Chapter Twenty-Four: Riddles in the Dark

"Master Wayne!" Alfred sounded like he was close to panic, but yet so far away…

Bruce accepted his butler's hand in helping him to his feet. His head still swam a little and the left side of his head hurt like hell. There were definitely a few teeth loose on that side as well, but whatever had been bleeding had stopped, even his nose which he was surprised was not broken.

"What happened, Sir?"

"Buffy. She hit me," Bruce stated. Talking was rather painful. Maybe she had dislocated his jaw…

"Why, Sir?" The panic was gone. Concern was still there, but there was also a little bit of scrutiny.

Bruce nodded and that was not pleasant. It made his head swim and he had to grip the counter to keep from falling over. "All right! Fine! I was an ass and deserved it." He admitted and had no problem with it really. He had had some time to think it over and he had categorically been an ass.

"She and Young Master Richard just left. Her friends followed shortly after," Alfred informed him, a bit of exasperation in his voice. Bruce glanced up to see Alfred looking at him in what could only be described as disapproval. Alfred went to the refrigerator and placed some ice cubes in a towel and handled them to Bruce.

Bruce began to thank him and to explain what had happened that led up to him getting Slayer-slapped, but before he could, there was a loud commotion from the party in the next room. Sharing a quick glance, conveying a silent "what now," they hurried from the kitchen.

Someone had turned the television on. On the screen was the Riddler, standing on top of the Police Station. There were flood lights illuminating him in the dark, flashing over the suit he wore.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of Gotham City. I am the Riddler! For those of you watching the live broadcast from the safety of your homes know this: I have taken the Gotham City Police Department hostage."

The cameraman panned down the building. It was covered in a large green tarp with black questions marks on it. He panned back up to the Riddler.

"So, in regards to the crime wave that is about to hit the city, the police will not be able to help you. Now, I have a proposition for the gallant hero of Gotham: come and play my game. If you win, I will let the police go and end this night of terror. If I win, Gotham City will become a gateway to hell!" He reached over with a dramatic flourish and pulled a lever. The flood light, the one that had once had the symbol of the Batman, now had a giant question mark on it. The signal careened up into the sky. "So, riddle me this. Riddle me that. Who is afraid of the big black bat? Pay attention, Batman. It is truly an enigma! Find me if you can!"

And then the TV went black, as did the lights in the penthouse, and all of Gotham City.

There was no light from outside the windows: the storm clouds were keeping the light from moon and stars hidden. Just to make a statement, the storm chose that moment to send out a loud rumble of thunder that seemed to shake the very ground under their feet. It was a tremendous burst, much too much to have been just thunder.

"Oh my God! Master Wayne! Look!" Alfred exclaimed pointing out the window. Everyone turned to see what he was pointing at and when they saw, they let out a collective gasp.

There was a great fire off in the distance. Bruce knew instantly what it was.

"He's destroyed Wayne Manor!"

"He wants to dagger," Bruce stated fifteen minutes later. All the guests had left to return to the safety of their homes before the onslaught could begin. Bruce was headed for the room where he kept his armor in the penthouse. Alfred followed along, his features etched with concern.

"Sir! What about – "

"Ironic really. Considering that he locks down the one place he shouldn't have," Bruce continued as he triggered the secret door and went into the room there. "I am glad I listened to Richard when he told me last week to give the dagger to Commissioner Gordon. He told me to make sure that Gordon put the dagger in the police vault to keep it safe."

"But Sir!" Alfred finally said in a raised voice to get his attention. Bruce stopped and turned to him. "What about Master Richard and Buffy? They were on their way home. They might have been in there when – " His voice choked off in a sob.

Bruce stood for a moment staring at his butler. Of course he knew! There was a chance that Buffy, the woman he loved more than anything in this world, and Richard, a boy who he had desperately wanted to watch grow up, were gone from him forever now. Gone with his home… No, not his home. A reconstruction of his home. But that structure wouldn't have mattered very much to him anyway even if it had been the one that he had grown up in, lived with his parents in, compared to the lives of those two people.

The thought that he would never see them again stabbed him like a dagger in the heart. He felt as if all the blood had been drained out of his body. With them, they had taken his heart and his soul. He would never touch her again. Never hear her laugh or see her smile. Richard would never look up at him with that affection that he had so easily developed for him. Would never grow up.

It took all of his willpower to stay on his feet. He wanted to just fall to the floor, fall into oblivion. Let this city, this world, fall into chaos and rot away. Let the demons run through the streets. Let them have the good people of Gotham. Let them be destroyed knowing that he had lost all those he cared about.

But no! Buffy had fought as the Slayer since she was sixteen, battling things like this, achieving to keep the world from falling into such despair. And Richard, the boy would want him to fight on.

This was his city to protect, and though the loss was almost unbearable, he would cast his agony aside, one more time, to save this city. If he had to die to do it, then so be it. Their lives would not be in vain. He would see this through.

The pain turned to crystal. The anger turned to ice. It hardened around his heart, encasing it in numbness. If he didn't feel, then nothing could stand in his way. He gave no more thoughts to the beautiful young woman that he had wanted to marry. He gave no more thoughts to the wonderful young boy he had wanted to adopt as his own. They were gone. It was in the past. It was over.

The ice reached his eyes. Alfred shook his head upon seeing it, but knew what Bruce – the Batman – had to do. Giving a weary sigh, feeling age creep into his bones more acutely than ever before, he turned from the man he had watched grow from a child. He could not harden his heart like Bruce could. All he could do was mourn for them both.

Bruce Wayne closed the door behind him and left all that had been before out there. Now it was just him, but soon he would not be even that. He would be the Bat.

He would be vengeance.

There was very little damage to the Batcave. Except for some stone rubble from the ceiling, everything was intact. Even the bats were quiet, having fled when the explosion occurred.

Buffy and Richard made their way into the main cave. Some of the lights had been broken but there were still a few that worked, powered by the generator in the room they had hid in. It was enough light to see by. Water was, however, running more freely than it had been before, and the floor was already a few inches over run with water.

Checking the elevator was pointless. Even if it did work, there was no place to take the elevator to anymore, Buffy was sure of that. Sighing, she sat on a table, unsure of what to do.

Richard climbed up beside her. "Ruh Anne," he began, the language unknown to Buffy. "Do not grieve. This is not an ending. It is a new beginning. You will see."

"That you said, what does it mean?" She asked, wrapping her arm around his shoulders.

"Ruh Anne means 'soul mother' in Turkish. You are my soul mother, the mother of my soul, just as Bruce is my Ruh Baba, my soul father. We are not of blood, but we are bound by our spirits. Through the love you have given me, you have formed between us something that can never be broken." He paused, for a moment, wiping his eyes with his sleeve before he continued. "I will never forget my parents, and I will mourn their deaths for the rest of my life, I believe that there are things that are meant to happen so we can become what we are truly meant to be. I loved them very much, but here, with you and with Bruce, is where I am meant to be. The path is sometimes dark and full of pain, but you will find your way to where you belong, just has I have found mine."

Buffy had to wipe away her own tears. "Your destiny."

Richard nodded, smiling up at her. "This is where I belong."

"In Gotham?"

"No," he shook his head, his mouth smiling wide, tears running down his cheeks. Then he jumped off the table and stood in the center of the cave. The water reached to his ankles. He lifted his arms out wide. In that instant, the bats decided to return to their home. They came in a black wave, and as Buffy watched the most incredible thing happened. Before they returned to their perches on the ceiling, they swarmed around the boy. Not touching him, only ruffling his hair in their passing, but they flew around him in a whirlwind of black wings. It only lasted for a few seconds before they went up to the ceiling.

When all of them were gone, Richard turned to her still smiling. "This is where my destiny begins."

The Batman stood over the city of Gotham, shrouded in the night, unseen in the rolling sky of storm. Even when lightning flashed, it would have been hard for anyone to have seen him. He stood so still. Like a statue watching out over the city that he had been made to protect.

He did not allow his mind to drift away from the task at hand: Finding the Joker and the Riddler and putting an end to this before Gotham was turned into a city of demons. Nothing else mattered but this. He would not be distracted again.

Thunder rumbled. Lightning crashed. The city was as if dead below him. No lights. No sound. Everyone hiding as best they could against what was about to transpire. While they cowered, prayed, begged – they all knew what stood between them and the end. The one man they had cursed and ridiculed and despised was the one person they now placed all of their hopes on. The one man who they had blamed for everything bad that had happened to their city, was who they now placed the burden of their salvation upon.

And, as always, he bore it willingly. Like the black cape that whipped about him in the wind, it was a mantle he readily took up.

It was all he had left.

Climbing out of the Batcave had been nothing short of difficult. The rock walls were slick from the rain and slimy, and Buffy had a hard time finding good handholds. It was raining hard now, the water pouring in through the slates of wood Bruce had nailed over the old well entrance, but it was the easiest way to get out. She did not feel too good about jumping through the waterfall and over the chasm as he did with the Tumbler. Heavens, how she wished she had that tank right now!

Richard was above her, his smaller body, fingers, and toes finding purchase much easier than even her Slayer induced abilities, climbing up, up, up like a little monkey. Buffy knew her powers were on the fritz due to her pregnancy, and this climb was taking a lot out of her.

The boy made it to the top, but could not force the wood planks free that had been nailed into the stone of the well. Try as he might, they would not budge. Even when he found purchase enough to throw his shoulder against it, all it did was almost cause him to fall back down. Buffy did not think she would have been able to catch him, or to hold on if his body fell into hers. The distance from the well to the floor was not all that great, but given that she was weak and her powers were touch and go, she did not want to take any chances.

Once she reached the top, it only took a few well placed slams with her fist to send the planks flying. Richard darted over the side of the well, and then climbed onto the side to help pull her out and over. She lay there on the ground, rain battering her face, not wanting to see the devastation.

It was not bad.

It was very bad.

"Oh God," she whispered into the howling wind. She pulled herself up to her knees and even in the storm darkened night, she could see that the former manor looked like it had been hit by a nuclear blast delivered in the middle of a hurricane. There was nothing that resembled that it had once been a structure that people had lived in. A smoking ruin was the closest description she could come up with.

Richard put his arms around her neck, sitting in her lap. They sat there in the mud, amongst the stone and blast, holding each other.

"What are we going to do?" He asked her, having to get very close to her ear for her to hear him.

Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly before opening her mouth to answer, but she never got the chance to utter a single word.

"I believe, Slayer, your best course of action," the Riddler stated, coming out from behind a large piece of what was once a wall, and was now blackened and crumbling, "would be for the two of you to come with me."