A Friend in the Night...
A/N: Just a little one-shot from the POV of James Gordon as he reflects on the career of the Batman and his own association with the Dark Knight. Partly inspired by the Grant Morrison two-parter 'Last Rites'.
In the beginning, I was just a cop. A cop who happened to be the only clean one in the godforsaken hellhole called Gotham City, which was never an easy thing to be. The rot in this city was tearing it apart inside out, the rot that stretched from its dirty underbelly to the penthouse apartments of the city's 'finest', and, which was saddest of all for me, also permeated into the service which I had sworn my undying allegiance to...an allegiance which seemed increasingly to be amounting to nothing; a mission to salvage a city that seemed to have lost all meaning.
And then he came. And everything changed forever. For Gotham. For its people. And for me.
In those early days, he was just a rumour. An urban myth spoken of by the underworld in frightened whispers. We thought he was just a bogeyman in tights that the psychos had dreamed up through the long nights of intoxication. And then the evidence began to pile up. Evidence that there really was something or someone out there on the rooftops at night, beating criminals to a pulp, apprehending crooks before we even knew they existed, leaving them trussed up outside police headquarters. The 'Bat-Man' was real, and while my less than scrupulous superiors on the force wished to take him off the streets, being as he was a menace to their 'benefactors' in the Mob, and others saw him as a dangerous psychopath to be put down, I was the only one who knew him for what he was...someone like me. Someone trying to clean up this city. Someone who, unlike me, was not bound by rules and regulations, red tape and bureaucracy, or even corrupt city officials for that matter.
I was tasked with apprehending the vigilante. Instead, I collaborated with him, leaving him free to take on the real criminals. Our partnership in those first few months was conducted behind the scenes, and yet I began to feel a part of his world. And the realisation did not unnerve me in the least. On the contrary, it excited me...the fact that my hunger for justice was finally being satiated, even if it was through the means of a man in a Halloween costume. Finally, I was really contributing, really doing some good for this city.
It wasn't long before my secret partnership with the bat paid off, both for me personally and for the city. Barely before the year was out, the city was already looking cleaner, its future was already looking brighter, more than half its criminals were safely behind bars or at least out of business...and as for me, I was already well on my way to becoming Commissioner of the force I had long hoped to cleanse of its rot.
Then, things began to escalate. Thing became crazier. Catwoman, Scarecrow, Two Face, Riddler, Penguin, Hugo Strange, to name but a few of the new breed of criminal mastermind that he first came face to face with. And of course, the Joker. The psychopathic killer clown who unleashed a carnage upon the city, the like of which had never been seen before and was seen far too often after. After the brief burst of optimism, things began to look grim again. He and I had both been prepared for the mobsters, the muggers, the rapists, the corrupt City Hall officials...but not, this. Madness, sheer insanity...death with a smile. Things became so grim, and the Batman's determination and patience was pushed to such extremes, that I almost feared he would snap under the pressure of it all.
But then, relief came from the most unexpected quarter.
A child came into his life, a boy no older than ten or twelve, clad in colourful red and yellow and green, to contrast with his own dark hues, named after the Robin Hood he was dressed as. Robin was the light who penetrated through the darkness of his world, and in the process, through the darkness of mine as well. The boy gave me hope, just as he gave his cowled mentor hope. The Batman was a product of the city's traumatic guilt-ridden past, but to me the Boy Wonder represented its bright future.
Before long, he began to change. The suit changed, and so did his attitude. He began to look less like a 'Dark Knight' and more like a caped crusader for justice. His tone softened considerably from the steely one he'd had when we first met. Even the city seemed to radiate with the Boy Wonder's spirit. The criminals too were less murderous psychopaths and more costumed pranksters. It was a time of innocence, an age of simplicity, of fun even. An age where the Batman became simply 'Batman'.
His extended 'family' grew as well. First there was the Batwoman and Bat-Girl. Later, there would come a second Batgirl, one who even then seemed disturbingly familiar to me. Even now, when I know that it was my dear daughter Barbara who was behind that particular cowl, I would never ask her to violate the trust she'd built up with the Dynamic Duo during those years, never ask her to betray their secrets.
But something else betrayed Batman. Time. Time flew by mercilessly. His sidekick grew up and left to become his own man, as he inevitably would. For a time, he went solo again, and in his loneliness, the darkness threatened to nearly consume him again. Then another kid came into his life, bearing his predecessors mantle, but far brasher, far more aggressive. But this new Robin brought not light, but more darkness into his mentor's life, with his death. Having faced the personal grief of seeing my daughter crippled by the Joker, combined with this fresh tragedy, I could not but help wonder if all we'd worked on together for all those years had been in vain.
But life went on. A new Robin came. New heroes were born across Gotham, inspired by my caped ally's example. Events became cyclical. Things improved, only to get worse, only to get better again, and so on. But even as years flew by faster than they did before, I could not but help think that a part the man behind the cowl was still trapped in the traumas of the past...both those that created him and the more recent ones that haunted him even as they sustained him.
His descent into darkness continued, but though it often threatened to, it never destroyed my faith in him and his ability to do right in this city. But it did nearly destroy him, as I feared it would. Through a torturous series of events, he was broken down completely, bit by bit. But just as he had once rebuilt the city so long ago now, likewise he rebuilt himself, bit by bit. He became stronger than ever, wiser than ever. Never before had the power of his symbol been more potent. A symbol he now chooses to spread around the world. But no matter which corner of the world he's in now, no matter what his current plans to save the world from itself are, I have faith that if I need him, if this city needs him, he'll always be there for us. I know that when I lit that signal and look to the skies, I can always count on help from my old friend in the night.