Hello folks! ShadowMajin here with my and Anonymous Void's next story in our Batman series. When we first came up with this story, the main operative word we had for it was clusterfuck and it sure proved itself during our drafting and writing. Strap yourselves in for you're in for a long, bumpy ride as AV and I present to you Part II.

Hope you enjoy!

Phones rang in the background, a constant, random drone. It was almost comforting to be honest.

Usually for Bullock, it was another call that meant he had to get busy. He had to do his job. While he liked his job, loved busting punks for doing stupid, highly illegal shit, he just didn't have it in him. It was unusual, but he felt lifeless, energy-less. He felt like crap.

The phone on his desk rang, but Bullock didn't pick it up. He stared at it as it rang and rang until it stopped.

That's how it had been for most of the day. There was paperwork to be done, but it was piling up. Usually it was annoying, but he couldn't find it in himself to care.

There was movement, someone walking up to his desk. A styrofoam cup was placed on the edge of his desk, causing the police lieutenant to look at it. The smell of coffee wafted up to his nose.

"You doing okay, Harvey?" Montoya asked him. His old rookie had her own cup and was using one of those small coffee straws to stir her drink. She looked as tired and disheveled as he did, though she was doing a better job at being productive than he was.

"I'm about the same as I was when you last asked me that," Bullock grunted to her.

"So feeling like shit?"

"Bingo."

Montoya shook her head, a small smile on her face. That was probably the first one Bullock had seen on her face in weeks. Then again, it still felt like only last night that everything had gone to hell in a hand basket. Scratch that, make it a Greyhound bus instead of a hand basket. The tickets had been punched and Gotham had been loaded up against her will and that was that.

That was why the phones were ringing like they were. Everyone was calling for the police. It didn't used to be like this, not even when the Mob ran the city into the ground. Now though, everything was becoming unhinged. Criminals were running the streets. These weren't gangsters, mind you, that had some semblance of a code, or honor, or whatever they thought of themselves; these were gangs and robbers and rapists. The good guys were doing their best, but it seemed like these guys were crawling out of the woodwork now, taking over everything.

It was too much.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" Montoya asked him then, breaking the silence they had fallen into.

"Find me a DeLorean and go back six weeks," Bullock replied. Huh, had it been that long? It felt longer sometimes and other times it was just like yesterday.

"Gotham City!"

The voice bellowed out into the night, causing Bullock to whip around, a hand at his gun holster, ready to draw his weapon. It had been a crazy night already, what with all these plants and trees and other green shit sprouting out of every crevice in the city.

Looking up, he saw a rather large man, face covered in some sort of mask. It was hard to make out what else about him since he was so high up, except he had both of his arms—his enormous freaking arms—above his head, and held something that looked like a person.

"Who is that?" Montoya asked next to him, the rook with own gun drawn. She had had it out ever since they got out of their squad car, not that he blamed her. You could never be too careful on the streets.

"I am Bane!" the man declared. "And this city is mine!

"Your Batman is no more. I have destroyed him. I rule these streets now. I rule Gotham! Here is your hero; your protector. Take him and bury him!"

Then this Bane guy threw the person he held. The man fell down to the street, his body hitting the edge of a building and bouncing off of it. Next he landed on a yawning, bouncing off of that too and fell further down to the next one. That one caught the man's body, but the force in which he hit it caused it to rip.

A moment later and the Batman's body landed on the sidewalk, not too far away from where Bullock was standing. His eyes nearly bulged out of his head at the sight of the vigilante, his body looking like a broken toy, all cut up and bruised and bleeding.

It took him a couple of seconds to process this before he kicked into gear. Running the short distance between him and the Bat, he slowed to a stop as he started seeing more and more wounds and injuries. One of Bullock's hands found its way to his forehead before sliding up into his hair. "Oh man," he groaned softly.

Montoya was kneeling next to Batman's side then. "All units, I need an ambulance at 3rd and Manchester. Get one here as fast as you can."

Slowly, a crowd began to gather around them. When and how they got there, Bullock wasn't sure. "Is that…?" someone whispered from behind him.

"I think it is."

"Look at him; is he dead?"

"Anyone want to see what's under his mask?"

Like a bolt of lightning, Bullock leapt into action. "Alright, everyone needs to back off," he ordered as he began walking back and forth from one side of the sidewalk to the other. "Give the man some air, alright?"

"Or what?" a rather large guy demanded, a wife-beater showing off the muscles of his chest and arms. He looked like he had just left the gym. "You gonna arrest us, or something?" he challenged.

"No, I'm gonna shoot you and then arrest you for interfering with a police investigation," Bullock snapped, pulling out his gun. He kept it pointed at the ground, but he could've had it pointed at any of these schmoes' faces in a second. "Now back it up so that ambulance can get through."

Any courage the crowd had, it was definitely gone now. Thankfully, that was when the siren of an ambulance was heard, growing louder with every passing second. Tilting his head to a side, Bullock was grateful at the sight of the EMS truck, a horn honking as it drove up to the scene.

The crowd dispersed and soon the ambulance had its back several feet away from the Bat and his police guard. The back doors open and two people jumped out, a young man with his hair in a ponytail and what looked like a teenage girl with an EMT hat on pulling out a gurney. At the sight of them, Bullock frowned.

"Aren't you a little young to be EMS?" he asked once the two approached him, rolling gurney right up to Batman.

"She's brand new, Sir," the young man answered him, working on lowering the gurney so that it was lower to the ground. All the while, the rookie EMT had moved next to the Bat, pausing for a second before pulling out some sort of neck brace.

"Can you help me put this on?" she asked Montoya, who immediately had her hands on either side of Batman's head. She carefully raised the man's head and the EMT slid the back of the brace beneath him. Once they had his neck comfortably in the brace, they both wrapped it around and tightened it.

"Alright, we're gonna need both of you to help get him on the stretcher," the male EMT said. Holstering his side arm, Bullock moved next to Montoya while the two EMTs kneeled on the other side. Three of them got their hands beneath the vigilante while Montoya did her best to help keep Batman's head straight. Altogether, they lifted him up and got him on the gurney.

Then in a flash, the two EMTs were strapping the dark-clad man down. The entire time, Bullock couldn't help but notice the Bat didn't make so much as a noise. No grunt, no cry of pain, nothing. He was only sure the man wasn't dead because he could see his chest was slowly rising and falling, shallow breaths to be sure, but it was enough.

"We'll take it from here," the male EMT said as he began raising up the gurney. The two EMTs then rolled the stretcher back to the truck, where Bullock noticed a third kneeling in the back. It looked like a blonde girl, young too if Bullock wasn't mistaken.

Both Bullock and Montoya stood as they watched Batman be loaded up into the ambulance, the truck's doors slammed shut and then the ambulance raced off down the street.

"He's going to be okay, right?" Montoya asked after awhile, the two cops never once looking away even as the taillights of the ambulance grew smaller and smaller.

Bullock didn't answer her. To be honest, the guy looked like death to him. Yeah, he knew all those stories about the Bat-freak being immortal and no one being able to kill him, but after all that, he looked like he was one step away from death.

But to answer his partner's question, he rather doubted he would ever see the Bat again.

That had been six weeks ago and it was still burned into his mind. It hadn't taken long for word to spread about about the Bat, how that Bane guy had beaten him and threw him broken into the streets. That had started this rising tide of crime among other things.

A door opened on one side of the bullpen, Gordon entering the room. No one paid him any mind, but it was no secret where he was coming form. That was the door for the stairs to go to the roof, where the Bat Signal had been turned on almost nightly. Not once had the Bat answered though, Bullock not the least bit surprised. And still, Jim went up there every night and turned it on in hopes he would.

That was dedication. Blind dedication, but dedication nonetheless.

It was no secret that Bullock viewed the Bat-freak with contempt. Just ask around the precinct and anyone could tell you what his exact thoughts were on the man. He was a menace, an insult to real police officers, a glory hound, and a number of other less than flattering and much more colorful names. Now though, he was not as nearly reluctant to admit just how much the city depended on him.

Then again, maybe he hadn't wanted to admit as much.

Nightwing had been tired before. It was part and parcel of being a nighttime vigilante. However, he had never felt this exhausted ever. It was seeping into his very bones, his muscles protesting every move he made.

Well, except for one.

Plopping down on the couch, Dick Grayson raised a hand up and removed his domino mask. He let out a sigh and sunk deeper into the couch cushion.

"That bad of a night?"

Through weary eyes, Dick glanced over to a doorway, where Barbara Gordon sat. She rolled towards him in her wheelchair, stopping next to the arm. "What gave it away?" he quipped back to her.

"I don't think I've ever seen you without your guard up," the redhead replied, her tone cool, calm, and collected. She was silently prodding him to open up, just without saying it. He knew she wanted him to talk, but he was too fatigued to do so. Still, she wasn't going to let him bum a seat on her couch, so he'd answer her...eventually.

"Well?"

Apparently, eventually was now.

"We're drowning," was all Dick said and it succinctly summed up what was going on.

Ever since Batman had been broken in two, Gotham had become a bloodbath. The creep that had done it—beaten the Batman—called himself Bane and he had carved a bloody path through the city, knocking off any and all competition to him. First it was the leftover mobsters, but then next were the gangs. Bane had brought in a personal army with him and they were a heck of a lot more coordinated, trained, and armed than any street thug. No one was standing a chance against him.

It was like he broke Gotham along with the Batman.

The Birds of Prey were doing whatever they could, but it was like putting a bandaid on a severed artery. Huntress was doing her own thing, but was having the same luck as the rest of them. The Batclan was having just as much success too—meaning none. Stephanie, Harper, and Jason were getting rundown between vigilantism and school. In fact, Dick had made it quite clear that they had to keep up their studies first and was forcing them off the streets to attend to their work. That didn't work too well with Jason since he had dropped out who knows when. At the very least, he spent his time at the dojo, training and beefing up his combat skills, such as they were.

Admittedly, Jason had progressed pretty quickly in the last few weeks. If Dick was honest, and he kinda had to be at the moment, Jason had surpassed Stephanie and Harper when it came to hand-to-hand combat. The girls were starting to lose with greater frequency in their spars, which thrilled Jason to no end. Even Dick was starting to have some trouble fighting him. It was a lone bright spot after everything that happened and was happening.

Except, it just wasn't enough. None of them were enough.

"We'll get through this," Barbara said soothingly, reaching a hand out to squeeze his shoulder. It was meant to be comforting.

It wasn't.

"I don't know how he did it," Dick said after awhile. "All this time, he never said a word; never complained. He just did his job and everything seemed to work out."

"You know there's more to it than that," the redhead argued.

"Is there? Tell me, what is it? What is it Batman did that we aren't?" the dark-haired man demanded, shooting a glare at his friend. "I have to know—we all do. We're losing this city...no, we've lost it. Bane came in and took over in one fail swoop. We can't stop it; none of us can."

"Which means we just have to keep trying," Barbara replied. "He wouldn't have given up. That's the one thing we can do that he did."

"And look where that got him."

Barbara was silent for a moment. "You know, that's unfair."

"Your point?" Dick sighed again. "Look, Babs, I know you're trying to cheer me up, but believe me, after what I've seen, what I saw that night, how can I not feel this way? You're up here, looking through security cameras and that gives you the whole 'bigger picture' outlook, but it doesn't let you see the smaller things. Like just how broken he was. I know, I was there."

That made a scowl appear on the redhead's face. "Now you're really being a jerk."

He leveled a serious look at her. "I was there."

The sound of the siren cut off after awhile, thanks to Jason. He was up front, driving the ambulance, constantly looking from the road to the rear-view mirror.

Dick still wasn't sure how the younger boy had done it, but he had managed to steal an ambulance. He even managed to disable the lojack so that the truck wouldn't be tracked, which was a blessing for them.

They had been mere blocks away when Oracle had told them to back off. She had spent God knows how long demanding that every vigilante in the city get to Gotham General, but then the abrupt change had stopped them all. "I think...I think we may need an ambulance…" she had said.

Looking in front of him, the young vigilante knew why. Laying on the gurney was an unconscious Batman and he looked as if he had been through hell and back. His armor was broken and ripped up, revealing slashed skin, blood, and bruising. Furthermore, hands on assessments had reveals a few broken ribs, swelling practically throughout his body, and...well, he wasn't sure what other injuries there were. He wasn't an expert or anything, but he knew when someone was hurt bad.

This was much worse than that.

"You're supposed to put an IV in," Stephanie said, breaking through Nightwing's musings. She, Harper, and him were all in the back of the ambulance, dressed as EMTs. Their brief encounter with the GCPD hadn't given them away, so that was one miracle for them. Now though, they had Batman and no idea what they were supposed to do. Stephanie seemed pretty sure of herself about the IV though. "He needs an IV."

"And how am I supposed to do that?" Harper snapped back from beneath her EMT hat, glaring at the blonde girl. "I've never put in an IV and I don't know how. Unless you know how to, one isn't getting in."

"You can at least try," Stephanie retorted. "There's no harm in trying."

"And what if I hit an artery instead? I could make things worse."

"Both of you, stop," Dick demanded, shooting them both with a silencing glare. "None of us are qualified to do an IV, much less attempt one in a moving truck, so let's forget it. Right now we need to figure out our next move."

"Nightwing's right," Jason agreed from the front. "I don't have enough gas to just circle the city forever. We need to get him to a hospital."

Dick immediately looked towards the front of the ambulance. "No hospitals. We might as well kill him if we take him there."

"Then where do we go?" Stephanie asked. "He needs help. Just look at him."

"We already know where we're going," he replied. "Huntress told us to take him to that clinic on the Eastside. That's where we're going."

"Uhh, no offense, but that part of town isn't a good idea either," Jason said. "You wanna talk about killing him? The Eastside is where a lot of the gangs are and they'd do anything to ice the Bat. And that clinic, who knows if it can save him? It probably only has rudimentary medical equipment at best and I'm pretty sure he's gonna need more than a bandaid."

"Just drive to the clinic, Jason," Dick ordered. "And when we get there, everyone have your masks on."

"Fine, whatever you say, fearless leader."

Dick stared in Jason's direction, which gave him a perfect view of the approaching overpass up ahead through the windshield. It was an old one too since the road entered a tunnel rather than the wide open area that showed the columns holding up the bridges. Darkness flooded the ambulance as they rode through, light returning when they exited out of the tunnel.

The only warning the young man got that something was different was Harper exclaiming, "Holy shit!"

Whipping his head around, Dick's eyes bulged out of their sockets. Kneeling right between him and Harper was Batgirl as if she had always been there. Considering the look on Harper's face was the same as his, the dark-haired man knew that wasn't always the case. Even Stephanie was bug-eyed at the sight of the dark-clad girl.

"Who the hell is that?!" Jason shouted from the driver's seat.

Batgirl ignored them all, however. Her eyes were completely focused on Batman, the girl oblivious to everyone around her.

Faintly, Dick wondered how she had gotten in a moving ambulance without anyone knowing. He hadn't heard a door open or close; she hadn't been in the truck when they entered the tunnel so she had to have boarded while they were in it.

Batgirl raised a hand then, slowly reaching out to her fallen mentor. The hand hovered above him for a moment, not once touching him. Slowly, it began to tremble, shaking in midair, the fingers beginning to flex into her palm.

Suddenly, the dark-clad girl snatched her hand back, raising her other one up so that she began clawing at her mask with both hands. Without hesitation, she ripped off her mask, the young features of an Asian girl, grief-stricken, appeared in front of the Batclan.

As if Dick wasn't shocked enough. This...this was the girl from the dojo! She was Batgirl! A giant puzzle piece to a puzzle he hadn't known he had been putting together fell right into his lap. No wonder she had taken them on so easily. Her teacher...the Bat...holy…

"Up."

It had been said softly, almost to the point where Dick wasn't sure he head heard it at all. All of his thoughts vanished in the blink of an eye as the unmasked Batgirl seemed to leaned towards Batman, again reaching out with a trembling hand. She placed it right on his chest, gently at first, but then her fingers began to dig in. "Up," she said with more force in a choked voice, her eyes glistening with tears.

And then they came pouring down her face, drops after drops of tears. "Up!" she screamed as her other hand shot out and she began pushing the Dark Knight's body over and over, rocking him back and forth. "Up! Up! Up!"

That was when Harper threw her arms around the girl, embracing her and pulling her away from Batman. Batgirl's hands moved onto the blue-haired girl, "Up!" she cried, sobbing as more and more tears fell down her face even as Harper began to make soothing sounds at her.

"Shhhhh, it's going to be okay," she cooed, all the while pulling the distraught girl away from Batman. "It's going to be okay; he's going to be fine. You can hang onto me, okay?"

"Are you okay, Dick?"

The young man blinked his eyes, surprised to find a tear falling off the end of his nose and onto the carpeted floor. Somehow he had leaned forward and was staring at the floor, and he had no idea as to how he had gotten into that position. Looking up, he found Barbara staring at him with concern.

That poor girl. Harper held her the entire way to the clinic, if only to keep her from doing any more damage to Batman; though, it wasn't as if she could make anything worse.

How could they be any worse?

"Sorry, I just got lost in my own head," Dick apologized. "It's...it's…"

Barbara smiled at him, which stopped him from saying anymore. "It's alright. However, we need to come up with our next step. Obviously what we're doing isn't working, so it's time to do something different."

The young man raised an eyebrow. "Different how?"

Barbara shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know to be honest, but it's obvious we need to try. You're right, we're just trying to plug holes while a hundred new ones keep springing up with every passing day. We need help."

Yeah, as if they could do that. Not too many people that could actually help Gotham stopped by. They preferred safer places like Caracas or Tijuana. No, they had to do this in-house.

Actually, now that he thought about it…

"Babs, can you get me ahold of everyone?" Dick asked, a gleam in his eye. "I think I have an idea."

Leslie's heart stopped the moment she saw him.

As a small group of vigilantes rolled the gurney in, Leslie could feel her throat closing up, choking her. There he lay, Batman...Bruce...strapped down and in pain.

That was all the time she gave herself to linger. "What happened?" the doctor demanded as she marched up to the young men and women.

"Not sure what the extent of his injuries are," the oldest male, Nightwing answered her. He wasn't in costume, only wearing his mask while dressed as an EMS worker. "I can confirm some broken ribs."

Leslie eyed the neck brace as she walked next to the rolling stretcher. "Why does he have a brace on?"

"We thought it couldn't hurt. We wanted to make sure we weren't causing more damage."

That wasn't a bad idea at all. At a glance, Leslie could pick out multiple lacerations throughout Bruce's body, and...yes, there were definitely broken bones, the ribs at a minimum if the odd curvature of the rib cage was any indication. She continued her assessment, running her hands over every inch of the young man even as she walked, discovering edema in the knees, arms, and legs, fresh bruises scattered throughout.

"In here," Leslie indicated as they came up to an empty room. The vigilantes rolled the stretcher in, stopping it right next to a bed. Systematically, the doctor began to remove the armor piece by piece, revealing Bruce's body until he was in nothing but his mask and boxers. "Now, I'm going to need someone to hold his head while the rest log roll his body. I need to inspect his back."

One of the girls immediately assumed a position at Bruce's head, her hands pressing on either side of his head. The others clumsily moved to random spots on one side of the stretcher, each being directed by Leslie. "We are now going to turn him onto his side, keeping his spine as straight as we can. On the count of three: one...two…

"Three." Working as one, the young vigilantes turned Bruce onto his right side and Leslie had to stifle a gasp. There was massive bruising on his back, swelling, if not a hematoma rising at the thoracic vertebra…possibly T9, maybe T10. Carefully, she began running her fingers down his back along the transverse process of the spinal cord.

That's when she found them. The T9 through T11 vertebra were crushed; that was the only way she could describe them. She was no neurosurgeon, but she knew what a normal vertebra looked and felt like and what it did not and these...my god, they were in pieces.

"Lay him back down," Leslie ordered before turning around, hiding her horror from the others. At least, that's what she thought she was doing until she saw the small frame of Bruce's daughter, the girl standing in the doorway in grief.

Immediately, Leslie strode towards her, taking the girl in her arms. She had been aware of Bruce's plans to adopt Cassandra and had encouraged him to do so. Subsequently, she was one of the first, if only people to know when the adaption went through. Now though, she wondered if that was the right thing to do, giving this girl a father only to see him like...like...

This…

One thing was for certain, however; Bruce's life was on the line. Surgery was necessary to repair his back, if only to make sure it didn't end up killing him. There was no telling if he would be able to walk again, but leaving him the way he was would certainly leave him in a wheelchair.

"How bad is the damage, Doc?" the youngest male in the room asked her.

"I need an IV in him, STAT," Leslie suddenly ordered, pulling herself away from Cassandra. "One of you needs to go to Medical Room #3; there you will find several cases of a drug called Icosidron. Bring everything you can carry to Treatment Room #2. Lastly, Susan should still be in the clinic. Find her and report her to the Treatment Room."

"Umm, but none of us know how to put in an IV," one of the girls, the blonde, spoke up.

"I'll take care of that," Leslie immediately replied. "Treatment Room #2, now. Every second counts here and if we're going to help him, it has to be now."

Leslie shot her head up, sucking in a deep breath. Turning her head from the left to the right and back, she realized she was in her office.

My God, had she slept here again?

Raising a hand up, she rubbed her eyes, trying to rid herself of sleep. Dumbly, she stared at a box, one with big green letters that proclaimed ICOSIDRON.

Oh yes, the steroid medication Bruce and that friend of his from Star City had created. It was a super steroid, one that was twice the strength of Decadron, and was made between the two men's companies in a joint-venture; one that Bruce had sent to her clinic in the dead of night. It was clearly a donation, one that neither of them had expected Bruce would need in the future.

And it was key during the six hour surgery she and Susan had performed on his back. Again, she was no expert in neurosurgery, but she was competent. She had labored until she was certain the inflammation in the spine was receding, thanks to the Icosidron. She had done what she could do with the vertebra, placing them back into place and sealing the cracks shut with what was best described as a calcium-based glue.

All in all, it was a successful surgery in that Bruce's life had been spared. However, he hadn't regained consciousness in the hours following the surgery. His vitals were stable, heart rate and respirations at their normal ranges along with oxygen perfusion.

Unfortunately, Leslie had been practicing medicine for so long that she knew a coma when she saw one. How long they lasted was a guessing game at best and taking into account all of Bruce's injuries...well...there was no telling how long he would be unconscious.

Part of her wished it would last.

There would be pain, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. In fact, Leslie was counting on it to be excruciating. With Bruce unconscious, he was unaware of it; the moment he opened his eyes, however, it would be an entrance into agony. The longer he was out, she felt, the better.

On the flip side, the longer he was unconscious, the more anxious Cassandra felt. She hadn't left his side since the surgery last she saw. With a sigh, the doctor stood up from her desk and left her office. She meandered to Treatment Room #2, pausing in front of the door for only a moment before pushing it open.

Bruce laid on the table, hooked up to vital sign machines, telemetry monitors, and even oxygen. Sitting in a chair at the head of the table, a red-eyed Cassandra, still in her costume, her mask tightly gripped in one hand. She hadn't budged from her seat in several hours.

"You need to get some rest," Leslie said as she entered the room, keeping her voice soft and gentle. A command would only cause the poor girl to chain herself to her current post.

"As long as he is not awake, I will not rest," Cassandra told her, her voice raspy, another sign she had been crying recently. There were tear stains on her cheeks, her face written with loss.

"You are not doing him, or yourself any favors by ignoring your own needs," the older woman was quick to remind her. "He would want you to care for yourself, no matter his status."

There was a silence between then, one that Leslie concluded meant that the dark-haired girl would not be relinquishing her post. Food would have to brought to her then, if only to keep her fed. Before she could turn to retrieve some, however, she heard the girl speak.

"He will get better, yes?"

That was a loaded question. In comparison to life and death, yes he would. But with living came even more questions. Would Bruce return to full health? Would he be diminished?

Would he ever walk again?

That was really where everything depended. With the damage she saw, Leslie was more than certain Bruce would never take another step on his own. His spine had been snapped like a dry spaghetti noodle. He needed the help of a qualified neurosurgeon and he wasn't getting that here.

However, now was not the time to say this to the distraught girl in front of her.

"I fully expect he will," she told Cassandra, a part of her dying inside. A lie of omission was still a lie after all.

Cassandra slowly nodded her head in acceptance. "This...this can't happen again," she said with surprising determination.

This caused Leslie to frown. "Whatever do you mean?"

"I'm...I'm going to take him away...far away...where they can't hurt him anymore."

As touching as those words were, Leslie could feel the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. Immediately, she was at the girl's side, kneeling down next to her. "He needs more medical attention," she told her firmly, yet gentle. "He's not out of the woods just yet, but he will get there with proper care and treatment. We can discuss moving him later."

"But they will try to find him," Cassandra responded, strength returning to her voice. "They will try to finish him. I cannot...I will not let that happen."

"And they won't," Leslie replied just as sternly. "Those other vigilantes, Huntress and Black Canary and their friends, are keeping an eye on this place. They will stop whomever comes here with ill intent. You are safer here than anywhere else."

That seemed to pacify the girl as she looked away from the doctor, numbly nodding. "Okay," she whispered softly.

The sight of Bruce and Cassandra slowly faded away before Leslie's eyes. She stood in the doorway of the empty room, the operating table already prepared for its next patient, along with the surgical supplies and deactivated equipment.

That had been the last time Leslie had seen either of the two. The fading visual was more apt than she cared to admit. The next day they had vanished into thin air, along with the ambulance that had brought Bruce here. With the tracking device removed, there was no way to follow the ambulance. On top of that, various medical supplies had been taken, along with a few cases of the Icosidron, painkillers, and dressing supplies.

It had shocked her, but then Leslie could sympathize. Long ago, she had wanted to do the same thing for Bruce, whisking him away from this dark city and forgetting all of its troubles. Cassandra had done just that. The other vigilantes had lost their minds with their disappearance.

To Leslie, she was of split minds. There was a part of her that wanted them found, if only so that she was certain Bruce was still receiving proper medical treatment. Knowing that he was alright and never having the answer plagued her mind, especially at night when the clinic was closed.

And yet, the other part of her wished she never saw them again. It was a strange thought to be sure, but bear with her. The longer their absence, the less trauma Bruce could inflict on himself. If she never saw them again, it meant that Bruce had come to and was unable to continue his vigil as Batman; that Cassandra had convinced him to give up his mad crusade. It would also mean he was alive because she could easily see his daughter returning for vengeance on the ones that had hurt him.

"I hope you're okay," she whispered to herself, a prayer for her missing, but unforgotten family. "And I hope you never come back."

A couple notes: Bane's words when he tosses Batman into the streets is right out of the comics, albeit with some edits to improve the flow. I know many of you were waiting for that scene the infamous Knightfall moment happened and I hope this didn't disappoint.

The Icosidron steroid is a fictional drug created for this story by myself and Anonymous Void. Obviously the footwork for the drug was started a few stories ago, but it worked out well. Icosi- is latin for twenty, much like Deca- is for ten, so that's where the name comes from.