Batman: Meanwhile in Gotham City 3/3
Title: Batman: Meanwhile in Gotham City 3/3
Author: KLCtheBookWorm klcthebookworm
Characters/Pairings: John Blake, Jim Gordon, Barbara "Babs" Gordon, Jen, Lucius Fox, Johnathan Crane, Gerard Stephens, and Oswald Cobblepott III
Rating: T
Summary: Blake thought being a detective was the hardest thing he'd ever done, until he became Gotham's protector. But he's not the only one who wants the job.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Dark Knight Rises or the rest of the Nolanverse Batman and I make no money off this work.
Note: This story is set after Batman: Partners and runs concurrent with Batman: Entwined Fates. Molly C. Quinn has been cast in the story to portray Babs Gordon. The character Oswald Cobblepott the Third originates with DC Comics. Also I dropped about a decade from Joseph Gordon Levitt's real age for the sake of my timeline.
Words: 4343/16,140
Part One | Part Two
Part Three
Nightwing climbed out of the Tumbler around two in the morning. Babs sat at a new computer terminal next to the brick arches. "You gotta show me how you keep finding this stuff. Otherwise, how did you and the computer make out?"
"I prefer to kiss lips, not that it should concern you."
"Ouch." He joined her. "Are you saying I'm not kissable?"
"We're not having this conversation." Her blue eyes gazed at him. "I made myself an authorized user, implanted my tracking device, reconnected this main computer with the one in the bunker, made my laptop a remote access point, created a graphical interface so you can use the programs, and got into Cobblepott's bank records. What did you accomplish tonight?"
"Stopped three muggers and a drug dealer after talking to one of Scarecrow's victims. The last thing he remembered was going to a rave." Nightwing pulled his mask off and rubbed his eyes. "Couldn't find anyone to tell me about the raves. Don't suppose you know?"
"Do you really think the Commissioner's daughter is invited?" She turned to the keyboard. "I'll start a search of GCPD drug arrests around Hudson's campus while you go change."
The files and folders moved across the screens. "You don't want to sleep here?"
She hammed a shudder. "Unless there's a bedroom hiding underwater, I am not sleeping with the bats."
"I've had worse roommates." Blake laughed at her glare and headed to the bathroom. While he loaded the suit into the Lucite locker that shared the black computer cube, he considered her list. "Tracking device?"
Babs nodded as she slid her laptop into her backpack. "Batman implanted one in you and in Dad. So I put one in me."
He thought back to the night when they freed the police of Gotham. So that's how he was able to find me.
She yawned. "We need to come back here earlier, so I can see what the Tumbler computer can access."
"Hey." He turned her to face him. "Pace yourself. You don't have anything to prove to me."
"Who said I was proving anything?" Her eyes didn't meet his.
"You've done more in one night than I've done in a month. Granted you know what you're doing, but it's a marathon, not a sprint."
She nodded with a small smile. Blake let her go and led the way down the left hallway. It ended at a ladder embedded in the rock wall. He climbed up first and opened the hatch in the hidden shed. She locked the hatch as he unlocked the white Hyundai Santa Fe parked inside.
"I wondered if you had a way to go home." She closed the passenger side door.
"It's real easy to get buried down there." He drove down the gravel service road that led back to the paved highway. "Neither of us can afford that."
"You are philosophical after patrol. Who would have guessed?"
"And this is what I get for being nice and taking the couch."
Fox had been working seven-days-a-week since the War for Gotham ended. He insisted the staff keep their weekends, but most still came in. The unalarmed guard led Blake and Miss Gordon to his office on Sunday, right at two in the afternoon. "Ready for your shots?" Fox asked once they were alone.
Blake stripped off his jacket. "Shouldn't the one I just got still be good?"
"Let's not take any chances." Fox injected Blake's bared arm before picking up the next vial for Miss Gordon. "The antidote loses potency after about a week. So if you don't stop him by then, you'll need a booster."
Miss Gordon rubbed her injection. "It better not take that long; I have classes to go to."
"Hopefully, this will help even the odds." Fox pushed the hardback suitcase in her direction.
Her blue eyes brightened as she grabbed the case, but Bake stopped her from opening it. "There's more stuff we have to do."
Fox answered Blake's nod with one of his own. "I already sent the police and the hospitals the current formula for the antidote, so they're prepared for the worse case scenarios."
"The hospitals took it just like that?" Miss Gordon's eyebrows knitted together.
"They all have something named for Wayne, after all." Blake smirked at her frown and picked up the case. "Thanks for the help, Mr. Fox."
"Good luck, kids." He called out as the elevator closed behind them.
Babs retreated to her corner of the mat. Blake rubbed his chin. "Does your father know you can hit like that?"
"He does, but I'm still his baby girl."
"He should let you at the rookies. None of them know how to take a punch." He smirked as he grabbed a hand towel off the gym's bench. "And you could throw them around too."
She hadn't thrown him in this sparring session, hence the punching. But her cellphone rang before she aired her grievance. Blake left as she answered it. "Hello, Barbara Gordon."
"Babs? It's Lieutenant Stephens. Where are you?"
"An undisclosed location and if you're tracing my cell signal, there will be repercussions."
"Nothing like that," he said. "Is your father with you?"
"No, why?"
"We can't find him."
Her stomach dropped out of her body as Stephens moved into soothing alarmed family members mode. She let him ramble on with her lips pressed tightly together and searched for her inner calm. "Lieutenant, I will call you if I see my father, but even he didn't want to know where I am. Go find him, please!"
Stephens finally hung up. She screamed as she ran to the main cavern. "John!" He met her right outside the main tunnel as the bats screeched and fluttered behind him. "Dad's missing! MCU can't find him; he never went home, nobody saw him leave Headquarters but he isn't there."
"Breathe!" He shook her shoulders. "Scarecrow. He kidnapped you to get to the Commissioner. Now he can't find you, so he went straight to the Commissioner."
Her brain settled. "The tracking device." He spun out of her way. She opened up the program and focused the map on Device #1. "He's at the end of Onyx Street on South Channel Island, Midtown side."
Blake reached over her shoulder and enlarged the list of potential rave locations. "An old Falcone warehouse is there, been in legal limbo since Carmine was arrested."
"Scarecrow worked for Falcone, right? One of the things he got in trouble for?" She got up and stepped toward the catwalk to the Tumbler.
He stopped her. "We have to get dressed first."
She nodded rather than trust her mouth, and headed back to the gym. Her hands shook as she opened the case. Get a grip, Barbara Gail. It's up to you to save Dad now.
The armor on the body suit covered her from the knees up to neck, leaving her calves and forearms free from Kevlar plates. The body suit fastened closed at the waist behind her back. The black boots slid over the titanium-dipped tri-weave fibers protecting her skin. The black gauntlets with the projectile blades covered her hands and forearms.
Before putting on anything else, she did a kip on the pull-up bar. From the support position, she went through a front hip circle, a squat on, and a sole circle dismount. The suit didn't impede her movements.
She pulled off the elastic band that held her hair back before reaching into the case. Her gloved hands didn't shake now. She had always told herself to deal with her anger over the lie better than Jimmy. Her plan had been to come back to Gotham, find Batman, and make him accept her thanks.
Staring into the empty sockets of her helmet-like cowl, she realized she had lied to herself for seven years. This is what she wanted from Batman. This is why becoming a cop like Dad would never bring her peace.
And Crane saw it in her before she did. He really was a brilliant psychiatrist.
Who wasn't going to put himself back in prison.
She shoved the graphite cowl on and connected the electrode safety feature. Last, she pulled out the memory cloth cape and latched it onto her shoulders.
The armor straightened her posture. Babs took a deep breath and headed to the main cavern. To warn Nightwing she was approaching, she called out. "Mr. Fox may become my personal tailor. What do you think he can do with silk?"
"Probably make a weapon out of it." He wore his black and blue armor, but didn't have his mask over his eyes yet. Not that it would have offered him much protection from her watching his eyes widen and his jaw drop. She kept walking forward, and hoped the cowl hid the heat on her cheeks forged by his unblinking stare. Before she got close enough to hit him, he spoke. "Your father's gonna kill me."
"Right after he kills me. Let's go."
Being the Commissioner of Gotham City Police Department brought on many headaches. None compared to the one Gordon had now, fueled by a hangover from whatever sedative Crane had used and the pounding music shaking the room he was tied up inside.
Scarecrow stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass window and watched the gyrations and strobe lights on the warehouse floor below. Children--the same age as Babs--having a good time without any idea of the evil overhead; didn't their parents tell them not to go to parties like this?
"How soon they wipe the fear from their minds." Scarecrow turned to Gordon. "Hard to believe that a few short months ago Bane had them all cowering under their beds. Now look at them." He gestured at the window.
A thug behind Gordon pushed the wheeled chair next to the glass.
"Do you still believe they're worth saving?" Scarecrow asked. "These privileged young who poison their bodies when they should be improving their minds, the future of Gotham!"
Gordon glared at Scarecrow. "Cut the crap." He enjoyed how the burlap sack mask jerked back. "The only thing you have against these children is that they didn't invite you to the party. You were never invited to the party, were you, Crane?"
Scarecrow gestured at the thug and Gordon's chair jerked back to the center of the small office. "Gag him."
Gordon didn't fight the cleave gag forced between his teeth. Duct tape on his mustache would be worse.
Scarecrow turned back to the window. "They will know fear again."
Nightwing took one last glance through the office's small outer window before detaching the listening device. Babs hung on the other side of the window. He pointed up. She nodded and activated the winch on her belt. He climbed onto the warehouse's flat roof after her. "Scarecrow said they will know fear again."
"Why couldn't he be obsessed with a happy emotion?" She shook her head. "How?" Her eyes rolled at his frown. "His wrist cannons won't work on a crowd this size."
"And he doesn't have a microwave emitter and a polluted water supply to vaporize." Nightwing walked to the closest skylight. The glass hadn't been cleaned since the warehouse was built, but a large square blocked the lights from the rave. He eased it open.
A square vat filled with a milky liquid perched on the rafters. "But the fear toxin doesn't work if you don't inhale it?" Babs said as she looked.
He pointed to the pipes running from the vat to sprinkler heads on the rafters. "Fine enough mist and they will inhale it." He stuck his head further inside and counted two more tanks: one over the main entrance and the second one center in the building but closer to the opposite side. "You have to disable them."
"Me?" Her blue eyes widened under the cowl. "There are three tanks!"
"And you're a gymnast. I won't make it across the rafters as fast as you can. But I can keep Scarecrow busy."
She nodded before throwing her leg over the ledge of the skylight. "Wait and see if I can disable it." He watched her walk across the beam, arms outstretched for balance. She curled down onto the rafter and jammed something from her belt into the valve, rolled her back down and her legs over until she stood on the rafter again, and then she walked back to the skylight. "There's a radio control on the valve. I snapped the antenna and jammed a Batarang to keep it from opening."
"Okay. Head to the next and I'll go kick the stuffing out of Scarecrow."
She grimaced and fired her grapple gun at the rafter over the door. The wire pulled her through the air. He waited until her black form reached it before sprinting back to the roof's edge.
He lowered himself down to the window. One thug guarded the door, one loomed over Gordon cuffed in an office chair, and Scarecrow stood at the window wall overlooking the rave. He liked the odds, and opened the window a crack. The smoke pellets hit the floor.
The occupants coughed as Nightwing slid inside. He kicked the closest thug away from Gordon. The thug from the door tackled Nightwing to the floor. He thrust a boot into the thug's stomach and tossed the larger man over his head.
"Freddie!" Scarecrow screamed in his electronic distorted voice.
The office door slammed into the wall. A new thug punched Nightwing in the jaw.
"You've got a long way to go, Junior Bat." Scarecrow pulled Gordon's office chair away from the fray. "Now Batman knew how to make an entrance."
Nightwing didn't have a chance to respond as the other two thugs jumped on him.
Two tanks closed. Babs looked at the suspended office under the rafters. The door was open, but she couldn't see inside it. Batman picked him for a reason.
She inhaled and fired the grapple gun at the last tank. Her cape fluttered behind her as she aimed to land her feet on the rafter. It hit her left hand and stiffened into batwings. Her momentum slowed.
She exhaled an explicative at herself and turned off the charge to the memory cloth. The cape relaxed, but her foot missed the rafter. She growled and jammed her thumb against the belt's winch control. There was no time for screw-ups.
The wire spooled out faster than she expected and she dropped.
She flung her arms out. They collided with the steel beam and she curled around it to hang on. The pullover was harder since the rafter was much wider than uneven bars, but she managed to get upright and straddled the rafter. She panted, lay down, and snapped the radio antennae off the valve.
Gordon's watery eyes focused on the armored figure under the three larger men. A thin hand grabbed the shoulder of his jacket and pulled him out of the chair. Crane's other arm snaked in front of Gordon's chest. That hand held a remote control. "Batman taught him persistence; I'll give him that."
Good thing he was gagged, because the urge to correct Crane was strong. Nightwing had always been persistent. But since Crane's hands were full, Gordon heaved himself backwards.
Crane couldn't support Gordon's dead weight, but he stopped Gordon's head from hitting the floor. The remote skidded across the room.
Gordon rolled off Crane and headed after it best he could on his knees. Crane wheezed as he scrambled ahead. He snatched the remote off the floor and faced Gordon. His free hand reached under his jacket. "Straight to the fisticuffs." His hand slid back out with a hand scythe. "Now let's behave like civilized men, Commissioner."
Gordon glared but didn't move as the curved blade pressed against his tie. Crane guided him to his feet and turned them to face the fight.
Nightwing tossed off one of the hired muscle and scowled as he saw Crane and Gordon.
"I know this drill, Junior Bat. Do you?"
The vigilante seethed, but let the thugs grab his armored arms.
Crane turned Gordon toward the window over the warehouse. "Pay attention. You don't want to miss anything." He shoved Gordon to the third thug, and then pressed one of the buttons on the remote.
Gordon turned away from the explosion ripping the wall apart. He hoped the pieces were small enough to not kill anyone below. Scarecrow stepped to the edge and spotlights shone into the office. "It is time for fear!" His distorted voice boomed through the now silent speakers. Scarecrow lifted his arms like a television evangelist. Gordon stepped forward but the thug pulled him back. Scarecrow pressed another button on his remote.
Nothing changed. Scarecrow looked at the roof. Nightwing chuckled. "Acme Incorporated sold you a dud, Scarecrow?"
The villain whirled to face the vigilante. "What did you do?"
"Just this." Nightwing kicked the knees of the thug on his right. That thug hit the floor and he punched the one on his left.
Gordon heard a fluttering cape, but it wasn't possible when the owner of that cape was dead. He turned toward the open wall. A familiar black shape flew through the spotlight beams and kicked Crane's chin as the wings and body tucked into a somersault before landing on the office floor and standing.
It wasn't his friend back from the dead, but she dressed more like him than Nightwing. The raised bat symbol in gold gleamed between her throat and breasts and red hair tumbled onto her black shoulders. The thug released Gordon and ran to her. She met his charge with a roundhouse kick that Gordon had heard praised before but had never seen. The thug didn't get up. She pivoted to the one Nightwing had put on the floor. He stopped moving with a groan when she punched him.
Gordon couldn't breathe and it had nothing to do with the gag. She was supposed to be safe, not fighting to save a city that killed her family, even if the members of it were still breathing.
She snapped cuffs on the thugs. Nightwing unlocked the cuffs on Gordon's wrists. "We appear to be short a set of these." Gordon watched the vigilante cuff Crane. "I like him best like this." Nightwing tugged off the burlap mask. "Unconscious."
Gordon ripped his gag off and whirled to the other vigilante. "Batgirl now?!"
Her blue eyes flashed, just like they had when she had been sent to her bedroom for punishment, but her voice stayed even. "I'm glad you're okay, Commissioner."
Sirens wailed outside the warehouse. Nightwing moved to the narrow window facing outside. "We have to go."
Batgirl nodded and joined him. Gordon grabbed her arm. "This conversation is not over, young lady."
Her pink lips grinned. "Of course not. And I am glad you're okay."
They climbed out the window. Gordon faced the door to greet his officers.
Jen found Mr. Cobblepott glued to the noon news recap on GCN. He shushed her before she even shut the office door, so she turned her attention to the broadcast.
The blond newscaster frowned. "Along with Dr. Jonathan Crane's arrest last night, witnesses have come forward with a story of a new vigilante."
The screen jumped to a taped interview. "It was a girl dressed up just like Batman," came from a young black man. The next was an Asian-looking girl with dyed blue hair. "She swooped down from the rafters and kicked Scarecrow back into the room."
A grainy, barely in focus image filled the screen. Bright lights lit the three-sided upper room that the Scarecrow stood in. A black figure with wings outstretched flew from the rafters and into the box, and knocked Scarecrow out of view. "GCN just received this camera phone footage. Commissioner Gordon hasn't issued a statement concerning this Batgirl."
Mr. Cobblepott turned the television off and dropped the remote on his desk. "And he will never issue a statement, you dithering idiot. Not after this Batgirl and the other one saved his life." He looked at Jen. "What has gotten into this city? Everyone putting on masks, adopting personas, ending up on the news?"
"Giving people bird names," Jen muttered.
Mr. Cobblepott ignored her mutter. "Wren, I need the figures for the urban renewal projects. No sense letting the unimaginative mob back into Gotham now that we are functioning splendidly without them."
Babs smoothed her strapless, metallic bronze dress and checked her make-up in the bathroom mirror. Dad continued his tirade outside the closed door. "Are you sleeping with him? I can understand it if you're sleeping with him."
"What?" She jerked open the door and glared at her father. "You did not just ask that."
He gestured for her to move first and he followed her to his apartment's living room. "Just tell me why. Stop acting like I shouldn't be concerned when you disappear for a weekend with a vigilante and show back up in a mask."
"He needs help. I'm good at what he can't do. Isn't that how you pair cops off at Headquarters?" She shrugged on a black bolero jacket to cover her shoulders. "And for Batman."
Gordon sank into his recliner. "I don't know what Blake owes Batman, that's on him. But you don't owe Batman anything."
"I don't?" She knew his argument would come to this. She grabbed her clutch off the small table next to the coat rack. "He saved Gotham, us, God, YOU more times than you can count." She opened the new cell phone app she had written before angling the screen so her father could see the maps as they focused down to this room with numerals one and three glowing inside.
"What is this?"
"One final gift from Batman. And how we found you last night."
He blinked at the screen again. "A tracking device?"
"Implanted. After what the Joker did to Harvey Dent and his girlfriend, Batman couldn't risk anything like that happening to you." Her father's eyes stared at her. She avoided the gaze by putting her phone into her clutch. "Blake and I both have one too."
He let out a sigh that heaved his shoulders. "You're going out there no matter if I approve or not."
"I'm safer as Batgirl than in a police uniform and you know it."
His second sigh heaved his shoulders again.
"It'll be easier if you approve. Blake won't be terrified the Batsignal is a trap."
Dad stood and wrapped his arms around her. "Fine, go be Batgirl. But if another damn nuclear bomb shows up, I'm flying it out to the ocean, not either one of you two."
She squeezed him and kissed his cheek. "I love you, Dad."
Blake stared at the framed iceberg photograph in the Iceberg Lounge's reception area. The Commissioner should let her have a phone call before locking her up forever. He checked his phone again and caught the hostess' grin with his peripheral vision.
A taxi pulled up in front of the main door and Blake put the phone away as the pale slim legs slid out. The doorman opened the glass door for her. The bronze and gold dress ended on her thighs. Added curls in her red hair landed on her shoulders covered by a short black jacket.
Holy babe that can kick my ass. He was glad he had worn the tie even if it was strangling him now.
"Sorry, it took longer with Dad than I thought." Babs' pink lips smiled. "Didn't miss our reservation, did I?"
Blake found his voice. "No, you didn't. Did he let you out of the house because he's going to kill me? Or did you break out?"
"He's not going to kill you." Babs leaned on his arm and her floral perfume enveloped him. "But only because he doesn't want me on the night shift alone."
"I'll take the reprieve, don't care why." He swallowed when she didn't step back. "You look gorgeous."
"Aw, thank you." Her eyes danced. "What's the plan for tonight?"
"To celebrate that your father didn't kill either of us."
The hostess took pity on them. "Your table is ready, Mr. Grayson."
"Thank you."
Babs frowned. "You got another secret identity?"
"Have to keep up with the all-seeing Oracle." He answered softly as to hostess didn't hear.
"Dinner conversation won't be boring." She linked their elbows as they followed the hostess into the dining room. "Are those real penguins?"
One Month Later
Blake finished a pull-up when the intercom Babs had installed between the rooms in the Batcave cackled. "Did you tag people and not tell me?"
"Hold on, I'm coming out." He wiped off his face with his gym towel. Babs sat at the cube's computer and scowled as he crossed the catwalk. "Something went wrong with the tracking devices?" he asked.
"Slots for numbers four and five went active, but the names weren't filled in." She pointed to the list on the screen.
"It wasn't me. I offered one to Fox and he said we didn't want to know where he goes at night. Are you sure it's not interference?"
"I ruled that out first thing."
He pulled on the towel hanging around his neck. "Okay, so where are four and five?"
She opened the map. "Greece. I swear it's not interference."
"I don't believe it." Blake chuckled. She looked at him with a furrowed forehead. "The missing stuff from the inventory list--we never found the second jet injector. Now new tags activate halfway across the world. The son of a bitch is still alive. Batman is still alive!" His laughter echoed in the cave, waking the bats above.
Babs' wide O of a mouth turned into a grin. "You know what else this means? Papa Bat will check up on how we're taking care of his city."
"We better hit the streets then."
The End
Additional Author's Note 04/21/2013: This series finally has a name! Signs and Portents includes: Batman: Symbol of Intuition, Batman: Partners, Batman: Entwined Fates, Batman: Forgiveness is for the Living, and Batman: Meanwhile in Gotham City.