A/N: Hey, sorry this chapter took so long to get out, but I think its length explains it. So, Riddler is the villain of the chapter and I cast David Tennant as the Riddler for this. And, I apologize if the riddles/traps are too easy, I had trouble coming up with good ones. Also, I credit the traps and riddles to Batman Arkham City and the Batman the Animated Series' episode "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" If you want a better visual of the traps, look those up, they're pure genius. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to tell me in a PM/review. If not, I hope you enjoy and, as always, reviews are greatly appreciated.
The Enigma Conundrum
The elevator door to the basement of Wayne Enterprises slid open to reveal a black haired boy and red headed girl both about fifteen. "Mr. Fox?" Dick Grayson called into the warehouse as he and Barbara Gordon exited the lift.
"Over here, Mr. Grayson," called a voice, and the two headed over to find Lucius Fox tinkering with some tech over by the work tables.
"Good to see you Fox," Dick said, shaking the older man's hand. "You said you wanted to show us something?"
"Yes. It took a while but I finally have your new and improved suits ready."
"Really?" Barbara asked excitedly.
"Yep. This way," he said, before getting up and moving to the nearby storage units. Opening the drawers, he pulled out two suits, one black with blue highlights across the chest and a cowl like the Batman's minus the ears, the other black with a yellow Bat symbol. "Hardened Kevlar plates over a titanium dripped tri-weave fiber. Much more armored than Kevlar plates crudely attached to a leather jacket, I assure you," Lucius smiled at Dick, who shuffled his feet.
"I was in a rush," he defended, Barbara covering her giggles behind him.
"Well you won't have to worry about compromising safety for speed now, Mr. Grayson," Lucius informed him, closing the cabinets. "I assure you, these suits are very easy to get in and out of, should you need to rush off again."
"Speaking of rushing, Amusement Mile has a special where admission's half off until noon and it's 11:42," Barbara informed Dick, looking at her watch.
"Right. Thanks Fox," he said, before turning and following Barbara to the elevator. "Think we can make it?" he asked, pressing the button for the surface.
"Commissioner's daughter and ward of the Batman? We'd be insults to our families if we couldn't!" she joked and he laughed as the door closed.
"What does that sign say?" Jenna asked her young ward. The little Asian girl looked at the stop sign across the street from her place on the park bench, opened her mouth, and furrowed her brow. "Come on Cassie, you can do it," the brunette caretaker encouraged.
"S… ss…sss," Cassandra Cain stuttered, before losing her nerve and lowering her head.
"It's ok honey. You'll get it soon enough," Jenna said, patting her adopted daughter's shoulder. A shadow crossed over them and they looked up to see John Blake offering his hand to the little girl.
"Come on Cassie. I'll push you on the swings." Cassandra smiled and jumped up to join her adopted father. The duo headed for the swings, the young Asian girl looking back at Jenna half way there, before turning back once the assistant DA gave the child a reassuring nod to 'go on.' Jenna smiled as she watched John and Cassie, though there was a touch of sadness in her eyes, before she went to join Helena at the picnic bench.
"She still not talking?" the dark haired woman asked, looking up form her book at her friend. Jenna shook her head sadly.
"We're making progress. She's making sounds now. I don't want to rush her. She'll talk when she's ready." Helena nodded and glanced behind her back at the man pushing the little girl in pink on the swings.
"Still not talking to him?" she inquired, turning back, and was greeted by a glare from Jenna. She shrugged and Jenna brought out a file from her purse. Inside were mug shots of Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, Roman Sionis, and Arnold Wesker along with their criminal profiles, known lieutenants, bases, resources, and crimes that they had not been convicted for. "Not even about the new kid?" Jenna ignored her. "Where is he anyway?"
"Back at the house. Dick and Barbara are hanging out together," Jenna replied, not looking up from the file. Helena frowned.
"And you're not worried?"
"They're almost adults and can protect themselves decently. Plus I put tracking devices in all their phones and if they go anywhere they aren't supposed, I'll know." Helena paused.
"Wait, so do you have tracking devices in all our phones?"
"You're not my kids, are you?"
The sun was going down, causing the lights of Amusement Mile to ignite the night. However, while they could defeat the darkness, they couldn't beat back the discomfort between Barbara and Dick as they headed for the park's exit. They had both had a wonderful day but they both knew that something was bothering the other, but neither knew how to broach the subject. Finally, just as Barbara opened her mouth to say something, but closed it, Dick told her, "Look something's wrong. You've been getting that look so often like you want to be happy but have something on your mind and I'm pretty sure you've been looking at me and seeing the same thing, so we should just spill the beans and get it over with." Barbara sighed and looked down but nodded.
"He proposed. My Dad. He proposed to his girlfriend," she explained. Dick furrowed his brow.
"Aren't your parents still–"
"The divorce was finalized last week."
"Oh. Sorry," he said, unsure of what to say. She shrugged.
"What about you?" she questioned, hoping to relieve the tension.
"My parents' deaths anniversary is tomorrow," he stated and Barbara closed her eyes and rubbed her temple.
"Oh my God I'm so sorry… god, here I am bitching about my family and you… sorry," she stammered. He nodded curtly in understanding, before they looked up to see the Batsignal glowing in the clouds above.
"You wanna go on patrol?" he asked abruptly and Barbara was surprised by the suggestion but nonetheless smiled and nodded.
"Sure. Nothing like a little night gliding to lift the spirits."
The now armored duo raced over Gotham's rooftops, searching for people to help. No one else was out on patrol, which struck them as odd, but they didn't care that much as long as they had the freedom.
"Help! Somebody help us!" a feminine voice called out. Batgirl and Nightwing quickly headed for the direction of the screams and discovered two women in trench coats, one blonde, the other with short black hair, both cornered by a gang of goons.
"You can handle this one," Batgirl said, and Nightwing smiled at her, before diving down and landing on one of the criminals. The other muggers jumped in surprise, but quickly recovered, though they were quickly disposed of by the young vigilante's kicks, punches, leaps, and flips. However, when the last thug had fallen, he heard the sound of a gun cocking and turned to find the short black haired girl pointing a dart gun at him, the blonde one smiling beside him, green shirts with question marks revealed underneath their trench coats. Thankfully, Batgirl landed on top of the dark haired woman and quickly floored the blonde with a punch to the jaw.
"Thanks," Nightwing said and Batgirl smiled back at him. He kneeled next to one of the unconscious goons. "Not Cobblepot's, Sionis, or Wesker from the looks of it," Nightwing pointed out, grabbing the back of the thug's jacket to show a green question mark.
"Then who?" Batgirl asked.
"I suppose we should find out." He motioned to the slightly stirring form of the blonde female goon and quickly grabbed her and threw her against the wall.
"We know this was a trap, so tell us, who sent you?" he growled, deepening his voice a bit in hopes of sounding more threatening. The woman laughed at him.
"I ain't tellin' ya, and I know yer not tha type ta hit a lady," she sneered. Nightwing hesitated, but Batgirl quickly delivered a punch to her abdomen.
"That was your kidney," she noted. Another punch. "That's your liver," she said as the blonde. "And this. You know what this is?" Batgirl inquired, before she kneed the female thug in the back, causing the older woman to fall to the ground. She pulled the woman's head up to face her by her hair. "It's your damn spine. Now, ready to tell us who you're working for?" The woman opened her mouth, but then her eyes went wide, her skin drained of all its color, and she went limp, blood dripping out of her ear from under her earpiece. The young female vigilante dropped the female goon's head in horror.
"No need to ask them Batgirl," a sophisticated voice notified both teenage heroes over their intercom.
"I suppose we're talking to whatever idiot thought it was a good idea to attack us," Nightwing responded.
"Idiot? I'm not the one who first waded into battle in a leather jacket." Dick scowled. "I suppose I should introduce myself. I am the Riddler and I must say, I'm impressed with you two, Mr. Grayson, Ms. Gordon." The duo looked at each other, pale and shocked to the core. "You're the only two who avoid capture."
"Only two?" Barbara repeated.
"Yes. Ms. Dawes and Mr. Blake did put up an impressive fight, but the moment they realized I had a gun pointed at an unconscious Cassandra's head, they were rather deferential." Their jaws dropped and they looked to each other, unsure of what to do.
"You threatened Cassie? And you're not in the hospital or arrested?" Dick asked the Riddler, as Barbara tried to trace his signal.
"Hardly a matter of importance."
"I'll be sure to remind you of that when Jenna snaps your back over her knee."
"Unlikely. Brains always triumph over brawn, my friend. Always!"
"Yeah, but from the sounds of it, you have neither."
"Enough chit-chat. Now, I'm sure you're distressed as to the fates of your family, so I'll put it in layman's terms. I've engineered a… scavenger hunt of sorts. I will give you a riddle and then you must find the place that answers it. If you can answer all of my riddles, find all the clues, and rescue all of your teammates and family members by midnight, I'll turn myself in."
"If not?"
"Well where's the fun in telling you?"
"Alright. Forget it, what's the first riddle, Riddler?"
"Where did an acrobat family gamble with their lives, and has now been turned into a solo?"
Barbara looked up from her screen in terror at what Dick might do, but he just took a deep breath through his nose and said, "If Jenna or John don't kill him then I'm going to." He motioned her to follow him as he grappled away. After running over a few rooftops, they came to a large open area near Amusement Mile.
"Where are we?" Batgirl asked, looking around.
"This was where Haley's Circus performed all those years ago," Dick told her. She turned to him. "This was where my parents died." He kneeled in the dirt, remembering how all those years ago, it had once been red with blood. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Barbara surveying him understandingly. She handed him a traffic ticket she'd found, which read, Park in his spot and you may just get a ticket. He got up and brushed off his suit; there was no time for mourning, not now; not when there were lives at stake. "You got any ideas?" he questioned his partner. She bit her lip rubbed her temple, eyes scanning the ticket.
"My dad…" she muttered.
"What?"
"That's his handwriting. The answer is probably his parking spot, back at MCU." Her eyes widened. "That's means the Riddler has my dad too." Nightwing cursed.
"Great. Just great." He sighed. "We'd better hurry then." They started running again. Sure enough, they made it to the MCU parking lot to find a flashlight in Gordon's spot. Nightwing picked it up. He shined it on the walls to find, written in invisible ink, another riddle: Always a shining example of Justice? Not if you ask me. The duo looked at each other. The Batsignal. They quickly clambered onto the rooftop to find a newspaper with the headline, My intellect towers over the Batman's. Even the original would agree. Nightwing and Batgirl glanced at each other.
"Do you–"
"Yeah," Batgirl cut him off. "My dad told me." He nodded. Now secure in the knowledge that they knew the secret of the original Batman, they headed for Wayne Tower, upon the roof of which they found tiles that had the following words: am, and, came, I, in, legs, only, out, six, two, went, where, and a question mark.
"How do you think he found out who we are?" Nightwing asked, as they put the words in proper order.
"Deduction, Espionage, Guessing. Who knows?" Batgirl replied.
"What do you think we should do?"
"Recue our parents and guardians and then consult them." When they believed themselves finished, the riddle said, Six legs went in and only two came out. Where am I? They looked at each other. Crime Alley. However, when they arrived, they found no new riddle; instead, they found a green question mark spray painted on a wall of the alleyway. Nightwing knocked on it: hollow. He quickly put his foot through the false wall, opened the door that lay behind it, and headed into the building, Batgirl right behind him.
The entire building had been hollowed out of furniture, floors, and anything that might have been a hindrance to the massive walls that seemed to twist and turn every which way, going all the way up to the ceiling and making the duo feel a bit claustrophobic. "It's a maze," the dark haired young man murmured.
"Well done Nightwing. Very astute observation," the Riddler mocked. He rolled his eyes.
"Can we put him on mute?" he asked his partner.
"You wanna risk missing a riddle?" she pointed out.
"Besides, I think you might want to know that your little friend has until the sand runs out," the Riddler said as the image of Jason Todd tied to a table came up on a monitor in front of them, an axe over his middle and an hour glass running out next to him. "Hurry up now." With that Batgirl and Nightwing took off like bullets, she going right and he going left. They went through innumerable halls, ending up in a multitude of dead ends, and being forced to double back an immeasurable number of times, desperately searching for Jason. Finally, Nightwing came to a door that had three keys labeled A, C, and D. He tried the D key but two throwing stars in the shape of number signs (#) flew out of holes in the wall at him. He ducked, missing them by inches. Looking at the stars, he noticed that they looked like sharps in a scale. So this time, he chose the C key, which in music has no sharps, and sure enough, the door opened. He quickly rushed to Jason's side, cut the ropes, and pulled him off the table, just as the axe came down. The two teenage boys sighed in relief and started to try and catch their breath.
"Took you long enough," Jason gasped.
"I'd like to see you do better," Dick pointed out.
"Tell that to my wrists," the younger boy shot back, rubbing his wrists where they were sore from the ropes.
"Boys you're both pretty, now can we get a move on? We've got less than three hours," Batgirl pointed out, as she entered the area, having finally made it through the maze.
"Did he give you a riddle by any chance?" Dick asked.
"Yeah. 'Which notorious family keeps serving trash?'"
"Right. You'd better head home."
"Like hell I am."
"We don't have time for thi–"
"Then we'd better get moving," Jason said, running for the exit. Dick turned to Barbara, whose smile was saying something along the lines of, He's like you.
"Shut up," Nightwing told her, following the younger orphan to the exit.
"Don't get cocky Batbrains. This was just the first round. It gets much more difficult here on out," the Riddler warned them and the two vigilantes rolled their eyes. This guy was just plain annoying.
Batgirl, Nightwing, and Jason Todd, now wearing a red motorcycle helmet linked to their communication channel, discovered a pair of binoculars outside of the former restaurant of the Falcones, where they had entertained guests and conducted business, until the incarceration of Carmine Falcone. Batgirl looked through them and found a message written on the goggles.
"Look out! Can you find where the madness began?" she read aloud. She removed them and looked at her two partners.
"Arkham," they all chimed together. Everyone in Gotham would know the answer to that one. They quickly headed up to the surface of the Narrows and found, not far from the old hole the prisoners had escaped through those many years ago, a message written on the wall: The feuding families always sit down to a good meal. Will they make a scene? The young vigilantes thought for a moment.
"The Maronis. They took over Falcone's mob, conducted business in their restaurant, and teamed up with some of their former rivals to take on the Batman," Batgirl suggested.
"You know a lot about this stuff," Nightwing commented. Batgirl half smiled.
"My dad would spend days at MCU trying to bring them down. Jenna used to babysit me back then too. So I was pretty aware of what was happening. I just didn't fully realize it until later," she explained.
"Well, that's nice but we've got a schedule to keep so, Maroni's it is!" Jason said, racing away. Outside Maroni's the trio found a radio, which played the message, "Civilians or criminals? Liberty or Spirit? Which was truly the better side?" They looked at each other.
"The Joker." Everyone knew Gotham's more recent history; it was necessary for survival when living in a town where the not too distant past tended to repeat itself. So they headed to the docks where the two famous bomb-filled ferries had disembarked. There they found a tablet that displayed the following numbers: 9 6 20 4 18 18 19 7 8 18 18 4 4 12 8 13 6 11 24 17 4 6 20 11 0 17 9 14 7 1 12 14 17 4 8 13 5 11 20 4 13 2 4 14 13 1 19 4 14 5 6 14 19 7 0 12 19 7 0 13 4 21 4 13 7 4 17 4 0 11 8 25 4 3
"It's code. The numbers correspond to letters of the alphabet," Batgirl said after a while. After decoding it, the message read: I guess this seemingly regular John had more influence on the fate of Gotham than even he realized.
"Think he means Blake?" Nightwing inquired.
"Unlikely. The other riddles have been about the Mob and large collections of criminals outside of prison" Batgirl pointed out.
"John Daggett. He brought Bane here to work, giving Bane the position needed to bring down Gotham from within," Jason explained. His partners looked at each other, surprised yet impressed, before they nodded. One ride to Daggett Industries later, they found, written on the wall in chalk, another message.
"You'd think after Fright Night, they would've learned to keep this gate locked up tight." The looked up and found no need to say it aloud. Blackgate. Sure enough, not far from the prison, there was a question mark on the side of a building. Batgirl quickly knocked against it just to make sure that it was a false wall and once she was certain, she promptly kicked it down. Then, she and her two partners made their way inside.
The trio of teenage vigilantes walked into the building, hollowed out like the other, and found themselves in front of a red curtain that hid the rest of the room from view. "Roll up, roll up!" the Riddler declared over the intercom. "It's time for my latest game." A pressure pad with a question mark in the middle of the floor lit up and the three vigilantes tentatively stood on it. The curtain immediately opened to reveal the unconscious bodies of Black Canary, Flamebird, and Huntress strapped to chairs. Three metal cones with illuminated green question mark buttons on the front then came down from the ceiling, covering the trio and then moving them around the room like a game of cups and balls. It was only after the three "cups" had been moved around so much it was impossible to tell which one held who, did they stop. "Activate the switches in order from oldest to youngest and you win." Nightwing and Batgirl looked at each other before activating the sonar system that Fox had developed for the original Batman, which the team had since dubbed "Detective Mode." It showed the silhouettes of the older vigilantes through the metal casings. Once they were sure of the silhouettes identities, Batgirl hit the question marks in order: Dinah, Helena, Bette. "Oh dear… let's see, shall we?" The cups lifted and the Riddler made a choked sound. Batgirl, Nightwing, and Jason wasted no time in hurrying to their fellow vigilantes sides' and helping them. "You're cheating aren't you? You're getting help from someone. But who… Who's smart enough to outsmart me?!" the Riddler cried as the trio left, carrying Black Canary, Huntress, and Flamebird to safety.
After making sure the three still comatose heroes were safe in the Batbunker, the kids hurried off to find the answer to the Riddle they'd found stuck on the back of Huntress's cape: It'd have to be Hell on Earth for these Ghuls to rise from the grave. The Ghuls part was the giveaway, and so the three teens headed for the secret cemetery that held the bodies and gravestones of Ra's, Talia, and Nyssa al Ghul, as well as Bane. Initially started by Bruce Wayne as a memorial to his long time mentor whose body was never found, it was now used to reunite a broken family in death. Only members of the team knew its location, for fear that if the public knew, they would vandalize and destroy the graves. However, in spite of its secrecy, the trio found the next riddle, written on Arkham Asylum stationary: "Does Scarecrow's gas destroy lives as well as minds?"
"The memorial," Batgirl whispered and her two partners looked to at her. "After the Fright Night, a memorial was made to commemorate the loss of the victims. My brother and I went to see it with Jenna ages ago," she explained. The other two nodded and together they headed for the memorial. There, they found an "I Believe in Harvey Dent" poster, with DA campaign special: Get two graves, for the price of one, scrawled across it. One stop by the graves of Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent later, and they had their riddle on a Joker playing card: This Joker might've known better than to laugh at an vexed, violent vigilante on top of a skyscraper. And so, at the top of the now finished Prewitt Building, the three young vigilantes discovered picture of Bane's corpse that looked like it was from a newspaper, with the riddle written over it: 'Gotham's Reckoning' they called him. Considering who's still standing, I'd say Gotham reckoned him and found he couldn't take the heat.
"Weren't we just at his grave a few riddles ago?" Jason questioned, confused.
"No look, it says 'stand' and 'heat,'" Nightwing pointed out.
"Your point?"
"It probably means the place he died, because he died standing on his feet when Catwoman shot him with the Batpod, hence the heat." Jason rolled his eyes, but followed Nightwing and Batgirl, and much to his surprise, on the steps of City Hall, they found a note that read: They say curiosity killed the cat… or was it possibly a simple crush? And just as they predicted, near Selina Kyle's former apartment in Old Town, they found the final question mark. "You're quickly approaching the point of no return. I'd turn back if I were you!" the Riddler shouted as the red helmeted vigilante kicked down the fake wall.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Jason said as he opened the door for Batgirl and Nightwing, following them inside.
All three of the teenage vigilantes' jaws dropped upon seeing the trap laid out before them. To their right there was a collection of dropping masses, swinging blades, glowing question mark switches, and other weapons that covered the path to the middle of this room and made this final death trap seem impossible to navigate. A spotlight turned on, illuminating the two, chained forms of Jennifer Dawes and John Blake hanging from the ceiling. "Introducing the King and Queen Thugs themselves!" the Riddler announced through speakers somewhere in the room, as electricity coursed up and down the chains, causing the two unmasked heroes to cry out in pain.
"Better a thug than a coward Riddler," Jenna yelled at him, breathing heavily.
"And yet, I'm not the one dangling over my death," he pointed out.
"What's the next challenge?" Nightwing shouted.
"Get through my traps and if you do, I'll have the final riddle waiting for you. Now hurry, or else they'll be fried before you get there," he warned as the electricity started again, sending pain shooting up Jenna and John's bodies. Batgirl, Nightwing, and Jason quickly hurried through the system of traps, sliding under falling weights, ducking under and jumping over rotating blades, grappling over electrified floors, occasionally being forced to help pull each other out of the way of the traps. Finally, after what felt like ages of running, climbing, and dodging, they made it to the podium that the two older vigilantes were hanging above.
"We made it, Riddler! What's the riddle?" Nightwing called out. A pair of buttons rose from beneath the platform in front of the trio and glowed green.
"Riddle me this: Who is more important to Gotham: Batman or Batgirl?" the Riddler questioned.
"What?!" Batgirl, Nightwing, Jason, Jenna, and John all cried out. Their exclamation echoed throughout the room and down to their souls as they thought of what that riddle meant.
"You heard me," the Riddler stated. "Now make your choice."
"Choose Jenna!" John yelled at the kids.
"No, don't listen to him, choose him!" Jenna argued.
"What are you talking about? They need you more!"
"Well Gotham needs you John! No, don't you dare say it needs me more!" Jenna interrupted him as he tried to protest. "Gotham City needs Batman, not Batgirl! That's the way it is and that's the way it's always going to be!"
"Jenna, you're the one who taught me, taught all of us, how could we go on without you?"
"You don't need me. You may think you do but you really don't. Look, just trust me. I can take care of myself, I don't need rescuing."
"I beg to differ," the Riddler said, as the electricity turned back on, John and Jenna screaming in pain. "Choose, unless you want to bury two fried corpses!" he demanded. Barbara, Dick, and Jason looked at each other, unsure of what to do. John was the Batman, making him the greatest symbol out of all of them, but Jenna was technically their leader. But then again, they were all more afraid of Jenna than John, meaning it would be in their best interests to do as she said. And so, reluctantly, they pressed the right button, which released John Blake and dropped him down to their platform. He cried out as he hit the floor, landing on her foot the wrong way, but was otherwise, relatively unharmed. "Well, I suppose it's goodnight, Miss Dark Knight," the Riddler smiled.
"I beg to differ," Jenna declared as she started twist and turn, struggling to get out of her bonds. The electricity started again, causing her to cry out, but she continued to maneuver her way out of her chains, before she was finally free and fell to the ground, kneeling down.
"What! THAT'S CHEATING!" the Riddler protested.
"Deal with it," Jenna shot back. They heard the sound of something being thrown across the room from the Riddler's side of the communication channel, cursing, before he eventually calmed down and sighed angrily.
"Alright. We've had our fun. But this endeavor's grown tiresome," he told them.
"You think this is over? I know you've got Gordon and my daughter Riddler," Jenna reminded him, fury apparent in her voice.
"But she's not really your daughter, is she?" the Riddler taunted and Jenna responded by taking a small mine from Nightwing's belt and throwing it at the speaker in the ceiling.
"And you're usually so patient Jenna," Nightwing smiled at her.
"He's been doing nothing but gloat for the past four hours and my patience ran out after the first two. Now someone get me a computer, I need to find this bastard," she ordered, moving on a warpath to the exit.
Batman, Batgirl (Jenna Dawes this time, since an unmasked and no longer costumed Barbara Gordon was keeping watch outside with Jason Todd), and Nightwing made their way through the Riddler's lair, which Jenna had found by tracking the history of sales for the buildings in which the traps had been made in. They moved toward the door, but stopped when they realized it was rigged with explosives. Instead, Nightwing pointed to the air vents above. Climbing up to the ceiling and carefully removing the cover, Batgirl entered the ventilation system, Batman and Nightwing not far behind her.
"That's right worms, keep walking. You do know how to walk, don't you?" came the Riddler's arrogant voice from up ahead. The trio of vigilantes exited the vents to see a multitude of cop hostages strapped with explosives, walking along tracks in the floor. Using detective vision, they found the Riddler in a room across the office,
"Riddler, when we get out of this, I swear, I'll–" Gordon shouted.
"You'll do what Commissioner?" the Riddler cut him off. "I mean, first you'd have to somehow escape the predicament you currently find yourself in. And then, you'd somehow have to manage to attack me in a manner that would cause me not to press this button, which would distribute your primitive DNA across the walls. And I don't think the future Mrs. Gordon would really like that, would you, Ms. Essen?"
"Fuck you Riddler!" yelled Sarah Essen, who seemed to be across the area, walking along same path as Jim.
"Now, now, Ms. Essen, I'd advise against insulting the man who holds your and your future husband's life in his hands." Batgirl looked to Batman and Nightwing, nonverbally suggesting she go since his fall had left him with a limp and she was more experienced than Nightwing. They both nodded, a little reluctantly, and slowly but surely, Batgirl navigated the maze, keeping directly behind the walking cops so as to not block their paths. Occasionally, the cops would almost make a noise of alarm upon seeing the batgirl behind or near them, but Batgirl silenced them with a warning glare and a touch of her finger to her lips. Making it to the final track and getting behind Gordon, she followed the Commissioner under the Riddler's control room. She then broke the weak, old wooden boards from under his feet and grabbed his ankles.
"What?" the Riddler cried out as he was pulled through his own floor, his right wrist snapped as the Batgirl removed the detonator from his grasp. His head was then hit against the floor, knocking him unconscious. Moving his body to the side, Batgirl quickly crawled through the hole in the floor, headed for the computer, and remotely deactivated the explosives.
"You can stop walking ladies and gentlemen. The threat's been neutralized," Batgirl called out as the Batman and Nightwing began to help them out of the harnesses.
"What took you so long?" Commissioner Jim Gordon panted, wiping sweat from his forehead as Sarah Essen rolled her shoulders next to him.
"Blame the kids, they dillydallied. Speaking of which, your daughter's outside," Batgirl informed him, and he sighed in relief.
"I'd better take him in then," Gordon stated, but was stopped by Batgirl grabbing his arm.
"He has Jennifer Dawes' daughter Gordon." Gordon looked at her, eyes wide. "I need five minutes with him." He nodded.
"I'll give you ten. Just, try not to rough him up too much. Police brutality is a messy enough affair, it's even worse with agents who aren't on the force," he warned her, heading for the exit with Sarah Essen.
"No promises," Batgirl muttered, glaring down at the currently unconscious form of the Riddler.
The Riddler, now identified as Edward Nigma/Nashton, depending on the identity he went by, was now seated at a table, handcuffed and green suit rumpled, Batgirl standing over him threateningly.
"Where's Cassandra Cain?" she interrogated.
"Now why would I tell you that?" he asked.
"Because you're all alone with a woman who's daughter was last seen with you and neither Gordon, the Batman, or anyone else in Gotham can stop me from hurting you if you don't cooperate. Now tell me. Where. Is. She?" she grit out.
"Again, she's not really your daughter." He cried out as Batgirl grabbed his arm and pulled it farther back than it was supposed to go. He held it, wincing in pain.
"Say that again and I'll break much worse. Now where is she?" she ordered.
"What does it matter?" he inquired. "You won't kill me, it's beneath you. So you're going to send me to Arkham with all the other great criminal threats until I escape and cause even more trouble. This is just the opening number, the overture… I'm maturing into a more rounded, vicious criminal is all," he smirked at her. She pulled him toward her by the front of his jacket, now nose-to-nose.
"You think you're so special? You're a copycat, Nigma. A textbook case of narcissism. There are one million guys out there just like you, people who think they're smarter, faster, stronger, better. But you're not. You're just a petty little man in a green suit, trying to make yourself into something scary. Well I've seen and killed scary, Mr. Nigma, and you are not him. Now tell me, where is Cassandra Cain?!" she shouted. He smiled tauntingly at her.
"That is quite the riddle, isn't it?" WHACK! The Riddler flew out of his chair and onto the floor as Batgirl punched him across the face, knocking him unconscious. She then dragged him outside to where Gordon, the rest of the police hostages, and her fellow conscious vigilantes were waiting.
"What happened?" Gordon asked, looking him over.
"He fell," she said shortly, before hurrying off into the night with her family. She had a daughter to find.
David Cain dragged his daughter across the runway to the cargo plane he had secured their passage on. However, it was getting harder and harder to drag her due to her constant fighting with him. He glared down at her. "Cassandra, that's enough. Stop that! Now!" She glared right back and bit the arm that pulling her toward hell. "OW!" he shouted and slapped her across the face. "What has gotten into you?"
"She doesn't want to go with you Cain. Is it that hard for you to tell?" called a familiar voice behind them. They turned to see Batman, Batgirl, Nightwing, and a kid in a leather jacket with a red motorcycle helmet covering his face.
"I have every right to her. I'm her father," he shouted back.
"You lost the right to call yourself that when you spilled her blood."
"Oh yeah? And what about you? Do you think that a girl who was born to be a killer can fit into your perfect little world of saints and non-violence? Especially when she's already a killer." The vigilante's formerly blank faces had hints of confusion, causing Cain to smile. "That's right, she's already killed a man. Right before you met her."
"Right before I met her you'd shot her," Batgirl shot back.
"She ran away after she killed him, I just punished her for cowardice. Still think that's the kind of kid you want?"
"No," Batgirl said, before looking right in Cassandra's fearful eyes. "I know that's the kind of kid I want." She looked back up at Mr. Cain. "Now let her go." He sighed and shrugged.
"So much for negotiation," he muttered, before bringing out a pistol and shooting the Batgirl down. He turned to shoot the others, but Cassandra pulled herself from his grasp and got in between them, shouting, "STOP!" at the top of her lungs. Everyone froze.
"You… can talk?" David Cain murmured, lowering his gun, and the Batman may have been mistaken, but it looked like there were tears in his eyes. Cassandra nodded, before running over to the Batgirl's side and helping her to her feet. The Kevlar plates had stopped the bullet, but the impact still knocked her off her feet. Cassandra then turned back to her father, pointed to the plane, before making a claw with her fist, the move that she had used to kill the man, a move he had taught her.
Leave… or die, the movement told him. Cain chuckled.
"That's my girl," he said. He looked at the Batman and Batgirl. "Take care of her," he ordered them, before turning and heading off toward the cargo plane, leaving his daughter behind with her true family.
Dick Grayson approached his parents' graves, two red roses in hand, the cloudy sky making the red seem even more vibrant than usual. Setting them on the cool green dew-dotted grass, he sat down and just stared at the graved for a moment. "Hey Mom. Hey Dad," he started. "It's been nine years since you last talked to me. I know you probably can't hear me but I'm just going to pretend that you can." He sighed through his nose. "I'm out of the orphanage. I've been brought into a home, into the lives of a group of wonderful people. They're smart and tough and a just little crazy; you'd like them." He glanced back at said family, which consisted of two adult vigilantes, a former carjacker, and the mute daughter of two of the world's deadliest assassins. Next to them stood a girl who wasn't technically part of their immediate family, but was still important to them, especially to the man they had come here to support. "They said they weren't going to try and replace you two. They won't adopt me. They just made me their ward. They said all they wanted was to make things as good as they could for me." He stood carefully and began to leave, turning back at the last second to add, "If I can't be with you guys, I'd like to be with them." He then headed back to his new family, one bound not by blood but by vows forged from fire. They nodded and smiled reassuringly, except for Barbara, who wrapped her arms around him, determined to not let him go.
That night, John Blake, Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, and Barbara Gordon were sitting on the couch, Dick's arm around Barbara's shoulders, pretending to watch the muted news, but in reality, listening to the voice of Jennifer Dawes in the other room as she read to Cassandra. "The Sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house, all that cold, cold wet day," she rhymed, glancing up at her smiling, semi-awake daughter. "I sat there with Sally. We sat there, we two. And I said, 'How I wish, we had something to do!' Too wet to go out, and too cold to play ball. So we sat in the house. We did nothing at all. So all we could do was to Sit! Sit! Sit! Sit! And we did not like it. Not one little bit. Bump! And then, something went bump! How that bump made us jump! We looked! Then we saw him step in on the mat! We looked and we saw him! The Cat in the Hat! And he said to us, 'Why do you sit there like that? I know it is wet. And the sun is not sunny. But we can have fun, lots of good fun that is funny!'" She looked up again to see that Cassie was now fast asleep, little chest rising and falling with each breath. Closing the book, Jenna leaned forward and kissed her daughter's forehead, before getting up, grinning at the little girl one last time, turning off the light, and closing the door behind her.
