barbara Gordon readjusted her headset as she hunched over a screen, one of many throughout the room.
"Okay. It looks like you weren't the only one digging into Cobblepot."
"I know that" said Bruce, keeping his voice low as he exited the Iceberg Lounge, ignoring a valet. "Gordon's got a whole task force on him."
"Yeah, well, it looks like that task force included undercovers infiltrating Penguin's gang."
"Don't tell me..." muttered Bruce as Alfred pulled up in the limo. Sasha opened the door and they both got in. With a nod from Bruce, Alfred sped off.
"My dad says he's got two men on the inside. Both of them have been compromised and grabbed. It's only a matter of time before Penguin kills them. Where are you?"
"I'm in the limo right outside the Iceberg" replied Bruce, removing his jacket and undoing his tie, Sasha helping him. "Right before I left, Cobblepot said he had something he needed to do. I'm guessing he won't kill them just yet. He'll want to know how much they know, but that doesn't give us a lot of time. What's Gordon's response?"
"I'll patch you through now" said Oracle.
Bruce grunted in acknowledgement, ripping off his shirt as Sasha opened the secret compartment in the back of the front seat. Bruce grabbed the first layer of the suit and threw it over his head.
"Batman?" came the gruff voice of Commissioner James Gordon.
"I hear you have a problem" said Bruce, deepening his voice a bit. It wasn't a huge change, but it was enough that the average person wouldn't associate it with Bruce Wayne. Originally he'd tried a really gravelly voice, but it had just ended up sounding silly.
"That's the understatement of the year" said Gordon. "Do you know much about Oswald Cobblepot?"
Bruce chuckled as he tore off his pants (Sasha averting her eyes, of course) and slipped on his black nomex/Gore-tex body glove. In essence a pair of long underwear, the glove was designed to be both breathable and flame-retardent. "I know enough" he said, recalling the dossier he'd memorized. "Grew up in England, private school education, became an investment banker, left the country after accusations of fraud, moved here, gained power in the local mob, especially after Falcone fell."
Gordon chuckled. "No thanks to you, of course."
Bruce pulled on a pair of grey pants, sprinkled with digital camouflage. A similar-colored shirt followed. The camo didn't look like much, but it was designed to break up his outline and prevent him from being blacker than the shadows he was hiding in. The cloth was also layered with electronics, running many of the suit's sensors and other functions, as well as a low-level heating/cooling system.
"Cobblepot's been racketeering for years" continued Bruce. "His signature gig is using revenue from the Iceberg Lounge to buy anything and everything on the black market, smuggle it into Gotham, sell it and launder the cash back through the Iceberg."
"That's pretty much it" said Gordon.
Bruce handed Sasha the phone as she passed him the soft shell, which he threw over his head. Sasha carefully kept the phone at her boss's ear.
"I had two men inside Cobblepot's gang," said Gordon "and they've both gone dark. Chatter from the wiretaps we've placed suggests their cover is blown. I've got plainclothesmen inside the Iceberg Lounge already and a SWAT team three blocks away, ready to move in, but if we blow the door down, chances are we'll lose them."
"Cobblepot's a dangerous man" said Bruce, fitting the clasps on the shell. While it resembled a bullet-proof vest and covered only his shoulders and torso, the shell's purpose was critical: Slightly inflated and packed with shock-absorbing foam, it ensured that a bullet caught by the main armor wouldn't deliver enough force to break a few ribs.
"What's your opinion of the situation?" asked the Commissioner.
"It's bad" said Bruce, throwing the main beauty, the advanced composite chestplate armor. It's already impressive hardness, a combination of kevlar, custom-fit ceramic plates tied together with carbon nanofibers was augmented by the presence of a shear thickening fluid, which would remain flexible unless struck with a sudden impact, in which case it would become rigid, like the chain mail of old.
"You don't have a lot of time to get your men out, and you can't risk a full scale assault, not with two hostages and half of Gotham's upper class in there. Cobblepot may not seem it, but he's a real cutthroat. If he's going down, he's going down fighting, and taking as many people down as he can."
"But we've gotta try something soon" replied Gordon. "I won't leave my men behind. That's not GCPD."
"I'll get your men" said Bruce. Next came the combat boots, designed for maximum traction, then the cloth gloves followed by the rigid spiked gauntlets...
"Are you sure you can do that?" asked Gordon.
"I'll infiltrate the Iceberg and secure them" confirmed Bruce, ensuring that the gauntlets were secure before wrapping his belt around his waist. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't the source of all of his gadgets. Many were stored in pouches in the grey camo as well, but why tell anyone that? "Your troops should be able to sweep up the rest."
"Okay. How close are you to the Iceberg?"
Bruce took one loving look at his signature cowl before tossing it over his head. "I'll be there within five minutes."
"Roger that" replied the Commissioner. "I can only give you twenty more minutes, tops. After that, we'll have to go in."
"Plenty of time" said Bruce as Sasha helped him adjust the cowl and attach the infamous glider cape.
"Good luck, Batman. Gordon out."
"Pull over" Bruce said to Alfred as Gordon hung up the phone. Bruce made one quick run over his mental checklist (as Sasha did the same). Seeing everything in its place, he nodded to Alfred, who took a sudden turn into a narrow alley.
Less than five seconds later, the limousine emerged from the alley, took a left and continued on its way.
Ten seconds after that, a dark figure appeared on the roof of one of the buildings.
The distinctly pointy-eared figure looked off into the distance, where the Iceberg Lounge was only a few yards away.
The figure, which might have been a man, took a sudden leap off the rooftop and soared into the air.
The Dark Knight was on the prowl.
Author's Note: Each chapter of this fic will include a special piece of backstory "Omake," be it a profile, an excerpt from an in-universe source, or something else entirely. They may be skipped with minimal impact on the story, but will help build the fictional world as a whole. Think of them like in-universe DVD extras, or the 'Arkham City Stories' of "Batman: Arkham City." I hope you enjoy them. Normal author's notes are below.
Omake:
-Excerpt from "CHANNEL 6 NEWS SPECIAL REPORT: WHO IS THE BATMAN?"-
Who is Batman? This question has vexed police, news media and the people and criminals of Gotham City for almost a decade. Little is known about the mysterious vigilante. He appears from the shadows, effortlessly defeating his opponents and escaping without a trace. No criminal is safe from his wrath, and no amount of security can keep him out for long. Gotham's criminals often wonder whether their foe is truly just a man or some sort of unkillable monster of the night.
In recent years, much has been made of GCPD Commissioner James Gordon's alleged connection to the Batman. Many have leveled accusations of Gordon cooperating with, aiding and abetting or possibly even being Batman, though they have been spotted in different places at the same time on multiple occasions. An Internal Affairs investigation lead by ADA Harvey Dent (who would later be elected District Attorney) concluded that it was impossible for Gordon to be Batman, and that there was no evidence that the Commissioner has been misusing department funds or specifically assisting Batman, save serving active warrants for arrest against Batman's "victims". The GCPD has admitted that in recent years, the capture of Batman has become a low priority, and several GCPD officers have said off the record that they generally support Batman and firmly believe that he is on their side.
This was not always the case. In the months after the first sightings of Batman, multiple GCPD officers were victims of assaults, threats and harassment, including then-Commissioner Loeb. Many of these officers would later be indicted for criminal misconduct or corruption or testify about such instances in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The number of such cases had tripled by the end of the first year of Batman, and many people believe that the "Dark Knight" was responsible for breaking Gotham's "atmosphere of corruption," culminating in the conviction of Loeb himself on multiple charges. Such people also credit Batman for the subsequent decline of Gotham's organized crime families, most notably the Falcones, though others say that the hard work of the GCPD, the District Attorney's Office and other law enforcement agencies deserve most of the admiration. Regardless, it is safe to say that this mysterious vigilante has had quite an impact on Gotham's public, and in a way may be considered a symbol of the modern city.
-End Excerpt-
Welcome, one and all, to "Only Human," my Batman vs. Lex Luthor fic.
First, some ground rules.
One: This fic does not take place in continuity with any other story, movie, television show or comic. However, it is very similar in style and tone to the Nolanverse films and "Batman: Arkham Asylum" games. Maybe a bit less depressing.
Two: This universe is very low on superpowers, so don't expect shapeshifting aliens, wizards or anyone flying without a jetpack. That means Superman, too. Both Batman and Luthor are at their best when they've got nothing but their wits, skills and excessive amounts of money. Hence the title.
Three: Almost all cities that appear will be based on real-life geography. For reference, Gotham City is the equivalent of New York, New York. In fact, 'Gotham' used to be a real life nickname for NY. In this universe, New York was just named Gotham City instead. Pretty simple. (Though I'm not sure what New York's gambling laws are... ah well, it's a fictional universe.)
Four: Almost every named character who appears here is based on some already-established DC canon: comics, animation, etc. I'll probably have to add in some named extras eventually, but if you google most of these guys, something will probably come up.
I believe everything I said about Batman's armor is realistic, but I don't actually design stuff like this for a living, so it's possible that something in there may be incorrect. If so, I apologize.
What's not incorrect is how long it took Bruce to change. Most Batman media just has him go offscreen and POOF! Batman. But if you think about it, putting on all that junk really takes time.
Anyways, if you have any backstory questions, ask in a review! I'll answer them (or not) here.
Onwards!