#46: The Way Things Will Be (HoM / Johnson)

Bruce Wayne wasn't Batman. Not at this moment. He stood atop the partly-constructed New Wayne Towers roof, the wind catching his tie and carrying it back against his suit. He looked down at the hustle and the bustle of the city streets below, and contemplated life. His life. The life of Gotham. And how things just weren't fitting... I inhale, and the city exhales. I leap to the right and the city shifts to the left-- and I know that I am not in tune with Gotham. I've been away for too long. I've lost my touch. I need to find that before I lose something worse. Before I move against the shadows and catch a bullet in the mouth. Before I misjudge a jump and fall to my death. I need to find Gotham City. Before it kills me.

"Tell me again how you're alive," said Lucius Fox, snapping Bruce out of his contemplation. "Tell me your cover story. Tell me what you're going to tell the world."

"Well," Bruce started, glancing down one more time before swiftly turning and heading down the scaffolding to where Lucius was waiting. "After getting somewhat drunk and taking out the private yacht for a late night pleasure cruise, I got a wee bit drunker," he put on an accent, and smiled as he began to unfold the story with his hands, "and fell overboard. I don't know how but I dazed myself well and truly, roughed myself up by the waves crashing on me-- I was barely alive, you have to realise, and my mind was slipping-- how am I supposed to keep sane when I've somehow, in my infinite clumsiness, cast myself adrift in the ocean? I was picked up on an oil rig, but I couldn't grasp things, couldn't think, and I went catatonic. Completely left this plain of existence, right? They had me up in their medical bay for a good few months before shipping me to the home town of the doctor for further care. And you know where that doctor was from? Scotland. Of all places, I was shipped to Scotland. Eventually I came out of my vegetative state, pulled myself back from the brink of insanity, and I came a-running home to my friends and family, and the city that bore me."

"A likely story," mused Lucius. "Some might suspect you were running around the globe shutting down an international terrorist organisation."

"Now that would just be stupid," replied Bruce, grinning.

"The press are waiting for your downstairs," Lucius said, beckoning Bruce down toward the elevator that would take them down to the lower lobby. "You ready?"

"Please," said Bruce, "I was born ready."



"I know I'm not the Batman you knew," Bruce said slowly, considering the words so very carefully as they left his mouth, "I know that you and Dick have a rapport, an understanding, but Dick's gone now, and I'm back, and i would be honoured if you continued on as Robin. It would be my honour, Tim."

Bruce Wayne was standing alone in the Cave, staring at the Robin costume that Dick Grayson used to wear. It hung in a glass cylinder, next to Barbara's earlier costumes, Jason's too. Alfred had moved them into the main area of the Cave from the hidden room where Redwing's belongings were stored. Jason had proven himself during Bruce's absence. He'd proven himself to be a real hero, and he didn't deserve to be Bruce's dirty little secret. Bruce had to own his mistakes. He had to accept where he had gone wrong, made a bad decision. That was one of the areas he knew he needed to improve upon.

Trust.

Dick Grayson was gone. Tim Drake was spending more and more time with Clark's 'clone'. Jason Todd was somewhere in Gotham-- where, Bruce didn't know. Barbara Gordon was back in Las Vegas. And now Alfred Pennyworth came down to the Cave, where Bruce was tinkering with one of his costumes, and handed him a sealed envelope. "What's this, Alfred?"

Alfred's expression of stoic calmness did not change. "My resignation."

"Excuse me?" said Bruce, this news taking him by complete surprise.

"I cannot work for you at this moment in time, Bruce. I have held this household together in your absence, I have been a shoulder to cry on, a confidant, a healer, a secret-keeper-- and you know I do not mind being that man. But to be that man, and to be unable to mourn? And then, when nearly, finally, being able to try and recover from your 'demise', you return from the grave? Bruce... no. I need time for myself now. I need to be away from Gotham. I'm going home to London. I don't know when I'll return."

He's right. I lied. I hid. I scrambled about in the dark-- not the shadows, the dark-- and I locked out all those people who might help me. Why? Some ridiculous sense of pride? Some wanting to prove myself against Ra's Al Ghul? To perhaps... redeem myself? Childish reasons. They deserved more than that. I denied them closure on me. Perhaps I should have stayed dead. Perhaps I should never have returned. Maybe... after taking down the League of Assassins I should have simply drifted away... and let them live their lives in peace. But no... I came back... and I made things worse. Damn. Damn, damn, damn--!

"I... understand..." said Bruce. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry it came to this, but I won't try to stop you. You take as much time as you need to, and know that this house will always be open to you." Bruce stood, and put out his hand. "Alfred... you've always been a second father to me. I never told you that enough. I always kept my emotions stapled down and shut away from the world. I thought that would make me a better person. I didn't allow myself to mourn Jason's passing, and when he came back... I was angry. I allowed myself to get wrapped up, but I just... gah, I hate this! I'm not... I don't talk about things like this." Bruce shook his head, and then put his left hand around Alfred's. "I need to. Thank you, Alfred. For everything."

"And thank you, Master Bruce," said Alfred. He released Bruce's hand, and hesitated for a moment-- before turning back to his charge and embracing him tightly. After a few moments, he broke the embrace, and took a step back. He picked up his letter of resignation, and tore it into shreds. "If you fake your death ever again,and don't tell me? I'll hunt you down and kill you myself."

Bruce nodded. "I don't doubt it."



"I don't need this place," said Jason Todd, surveying the satellite Cave he'd made his own. It reeked of the past, of a nostalgia he didn't rightly deserve. "No, I deserve something else entirely."

His father was a villain. Was his father a villain because he was a hero? Or because his hero had let him die? He tried not to think about it. Hush had come through for him in the end. Had his back as a father should when confronted by a horde of ninjas. Seemed like the League of Assassins couldn't contend with a fully automatic firearm.

Jason smiled. And then that expression of happiness twisted and contorted as Jason pushed it down.

"I'm not Batman. Batman's home. I'm not Redwing. That's a child's mask. I'm not Red X. No, that was a whole lot of nothing. What good did it do me..."

Jason paced the enclosed space, and then came to the Dark Knight armour-weave he had worn at Alfred Pennyworth's behest. The red bat insignia sang to him. Whispered to him in the darkness. Wear me, wear me, wear me Jason, wear me now, make me your skin.

"God!" Jason spun around, and pushed his hands against the wall. "I need to see a doctor. This isn't healthy."



Renee Montoya looked up from her disk and over to her partner Cris Allen as he poured her a mug of coffee. Allen was a good man, a good husband, and she felt, for the first time in a long time, comfortable with her position in the GCPD. Not that her life had been particularly terrible, but she'd joined the force when corruption was rife. She was a patrol-woman for years, and it was Deputy Commissioner Sarah Essen that handed her the Detective's badge that made all her hard work worth it. Cris Allen was a transfer, an officer truly in the vein of Commissioner Gordon. A good cop. Incorruptible. They broke cases hard and fast, and that was what she wanted. To be a good cop. She looked down at her paperwork, and scribbled something in the appropriate field, before she heard a hush fall over the precinct. She looked up, and saw Harvey Bullock standing in the doorway. He was holding a duffel bag of all his possessions, he was in his civvies-- not his usual attire of suit and tie-- and he looked rough as hell.

He'd been attacked by The Wrath. Strung up on the steps of Gotham Central, his throat cut. He'd nearly drowned in what little blood he had left in his body, the rest staining the front of his best suit. They had thought him dead-- but he'd stabilised, been in surgery for hours... the amount of blood they had to pump back into him just to keep him on the brink... Renee tried not to think about it.

And then, just as soon as the silence fell over them, cheers began to echo out. Officers hurried over to Bullock and patted him on the back, helping him toward Commissioner Gordon's office as he smiled ruefully and nodded in thanks. He held his neck as he spoke, his voice a husky shell of it's former booming glory. "Thanks," he said, "appreciate it."

"Bullock--" said Gordon, as Harvey entered his office and closed the door after him. "I didn't know you were out of the hospital."

"Yeah, well..." he said, "I could walk. I could breathe. Y'know?"

"I guess so. No offense though Harvey, but you sound like twenty types of crap."

"Yeah, feel it. Gonna clear out my desk. Got some stuff I need 'fore I go home."

"You taking the medical leave the doctors prescribed?"

"I'll take the desk job, for now, Jim. I can't... I can't... hhhkk... I can't not be here."

Gordon put his hand on Bullock's shoulder, and squeezed softly. "I understand. Glad to have you back, Harv."



They wore sanguine masks, moist and crimson, carved in the visage of the devil himself. There were well over two dozen of them, dragging chains and baseballs along with them, the rat-a-tat-tat of wood on concrete bouncing around the concrete walls around them.

"Hush little baby don't say a word," whispered one, as their prey came into view. Someone had made the mistake of walking the Narrows at night. By themselves. All weak and easy-pickings. "Momma's gonna by you a mockingbird."

"What?" said the man, turning to the sound of the crowd-- they twisted and jerked, manic grins etched onto the masks. "What's going--?"

The first blow toppled him. He fell to one knee. The second had him on all fours, begging for mercy without hesitation. Third, fourth and fifth had him unconscious. Seven and eight and beyond were unnecessary. He was dead at six. Not that they cared.



"Hh." Batman reached the edge of the Narrows, and he hesitated. Something tugged at him. Dick had filled him in on the current situation with the area. Jason Todd was it's protector. Jason Todd patrolled the streets in an old Batman uniform. Something would have to be done-- before Bruce could speak to Jason the night of Ra's Al Ghul's defeat, he'd vanished. He'd vanished into the night, just as he had the last times they had spoken. He contemplated letting Jason keep on carrying on. "No," he said, thinking better. He threw out a line, and it whipped around a flag pole. "Tonight, this ends."



The black and red Batman uniform was shredded. Anything useful removed and patched into the familiar costume he'd worn over a year ago. The body armour in the old glider bodysuit he'd been given by Alfred Pennyworth was exemplary, and he'd be remiss not to use it. He filled a duffel bag with every single available gadget, every batarang and batsplosive. He chuckled at that, quietly. The names they had given these things... child's play.

Jason Todd stood naked in his bunker. He'd been working. He was fully supplied. Fully aware of what was to come next. The psychosis that haunted him, the troubles he'd had since his torture at the hands of The Wrath... he would never lose it. It would linger in his psyche till the end of time, and understandably so. But was he going to sit down, lie down, and accept that?

No.

He began to pull on the familiar second skin. Black and red, and so familiar. He tapped his chest, and the scarlet X that was patched across his heart. If they wanted him, they could come and get him. If they wanted him, they could aim, right and steady, at where his heart was. And he would beat them down, and he would take them in, and he would win the day, because that's what he had been trained to do all those years back by Bruce Wayne himself.

His tools would be fear. Fear and violence and an overabundance of sharp objects.



One of his proximity alarms were triggered. A security screen fizzed to life. A horde of men and women of all shapes and sizes were roaming the streets in garish red devil masks. He looked down at himself, and then back up to the invaders. The computer system followed the horde from where they had came, and the security cameras Jason had taken the time to set up in his time here in the Narrows witnessed the murder of a half dozen men and women.

"£$%^ me," he hissed, "no. Not tonight. Not now." He pulled on a mask, one that covered his entire face, and checked the lenses for scratches. The whole world went red. Good. Good. "This ends."



Batman leaped from one building to the next, until he heard the sirens blare. Narrows cops. Never the most trustworthy precinct, but rife enough with corruption that to weed it out would render them completely harmless. Neutered and powerless. Gordon let this last bastion of corruption stand. Batman didn't agree with the why, but he could understand the reasons behind it.

He patched into the police band with his cowl radio. "Reports of a group of marauders patrolling the Narrows, beating whoever they meet into comas-- into worse, sir."

"Where were they last spotted?"

"South, toward the river."

"South? Seriously? Don't they know any better? Leave them. You know what happens to punks who head south."

"I'll call the hospital. Have them prep the emergency room."

Batman arched upwards, feeling the wind at his back. "...South?" What was south in the Narrows? The river, sure, but nothing else? What would put the fear... south. South. Bruce had established a number of spider holes in the city when he was younger. Back when Jason was a boy-wonder and their mission was everything. There was a spider hole south of here. If Jason was operating out of it...

He unleashed a grappling hook, and journeyed south as fast as he could.



The group came to a stop in the middle of the warehouses that littered this part of the island in the middle of Gotham. They breathed in sharp and fast ,catching lost breathes as best they could. They were the product of Gotham's growing unrest. Of it's growing laziness and despondency. An autoimmune reaction, the antibodies of a society. And every man, woman and child right now? Acceptable losses in the war on civilisation. Anyone of them would tell you, if it wasn't for what they had been told themselves...

"You don't come into my city and you don't bring your hate," came the voice from the shadows, "I've seen what you've done. And it ends."

"You're not Batman," said the man with the bloody baseball bat. "Nothing to stop and nothing to fear."

"And I don't claim to be," replied Jason Todd, emerging from the darkness and dragging two of the men into the shadows with him. He grinned as he knocked them out with a vicious punch to the back of the head, but then paused as a familiar silence seemed to fill the air. No...

"But I do." Batman shot down from above, and landed in the middle of the group. "Put up a fight. I dare you."

They surged toward him, and Batman started to dismantle them. One by one they went for him, two at a time, three a time-- there were so many of them. But Batman countered their every move. Gotham seeped into him. He was completely aware of his surroundings. He was completely aware of every punch being thrown. There was a sound behind him, but he was preoccupied with a baseball bat coming at his face-- he blocked the blow, shattering the wood into splinters by raising his gauntlets up, the razor sharp blades ending that fight fast. The chain behind him was aimed at the Caped Crusader's skull, but before it could land Jason Todd was in the midst of battle, a baton in one hand and a knife in the other. He struck Batman's would-be assailant in the chest, causing him to scream, and then realised the knife was completely necessary-- he didn't need to cut, he didn't need to bleed, and right now, he didn't want to send the wrong message to his former mentor. He sheathed the weapon, and the two crime-fighters fought side-by-side. Jason spun and kicked, and every now and then he caught a glimpse of Batman, punching and pummeling. Something about his movements were different. Sleeker. Faster. More effective. Not to say that he wasn't a machine before, but right now? It was almost like... He's bettered himself.

"Came to talk?" spat Jason, kicking and punching with his back to Bruce.

"Less talking. Finish this." Jason's shoulder touched Bruce's, and on instinct the two turned, and Jason was thrown into the air without any effort at all. Bruce went low, covered himself in his cape, pulling it up at the ends to his face, and Jason grabbed a gas grenade from his own red utility belt. He pulled out the pin, threw it down so it bounced off Batman's back and, when it was in mid-air it released it's contents right in the faces of the devil-masked marauders.

Within seconds they were unconscious. Batman rose, and looked Jason in the eye. "You're back in that costume?"

Jason shrugged. He wore his Red X costume. "Didn't seem appropriate to wear yours anymore, now that you're back."

Bruce considered his answer for a moment, before deciding to change the subject. "You left before we could talk, when Ra's--"

Jason put up his hand. "We're not the type to talk about our feelings, are we? I did what I had to, because, well, I don't want to talk about this, and I didn't think you would either. I've killed men and that makes me your enemy. A scummy piece of trash for you to trample underfoot."

"You helped hold down the city," said Bruce. "You saved Nightwing's life when he was in trouble."

"And he saved mine. I think I owe him for that still. Always one upping me..."

Batman put out his hand. "I thank you for being here. I thank you for trying your best to not resort to the methods you once followed."

"I'm not apologising for my actions," snapped Jason from nowhere, slapping Bruce's hand away, "I did what I believe is right. I killed those that would kill y--" he stopped mid-sentence. "I stopped those that would kill. Those that have done awful things."

"I know." Batman lowered his hand. "I vowed never to take a life, but I know how easy it can be for others. I understand why you did what you did. I understand that you're not the person you were before... The Wrath..."

"Don't," said Jason suddenly, "please don't mention his name."

"I know he hurt you. Broke you. I want to help you get better, if you'll let me? The best doctor's in the world, at my beck and call, if it helps you...?"

"You... want to help me?" Jason went pale before going rigid. "I don't need your help."

"...Right." Batman expected as much. "Then I expect you to leave Gotham." He turned away. "You have until morning before I drag you to Blackgate. Or Arkham. Depending on your disposition."

"Oh, yeah? You think you could take me in, Batman? You really think that?"

Batman turned to face Red X. "Right here, right now, you want to try me, Red X? You really want to test your mettle?"

Jason considered that for a moment. He had memorised Bruce's every movement since his own 'return from the grave', but mere moments ago Batman had seemed like a completely different person. Before, during his antagonist period, he could have taken him. He had faith in that fact. But now?

Jason shrugged, and then laughed. "I'll be gone by your deadline. But you know what? I'll be back. And you won't believe what I become."

Red X vanished into the shadows, and Batman considered the group of unconscious masked men and women all around. "Now. Who the Hell are you?"



"He's back," said his weak, gravelly voice, "not just... not just the boy... the boy in his father's clothing... but the man... the man..."

"Hush, my lord, you must rest, you must..." she dabbed at his forehead, wiping the sweat away with a damp cloth. "You have only just awoken, you must rally your strength together before you exert yourself back into a coma!"

The man dragged himself upright. His entire body was emaciated. He was missing an arm. A scarlet slab of scar tissue covered his shoulder where the limb should have been. His once proud mane of blond hair was now white as the moon at it's fullest. He scratched at his heard, and then grinned. "I have marshaled an army within days of my awakening. It is fate, my darling. My forces are rising. Soon, Bruce Wayne shall fall. And with him-- the Batman!"



Gordon's men came to drag the crowd away. Lock-up was full by 3am. Bruce hacked the camera control for Jason's spider hole, but there was no sign of the former Redwing. He didn't know about Jason's charter flight out of the city, he didn't know that his former sidekick would be long gone before morning ever came-- he didn't know that Jason was going to leave anyway, something big appearing on his radar-- but he would by the time the next night arrived.

Batman stood on the tallest building in all of Gotham City, and he exhaled, the city breathing in with him on the next breath. "That's it," he whispered, as he felt his city connect with him. The membrane of the place fell upon him, and his cape whistled-- then, the sirens, then-- the mission continued, and he descended--!