Issue 8:
Contingencies for a Rainy Day
"Hello and welcome back to WeebMD, the first web series dedicated to your discount healthcare. I'm your host 'Doctor' Leo Gutierrez streaming from somewhere in Tijuana to the professional angst of medical providers worldwide. Today's episode is a quick walkthrough of something all you do-it-yourselfers should be familiar with. Join me as we explore self-surgery in our newest episode: Patching Up Bullet Holes. Now who hasn't been shot once or twice during say a botched robbery or a domestic dispute?"
Damian Wayne muted the sound as he laid the supplies out on the table before him. Upon hearing the brooding silence of Wayne manor he clicked it back on and peeled his suit off dropping it on the floor next to him. The bullet that caught him passed cleanly through his side taking some meat with it but posed no serious threat short of blood loss. He washed up and prepared the area with long q-tips of iodine.
A month ago Alfred would have been doing this while his father lectured him on what he did wrong and how there were no second chances with guns. It wouldn't matter that Damian recognized his mistake and corrected himself the second he felt that round tear into his torso. No one was there and hadn't been for almost thirty days. Dick, Barbara, and even the Watchtower remained unreachable. Onscreen the "doctor" hooked the sides of his patient's wound and began to stitch it together.
His patient howled in authentic pain. Damian followed suit and despite the jagged agony in his side he immensely enjoyed this part of the job. Burns, scratches, dislocated bones, or bruised organs could all be fixed with a video on WeebMD and a quick consultation with the hundreds of medical volumes in the library wing. Often times Damian woke up to find himself there in the afternoons after a long night on patrol surrounded by used gauze wrappers and bloody utensils with one or more extremities aching.
Many of the books were outdated but quite a few still held foundational knowledge still applicable in the field today. Idly Damian wondered how many his father had read, and he suspected whether the medical understanding Bruce had wasn't simply in an effort to reverse engineer the healing process. Even in these books of life his father would invent new, more painful methods of intimidation and fear to serve his purpose. The fact that someone or something out there was capable of making a man as scary as his father disappear deeply disturbed him.
After finishing his sewing project Damian lay back on the library floor and opened the Solo Protocols, a group of files left for him in case Bruce ever went out of commission. The first group of items was a listing of five villains Damian was to avoid at all costs: Joker, Poison Ivy, Bane, Scarecrow, and Mr. Freeze. His fourth night on patrol he ran into Victor Freeze himself at the shipping grounds attempting to ice the harbor. Victor refused to speak or reveal any part of his plan when Damian confronted him.
He merely attacked freezing crate after crate as Damian led him through a maze of truck sized containers. As Mr. Freeze closed in Damian attempted to climb the dead end that blocked his path. Towards the top he slipped on an invisible spot of ice and fell onto the ground in front of Victor. Still silent Victor grabbed him by the ankle dragging him out into the open. Activating the cold field generator on his suit Victor created subarctic temperatures in a twenty foot radius around him.
The frigid temperatures brought Damian around quickly, and futilely he tried crawling away only to find the skin on his hands stuck and left layers frozen on the cracking cement. Victor decreased the temperature further until Damian's limbs lost feeling. When he could take no more Damian tapped a button on his utility belt with a frosted finger. Around them a fog fell over the shipyards blinding them both. A hum and warm air began penetrating the field around them. The fog split in front of Victor revealing a monstrous, hovering machine.
Giant turbines seemed to spew fire at them as they cycled. At the moment Victor realized he was staring at the back of the Batwing it was too late. He cranked up his cold field to no effect as the engines fired their backdraft at the pair. Victor screamed as his suit went critical and shorted out. Heat washed over Damian and his blue lips parted.
"Oh yeah," he whispered and watched the villain's cryosuit sparking and smoking. He left Mr. Freeze incapacitated and put out a tip for the GCPD. Damian avoided contacting Gordon until he could rule him out as a suspect. At this time he couldn't rule out any possibility out when it came to the fate of his father. His distrust proved spot on when the rumors of SECURE came his way especially the fact they seemed to be sanctioned by the government.
"-and under no circumstances are you to let Jason wear the cowl," Bruce's automated message brought him back to the present, "For attacks on a worldwide scale contact Diana or Clark. If something seems off within the JLA itself go to Ollie first and if he seems affected try Jon. If reality itself appears altered go to Zatana or as a last resort seek out a man named John Constantine. There's an extensive file on him although be aware he will con anyone to save himself."
Damian drifted off as his father prepared him as well as possible. For a few minutes he imagined he wasn't alone and sleep took him. The next day he woke on the couch stiff but his wound looked okay. Popping an antibiotic to be on the safe side Damian passed on the pain pills. Those may have made him feel better but he couldn't afford to be dragged down. After a slow shower that hurt more than he expected Damian cooked some noodles and stir fry.
Searching for room in the sink for his dirty dishes proved fruitless so Damian left them on the counter and noticed the mountain was beginning to stink. Mentally he noted another of Alfred's duties he took for granted. When his comm badge chirped for the first time in weeks he instantly answered without thinking.
"Damian it's your mother," Talia stated sounding none too happy.
"Hey mom," Damian sighed.
"Don't 'hey mom' me. I call for weeks and hear nothing from you."
"I know it's been busy."
"Where's your father?"
"Umm, he's out right now."
"Typical, I'm calling because it's your grandfather's birthday today."
"Great. He's had like thousands of them."
"Damian, that man has almost everything he could ever want in the world and the only thing he asked for is a call from his grandson."
"Why should I? He's a genocidal maniac!"
"You will call him or I'll fly to Wayne manor and punish you myself."
"Fine."
"Good, listen sweetie I've got to run. The yacht is about ready to leave and we're going free diving off the coast of Australia to hunt some great whites."
"Why? Are you training for something?"
"What? No, it's my vacation week."
"Whatever. I'll call you later mom," Damian hung up and reloaded the few files he'd managed to collect on SECURE. What he had so far was piss poor detective work he knew. Everywhere he dug he only found small pockets of cells or associates of the security firm. No one with a confirmed name led back to the larger organization. These operatives appeared less like roots leading back to the trunk of a tree and more like seeds planted by an invisible hand left to flourish in the wild.
How could you detect something that always kept itself independent from the whole? It was a story here, a rumor there that didn't connect into the logical web that it should. Only recently and slowly his father began introducing the art of detective work to his son, but Damian found it wasn't anywhere near as cool or exciting as he imagined. They started on the basic logical process which Damian all but rejected at its core. For a reason even he couldn't quite pin down he bristled at the audacious assumption that everything in life could be input into an A then B then C formula.
Although Bruce's son in so many ways, he saw the world very differently than his father. Where Bruce might notice a single, statistical anomaly in a mountain of data, Damian would feel off about something that checked out completely and raised no red flags. This irritated Bruce to no end though he didn't know why.
"People don't follow reason. They ignore rationality so why would you expect the world to operate on that basis? After all the incredible things you've seen and done you still believe you can put things into their neat little categories and save them away in a file," Damian accused after on particularly heated lesson.
"It's precisely because of what I've seen that the logical process must be followed. If we don't have that foundation to build from everything we think we know is lost. To assume otherwise will guarantee the mistakes you make will be costly. To assume you know better is fantasy," Bruce replied harsher than usual.
"Punching Superman in the face is fantasy but you've done that. You're just too scared to let go," Damian declared. His father ended the conversation, and looking back Damian deeply regretted ever using the word scared to describe his father. Surprisingly the philosophy of "why" most resonated for Damian in the words of his grandfather Ras. Although an undoubted chess master Damian's grandfather instead taught him through the game of checkers when he was a child. For hours they would play while Ras explained the techniques of the Eastern war masters he studied with so long ago.
"When you set out to win a game of checkers or conquer the world, you can only design your tactics based on the opponent standing before you," Ras would say stroking his long beard, "or rocking in this case. Assuredly your enemy will do the same. In looking ahead and planning your strike your enemy themselves will create a series of expectations. Knowing your enemy can allow you to deduce these expectations and reject their presumptions founding an entirely different course of action to which their machinations cannot apply."
Loss after loss Damian would endure until Ras called the servants for their nightly pudding. Any flavor Damian could imagine was available to try and he did, all except butterscotch. As the old man regularly reminded everything in the world that was butterscotch belonged solely to the great Ras-Al-Ghul especially the pudding. On the one occasion Ras relented slipping the boy a bite after weeks of pleading, Damian turned up a sour face and nearly spit it back out.
Damian smiled remembering his grandfather's disappointed face. Leaning back in his chair he imagined a night here, just one night with two large veggie pizzas and WeebMD videos strictly for fun. Maybe he'd watch a few music videos from that pop star he liked, the one who could really, really dance. National Geographic had an excellent documentary on the latest advances in neuroscience. There was strawberry ice cream in the fridge and multiple messages from girls on Socialme.
Damien knew it was all lies when a standby code broke across the scanner. One of a hundred that night with ninety nine resulting in nothing, the code signaled suspicious activity being investigated. Between the location, time, and tone of the officer's voice plus something he couldn't identify he knew that code was the one. Already half-dressed he jumped up and ran for the Bat cave entrance. Taking the original route still perfectly maintained after all these years he slid down the old pole Bruce and Dick used to use.
With voice commands the jet was prepped and ready when Damian hopped in finally fully dressed. He left behind the food and the entertainment and the girls and being a teenager like he did every night. Every night Damian put on the mask and came home bruised, bloody, and sometimes barely alive. In fact he figured he owed quite a bit of money in thanks to the good "doctor" Leo Gutierrez. Every night something or someone put this city at risk, and he wondered how his father or Ollie or Dick did it.
He knew how John and Diana and Barry did it. Clark on the other hand was something else entirely. Seeing him in action made Damian thankful he was on their side. Although always fair to him Clark remained distant and sometimes looked at him in a way Damian could swear was fearful. He knew that to be impossible so he asked his father who admitted he may have been right.
"He sees me in you and remembers the strength of family. He knows my teachings go with you as they will go with your children. One day he'll be gone but the Wayne blood will continue to run."
"What if he has kids?" Damian asked. His father looked at him as serious as he ever had about anything.
"I expect you to keep them in line." Blasting out of the waterfall the Batwing handled like an expensive roadster and the sky had only a fraction of the potholes. He almost couldn't believe it when his comm lit up again this time with Jason Todd's ID tag. Their conversation was recorded by the jet's computers.
Damian: Hey, where are you right now?
Jason: At the frozen yogurt place in the mall.
D: That's weird. Since when do you take any down time? You're usually worse than Dick.
J: Sometimes I want something cold. What's it to you?
D: Are you geared up? Hood pulled low?
J: What? No of course not. Why would I be-
D: I just imagined you walking in, guns holstered, covered in blood and ordering a double.
J: You serve yourself at this place. You think you're a funny kid, huh?
D: I mean…I do okay.
J: Anyway I think I've got a tail. Two college aged women with a sorority look to them, been following me since the puzzle store. I think they could be mafia assassins or even Talons from the Court of Owls.
D: Are you insane? First, do NOT kill them. Second, they could be following you for another reason.
J: Oh. [Pause] You might be right, one just smiled. Sorry I've just been on edge lately.
D: Well good thing you've got that custard to sooth you. You know when Dick told me you were complete opposites I thought he was just trying to put some distance between you two but I totally see it now.
J: You know, you wouldn't be saying half of this crap if you were standing in front of me.
D: Eh, probably not that last thing about Dick.
J: So where are you? I heard the whole family was wiped out. I figured you were with them or you went back to your mom's. How's she by the way?
D: Screw you. No, I'm in town patrolling like usual. I've been on my own about a month now.
J: What? You've been going out alone? Alfred let you?
D: He's gone too. I've been working on a plan to get Batman and the family back.
J: No Damian, no more screwing around. Tell me where you are and I'll come pick you up.
D: Can't do it. I'm on patrol right now. I'll get back to you when I have something concrete.
J: No! Listen to me- wait-
When he hung up on Jason, Damian prepared himself to eject over the shipyards where he fought Mr. Freeze not so long ago. He sailed down in his wing suit over the only building reading infrared body heat. Two walking and a body in the corner presumably the cop shone in red and yellow against the blue and black surroundings. One figure was monstrous with a snout and long arms as wide as punching bags. The other morphed continuously first a swaying, shambling man on two legs then an amorphous blob sliding across the floor.
He immediately identified them as Killer Croc and Clayface. Despite downloading the legitimate inventory list on his flight in Damian found it difficult to locate what he was looking for amongst the thousands of stacked containers. When he was ready he slipped into the building by a skylight.
"Basil this is serious. I didn't put a number out there to get screwed over on delivery. The price is the price," Waylon Jones, the monster known as Killer Croc demanded, "You're trying to short me and I ain't going to stand for it."
"Come on man. I've got to have them. I've never seen any in such amazing condition either," Basil 'Clayface' Karlo pleaded eyeing the case in Waylon's hand, "My movie rights check didn't clear yet. I'm only fifty short. Sharon will understand. She's always liked me."
"No Sharon don't like you. She thinks you're a creep and she don't know nothing about this deal anyway."
"What? We hung out at the bar that night all of us. We laughed it up. I thought we got along pretty well," Basil pouted.
"What are we even talking about? You either have the money or you don't," Waylon said exasperated.
"I can't let you walk out of here without them," Basil stated sadly. Waylon grew five inches as he stood up straight.
"Be careful what you're saying bud," he growled. A voice rang out from above and they both turned craning their necks.
"If you guys are going to knock each other out can you get it over with so I can go home?" Damian asked landing on the floor. Croc wore a long tan trench coat and fedora while Basil wore nothing. If Damian was asked to describe Clayface he would have used the words brown and bubbling.
"This ain't got nothing to do with you, kid. We ain't doing anything wrong," Waylon objected. Damian shook his head as he approached the pair slowly.
"That would imply you're doing something right, Croc. Forgive me for the observation but you look like somebody who's never done anything right in his entire life."
"That's low kid," Basil protested, "He's got a skin condition. He can't help how he looks. You wouldn't make fun of a guy with psoriasis."
"Shut up, Basil," Damian and Waylon both stated in unison eyeing each other up and down. Waylon lunged at him tearing the air with his claws. Damian rolled left out of his wide range. Now he didn't even need to touch either of them to put his plan in motion, but Damian had the sudden urge to punch Croc in the face. They circled each other and Damian dodged back and forth waiting for his moment while letting his opponent tire. One swipe almost caught him in the belly, and that is when Croc overextended leaving his jaw wide open.
Damian swung and connected with a face that felt like a boulder. Instead of turning away from the blow to minimize the impact Waylon turned into it catching an incisor against Damian's forearm and tearing a gash open down its length. In a moment of shock Damian paused long enough for Croc to snatch him by the front of his suit. One swift throw sent Damian soaring through the air.
Well I did plan on getting them outside, he thought as his back connected with another skylight this time smashing through it. Damn that window was reinforced more than I figured, he then thought while firing the grappler. It locked onto an exposed pipe along the roof of the warehouse and brought him down onto the pier in a graceful arc. Two slash marks appeared on the wall before him with a screech like grinding a weld amplified through a bullhorn. Croc erupted through the wall but his momentum caused him to trip and fall on his face.
Damian almost laughed until he felt the wetness on his arm and finally examined the long, flowing wound Croc gave him. His nonchalant attitude turned to anger at the mess he would have to clean up at home.
"Do you have any idea how long this will take to stitch up?" He raged as Croc and Clayface approached, "You're going to feel really bad now." Croc snorted laughing or what passed for it as a reptilian man.
"I didn't mean emotionally, moron," Damian sighed pulling a glass container from his pack. He chucked the jar towards Croc's head who slashed it midair. Exploding in pieces it rained down a fine white powder covering Croc from head to toe. He paused confused for a moment and when nothing happened he approached Damian again.
"Nice try, kid. I'm gonna-" he stopped midsentence and midstep. Beady eyes went wide and he began clawing at his face and arms.
"Oh GOD, get it off me! Please! Basil, help me please!" Croc screamed falling to his knees. All over his body the scaly hide seemed to groan and contract. His skin cracked further and blood began to run from the crevasses. Looking on in horror Basil heard the blood curdling screams coming from his friend. When Damian turned on him with a crazy look in his eyes Boris himself screamed and tried to step back tripping and falling into one big pile of clay. A mouth and pseudo head rose from the mound.
"You're insane, kid! What'd you do to him?" Boris asked fear trembling from his throat.
"Oh the powder?" Damian said removing another jar from his pack, "It's an industrial drying agent concentrated at incredibly high levels. Some chemical they use to remove water from things in processing plants. It probably would have killed a regular person." He performed a silent count circling Clayface and edging him towards the harbor. It took Basil longer than expected to come to the conclusion Damian had laid out for him. Finally he shot a giant, dirty hand over the pier into the ocean funneling water through his mass. The fluid pile in front of him grew dark almost black as it flushed saturated with water.
"It won't work on me when I have all the water in the world," Basil shouted triumphantly.
"You'd be right," Damian answered lobbing the jar into what appeared to be Basil's chest, "if that's what was in this jar." What the container did hold was an alkali metal commonly found in any science lab. If Basil had time to examine the label he would have discovered it read "Sodium". Damian's Batarang cracked the glass and the water did the rest. The resulting explosion knocked him on his butt, wiped a whole section of the wooden pier to splinters, and sent pieces of Clayface a hundred feet into the sky. Hail rained down splattering the area with chunks of clay and mud. In no time Damian was covered in the heavy sludge.
"I didn't think that through at all," he mumbled to himself wiping his face with the back of his hand. Surveying the mess he imagined it would take a long time before Basil put himself back together. Waylon lay curled up whimpering with his eyes closed and occasionally seizing. Walking through Croc's exit in the building Damian recognized simply maintaining the status quo in Gotham wasn't enough during his father's absence. He needed to mount a rescue but he was alone. Quickly he located and picked up the case Croc stashed behind some crates.
Expecting drugs or weapons or stolen merchandise instead he found it full of cards. At first he thought they were baseball cards fitted in hard plastic cases. Upon further inspection he noticed they were pictures of babies in disgusting environments with funny names and descriptions.
"Garbage Pail Kids? What the eff is this?" Damian threw down the bag and walked outside waiting on the Batwing for extraction. He notified the GCPD while staring at the thin layer of Clayface splashed over everything.
"There's got to be a better way to do this," he said to himself and hit another contact on his comm list. The line rang a few times and a husky, weathered voice finally answered on the other end.
"Grandpa, it's Damian…DAMIAN! Happy birthday."