Fallout: Gotham

Pairing(s): Batstroke Bruce Wayne/Slade Wilson, Lois Lane/Clark Kent, etc.

Preview: Vault 18

Description: DCU Fallout AU. The nuclear fallout had literally dropped a bomb on the people of America, and it hadn't been long before the continent was nothing but a deserted Wasteland. Now, an ex-Vault Dweller named Bruce Wayne travels with an ex-Raider mercenary called Deathstroke, and the two do odd jobs for various cities in Illinois. However, when Vault 18 suddenly opens up not far from where they're at, the two scavengers are eager to scope out the Vault for tech and supplies, but are appalled to find the Vault already destroyed and massacred by Raiders. But to all's surprise, Bruce finds a newborn baby in the wreckage, and with Deathstroke's help, begins to raise the child in the Wastes. Are the scavengers really up to the task of raising a child?

"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on." ~Carl Sandburg.

"Hold on a little longer, Mary!" John begged, holding onto his wife's hand as if it were a lifeline. "Please, we need to wait! We can't have the baby here!"

"John, I can't stop it!" Mary screamed, her voice drowning out the Raiders from outside. "Oh God, John, it's coming! It's coming!"

"I know, Mary! Just hold on a little longer!" John pleaded, panic flooding his brain with paranoia and stress. "Doctor Haley, can you deliver the baby here? We can't wait any longer!"

"I-" A bang from outside made Doctor Haley freeze, the doctor's eyes widening. "I'll do my best! Help me get her on the bed. Quickly now!" The two men both picked Mary up off the floor and placed her on a medical bed. "Alright, now go boil some water in the kitchen and get towels from the closet! I'll see about the child."

"Hurry, Doctor Haley!" Mary begged, clutching her round stomach with a horrified expression. "Oh God, the baby! I'm going to lose my baby!"

"Please calm down, Mrs. Grayson." Dr. Haley ordered, pulling on a pair of pink rubber gloves. "If you panic too much the baby could be born too hastily!"

"My baby will die either way!" Mary screamed, looking as if she were losing her mind. "I'm going to lose them to monsters from the Wastes!"

The doctor didn't bother answering Mary, too busy trying to get the table set as Mary already started trying to push the baby out. "Shit!" Haley exclaimed, poking his head into the room John was boiling water in. "Bring the water and towels; I don't care if the water is ready or not! Mary is delivering early!"

John nodded, grabbing the burning hot pot off of the burner without any gloves on, pure adrenaline keeping him from screaming or dropping the pot as he ran back to Doctor Haley, the towels draped over his left shoulder. "I'm here, Mary!" He promised, coming to Mary's side after setting the pot down on a table. "Don't worry, I'm here! I'm not leaving you!"

"They're gonna break down the door!" A nurse, from the far end of the Vault's clinic, warned in a terrified tone of voice. "Doctor Haley, we don't have much time!"

"Hold on, Mary's baby is coming!" Haley yelled back, focusing again on Mary as the baby started to finally come out. "Easy, Mary. Breathe and push!"

In a matter of minutes, the baby was in the doctor's arms, hurriedly being washed off as John and Mary both tried to calm down, the clinic's main door being banged on excessively not far away. "It's a boy!" Haley promised, giving the child to Mary. "What do you want me to do?"

For a moment, Mary simply stared at the baby boy, as if she couldn't believe that this tiny human being was her's and had been birthed from her. But after a minute or two passed, she smiled a bit, her baby not yet opening it's eyes as she turned back to John, then to Doctor Haley. "Go get one of the medical wrist bands and write 'Richard G' on it for me, then bring it here."

The doctor obeyed the once pregnant woman, clipping the band around the baby's wrist himself as the child was handed back to him. "Mary, wh-" He was cut off as the door to the rest of the Vault was finally broken down, only one door left blocking the Raiders from the doctor and young couple.

"Hide him." Mary ordered, tears beginning to stream down her face as she watched the doctor tuck a yellow blanket around the newborn baby, before hiding him in a storage closet. "Thank you, Doctor Haley... we can never repay you for this."

"I only hope you can forgive me, Mary." John begged, hugging his wife close as bangs erupted on the door to the room, making the woman begin to sob, mainly to drown out the baby's crying. "I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault, John. It was never your fault." Mary promised, closing her eyes as the doors broke down, the Raiders flooding in like hyenas.

"If we hurry, we'll get there first." Bruce informed his partner, walking ahead of the older mercenary at a fast pace. "I don't want to be late for this, Deathstroke."

"I know, I know. Shut your damn mouth, Wayne." Deathstroke ordered, earning a harsh over-the-shoulder glare from Bruce. "We'll get there in time, don't worry."

"We can't afford to keep losing these supplies, Slade." Bruce explained, not looking nearly as relaxed as the other man. "If you don't recall, last time a Vault opened, you got us damn near killed."

"It was us or them, Bruce. Really, the Vault was no good to begin with. Nothing but Feral Ghouls in there when it finally opened." Deathstroke pointed out, hands up in fake surrender due to Bruce's obvious agitation. "Wait... is that smoke?"

Bruce squinted at the huge pit they'd been walking towards, noticing the big, dark smoke clouds rolling steadily out from within a small door in the pit's inner wall. "That's the Vault... Vault 18." He claimed, staring at it with an almost amazed expression under his T-51b powered infantry helmet. "Come on, if we're lucky we'll actually find something useful... looks like Raiders beat us to it."

Deathstroke shrugged, unfazed by the possible loss of resources. "Figures. Damn Raiders are addicted to Vaults. They're full of innocent Dwellers... crazy bastards." Bruce, in response, made no comment on Deathstroke's history with Raiders. He just kept running.

The two scavengers of the Wastes stepped lightly as they hurried down the large slope leading towards Vault 18, looking to have been abandoned rather quickly. The two were dead quiet as they walked into the open Vault, the stench of death and blood thick and heavy in the building. Without a word, both men searched for a medical ward, after all, if they could find some Stim-Paks, the adventure would've been well worth it. It wasn't long before they found it, the front door to the clinic having been torn down by the looks of it. Like the entryway of the Vault, the floors were splattered with the guts and blood of Vault Dwelling nurses and doctors, the walls coated in their bloody hand-prints.

Though they doubted there was anything left of value, both Bruce and Deathstroke trudged on, finding another once barricaded room. The bedroom was by far the most gruesome, a dead doctor on the ground, two bullet wounds in the head, severed from it's body along with the doctor's arms and legs. Two other Dwellers were in similar states, though looking to have been more tortured. As Deathstroke inspected the bodies for gear, Bruce searched more thoroughly around the room, until he found what appeared to be an untouched closet. From the other side, Bruce could just faintly make out muffled crying/sobbing, sounding like it belonged to a baby or child. With a nod to Deathstroke, Bruce pried open the door.

Inside, Bruce found a yellow baby blanket wrapped securely around a squirming form. The crying had become almost deafening, and even Deathstroke stopped to stare at the small package as, very delicately, Bruce picked up the bundle and peeked inside, almost gasping as he came face to face with the bluest eyes he'd ever seen. The baby was most clearly a newborn, probably born right before, or even more tragically, during the invasion of Raiders. Poor parents, Bruce thought, staring down at the infant with pity. Pretty shit way to enter the world, only to lose the only family you've got and left to starve to death, or much worse, shredded by Raiders and their dogs. Bruce held the crying infant, ignoring the stern look Deathstroke was throwing him from under his mask.

"Absolutely not." Deathstroke deadpanned, watching intently as Bruce so delicately held and rocked the bawling baby, trying to end it's cries and suffering. "We are not taking a newborn with us. What would we even do with it?"

"Shut up." Bruce ordered, completely ignoring the mercenary as he gazed down at the baby. "Hello there." He whispered, rocking the baby further. "My name is Bruce. What's your's?"

"Do you really expect it to-" Deathstroke was cut off, Bruce in one full swoop yanking a bent up can off the floor and chucking it with more force than was necessary at the man.

"Ignore him. Here, let's just check if you're a boy or a girl." Bruce decided, setting the newborn down on an empty medical bed, pulling open the blanket to find the baby completely naked underneath. "Looks like you're just a little boy, huh chum?"

"Lovely." Deathstroke rolled his only working eye at Bruce's affectionate behavior towards the baby, rubbing his head where the can had struck him. "Now put it back and let's go, before those Raiders come back."

"Raiders never strike twice, Slade." Bruce reminded the mercenary, pulling off his helmet to smile down at the little baby boy. "We can't just leave you all alone, huh? Would you like to come with us?" He asked the baby, not waiting for an answer before re-wrapping up the baby and heading for the door. "You coming, Slade?"

Deathstroke groaned aloud, glaring wholeheartedly at his partner. "Fine." He agreed, following after the fellow Wastelander. "But only because you'll get yourself and the kid killed if I'm not around." He muttered, trying not to come off as protective as he really was.

Bruce saw through it though, but didn't comment, too busy trying to keep the baby calm and safe from harm's way. "Hey, what's this?" He asked himself, and maybe Deathstroke, pulling out the baby's arm from the bundle to read a small wristband on the child's little arm. "'Richard G'?"

Deathstroke peered over Bruce's shoulder, which wasn't hard, considering he was much taller than the other Wastelander. "Richard? He has a name?" He inquired, a bit surprised by this fact. Most abandoned kids didn't come with names if they were just infants or newborns.

"Guess so." Bruce replied, holding Richard close as he and Deathstroke emerged outside of the huge Vault. "We should head for a town... maybe a shelter town for now. Somewhere we can get baby supplies, diapers, bottles, anything that might work."

"You're really serious about this, aren't you?" Deathstroke appeared not nearly as surprised as one might expect, but maybe it was the fact that he'd had kids of his own, once upon a time ago, before he'd met Bruce and before he'd become a mercenary.

"We can't leave him to die, Slade. He may not be our's, but... dammit, I can't just LEAVE him. It isn't right. And I know a lot of things aren't right up here, in the Wastes, but maybe, if we keep doing this, being the good guys... we can change things for the better." Bruce explained, staring off into the distance, like the star of a pre-war movie. "So, yes, I'm serious."

Deathstroke watched Richard for a moment, unable to hide his smile as he lifted his mask off his face, eye meeting the baby's sea blue pair. "... I'll stay then. Unless, of course, you fire me. Who knows, a kid might be useful once he's grown. Can teach him to pickpocket pretty early on..."

Bruce chuckled, smiling down at Richard with a teasing glimmer in his eyes. "Ignore him; he's a bad influence." He promised, eyes lighting up more as the baby giggled in response. "Looks like he likes us, Slade."

Deathstroke shrugged, not nearly as convinced, but he still found it hard to hate the baby. It was nice seeing something in the Wastelands that wasn't entirely hopeless. "I'm giving him a nickname, though. Richard just isn't cutting it for me."

Bruce raised an eyebrow, before glaring at Deathstroke. "What's wrong with the name Richard? I think it's a perfect name for a boy. If anything, you're the one who needs a nickname. I've never even heard of the name 'Slade' before I met you."

"That's why people usually call me Deathstroke." Deathstroke muttered, obviously peeved that his employer/partner rarely used his professional name. "I'm thinking something simple for this kid, something that will stick... how about 'Robin'?"

"And where, exactly, did you come up with that name?" Bruce asked, voice drowning in monotone sarcasm. "That's a terrible name for a baby, much less a boy baby. Robin is a girls name, in-case you haven't figured that out by now."

"First of all, I heard it once and liked it. Second of all, shut up." Deathstroke ordered, gently taking 'Robin' from Bruce's grasp, holding the baby against his rather shredded armor. Something pure against something tainted. "You like that nickname, don't you, Robin?"

The baby only blinked up at Deathstroke, before grinning, a tooth-less smile gracing his face in the most adorable way. Deathstroke secretly wished he had kept his mask on, if only to hide the smile that crept onto his face as a reaction to Robin's. "I think he likes it, Bruce."

Bruce rolled his eyes, but couldn't hide the fact that the silly nickname suited Richard. Robins were small, before the war killed them all off, but still, Bruce had seen them in picture books as a child in the Vault, and thought it fitting that Richard shared their name. "... We'll see." He replied after a few seconds passed, leading the way out of the pit. "Come on, we need to find a town before nightfall."

Deathstroke nodded, pulling on his mask as Bruce clicked on his helmet, following after the shorter man, Robin held protectively against his chest. "Right behind you, sir." He muttered, almost doing a fake salute, but decided against it in favor of trekking after his partner in both crime and justice.

It was going to be a long trip home... but they had each other for company.

A/N: In honor of Fallout 4 being officially announced, allow me to start a new fic series. Updates should be on Fridays. I'll post the Preview and 1st Chapter tonight, and more will hopefully be on the way without delay.

~Supercasey.