Disc: Batman Begins and Dark Knight are the brainchildren of Christopher Nolan.

"Nothing Wise"

Gotham PD had never been one for pleasant aesthetics, but to Lieutenant Jim Gordon it was actually the 'private meeting' room which seemed the most spartan of all. Dry and quiet, the bland white bricks blended together with a layer of concrete angling towards the ceiling, working to keep stray noise from escaping while the windowed door remained closed. Just like the private cells in Arkham or any other prison used to hold confidential talks, usually between a lawyer and client.

Another thing the rooms had in common- they were abused by their occupants. People would say things in these rooms that would doom any plea of innocence in court, whether cop or criminal. Not that there was that much of a difference in this city.

Gordon kept aware of all of this, dwelling on some of the scenes the chamber must have witnessed in its time even as he kept an eye on its single current occupant. Scraggly black hair dipping down past his skull, and a beard that likey had never been cleaned until today. Detective Flass, his longtime partner on the force, now looked almost presentable enough to make people forget why he was there in that room.

"Would you look at him", Detective Stephens spoke up next to Gordon, knowing his words could not be heard by the accused. "Looks like a caged animal."

Ironically, Gordon felt reluctance at how bitter the muscular man sounded. The two officers could not have been greater opposites. Stephens was clean, or at least had come up clean in Gordon's check into his background. He'd been on the force twenty years today, only getting in trouble occasionally for losing his temper and hurting someone more than was deemed necessary. But the sheer physical presence of the man, how he radiated threat enough to send the less-hardened jobs scurrying back into their holes, remained prized by the Commissioner, and so Stephens had remained no matter what accusations were levelled against him.

He looked at Stephens' angrily squared jaw, then back through the window. Despite being his partner for many years, Gordon would not consider the dour fat man in the room to be the most corrupt officer in Gotham. There were too many other strong candidates for that 'honour' to be certain, and while he had always known that Flass grafted, that he stole and abused and even worked part-time for Carmine Falcone, he remained one in a thousand others like him. He'd never seen Flass bringing in young female witnesses home for 'private testimony', nor caught him eliminating actual witnesses. Perhaps he was squeamish, but Gordon figured the more likely reason was that none of his bosses trusted him to do it right. Not when they had experienced people like Creed or Adamson to do it. The former of those executioners now watched from afar, a frazzled blond clearly preturbed by Flass' predicament but unwilling to risk his own position to say a word in his defence. Enjoy this while you can, Gordon dared think towards the distracted-looking Creed. Sooner or later, it'll be your turn to sit in that room and answer for all the murders the mob had you commit.

"Gordon", the Commissioner walked in, prompting Creed to leave in disgust. Gordon turned away from the window, easily detecting the note of reluctance in Loeb's tone. Loeb remained a conflict, the rare neutral player in the game they'd started. Though Gordon had never seen the obvious signs like with Creed or Flass, Loeb always took a hard line against anything or anyone he disliked. In this case, vigilantism. "We got his testimony on the events at Arkham. Now he's requested you."

"Me", Gordon repeated, not exactly surprised but tense. Was Flass really that desperate?

Stepping into the room and locking the door tight before seating himself at the table, he had a sinking feeling his partner was exactly that desperate. Normally bordering jolliness when on the job, the man now looked drained, bled of all his happiness by the realization that his years of take had suddenly, overnight, become the punishable offence they were supposed to be.

"Jimbo", Flass said, his voice matching his appearance. "There's been a mistake. You gotta help me, you were there, you saw-"

"I saw", Gordon cut off the babbling with one hand. "I saw you pointing your piece. At children. Before I knocked you out."

The fat cop studied the table furiously, eyes drooped to hide the panic in them. "C'mon, Jim! It was that toxin thing that made me do that! You know!"

"Really", Gordon considered, not sure why he was still playing along like this was some kind of logical argument. This man deserved what he was getting, there could be no doubt about that. "Funny how none of the rest of Loeb's people did anything like that when the hallucinogen kicked in."

"They weren't right on top of the thing!", Flass sputtered. "And Normie got his ear chewed off, I hear."

"You always were good at listening for rumours", he acknowledged. "Listen, then. This isn't just about what happened at Arkham."

As he'd expected, recognition bloomed over Flass' pudgy features, quickly followed by impotent rage. "It's you. You ratted on me, Jimbo."

He didn't falter. He adjusted his glasses. People can say anything in here... "You have a problem? Get in line. You're not the only one being exposed today, and not only by me. Adamson, Panchelli, McCluskey... They've all been sent packing already. Times change, Flass."

A long silence from Flass while he struggled to come up with a response to that. "We were doing fine", he finally settled on weeping. "We were doing good!"

"For yourselves", Gordon corrected harshly. "Not for the people we're supposed to protect. That's the one thing none of you ever really got."

"Listen to mister high-and-mighty", Flass growled, all his joviality replaced by a murderous hatred as he strained at his cuffs. "The guy who watched me take the taste a thousand times without sayin' a word."

"Only because I knew it wouldn't make a difference then."

"Would now, though", the man snickered. "Whore. You finally found yourself a rat to rat to. A flyin' one!"

You can say anything, Gordon reminded himself. Not that he wouldn't put it past someone to hide a recorder in here, but with how often the room was used for 'private' business deals instead of actual interrogations that would be counter-productive. Still, better to play on the safe side. "I have no idea what you're talking about, and I don't care. We're starting over, Flass. It's a new beginning."

"Bet Loeb would love to hear that", Flass threatened. "Or did he already ask you exactly how it was you sucked a cure from the Bat's teat?"

Ah. So this was why he'd called Gordon here. Who better to defend him against these accusations than a clean cop, a respected Lieutenant, his partner? What better to threaten him with than to reveal his compliance with the Commissioner's own personal migraine? But he only shook his head in pity. "You still don't get it? Sure, you could expose me Flass. Blab to Loeb and see if he believes you. I don't care, even if he kicked me out. That's the difference. That's the sacrifice I'm willing to make, to give Gotham a second chance."

He hadn't expected that speech to make any difference, and wasn't surprised in the least when Flass spat on his shoes, a disgusting glob of white. "If that's all you wanted", Gordon said dismissively. "We're done here."

"No", he protested, rising as his desperation returned. "C'mon Jim, please... help me out here..." It was like dealing with an alley cat, Gordon reckoned. One second he was pleading teary-eyed for help from any who would listen, the next second spiteful and demeaning towards his saviours.

Gordon had never been a fan of cats. Like them, Flass would never know regret, would never understand anything beyond his own little system. Would never want to understand, until the day he died. So he closed the door without letting his regret show, hoping never to see the man again.

A few minutes later, Stephens came knocking at the oak door to his new office. Gordon's few personal affects still lay strewn about the small room in disarray, but the detective didn't seem to mind the clutter.

"You okay?", he asked, blunt as ever. It was a quality Gordon appreciated in him, even if they disagreed on methods occasionally.

"It's fine", Gordon assured him, the vacant stare out the single window showing just the opposite. That window didn't go anywhere, just out into a boxed-in alley with nothing to look at but bricks and pipe. "He... threatened to expose me for not doing anything about his graft."

Stephens snarled in disgust. "Fucker. Take the rest of us down with him if he could. Some partner."

He gave a half-hearted smile at Stephens' bluster. A man of straightforward means like him might fail to realize just how he'd hit the nail on the head. A sickeningly familiar pattern- after all the effort they could put into exposing just one bent cop, that one would do everything they could to ruin others on the force, whether innocent or not. They knew that they wouldn't live long enough to make any kind of confession against the mob, and instead elected to damage others for not helping them get out of it. These attacks were chaotic, and often resulted in people getting hurt. More painful to everyone than if we were to just leave it be.

And that, Gordon reasoned, was a big part of how things had come to be like this. "He never once believed we could get better. He liked it that way, gets him the paycheck and then some without the responsibility. I know-" Breaking off, he removed the glasses to look at Stephens openly. "I know how it is things got like this before I signed up. What I don't quite get is why."

Stephens just shrugged. "I've got ten years on you still Jim, and I can't say for sure. You've been around long enough for a bright boy like you to piece it together, though. It's nothing wise."

It was true. Gordon did know enough now to make a good guess why. It wasn't even that complicated. "Always about the money, isn't it? One man gets it into his head that we're not paid enough to risk our lives. Starts taking graft to garnish their salary, who's going to notice? But other cops do notice, some of them want to get in on the action. The others, they don't want to make trouble that could cost them their job. So they keep quiet."

"Almost right", Stephens nodded, an ironic smirk on his rough lips. "Look at it from the other side now. Why bother doing anything, when everyone's against you? Lawyers, judges, civil rights groups, politicians... None of them give a shit about what you went through to catch the perp even when they're not bent as hell. All you ever get from them is hassle, more aggravation from people who think you've got it easy, so why should you care what happens to them? Can't tell you how many times I've had to let some punk go because some Lieutenant said no. Guess that's probably why you outrank me now."

"Because I kept my mouth shut the whole time", Gordon said scaldingly, realizing now that together they'd constructed a whole philosophy for bent cops despite being two of the best ones in the city. "Because I didn't make waves. Because I kept quiet." The guilt was stronger than before, nearly had him bent over.

Stephens clapped one hand to his shoulder. "Hey. We all gotta make sacrifices. If all the good cops made waves, they'd never go higher than ground-floor detective. That's not a weakness, Jim. It's a strength, that you could stomach doing that for so long that they made you Lieutenant."

"I had a little help with that", Gordon admitted, looking to the bulletin board where every major article about the Batman had been pinned up. "Sometimes I think Loeb only did it because he knows that I know him. Wants to use me to catch him."

"His mistake", came the brisk reply. "Because now, you get your own unit. And no one, not even Loeb, can make you change that without cause." He leaned closer. "By the way, I'm just curious... who you got in mind?"

Though he already knew them by heart, Gordon looked back at the piles of records on his desk, both the official transcripts and unofficial notes made by people he trusted about people he did not. "Ramirez and Allen caught my eye. Don't want to make it seem too obvious what I'm going for. A whole unit of cops that I can trust to do things right."

"Nothing too obvious. Nothing wise", Stephens agreed, convinced now that Gordon wasn't feeling guilty. Not about Flass, at least. "Later, then."