I knew a few of you were hoping I'd get this one out in time for Christmas, and I did! Admittedly, at about 7:30 PM on Christmas, but Christmas nonetheless. Well, I'll let you get to it, then. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and I'll see you all in the new year!
Blackgate was in ruins.
Huge sections of the outer walls had been destroyed, leaving gaping holes facing the cliffs overlooking Gotham Bay. Prisoners were running free across the grounds, wreaking havoc while the penitentiary's guards were either dead or in hiding. A massive fire had engulfed the entire western wing of the prison, and even from the road, Laura could hear the screams from those trapped inside burning alive.
"Jesus Christ…"
As the police convoy approached, the main gate screeched open revealing a handful of prison guards, the relief that backup had finally arrived plain on their faces. Gordon brought the cruiser to a halt and Laura hurried out of the car, immediately going towards the trunk to pull out the rifles stashed inside. Passing one to McKenzie, who had practically thrown himself out of the back of the cruiser, Laura snagged the other and shut the trunk, making her way over to the prison guards gathered near the gate controls.
"What's the status inside the prison?"
"We're completely overrun." One guard spoke up, nervously glancing towards Blackgate's huge steel doors. "We've lost radio contact with Warden Joseph and the rest of the guards inside, and we've got no idea what's going on in there. You'll be going in blind."
Gordon let out a huff, muttering under his breath for a minute before shaking his head. "Do we at least know where the Joker is?"
The guards shuffled nervously, none of them willing to meet the eyes of the gathered officers.
"Captain Gordon asked you a question," Laura snapped. "Do you know where the Joker is, yes or no?"
"He was last reported as heading towards the panopticon," One guard reluctantly replied. "That was half an hour ago."
Gordon nodded, turning back towards the gathered officers. "Montoya, Allen, Driver, Fey, Alvarez! Head to east wing to the warden's office and see if you can find Warden Joseph. Garrett, Gage, McKenzie, and Essen, you four stay here and make sure no one that's not a cop or guard gets through this door. Bullock, take Sawyer, Barnes, and Conway and head to the visitor's center – you'll be setting up the command post there. Anderson, you're with me."
Gordon rounded on the prison guards, who had been slowly inching away from the doors and towards the road, fixing them with a hard stare. "You four will be staying here and guarding the door. Anything happens to my officers, and I'm coming after you first. Understand?"
"Y-yes Captain Gordon." One of them stuttered out, nodding vigorously.
"Good." Gordon headed for the door and Laura moved to follow, but before she could, one of the guards grabbed her by the arm.
"He's waiting for the Bat."
Laura frowned at the guard, whose gaze was nervously flicking between her and the door. "What?"
"The Joker," He clarified, now staring at her intently. "That's why he's in the panopticon. He's waiting there for the Bat, and the Bat's already inside."
Laura nodded, jogging up towards Gordon. The captain was frowning, evidently having spotted the exchange. "What was that about?"
"The Joker's waiting for Batman inside the panopticon," She told him, "Maybe setting up some kind of trap. And Batman's already inside."
The sergeant hesitated for a moment. "We're not just going to let him walk into whatever Joker's got cooked up in there, right?"
Gordon pulled open the heavy steel doors of the prison's main entrance, just as Laura had only hours before, and shook his head.
"No. Not tonight."
-V-
Bruce hurried down the halls of the panopticon, following the path marked by bright green graffiti arrows. As the last door separating him from the center of the prison slid open, the vigilante was greeted with the sound of grating metal above his head, drawing his gaze upwards. There, descending on a large steel cargo elevator was the Joker, one arm wrapped around Warden Joseph's shoulders. His other hand was pressing a knife to the warden's throat, and the arm that had been securing the warden in place lifted, the clown mimicking the pollice verso of the gladiatorial games of old, much to the amusement of the surrounding inmates still locked in their cells.
"Let him go." Bruce snarled once the elevator had come to a halt.
"I…I understand you." The Joker began, ignoring his statement as if the vigilante hadn't spoken at all. "You had a chance to let me die and you didn't take it. I bet right now you're wishing you had. I've killed… a LOT of people, I've brought the city to its knees, crippled the police force, and it's not even time to unwrap our presents!"
The inmates filled the panopticon with a roar of approval, evidently irritating the clown.
"Zip it!" He snapped, the sadistic joy on his face morphing into a scowl.
Heavy boot-steps sounded from behind the green haired man, and Bruce clenched his jaw as Bane came into view.
"Let's do this." His accented voice rang out across the hall.
"Okay, okay." The Joker huffed, stepping away from the warden and gesturing towards the huge man beside him.
"So, what our friend Bane holds in his hand is a heart monitor. Once he clamps it on, every beat of his vacant little heart will charge the battery…"
The Joker hopped backwards, settling himself onto a small wooden chair covered in wires sitting in the center of the elevator. "…on this electric chair. And when it's fully charged…" The clown pulled the chair's lethal headband onto his head, mimicking being zapped by its electricity and dissolving into a fit of laughter.
"So either you kill Bane-" The clown grinned down at him.
"No," Bruce interrupted. "I won't kill him."
"But you will." Bane boomed from the metal platform. "You will fight me with all your resolve, or you will die. Someone is going to die; you, me, or the clown. The question of which of us it is – is in your hands."
One of the Joker's goons strapped the giggling clown to the chair, securing him in place, and Bane clamped on the heart monitor. As he did, a number of screens mounted on the walls of the panopticon came to life, lighting up and displaying each heartbeat detected by the luchador's monitor. The inmates roared their approval in their cells, only growing louder when Bane heaved himself over the elevator's railing and onto the hall's ground level to face the vigilante they all hated.
"A compassionate man would be home mourning the loss of his servant and life-long companion right now. Yet here you are." The man taunted, thankfully only loud enough for the two of them to hear. Nonetheless, the comment ignited a rage inside Bruce, reminding him of the fate this hulking man had nearly doled out to the only family Bruce had left.
As the vigilante's mind raced to come up with a plan, Bane charged, giving Bruce barely enough time to throw himself out of the way. The miss didn't seem to faze the luchador, turning on his heel to face his foe once again, a vicious smirk working its way onto his face.
As Bane prepared to charge again, Bruce began to wonder if this time he had finally gotten himself into a fight that he just couldn't win.
-V-
"This is it," Gordon announced, motioning towards the large metal door separating the two officers from the panopticon's second floor and pulling out his sidearm.
Laura nodded, readying her rifle and moving towards the door. It slid open silently, revealing the Joker strapped into what looked like an electric chair and Warden Joseph in the grip of two of the clown's goons. As the two officers crossed the bridge towards the platform, Laura looked down to see Batman on his back, struggling to keep from being crushed by a huge man whom she could only assume was the assassin called Bane. The man had a boot to the vigilante's throat, and seemed to be enjoying watching the caped man squirm and struggle to breathe. Laura shook her head, knowing the priority was the warden, but she hoped that whatever she and Gordon were going to do would be enough to allow Batman to escape.
"Don't move!" Gordon shouted at the two masked men on the platform, one of which held a knife to the warden's throat.
"Maybe you shouldn't move." The one holding the knife retorted, gaze shifting from Gordon's pistol to her rifle. The second goon seemed to be doing much of the same, his grip on the warden slipping slightly as he looked to see if there was any way around the two officers.
Gordon fired on the man with the knife and Laura did the same on the one holding the warden, their bodies toppling backwards off the platform and onto the ground below, only feet from where Batman was still struggling with Bane. To his credit, it only took a moment for Warden Joseph to recover, shaking himself off and approaching the two officers whom had become his saviors.
"Jim," Laura called, nodding towards the still-charging electric chair.
"Oh, Good lord."
"Careful, Jim!" the administrator warned when the captain approached the clown and began to attempt to undo the straps keeping him in place. "When that chair goes off – that's two-thousand volts. You won't make it."
"You don't need to-" Gordon had just managed to undo the strap on one arm when the Joker elbowed him in the face, stunning the captain just long enough for the clown to steal his gun, putting him in a headlock and pressing the pistol to his temple.
"Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim! Have a seat, Jimbo! We'll fry together – like two little potato latkes!" The clown cackled.
Just then, a flurry of movement below caught the clown's attention and Laura fired her rifle, hitting the clown in the arm and causing him to drop Gordon. The captain scrambled away, glaring at the green haired man who seemed to be not at all put out by his loss of a captive.
"Oh, you're feisty!" He laughed, grinning maniacally at her. "I like you."
An alarm sounded, causing all eyes to turn to the screens mounted on the wall as the display that once showed Bane's heartbeat suddenly went blank. Looking down, Laura saw Batman standing over the luchador's unmoving form, glaring up at the platform.
"He did it!" The Joker laughed, twirling around in a circle and taking aim at the two officers and the warden, seemingly unconcerned Laura still had her own gun trained on him.
"The game is over, Joker. Let them go!" Batman called from below.
"Yeah," Warden Joseph snapped, "Put the gun down, freak!"
"Warden…" Laura warned, not liking the way the grin stretched across the clown's face was fading into a scowl.
"How 'bout I put you down?" Joker snarled.
Out of her peripherals, she saw Gordon rush towards the warden, and not a second later the Joker fired, Gordon collapsing to the ground. Laura fired off a shot of her own, but the clown dropped to the floor at the last second, narrowly missing the bullet before popping back up again, gun now aimed at her.
"Choose wisely, dearie!" He warned as she began to tighten her finger on the trigger, nodding towards Gordon's prone form behind her.
Laura hesitated, and that was all the signal the clown needed before he began to back up towards the door. "Well, I'd love to stay and celebrate your victory," He called down to the vigilante below. "But I've got stockings to stuff, mistletoe to hang – and about fifteen skyscrapers to blow up before sunrise. Ciao!"
As soon as the clown was out of sight, Laura dropped the gun and hurried over to Gordon, who was still lying on the cold metal of the platform.
"Jim? Did it get you below the vest?"
Gordon shook his head and motioned for her to help him stand, groaning as she helped him to his feet. "No, I'm fine. But he's got my gun."
"Gordon, Anderson, Joseph," Batman called from below, prompting Laura to look over the railing. "I need your help – to stop the Joker."
"Our help?" Gordon snapped. "You're the so-called vigilante. Or is one kill enough for you tonight?"
Batman shook his head and leaned over Bane's body, unstrapping the heavy vest the man wore. "Bane's in cardiopulmonary arrest. I have only minutes to resuscitate him before it's too late."
"You mean you didn't-" Gordon asked, shocked.
"That's not how I do things." Batman interrupted. "Now go."
Laura nodded and motioned for the two men to follow, scooping up her discarded rifle as they exited the platform. As they maneuvered through the ruins of Blackgate's halls, Gordon's radio crackled to life.
"Bullock to Gordon. You read me? You okay?"
"Harvey, I need you to secure every exit out of Blackgate – sewers, front doors, I don't care. The Joker cannot escape." Gordon said, quickly pulling the radio off his belt and lifting it to his face.
"We're on it."
As the captain replaced his radio back on his belt, Laura turned to him with a frown. "Any idea where to go from here? We have no idea where Joker even is, much less how to find him."
"There's a security office just down the hall," Warden Joseph spoke up, having kept silent since the trio's exit from the panopticon. "The cameras in this section should still be intact."
Laura nodded, following the warden's directions down the hall to the office. She motioned for the two unarmed men to wait outside, pushing the door open and scanning the interior. Seemingly untouched by the night's events, and more importantly, empty of any escaped inmates, Laura signaled for the men to hurry inside the office, shutting and locking the door behind them.
"Think you can find the Joker from here?"
The dark skinned man nodded at the captain's inquiry, seating himself at the computer desk. "Should be able to, just give me a minute."
A few moments later Warden Joseph motioned the two officers over, having accessed the correct camera. "Found him."
Laura watched as the clown sauntered down the halls of the prison, practically skipping over the corpses that littered the halls, both prisoner and guard alike.
"Wait," Laura asked, not able to shake the feeling that she'd seen that scenery before. "Isn't the execution chamber down that hall?"
"On the opposite end, yes." The administrator nodded. "But he's headed towards Death Row."
"Bullock to Gordon. We got the place secure. Any update?" The radio sounded again.
"Anderson and I found the warden," Gordon relayed into the radio. "I think the Joker's heading to Death Row."
"We've got the place surrounded," Bullock assured them. "No way he's gettin' out."
"You better be damn sure about that." Gordon snapped.
"I'm don't think that's what he wants."
Gordon turned to Laura, frowning. "What?"
"I don't think he wants to escape," Laura clarified. "That's not why he started the riot. He did it to lure Batman here to make him kill Bane. If he wanted to escape, he would have done it hours ago, long before we got here. He's not doing this to get out," She said, gesturing towards the carnage outside the office's door, "He's doing it to fuck with Batman. He's toying with him."
"But why?" The captain asked, leaning against the wall.
"No idea." Laura shrugged. "Maybe he doesn't have a reason. I don't think he's sane enough to need one. Could be he just likes to watch the world burn, and thinks it's fun to see Batman try and put out the fire."
Gordon shook his head, crossing the room and pulling open the office door, peeking down the thankfully-desolate hallway. "It doesn't matter. We have to stop him either way. Warden, stay down and stay behind us." The captain turned to Laura, his face grim.
"We're going after the Joker."
-V-
"This is Captain James Gordon at Blackgate Prison, requesting immediate medevac! Warden Joseph has been shot. Repeat Warden Joseph is down."
"EMT chopper en route. ETA fifteen minutes."
"Tell them to hurry up!"
The radio in Bruce's cowl crackled to life with radio calls as the vigilante made his way through the ruins of Blackgate's south wing, headed towards Death Row. His radio had been relaying to him the police's transmissions throughout his confrontation with Bane, and though he'd never admit to it, the long radio silence in between messages had unnerved him, and left that final message ringing in his ears.
This is Sergeant Laura Anderson in Blackgate Prison. The Joker has us pinned down in Death Row. Requesting reinforcements. Repeat, this is Sergeant Laura Anderson requesting reinforcements. Pinned down in Death Row in Blackgate!
Shaking his head, Bruce continued forward down the hall. Gordon had confirmed Joseph to be injured, and there was no time to be concerned with anything else.
Spying a gap in the wall, Bruce peered down to the floor below, spotting Warden Joseph hunched over in a corner and gripping his side. The vigilante maneuvered his way through the broken prison bars and leapt down, landing with a thud and moving to kneel beside the injured man.
"Where are Gordon and Anderson?" He asked, assessing the administrator's injured side.
"S-sniper…" The man coughed out, pointing one shaky hand towards the overlooking ledge.
Bruce's head snapped to the right to see a man in a clown mask raising a rife, aimed directly at him. Before he could move out of the way, he found his path blocked by a familiar reptilian figure.
Killer Croc…
"Would ya look at who's back for more?" The brute sneered, his mouth of razor-sharp teeth arranged into a grotesque grin. He reached down and grabbed Bruce by the back of the neck and raised him up to eye level, close enough that the vigilante could smell the crocodile man's rancid breath.
"I've had enough of you for one night." He replied through clenched teeth.
"Not yet you haven't," Jones snarled, drawing back one huge claw as if to eviscerate him.
A shot fired from the ledge, missing Bruce completely and hitting Croc in the shoulder, causing the brute to drop him and scuttle for the safety of the hall.
"Screw this," he spat as he retreated, hurrying as two more shots were fired in his direction "Want the Joker? Take 'im."
Bruce looked up to see Gordon vaulting himself off the ledge, while Anderson stayed firmly rooted to her perch, rifle trained on the direction Croc had slunk off to until the audible bang of the door sliding shut rang across the room. Then she too hoisted herself over the railing and dropped to the floor below, albeit somewhat easier than her superior had.
Before he could speak, Gordon's gaze shifted behind him, where when he turned, he found a large group of inmates had gathered since Croc's retreat.
"Help me keep these guys off the warden!"
Before Bruce could even shift into a fighting stance, a handful of shots were fired off into the gathered crowd, hitting a few inmates and sending the rest running back down the hall they'd come, dragging their injured comrades with them. The door slid shut behind them, and both he and Gordon turned around to see Anderson lowering her rifle, shooting them both an unimpressed look.
"You mean like that?"
"You didn't have to shoot them." Bruce snapped at her while Gordon hurried to the warden's side.
"Not all of us know Kung Fu," She shot back, scowling. "And anyways, you have bigger things to worry about. The Joker went through that door, towards the chapel. Go get him, and we can argue about crime fighting methods later."
After hesitating for a moment to process that Anderson had actually dismissed him, Bruce hurried to the end of the room, the large metal door sliding open to reveal the entrance to the chapel. Turning the corner, the cold metal and concrete of the prison gave way to wood paneling and cut stone, bathed in the light of the candle-filled chandelier hanging overhead. Heaving open the heavy oak doors of the chapel, the vigilante stepped inside, scanning the room for the green-haired clown.
A few steps later he increased his pace, finding the Joker kneeling on the steps to the altar, giggling uncontrollably.
"Oh, Bats, what a night!"
With a snarl, Bruce grabbed the clown by the lapels of his jacket and heaved him off the steps, raising him high into the air.
"Fresh off a kill and back for more, eh?" He taunted.
"Bane's still alive." The masked man spat.
The wide grin spread across the Joker's face quickly faded into a frown as he frantically reached inside his jacket for the heart monitor. Pulling out the small device and watching it light up with each of Bane's heartbeats, he turned back to Bruce, scowling petulantly.
"Now that's not FUNNY."
Joker threw the device to the ground and swiftly pulled out the gun he'd pilfered off Gordon, pointing it towards Bruce's face. The vigilante dropped him to dodge any incoming shots, freeing the clown to sucker punch him in the face and aim the gun.
"All this – all this rage. Directed at me, and for what? You know, if you'd actually let me finish a sentence, you might learn something. You might learn we're not so different."
The vigilante knocked the gun away and planted a boot in the center of Joker's chest, sending him flying backwards through a pew and shattering it to pieces. Joker coughed out a laugh, attempting to get up as Bruce stormed towards him.
"Is all this for you, or for me? You must know I'm a lost cause. But there's still hope for you! Yes, I've got great hopes for you. So c'mon! Don't stop now!"
Bruce knocked the clown back with a series of punches, dazing him long enough for the vigilante to throw him to the front of the chapel, the green haired man slamming into the stained glass window and shattering it to pieces.
"You just can't get it through your thick skull." Joker snarled, standing up and gripping a shard of glass in each hand like daggers. "We both exist because of them!"
"Give up," Bruce said, disgusted. "You've lost."
With a cackle, the clown slashed at him with the shards, but the vigilante was too fast, quickly disarming the green haired man and responding with a series of crushing blows, knocking him back onto the alter.
Despite his injuries, the Joker continued to laugh, albeit a gasping, pained laugh due to his surely broken ribs, further enraging the vigilante.
"That's why you do it, isn't it?" The clown sneered. "You like the way it feels. It's what you need."
With a snarl, Bruce hoisted the Joker off the alter and slammed him to the hard stone floor. He heard the breath leave the clown but the man continued on, as if completely unaffected by his injuries.
"Come on, baby! Beat me 'till you knuckles bleed! And why quit there? You know there's only one way to stop me."
Bruce felt his grip around Joker's throat tighten for a few moments before he pulled back his arm and punched the Joker as hard as he could, knocking the man's head back with a sickening crack and finally silencing the clown.
"Any one of my guys would have killed him."
Bruce turned to see Gordon striding into the room, eyeing the unconscious man behind him with an air of distain. Shaking his head, the vigilante stood up, picking up Gordon's gun from where the Joker had dropped it and handing it back to the police captain.
"This city deserves better than that."
"Anderson's guarding the door." Gordon explained, momentarily startling Bruce. He hadn't even realized his gaze had unconsciously shifted over the other man's shoulder towards the chapel's heavy oak doors, expecting to see the sergeant striding in behind her superior.
Sensing the other man was not going to acknowledge, much less respond to, his statement, Gordon sighed, looking down at the familiar firearm in his hand before raising it towards the caped man. "You know, my daughter thinks you're a hero, and she just might be right – But I still have to bring you in."
Bruce scowled at the older man, but before he could speak, Gordon's radio crackled to life.
"Gordon – Come in! What's your 20?"
"I'm in the chapel," Gordon spoke into his radio, turning his head away from the vigilante for a moment to answer. A rookie mistake, and one Bruce knew a man with Gordon's years of experience would never make except if he'd meant to.
A second later when the police captain turned back to where the caped man had once been standing, Gordon found himself alone in the chapel, Bruce having long since disappeared into the night.
-V-
Laura found herself standing in the bitter cold outside Blackgate Penitentiary, sneaking glances every few seconds at the father and daughter standing some distance away. Gordon had one arm wrapped around Barbara's shoulders, and a smile was spread across the redhead's face. They'd been talking for some time, now less heated than when Gordon initially found out she'd manipulated the medical examiner into giving her a ride to Blackgate in the middle of a prison riot. The sergeant smiled to herself, relieved to see the tension that had accumulated between the two over the last year to finally be gone.
Movement overhead drew her attention away from the two and Laura looked up, spotting a large dark shape gliding overhead, away from the prison and towards the city. As she watched Batman head off towards Gotham and disappear from sight, the sergeant shook her head. It was no wonder so many people had thought him to be some kind of supernatural being or demon – If she hadn't seen him up close and confirmed that he was, in fact, human, she might have thought much of the same if she'd seen him flying overhead in the dead of night. Even so, the sight still unsettled her a little, and Laura found herself absentmindedly playing with the cornicello hanging around her neck.
"Hell of a night, huh boss?"
Laura turned to see McKenzie walking towards her, a tired smile decorating the blonde's face.
She chuckled. "That's an understatement – Two prison riots, a bombing in the Diamond District, eight professional killers wreaking havoc across the city, Pioneers Bridge blown to ruins, and the police commissioner assassinated by an insane clown posing as one of the biggest crime bosses in the city, all within a nine hour period. The media's going to have a fucking field day tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" The detective snorted. "They're way ahead of you. Apparently Jack Ryder's already ripping us to pieces."
"You've got to be kidding me," Laura groaned, pulling out her phone to see for herself. Opening the GCTV app, she pulled up the livestream of The Jack Ryder Hour and listened in, McKenzie peering at the small screen over her shoulder.
"…our next guest, political strategist Dean Snyder has been following tonight's events since the start, more than eight hours ago. Dr. Snyder, let's start with you – what's your view?"
The camera panned to a small, rat-like man in a tan suit, running a hand through his thinning tawny hair and frowning at the show's host.
"Well Jack, it's a travesty. The ultimate failing of the justice system. A vigilante cleaning up our streets after countless deaths and bombings? What has happened to our police force?"
"Our commissioner got bought out." Laura heard McKenzie mutter under his breath.
"And what about James Gordon?" The little man continued on. "He didn't exactly prove himself tonight–"
"Hold on a minute Dean," A tall, dark skinned man interrupted from the seat closest to Ryder, adjusting his glasses as he spoke. "Now I'm no defender of the GCPD or Captain Gordon for that matter – like you said, tonight's debacle is some reflection of his efficacy – but I can't see any police force in any municipality doing a substantially better job against criminals like this Joker character – or any of the hired killers he brought into town. I mean, these guys are a different breed. We've never seen anything like this."
"Wait for it…" Laura muttered.
"So for me, it's less a reflection on Gotham's cops and more of a reflection on the state of our country – a country where our mental health and education systems are so warped and broken that we produce criminals of this nature."
"There it is." Laura sighed. "Nothing to do with corrupt city officials, a shitty economy, and crime bosses holding the police on a leash. No, it's the goddamn kindergarten teachers that're the problem."
"You raise an interesting point Hank," Ryder conceded, the camera panning back to the show's host. "But what I'm wondering is what we'll do next–"
"No, it's not an interesting point." An accented voice interrupted from off-screen, causing the camera to turn towards the seat farthest from Ryder, in which sat a pale, balding man with a disdainful sneer painted across his face. "It's just plain wrong. They're both wrong. This isn't about the police or the Bat-Man. It isn't about the state of our nation somehow churning out a dangerous new batch of the criminally-deranged. It's about the failing of one single institution. An institution which – in my view – represents the biggest threat to Gotham and its citizens. A time bomb, just waiting to go off."
"If tonight's events have taught us anything, it's that Blackgate is NOT the place to be housing our city's most dangerous offenders. Not one – but two prison breaks in the same night! All of tonight's tragedies would have been avoided if Gotham had a proper treatment facility for its top echelon offenders. A place with impenetrable security – where the most dangerous could be isolated, rehabilitated, and treated for their illness."
"A place like Arkham Asylum."
-V-
As the roar of the Batwing faded to silence, Bruce exited the small plane, trudging past the Batcave's massive computer desk where Alfred waited patiently.
"I take it you will not be going out again this evening?"
Bruce snorted, methodically stripping himself of the Batsuit's damaged outer armor and placing it back in its case, leaving himself only in the flexible bodysuit underneath. Ignoring the ache from the many bruises he knew to be littering his body, Bruce finished replacing the armor from its housing and locked the case, the biometric scanner beeping cheerfully as the magnetic locks acquiesced to his commands. Stepping back, he crinkled his nose as he caught a whiff of himself – even with the armor gone, he still reeked of smoke and gasoline.
Christ, I need a shower.
"You'll be pleased to know the prisoners from Blackgate have already begun to be transferred to various penitentiaries pending the reconstruction of the prison. The Joker, in particular, is being transferred to Iron Heights as we speak." Alfred added, placing a covered platter on the Cave's desk, directly in front of where he knew Bruce would sit.
"Good." Bruce said, pointedly ignoring the hint about dinner and moving to stand in front of the keyboard. With a tap on its keys, the computer flashed to life, screen lighting up and displaying a file already open and left waiting for him. The vigilante scanned the page and raised an eyebrow, turning to the butler who was making his way back towards the elevator to the manor.
"I took the liberty of leaving Sergeant Anderson's file open for you, Master Bruce." Alfred called, boarding the elevator and shooting the younger man a pointed look. "I thought you might want to take a look at it for yourself."
Turning back towards the computer as the elevator ascended behind him, Bruce glanced up at the screen, the image of the now-familiar brunette taking up its majority, a small smile adorning her face. Frowning slightly, he moved the mouse over to the small 'X' at the corner of the file, letting it hover there for a moment. After a few seconds hesitation, the billionaire let out a huff of annoyance, moving the mouse away and glancing back to the elevator with a scowl, silently cursing the butler's meddling.
With a sigh of defeat, Bruce settled himself down into the computer desk's chair and began to read.
