Dark Knights
Gotham felt dead, like a cold empty shell where a city's ruins were the only thing left to mark what had once been. For the first time in his life, John Blake found himself wishing for the chaotic honking of cab horns and the obnoxious wrangling of street vendors and drunken passersby.
The silence was eerie when it should have been calm, and the constant need to look over his shoulder made sure Blake couldn't sink into his own thoughts to pass the time as he walked.
Commissioner Gordon's words to him during Bane's speech outside Blackgate prison remained stuck in Blake's head, becoming harder and harder to just ignore. What would he have done against the Joker, without Batman?
What could he have done, applying rules against someone who broke every rule they came across? Someone who even Arkham was nervous about taking in, once Batman had finally apprehended him?
As he finally approached the grate opening where he lowered his letters to his partner, Blake pulled himself out of his thoughts and began to unspool the fishing line that kept the paper tethered to his police baton. Looking around to make sure he was in the clear, Blake lowered his letter down the rest of the way. He felt the tug on the other end a few moments later, and was quick to start reeling in the line as soon as he felt the end of it lighten.
Right when the last bit of line had come back up, Blake heard the sound of a pistol being cocked mere inches behind his head.
"Look what I found," a smug, female voice said. "Hands where I can see 'em, cop. Get up, and don't even think about trying anything."
"How d'you know I'm a cop?" Blake asked as he raised his hands and rose to his feet, flinching as the baton was snatched from his grip, followed close behind by the pistol from his waist.
"Because only a cop would be this stupid," his captor answered. "Did you think you could take the same route to the same drop point every two days, and I wouldn't notice? That's pretty insulting, handsome."
"If you're gonna kill me," Blake said, "just do it. Don't even bother taking me to Bane."
"If I wanted to kill you, I'd have shot you three times in the back while you were hunched over like a dumbass. Turn around."
Blake did so, coming face-to-face with a young woman his age. She was wearing the telltale military uniform and red scarf favored by Bane's men, with a black eye-patch covering her left eye and distinctive white hair pulled back into a long ponytail. A sniper rifle and a sword were resting on her back, one crossed over the other.
"What's your name?"
"Blake."
The young woman waited, but when Blake said nothing else, she frowned at him.
"Fine," she said, "we'll do this later. Start walking, before we get spotted."
"Why should I trust you?"
Her frown deepened, and the young woman bit back a sigh.
"Jesus Christ," she said, "why do I always get the morons? You don't have to trust me, Blake. You just have to do what I say, before someone shows up who actually wants to shoot you in the head. Now move."
Blake turned back around and let himself be guided down a nearby alleyway, up a fire-escape and through the window into an abandoned apartment.
"Here," the young woman said, and Black turned around to find her holding his pistol back out to him, grip-first. "You'll need this."
Blake had gone from scared to completely confused by now, and eyed his companion with suspicion.
"Who are you?"
"Someone who's on your side," she said. "I'm Rose. You have a first name, Blake?"
"John," Blake said as he took his gun back, holstering it before taking his baton back as well.
"Nice to meet you," Rose said, her single blue eye looking at him intently for a few moments. She broke the stare and moved away, walking towards a small kitchen.
"You want something to drink?"
"Water would be nice," Blake answered after hesitating, still trying to figure out how he'd gotten himself into such a surreal situation. "Thanks."
"Have a seat," Rose said as she poured one glass of water, and a few fingers worth of whiskey over ice into a second glass. Blake sat down at the table for two in the center of the kitchen, and Rose took the seat across from him a moment later.
"You're probably wondering who the hell I am, right?" she asked him as she held out his glass of water, and Blake nodded as he took it.
"'Undercover' is one way of putting it," Rose said, "and 'Mercenary' is another, but 'Poor schmuck living on borrowed time' is the most accurate," she finished, taking a long sip from her glass of whiskey.
"So, you're working for the government?"
"Sort of. They twisted my arm into a deal after they cuffed me when a contract I was on went south." Rose took a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and smacked the container against her palm a few times before drawing out a cigarette, lighting it and taking a drag. "Client sold me out, the rotten bastard. Found out later he was working with the feds, and it'd all been a set-up."
"Contract?" Blake repeated, surprised. "You're a hitman?"
"I was, yeah. One of the best," Rose said, a hint of pride in her voice. "How long you been on the force, John?"
"A few years. Why?"
"You ever hear of Slade Wilson, a.k.a. Deathstroke the Terminator?"
Blake nodded.
"Yeah, sure. Everyone has. No one's seen him and come back to talk about it, though."
Rose took another sip of her drink, sighing as she put the glass down.
"He got me in to the contract-killing game," she said. "He's my father."
Blake's eyes widened in surprise at the admission.
"No shit."
Rose smiled bittersweetly.
"Nope. After I got caught, the feds tried to get me to rat him out. I said no, so they decided to go for the next best thing."
"Bane," Blake said, and Rose nodded.
"Yup. Swap one mercenary out for another, I guess. Bane was a ghost, and it took me months to track him down—even longer than that to earn his trust."
Rose took another sip, her glass almost empty at this point.
"And so, here I am," she said. "On a suicide mission for a bunch of suit-wearing pricks who're probably gonna cut me loose and lock me up when this is all over, without so much as a 'thank you kindly'." She took a drag from her cigarette after finishing off her whiskey, looking over at Blake and pointing her cigarette at him. "That's where you come in, mister hero."
"What? How?"
Rose smiled at him, a smile that sent a shiver slicing down Blake's spine.
"You're my insurance policy," she said. "Once the Batman comes back and takes out Bane, I'll be needing a friend in a high place."
"We're not friends, Rose."
"Ouch," she said, her smile widening slightly. "Not even after I saved your life? That hurts."
"You didn't save me from anything," Blake shot back. "No one else was around. I would've been fine, if you hadn't shown up."
"Really?" Rose asked, her expression turning serious again. "Do you think I'm the only one keeping tabs on you, genius? I'll save you some time—the answer's no."
"That doesn't make any sense," Blake replied, his glass of water half-full and forgotten in front of him. "Why wouldn't they just kill me, if they knew what I was up to? Unless…" he put the pieces together, his face clouding over with despair. "Oh, no."
"Now he gets it," Rose said, leaning back and killing her cigarette with one last drag before smushing it into an ashtray. "So here's the deal. With me, you have a friend on the inside of the League. Which is something you really, really need right now. Without me, you have less than nothing and you're up shit creek without a paddle.
"Your call," she finished. "But personally, I think it's a no-brainer."
Blake finished his glass of water numbly, finally realizing the true extent of just how screwed the good guys were. How could Bane have figured all of this out?
"Fine," he said at last, "deal. You help us get out of this mess alive, and I'll put in a good word for you when it's all over."
"Gee, thanks," Rose said dryly. "That'll do me so much good. No, you promise to get me out of jail or you're getting nothing from me."
"I don't know if I could do that, Rose."
"You're in tight with the Commissioner, right?" Rose pressed, her eye narrowing. "Figure something out."
"I'll see what I can do," Blake said, sincerely. "I can promise you that much."
Rose sighed, wishing she'd hooked someone higher up in the ranks.
"Okay," she said, getting up. Blake followed suit, and the pair made their way back down the fire escape and into the alley. "You're lucky you're cute," Rose continued as they stood opposite each other, their breath steaming in the cold, "or I'd just shoot you and go after someone who could pull the right strings."
Blake chuckled.
"Thanks, I guess?"
"Here's a little something," Rose said, "just to prove I'm not screwing with you. On the corner of Fifth and Daughtrey is an old warehouse—the League has a stockpile of weapons there." She smiled. "It'd be a shame if someone were to sneak over there and blow them up."
Blake smiled in kind, getting the message loud and clear.
"Thanks for the tip."
Rose took a step forward and pulled him into a kiss, and at first Blake was too surprised to reciprocate. As soon as he'd relaxed into it, though, Rose stepped back and smirked at him.
"Not bad."
"What was that for?" he asked, squashing the unexpected feeling of disappointment in his chest.
Rose shrugged, still smiling.
"We're probably all gonna get blown up tomorrow. Might as well live it up, right?"
She walked past him without another word, vanishing around a corner.
When Blake ran after her and turned the corner out into the street, he was alone.
Rose was kneeling down on the steps of City Hall with her hands cuffed behind her back, staring out towards the horizon and watching the mushroom cloud fade off in the distance.
The crazy son of a bitch had actually pulled it off, just like she'd thought he would. Just one more reason why betting against the Batman was a really stupid idea.
Of course, Rose noted bitterly as her comrades started getting hauled off for questioning and their inevitable imprisonment, she wasn't exactly in the best of spots right now. At least she wasn't a cloud of atoms, but her future wasn't looking much brighter than that either. Until Blake somehow found a way to get her out of jail, Rose knew she'd have to fend off a whole variety of re-captured convicts who weren't feeling too happy with their one-time liberators.
She wasn't worried about holding her own against them, but it was just a huge pain she'd rather not have to deal with when she'd already be spending all day rotting in a five-by-eight cell.
A black van drove up and stopped in front of City Hall, and Rose felt her heart speed up. When she saw who stepped out of the van, her heart dropped into her stomach and she had to fight the urge to just make a mad dash far away from the hell her life was about to become.
The three agents walked easily up the steps, stopping in front of her and wearing infuriating smirks on their faces.
"Hey, Rose," one of them said. "Fancy seeing you here."
No, she thought. No, you black-hearted, rotten little bastards. You can't be serious.
"Listen," the agent continued, while the other members of the League of Shadows began to look over at her, with a mixture of suspicion, surprise and slowly-emerging hatred. "We really appreciate everything you did for us on this."
"We really do," one of the other agents chimed in. "Word from the Commissioner was that you gave that kid Blake some great intel. Gordon even asked us personally to pardon you, or at least reduce your sentence."
"But, thing is," the first agent continued, "we can't really do any of that."
"No can do," the second agent affirmed, and Rose wanted nothing more than to steal his gun and shoot herself in the head.
"Terrorism, and all that," the first agent resumed. "So, we're gonna have to throw you in the pen with the rest of these scumbags, unfortunately. But hey," the agent finished, smiling as if he hadn't just signed Rose's death warrant, "if you're anything like your father, I'm sure you'll pull through."
"You pieces of shit!" Rose shouted after the agents as they walked away, not turning around. "I'll kill you!"
"No you won't," one of them shouted back. "You're welcome to try, though. Save us the effort of hunting you down once you get out of prison. If you get out, that is."
The agents climbed back into the van and drove away, and Rose knew with cold certainty that her life was over. It was just a matter of time before one of her former comrades shanked her in the neck for being a traitor, or came up with a far more painful way for her to die. But if they thought she was going to go down with a fight, they were in for one hell of a shock.
No one standing guard outside Blackgate prison took particular note of the man with dark black hair, a short gray beard and one glass eye as he entered the building, walking calmly up to the receptionist and giving them a broad smile.
"Good morning," he said, taking his wallet out of his pocket and producing his ID. "I'm here to visit a prisoner. My name's Wade DeFarge."
The receptionist took the man's ID and checked it, satisfied that it matched what he'd said and looked legitimate.
"Good morning to you, Mr. DeFarge. Which prisoner do you want to visit?"
"Rose Wilson," the man said. "She's my niece. Got brought in a few days back."
"Ah, yes," the receptionist said, their voice turning icy. "Wilson. She's quite the troublemaker. Whatever you have to say to her, Mr. DeFarge, I'd suggest you say it today."
"Oh? And why's that?"
"Because she's on the list to be shipped off to Arkham tomorrow, that's why."
"I see," Wade replied, his good eye narrowing. "Thank you for telling me."
"Not a problem," the receptionist said as they picked up the phone near the desk, telling whoever was on the other end that Rose had a visitor. "You can head on back now, Sir."
"Thanks again," Wade said, walking toward the visiting area. A guard moved to his side wordlessly to accompany him, but Wade made no attempt at small talk. A few prisoners looked at him in muted awe and fear as he walked by, a cold stare from Wade's good eye enough to convince them to keep their mouths shut.
When they finally reached the visitor's area, it was empty except for the young woman sitting at one of the desks behind a thick plate of glass, her eye-patch and white hair making her instantly recognizable. Wade sat down across from her and picked up the phone next to him, inwardly cringing at the number of fresh cuts that traced thin red lines over her face and neck.
"Rose."
"Dad," she said, her voice equally calm. She spoke in flawless Russian, in order to avoid being overheard. "Your 'disguise' looks ridiculous."
Slade smiled at the old trick, and responded in Italian.
"It does the job," he shot back impassively, his good eye narrowing. "You're in here three days and you've already let them have a piece of you?"
"Not much I could do about it, when they rushed me twenty on one. What do you want?"
"To get you out of this mess," Slade answered. "Believe it or not, I do care about you."
"I'm done with the business, dad," Rose said. "Being sold out once was bad enough. You're not pulling me back into it."
"It's the only thing you're good at," Slade countered, "and it's the only way you'll be able to stay off the government's radar. Either you leave with me today, or you get driven off to Arkham tomorrow. Your call."
"Why would they send me to Arkham?"
"Because they know that leaving you here will give them enough red tape to last the next twenty years," Slade explained. "Either they carry you out of here in a body bag, which is messy, or they make you Arkham's problem, which is clean."
Rose hesitated, and Slade could tell his daughter was grasping for straws. Her time away from him had clearly done her no favors whatsoever.
"I don't need your help," she said, her determination frayed around the edges. "I have someone else to bail me out this time."
"Who, your friend in the GCPD?" Slade replied, not bothering to hide his scorn. "John Blake?"
"How do you know about him?" Rose asked, growing nervous even as she kept her expression calm. Her father chuckled.
"I kept an eye on your handlers," he answered. "I was eavesdropping when they burned you in front of all your buddies. Going to Gordon and his friends was a good play, I'll give you that much. But it looks like your boy Blake left you twisting in the wind, Rose."
"What do you mean?"
"He quit the force, is what I mean," Slade said coldly. "Left right after the whole mess with the League got wrapped up. Not much he can do for you now."
Rose felt her heart sink in her chest, and the sting of being abandoned left a bitter taste at the back of her throat. Blake had made her a promise, and he hadn't followed through.
The rational part of Rose's brain knew that trying to get her completely off the hook after what she'd done was borderline impossible, but the irrational part had dared to hope that somehow, Blake might have been able to pull it off.
"He promised," she said under her breath, but it was loud enough for Slade to catch.
"Promises never count for anything in the end," he said. "You should know that by now."
"Maybe I'm just not as comfortable being a cynical bastard as you are, dad."
"Which would explain why you couldn't smell a rat before you got sold out." The glare from his good eye intensified. "We're wasting time here. What's it gonna be? Freedom, or a straitjacket?"
"I'm in here for a capital offense," Rose said. "How're you planning on busting me out?"
Slade smiled.
"It's amazing what a suitcase of clean money in the right hands can do these days," he said. "All I have to do is make a call, and a bureaucratic mishap might result in you being released in a few hours. Like this whole thing never even went down."
Rose frowned at her father.
"And would I be correct in guessing," she said coldly, "that this is a call you're only willing to make if I agree to leave with you?"
Slade's smile widened.
"You know me so well."
"Bastard. "
"You're not the first to call me that, and I doubt you'll be the last. But you still haven't given me an answer, Rose."
She grit her teeth and glared at her father.
"Fine," she conceded after a few tense moments. "I'll go with you."
"Good," Slade said, sounding so satisfied that Rose wanted to punch him in the face through the glass. "You'll be working with me, so you won't have to worry about getting screwed over by a client again."
"I thought I told you I was done with the business," Rose said, seeing red at her father's callousness.
"You did," he replied calmly. "I just don't care. I'm doing this for your own good."
Rose's glare didn't waver.
"Go away."
"See you in a few," her father said with a smirk in parting as he got up.
"Get fucked."
Slade laughed as he left the room, and Rose had to fight to hold back the tears of rage burning behind her eyelids. The guard on her side of the glass hoisted her to her feet, and led her back to her cell.
Blake had been taken by surprise when he discovered a cave at the coordinates Bruce Wayne had left for him in his will. He'd been even more surprised when the ground had suddenly begun to rise underneath his feet, forcing him to quickly jump back down onto the cave floor.
But neither of those things had surprised him as much as looking into the transparent cabinet that had come up out of the ground and realizing that it housed Batman's uniform.
He'd been given Batman's legacy to carry on. Bruce Wayne had trusted him to become Gotham's next protector. But as much as that show of faith filled him with pride, it also made him nervous, and more than a little scared. Blake knew he hadn't gotten nearly enough training in the police force to do what Batman did—the amazing display of martial arts Blake had seen Batman pull off taking down all of those thugs when he'd saved his life was proof enough of that.
If he was going to step into Batman's place and not get himself murdered inside of a week, Blake knew he had to find a teacher. And unfortunately Bruce Wayne was unable to be that teacher, for obvious reasons.
Which was why Blake now found himself approaching Blackgate prison on a cold February afternoon, his checkbook in his jacket pocket and his hands stuffed in the pockets of his pants to keep them from shivering, either from the cold or from nervousness. He'd had to go to Alfred Pennyworth to ask for a short-term loan from some of Bruce Wayne's surviving assets to cover Rose's bail, but as soon as Blake had explained the reason why he needed the money, Alfred had been more than willing to give whatever might be necessary.
The Batman, he'd said, was a symbol whose importance to Gotham City couldn't possibly be measured in money.
Blake was halfway up the steps when a sight at the top of them made him freeze: Rose was leaving the prison, without any police accompanying her. Only one older man was with her, and the resemblance between them was too obvious to be coincidental.
It looked like Deathstroke had beaten him to the punch.
Biting back a curse, Blake quickly sat down on the steps with his back to Slade and Rose. He pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket, writing a location and a time on it with a pen. Just as he finished and stood back up, Blake heard Rose's voice behind him.
"I'm still pissed they didn't give me my weapons back."
"Relax," Slade replied as Blake turned to face them, keeping his head down. "They'll be easy enough to replace."
Blake bumped hard into Rose's side, slipping the piece of paper into her pocket as he did so.
"Shit, I'm sorry," he said, turning back around and reaching down to offer Rose his hand. She batted it away, glaring up at him.
"Watch where you're going next time, asshole," she hissed, before she recognized Blake. Her eye went wide with surprise and her mouth opened slightly, and Blake gave her a small nod. He moved away before Deathstroke could notice anything was amiss, smiling to himself.
Now he just had to wait and see what Rose's next move was.
The moonlight was hazy as it fought its way through the smog hanging over Gotham, the broken and dimmed out streetlights doing little to help cut through the darkness. Blake stood on the corner he'd indicated on the piece of paper, where Fifth and Daughtrey intersected. A few people walked past him as he waited, but no one was drunk or belligerent enough to start any trouble.
Suddenly a small section of the brick wall behind Blake burst into shards, and he instinctively ducked and covered his head before pressing himself against the nearest wall, staying in the shadows. As soon as he'd made sure nothing else was going to explode nearby, Blake walked back out onto the corner and looked at the hole in the wall. It'd clearly been made by a bullet, and it looked like the impact of a high-caliber rifle.
Looking across the street and up to the roof of the abandoned, bombed-out warehouse, Blake saw a sniper's nest set up by the edge of the roof. The shooter raised their head up from behind the scope of the rifle, and even though their face was covered by a mask, the long white hair pulled back in a ponytail that moved slightly in the wind was a dead giveaway.
Rose extended one of her hands and beckoned Blake over with her forefinger, and he smiled.
"You know," he said a few minutes later, after he'd stepped out of the elevator and walked halfway across the roof, carefully avoiding the gaps in the concrete, "that wasn't very nice."
"Well, I thought it was hilarious," Rose said with a smile as she walked over to meet him, mask gone. She stopped at arm's length away from Blake. "Good to see you again."
"Good to see you, too," he replied, with a smile of his own. "This is a bit nicer than knocking you over… minus the part where you shot a bullet at my head."
"I shot a bullet near your head," Rose corrected him, her smile turning into a smirk. "Big difference."
"That's a pretty small difference, actually."
"Semantics," she said dismissively, before her expression got serious again. "I thought you'd hung me out to dry when you quit the force."
"Of course not," Blake insisted, taken aback. "I came to get you, didn't I? Not my fault your old man beat me to it." He paused, his eyes narrowing in concern. "Does he know you're here?"
"Nah," Rose answered with a shake of her head. "He thinks I'm out gathering intel for a hit, that's all. What'd you want to talk about, anyway?"
Blake fell silent for a moment at the question, carefully choosing his next words.
"Do you really want to go back to contract killing?" he asked. "I don't get the feeling you like being ordered around by other people, no matter how long of a leash they give you."
Rose bristled at Blake's words, but had to acknowledge the truth in them. She shrugged.
"Not like I can do much else," she said, "whether I want to or not. But if you've got any better ideas stashed somewhere in that head of yours, I'd love to hear 'em."
"Well," Blake began, "I might not be a cop anymore, but that doesn't mean I'm giving up on what that meant. It's still important to me. I just want to be able to do that work without all the regulations tying me down."
"You mean vigilantism," Rose finished. "Like the Batman."
"More or less. But I can't do it alone. I'm not that good, and I'm not stupid enough to think I am, either. Not yet, anyway."
He smiled.
"That's where you come in."
Rose laughed.
"What, you want a sidekick?" she asked, spitting the last word out scornfully. "No way."
"No," Blake said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "What I want is a teacher. And an equal partner. What would you think about that?"
Rose considered the proposal, her blue eye gleaming intently in the moonlight.
"So," she said at last, "I get to kick your ass six ways to Sunday for fun, and then when you're good enough to hold your own we get to go out and beat bad guys to a pulp at night?"
"Hopefully my training won't be that embarrassing," Blake said, "but you got the gist, yeah."
Rose grinned.
"That sounds awesome," she said. "But you know my father's gonna come hunting for us, right?"
Now it was Blake's turn to shrug.
"That's why I need you to teach me. We should be able to handle him, together."
"Assuming we don't get shot in our heads first, you crazy bastard," Rose replied with a laugh, before extending her hand. "Okay, you got yourself a deal. Should be more fun than this gig, at least."
Blake took her hand and shook it, and then pulled Rose from there into a kiss. She was surprised at first that he'd taken the lead, but relaxed into it a heartbeat later. Blake pulled away before Rose had wanted to let him go, and she looked at him with a glint in her eye as she smiled.
"Better than last time," she said. "Yeah, we definitely have a deal. I gotta get you back for that."
Blake fought back a shiver, wondering what he'd just managed to get himself in to.
He'd find out soon enough, for better or worse.
"C'mon," he said, as soon as he'd gotten his focus back. "I want to show you something. But first, I need you to promise me something in return."
"Okay," Rose said, intrigued by the sudden seriousness in Blake's voice. "What is it?"
"That you won't tell anyone about where we're going, or what you'll see there. And I mean no one. At all. Can you promise me that?"
Rose nodded, resolute.
"Yeah, I can. I promise I won't tell a soul."
Blake smiled, satisfied.
"Good. Let's go. And leave your gun here," he added as Rose moved to retrieve it. "You won't need it."
Rose looked at Blake skeptically, but he didn't say anything else. The rifle was untraceable, so she wasn't worried about it getting linked to her. The insistence on her leaving it behind, though, did make Rose quite curious.
What kind of vigilantes could they be without guns?
"Here we are," Blake said, breaking his silence for the first time during the ride as he brought his car to a slow stop in front of a natural opening in the rock wall. Water ran down in a miniature waterfall, almost as if it was warning potential visitors to steer clear.
"And where is 'here', exactly?" Rose asked, receiving a cryptic smile from her companion in return.
"You'll see," he answered, revving the engine again. "Hold on."
He backed the car up slightly and then accelerated it forward, with enough speed to punch through the waterfall and clear the sharp drop-off that waited on the other end.
"Jesus!" Rose shouted as the car landed roughly on the rocks, groaning under the impact. Blake seemed remarkably calm about the fact he'd probably just completely wrecked his car's more fragile parts, which only made Rose's glare at him even angrier.
"Don't you think you could've warned me about that?"
"And spoil the surprise?" Blake replied with a cocky smile. "I did tell you hold on, didn't I?"
"I hate you," Rose groused as she opened her door with far more force than was necessary, climbing out of the car and stretching her sore, shocked muscles. A small swarm of bats came to life near her in a frightened flutter of wings, and Rose staggered backwards.
"What the hell?" She said. "If you brought me here to chop me up and bury my body in the woods, Blake, I'm gonna be real pissed at you."
Blake laughed, already having begun to walk away from the car and towards a smooth, level section of stone further into the cave. Rose followed behind him, her step only hitching slightly in surprise when a tall cabinet began to rise out of the ground as they approached it.
When she saw what was in the cabinet, Rose gasped.
"No way," she breathed out, awed. "You gotta be kidding me."
"Nope," Blake said, smiling. "That's exactly what you think it is. He left it to me."
"Batman," Rose said, still awed, and Blake nodded, still smiling. "Batman left this to you. We're in his goddamn cave, right now. We're in the Batcave." She paused. "Is that what it's called? The 'Batcave'?"
"It could be, I guess," he answered, looking around. "It definitely fits."
"Wow," Rose said, still shocked. "Holy shit, Blake. Now I see what you meant, earlier."
"Yeah. Pretty cool, huh?"
Rose laughed.
"That's an understatement. This is incredible."
The pair stood in shared silence for a few moments, before Rose broke it with a question.
"Did he have any extra suits?"
Blake shook his head.
"Not that I could find, no. But he did leave a message on the computer there, saying to go to Lucius Fox if I had any problems. Why?"
"Why?" Rose echoed, arching her eyebrow. "That's a stupid question. Because I need one! If we're doing this together, no way in hell am I going to look less badass than you while we're beating up scumbags."
"We'll see what Fox can do," Blake said. "He probably has the blueprint to make another one somewhere."
"Nice. Oh," Rose continued, her eye brightening, "and I need a codename."
"Really?"
"Yes, really," she shot back, resisting the urge to roll her eye. "You can't call me by my actual name if we're gonna do this right. That's not how it works."
"Okay then," Blake sighed, yielding to Rose. "What'll it be? Batgirl?"
"No," she said flatly, glaring at him. "That sounds totally unoriginal and lazy. It's gotta have more mystique than that." She thought on it for a minute, and then her eye brightened again.
"Got it," she said, satisfied. "Nightwing."
"That does have a nice ring to it," Blake said, nodding. "I'm impressed."
"Damn right you are," Rose shot back with a smile, feeling excited and optimistic for the first time in years.
Her father was nowhere to be seen, no feds were breathing down her neck, and she was hanging out in the Batman's secret lair. And not only that, but the new Batman wanted her to teach him how to kick ass and take names just as well as his predecessor had.
Yeah, this was going to be fun.
…
…
A/N: So, there you have it. Hope it was enjoyable, and please let me know what you thought! I was lucky enough that two of my favorite DC characters (Rose and Slade) fit believably into Nolan's take on Batman, so here's hoping I did them justice.