The car door opened. The sound of hammers hitting wood filled the area, mingling with the random chirping of a few birds.

Detective Allen stared up at the looming mansion, standing on the white gravel of the driveway. This wasn't how he expected to be spending his morning, but when the Commissioner ordered him out here, he did as he was told. It was all thanks to some tv program where someone pointed out a potential theft of the murder weapon.

It was a load of crock in his eyes. The only fingerprints that mattered were Bruce Wayne's and there were plenty of them found on the gun. The gun was found at the crime scene, poorly hidden by the way. No amount of spin could change that.

But—and there was always a but—Wayne had powerful friends and Allen highly suspected it was these friends blowing up Commissioner Sawyer's phone that led to this visit. During the initial investigation, unis had performed a sweep of the mansion—its size was a lovely reminder of just how well-off Wayne was. Not much was found here, other than the missing gun from the gun safe. With all the evidence they had uncovered at Wayne's office, it made further searches of the mansion basically a moot point.

Yet, here they were, wasting time when there were other cases that needed solving. That's what this was, a waste of time. A crack house had exploded last night, which is where they should have been instead of here. This case was solved and that one wasn't. Allen let out a sigh. Might as well get it over with.

"So where do we start first?" Montoya asked as she stared up at Wayne Manor.

"Where the gun was allegedly kept," Allen grunted as he began walking to the front door. There were other cars in the driveway, each one belonging to the construction crew working on the house. Wayne Manor had experienced an earthquake a few months ago, which had damaged the old house. Work was still in progress if the scaffolding curling around the back corner of the mansion was any indication.

The two detectives walked right up to the front door, mounting the staircase that led right up to it. Allen half-suspected the door would be locked, though what would be the point if there were men around back? The workers needed a way in regardless of whether it was in the front or back.

Not bothering to knock, Allen grabbed the doorknob and turned it, the door swinging open—how convenient. Peering inside, he saw a rather large room, carpet on the floor with a large W at its center. It was easily twice the size of his apartment.

"So this is how the other half lives," he remarked, Montoya following behind him, closing the door once she was inside. "Any idea where the gun was kept?"

"According to the Commissioner, in Thomas Wayne's study, wherever that is," his fellow detective replied. "Looks like we'll have to be checking rooms."

"I was afraid you were going to say that," he grumbled, then rolled his shoulders back. "Alright, let's do this."

That search proved to be a long one. Allen wasn't certain how many rooms there were in Wayne Manor, but the term "a lot" did not do it justice. Multitude came closer and he checked each and every one of them, opening doors and closing them the moment he saw they weren't studies.

He lost track of time doing this, right up until he saw Montoya further down one of the hallways. She opened a door, peeked in, then looked towards him. "I think I found it," she called out to him.

"About time," Allen grumbled as he headed right for her. Montoya just opened the door wider and passed through. He caught up to her soon enough and found himself entering a study. Allen had his own at his home, but it definitely didn't compare to Thomas Wayne's. The desk itself screamed expensive, the bookcases filled with books. The chairs were of an old style, nothing that would fly as a modern-day chair. It was as if this place was frozen in a different time period.

Looking around, Allen eventually saw Montoya standing by a safe. Out of everything here, this was the one thing that looked as if it belonged in the modern era. The detective, however, was staring down at the floor in front of the safe.

"Cris," she called out, sounding resigned. "You're gonna want to look at this."

Walking over towards her, the detective glanced at the floor and immediately saw what had his partner's attention. There was a partial footprint, one that stuck out in the rather clean room. There wasn't even a layer of dust in here, so it made the footprint stick out that much more.

"Ahh, shit," he cursed.

"Yeah," Montoya agreed. "What do you think?"

"I know what it looks like. It looks like we jumped the gun by arresting Wayne."

"Second guessing yourself?"

"Hell no." Allen looked up at Montoya. "I know Wayne is our guy. However, any of his supporters that come here and see this print, they're going to think up some conspiracy theory that there was someone else here."

"It looks that way, though," she pointed out.

"It does, but it isn't. Look at the print. Notice anything about it?"

"It's white dirt, I guess."

"Uh huh. And you know what else was white? The gravel road we drove up on. It has the same color of rocks and dirt, so someone walking on that could track that print here."

Montoya nodded her agreement. "It's strange though. You would think if we were tracking dirt in, we'd see more prints. It's just the one here and nowhere else."

"Wayne has a good cleaning crew. They probably come in and clean the house every day. With all of the construction workers, they would have figured one of them got lost and tracked footprints right up to the door."

"You don't think they would have cleaned the room too? I mean, this room looks spotless save for this one print."

Allen frowned. That was stumping him. He had a pretty good explanation going there, but that one print in a relatively clean room stood out. "Maybe they were interrupted and didn't get around to cleaning up that print," he shrugged. "They could have been halfway through when they were called away."

"I guess that means we're getting in touch with the cleaning ladies," Montoya surmised. "What do you want to do with the print?"

"The Commissioner wanted us to be thorough, no doubt due to the pressure she's under. We'll need forensics to check it out, which means we'll need a warrant."

"I guess we can get Turnball to issue it, or at the very least sign the one in progress."

Allen nodded. "It wouldn't hurt to check any photos the unis took when they first came here too. For all we know, this footprint was either here to begin with, or planted later."

Montoya raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think it could have been planted?"

"Just about everyone heard that lady with Jerri Prudence. Wayne is seriously connected, so anyone of those connections could have sent someone here and planted this while they harassed the Commissioner. If we can prove tampering, then this footprint is meaningless."

And that was what Allen was betting on. They were already on a fool's errand; no way was he going to play the fool all because some rich boy had influential friends. Plenty of those friends had already proven they weren't great influences on Gotham, and that would be the case here.

"So we need the warrant and the unis investigation pictures," his partner rattled off. "Anything else?"

"Nothing I can think of." Allen spared a glance around the room. This place really did look like from a different time period. "Let's get out of here. I'm all done staring at things I can't dream to have."

It wasn't all that often Kate messed up. Last night, she had and royally so. She hadn't seen either of the bombers go in. By the time she had spotted them, the building was going up in flames.

That was one of two explosions that night. The fire marshall was still investigating the scenes, but most likely it would be concluded as a gas leak that caught on fire. That had been the intended purpose and unless the bombers half-assed their job, that was what would be reported.

Kate wasn't in the right headspace for this. She could admit that; in fact, she had said as much when the Birds returned to the Roost.

And then she was grounded.

"Sorry, Kate, but you can't be out there with your head somewhere else," Canary told her firmly. "There's plenty of people dead already and we don't need to add ourselves to that list."

It was a good point, but Kate was a lawyer by trade. Arguing was second nature for her.

"And sit on my ass while some guy goes around kidnapping people left and right? I don't think so," she retorted.

"And we can't focus on one case when there's a hundred lining up every day," Huntress countered. The purple-clad woman was lounging in one of their chairs, one leg hanging over an armrest, her arms crossed over her chest. "Crime doesn't stop because lawyers are getting snapped up left and right."

From where she sat, Kate glared at the dark-haired woman. "And if this guy was taking one of your school kids? What then?"

"Then I would have enough sense to know that I couldn't work on any other case except finding my kid," she shot back. "I wouldn't have been out on a stakeout on another case if I wasn't able to focus on it."

Well, she had her there. Kate just glowered, not bothering to say anything.

Black Canary sighed. "Look, I get it, that case is stressing you. We all have that one that gets to us, but we can't lose sight of the big picture here. There's a number of people dead because that crack house blew up. As far as we know, that lawyer friend of yours is still alive."

"Or he could be dead in a ditch," the brunette countered. "We just haven't found the body yet."

"I didn't realize you were close to him."

"I'm not. Look, Ralph is a slimeball, but that doesn't mean he deserves to be dragged out of his house in the middle of the night because some jerk has a grudge against him."

Huntress frowned. "What makes you think this is a grudge?"

Kate shrugged her shoulders. "Call it a hunch. When I was going through Ralph's cases, I saw he was the prosecutor against Samuel Pierce, which put him in contact with Donna Grier. All of these people have to be connected somehow."

Canary and Huntress shared a look with each other. "How do you think the others are connected? Since these three are?" the purple-clad vigilante asked.

Kate sighed. "Jeff Daniels is part of the parole board, so he would have had to parole Pierce at some point, what with his rap sheet and all. Freddie Jackson probably covered Pierce's crimes at some point, being a reporter that covers legal matters and all. Erick Pense, though; I can't place him anywhere in this."

"We have these connections with the majority of the kidnappees, so that's something we can work with," Canary said. "And Oracle came up with that list of possible kidnapping targets. Perhaps we can ID one and sit on them."

"And hope Lock-Up messes up?" Kate questioned. "We tried that with Connolly and it didn't work."

"You did take him on by yourself," Katana pointed out, sharpening her sword with her whetstone. The scraping of steel on stone made for a rhythmic metronome. "If there were more of us present, then we may be able to capture him."

That was a fair point, but she had been the one to confront Lock-Up. That guy had determination that was reminiscent of Batman. He wanted Connolly and he did everything he needed to do to get him. "So let's say we catch him. What if he refuses to tell us what he's done with the people he's taken? Assuming he's keeping them alive, he could just clam up and let them starve while we try to beat the answer out of him."

A sigh came from Huntress, who removed her mask from her face. "Look, with the number of people he's taken, I really doubt he's keeping them alive. We've got, what, six people missing that we know of? That's a lot of mouths to feed. He's clearly taking them to a second location to kill them."

With Helena saying that out loud, Kate had to admit that was the most likely outcome here. Unless human trafficking was the answer here, Lock-Up was just killing them and disposing of the bodies in a place they hadn't found yet. The very thought of that made her stomach twist and knock itself.

"I'm just spitballing here, but what if…what if we…let him take the next person?"

Helena raised an eyebrow at that. "And why would we do that?"

"So we can follow him. Hell, he drives an armored truck; that sort of sticks out. We get a tracer on it and we can follow him to the second location."

"That's not a half-bad idea," Canary replied. "But we can't put another person in danger like that. Hell, I doubt anyone would be willing to get captured and dragged away to help us."

"Not unless it's one of us that gets taken," Katana pointed out.

That caused the rest of the Birds to look towards the Asian woman. She was resting her sword on her lap now, her whetstone grasped in her hand. "One of us could pretend to be the targeted person. That way it is only us that is in danger," Kate pressed.

"And we can put as many tracers on them as we want," Helena added. "I think we have the beginnings of a plan coming together."

"That just leaves who we're going to pretend to be," Canary proclaimed as she raised a hand up to her ear to activate her comm link. "Oracle, I need a name."

With every message he read, his stomach dropped. He would have said heart, but the feeling was too low for that. If he was a woman, he would have called it his heart. The feeling was twisting and turning, queasy and cold. It settled like a rock in his stomach.

How…how could this be?

Damian read them over and over, wishing they would change, wishing he had misread them one, two, five, ten times. They never changed.

His own mother.

She was the cause of this. She was the cause of everything. He let her guide him when he should have looked to another. All of this time apart from his father and it…it hadn't been the Usurper's fault.

That last part was difficult to swallow.

Damian lost track of time, right up until the door to the office opened and his mother strolled in, seemingly without a care. A small smile graced her lips.

Her look taunted him.

"I did not expect to see you here, Damian," his mother greeted him. She walked right up to the desk, slinging her purse off of her shoulder. He didn't see where she set it down, some place on the floor, not that he cared. What was a purse to the bombshell he held in his hand?

"And I did not think you were a traitor, Mother," he spat back, venom in his voice.

His mother raised an eyebrow. "I have no idea of what you speak."

"Do I need to remind you?" Damian held the cell phone up, the screen lit up with a string of text messages. "Does this not look familiar?"

The woman reached out for the phone, but he snatched it back. No way would he allow such precious evidence to leave him, not to the person that had created it in the first place. That was simply stupid. "Are you going to let me see it?" she asked him patiently, though there was a hint of exasperation in her tone. Her patience was beginning to run out.

And his was already out. "Allow me to read them to you, see if they ring a bell." Damian turned the phone so that he could see the screen. "'Sorry for not showing up, Bruce. Work was a killer. Is there any way you would like to meet up?' Stop. 'Can I show up at your apartment?' Stop. 'Right now?' Stop. 'Yes. Now.' Stop."

His mother's eyes had narrowed. "Damian, what is—"

"This, Mother, is a series of text messages allegedly between my father and that dead reporter. When I was with the Usurper and her lackeys, we discovered the police had obtained a number of text messages that indicated that my father met this woman, which led to them going to Wayne Enterprises, where he allegedly killed her. When we cross-referenced the records, we found no such text messages on my father's phone or his account, but they were on the reporter's."

As he spoke, he could see his mother's eyes widened, her face paling. Her eyes darted to the phone he held as realization dawned on her just what he was holding. It was all an act, he was certain. The phone had been hidden in her desk after all, so she of course knew of it.

"At the time, we theorized my father's phone had been cloned in some way. Now I have confirmation." Damian raised his free hand and pointed a finger right at the woman who had cared for him since birth. "You. It was you this entire time."

"Damian, I swear I did no such thing," she protested. "I would never do such a thing to your father. I—"

"Stop!" he shouted, cutting her off. "I know what I have seen! I know everything! This entire time, it was you keeping me away from my father! You used the Usurper as an excuse, but we could have been a family long ago! You…you have robbed me of my father!"

"Listen to me, my son," the woman pleaded. "I have done no such thing."

"Enough with your lies!" Damian pushed himself out of the chair, sending it rolling backwards until it hit the back wall. He glowered, his eyes filled with hate. "I will avenge this injustice. One day, you will know my pain."

He began to walk around the desk, but stopped when his so-called mother took a step towards him. "Don't," he said warningly.

"Damian, you need to listen to me," she said, her tone no longer pleading or gentle. They were firm, the tone she used when she felt he was being childish and needed to be corrected.

But he wasn't being childish. He had proof of a conspiracy in his hand and his mother was at the center of it. He would not be silent; he would not be intimidated. He would listen to her lies no longer.

However, even though his rage had never felt so raw, he still recognized that his mother stood between him and revealing this pivotal information. She was not someone to be underestimated. She was an accomplished assassin for his grandfather, the Demon's Head. That she stood here alive indicated she had yet to fail him in a manner that deserved death.

This was not a person to take lightly.

However, his options were limited. If he stayed where he was, she would restrain him and he would be silenced, leaving his father to rot in a prison of falsehood. The longer he lingered, the greater this outcome became.

Slowly, she began to raise a hand, holding it out to him. "Damian, we can figure out what is happening. There is something afoot and they want to divide us. If we are to save your father, we cannot let them do this to us."

"No," he agreed. "I cannot allow you to divide us any longer."

That's when he bolted, racing for the doorway. "Damian!" he heard the woman cry out, even as he reached the door and flung it open. The secretary-disguised assassin looked up at him as he slammed the door shut behind him. "Do not let her catch me," he ordered the woman before he ran into a hallway. The sooner he got to an elevator, the better.

No…not the elevator. That was a steel cage that could trap him.

To the stairs then.

As the elevators came into sight, he headed right for them, but did not bother calling for one. There was a doorway nearby, a sign indicating it was a stairwell. Running to the door, he flung it open and immediately began rushing down the steps, his legs tackling them one at a time.

Unfortunately, this was a tall building, meaning there were a lot of stairs. What he wouldn't give for a grapple gun right now.

Bruce couldn't help but run over everything he had been told in Zorbatos' office. The additional injuries were alarming, especially to Gantz.

It had to have happened after he had left, which meant someone had followed them. That someone either had an issue with Gantz—which was highly possible since the man was a rapist, and it was doubtful Bruce was the first one he had led to that boiler room—or they were an opportunist waiting for their chance to…to what?

The dark-haired man sat on a bench in the courtyard. Inmates milled around, many hardly paying him any attention, which was alright by him. After that last encounter, he didn't care to be taken to another location and have to defend himself. His arms were resting on his legs, causing him to lean forward. He stared at a spot a short distance away and on the ground. There were a few blades of grass that grew between cracks in the cement and his eyes traced those cracks.

It wasn't a good thing he was suspected of causing those injuries. Word would travel fast in a place like this, and there would be others that wanted to prove their dominance. Already he was at a disadvantage of going unnoticed thanks to his name. Anything attention-getting like fighting off prison rapists was sure to get someone else' attention.

Bruce's eyes darted up. He saw a few inmates eyeing him, but then they glanced away. Was it coincidence? Happenstance? It was hard to tell.

Admittingly, there was a part of him that welcomed the challenge. He would be lying to say he hadn't felt good beating up Gantz and his friends, even if he had to make it accidental-looking. To feel his fist pounding flesh and bone had been relieving. He had been feeling on edge, an urge growing inside of him that demanded satisfaction. It was worse at night, stuck staring out into the night's sky for a signal that may or may not light up. Ever since those first nights, he hadn't seen the Bat Symbol.

He wasn't certain what that meant.

There was little he could do to figure out that mystery, so Bruce was forced to focus on what he could control. That altercation with Gantz put him on Zorbatos' radar, assuming he had been a low priority for her to begin with. A rich man accused of murder, scared of being in an environment outside of his control didn't stack up to a serial killer, or the black market drugs that infested the prison. Now though, he had caused a stir and she would be making certain if she needed to take steps.

Glancing around, Bruce spotted a few guards in the courtyard. None of them seemed to be paying him extra attention as they were constantly surveying their surroundings. The last thing any of them wanted was to be jumped. While there were lookout towers with guards with high-powered rifles in their possession, how much of that was a deterrent was debatable. No one wanted to get shot, but if someone was determined, they could kill one of the ground-side guards before they were killed.

Movement caught the dark-haired man's eye. From his right, a group of cons were approaching. They were talking with each other, a few animated, others just focused on where they were going. They passed right by Bruce, none of them sparing him a second glance.

Once they had walked by, Bruce found he wasn't alone on the bench. Someone had taken a seat next to him, but they were facing the opposite direction he was. Peering out of the corner of his eye, he saw this inmate was large, towering over him.

There didn't seem to be any ill-intent that he could discern, so he pulled his attention away. Because of this, he noticed several small groups of inmates turning away, their backs towards him.

Something about that wasn't right…

"Good afternoon, Mr. Wayne."

Bruce froze. That voice, he knew that voice. Slowly, he turned his head back to the hulking man sitting next to him. Leaning back, he was better able to see the side of the man's face. There was a puffiness to the cheeks, a nose that jutted out a fraction too far. The tip of the nose bent down, as if it had been forced that way, either by being broken or having constant pressure applied to it. Short hair revealed a receding hairline.

It had been a long time since he had seen that face. It wasn't the most distinguished face; in fact, considering what this man had accomplished, it wasn't all that intimidating if someone gave it a second thought.

Yet, he knew this man was more than some mundane face. Behind that face was an intelligent, calculating mind. Muscles built over years were nearly as solid as steel, and prison had done little to waste them away.

Bruce couldn't help himself as he openly gaped. Then a single word slipped out from his lips.

"Bane."