Chapter 20: Oh So Cavalier
The rain fell from a dirty gray sky.
This worked for Batman. That meant he could go out in the day with no one hearing him, while he cast no shadow.
He knelt on a rooftop this morning in South Hinckley on the mainland. He pressed his fingers to the part of the cowl that covered his ears.
"Renard?"
Lucius Fox spoke in his ear. "Yes, Batman?"
"Did you collect Barbara and Alfred from Wayne Manor?"
"We just got back to Wayne Tower thirty minutes ago."
Batman sighed. "Good. Are you still making those modifications to the Batmobile prototype?"
"It's slow going," Lucius said. "You're asking a lot. And given that there are roads with which to successfully drive the new Batmobile, I'm going as fast as I believe the situation warrants."
Batman paused a bit before he spoke again.
"Do you know how they say I'm always prepared?"
"Y-Yes?" Lucius asked, sounding unsure of how his answer was going to bite him in the ass.
"Preparedness is just a fancy way of saying I take a lot of wild guesses," Batman said. "And I'm taking a wild guess that we will need the Batmobile before this is over."
A pause, and Lucius said "Well. given what you've told me you have planned, I'm praying we don't."
"So am I," Batman said.
"I'll work faster," Lucius said.
"Be sure to spend some time with your family, too."
"I will," Lucius said. "Renard out."
The connection went dead. Batman saw that a light on his gauntlet was glowing blue.
Someone from the Justice League was trying to contact him.
He put his finger to his ear again. "Batman, here."
A woman's voice spoke to him. "It's Diana."
Batman winced automatically. He was a stickler for the no-real-names-over-comms rule. But this was Wonder Woman, and he knew there really wasn't a point to that with her.
"Hello," Batman said. "I take it you're on the other side of that blockade, and Superman has set up a team."
"Yes," Wonder Woman said. "He, myself, The Flash, The Atom, Black Canary, Starfire… and Constantine."
He winced again. "I would not be happy at all to see two of those people."
Batman heard her chuckle. "No one likes Constantine," Wonder Woman said, "but I still don't understand why you don't like Starfire."
The first thought to come to him was: Kory is a distraction. Not to me. But to Dick.
He'd always felt that way about her. When she and Dick were in the Teen Titans, he had never seen a more goofily lovestruck young man in his entire life. He felt that, at such a formative age, Dick didn't need to be obsessing over anyone, given how he wanted to spend the rest of his life.
But… Dick was even moonier over Barbara now than he had ever been as a kid over anyone, and Nightwing was a top-notch crime fighter. He was in the Justice League, and he could very well lead it one day.
He hated being wrong. Being wrong meant being imperfect, and he tried to spread being perfect into every facet of his life and the lives of those who followed him. Because if he was wrong in the field, people died.
But this time around? This new Batman after three years of hiatus? Something had to change. Try as he might, he was not an island unto himself, and how he acted not only reflected on the people around him, it caused ripples in the city itself. He had to be perfect, but he also had to be good. In whatever sense of the word that mattered most to the people he cared about.
"I don't know," Batman finally said. "Maybe I was wrong about her.
He said it.
But he didn't feel it.
There was a moment before Wonder Woman started talking again.
"How are things in there?"
"Chaos," Batman said. "I'm not doing nearly as much as I need to, because people keep shooting at me every time I poke up my head. The city is convinced that if I die, this nightmare will end. Nightwing and I are sharing the Batwing, so mobility isn't a problem, but…"
"But what?"
"But Hamilton Hill isn't the brains of this operation," Batman said. "Talia al Ghul is."
Wonder Woman sighed, and with an edge in her voice, asked: "Why is that I have never met the charming and capable Miss al Ghul?"
"Because she doesn't like making eye contact with people she knows can kill her," Batman said. "It's one of the little quirks she has."
Wonder Woman didn't say anything for a while, until finally:
"Constantine told us that what Zatanna is doing under The Undying's mind control is burning her out. She'll starve to death three days from now."
"I figured as much."
"Do you have a plan?"
"I'm getting there."
More silence.
"I… I don't think that things between people should remain unsaid," she said. "For all the saving of the world we do, we are, in essence… Cowardly. You and I… We were almost…"
"I know," Batman said.
"Say the word… Say the word, and I'll tell you what I should have told you years ago."
"Diana?"
Her voice came soft over the air: "Yes?"
He closed his eyes.
"Batman, out."
A moment passed, and when she spoke again, she demonstrated that talent he noticed she had with her voice. Even when he wasn't looking at her, even when they were miles or continents apart, sharing nothing but a phone line or a radio signal, he could tell when she was smiling.
"Has anyone ever told you how irritating you are?" she asked.
The sounds that had accompanied Batman most of the night, wherever he had gone, were gunshots and helicopters.
The helicopters were the only way anyone could move quickly from island to island, or to the mainland from one of the islands and back again. Most of them were police choppers. Some of them were civilian choppers. But a miniscule few had to belong to Talia and Hill. Or at the very least, that's what Batman was betting on. Both he and Nightwing were using the Batwing to go wherever they needed to in the city, trying to track down leads on helicopters, and putting out whatever fires they could along the way.
The biggest hurdle in this was that the gunshots that accompanied the sound of helicopters had a habit of being aimed at him.
The first came about an hour after Hill's lockdown, but at least twice an hour since then, he'd had to duck or dodge someone shooting at him. He had to plan his routes ahead of time because more than a few of the rooftops (which everyone knew Batman used to get around) were being camped upon by citizens with handguns or rifles.
Some of these people were in GCPD uniform, either breaking from where they were needed, or not reporting in at all. The GCPD had had a newfound freedom during the three years Batman had been away, so that there would be a few that would come gunning for him, doomsday scenario or no, would have been expected.
But this many? During a time when the people of the city needed their help more than ever? Batman wanted to say he was surprised at this, but he truly was not.
For right now, however, one of the situations that needed dealing with seemed much easier to tackle
In front of a pillaged flower shop on Miagani Island, there were only two people on the street.
The first was a man in the tattered remains of a gray business suit. His wrists and ankles were bound, and he had a burlap sack over his head.
The second was the man who had captured him. He was wearing brown buckle boots. His blue trousers were loose and billowy, as was his blue shirt, which he wore beneath a red tunic. He had a white lace cravat and a wide-brimmed red hat, up from which rose a white plume. He had a meticulously styled goatee and long black hair, its thickness draping over his shoulders. There was a rapier, a dagger, and an antique flintlock pistol on his belt.
He looked like one of the Three Musketeers, which was by design.
Batman had dealt with him before.
From the rooftop next door, Batman could hear their conversation… or what of it there could be, as apparently the prisoner's mouth had been taped shut beneath the bag.
A few groans came from him now.
And his ridiculously dressed captor responded as he paced behind him.
"Never mind that, my dear man. Your trials shall be at an end once the obsidian menace that plagues this fair city reveals himself! Until such a time, sit tight, and you shall not be harmed."
Batman waited until his back was turned before he glided from the roof to the pavement right in front of the flower shop, landing behind the bound and gagged man. The rain meant he didn't make a sound as his feet touched the cement.
The captor turned around and jumped when he saw Batman and tried, pathetically, to play it off.
"AH-hhhh. The Dark Knight reveals himself, as my reputation no doubt precedes me!"
Batman remembered him. "Mortimer Drake. A cat-burglar. You call yourself Cavalier."
Cavalier bowed, and said "At your service."
"You're the male Catwoman,' Batman said.
As Cavalier came up from his bow, a little tussle between fury and confusion played itself out on his eyes.
"I… I beg your pardon?"
"You have a gimmick," Batman said. "You have a costume. You steal things. And Catwoman pulled her first job two years before you did. I hate to break it to you, but…"
Cavalier's goatee was quivering. "How-How dare you? I, my good man, am above such comparisons to that feline mountebank!"
"If you say so."
"I abducted this fellow," Cavalier said, gesturing to the prisoner at his feet "to lure you into honorable combat, so that I might save this city from the vile machinations of The Undying! But you have impugned my reputation, and that shall not stand!"
Batman rolled his eyes. "That's me," he said. "I impugn as a hobby when I'm not fighting crime."
"Pray this," Cavalier said, puffing himself up. "Could Catwoman steal into the Gotham City Museum of Natural History under cover of darkness, abscond from the establishment with the jewels in its geological exhibit, and be back outside in no less than twenty-two minutes?"
"You're right," Batman said.
"Thank you."
"Catwoman couldn't do that."
"Thank you."
"Because she did it in fifteen. And she didn't get caught like you did."
Cavalier's eyes were a cauldron of rage, and his left cheek was twitching.
"You have sullied the fine name of Mortimer Drake for the last time, you flying rodent!" Cavaliere loosed his rapier from the scabbard on his belt and readied it.
"Have at you!""
He thrust his sword. Batman dodged to the right and held his left arm up, so that the sword got caught in the serrated protrusions on the underside of his gauntlet. With one quick wrench of his arm, Batman snapped the rapier in half.
Cavalier pulled back and looked at the useless weapon in his hand, before dropping it and going for the dagger in his belt.
"Have at you!"
Before Cavalier could even blink, Batman launched his right foot outward, hitting the hand that held the dagger. He was back in his starting position before the dagger landed with a clang somewhere across the street.
Cavalier looked at his empty hand, turned an even deeper shade of red, and went for the flintlock pistol. He pointed it at Batman.
"Have at you!"
Batman didn't even bother moving, as he knew what was going to happen next.
A dry click, and absolutely nothing.
"I don't think the rain likes your gun, there, Mort."
As Batman saw that yes, it was possible for a human being to turn purple with rage, Cavalier put his dukes up. With his wrists curled so that his fists were facing toward him, as though he were following Marquis of Queensbury rules like the Notre Dame mascot.
"HAVE AT-"
Before he could finish, Batman heard a loud POP! From across the street, and a bright pink tranquilizer dart was sticking out of Cavalier's neck.
"YOuUuuUuuu…" Cavalier said in a real-time facsimile of slow-motion as his knees buckled and he slid to the ground next to his captive.
Batman looked across the street and saw the silhouettes of ten people eregring from the alley directly across from his location.
He got ready.
As the band of ten advanced on him, the three at the head came out of the shadows.
Batman relaxed.
On the right was the now-retired Detective Harvey Bullock. On the left was Detective and new head of the Major Crimes Unit Renee Montoya.
And in the middle, holding a tranquilizer rifle, was a welcome face indeed.
"Thanks for occupying him, Batman," Mayor Gordon said. "Gave us a clear shot."
She had seen this situation before, and it never looked good.
From the corner of the alley, she had seen two men in long coats and fedoras walk up and talk to Fenton Keeting, a scummy drug-runner she knew from around the way. Or she had known him. He may have come up in the world since last they spoke.
The two men exchanged a few words with Keeting, and Keeting nodded the whole time. Then Keeting put his hands out, and what he said she could read on his lips well enough.
"Wait right here…"
Keeting walked in the door next to him, which led to the back room of a condemned convenience store. The two men in long coats talked among themselves. From what she could see, they didn't look like the kind of criminals that roamed the East End at all. The thugs, the hoods, the low-lifes of this place, even when they were the next best thing to homeless, still took a kind of pride in their appearances.
These two guys were just dressed for work.
A couple of minutes later, Keeting shoved someone out the door he had gone through. She was wearing jeans, and she had a trash bag crudely duct taped over the upper half of her body. He shoved her in front of him. She tripped and fell, landing on her knees in a puddle.
But she knew it was a girl under that bag, because even from over here, through the rain, she could hear her whimpering and her crying.
She had seen this situation before.
And it was never good.
But now, she thought it was time to introduce herself.
It was the taller one of the two men in long coats who noticed her first, who heard her boots as they clopped along the wet pavement. He stopped and squinted through the raindrops.
"Catwoman?"
Folding her arms a few feet away, Catwoman nodded.
The other one's head snapped to her location. As did Keeting's.
Fenton Keeting's bloodshot green eyes went wide. "Shit, I'm out!"
And Keeting booked it out of the alley. He left the girl behind, so Catwoman didn't care.
"I think my eyes are playing tricks on me," Catwoman said. "Because I could have sworn I saw the two of you trying to buy this young lady."
She turned her eyes to the girl in the bag, and then she looked back at the two men.
"You saw true," first one said. "But it wasn't going down like you thought it was."
He pushed a side of his coat away from his waist. Hanging from his belt, along with the beginning of a gut, was a GCPD badge.
"Well, Officer…"
"Sergeant," he said. "Carmoday."
"Alright, Sergeant Carmoday," Catwoman said. "I'd assume you were dealing with Fenton Keeting to free this girl… But I'd be assuming wrong, wouldn't I?"
As the other man (another cop, by her guess), put his hands in his pockets and started looking shifty, Carmoday smiled, raindrops falling from his fedorat and dousing his dark blue work shirt.
"Look around you," Carmoday said. "You know how they always say America is two missed meals from chaos? Turns out, it was just a forty-five minute deadline. People in this city have info. Info that they're not gonna give up unless we give them something in return. And how useful do you think money is in a city where people can just take whatever they want?"
He pointed at the girl on the ground.
"But we can give them her," Carmoday said. "To hear Keeting tell it, it's rare catching a natural blonde in the East End."
Catwoman didn't blink, and her stare held no emotion. "Info on what?"
"What else?" Carmoday asked. "Batman. We pop him, and the city's saved. Or ain't you heard?"
"I heard," Catwoman said. "And, uh… You're willing to ruin a young girl's life to do it?"
"What's one girl against nine million lives?" Carmoday asked. "And it's just East End trash. Who loses sleep?"
Catwoman still didn't blink. She put her hands on her hips.
"Look," she said. "I don't have anything against dirty cops-"
"We're not dirty," Carmoday said.
"Oh, so we can take that bag off of her and she can go home, then?"
Carmoday just glared at her.
"Like I was saying," Catwoman said. "I got nothing against dirty cops. They come around, the bad guys throw money at them, and they go away. And as someone who's a bad guy herself more often than not, that works out well for me."
Carmoday sneered. "If only everyone were as reasonable as you."
"I know, right?" Catwoman asked. "You guys are like hookers. We pay you to leave."
Catwoman pressing that button got the result she wanted. Carmoday reddened. He was going to do something stupid very soon.
"But you fellas screwed up on one major thing today," Catwoman said.
"Yeah? What's that."
Catwoman looked at the girl in the bag, and then back at Carmoday.
"No one… hurts girls… in my town."
Carmoday blinked. "Well, I'd ask what you were going to do about it, but…"
He shifted the other side of the coat, revealing the butt of his service pistol.
"You see the question asks itself," he said.
Tap-tap-tap.
She tried to make as big a show of it as possible without moving her arm. She was tapping her index finger on the whip at her waist.
"We're eight feet apart," Catwoman said. "And I have twelve feet of bullwhip. So… Draw, pilgrim."
Sergeant Carmoday was the kind of dumbass who holstered his pistol on the opposite side of their waist from their shooting hand with the butt out. Catwoman already had her whip out by the time Carmoday's hand had circumnavigated his stomach.
She got off two lashes. The first one came up across his arm, cutting through Carmoday's trenchcoat to the flesh of his forearm. The second one sliced a hole through his fedora (which went flying aimlessly to the pavement), and came down across his face, letting blood fly.
From where she was standing, Catwoman thought he may have lost an eye.
Good.
She broke into a sprint, and by the time the other cop had his gun out, he couldn't fire without fear of hitting Carmoday.
She slid into his shin, knocking Carmoday off his feet. Speed was her forte, and as she rose, she yanked the pistol off of Carmoday's holster. By the time she stood, she already had the gun pointed at the other cop.
Who had his gun now directly pointing at her. His hand was shaking, though. Catwoman had to bet that, in the line of duty, this asshole had never even drawn his weapon, let alone fired it at a suspect.
"Well," the other cop said. "Looks like we-"
Catwoman flicked her wrist and fired.
The bullet hit the wall that the other cop was standing next to, right next to his head, sending hot shards of red brick into his neck. He winced, screamed, and dropped his gun.
He opened his eyes again, and saw Catwoman still had Carmoday's gun trained on him.
"There are two ways this can play out," Catwoman said. "Either I take these claws of mine and cut me off a side of bacon, or you can leave."
Blinking, and holding a hand to his bleeding neck, the other cop said "I need to help the Sarge."
"No one can help the Sarge," Catwoman said. "Least of all you."
The other cop looked at Carmoday, then back at Catwoman, before booking it out of the alley.
Carmoday was trying to get up with with one arm while holding his other hand to his bleeding face. "Hey!" he called out to the other cop. "Hey, where are you going?"
Catwoman levelled the gun at him. "Disappear, asshole."
Carmoday finally got to his feet, and quickly staggered out of the alley.
Catwoman dropped the gun, coiled her whip around her waist, and turned to the girl in the bag.
"It's alright," Catwoman said. "I'll get you out."
"Quickly, please," said the girl. "It's getting hard to breathe in here."
Catwoman extended her claws and poked a hole in the bag. She widened it and brought it down over the girl's head. A plume of blonde hair was visible, which she shook to reveal her face.
"Ho ly shit, you're Catwoman!" the girl said.
The wild hair and running mascara threw her for a second, but Catwoman realized that she knew this girl.
"Oh, for fu- Stephanie?"
Stephanie Brown said "Hi, boss!"
Catwoman groaned, and continued freeing her. Once she was done, she asked "Would you mind telling me just what the hell you're doing in the East End?"
"Well," Stephanie said as she got to her feet, "I bit a guy's nose off yesterday."
"You do realize that's not an answer, right?"
"I got home," Stephanie said, "I heard from Tommy Russell that there was a party here, and I hopped a bus. I just… y'know… wanted to…"
Catwoman, who spent most of the last evening in a bathrobe alternating between fits of anger and barely restrained crying jags trying to deal with what happened at Kyle Security yesterday, understood.
"It's alright, Catwoman said. "I get it."
"I was at the party when that shit with the dead mayor went down. I just got to the bus station when that forty-five minute window closed, and the buses shut down. That's when I was jumped."
"Can you get home now?"
Stephanie shook her head. "I live on Bleake Island with my mom," she said. "I heard from that asshole's phone conversations that the mob blew the bridges. I can't get back. And he took my phone, so I don't know how she's doing."
Catwoman closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She wanted to remain stoic, but…
"Shit!" she said. "Shit-shit-shit!"
She took another deep breath.
"Alright," Catwoman said, her brow furrowed. "Come with me, I guess.
Batman watched two of Gordon's group free Cavalier's prisoner. He was balding, and looked to be in his fifties. Even as he was being questioned, he kept adjusting the lapels of his ruined suit, like an amputee scratching an arm that wasn't there anymore.
He gave his name as Bill Koontz.
Another two drug a nearly-comatose Cavalier off out of view. He was an Arkham patient and not well. He hoped Gordon's people knew well enough not to beat on him while he was down and couldn't defend himself.
"City Hall has five helicopters at its disposal," Gordon said to Batman as they stood in the alley.
Batman looked at him.
"It's not my fault," Gordon said. "The last administration paid for them. All I'm saying is, with the roads blocked, getting around isn't a factor for me and my team."
"How did you get your team?"
"I lit the Gordon-Signal."
Batman nodded, as opposed to smiling. They both turned and walked deeper into the alley.
"I'm still friends with people who owe me favors," Gordon said. "Bullock came running for this little group."
"He's retired," Batman said. "He must have missed beating on people."
"You know, I could level the same accusation at you."
"Are you feeling testy this morning, Jim?"
Gordon sighed. "I always thought this city was cranky enough to become a Mad Max movie under the wrong circumstances, but dear God, I didn't think it would take just forty-five minutes. Even cops-cops I've known for years -have abandoned their beats just to hunt you. You should be flattered, Batman. Hamilton Hill came back from the dead just because he was pissed at you. As angry as I've ever gotten, I still couldn't get a fourth season of Deadwood."
"Hill isn't angry with me," Batman said. "Or at least not entirely."
"Really?" Gordon asked. "He says he'll stop this if someone kills you. If that ain't anger…"
"And you believe him?" Batman asked. "If I thought my death would solve this, I'd have thrown myself off of Wayne Tower the first chance I got. But he wants to see the city suffer. Because he thinks it abandoned him."
"Christ," Gordon said. "Please don't tell me that asshole has some kind of tragic backstory like Croc or Freeze, and I'm supposed to feel sorry for him."
Batman shook his head. "Pain can make you do terrible things. But in my years of doing this, I've found that the worst people simply haven't suffered at all. Hill was entitled. He thought Gotham owed him something. When Gotham didn't pay up, he became capable of this."
Batman looked away from Gordon.
"Where are you housing the people you're apprehending?"
"Precinct lock-ups, or at least the ones that'll cooperate with us. Where else? They're getting full, though. Soon, we're going to have to just tranq people and hide them, so they're out of danger while they're sleeping or when they wake up."
"No real bullets?"
"We have our hat in hand, here," Gordon said. "The precincts need their bullets, but they have a surplus of tranquilizer darts that they just gave us like we're the last Trick or Treaters on Halloween night. We open our bags, and they pour the whole bowl in."
"So you're not acting in your official capacity as mayor right now with your band of Merry Men?"
"Nope," Gordon said. "Until this Hill situation is over, I'm a vigilante... Just like you."
Batman turned to Gordon again. "Jim, I-"
He stopped.
Gordon was gone.
Batman scanned the rest of the alley. He looked in the dumpster next to him. He even looked up at the sky.
Finally, Batman looked down at his feet and sighed.
"I deserve that."
He was about to walk out of the alley when he heard a man screaming from a block, maybe a block and a half away.
Batman started running.
He came out of the alley to see a few of Gordon's people with Montoya at the head, milling about the parking lot behind the flower shop. Gordon was already there.
"Montoya, what happened?" Gordon asked.
"I don't know," Montoya said, "I heard a huge flapping, like someone opening and closing an umbrella real quick. I turn around, and Koontz was gone."
"Koontz?"
"Yeah," Montoya said. "The guy Cavalier was holding prisoner. And I hear screaming from…"
Even though the falling rain was dulling the sounds, there was no denying the sound that they all heard at that point. It was a sound that completely silenced Gordon's crew, and caused them all to look up in terror.
It was a loud screech, still deafening, even though it sounded far away.
A man disappears amidst the sound of flapping, combined with that screech, and there was no question what they were dealing with.
Batman sighed.
"Man-Bat…"
In the old abandoned subway tunnels where The Undying and his forces made their roost, in the space that was to be a restaurant that was lit only by candlelight, Talia al Ghul had been preparing.
She was dressed in black leather pants and a black leather jacket. Her hair was tied into a tight ponytail.
Talia held in her hand a jian; a chinese straight sword. She had wielded a great many weapons in her time on this Earth, and almost all of them had drawn another person's blood. But of them all, this was her favorite. Bestowed upon her by her father Ra's al Ghul when she was but a girl of eleven, this sword was her instrument of choice when she needed to impress upon her foes her grace. She had wielded guns and swung daggers, she had brought down maces and thrown bombs.
But this sword was an extension of who she was.
She slid the blade into the black scabbard on her hip, and left her quarters.
Her footsteps echoed through the empty halls. The rooms were all vacant. The degenerate henchmen that Hill had picked up from the streets of Gotham were out about the city indulging themselves. Most of her honor guard were sequestered. The few that weren't were scouring the city, looking for Kasha, who had betrayed her by running from the scene of Kyle Security instead of being captured temporarily so that she may be put to better use later.
Kasha was one of the oldest of her number, and should Talia been the kind to look with sentiment upon her soldiers she may have been proud to call Kasha her friend.
But that was the past, now. She had disobeyed orders, and so Talia al Ghul would use Kasha's head as a footrest soon enough.
She walked into the main terminal where Hamilton Hill, his mask off, folded his arms and looked at the five car train that he had had The Broker's associates build for him.
Hill looked at Talia, and then back at the train.
"Beauty, ain't she?" Hill asked.
"It's a waste of money," Talia said.
"That's where you're wrong," Hill said. "Batman will find us sooner or later. I'm counting on it. He'll chase me. And by the time this train makes it out of the tunnel a mile away, he can look out the window when I trigger the dead man's switch. He'll watch the city that summoned him and betrayed me… burn green."
"Provided someone doesn't shoot him in the street purely by accident," Talia said. "Provided someone actually does what you ask and kills him."
Hill looked at Talia again. "If it does, I'll shoot the magic bitch and kill the city anyway. Do you really think some civillan will clip Batman's wings?"
Talia had the ability to frown without moving her lips. "No, I do not. But even if all you say comes to pass, it will still be a foolish and extravagant gesture."
"Say…" said someone coming down the steps.
They both turned to see Black Manta, clad in his armor, walking down the steps. The only sign that he had waded through chaos and destruction to get from Blackgate to here was the dried blood that Talia could smell on his black armor all the way from here.
"Did the woman who put nine million people in danger to lure Batman out of hiding just say something about extravagant gestures?" Black Manta asked.
Hill looked from Talia to Black Manta. He raised his eyebrows.
"I'll leave you two alone," he said, and left down the hall.
Black Manta walked up to Talia, and took off his helmet.
"Well?" Hyde asked.
"I am a woman in love," Talia said. "Extravagant gestures are a second language."
Hyde smiled. "I can't help but admire a woman who would make a great girlfriend and a terrifying ex-wife."
"Why attempt the half-measure?" Talia asked. "Should I be displeased, I could make myself a widow."
"You know… I bet you've actually told Batman that."
Talia exhaled through her nose. She had, in fact, told Bruce that.
"Speaking of which," Hyde said. "How did your meet with America's favorite angry furry go?"
Talia looked Hyde up and down. He was an impudent man with a disrespectful tongue. The look of placid confidence on his face made her want to hurt him somehow.
"You…" Talia said, "are a barbarian and a thug."
"I never said I was anything but."
"How many people did you thoughtlessly slaughter getting from prison to here?"
"I didn't count," Hyde said. "And you didn't answer my question. How did your conversation with Batman go?"
Admitting weakness, fault, or hindrances to a man like David Hyde made her skin crawl. She made sure not to blink when she spoke next.
"My beloved is distracted," she said. "It is a situation I was just on my way out to remedy."
Hyde smiled wide. With laughter in his voice, he said "That bad, huh?"
Talia finally blinked, and her expression curdled.
"Will my misfortunes fascinate you this much when I make you eat your own entrails?"
Hyde was still smiling. "That's the spirit," he said. "Stop me if you've heard this one."
He walked to her, helmet under his arm. He was close enough for her to smell the heady and deceptively magnetic mixture of dried blood on his armor and mint on his breath.
"You've been told since you were old enough to understand words that you didn't quite rate," Hyde said. "No woman will ever lead the League of Assassins, and even in the event one does, that power all disappears if she ever takes a husband. You have to pump out a son for The League to sustain itself. And you've been told so long that no matter how fearsome or dangerous or intelligent you are, you can't do an inferior man's job, and now… you actually believe it."
His dark eyes were like black holes, holding no soul of their own, but somehow absorbing hers. No one had ever talked to her like this before. She'd have visited pain of death upon them if they had.
Why? Why was she so afraid of the truths in her heart coming from another person's lips?
"And believe it or not," Hyde said, "that's the happy Talia al Ghul. That's the Talia with a safety net. And y'know… I actually like that Talia."
Hyde took another step toward her. The light above them shone on Hyde's freshly shaven cheek, and cast hoods of shadow over his eyes. The damage that Batman had done to him at the hotel days ago was obscured completely. He was no longer a man, but a truth of nature, like a joshua tree, or a mountain that showed the centuries upon centuries of sediment of which it was comprised.
And the smell of blood and mint was stronger, now. She blinked. Far too slowly to hide the intentions that wriggled beneath her subconscious like worms beneath the dirt after a fresh rain, coming up for air and moisture.
"But," Hyde said, "the Talia with nothing to lose? With nothing to her name except the destiny that she chose for herself? Now that's the Talia al Ghul I want to meet."
Talia blinked slowly again, her eyes clouding over, her voice a whisper. "Do you?"
"Oh yeah," Hyde said. "That Talia'll sell tickets."
And Hyde stood up straight, his entire demeanor changing. He patted her on the shoulder. Talia did not flinch or shy away.
"Now if you'll excuse me," he said, "I'm going to go shower prison off my body."
He walked off, going down the same hall Hill had.
As soon as she was convinced that he had gone, her breath came out of her in a rush. Sweat immediately formed on her brow.
She clenched her eyes shut. Remember why you're here, you fool!
Her hands grasped for the sword at her waist. She pulled it from the scabbard and held it in front of her.
Slowly-too slow for Talia's taste-her purpose came back to her.
She had come to this place, she had gone through all of this effort, to claim her betrothed, her Beloved, for her own.
And this sword would help her.
This sword was the first weapon ever given to her by her father, The Demon, upon the completed initial stages of her training.
This sword was the weapon that had sliced through countless targets, the righteous and the wicked alike.
This sword would be the sword that would forge an Empire that would span the globe with Bruce Wayne and their child at her side.
So it was only fitting that this sword would be the one to carve the still-beating heart from the chest of Selina Kyle.