Even if the Batman hadn't possessed a thorough and intimate knowledge of Gotham's labyrinthine neighborhoods, and alleys—if he were of a more loquacious disposition, he would have made a superior taxi driver—he would have had no difficulty in finding the crime scene to which Commissioner Gordon had summoned him. It was situated in the heart of Wharfside, the worse possible part of the Narrows, the black heart of a rotting beast, and the crime scene was visible from almost half a mile away. The distracting, strobing flashes of a dozen emergency vehicles' lights served as an ominous beacon, pulling him to the location, almost as though they shared a magnetic draw.
It was not very often that such an army of police cars and ambulances visited this part of the Narrows. No matter how hard Commissioner Gordon worked to clean up his notoriously useless police force, some things would not change, and one of them was the tacitly-understood, but rarely voiced, popular opinion that some parts of Gotham were best left to themselves, to govern or descend into violent, depraved anarchy as those residing and working within saw fit. And this part of the Narrows was one of those places: at low tide, the stink of dead fish was profoundly, powerfully, staggeringly vomit-inducing. Nevertheless, the Wharf still did a respectable business among smaller merchants searching for good deals on suspect seafood. Property values in this dismal and ramshackle neighborhood had never been high, but when the Depression had hit, and the homeless had gravitated toward this area, the prices plummeted. For years, petty gangs had been engaged in an unabated turf war that bloodied the sidewalks, and the majority of those who lived there were either undocumented, extremely indigent, or otherwise marginalized, and thus, the police left the inhabitants of Wharfside to their own bleak and often bloody devices.
Not on this evening. The presence of so many emergency vehicles alone was a strong indication that something extraordinary was in the process of unfolding, and as the Batman stealthily made his way toward the commotion, he felt a premonitory tingle invade his senses. Perhaps it was from the years he had spent developing the almost supernatural ability to sense when something important or suspect was afoot, or perhaps it was simply solid intuition, or perhaps the two were the same, but whatever it was, the Batman could tell that things were about to change.
Despite their reluctance to work this part of the Narrows, on this particular evening the police managed to overcome their reservations and had done a remarkably thorough job of treating it as though it were a crime scene like any other. The bright yellow tape had been thrown up, cordoning off the crime scene and rendering it both bewitching and repelling—almost like a scarlet letter of law enforcement—and the various emergency workers appeared to be engrossed in their various tasks of collecting evidence, shooing away morbidly curious onlookers, and generally attempting to appear as though they were putting the City's tax dollars to good use.
All of this, the Batman stoically observed from the rooftops overhead. Not only was he attempting to get the lay of the land and learn what had transpired to warrant such a heavy police presence, he was also scanning the crowds of law-enforcement officials to locate the one person he knew would be expecting, and in fact hoping, for his arrival. After a moment, he spotted Commissioner Gordon, standing off to one side and overseeing the proceedings. Beside him stood Detective Montoya, as stalwart as ever; even from this distance, the Batman could discern the tense set to her shoulders, the ready stance of a seasoned fighter. Montoya sensed danger, and was prepared for whatever dared emerge from the shadows.
Judging by all of the controlled chaos in the area, somethingalready had emerged from the shadows at some point that evening. Gordon had been cryptic on the phone, only mentioning another murder, a witness, a possible break in the case, and he had been left to imagine the possibilities as he made his way from one end of the city to another—and from one corner of his personality to another. And now that the Batman had arrived at this corner of darkest Gotham, he found himself intensely curious to know what had transpired. He began to descend from the rooftop, lowering himself silently, with infinite care, holding the grappling line steady as he inched his way down the façade of an abandoned warehouse still half a block away.
Once on the ground, it took him little time to make his way to the crime scene and take in the current activity. Even as he squatted, perched on the shadowy steps of a rickety and probably condemned fire escape, the crime scene techs were beginning to comb the area, searching for anything, any object however innocuous, that might be evidence. Some of the police were already fanning out, starting the investigation and questioning of the few curious or meddlesome onlookers. On the very rare occasions when the Gotham City Police made their way into Wharfside, people had a way of scattering like frightened mice before a menacing feline which constantly was inclined to sporadically plague their movements. There was no love lost for the police out here—if the police ever came out this way, it was rarely to protect and to serve.
Tonight would be the only time in recent history that things went down a little differently.
Shifting his center of gravity and carefully balancing his weight evenly on both legs, the Batman hunkered down a little lower, allowing more of the dark gloom to wash over him, to obscure him, to provide him with a little more cover as he took everything in. After a moment, his vigilant eyes finally caught sight of the cause of all the activity—a crumpled body on the sidewalk. Even in the dim light cast by the long-neglected single streetlamp, he could see the dark stains around the body, and deduced that this was not a person who had expired cleanly without a struggle. However, from his current vantage point, it was impossible to tell the gender. The disturbing thought occurred to him that it was possible this would not alter upon further inspection.
Over the crackle, static, feedback, and voices of various and mergency radios and walky-talkies, over the low voices of the dozen men and women who had by now begun to attend to the scene, he could also hear a continuous moaning. It was deep and guttural, the almost animalistic noise of a person who had been deeply damaged by something. However, with the crowd of emergency personnel beginning to swarm, it was difficult for the Batman to determine its source.
What the hell was going on? A sense of urgency was beginning to steal into the Batman; something about this scene felt different than the others to which he had been summoned. He needed to find a way to get the Commissioner's attention, or else he'd be stuck here all night watching the duller points of police procedure unfolding. If he wanted to do that, he would have stayed home and watched one of Alfred's DVDs of that wretchedly inaccurate CSI show.
Perhaps the months Gordon had spent working with his counterpart of shadows had begun to forge a mental bond, for just as the Batman was beginning to feel the urge to spring into some sort of action, the Commissioner glanced up from his intense conversation with Detective Montoya. He took a moment to gaze around the perimeter and monitor the proceedings, but after ascertaining that no one was screwing up, he focused outward, toward the less immediate surroundings. At that moment, his sharp gaze locked with that of the Batman, and he nodded once, almost imperceptibly, but it was still enough to catch the attention of Detective Montoya. She followed the direction of Gordon's gaze and narrowed her eyes, already suspecting the source of her boss's distraction, even if she couldn't see it. She said something to Gordon, who nodded, and then she turned back toward the crowd, barking orders and providing the distraction Gordon needed to slip away. The men and women working the scene were too busy trying to listen to Montoya while simultaneously executing out their jobs to notice the Commissioner silently retreating.
As Gordon approached the Batman, he squared his shoulders and tried to arrange his weathered face into an expression of careful neutrality, but he knew it was a pointless gesture—the Dark Knight was sometimes uncanny in his ability to read people, and Gordon suspected that this night would be one of the times where he was utterly transparent. The truth was, he didn't want to be here at all; earlier in the evening, he had checked his wife into the Rehab Center that Annabeth de Burgh had recommended, and it hadn't been a pleasant experience. He doubted his wife would ever forgive him, and his two youngest children were deeply upset. He had been at home, recovering, with them and his eldest daughter Barbara, recently arrived to town to help, when the phone call came about the latest murder. He had immediately headed down to the Narrows, but while one part of him was completely present and aware, his heart and mind were elsewhere, pondering a broken family on the verge of falling apart completely. No, he didn't want to be here, not at all, and not for the first time, he silently cursed the city that seemed intent on destroying everything he loved.
The Batman awaited him, utterly still, unaware of Gordon's inner turmoil; the only thing to do was simply launch into the business at hand. "Around ten-forty-five, dispatch got an emergency phone call placed from a cell phone in this area. The caller was pretty scared and had a hard time describing where she was at, and by the time the police got down here-" Gordon paused and gave him a knowing look of deep unhappiness, which was reflected in the unnervingly watchful eyes of the Batman. Both of them knew how long response time could be in this part of Gotham—"the woman was dead." He gestured towards the body, which was now being loaded onto a stretcher for transport to the city morgue. "In the recording, she said someone was chasing them, that someone was going to kill them."
The Batman spoke for the first time. "'Them?'" he repeated. There was curiosity in his voice, and a restrained anxiety, but he sounded as frightening as ever.
"There's a witness." Gordon turned from the Batman and looked back at the crime scene, and while it was a relief to avert his eyes from his companion, who blended into the darkness in so many ways, it was mainly to make sure the crew was conducting an above-board investigation. He had brought out the most honest and circumspect men and women he knew, but the unhappy truth was that in Gotham, one could never be sure who had sold their soul, or their granny's, to go on the take. "Someone was with the woman. She's over by the ambulance right now."
As if cued by Gordon's words, the moaning that the Batman had heard previously rose in volume again. "That's her," Gordon affirmed, gesturing over to the ambulance. "She's fine, physically, but they're treating her for shock. We have to wait for her to calm down."
"If she witnessed it, she can give us a description of the killer." The Batman frowned. "It'll put her in danger, though." His voice pitched down into his trademark growl. "The last few witnesses didn't exactly have the chance to share their stories. We need to keep this girl alive."
"'Girl' is right. She doesn't look like she's a day over sixteen." Gordon remembered her pale, shocked face, her enormous eyes that had looked at him so uncomprehendingly when he had tried to question her. "God only knows how she came to be out this way. Definitely homeless…I think the victim had probably taken her under her wing to learn the trade. I hate to think how she ended up like that."
"When women end up like that, it just shows society's failing them." The Batman paused, then added, "We're failing them. That's how they end up like that."
If Gordon was surprised by these uncharacteristic words coming forth from one of the most frightening, burly men he had ever encountered, he didn't acknowledge it. In fact, he was inclined to agree with the Batman. He thought of his own daughters, safe at home-little Hannah with her quiet, contemplative nature, older Barbara, spirited, smart, and mischievous. The thought of them out here, exposed to all sorts of dangers, both natural and unnatural, turned his stomach. And these women that had fallen into the Arrows' power, they were someone's daughters too. Did someone wonder where they were? Did anyone care? His eyes traveled back to the crumpled, bloody form on the ground, and it occurred to him that that was the most tragic thing about it all—that there was possibly, even likely, no one to mourn her death.
The two men looked at each other, and there was no need to say anything; Gordon knew, he just knew, that the Batman's mind had come to rest on a very similar thought. The man's mouth was set into a grim line and there was a look in his ice-cold eyes, a look not quite of sadness, but of at least an honest empathy for the nuanced problems that usually led to such misery in the first place.
"Commissioner?"
Both men turned towards Detective Montoya, who stood a little ways off and awaited her supervisor. "The EMT says that the girl's calmed down. She's ready to talk, and MCU sent down a sketch artist. Maybe we can get a good description of the perp." She directed her gaze towards the Batman for a moment, her black eyes burning with some unknown emotion, but whether it was intense disapproval or equally intense curiosity, the Batman could not tell. Either way, the tough woman made no comment on the company her supervisor kept. After a moment, the Batman nodded once to her, one fighter to another, an acknowledgment of her presence and discretion. Still, he did not drop his guard.
"You trust her?" he asked Gordon, not bothering to lower his voice. Before Gordon could answer, Montoya dove in, figurative claws protracted.
"I could ask Gordon the same thing about you!" she snapped. "After all, you're the one wanted for the murders of several cops."
"Yet you're not raising the alarm." The Batman was slightly intrigued by this foot soldier of Gordon's. "Don't you think you should bring in the SWAT team?"
Montoya looked at him disdainfully. "I'm not calling in the SWATs because you're no murderer. You're a pain in my ass, and you're bat-shit crazy, but you're no murderer." She glared up at him, not at all cowed by his towering height. "Don't look so surprised. Ramirez is kicking up her heels in prison, and the woman's got nothing to do but talk. She's getting twitchy. I give it a few weeks before all Gotham figures out you're the good guy after all, and they'll be giving you the keys to the city." After thinking about that for a moment, she added thoughtfully, "Although I still think they'd be better off changing the locks."
"That'll do, Detective." Gordon managed to maintain an air of solemnity, but there was a smile that was tugging at the corner of his mouth as he watched his mentee go toe-to-toe with the Batman. "Let's interview this witness and figure out what we're going to do with her. You plan on sticking around?" he asked the Batman, who jerked his head in assent.
"The ambulance is close to the building over there," he replied, his mind already plotting his next movements. "I think I can listen over there without being noticed." He stepped away from Gordon, and right before Montoya's eyes, he blended into the darkness and disappeared.
She glanced at her boss, who shrugged. "Shrug all you want, Commish. That's creepy."
Gordon smiled grimly. "That's exactly the point."
The young girl sat at at the foot of the ambulance, huddled in its lee as a frightened bird would take refuge against a tree during a violent storm. Gordon had been correct—the girl couldn't have been more than sixteen, and possibly a lot younger. Even in the poorly-lit street, even with the weird emergency lights flashing their blue, red, and yellow glows at various intervals, it was easy to see that she was sickly-pale, any remaining health washed out of her face by whatever horrors she had seen and experienced. From where the Batman hovered, not six feet away, he could see that she was still deeply upset. An EMT had thrown a blanket around her shoulders, and she clutched it to her, desperate for any comfort she could get. Tears were still streaming down her face, causing her cheap mascara to run and giving her a truly frightening look. Even as Gordon and Montoya approached her, she began moaning again—however, there was something more mechanical and calculated in her lamentations this time, and the Batman suspected it was as much to earn the sympathy votes as it was from shock. He had no way of even beginning to guess how long she had been on the streets, but no doubt she had quickly learned to acquire the skills and wits necessary to survive whatever came her way—which included encounters with the notoriously unhelpful Gotham PD.
"Hey there," Gordon said, squatting down and trying to offer her a kind smile. "I'm Jim. And this is Detective Montoya." He gestured towards Montoya, who stood behind him but made no similar efforts at reassurance. And over there in the shadows is the scariest person you will ever meet. "What's your name?"
The girl didn't respond, but stared at him through her tear-filled eyes.
"We're police, but we're not going to hurt you. We're not here to arrest you. We just want to know what happened." This time, Gordon glanced over at Montoya, silently willing her to step in. She obliged and squatted down beside him, on a level so that she had to look up at the young girl.
"I'm Renee," she said, her voice softer than Gordon had ever heard it before. "What's your name?"
This time, the girl responded immediately. "Stacy." She gestured to the body while carefully doing her best not to look at it. "That…that was my friend."
Renee glanced back over her shoulder for a moment, and then turned back to the girl—Stacy. "What was her name?"
"S-sh-" the girl stammered for a moment, and then got a hold of herself. "Shelly. Shelly Hubble." She began crying again, and this time, there was nothing false about her tears. "She was looking out for me."
"What happened?" Renee posed the question gently, trying to keep Stacy on this side of hysteria. "We want to help, honey. But we need to know what happened."
Six feet away, the Batman became utterly still and concentrated.
"Shelly was helping me. She was gonna show me how to work down here—but she said we had to be real quiet about it, 'cause someone was gonna take most of the money we made if they knew."
No one needed to ask what kind of work Shelly was doing, or what she was teaching Stacy. While most prostitutes had pimps, some did have "big sisters" that served in a similar capacity—or at least, they did in the days before the Arrows decided to take over the market. Apparently, Shelly had decided to go it alone. Her broken and bloody body was now a silent and sobering testament to just how risky such a decision could be.
"How long have you been working down here, Stacy?" Montoya's voice was still gentle, but Gordon detected the underlying edge of steel and threw her a look of warning. The last thing they needed was their only witness to think they were going to slap handcuffs on her.
Shock had rendered Stacy less than completely wily, however, and she answered readily enough. "I wasn't working yet," she shrugged, and pulled the blanket closer around her. Gordon reached out and tugged at a corner of the blanket, helping her. That small act of consideration made the world of difference, and Stacy began to speak to Gordon. "I just got to Gotham last week. I don't know my way around here, and I stepped on Shelly's patch. She helped me out. I was gonna stay with her until I started earning money."
Neither Gordon nor Montoya could help but to exchange pointed looks of resignation, and Gordon suspected that, in his hiding place, the Batman was thinking thoughts in a very similar vain: what kind of city did they live in that a prostitute was the most likely citizen to show compassion and to help a homeless runaway kid?
"What happened tonight, Stacy?" Gordon prompted her. He hated to force her to relive it, but this was as close as they had gotten to making any headway. "Who did this to Shelly?"
"I don't know who he is!" Stacy cried. "I don't know his name. Shelly wouldn't tell me. But he scared the shit out of her. She was scared that he was gonna find out, she said he'd kill her if he found out. Then tonight, we was working her patch, and she saw him coming…she made us run, but he followed. She hurt her foot somehow, and she couldn't run any more, and she made me hide, and that's when she called the cops. She tried to hide to, but he found her, and…and , and that was when he started hitting her." By this time, Stacy was crying again, and her breath came in ragged sobs as she began to hyperventilate. "I was too scared to help her."
As Montoya began trying to calm the girl down, Gordon rose and made a beeline to the other side of the ambulance, where he knew the Batman had been lurking.
"We need to get her out of here," were his only words as Gordon approached.
Gordon agreed whole-heartedly. "Whoever it was that did this doesn't know that there was a witness. This is the best—possibly the only—advantage we've got. If they don't know who it is, they can't get to her. We just have to keep her safe."
In Gotham, that was far easier said than executed. Between them lay the knowledge that the last few women to go rat out the Narrows had met sudden, violent deaths. How could this one be any different? Nonetheless...
"We'll keep her safe." The Batman said this with a surprising amount of conviction.
"How?" Gordon ran his fingers through his hair, and the Batman noted with surprise that there was a liberal sprinkling of silver in the sandy strands; the last few years had not been kind to Gordon. "The Arrows seem to seep into any corrupt crack in the city, damn them, and we can't keep any of the witnesses safe."
Restlessness began to seep into the Batman's limbs; he was already formulating a plan, and he was eager to get moving and put it into action. "We'll keep her safe," he told Gordon, and his uncompromising tone spoke of the iron will that would make sure those words became reality. "Bring the girl back to MCU for the night, and keep her safe there. Someone will be there tomorrow to pick her up and keep her in protection until we find this guy."
"Who?" Gordon didn't like the idea of the Batman making executive decisions, even if they did end up being the right ones. "Dammit, you're not running this city."
The Batman did not answer right away; he was busy preparing for his departure. He shot his grappling line to the roof overhead with a zinging snick and gave it a hard tug to ensure its security. "You aren't running it either, Gordon. The city's running us. And that's the problem."
Gordon peered around the ambulance, where Stacy was still sitting. Montoya had managed to calm her down and keep her talking, and had summoned the sketch artist, who was listening intently and drawing at the same time. When Gordon turned back to the Batman, he saw that his eyes were narrowed in thought.
"Meet me on the roof of MCU in three hours, and I'll be able to tell you what's going to happen," the Batman instructed. "By that time, we'll have help. Someone we both trust."
Before Gordon could say anything else, protest, demand more answers, the Batman was gone, and Gordon was left wondering if there was anyone left in the city who could bear the burden that came with the trust of the Batman.
Annabeth couldn't sleep.
It wasn't unusual for her to have difficulty sleeping. Hers were a body and mind which were seldom at rest—even when asleep, thoughts and ideas and concerns and memories weighed heavily upon her, populating her dreams and often awakening her in the dark and lonely hours of the early morning. And then some nights, sleep simply would not come; if there was a lot of work to be done, she held sleep at bay by her sheer strength of will, but sometimes it was simply by her own body's refusal to bow to the normal routine of gaining rest. She hadn't slept soundly, or much, since she was a child, and it was a rather disappointing fact to which she had long ago become resigned. In time, she had even learned to be grateful for this odd little quirk of her body—sleep was for lesser mortals, and ate into the time which she could spend working.
This night, however, her sleeplessness stemmed from another—and very different—source. After Alfred, the ever-accommodating and perpetually amused butler, dropped her off at her condo, Annabeth had headed upstairs, prepared to carry on with her night. But something strange had happened: the devotion and eagerness with which she had intended to attack her work had never materialized. Instead, she had sat down on the living room floor and hunched over the coffee table, where her files and folders were spread, and began to peg away at her endless stacks of paperwork, her progress reports, and her grant applications. She made every effort to focus, to lose herself in the soothing routine of her normal tasks…and failed miserably. Instead of getting caught in the flow of her work, every few minutes her mind would break the surface of her concentration and take deep gulps of the present. What was preventing her from her normal productivity?
The third time she failed to get into the rhythm of her work and her mind sharply focused on her surroundings and her self, rather than her mundane tasks, Annabeth paused and considered. What was going on? Her limbs were wound tightly; there was an energy harnessed there, thrumming through her veins; her hands were slightly clammy; there was a vague unease lurking at the back of her awareness, a tiny, happy thrill, a gleeful anticipation…
Ah-ha.
It took Annabeth a little while to recognize it: the new feeling of excitement, of half-fearful hope, the growing wonder of the unknown possibilities that came when two people learned of their mutual attraction. Lord, but it had been a while since she had experienced it; it had been a while since she had felt the suppressed excitement, the potential future, the precarious, barely-restrained hope and expectations, the heady rush and almost electrical charge that came when she ran into the object of her affections. In early days, when a potential relationship was forming, both people were still so separate, so distinct, and therefore so ignorant of each other, each waiting to discover the other. When you reveled in the discovery of your emotions, as you relived the memory of the first kiss—those were always the best parts to a relationship—and it had been a very, very long time since Annabeth had known that precarious, euphoric happiness. She had felt it, what, all of two days with poor, long-suffering Robbie; very quickly, that spark had died and he became proof to herself that she could carry on a functional relationship after all that had happened to her. Of course, there was a certain, inherent dysfunction in the relationship, for that reason alone…
Dammit. Work would be impossible. Annabeth arose from her position on the living room floor and headed into her bathroom to change and prepare for bed. If she was going to be completely swamped with juvenile daydreams about her crush, she may as well try to do it in the comfort of her warm bed and try to drift into sleep, unlikely a possibility though it was. According to her battered watch, it wasn't quite two in the morning—still plenty of time for her to toss about and pray to the ceiling gods.
Soon, Annabeth was burrowed underneath her blankets, and as she turned out the bedside lamp, she sensed, rather than saw her pets go through their normal routine of sniffing, mrrowing, and grunting as they settled onto her bed.
Restlessly, she began to twist about, finding the best position in which to sleep. This was why she simply preferred to stay awake, working herself until exhaustion simply snuck up on her, rather than tossing about in bed and wasting time and waiting for sleep to creep up, too slowly. Still, at least she had something pleasant with which to occupy her mind as she waited for sleep to come. Squeezing her eyes shut and holding back a genuine smile, Annabeth allowed her mind to ponder the thoughts and emotions that had been hovering in her awareness since she had come home earlier that evening.
Bruce Wayne. Not what she had expected; not the billionaire pain-in-the-ass he had initially pretended to be, nor a comple tely debauched playboy, either. Of course, a maybe a tiny, little bit of debauchery wasn't necessarily unwelcome; at the end of the day—or, more specifically, at two a.m. in the morning, Annabeth was, after all, a flesh-and-blood woman, and she had carnal desires, the same as anyone else. She was just more adept than most at suppressing them.
Thinking of carnal pleasures—her mind began to venture down a previously uncharted path as she considered Bruce in relation to the few erotic pleasures she allowed herself to contemplate. As she snuggled down deeper underneath her comforter, she began to imagine how it would feel if Bruce were there, in her bed, right then—what was he like? What would he do? How would his skin feel against hers, how would his hands feel if he ran them through her hair, against her body? Would he be a slow lover, or more aggressive? She was surprised to find that neither possibility was unwelcome in her mind.
Right around this point, as Annabeth imagined Bruce's potential prowess, she suddenly realized she was aroused. There was a heaviness in her, a languorous feeling in her limbs, an tension in her belly, and suddenly, why not? Isn't that what people did, in the beginning, before consummating their anticipation?Annabeth brought her hands down her belly, imagining Bruce's hands doing the same, inching carefully, down closer to her core, searching, softly stroking-
"Ahem."
The terror that surged through her was instantaneous and equally-short lived; even as she jerked upright, ready to fight the unseen intruder, Annabeth knew exactly who it was.
"Holy christ!" she hissed, peering into the darkened bedroom and seeing the hulking, black silhouette of the Batman, slightly darker than the greyness of the bedroom. He stood by the window, and Annabeth could feel the late-night cold already beginning to creep through the open point of ingress. She clutched her chest, where her heart, previously pounding in anticipatory arousal, was now galloping in startlement "You motherfucker! What the hell are you doing?"
"Interrupting a private moment, apparently." His voice was as harsh as ever, and Annabeth was grateful that her bedroom was too dark for him to see her blushing. How much had he seen?
"It's a private moment, alright, and you're not invited," Annabeth snapped. "You know, if you knocked, like we agreed upon, you wouldn't have warped your fragile little mind with x-rated materials." Indignation and annoyance were rapidly edging any residual embarrassment away, and Annabeth actually reached to turn on the light. Hell if she'd carry on this conversation in the dark—she seriously doubted the Batman had swung by for a peep-show.
"Don't!" he said sharply; so sharply, in fact, that Annabeth didn't even consider disobeying, although hearing his voice without actually seeing his distinct person was actually a little more disquieting than being able to see his intimidating form.
"Fine, fine, settle down," Annabeth grumbled. "What's the big deal with the lights, anyway? It's not like I haven't seen you before." The pointless snippiness actually helped soothe her tangled nerves a small amount, and she settled back down into her pillows and willed her limbs to stop trembling. The adrenaline was still pulsing through, and sleep was completely out of the question now.
"The lights don't need to be on," was the only answer the Batman would give her. He wouldn't reveal the true reason—that seeing her lying in bed, preparing for a very secret, sensual, and private act had completely rattled him, and threatened to cloud his mind even now.
The darkness of the room pressed down around them both as neither Annabeth nor the Batman said anything else. In fact, the darkness heightened Annabeth's other senses, and she was acutely aware of his presence—she could hear his quiet, even breathing, could practically feel him, not six feet away. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she began to imagine that he even had the slightest scent that she could detect—but then, right now, she had a scent, a lot more potent, that he could probably smell, too.
To distract herself from this rather flustering thought, Annabeth came out swinging. "It's two-thirty in the morning. You're worse than a telemarketer."
"At least I'm not a pollster," he responded. "And I'm not selling Avon."
"I'm more of a Mary Kay girl, myself." Annabeth didn't even bother to marvel at the surreal quality of this conversation. "But I'm guessing you're not here for make-up tips."
"Not that you're any expert." The retort had popped into his head and out of his mouth before he realized what was happening, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, the Batman almost cringed. That was something that Bruce Wayne, not the Batman, would conjure in his banter—his barriers were slipping; the tight borders between his two halves were beginning to break down as Annabeth unknowingly permeated both halves. They were beginning to blend together because of the woman who lay in bed before him.
"That was catty," Annabeth remarked. She stared at his shadowy form, trying to make out any distinguishing features she could. Perhaps it was better that she couldn't—as always, he was completely out of place in her home. In her orderly, civilized sphere, his elemental, raw savagery threatened to displace everything in her life. There was an air of danger to him, that much was patently obvious, but more than that, there was something feral about him, something hard and ruthless and barely controlled or contained by anything, manmade or natural. And that scared the bejesus out of her. "Anyway, what are you doing here?"
"I need your help."
Annabeth didn't fail to detect the urgency in his tone. "What's wrong?"
"Another woman was killed tonight. There was a witness, and we need to keep her safe."
"And I come into this…how?" Annabeth prompted him, but she already knew. Oh, the irony; the crazy man in a black suit had originally begun harassing her because he thought she had been the one to betray the Arrows women, and now he was coming to her for help. She knew it, but she was going to make him ask.
Apparently, a little bit of humility was something the Batman had no problems in embracing when the situation called for it. "We need to keep her safe, and we don't want to risk protective custody. The women you helped who didn't become informants are still fine, aren't they?"
She nodded, even though he couldn't see the gesture. Or perhaps he could. "Yes. Only the informants, Lizzie, Carrolly, Jeana, were the ones that were killed. Other women defected from the Arrows but refused to talk, and they were fine."
"Because they didn't go into protective custody."
"No, I think because they didn't talk, or they didn't know anything." Annabeth cocked her head. "But you want us to protect someone who is going to talk, who does know something."
"Her name is Stacy. She's a kid who saw something she shouldn't have, and the Arrows don't know yet. We can't risk putting her into police protective custody." Annabeth wasn't sure it was possible, but his voice deepened into even more of a threatening growl. "Can you keep her safe?"
"I'm not a bodyguard," Annabeth told him. She threw back her covers and stepped out of bed, much to her pets' collective annoyance, and slowly approached the direction of the Batman. "I can't keep her completely safe. I don't have that ability."
"No one does," he replied. For a moment, his tone was almost gentle, understanding, even, and Annabeth was surprised. The next surprise actually caught the Batman off guard, too—without thinking about it, he placed his hands on her shoulders, an unusual act for him, as so much of his persona depended on the distance—physical, emotional, mental—he kept between himself and the few people with whom he worked. "The Commissioner can provide a certain amount of police surveillance and protection, but we need to keep her at your Safe Haven, at least for now. And no one can know."
"No one?" Annabeth repeated in dismay. That edict just made things a lot more complicated. "So you just expect me to show up tomorrow with this girl in tow and not explain to anyone who she is, or why she's there? That's a pretty tall order."
"It's how it has to be," he said flatly. "The less people that know, the less danger she's in."
"Danger," Annabeth mocked him. "Yet everyone at Safe Haven's going to be in danger now."
"No. Not if no one knows. Not if the Arrows don't know." He didn't remove his hands from her shoulders. "I'll do everything I can to make sure everyone there stays safe. That means you, too. I promise."
Annabeth peered up at him, squinting into the darkness, her eyes trying to penetrate the layers of protective material. She was acutely conscious, both of his hands resting so lightly on her shoulders, despite their size and substance, and also of his close proximity, rendered all the more tangible because of the lack of visibility. "Who are you?"
The darkness and the silence were more eloquent than anything the Batman could say, and Annabeth knew that her question was in vain. But then, he spoke.
"Outside of this mask, and this cape," he answered, his voice unusually contemplative, "I am nothing." He squeezed her shoulders. "But in this mask, in this cape, I try to be everything."
Annabeth did not attempt to break away from his grasp, nor did he withdraw his hands from her small, slight shoulders.. They both stood there in the darkness of Annabeth's bedroom, two lone fighters suddenly joined together in the fight against the same enemy that each had been facing on their own. As she stood there, trying to tap into the presence of this man, the thought occurred to Annabeth that he was one of the few people in the whole damned city she could trust. Staring down the abyss as she did now, the only person who stood beside her and shared the same view was a man who could quite possibly benefit from a permanent vacation in Arkham Asylum. Most disturbing of all was the fact that she should be disturbed by all of this, but instead took heart in the fact that she was doing battle alongside the most formidable warrior in Gotham's long and violent history. At some point, Annabeth had begun to accept his presence and see him as an essential ally, and it was an incredibly comforting thought.
"I'll come up with some sort of story," Annabeth sighed, but still couldn't resist asking, "I can't tell anyone?" She'd have to come up with something good to satisfy Donna's curiosity. That woman could smell the stink of a lie like it was trash rotting on a Gotham barge on a hot summer's day.
"No one," the Batman affirmed. "Hopefully it will only be a few weeks, maybe a month, until we can get a handle on the Arrows. If we can bring them down, if we can cut them off at their knees, she should be safe soon."
Annabeth didn't try to think about that. Her mind was running through the details, the things that she would have to take care of. If she contemplated the big things—gang warfare, professional mob bosses, major corruption—she'd lose her nerve. She had to focus on the little stuff, on the home front. "What's this girl's story?" she asked. "Where'd she come from?"
"Not sure. She's down at MCU now with Gordon; he's trying to get her statement and a good description of the murderer." The Batman backed up, releasing her shoulders as he did. "I need to get back down there. And you've got some work to do."
"Yeah, no shit. Tell Gordon that the girl…Stacy, you said? They'll need to come up with a different name for her, a different story, completely not what the truth is. I'll tell Donna…that one of the nurses from the hospital referred her to us. I'll fabricate a file." Annabeth shivered and silently bade goody-bye to any possibilities for sleep. So much for any pleasant diversions. "Tell Gordon I'll be down at MCU at eight tomorrow morning for her."
She heard a rustle of movement, cloth against steel and Kevlar, and saw him move towards the window. A thought occurred to her. "Wait!"
He waited.
"That woman…the one that approached us with information." In view of the most recent events, it seemed like a very long time ago. "Did you ever find out who it was? She still might be our best source."
"I've got people working on it." By 'people', he meant Alfred, who had recently be spending many of his already busy daylight hours following up on possible leads and hunches. "Hopefully we'll know who she is soon. We need to find her."
Annabeth was in complete agreement. "She's got to know more, especially after what happened tonight."
He began to climb through her window, but paused for a moment. "If you need me, go through Gordon. In the meantime, you be careful. If we get close to figuring this out, you'll be in danger."
Annabeth turned away, as much to give him the privacy to make his mysterious departure as anything else, but she couldn't resist having the last words. "I'm not afraid of danger," she told him, over her shoulder.
His prompt response was surprising. "I know. That's what worries me."
And then he jumped.
Gotham was the city that never slept—usually because during the night hours when people should have been sleeping, it seemed like an overwhelming number of them emerged to get up into their unlawful shenanigans. And so long as those people were in the streets and alleys during those dark hours, the Gotham MCU was the police department that never slept. It was also the police department that consumed obscene amounts of coffee—there was a sub-line inf the city's annual budget for it—and none of that decaffeinated crap, either. Caffeine for these men and women was their ambrosia, their liquid of life. Those who watered it down with cream and sugar were considered nothing but amateurish pussies.
Gordon was on his third cup of the night, but if he were honest, this one was to warm his hands, for he was standing out on the roof of MCU, trying to fight back the cold by clutching the mug tightly. In fact, he was almost loathe to sip at the hot, black liquid, for it would drain away the warmth, little by little.
As he paced the roof and waited for the Batman to make his appearance, his mind wandered far away from the activities and research and investigations taking place in the floors below, and came to rest on his own little home, the small house he and his wife had purchased a just after his promotion, down at the Naval Tricorner Yards. It was an older part of the city—one of the few places they could afford on his salary—but a decent place, no more dangerous than most residential areas of Gotham. They had never been really happy there; even before the horrible nightmare that Harvey Dent and the Joker visited upon them, their marriage had been showing strains, but Gordon had had renewed hope when he and the family moved in after his promotion. He had hoped that the house would usher in a new era of their lives. But now, no doubt the house was silent, bereft of the wifely influence Barbara had brought to bear; no doubt his youngest children were asleep, troubled by the sudden changes that had come upon them; no doubt the only signs of life and happiness stemmed from Barbara Jr., who was probably even now sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over her books and her laptop and awaiting her father's return. What a life.
Intent as Gordon was on these melancholy ruminations, he didn't notice the Batman as he silently arrived. Only when he was standing almost on top of Gordon did the Commissioner look up from his mug and attend to the latest issues.
"The girl's calmed down." Gordon actually took a gulp of the coffee and felt a tiny sense of happiness as it scorched his chest and settled in his stomach with a satisfying warmth. "She's with Montoya for now. You feel like sharing your master plan?"
"Annabeth de Burgh." The Batman's gravelly voice sounded more ominous than normal, and that he wasn't thrilled with the decision or their limited choices was quite obvious. "She's the best ally we have right now."
Gordon snorted. "We were investigating her only a couple of months ago. I don't think she's involved, not at all, but don't you think bringing her into this is a little…hasty? Risky, even?"
"She's already involved," the Batman snapped. He turned away from Gordon and looked out at the city, glittering in the cold, clear air. "You know she'd find a way to get into the middle of this, anyway. She runs a safe house for women and it's fairly secure. We may as well avail ourselves to her help."
Gordon knew, without having to ask, that the Batman was not thrilled with the involvement of a civilian. Still, Annabeth de Burgh hadbeen involved in this mess for a while yet, and she was a smart woman, tough and aware and more trustworthy than most of his own people. It was not a comforting thought. He sighed in defeat, and could only contemplate the unhappy thought that the civilians of Gotham could possibly do a better job of policing the city than his own police force could.
"Gotham needs you." The Batman meant this as encouragement, but Gordon was slightly unnerved that he had been able to tap into his own unhappy thoughts so easily. Was Gordon that transparent, or was the Batman just that creepily, supernaturally perceptive? "I wouldn't be able to do this without your help."
Most nights, Gordon was too busy, too weighed down with the burdens of Gotham to contemplate the strange turn his life had taken since the Batman had entered the city, entered his life. Most nights, there was no time to marvel at the wondrous sight of a man who could, for all intents and purposes, fly, withstand bullets, appear invincible. Most nights, he could not resent the Batman for being the catalyst for so much change, but there were some times when he wished for the simpler, quieter, less complicated life of Before. And yet—that life had been unbearable. At least he knew, now, that it was safe for him to be an honest cop and a good man. He owed the Batman that much, and perhaps much, much more—no matter the damage that had come to Gordon's family, he couldn't blame it on the Batman. Some things in Gordon's life had been broken for a very long time.
"Is your family well?" Although the Batman was genuinely curious, he felt it was extremely awkward to be holding any sort of personal conversation. It changed their dynamic somehow. But still, he could be concerned, he could try to help, without completely destroying the mystique he had deliberately created.
"My family?" Gordon considered this for a moment. "My family, at the moment, is composed of one wife in rehab who won't speak to me, two young children who don't understand why Mommy left, and one party animal librarian-in-training who is watching over them and quite possibly teaching them Urdu and encouraging them to rebel against the capitalist system. And let's not forget me, who barely sees them, and when I do, can barely look them in the eye. Does it sound like we're doing well?" At the moment, he couldn't look the Batman in the eye, either—if he could not keep his own home and family together, how the hell was he supposed to keep Gotham City from falling apart?
"A simple 'horrible' would have sufficed," the Batman responded, after a pregnant pause. "But thanks for the honesty.
Eager to change the subject—he was no more comfortable with exchanging confidences than was the Batman—Gordon reached into his jacket and extracted the file folder he had been clutching to him. "Here's a copy of the information we've gotten so far—witness's statement, artistic rendering of the perp, preliminary autopsy results. The usual." He passed them to the Batman, who immediately opened the folder and began perusing the contents. Gordon knew what he was looking at—the artistic rendering, a simple pencil drawing of a relatively young, incredibly lanky man with a childish face. The girl had gotten a good enough look at him to recall his features with a fair amount of specificity, and Gordon had a hunch that this would be the break they needed. All that was required were enough cops who hadn't been bought by the Arrows—if he assigned the women and men that felt he could trust to a manhunt, they might be able to bring this guy in.
"I'll be looking for him," the Batman promised, his steely gaze taking in the picture. This was who had murdered the men and women throughout Gotham; to the Arrows, it may have been a simple business decision, nothing more and nothing less, but for someone to attack and beat with such violent, wild abandon, spoke of something much more personal. This man was unhinged, and they had to get to him as soon as possible—not only to protect any other future victims, but he was hoping if he was crazy enough, he'd betray the Arrows. Because the way it was beginning to seem, few very sane people would be willing to. But in the meantime…
"Can you provide some surveillance of Safe Haven?" he asked Gordon. "Nothing too heavy, but it would need to be constant. And we need who ever it is to be trustworthy."
"Montoya." Gordon said this automatically. "I'll put her in charge of a surveillance team. She'll make sure that everyone is clean."
After that, there was little left to say, and even less left to do. The sky to the east was beginning to lighten to a bluish-grey, and the Batman knew that the end of his usefulness for another night was near. The need for sleep was beginning to seep into his awareness, and he could see that Gordon was in similar straits.
In Gotham City, there was no rest for the wicked, and so there was no rest for the good, either.