A/N I'm not sure whether this chapter rocks or smacks of the suckish. But either way:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
Disclaimer The author cannot be held responsible on her birthday.
Chapter 21
Every morn and every night,
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
-William Blake
Niko pulled his hat down over his ears and headed for the front door.
"Where are you going?" Kostos asked.
"Out with some friends," Niko replied automatically, hiding his surprise. He hadn't even realized his father was home, and had been counting on slipping out without being noticed. Now his father was going to grill him, and Niko didn't have a good story thought up.
But instead of asking another question, Kostos only said, "Not tonight."
"Why not?" Niko demanded, outraged that he was being confined before he'd even had a chance to do anything suspicious.
"We all stay in tonight," Kostos said flatly. "Go do your homework. Your last report card wasn't so good."
"I already did it," he protested, mentally adding, mostly.
"Then check it over. You don't go out tonight."
Niko recognized the dogged expression on his father's face too well to waste more time arguing. Kostos had made up his mind, and he wasn't going to explain himself, either. Muttering, Niko stalked back to the bedroom where Demetrios was once again repairing his tattered soccer ball. Yanking back the covers on his bed, he arranged his pillow and some dirty laundry between the sheets and threw the blankets on top. "If anyone asks, I'm napping," he said, before pulling up the window.
"Ah man!" Demetrios protested. "If you get caught, I'm dead too."
"Chill, I'll be back in half an hour. But if I stand the guys up, they'll be mad, you know?" Silently shutting the window behind him, he tiptoed down the fire escape and jumped into the street.
Sun and Carlos were waiting for him on the appointed corner. "You're late," Sun told him.
"My dad caught me on the way out and told me I had to stay in and do homework. I gotta get back before he finds out I'm gone. Sorry I can't go to the club with you."
"Sucks," Carlos sympathized.
"Hey," Sun exclaimed, "check out those guys over there."
Niko and Carlos looked. A group of men, heads lowered and shoulders hunched as though they didn't want to be seen, were hurrying along the street. Niko wondered why he was supposed to be checking them out, and then he spotted another furtive group headed in the same direction. And then another, and another.
"Where are all these people going?" he wondered, keeping his voice low. When people skulked around Gotham, you didn't want them to think you were prying into their business.
Sun shrugged. "I dunno. Let's go find out."
"Come on, man, it's cold out!" Carlos protested. "Let's just go to the club."
"Come on, man," Sun mimicked. "Where's your sense of adventure? How about you, Niko?"
"Ten minutes," Niko agreed. "Then I gotta split."
Carlos grumbling behind them, they sauntered along in the same direction everyone else was going. The farther they walked, the thicker the crowd grew, until a particularly thick knot of people forced them apart. Niko had to jog to keep from being knocked off his feet, swept along in the rush until he rounded a corner and was forced to a stop by a solid wall of people.
The crowd was gathered in a lot that had been slated for new construction. But the budget had been canceled, the fence had fallen down, and now it was only a larger than average open space in the Gotham ghettos. Niko was pretty sure he'd played soccer here. Now the lot was packed with people, except for the front, where a crude platform of crates had been erected. It was lit by two burn barrels, flames dancing over their tops. Clearly, it was some kind of rally.
Uninterested and worried that his father might that very minute be knocking on his bedroom door, Niko tried to push his way back out of the crowd, but the people were packed so tightly behind him that he only moved two feet before dirty glares and sharp elbows stopped his pushing.
"What's going on?" he asked the person standing next to him, but the man refused to even look at him, and burrowed into his scarf like a turtle.
Niko was forced to stand there as the eerily quiet crowd continued to swell behind him, packing the lot tighter and tighter until he felt like he could barely breathe. Finally, when he was about to try clearing a path by claiming the need to vomit, something happened up front. A stirring of the crowd drew his attention, and then a door in one of the surrounding building swung open.
Niko's jaw dropped as he stared at the man who walked forward, the crowd melting away before him until he reached the makeshift platform. He was easily seven feet tall, and extremely broad shouldered. Shaggy dark hair fell almost to his shoulders, and he was dressed in army fatigues. Despite his size, he moved lightly and bounded up onto the crates without hesitation.
"People of Gotham!" he shouted.
The crowd had already been unusually quiet, but now the silence became absolute. Niko could hear a car blowing its horn several blocks away.
"You have come here tonight because you are afraid," the spokesman continued, his Spanish accent lending emphasis to his voice. "Many of you do not know exactly why you are afraid, but I stand here to tell you that you have good reason! Over the past two weeks, thirteen people have been killed by the same murderer. They were ordinary people like yourselves, and they all lived in your neighborhoods."
A murmur ran through the crowd now, and Niko thought that it did sound afraid.
"And what have the police done about this?" the giant on the podium demanded. "Nothing! Have they alerted the media about this serial killer so that you could be warned?"
"No!" several people in the crowd shouted.
"Have they increased patrols in your neighborhood?"
"No!" came the response, louder this time.
"Have they done anything at all to keep you safe?"
"No!" they bellowed. The cloud of their combined fear and anger rolled over them like a physical force, and they spoke with one voice.
"If you drove better cars and worked better jobs, would they treat you this way?"
"No!"
"If you lived in another part of town, would they treat you this way?"
"No!"
"Will you allow them to ignore you any longer?"
"No!"
"Will you allow your children to be murdered while the police sit by and do nothing?"
"No!"
"Will you let this injustice continue for one more night?"
"No!" they cried, and the ground beneath them trembled with the echoes.
Bruce stuffed his ski cap into his jacket pocket and tried to smooth down his hair, peering into the shiny chrome surrounding the elevator button. Riding Rick's motorcycle had been a last minute impulse that he now regretted, since his fingers and ears still burned despite the wool hat under his helmet and his thick gloves. But the bike had looked lonely, gleaming untouched in the garage, and he hadn't wanted to be alone with himself in the quiet of a car. Too much time to think about what he was doing.
Selina didn't live in the penthouse of her building, but then, there was nothing economical about the twenty-ninth floor, either, he reflected wryly, looking at the plush hallway carpet and the original artwork decorating the walls. Her taste in the expensive was consistent.
Selina answered his knock, dressed casually in jeans and a blouse, her long, dark hair pulled into a ponytail. Her clothes didn't matter—she was still stunning. Whenever he was away from her, he thought his imagination exaggerated her beauty, and when he saw her again, he always realized that he hadn't remembered enough of it.
She held his gaze, and he thought he saw a flicker of shared desire, but then she was stepping back and waving him inside. "Good timing, the caterer just left."
"I thought this was a home-cooked meal," he protested, pulling off his coat and mentally slapping himself upside the head. Focus, Bruce.
"You didn't actually think I was going to cook for you?"
"A guy can dream."
"Very, very big dreams."
"Come on, I bet you're great in the kitchen."
"And here I thought you respected me for my mind."
"I respect that too."
"Right," she drawled, and led the way to the table.
"Commissioner Gordon, sir, you've got to wake up."
Gordon reluctantly pried open his eyes and squinted up at O'Hara. "What time is it?"
"It's only nine o'clock, sir, but you've got to see this."
Gordon yawned widely and sat up on his office couch. "Good, I bet Jane's still got my dinner in the oven. You know how you lie down for fifteen minutes, and suddenly it's two hours later—"
"Commissioner!"
O'Hara's urgency finally penetrated Gordon's fuzzy consciousness. "What is it? More bodies?"
"Not exactly, sir. That is, not dead ones." O'Hara hurried to the window and pulled up the blinds.
Gordon crossed over to look out, and the last of his sleepiness evaporated as he stared down at the streets packed with people. "What's going on? How did they get here?"
"They started pouring in about twenty minutes ago. We didn't even realize what was happening, until it was too late to stop them. There's thousands of them, and they're blocking the traffic for a two block radius."
"What do they want?"
"They want to talk to you, Commissioner, about the murders. They say the police aren't doing anything to protect them, and they want to know why not."
Gordon shook his head in disbelief. "How did we not know about this? They must have been organizing, planning."
O'Hara looked miserable. "We knew people in the dock neighborhoods were unhappy, but we had no idea this was in the works. I'm sorry, sir."
"Any violence?"
"Not yet."
"Maybe they really do just want to talk. I'll have to go out there."
"I'm not sure that's wise."
Gordon shook his head. "Gotham is my city, and those are Gotham's people. I'm going to talk to them. They're right that we haven't been doing enough to protect them. Maybe we should have told the media."
"But we had nothing, not even a profile!" O'Hara protested. "It would have just caused panic."
"Panic," Gordon muttered. "I really hate that word."
"Sit there," Selina ordered, pointing to the sofa. "I have a present for you." She pulled a white cardboard box out of the closet and handed it to him.
"You shouldn't have."
"I can't help being excessively generous."
"A trait shared by all of Lex's employees, I'm sure."
"Of course."
He opened the box and found a worn leather jacket with a certificate of authenticity pinned to the front. Bruce grinned. "No way. MacGyver's jacket?"
"I thought at least one of us should achieve our heart's desire," she told him, just barely letting the sarcasm seep through her saccharine tone.
"You shouldn't have," he repeated.
"Don't worry, Bruce, it's all legal. I didn't steal it," she told him, a small smile playing around her mouth.
She'd acknowledged the elephant in the room. They both knew what he knew.
"Why," he began, watching her carefully.
"Do I do it?" she finished the question, her smile widening. "Because I can."
"Actually, I was going to ask why you told me."
"Why didn't you turn me in?" she countered.
His eyes tried to tear apart her face, searching for any hint of the truth, to find out what she knew. But she only matched him stare for stare, giving away nothing.
"You gave it all back," Bruce said finally. "But why me?"
She unexpectedly dropped her gaze and rose from the sofa, walked over to look out the window at the glittering cityscape. When she spoke, her voice was so low, he had to strain to hear. "Don't you ever wish you could take off the mask and let somebody see who you really are?"
Bruce tensed. Her question felt like a trap. He didn't trust the pain darkening her voice.
But he was affected by it all the same. He wanted to reach out and comfort her, but the best he could do was mix honesty with his caution. "Not usually. It's a dangerous thing to do, isn't it? You take off the mask, people could get hurt."
"People get hurt anyway," she answered, her voice stifled and despairing.
And he forgot about lust in a wave of pity for her, because he thought he understood. In that moment, he wanted only to help her bear the pain a little. Stepping over to the window, he reached out to touch her arm. "Selina, I—"
"Don't!" she gasped, spinning away from him. "Don't call me that. It's not …" She caught herself and drew a deep breath. "It's all part of the mask, isn't it? It must be so much worse for you. Don't you ever wish you could stop being Bruce Wayne?"
"It's easier to let people see what they want to."
"Not tonight," she insisted, so fiercely that he almost took a step backward. "I don't want to be Selina Kyle tonight. I don't want to be anybody. Is that so wrong?"
Bruce got the feeling she wasn't talking to him anymore, that her audience was invisible and distant.
"I want …" Selina clenched her hands into fists. "I want something I can't … No. I don't even know what I want. Except this." And suddenly she was pressed hard against him, pulling his head down and kissing him with desperate urgency.
Shocked and elated by the half-savagery of it, he wrapped his arms around her and forgot there was anything in the world but her mouth pulling hungrily at his, her hips and her breasts igniting fires where they ground against him, until he moaned and tugged at the top button of her blouse.
Selina pulled away, breaking the kiss, pushing out of his embrace. "I'm sorry," she gasped, and burst into tears.
Bruce felt like a teenager who'd absolutely and completely screwed up his big date without any idea of what he'd done wrong. "Are you all right?" he asked stupidly.
"This is so embarrassing," she gasped, wiping futilely at the tears that streaked her cheeks. "I don't know what gotten into …" Her voice broke, and she tried to laugh but failed.
Carefully, he laid a hand on her arm, and when she didn't push him away, he pulled her close. Selina hid her face against his chest and let her tears soak his shirtfront. After a moment, he lifted her carefully and sat down on the sofa, cradling her as though she might shatter with a breath.
When her soft, shuddering sobs eased, Bruce wedged a hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out his handkerchief.
"I can't believe you actually carry a handkerchief," she muttered, accepting it and wiping her face.
"Good training," he said lightly. "Alfred's trying to teach Rick too, but it's not going so well."
She didn't smile at the poor joke. "Why are you still here?"
"Do you want me to go?"
"You idiot. You should have hit the door the second I started talking crazy."
"I like crazy."
"You are crazy."
"That too."
She sighed. "Do I look absolutely hideous?"
"Impossible," he replied gallantly.
She slipped an arm around his neck and rested her forehead against his. "You're lying, but do you mind if I try that again? I promise: No more psycho cry-girl."
"Selina." He held her gaze, ignoring the frown that flitted over her face. "Are you sure this is what you want?"
"Yes," she murmured, rubbing her cheek against his.
He still hesitated, twisting a strand of her ebony hair around his hand. "Why did you cry?"
She sighed against his mouth. "Because people always get hurt," she whispered, and kissed him, less urgently than before, but no less deeply, melting against him with a little cry.
He kissed back, teasing her mouth, letting his hands slowly explore the athletic lines of her body. He trailed kisses down her jaw and the curve of her neck, down the deep vee of her neckline. He undid the first button and the second. She caught his hands at the third.
"Bruce, I have to make sure you've thought about this could be if anyone—"
"Awkward be damned," he interrupted, and kissed her again, possessively, making short work of the other buttons while she was distracted.
He groaned as his hands slid across her smooth skin, and he started to tremble. He didn't remember ever wanting to be with a woman this badly, couldn't even recall for sure the last time he'd had sex. Sometime during the dark years when he'd first left his name behind. More than that, he was sure he didn't want to remember, and whatever it had been, it hadn't been like this. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe, didn't want to do either.
He was a man in a desert who had tumbled unexpectedly into a raging river. He was drowning, slipping under for the third time.
He was lost.
Gordon stood on the front steps of the precinct, doing his best to ignore the new cameras that had managed to wangle their way to a good view. O'Hara and Sarah stood just behind him, grim, staunch, and loyal. Ranged along the front was a line of riot police, and other squads were in position father back. Despite protests, he'd insisted on recalling everyone's live ammunition and issuing only rubber bullets. He wasn't about to be pushed into a position where the lobbyists could start accusing him of citizen massacre.
A cacophony of angry shouts was rising from the crowd, but they died away as he lifted the bullhorn.
He didn't refer to the size of the crowd or their anger, trying to act as though he gave press releases to packed streets every week. "The GCPD would like to issue a statement concerning a recent series of murders. Thirteen people, none of whom have been found to have any connection to each other, have been murdered over the last two weeks. All of the victims had their necks broken, and the bodies were left in alleys. Although we cannot offer a specific profile on the killer at this time, we can say that he is probably—"
"Why haven't you increased patrols in our neighborhoods?" a faceless voice shouted from the crowd.
Deciding it was better to acknowledge the question than continue with his planned speech, Gordon explained, "The bodies were found over an area that covers more than twenty miles. This involves hundreds of streets and hundreds of thousands of residences. We simply don't have the manpower to increase patrols across the board. We have instituted some additional roving patrols, but you probably haven't noticed them, since they aren't regular."
His answer seemed to quiet the crowd slightly, and he hoped that maybe they really were going to listen. He took advantage of the lull to jump to another part of his hastily prepared statement. "Look, we really are doing everything we can to catch this guy. But he's very dangerous and very smart. GCPD is undermanned and underfunded. We always have been, and as far as I can tell, we always will be. But that's why, if you know anything at all about these killings, it is very important that you cooperate with our investigation. We can't—"
"Why should we cooperate?" somebody bellowed. "The police don't care about our neighborhoods! The mayor doesn't care about our neighborhoods! Nobody cares but us!"
"That's not true!" Gordon shouted, but nobody heard him. The crowd's tenuous restraint had snapped, and insults poured in from all sides, until the shouting became an indistinguishable roar.
O'Hara grabbed his arm. "Commissioner, we'd better get back inside. This is going to turn ugly."
Gordon resisted. "If I run, they'll think we really do have something to be ashamed of!"
And then everything happened at once.
At the front edge of the crowd, a group of protestors rushed the line of shields, drawing a hail of rubber bullets.
In the distance, the sounds of smashing glass and wailing alarms announced that the back of the crowd was done negotiating.
Another small group charged the precinct steps. Although most of them were repelled by the cops at the bottom, one made it to the top, where Sarah tackled him. "O'Hara, get the Commissioner inside!" she shouted, but the chief was already hand-to-hand with another attacker who had slipped through the barrier.
And then Gordon saw him charging forward, the crowd heaving itself out of his path, and heralding his arrival with a fanfare of screams. He was dressed all in black, except for the butterfly blazoned across his mask to form a white, misshapen face. He was too big to be real, a giant who had escaped straight out of a child's nightmare.
"Fire!" Gordon shouted, but the giant didn't even falter beneath the rain of rubber bullets as he leapt up the steps and knocked Gordon down with one, massive blow. Through a daze of pain, Gordon felt himself seized and lifted, heard a roar of triumph as the giant began to run.
As easily as waves severing beneath the prow of a ship, the crowd parted ahead of them and closed in behind them, cutting off all help and all escape.
There was a phone ringing somewhere.
Selina pulled him to his feet and reached into his jeans pocket, shut off the phone and tossed it onto the couch.
"Who was it?" he murmured, bending down to nuzzle her neck.
"I have no idea." Evading his embrace, she grabbed his hand and led him into her bedroom.
The air was thick with incense, and he half sat, half fell on the edge of the bed. He tried to pull her with him, but she resisted. "Give me just a minute."
Mumbling an incoherent protest, he tugged harder, and she swayed close, strong and supple.
"No rush," she breathed, her scent mingling with the incense until he felt drugged. "We have all night. All the endless night."
She pulled away again, and he let her go, although he was half sick with sheer desire. Selina retreated into the bathroom, and Bruce caught at the headboard and pulled himself upright, aching for a clear breath through the cloying incense.
Fumbling at the thick drapes, he found a balcony door and stepped out into the bitter cold. Spring never came early to Gotham, and in that moment he was grateful as he pulled in a lungful of bracing air. His head cleared, and his hands steadied. He could think again.
It wasn't just sex, he realized, and it wasn't just a weary desire to forget everything in a night of oblivion. It was this woman.
It was her beauty and grace, but also her wit and her strength. It was fighting with her on rooftops and flirting with her in glittering ballrooms (and trying not to get his butt kicked either way). It was seeing beneath her mask and daring to hope she saw through his.
He'd been fooling himself. Against all odds and all reason, he was falling in love.
Bruce suddenly remembered it was fifteen degrees out, and he was standing barefoot and shirtless on an icy balcony, grinning like a fool. It didn't matter. He was ready to go back in.
He set his hand on the doorknob, but paused as his ears caught a distant rumble. Straining to hear over the traffic, he recognized, faint but unmistakable, the angry roar of a crowd. The wind was wrong for the sound to be coming from the stadium, and there was nothing in that part of town that should be inspiring that kind of noise.
No, he thought. It has nothing to do with me. But the roaring grew louder. No.
The noise seemed to follow him inside, to swirl around him with warm air and incense. It's nothing, he thought, even as he slipped silently out of the bedroom and crossed to the kitchen. Nothing I could do anything about.
He switched on the television and saw an aerial view of GCPD's main precinct, the streets around it crammed black with a writhing mob.
A news anchor recited, "One hour ago, over twenty thousand protesters began congregating in the streets around the precinct, demanding to speak to Commissioner James Gordon about a recent spate of murders in the docks area. But minutes ago, when the commissioner appeared in order to make a statement, the previously peaceful protest erupted in riot. The whereabouts of Commissioner Gordon are not presently known. We can only pray for his safety."
The screen switched to a shot of a reporter on the ground, ambulances and fire trucks ranged behind him.
"I'm standing here at an emergency care center. Although the city's riot squads have been dispatched, the sheer size of the crowd makes injuries and even fatalities unavoidable."
A scream cut off his words, and the camera swung across to focus on four paramedics running onto the scene with a cot. The man on it was battered, but his blue police uniform was still recognizable. "It's got him! I saw it, it's got him! You gotta do something, please, somebody do something …."
No, Bruce thought helplessly. Not tonight, oh please, not tonight, he pleaded, even as he glided into the living room, snatched up his shirt and his shoes and his phone, found his coat, unlocked the front door, didn't look toward the bedroom.
He ran.
For an exhilarating moment, Gordon was weightless, his body soaring through the air, and then he slammed against the brick wall of the alley. He only wanted to crumple into a ball on the ground and not move, but his captor dragged him back up, pulled the handcuffs off his belt, and chained him to a protruding pipe. His pockets were emptied next, and the giant tossed the keys on the ground, tantalizingly in sight but well out of reach. The masked man opened the cell phone, grunted in satisfaction as the light flicked on, and set it next to the keys.
A part of Gordon still wouldn't believe it was happening, that the thing in front of him was real. The disbelief kept him strangely calm and helped him focus through the pain. "What do you want with me?"
"I don't want you. I'll kill you, but not yet." Gordon struggled to understand the accented words through the ringing in his ears.
"I suppose you have to make me pay," he grunted, doing his best to sound dazed, even though his head was beginning to clear. "It's too easy to just kill me."
"Don't worry, Commissioner. I have no interest in your suffering. You death will be fast. Does that comfort you?" It laughed. "But despair is a powerful weapon, one I don't intend to hand over. I don't underestimate my enemies, and it's better to fight a man who has something to lose."
So they were waiting for the Bat. Other possibilities didn't even cross Gordon's mind. "What if he doesn't come?"
"For you, it makes no difference."
Maybe not, Gordon thought, his mind working at full capacity now. He tried to consider his options. He had no gun, and no convenient weapons were within reach. Even if his legs had been working right (which they weren't), he was handcuffed to the wall with little chance of breaking loose.
He really hoped the Bat was going to show up.
-break-
Bruce ignored the missed calls message on his phone and dialed Alfred's cell. The butler picked up midway through the first ring, worry and relief evident in his voice: "Master Wayne."
"I need you to track Gordon's cell phone."
"I am. It's been stationary in an alley off Fifty-second and Westheimer for about two minutes. It's inside the riot zone."
"I know the one," Bruce said, trying not to think about the dark possibilities of a stationary signal. "Can you get any kind of a camera view?"
"No."
"Somewhere close I can ditch the bike?"
"A parking garage two blocks west, just before the police cordon. I'm feeding a loop through the security cameras now."
Bruce wondered how long Alfred had been waiting for him to check in, and then he shoved the thought aside, along with everything else he couldn't afford to think about. All that mattered was finding Gordon.
He swerved the bike around the security arm in the garage and parked on the second level. Jamming the helmet beneath the wheel, he snatched off the ski hat and tore a couple of eye holes with the tip of a key. The hat only came down as far as his upper lip, but it was the best he could do. Climbing over the open side of the garage, he dropped into the street and began making his way through the riot zone.
Slipping past the nervous and distracted police line was easy. But half a block in, he stumbled into a fierce battle between two cops and a dozen rioters. One punch drunk protester, obviously not caring who he hit, lunged at Bruce, who simply dodged, much more worried about the sudden hiss of released tear gas. He ducked into an alley and found a fire escape just in time to climb above the crippling fumes.
He stuck to the roofs as much as he could after that, a swift shadow passing over the screaming, seething mass of the riot.
"So what's your beef with Batman?" Gordon asked, when he decided he'd spent enough time acting like a good little hostage. "Is it just because he's there? Or did he take something away from you?" When the giant remained silent, he shouted, "Come on, man! You're tearing my city apart, and I have the right to know why!"
The giant grinned, the flash of white teeth blending with the white of his mask. "Answers don't matter for you anymore."
"They matter to me!"
The giant leaned down until the mask leered only inches away from Gordon's face. "I want his inheritance."
"What?" Gordon demanded, but the giant was straightening, turning, as the dark form of a man fell from the roof and slammed into him.
Enormous as the giant was, Bruce expected to feel him lose balance; at least stumble as they impacted. But Gordon's captor didn't even flinch—it was like trying to attack a wall. Before Bruce could administer a choke hold, he was seized and flung across the alley. Instinctively, he curled protectively, but even so, sharp pain shot through his ribs as he hit the brick wall. Rebounding, he grabbed for the fire escape and shot upward, ignoring his lack of air. There was no time to recover. Once had been enough to tell him that if they closed again, the fight would be over.
The fire escape shuddered as his heavier adversary climbed in pursuit. Bruce scrambled to the roof, ripped free a TV antenna, and threw it down. It skidded across the giant's face, ripping the mask, and smearing it with blood, but it didn't slow him.
Bruce retreated further onto the roof, looking for the length of ancient pipe he'd spotted before he'd jumped. The giant gained the roof and charged as Bruce's hand closed over the improvised weapon. He side-stepped the attack and swung, but the pipe slammed ineffectually into the giant's shoulder.
They recovered, circled, lunged.
Each time, Bruce managed to stay just ahead of the crushing grip, landing punishing blows with his make-shift club, but his opponent didn't even seem to feel them, shrugging them off like so many annoying flies. Bruce's aching ribs kept his breath short, and he began to grow lightheaded. He would stumble soon, and then he would be dead.
Slowly, he maneuvered toward the edge of the roof. If I go down, he goes with me.
Gordon stretched his arm out and pulled until he thought the cuff would bite right through his wrist, but he keys remained unreachable. A heavy thump drew his eyes irresistibly upward, but he could only hear the fight, not see it. He was afraid, though, that Batman was getting the worst of it. If it was Batman. It had to be, didn't it?
"Jim!" Sarah ran into the alley, her gun clenched in one hand, a long cut marring her cheek, her hair wisping around her bloodstained face. "Are you all right? Where—"
Up there!" he interrupted, pointing to the roof. "Get the …" He broke off as two figures lunged into view on the roof's edge. The smaller one—too small, too frail to possibly be the Bat—swung his pipe, but the giant wrenched it away and tossed it aside, as his other hand reach for Batman … not the Bat …
"Sarah, shoot!"
She jerked her gun up and fired three times. The giant staggered and fell over the edge. One massive hand caught his opponent's shoulder, and then the Bat (not the Bat) was falling too.
"No!" Gordon shouted.
The giant's body thudded against the ground. Gordon stared at it, horrified, waiting for the second, smaller victim to land, but there was nothing. Nothing except a small piece of black cloth that dropped softly onto the giant's chest.
Gordon looked up and saw the other man hanging off the edge of the roof, his hair dark and his face pale and indistinct in the moonlight. No one he could ever recognize again.
Slowly, the man pulled himself back up over the edge. He disappeared.
Sarah grabbed his arm. "Was that—"
"No," Gordon muttered. "It wasn't him. Is he dead?" He nodded toward his erstwhile kidnapper.
Gun pointed, Sarah stepped over and nudged the big man with her foot, then reached down to feel for a pulse. "Still alive. I think I just hit him in the shoulder."
"You found some live ammo?"
She smiled weakly. "You're not going to put me on report for disobeying orders, are you? Jim, we've got to get out of here."
"We can't just leave him here! Call for backup and paramedics."
"There is no backup."
"Oh." For a moment, he'd forgotten that twenty thousand people were running amok.
Sarah grabbed the keys and unlocked his cuffs. "Come on," she ordered, handing him his phone and keys.
"Just a second." He knelt by the body and pulled off the tattered mask so that he could snap a picture, then stood, casually stuffing the phone and a black ski hat into his jacket pocket. "Let's go." He turned to lead the way out of the alley, but stumbled.
Sarah grabbed his arm and hoisted it over her shoulders. "Lean on me."
Clinging to the shadows, they made their way out of the riot zone, neither one aware of the man who followed them, watching, until they were safe.
Selina leaned her forehead against the cold glass of her living room window. She felt numb. In the kitchen, the television chattered, still turned on, just as she had found it.
"We've just received word that Commissioner Gordon is safe. He is in an undisclosed location, being treated for minor injuries."
Someone knocked on her door.
Animated by hope, she flew down the short hall and flung open the door. For one moment, she stared at the bloody and disheveled man before her, and then she grasped his arm and yanked him inside.
"Bane," she hissed, loathing carved into her expression. "I told you never to come here."
He half collapsed against the wall and stared at her, his pupils contracted into pinpricks—the sign that the steroid source of his supernatural strength was fading from his system. "It hardly matters now, don't you think?"
"Because you failed? Whipped like the cur you are. From the beginning, I knew you were a mistake."
"Such words from a woman whose failure was even bigger than my own. You didn't get what you were after, did you?" His eyes raked mercilessly over the brief black negligee she still wore. "No, I don't think you did."
Her fists clenched in rage, but there was nothing she could say.
He pushed himself away from the wall and grabbed her wrists, too strong for her to fight, despite his waning power.
"Do not touch me," she snarled, refusing to give him the satisfaction of watching her struggle.
To her surprise, he obeyed, stepping back and holding up his hands with an innocent air. "Of course. If that's what you really want."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"We're both in very deep trouble. But we might be able to come to an arrangement that would help us both."
Bruce shivered with cold as he guided the bike up the last few feet of the Manor drive. Abandoning the motorcycle at the foot of the stairs, he focused on ascending without limping, using the pain to avoid thinking about anything—not about losing his mask, not about Gordon or the riot, and not about Selina. Especially not about Selina.
Shutting the front door, he leaned against it, trying to draw a deep breath against the pain in his ribs and wondering where Alfred was. He had expected the butler to meet him at the door, especially since his cell phone had been smashed in the fight and he hadn't been able to call.
Bruce trudged along the hallway, mentally counting all the places that hurt. As he dragged his feet past the library, he heard Alfred's voice and sighed in relief. The butler was talking on the phone, his back to the door. Bruce leaned against the doorframe and waited for the call to end.
"Of course, we'll do everything we can," Alfred was saying. "No, no need to thank me, we're very concerned and happy to help … Not at all … Call if you hear anything further, don't worry about the time … Goodnight."
Alfred hung up the phone and slowly turned. Bruce waited for the inevitable look of disapproval, the acerbic commentary that usually veiled the butler's concern. But Alfred only reached down and grabbed the edge of the table to steady himself.
Something was very wrong. Alfred looked older than Bruce had ever seen him, his face an unhealthy gray, and his shoulders finally stooped like the old man he was.
Bruce spoke first. "What's happened?"
It took Alfred another moment to find his voice. "That was Mrs. Peaceable on the phone. There was a paramilitary attack on Dr. Marquez's home. Several people were killed. Dr. Marquez and Dr. Peaceable have disappeared."
The world spun into terror. Bruce clung to the doorframe, trying to keep from being pulled under. "Dick?"
Alfred shook his head. "I don't know."
End of Part 1
A/N Don't worry, Part 2 will only be about half as long as Part 1. And there is no Part 3. The end is almost in sight!
By the way, I wouldn't take it amiss if SOMEONE were to leave me a birthday review. Or twenty.
(Ok, FINE! Technically my birthday was yesterday, and I totally meant to post, but it was my birthday, and I had to do stuff, plus I ended up talking to my parents on the phone for two hours, which was great because I like my parents, but it cut into my writing time, and so I didn't finish the chapter until today. BUT IT STILL COUNTS!)