PART 1 - Chapter 24 - The Dark Matters of Faith - Lazarus

'Deshi basara.'

WORD OF WARNING: This author has STILL NOT played the PS5 Spider-Man 2 game nor watched any "let's play", trying to keep the surprises still surprising, and probably that could be the same for many other readers, so, be considerate and avoid spoilers in the reviews, please!

Thank you!

'... cold...'

Fall barely began, and Gotham City had already experienced its first snow flurry. The previous week, temperatures had reached below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the first time in forty years. Reporters have been giving accounts of deaths and worsening health conditions among the homeless population, as well as those who live in the worst equipped housing units in the poorest parts of the City.

'... no...'

Mayor Sebastian Hady's speeches over early emergency season measures being discussed had been both praised by his supporters and panned by his critics. Lincoln March, mayoral candidate, barely out of the hospital from his assassination attempt, had surprised everyone and donated fifty thousand dollars to the Thompson Clinic, a large contribution to be used on the care of the poor and destitute who can't manage to get help in local hospitals or the Martha Wayne Foundation, currently overcrowded and understaffed.

'... can't get away...'

Gotham Bay had frozen over two days before, reaching three inches of ice at the Gotham River's mouth. Though not strong enough to hold the weight of a man on top of it, this layer was still too thick, making boat traffic impossible, and sturdy enough to make it impossible to smash it apart without special tools.

'... can't break… through the glass…'

The black gloved fist tried cracking the ice, one last time, to no avail. The man's strength is almost completely gone. He'd been through a week of malnourishment and drug laced water. Mental torture. Beatings. Dismantling the Talon. Falling into the cavernous currents that led to Gotham River.

'… they won't ever… let me go…' The Dark Knight was exhausted. He touched the ice, clear enough to see the sky and the clumps of snow that sit on the surface, pure white.

White as their masks. White as the walls of the Labyrinth. White as the Owl Statue, standing atop the fountain -

('don't drink the water don't drink the water no matter what you do don't don't DON'T DON'T…' )

There is a face staring back at him, disheveled, a maddened blue eye staring at him in desperation. The man is wearing a damaged black cowl. His Cowl. He finally came to the realization.

'The Court…' Bruce couldn't hold back the bubbles that escaped from his mouth. He had never felt so weak, seeped of energy and will. '... I'm already dead, aren't I?'

The man stopped fighting and let gravity finally pull him down. He was so tired.

But he had escaped. He did it. He had done the impossible, spat on their faces and showed it to them. No matter what, he had escaped.

'Bones… in the dark.'

The Court wanted his body as a trophy. He hadn't given them the pleasure.

'Nothing but a dead face…'

He could not see his reflection anymore. Into the dark. Into the cold. Into the rest.

'... my face.'

"Now, you might be wondering, 'what is going on here?'"

A beer bottle sailed through the air, so poorly thrown that its intended target did not need to move to evade it, missing his head by a couple of feets and smashing itself on a nearby table, spreading glass pieces and wasted beer.

"Because I'm asking myself the same thing."

The pool cue swinging towards his chest, however, would be much more precise, so he decided to squat out of its trajectory, while grabbing the hoodlum's leg and tossing the much larger man away.

"Honestly, I just came here and asked a simple question-"

"Shut up, Freak!", the bottle tosser, now a bottle wielder, was running with the clear intent to smash the second bottle onto the hero's head himself.

"Ooh, name-calling!" Swipe right, the vigilante dodged left. "Now you're just trying to hurt my feelings!" Swipe left, he dodged right. "And here I was, trying to be civil." The third swipe came, and the more agile fighter spun around, grabbing the bottle swinger by his collar, tossing him over the shoulder and then, in mid air, kicking him to help propel the violent man towards a pinball machine, which ended up smashed with his landing.

"Ooh, got tilt", Spider-Man spoke in a not-really saddened voice, and, as a response, the bartender, having finally finished loading more cartridges into the sawed-off shotgun, took aim at the hero. "Oh, come on!"

"We don't want your kind here!", the hero dodged the first shot with a jump, sticking onto the roof and staring (upside-)down at the armed man.

"This reminds me of an old joke, stop me if you heard it before". The man behind the counter was forced to aim up, avoiding any stray shots from hurting the other patrons who had yet to flee. "A Spider walks into a bar…" The bartender fired again, Spider-Man contorting out of the way while still sticking to the surface, "... and he gets shots on the house!"

Still keeping contact with his hands, Spider-Man arched down backwards, kicking the gun out of the man's hands, spinning in the air and landing face front, crouched down on top of the counter and facing the now unarmed bartender.

"Thank you! You all have been a great audience-", Spider-Man shot a leg back, hitting the man who tried to sneak up on him, the same one who tried to hit him with the pool cue moments before. "-bar none!"

Finally, he grabbed the bartender by his shirt and lifted him off the ground.

"If that was the last of the booze buffoons, why don't you help me out, buddy? I just need to know, where can I find Poison-"

"I-I can't!", the man stuttered, in distress. "I don't know where she is!"

"You see, that's a lie, right there", Spider-Man pointed at the man's forehead. "I'm part spider, so I can feel when someone is lying to me", 'Well, the sensors in the fingertips of my gloves showed alteration of his heart beat and blood pressure, but he doesn't need to know about those'. "And I get really annoyed when people lie to me…"

"I don't know! And-and even if I knew, I-I wouldn't tell you! She'd kill me!"

'Loose-Lips' Laramy was a famous name, at least on the Gotham PD's records he had accessed. 'Laramy has worked for a number of bad guys in this city throughout the years, before opening his own liquor lounge, but he is still one of the crooks the Bats usually run to to squeeze for info. So, if someone can tell me about any of the Rogues of the Bat, it would be Loose-Lips.'

'Better pull the old Hannibal Lecter act, it's been a while!'

"Oh, Laramy, Laramy, Laramy, didn't I tell you? I'm part spider. And you know what spiders do to their prey, Laramy?" Spider-Man pulled the man closer to his face. "They tie them up in a cocoon, then carry them to their lair, and then they feast on them."

"W-what?!", Peter could almost hear the man losing control of his bladder. "Y-you eat p-people?"

"No, Laramy. Spiders don't eat their prey. They drink them. My fangs produce a toxin so strong that it liquifies flesh and bones, so I never leave a body behind for the Bats to find. And you would be a big meal, but I'm ever so hungry."

'Now, to really sell the story' "Sure, it takes long days to completely melt a man, and the victim is conscious while it hap-"

"GOTHAM PARK! SHE HAS AN APARTMENT SOMEWHERE AROUND GOTHAM PARK! THAT'S WHAT I KNOW OH PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T DRINK ME!"

Spider-Man gave the man light taps on his face. "Thanks for the info, Laramy, now that's a good snack!"

'Aaaand… he fainted. Sheesh, the Bats did numbers with this guy!'

'Some ancients believed that the moment of Death brought with it Visions.'

The Bat. The Bust. The Man.

'Yes…'

'Not just Visions of one's past, but one's true purpose in life.'

The Idea. The Mission. The Legend.

'... yes, father.'

'These truths could either be comforting or heart-shattering, but always a closure.'

The Purpose. The Beginning. The Life.

'I shall become a bat.'

'The complete vision of one's self, reflected back before they left this world.'

The End. The Dark. The Death.

'... with great power…'

Then…Rebirth.

Batman's body rose forward, arms shot out while his hands grabbed onto something, someone's neck.

"Wait!", a voice came, weak, face blurry. Blue. There was something blue there.

"WHO ARE YOU?!", he yells, voice hoarse, pain in his lungs. No, not just lungs, his whole chest area. And his mind. "LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"It's me! Just me!", the voice replied, her voice. Female. Blue. He knew this voice, her voice. "It's Harper, Harper Row!", the voice pleaded.

She smelled of ozone. He smelled of ozone. Something he should know. Brain sluggish.

"Bluebird?", he tentatively asked, and she nodded.

In his mind, there were sparks. Recognition. Harper. Blue hair. Sparks. Ozone. Chest pains. He let her go, as if burned.

"Harper", his voice came quiet, firm, as it should have been. His hands touched his own chest, a small device stuck to it, the size of a smartphone and still warm.

"My heart… you shocked me", he determined, as his body registered the warm surface. He was laying on metal. 'How? When?'

"I was doing a final ride in patrol", she informed him, answering the unasked questions. He could finally see it, her reinforced mask. "Caught your suit's emergency beacon by sheer luck, it was very faint."

There was light on top of them. Warmth around them. They felt artificial. His last memory, he could see a light… beaming through a hole, at a distance.

The puzzle pieces started to come together in his mind. He noticed her mohawk hair drenched and her lips were pale, even under the make-up ('Battle painting') that she wore.

"I had to blow apart the ice, but you were in too deep, so I had to dive after you with the bat-cycle. Your suit was signaling you were flat-lining, I had to be quick."

"I… was… dying…", he spoke up, Harper made a so-so gesture with her hand in response. "Thank… you… Harper."

"No worries, big guy… though the 'cycle ended up in the bottom of Gotham Bay. But nevermind that right now, we need to take you back to the Cave, stat. Three syringes of norepinephrine and twelve hundred volts to the chest does not good healthcare make."

"... I can… manage it..."

"Yeah, no dice there, Boss", Harper firmly held the larger man in his sitting position, as he was still recovering from his ordeal. "Besides, we are already taking a ride there."

Bruce's ears could pick the powerful and almost silent engines, they were inside a cargo cabin, warm and bright. Bruce had almost thought it was the Batwing, until he noticed the different design of the inner shell, the round windows peeking to the outside.

On cue, another figure came into his still blurry view, another blue shape, a man, by what Bruce could discern. He stood tall and relaxed, physique of a gymnast, but much larger than someone like Nightwing or Spider-Man.

"Blue… Beetle", Batman huffed tiredly , as he finally recognized they were inside what was probably the latest interaction of The Bug.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Bruce", Ted Kord greeted him, dressed in his Blue Beetle attire, the one with extra-padding for cold weather. "Imagine my surprise, up above Gotham Bay's sky when I got an impromptu invitation for some late night 'fishing'."

"Blue Beetle got my emergency beacon and hovered down with his vehicle, then he fired a claw and hoisted us out of the water and into his airship", Harper reported. "While he's been flying us back to the Cave, I did what I could as an emergency treatment."

"She's being way too modest, Bruce, while I was worried about both of you freezing over, Bluebird took charge and started administering CPR and setting the charge to zap your heart back to work. That's the kinda initiative I'd like to see working for me."

"Sorry, Mr. Beetle, I'm just temporarily out of retirement", the heroine waved him off. "After this, the mask and uniform will go back to the closet."

"Who said anything about heroism?", Blue Beetle opened up one of his front belt pouches, and the sudden whirring sound of a machine producing a newly printed business card. "Give me a call later, working hours are flexible and I'm sure I can offer you a fair salary."

Astounded, Bluebird picked the card, gave it a read and, in barely hidden shock, spoke the words "Ted Kord?!"

"Tell me, you wouldn't have any trouble working for another rich guy who dresses up in a ridiculous suit and moonlights as a vigilante, would you?"

To be Continued!

Author's Notes:

Short chapter, mainly focused on the return of the Dark Knight, and Spidey working to advance the plot.

I'm worried about what you all will think about this one, to be honest.

Also! Small reference to another famous fic in ao3, imaginary points for those who guess it right!

Next Chapter, the finale of this arc (and some personal words).

See you!