Chapter Text
“We need containment strategies, not chaos,” he said, voice low but strained. “If we jump the gun, we’ll cause more deaths than we prevent.”
Government officials sat at the long conference table, some in uniform, some in suits, none of them at ease. Madam President leaned forward, his elbows on the polished wood, eyes tired and bloodshot.
A general cleared his throat. "With all due respect, ma’am, containment through quarantine failed two days ago. Half the citizens in the eastern seaboard are breaking protocol. People are fleeing cities on foot. There are people outside this assembly right now protesting. They don’t trust our word. If we don't get ahead of this—”
Just then, the lights flickered.
It wasn’t power failing. But a controlled pulse.
When the lights came back on, a new figure emerged.
A tall figure, cloaked in black, stood half-shadowed behind the projector screen. Gathering every government official's attention. No one had seen him enter. And no one could say how long he had been listening.
Their security guards were now more alert.
But he simply stepped forward, slow and deliberate, the edges of his cape softly brushing the floor.
“Three hours,” Batman said, voice like stone.
The Secret Service took his additional steps as an attack and moved instinctively, but the President raised a hand.
“Hold.”
Batman’s eyes swept the room, expression unreadable behind the cowl. No one spoke. And he made his way closer.
“I’ve analyzed the virus’s structure. It’s mutating too fast. That means we won’t have a vaccine path before it spirals again. You’re not dealing with one outbreak. You’re dealing with the collapse of predictable biology. Your priority should not be herding the citizens, you need to stop this virus from spreading.”
He stopped at the end of the table.
“You will need to create a haven. Now . Not a shelter, not a suggestion—an absolute promise to the people. A zone of isolation. It will be protected, reinforced, and medically controlled. One chance for survivability. It will buy us time to help implement the vaccines to the survivors."
Madam President studied him carefully. “You think people will follow?”
“They’ll follow fear. Announce it—national broadcast, every channel, EAS, social feeds. In the next three hours.”
Someone from the CDC tried to interject. “We have protocols, this isn’t how decisions—”
Batman turned to him slowly. “I’m not here to debate protocol. I’m here to stop the spread. Emergency situations should override these protocols."
Then, without waiting for response, Batman stepped back toward the shadows.
“But—wait—” the Secretary of State started.
There was no point, the lights flickers and he crashed into a window.
He was gone.
No door opened. No exit was seen.
Just an absence where he had been standing seconds ago.
The room erupted with stunned whispers. But the President stood, gaze hardening as she reached for the emergency communications phone.
“Draft the announcement. He’s right. We move within the hour.”
Outside, somewhere in the distance, a low thunder rolled through the storm clouds above D.C.
*
“What else are you hiding from us?” She hollered beside the temporary blockade zone.
The streets had been blocked with makeshift fencing and yellow tape, guarded more by confusion than authority.
Just beyond the city limits, dozens of people had gathered, pressed close under the gray weight of the evening sky. Some wore masks, some clutched phones with dead signals, and others just stood, waiting for answers that never came. The only way people were able to tell the accurate time was with an analog watch that read 2:00 pm EST.
“It's a cover-up,” another voice added. “The hospitals are full because they’re experimenting on people. That’s what this is.”
People are shouting, demanding answers all at once from the people who stand with bullet vests. People who were not even sparing a glance towards them. They looked ahead and held their shields higher.
An older man pounded the side of a transport truck that hadn’t moved in hours and was blocking them from entering in further.
“What else are you hiding from us?!” he shouted toward a line of suited officials who refused to meet his eyes.
“They knew about this days ago,” someone muttered to the man.
“They’re gonna leave us out here to rot.” a woman said, holding her sign I HOPE THIS BITES YOU IN THE ASS.
Suddenly the suited officials held their rifles. The people fall into a hush silence, mostly disbelief.
A few of them wondered if they were planning on shooting them into silence. Instead, the man shifts his aim towards an individual who is not holding any sort of sign. Instead they have a sunken expression and a low growl.
BAM.
The individual did not fall to the ground. In fact its eyes glazed over as blood trickled down its forehead. It let out a haunted moan.
Everyone screamed.
Soon the controlled protests morphed into chaos.
“Get away from him!” someone screamed.
“Oh god, he’s turning—”
“Don’t touch him!”
One woman fell to the ground in the midst of everything. She was inches away from the infected individual. It seemed to realize this as well when he started making his way towards her.
She couldn’t help but cry, tears streaming down her face and she braced herself for what was coming. She looked around, wide-eyed. Alone.
This was it.
A blur of movement. A ripple in the crowd. And suddenly, a black shape landed beside her.
Batman.
His cape whipped behind him as he knelt by the infected, one gloved hand already on the man’s back, steadying him.
“You’re not done yet,” Batman said. His voice cut through the panic like a blade.
He looked up at the crowd. They could hardly listen to him as they all ran, making their way back to their cars. So he focused his attention towards the woman.
“In 3 hours, the government will post word of a haven, an isolation unit. I suggest you make your way to Mount Vernon’s Square area.” He starts tying the infected man, and the woman remains on the ground. She can’t really believe this is happening right now.
Before she can say much of anything, he disappears.
She stays on the ground a bit longer, fear taking away her ability to do anything but tremble.
She’s still alive.
*
Tim is a bit worried.
Ever since the lockdown was officially announced, he’d been on his own for the most part.
It wasn’t too bad. The quiet had a way of stretching out time, making hours feel like days.
His parents had left just before things got bad, he couldn’t remember exactly when , and they hadn’t made it back since.
He wasn’t sure where they were, and that was the part that really got to him.
He hoped they were okay, clinging to that thought like a raft.
He had tried calling them several times, at different hours of the day, but the calls either rang endlessly or went straight to voicemail.
Not even a text had come through. No check-in. No explanation. Just silence.
He didn’t want to panic, but the longer it went on, the harder it was to hold onto rationality.
And a part of him, he hated to admit it, was also afraid of being home alone for this long. Not because he was scared of the dark or anything childish like that. It was the real-world stuff that started to creep in:
What if someone tried to break in? What if someone thought the house was empty? The thought stuck in his chest like a splinter.
Still, if Home Alone had taught him anything, it was that keeping up appearances mattered.
You had to make it look like people were still there. That meant lights, movement, noise, anything to break the illusion of emptiness.
So Tim did what he could.
He turned on the light in his parents’ bedroom upstairs and left the living room lights glowing too—those were the two rooms with the biggest windows facing the street. He made sure the blinds were drawn, just slightly tilted to give the impression of privacy, but not abandonment.
KNOCK.
It isn’t urgent or loud– in fact it hardly sounded like a knock.
But the repeatedly thumping on his door felt just… wrong.
Fear freezes him in place. And his heart thumps like it wants to bolt from his chest. For a moment, he can’t move. Can’t think.
He looks around the hallways before slowly making his way towards the sound.
He swallows the fear, and forces himself to move closer toward the door, reminding himself that panic won’t help.
Maybe it’s someone checking in. Maybe…it’s his nanny.
“Is…is that you, Nanny?” he calls out, his voice trembling. He needs some sort of stool so he can peek through the doorhole. He can’t find anything useful so he gets two pillows from his couch and tries stacking them.
It sorta works. He’s able to recognize the grey curly hair.
Relief swells in his chest. Of course it was Nanny. She must’ve come to check on him.
He was so happy he almost unlocked the door.
Until he remembered when he called out to her, he hadn’t received any response.
There’s no answer. Just silence.
“Nanny? Are you there?” he asks again, louder this time, but still, no response. The quiet feels heavier now—wrong somehow.
He leans closer to the peephole and whispers, “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
But the only thing he hears is the slow ticking of the clock behind him.
*
He decides not to open the door.
He feels awful for not letting Nanny in, but when he realized she should’ve had the keys to enter herself he feels more inclined to stay holed up in his room.
He still hears thumps on the door, they're slow but loud enough for him to hear it from over here. He looks around for his phone and notices announcements being made by the government people.
He has to google a few of the words but they tell him about a place safer than his house. He breathes out a sigh of relief.
Maybe they’re waiting for me over there! It makes more sense now, they obviously couldn’t go back to the house since it was dangerous. So they were making their way to the safe haven in Gotham City.
With that resolve Tim feels a bit more braver. He decides that he should pack a couple of clothes and essentials before heading out. He has to remove his blanket because it’s too thick to bring, so he settles for a hoodie and extra sweatpants. Now it’s a bit easier to carry on his back.
KNOCK.
He flinches, almost forgetting about the Fake-Nanny. He looks down at his phone, it had no service but maybe…
He dials 9-1-1
He waits for around 5 minutes before he hears another person’s voice.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“uh…hi..there’s a zombie on my porch.” Tim mutters, keeping his voice low as if the Fake-Nanny could hear.
Normally if someone were to say this a week ago, no one would’ve taken this seriously. Fortunately the dispatcher understands that he’s referring to the virus.
“What’s your address?” He tells the dispatcher. She assures him she will be sending two fully armed officers his way.
“Do you... know the infected person?” Tim nods before he realizes she can't see that.
“Yeah.. she’s supposed to be my nanny.”
“What’s your name?”
“Uh.. Tim.. Tim Drake.”
“Are you home alone right now Tim?”
“Yeah.. my nanny was supposed to be… uh here?”
“Okay Tim, my name is Baraba. Can you tell me where you are right now in your house? Are you closer to your door or far away?”
Tim scrunches his face, technically he’s in the living room where the windows are a view to his front porch. Thankfully the blinds are closed.
“Yeah.. kinda close..”
“Okay Tim–”
He doesn’t hear a thump this time, he hears a crack. Repeated cracks against the window which end up jinxing his luck.
For a moment he just stands there, his phone almost slipping from his grasp. The 9-1-1 dispatcher, Baraba , is probably talking to him right now but he needs to move. Like now .
He hears another moan, so he quickly grabs his backpack and phone and runs back upstairs to his room.
Once he’s in, he locks the door,
He leans on the door, letting his back press against it as he takes deep breaths.
He waits a bit before putting the phone towards his ears.
“..Tim? Hello, can you hear me Tim?”
“uh..sorry. I’m upstairs in my room now. I think..” Tim swallows a bit trying to still his trembling hand.
“I think.. It’s inside my house now..? It broke my window but I dunno..” He trails off wondering if he’d be able to hear the zombie’s moans from here.
“Okay Tim, the police will be on their way shortly. I’d like you to stay on the phone in the meantime, okay?” Tim nods, breathing out a sigh of relief.
“Okay.”
*
As promised two police eventually come. Tim thankfully hadn’t interacted with the Fake-Nanny, but one of them promised he’d be safer now.
Since he wasn’t living with any adult the police decided to bring him into the police station, in hopes of calling one of his relatives. Tim guessed the only reason they were taking this much measures was simply because he was a nepo baby.
Despite not being arrested, they technically had to bring him in the back of the police car. Tim didn’t mind, but he didn’t like the idea of not being able to exit the vehicle unless someone pulled it from the outside.
He ended up feeling grateful for that distance when he noticed that the two police weren’t fully armed. There had been a gap of skin between their elbows and a thinner piece of clothing to give them more mobility.
Tim didn’t realize it until one of the officers stopped complaining about his stomach and stopped talking entirely. The driver didn’t make any eye contact with the guy, but he seemed to be almost speeding while dodging past cars who couldn’t hear the siren.
When he lunged, Tim flinched.
He had been targeting the driver who used his left foot to try and create more distance. His foot was off the accelerator so it started slowing down.
The driver unbuckled his seatbelt and used his right foot to also kick him.
It didn’t do much but freed both his legs. He left the car, and went around to unlock Tim’s door.
“We need to run.” Tim nodded, glad he had returned his phone to his backpack, now he had both strapped on and was running as fast as he could.