Batman vs Steve Trevor

By Maru Tamehana (21/5/2019, First Draft)

In a warehouse – Batman and Trevor find themselves at odds. A group of children had been kidnapped, and Batman had been following the trail, finding mutants and experiments. This was usually Wonder Woman's kind of gig – but Batman had recently gotten involved. These kids needed a detective.

There were some kind of goons outside, with rifles and grenades, watching the fern and shrub in the treeline across the shallow river – some kind of tepid jungle, this was. No time for sight-seeing, Batman, he told himself.

Batman entered the building.

Batman stopped – accessing the panel, he could see what was held in these tubes. As he had expected, they were the mutants he had been chasing. Why would Trevor be protecting them? He supposed it was his military loyalty – it had put him at odds against the Justice League before. Batman wasn't here on Justice League business, but it was much the same.

He paused to inspect the dust. These things hadn't been used for weeks – if that. He moved to pull a particle analyser from his belt to analyse it, when he heard something behind him – something that shouldn't have been there in an empty warehouse.

Trevor blasted away with the rifle, narrowing missing Batman.

Batman threw a gas grenade and Trevor butted it away in the air with his rifle and swung it around to fire again. But in that time, Batman found cover, diving behind a crate, losing Trevor's line of sight.

The bullets sprayed, shattering crate and containment tubes that once contained warrior genetic experiments of the kind that Wonder Woman had encountered recently. Missing Batman by inches as he moved.

Batman kicked a crate, the boards splintered under his kick, and used it to fend off Trevor's knife – catching it on the wood, strike after strike. Trevor was no slouch, and it wasn't as easy to find an opening, but he found one, with one aggressive movement, he dropped and took Trevor's legs out with a powerful aimed sweep-kick. Trevor didn't move in time, and fell like a rock.

But even as he landed on his back, his pistol was in his hands, pointing up – Batman recognized the move even before it started, and didn't try to follow up by taking on Trevor right there – even prone as he was – it was an obvious trap. So he moved to defensive instead of aggressive.

Batman wasn't sure if Trevor would pull the trigger – but he hadn't given Batman reason to doubt his sincerity to this point. So he moved away before Trevor could get a good aim. Even so, Batman staggered and fell a moment, as "something" hit his shoulder, like as a kicking mule.

Trevor was a marksman, he gritted to himself, moving toward a better cover along the ground. For his part, Trevor seemed impressed by Batman's counter-intuitive action – but he already knew he was fighting a legendary martial artist – he must have known.

And he was trained. Military. Wonder Woman used him for a partner, which meant he was no slouch.

He was tall, and heavier than he looked, but athletically. Batman had a few inches on him, but that was the crouch of a fighter, studying his opponent. Batman stood tall and erect, giving nothing away, letting the cape obscure his body.

He had considered talking to Trevor, but that wasn't the face of a man who was prepared to listen – lives were hanging in the balance – so Batman maintained it. But Trevor didn't need to close the distance. He straightened too, and pull his pistol from his holster with a firm, accepting expression – understanding the situation immediately. Batman didn't pause. Move! His muscles told him, it flickered instantly through his body – and he did.

He smashed the chemicals in passing with his gauntlet-protected fore-arm, hoping it would throw Trevor off. He didn't need to try throwing any – and it was too dangerous.

Batman, knowing where his opponent must have been, angled a batarang and threw it expertly, with an instinct that went beyond hand-eye co-ordination. He heard it clang, and felt a moment of unexpected satisfaction – but then frowned, the sound had been wrong, and there was no clatter of weapon. His batarangs were heavily weighted, much more than they appeared, so that they could hit with the force of a good kick, they had even shattered weapons. They'd certainly break bones, or knock a medium sized man out.

Still, he needed to take as much advantage as he could – maybe try another throw.

When Batman faced him, trying again from another angle, he suddenly recognized why he had been wrong. His batarang had failed and bounced off for a good reason.

Trevor wasn't holding a rifle – he was holding a rocket launcher. Batman's couldn't help his eyes from widening as the shock hit him, an instant before he acted. Not many men could say they had seen that. He caught the explosive rocket on a metal lid that had been close to hand, it had been all his instinct could sieze upon – and the explosion launched him through the window with shattering glass.

Dazed, he took vital seconds to recover his senses, he could feel a gash above his eye. He must have hit the glass. He felt air move through his lungs for a second. Trevor was quick, unpredictable and determined – all dangerous qualities. Batman certainly hadn't anticipated meeting a fighter of this caliber, and realized he was quickly weakening – even his reinforced body armour hadn't protected him from all of Trevor's attacks. Something needed to be done to turn the tables, Trevor had had all the aces and advantages on his side.

Batman didn't know why Trevor was apparently guarding the place – but Batman didn't think the children had been here. He suspected, however, that the trail would continue from here. There had certainly been some kind of genetic experimenting going on here at some point.

Not wanting to be caught out in the open, even as senseless as he was, disoriented, bleeding, he moved swiftly back into the building - his sense of tactical thinking remained, recovering as quickly as he could, trying to find some position of advantage.

As he re-entered, he heard a hiss, and suddenly the grate exploded beneath him. Trevor must have booby-trapped it. He was smarter and more prepared than Batman expected.

The soles of his boots were lined with a thin reinforced steel, so the explosion was harmless, but it launched him upwards quite remarkably. He found himself latched onto the rail of the barbican of the next level, his trained body having acted without his memory.

Leapt and grabbed the rope and slid, he let go and tumbled into the crates at the last second – it broke beneath him as he expected, but it broke his fall, and he lost little time. Trevor had the high ground now, which was dangerous.

He wasn't any ordinary goon – he was thinking – Batman could tell he had experience. Neither man was to be underestimated. The advantage of his gadgets was more than offset by Trevor's firearms in his hands. A fair fight, really – but Batman was just interested in ending it, not seeing which one of them was better.

He knew of Trevor, but he had never really gotten to know him.

The way he moved, acted – everything told him this was a man who faced the odds – who also knew how to operate alone. There was a disturbing symmetry to the way he moved. Another time, Batman might have been honoured to work with him, but it looked like they were on opposite sides of the fence. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Even as a fighter, he was undeniably cunning, he had blocked several of Batman's moves, and made him step back before Batman could land a decisive blow. He had a fighter's instinct for survival, he fought to lessen the impact to give himself time for advantage. Made sure none of Batman's attacks hit him with full force.

Which was… not easy to do. It was almost like fighting Wildcat, another hero Batman had enormous respect for, if not as heavy as the older fighter. Trevor was also wearing combat gear – prepared.

Was he stronger than he was? He wondered. Batman was in an Olympic class lift, in fact it was possible he even could out-lift most of them – thanks to his brutal and punishing self-imposed regime (and natural physical advantage), with the best science and intelligent tactics behind it he had devised, so it was unlikely. But he certainly wasn't going to underestimate Trevor at this point.

For some reason – Batman just realized – Trevor hadn't attempted to take him from ambush – not from sniper position. He felt an odd ripple go through him to recognize that – Trevor must have had a sniper position… if he had been waiting in here, and had spotted Batman… he was too canny not to have.

Normally Batman had too well-trained an ear to miss the click of a sniper – but instead, Trevor was down here, and moving to take him down in a hand-to-hand ambush. That at least was some good news – Trevor wasn't deliberately trying to murder him without some kind of warning. Batman suspected some kind of soldier's honour had stayed his hand.

Batman was partially just cursing himself for not having done a proper sweep of the premises first – flushing out the potential snipers was the first thing to do – but he had been so confident. Foolish.

In fact, he had expected that if there was a trap in place – it'd be one of those eerie experiments. He had been prepared to test himself against one of those. But there had been none of the signs he looked for, so he ignored it, and had not seen Trevor before he entered. Even so – the man had uncanny stealth to escape Batman's notice.

The rifle blast caught him in the chest, and Trevor leapt on him. Batman got his knee up – quickly enough – and then turned it into a defensive attack, and propelled Trevor's body over him with a kick, to go smashing into more crates.

"Stop it, Trevor! What do you hope to accomplish?!" He had found his opening. If this could be resolved with words, a smart detective took that option. But Trevor didn't answer – he wasn't looking for another option. He wondered if his shout had put him off his stride, but nothing about him gave it away.

Breaking boards and crates, the two fighters dueled, sizing each other up, facing off, stripped down to nothing but their fists and a few weapons.

Batman lashed out with his foot - he round-house kicked him into a crate, then kicked him again. Trevor avoided the last blow and rolled aside, and came up with a knife. Trevor must have been shaking off quite a blow from that attack, and Batman got away from him, knowing Trevor could easily exchange the knife for a gun – he had seen him pull that move twice with alarming speed, and Batman respected it.

Batman flushed the area out with smoke and gas grenades, narrowing Trevor's field of vision and movement – Batman suspected he wouldn't be lucky enough to knock Trevor out with the gas, but it certainly changed the terrain in his favour, gave him a fighting chance. If he got one clean target with a well-aimed batarang, that would end this as surely as a bullet. He wasn't fond of those.

You couldn't anticipate every possibility in battle, but if you were quicker and faster than your opponent, you didn't have to.

He broke into the next room with his shoulder – looking for something to even the odds. He found it.

When Trevor followed – he stared into a corridor full of extinguisher foam. He didn't even see or hear it when something came out of the ceiling behind him, and a foot came out of nowhere and slammed into his head.

He was dropped.

"Should have expected an ambush, Trevor," Batman said, coiling up his line over Trevor's body.

THE END