Chapter 1:

Deal with the Devil

Summary:

Veronica agrees to take on three cases for Jake Kane in exchange for three favors. She closes two cases quickly enough, but the third case is to find the country's most famous missing person: billionaire Bruce Wayne.


Disclaimer:

For Veronica Mars fans, this is canon-compliant until just before the end of season 3.

For Batman fans, I play pretty fast and loose with Justice League and Batman history here, mishmashing stuff from the animated movies and series, the comics, and the Nolanverse. With a dash of Smallville and Arrowverse here and there, even, but mostly as setup for future installments in the series. You'll see mentions of some popular TV shows and the MCU from time to time, but I'm not committing to crossovers to those outside of the occasional cameo, and obviously I don't own anything.

Also, I wrote the entire story without a beta reader, so I hope you'll excuse any mistakes.


Veronica Mars, private investigator extraordinaire, watches with a lip curled up in disgust as software billionaire Jake Kane welcomes his son and granddaughter home after they've been on the run for the better part of two years. The press eats up the show of sentiment, though the teenage investigator seated in the back of the waiting limo is pretty sure the only genuine smile is that of the blond toddler being embraced by her doting grandfather in front of the Kane Software private jet.

The return of Duncan Kane after all federal kidnapping charges against him were dropped are sure to be front-page news, especially considering the recent scandal and arrest of his daughter's maternal grandparents for child abuse as well as a string of other charges related to their having been top members of an active honest-to-goodness cult.

Billionaire and scion answer a few of the questions called out from the mob of reporters before allowing Clarence Wiedman, Kane Software's head of security and Veronica's main point of contact (she refuses to think of him as either her boss or her employer), to usher them toward the limo. Just before the door opens, Veronica scoots so she won't be caught by any wandering eyes or camera lenses. The Kanes pile in, C.W. climbs into the front passenger seat, and a moment later, the limo is pulling away from the tarmac and headed back to Neptune, California.

Veronica smiles and meets the eyes of the only Kane she gives a damn about. The two-year-old smiles back shyly as she peers at her from her position tucked into her father's side.

"Hi Veronica," Duncan says warmly. "I understand Lilly and I have you to thank for our homecoming."

"What can I say? Your father made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

"Veronica," Jake Kane says warningly.

She clenches her fists, counts to ten. Reminds herself why she's here today. Lets out a breath. "Introduce me to my goddaughter," she says in as even a voice as she can manage.

Both men stare at her for a long moment. She holds Jake's gaze until he drops his. "Lilly," he says slowly. "This is your aunt Veronica."

"Aunt Wonica?"

Veronica smiles at the child, who watches the teen detective with soft brown eyes inherited from the mother she'd never get to meet. "Yeah, I'm your Aunt Veronica," she says. "I was friends with your mom and best friends with your dad's sister, your Aunt Lilly."

"She knows who you are from, uh, pictures," Duncan says. He turns to the child. "Why don't you go and give your Aunt Veronica a hug?"

For what it's worth, Veronica muses, her douchebag ex appears to be a decent dad. That, she supposes, is worth a lot. For Lilly's sake, she's glad of it. So there's no venom in her voice when she addresses him now. "Thanks, Duncan."

The little girl wiggles off the seat of the limo and teeters toward Veronica, who moves closer so she can catch her in a hug. "Aunt Wonica!"

"That's me, sweetie!" she says, inhaling the sweet baby scent as she folds her arm around the tiny blond angel who is the spitting image of her namesake, the late, great, and fabulous Lilly Kane. "I'm so happy you're home."


Veronica leaves the Kane mansion (not, incidentally, the one she'd grown up visiting back in the days when she, Lilly and Duncan Kane, and Logan Echolls had been known as Neptune's Fab Four) as soon as they arrive. Once safely behind her desk at the Mars Investigations office that is now hers and hers alone, she closes her eyes and thinks about all the stupid things she has done to land in the position she now finds herself in.

After unwittingly participating in a not-quite-sex video filmed in her boyfriend's dorm room at Hearst College, she had tracked down the guy responsible, only to find out he was not only the scion of a Russian mob family but a member of the Castle, a secret society of power players recruited from Hearst as well as Stanford University. She'd stolen a hard drive containing some very sensitive information about the members of the Castle, not realizing until it was too late that the mansion she'd stolen it from belonged to the father of her long-dead best friend and on-the-run ex-boyfriend. At which point the shit had hit the proverbial fan.

She'd gotten caught, and her father, then acting sheriff of Balboa County, had destroyed evidence for her sake. The prosecutor had filed charges against him instead, a move guaranteed to tank his efforts in the upcoming elections even if he'd gotten off. Meanwhile, Logan Echolls, Veronica's ex-boyfriend, had delivered a very public beatdown on the Russian mobster boy, who had promptly threatened Logan with a very nasty death.

All in all, it had been a very shitty freshman year.

Veronica had made a last-ditch attempt to fix things by blackmailing Jake with the information she'd gotten her hacker friend to pull from the hard drive, but he'd told her it was too late for a quick fix. The following morning, after she'd seen her father dragged through the mud in the local papers and news channels, he'd sent Wiedman to her with a counter offer.

Jake, Wiedman had told her, was in the position to do three things for her. The first was wipe the not-sex video from the internet and from any data drive connected to the internet (something Veronica's hacker friend Mac had told her wasn't supposed to be possible). The second, make the DA drop the charges against Keith Mars and ensure his election as sheriff (that this would possibly be accomplished as much via electoral fraud as from Jake's public support of him went unmentioned). And the third, make sure the Sorokin crime syndicate knew Logan Echolls was not to be harmed in any way.

In return, Jake wanted three things from her. One, find a way to allow him to bring his son and granddaughter home. Duncan had fled the country with his daughter in their senior year of high school after Lilly's mother, Meg Manning, had died and the Mannings had refused to let him take custody of the baby. Veronica smiles to herself because while she'd have happily left Duncan to rot, she would've done this for free for little Lilly's sake as well as for Meg's. Thanks to Jake's resources, Wiedman's connections, and a lot of hustling on her part, she's accomplished this in a little over four months.

The second thing Jake wanted was for Veronica to find leverage on his estranged wife Celeste, so he could divorce her without losing the billions he'd made since their marriage despite his years-long infidelity with his high school sweetheart. Who happened to be none other than Veronica's own mother. As Veronica and her father had spent the last few years earning a living out of spousal disputes, this task had taken less than a month to complete. As Celeste had always been a bitch and a half to her, Veronica feels no guilt for her part in ensuring Neptune's ice queen will walk away from her marriage with a settlement in seven digits instead of nine.

Which leaves the third task, which Veronica has made very little headway in, and which she understands the reasons for not at all.

"Find Bruce Wayne," Wiedman told her all those months ago.

Veronica had known who Bruce Wayne was, of course. Although she'd been a toddler herself when the murder of billionaires Thomas and Martha Wayne in front of their eight-year-old son and only child had made headlines around the world, it was a case her dad had followed over the years. And Veronica, always a daddy's girl, had been reading up on cases and investigation techniques since grade school, so it was only natural that she'd become interested in the Waynes as well. Finding out Lilly was a distant cousin of Martha Wayne nee Kane had only deepened Veronica's interest, especially when the murderer had been released and Bruce Wayne had disappeared not long afterward.

"Why?" Veronica had asked Wiedman. "I mean, he's been missing for years, since before Lilly died." Sometimes Veronica thinks her life has two eras: Before Lilly's Death and After Lilly's Death. The Wayne heir's had disappeared a few months before her world had tilted on its axis and she'd lost her best friend.

"He has been missing for four years. On the fifth anniversary of his disappearance, the board of Wayne Enterprises will likely move to have him declared dead in absentia. It's likely he'll leave his shares of WE to his butler. Mr. Kane would prefer that didn't happen."

"He wants a share? I thought their connection was several times removed?"

"It is. This isn't about their familial connection."

"I'm guessing that means Jake has a stake in Wayne Enterprises." Because of course it was about money and not family where Jake was concerned. Bruce Wayne was probably a shareholder of Kane Software too, for that matter.

"Take the deal, Ms. Mars." Wiedman's refusal to confirm her suspicion only served to strengthen them, of course. "You won't get a better one. Mr. Kane is also prepared to fund any expenses relevant to your investigations on his behalf as well as pay your monthly retainer to ensure you are focused on his cases and his alone. I will also be assisting you. Finally, as you may be aware, there is a large reward for anyone who can find Bruce Wayne. You would be able to claim this for yourself."

After being run out of office following Lilly's murder, Veronica's dad had paid the bills by doing private investigations and bringing in bail jumpers. And while Bruce Wayne was not a criminal, the so-called Wayne Bounty was the largest in history, even topping those of the world's worst super villains and terrorists.

"What makes you think I can do something every reporter and bounty hunter has been trying to do for the past four years? And do it before the five-year mark?"

"It is not necessary to accomplish this task before the fifth-year anniversary. It is preferable, of course, but several safeguards will be set in place, and it's likely the butler would be happy to sign any properties and holdings over to his master should he return from the dead. Although the question of whether the reward will continue to be offered, in which case, Mr. Kane is willing to reward you with five percent the offered bounty."

Which was still over two million dollars. Veronica bit down on the urge to whistle. "What happens if he really is dead? Or if I'm not able to find him? Does Jake expect me to put my life on hold forever?"

"No, but Mr. Kane would like you working on his cases full time up until the fifth-year anniversary, by which point, he expects you to have accomplished the first two tasks. You would then be expected to work part-time, presuming that the rest of your time is taken up by your education, until the seventh-year anniversary of Bruce Wayne's disappearance, by which point several of the safeguards likely to be placed may become problematic. If you are able to find the boy within this timeframe, Mr. Kane is willing to offer you half a million dollars as an incentive. If not, you will be required to work on another case of Mr. Kane's choosing before you can consider your obligation fulfilled."

Veronica heard what Wiedman wasn't saying, of course. If she didn't accomplish all three tasks before the set deadlines, it would be open season on her dad and Logan, and her not-sex video would once more become available on the internet. Veronica closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She already knew what she would have to do. Video aside, this was her dad's career, possibly his freedom. More than that, it was Logan's life.

"Tell Mr. Kane he's got a deal. What do I need to sign to get started?" And that had been that. Plus a mountain of paperwork, of course. Because confidentiality. And money. And all that jazz. But she'd hit the ground running not three days later. And Jake had delivered on his promises.

It was that thought that held her firm in the face of her friends' confusion when she told them she wasn't enrolling for her sophomore year at Hearst. She knew both Mac Mackenzie and Wallace Fennel suspected it had something to do with the sex tape, maybe Logan's famous cafeteria beatdown, maybe even her subsequent breakup with her equally unwilling sex tape co-star, Piz. She let them come to their own conclusions. Logan probably wouldn't have fallen for it, but she'd already told him he was out of her life, and apparently he believed her because he avoided her as much as she did him.

Her dad had been shocked, then furious, then disappointed when she'd told him, especially when he found out she would be working for the Kanes. He'd been suspicious about Jake Kane's complete turnaround right before the special elections. Still, Veronica had already decided "neither confirm nor deny" was the best way to go. She diverted him instead by telling him about what she was doing. And of course, Keith Mars was enthralled by the idea of hunting down Bruce Wayne.

So once he got over his disappointment and got her to promise not to give up her future prospects in case this turned out to be a wild goose chase, father and daughter actually ended up working on the case, when Veronica wasn't focused on the other two tasks Jake had set for her and Keith wasn't working on whipping the Balboa County Sheriff's Department back into shape after years of mismanagement under Don Lamb. So all in all, things went better than Veronica had had any right to expect.

She'd even gotten to go on the 12-week FBI internship she'd been confirmed for before the end of the school year. Since Duncan's case had been handled by the Bureau, the internship had been convenient for the case. Wiedman's connections as a formal special agent and an old friend of the director's had gotten Veronica assignments in departments she otherwise wouldn't have so much as passed the doors of, much to the envy of her fellow interns. This included not only the Kidnappings and Missing Persons Unit, which their efforts were focused on, but, for the sake of red herrings, she'd also spent some time with the Violent Crimes, the Cyber Crimes and the Behavioral Analysis units.

She'd learned a lot. She'd accomplished a lot. Some of the agents she'd shadowed and worked with had pushed her to try for Quantico when she graduated. A few had even offered to write letters of recommendation, which had made Veronica thoroughly ashamed of herself, considering the less-than-legal tampering she had to do on Duncan's case file. Not to mention how she got access to the files on the cult the Mannings had joined.

She'd beaten the deadline for the first two tasks by eight months. Which meant that she had the rest of the year to do nothing but focus on the third. And while she didn't know anything that hadn't been turned up by other hunters and investigators, she at least could be proud of the fact that she knew pretty much everything everyone else had found out.

Her dad still helped her chase down leads in his spare time; he also contributed his own theories and speculations and served as a sounding board for her ideas about what to do next. She'd co-opted her friend Mac's services as a hacker—and had even managed to make sure Jake footed the bill. She'd read everything she could find on Wayne, his friends, his connections, even his family history, which incidentally could be traced back to the Crusades. In the process, she'd also learned quite a bit about Gotham City, which the Wayne family seemed to have built almost from the ground up. She'd even found fan fiction about the guy, which was weird, but she read it anyway.

Happily, Jake Kane and Clarence Wiedman are not as present in her life after Duncan's return. They are satisfied with reports on her progress investigating Bruce Wayne's disappearance, but don't appear to be too invested in finding out the details. All they want to know is how close she's getting to finding out where he is. They approve Veronica's expense claims without question, and reduce their in-person reports from once a week to once a month.

Were she anyone else, Veronica might use this as an excuse to ease up on the case. Instead, with her focus undivided, she buckles down and soon finds herself completely entrenched in the mystery of Bruce Wayne's disappearance.

Four months after taking Jake Kane's deal, Veronica is probably one of the world's experts on the subject of missing billionaire Bruce Wayne. And without any evidence whatsoever apart from a gut feeling that has been misinterpreted but has never failed her in the past, she knows two things about the guy: he's alive, and she is going to find him.


End Note

This story has been posted in full elsewhere. I'm still getting the hang of posting on this platform, so please bear with me, but I'll have the other chapters (there are 32 in all) uploaded soon.