Chapter 25: Oracle

The worst part was the silence.

Batman worked alone. Always had. But he'd adjusted to Oracle's voice in his ear, her eyes watching through his. She was faking transmissions with him to a different part of the city now, on the very slim chance Deadshot was still monitoring them, and it disoriented him. He'd begun to depend on her.

Depend. Batman exhaled just a bit harder than necessary and returned to staring at the different vehicles and pedestrians in the area. Oracle had her mission. He had his. He needed to do it.

The police radio came through his com. Gordon had managed to get the task force suspended, and now he used coded messages to tell his own teams, Gotham's finest officers, to move in. On schedule—8:17 PM. Seven minutes until SWAT arrived, and no sign of Deadshot. Either he was waiting until the chaos to attack, or he'd come before Batman had and was set up and waiting. Either way, he had a plan.

"Master Wayne gave strict instructions about this, Miss."

"Maybe you misunderstood them."

"I believe his exact words were: 'Under no circumstance is Taylor allowed to leave the manor.'"

Damn it.

"Look," Andi said, voice as reasonable as she knew how to make it. "I don't want to leave. I don't plan to. The only way I'll even think about it is if I know I can stop Deadshot, and there's no other way. But if that happens, I need to be ready. I can do everything from my truck just as well as the cave, and I swear I won't leave the Manor unless there's no other choice."

"I can't allow that."

Andi glared at Alfred and wondered if she could roll over him with her chair. Doubtful.

"Bruce told you what I'm supposed to do if he dies," she said quietly. Alfred flinched, and Andi wanted to too, but she was too short on time to be afraid. "If I leave, it won't be because I'm on some stupid heroism bender, I'll be making good on that promise. And I like you Alfred. I'm not exaggerating when I say you've saved my life in recovery. But don't you dare stop me from protecting Gotham. Not when you and I might be the only ones left to do it if this goes south."

The pain in Alfred's eyes mirrored her own, and she knew they were both imagining the same thing. A world where only they were left, fighting and grieving together. He glanced away and gave a short, sharp nod. "On second thought, I may have misunderstood Master Wayne's instructions. May I escort you to your truck?"

Andi gave him a quick, hard smile. "Please."

Azrael gave Gordon credit: he knew what he was doing. Even prepared, even knowing how and when GCPD would respond, Azrael couldn't tell where SWAT was.

He'd positioned himself two floors from the top of Wayne Tower—staying on the roof was begging for a chopper—and had half an eye on the cameras throughout the building, the other half on the streets below him. Sweat drenched his back and face, the building's heat turned on to confuse IR imaging, and the only sound was Azrael's heart pounding in his own ears.

Lights flared across the street. Azrael whipped around and saw a police sniper one skyscraper away, on the same floor as him, his left foot still on the pressure pad Azrael had installed.

For a surreal, impossible moment, the two of them stared straight at each other from across the street, eyes locked. Then the policeman lifted his foot, the lights went out, and Azrael flung himself backward.

Three bullets landed where he'd just been. Azrael skidded under a conference table, then dove behind the barricades he'd set up. He had a split-second glimpse of the monitors showing the police moving in at the bottom of Wayne Tower, and then the power cut. His breath was coming out in gasps, but he recovered from the shock while the barricade was still being showered with the first round of rifle fire.

The police knew where he was. And now they knew he was waiting for them.

He could hold out here. It was the smart tactical move. He was covered from bullets, wearing night vision goggles, and he had a mask slung at his belt if they tried to gas him out. But Deadshot was going to strike, and when he did, Azrael needed to be closer to the action. Closer to the police.

"Count of three," he muttered to himself, grabbing the weapons he'd need. "One—two—now."

The smoke grenade he threw filled the entire room and, under its cover, Azrael ducked low and ran for the opposite wall. Stairs were too slow, too easy a target; he forced the elevator doors open, shot the grapple off and plummeted down four stories before the line caught.

He swung himself to one side, wedged himself into the metal scaffolding, and hung there, panting. Then, he stuck the grapple again and lowered himself another four floors, going down the building in leaps and bounds. The police would be at about the sixth and eighth stories by now, maybe up to ten by the time he got down there.

He pulled the doors open again at the fourteenth floor, high enough to give himself time to prepare. But by the time he heard the cops, two floors below, his instincts were crawling, radiating off him like the heat.

That time he'd been gone, hidden in the elevator, should have been the perfect time for Deadshot to strike. Police were easy targets, no way to prove Azrael wasn't the one doing it. But there was still no sound and SWAT was getting closer. Azrael gritted his teeth and squared his shoulders. He was too much of a survivor not to see when something was wrong.

Batman watched the police swarm up the stairs and Azrael ready himself. No sign of Deadshot, and if the attack didn't happen soon, Azrael and the GCPD would fight. He wouldn't put it past Azrael to kill to defend himself. Wouldn't put it past Deadshot for that whole devastation to be his plan.

But Deadshot was here. If Oracle was right and Azrael didn't kill, Lawton would. Patience.

SWAT didn't code their plans now. Gordon directed the snipers lower, the ground forces higher up, the two choppers to remain on standby.

The police attacked. Batman heard bullets, shouts, curses, and water spraying in the background like white noise—the sprinklers had gone off.

And then silence, followed by screams. Batman grabbed his binoculars and started to check vantage points. Deadshot.

No. Something was wrong. The response to Deadshot should be gunshots, Gordon's men turning to face a new attacker, barking orders, pandemonium. Not screams. He looked down.

Azrael stood in a spray of fog. Everyone else was on the ground, wrapped tight into themselves. Deadshot hadn't needed to shoot at all. He'd been one step ahead the whole time, set up a trap in the heart of Wayne Enterprises itself.

The sprinklers.

"Oracle."

"Did it work?" Andi asked, grabbing the com as if that would make Bruce come closer. "Do you have him?"

"Deadshot isn't sniping—he filled the sprinklers with some kind of toxin."

"Damn." Andi swore under her breath. "I'm guessing Azrael has his gas mask?"

"Yes."

"It's brilliant. Evil, but—"

"Oracle."

"I'm so stupid. We assumed he would snipe because that's what he does, but it's the perfect frame job. It still looks like Azrael did it, takes out the police, and doesn't tell us where Deadshot is. He doesn't have to be close to set it off."

"He's close, or was an hour ago." A new voice joined the conversation—distorted, but not the way Batman's was. As if it was being spoken through a mask. "I saw him when I set up for tonight. Don't know if he's moved since then."

"Azrael?"

"Still alive."

"And Gordon? Is he—no." Gotham, all of Gotham about to collapse unless they could salvage this. Gordon dying, and she couldn't do a damn thing to save him. "Don't have time for that. Azrael, is the whole building doing this or just your floor?"

"My floor and everything below."

"He didn't just wait and hope the sprinklers got set off at the right time. He detonated them. That means he's still close and sent a signal."

"Oracle?"

"He's not the only one who can trace transmissions back to their source. Ever since he used that trick on us, I've been learning to triangulate—there. It came from GothCorp's skyscraper."

"That's where I saw him," JP growled. "Fifty-second floor."

"On it."

Andi glanced at Bruce's eye screen—showing up now that he'd opened communications—and saw that he was already flying in that direction. She mapped out the best route on the computer and groaned.

Deadshot had chosen the place dead opposite of all their sniping targets, putting every possible building and obstacle in their way. Bruce could fly across Gotham in an hour, but to reach that particular spot without getting hit by Deadshot's bullets would take at least ten minutes. The location was too perfect to be coincidence.

"He knows you're coming," Andi said. Batman grunted.

"I'm heading there too."

"Azrael…" Andi couldn't keep the plea out of her voice. "Just tell me. The police. Are they—"

"FUBAR. But alive."

Andi bit down hard on her hand to stifle her emotion. She couldn't ask him to stay. Couldn't ask him to save them, not when they all knew this had fallen apart, that Batman needed all the help he could get to stop Deadshot. It was all going wrong, Gordon and the police dying, Deadshot waiting for them, but this was their last chance and they couldn't turn back from it. No matter how slim the odds were, no matter if it meant Gordon had to die for it, Bruce and JP had to try.

It was going to end with everyone she loved dead. She knew that with a clinical, detached certainty. And she was going to listen to it happen, deserved every minute of pain because it was her stupid plan, her arrogance that—

Her phone rang. Andi tore her gaze from Bruce's flight to look at the caller ID, then muted all her coms to answer and started her truck. "Fox."

The screams had stopped now. Gordon and his men were on the ground and twitching. No blood, no coughing, just seizures and twitches and pleas for mercy, for it to stop that were so much worse than anything else. Azrael's mouth twisted under the mask. "Don't ask me for this, Oracle."

No answer. Azrael had to get out of here, had to get to Deadshot. He was closer than Batman, more ready to kill—and looking at the men on the ground said it stronger than ever. Deadshot needed to die.

Three SWAT snipers and two helicopters all waiting for him to move. Thinking that he'd just killed all their friends, and he'd have to fly or walk across an open street to reach Deadshot. He'd never make it. And if they looked at anything besides him, saw where he was heading or who else was out there, they'd see Batman and probably fire on him, too.

Azrael stared at the cops.

"Damn it."

"Oracle? Oracle, come in."

No response. Azrael's voice crackled on the line instead.

"Can't reach you to help. Evacuating the cops. You're on your own."

As Deadshot intended, no doubt.

"Get Copper out first."

"Tried," Azrael said. "But he's halfway conscious. Ordered me to get his other men out before him."

"Doesn't matter."

"Does. He's doing his duty."

Batman almost argued, but there was no time. He touched down on a roof and took a running leap to gain speed and altitude. Five minutes gone, another five to get there. Azrael out. Oracle not responding.

Ignore everything else. Deadshot. Had to get Deadshot.

Three minutes later, he was on top of another building, in sight of GothCorp's tower. He expected Deadshot to be long gone, but he stood at the window, looking straight at Batman, weaponless.

It was a trap. He knew that. But there were no other options. Batman launched himself forward, through the window, and onto Deadshot. Even tackled to the ground, his mask knocked away, the assassin kept the same detached, professional expression.

"Pleasure to see you again."

Batman smashed his fist so hard into Deadshot's ruined face that his head bounced off the ground, the scope on his eye smashed. He gasped in pain, glass and metal embedded in his skin, while Batman frisked him for weapons. Nothing. Just a sniper rifle in the corner, out of reach.

"What did you give them?" Batman demanded, dragging Deadshot up by his shoulders. He'd recovered from the pain already and his speech was perfect, measured calm.

"A neurotoxin. Poison Ivy's own creation. It's a masterful strike, but it's not mine. All the credit for this attack goes to them. They planned everything from the toxin to my capture."

"And you obeyed."

"You have your code, I have mine," he said. "They ordered me to let you take me. Unconditional surrender. If you take me in I'll admit everything."

"What's the catch?"

"The toxin is very precise. There's no cure, but it takes thirty minutes before permanent damage. Thirty-five before death. I would say that, at this point, it's been… fifteen minutes. Mr. Valley's heroics are surprising but futile. He can't evacuate them all in time."

Batman saw where it was going. The Joker had given him the same choice. His hands loosened but Deadshot didn't move.

"You have three options. Let me go and save most of them, but allow me to continue killing. Break your code, kill me, and save them. Or bring me in and let them die. But if you do that then Gotham will weaken so much, be so destroyed by the loss of the police, the last heroes standing, that…"

"Chaos," Batman growled.

"Even if I'm captured, Gotham will be ready for Doctors Quinzel and Isley to do their work. You can't stop it."

Batman seized him around the neck. "Or I break your spine, paralyze you, and go save them."

"You can. It doesn't matter. You still won't have time to save them all, and my work in Gotham is done."

The elevator pinged.

The noise was so surreal, so out of anything either had predicted, that both Batman and Deadshot turned to stare at it. Deadshot's expression gave nothing away, his muscles were tight, ready to fight. He was as startled as Batman.

Oracle wheeled herself out.

Azrael pushed another person out the door, then turned and sprinted up the stairs. He ignored the muscles torn from strain, the way his mask didn't give him enough air. The fires in his calf and thigh where bullets from snipers had grazed him. He'd ditched his armor, transmitter, and all but one pistol, to lighten the load.

Five left. Five.

Their movements were getting slower now, coherency gone. The commissioner had held out the longest, but he'd finally gone under too.

Azrael tried to pick up another man, and that was when his body decided that it had had enough.

He sank to his knees and barely kept the man under him from smashing into the ground. He tried hauling him up again, but his arms shook and his fingers refused to grip. Azrael braced himself on his hands instead, breathing raggedly through the mask, and found himself staring at Gordon.

No help was coming. Wayne was occupied with Deadshot, Andi crippled. If the police hadn't sent back-up by now, they weren't going to. These men were going to die and there was nothing he could do about it. Like so many others, so many he couldn't save. All dead because of him, and what had he done, what had he ever done to make it right? One long fuck up from start to finish, that was all he'd ever been.

Azrael crawled forward, inch by painstaking inch, until he was at Gordon's shoulder. He placed his mask on Gordon's face, made sure that it was strapped on tight. Exhausted as he was, he still held out for over a minute.

And then he breathed.

"Batman. Drop him."

Batman just tightened his grip, but Andi arched her eyebrows and stared him down. Bruce, trust me.

Deadshot fell to the ground.

So many things to say, to plan, but Andi could hear every second ticking away, counting down Gordon's life. She didn't let herself look at Batman; she couldn't afford the distraction. Instead, she met Deadshot's one good eye. For the first time since her spine had broken, she felt something akin to peace.

"Save them," she said. "You and Batman both."

"Ms. Taylor, I shot you in the spine, not the head. Tell me that you haven't lost that as well."

"Oracle," Andi snapped, stung despite herself. "'Ms. Taylor' died in an alley, shot by a psychopath. She was terrified and alone and there was no one to save her. I'm not that woman any more."

No. No time. Not if she wanted to save Gordon.

"I know how you work. Whoever hires you becomes your God," she said. "So I tracked down Harley and Ivy's financials. I found the fund they owe you."

"You froze it." Deadshot stared at her, and Andi could swear she saw a flicker of respect under the scars. "Meaning there's no reason for me to continue killing."

"No. That would make things too easy for you. Leave you free to kill for someone else, and I won't allow that. I will never allow that."

She paused to pull a phone out of her pocket, opened the right screen.

"So I transferred their money into my newly-created Swiss bank account. And then I sent my money to you."

She tossed the cell, covered with routing numbers and Fox's accountant magic into Deadshot's lap. He caught it, and the blank expression on his face was gone, replaced with stunned horror.

Andi remembered her face ground into the pavement, the pain in her legs that was the last thing they'd ever feel. Gordon there for her when she woke up, fighting for her when no one else would. Protecting her, caring for her.

"I own you now, not Harley and Ivy. So save Gotham. Starting with my father."

The first thing Azrael was aware of was cold.

Then spasms. His arms were jerking back and forth like a marionette's, his legs even worse. He remembered the gas, the splitting headache it had caused, and now… fresh air. The police lying next to him outside Wayne Tower. Alive. Safe.

"You want me to turn myself in."

He knew that voice. Azrael twisted his head around, and maybe his sight had gone wrong, but he could swear he saw Deadshot, not ten feet away, standing in front of Oracle.

"Yes," she said—and it was definitely her voice, colder than Azrael had ever heard it. "I paid you in full for today's work. Now I'm giving you three times the daily rate Harley and Ivy promised, and in return you go to jail, you stay there, and you're on my contract for the rest of our lives. If anyone else tries to hire you, you're on my payroll already. You can't walk out on that without breaking your code."

"Unless they steal your money."

"They won't. Believe me, I will be burying the information on how I did that very deep indeed. And you aren't going to tell anyone how I hired you either, understand? Not directly or 'dropping' information so someone can find it."

Azrael focused on moving his arms, flexing his fingers. The spasms were slowing the more he breathed, and he realized that, with a great effort, he could suppress them. Slowly, painstakingly, he forced his hand towards his gun.

Batman, standing at Oracle's shoulder, said something he couldn't hear.

"I will not," she said to Batman. "Whatever Deadshot just did for us, he's evil and dangerous. I won't leave him running loose, where he can find a way out of our deal. Not even if he's 'helping' Gotham. Now, if you don't mind…"

His hand closed around the gun at his back, still seizing.

"…I'm going to talk with Deadshot alone. There are a few details I need to speak with him privately about. I know you don't like this, but it's—it's the best option we have right now."

No. It wasn't. Azrael lined up the sights as best he could and, with the last bit of focus he had, forced the tremors across his entire arm to stop.

Pulled the trigger.