The Commissioner combed his fingers through his whitened hair, still trying to make sense of the numbers.

"We lost about a fifth of our manpower," Sarah told him, reading from one of the hastily drawn-up reports. No one in the precinct had gotten a wink of sleep since the attack, not that anyone was able to at the moment. "The number of the wounded are close to the triple digits. We have fifteen confirmed deaths with the expectation that that number will increase over the next few days, thirty are in critical condition, the rest are receiving medical attention for various bullet wounds, or from blunt force trauma as a result of the detonations."

It need not be said that some of those injured were higher ups. Bullock happened to be one of them, and it was said that he was over at Gotham General right now. How long he would be out was questionable as from what he had seen, his injuries were also of the blunt force trauma variety.

Naturally, nowadays, when you thought of Bullock, Montoya was also a name that soon followed. The Latina detective had been in the holding area when it had been attacked. Gordon didn't know the extent of her injuries, only that she was still alive and also receiving medical treatment.

Two of the people he could depend on were out of duty right now, which made the GCPD feel all the more emptier for it.

"What about the rest of the damages?" he asked after a moment, looking up at his wife. Sarah was disheveled, like most of the officers still in the building, yet was hard at work as the rest of them.

"The scanners in the front were damaged, the bullpen needs to be clean up—it did anyway, but now we have a good excuse to clear out the cobwebs in the corners—"

"Tell it to me straight: Where's the worst of it?"

A pause. "Our jail has been compromised. For the most part, the attackers singled out the new guys, specifically our Spanish-speaking crowd—the ones that we've identified as working with Bane."

Which gave a lot of credence to the claims that the masked man had been here himself. The security footage also backed that up, but it was just another piece to a puzzle that didn't take long to put together.

Bane had come here for his captured men and, for all intents and purposes, he had succeeded. How many he had lost in the process were more than made up by the number he had retrieved.

It's like what his first wife always said: everything comes in threes.

Leaning forward, the Commissioner took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. All of this had to happen after he had ripped the Mayor a new one. The only defense he had was the same one he had used to protect Zorbatos. This could not have come at a worse time and he was expecting a call from Hady at any moment. This was a golden opportunity for a politician to right any and all perceived wrongs.

"We're going to need to shore up our numbers. If we're to be at full force, I'm going to have to suspend all breaks, extend working hours...things the men, and their union, are not going to like," he told Sarah, lowering his hand and replacing his glasses so that he could look her dead in the eye.

However, before Sarah could respond to him, someone else did. "Excuse my language, but fuck the union, Commissioner."

Frowning, Gordon looked over Sarah's shoulder and found a man standing in the doorway. Based on his attire, it was one of the SWAT, his helmet removed to reveal a grizzled-looking man with a handlebar mustache. Something about that mustache was familiar to the Commissioner, and it took him a second to recognize that he had seen it recently.

Last night in fact. This was the SWAT officer who had found him during the shootout.

"We met last night," Gordon stated.

The mustached man nodded. "Sergeant William Petit. Everyone calls me Bill," the man introduced himself.

Petit. Ah yes, he knew that name. This was the captain of the SWAT team, Branden's successor. From what he had heard, Petit here had a reputation for being one of the first to jump into any dangerous situation, always resolving it one way or another. Some would call it reckless, but those under his command loved him for it. It was often said that Petit never asked anyone to do something he himself wasn't willing to do. Since he was willing to do everything, he asked a lot of his men.

"What can I do for you, Sergeant?" Gordon asked.

"Not for me, but what you can do for the guys here. The ones still remaining," Petit answered.

Gordon waved the man in, which Petit did, but refused to take a seat, instead standing at attention with his hands behind his back. "Shoot."

"I'll be blunt, Sir, we need to be kicking some ass," Petit said. "We can't let this shit happen and not take any action. We need to give a swift reply that tells everyone that no one fucks with law enforcement and gets away with it. If we show any signs of weakness now, it would be like we were asking for everybody to come at us. The city is going to shit and it needs for us to show that we can handle it."

Blunt indeed. "I thank you for your honesty," Gordon said.

"There is one other thing," Petit added. "Probably more important than showing that whoever this Bane guy thinks he is, we don't need some vigilante to fight our battles for us. We need to show, more than anything, that we're tough enough on our own."

Gordon was successful in hiding a frown. It was the old anti-Batman argument, just with a new phrasing to it. However, the constant images of a badly wounded Batman were like a signal for everyone who had held their tongue since Sgt. Cort fell in the line of duty to start speaking up.

"I need to remind you that last night, it wasn't any of the vigilantes who ran those sons of bitches off. It was us. Fellow cops. We held our ground and we pushed back," Petit pointed out.

Damn if he wasn't right, though. Gordon was more than aware of that fact; there were other vigilantes in the city taking the law into their hands and hoping to live up to the example that Batman put forward to varying degrees of success. And none of them had been here last night; he had been here for it after all. Not a single peep out of them.

Evidence that the vigilante side of this conflict was not one to be counted on.

If you spend too long relying on something, and then it was suddenly taken from you, it was hard to function like you had without it. Except, Gordon had similar experiences like this in the past. He knew what mistakes he had made last time and this time he couldn't afford to repeat them.

To have come so far only to fall back...not an option. However, while Petit made good points, they needed to be...applied carefully. Unlike some people, the police did have limitations, ones enshrined in law. They would need to do their jobs while at the same time not throw away their values and integrity in the process.

"Sergeant, I need for you to give me some numbers. Specifically, how many people are under your command, if they are reserves, and if so, they need to be called in. I'm also going to need the inventory of your armory and anything else you can think of."

Petit stood straighter. "I'll have them on your desk by noon, Commissioner."

Gordon nodded and waited for Petit to leave before turning to Sarah and observing the look on her face.

"What's going through your head, Jim?" the Lieutenant asked.

"We can't lose Gotham, not again," he stated. "Bane hit us when we least expected it; we can only assume that he's going to come for what's left of us when he feels ready. I'm not going to give him that chance. We're not going to wait three years before trying to turn this all around; we start now and stop it in its tracks."

"Be careful. I don't like the sound of this," Sarah said warningly. "There's a lot of ways this can go from bad to worse."

"I know," he sighed, shoulders slumping. "Christ Almighty, I know. But what can I do? What am I supposed to do? My job is to protect this city and I've found myself failing one too many times. I know this is a gamble, but my hands are tied and doing nothing is not an option. If you have any ideas, do let me know about them. In any case, knowing what resources we have is just as important as committing ourselves to any course of action." Squaring his shoulders, he hardened his face and stated, "We have a job to do, so let's see to it, Lieutenant."

Business was dead. It seemed like that was happening more and more lately. Usually there were rushes and then long periods of a casual shopper or two.

It was going on two weeks without a customer.

Okay, that wasn't counting the online shoppers, which—thank God—were keeping the flower shop afloat. Foot traffic was nonexistent on the other hand. While worrying, it had the fringe benefit of allowing Dinah to catch up on her rest.

Lord knows she needed that.

It had always been a fear, one that was at the back of her mind laying dormant. No one could continuously go out into the night like they did and not risk having their bodies break down. Even the Batman was human, no matter how much evidence he provided to the contrary. Eventually, he would have to step down, retire, or die. On that day, it would be up to the rest of the vigilante community to pick up his slack, fill the void he left in his wake.

Dinah told herself they would be ready for this. It had been a long time since the Great Gotham Fire, when his disappearance left the city in shock. Back then, only one person had been left on the streets and it was clear the job needed more. The Birds of Prey had formed, taking on the lion's share of protecting the city.

They managed to keep the city stagnant back then, never improving it nor letting it slip into the abyss. Treading water was a good metaphor for it.

Now they were drowning, a two ton weight tied to their legs and dragging them deeper and deeper under the surface. The Birds weren't enough; the Batclan wasn't enough; Huntress wasn't enough.

There had been dark times before this. There had been times where it felt like Gotham was getting lost to the violence and bloodshed that seemed to infest it. Yet, Batman had been there, ever present, ever steady, helping to end each and every crisis and return Gotham closer and closer to normalcy—or at least as normal as Gotham could get.

The bell above the door rang, shaking Dinah out of her reverie. She was staring down at a magazine on the front counter, perched on her usual seat. She was pretty certain she hadn't turned a page in a long while. There was something familiar about the picture of...whatever Hollywood celeb that was. That and the page number, 39, was lingering before her eyes. "How can I help you?" she asked without looking up.

"Hey there, Pretty Bird."

Immediately, the blonde's head whipped up, eyes wide as she stared at the dapper sight of Oliver Queen. There was a gentle smile on his handsome face.

God, was he a sight for sore eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she couldn't help but ask.

Ollie sauntered up to the counter, hands buried in the pockets of his dark green trench coat. "You, mostly," he answered her, coming to stand in front of her. He lost his smile as a stern look appeared on his face. "You need help."

"Everyone needs help," Dinah replied as her shoulders slumped. "I guess it's not a surprise that you know what's going on."

"Anyone with eyes in their heads knows and even then I'm certain blind people know by now." The blond man pulled a hand out of his pocket and rested his forearm on the countertop so that he could lean against it. "Deaf people too have heard about it, if you can believe that."

"I'm certain there's a Helen Keller joke coming."

"You would think so, but I think that's in poor taste."

"So you're what, trying to help out Gotham? What about Star City?"

Ollie gave her a look. "There's nothing going down in Star City like there is here. I'm certain I can spare some time to help you guys out here."

"How much time?" she retorted as she leaned back on her stool, crossing her arms over her chest. "You in for the long haul?"

"As long as I'm needed."

"That could be months—maybe even years."

"I really doubt it'll be that long."

Dinah raised an eyebrow. "You were here for Two-Face, remember? That wasn't an easy, cut-and-dry case. If that Icosidron stuff you were working on with Wayne wasn't taking so long, I know you wouldn't have stayed."

The blond man raised his other hand and pressed it to his chest. "You wound me, Pretty Bird, you wound me. I'd like to think I would've stayed around to help."

"And if you weren't in town for Wayne?"

"Then I probably wouldn't have met you and I find that to be a crime in and of itself."

She couldn't help it; a smile tugged at her lips. "Good answer," she murmured before she raised a hand up, running it through her hair. "Thanks for coming, Ollie. I mean it."

A coy smile appeared on his face. "Anything for you."

That was when Dinah's cell phone went off. The ringer was on, so the obnoxious ringtone ruined the moment, causing the blonde woman to feel slightly irritated. "Just a second," she grumbled as she picked up the phone, frowning slightly at the PRIVATE CALLER on the caller ID. Answering it, she greeted, "Hello?"

"Black Canary, this is Oracle."

Alarms went off in Dinah's head as her back went ramrod straight. How did they get this number? "I think you have a wrong number," she said slowly.

"Relax, I got the number from one of the Birds. They said this would be the quickest way to get a hold of you at your day job," Oracle told her. "Listen, I'm calling everyone. It's time we met up to handle this Bane crisis. Meet everyone at the Bat Bunker in the Bowery at sundown. You know the one."

And then the connection was cut off, causing Dinah to slowly pull the phone away from her ear and stare at it owlishly. Faintly, she was aware of Ollie looking at her with concern. "You alright?" he asked.

"It looks like I have a meeting," she said after awhile before lowering her phone, her eyes returning to his. "Wanna join me?"

The gown was drafty, but Bullock didn't see a need to fix it. He had been given one of the larger sizes, and the damn thing surrounded him like a robe, just with the backside open. Anyone that was searching for a full moon just needed to follow him.

This wing of the hospital was quiet and eerily so. Considering what had happened here, perhaps that was fitting. He wanted to look at it in all of its awfulness.

"Bullock!" a voice shouted, disrupting the discerning calm. The large man didn't bother to turn around. He knew that commanding voice anywhere.

"What do you want, Sarah?" he asked calmly.

Gordon's wife stopped somewhere behind him. Why she was looking for him, he didn't know or care. She should have been at the GCPD fixing the mess that masked gorilla had caused.

Pulling back the remains of the chair, Bullock swung it at Bane, only for the bigger lug to catch it with one hand. With a jerk of his beefy arm, he tore the chair out of his hands, leaving him wide open for the punch that slammed into the Lieutenant's chest.

Pain exploded throughout his chest, his feet lifting right off the floor as he went flying through the air. Bullock couldn't breath, his lungs having been forcefully deflated from the blow. He hit the wall, a sickening snap! reaching his ears as more pain seared into his arm.

It had been one hit—one measly hit—and here he was, a patient in Gotham General. His arm had been broken in three places from hitting the wall; he had been told it was the angle his arm had been at when he had crashed—made sense to him. His ribs were also fractured in multiple places too. The x-ray had shown a near-perfect spider's web spreading out from his sternum, right where Bane had hit him. It would take months before he could breath without feeling like his chest was on fire.

Taking one such breath as he ignored the sling strap digging into the side and back of his neck, Bullock continued staring at the hallway in front of him. "What's wrong, Harvey?" Sarah asked him, concern in her voice. "You don't ever call me by my name."

The dark-haired man took a moment before answering. "Look at all this. Look at it. You know what this is?"

It was Sarah's turn to be quiet. Not letting her have a chance at answering, he continued, "This is where it went down. This is where the Bat took on that giant freak."

The walls in front of him were ripped and broken, evidence of body parts destroying the sheet rock. Spatters of dry blood stained the walls and floor, though there was no telling who's blood it was without a test. The window at the end of the hall was boarded up, police tape criss-crossing it. There had been a major fight here, one that had been fought with everything each fighter had.

And one had won.

"Two men caused all of this," Bullock explained. "Two men just beating the living shit out of each other and one of them was in the precinct yesterday." He finally turned his head, finding Gordon's redhead looking at him. "This is a monster we're facing."

"One we will beat," Sarah said firmly.

"How? He just ripped us a new one. How many have we lost, Sarah? How many did he bust out of the holding cells? Montoya's in the ICU; I'm busted up; I haven't caught up with Sawyer, so I have no idea about her. This isn't some gang war, or some psycho like the Joker. This is…"

He trailed off. What more could he say? He had already said it; Bane was a monster. He wasn't stupid, or crazy. He knew exactly what he was doing and he was going to get what he wanted, plain and simple.

And as much as he hated to admit it, the Bat...Batman had been their best hope at beating him. No way would he have let Bane march into the precinct without making him suffer. The GCPD had tried to make every inch the guy took bloody, but they lost more ground and more men.

"This is going to be difficult, but not impossible," Sarah told him gentle, stepping towards him and placing a comforting hand on his good arm, which caused him to finally look at her. "But we all need to be together on this. Jim and I need you at the top of your game, Harvey."

Bullock grunted as he glanced down to his busted up arm. "I'm not going to be much use on this one."

"Not right away, but you will when you come back. Take some time, get your head straight, and be ready."

Get his head straight, huh? Bullock turned his head back to the mess in front of him. He didn't like Batman, but he knew the guy was trying to do the right thing. He was one hell of a fighter…

He laid there in the street, his body broken and bloodied.

...and his best wasn't good enough.

Maybe Sarah had a point. He sighed. "Alright, alright. You and Gordon better hold on for me, alright? I don't need to come back and half the city is on fire, or something."

It was then he caught sight of something. It was lying on the floor, leaning against a doorway. Staring at it, he had the sense he had seen something like it before—different, but similar.

A moment later and it hit him hard. It was one of the Bat's batarangs, crumpled and twisted, nearly unrecognizable. If that wasn't a sign of how things were, then he didn't know what was.

The Bat-bunker wasn't anything new. Though it still left plenty in awe, especially the new additions, it was still the brightly-lit room as it was during Two-Face and Black Mask's gang war.

It was surprising that Green Arrow was here though.

Nightwing eyed the Emerald Archer, pretty sure the guy should have been in Star City rather than Gotham. Wasn't his last excursion here a one time thing? He had only gotten cursory looks from the Birds of Prey and Huntress, but that was about it. If they were alright with him being here, then maybe having some extra hands wouldn't be a bad thing.

And speaking of. With a glance to his left, he saw Tim sitting right next to him, his armor updated since the last time he had seen him. According to Barbara, the little punk had come running after hearing what was going down. Never mind there were guys on the streets that could ID him, he was adamant about helping. Dick personally wanted to send him home with a reprimand, but he really couldn't tell him to. That was how dire things were here.

"I think we're all here," Black Canary said as she looked around the table, pausing a second to look over Jason before turning her eyes to Nightwing. "What's this about?"

"I'm not going to beat around the bush," the dark-haired young man stated, seeing that he had the entire attention of the room. "We're getting our asses kicked out there. Bane has a stranglehold on Gotham; last night's attack on the GCPD is only proof of this."

He saw a couple nods from the Birds, his own Batclan keeping their mouths shut. "We have to change. What was working before isn't working anymore. We need new tactics, fresh ideas, and a lot of cooperation between everyone here."

"What makes you think we aren't cooperating with each other?" Manhunter asked as she shifted in her chair. There was an edge in her voice that indicated she had taken a little offense to that.

"Traditionally, the Birds and Batclan have operated separately with a few joint operations between them," Tim spoke up. "Admittedly, the Birds carried most of the load."

"I agree with that," Huntress agreed.

"How about we let 'Wing over here finish what he has to say," Green Arrow interjected then. "If we're to avoid beating around the bush, that is."

"It's simple really," Nightwing said, mentally thanking the archer for his timely suggestion. He hadn't thought the Birds were begrudging them in their vigilante work, but perhaps he had read the room wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. "We need to come together, work together, form an united front.

"I propose we form the Network."

There was silence before Huntress snorted. "The Network?" she questioned, a hint of amusement in her tone. That wasn't the reaction he was hoping for. "Where did you come up with that name? A movie?"

"It's like a network of vigilantes working together," Bluebird spoke up, trying to explain. It wasn't really needed, but points for effort.

"I get it, kid," the purple-clad woman told her. "But really, what makes you think something like that is gonna work?"

"Right now, we have little coordination between us all," Nightwing answered her. "And separately, we haven't done a damn thing to slow down Bane. Ever since he took out Batman, we've all been running around trying to fix what he broke, and all we're doing is putting bandaids on it. The Birds need more information to be effective. The Batclan needs more guidance. Hell, we all need more help than we have right now."

"That's not a bad idea," Black Canary admitted as she leaned back in her chair. "Though I don't see how you have better intel than us."

"We have Oracle," the young man replied. "And I know she has access to your comm links and all, but the Batclan is the only group regularly using her. Imagine having her feeding you live intel; picking up new hot spots; even getting movement on Bane's men."

"That is a valid point," Katana said.

There was a second of silence when Green Arrow spoke up. "I know I'm not one of the regulars here, but I'm willing to lend a hand too. Whatever it takes to help."

Hey, that was one vigilante in the bag, though not the one Nightwing had been expecting. Still, it was something.

"I can't see how this'll hurt, you know, other than having a bunch of untrained kids running on the streets," Huntress said then. What a way to put a damper on the mood too.

That caused Jason to shoot up out of his chair, pushing it back so he could stand, pressing his hands down onto the table. "Hey, I know how to fight," he spat back, seething openly. "You want to try me?"

"Cool it," Bluebird hissed at him, reaching a hand out to pull him back into his seat, though he simply swatted her hand away. "These aren't the people to go guns blazing against."

If Huntress was disturbed by the outburst, she didn't show up. Instead she lazily looked the young man up and down before saying, "I don't think I've seen you before. Who are you?"

Oh, this was going to go south fast. They still hadn't come up with a code name for Jason and Spoiler had been teasing him with a Mr. Hood for some reason. Jason scowled at the purple-clad vigilante from beneath his hood, his domino mask doing nothing to hide his distaste at her dismissive tone. "The name's Hood—Red Hood."

Red Hood? Well, it definitely needed work, but it would do...for now. In response, Huntress tilted her head to a side so that she could raise an eyebrow at Nightwing, which left him to shrug his shoulders helplessly.

"Okay, Red Hood, I'm sure you think you know how to fight, but if you'll look around the table, so do the rest of us. Most of us have been fighting mobsters, monsters, and assassins for years now, so that gives us quite a bit of experience. We've lost people, been hurt, and nearly died on multiple times. So please, save us the 'I know how to fight' statement, it doesn't really hold much weight."

"What a way to burst someone's ego," Green Arrow muttered lowly to himself.

"You doubt me? C'mon, we'll take this out back. I'll show you what I can do," Red Hood demanded.

"H," Black Canary said warningly, which caused the dark-haired woman to roll her eyes. "Look, Hood, don't take this the wrong way, but you could use more training. We all could to be honest, especially if we want to take on Bane."

"You think I can't take Bane?"

Canary gave him a deadpanned look. "I know you can't. None of us can. Batman was the best fighter out of this entire group, no question. And Bane snapped him in two. You go against Bane and he'll do the same to you. So cool your heels and sit down. This conversation isn't over yet."

Red Hood stared at the blonde woman for several moments before he slowly lowered himself down to take a seat. He grabbed onto the sides of the chair and pulled on it, scooching it up so he could sit closer to the table.

"Well, now that that's over, I guess we should get right to the heart of this," Huntress said as she straightened herself out in her own seat. "Right here, right now, let's put this to a vote: anyone that wants to join this Network, raise your hand."

Amazingly enough, Huntress was the first to put her hand up, despite her digs at the idea. Nightwing had to resist the urge to do a double-look, instead raising his hand up too. Bluebird and Spoiler were raising their hands a split-second after him.

Lazily, Green Arrow added his, Tim doing the same with him. Red Hood looked at all the raised hands before he added his too.

That just left the Birds. The three of them were looking to each other, none of them speaking a word. It was as if they were having a silent conversation among themselves. Then as one, all three women raised their hands.

"Then we're in agreement," Nightwing stated, a sense of relief filling him. Though this wasn't the way he thought this meeting would go, it at least had the result he had been hoping for.

"So what now, fearless leader?" Huntress then asked, directing her question at him.

Leader? Him? Nightwing had to admit, he hadn't been expecting that. He wasn't leadership material despite his running of the Batclan. He had honestly been hoping Huntress, or even Black Canary would take the reins of this. Seeing that everyone was looking to him expectantly, the young man felt he had made a miscalculation somewhere.

Uhhh...

Before he could respond though, a green light flashed down from the ceiling, a holographic projection forming from the top down until the digital face of Oracle was floating at the center of the table. "I'm glad you asked that," Oracle's voice spoke through speakers around the room. "We have a lot of work to do and little time to do it in. Let's get to work."

To Guest: Knowing Bat-Joker, more than you could possibly imagine