Hi, guys! Thanks ahead of time for giving this a chance! This is actually going to be my second story on this site, but my first for Batman. I absolutely fell in love with the Nolan-verse Batman trilogy after watching it and adoring it so many times that after watching The Dark Knight Rises, I just had to start a story for it. Now, this chapter is the first and it's more like a trial chapter, as in I'd like to see what people think of the idea, before I continue posting. It's going to be a bit more serious and meticulously done than some other stuff I've done on my own, so please NO FLAMES but I do accept constructive criticism when it comes around because I know how people can be and I swear I will try to be open-minded.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Batman/Dark Knight film. All of its affiliates are not mine either...Just Lucy…she's mine.
Please Enjoy!
Chapter 1:
Beneath the looming skyscrapers and the slowly setting sun, the small, thin figure of a young Lucy Blake walked with swift steps out of the hub of Gotham City. She didn't live there, not among the rich and the privileged at least. The only reason she made the trek toward the downtown area almost every single day was for the on-going hunt she had to find a company that would hire her for a journalism job or simple writing position. But on one or more occasions had the newspaper and magazine companies turned her away after hearing of her young age or simply because they laughed at her goals that were apparently too high for her to reach. However, this never kept her from going back every day nor did it actually bother her that they turned her away. Lucy was fully aware of the real reason they rejected her.
Gotham City had been quiet. Quiet for eight years straight, to be exact.
So with no major crime fallouts or visits from their famed, caped crusader, the most newspapers can report are petty crimes or shifts in the stock market, both of which, writing editors were convinced Lucy could not handle.
On that note, for the fifth time that week, Lucy trudged to the small apartment she called home and shared with her older brother John, a newcomer, albeit hotheaded, police officer for the GPD. With John's rather sparing salary, their apartment wasn't much. It was situated on the first floor of an old, brick building in the quieter, middle-class oriented part of town. Luckily for Lucy, it was no more than a twenty or thirty minute walk from downtown that she could easily make on her own.
When she arrived, she trotted up the front steps of the building and let herself in, peering upwards as she heard the faint sounds of children running down the hallway upstairs, creaking doors opening and closing and the scratchy voices of the old couple in muffled conversation. Shrugging to herself as this was the norm, Lucy fished her keys out of her messenger bag and let herself into apartment 104A, only throwing the lock on the door knob and the dead bolt, but left the chain undone so it was easier on John when he got home.
Their apartment itself, now that Lucy looked at it, was humble and modest in every sense of the word. It was clean and held the few pieces of furniture she and John had picked out before moving in. No glamour or unnecessary decor sat on their walls, save for a few picture frames that captured the few happier times they had.
And for Lucy Blake, those times were very scarce.
In her seventeen years of life, she had witnessed too many dark times. Orphaned at a young age, she watched as Gotham City nearly tore itself apart and fall into the hands of crime and chaos, only to be saved by a masked vigilante who seemingly disappeared years ago. Had she remembered who her parents were or where she really came from, maybe she would have been more optimistic through the turmoil, seeing as she would have more reasons to believe there was still some good in the world. But that is where John Blake comes in.
When Lucy met John Blake, she was six years old and was being claimed as a Ward of the State. He, at the time, was pushing seventeen years old with an intention to make something of himself as soon as he was able to leave his boys' home. But when the orphanage across the street gained a new addition in the childlike form of Lucy Chambers—her old former family name—John found himself easily attached to the little girl, and she to him, and did what he could to protect and guide her, as her naivety at the time did nothing to help her understand her situation. Needless to say, when the time came for John to leave his boys' home, he made a promise that he wouldn't leave Lucy behind. So in light of that, after John completed four years at the community college and became of legal age, the first thing he wished to do, aside from become an officer of the GPD, was to adopt Lucy into his family.
And years later, it went without saying that both of those endeavors were successful.
Now presently, Lucy walked further into their apartment, toward their living room and tossed her bag haphazardly onto the pull-out couch, accidentally dropping it on the television remote. Lucy nearly jumped out of her skin as their small TV set turned on, its volume loudly pervading the former silence of the apartment. She dove for the remote to lower the volume but stopped short at the sight of the current newscast.
"…Ongoing manhunt for the recently disappeared Congressman," The announcer stated as a photo of said Congressman appeared onscreen.
Lucy's attention and interest were immediately raised. She somehow swiftly maneuvered herself over the back of the couch and sat down, digging out her leather journal and pencil out of her bag while she turned the volume up as the announcer continued with their details.
"Police claim the Congressman went missing last night after he failed to return home after attending anniversary party at the Wayne Mansion, in honor of Gotham's fallen hero, Harvey Dent…"
Lucy's hand that was scribbling away with the announcer's facts instantly stilled at the mention of Harvey Dent. She had forgotten that yesterday was the first day of Gotham's own declared holiday of Dent Day. How she could have forgotten was beyond her, as everyone had been discussing it (for lack of better news) for awhile now. But it was ironic, in Lucy's eyes that the Congressman would go missing on the day that marked possibly the end of organized crime in Gotham. Who's to say this wasn't a sign that organized crime was not yet over? However, that seemed unlikely seeing as every criminal involved in the organized crime circle was locked away in Blackgate Prison, in accordance to the Dent Act.
But even that didn't prevent Lucy from noting her speculations on the missing Congressman in her journal.
Lucy attempts to be as updated on the city-wide news as much as she can be, even keeping profiles on public figures, like the Wayne family or Commissioner Gordon, for extra brownie points. She chose to keep note of these things, in hopes that her collection of personally gathered observations would give her some upper hand in nabbing a job. But as it has been mentioned before, the Dent Act has cleaned up the streets so much so that journalists have to scrounge around till the slightest infringement on the Dent Act or general law appears, and when it does, they have to grab the details as they come. But being detailed was something Lucy was good at, especially now considering she was in desperate need of something more interesting to report about instead of the stock market numbers, as those happen to be the things of interest lately. Lucy, on the other hand, always pinned the stock market as a rather droll subject for her.
So with a few last pencil flourishes and scratch outs, Lucy completed her notes, along with her personal annotations, of the recent news. However, she was only partially satisfied, as she knew that you could only get so much out of the censorship of the GCN. Lucy just knew that she'd have to wait till John got home to ask for any more updates that she didn't already know.
With that in mind and a sigh escaping her lips, Lucy shut her journal and reclined on the couch cushions. On the TV screen, the newscast had gone bland to the visual tastes and after some flipping through the other channels, Lucy realized that blandness was the uniformity in the Gotham TV stations. She shut the TV off then and tossed the remote onto the coffee table. Her arm folded underneath her head like a pillow and a yawn found its way to her lips, before she fell into a calming nap.
It was the sound of locks sliding from their bolts that roused Lucy from her sleep some time later. Barely waking, she rubbed her eyes and slowly sat up, as the front door opened and the rookie officer, John Blake, came through the door.
"John?" Lucy yawned, looking through fairly sleep-blurred eyesight to see the general shape of John walking in.
"Yeah, it's me, Lu." John greeted, using her nickname that reassured that it was him. "Did I wake you?"
Lucy shook her head as she stretched. "No, not really. I was just taking a short nap for an hour or so."
"Hour or so? Lucy, it's already nine-thirty." He informed her, pointing at his watch for extra emphasis.
Lucy looked out the window, where, sure enough, night was falling upon Gotham City. She always thought it was incredibly strange: how no matter the progression of the day, Gotham's skies always tend to darken earlier than most.
"I brought dinner. Wasn't sure if you had eaten anything yet." John said, interrupting her small musings about the rising and setting sun in Gotham.
Lucy turned away from the window at the sound of food, her stomach also responding to the call with a growl. But while she looked up, noting the pizza box in his hands, she also noted that we was rather damp-looking and had led a small trail of water from the front door to where he stood in their small kitchen.
"Why are you…wet?" She asked still sounding a bit drowsy which partly convinced her that maybe her eyes were just playing with her. But after opening her eyes a bit more, her eyes started to pick out the details of his current state.
His tall, lanky body that was often bogged down unattractively beneath layers of his GPD uniform was indeed soaked through and through. His dark hair was slowly following out of its gelled back style to frame his pallid, weary looking face, while drips of water fell off of him and onto the floor.
"About that. It's nothing, really." He said, taking a look at himself. "Just had a run through the outflows of the sewers, that's all."
"I'm assuming there's a good reason you were at the outflows in the first place, let alone the Narrows." Lucy said, recalling the fact that the outflows were on the outskirts of the Narrows and she learned from John himself that no police officer went to the Narrows unless in teams of four.
"We were following up on the disappearance of the Congressman." John explained, stripping his jacket off and wringing it out over the kitchen sink, before hanging it on one of the cabinet doors to dry.
Lucy perked up at the mention of that and sat up a bit taller. "Oh! I saw that on the news today. So did you find him?"
"Oh, we found him alright."
"But…in the Narrows?" Lucy clarified with him.
John nodded. "As crazy as it sounds, yes."
"A funny place to find a Congressman, don't you think?" Lucy said, trying and failing to envision one of Gotham's influential public figures in any proximity to the Narrows.
"I'm with you on that one, Lu. But it did give us another lead. Somewhere down in the sewer lines."
Lucy's eyebrows knitted together as she remembered hearing an awful lot of things concerning the sewers nowadays form kids and just people she walks by in the streets and alleys. Apparently, according to rumor, the sewers had become the new black market of Gotham, offering odd jobs and objects here and there. Of course, it's all supposition that Lucy hears, but when there are orphans and people disappearing into the sewers and only a few come out short of alive at the outflows, Lucy won't leave that to speculate, even if the authorities is convinced it's nothing.
"So did you find anything down there?" Lucy asked, now wanting to hear more than what just occurred with the Congressman.
"I didn't. But Commissioner Gordon went down there." John told her, while he set out plates on their kitchen table.
"And?" Lucy asked, anticipating some climactic elaboration of the story.
John stopped what he was doing. He looked like he was about to answer, but he was shaking his head as if he were also puzzled by what went on down there.
"I don't know exactly, Lu. But I know that Commissioner Gordon went in with a team of four SWAT team members and came out alone, almost unconscious, and at the outflows." He stated in a straightforward way before detouring onto a lighter subject for a moment as he pointed to the food. "Come on, get some dinner."
Lucy got up from the couch, but her questions didn't cease, as her curiosity was only beginning to be engaged.
"Is the Commissioner, alright?" Lucy asked, genuinely concerned for the man who had been half responsible for the huge Dent Act clean-up. From what John has told her and what she can fathom from the newscasts, he appears to be a true patron for the good of Gotham, despite some of his methods being a bit different than the norm. But it got the job done. So no one questioned it.
"He suffered a gunshot or two, but the man has seen worse days. But when I pulled him out, he was mumbling on and on about some army and a man in a mask." John said, sounding partly skeptical, while a part of him sounds like it expresses some belief in Commissioner Gordon's words.
True, at first, hearing the words, Lucy would think that the Commissioner wasn't in his right mind. But then again, this is Gotham and crazier things have happened.
"What do you think? Believe him?" Lucy asked John.
John sighed as he sat down across from her, roughly combing his hands through his hair.
"I don't know, Lu. The deputy commissioner thinks Commissioner Gordon was too disoriented to be logical and that I may possibly nuts." He admitted, knowing that the force hardly ever recognized the opinions, of the younger officers, himself in this case, which is why he may be acting so unsure of himself.
"But, he did mumble something that made some sort of sense."
"Which was?"
John looked up from his plate and squarely into her eyes, saying with solid sureness, "Batman."
Lucy felt like she was briefly uplifted. The name that now brought accusatory eyes and comments around Gotham was anything but accusatory in the eyes of the Blake siblings. Contrary to what majority of the citizens and authorities believe, John and Lucy were convinced that Batman wouldn't have disappeared the way he did, not after everything he's done for Gotham. They were among the few that still believed, the Commissioner also being one of them, which is why John and Lucy still find some glimmer of hope in hearing the Commissioner even mumble the name of Batman after eight long, silent years.
After the mention of Batman, they continued dinner in silence, as both Lucy and John had receded into their own muddled jumble of thoughts concerning the Batman. When they finished, John picked up the plates and washed them, while Lucy returned to the couch where her journal sat waiting for her to return with a pencil in hand.
"Do you want the bed tonight, Lu?" John asked above the sound of the running water in the sink.
Lucy turned around and quickly declined the offer. "You can have the bedroom tonight. You look like you need a good nights' rest."
This certain arrangement was created for the reason that their apartment was only a one bedroom apartment, so they alternated, respectively of course. And after seeing and hearing what John had experienced tonight on the job, Lucy knew that obligated him to the bedroom privileges for tonight.
Besides, the pull out couch isn't so bad. She thought to herself.
However, in return for John getting bedroom privileges tonight, Lucy was allowed to use the single bathroom first. She made her bathroom trip quick, showering enough to wash away the dirt and trials of the day. Feeling clean and refreshed, Lucy returned to the living room where John was in the process of fixing up the pull out bed for her. She stopped at the entrance of the living room, pausing her movements of towel drying her black hair, as she shed a grateful smile at John's brotherly tendencies.
"John, I can take it from here." Lucy entered the living room and took the sheets he was unfolding into her own hands. "Go shower, please. 'Sewer Rats' is not an appealing after scent."
John gave a light hearted chuckle at the girl he was glad to call his sister and ruffled her damp hair before obliging her request. Because he has to admit, he didn't smell or look too lovely.
John left the room and Lucy finished making up her bed. When she heard the shower turn on, was when Lucy sat down and took up her journal again. She swiftly took down all that was discussed earlier, moving through several pages at a time. Unfortunately the more she wrote, the more she became enthralled in her own head and personal questions that Lucy didn't hear the shower stop or notice John standing behind her, reading over her shoulder.
"Writing again?" He suddenly asked, making Lucy flinch in surprise and slam her journal shut.
Lucy looked up at him, her hand on her chest to calm herself. But she saw the concern hiding behind his casual expression. Lucy was aware that John was always wary of things she wrote. It wasn't that he didn't support her advanced writing skills, after all he gave her that very journal she was writing in for that very reason, but it was subjects of which she wrote that concerned him. He believed that a girl her age should not concern herself with the serious or darker sides of Gotham, let alone keep a record of it all. But John knew he couldn't stop her, she was naturally observant, often times, too observant for her own good.
"Er…yeah, I was." Lucy said, fingering the cover of her journal.
John nodded his head, not wanting to question her further rather he patted her on the head and placed a small, almost father-like kiss on her head.
"Well, put it away. It's late and we both should get some sleep." John said, playing his proper role as her guardian.
Lucy nodded her head obediently and even added a mock salute. "Sir, yes sir!"
John smiled at her antics and let her get settled into bed on her own, while he went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water before he hit the sack. He quickly filled a glass and returned to the living room, where Lucy had situated herself underneath her blankets and had yet to let go of her journal.
"Good night, Lu." He said with a warm smile, as Lucy returned the response in the same manner. He gave one more sweep of the room to make sure things were in place before he reached for the light switch, with the intention to turn it off, but paused as Lucy suddenly spoke out.
"Wait!" John turned to her questioningly. Lucy looked down at her lap for a moment, seeming hesitant at first but eventually was able to just say what she had been pondering for a while since the subject came up. "John, do you think he'll ever come back? Batman, I mean. It's been eight years, I realize that. But do you think that there's a chance that he'd…" Her voice trailed off, sounding meek and almost like a child praying in hope, but her face was the tell-tale portrait of how long she'd been keeping this question inside.
John mirrored her earlier movement of looking down, because that somehow seemed the best way to contemplate things. This question wasn't hard to answer. It was either yes or no, he knew that and perhaps, so did Lucy. So he answered her in the way he deemed appropriate.
"He'll come when we need him. He always has." John said, with a set conviction because that's what he believed to be true. He's believed it for years since before he was Lucy's age, might as well relay it to Lucy.
Lucy only nodded her head, silently accepting his answer.
"Go to sleep, Lu. See you in the morning." John said, trying to end the night on a different note.
He flicked off the lights, after sending Lucy another reassuring smile, but Lucy was anything but tired at the moment. She believed John when he said that Batman would return when they needed him. But she had decided to keep it to herself that part of her, the part in the pit of her stomach where gut feelings tend to reside, felt like that time was approaching, and very soon at that.
With those foreboding thoughts swirling in her head, Lucy curled up underneath her blankets and willed herself to sleep, unknowingly clutching her journal to her chest, as if it were her comfort item to ward off nightmares.
Nightmares of cities burning to ash underneath the hand of a menacing, masked man.
Please feel free to tell me what you think, believe, like, dislike, suggest etc. And just an extra side note, I got this idea the second time I went to go watch TDKR and I was waiting at a Starbucks with my journal and I just started to write…I pray it goes somewhere good