A/N: Hopefully this will tide everyone over the holiday weekend (for those Stateside). Elsewhere, I hope it's equally entertaining and gets you through to Monday! The midseason finale is going to be mad. Thank you so so so much for the favs, the follows, the reviews, the reads!

I don't own 'Gotham.' Or 'Batman.'


INAUGURATION DAY +1

"Mr. Wayne," pronounced Lucius Fox. He rose, smoothing out his tie as he did so, and rounded the desk to greet his visitor. He shook hands with the younger man; a gesture to sit in a plush wingback chair followed. "To what do I owe the pleasure today?"

Bruce gave the executive a nonplussed stare. "It's a work day, Lucius. I'm allowed to be at my own company. Do I need a specific set of circumstances to speak with you?"

"No," Fox replied slowly. He canted his head slightly and gazed at the Wayne heir over his glasses. "But let's not pretend your visits are always related to the conduct of Wayne Enterprises' businesses."

Bruce furrowed his brow. "Who said anything about pretending?"

"Nobody. So I ask again, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I wanted to ask you what you know about our new Mayor."

"Hamilton Hill? We don't exactly move in the same social circles, Bruce." Fox frowned. "I am a bit more familiar with his chief donor and advisor, however."

Wayne sat straighter in the chair. "You're talking about Rupert Thorne."

"Which is who I suspect you wanted to talk about anyway," deduced Lucius. He looked pointedly at Bruce, but after a moment's pause in which Bruce maintained a blank face, Fox shrugged. "Bluntly, Thorne is much more dangerous than Hill can be."

"That was my first impression as well. What more can you tell me about him?"

"Rupert Thorne has been a key player in Gotham politics since your childhood—"

Bruce quickly interrupted, "I have no recollection of his involvement."

"That's because in the beginning, his attempts to influence the city government remained behind closed doors and in the backrooms of cigar parlors. Only after you left did he get elected as Councilman and start expanding his machine. Thorne started out as a real estate tycoon and made decent money rehabilitating and developing some neighborhoods on the north side of the city that were teetering on the brink of falling into abject poverty. There were rumors he had mob help in gaining funding at first—which makes sense as both families would serve to profit from expanding their reach into these new neighborhoods—but those rumors died out when he began investing in utilities companies and home appliance businesses, buying them out at a frightening pace."

The pieces began to fall into place for the younger man. "He wasn't just making money on the property, then. Every time he bought something he'd make sure their utilities were provided by his own companies; same with the appliances installed. Thorne monopolized every aspect of the mid-price rental market."

"That he did," confirmed Fox. "He controlled those neighborhoods at a far more intrinsic level than the mob ever could. Who cares if the mob will protect you from being harangued on the street when Thorne could threaten your home? There were even rumors he tapped the phone lines of every apartment and would turn off the heat if anything negative was said about him or his properties. Tenants had to pay massive surcharges to get back in his good graces."

"And the City Council did nothing," Bruce stated flatly. He shook his head. "Because he held a seat on that too."

"Precisely. Shortly after you left, Harvey Dent represented a group of former renters who pressed charges against Thorne's business practices. The judge threw the case out before it made trial and three months later, Thorne won election to the City Council without a challenge from anyone else in his district. The only other person that filed for the seat suspended their campaign within hours of Thorne announcing his."

"He said he wasn't a Councilman anymore when we spoke yesterday."

Fox raised his eyebrows. "Did you want to just tell me Thorne's history as you've heard it, or was there something—"

"I'm wondering why he didn't just run for Mayor himself."

Lucius nodded slowly and stood up. He trailed his fingertips along the edge of his desk before addressing Bruce's admission with a question. "Why didn't Don Falcone ever run for Mayor?"

The younger man sat back, mulling the question, and placed one ankle on the opposite knee. "I suppose because he felt he'd be restricted in certain ways. You have a staff, media events; no way to sneak away and take care of messier affairs."

"And also because as corrupt as this city can be at times, there's enough of a silent majority that would prefer we at least make an effort to have a figurehead of our city that's respectable. If not for our sake, then at least for Metropolis's and the rest of the state."

"Which is why Thorne would rather be the puppeteer." Bruce shrugged. "It makes some sense, but it doesn't make me any less wary of what's in store. I should have known they'd never want Gordon near the inner circle."

"Having a police Commissioner in their back pocket is certainly an advantage," Fox conceded. "But many Mayors have had that luxury in the past. I take it that won't deter you at all."

"Hardly." Bruce rose and stepped towards the door. "Thank you, Mr. Fox. I appreciate the insight."

"Before you go," Fox added, as he lobbed something through the air. "I have something for you."

Wayne glanced over his shoulder as a small, shiny object arced towards him. He caught it in a closed fist; a twist of his hand and he found a silver key with black bulbous end in his hand. Bruce looked up at Lucius. "Is this..."

Fox grinned slyly. "Let's go for a drive." He picked up his coat, draping it over one arm, and slid past Bruce with a clasp of his bicep. "It's for a Jaguar."


A clerk stamped the paper, slid it into a folder, handed the folder to a passing aide, and as he reached for the next folio in the stack on his left, paused in surprise. He looked over his shoulder: the aide continued her path between desks, picking up other folders as she went. The clerk pushed back his chair, urgent strides catching up to the aide before she could make it to another desk.

He tapped her on the shoulder and, without offering an explanation, tugged his folder out from the stack in her arms. Despite her protests, he flipped the folder open, verified it was the correct one, and hurried back along the several lines of desks. He clenched the folder nervously, walking urgently to an office down the hall. The clerk knocked, pushed open the door, and made eye contact with the supervisor.

"Sir, you need to see this." The supervisor waved the clerk into his office. The clerk extended the folder out in front of him like a peace offering for interrupting his morning work, which the supervisor took with a perfunctory frown.

A minute later, the supervisor snapped the folder shut and motioned for the clerk to follow. They proceeded further down the hallway, the grimy short carpeted floor blurring under their feet. The pair stopped before a dirty, narrow, several-decade old elevator and waited for the carriage to descend to their basement level.

"Fugate's going to have a field day with this," muttered the clerk.

His supervisor snorted. "Forget what CoS will do; think about the Mayor."

The elevator chimed as it arrived; they hurried into its confines. The pair rode the elevator three floors up, passing the ground floor of City Hall until they finally arrived in a back hallway of the Mayor's office suite. The supervisor and the clerk walked briskly through a maze of corridors until they approached a glass windowed office. Nervously, the clerk glanced into the room, trying to process how meticulous one had to be in order to keep every single element in the room so organized and neat. Clocks adorned every wall and several more rested atop the desk, on bookshelves, and on drawer or drop file units.

The supervisor knocked on the door timidly, pausing until Temple Fugate—after an irritated glance at his wrist watch—waved them into the office. In pinched tones, he announced, "You have precisely eighty-four seconds before I need to get the Mayor to a meeting. What?"

"Mr. Fugate, you need to see this paperwork that got processed yesterday and was filed for the archives this morning." The supervisor handed over the folder.

Fugate's eyes raced across the paperwork. He looked up at the pair, then back down at the paper. His hand began to shake. "This isn't possible." He looked up at the supervisor and clerk. "Get out. Now!"

He stepped around the desk, waving the folder towards the door; the pair awkwardly stumbled backwards out the door. Fugate pursued them, eyes dancing behind his circular spectacles. The clerk and his supervisor lurked, unsure, in the hall as Fugate speed-walked away from them and around a corner out of sight.

Temple Fugate hung up his phone and pushed open the heavy oak door to the Mayor's private office, startling the balding Hill, who folded the Gazette down to peer over his glasses at his visitor..

"Temple? Is it time for the meeting with the Cardinal already?"

"The meeting's cancelled," the Chief of Staff announced in a huff—that he hadn't yet made the call to actually do so was semantics at this point. He pulled the sheet of paper out of the folder and handed it to Mayor Hill. "We have a far more time-sensitive issue at hand and we might already be too late."

Hamilton Hill's face grew progressively paler and paler as he read the memorandum detailing Oswald Cobblepot's release from Blackgate prison in accordance with his predecessor's eleventh hour pardon. "This isn't a forgery?"

Fugate checked his watch as he shook his head. "It's real; that's the original. And we may not have to cancel after all. There's still three minutes until your meeting. You have a seven minute opening this afternoon before receiving the Boy Scouts—do you want me to schedule Rupert?"

Hill put the newspaper down with the folder resting on top of it on his blotter. The new Mayor stood and pulled back thick drapes to gaze out at the steel grey skyline. "I think that would be best, yes."


Leaves crunched under the tires of the Jaguar sedan as Bruce navigated it through the forest. Fox guided his driving from the passenger seat, pointing at the unmarked access road slipping between the trees to the right; Bruce turned abruptly. They soon disappeared from view of the main road as the gravel drive serpentined further and further into the forest. After several silent minutes, the only sound in the cabin the muted sound of gravel and fallen leaves disappearing beneath the all-weather treads, Bruce blinked in surprise. The Jaguar drove into a clearing.

In the center of the clearing, its corrugated steel walls leaning precariously against one another, stood an old structure that looked disconcertingly out of place deep in the woods, but that Bruce felt should have been at the front of any of the dozen impound lots or garbage dumps on Gotham's outskirts. He parked the car and hesitantly got out.

Wayne looked across the roof of the car at his companion. "Why are we here, Lucius?"

Fox shrugged and started across the gravel lot; Bruce fell in behind. The Wayne Enterprises executive paused at the door, which was outfitted with a state-of-the-art biometric lock. Fox pressed his thumbprint to a receptacle: a light blinked green and the casing slid up to reveal a keypad. Bruce craned his neck to see over Fox's shoulder, incurring a scornful look.

"What do you think you're doing, Mr. Wayne?"

"It's my company's property; I should know the code."

Fox hunched forward to protect the code from view. "I never said anything about this being Wayne Enterprises property." He arched an eyebrow as the door clicked. Fox pushed the handle down and gestured Bruce forward. "But even if it was,that doesn't mean you need to know the code. I don't think you'll ever be returning here."

"So it is Wayne Enterprises, then," Bruce replied. He stepped into an inky black interior, which seemed far larger than the building appeared from the outside. Fox entered behind him, pulling the door closed and sealing them into complete and utter, sensory-depriving darkness. A moment later, bare white light bathed the room and blinded both men.

Once Bruce's vision began to clear and only a handful of spots appeared every time he blinked, he found the austere space housed only the two of them. The floor—rusted, dirt-stained metal—had a long crack running the length of the room to nearly each end wall, where the crack turned in either direction and created two symmetrical rectangles. The edges of one were just in front of Bruce's toes. He frowned and looked around, but saw no controls anywhere.

"Lucius, those look like retractable doors of some sort, but I do not see any—" A loud grinding interrupted Bruce's protests. He stepped back against the wall of the facility as the floor split down the middle and each half did, in fact, begin retracting. Lucius extracted a fob from his breast pocket and waved it in front of Bruce's face with an expectant look. "Secure wireless controls. Smart."

"I'm so glad I have your approval," Fox replied dryly.

A shape began to rise out of the floor as a platform ascended from below their feet. Bruce leaned forward to get a better look. "Is that...?"

Without looking, Fox tossed the ovoid black key fob to Bruce. As the platform stopped, the straining of its gears fading into stunned silence, Fox chuckled. "That one's not for a Jag."

Bruce stepped onto the platform and ran a hand along the matte black body panel of the ferocious vehicle. "Yeah, that I guessed on my own."