"You do something to me
Something that simply mystifies me
Tell me, why should it be
You have the power to hypnotize me?
Let me live 'neath your spell
Do- do that voodoo that you do so well
'Cause you do something to me
That nobody else could do"
- Paul Weller, "You Do Something To Me"
The funny thing about Gotham City was that it was easier to disappear into than you think.
Everybody thought that the Batman's hideout would scream out at you in the concrete jungle of lead and shadows, and now, plenty of people were breathing down Lex's neck to find me. The shadows in Gotham were big enough to swallow elephants, the gravity too heavy to escape, and blending in with the homeless wasn't hard. I would know.
Sundays were my grocery run days, and after two weeks with three adults and a toddler getting over a cold in one house, I was in desperate need of some fresh air. I woke early enough to hear Roy snore and threw a leather jacket over a hoodie, jeans, and boots. Bathroom was open, so I stopped in there to throw a bandage over the brand and strap a gun to my boot, another inside my jacket. When I left there, Starfire was just leaving the kitchen with tea in hand.
"Groceries?" She whispered as she offered me the first sip of tea, which I took.
Mint tea which wasn't exactly my favorite but it opened up my stuffy sinuses back up. Lian's cold must have found its way to me. I returned her cup and nodded, zipping up my jacket. "I'll be back before the kids wake up."
"Be careful," Kori smiled, and turned to go to the room with the vinyl crates and books.
Starfire had been quiet since she moved in, helped with Lian where she could - fetching bottles of milk, diapers, blankets, whatever the little lady needed. Roy had allowed her to hold Lian a couple of times when I was out on patrol and he needed to shower or use the bathroom, and truth be told, she was great with her. The tiny quiver in Roy's voice when he told me verified it. She taught her how to braid her hair, read to her if she wanted. Lian had told Roy that it was like having an older sister, and Kori didn't argue with it. She told me later that it was a relief, that she was a better older sister to someone than her own had been to her.
One playful morning, I'd joked that if she kept it up, I'd get jealous and have to reassert my position as Lian's favorite, but it fell through. Kori hadn't been listening, her eyes cast out the window and it took several times calling her name before she heard me. Her hands were tense on her drink. She shook her head and gave the kind of reflexive smile Dick did sometimes. I'd asked what was on her mind and she didn't budge. I told her that when she wanted to talk, she could talk to me. She didn't have to, though. I'd been lonely enough times to feel it on a person.
I set off for my walk to the corner store, thankful that it wasn't still raining. The thunderstorm from the night before swelled the drains with water, left puddles on the uneven parts of the sidewalk and the humidity hung in the air like cobwebs. I slipped down a back alley shortcut, let my fingers drag over the bricks. I knew these streets better than just about anyone. I'd learned them before I learned manners, learned hunger before I learned what a full stomach feels like, learned homelessness before I learned stability, learned how to steal before I learned what ownership felt like, and I learned spite long, long before I learned about love or friendship.
I rounded a corner and stopped in my tracks, gravel crunched under my feet.
A man crammed into a doorway to stay out of the rain, scrappy blanket thrown over him and in his arms, held tight like his own child, was a floppy-eared puppy fast asleep on his chest. The man's trucker cap was over the puppy like its own blanket, baby teeth clamped on the bill. The puppy couldn't have been more than a handful of months old, and the guy looked about thirty, with a year's worth of grief etched into his face that aged him further.
Not everyone had Bruce Wayne in the next alley to catch you stealing his hubcaps, waiting to lift you above the poverty line. My eleven-year-old ghost dried my mouth, and it hollowed my ribs, made me feel my hunger. I felt that first bath I took at Wayne Manor again, the brown of the dark water by the time it was over darkened the puddles in the alley.
My fingers reached into my back pocket for my wallet, and the left of the trifold was full of gift cards I kept for these moments. I grabbed a spare coupon for dog food and a supermarket card. Years of pickpocketing allowed me the slight of hand to tuck them into his breast pocket without waking him, but the puppy started to squirm as soon as I finished my charity work. I jogged away, hid behind a dumpster like the street kid I'd been.
The man woke up, mumbled to his puppy about his pocket being open. He yawned, and I heard the click of his nails against the supermarket card, then his gasp. A grin smeared across my face. He was crying and scrambled to his feet, and I slipped away from that alley, walked a little faster.
The corner store was open, the windows streaked with condensation and a flier was stuck to the door. A wanted poster for yours truly issued by the mayor's office, with a blurry photo from a year ago during the Battle for Gotham, only somebody had drawn the Arkham symbol over the bat on my chest and added ears to my helmet. A dark, hungry thing coiled in my stomach. I tore it down and stuffed it into my pocket. The flimsy paper slicked to my hand, forced me to smear it off on the inside of my pocket to get my hand out clean. The chilly air froze my wet fingers.
The cashier didn't look up from her magazine when I walked in, and I turned down the first aisle, collecting bread and bagels. The list said I needed crunchy peanut butter, avocados, raw honey for Kori's tea, and a bunch of other shit that I sure as hell didn't need, so I went back to the front and grabbed a basket. The things I did for my favorite free-loaders. I didn't mind, really. The baby carrots and pita chips, black bean hummus ingredients because it was about the only thing Lian liked enough not to throw on the floor. I needed electrolyte juice for her cold, too. Roy had the longest section out of the list, and it included melatonin to help him sleep, granola clusters in a big green bag, a six-pack of cran-grape juice, and lottery tickets (kill me now). Kori wanted the honey and chapstick. The basket was filled to the handle by the time I was done.
While the cashier rolled out the lottos, I checked out the magazine rack. Today's Daily Planet headline was visible at the top, and I tried. I really did. I tried not to look at the bylines. Keeping a recent paper was necessary for possible maneuvering, still. The old man read them over breakfast every day, combing for more conventional leads. I added it to the transaction, paid with the new card Barbara fixed me.
Hands full of bags, I walked home as the city started to wake up. Church bells tolled in the distance, St. Luke's and the orphanage. Diners and barber shops and retail stores flipped the signs as I passed, closed to open. I rounded a corner and light finally started to climb that gloomy lighthouse the rest of them called Wayne Tower. I squinted through the sunbeams, the glares off the sidewalk puddles and the icy wind beating on my face.
I ducked down an alley to get out of it, back to the shade. The water from the soaked flier had gotten to my bare stomach through the hoodie, chilled me from the inside out like an unwanted, frozen hand. I walked faster yet, and was halfway to sprinting by the time I saw my firehouse again.
Roy was awake, and took my groceries upstairs to be unloaded. He was saying something about Lian fussing and how happy she'll be to have her electrolyte juice, start getting over her cold. I wasn't listening. I'd kept the newspaper. I said that I'd be in the shower, even though he'd already gone to the kitchen, and ducked into the bathroom.
I sat on the toilet seat, peeling off my jacket and hoodie to toss in the hamper. I unfolded the gray pages, and that invisible hand was on my skin, but it was warmer. Like a lifetime ago when a friend had soothed my nightmares with a fresh rag on my face, my back. I'd found her name.
She wrote columns now. I sometimes read snippets from them while checking out on my Sunday grocery runs. She bounced off that Olsen kid over at the Planet, talked about the ethics of heroes and put that master's in philosophy to good use. I'd never bought a newspaper till now. I'd always felt that they were sort of my window into her new life in Metropolis, something I could do to see how she was doing. Of course, her ferocious defense of heroes told me nothing about how much sleep she got, how she was - really, but it was enough. It was the amount I'd allow myself.
I sat on the toilet seat, peeling off my fear and anxiety to toss in the bathtub. I flipped to her column, second page. She was writing about me. My heart gave an uneasy thunk at the subject. Olsen was going for the throat, saying that I was nothing more than a maniac with delusions of grandeur and a lot of guns. In some ways, he was right. In others, he can eat a curb.
She said that I saved Batman, said I'd shot off his restraints in Arkham and if the Red Hood was the same man, I was on the side of figures like Nightwing, Robin. That was as far as she teased the connection, though. She switched almost immediately to talk of the new age of heroism, brought forth by a new brand of criminal.
I propped my head on my hand and read the whole fucking thing, my eyes glued to her words. I'd always been a closeted bookworm, but she dragged me out and baked me in the sun with every paragraph. She reached through the gray pages and shook me by the shoulders, appealed to my better angels. I never read her thesis and I'd never wanted to, lest I turn my alcohol issue into a true problem, but now, my whole body ached to read more by the time I finished the column. I sifted back to the beginning, and her name printed under the title.
WHAT HAPPENED TO HEROES?
I'd been wondering the same thing. The Justice League was dead. I sighed, rubbed my thumb over her name to feel the imprint into the page.
Where can a guy buy some hope around here?
Gail didn't love him.
Most of the time, Gail found herself in the warm spot in the circle of Frederick's arm at paper events and drinks with his co-workers. She introduced herself over and over so much it became a put-on, like the clean blouse and pencil skirt, the heels, the briefcase. He was a good man, Frederick, and she knew that if she were someone else, some other girl without a closet big enough for skeletons, she would love him. He was smart, the middleground between street business and studying that only came with law school's cutthroat competition. He was even handsome, something that - along with the ability to quote whatever book she brought with her - had worn away her harder edges the days they ran into one another as interns for other people - her for Lois, him for the deputy attorney.
She thought she'd kiss him less in Gotham, but she was wrong. She never stopped, but true Gothamites learned the penalties of doing anything with their eyes closed. Tonight, she kissed him as means of apology. They'd gotten into another argument, a trend that started on the plane here, and he'd stormed off to work running late, the make-up part of the process forgotten. He pressed his forehead to hers after, the yearning in his eyes she ignored most nights she was aware of the fact she didn't love him.
"I've…been an ass to you," He said finally, the first he'd spoken to her since the argument. "First about the Red Hood thing, and then today about the Luthor case. I know you can't discuss a story you're investigating and I should've respected that. I'm sorry."
"Don't be," She turned away from him, drawing her hair on one shoulder to braid it for bed. "You were right. I need to open up more."
"You don't need to, really." A lie. It always put her off, how quickly a lawyer - even a budding one - lied. "You've always been private. I knew that entering the relationship."
She jumped as her phone beeped on her nightstand, and halfway to answer it, he caught her shoulders. He slid one of her hands to his neck and took her waist, pretending to dance. His smile was so white and perfect, his hair in his eyes in that way she used to think made him look unlike a professional shark. "Ignore it. Come on. I've got a lot of making up to do for tonight."
"What if it's work?"
"If it isn't important, ignore it."
"If it's work, it's bound to be important. Could be a lead."
Frederick sighed, a hint of contempt in how his arms dropped fast. A would-be lawyer and a would-be journalist were practiced in the art of mingling contempt with affection, but the impatience in him made her turn to half-face him when she answered the text. Clark.
"Luthor's available right now for conference with me," She said, and tore her pajama bottoms down without hesitation, reaching for her dark jeans. As Frederick flustered, she muttered under her breath the way she did before every interview, working angles.
"He thinks if he sets it late, I won't show. He thinks the Planet cares more for a convenient narrative than the truth, that we'll just buy that he knows what he says he does. I have to get the truth. I have to get answers."
"It's almost eleven, Abby," She resisted the flinch at the nickname she didn't ask for.
"It'll go to someone else if I don't accept," She paused pulling up her pants, nothing on top but a black bra, to text Clark that she'll take the interview. "And I won't disappoint Mr. Kent or Lois."
"You're joking. You're willing to put your co-workers over your…" He trailed off, and she fixed him with a flat glare. Frederick threw his hands in the air, turned away from her. "I mean, come on. I wanted to talk about us, have a night about us. Christmas is coming, and I have ideas for what we can do."
Gail was doing up the buttons of her shirt as she said, "Christmas will still come if I take tonight to work."
"Is it really with Lex? Or is it with the Red Hood? Is it about him? Is that what you're going to talk about in this interview?"
Her hands froze on her belt, looking up. His eyes were steely, pulling a shirt on and smeared his hair out of his face to look at her. She scowled, rolled her eyes.
"Come on, Frederick, we aren't doing this again." She got up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, swiped her keys from the table by the hotel room door, and her jacket and scarf from the stand. "I'll see you later, and we'll talk all you like."
Lex's office was smaller than she thought, and the same could be said of the man himself, she mused.
She clicked her pen, crossed her legs to form a surface for her notepad. She dated the margin, made a quick note of the demeanor and state of Lex himself. He had his overcoat off, sleeves rolled to his elbows and his tie loosened like he was just another businessman working overtime. Bald head glared off the green light off his desk, and Gail wrinkled her nose at the imposing way he stood staring through the window at Ryker Heights, hands clasped behind his back. She put her pen in her teeth to tighten her ponytail, straighten her bangs, and cleared her throat. She would be taking notes, but her phone was also recording the entirety of the conversation in case she missed anything or Luthor had a "taken out of context" claim.
"Let's start with something simple," Gail worked hard to keep the sarcasm out of her voice as she said, "How are you today, Mr. Luthor?"
"Please, call me Lex." He didn't react at the drop that leaked through. "I'm well. Despite the Red Hood's obvious attempt to kill me, I remain breathing and that's something to be thankful for."
Gail chewed the urge to say that gratitude for such a thing was a matter of perspective, as was what he meant by 'obvious'. She wrote his reply down in shorthand, and said, "Alright, Lex. You're a high-profile, very public presidential candidate. You have an international corporation that has their fingers in everything from hair gel," She smirked, "to investments that other journalists have deemed 'questionable' and 'below-the-table'."
"Are you here to question me about what other journalists have said, Miss Byron?" He let his own amusement show. "Or have you come to ask questions you yourself have come up with?"
"Since you put it in plain language, allow me to reply." Gail fixed her eyes on the white spot on the back of his hairless head. "It is a matter of public record that money was wired from a LexCorp account to Metallo for the incident in Metropolis. Anyone involved with that account and all of the witnesses brought forth by federal court have been unavailable to comment thanks to mysterious disappearances and murders made to look like suicide. To make matters worse, evidence has been recently uncovered, FBI investigation pending, about you staging your own assassination attempt by way of enticing a known terrorist organization, run by a woman who - until recently - the Gotham Police Department, the Metropolis Police Department, and the Department for Homeland Security thought to be dead. This presidential campaign you have run is one of the most obvious debacles ever run by a blue candidate in recent memory, and yet you think you can win the American people over by taking on a local vigilante and exposing him on the promise of your word alone? You are many things, Lex, but a stupid man, you are not."
"To say so means that you are smart enough to know that what I am saying about the Arkham Knight and the Red Hood is more than accurate, and not confined to believability on my word alone," Lex said, his fingers drumming against the palm of the other hand. For a man under federal scrutiny, Gail had to say he seemed rather calm. "You must be behind, Miss Byron, so I will catch you up. The tank he used last year to drive into City Hall is a Cobra class armored vehicle, a manned tank, that is identical to the very unique breed of heavy tank utilized by the Arkham Knight on the terrible night we call Fear Halloween now. His armor is reminiscent of the Arkham Knight's, and the moment the Arkham Knight disappears, less than a month, a new vigilante never before seen appears with a red bat on his chest as if that erases any and all objections to his methods by the mere invocation of the Batman."
A snapping sound came from Gail's fingers, and ink spread out from the shattered pen over her notepad. She coughed, looked up at Lex. "Do you have another pen, Lex? This one just died on me."
Lex turned around, reached to his desk and tossed her another one. It was cold metal in her hand, engraved with the LexCorp logo, and she hated how the corner of his mouth pricked up. It was the smile a cat grew when a mouse was wedged under one of its paws.
He looked at her now as she said, "I admit that the evidence is compelling and warrants further study, but the problem with you using it to further your campaign is that is does not erase what faces you legally. A man under investigation for turning a Kryptonite-crazed madman like Metallo loose on Metropolis to cause twenty-two counts of murder and collusion with a terrorist organization cannot be president, no matter how many capes he hangs from the gallows while getting to Pennsylvania Avenue. I want to know how thick the wool you have over the media's eyes is. I want to know why every media outlet is singing your praises to the high heavens when every American with a newspaper and half a brain knows you belong under this building, not with your name on it."
"For someone who aspires to be a journalist, your bias is quite obviously in favor of the Arkham Knight."
She kept her chin high, but he could not have said it softer if he had really slapped her with the simple sentence. Gail smiled. "My bias is in favor of truth, justice, and the American way, Lex. The Arkham Knight can go to hell."
They hadn't been the same man in almost two years, though they were. Gail had to sell it. She'd practiced for days, waiting for this interview, talking to her mirror and telling her reflection that she loved her boyfriend and didn't love the Red Hood either. Maybe she should've considered a career as an attorney.
"And if the Arkham Knight proves to be the Red Hood and sent to rot in prison as the fraud he is, what will you do then?" He asked, his own smile widening. "If I am found guilty of what I'm accused, I will hang with Nixon and Clinton, but what on Earth will you do if heroes prove to be the public menaces that they are, Miss Byron? What will you do if your heroes are made to be murderers?"
Gail kept her eyes on him as she flipped to a fresh page. "What the rest of us do. Report the news. News here is that you don't care if you're caught, you don't care at all, as long as the Red Hood hangs. Is that fair to say, Lex?"
"Your concept of fairness is awfully skewed, Miss Byron."
"As is your stance on the legality of your campaign." Gail jotted down a few more notes, and then asked, "I have one more concluding question and then I'll be off: what is the central message of your platform, Mr. Luthor?"
Lex gave a second's pause before he said, "The central message of my platform is to give the true American heroes their due benefits and recognition. We have been raising false idols in these vigilantes and mass murderers in tights, granting them jurisdiction and full police support in exchange for our safety. I say we should take our safety into our own hands, and those who truly give us our safety, the police and our armed forces, should be hailed as true American heroes. We need to expose these vigilantes for what they are: criminals."
"In what way do you believe that domestic safety has been threatened by vigilantes?"
"Do you own a gun, Miss Byron?" Lex asked, his gaze drifting to her bag at her feet.
"I do."
"Why?"
Gail exhaled through her nose, and a glint of steel flashed on his desk. A letter opener. She ground her teeth, forced herself to take her eyes off it. He was fishing, and she wasn't going to let him catch anything. "Personal defense. I'm from Gotham, Mr. Luthor. It comes with the territory."
"A territory with more vigilantes than any other city on the east coast, but yet you feel the need to carry a firearm."
"The market on battlesuits hasn't quite launched yet," She saw his expression sour for the short moment before she said, "To suggest that Gothamites put all their faith in police departments that, until the appointment of James W. Gordon, had been a hotbed of corruption and abuse of power is short-sighted. The legality of vigilantes is not up for debate, Mr. Luthor. It's understood that they act outside the law, but to so in order to improve the overall quality of life. The Justice League, for example, existed so that when something bigger from beyond the Solar System comes knocking, we have people that can help. That is not up for debate. The subject matter is whether the American people can put a man under investigation for a list of felonies as long as my arm in the White House on the merit of being the moral equivalent of a sharply dressed dog catcher. If Floyd Lawton, infamous hitman, were to run for office saying that he could hand-deliver Superman to the Justice Department, would you vote for him?"
"Your point has been made, Miss Byron. This is becoming less of an interview and more of an interrogation, I am seeing that by the minute. You have your statement." Lex moved to sit behind his desk, and Gail did not waste time.
She gave him his pen back, stood and smoothed out her clothes. "Goodnight, Mr. Luthor."
He said nothing. At least, not until she was out of the room. He tapped a button on his watch, spoke into it.
"Mercy, I need you to do something for me."
Gail shut her car door and shrugged off her coat. She checked the back seat to find it empty, glared out into the parking garage of LexCorp. Lex's Italian sports car sat in the corner closest to the elevator to go upstairs. Her eyebrows flicked up. She never took him for a man that drove himself to work without an armed guard, and certainly not a presidential candidate to do so. She slipped out of her heels, sighed as the arches of her feet rested on the rubber floormat.
She hummed and tossed her bag into the passenger's side seat. Lex Luthor was full of surprises.
The key was in her fingers when her window broke and a hand burst through it to grab her by the throat. She jammed the key into the forearm attached to the vice grip on her windpipe, braceleted her other hand around the assailant's wrist. She twisted in her seat, coiled both legs around the arm and threw herself into the footwell, her knee driving into the elbow with a sharp crack. Gail was lifting, out through the broken window. Her attacker was tall, male, dressed in a security uniform, but it wasn't Lex as she expected. Gail managed to loosen the grip on her neck by stabbing the key into the man's arm, but the air whooshed out of her as the man slammed her onto the hood of her car. She dropped the key, wheezing as he raised her again for another one.
The oblique muscles in her sides contracted hard as she leapt from his arm to his back, wrapping her arms and legs around him. Her foot knocked against something solid on his hip, and she went slack to hang between his shoulder blades, a frantic hand racing down to the holster. The man spun, tried to throw her off, but she pulled herself up to jam the heel of her hand against his ear. He yelped, before his fingers found the gun for her. A metallic click as the safety came off and one shot, two shots rang her ears as the bullets missed her head.
"Abby, hang on!"
She knew that voice, and her heart wrung in her chest, dread and adrenaline weighing down her limbs. As the man whirled to find the source, Gail caught sight of a black figure at the end of the garage running towards them. She slid his tie backwards and took a fistful in each hand and yanked back as hard as she could. His aim went higher, but not high enough.
She shouted and kicked off his back to throw a leg over his shoulder, "Get down!"
Gail tried to scratch at his eyes as his gun fired this time, and the figure fell to the ground with a cry. She gasped, and a big hand clamped over her chest, forcing her off his body to the ground. Gail's back smacked the pavement hard, her head whiplashed to streak white bolts across her vision. She rolled out of the way of another shot and kipped herself up to her feet as he charged, soaked through the pantyhose. He was a big man, brute strength was in his ballpark - not hers.
You're small and quick, sunshine. Make them remember that.
Her skirt split up the side of her thigh as she kicked in his knee, the gun clattering to the ground. She shoved him into the bend in her door, one of his arms in her footwell and she scrambled forward, widened her stance. She closed the door on him once, twice, three times, her nails chipping the paint, she closed the door on him before one of his huge legs nailed her squarely in the chest. She wheezed, staggering back, before she dodged another lunge. She dove for her bag, fingers finding the cold steel of her mother's gun. She struggled to her back as the man came at her again. Gail flicked the safety, aimed, and squeezed the trigger till it clicked. He collapsed on top of her, bleeding and clawing at her seats. She dropped her gun onto the car floor, her eyes stinging as she pushed him off of her. His body slid across hers, slumped to the ground in a hulking heap. Gail felt the blood in her clothes drying, a great dark red smear ruined her from her neck to past the hem of her skirt.
She tore her bun out of her hair and sprinted on the balls of her feet to Frederick, who knelt with a hand over his ribs. His shirt, the same he'd thrown on before she left, stained with blood between his fingers and the stain was only growing. He fell backwards when he saw her running to him, covered in blood. "Wait, hold on - get back! You just killed that guy!"
"Frederick," She cleared her throat a few times and coughed. "Honey, you've been shot, I need to get you somewhere safe where I can fix that."
"You just killed someone, Abigail-"
"-Saving your ass, yes," Gail swatted away his protesting hands, and helped him to stand, an arm thrown over her shoulders. A nudge, somewhere behind her teeth, demanded some gratitude from him, but she ignored it.
He was weak already, the stain on his shirt having reached his hips. She fought to keep him upright. He mumbled, eyes wide and flittering everywhere, "H-How'd you learn to fight like that?"
"Why were you following me?" She asked and wedged her toes under the handle of the back seat's door. She kicked back, opening the door.
Frederick hacked and coughed climbing into the seat, "I thought you were going to see the Red Hood."
Gail glared at him as he rolled flat on his back and it didn't disappear until she was turning the car on, a hand flaring to grab the shoulder of the other seat. She backed up, the wheels thumping over the security guard's body. She sighed and smeared the hair out of her face as she shifted into drive. "Then you're really not gonna like where I'm taking you."