She was a woman with a plan.

It was all going so smoothly. She had lured Gordon to this place by carefully placing her pieces. The pizza boy, the missing car; it was a lead that he could not ignore. She knew he would not be able to resist this. The set-up was perfection itself. But this wasn't about Gordon. He was merely the bait. He was only one part of this scheme. He was not the main portion. It was all about catching him at the most vulnerable moment, like a professional hunter who waits patiently while their trophy moves it head so that they can deliver the deadly shot to the heart. That silly old man was nothing more than a chicken to lure the catch she really wanted. She lured him here using Dent's twins.

She used tape to keep the girl from making too much noise. Dolores was her name, if she recalled correctly. Her brother, Daniel, was frozen in fear. He was like a small rabbit that tried to hold still so that the predator wouldn't notice him. She noticed how small he was; the bright blue eyes looking up at her.

My God, he's no older than Br ...

..."You look just like your mother," she purred, turning her attention away from the children while she tightened the rope. She wanted to bury the thought. It was a pesky reminder, like a mischievous child who ran and didn't want to get caught. She suppressed a growl. The children huddled close together in a sad attempt to protect one another. She was like a snake in their midst.

"You. Get on the chair," she ordered.

The girl, Dolores, awkwardly pushed herself to her feet. She thought the lady with the white make-up was like something out of the stories from the various books she had read. A clown left out in the rain until her makeup ran down her face, white and black and blood-red mixing and dripping from her eyes and chin. Dolores couldn't make sense of what she was seeing. She was like a character from one of those Stephen Gammell drawings. She was an amalgam of the Jadis and a cruel, secretive teacher at a haunted boarding school.

Dolores' father was a judge, and she remembered him talking about the scary people who lived in Gotham. There had been no effort at keeping the information from her, though he'd never spoken about them to her directly; rather, she'd be languishing in the background, reading, painting or playing a video game, as he ranted and raved about them to her mother. She remembered him talking about a group that used masks to commit dangerous crimes. Dolores thought it was strange that her dad made them sound like scary monsters that actually walked amongst them.

Dolores did as she was told and stood on the chair. She tensed when she felt the woosh of a coat brush past her. She started to cry when she felt hands on her; saw them veined and trembling, fingers tensed, tipped by painted feral claws. Purple gloves covered what should have been a woman's hands. She saw the clown woman take out duct tape. She put a piece on her mouth. Dolores felt as if she lost her legs.

"It's such a shame you won't live to see your Sweet Sixteen, dearest. A milestone like that is a significant one for every little girl," she said, in a gentle tone. "But, think about it this way. I'm not angry at you. You see, you are helping me."

Dolores blinked. She couldn't understand what the lady meant. How was she helping her while she was tied up?

"So many questions in that little face. My dear, I am hunting a very large animal. I'm hunting a very large animal. In order to trap it, I must use bait. I have Gordon here because, quite frankly, I am fed up with him getting in the way. But you see, you are the fruit, Gordon is the fly and the Bat is the target….get it? It's all a big chain!"

Dolores blinked. "So I'm helping by being killed? That's crazy!"The clown lady frowned. "You're too young to understand your role in this, my dear." She then pulled out something from her pocket. Dolores' heart raced. It turned out that it wasn't a gun. It was lipstick. It was red just like her lips.

"You will never do this with YOUR mother, so why don't we make this special?" she smiled. Dolores wished that this was a bad dream and that Daniel would wake her up by pouring cold water on her face, like he always did on Saturday mornings when she wanted to sleep in and he wanted her to watch his favorite cartoon show with him.
Just then, they heard a loud bang from the grand foyer. It was Gordon

As a longtime friend of the Wayne family, Commissioner Jim Gordon had been a guest at their estate many times. Consequently, he had an intricate knowledge of the rooms, secret passageways, every nook and cranny. For sure, it had been years since he'd last set foot in the place, but he was positive that after Thomas had moved out, the details remained the same. Thomas hadn't bothered to renovate the place; he'd pretty much left it to rot. The only things left behind were a few old chairs, dust and rats. Damp crawled up the walls, sending a chill through every room. Jim was certain that if he turned over the remaining sticks of furniture, he'd find moss growing on the bottom.

He heard a struggle from the top of the grand staircase. It was her.

He remembered how she would serenade guests. He remembered when they remodeled children's wing at Gotham General. He was a speaker when they established the Wayne-funded safe houses for at-risk teens. It was an initiative that he proposed. She was an ardent advocate of the educational initiatives throughout the city. She would slip out into the night, makeup-less and in jeans, and visit hostels and safe-houses and homeless shelters. She would also visit hospitals in less affluent neighborhoods. She distributed sandwiches and soup to the homeless; clean works to junkies, baby formula to impoverished mothers. She tended to wounds; soothed fevered brows. She held babies who were born with HIV and crack in their little systems. While other philanthropists used charity as a cover for personal business interests and tax breaks, Martha's intentions were pure. She was the epitome of class, inside and out. He also remembered the scent of L'Heure Bleue; her meticulous makeup. She'd been the Best-Dressed Woman here, Style Icon of the Year there. Not that he'd ever particularly cared about that stuff but he knew that just as she was charitable, Martha had style.

But that was a lifetime ago. Martha Wayne was gone. The woman who used her position to help the disadvantaged was gone. In her place was this monster who had been terrorizing the city. He had briefings and exchanges with therapists. It was impossible not to have run ins with other experts and professionals in this line of work. He had a passing knowledge of brain chemistry and trauma and how it could alter a person's being. While he understood the importance of rehabilitation, his priority was protecting innocent people from threats. Right now, he had no room for empathy. The goal was to find her and remove the immediate danger, whatever it took. He was hunting a very dangerous animal.

Gordon adjusted his collar. The Joker had the advantage of the home front. She was like a black widow spider, waiting waiting waiting. He glanced around the door of one room. Nothing. It was one of the old studies, totally cleaned out.

The next room was Martha's old powder room. There was nothing except an old dresser, tossed over. A broken mirror was smeared with lipstick. Gordon knew that she had no problem with acquiring make-up. Tips at the station included descriptions of a woman, the lower half of her face concealed by a scarf, stealing eyeliner at local drug stores. She was too quick; she slipped out into the night. No Nordstrom or Sephora for her now; she would be recognized too easily.

"Home Sweet Home….."

Martha, what have you done? Then he heard the sound come closer. He saw something on the floor. It was Daniel. He was so small, so helpless.

Jim suddenly remembered how at the precinct there was a bulletin board entitled "The Therapy Wall'. Young clerks fresh out of college would post funny images of children and animals. Officers would occasionally share images of their smiling families. The most popular one was from Sergeant Wells, who posted an image of his son, William, and their German Shepherd, Hans. They were both 'praying'. This was done as a way to cushion the pressure of working three shifts that may or may not have included dealing with and that included upstanding types such as drug dealers, murderers, child abusers and other sordid crimes Gordon did not want to think about. Then he saw her.

The bitch was standing over him.

He shot at her, aiming at her heart. Gordon's relief was short lived. It was until he saw the chair moving that he noticed something was very wrong. There were no feet, only four pegs where two legs should have been. The coat falling to the floor revealed a child that was tied to a chair.

That damned bitch!

"Here, I'm going to help-"He didn't finish his train of thought when he felt something. It felt like a paper cut across his neck. Then he felt something pour down. He felt his shirt moisten. He thought it was sweat. Then he saw a pinkish and crimson tide flow down his shirt. It was his own blood.

"She won't listen, you know. They never do."

She took Gordon's phone and reconfigured the settings. She wanted to give the bastard and his crew a bird's eye view of the show. One of her technically gifted henchmen had shown her how to manipulate and scramble the frequency so that she wouldn't be located. Not even that hacker cow Selina Kyle could find her, not now.

Just then, a sudden loud noise came from the front.

He was here.

And here. we. go...

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE THIS TIME, MARTHA?!"

Little Daniel Dent looked on helplessly. He looked just like…No. She cut off the thought before it could grow.
There is a reason why you had him as bait and why the girl was the sacrificial lamb. Stop it. He reminds you of….Shut up!

"Oh yes, my dear. Again and again and again, all your mistakes piling up." She was proud of her work. In her mind, she had reinvented herself as an artist. People were her tools, her canvas. Her vision was a Goya painting. The greats used oil on canvas. She used blood as ink; skin as parchment. Tears as appraisal. Of course.

She slithered into the shadows, and waited. This was one advantage she had over him. He was brilliant but he had bulk and age was catching up to him. She still had her cat-like reflexes. Cats. Like that CUNT after I spayed her...A guttural yell ended all of those thought processes.

There he was! He was getting on in years, his face lined by the stress of his work. Whether it was his day job as a doctor, managing his casino, or his moonlighting as the Bat, she saw the jowls. She saw the creases deepening, the furrowed brow. His nasolabial folds becoming more pronounced. He'd been such a handsome man. Still was, even with age. He had that weathered look. His skin was more creased but it gave him character. In made him refined, seasoned, a man who didn't let age hinder his abilities. If anything, he fine-tuned them like an athlete, a professional. He was the lion-in-winter. The type whose presence filled the room. Even in repose, he was there. Always.

She anticipated their encounters. It was another opportunity for him to pay for his crime. Another chance for her to seek her revenge. Another opportunity to punish him for being late. She needed him to feel the pain and hate he had caused for his carelessness. She loved him once but that was another lifetime ago. Another time line. The man she once loved and committed herself to was no longer there. The man she'd once shared a bed with. The father of her only child.

He'd died that night in that alley too. It was all his fault. He did it and he had to pay. Over and over again.

She hid in the shadows. She watched him from the shadows. She saw him kneel down. The powerful, imposing figure of the Bat whose image was almost mythical tenderly attended to the child.

"I'm going to help you, okay?" he said gently. She felt the burning rage within her. He spoke to Bruce like that. He was reassuringly gentle to a child that wasn't hers. Theirs. Harvey's snot goblin was not Bruce, Thomas!

That was how he used to speak to her. So gentle. So kind. So … utterly useless. But this time he wasn't saying those words to her.

Little Daniel Dent's brain was processing images that would forever be sealed into the deep part of his consciousness. Even if he saw a specialist and retrained his memories, he would always remember this. Even as a thirty-year old MIT graduate working on his biochemistry papers, the memories of this night would haunt him. He was little Daniel in the lion's den.

Then he heard a loud pop. Dolores had a bullet wound; the bullet may or may not have lodged itself into a part of her body. The fact that she was just barely breathing meant that there was still time. Now was not the time for revenge - there was a life to save. Batman's primary focus shifted from finding the Joker to saving the children.

Dolores's wound was spreading like red ink dipped in water. He had to act fast. With her tiny frame, that would mean that she could go into shock at any second. He needed to bring her back into full consciousness. It meant that he had to do something that was painful but necessary. He pulled a small vial of salt from his utility belt, flipped the cap, and poured the contents onto the wound. Her cries confirmed his thoughts. It was painful for her, but it was a necessary step. She would live. Her cries reminded him of the newborn animals in those nature documentaries he would watch to bond with Bruce.

My God, they are no older than Bruce. That was why he was so invested. He did not wish for that trauma on anyone.

"I know it hurts," he said, "but the pain means you are alive."

"…m' cold…"

"What?" he asked.

"I'm cold….." The words tugged at his memories. Those were the exact words Bruce had said that night, that night where they could spend the last time time as a family. "I'm cold…."

Dolores was regaining consciousness, and Daniel wasn't hurt. They were his priority now. Batman was about to comfort the children when he heard an inhuman sound. It was a shriek that sounded like a cross between a prehistoric animal and a creature from the pit of Hell. Then a strong blow to his cranium. He felt a pulsing vibration through the protective cowl.

"HOW... DARE... YOU!"

She fell upon him, a whirlwind of claws and scratches and punches. He curled around the children, shielding them, taking the force of the blows. Whether it was familiarity with his work or years of practice, she knew exactly where to hit him. The top part of his spine by his skull was susceptible, as was the side of his only had seconds to do this. He moved the children to the side while she hit him with a hammer. Blood trickled down his face. As soon as the children were safely out of the way, he focused on her. His would wait until she was so enraged that she did not notice him pull her towards him and towards the window. They both fell out of the second story room into what had once been their meticulous garden, barely missing a dilapidated statue of a girl with a watering-can, bent over a flowerbed. His body cushioned her fall as they rolled onto the wet and shadowed grass. She clawed her way on top of him. Her features were wild, seeming abnormally stretched and feral under the cracked, caked-on warpaint, all teeth and bleeding gums and glistening, ecstatic eyes.

"You're blind to your own rage, darling," she hissed.

He pulled himself up. He was disoriented from the blood loss and the force of the fall.

"It's true, old man." She laughed and staggered a little, then regained her composure, pushing a bloodied hand through her hair. "Of course, being a hopeless romantic, when we were falling…I thought you might land on top. For old time's sake."

"Old times? You want to go there?" He lunged forward and grabbed her. She didn't resist him. He grasped her, tightly, and lowered his mouth to her ear. His voice was gravel.

"A man and a woman and their only son cut through an alley after the movies…."

He felt her tremble.

"Shut up," she hissed.

"They get mugged..."

Oh God, she could still feel the tug of the pearls. "Shut up!"

"Bang. BANG."

As Batman, Thomas Wayne was a lot of things to many people: mysterious, intimidating, punitive, but never sadistic. Cruel, yes but he didn't take pleasure in making people uncomfortable. He hated doing this, but it had to be done. She had to remember what really happened that night; not what her mind had tricked her into believing so she could "cope." She couldn't cope. Not that way. The evidence was right in front of him. Thomas was not responsible for Bruce dying. It was caused by the gunman. In the aftermath of the tragedy, she'd run it over and over in her mind; her grief turning into a profound depression, her depression into rage. Her rage concocted a new angle to the story. It hadn't been a random act. It was all his fault. He was the doctor yet he couldn't save his own son. It was a comforting narrative to quell her own guilt: that she did not arrive with the police on time. This embellished tale justified her anger towards him. It was a blame game that had grown from a festering wound to a cancerous tumor.

"The man and the woman fall dead. Their son lives…." Thomas continued.

…. Wait. What's he talking about?

"I have an opportunity to make that real, to rewrite history. And as twisted as it sounds, I need to know from you, Martha—Should I?"

He was offering her an olive branch under the most extraordinary circumstances.

So much pain, so many tears.

She'd broken his bones and his heart, but she hadn't broken his spirit. When Thomas knew something, he followed up on it, no stone left unturned. He followed protocol, but when the usual steps led to nothing, he would use other means. The administration would do what it could to help but they had to answer to state regulations. He was always successful. That was how he'd cured little Tommy Elliott's leukemia. If someone needed a bone marrow transplant, he would phone other states or even other countries for a match. This was why he was respected as a doctor.

He was not the type to believe in outlandish tall tales. Thomas was a man of medicine, not superstition. Now it seemed that someone somewhere was offering them an opportunity to make circumstances right, even if it meant a less than ideal result. What mattered to her was that Bruce was the one who lived.

"Promise me, Thomas." There were tears now. "Promise me you will." Her voice was hoarse, sentimental. It was as if something had gone out of her. He felt her sag with … with resignation? Acceptance? Relief? "I will," he said.

She felt his lips press against hers, her senses were arrested. Only moments ago, she wanted to kill him. She wanted to break his spine. The moment suspended her. Her heart sped up. They were establishing contact but not the kind that she was used to. It was something she hadn't felt in a long time. She melted into the kiss, pressing herself against him. He pulled her close. A primal feeing rose between them as they reconnected. Martha could feel Thomas's large imposing build. He kept himself in excellent shape. The muscular build was a testament to his reflexes. So tender and protective. She wanted more. Thomas touched her frame. The curve of her back, the narrow waist. Feeling her hips pressed against his. For a moment, he had lost himself. The shudder of breath between them. He stopped her. Although he wanted her to continue, he had to tell her what he knew.

The rain continued to fall, as if it was washing away their bloodied, storied history. She asked about their son. She had hoped that he wouldn't misuse his privileged upbringing and spend his inheritance on lavish vacations and women.

Thomas looked away slightly. "He follows in his father's footsteps."

Promising, but it was not good enough.

"Is he a doctor?" She turned, nervous at the answer. It was almost as if she knew. She needed to hear it from him.

"No."

She tried to pull away but his grip was too powerful.

"No, Martha!" He tightened his grip. She had gotten used to his manner of forceful handling. After all, this was someone who for the last fifteen years he was her mortal enemy. To hear that sound tugged at memories that she thought she had long buried.

"Let me go!" she shrieked. "No! Let me end it here!"

She thrashed about, Thomas barely managing to contain her. God knows where she'd acquired this strength, he thought; the indefatigable strength of the insane. She was unwilling to process the words that came out of his mouth, that was clear. He hadn't said them, but the implications were too much.

Martha, meanwhile, was lost. Somewhere on another plane, in another dimension, their son was healthy and living. Somewhere in an alternate reality, it was she and Thomas who had succumbed to the mysterious gunman's wounds. Bruce was alive, but ….. he wasn't a doctor.

He was that….that monster staring back at her.

Somewhere in that reality, Bruce – their child, that sweet and loving child who'd given gifts to his classmates unprompted, who'd asked them to donate his birthday presents to a children's hospital - was living with her pain. And Thomas's pain.

It was too much.

Her son didn't deserve that.

It couldn't be. She didn't want to register it. She did not want the admission to process in her mind. She would give anything to reverse what happened that night, yet here was the source of her pain attempting to stop her from achieving it.

She felt him pulling her away from the ravine. She then felt a wall of muscle press against her. Thomas held her close.

"Martha, I can fix this." He exhaled softly. "I can make it so that Bruce lives. I can undo all of this but just give me some time."

She felt her body tense less. Her body began to relax. That voice. It was not gruff and commanding. It was not intimidating. It was gentle and warm. She pressed her forearms against Thomas. He held her firmly. She wanted to get a better look at the man who'd caused all of this. The man she'd battled with on an almost fortnightly basis. The man she'd engaged with in a battle of weapons, traps, and wits. The man whom she'd hurt with poisons, chemicals, and psychological intimidation. The man whose bones she had same man who was not above snapping the necks of others like her, yet had never hurt her. The same man who'd turn her over to the Asylum; who'd never give into the demands of the public and media pundits who wanted her sent to the electric man whose heart she had broken. And who had broken hers in turn.

The man who had given her the most precious treasure; the man who was the father of her son. Their son, who was living somewhere. Thomas could see the change in her. Her eyes, hitherto full of movement and madness, now seemed calm. There was a hint of regret, along with the placidity. There was no point in rubbing salt into the wounds. The most important thing was that the twins were safe, and that she didn't fall into the abyss and break her neck. He pulled her close to him again, their lips interlocking.

"There might be paparazzi watching," she said gently, placing her gloved hands on his lips. "Oh God, what about the cops?"

"I already took care of that."

"What about Gordon? Won't the police come looking for him?" she asked, genuinely concerned. "Oh, God, I'm….I'm…" Thomas held her hands.

"Hide in the cave until I say so." he said in a low voice. "I'll hold off the police. I'll talk to Oswald, to members of the department who were friendly with Gordon."

"But, I killed your best PR. I, I….killed your friend. Bullock isn't friendly to you from what I heard."

"Collateral damage," Thomas stated sharply. "Look. I just … I just need you to stay low until I say it's okay."