[Batman] ...and they will ride forth
Rating: G
Summary: there's an apocalypse, Batman doesn't really notice
On Monday there was a triple breakout. Firefly, Calendar Man and Firebug all disappeared from prison at three hour intervals. It appeared to be a literal disappearance, too. For all three, one moment the video feed saw them sitting in their cells in the next they were gone. Despite himself, Bruce found he was enjoying the mystery. It had been easy enough to find where the videos had been looped but just how the men had gotten out of the cells, and out of the prison, remained hidden.
More importantly, Batman didn’t know why. It was obvious that all three had been sprung by the same hand, but whose hand? They shared no connections to one another. Firefly and Firebug had both been involved in arson but they had fought each other. There was no record of either of them having even met Calendar Man. If someone was organizing a team they seemed like three of the worst candidates for working together. It could be a distraction. Maybe only one of them was necessary, maybe all three were merely being used to draw attention away from some deeper plan.
It was snowing. Bruce could feel the different weight it gave to the world even from the cave. The thick, quiet sensation of looking out his window as a child and seeing the world coated in white. It was likely a psychological reaction: he knew it was snowing and he carried the knowledge and his assumptions with him. Even to a place that remained unchanged, whatever the weather.
Patrol was quiet that night. Snow coated the city even as it continued to fall. It was inaccurate to say it rarely snowed in Gotham. The city received the average amount of snowfall for a coastal city in the north-eastern part of the United States. More accurately, rarely did snow stick in Gotham. It could blanket the roofs of the buildings like icing on a gingerbread house but in the smoke from the factories and in the streets filled with cars and in the paths trodden by countless feet it melted and turned to yellow-brown slush and sad piles of ice strewn with garbage. Privately, Gotham reminded Bruce of a dead deer he had once seen lying in the snow. Across the clearing, it had appeared beautiful, almost asleep in a drift of snow. It had only been when he’d gone closer that he’d seen the rotten flesh hidden below. The thought made his lips quirk upward. Despite what some thought, he was aware that at times he thoughts could turn to the melodramatic. He could just imagine Dick’s face at the idea of the city as a deer.
Street crime always decreased with harsh weather. Those people who could had sought refuge from the storm. Those that couldn’t had huddled in whatever protection they could find. Batman patrolled the abandoned buildings carefully on these nights. He made sure that no crimes were being planned but he would not evict anyone who had come for shelter.
Bruce was always caught in the dichotomy of the weather. He remembered happy days as a child playing in the snow. He had lived through snow storms a world away from his city, storms whose depths and ferocity had made him wonder if he had ever truly experienced snow before them. There had been snow days with Dick where he had found himself awkwardly watching another child’s joy in the snow and the nights on snowy roof tops. He had experienced the painful numbness of freezing and had seen people dead in the ice. He tried to have places where people could go for warmth.
Batman retired early. He had not been called. Any crimes being committed within the shelter of a home were lost for him at the moment. It pulled at him sometimes: how much of the law would he break, how much privacy had to be kept, how did you keep hope that people would change. How could many times could you hope that this would be someone’s last arrest, that they would find a new way. For now he could keep to the balance.
On Tuesday Bruce scanned through prison footage. There were no instances of the escaped men meeting with each other that he could find. There had been no glimpse of what they were doing now, yet, either. He looked up which holidays were approaching. He stretched while listening to the recording of the latest psychology journal that had been recommended. He checked the cameras at Arkham and the prisons.
The wind had taken on an icy edge by the time he went out for patrol that night. Alfred had dryly suggested he make sure that Freeze was securely locked away. Batman moved carefully across the roofs and double checked each jump. He was well aware of the dangers of slipping or falling. He spent some time lurking in warehouses that were often used for drug deals but it seemed that the addicts would be left to deal by themselves for one night. He stopped a girl from breaking a window with a rock but ended up escorting her to a nearby shelter, she was just a kid seeking a place indoors. He watched a car skid but there was nothing he could do.
On Wednesday Bruce Wayne had a fundraiser to go to. Bruce rarely enjoyed the parties but they were useful. Bruce Wayne had a reputation as someone who liked to give - when he had a good time. When his outside activities were already being curtailed by the weather his frustration was lowered. Besides, Gotham fundraisers were often host to crime. They were frequent targets of criminals looking for large amounts of cash and an obviously drunk idiot could learn quite a bit about certain unsavory practices of the ‘upper crust’ of the city. Bruce Wayne smiled as he swayed drunkenly toward the bathroom and added another name to the mental checklist of those involved in the Elbridge scam.
On Thursday he found both the escape method and the man who’d helped them. In truth, he likely could have solved the problem much faster if he had dedicated more time to searching. None of the three prisoners, however, were that dangerous and they hadn’t committed more crimes and as much as he hated it the Batman had to prioritize his time. He had been going through his correspondence (rote acknowledgements from Bruce Wayne, housekeeping on pseudonyms, a discussion with several psychologists on OCD) while watching the feed. The same guard left the prison twice, once driving a truck. The same guard who was near all three cells before the disappearances. Batman pulled up the plans of the prison and the escape came together. During the missing time the men had been released and hidden in a camera blind spot (which there were far too many). Later, they had received disguises and been smuggled out in the food vans.
The man who had done the smuggling, and no doubt the bribing of the guards who were supposed to check the vehicle, was named Nate Silvers. He had been a guard for several years with a clean record. He was also gone. His apartment had been found completely empty by an elderly neighbor who, apparently, often brought over food in return for Silvers taking care of errands for her. From all appearances, the man appeared to have vanished in the night, taking all his belongings with him.
This only added to the mystery. While it seemed to be out of character for Silvers to aid criminals the sudden disappearance suggested that a great deal of money had probably been involved. Yet whose money was behind everything remained confusing. After examining the evidence, there didn’t appear to be anyone who would spend that much money on even one of the escapees, let alone all three.
On Friday there was a fire. It was a bonfire set on the second floor of a derelict factory. The walls were solid and despite the sleet that poured down outside the flames danced merrily. Even with a mask, Batman found it hard to breathe. The coiling smoke stung his eyes as he was forced to fight off Firebug and Firefly while dismantling the series of explosives that the demolitions expert and former pyrotechnic expert had rigged up.
It was the girl who had found them. The same girl he had directed to the shelter days before. She had climbed up the iced over fire escape that was still attached the squatter filled building that he had been checking on while the cold continued. She had sat waiting for him, shivering but determined. She had been spending her days hiding in the old factory and had seen the men in costume setting up.
Batman had cleared two of the buildings before he had run into Calendar Man. That fight had been easy enough and the man’s garbled explanation (he was really reaching for this holiday) had helped clear things up. It was another clearance scheme. Have the building burned, and burned by criminals known for pyromania, and clear the space much more quickly than it would take for the city to move. Firebug and Firefly had been chosen for their proficiency with fires. Calendar Man, Batman suspected, had been an attempt to throw investigators off the sent. The fact he was generally regarded as a joke had helped.
Batman managed to pull open the window. He breathed in the cold and let it cool his face, ignoring the groans from the two arsonists. No names had been provided for those who had hoped to benefit most from this little venture and he doubted any of the three had any idea. He had called the police and would have to wait until they arrived to depart as the not entirely cleared roads would, no doubt, slow them down. He had an investigation to conduct, starting with looking into the owners of the factory and at the names of those people who had lobbied the mayor for contracts. Before that, though, he had winter clothes to buy and a girl to find.
On Saturday there was a meeting. Batman didn’t always attend the Justice League gatherings but unless there was immediately pressing business he did try not to avoid them. It was necessary to know if anything was affecting the world that he would have to take part in dealing with. Besides, while the sun was shining, the sun remained thick on the ground and its staunching effects on crime would likely continue. Batman had to admit to himself, even if he would never say it out loud, that he had been rather startled to learn that the Ice Giants, bringers of the Apocalypse, had risen and been fought back until they had returned to their rest to wait until it was there time again. On the other hand, it did explain the relatively early snow fall.