Disclaimer: All the characters in this story are property of WB and DC Comics. I own nothing, nor am I using this for personal profit. Just fun. :D
The shrill ring of a cell phone stirred James Gordon from a deep, peaceful slumber. He had always kept strange hours – and stranger company – while working as the Commissioner of Gotham City's Police Department, but since his retirement, his life had settled into something of a routine. He would wake at around 8 AM, he would take a shower, and afterward, he would sit down at the breakfast table with a black coffee and the morning paper. The day would pass slowly, as they always did, because there was no rush to go from one place to another, no crimes to solve, no disasters to mitigate. There were times he missed the action.
Then he would read the headline of the day and immediately renege the thought.
Jim shook awake abruptly, hand reaching for the object of the infernal noise, fumbling as his eyelids refused to cooperate and stayed closed. "Gordon here," he grumbled, habit taking over while his brain wasn't up to task.
"Don't go anywhere near the water."
His eyes opened wide, brain kick-starting into action. He hadn't heard thatvoice since shortly after his wife's funeral, over two years ago. "Batman?"
"Have you or Barbara come in contact with any tap water in the past six hours?" he asked urgently.
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes with an arthritic hand. "Barbara's out of town until tomorrow, and as for me, well, I'm still in my pajamas." He glanced at the clock; red digital letters scrawled out 7:39.
There was the briefest of embarrassed pauses. "Sorry to wake you, Jim," Batman apologized, "but there's a situation. Gotham's water supply has been contaminated."
He could've laughed. He hadn't even gotten out of bed yet, and it was already one of those days.
09.
Ashes, Ashes
"Contaminated? With what?"
"I don't know yet," the Dark Knight responded, "but the order for it was given by Ra's Al Ghul."
He stared at the receiver like it had transformed into a snake. "The eco-terrorist?" he questioned as he brought the phone back to his ear. "What's his stake in all of this?"
"Not sure of that yet, either," Batman answered, sounding frustrated – though he doubted anyone else would've noticed the change in tone, "but I'll find out soon enough. Do you have a pen and paper handy? I've got some coordinates to give you."
"Yeah, just a sec," he muttered, flinging the thin cotton sheet from his legs and fumbling with the drawer next to the bed. "But why are you telling me all this? I have no authority in the department, anymore – the best I can do is pass the information along."
"And that's exactly what I want you to do. Commissioner Loeb may take it better from you."
Jim frowned. He knew of Loeb's stance on the Caped Crusader and how strongly he was pushing to drive the vigilante out of town. If only that small-minded prick knew just how much Batman had given for this city... "He doesn't like late-night visitors?"
Batman's voice was oddly neutral as he stated, "The last time I tried to warn him of a city-wide threat, he shot me."
Jim nearly dropped the phone. "Shot you? As in – "
"With a gun." Another quick pause. "We can reminisce later; right now, we're short on time. Do you have that paper?"
He fiddled with the pen in his hand. "Got it. Where am I sending SWAT?"
He could hear the grim smirk in his friend's gravelly baritone as he replied, "Just like old times, huh, Jim?"
Gordon grunted. Guess he didn't need to read the paper today. "Don't remind me."
Batman closed the link with a tap of his index finger, turning to Nightwing. "Gordon's been informed. Do you have the sample?"
Nightwing carefully screwed the vial filled with purple-black goop shut and flicked it with a finger. "Yup! Let's roll, partner."
Just like old times, indeed. He motioned to the thin glass container. "Head to the Watchtower, analyze the toxin, and cross-reference it against all known pathogens."
Dick nodded. "And where are you going?"
His turned away, eying Nightwing over one finely-toned shoulder. "Ra's tailored this entire scheme with me in mind. I doubt the Manor was the only decoy trap he set. He might have left a clue." He tapped his ear, starting off toward the surface. "I'll be in touch. Call me when you find something." He rounded the corner, climbing the winding stairwell swiftly as he switched communication frequencies. "Superman, I've found him."
There was silence for three seconds before Superman asked, "Is he alright?"
"He's fine," he replied, vaulting over a fallen supply shelf that blocked his way out of the basement. He took a cursory inspection of the room as he sped through it – someone had fought here recently.
The Man of Steel sighed in relief over the line. His personal concern was equal parts touching and irritating. "That's good. How about you?"
The scales tipped in irritation's favor. "Don't worry about me."
"It's pretty hard not to when – oh, thanks Lois."
He raced down the demolished hallway, the air stale and decaying in spite of the roof being missing. This pestilence of a facility would remain a blight on the land for the rest of time. "You're at work?"
"Well, it is Friday, Mr. Wayne." Bruce grit his teeth, irritation pooling with frustration to create a molitov cocktail of rage that only Clark Kent could ever coax from him. "Anyway, sorry for the interruption, I can tell you're busy. Should I call back at a better time?"
Nearly a hundred miles away, the mild-mannered reporter in question sat at his desk with his cell phone against his ear, cleverly masking his conversation with a clearly-annoyed Batman to the world. Clark, for one, wasn't really sure why Bruce was being so untenable – he was the one that called. The Dark Knight growled into his ear, "Don't bother; I'll call you."
He pushed the rim of his wire-framed glasses up to the bridge of his nose with his forefinger. "Alright, thanks again, Mr. Way – "
Click.
Clark pulled the cell phone away from his ear and gave it a dour, withering stare. That man... Lois, at the adjacent desk, caught his gaze and quirked an eyebrow in silent question. He shrugged and smiled sheepishly. "Guess he really was busy."
The Batmobile purred as Bruce tapped the break, parking the sleek black vehicle in a secluded knoll near the roadside entrance to the Batcave. Suspecting that the entryway was going to be destroyed, he loosed a grapple and sailed to the top of the jagged cliff, cape pooling around him as he landed. Ensuring that the area was deserted, Batman stole to an upper entry of the Cave that no one else had ever learned of. Kneeling at the opening, he took the remainder of his acid container and poured it over the titanium-alloy grate he'd installed shortly after he became Batman, the metal bars bubbling and hissing as it liquefied. Shifting his weight to one leg, he kicked the loosened square free, listening as it fell silently for a full ten seconds before it rattled sharply against stone. Evidently, the Cave wasn't as fully demolished as he'd initially feared; that was a good sign. Tying a line to the remainder of the grate, he pulled on the wire once to test its strength, before he slid himself into the opening and slowly rappelled down.
Carefully, he planted his feet on the ground where only the faintest of light streamed down, one hand still gripping the rope tightly in his hand while the other pulled out a high-powered flashlight. Running the light along the ground, he spied the grate lying tilted against the dank cave wall; the hollowed and cramped corridor to the Batcave was in front of it. He gave the rope one more cursory tug, then left it and hunched his upper body down to fit through the tight space.
The passage felt far longer than it actually was. He must have been leaner back then; he didn't recall jagged rock brushing painfully against his shoulders and upper back like this. It widened mercifully and he rose to his full height, a pair of agitated bats whizzed past between his pointed ears, sailing up into the cacophony of frightened warbles and squeaks. He hadn't even thought about them– just like always, these creatures understood his plight only too well. He shook his head and moved on, winding through the thin and uneven path until he came to a stairwell terraformed into the rockface. Setting the light to shine directly in front of him, he briskly climbed the stairs.
It had been twenty-five years since he'd last stepped foot in this section of the Cave. Bruce, at the time, wasn't concerned with his Mission, so much as where the sudden swarm of bats had come from, shortly after proposing to Andrea. He later learned that this particular species was extremely territorial, but the beady-eyed creatures remained deathly still while he spelunked into their nest. He'd spent hours down here without realizing, or frankly caring – he was strangely fascinated by the expanse of the cold cavern that seemed to stretch on in both directions forever. At the time, he wondered why he felt so at ease while being engulfed in darkness. If only he'd known.
His only warning of danger was a rumbling roar of stone tearing apart shortly before the steps crumbled beneath his treads. With a startled cry, he reached for the railing as his flashlight went skipping down into the abyss, along with a sizable portion of the stairwell. Struggling to find footing, he powered on his built-in night vision goggles – which, unfortunately, offered him very little in the way of help. He was left staring at a haze of barely distinguishable green, but he none the less managed to secure the ball of one foot against a small outcrop, lessening the load on his awkward grip. Staring up into the void, he searched for a particular point to latch his grappling hook onto. He thought he spotted a suitable candidate – it looked sturdy enough – but wasn't certain it would hold, if the fiasco with the stairway was anything to go by. Scanning the darkness again, he found his landing point, should he not plummet to his unceremonious death.
Batman steadied his right arm and muttered to himself, "Only one way to find out."
His aim was true, the serrated arrow-head slamming into the rock with a tinny clank. The air, stale and humid, rushed past him as the pneumatic grappling hook reeled him to the pointed rock formation high above. Swinging his legs forward, he clicked the line release button and felt gravity take hold of him as he careened toward the last intact section of stairs. The Dark Knight landed roughly against the semi-destroyed bottom step, a portion of it giving out under his weight. He stopped himself short of skidding off the edge with a grunt, retractable claws out and digging into the stone in a veritable death grip as he hoisted the rest of his body onto solid ground.
He was getting too old for this.
He tested the half-demolished step with a tap of his boot before he rose to his feet. Grabbing the thin metal railing, he continued up the remainder of the stairway, until it leveled off to the Batcave proper. A faint blue glow emanated in the distance, the pungent, acrid scent of smoke and chemicals burning his nose and throat. Coughing, he procured a gas mask and hastily slipped it over his face, inhaling and exhaling deeply through the filters to rid the noxious fumes from his inflamed lungs. He switched off his night vision and tentatively strode through his ruined trophy hall, sliding around and climbing over the giant chunks of rock that littered the ground. Despite himself, he wondered how long it would take to restore the Cave once Ra's was in custody and Gotham was safe again – months? Years? Many of the gadgets he'd confiscated were one-of-a-kind – irreplaceable. Some of the owners were dead and gone; others had reformed and moved on to lead normal lives.
Others still were working hard to replace the old guard, toiling to earn a name for themselves in the underworld as this codename or that. Truthfully, they were all beginning to blend together. All of these people, hurting others, lashing out at them – all of them tortured, disturbed, looking for something they could never find in the doldrums of everyday society. They turned to crime because it offered them a way out, a freedom, a means to survive where they previously felt they had none. It was becoming increasingly difficult to empathize with them. His heart grew a little harder, a little colder, every time he offered his hand – his time, his resources, his kindness and forgiveness, if he could truly reach them – only to have it spat upon and used against him. In a perfect world, Bruce didn't want to see anyone, anywhere, suffer alone.
His boot nudged the remains of the Freeze gun. He reached down and plucked it from the grimy cavern floor, staring dully at its highly polished surface.
Unfortunately, the world was very far from perfect.
A sound of a rock clunking against the floor caught his attention; the gun fell to the ground unnoticed as he readied a Batarang. A slender figure rounded a fallen stalactite, a gun gleaming softly in their grip. Oh, no – no one else was perusing hishome, not on his watch. Batman sprung into action, the Batarang connecting with the assailant's outstretched hand. The silhouette gasped in pain, foolishly watching the weapon fly end over end into one of the puddles of darkness. He pressed the advantage, lunging forward and slamming them into the ground with a breathy rush of lost air. Glowing eyes slit angrily, he forcibly shoved the intruder onto their back, pinning them to the ground with solid muscle and a grip of cast iron.
The person gaped up at him, startled, but neither surprised nor terrified. Given who was he was holding down, he supposed her reaction only made sense. Talia smiled thinly. "Hello, beloved."
Lois Lane flicked her wrist and checked the time; ten minutes to 9 o'clock. She sighed blandly, going back to proof-reading her article while lamenting how slowly the day was passing. She'd already questioned the police officials on the scene of the Wayne Manor explosion, hoping to snag a good front-page article while trying to eschew enough of the controversy away from Bruce that his secret wouldn't be exposed – and doing so without making it look like she was pulling her punches. A soft Lois Lane story would only entice her more ambitious and sharp-elbowed colleagues to go snooping for themselves. She knew Bruce could more than fend for himself – and she wasn't above letting the lout do just that if he decided to be an ass about it – but having a friend in your corner never hurt.
Besides, she felt she owed him.
She ran a finger absentmindedly over the thin gold chain of her watch. When Clark told her that he'd been courting her as Superman while silently working side-by-side with her – for years – she'd slapped him, then removed his glasses and slapped him again, just to make sure she got them both. Supe – Cla – whoever he was had apologized profusely and promised to make it up to her, saying that he'd wanted to tell since he watched her cry at his – Clark's – funeral, but was afraid of what she might think.
She'd balked. "What I might think? Of what?"
Clark's face – Superman's face – had been uncharacteristically meek. With the glasses, she could've taken the expression in stride; without them, she simply couldn't wrap her head around it. His sterling blue eyes were sullen as he'd answered hesitantly, "Of being in love with some small town Kansas boy." He shrugged. "That you always tease."
Lois Lane, daughter of an army general, tough-as-nails modern woman that took absolutely zero crap from anyone or anything, had felt her heart melt like warm butter in her chest.
A smile had dangled from her lips as she stood on her tiptoes, staring into his eyes. "Don't be so self-conscious, Smallville. If I didn't like what I saw..." She carefully replaced his glasses, pushing them up the bridge of his nose with a finger, the way she'd seen him do a thousand times before. "I'd tell you."
Then she kissed him.
It had been strange for the first two seconds, feeling the wire-rims underneath her fingers as her hands roamed over the immaculate, chiseled planes of his face – knowing that the doting Kansas boy she called her best friend, her most trusted companion, was also the gold-hearted hero that risked his life for strangers everyday. It had been even stranger to realize, with a sudden flash of understanding, that she was hopelessly in love with them both, and that she could no longer imagine them as separate individuals. They were two halves of the same whole – the same amazing, klutzy, selfless, strong, compassionate, forthright, and loving man that she was so proud to know.
When they'd parted, she gave the tip of his nose a chaste peck, smirking. "Though, if you really do want to make it up to me, Clark..."
His deep blue eyes were glazed over as he panted lightly. She couldn't believe he was out of breath – he was Superman, for Christ's sake. "Sure."
"Dinner. Tomorrow night at La Buchelle's. As yourself." Her grin widened a touch. "And you're paying."
Their dinner was fabulous and his gift, a gold watch, was as beautiful as it was extravagant – too extravagant for a man of Clark's pay-grade. She'd done some snooping, as it was her ply and trade of choice, and learned of a desperate call to one very rich Bruce Wayne. When she questioned him about it, he politely denied any involvement, other than, "Trying to calm the babbling idiot down before he gave himself a stroke."
"That 'babbling idiot' is my boyfriend," Lois had snapped, her instinct to protect the honor of the dopey little farm boy bubbling to the surface, in spite of her knowledge that said dopey little farm boy could snap Batman in half. It was the principle of the thing, really.
"No accounting for taste, I see," he'd retorted, an odd gleam in his eye.
A hand curled into a fist, ready to sock him right in his arrogant, broody, paranoid-schizophrenic face, before recognition clicked in her head.
Bruce was teasing her.
Batman – the goddamn Batman! – was teasing her.
She settled for punching him in the shoulder and thanking him for helping Clark in his time of need. Bruce, in return, merely rolled the joint once for effect and muttered, "Not bad." His gaze was alight with a subdued warmth as he shook her hand and escorted her to her car. He appeared...genuinely happy for her – for them both.
A week later, he fell off the face of the Earth.
Three weeks after that, a shell-shocked and ashen-faced Bruce Wayne reappeared, informing the public that his adopted sixteen year old son, Timothy, had been abducted and brutalized in a bid for ransom money. He'd given her the world-exclusive interview – to date, the only interview he'd ever held on the subject – and shakily recounted the twenty-day long ordeal. Her heart, tough as it may have been, broke for him; she knew that the tears he'd been blinking back during their short conversation weren't fake.
When they'd finished, she shut off her recorder and laid a hand on his arm. "Off the record, Bruce," she asked tentatively, "what really happened?"
He looked down at her. His blue eyes were so dull. "Don't ask me that, Lois," he said with a tone that would have sounded neutral, if it hadn't been laced with so much misery. "Don't ever ask me that."
Lois never asked again. Lois also never saw him again.
She wondered what he was involved in this time to get his home blown to pieces. Whatever it was, she just hoped he came out of it in one piece.
"Lois?" Her head darted up to see Clark staring at her, slightly concerned. "You okay?"
She forced an impish grin. "Of course, Smallville! Why wouldn't I be?"
He gave her that, 'I can hear your heart-rate and I know you're lying' look. "Well, for starters," he responded blandly, "you're rubbing your watch like you think there's a genie stuffed in there."
Her expression became exasperated, scoffing and resuming her proof-reading. "Oh, it's nothing. I'm just finishing up this article on the Wayne Manor explosion, and I couldn't help but wonder..."
"...How such a flake like him didn't manage to do it years before?" he supplied with raised eyebrows.
She almost blushed. If she didn't know Bruce's secret, that's exactly what she would've thought. "Something like that, yeah." She grimaced. "Does 'perpetual' have one T or two?"
"One, Lois."
She hastily corrected the error. "I just get the feeling there's more to this fire than meets the eye." Lois gazed at Clark evenly. "I mean, you know the World's Richest Slacker better than I do – did he get himself involved in something?"
Clark's expression fell in vaguely defined sadness. Her reporter instincts piqued up. Oh, there was definitely something going on, then. "Doesn't he always?"
"Alright, everyone," Perry's voice boomed over the newsroom, the chatter and noise dying down to hear him. "We've got some sort of big chemical spill in Gotham's waters – front-page disaster headline, who – "
The din drowned out the rest of his words as dozens of reporters jumped up and clamored for the glory. Clark's body language shifted imperceptibly, straightening in his chair. "Chemical spill?"
"Where do you think..." Lois and Clark's eyes met, violet against azure, a secret message passing between them. She smiled wanly at her husband. "Gotta go?"
Clark nodded. "I'll meet you there."
"Sure you will, Smallville," she answered as she rose from her seat to claim her place on the front page, as always, "but I'm getting the byline!"
"A chemical spill?" Jim Gordon yelled over the phone. "You told the public it was a chemical spill?"
Commissioner Harold Loeb rubbed his temples wearily. He'd never really liked Gordon that much. Oh, he got where the man was coming from, but his years in retirement must have softened his mind. He wasn't going to send the populace into a panic when they didn't have the facts. "What was I supposed to tell them? We don't know what that mess SWAT uncovered even is, much less if it's toxic or not."
"Batman said – "
Ah, yes, his pet Bat. Another reason Loeb didn't really like Gordon that much. Shortly before his retirement became official, he'd taken Harold aside and made the cryptic statement, "Sometimes, the long arm of the law just isn't long enough."
"Then you're not doing your job," he'd replied before storming out to pack his belongings. Gordon had relied on a vigilante to do all his legwork, reaping all the rewards for lowering the crime-rate when it was some revenge-crazed lunatic running amok that did it for him. That hypocrite.
"Batman didn't know what it was, either," he reminded his former boss tartly. "And this Raz Algool – "
"Ra's Al Ghul – "
"Whatever it is," he said, "the guy's a myth. A boogeyman."
"You'd be surprised at just how many boogeymen exist in the world, Loeb," Gordon answered, his tone sharp, "when you try pulling your head out of your ass long enough to bother looking!"
Yeah, they didn't get along. At all.
Good thing the Mayor was on his side. "I appreciate the procedural critique, Jim," he replied, a scaly grin on his face that did not reach his eyes, "but I'm handling this the way it needs to be handled. No two-bit nutjob in a cape and mask is going to call the shots in my city while I'm in charge."
"Your city?" Jim queried. "He says the same thing, you know."
Harold snarled. That bastard.
"Keep in touch, Loeb."
He hung up roughly. "Keep in touch," he huffed, drumming his fingers against the cradle of the phone as he looked at preliminary reports of the substance they found. If follow-up tests confirmed that it was toxic, he could be in for the most epic shitstorm of all time.
He wadded the paper up and hurled it into a wastebasket. "Keep in touch. I'll get right on that."
Batman didn't move or loosen his grip. "Running errands for your father, Talia?"
"No, beloved, I came here to help you," she denied, her accent thinner than he remembered hearing last.
The Dark Knight hands remained locked on her elbows. "You've said that before," he stated, baritone harsh and disbelieving. "Why are you here?"
Her features, angular and aristocratic, ticked in grief. "I came to warn you of my father's plan, but I was...delayed." Her pale blue eyes fell upon a fallen rock inches from her head, filled with sorrow and uncertainty. "I see now that I was too late to stop him."
Wary, he slid away from her, kneeling at her side as she rose to a sitting position, rubbing the inside of her elbows. "Stop him from doing this?"
Her alto was shameful. "No, from releasing the plague into your city."
Lightning shot up his spine, and he found his hands clamping on the sides of her arms like a vice. "Plague?" he hissed, eyes wide and teeth bared. "You mean you introduced a disease into my city?"
"No, beloved, it was not me!" She shook her head emphatically, peering into his lenses with a stark desperation. "You must believe me – I did not know what my father was planning to do! If I had, I would have aided you sooner!"
He yanked her forward, the point of his cowl digging into the skin of her cheek as he glared. Her breath was warm on his face. "Tell me everything you know. Now."
"Superman to Batman."
Batman tilted his head to the side, swearing under his breath. "I'm busy."
"What can we do to help?"
He glared out of the corner of his eye, aimed at Talia. "Nothing; I'm handling it."
"Oh, for God's sake!" Superman snapped, his static-laden voice was rough with frustration. "Can you put your pride to the side for once and let us help you before the rioting gets out of control?"
He knit his brows, going stiff. What? "Rioting?"
Clark's tone was flabbergasted. "You mean you don't know?"
"Superman," he growled, voice volcanic, "what the hell is going on?"
"Leopard Fever," Clark answered, baritone bereft. "It's hit Gotham."
To be continued...
