Disclaimer: I don't own any recognizable characters or settings nor do I intend to make any money off them.

Catching the Light

Chapter 2: Dawn

Well, maybe Batman can save you.

That is a sentiment unworthy of a police commissioner. Since when do I palm my responsibility off on a vigilante? Especially one who never takes orders from anyone.

It's the stress of the situation. Still, that doesn't excuse my unprofessional behavior toward a civilian I'm supposed to be protecting. I can't ever take back that flippant remark.

The kicker is, as self-absorbed as he is, I don't think Coleman Reese ever noticed my remark, let alone having any chance of remembering it. The Batman would never hear about it, either. Yet, here I am, fretting over something almost no one would ever blame me for.

My phone beeps. Oh, geez. I might have been dismissive earlier, but now I can really use the Batman. Or, at least, a miracle.

As if things are not dicey enough, some fool chooses that moment to let a speeding truck ram into his vehicle.

That must be the fastest I have my prayer answered, ever.

Of course, I don't need help subduing the young officer intending on killing Coleman Reese. But it's reassuring just the same that I'm not completely on my own.

It had better be the Batman in that other vehicle. No one else would know how to survive that kind of impact. Or at least, I pray that other private citizens have more sense than to play fast and loose with their only lives.

Getting out of the van, I'm greeted with the remains of a wrecked sports car shrouding in smoke. I almost falter. Surely, the Bat has too much sense to deliberately crash an expensive car just to meet me.

On the other hand, Lamborghini Murcielago? Seriously? Is this person daft or something?

How can I be so sure, you ask? Well, who in his right mind would buy a vehicle named after a bat, even though the word's in Spanish, if he didn't wish to claim some relationship, whether positive or negative, with our resident Bat? As a police detective, believing in coincidence could prove far too costly.

Speaking of costly things, I wince at the all too possible state of the Lamborghini's driver. Unless the person is invulnerable, that has to hurt. Badly.

Peering closer, I could make out a vague form of a man sitting next to the car, as if he doesn't have a care in the world. I feel unreasonable heat flooding my body when it's clear that he isn't stretched down the length of the street, unmoving. That civilian has no business putting himself in harm's way, damn it!

My righteous lecture dies on my lips, however, when I see who the driver of that formerly exotic car is.

"That's Mr. Wayne, isn't it?"

You heard that right. Bruce Wayne, the Prince of Gotham himself. And that's just great. Now on top of everything I get to deal with the clueless idiotic playboy. There is a reason I avoid his usual haunts and now he's handed himself to me on a silver platter for reckless driving.

He seems slightly groggy, but not drunk, and does not even try to pretend to look drunk. And has the gall to act like he can get away with not maintaining that facade.

"That was a very brave thing you did," I continue, hoping my unreasonable annoyance doesn't show. And it is unreasonable. He has possibly saved Coleman Reese's life and here I am, petty enough to quibble over how he conducts himself. Geez, his shirt and suit aren't even mussed! They are so pristine, as though he'd been doing something unexciting like attending a board meeting and had not just crawled out of a totally wrecked car.

Bruce Wayne's face takes on a perplexed look. "Trying to catch the light?" he asks in a voice filled with exaggerated disbelief.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. The way his car was mangled, there was almost no way it was not deliberately put that way. And I will sooner believe in some winged mammal saving our world over his inability to control his car.

The contrary playboy, however, promptly makes my confidence in his control a lie. His green eyes appear glazed over. I lean closer. Was I wrong earlier?

I mentally let out a breath. No, I wasn't. His breath doesn't smell like someone who's been drinking.

But something's...divorcing him from reality, for lack of a better way to put it. I could almost imagine his floating along on the cloud and not returning to the ground.

Rubbing my mustache, I mentally shake my head. I've never claimed to be any kind of psychiatrist and it's better for all of us if I leave psycho imagery to qualified professionals. For all I know, he was only daydreaming. Although why would he do so in the middle of an intersection, with a mangled car on one side and a police van on another? Speaking of which...

"You weren't protecting the van?" I ask, gesturing at it. Why I bother pressing the issue, I don't even know. If he intends to go on the way he has, he isn't going to admit to doing anything to help.

The coldness radiating from his eyes should have chilled me. What have I done to offend him so? It almost seems like he resents any suggestion of him being anything approaching a hero.

Oh, that coldness is almost undetectable. To be honest, I suspect that it would go right over many people's heads, but when one has to read body language, particularly of criminals, for a living, one tends to notice things. Although, not being a criminal, Mr. Wayne isn't very inclined to oblige me with how he truly feels.

As if he thought better of it, he abandons the coldness. It wasn't working on me, either way, so that's a wise decision on his part.

"Why? Who's in it?" Without waiting for my answer, he turns his head toward the van to satisfy his own curiosity.

I suppress my laughter with difficulty. You really don't do anything halfway, do you, Mr. Wayne? That wide-eyed innocent act could have won some award. If it wouldn't make me look unprofessional, I would have snapped a picture. Or better, a video. Blackmail material isn't always easy to come by.

Then again, considering the whole mess with the whiny blackmailer, who isn't completely out of the woods yet, I'm not sure I want to dabble my hand in that dark art. My work pays well enough, thank you, and the pay gets increased with all the dangers I'm facing.

Speaking of Coleman Reese, Mr. Wayne gives him an almost imperceptible nod but otherwise displays no discernable emotion. No intimidation. No regret. No anger. No surprise. Whatever his facial expression is, it is nothing I could interpret. And, as I might have implied earlier, I pride myself on my ability to read people, a necessary skill for a police officer in the town where lies are worshiped and the truth get bent out of shape.

On the other hand, Mr. Reese's expression isn't a mystery (ironic, considering his name). His eyes go wide. A panic almost greater than the one he's been exhibiting seems to seize him. I have no sympathy. Should have thought of your own limits before trying to reveal the Batman's identity and incite the Joker into getting you killed.

And here is the million dollar question. While he was on that ill-fated GCN program, did Reese actually know who the Batman was? Or did he let his greed blind him? Let an easy path to fame go to his head?

Perhaps it's all three. Reese is subdued now, his face filled with resignation. I still do not care one bit what mindfuckery he's gone through, but he'd better stay low key and give us no more trouble. Those cops that lead him away don't seem to have families in Gotham General, so perhaps we might be able to weather this crisis relatively unscathed. Speaking of which, I'll have to remember to ask Batman how he could find out so quickly which cops are likely to attack Reese.

I shake my head. He's the goddamn Batman, Gordon. You think he would share his trade secrets with you?

Forget trade secrets. Batman shares nothing. He might condescend to meet you, make you his partner by telling you 'we are two', and lend you that cool tank which is already destroyed but you still ache to possess, but it would be a mistake to think you could order him to do anything he doesn't want to. Take when we were interrogating the Joker, for example.

So why do I keep ordering Batman around, you ask? Just because he won't follow orders doesn't mean I could let him get away with believing that no one would ever try to keep his activities in check. He's still a vigilante, a fact that no one, neither friends nor foes, will let me forget. Still, I have my line drawn. As long as I am in charge, the Batman will not be arrested.

And that brings me to when I had to hide out of sight before resurrecting. Among my many regrets is I didn't have a chance to try to convince the Batman the folly of his action in forcing Harvey Dent to call the 'Batman Identity Revealed' press conference. It doesn't help that I'm sure that every one of his friends told Batman to not give in to the Joker's demand. Among those, Dent was probably the loudest one of them all.

"...you think I should go to the hospital?" Mr. Wayne breaks into my thoughts, returning me back to the problem at hand. I feel the beginning of a headache. It is a bent world we live in if dealing with a man dressed as a bat is less complicated than dealing with a...spoiled brat.

What I think, my dear Mr. Wayne, is you should go home. Gotham General is the last place you want to be in. If you are injured in the crash, I'm sure you have your own family doctor.

Nice and condescendingly to the point. Even the not-so-bright playboy could not fail to grasp my meaning.

"You don't watch a whole lot of news, do you, Mr. Wayne?"

A glimmer of respect shown in his green eyes, but, just like the coldness earlier, it is quickly gone. You'd have missed it if you haven't been staring at his face like I have.

It's fortunate that I've scrapped those lines completely, isn't it? Even though this billionaire playboy likes to play the fool, he apparently doesn't really want to be treated as one. I still haven't worked out whether it's only me, or whether there is also someone else whose good opinion he craves.

Well, if he asked me how to earn my good opinion, I would tell him to either drop the facade or play it better so it doesn't seem so fake. There, all my frustration with this exchange is out in the open. I'm not the average crowd he hangs out with, so he had better stop insulting my intelligence already if he wanted my respect.

"It can get a little intense," he confides in all seriousness. Or it'd have been serious if I didn't detect a veneer of careless flippancy in his answer.

This is just too much. I could only stare at him, honestly not knowing what to say at this point. The vacant look, as if nothing lives beyond that facade, is back, strong as ever. I get the sudden urge to bundle him up and deposit him back at his penthouse, away from all these cruel realities.

Seriously. It is dangerous...very dangerous, this game he plays. I don't pretend to understand his motivations, his reasons, but if I could see his pretense for what it is, someone else also could. For all we like to pretend otherwise, this city isn't full of idiots.

But, to be fair, he didn't disappoint. Did I really expect something tame like a 'no, I don't watch the news because I'm too lazy to bother'?

As I try to reconcile the many sides of Bruce Wayne, I feel the wave of an explosion from the southeast direction. So it's really Gotham General. The Joker might be an agent of chaos, but he's doing us a favor by choosing to be predictable this once.

My radio squawks, so I very reluctantly take my eyes off the elusive billionaire. Elusive, because those tabloids and newspapers and the GCN programs never make any pretense of reporting on the real Bruce Wayne.

And who is that elusive creature? Perhaps, it is the man who has no hesitation of wrecking his exotic sports car and would not bat an eye at the real possibility of having to replace it. Who selflessly did so for someone not really worthy of saving, at a great risk to himself, and then brazenly denied his heroic rescue.

I almost chuckle. Apparently, this Bruce Wayne is a lot less glamorous than the tabloids make him out to be. No wonder no one wants to dig for the truth - it isn't exciting, it isn't scandalous, it doesn't sell papers.

Sorry, Mr. Wayne. You protecting the van would become a three-day wonder, but during that time, the fickle public wouldn't know what to make of you. Whereas you trying to catch the light would probably make you a three-day wonder, too, but, at least, they would be looking out for your wilder escapades.

This will not go on the news if I have anything to say about it. All I'm willing to release is a driver losing control of an unidentified car.

At least suppressing unnecessary news is in my control somewhat. Stopping your dangerous game, however, is not. I could try locking you up, but I'm sure you'll be out in less than a day, with all your money and lawyers at your beck and call. Besides, whether you really are an airhead or only pretend to be one, I'm not looking forward to making an enemy of you.

Come to think of it, we are fortunate no one is reporting on the real Bruce Wayne. Because I get the feeling that whoever that is, he's going to make so much wave that the Joker would become last century's news. Considering the atrocities the clown has already committed (and will commit if we cannot stop him), the possibility of him being completely dismissed from people's collective consciousness is too scary to contemplate.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. All this is really giving me a headache. So I throw myself into my job, snapping out orders right and left into my radio. And on top of everything else, I learn that Harvey Dent chooses this moment to be difficult and disappear from the hospital. We didn't part on the best of terms, to put it mildly, but I really couldn't care less. All I could think of is if anyone will have any luck in locating him, it's probably the Batman.

But the Joker appears to be a bigger priority for the Bat. As I said earlier, psycho imagery isn't for me, but I find their twisted relationship, their opposite personalities, disturbingly fascinating. For the most part, the Bat doesn't react to taunts, but I had a small moment of fear when the mad clown almost succeeded in provoking him. Hell, I wanted to take the clown's throat in between my hands myself so I sympathized, but I admit to holding the Bat to higher standards than most other human beings. If someone as good as he is can lose control, what hope can we mere mortals have?

Speaking of mortals, I'm already late in going to Gotham General, but I can't leave Mr. Wayne here alone. Especially not in his current state. He sits so still, unmoving, having no reaction to the blast, as if he hadn't heard it.

His stillness reminds me of that night long ago. The little boy was stunned, as if he couldn't believe his tragedy was real, that his parents were killed in front of him.

My comforting him was inadequate. Saying 'it's okay' repeatedly did not take the pain away. It probably never could. But I had to do it for him because everyone else in the station didn't. True, the police were busy doing their job in resolving the case, but hell, a little boy had just lost his parents, bringing in their murderer wouldn't change the fact that the boy would still go home alone, forever without his parents.

I do not ever want to see that lost and heart-breaking look again on any child's face. And now I discover I do not want to see the same look even on an adult's face. But perhaps it might just be because I keep seeing Mr. Wayne as that lost little boy.

My radio squawks again. The hospital has misplaced one bus full of patients. I really have to go. If Bruce Wayne will not move on his own, I'll have to make him.

As I contemplate on a possible way to move him, Mr. Wayne solves my unvoiced problem and starts to rise. Carefully, while holding on the wrecked car for balance. Turning away from me, his gaze is fixed in the direction of Gotham General. It is not the Batman (who would eat most people's pretenses at intimidation for breakfast), but his almost total absorption is uncharacteristic of the carefree playboy.

If I thought his eyes were cold before, they are arctic now. How could a flesh and blood man feel like he is carved out of a block of ice? What kind of abnormally rigid control does he exert over himself?

Putting a hand on his shoulder, I hope for a glimpse of the happy, warm-hearted little boy who must have existed before the night I first met him. That boy is probably still in there somewhere, frozen deep down inside this maddeningly complex man.

But I voice none of my wonderings. If Bruce Wayne wanted to confide in me, he would. Besides, I prefer not to seek out answers. If I don't know whatever it is he is so intent on hiding, I don't have to feel responsible for his welfare.

Instead, I gesture at his wrecked car.

"I'll need you to sign some paperwork. Stop by the station when you're free."

"Sure thing, Lieutenant," he says with a light, easy charm. As if the dark shadow I saw, the coldness I felt, never existed.

It's a measure of relief I feel that I don't even think to correct him on my rank. As my moving up in rank isn't yet in the news, most people would probably think Garcia promoted me after we got the Joker situation resolved - for the second time. And we will get that mad clown.

As I cannot pretend to die for the second time, whoever is guarding my family has to be trustworthy. My wife and children have suffered enough on my behalf. If something were to happen to them...

This will not do. Focus. Deep breath. They are safe at home, and will continue to be.

The same thing cannot be said of the state of MCU.

Mr. Wayne cannot go to the station. With parts blown off and debris flying everywhere, the station is no place for a civilian who is not a suspect.

"On another thought, I could bring those papers to you," I offer, raising my brow. Well, whenever you can fit me in between your social butterfly calendar.

I immediately regret such an unworthy thought. In an ironic twist, I wish Bruce Wayne is really the airhead he appears, for he wouldn't be able to discern that I've just made him sound like an airhead.

But my wish is futile. It's brief, but I catch a flash of pain, as if I've betrayed him. And I have. But as his reaction is not in words, I cannot apologize in words, either.

"No, it's fine. I can go down to the station whenever you wish."

His smile is more honest than what I'm accustomed to seeing from him. Okay, as we've never really met in person before today for who knows how long, my only exposure to his fake smile was from the magazines or in the news, so getting a smile now that might be real isn't much of a stretch.

"The station isn't in the best shape at the moment," I admit, blowing out a breath. My only hope is he doesn't take my admission as some kind of an excuse. Some kind of backpedaling for non-verbally insulting him earlier.

For whatever reason, Mr. Wayne appears to take my statement at its face value and promises to happily comply with "any arrangement" I might have made. I stare at him, aware that I'm rude in doing so but can't help myself. Who is this man who lives up to none of his so-called careless reputation?

Don't get me wrong. I have zero interest in completely or even partially figuring him out. Whatever Mr. Wayne chooses to do, as long as it doesn't harm other honest people, I'm content to leave him be.

And the same right to privacy also goes for every other honest citizen. It'd probably spook at least a few people if they knew that I already learned way too much from that press conference. If I had a memory eraser, I would use it.

But I don't, so I'll have to deal with my unwanted knowledge the old-fashioned way: burying it deep in my mind. Curiosity kills the cat, and I still plan to be around for a while longer, thank you very much.

Bruce Wayne's face, while not exactly free of his guard (I don't think he knows how to be completely open, not even to his closest confidants), is largely devoid of pretense. Again, I get an impression that he wants to please me, or at least, to gain my approval.

So I give him a nod. "I'll contact you," I say, clapping his arm. As I'm about to walk away, a thought occurs to me.

"Oh, Mr. Wayne?"

His expression is unreadable. "Yes?"

I swing toward him completely. How someone could imbue total blankness in that one word is beyond me, but Bruce Wayne somehow managed it. I shake my head, not knowing why I even wonder. After all, this is someone who has done the impossible: returning from the dead.

"I'm not giving you a ticket this time, but, in the future, leave running the red light to the professionals, will you?"

Although I keep my expression serious, I make no effort to hide the light note in my voice. And I know that using the word 'professionals' is a waste of time, but I have to keep up an appearance, however flimsy. If he chose to show me he saw through it, that's fine. In fact, that's what I want. If he could remain outwardly indifferent in the face of such blatant provocation, I have a far bigger problem than the Joker tearing our town apart through mass panic.

Warmth floods through my body when a smile appears, reaching all the way to his seemingly tired eyes (must be the late night at the office). My satisfaction dims a little when he doesn't answer in words but only tosses me a careless salute worthy of a spoiled playboy.

Staring at his back as he saunters away, I couldn't help my frown - my only hope is he doesn't notice that he got the last word in, after all.

Message received. I'm not to interfere with his lifestyle choices or to give an appearance of wanting to.

But I'm probably reading too much into a simple gesture. Perhaps he just wanted to leave with no fuss, and I'm the one who kept him past the time. If he's half as tired as his eyes indicate, he should really go home.

Try to relax more, Mr. Wayne, and drop your social mask when it isn't necessary to keep it up. After your good deed, you've definitely earned some rest.

And I mean that. While I go about my work, shouting all that is proper about saving Harvey Dent, I wish Gotham could take care of herself for once. There must still be some good people, some beacon of light in this city so bent I wouldn't know who to rat to.

Some other good people besides him, that is. We are all too happy to let Batman clean up our streets. Gotham still has a long way to go, but surely we can stop burdening our Dark Knight beyond his very real human ability to do the impossible.

A/N: It's probably obvious that I adore the scene I based my story on. ;) I don't have any problem with the way the movie presents that scene, but I suppose I just want more than one minute of my two favorite people together.

At any rate, thank you for giving my humble story a chance, and I hope you enjoyed the time spent reading it.