Yesterdays
“Let’s review what we know,” Bruce said. They were all gathered around the console. He and Dick were seated. Tim stood at Dick’s right, Roy and Dinah at Bruce’s left. Barbara peered out from the upper right quadrant of the main monitor.
“It’s Bane all over again,” Tim said flatly. “Someone’s trying to take you down, bit by bit and coming pretty damned close to succeeding.”
Bruce nodded. “The computer, the cave, Alfred… my…” He forced himself to continue. “My mind.”
Dick caught the fleeting look of embarrassment before Bruce suppressed it. “He hit hard and fast, and came at you from directions you weren’t expecting.”
Bruce’s eyes narrowed. Dick’s fingers hadn’t stopped twisting since the young man had sat down. True, the young man usually did have a hard time staying still, but—he glanced down sharply; Dick was also tapping one foot absently on the cave floor. This level of fidgeting was atypical. Also troubling, Dick looked exhausted. He was usually far better at hiding his need for sleep. He’d had to be, Bruce reflected. Otherwise, Robin would rarely have patrolled after ten P.M.
“What’s the matter with you?” The question came out more harshly than Bruce had intended.
Dick looked away. “Nothing.”
But Bruce had seen the warning look that his first partner had shot Tim and Roy. “Nothing?” He repeated with a hard stare.
Few people alive could endure more than thirty seconds of that look. Dick’s agitation didn’t show a significant increase until nearly the one-minute mark. He sighed. “Fine. Tim asked me to come in when you stopped responding to your comm-link.”
“That explains why you aren’t in New York,” Bruce snapped. “It doesn’t explain why you’re practically dancing in your chair. Or why you needed Tim’s help to stand, earlier.”
“It’s not important,” Dick mumbled. “I can deal with it.”
Bruce’s gaze didn’t waver. “Tim. What’s wrong with him?”
Tim felt a cold sweat break out. “Um… Well… It’s like…”
“Tim!”
The younger man gulped. “Ask Roy!”
Dick sighed. “They wanted to use me to get to you. So someone grabbed me in New York and threw me in Arkham… where they doped me up on anti-psychotics. But, Roy got me out, and now I’m just waiting for the stuff to wear off. So, I’m fine.”
“Anti-psy—You
let them get close enough to…”
“You know, Bruce, you really
don’t have a lot of room to talk on this one.”
“Score one for the Wingster,” Roy whispered.
Tim fought back a laugh. Dinah didn’t.
Bruce sank back into his chair, still glowering. Dick continued.
“So, anyway, yeah. Looks like I was one of those directions you weren’t planning on being attacked from.”
“It fits the pattern,” Bruce admitted grudgingly. His frown subsided. “They struck at my home, my family, my mind… Everything that makes me… me.” His eyebrows drew together. “Which means that they had to already have a good idea of who I was before they began this campaign. They might have picked up some details as they went along, but they would have to have compiled most of their data beforehand.”
“We know Hush is involved,” Tim said. “So that’s no surprise.”
“Hush doesn’t work alone.”
That brought the younger man up short. “When we were in the cave,” he said thinking back, “Black Glove was wearing your father’s bat-costume. Did Elliot ever see that before?”
Bruce nodded. “Tommy was at the manor when Father walked into the playroom, wearing it. He was hoping to surprise us.” He smiled at the memory. “In any event, yes, Tommy would have been there when my father referred to it as a ‘bat-man costume’. I’ve no doubt he would have told this… Black Glove—”
“Sorry,” Barbara interrupted. “Just got to correct you, here. I’ve been doing some digging. ‘Black Glove’ is the name of the
organization. The guy leading it seems to be going by ‘Doctor Hurt’.”
Bruce started forward involuntarily. “Are you sure of that?”
She sighed. “It could be an alias, of course… although there
was a Doctor Simon Hurt who disappeared over thirty years ago. Neurologist—” She broke off. She’d rarely seen Bruce that pale when he wasn’t slipping into shock. “Why are you asking?”
“Years ago,” Bruce said slowly, “I took part in an… experiment. Overseen by one Dr. Hurt—and yes, his first name was ‘Simon’. He had me in an isolation chamber for ten days. I would never have consented to such a thing had his credentials not checked out, but if you’re saying that he had vanished almost a decade earlier…” He frowned. “It might be enlightening to determine whether the imposter tampered with the government databases I would have tapped into when I was vetting the man, or whether he’s hacked my systems before.”
“Probably the first,” Roy commented. “You’re not the only guy who’d have checked him out.”
“Point.” Bruce thought for a moment. “You told me that you and Tim encountered him in the cave. How old did he strike you as?”
Roy made a disgusted sound. “Hard to tell with that mask. But from what I could see, his hair was pretty brown. And the part of his face I did see didn’t have any wrinkles on it.”
“So he probably
isn’t the genuine article,” Bruce concluded. His frown deepened. “If the trigger-phrase in the computer hadn’t incapacitated me, seeing the man in that costume,” he felt his face grow hot as his voice fell to a whisper, “might have taken me further off-guard.”
“Why stick Dick in Arkham, though?” They’d almost forgotten that Dinah was in the room. She looked at Dick, now. “Sure, it would have kept you from getting to Bruce, but we know that they had access to drugs, which would have kept you out, regardless. Why drag you from New York to Gotham, when they could just as easily have held you there? They also stashed you some place relatively… neutral, when you think about it. I mean, Dr. Arkham isn’t part of their gang. And once you started talking to the staff, someone was bound to realize that you didn’t belong there.”
Dick coughed. “Actually, one of the doctors there is in league with them. Unless scheduling a lobotomy within forty-eight hours of admission is standard procedure. And if it is, why haven’t they done it on Joker, yet? Agh!” Dick looked down at his wrist, which suddenly felt like it was sporting a manacle several sizes too small. When he did, he realized that Bruce had his hand clamped around it tightly enough that Dick wondered whether the bone was about to snap.
Bruce followed his gaze. “Sorry.” He released him. “You’re alright?”
“Yeah, fine,” he said, rubbing the area. “Considering. So, that’s why they stuck me in Arkham.” He frowned. “Although, come to think of it, there’s probably another reason, too.”
“Which is?” Barbara asked.
Dick looked at Bruce. “Because odds were that in the shape you were in, one way or another,
you were going to end up there.” He waited for that to sink in. There was no need to elaborate. When Jason Todd had died, Bruce had nearly gone mad with grief. Had someone truly wanted to see a Batman broken or insane, Dick had to admit that Bruce discovering him post-lobotomy would probably have accomplished it.
“Tim told me what happened in Metropolis,” Dick said quietly. “When you thought Alexander Luthor had killed me. That right then and there, you nearly killed
him. Sure, it was heat of the moment—but if something similar happened in Arkham… well, you
would probably end up helping Black Glove weed out most of their competition. Or die trying.” Now it was his turn to grip Bruce’s arm. “Or both.”
Bruce covered Dick’s hand with his own. Then he took a deep breath. “Tommy knew me as a child. And he still knows how to press many of my buttons. But to accomplish something like this, he’d need to enlist the help of someone with greater expertise in general psychology, mind-altering drugs, memory suppression,” Bruce frowned. “That narrows it down. Especially since I’m not sure that this expert would be able to achieve everything he did without being aware who I am. And, until now, Tommy hasn’t seen fit to expose my secrets to those who don’t already know them.”
Dick and Tim exchanged dismayed looks. “You know,” Tim said, “if we assume Elliot hasn’t altered that MO, there’s only one name I can think of that meets those criteria.”
Bruce nodded as Dick supplied the two-word answer.
“Hugo Strange.”
