Disclaimer: I don't own DC Comics, and thus none of their characters. Batman, Barbara Gordon, Selina Kyle, Harley Quinn, Terry McGuiness, The Joker, Nightwing and all other DC characters belong to someone else. Not me. Too bad, really. I'm not making a profit off of Bob Kane's fine creation.
I own everyone not created by DC. Don't use them without permission.
On with the show…
It was after 2 a.m., but Barbara couldn't sleep. Normally she took her prescribed dosages of painkillers and fell into dreamless slumber, but tonight was different.
She chalked it up to her break in routine, and closed her eyes firmly, willing sleep to come.
It didn't. Barbara hadn't had a night like this in years, not since she'd finally given in and started taking the antidepressants that the doctors, Bruce and Dick had been badgering her to take. Not since she'd learn to drug herself into oblivion.
She had figured, with the Birds of Prey disbanded, there was no reason not to. Black Canary and Huntress were the only reasons she endured the insomnia and the nightmares that came when she finally did fall asleep. Only when she watched the news and the webcasts and heard from Bruce how they were keeping Gotham from igniting with the flames of the inferno could she close her eyes without seeing a wide, red smile.
Now, there was nothing. She sold her information to the highest bidder and didn't care about the outside world. The name Oracle had ceased to be anything but her guarantee of anonymity. If the Birds of Prey could see her now…
Barbara didn't let herself dwell on that thought. Her accident had made her a shadow of what she was when she was Batgirl, and she faded a little more each day.
Barbara threw the covers off her in exasperation and lowered herself into her wheelchair. She wheeled to her bank of computers by habit, but she didn't turn on the monitors. She was staring into space, her jumpy mind whisking past a thousand half-formed thoughts when her phone rang.
It was the police line. Barbara picked up, half-hoping it was Daniel Thorne again.
"Oracle?" She smiled a little.
"I think we're past that, Commissioner." He didn't chuckle.
"We got the bomber." Barbara perked up.
"Stefan's lead?"
"It was good. We released him around five o'clock." Barbara nodded in satisfaction. She was glad the thing with Freze had gone her way. He was a smart kid and he could be useful later on. Assuming he didn't have the tendencies of the elder Freze, that was.
"So who's the Marionette?" Her free hand reached for a pad and pen to jot down any information Thorne might have that she couldn't glean from her connection to the GCPD's database. Marionette would become another strand in Barbara's web of information about the criminals and scum of the city.
"You're not going to believe this," said Thorne. He sounded exhausted, and Barbara guessed he hadn't slept since the bombing.
"I'll believe almost anything," said Barbara, because it was true.
"Marionette is female. Young, too." His voice hardened. "She killed seven SWAT officers and the squad leader. Booby-trapped her lab to blow if it was touched." Barbara raised an eyebrow.
"Very Bond-villain. I suppose it's too much to hope she broke down and confessed?"
"Actually, we couldn't stop her," said Thorne. "Told us everything she knew about the bombing. She was rather proud of her work." He sighed. "The only thing she didn't give up was the locations of Anarchy and their leader. Claims she doesn't know. We're working on the court order for mind-invasion." Barbara winced slightly. The brutal combination of electric shocks and truth-inducing drugs was still under hot dispute in the Supreme Court. Gotham was one of the few counties that allowed it to be employed in interrogations.
"Thank you for calling," she told Thorne. "Please keep me informed."
"That's not all," he said. "It gets much, much better." Barbara sat back.
"Oh?"
"When we booked her we had to go through the usuals...fingerprint, retinal print, DNA recording. You'll never believe who we matched her to when we ran the gene sample against known offenders."
"If I say Superman, I'm going to sound silly," said Barbara. Thorne didn't respond to the crack.
"You've had run-ins with him, when you worked with Batman," he said. "In fact, the papers liked to use the term 'nemesis' for him and the Dark Knight." Barbara felt her entire body go numb, frozen in place while her mind screamed not true not true not true! It wasn't him, didn't have to be him, could be any one of a thousand crooks Batman had had a run-in with. "Barbara?" said Thorne.
"Who?" she whispered, her voice scraping her throat painfully.
"Jack Napier. The Joker."
Barbara let out a cry, and flung the phone across the room. She curled her upper body as tight as she could make it, rocking back and forth, sobs wracking her.
After a time she became aware of Thorne's voice, sounding tiny and far away. "Barbara? Barbara, are you alright? Barbara!" Barbara pushed her chair forward to the fallen phone, picked up the receiver and set it back in its cradle very softly.
"You're dead," she told the walls matter-of-factly. "DEAD!" she shrieked at the top of her lungs.
No one answered her. Barbara rolled over to her bed and flopped in, pulling the covers around her tight enough to smother. She lay awake for the rest of the night, staring into the dark.
---
It was morning in Gotham, and those lucky enough to have apartments that rose above the pollution clouds were enjoying a day with warm suns that promised to be hot by the afternoon. From his floor-to-ceiling windows, Alex Luthor watched the traffic go by as he did his morning workout, five hundred reps of weights and some light karate.
After all, when you were dating Superman's daughter, it paid to be in shape.
Even the wealthiest students of GSU usually lived in the dorms, which were palatial in their own right. But Alex knew that no Luthor would ever be caught dead in communal housing, and had opted for this penthouse in the upscale Downtown District, near the apartments of the deputy mayor, several well-known mobsters and the headquarters of Wayne Enterprises.
Alex finished his last bicep curl and shucked his workout gear, heading into the shower. He stood under cold water for a few seconds before drying off and putting on a casual blue button-down shirt and khaki slacks. It was the way his father had started every day of his life, and he'd drummed it into Alex.
Alex knew it was only because Lex had grown up in slums and there hadn't been any hot water, never mind a shower, but he humored his father nonetheless.
He was combing his honey-blond hair when the doorbell rang. One of his two bodyguards, who got paid a lot of money to make sure no one tried to take a crack at him, answered it.
"Sir, it's Mr. Shock." Alex rolled his eyes.
"Let him in." The doors of the penthouse slid back to reveal a big stim-pumped guy with a magenta mohawk, dressed in leathers and spikes with a bloody anarchy A painted on the back of his jacket. He was heavily tattooed from neck to Alex didn't care to know where.
"The fucking oinks tagged Marionette," were the first words from his mouth.
"And a good morning to you too," said Alex, accepting the protein smoothie his other bodyguard handed him.
"Did you not hear me, gold-plated dick?" said Shock. Alex shot him a look, one that he'd learned from Lex. Shock shut his mouth, but still glared angrily from bleary, drugged eyes.
"So they got Marionette. So what?" said Alex. "We were planning to knock her off anyway after the next job." Shock hit one palm with a spiked fist, leaving small studs of blood. He didn't seem to notice.
"She knows a lot! Too fuckin' much, in fact! What are we gunna do?!"
"I'll tell you what we're 'gunna' do, friend," said Alex. "We're going to go ahead with the plans as scheduled." Shock growled.
"We got no fuckin' bombs for the fuckin' plan because we got no fuckin' Marionette to make 'em!" Shock snapped. Alex heaved a sigh.
"Unbunch your panties, for God's sake, Shock. She's not the only person in this city who knows how to put glycerin and nitrates in a tube. Because you screwed up, I'll find this someone else and pay then an equally exorbitant sum, probably." Alex shrugged on a tan jacket with leather patches at the elbows. "In the mean time," he said to Shock, "get your little gutter rats together and find whoever sold Marionette out to Gotham's finest." Shock started to say something but Alex held up his hand. "And don't worry...I'll arrange it so she never talks to anyone again."
"You better make good on this, joy boy," said Shock.
"While your colorful nicknames never cease to delight me," said Alex, crossing casually to Shock and grabbing his balls in a tight vise grip, "refer to me as anything but 'Mr. Luthor' or the occasional 'boss' again and I will have your cojones in a jar." He squeezed. Shock squealed. "Understand, joy boy?"
"Yeah...yeah!" squeaked Shock. Alex released him.
"Get out of here. You stink." Shock hurriedly left, limping slightly. Alex calmed his breathing and smoothed his hair once more before gathering his books and setting out for class.
---
Daniel Thorne looked at the address his files had directed him to. Oracle hadn't been easy to find--he'd had to resort to digging up old police reports on the Birds of Prey and extrapolate a location from them. Even now, he wasn't sure.
Thorne was in civilian clothes, in an unmarked car and without a police guard. He wasn't as skittish as most of Gotham's elected officials, like Art Berg. Berg would have tossed his lunch at the thought of venturing into this part of town unguarded.
Thorne came from stronger stuff, though, so he merely tried the door at the bottom of the condemned loft building.
It was bolted shut tightly. Thorne noticed a small buzzer to his right and pressed it. A long moment passed before a voice crackled.
"I should kill you for giving away my location."
"I wasn't followed," said Thorne. "May I come up?" There was a long pause. "Hello?"
"I'm thinking," said Barbara Gordon. Thorne shifted, looking up and down the street once. There was no one near him except a few stray cats. A kid who didn't look older than fifteen was selling stims on the corner. It was almost eerily quiet, except for a breeze blowing trash.
Thorne jumped when the door buzzer sounded. He pushed it open quickly and went inside, meeting complete dark. He took out a penlight and flicked it on, a holdover from his days as a homicide detective.
Narrow stairs lead up, with an antique chairlift running along the wall. Thorne noticed another wheelchair sitting at the foot of the stairs. He went up slowly, meeting with a mesh grate like the ones shop owners used before the wide advent of force fields, and stopped.
"Barbara?" The apartment was so dim it was almost night-like. He hear the whirr of her wheelchair and she came out of the dark.
"You're a stupid man, Thorne," she said by way of greeting.
"I found you, didn't I?" he responded. She snorted and punched a code into the grate controls. It clattered back noisily.
"What do you want?" she tossed over her shoulder, wheeling back to her bank of monitors and quickly minimizing the images on the screen. Thorne estimated there was well over fifty thousand dollars of illegal nethack and computer equipment in the big room. He followed Barbara, being careful where he stepped. The floor was rife with papers, empty takeout cartons and pill bottles. Thorne picked one up and examined it, only to have it slapped out of his hand. Barbara was glaring at him.
"Mind your own business while you're in my territory," she told him.
"I didn't think a cheery girl like you would need Xanax," he said dryly. Barbara's eyes narrowed.
"Bite me, Thorne." She crossed her arms. "You have ten more seconds to tell me the reason for this invasion of my privacy."
"I have a proposition for you," Thorne said. "You know, continuing that discussion we had down at headquarters." Barbara's face grew even more closed, her arms drawing tighter around her small frame. Thorne took a closer look at her face. It had been gaunt and serious when he'd met her at the downtown lockup, but now she seemed haggard, and even paler than before. There were deep shadows cast under her eyes. Thorne saw the same thing in the mirror when he'd been working a case for thirty-six hours straight.
"I'm waiting," said Barbara, and Thorne realized he'd grown silent.
"This city is on a downhill slide, in spite of everything I've tried to do," he said.
"No shit," said Barbara with a curl of her lip. "Did you come all the way over here to state the obvious?"
"With Anarchy on the loose, plus the emergence of Marionette and the revelation of her...ah...connection to the worst criminal mastermind Gotham's ever been plagued with, the police can't cut it anymore."
"If they ever could," said Barbara.
"Batman isn't enough. Maybe ten years ago he would have been effective, but the city's too big and too mean for one man to handle."
"Get to the point, Commissioner," said Barbara. Thorne ran a hand through his hair.
"You were part of the Golden Age. You helped Batman. Now I need you to help me." Barbara blinked.
"Excuse me?"
"A team, to combat these yahoos that are springing up like goddamned daisies," said Thorne. "A group geared specifically towards gangs like Anarchy and people like this Marionette."
"Superheroes?" said Barbara skeptically. "No such thing anymore."
"I'm not talking about superheroes," said Thorne. "I'm talking about a strike force, a tactical team that's equipped to deal with what's out there." He unconsciously pressed his hands together. "Barbara…I can't do this without you." Barbara gave him a cold gaze in return.
"Even if I was the type of person you think I am, I still wouldn't help you. I work alone. It's safer that way."
"The city needs you," said Thorne.
"The city's been getting by without me for the last twenty years," said Barbara. "I doubt any church bells will ring or parades will be held if I agree to go under your thumb, Commissioner."
"I didn't mean that…" Thorne sighed. "Look, when I was a kid I believed in what you and Batman were doing. It was pure justice. I've learned the system rarely allows for it, but that doesn't mean I believe in it any less. I'm asking you, as someone I admire…"
"Oh, cut the bullshit," said Barbara. "You're not going to get me by that route."
"Then what will get you, Barbara?" Barbara turned her chair away from him.
"Leave. I've followed one arrogant man on a hopeless crusade and I'm not doing it again." Thorne opened his mouth, but Barbara held up a hand. "Leave," she said again, with more menace in her voice. Thorne turned and walked to the stairs.
"I'm leaving my card in case you change your mind."
"If it makes you feel better." She resumed her typing and surfing, ignoring Thorne pointedly. Thorne caught a glimpse of what she was looking at—web streamed footage of the Joker, his mouth open in a silent, endless laugh.
Thorne started to ask Barbara once more, but thought better of it, and left.
---
Barbara waited until she was sure Thorne was gone and then slumped down, her shoulders shaking. She didn't have anything left to cry, so she just shuddered. Her skin felt dry and cold to the touch even though her loft was usually overly warm from all the electronics.
She heard nothing but the blood rush past her ears and felt like she was being burned from the inside out.
This agony she thought had ended almost twenty years ago had never gone away…it had just been tucked back in some recess of her mind and forgotten, like a prisoner in solitary confinement. But prisoners get released, and Barbara's was running free.
She looked at the monitor, that hateful grinning face, and suddenly lashed out, putting her fist through the glass. Her knuckles bled but she felt nothing except a dull impact. Her vision started to skew and the coldly logical part of her mind told her she was having a panic attack. She shoved herself away from her desk hard, rolling backwards into her armchair. It fell with a crash and the impact knocked Barbara from her chair.
She lay on her side, shaking and retching, not able to see past the blurry white boundaries that were crowding her vision. Phantom sounds faded in and out. Screaming. Crying. Laughing.
Barbara saw a half-empty bottle of Valium lying on its side near her face, and reached for it. She had to make it stop…somehow… The childproof cap ripped her fingernails, but came off, and Barbara shook a handful of the white capsules out, gulping them down all at once and feeling the lining of her throat tear as they gouged their way down.
She convulsed once more, and then lay still. There was only silence around her, pressing in like a feather bed. Barbara felt tears roll down her face. She wondered why she was crying. It wasn't like she was going to miss her life the way it was now. She was useless, just another leech feeding off the world.
If I ever had a purpose, she said silently, then tell me. Tell me that my entire life wasn't lived for someone else's ideals, that everything I've done hasn't been worthless.
Tell me that I'm half the woman I used to be…
No answers were forthcoming before Barbara slipped into unconsciousness.
---
Terry McGuiness, the chosen Batman, was crouched on a rooftop near the waterfront watching three members of the Anarchy gang crowd around a laptop computer with a satellite uplink.
Bruce had it on good authority that they were planning to blow up a section of the Gotham monorail via remote bombs linked to this very computer.
Normally, Terry would try to disable the bombs at the source, but the Gotham Knights had been playing a home game in the shockball stadium, and the monorail would be packed with thousands of innocent citizens. Bruce had been adamant that Terry not screw up again.
Terry lived in something akin to a fearful worship of Bruce Wayne, who had transformed him from just another street thug into the feared specter of revenge he was now. He had idolized Batman, like almost every other kid in Gotham, and now he was Batman.
It was pretty mindmelting stuff, as his little brother liked to say. Being Batman had enabled Terry to get his mother and brother out of their slum apartment and into a decent part of town, and let him graduate high school and go to the Wayne Technical Institute on a full scholarship. In the back of his mind, Terry had never expected to make it as the Bat. He was sure death was waiting for him every time he slipped on the cybernetic suit and took the Batjet out into the night sky.
But it never came, and so he was still Batman. Older and wiser, but apparently less able to please his mentor than he'd once been.
The Anarchy member who had been doing most of the typing on the computer suddenly straightened up and started to tap furiously on the keypad. Terry tensed, knowing that he was getting ready to arm the bombs. Wait for the opportune moment...because being Batman was about striking fear in their hearts as well as stopping their crimes.
The Anarchy computer nerd suddenly stopped typing and looked towards the door. Terry did also, and saw a big, mohawked gang member come in, followed by a shorter, slimmer blond man in a black shirt and slacks. The blond looked vaguely familiar, but Terry couldn't place him offhand. He pointed at the computer and said something with a frown. Mohawk and Nerd responded angrily. The other two gang members shifted their weight, and Terry saw they had heavy-gauge plasma handguns strapped in their studded belts.
"Nice hardware..." Terry murmured to himself, even as he wondered where a gang of unruly stim freaks like Anarchy had gotten the cash to afford them. He tapped his temple, and the suit snapped a holo to be stored for later analysis.
The blond glared at Mohawk, and the big guy finally backed down. The blond took out a data disk and inserted it into the computer, typing in something new. Terry knew he couldn't wait anymore. He stood and descended through the skylight in a rain of glass, landing amidst the Anarchy flunkies and lashing out with feet and fists.
Two of them went for their guns, and Terry countered with a batarang. One double over, holding a bleeding hand, but one got a shot off. Terry ducked, felt the hot plasma glide over his head and then took the thug out with a backflip kick.
Blondie and Mohawk were heading for the door. Terry unsheathed two batarangs and let them loose, but missed. He cursed inside his mask. Figured the big fish slipped the net.
He spun just in time to see the last standing Anarchy member make a dive for the computer, presumably to set off the bombs. Terry grabbed a button bomb from his utility belt, one that emitted an electrical impulse, and tossed it. It fried the computer outright, and gave the thug a nasty shock too. He fell, moaning. A slight smell of cooked meat filled the air.
Terry heard sirens from above and was bathed in red light from the GCPD's hovercraft. He made for the same door that Blondie and Mohawk had used, smiling to himself. They had gotten away, but he'd stopped the bombing, saved hundreds of innocent lives.
Bruce would be proud.
---
Thomas Wayne was sprawled on the sofa of his mother's apartment in pajama pants, watching a television program about a shockball player who was abducted by aliens and given powers to fight crime when his mother walked in the door. She was wearing a black evening gown and a white velvet coat with matching fur trim that swept the floor. Thomas raised an eyebrow.
"Kind of early for eveningwear, isn't it, Mother?" Selina Kyle shot her son an unamused look.
"Not when it's from the night before."
"Is that real fur?"
"Please." Thomas muted the television.
"Want to work out a little before you hit the sack?" Selina shed her coat, removing a metal jewelry case from a hidden pocket.
"Let me put this in the safe first." Thomas padded after her on bare feet as she went into the library and opened her hidden safe.
"Who'd you steal that from?"
"It's 'liberate', darling. A city councilman. His wife has three more like it...the stupid cow probably won't even notice this one is missing until she tries to give it to her ugly daughter on the poor girl's wedding day." She popped the case into the safe and the coded lock clicked back into place. The safe slid into the wall and the camouflage holofield switched on. "How was your weekend, dear?" asked Selina.
"It was alright," said Thomas. "Dad spent the entire time in meetings, except when he came home to have a screaming match with Terry."
"You weren't anywhere near city hall when it blew up, I hope." No one was allowed to pry into Thomas's life—in that he was very like his father. Selina was the exception, mostly because she'd kick his ass if he kept secrets from her. She'd gotten enough of that from Bruce before the divorce.
"No, Mom. I wasn't." Selina nodded once.
"Good." She went into her bedroom and shut the door, re-emerging in workout clothes. "Go easy on me, dear. I'm quite tired."
"You're not getting me with that old trick," said Thomas with a grin. Selina stopped and regarded him.
"You never smile anymore, Tom. I miss it." Thomas shrugged.
"Sorry." Selina turned and went into the practice room, Thomas following her.
"Don't hate your father because of Batman," she said, stretching like the cat she once was. "He loves you, even if he can't admit it."
"I don't think my father is capable of that kind of love," said Thomas bitterly. Selina looked sad.
"He is. And you'll both realize it...I hope." She faced him on the gym mat. "What have you been practicing?"
"Acrobatics mostly," said Thomas. He was a better fighter than his father had been at his age, more agile and more athletic. He had his mother to thank for that, and he knew it. When she'd divorced Bruce, Selina had made a deal with her son--he wouldn't tell Bruce that she had gone back to being a high-stakes thief, and she wouldn't tell Bruce that Thomas was being trained to, as Selina put it, "handle himself". Bruce had expressly forbidden anything of the sort.
The deal had been working well ever since. Thomas and Selina sparred, and he beat her, although barely. She yawned when it was over.
"I'm going to sleep, but you owe me a rematch, Junior." Thomas nodded and reached for a towel.
"'Night, Mom." He sat back down in front of the television, noticing the alien shockball player had been replaced with an emergency newscast.
"...Exploded this morning on the Red and Yellow lines, Gotham's busiest monorail systems. Casualties are still being evaluated, but are estimated in the thousands. Once again, the terrorist gang Anarchy has claimed responsibility for the rush-hour bombing of two monorail cars on Gotham's Yellow and Red lines..." Thomas watched as the camera panned over twisted metal and shattered cars, human limbs hanging from the wreckage like wilted flowers. He swallowed. Where was Batman? Why hadn't he done something?
Thomas's fist clenched and he swept the small sculpture off Selina's coffee table. It fell to the carpeted floor with a dull THUNK, and didn't break. Terry was a disgrace to the name. Thomas knew he could do better.
He only wished he could prove it.
---
It wasn't the hand of God or the flames of the inferno that woke Barbara. It was a small, insistent beeping sound that began to penetrate her skull like an icepick, yanking her back towards consciousness even though she tried to resist.
She flopped on her back and looked at the ceiling. Her chair was out of reach and she was lying in a pool of something sticky that smelled incredibly bad. She reached up with one hand to wipe her face and found blood mixed with dried vomit.
Her head was pounding and her entire body was tingly and light, as if it wasn't quite all there. The beeping continued. Barbara moaned. Her torso was stiff from lying on the floor for god knows how long, and her mouth and throat were on fire. She tried to cry, but no tears came. She had tried her hardest to regain what little dignity she had, and all it had gotten her was a battered stomach and a hangover.
Hadn't she asked for a sign? Didn't she deserve one? Barbara curled on her side as a spasm went through her stomach, her body ridding itself of the last of the Valium. She saw that her convulsions had scattered her clothes, books and papers all over the floor, leaving a large bare circle around her. She gave a start as she realized what was poking out of the mess in front of her face.
A mask with small pointed ears, designed to be pulled over the eyes and nose. A body suit attached with a yellow bat resting at the center of the chest. Barbara shivered, this one having nothing to do with the pills. "I get the hint," she muttered. If her years with Batman had taught her anything, it was not to ignore the obvious clues.
Barbara mustered the strength she had left and pulled herself out of the puddle she had created and over to her chair. Her arms gave out and she couldn't pull herself in.
The persistent, headache-inducing beeping, she realized, was coming from her computers. It was her alert signal, set to go off when something big hit the nets--disaster reports, federal mandates, criminals that she had tagged popping up on the police grid.
"Display," said Barbara hoarsely, and her voice recognition software kicked in, the screens blinking to life. Scenes of crashed trains and burned bodies scrolled before her. Barbara didn't have to look at the accompanying text to know Anarchy had hit Gotham again.
Barbara willed herself strength and got into her chair, wheeling to the bathroom to clean herself up. She drank down three glasses of water to make her stomach stop feeling like it was going to implode on itself and brushed her teeth for five or six minutes before rinsing and starting again. Her mind was racing, and even though she was weak and sick she felt fired like she hadn't in years.
It took her a minute to realized what it was--purpose. She had something to do, something to focus on. After she'd washed her face, Barbara picked up the phone and placed a call to Daniel Thorne's office. The line was busy and she left a voice message.
"This is the Oracle. I saw the news. I thought about your offer. I know some people that might help you."
---
A/N: The plot thickens. Still think it rocks? Even if you don't I'd really like it if you leave a review. They make me all warm and happy inside.