Chapter 6: Found

British man says wife is sick. I follow him to car, he knocks me out with chemical. Andi hesitated, then underlined 'chemical' with her felt-tip pen. If there was ever some way she could identify it… well, it was something.

This really is hopeless isn't it? Andi made herself push the thought aside and continued writing. I wake up to British man and African American man debating. Laid on floor. Could clothes have soil on them that can be re-analyzed? She paused again, then abruptly flung her pen down and ripped the page from her notebook, wadding it into a little ball and hurling it at her overflowing recycling bin. She really was grasping at straws if she was trying to analyze chemicals she had inhaled weeks ago or examine what was left of the clothing set after the Batman had stolen anything that had been in her lab. Her entire case was in tatters: back up files, the evidence itself, database hits, everything was gone, and without it Andi knew deep down that there was little she could do.

She massaged her temples against the headache that hadn't really faded for days now and gave up for the night. It was only a little past ten, but Andi knew from long experience when her mind had had enough. She got up and washed what was left of the dishes, the hot water and mechanics of the routine like a soothing ointment on her irritated mind, then poured her fourth cup of coffee and curled up on the sofa, wondering if she would sleep at all. Ever since the Batman had appeared in her apartment she hadn't managed more than three hours a night, usually caught in one hour bursts on the couch. She didn't feel safe in her dark bedroom anymore.

The stress and exhaustion had begun to affect her regular work too. Several times she had caught her boss and co-workers watching her strangely, and she always had trouble focusing on even the simplest tasks unrelated to the Batman. Andi knew she was becoming obsessed with the case, but after the break in, the whole thing had become personal to her. She simply couldn't make herself pull out. Perhaps she should talk to Leena.

Mostly to take her mind off of the idea—if anyone in Gotham didn't need more stress right now, it was Leena—Andi switched on the news, thinking vaguely that they might have something on the Batman that would catch her eye.

"Stage one water restrictions are being considered unless it rains in the near future, and unfortunately, folks, it looks like we'll be signing up for those soon. Once again, there's no rain on the radar tonight." The weatherman smiled awkwardly at the camera before it shifted to an overlarge map of Gotham and the surrounding counties. Blank, as he had promised, except for a couple of large, unmoving orange spots. Andi stared at them, stupidly transfixed by the bright color against the gray-green background, then suddenly sat up straight. She knew where those came from. Large numbers of bats, flying out when the sun set and blocking up the radar. Bats. Andi you idiot! Could it really all be this simple?

She snatched her laptop from where it was sitting on the table and restarted it, drumming her fingers impatiently while it slowly loaded its welcome screen. Andi didn't remember all the specifics of the data, but she did recall finding bat guano in that soil sample. At the time she'd thought it was little more than an ironic bit of information and hurried on to tracking down other important leads. Now though…

Old radar maps from the weather station gave the locations of Gotham's largest bat colonies, both official and unofficial. Andi printed them eagerly, held them up against the fifteen or so sites she had already circled on the city map as possible locations.

"Yes, yes, YES!" It was perhaps a half-mile swath of land, close to Gotham city limits on the northwest side. A large residential area, little pollution, marked on the atlas as being within Gotham's historical district. Exactly what she was looking for. Andi quickly pulled up Google Maps and began searching for possible addresses—

Her jaw dropped, thoughts crashing to a halt as the page finished loading. Wayne Manor? As in Bruce Wayne, the drunken favorite of the tabloids? Gotham's favorite son… and it's worst enemy? She'd have believed the Batman was Paris Hilton first...

Hold on a minute. This doesn't have to mean what I think it means. Andi told herself. Can't jump to conclusions. Her heart was thundering, her mind whirring faster than ever, but she forced herself to take several long breaths before outlining what she knew. So the location was probably built on his land. So Wayne certainly had enough money to finance the whole operation. Did that mean he had to be the Batman? Or could he simply be the moneybags behind the thing? It was even possible that he had been conned somehow or that someone close to him had siphoned off his money and was funding the Batman on his own with Wayne as a front. He certainly sounded idiotic enough for it from what she had heard.

So what to do?

Alright. First establish the connections. Wayne had reappeared a couple of years ago right? When had Batman first been noticed by the police? Andi pulled up Wikipedia and started referencing…

Two hours later, she was convinced. It was all circumstantial, nothing that a court of law would even think of considering, but Andi was positive. The clincher had been the tabloid headings from the day after Batman had been shot, claiming that Wayne had suddenly decided to visit Africa for several weeks, taking the five newest Victoria's Secret models with him. Officially, he hadn't returned yet, but that made sense to Andi. If he was still feeling the aftereffects of his surgery, it would be best to retire at least one of his personas so that he could get extra rest. And if Batman's schedule and Bruce Wayne's aligned too closely, people were bound to get suspicious.

After that, it had been easy enough to track down the masked man. Lucius Fox, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Andi had found clips of him on YouTube from a speech he had given a few months ago. The voice was unmistakable.

For all that she had seen his face, the British man had been the hardest to find. Even now, Andi wasn't one hundred percent sure—Alfred Pennyworth was very camera shy—but he had apparently been working for Wayne for years and was a British immigrant of about the right age. It all fit. It all fit so well that Andi was surprised no one had figured it out before.

The only thing that really bothered Andi was the thought of Coleman Reese, that man the Joker tried to have killed during his reign of terror. Reese had been ready to give away the Batman's identity too, at least until the Joker's threat caused people to try assassinating him to protect their hospitalized relatives. It had been Wayne who had stopped one of those very attacks—the press had been all over his 'heroism.' Why? If he was the villain all of Gotham believed him to be, why would he have saved the man trying to betray him mere hours before going on a rampage and killing cops and civilians?

Andi shook her head. She wasn't going to try getting into the mind of a psychopath. That was Leena's job. Perhaps Batman simply hadn't decided at that point that he was going to turn against Gotham and what he had once supported. Or perhaps he thought he could use Reese. Whatever the reason, Andi was not going to let him get away with his other crimes because of his mercy there. This man needed to be brought to justice.

At that thought, all of the questions and worry Andi had been stalling against flooded in. She knew who the Batman was now, was as certain as if he'd flown into her room again and removed his mask. But without her forensic evidence, without any real proof whatsoever, how was she supposed to get anyone to believe her?

Half of her, the half that was most like Pam, wanted to go in with guns blazing and hang the consequences. The other half, the one that was more like Leena perhaps, wanted nothing more than to pretend this knowledge didn't exist. But Andi was neither of her friends, and neither of their solutions would work for her. What if she tried to do something else then? What if…

A yawn broke past her jaw. Slightly surprised at the noise, Andi leaned her head back and realized that she was tired—not her habitual tense exhaustion, but a healthy worn out weariness—for the first time in far too long. Finding Batman's identity had relaxed the those tight knots her mind had been snarled in.

I'm going to go to bed, she suddenly decided. Wayne wouldn't know that she'd found out his big secret tonight after all. And her ideas wouldn't work until the morning, when she'd need all of her energy to come out on top.

Curling up in her dark, soft bed for the first time in a week, Andi realized something else. She was no longer afraid.

"May I help you?" The rather fat security guard somehow managed to look down his nose at her even sitting in his tiny hut. Andi smiled politely.

"Yes please. I'm here to see Mr. Wayne."

The guard just sighed. "Mr. Wayne is still in Africa ma'am. If you had checked those idiot fan sites more often—"

"I'm not asking for a date!"

"Ah. Well then, you can look up his next press conference when he—"

"And I am certainly not a reporter. I just need to get into the Manor." Andi hadn't anticipated this problem. All her plans and strategies, and she was going to get stopped by this pompous excuse for a rent-a-cop?

"Look, ma'am, I'm afraid that whoever you are, I can't just allow you in without Mr. Wayne's express—"

Andi lost her patience.

"Listen up mister," she snapped, pulling out her police-issued ID and waving it under his face. "I am an employee of the Gotham City Police Force, and I have reason to believe that there is evidence connecting a wanted criminal to this premises. Now you can let me in nicely or you can wait for me to go get a warrant from a judge and have this whole mess splashed up on the Gotham Gazette tomorrow morning. You'll get to read all about it too because you'll probably be selling those same papers from the side of the street. You sure won't be working here any more at least."

The security guard cleared his throat, looking rather deflated. "I'll have to check with Mr. Pennyworth," he muttered.

"Do it then." She really hoped she was right about this. Hoped he wouldn't call her bluff either; Andi could no more ask for a warrant than she could fly. "Tell him Andrea Taylor is here."

"What does knowing your name matter?" the guard asked sullenly, but he closed the window and picked up the telephone like Andi wanted. After a minute, the wrought-iron gates swung open and the guard grudgingly motioned her in.

Driving up, Andi was reminded of the time in high school that she had braved a school dance only to find that scholarship students like her and those who actually paid tuition had very different price ranges for their dresses. She was in a business suit this time around but she still felt woefully out of place as she took in the newly rebuilt Wayne Manor, sitting square in the middle of its neatly clipped lawn. She parallel-parked her rundown car between a pair of stretch limos on the circular gravel drive and suddenly snorted at her own nervousness. Here she was, about to confront both the Batman and one of the most powerful businessmen in the world all rolled into one, and she was afraid that she was too grubby for the occasion of all things.

Still, climbing up the long flights of imposing stone steps did nothing for her confidence.

One of the doors swung open to reveal an elderly, stiff-backed older man. Andi's insides felt like they had suddenly separated, heart swooping, stomach dropping with dread, as their eyes met. Alfred Pennyworth. The British man who had drugged and kidnapped her. She was right. She was right about everything. Andi found herself eyeing him warily and suspected that, beneath the comportment of a proper English butler, he was doing the same to her. She tilted her chin up the tiniest bit and tried to match his cool self-possession.

"Miss Taylor," he said formally, "If I could take your purse?"

"Thank you, but I'll hold onto it." Both her cell phone and keys were in there. Andi knew she'd go down quickly if things turned ugly, but she still wanted to at least pretend that she would have a chance to run for her car.

"Of course." Pennyworth spoke politely, but Andi could almost hear the tension between them ratchet up another notch. She was not letting them dictate the terms to her. She was coming in to fight, and the pretense that this was merely a social visit faded fast as she refused to back down.

"If you would come with me then please," the butler said brusquely. Andi wondered if she was like a fly being asked in for a visit by the spider, but reminded herself that if that was what it was she was already caught. Wayne could kill her just as easily here as he could anywhere if that was his plan. Not at all reassuring, but logical enough to get her through the door.

Surprisingly, though, Pennyworth just led her into small, elegantly furnished sitting room with decorations that Andi suspected were even more valuable than they looked. Hard to believe that the entire Manor had been rebuilt; she could still feel the weight and character of the house, as if it too was a living thing. One that didn't appreciate the intrusion any more than its inhabitants did. "Please take a seat," Pennyworth said politely, "Master Wayne will see you in just a moment."

Andi was left for what seemed to be the longest five minutes of her life. After a slow count to sixty, with nothing happening yet, she stood and began pacing. She half expected to hear gunfire or see Wayne and his butler through the tall windows, frantically throwing suitcases in one of the limos in an ill-planned escape attempt.

Neither happened though. Instead, on the point of going insane from the tension, her straining ears caught footsteps. Andi turned from the window just in time to see Bruce Wayne himself stride in, dressed impeccably in a coat and tie.

For a minute they simply stared at each other. Andi had tried to picture this meeting a thousand times, but all her planning had dissolved whenever she tried to think of what to do at this point. Somehow, though, she was not incapacitated by fear as she had expected to be. She calmly arched an eyebrow and her voice was steady, cool even.

"Mr. Wayne. I must say that you were much more intimidating in your other suit."

Author's Note: Sorry that review responses aren't out yet; I'm firmly convinced that the professors collaborate so that every single class will have an exam/reports due in the same week. With an organic chem test tomorrow, I just didn't have time to both post and respond. I figured y'all would prefer an update to the responses, but I promise that those'll be up this weekend!

And over 1,000 views this month? Seriously? Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, especially to IHaveCookieInMyEye, Acara Otanbi, MischievousAngel0923, and Lacers for favoriting, along with SmarahSmarshmellow, ChedderPepper, wtchcool, and angelvoice15 for putting this on story alert. As always, thoughts, comments, suggestions, simple 'I read it's and even scathing remarks are always welcome!