Prologue
He woke up in an alley, none the worse for wear.
He sat up, taking note of his surroundings: a street light ahead of him in the distance, a couple of lights attached to the buildings framing both sides of the alley, three dumpsters.
He smelled the garbage you'd expect in a city dumpster - and a decaying corpse.
He took a closer look at the dumpster with the corpse as he struggled to his feet.
Enhanced vision had plenty of benefits, including x-ray vision. He'd have to open the dumpster to take a closer look at the body, but he initially guessed based on the smell and lack of skeletal deterioration that it had been there a couple of days.
The back of his neck and head still felt tender, from the blow he took. It must've been a couple of hours at least, he thought. It was enough to knock me out, for sure.
He took another look around at his surroundings.
"Why does this look familiar," he muttered.
He took a close look at a certain part of the alley, off in the distance, away from the dumpster with the corpse.
A few moments later, he leapt and flew over the 65 feet where the spot was. He hovered, ten feet off the ground, taking a very close look.
Then, he realized where he was at.
This is Crime Alley, he thought.
Where the Waynes were shot.
Years ago, when he was with the League, Bruce Wayne took him and showed him the spot where Bruce's parents died...and where the Batman was born.
Knowing where he was at triggered another realization.
I'm in Gotham, and my team needs me...I've got to find them.
He felt around his pockets. His phone, miraculously, was still there. So was his badge, and his NCIS identification card.
Agent Tim Kerry strained to remember where his team was when he lost consciousness...where was that warehouse again?
He flew away from Crime Alley down a street filled with liquor stores, dives, bars, strip clubs and porn shops; this definitely wasn't a part of town the city fathers promoted as the New Gotham.
Tim Kerry looked and looked for a Gotham PD vehicle, or an unmarked car used by some undercover cop; he wanted to see what GCPD knew about his fellow agents, including two who really should have stayed back in Washington.
"No cops? Where in hell are they-"
Then it hit him. The situation at the warehouse, possibly so big by now that all of GCPD's cruisers were probably there.
How would the police - much less his teammates - handle some of the interdimensional thugs he remembered fighting a short time before, one of whom probably landed the blow that sent him all the way to Crime Alley.
Tim needed help, and quick. He'd have to contact Bruce.
As he flew higher to find the GCPD's main headquarters, and its Bat-Signal, he heard a helicopter approaching his vicinity, a mile away and closing fast. He turned around, zooming in on the copter with his enhanced vision.
It had the famous Bat symbol on the front, and on the sides. And the people in it?
Bruce, geared and suited up, in the pilot's chair, and his son, Damian, also fully suited up, riding shotgun.
"Agent Kerry, this is Batcopter One. Please acknowledge." Tim heard from his phone.
He pulled out his phone - which had a slight crack on the front screen - and spoke into it.
"Agent Kerry, NCIS," he said. "Good to see you, Batman."
"You're needed, Major Steel," Bruce said, as Agent Kerry - a.k.a. Major Steel, his superheroic code name pre-NCIS - flew quickly toward Batcopter One. "Your team is holding its own, and my team's there to help them. But we need to get back to the warehouse now."
"Acknowledged," Tim said, as he approached the copter, knocking on its front window. He swore he saw the faintest hint of a smile on Bruce's face, even as his son Damian looked fully focused and fully serious.
"Kate yelled at me to bring you back," Bruce said, turning the copter 135 degrees west southwest back towards the warehouse where the NCIS agents, GCPD and Batman's heroic associates were fighting off metahuman goons from Earth III. "Gibbs and Ziva are holding up well."
"We shouldn't have brought them," Tim said, flying right alongside the copter as it sped towards its destination. "You have Kal or Kara on speed dial?"
"Both, and Diana," Bruce said. "J'onn and his team are already there."
"Any signs of the Syndicate?" Tim said.
"None," Bruce said, "although I'm prepared for their arrival."
"They're the last thing we need to deal with," Tim replied.
The copter, and the agent flying next to it, approached the abandoned warehouse, located in one of Gotham's industrial sections. There must have been a hundred police cars surrounding the building and the block it was in, and Tim saw constant flashes of light he assumed were from some pretty heavy duty weapons.
"It looks like a damn war down there," Tim said.
"Robin," Bruce said. "Get on Agent Kerry's back. Kerry, fly Robin down there, I'll follow you in."
"Got it," Tim said.
Damian Wayne - the newest Robin - jumped on Kerry's back, and the agent flew into the maelstrom, towards his team. As he did so, Tim thought of how this whole thing started, nearly a day before, with the recovery of a body near a park bench in Washington...