It goes without saying that I do not own the characters used within (something which I'm sure we're all grateful for.)

Unlikely Detectives

4 - Ground Zero

Karen wasn't surprised to find that the top floor of her building had more police officers and emergency crew than staff members that morning. What was surprising was how little resistance she was met with. She stepped out of the lift ready to wage war to have access to (what remained of) her office. As far as the police were concerned, she wasn't a costumed alien superhero. Just another rich girl with a million-dollar view of Manhattan.

But whether it was thanks to her looks, her wealth, or the seemingly scandal-proof Bruce Wayne, nobody seemed surprised that she was at work twelve hours after an attempt on her life.

"Excuse me?" She stopped one of the police as she and Bruce stepped out of the elevator. "I'd like to inspect the damage. Am I able to go inside?"

"Forensics have already finished, Miss Starr," the officer said, scratching his brow with his pen. "They've already gotten everything they need, so you're welcome to it. If you need to start thinking about repairs, I guess. Be careful though." He nodded back down the hall towards the broken, burnt doorway. A single line of warning tape stretched across the opening, like the world's worst guard. "There's a bit of a gust coming in through your window – probably from being so high up. Mind you don't walk too close."

She smiled tightly and thanked him before crossing the hallway. Upset stationery and splinters of wood littered the floor as she came to her office, where scorch marks scarred the entrance. She didn't miss Bruce taking an interest in the uniforms around them on the way, and could only imagine that eventually, he'll be learning which precinct had all the reports on file.

"Casa dolce casa," Karen grumbled as they stooped underneath the tape and stood inside her ruined office. It seemed more or less the same as when she saw it hours before, only with clean spots here and there. And good luck to the police if they thought they'd sweep up any important evidence. Besides some glitter from that snow globe she accidentally broke a week before. "Funny. It almost doesn't seem so bad in the light…"

She meant it sarcastically, but Bruce Wayne agreed in a thoughtful voice. "How many people know that your office is reinforced?" he asked, all while studying some pattern of scoring along the ground.

"I can count them on the one hand," Karen commented.

"Your attacker doesn't know it. The damage could have been much worse. But the blast seems contained to the middle of the room." His eyes narrowed, and she stood back as he traced invisible patterns with his mind. Karen watched in silence. She had seen Batman work before. Watched as he spun, flipped, and brought fists and boots crashing down on top of frightened thugs was a guilty pleasure in Power Girl's career. But rare was the times she was able to see him in detective mode, drawing conclusions based on the evidence at hand.

"So, our bomber was keeping the damage to a minimum?"

"Still lethal," Bruce answered, pressing a hand down onto her desk. She wasn't sure how much pressure he employed, but a sharp crack filled the air as a deep split appeared in the burnt wood. "At least for a non-metahuman. Whoever our culprit is, they were determined to have only one casualty."

"A killer with a conscience," she remarked. "And a real grudge for me, too."

"Someone who seems to be more embedded in your company with each clue," he added. She watched as he drew a calloused, scarred fingertip over the floor, sniffing it afterwards. "Burnt ozone and oil. Fertiliser would be too dangerous and too messy. An ordinary, non-reinforced room would have been demolished. But these ingredients would be just as common in a tech manufacturing facility as the signal box was."

"I never had a chance to ask Charlotte what the parcels that she brought up looked like," Karen frowned. "Not that I expect our attacker to be silly enough to use company supplies to pack their explosives…"

"Well…" Bruce bent lower, squinting as he found something beneath her desk. "I think we can guess what one of the parcels were."

Karen closed her eyes and sighed as he produced a broken, melted piece of plastic in the shape of the leaning tower of Pisa. "If I hadn't made such a big deal about that snow globe, Charlotte wouldn't be in the hospital with a plate in her arm," she muttered bitterly. She took the broken figure from his hand and brushed her thumb over it, warping it beyond recognition. Karen dropped it on her burnt, broken desk with a look of disgust.

"Or she may have delivered it this morning, costing Karen Starr her public life," Bruce deflected. "Would you reveal your nature to her? Or allowed her to think she cost you your life? Never mind what would have happened if she chose not to leave right away."

"You know," Karen began, crossing her arms over her chest and offering him a wane smile. "Diana's right. You don't have the best bedside manner."

"Diana's right about many things," Bruce murmured, a little quieter than before. She watched as he tucked his hands into his pockets and looked out past the shattered window. "Dick's the one who has the social skills. For what it's worth… I'm sorry, Karen. I don't mean to make this sound so clinical."

Power Girl was sure she could live a long, fulfilling career, and perhaps never hear the dark knight give such an easy, albeit quiet, apology. Not again. "Don't be," she said, confident that the officer's outside were too far down the hall and too wrapped up in their work to overhear what the billionaire pair were discussing. "Hey. Do you recall the evening outside the hospital some months ago…?"

"Of course," he answered immediately. Karen nodded. It was rare for her to pour her heart out, but at the time, Bruce Wayne had been believed dead and gone. Lost to them all. So when he came back, Power Girl had quietly admitted that it hurt to have lost him.

Hell. She went as far as to say it killed her. But, like so many good people before him, they were lucky: the best seemed to come back sooner or later.

She still recalled Batman using her name – her real name – and telling her she was one of the best, too.

"Well, for what it's worth…? Dick's a good kid. But I'd take the original Batman any day." And Karen was treated to a rare, bemused smile on Bruce's face. A real one, she'd wager. Just as his playful façade had slipped once they were alone in her gutted office, she knew she was in the presence of the real Batman. Cowl or not, he was a solemn, genuine individual.

Atlee had once mentioned that he seemed cold and aloof. Something that Zatanna had laughed at before ensuring the young woman "that means he likes you enough not to pretend to be somebody else." It was something Karen found interesting enough to remember.

"I'm sure Dick prefers it too," Bruce remarked. "But thank you, Kara."

"Hey – don't mention it," she urged, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed for reasons she couldn't guess. "It's territory we know well, right?"

"Something like that," he hummed. And despite standing in her stiff business suit, wearing a red wig and occupying the ruins of her bombed office, it was easy for Karen to relax for a moment and enjoy the witty banter that she and Bruce shared. The last time she was able to really enjoy it was over a cup of tea at a party while they were both in costume, and she bragged about securing a first edition copy of Vauban to him.

"The one on siege warfare?"

"Not for sale, Bruce. Don't bother."

"I haven't asked yet." She nodded towards the shattered window where another strip of tape hung, struggling against the winds outside. "Any luck at the mystery apartment?"

"No tenants registered for months," Bruce said. "Picking the locks would be simple for anyone with our culprit's level of bomb-making skills. I've left a pair of motion detectors inside and on the staircase leading up to it. We'll know if –"

"Wait." Karen's eyebrows knitted together as she heard a high-pitched keening sound in the back of her ear. "Which frequency do they broadcast on?"

Bruce seemed to read her mind as he glanced at his wristwatch, where a small light flashed in the middle of the dial. "That one," he remarked before a third voice seemed to join them. Alfred's British accent was muffled in the earpiece Bruce wore, but Karen heard it as clear as day.

"Sir? The stairwell Bat-sensor has just-"

"We know, Alfred. We're across the way at Starrware." He gave Karen a knowing look, nodding towards the ruined door. "Go ahead – I'll catch up."

Karen didn't ask just how he would manage that. Not while it was broad daylight, he was on the top floor of her office, and there were police and witnesses galore. She didn't have to ask. He was Batman – his backup plans had backup plans. She merely strode out of her office and down the hallway as quickly as she could without drawing attention, bypassing the elevator bank and slipping into the stairwell. A glance up and down with x-ray vision told her the coast was clear and she took off, speeding up the case towards the roof in a blur of light. Her glasses, wig and suit were stashed in a hidden cache as she tugged on her boots, gloves, and cape.

Not five seconds passed since Karen Starr slipped away into the stairwell before Power Girl flew into the sky, diving back down at the adjacent building. The blonde bombshell strained as she heard a key sliding into a lock, followed by another high-pitched whine as another of Bruce's Bat-sensors were activated.

"Shit!" she heard a voice whisper inside, followed by an excited heartbeat. "Where is it?" She stared at the wall with her x-ray vision, watching a tall figure pacing around inside, bending low and looking around the milk crate where the sensor sat just hours before.

It was all the evidence she needed. This guy was guilty of something. If not of attempted murder, then at least of conspiring with somebody else. With an angry scowl on her face, and thoughts of Charlotte pinned beneath her office door, Power Girl hovered once again towards the boarded-up window, raised her fist and flicked the planks of wood with her finger.

This time the glued boards were reduced to splinters and rubbish as she remade her entrance. A shout of surprise tore through the apartment as her boots touched the carpet, fists balled at her side. Power Girl's eyes flared red as she glared at a man in his early thirties, crawling backwards with a look of sheer fright on his pale face.

"I want a word with you," she seethed.

The trembling figure shouted a fresh curse before climbing to his feet, throwing himself through the open door. Heavy footsteps thumped in the hallway outside, and Karen glared harder. She was silently impressed he had the sense to move after a caped woman burst through a window, so many stories above the ground. But she was just as tempted to buy the entire building so that she could storm through as many walls as she wanted, guilt-free.

"Really? You want to do it that way?" she thought aloud. And then Power Girl moved, speeding through the door, and scanning the building with her x-ray vision. She saw him two flights down, his heart already pumping dangerously fast from fright and exertion. She was off in another blur of red and white, streaking around corners and down stairs cases.

Wheezing, red-faced and sweaty, her suspect leaned heavily against the wall and desperately kept hailing the lift as she appeared at the end of the hall.

"End of the line," Power Girl warned coldly, just as the soft chime of the lift signalled it's arrival. A look of relief seemed to spread across his features as the door behind him opened.

"I've got nothing to say to you, toots," he said, his breath still not quite there. But he failed to notice the massive black creature as the elevator opened behind him. Batman appeared to take up the entire space within, the billowy cape obscuring his figure.

"I've got some questions," he rumbled. The out-of-breath man whirled around at the new voice and screamed, once again falling to the floor and backing away, until he found himself soundly trapped in the corner of the hallway. On one side, Power Girl hovered above the ground, an angry grimace on her pretty features. And on the other, Batman bent as he stepped out of the lift before rising to his full stature, tall and imposing.

Trapped between the pair of costumed heroes and a corner, he looked desperately at them both before his eyes rolled into his head. He fell backwards, his skull hitting the wall with a dull thump as he lost all consciousness.

"Well," Power Girl muttered darkly, entirely too tempted to nudge him with the toe of her boot. "Do we wait for him to come around?"

"Better idea," Batman hummed, a hint of emotion in his voice as he bent low and slung the figure up over his shoulder. "We take him to the roof."