Creatures Are Stirring

Where was that—ah, here he was. Staggering already? Now she was beginning to doubt the logic of sending Nick into a bunch of bars to smoke out any and all leads.

From the darkness of an alley, Catwoman's arm snaked out and caught the younger cousin by the back of his coat and dragged him in. Yanking, her cousin stumbling on his unsteady legs, the thief turned crime lord tossed him where he ended up running into several trashcans and finally landing on his ass among the garbage.

Through intoxicated eyes, Nick looked up at her, and instead of getting angry, he giggled and gave a wave. "You're back! I wassh looking for you!"

Groaning, Catwoman rolled her eyes. "How much did you drink? Exactly?"

Shrugging his shoulders and succeeding with one, Nick answered, "Not enough."

Now she was rubbing her temples. "I really don't want to wait until you're sober."

"I'm not going away. Shpeak! I'm listenin'."

Glaring, "I really hope you were right about that Malone guy. Otherwise, I wasted my time."

Drunk off his ass he may be, it was surprising that Nick could still use his phone. All it took was a call right as Malone had been leaving the bar. She had taken it from there, stalked him from above, and when he had thought he was safe, well, much like Isis with her latest toy, she pounced on him.

Malone had to be new to Gotham. It was as if it was his first time being hung upside down from a building. He had some moves though, would have thought he would have screamed and flailed about before one of those vigilantes caught him. Now that she was thinking about it…never mind.

"Guy was askin' a lot of queshtions. Too many. He wash lookin' for more than a job. Kinda like he wash fishin'." Oh, Nick was doing some babbling, and she had long ago mastered the language of the drunk. The slurring was annoying no matter how many times she heard it.

"Fishing?" she repeated.

"Yeah. Like he didn't know the lay of the land." Another careless wave of the hand followed.

Which could mean that Malone was a red herring. A waste of time. Still…she couldn't get his face out of her head. He was surprised…but he wasn't scared. Not something you would expect when hanging upside down.

Wanting to put that matter to rest for the time behind, Catwoman held out a hand. "Your phone. Hand it over."

Despite being drunk, Nick wasn't argumentative, though it took longer than necessary to pull the device out. She had to snatch it from his hand before he dropped it, though. The booze was starting to get into his coordination.

It was a lucky guess to get past the too easy code to unlock the phone—Nick was the type to use the same password for multiple accounts and log ins, and this was one of the first pieces of information she had sought out when beginning this endeavor. Go to contacts, scroll through…one too many phone numbers, most of which she suspected were not used in years, and…ah, Chris' number. Count on a mobster to keep their lawyer on speed dial.

Perhaps it was because she was using Nick's phone that Chris picked up quickly. The "What do you need this time?" hinted that calling up the ol' block of granite on the line was a normal occurrence.

"Something that isn't spinning wheels," the cat burglar retorted. "I hope things have been more fruitful on your end."

She heard the sigh on the other end, but wasn't going to comment on it. "Your offer was received. Antonia has ensured the problem is no more."

Good enough for her. "Then we have our day jobs to get in line. What's on the agenda?"

Silence on the other end, but Chris was diligently checking the schedule for tomor—later today. "Bruce Wayne will be showing up to the construction site. We'll need to be on our best behavior."

Right, one of their wallets wanted to make sure those goons hadn't caused too much damage. At least Antonia had taken care of it so any assurances that it wouldn't happen again would be one hundred percent true. Still, she had met many skittish people before, but rich people were the most skittish. Fine, a song and dance, give him the public tour, and then get him to hand over some more fat cash.

"Then I will be calling it an early night. Don't worry about Nick, I'll drag him back with me. We'll meet up early to go over just what Wayne gets to see. Let's not show him everything if you know what I mean."

"I'm a lawyer, do not forget. I know a thing or two about not showing everything."

At least they were in somewhat agreement with dealing with their flaky investor here. What were the odds Wayne would be looking for any way he could to cut and run? Well, she wasn't about to let his deep pockets get out of it that quickly. Best case scenario, it would just be him and whatever entourage he brought with him. Worst case…Lucius Fox would be with him.

She was understanding not to underestimate Wayne, but the meetings with Fox had made her a bit paranoid. The man was way too smart, way too knowledgeable, and he would most certainly catch on to any discrepancies. This performance would be for Fox as well as Wayne.

"Then make sure the performance can fool a guy like Lucius Fox. If Wayne is smart, he'll bring him. We're too close to mess it up now. Now go and get some sleep, Chris. It's our A game or nothing."

Not waiting for a reply, she ended the call then looked down at her cousin. He was now reclining against the trash cans and looking as dopey as ever. To think they were related.

"Look alive, Champ. We're heading back to base, and you don't want me dragging you," she warned. Knowing Nick, though, dragging might not be out of the question.

Last night had been awful. Completely, and utterly awful.

They should have never gone to Arkham. Stephanie had felt that in her guts, but chose to ignore it as they had been so certain the Riddler was behind the latest, high-profile theft. All they had left with was a lecture, and Harper having her identity exposed.

It was still unknown if the Riddler would go any further with his knowledge. He claimed he wouldn't, but could he truly be believed? Stephanie wanted to believe, but something in her head told her not to. They couldn't trust that man as far as they could throw him.

Harper had been in a daze, so much so it was amazing they even got her home. Cullen had taken over then and was currently watching over his sister. Seeing as he was affected by all of this, he had been told what had happened. To see Cullen's face pale…

They really, really needed to have a contingency plan in place. It was only a matter of time, when, not if, the Riddler told the world. They would need to scoop up the Row siblings and get them into a safehouse, and then figure out what they could do after that.

This was bad. It was a scenario that had each and every vigilante fearful every second they donned their costumes. Hell, it had happened to Red Robin, which caused him to head out west. Would they have to do that too one day?

She could only imagine her own family having to uproot like that. Her dad would have to give up his show, though she was certain he could find something else. Her mom would have to give up her social circle, being a stay-at-home mom and all. Where would they go? What would they do? It was scary to think about it.

As she trudged through her home, the blonde girl wanted nothing more than to go to bed. She doubted she would get much sleep, no doubt her mind would keep her up thinking over and over of the Riddler casually calling Harper out. She couldn't help but put herself into her friend's shoes and hearing her own name being uttered.

Never, never should have gone to Arkham.

Unfortunately, sleep would have to wait.

As she headed for her room, she happened to pass by her dad's office. The door was open, which was unusual, especially at this time of night. There was also a light on, a dim glow coming through the open door. Glancing through it, Stephanie saw her father sitting at his desk, his computer monitor on. From this distance, she couldn't see what was on his computer, at least not initially. Her dad was typing on the keyboard, doing who knows what.

Well, she hadn't expected him to be up at this hour. It was also not a good thing if he noticed her, especially as she was still in her clothes. She looked as if she had been out all night, which was not a good thing. She needed to get to—

"What are you doing up?"

Quickly, Stephanie hid herself behind the wall next to the door, only sticking her head into the doorway. "Oh, hey dad," she greeted uneasily. "I…I couldn't sleep."

Her dad had turned around to sit in his chair sideways, so that he could look towards her. He had an eyebrow raised, as if he didn't believe her. "It's a school night, Stephanie. You should really be in bed and not roaming the house."

"I know. It's just…I have this school project and I'm having to carry my group—again." She couldn't help but roll her eyes. It was more out of irritation than anything.

Thankfully, her dad understood. "Did you get in a group with your friends again?"

Could she call Harper and Cassandra friends? She'd like to think so. "Yeah," she said. "They said they would do better this time and I believed them. Stupid me, right?"

"Uh huh," her dad agreed.

Ugh, thanks, Dad.

"I would have thought you learned your lesson the last time," he continued. "Better make certain that it sticks this time. Now go to bed."

"Yes, Dad."

She began to leave, only for the middle-aged man to call out again. "Just a second, Stephanie." Pausing, the blonde girl kept peeking through the open door.

From her view, she could see her dad's computer. On it, she saw the words: Hans was fashionable late/interrupted/crashed the party/show (?) this night to get/make. Dad seemed to know exactly what she was looking at, yet kept quiet all the same.

Stephanie blinked her eyes. "Huh?"

A smirk appeared on her dad's unshaven face. "Stumped, huh?"

"Yeah, I am," she quickly admitted. "I'm going to bed. Love ya, Dad."

Stephanie quickly left, hurrying towards her room. The longer she stood there, the more likely she was to get seriously busted. That and her dad would eventually want her to come in and do some of his show's work. It was really late for that and she really wasn't in the mood. Besides, she had that group project to worry about.

Bruce had to admit, construction was going faster than he thought.

Much of the outer framework had been erected. There were small sections that were entirely closed off, in which tarps were used to block out the elements. Scaffolding formed an exoskeleton along the perimeter, indicating there was still work to be done on the outside. Portable buildings were positioned near the entrance, no doubt for office work.

His was perhaps the nicest car here and he had gone for one of the least expensive ones he owned. There was no telling if something would fall from the construction site and hit it, so he rather break something he wouldn't mind seeing damaged.

"They've certainly made a lot of progress," Lucius Fox observed as he closed the passenger door. From a second car, a few men in suits climbed out. Though they were dressed that way, they were actually security guards from Wayne Enterprises, disguised as businessmen. Their presence was more for Lucius than anyone.

"A little too fast, don't you think?" Bruce suggested. All one had to do was look at the various construction projects around Gotham to know that building a new road took years, much less a building. There were safety issues to be certain, along with other regulatory practices that had to be observed, but when you read stories of China building entire hospitals in the matter of a week in expectation of a global pandemic and you had to wonder what the real reasons were for going at such a slow pace.

A door to the closest portable swung open then, drawing the two men's attention. Appearing was Selina Kyle, dressed in a pantsuit that hugged her curves. Her blonde hair was tied into a bun on top of her head, the beautiful woman walking right towards them. Behind her, a mammoth of a human being followed her, her lawyer if memory served right.

"Welcome to your investment, gentlemen!" Selina declared as she reached the two, holding a hand out to the bludgeoning building. "It's not complete as you can see, but we've made quite a bit of progress."

"I'll say," Lucius agreed. "I didn't know a power plant could be built so quickly."

"Well, with the proper motivation, anything is possible," the blonde woman replied. "So, I understand you wanted a tour."

"We do," Bruce said. "Now more than ever. I really want to see how far you've progressed. If the inside is anything like the outside, you can consider us impressed."

A smirk appeared on Selina's face before she gestured with a hand to follow her. She walked towards the structure, specifically to what was no doubt an entrance. Bruce, Lucius, and their security entourage followed, along with Selina's own, led by her lawyer.

Entering the building, the inside showed the beginning of walls being built. There were naturally the load bearing walls already constructed, but it was clear this first area would be a lobby of sorts. Selina just strolled right through it, going through another doorway that had a tarp being used as a make-shift curtain. She just pushed through, forcing each man behind her to raise an arm and catch it before it swung into their faces.

Their feet trampled over a cement floor, the sounds of each footstep echoing throughout the progressing maze of walls and rooms. "As you can see, we're ahead of schedule," Selina said as she walked. She was moving at a rather fast pace, almost as if she wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

That just wouldn't do.

"What exactly is the purpose of this room?" Bruce asked as he purposefully slowed his pace, making a show of looking around.

Selina turned her head to look over her shoulder, a frown on her face. "I'm not exactly sure, but it can't be what you want to see."

He raised an eyebrow. "It can't?"

"I think what Bruce is getting at is why build a room without a purpose," Lucius helpfully added.

"I figured you wanted to see the room where all of the magic will take place: the power station," the blonde woman answered.

"Oh, we certainly want to see that," Lucius acknowledged, "but there is no rush. We have all day to look around."

Selina's face grimaced before she rolled her eyes, looking away. "Chris, what exactly is this room for?"

"It'll eventually be a series of offices," the lawyer answered. "Clearly their construction has yet to begin."

A group of construction workers entered the room, joining them for a brief moment. The neon of their safety vests made them standout, along with hardhats. The men just glanced at them but continued on as they headed for another wide open doorway. Next to the doorway was a sign that warned of construction and demanded safety gear was worn past that point.

"Shouldn't we be wearing any safety equipment?" Lucius asked as he eyed the men.

"Of course," Chris said as he held a hand out towards the doorway. Next to the doorway was a series of shelves filled with unused hardhats, safety goggles hanging from pegs on the wall. The group walked up to the safety equipment and began putting it on. Then as one, they entered the next room.

This one was filled with more activity than the previous room. There was scaffolding lining the walls, the spraying of sparks as various workers used blow torches to cut metal. Buzz saws were cutting through wood, hammers pounding nails, and large cinder blocks being placed on top of the other, mortar used to seal them together to make a wall.

"And this is the…!" Selina began to introduce, but her voice was washed over by the sounds of construction. Bruce wasn't certain what she said, but he kept himself quiet, keeping his pace slow as he edged towards the back of the group.

"It's…impressive!" he caught Lucius responding, a word getting drowned out right in the middle. His business partner would be doing most of the talking now, purposefully drawing the attention of Selina's people to him.

Which allowed Bruce to peel off and head towards yet another entrance. Passing through it, he glanced around to make certain he wasn't being followed, or surrounded by other workers. There were workers here, but they weren't paying him much mind.

A voice shouted, causing the dark-haired man to look up. There was a metal catwalk here, one where a man in a hardhat and a dress shirt shouted. He was addressing one of the workers, so Bruce took that moment to head in the direction the supervisor wasn't looking.

Passing through a couple more rooms, each with their own level of activity due to the construction, Bruce eventually found an area that was filled with building supplies. He found pallets of cinder blocks and cement blocks, long wooden boards piled onto each other with tarps covering them. There were two workers standing next to one of the wooden boards, using it like a makeshift table. They were jabbing their fingers at something there, then pointing to a section of the room. Bruce watched this until the two men walked off.

He took the chance to approach their vacated spot. Resting on top of the wooden boards was a large sheet of paper. From a first glance, there were designs on them, ones Bruce recognized as a blueprint. He stood in front of them, staring at it intently.

This was all so the contacts he wore could scan it. There was nothing as conspicuous as a camera and no doubt Selina wouldn't want someone going around taking pictures of everything. So the researchers at Wayne Enterprises had developed a set of contacts with recording features. It was an updated design, ones Bruce had been considering incorporating into his Batman armor, but the lenses in his cowl were still serviceable and functionable. The R&D team was currently trying to determine a mundane use for them, but such a product could only really be useful in security. Imagine every police officer wearing one, or the government using it for espionage.

Which was what Bruce was currently using them for.

Reaching out with one hand, he ran his thumb along the edge of the blueprint and discovered there was more than one page. Moving the top-most page, he found more designs on another page. Again, he stared intently at it before he flipped that one over as well. He went through seven different pages, laying them all back on top of each other once he was finished. Glancing around, he made certain he wasn't seen before he began to make his way back to the previous room. He had been gone for awhile, so eventually his absence would be noticed. Lucius would only be able to keep the attention on himself for so long.

There was something about sitting in the Usurper's chair in the heart of her base. Maybe it was because he was using what should rightfully be his and she was not here to stop him. Maybe it was because he had managed to figure out the password to the computer.

Maybe because he finally felt in charge.

Using the Usurper's equipment, he had proceeded to continue his investigation on his own. For the first time, he was grateful that Mother had forced him into learning computers. How to use them, how to research with them—the twenty page essays still haunted his nightmares that no one would be talking about—programming and coding, and naturally how to hack one.

His skills had been rusty—it took the second attempt on the password to get through.

Now, to begin, he needed as much information about St. Aidan's and Colin Wilkes. Knowing the first would give him insight into the second, so to the boring St. Aidan's he investigated first.

It was an orphanage, old, received grants from the government and donations whenever it could in order to keep operating, and Catholic. Just as he had suspected after observing the nun. It was named after Aidan of Lindisfarne, a man who converted Pagans in what is now England, and none of this was relevant to a man assaulting pathetic criminals in Gotham. What a waste of time.

Still, maybe this man worked there? A roster of the individuals who not only worked, but lived, there eliminated that. All women, all nuns. There was a handyman and a janitor. Getting images of those two proved a little harder, but the Usurper's computer was up to the task. No, neither had the build, and the janitor was old, too old.

To Colin Wilkes, then. Why was the name Colin familiar? Since he was staying at St. Aidan's, the boy had to be an orphan himself. Doing a search on him would take time and more than likely bring up nothing. This would not be like researching Father's enemies or various public figures.

If the Usurper's computer could not find him the information he needed, then…what? What would Father do? Mother? The answer would be predictable, find out more information. Yes, such helpful advice. How do you find out about information that's not readily available from an internet search?

Suddenly, the search on Colin Wilkes ended, all results were on display for him to peruse. Frowning, he noted that some of the first results…were already in the network? There was actually something in Father's database about this orphan?

A pleasant surprise. It meant there was more than nothing to look into. Eagerly he opened the files to devour their contents.

From there, the memories came back. Colin, the name of the boy that the vigilante Huntress had been so concerned about months ago. Abducted by Dr. Byron Merideth, a.k.a. The Merrymaker, and injected with a dose of the super steroid Venom. Now he was remembering, lured to the Bald Hill caves, sneaking in from another cave entrance, stalking through the dark while his Father's latest foe taunted him from the shadows. A fight had ensued, resulting in the capture of Merideth and his father cradling the red-headed orphan in his arms.

There had been anger after that, and he had been intending to direct it at Merideth, except Huntress got in his way with the promise that his father would do so much worse to the bastard. After that, he was left under Huntress' supervision by Father's orders where he held vigil over the orphan, withdrawing from the Venom dose.

The second file was a surprise, and it seemed his father had been keeping tabs on Colin. It seemed odd to him that Father would do such a thing…oh. These were various reports, toxicology, MRI scans, bloodwork, physician's notes, charts with various measurements of the orphan's physical condition. There were other documents about the effects of Venom, what it did to the physical body, and then there were Father's own documentation comparing those effects with the child's.

There was the obvious increase in strength and muscle mass, hostility, enhanced endurance, the obvious stuff. With memories coming back, he was remembering just how tough those muscles had become. It made it difficult for his strikes to make any impact.

Why was he interested in what effects the Venom had done? Did his father have an interest in the substance? As he read on, the true heir wondered what his father's intention with this information was. It was not until he found the comparison that his father had completed, one comparing the effects of Venom on a child to an adult.

The only known adult that took it.

Bane was not a name he had been anticipating. Then he was tempted to hit himself because it was so obvious. An adult was the only known user, and according to what Father had learned, the steroid was not only highly addictive, it altered other parts of the body. The brain was what Father was most interested in.

Apparently, Venom had fused the two hemispheres of Bane's brain together, the corpus callosum trapped permanently. Damian was having to backtrack now to the scans on the orphan's brain. The same fusing had occurred. What could that mean.?

Curiosity was alive within him, which helped to further his investigation. Psychological evaluations on the orphan had a stark difference between them; prior to the injection, the orphan had multiple psychological disorders from autism to various phobias. Evaluations after showed a stark decrease in the symptoms. Was Venom responsible for that?

More importantly, was there a connection between this Colin Wilkes and the assaulter?

As informative as this had been, the connection had not yet been established. All he had was a location where his target had disappeared to and the trail of nun that led back to this prior acquaintance. This trail had led there. Did this orphan possibly have any information for Damian to collect?

How would he get it from him?

Thinking about it, his first question was how Father would approach it. Recalling the previous night, the idea came to him. Undercover! Get close to this possible lead, confront or…somehow pry out the information he desired, and get closer to solving this mystery. Father was willing to step in the criminal underworld to uncover his own lead into the attackers that had massacred those mobsters, and so he would follow in the man's footsteps.

Which would mean a disguise was needed. Something that let him blend in with the riffraff and other undesirables that this orphan surely kept company with. But where would he find such a disguise? What would even work? What could he possibly wear that would not raise any suspicions?

What would that reprobate Bluebird wear?