Resurgam
A Dark Knight Rises fan fiction by xahra99
Heroes get other people killed.
It's the most basic rule of law enforcement. Solo vigilantism is the worst idea ever. If you're lucky it'll only get you killed. If you're unlucky, it'll get the rest of your team killed as well. John Blake has never been what you might call a team player, but he's been a cop for years and he's internalised the basics.
It's why he's spent three days in the Batcave without once trying on the suit.
Police officers call for backup when they're outnumbered or outgunned. They don't pull out some outlandish weapon and fight a dozen men alone. Sure, Bruce Wayne got away with it, but Bruce Wayne was a billionaire vigilante playboy, and, Blake is beginning to suspect, something of a genius as well.
Blake is not a billionaire, and although he likes to think he's had his moments, he's certainly no playboy. What if he breaks something? What if something breaks him?
It takes him maybe three hours to talk himself down after the first wild flight of fancy, and abseiling in through the waterfall didn't exactly help with that. Sure, the suit is cool, and so are the toys, but John Blake is no Bruce Wayne. Wayne used his inheritance to fund his crime fighting habit. Blake's running on pocket change. He doubts he could even afford one of Wayne's cool graphite masks. You can't do Batman on a shoestring.
He's just a cop. He's not Batman.
He doesn't even fit into the suit.
The Batsuit is two inches too tall. Blake knows because he's surreptitiously measured it against himself under the pretext of checking for any damage. He's never had a very high opinion of superhero costumes, having arrested in his time many, many superhero wannabes; men who insist their real name is Thargus the Mighty when really they're just accountants called Kevin who wear their underpants on the outside.
The suit is a far cry from underpants. It's more like armour than spandex. Its Kevlar mesh, graphite, and memory cloth look a hundred times more comfortable and much stronger than GCPD body armour. It is very nearly the coolest thing Blake has ever seen.
The coolest thing he's ever seen, of course, is Batman himself.
Blake's still not convinced that Wayne is really dead. He drinks endless cups of coffee from the percolator by the console and pretends he's just keeping the lights on for the real Batman. There's a phone number scrawled in biro on a post-it note attached to the monitor.
Blake ignores the note.
He spends the time wondering if Batman really is a good idea. The crazies always come to Gotham. Is it just because Gotham is the greatest city for miles around, the dark beating heart of a corroded empire, or is it because Gotham's the only city with a masked hero to fight? He's heard the kind of people who dress up in full-face masks get off on that kind of shit. And that is one whole can of worms he has no intention of opening right now.
He stays anyway.
There's no mention of Bruce Wayne on the police radio that Blake's conveniently forgotten to return to the station. He hears several reports that make him wish he hadn't tossed his badge into the sea, but holds back on going out to fight crime himself. There's nothing there that makes him think Gotham needs a masked avenger. The Dent Act crashed and burned with the rest of Bane's revelations, and there are clear signs that the underworld of Gotham is contemplating a return to pre-Batman crime levels, but it hasn't happened yet.
At first he visits his apartment every day and checks his phone messages diligently, but after a week or so he calls in less often, ignoring the bills piling up in the mailbox. Nobody from his old job bothers to call. It's like the Gotham police department clean forgot about him. Sometimes he visits the new orphanage in Wayne Manor, and fields all the questions about where he's staying with vague assurances and a smile he hopes is charming.
The next time he returns to his apartment, they've changed the locks.
He's already decided that the suit is off limits until Wayne returns, but he tries out some of the toys anyway. He finds sets of sonar glasses, smoke bombs, miniature explosives, even ninja throwing stars shaped like bats that look like something from a Saturday morning cartoon, but no guns. He isn't sure how he feels about that. He used to be a cop, and cops are used to guns. He can't imagine facing down a criminal with a bunch of pretty little pointy stars for ammo.
When he reaches for a periscope (a periscope, really?) he presses a button that doesn't like it should do anything and a garage door perfectly camouflaged to look like lichen-covered rock slides up into the ceiling. Blake is already half-way to dismissing the hidden door as just another gadget in Wayne's lair of cool toys before he sees the bike.
It stops him in his tracks.
Blake did his time in Highway Patrol like every other cop. He's seen his share of bikes, but he's never seen a bike like this before. It's matte black and streamlined within an inch of its life, with tires the size of a sumo's thighs. There's no key.
Blake presses the ignition just to see what the engine sounds like. He doesn't expect the bike to start, but it roars to life with a sound like a horny angel. The handlebars are as low as the seat and about a meter forwards, and Blake has a sudden impulse to see if the bike is as uncomfortable as it looks. He climbs on.
At first the seat feels awkward as hell, but then he could swear the bike shifts, accommodating itself to Blake's height and weight. He twists the throttle and smiles as the engine thunders from the rough-cut walls. A row of tiny lights flicker into life like stars along the slick concrete as the roar dies down. The lights mark out a wide path along the concrete and end in a sheer rock wall.
Blake reaches down with his left boot to flick the bike into first gear and rocks it from the kickstand as he does so. His chest is flat along the tank. It feels much more awkward than the staid GCPD BMWs he's used to.
Just another toy, he thinks as he kicks the bike into second gear.
He intends to take the bike along the sparkling path to the other side of the cave and back into the hidden garage, but as he approaches the wall he hears a click and feels a rush of cool air on his face as another door appears in a wall of sheer concrete. It's dark outside, with a thin mist of rain in the air.
Blake changes gear to fourth, and picks up the speed.
A moment later he clutches fervently at what he hopes is the brake, and prays to God that the rear wheels don't lock. The bike skitters to the side, tyres gripping the concrete as tightly as Blake's white-knuckled fingers grip the handlebars, and spins around the hairpin like a pinball. He gropes frantically for the controls. The headlights must have flicked on automatically, because a pale beam of light illuminates the asphalt beneath his tires. It's barred with shadows and flicking past at frightening speed.
There's no speedometer, which Blake thinks is just as well.
He's nearly on top of the junction before he realizes it's there. He brakes frantically, feeling the sudden tug of gravity as the bike decelerates rapidly towards the white lines and brakes again as he sees a Chevy coming up fast from the opposite direction. When the brakes don't slow him fast enough, he grits his teeth and accelerates instead.
His rear tire misses the Chevy's fender by a hairs-breadth. Blake sees the driver's startled eyes and sees his passenger's mouth gape wide as he spins past. The wind is roaring in his ears, and he's moving far too fast to hear anything they're saying, but he can guess. He accelerates and watches the pale circles of their headlights vanish in his mirrors.
Blake doesn't feel like Batman. He feels like a sixteen year old joy rider on a machine far too fast for him to safely handle. Jesus, he isn't even wearing a helmet. If he crashes now, he's dead for sure.
He thanks God he isn't plugged into the radio. The last thing he needs right now is an excuse to go out and do something stupid.
The bike growls down a gear. Neon lights slide past with liquid speed. Blake exhales and flexes his fingers. The fuel tank is warm against his chest. He takes a deep breath, and relaxes.
And then the bike stops being awkward, and starts being awesome.
It's like a speeding bullet. He's racing through the night on a prototype machine with his chest on a tank of highly flammable liquid and the power of thousands of horses between his thighs. The brakes don't seem to work as they should and he really has no idea of what it's capable of, and it's the best thing he's ever felt.
Blake realises he's smiling fit to burst. He ducks his head low to avoid night-flying insects, and muffles his grin against the gas tank. As he ghosts past a white picket fence, the palings flicker like a bad sideshow. The engine sings its baritone chant into the night. He hears a police siren somewhere in the darkness, and resists the urge to turn the handlebars towards the sound.
Seconds later, he realises they're coming for him.
Blake doesn't even think. He twists the throttle sharply and switches off the lights, flying blind under a dark alleyway of trees. He navigates by instinct, praying that he doesn't hit a pothole, for about a hundred metres before he jerks the bike to a halt and crouches down against the tank.
The cop car slides past without noticing Blake in the shadows. The siren fades into the distance. Blake starts the bike up and takes the slow road back to the cave, moving at a more moderate speed to avoid attracting too much attention. By the way the wind whips at his hair; he must be doing at least a hundred.
The door slides open again to admit him, and he rides the bike straight back into its garage, moving with more confidence now he's figured out the basics. His jeans smell of gas and cool night air. Good times.
The note is still stuck to the console. Blake stares at the scrawl a long time before he calls the number.
There's only static on the other end of the line. Blake chalks the call up as a dead loss. He says "Hello?" anyway.
"Wayne?" The reply is quick and terribly hopeful. From the sound of it, Blake isn't the only one who doesn't think the Batman's dead. "Who is this?"
Blake frowns. "Who are you?"
"You are using the phone of a very good friend of mine," says the voice. It's male, older than Blake, and terribly polite in a way that is just one step shy of being rude."I leave it up to you to justify yourself."
"Oh. Sorry. John Blake. "
There is a long pause on the other end of the line.
"I used to be a cop."
"I know who you are, Mr Blake." The voice is cool, considering. "My name is Lucius Fox."
Blake recognises the name. It reminds him sharply of the long dark days of Bane's rule, of winter ice, chalked bats on the streets, and a pervading air of hopelessness. He remembers a lined dark face; a halo of white hair belied by a steely demeanour. "I remember you."
"So you're taking up the mantle," says the voice that is Lucius Fox.
"Who? Me?" Blake says. "No." He wonders what exactly he is doing even as he denies the truth he has been keeping from himself all this time.
"Mm. You used to be a police officer. So you're used to doing things by the book. It's a different attitude."
"I -what?"
"And you're shorter than Bruce." Fox sounds as if he's talking to himself rather than Blake." I'll need to do some adjustments. You should visit, Mr Blake. We'll have lunch. I've got some designs I'd like to show you. Tomorrow night?"
"I'm not Batman," says John Blake.
His declaration is greeted with silence. Blake tries again. "I'm no hero."
"A hero, Mr Blake," says Fox "is a man who does what he can."
"I can't," he protests.
"Mr Wayne thought you could." Fox's voice is mildly accusing, as if Blake's calling Bruce Wayne's judgement into question.
"Batman is dead."
"No, Mr Blake," Lucius Fox says. "Bruce Wayne is dead. Batman is immortal. Nine-thirty, at the tower. I'll be expecting you."
Then he hangs up.
John Blake pours himself another cup of coffee and bites his nails down to the quick. He leans back into the chair-his chair, now-and tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling.
Bruce Wayne is dead.
But Batman, thinks John Blake, will rise again.