Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

PROLOGUE

... Elsewhere ...

Dying was easy.

All he had to do was to stop fighting. To let go and just…

Stop.

He’d been fighting all night.

He felt like he’d been fighting for years. Everything was a battle. His friends, his family, the League, his life. He had to fight just to keep them and still they always seemed to slip through his fingers. His body was exhausted, constantly fighting the pain and injuries, nothing ever not hurting to the point that some days he had to fight just to breathe.

Still, when The Court came for him, finally washed their hands of him and swore that he would serve no other master if he would not serve them, he fought.

Swords and daggers and razor-sharp claws, he fought waiting for help that was never going to come.

There was no one left. No friends, no family, no league. None of them answered, none of them came, and he greeted his death as he had lived his life.

Alone.

He felt the blade when it pierced his chest, through his lung and out the back.  So sharp and quick he wondered if he had imagined it. He was shocked, stunned in that moment when he realized they were there for the kill and not the capture.

And then there was another blade, shorter, serrated, tearing into the flesh of his side and the organs within.

And another, through his back and spine and the only reason he remained standing was because of the hold of their blades.

And the last, the quartet of lethal claws that had been reaching for him since his birth, raked across the front of his throat.

Stop.

The pain had stopped, faded quickly into nothingness with every drop of blood that stained the rooftop beneath him. Not just the pain, but everything. They had lifted him up, held him against the wall with his arms outstretched to the side. With inhuman strength they had pierced their daggers through his body - his hands, his arms, his legs, his shoulders, chest, and abdomen – to the bricks behind him.  A dozen jagged blades that would display his corpse to whoever found him.  And through it all there was still:

Nothing.

No pain

Gone.

His eyes remained open, the mask he once wore lost early during their dance of death, but it allowed him to watch the sun with his true vision as it began to crest the horizon over the harbour. The snow drifted down over the city he had once thought of as home, a blanket of pristine white that attempted to conceal from view the carnage and horror of the events of that night.

He wished he could smile to welcome his final seconds in the light of day after a lifetime in the shadows and night.

Stop.

He would never know of the footsteps tearing up nearby stairs. Or the anguished cry of the first to have been called ‘brother’. Or the tears of the second as he fell to knees in the crimson-stained snow to weep for a brother unforgiven. Or the reverent touch from the third to close once azure eyes for the last time. Or the shattered heart of a father who collapsed at the feet of the son who had been the best of them all.

Because in that moment, in the growing light of that last dawn, he could finally let go and just…

Stop.

FIGHT!

“Holy Fuck!”

“WE NEED HELP OUT HERE!”

“Holy fucking shit! Kid’s conscious! How in the hell-Kid? Hey, HEY! Stay with me! You hear me? Stay with me!”

Kid.

“Oh my god! How is he still alive!?”

“Do not remove those knives! Get compression bandages around his throat, now! We stabilize him here, goddamn it! You, get me as many bags of O negative as you can carry; you call Ortiz and get his ass down here! Someone get a theatre cleared and prepped for surgery! And someone call the fucking cops! Goddamn, someone did a number on this kid! ”

He was almost thirty.

“Heartrate 130; blood pressure 60/40 and dropping!”

“Oxygen levels are bottoming out!.”

“Shit! Right lung fully collapsed and left is filling with fluids. Kid’s not going to make it to the OR! Where the fuck is Ortiz!?”

“We’re losing him! Come on kid, you made it this far! Fight! Fight!”

FIGHT!

Dying was easy.

What came next that was the hard part.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER ONE

... Present ...

The strike of the crowbar was almost lazy. It still clacked his teeth together and sent him from his knees to the hard concrete on his side. The cuffs restraining his wrists behind his back kept him from bracing himself. His battered and broken ribs pressed painfully into his lungs and he coughed with a coppery taste in the back of his throat.  Eyes clenched shut, he didn’t want to see the man belonging to the footsteps that stopped right next to him.

“Wow, that looked like it really hurt.”

There was no stopping the grunts of pain with each new hit of that stained metal bar, or the whimpers that escaped his split and bloodied lips as another blow caught him with the hook and flipped him onto his back.

“Whoa, now, hang on. That looked like it hurt a lot more.”

He didn’t want to see, but the sensation of the man standing right over top of him had him opening half-swollen green eyes. The bleached skin of the Joker contrasted frighteningly the crimson-stained lips grinning down at him maniacally. His chest was heaving with every breath, his body flinching at every ‘SMACK’ of the crowbar against leather gloves.

“So, let’s try and clear this up, okay, pumpkin? What hurts more?”

The breath hitched in his chest as the bar was raised above the Joker’s head and he let his eyes drift to the second-floor window behind the madman. For the first time in his miserable little life, he prayed. He prayed to a god who never did him any favors for a shadow to come crashing through the glass panes.

He prayed for a savour that wasn’t coming.

“A?”

The blow to his side had him clenching his eyes shut again and trying to curl into himself.

“Or B?”

The curve of the bar slammed into his back, eliciting another grunt of pain as his body contorted involuntarily trying to get away from the hits.

“Forehand?”

The blow to his head had him gasping and crying out with pain as it exploded across his temple. He was going to die here. More than two years fighting along side Batman, and Osprey – Jason – was going to die at the end of Joker’s crowbar.

“Or backhand?”

He was listening for the slight whistle of air as the metal swung down at him again, hoping for that split second to brace himself against another hit, but instead heard the heavy thud of bodies colliding.  Joker grunted and the crowbar landed with a clang somewhere on the concrete. Jason cracked his eyes open in time to see a dark figure deliver a vicious spinning kick to the side of Joker’s head. The Clown Prince staggered, putting distance between the madman and the downed bird.

The dark figure stepped into the space, body shifting into a well practiced defensive position in front of Jason’s fallen form.  In each gloved hand the man held a thin metal stick two feet in length; Escrima sticks. The guy knew how to wield them as they were spun expertly and held threateningly at the Joker. “You’re never touching him again.”

That wasn’t Batman’s growl. The voice was pitched higher, younger, and with a slight rasp, but was no less intimidating with the venom dripping from every syllable.

“You’re standing between me and the little birdie, Lambchop.” Joker snarled and giggled simultaneously in a sound that sent terrified shivers down Jason’s spine.

Except the guy didn’t seem phased in the slightest. “I’m not moving.”

“You may want to rethink that, boy.” The growing insane laughter was accompanied by the “snick, snick” of a butterfly knife being opened.

“Only if you rethink that suit. Because, seriously, you still look like an anorexic eggplant. And not in the good way.”

Joker stopped laughing abruptly and let the hand with the knife drop down to his side. Incredulous, he looked down at the signature dark purple suit he typically wore before looking up at the guy that had the balls to insult him. “There’s a good wa-”

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by the rod that suddenly flew through the air and the end striking him in the center of the forehead. It hit was a solid clang and with enough speed to send Joker once again stumbling on his feet.

“No.” The guy rolled his shoulders, cricked his neck side to side, and started advancing. Without looking away from Joker (who was scowling and rubbing at the red spot on his forehead) the guy slid his foot across the concrete and kicked the bloodied crowbar into his hand. “Let’s see if you’re as good as the last clown I danced with.”

Joker lunged forward, the blade aimed for the guy’s face, but the guy was faster and dodged to the side of the attack and the follow-up slash toward the opposite side.  When Joker suddenly redirected the blade toward the guy’s stomach Jason thought he was about the see the guy gutted. Except, as if anticipating the feint, the guy was suddenly vaulting over Joker’s head and twisting midair to land on his feet facing Joker’s back.

Finally able to get a look at the guy, Jason was alarmed to see he wasn’t wearing any specialized body armor. It was nothing more than reinforced gear one could find at any motorcycle shop across the city, right down to the full-face mask and reflective goggle hiding his identity. His short, dark hair was curling slightly and hanging loose around his face and the only part of him that was visible. Everything else was covered with the dark clothing and a brown leather jacket.

The guy barely touched the ground before he reached out with the hooked end of the crowbar and snagged the cackling clown around the throat. Gagging and choking at the sudden pressure the Joker was yanked backward, allowing the guy to once more place himself between Jason and the Joker.

“Now here’s a birdie that can fly!” Joker laughed appreciatively, tossing the knife from one hand to the next. “Let see if I can’t clip those pretty little wings of yours!”

“Worse than you have tried.”

Jason had never seen anyone move the way this guy did.  He was fast, darting in and around Joker, delivering a precision strike with either the crowbar or stick, elbows or knees. Across the wrist, the thigh, the ribs, the back; Jason was not ashamed to admit that he was enjoying watching the pale-faced bastard getting beat down. And every time the Joker moved or just looked in Jason’s way, the guy was there keeping the psychopath away from him. Not to say Joker wasn’t getting his own licks in. There were more than a few wet stains on the guy’s arms and side.

And Jason knew firsthand the guy couldn’t beat Joker on his own. Even Batman struggled to beat the Joker, and never without gaining a few new scars. As good as the guy was he wasn’t Batman. The guy needed help. Jason may have been hurt, broken, but he wasn’t defeated. Hissing and groaning against the pain he rolled onto his back and started working his cuffed hands from behind his back.

“You know, you seem kind of familiar.”  Joker jeered after one particularly brutal swipe of the knife that managed to open the leather, and the leg, of the guy’s pants above the left knee. Joker followed through to kick the newly wounded joint which sent the guy to one knee, but jumped back when the crowbar came swinging wildly. “Have I tried to kill you before?”

“I must have one of those faces.” He was limping now, as he got his feet beneath him, the wound on his leg bleeding worryingly. Still, the guy wasn’t stopping.

“Not even a little hint?” Joker gave a light laugh and ducked under another swing of the crowbar and slashed out with the edge of the blade, scraping it dangerously over the polycarbonate lens of the goggles. The attack seemed to surprise the guy enough that Joker was able to stab the point of the knife into the guy’s shoulder.

"No!" Jason's raspy cry was masked by the guy's own shout of pain. Jason had his hands in front of him now, but his heart was racing and his vision blurring at the edges.  His Arms were shaking and he could barely lift his torso off the floor to watch the scene before him.

Joker had gotten the upper hand, straddling the guy’s chest with the edge of the bloody knife pressed up against the exposed throat. The guy’s weapons were gone and he wasn’t moving, though Jason had no doubt it had more to do with the knife rather than unconsciousness – at least he hoped it was. The joker was laughing with the thrill of the fight. “Damn, Sparky! You’re almost as fun to play with as my pal Batsy! You know, I made him laugh once. Have you ever heard the one about the two guys in the insane asylum? See, there’s these two guys-”

“And the other guy says, ‘You’ll just turn it off when I’m halfway across.’”

For the second time, the guy got Joker to stop laughing. Though from the small flow of blood Jason could see on the guy’s throat that may not have been a good idea. The Joker was pouting. “It’s rude to interrupt a good joke!”

“I’ve got one for you myself.” The guy said unbothered by the metal cutting precariously close to his jugular. Jason’s breath caught in his throat as he saw the guy’s legs flex unnoticed behind the Joker’s back. “A clown and a gymnast were fighting and it looked like the clown had won. But then the gymnast said, ‘I’ve sacrificed sure footing for a killing stroke.’”

The joker tilted his head to the side and frowned. “I don’t get it.”

And then the guy moved.

With impossible flexibility he bent at the waist, bringing his legs up into the air and crossing at the ankles around Joker’s neck from behind. In one fluid motion he snapped his hips back down, pulling the Joker off him and slamming the back of the clown’s head into the cement with the crack of bone, and rolled with the momentum until he was back on his feet in a crouch over the now unmoving Joker’s chest.

“Do you get it now, chuckles?”

Jason knew he was staring, mouth dropping and gaping at a maneuver he could only ever dream of pulling off. There was no way Batman could have even attempted it, with the thicker body build and heavy armour. He didn’t think any of the heroes he knew could pull it off. It had been – and there was no other word for it – beautiful.

For a few seconds neither of them moved, and then the guy lifted his head away from the Joker and looked at Jason. “Are you okay?”

He wanted to nod but found himself shaking his head and letting his body slump back to the floor. “No.” He gasped heavily. Something inside his chest wasn’t right, like he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs.

In a second the guy was next to him and picking the locks of the cuffs on Jason’s wrists effortlessly.  Jason could see the blood on him, the numerous nicks and cuts scored by the Joker. The half-inch cut on his neck was still bleeding freely and the one above his knee was bad and likely need a lot of stitches to close. Jason couldn’t see his face beneath the mask, but this close he could just barely make out the eyes through the goggles. Not enough to make out the colour, maybe a blue or even light green, but they were kind and filled with concern.

Gingerly, and with more care than he would have expected from a stranger, Jason was rolled onto his side which he found made it a little easier to breath. “I need you to hang in there for a few more minutes, can you do that Osprey?”

This time he was able to nod. The guy gave his shoulder a light squeeze, very reminiscent of something Batman would have done, before going back to the Joker. All gentleness gone, the guy grabbed the unconscious clown by the hair and dragged him over to a nearby load bearing beam. Jason could see the blood stain on the concrete where Joker’s head had been and felt absolutely no sympathy for the headache the asshole was going to have when he woke up.

The guy laid Joker out on his stomach next the to beam, stretched the clown’s arms past his head and around the post before securing them with the cuffs he’d take off Jason. With his back to him, the guy took something from his jacket and did something to the Joker but Jason couldn’t see what. Then the guy vanished into the shadows of a stack of crates.

In the distance, the familiar roar of a vehicle was getting closer.

He could hear the guy moving about the expanse, but couldn’t see where, and after a few seconds Jason’s eyes drifted shut as the danger seemed to have passed. A purposeful scuff of sneakers on concrete announced the guy’s return, and Jason opened his eyes to watch the man approach him. The guy crouched down next to him and shrugged out of his jacket, folding it up and sliding it beneath Jason’s head.

“Batman is almost here, just a few minutes out. He is coming for you, Osprey. The man hasn’t stopped looking for you since you went missing; tore the city apart trying to find you.” He told Jason, unclipping the tattered cape from Jason’s uniform and draped it over him. “I can carry you out of here, and if you want me to I will, but with your injuries its not a good idea to move too much.”

Jason allowed his eyes to close and nodded minutely. “I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not, but you’re going to be.” There was something in the guy’s voice, a combination of sadness and relief. “This was bad. You're hurt, scared, completely convinced you were about to die being beaten by a psycho with a messed up face. Believe me, I know exactly how something like this feels. But this is not going to break you, Osprey; the Joker will not break you. And I’ve made sure he’ll never get another chance to try. So just by surviving you have given him the biggest ‘Fuck you’ there is.”

For the first time in what seemed like days, Jason gave a huff of laughter and a small, weary smile. He saw the guy starting to stand and reached from beneath the cape to take hold of his wrist. “Who are you?”

“Nobody, just a ghost that doesn’t exist. A ghost that really shouldn’t be here when your partner shows up otherwise he’ll kick my ass before I can say, ‘I didn’t do it!’” The guy smoothed his hand over Jason’s blood matted hair in a surprisingly soothing gesture, then lightly tapped the edge of Jason’s broken mask. “The footage may be damaged, but you should be able to get something from it. And the jacket has my blood on it which I know he’s going to run through every test known to man and then some. He can try searching, but I’m no one. Batman won’t ever find me or who I was.”

The roar was right outside and came to a stop with a squeal of tires.

“Wait.” Jason tried to tighten his hold on the guy’s wrist. “Why…?”

“Because The Joker took one of my heroes away from me once before.” The guy tugged himself free and stepped away from Jason’s prone form. “I wasn’t about to let him do it again.”

The guy bolted and vanished without a sound into the shadows. Then Batman was there and relief flooded through Jason as his dad stood protectively over him. With a single last though, he let himself succumb to unconsciousness.

Batman may never find you, but I’m going to.

--- --- --- --- ---

Jason had fallen asleep again an hour ago, the pain medication making it hard for his boy to stay conscious more than a few minutes at a time. Still, Bruce could not bring himself to leave. Broken ribs, fractured jaw and missing teeth, stress fractures to his arms and legs, bruising and contusions of every degree to nearly sixty percent of his body. One of Jason’s ribs had been pressing dangerously against his lung but had not punctured the organ. Miraculously there had been no internal injuries. Between Alfred and Leslie’s ministrations it would only be a matter of weeks for the worst of it to heal.

Truthfully, it could have been much worse.

Three days it took Bruce to find where Jason had run, always a step behind his brilliant son in the search for Jason’s birth mother. Sheila Hayward: a woman with ties to the Joker who, according to Batman’s informants, had somehow gotten hold of Batman’s partner and handed Osprey over to the madman. Batman had known it was a race against the clock, and every second Osprey was with the psychopath was a second too long. It was another eighteen hours to find where the Joker had holed up.

Regrettably, Batman had been too late to save Hayward; police had found her body in another room. And had someone else not interfered, Batman would have arrived at the abandoned machine shop too late to save his son.

He hadn’t known it at the time, too focussed on Osprey once he realized the Joker had already been taken care of. Batman had spared the unconscious and restrained clown the barest of thoughts, long enough to ensure the man had a pulse, before calling in Gordon and the GCPD. After that, he only had eyes for Osprey and getting him medical attention.

That had been two days ago.

Tonight, there came a light knock on the doorframe to Jason’s room and Bruce looked up from the tablet in his hands. Seeing Clark Kent standing there, looking at Jason with a mix of concern and relief, Bruce set the tablet on the edge of the mattress and stood form the chair. He motioned for the journalist to step back into the hall and joined him, leaving the door open so he could see inside should Jason wake again.

“I’m sorry I missed this week’s meeting.” Bruce said quietly. “I meant to let you know.”

“It’s all right, Alfred explained when I called into the cave.” Clark told him as equally quiet. “I was a little worried when I realized Batman hadn’t been seen in a couple days.”

“And he won’t be for a while yet.” He confirmed wearily.

“I already spoke with Alfred when I arrived. He agreed to monitor things for you and keep me informed if there’s anything big enough to warrant intervention.”

“Thank you.” He said sincerely.

“You’re exactly where you’re meant to be, Bruce.” Clark looked past him and into the room. “How is he?”

“Well, all things considered.” Bruce followed the gaze to Jason’s sleeping form. “It was close this time, Clark. Far too close. The Joker would have killed him.”

The man’s hand was a comforting weight on Bruce’s shoulder. “You got there in time like you always do.”

“But I didn’t.” With a scowl, Bruce went back into the room and collected the table before going back into the hall. He opened the hidden app that connected to the computer in the cave, cued up some of the video footage he’d been reviewing, and held it out for the other man to take. “Someone else took down the Joker and rescued Osprey.”

The volume had been kept low as to not disturb the sleeping teen, but Bruce knew it would be no issue for Clark’s enhanced hearing. Bruce had already watched the entirety of the salvaged footage from Osprey’ mask. While it had been glitchy and cut out every few seconds after the camera had been damaged, it managed to record every sound if not picture. The last twenty minutes of video before Batman’s arrival had been watched dozens of times.  Every word, every movement, every nuance of Osprey’ saviour was being committee to Batman’s mind.

“He’s good.” Clark breathed, impressed by what he was seeing.

“Whoever he is, he’s been trained by at least a dozen different masters.” Bruce crossed his arms over his chest, the fight replaying in his mind. “Capoeira, Tang Soo Do, Krav Maga, Kick-Boxing, Kali, Judo, just to name a few. He flows seamlessly between them in ways I never knew were possible. You would think all the acrobatics and twists and vaults would be too flashy and showy – like something you might see at a martial arts demonstration – but he does not move without purpose. Everything he did in that fight, including the things he said, was planned out and calculated.”

“It’s like he has absolutely no fear of The Joker.” Clark murmured as the video continued.

“He’s fearless.” Bruce agreed. “He was fully committed to every action he made, every time he put himself between Joker and Osprey. And let me tell you, as someone who has fought the Joker on a somewhat regular basis, no fight against him ever goes as planned. He’s too unpredictable, too chaotic, and hits as hard if not harder as any bruiser. Still that guy never once hesitated to get within striking distance of Joker’s knife.”

“Holy crap!” Clark’s eyes suddenly went wide and his mouth dropped and Bruce felt himself smirk a little. He knew exactly what Clark had just watched.

“I know that move only in theory; it’s not something I can do with my fighting style.” Bruce admitted. “I’ve seen it done in choreographed demonstrations and showcases, but I have never seen anyone use it in an actual fight with any degree of success let alone with enough speed and strength to crack someone’s skull.”

With a tap to the screen to pause it, Clark looked up at Bruce with a frown. “He cracked The Joker’s skull?”

“That’s not all he did. Keep watching.” Bruce was torn between wanting to condemn the man for what he did but would also like to shake his hand. “After he restrained the Joker he paralysed him. Full paraplegia. A complete severing of the spinal cord between the C6 and C7 vertebrae. The Joker will spend the rest of his life bed ridden with someone having to feed and change him.  He will never leave Arkham again.”

Clark had paused the screen again and slumped against the opposite wall. “I don’t know how to react to that.”

“Tell me about it.” With a shake of his head, Bruce found himself once again staring at Jason still asleep in the bed. “He saved him, Clark. Twice! There was a bomb with enough explosives in that room to have leveled the building. Police found it disarmed with less than three minutes left on the timer. The Joker had planned to beat my son and leave him to be killed in the explosion. I’m finding it very hard to not be relieved at what that man did to The Joker.”

Quiet felt between the two men as Clark finished watching the last of the footage with the mystery hero. Because that’s what he was to Bruce. A hero. And the man hadn’t just saved Jason’s life, he saved Bruce’s entire world.

“I think I would really like to meet and thank this guy for saving my nephew.” Clark said after he closed it down and held the tablet back for Bruce to take. “Do you have any idea who he is?”

“I’ve got leads, but nothing really of note.” Bruce confessed, taking back the device. “There were no fingerprints on the jacket he left behind but it gave me blood type – O negative – and I’m running DNA through every database I can. Initial genetic profiling of the DNA gives his ancestry as South-East Europe and Central Asia. I’d have said he was young, early to mid twenties maybe, but given his level of skill and the necessary training I’d wager he’s early thirties, possibly even older. I recognized some of the styles and attacks as ones I use. Which leads to me believe he has trained with some of the same masters as I did, from before I became Batman.”

“I noticed there were moments where I thought he moved like you.” Clark said. “Just quicker and more agile maybe.”

“He was definitely that. And there’s more than just the fighting that makes me think I’m connected to him somehow.” Bruce frowned and opened the video app again. “Here, before the fight begins, he called Joker an ‘anorexic eggplant’.”

“He’s not wrong.” Clark smirked with amusement.

“But he said ‘still’; Joker ‘still looked like and anorexic eggplant.’ In my casefile for one of my first encounters with the Joker I used that exact phrase, anorexic eggplant.”

“Could be a coincidence.” The amusement vanished from Clark’s face and was replaced with a small frown of his own.

“And this?” Bruce skipped ahead to the moment Joker had the guy pinned beneath him. “The joke he’s trying to tell, about two men in the asylum; I had never heard that joke from him until a couple months ago. The last time he got out and…”

“Barbara.”

He nodded. “Before I took him back to Arkham, he told me that joke. That exact joke. How much of a coincidence would it have to be for this guy to know the punchline to one of Joker’s jokes that I’ve only ever heard once?”

“Too much of one.” Clark agreed, his frown deepening.

“Then he said this,” He let the video play out a bit before pausing it again.

“‘I’ve sacrificed sure footing for a killing stroke.’ I’ve heard you say something like that to Jason during training.

“Those exact words were said to me by Ra’s Al Ghul when I was training with the League of Shadows.” He could still hear the ice cracking beneath them as they fought. “It was during one of our training sessions, teaching me to always be mindful of my surroundings. We were fighting, I took a risk, thought I had him beat but I didn’t. He used the environment against me and won the duel. Tell me that’s a coincidence.”

Clark shook his head. “I can’t. You think he’s part of the League of Shadows.”

“Or at least trained by them.” Bruce turned off the tablet and absently rubbed at the hair on the back of his head. “Except once trained you either join or die. I was one of maybe a dozen in the last century of the League that earned Ra’s respect to be let go.”

“And he knew about the camera in Osprey’s mask.” Clark crossed his arms over his chest looking ever bit like the man of Steel despite the civilian clothes and glasses. “How many people would know about that?”

“Jim with the GCPD, Barbara, everyone in this house, and maybe a half-dozen other members of the League.” He could feel the answer just hovering outside of reach, but the events of the past week had drained him past the point of exhaustion. “I know this guy, Clark. I just don’t know how.”

“Pardon the intrusion, Master Bruce.” Alfred’s voice came from the end of the hall. “But you have another visitor.”

Both men turned to the major-domo and Bruce was surprised to see his oldest friend’s hand resting on the shoulder of a familiar young boy. “Tim? What are you doing here at this time of night?”

Timothy Drake, eleven years old and the only child of Bruce’s nearest neighbour. Not that that was saying much; the Drake mansion was still almost three miles through the woods that separated their respective properties. Bruce had met the boy a few times after the Drake’s had bought the property five or six years back. They had been invited guests to several of the functions held at the Manor each year and brought their young son with them, especially after Bruce had adopted Jason. It was as if the Drakes were trying to compete with him, showing off their well-bred heir in comparison to the ‘street-rat’ Bruce had taken in.  It had never sat right with him, how Jack and Janet Drake had treated Tim, but that had been no fault of their son. In fact, his presence ended up easing Jason’s self-consciousness during the events and the pair had struck up a casual friendship.

But why was he at the manor well after midnight?

The boy was anxious, shifting from foot to foot and biting at his lower lip. In his hands, clutched to his chest, was a fire-proof safety box. He looked between Bruce and Clark, then up at Alfred who surprised Bruce when he nodded down at the pre-teen and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Go ahead, young Master Drake. Just as you told me.”

Taking a deep breath to steel himself, and he could see Clark trying to hide a smile at the adorableness of it as well, Tim ducked out from beneath Alfred’s touch. “I – I wasn’t going to say anything, I swear, but he told me it would be all right.  He told me to show you and tell you that I know who you are. You and Jason.”

That did not bode well. Bruce glanced as Alfred who remained as stoic as ever. “Who I am? Who exactly am I, Tim?”

The boy looked over to Clark before looking back at Alfred again, who smiled down at him. “It’s quite all right, I assure you.”

Nodding, Tim walked the short distance down the hall and offered the lockbox to Bruce. “I know you’re Batman, Mr. Wayne. And that Jason is Osprey.”

Bruce nearly dropped the box with those words as he stared down at dozens of pictures of Batman and his partner. Nothing that had been printed or released online, those were always blurred and never captured anything of note. These were nothing like those. Crisp, clean, and at ranges and locales that should have been impossible for them to have been taken without Batman knowing.  He was stunned, to say the least, even as Tim started rambling.

“I promise, I wasn’t ever going to tell anyone! And those are the only copies if you want me to destroy them, I’ve already gotten rid of the negatives. He told me to do that. Just like he told me that it would be okay that I came here tonight.  He said that with Osprey hurt and unable to be your partner right now that you were going to need my help but he was hurt too and didn’t have anyone to help him though but he said you would need me more even if it was just to keep Jason distracted and company while you went out-”

“Tim, is it?” Clark interrupted when it became apparent the boy wasn’t going to stop. Or breathe.

“Yes, sir. Timothy Drake, I live next door.” The young man took another deep breath. “I did this all wrong, I just… He said it had to be tonight. That I couldn’t stay with him tonight and it wasn’t safe for me to go home since no one was there.”

Bruce would deal with the ‘no one there’ thing later, there was something else that had caught his attention. He closed the lid of the box and crouched down so he was level with Tim instead of looking down at him. “Tim, who told you to come here tonight?”

“I – I don’t know his name.” Tim admitted bashfully. “Well, not his real name anyway, but he said that with Batman and Osprey off duty for a while he was going to be going out more often and I couldn’t stay with him anymore.”

“What did you call him, then Tim?” Clark asked. “You said you’ve been staying with him, you had to call him something.”

“When I asked him he said he was nobody; a ghost that didn’t exist.” That was a phrase both Bruce and Clark recognized. “But I couldn’t call him ‘Nobody’, that’s just mean because it was obvious he was somebody. He said since I was his friend I could give him his name.”

“What name did you give him?” Bruce pressed gently.

“Wraith. I called him Wraith.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Two

… 6 Months Ago …

Strobing red and blue lights were not an unusual sight outside Central City Hospital. Between the ambulances and police cars, it was to be expected. Barry had been there so many times to process crimes scenes, both as part of his civilian career and that as the Flash, that he hadn’t thought anything about the call when it came in. The blood dripping down the wall off the ambulance bay was a little unnerving, the pools of it on cement even more so, but nothing he really hadn’t seen before.

“Where’s my body?” He asked, ducking beneath the police tape that Detective August Heart lifted for him.

August shook his head a motioned to a puddle of blood staining the concrete a few yards from the wall. “Kid was still alive when they got him down.”

Barry stopped, case bouncing off his thigh, and looked over at his friend. “Kid?” He asked, horrified.

The other man looked as ill as Barry suddenly felt and nodded. “Teenager; no older than eighteen maybe. They won’t know definitively until he’s out of surgery. If he survives. They’ve been working on him for a couple hours now.”

“Damn.” He followed August until they were standing a few feet away from the grisly site. The wall was white-painted cement and there were a dozen blood-soaked holes penetrating at least two inches deep. His eyes scanned their placement, the blood still wet and dripping, the bloody knives strewn about, and his stomach plummeted at what his mind was putting together. “They crucified him.”

“We’re getting the security footage, but according to the paramedics on duty they were inside for less than two minutes.” August motioned to a trio of medics talking with another detective. “Frank is getting statements from the medics that found him, but the time it would have taken to do something like this? Someone should have noticed long before they did. Something strange is going on, Barry.”

“You mean besides some sicko deciding to crucify a teenager to the wall in the emergency bay of Central City Hospital?” With a shake of his head, the forensic scientist set his kit down several feet away from the site. “I know this world is sick, but that’s something else.”

“There were a handful of nurses, orderlies and a couple of patients smoking just around the corner – maybe thirty feet away – and had been since before the ambulance arrived to drop off a patient. None of them saw or heard anything until the medics shouted for help.” August followed Barry. “Kid was beat all to hell, bleeding to death, and someone pinned him to that wall while still conscious. And no one saw or heard a goddamn thing.”

There was no stopping the flinch at the man’s words. “He was awake?”

“It’s how they knew he was alive.” The detective looked back at their crime scene. “Prognosis isn’t good, but it’s been a few hours and no one’s come to tell me he hasn’t made it yet. Medics say there were defensive wounds, kid fought the bastards that did this to him, so you’ll be processing him one way or another.”

“You know,” Barry finished assembling his camera and stood taking it all in again. “On a good day, my job is horrible.  But when it’s a kid? Maybe the world’s not sick, August. Maybe it’s just broken.”

… 5 Months Ago …

“Fastest man alive, and you’re still going to be late.”

The voice of his best friend drew Barry away from the toxicology report that came in just that afternoon. He looked at Hal in confusion for a second, grateful for his private office at the man’s comments, before he remembered. “Damn, the League holiday party; I was supposed to meet you back at the house. Sorry Hal, I completely lost track of time.”

The civilian Green Lantern was smiling indulgently but his eyes had been drawn to the whiteboard filled with pictures and notes. He walked to stand in front of the information with a frown tugging his lips down. “This what’s had you distracted the last while?”

“Yeah.” Pushing his chair back, Barry picked up the file he had been reading and stood next to the intergalactic cop. “John Doe, been in a coma since they found him five weeks ago. Bone development put him somewhere between sixteen and twenty, dental x-rays say he’s closer to the younger side – seventeen or eighteen, if we’re being generous.”

Hal was outright glaring at the pictures that Barry had taken of the kid once the boy had miraculously survived the thirteen hours of surgery. “Someone cut his throat three times?”

Barry didn’t need the pictures to remember what the kid had looked like, the image of the boy younger than his nephew seared into his brain. “Four, but the lowest one wasn’t deep enough to do any real damage and mostly cut along his clavicle.”

Much as Barry had when he first got the images developed, Hal lifted his hand to the closeup of the boy’s throat and placed a finger on each of the lines of stiches. “Fuckers tried to rip his throat out.”

“The cuts were thin, smooth and precise, almost as if it was done with four razors at the same time.” Barry pointed out a couple of similar injuries on bared arms and back. “Except there are no known weapons that match the wounds. Closest guess would be a claw mark made by a bird of prey.”

“What the hell happened to this kid?” Hal’s complexion had taken a sickly green sheen to it, unrelated to his other persona, as he looked at the pictures of John Doe’s torso, sides, and back. Scars that were years old littered the teens skin.  Some thin and white and almost unnoticeable, others thick and relatively fresh, and at least three very distinctive circular bullet scars.

“A lifetime of torture and abuse.” Barry’s stomach still churned every time he thought of the list of injuries the kid must have suffered. Even more so as he put it all together with the file in his hand. “And experimentation.”

The Green Lantern snapped his head to his friend and snarled. “What?!”

“First thing I tested his blood for was the meta-gene – it could have explained how he survived – but he doesn’t have one. He’s completely human.” He held the file up for Hal to see. “Except there were traces of something in his blood that didn’t fade despite the multitude of blood transfusions he received, or how much time passed. I’ve been running his blood through every test possible and finally got the results back today. I have no idea how they managed it, but whoever did this-” He motioned at the horrific pictures on the whiteboard with the file. “-altered the kid’s bone marrow so it’s producing low levels of Dionesium.”

“I don’t even know what that it.” Hal admitted with a scowl.

“I had never heard of it before either.” Barry told him. “According to the toxicologist, it’s some kind of liquid metal that was discovered around the late nineteenth century and only noted in a handful of scientific papers in the last hundred and fifty years. Hardly anyone has heard of it let alone sampled and studied it. Needless to say, it doesn’t and shouldn’t occur naturally in the human body.”

“Someone brutalized this kid, experimented on him, slit his throat and crucified him outside a hospital?” The former test pilot looked away from the pictures and to his friend. “I want in.”

“Hal-”

“Barry.” With a flare of green his casual clothes were replaced with the Lantern Corp uniform and mask. “For all you know, this metal in his blood, or the process to put it there, is of alien origin which bring it under my purview as a Lantern of this sector. Unless something galactic comes up, I’m with you until we find the bastards that did this.”

… 4 Months Ago …

“Flash to Batman: you got a minute?”

Bruce looked over to the JLA communication window that just opened at the corner of the screen he was working on. The night’s report he was writing up wasn’t anything urgent and the tone of Barry’s voice had him opening the comm between his fellow Leaguer. “Go ahead Flash.”

“I know it’s late, but do you mind if I come by? I’ve got a case that I could really use your help on.”

“I’ll open the cave entrance for you; you know the way.” A series of keystrokes accomplished the task in seconds.

“Thanks. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

Quickly finishing off his thought on the night’s report, Bruce closed the file and leaned back in his chair concerned. The Flash had never reached out to Batman for help, not unless it was League related and then it would have been brought up at their meeting a few days ago.  He had seen Green Lantern and the Flash talking afterward, a tablet being passed between the pair, but that had been far from unusual so he had dismissed it as immaterial. Perhaps he had been too hasty ignoring the seriousness of their conversation if their expressions had been anything to go by.

“B, everything okay?” Jason was towel drying his hair as he stepped out of the cave’s shower and changing area. He walked over to the computer to where Batman was sitting with the cowl pushed back from his face.

“Flash is on his way; needs my held with something.” Bruce told his young partner. “You can head up to the manor for now. Alfred was going to prepare a light supper for us and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind a hand.”

“You sure you don’t want me to stick around?” The teen asked and looped the towel around his shoulder.

Bruce shook his head. “I don’t know what he wants to talk about just yet.  When I do, and if its something he doesn’t mind you helping with, I’ll fill you in tomorrow. Go have something to eat then head to bed; you’ve got school in the morning.”

 “All right. Night Dad.”

He felt the smile creep up on him as he watched his son disappear up the stairs to the manor.  Three years after bringing the pre-teen boy, who’d had the chutzpah to successfully steal not one but three of the Batmobile’s tires, into his life and home and Bruce had never once regretted that decision.  Their jagged and broken edges had seemed to fit together naturally, though it took a few false starts getting there. The then twelve-year-old had not had an easy life – an abusive father convicted to life in prison and a mother that overdosed and died in front of her nine-year-old son – and had spent three years living on the unforgiving streets of Gotham rather than surrender himself to the foster system. Not that Batman could blame him, not after what happened the last time the vigilante had trusted the corrupt system. Bruce hadn’t considered for a single second risking the life of another little boy and fostered Jason himself. After several months of a very tumultuous beginning, something finally clicked between the pair and Jason called him ‘Dad’ for the first time.  A year after he came to the manor, and after Bruce jumped through all the inspections and interviews and bureaucratic hoops, Jason legally became Bruce’s son.

A soft chime sounded from the computer and he erased the warm smile from his face just as Flash – no. Barry Allen came to a stop at the base of the stairs up to the workstations. The man was dressed as a civilian with a brown banker’s box carried in his hands. His Central City Police Department ID was still clipped to the waist of his jeans, which caused the man behind the Batman to frown.

“Thanks for agreeing to see me, Bruce.” Barry said with uncharacteristic seriousness. He walked up the small flight of stairs and set the box on the ground before settling into the secondary chair.

“You ran across six states in less than two minutes as a civilian?” Bruce’s voice was tinted with the Batman’s recognizable growl.

“Less than one, actually.” The other man admitted absently, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees. “I had to stop by my office first. No one saw me.”

“Still, that’s unlike you Barry.” Bruce leaned back in his own chair and regarded his friend.  There were bruise-like circles beneath his blue eyes and his cheeks a little sunken – evidence that he hadn’t been eating enough, which for the Speedster could be deadly. Without a word, Bruce quickly got up and made his way to the medical bay and returned a minute later with a handful of specifically designed snack bars. “Eat, then tell me what’s got you like this.”

“Thanks.” Barry muttered, accepting the bars, and ate one slowly – another sign that something was wrong – but Bruce didn’t push him.  He waited patiently as the snack bar was finished at a normal pace without a word, the forensic scientist gathering his thoughts before speaking again. “Two months ago, I was assigned a case that, plainly put, sickened me. I’ve seen a lot of terrible and horrific things that people can do to one another, in both parts of my life. But this one?”

Bruce watched the man set the other snack bars aside and reached down for the box by his feet.  He opened it and pulled out a thick folder, holding it out for Bruce to take.  The pictures inside were standard 8x10 and of a gruesome, bloody crime scene.

“The victim was, at best guess, a seventeen-year-old kid.” Barry was telling him as he flipped through the images. “He’d been beaten, stabbed, had his throat slit four times, and pinned to a concrete wall with a dozen razor-sharp knives while still alive. Astonishingly, he survived all that as well as the numerous hours of surgery it took to keep him that way.”

Bruce stopped on a picture of a young man’s face obscured by the bandages covering injuries as well as the tape holding the ventilator and feeding tube in place. The teen’s eyes were closed and swollen with deep bruising. Thick bandages could be seen wrapped around the deathly pale throat. Heart aching at one so young being so horribly victimized, Bruce continued going through the pictures as Barry kept talking.

“He was found completely naked, so no ID on him. He’d been comatose since they found him and his doctors aren’t optimistic about his chances of remembering anything. Fingerprints came back unmatched; no missing persons report for the entire state matching his description. But given the suspected lifetime of torment this kid went through it was unlikely the bastards that did this would have filed a police report.”

Dozens of pictures of healed scars were included in the stack, red ink in Barry’s writing noting the suspected causes and age of the past injury. Stabbing, surgeries, burns, bullets, whipping, ranging from only a few months up to more than a decade old.

The last picture in the stack was an artist rending of what the boy would have looked like healthy and uninjured. Naturally praline toned skin, dark brown-black hair with a slight curl to the strands, an oval face with a Grecian nose, a strong jawline, and soft cheekbones. The artist had depicted bowed lips with an open half smile, but it was the eyes that drew him in. Given the rest of the teen’s features Bruce would have expected a warm or dark brown, but the eyes in the picture were a bright, electric blue.

“His looks alone would have him targeted by numerous human trafficking rings.” Batman committed the rendering to his memory and tucked the pictures back into the folder.  Barry was holding another out toward him and they exchanged them.

“First thing the detectives looked in to, but he had no tattoos or marks you would expect to find on someone who had been trafficked.” The man informed him as Bruce opened the folder containing copies of the initial police report and some of the later updates. “Doctors credited his survival to his overall health and physical condition. Muscle definition and tone put him at peak athleticism, but nothing bulky or artificial like a lot of gym enthusiasts. No steroids or other enhancing drugs, it was all through training which likely began at a very young age. There was one anomaly with his blood results, though.”

The heart inside his chest stuttered and his blood went cold. “Dionesium.”

“You’ve heard of it.”

“I’ve studied it.” Handing the folder back to Barry, Bruce turned his chair and started typing at the computer behind him.  He heard the other man slide his own chair closer. “The sample I obtained came from the waters of a Lazarus Pit. Years ago, I once confronted Ra’s al Ghul in the caverns beneath Gotham City where there had been a pit I had never known existed. We battled, he fled, I gathered samples from the pit before destroying it and caving the cavern in on its remains. I have never heard or found it occurring anywhere else other than the pits, and never in someone’s blood.”

“My John Doe’s body is producing it, Bruce.” Barry opened the folder and pulled out a few papers, holding them for the stunned detective to look at. “It fluctuated from blood loss and the transfusions he was given, but his blood had been tested several times each week since and the levels of Dionesium were consistent between 0.8 and 1.3 nanograms per millilitre.”

“That shouldn’t be possible.” Batman took the papers and read the doctor’s report. “It’s classed as a heavy metal and highly toxic over long-term exposure.”

“That’s what we were told as well.” The forensic investigator took back the papers and tucked them into the folder. “But the kid’s bone marrow is creating it. Hal had been using his Lantern Corp contacts to see if he could find anything alien that might have been done to the kid but nothing came up so far. Hal even scanned the crime scene with the ring, but enough time had passed that no anomalous energy readings could be found. It was a public place, people only a dozen or so yards away, cameras catching every angle of the Emergency Bay, but there was nothing. Cameras blacked out for less than ten seconds and he appeared crucified to that wall. He was found almost immediately after.”

“It’s worrying, I’ll give you that.” With a frown, Bruce leaned back in the chair and tented his fingers together in thought. “The abuse and attempted murder alone is troubling, and the way his body was displayed points toward something ritualistic, or maybe as a message. The means of his sudden appearance could have been magical and given the location I suspect someone wanted him to be found and saved.”

“I hadn’t considered magic.” Barry admitted and reached into the box. He pulled out a notepad and pen and started writing things down. “I don’t think the CCPD has a Magical contact, but I can reach out to Giovanni and Kent Nelson when I get back to Central City.”

“Given the likeliness of the League of Assassin’s involvement, I’d like to offer my help.” Bruce said.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Barry set the notepad back into the box with a relieved sigh. “We’d been trying to help this kid for nine weeks so that when he woke up he’d be safe.”

“I’ll need to see him, collect my own blood samples to test as well as review any other information you could get me.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m here now.” A furious scowl was set on the typically easy-going speedster’s face. “Our investigation hit a massive roadblock and the Detectives in charge are flipping their collective lids. Kid came out of the coma two days ago. The vent was removed yesterday with plans to question him once the doctors approved it. Except this morning, everything we had on CCPD servers was gone. Every file, test result, image, video, report, erased like it had never existed. The hospital’s records had even been wiped. That box is a copy of anything we have left to work from.

“Worse part of it all?” Barry took a deep breath and shook his head sadly. “Somehow last night, without setting off any alarms and without anyone noticing, John Doe was disconnected from everything that had been keeping him alive for the past nine weeks and taken.”

… 3 Months Ago …

“Thanks for meeting with me Dr. Nelson.”

“Kent, please.” The older man accepted the Barry’s offered hand. “We are, after all, colleagues of a sort. I apologise it’s taken me so long after you first requested my consultation. Was Mr. Zatara any assistance in the interim?”

“Then call me Barry, please.” Barry motioned for the other man to the chairs around the desk in his office before closing the door behind them. “Giovanni said he could detect traces of the magic left behind but too much time had passed for him to be more specific than that.”

“Those were my findings as well when I inspected the location you had given me.” Nelson told him as he settled into the chair, placing his leather doctor’s satchel on the floor beside him. “Though with the aid of Nabu and the Amulet of Anubis I found elements of temporal magic and the lingering sense of death. Given what you had told me, it was not a surprising discovery. Likely a spell to slow time enough for them to carry out the deed and the boy would have been close enough to death for it to leave a presence.”

Barry nodded and leaned against the edge of his desk so as not to put it between them. He reached back for the folder of pictures but held on to them for the moment. “In the process of testing evidence, a lot of times the sample are fully destroyed. Hair, skin, blood, everything we had collected from John Doe, everything Giovanni said he needed to trace him, is gone. I’ve heard of psychics and other practitioners being able to get a sense of a person from a picture but he was unable to. I’m hoping the either you or Dr. Fate might be able to give me something. Anything so I can find this poor kid.”

“I can certainly make the attempt.” Kent reached out and placed a comforting hand on top of Barry’s. “The fact that you care about this unknown boy and his suffering is a credit to you, but I admit I am curious what it is about him that drives you?”

At that question, Barry allowed the sigh to finally escape. “Honestly, I don’t know. From the moment I saw him lying in that ICU room fighting for his life, I can’t get him out of my head. He just looked so young, Kent, and someone hurt him in horrific ways for a very long time. I keep seeing his scars, what they did to him, and-” He paused, his stomach churning as his mind brought up images that had been plaguing him for weeks. “He’s younger than Wally, and they crucified him. A seventeen-year-old kid and they fucking crucified him. They left him dying on that wall and after he survived they took him back. I can’t – I won’t let them have him!”

“Then let’s see if we can’t find him.” Kent took the folder from Barry’s hand and opened it.

One by one, with his left hand hovering over the image, the man flipped through the pictures. Some he lingered longer over, others he passed over fairly quickly.  About halfway through them, he spoke. “There is something. Tendrils of a connection to-” He paused, his fingers falling to touch the image of John Doe laying unconscious in the hospital. Kent closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side. “Heroes. The senior members of the League, you, and I as well. Their protégés, civilians; dozens of connections severed long before they should have formed.”

Barry felt the breath freeze in his chest when Kent placed the file onto the desk and reached for the satchel on the floor. A moment late the Helmet of Fate was withdrawn. “Are you sure about this Kent?”

“This is beyond simple magic, Barry.” Kent spared him a glance before lifting the helmet above his head. “Time and Death have touched the boy. To what degree and for what purpose only the Fates can know.”

The golden helm slipped over the man’s head and face, Dr. Fate rising from the seat that had been occupied by Kent a second prior. The Lord of Order held out his hand over the pictures, the amulet around his neck glowing lightly and an image of an ankh formed above the stack of pictures. Less than a minute later, the image faded and the hand lowered.

“Nut has marked the boy you seek.” Dr. Fate told him solemnly.

“Nut?” Barry grabbed a pen and jotted the names down on a piece of paper. “Who is he?”

“She is the goddess and personification of night and rebirth.” Fate reprimanded. “Anubis’ hand could not be stayed and Shai could not stop what came to pass. Qadesh, Ma’at and Heka conspire with Osiris and will continue to do so until the wrong has been put right.” Barry tried not to flinch when the glowing eyes of the helmet turned toward him. “Your compassion for the child is commendable and you will continue as you must. However, I will interfere no further.”

… 2 Months Ago …

The sun was already lightening the sky when he finally turned the car into the hidden entrance that would lead him the last few miles home. Despite Joker being secure inside Arkham again, the events of the night left his stomach sour and twisted.

“Two guys locked in a lunatic asylum and one night they decide they didn’t like that anymore. They decided to escape. They make it up to the roof and across this narrow gap they see rooftops stretching across town. The first guy jumps across, no problem, but the second is afraid of falling. They first guy says he’s got an idea...”

He and the Joker had done this song and dance for far too many years and too many people ended up in the cross fire. Innocents and goons alike, at the end of their encounters there were more bodies in lockup, the hospital, or even the morgue than there had been at the start. Nameless strangers, police and first responders just doing their jobs, so many lives lost because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But tonight, they hadn’t been so nameless.

Barbara.

“First guy says, ‘I got this flashlight with me. I’ll shine it across the gap and you can walk across the beam and join me.’ Second guy says, ‘What, you think I’m crazy? You’ll just turn it off when I’m halfway across!’”

Heaven help him, Batman laughed. He was so done with the same back and forth between them that in his weariness and frustration he had laughed. In that moment, after finally letting out how goddamn tired he was of their game, Batman and Joker had shared a laugh at that stupid, horrid joke that had no right being funny.

Especially tonight.

Tonight, which Joker had orchestrated and intended to end so much worse than it had.

Alfred and Jason are waiting for him when he parked the car and shuts off the engine, but they were not alone. Barry was getting to his feet with them, dressed in his Flash getup with the headgear pushed to the back of his neck. Batman was almost too tired to deal with the man, but he knew neither Alfred nor Jason would have let him stay unless it was important.

“B?” Jason asked when Bruce finally exited the car, divesting himself of the cowl and gauntlets as he walked. “How is she?”

“She was out of surgery an hour ago.” He told them, his exhaustion plain in every word. “The bullet had pressed up against her spine and there has been some swelling. First aid given on the scene was quick and likely prevented further injury. It doesn’t appear that there will be any permanent damage. It may take some time, a lot of physical therapy, but Jim told me her doctors are hopeful for a full recovery.”

“Oh, thank heavens!” Alfred exclaimed with relief. “And Commissioner Gordon, Sir?”

“Physically he sustained bruises mostly and a few cuts that required suturing.” Uncaring if Barry saw it, Bruce set the pieces of his armor aside and allowed himself to slump into the chair in front of the computers. He scrubbed a palm over the stubble on his chin and raked his fingers through his hair. “Mostly, he’s just shaken and in shock, which is unsurprising. Joker was in Jim’s home. The psychopath showed up with his men, shot his daughter in front of him, then tried to kidnap him. Would have if one of his neighbors hadn’t gotten involved.””

“It’s nice to know you’re not the only Good Samaritan in Gotham.” Barry commented and bumped Bruce’s lax hand with the bottom of a glass of water, which had come from the tray Alfred had waiting for him. “I hope you don’t mind me sticking around, Bruce, after I got here a few hours ago?”

“He was keeping me company while Alfred was helping you on comms.” Jason explained nervously, knowing how Bruce felt about non-family members in the cave while he was out. “There was no way I was going to sleep and as much as I wanted to be out there with you-”

“It was easier for me to focus on Joker knowing you were safe here, Jaylad.” Bruce interrupted the worried teen. Sitting up straight, he accepted the glass. “You’ve never been involved with Joker when he’s in one of his manic episodes like he was tonight. So, thank you, Barry; I’m glad you were here for him.”

“Anytime.” The speedster assured him with a ruffle of Jason’s hair, much to the boy’s chagrin.

“What had you coming by?” He asked before taking a large drink.

“Oh!” The man seemed surprised at the question. “No, man, you’re exhausted! After the night you’ve had I should let you rest. It can wait.”

Shaking his head, Bruce let Alfred switch out his water for a supplemented protein shake. “It was important enough that you came to Gotham, Barry.”

“You remember that John Doe case I came to talk to you about a couple months back?” Barry asked and picked up a folder that had been laying on the consol beside him. “We got a lead.”

“The guy that was crucified?” The teen didn’t seem to realize his gaffe until the words had already passed his lips. “That I know absolutely nothing about.”

 Bruce wasn’t really surprised that the boy had read the casefile he had started on their system, the documents and images Barry had given him scanned and encrypted. Jason was like a sponge, going back over Batman’s old files, solved and open alike, all the way to the first few forays as a masked vigilante.

“Smooth kiddo.” Barry chuckled and held the folder to Bruce, which he accepted. “Unfortunately, we still don’t have an ID but an anonymous tip a week ago had the detectives looking federally. They found another murder with the same MO in Utah twelve years ago. And once we found the first it wasn’t hard to find the rest. Eight in the last thirty years all across the country. None of the victims were as young of my John Doe, but they had all been stabbed, throats cut, and pinned to a wall with the same sort of daggers. The last one-”

“Gotham.” He withdrew the police report with the familiar shield in its corner and allowed Jason to take the folder from him as he scanned the document. Guilt soured his stomach as he read the name of the victim. “Jamison Polaski.”

“You know him, B?” Jason asked absently as he flipped through the papers.

“Met him once, knew him by reputation.” He felt his lips thin with a scowl. “I was investigating him myself when I heard he died nine years ago.”

Barry frowned at him, the confusion evident on his face. “And the whole crucified against a wall thing didn’t ring any bells when I first told you about my John Doe?”

With what he knew was an uncharacteristic sigh, Bruce set aside the papers and reached for the keyboard. “I didn’t care enough to look into it at the time. I was just glad the son of a bitch was dead.”

Standing to just the right of Bruce’s seat, Jason’s head snapped toward him and his son stared at him incredulously. “B?”

“There was a little boy.” He told them grimly, pulling up his casefile on the main screen. Every word of the report was recalled without having to look at it, the case one of the ones that would haunt him long after he hung up the cape. “He was a material witness in the murder of his family; parents, aunt and cousin. He’d seen the man that did it and was placed into protective custody. Polaski was the social worker assigned to oversee his placement. He placed the boy in St. Augustine’s Home for Boys.”

“Oh, that fucking bastard.” Jason hissed under his breath and Bruce couldn’t fault the choice of language.

“I take it not a good place for a child?” Barry asked grimly, coming to stand at Bruce’s other side as he scanned the police report on the screen of the Haly’s Circus murders that had been committed almost ten years ago.

“It was a front for child trafficking.” Jason snarled as Bruce searched for and opened another casefile. “For years. Every kid on the Alley knew the stay away from the place and prayed not to get pulled off the streets. I was only six when GCPD shut the place down with extreme prejudice but I remember one woman in our building lost her kids to that place. She was undocumented, but her kids were both born here in Gotham. Saved her from being deported. Her kids got placed at Augustine’s until she got her papers sorted and never came out.”

The crime scene photos that Batman had taken himself were a frequently part of his nightmares, even almost a decade later. “I found him there.” He pointed the one of large animal cages with their doors pried open, at least one set of handcuffs dangling from a top of the cage though in a many there were multiple, a filthy stained piece of cardboard on the bottom. “Richard John Grayson, eight years old, was one of seventeen boys from Augustine’s, a totally of sixty-three men, women, and children, that were slated to be shipped to a buyer overseas. Except something went wrong and the cargo ship never left port. There was no crew on board when I got there with GCPD and it took myself and two dozen officers almost three hours to find the correct shipping container. Everyone inside had been killed.”

“Goddamn I hate this world sometimes.” The forensic scientist spat through clenched teeth.  

A gentle hand on his shoulder had Bruce looking up at the man that raised him. Shared grief shined in the older man’s grey eyes. “What Master Bruce is failing to explain, is that he had been in attendance to the Circus the evening of the Grayson’s deaths. He comforted young Richard, stayed with him during the interviews with the police, and brought him home. We housed him for six days, until after his parent’s funerals and that vile man took him away. Sir had every intention of getting him back, of fostering Richard himself, but within twenty-four hours of leaving our home Richard became just another of the thousands of ‘runaways’ from Gotham’s child services.”

“That’s why you both basically abducted me when I first came here.” Jason, his amazingly empathetic son, set the file aside and hugged Bruce fiercely. “I thought you were just being an asshole not letting me leave the cave that first week.”

His low chuckle may have been a little thick with the remembered emotions, but he gratefully accepted the gentle ribbing. “Augustine’s may have been shut down, but I wasn’t naïve to think GCPD or even Batman could stop it from happening again. I’ve done what I can in the years since, as Batman and Bruce Wayne, but when you came in to my life I sure as hell wasn’t about to risk another little boy to the monsters out there. There may have been a judicial number of threats and blackmailing but, bureaucracy be damned, the moment you hit me with that tire iron I knew you were mine.”

Jason’s arms tightened around Bruce regardless of the armor and some of the lingering darkness of the night faded when his son’s face buried against the crook of his neck. The boy mumbled something under his breath – Bruce thought it was along the lines of ‘not crying in front of Flash’ – and didn’t let go for nearly a full minute. Bruce was in no hurry either but eventually father and son parted, no one commenting on the latter quickly swiping at his eyes.

“According to the autopsy,” Barry said when the moment had passed. “Polaski had been alive when he was pinned to the wall. A single slice to his throat was deep enough to sever the esophagus and he drowned in his own blood before he would have bled to death.”

“Someone wanted him to hurt.” Jason commented and cleared the roughness from his throat. “What about your other victims?”

“Similar MOs; alive with multiple lesser wounds before a single cut to the throat.” Bruce flipped through Barry’s notes in the folder Jason had set aside. “No known ties to trafficking, no suspected criminal activities, no known connection to the other victims either. Jay, scan these into the system and I’ll start the computer running a few difference searches.”

“Same casefile as Barry’s John Doe?” The teen asked, taking the file and heading to a second keyboard and monitor.

“The detectives in Central City are doing their own searches,” Barry told them. “But you don’t have the red tape they do getting Interstate and Interagency cooperation. We wouldn’t have even looked too far outside the city if not for the tip. Just a name: Scott Capullo.”

“Uh, B?” Jason’s confused tone, bordering on nervous, had the men looking over at him. “Did you move the drive location of the casefile?”

He frowned. “No. Why?”

A few clacks of the keys had the main screen showing the contents of the John Doe casefile, which was nothing but a single .doc file. Every image, pdf, and video file was gone. Bruce was on his feet in an instant, his fingers flying over the keys as he ran ever diagnostic he could. For several minutes he worked frantically, searching for remnants of the files.

A curse to his side, Barry had taken Jason’s place at the secondary monitor and had another window of coding opened in front of him. The forensic scientist had the good sense to look apprehensive when drew Bruce’s attention, but highlighted a line of code that Bruce did not recognize. “I had a hunch and, I hate to say it, but I was right. This is the same virus that wiped out the Central City police files on John Doe.”

“Nothing you gave me was digital.” Batman growled. “Everything on my system was manually put there by myself.”

“Sonuvabitch,” Jason muttered under his breath. “Someone hacked the Batcave.”

“My word!” Alfred exclaimed. “I did not think such a thing possible.”

“It shouldn’t have been.” Anger, fear, coursed through him as he switched gears and started another diagnostic. “The system was accessed by an outside source four days ago. I’m trying to track it, but it’s already been routed through three different countries. No other files were accessed, nothing else was erased, only that specific Casefile. Once it was done, whoever it was left that .doc file. Seconds. They bypassed every firewall, every double-blind, every failsafe I personally coded, in a matter of seconds.”

Barry was scowling with no small amount of trepidation. “How would they know Batman was looking in to a John Doe halfway across the country?”

“They know you’re the Flash.” Jason stated the obvious answer that Barry was likely aware of. “They removed the digital files in Central City, made your John Doe disappear from right under your nose. Who else would the Flash have gone to for help but the World’s Greatest Detective?”

“Goddamn it!” Barry ‘s fist slammed into the console. “Hal’s been helping as well. I had a copy of the files uploaded to the Watchtower mainframe for him to have on hand.”

“I’ll need to get up there to run a proper diagnostic to see if the Tower’s system has been compromised.” Batman started to reach for his cowl and gauntlets only for Alfred to place a prim hand over top of them.

“Might I suggest, sirs,” the man gestured to the main viewscreen. “You see what our Hacker left in their wake?”

Jason was clicking the .doc file open as Bruce turned back around. The words were as familiar to Bruce as they were to the teen as his son read them. “Beware The Court of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadow perch, behind granite and lime. They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed, speak not a whispered word of them or they'll send The Talon for your head.”

… 1 Month Ago …

The Gotham night was clear, for once, which Jim was taking the time to enjoy. He was on his third cigarette, leaning against the bricks of the roof access stairwell, staring up at the handful of stars he could actually see. It had been more than an hour since he had switched on the beacon, not surprising given the lack of typical cloud cover. He was just thinking about shutting it down and going inside when there was the barest of whispered feet on the gavel nearby.

“Welcome back, Commissioner.” It was the younger that always spoke first while the senior member of their duo flicked off the signal light.

Jim stubbed out the last of his cigarette against the brick and turned to the pair and grinned at the figure decked out in dark grey and brown. “Thank you, Osprey.”

“How’s your daughter?” Batman, the usually no-small-talk Dark Knight, shocked Jim by asking.

“Barbara’s settled into the rehab facility in Georgia.” He told them without hesitation and chuckled at the remembered conversation he had with her before he came home. “Her mother is taking a leave of absence from work in New York and planning on getting a nearby apartment.” To say his daughter was unimpressed with his ex-wife’s hovering was putting it mildly. Mother and daughter had not had the best relationship since the divorce, not since Barbara said she was staying in Gotham with her father. It would be a trial for them both, but he was convinced it would be a good thing in the end.

“Have you had any success finding your Good Samaritan?” The young hero asked curiously. “I hadn’t seen anything in the new and you’d think a civilian will the balls to go toe to toe with the Joker deserves a damn medal.”

“Son, I would like nothing more.” Jim agreed. “But no, we haven’t found him.”

It was a shame, too. Jim would greatly love to shake the man’s hand for saving his and his daughter’s life. But the man had disappeared as quickly as he had appeared that night. Breaking through the window from the fire escape, taking down two of Joker’s men and punching the damn clown a few times for good measure until Jim had managed a few shots off with his off-duty pistol. Joker had fled, leaving his men behind, and the Gordon’s unknown savior hadn’t hesitated to run for Barbara and giving first aid while Jim had called it in.

Only after the smoke had settled, after Barbara was out of surgery and Joker back in Arkham, that Jim was told the man had vanished from the scene as soon as he relayed all necessary information to the paramedics.

“Theory in the bullpen is that he was one of your lot, just outside the mask at the time.” Jim told them with a shake of his head. “Another is that he’s a homeless veteran that was in the right place at the right time. I’d believe that by just the way he moved and talked, but he looked and sounded a lot younger than the way he acted.”

Batman hummed, a sound Jim thought meant he was becoming impatient but surprised him again. “I saw what Joker had planned for you, Jim. If you ever want help looking for him, I’d like to thank him myself.”

He smiled again, warmly at the man behind the mask. “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you. But I called you here because I’m going to need your help with something that came across my desk this afternoon.”

Walking the short distance to an air-conditioning unit, he picked up a two-inch binder “Literally. It wasn’t there when I stepped out to get a coffee but it was when I got back maybe two minutes later. No one knows where it came from. The names, evidence, information, allegations; if even an ounce of what is inside there is fact it is going to rock the foundation of Gotham.”

“I’ll help where I can, Commissioner.” Batman held out his hand for it, but Jim hesitated.

What he was about to do would change everything between them.

“I don’t need Batman’s help.” He said carefully, making sure he met the man’s eyes through the cowl. “I’m going to need your help. The names in this book? Powers, Hill, Wayne, Cobblepot, just to name a few.”

Batman didn’t freeze, didn’t give any outward indication, but Jim knew he had shocked him. Osprey, however, inhaled sharply. The night air was still, at it too was waiting for what the man would do next.

“How did you know?” The timber of Bruce’s voice was odd to hear coming from the cowl, but it was gratifying that the billionaire didn’t deny it.

“I’m a detective, it’s kind of in my job description.” He answered glibly and placed the binder in Batman’s hand.

Jason Todd laughed lightly, a sound Jim knew well from his daughter’s friendship with the younger teen, and clapped his partner-slash-father on the shoulder. “He’s got you there, B.”

Jim was relieved it didn’t seem either vigilante was upset about his big revelation. However, he saw the moment all levity vanished from Osprey’s face as Batman opened the binder to the front page.  Without a word to the commissioner or to his partner, Batman tapped the side of his cowl. “Batman to Flash… How soon can you get here… Gotham, roof of the GCPD building… Now, preferably.”

“No way.” Osprey said breathlessly. “No way! It’s not-”.

“This is a first, Bats.” A buffet of crimson wind had Jim staggering a couple steps as the Flash suddenly skidded on the gravel roof. “Usually, it’s me calling you. Oh, uh, hi…?”

“Flash, Commissioner Gordon; Jim, The Flash.” Batman, once again gruff and all business, turned the binder for the newcomer to see.

Jim watched as the Fastest Man Alive looked down and his jaw dropped in shock. “Where did – What is this?”

“Allegations of a secret society here in Gotham that is operating across the globe.” Jim reached for his nearly empty pack of cigarettes and lit one, taking a quick drag, before speaking again. “They call themselves the Court of Owls, and in that binder is the name of its Members and drop locations across the city where there is evidence of a host of crimes. That binder is just the CliffsNotes. Embezzlement, extortion, drugs, weapons, trafficking-”

“Murder.” Batman had flipped to the middle of the thick book and Jim knew exactly what had the man’s jaw tightening.

“Holy shit!” Osprey gaped, looking over Batman’s’ shoulder.

On the other side, the Flash wasn’t faring much better and Jim realized the other hero would know who Batman was behind the mask and why the allegation those murders had been orchestrated by the Court was going to have far reaching repercussions.

Martha and Thomas Wayne.

Whoever gave Jim that binder had no clue the storm they had just unleashed on Gotham.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THREE

… PRESENT …

The last of the vehicles came to a stop in the alley, the sedan shifting on its tires when the weight of the bruiser extracted himself from the back seat. It looked like the large man was the final player the group was waiting on. The doors to a cargo truck opened and the rolling door at the back was lifted. Batwoman couldn’t see what was inside but there were more than enough known gang members present that she knew it wasn’t good.

“Hold back, Batwoman.” Batman’s voice came through the earpiece hidden beneath her crimson wig. “Switch to thermal imaging; fifteen degrees to your left, below you on the rooftop on the south side of the west alley. I think I saw movement.”

Following her cousin’s directions, Batwoman thumbed the controls hidden behind her right ear. “I see him. Looks like a sniper. Good catch.”

“If you grapple back and swing around to the apartment building a block over you should be able to drop behind him unnoticed.”

“Copy that.” Backing away from the ledge she swept into the air on a line, taking the route the more experienced man gave her. “How’s Osprey handling bed rest?”

“Stir crazy, but it’s only been a couple weeks.” Batman answered her without his usual grumbling about ‘chatter’ while on comms. “Thank you, again. I appreciate you’re help covering Gotham while we’re out.”

“Anytime. Think you’ll put the cowl back on soon?” She asked, recalling her grapple midair, aimed and fired it out again, redirecting her swing with practiced ease. “It’s been calmer than I would have expected without you and the bird, but that’s not going to last.”

“Gordon mentioned the same.” He told her as she landed silently on the far side of the apartment building. “I have a theory but can’t confirm it. Not until I’m comfortable leaving Osprey. He says he’s fine if I go, but he’s been waking several times a night from the nightmares.”

“Not unexpected with what he went through.” With barely a whisper of her boots on gravel, she made her way toward the far ledge. “Whatever that theory is can wait. You’re right where you’re supposed– hang on. Something’s wrong. Sniper’s down.” Looking down on the other rooftop, Batwoman could just make out the shadowed shape of a body on the shingled roof a few yards back from the ledge. She couldn’t see anything through either thermal or night vision, and after a handful of seconds she was dropping the two stories down.

Bending her knees to absorb the descent, she balanced herself with one hand between her feet before creeping toward the body. The rifle, which he’d been using to scope out the gathering going on below, was in pieces a couple of feet away. There was no blood, and she didn’t bother checking for a pulse as she could see the steady rise and fall of the man’s chest. With another look around, taking the time to peer into the deeper shadows of the air condition units and nearby water tower, she slunk toward the ledge and peered down.

“I’m not seeing anyone through your cowl feed.” Batman growled in concern.

“Numbers haven’t changed below either.” She said lowly, quieter now that she was closer to the action. “Money’s coming into play though. I’m running out of time.”

“Want some help?”

A modulated voice to her left had Batwoman swinging her head to the side, a batarang in her hand.

“Wait!” Batman snapped at the same time as the shadow beside the large AC unit moved into a dark, human shape with its hands raised out shoulder height.

“Whoa! Friendly!” The electronic voice was quiet and unlikely to carry far.

The man, judging by the build, was dressed in black tactical gear accented with dark grey body armor plating on several key areas: shins, knees, forearms, and elbows. Around his waist was a belt not unlike her own and strapped to his left thigh was a holster. Not for a weapon but what looked like a sleeker grapple gun than what she and Batman used. There was a harness strapped across his chest, the criss-cross belts covered with pouches, and the handles of a pair of weapons she couldn’t identify just yet on his back. They were at a height where a shift of his arms would enable them to be grabbed with ease. The face was fully covered by a solid featureless volto mask with glowing blue lenses where the eyes would have been. The rest of his head was covered with a hood that came to a point on the bridge of his nose.

“Who the hell are you supposed to be?” She snarled, her heart racing beneath her breastplate.

“No one.” He didn’t approach her further, stepping sideways to the edge of the roof and peering down. “They’re handing off the keys to the truck. Deal’s done then. What do you say we ruin their night, Red?”

Beneath her cowl, her eyes went wide as he dove headfirst off the roof. In her ear she heard Batman inhale sharply the same time she was leaping forward herself. Boots skidding on the shingles, she felt her jaw drop at what she saw.

The unknown’s grapple gun was in his hand but he hadn’t aimed for a higher point to slow his rapid approach to the pavement. The hook had grabbed onto the bruiser between his shoulder blades, the man bellowing out at the sudden pain, and the unknown was propelled downward even faster. Except he flipped at the last second, the grapple line releasing, and the heals of his boot slammed into the bruiser’s back, taking them both to the ground. With the same motion, he was releasing the weapons – escrima sticks, she recognized from her own training – from his back and hitting the stunned thug upside the head. The man went limp, unconscious, and out of the fight before the rest even knew what had happened.

She found herself staring as the unknown, standing tall on the unconscious man’s back, rotated at the waist and with more power than she would have thought possible, swung one of the sticks to the back of another goon’s head. The guy was unconscious and slumping in an instant while another gangster was taking the second stick against the chin.

“Gun!” Batman barked in her ear, and she was moving before she thought about it.

Shooting her grapple onto the sill of a window on her way down, she flung the batarang from her hand and knocked the barrel of the rifle that had been lifted in the unknown’s direction. It fired, the shot going wide and chipping the brick wall several yards from the fight. As soon as her feet hit the ground she was throwing a punch into the gunman’s face. By this time, the unknown had literally backflipped off the big guy’s back and landed on the shoulders of a third man, smacking the man’s head like a drum while riding him to the ground.

Then the fight was on and she really didn’t have time to keep track of the unknown. It took her a few more punches to get her guy on the ground and out for the count. She took a quick second, slipping her gloved fingers into a readied pouch at her hip, and threw the next punch with a set of knuckledusters for a little oomph. Her new opponent went down with only two hits, and a third by a sharp upper kick to the chin. A flick of a second batarang had the pistol of a second gunman falling out of his hand and an escrima stick to the stomach, then to the back of the head, had him unconscious next to his companions, the unknown standing over him.

Without looking, the man suddenly snapped his arm out and sent one of the sticks flying down the alley where the last man standing had started to run. It struck the back of his knees, sending him tumbling into a puddle of something Batwoman really didn’t want to think about.

“Hinson.” The modulated voice somehow sounded disappointed as the man stalked toward the gangster trying to crawl away. “I thought we had a deal. I don’t bust you or your crew, you let my people know when something like this is going down.”

“I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Don’t kill me! Please!”

“Shit!” Batwoman hissed, reaching for another batarang.

“Wait.” Batman instructed. “Don’t interfere unless you need to.”

Gritting her teeth at being ordered around, she still held back her throw. Batwoman took a few steps after the unknown, pausing when he used the tip of his boot to flip the sniveling thug onto his back. One foot pressed down on the guy’s ankle, the other stepping fully on the man’s chest, and the full length of the escrima stick was held out until the tip was only inches from the goon’s face. She was surprised to see tiny blue and white sparks flickering at the end.

“Oh god! I’m sorry!” The man, Hinson, had snot hanging from his nose. “I didn’t know! They called me and my guys in last minute for some extra muscle until delivery. I swear!”

“I believe you.” The unknown leaned forward, a little more weight baring down on Hinson’s chest while the sparking escrima inched a little closer. “So, you know where it was going. Wanna fill me in?”

She wanted to laugh at how comical the guy looked bobbing his head up and down. “Yeah. Yeah! Of course! Storage facility on St. Adrian. Heard it was gonna be there till some of Kosov’s guys came to collect.”

The seconds dragged out, a few of the sparks landing with a flinch of Hinson’s cheek. The unknown suddenly drew back, stepping off the man and walking a few feet to pick up the escrima from the pavement. “Oh no, one of them got away.” It was delivered so blandly that even the modulator couldn’t mask it. She actually did snort at that, catching Hinson’s attention. The man stayed where he was, looking at her before turning to the other man with wide, questioning eyes.

“Hinson,” The man snapped, bending down next to the closest unconscious goon and secured their wrists with a thick flexi-cuff. “Come back in five, pick up two of your crew. Only two. The rest can spend a couple of weeks in Blackgate. Should repair their cred after this.”

“Right. Right!” The gangster scrambled to his feet and started running down the alley. “Thank you!”

The unknown turned to follow the man’s flight and yelled, “Ikke glem Taeyeons bursdag på torsdag!”¹

“Knulle! Takk, venn!”² The man hollered back before vanishing around a corner.

The modulation made the man’s low chuckle sound strange but no less amused. He moved on to another downed gangster with another flexi-cuff, briefly lifting his head to glance at her before setting about securing the man. “Thanks for the assist when the guns came in to play.”

Batwoman took a handful of zip ties from her own belt and followed his lead tying up the criminals. “Well, it was my op to begin with.”

“As good as you are, twelve to one is a little too one sided for my conscience and I’ve always enjoyed dancing with a redhead.” He told her as they worked. “Sorry if I ruffled your feathers.”

“Bats aren’t birds, we don’t have feathers.”

His mask couldn’t stop the burst of sound that was a snort of amusement. “Right, Chiroptera. You’ve got a thing for leather and fur. PETA must hate you guys.”

“Why do you think I chose red? Doesn’t matter then when the paint starts getting tossed about.”³ Enjoying the banter, she allowed herself to grin beneath her cowl. “What about you? You got something I can call you?”

“Already told you,” He answered as he used several of the heavy-duty cuffs to secure the bruiser’s arms behind the thick back. “I’m nobody.”

“Call him a ghost, or Wraith.” Batman instructed her and she finally connected the man, finishing with the last of the gangsters, to the man from Osprey’s mask footage.

“So, you’re a ghost?” She asked carefully. “Maybe a Wraith?”

He barely paused as he stood then walked over to the open back of the truck. “I suppose it’s as good a name as any. I take it Tee made it to the Bossbat’s roost all right then? I’d wondered. How’s he settling in?”

“I haven’t met him yet.” She admitted, walking to the truck when Wraith leapt up into the back among the crates inside. “I may wear his symbol on my chest, but its more for what it represents. Not because I’m affiliated with him in any way.” Which was mostly true. At least in the beginning. After a few years she’s appreciated the backup that came with working with Batman and Osprey.

“Right,” the man spoke absently, looking and finding a prybar and putting it to the lids of the nearest crate. “So, you’re telling me Bats isn’t seeing everything you see? Or chittering away in your ear?”

“He already knew about the mask cams when he rescued Osprey.” Batman told her. “A comm wouldn’t be that far of a leap.”

“I never said that.” She ignored her cousin and jumped in beside Wraith, wedging her gloved fingers into the crack he’d created and helped him pull the nailed lid open. She looked into the shadowed interior of the box, hissing through her teeth. “Those look a lot like bombs.”

“Italian bounding anti-personnel mines. Damn it!” Wraith motioned for her to move back, which she did very carefully so as not to jostle the truck. He eased the prybar onto the floor of the truck before following her out and several yards away from the explosives. “I’d hoped Hinson was wrong.”

“I’m notifying GCPD Major Crimes.” Batman told her tersely. “Our intel didn’t mention anything about explosives.”

“You knew?” Batwoman asked as they walked toward the six large duffels that had been stacked next to the open sliding door of a van.

“I knew the Ukrainians were bringing something into Gotham. I just didn’t know which faction or exactly what.” He told her, crouching down next to the bags. He unzipped one, exposing a hell of a lot of cash. “Goddamn! I wanted it to be the Whisper Gang. There’s a fish I’m wanting to fry and rumor has hit Luka Volk is trying to get into bed with him.” He unzipped a second bag that had just as many bundles of one-hundred-dollar bills. “Six bags, this much cash, looking at probably close to three million if not more.”

“Volk doesn’t work with that kind of cashflow.” Batman said in her ear.

“The Odessa Mob’s always been a player with arms and drugs.” Batwoman picked up one of the bundles of cash. She would never get used to holding ten thousand dollars in the palm of her hand, regardless of her family’s wealth. The bills were wrinkled, worn, the scanner in her cowl confirming that every last bill was legit. She dropped it back into the bag. “Something like this would be right up Vasily Kosov’s alley.”

“Just not the alley I was looking for.” With a shake of his head, Wraith stood up. However, the last thing she expected him to do was pick up two of the duffels and started walking away.

“What are you doing?” She demanded, reaching to grab his arm only for him to dance away from her on light feet.

“Gotta pay the bills somehow, Red.” He said glibly, shouldering one of the bags. “Gear like ours isn’t cheap.”

“That’s evidence!” Batwoman snapped, trying again to grab him.

“Let him go.” Batman surprised her by saying.

Wraith jumped easily up onto the hood of the van and then its roof. “And now its not. Hey, Bats. Watch out for Tee; little gremlin is developing a caffein addiction that’ll seriously screw up his circadian rhythm. And tell Osprey I can’t wait to see him fly again.”

She hadn’t noticed him palm the smoke pellet, not until it popped against the pavement at her feet. The smoke was black and thick, laced with something that prevented her cowl from following his movement. It only took her a few seconds to extract herself from the blinding cloud. She hadn’t heard any footsteps, nor the firing of a grapple, and yet Wraith had vanished.

With hands on her hips, Batwoman took in the sight of the alley around her, listening to the sound of sirens for a moment as they grew closer. With a sigh, she said, “Something tells me I just verified that theory of yours for you.”

“Yes.” Batman confirmed. “Gotham’s got a new vigilante.”

--- --- --- --- ---

“Hiya, Barbie.”

“Hi, Ken.”⁴

Bruce had barely set Jason down onto the sofa before the young woman was wheeling her chair past him. He smiled and hurried out of the way, watching as the pair hugged tightly. He pointedly didn’t attempt to listen to their whispered conversation, Jason’s face buried in Barbara’s ginger hair. Some things he wasn’t meant to know. As two of Joker’s last victims, they had experienced something Bruce never would and would find strength from each other for it.

“He seems to be doing better already.” Jim said when Bruce joined him at the large windows looking out over the gardens.

“Tim’s presence in the manor has been a blessing.” He admitted, folding his arms over his chest, and watched the commissioner’s daughter stroking the back of Jason’s head. “It’s served as a distraction so Jay’s not pushing himself too soon.”

“Where is the Drake boy?” The commissioner asked, aware of the situation at least in passing.

“Alfred and Tim are putting his belongings away up in his room.” He answered. “They met with an officer of Children’s Services and picked up a few of Tim’s things from the Drake’s place now that I’ve been granted guardianship.”

The man hummed. “Still no word from his parents?”

Bruce shook his head with an angry frown. “No. Phil Marin is CEO of Drake Industries and told GCCPS its not unusual for them to be out of contact for months at a time. The company pays for a housekeeper and groundskeeper to care for the property once a week. No one had any idea Tim had never been going with them. Marin provided their itinerary that had them scheduled out of the country for six months. It’s also useless because within a couple of weeks they had already deviated from it. I’ve been trying to track their private plane, the last flight logged six weeks ago from Argentina to Haiti.”

“And Tim doesn’t know?” Jim asked with a frown of his own. “What kind of parents leave their pre-teen kid to fend for himself for six months?”

“The kind that’ll never get him back if I have anything to say about it.” Bruce shook his head. “I hate to think what could have happened to Tim and no one would have ever known. It’s just luck that this ‘Wraith’ was the one that took him off the streets. He seems to be one of the good guys.”

“My officers think so.” Gordon huffed a light laugh. “Well, to be honest they think he’s you. I would too if I didn’t know any better. The crime scenes he’s left us and the evidence packets, it reminds me of your work. Except for the fact that he’s helped himself to some of the money.”

“A copycat, and one of the better ones.” Bruce muttered thoughtfully. “He’s using the money he takes to fund his crimefighting. His armor, weapons, gear, things he didn’t have the night he rescued Osprey, it’s similar to what we use in the field with obvious customization suited to his style of fighting.”

“You should show them the footage from his fight with Joker.” Jason spoke up from his spot on the sofa, both him and Barbara with red-rimmed eyes but any tears that had been shed had already been wiped away. “And from the encounter with Batwoman the other night. Because it’s not just his gear, his training has to be on par or even better than B’s.”

“Dad filled me in on the way here.” Barbara said when Bruce and her father came back to the sitting area and joined their children. “If I can get access to the computer downstairs I can start working on a program to cross referencing known mercenaries and vigilantes and the teachers you had before coming back to Gotham. There can’t be that many people who’d be willing to undergo what you did.”

“How long was Timothy with him?” Jim asked, taking the chair nearest his daughter’s wheelchair while Bruce settled on the sofa with his son. “He has to know something that can help identify ‘Wraith’.”

“A little over three weeks.” Bruce reached for the coffee table and the folders he’d set there prior to the Gordons’ arrival. He went through the stack and handed it to Jim. “That’s Tim’s recounting of his time with Wraith. He took precautions to keep Tim from being able to identify him.”

“He disguised himself from the kid living with him?” Jim’s incredulity accompanied a shake of his head. “Could he be a Metahuman? A shapeshifter, maybe?”

Bruce shook his head. “We had a sample of his blood from a leather jacket he left with Osprey the night he rescued him from Joker. He’s completely human.”

“Timmy told us Wraith would switch out a look every couple of days.” Jason said. “Wigs, contact lenses, prosthetic facial features, tattoos, fake scars. Even went as far as changing his voice with every knew look. Only thing Timmy could say for certain is his skin tone, which never changed, and that he’s not from England.”

“No, I said I didn’t think he was English speaking.” Tim corrected the other teen as he and Alfred joined them in the parlor. “At least I’m pretty sure it’s not his first language.”

Bruce took a minute to introduce his new foster son to the Gordons, holding back a smile when the younger boy made a point of shaking their hands before sitting on the floor next to Bruce’s feet. “Tim didn’t recognize all the languages Wraith spoke.”

“Spanish, French, Greek, at least one Asian dialect, and at least two others I couldn’t place.” Tim reiterated what was noted in the file in Jim’s hand. “And his accented English always matched whatever nationality he was mimicking.”

“The muscle for hire, from the other night with Batwoman, was Norwegian.” Jason gave an amused smile. “Wraith reminded the guy about someone’s birthday, which given the response he’d obviously forgotten.”

“He knows the locals, then.” Alfred inferred from where he stood near the doorway of the room. “Possibly one of them before he decided to don a mask?”

“Definitely something to look into.” Jim agreed and set the file back on the table. “It shouldn’t be hard to follow up on the gang members he let go. If he knows enough about them to know birthdays they might know him.”

“Should we?” Tim asked quietly with a nervous glance up at Bruce. “I mean, he never once asked me about you even though he knew I knew who Batman and Osprey were. And, other than the bad guys he’s not hurting anyone. He’s helping.”

“The kid’s got a point.” Jason glanced at Bruce meaningfully. “As much as I’d like to thank him for saving my life and taking the Joker permanently off the board, I don’t need to know who he is under the mask to do that. I just need to find him.”

“And the best way to do that is to learn who he is outside Wraith.” Bruce told his sons – yeah, the Drakes were never getting Tim back. “Wraith may not have killed Joker, but he didn’t hesitate in doing irrevocable harm to the man’s body.”

“You heard the video, Bruce.” Jason snapped, the argument a familiar one of the past few days. “Joker killed someone he cared about. Hell, Joker’s killed a lot of ‘someones’ someone cared about. He would have killed me too if Wraith hadn’t taken him down!”

“He might be working as an ally right now, but we know nothing of his motives or what his end game is. And someone with his training, his skill, and how he seems to know details about us and how we operate?” Reaching across the short distance between him and Jason, Bruce ran a hand affectionately over the teen’s hair and cupped the side of his face. “Wraith saved my son’s life. Your life, Jason, and I will be eternally grateful to him for that, but he’s dangerous.”

Jason’s cheeks coloured with a faint blush and Bruce smiled warmly when the boy leaned into his palm.

A moment later, Barbara cleared her throat softly. “What are the chances of there being two?”

Next to Bruce’s knees, Tim sat up straighter and started leafing through the folders on the table. “You think Wraith might have been the same guy that helped you against the Joker?”

“It’s a possibility.” Bruce agreed and pointed to the folder tab that contained his information on the night of Joker’s attack on the Gordons. His own thoughts had matched Barbara’s and why he had included it in the stack.

“If he’s been disguising himself, the description of our Good Samaritan might be useless.” Jim tapped the folder in his hand against his opposite palm. “It would also explain why he looked so young but fought like someone twice his age.”

“Joker mentioned he seemed familiar when they fought.” Jason reminded Bruce. “Even asked if he’d tried to kill Wraith before.”

“What’s this?” Tim asked, tugging out a different folder he had been looking at, and opened it to pictures Bruce had never wanted him to see. Tim went pale, a common reaction to seeing the hard copies of Flash’s John Doe.

Cursing under his breath, Bruce slid the folder out of Tim’s hand. “A different case I’m working on I wanted Jim’s thoughts on. I didn’t mean to leave them–”

 Tim proved faster, fingers holding on to the artist’s composite of what John Doe looked like. He stared at the sketch, eyes narrowing and forehead wrinkling in thought. A second later, he dropped the picture on the table and was scrambling off the floor and out the door. Alfred followed worriedly, only a few steps behind the boy.

“Dad!”

Bruce turned back to the others to see Barbara wheel closer to the coffee table and pick up the image.

“I see it.” Jim looked at the sketch in his daughter’s hand before motioning to the folder in Bruce’s. He opened it once he held it, flipping quickly and blanching with each new image he saw. “This is the John Doe out of Central City you and the Flash mentioned a while back. The one we think is connected to the Court.”

“I was going to talk to you about him sooner, but…” Bruce trailed off, as both men knew they had been too busy of late. Especially given their children’s encounters with the Joker.

“This is him, Bruce!” Barbara exclaimed, waving the photograph. “I may not remember a lot of that night, but I remember him. He was gentle, his voice warm, comforting, and those eyes were so kind. I don’t think I could ever forget his face.”

Jason took the picture and looked at it before handing it to Bruce. “He went missing from Central City about five months ago?” Bruce nodded as he accepted the photo and glanced at it, though he had memorized the boy’s face long ago.

“You can see the state he was in when he was found.” Bruce looked up at the Gordons who were both going through what details he and Barry had been able to salvage. “He had been comatose until two days prior to his disappearance. That was roughly seven weeks before the Joker’s assault on you both. It was believed he was abducted from the hospital by the same people that hurt him.”

“We’re finding more and more evidence of this Court of Owls.” Jim told him with a scowl. “I’m having to move carefully because a lot of the names in that binder hold a lot of power in this city.”

“Could that have been him too?” Jason proposed. “Maybe he wasn’t taken from the hospital. Maybe he left.”

“He wouldn’t have been in any condition to leave, not on his own.”  Bruce said, but it wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibilities either. “Two of the JLA’s strongest magic users confirmed on two separate occasions that magic was involved in placing John Doe’s body outside the hospital. It could explain how he vanished from it again as soon as he regained consciousness.”

“The Court tried to have him killed but someone with magic wanted him saved.” Barbara surmised.

“Didn’t Dr. Fate say John Doe was marked by a goddess?” Jason asked.

Bruce nodded. “Nut, an ancient Egyptian goddess of night and rebirth.”

“Master Timothy, slow down!”

Alfred’s shout came only seconds before thunderous footsteps accompanied the boy racing back into the parlor. Tim was panting for breath and carrying a familiar lockbox, which he dropped heavily onto the coffee table. He dropped to his knees, opening it excitedly. Reverently, the boy pulled out a small silver frame and turned it to show them. Inside was a well-preserved polaroid picture that had Bruce’s heart suddenly racing and Jason gasping.

The couple in the middle were easily recognized as Jack and Janet Drake, Tim’s parents. The woman to Janet’s left, and the man on Jack’s right, were dressed in flamboyant costumes that Bruce remembered perfectly from a night almost a decade past. The man bore a striking resemblance to the sketch of John Doe, but it was the two little boys in the forefront of the picture that held his attention. Tim couldn’t have been more than two or three years old at the time the picture was taken. Dressed in a tiny suit that looked uncomfortable for a child that age to wear, the Tim in the picture was looking up with complete adoration into the face of a dead child Bruce would never be able to forget.

“He’s a Grayson!” Tim wheezed, still trying to regain his breath. “Wraith is a Flying Grayson!”

Chapter Text

CHAPTER FOUR

“He looks like John when we were that age.” Rick Grayson’s voice was filled with grief and heartbreak, the paraplegic staring at the artist sketch with longing. His eyes followed the paper a moment later when Jim slid it off the pile, then looked back at one of the safer pictures from Barry’s casefile. “Who is he? What happened to him?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” Barry told the man gently. “We were hoping you could help us.”

The two officers had arrived at the long-term facility where the Martha Wayne Foundation had been providing care for the last surviving member of the Flying Graysons. The staff, having been notified of their visit, had set aside a private sitting room for them to speak with the man with his care nurse nearby but far enough for privacy.

“With your permission, we’d like to collect a blood sample from you before we leave.” The Gotham commissioner said. “We have a sample of our John Doe’s blood and we can find out if he is related to you or not.”

“How does knowing that help you find this kid?” Rick asked.

“It would be a starting point.” Barry explained grimly. “There’s enough evidence to suggest that our John Doe was trafficked as a child.”

“Oh my god,” the man exclaimed breathlessly.

“We don’t know for sure,” He tried to ease the horrified expression on the man’s face. “But if we can figure out who he is, where he came from, we can find the people that hurt him.”

“We just want to help him, Mr. Grayson.” Jim continued ardently. “That kid in the picture escaped the nightmare that left him in a coma in Central City and came to Gotham where he saved my life and that of my daughter. I owe him a debt that I will spend the rest of my days trying to pay back. Finding the bastards he’s running from, making sure he’s safe and can stop hiding, is just the first step.”

The room was quiet, interrupted only by the machine attached to the chair assisting the man to breathe. Rick’s head turned minutely and his eyes lingered on the softly smiling sketch. “If I didn’t know he was gone, I’d say this was little Dickie all grown up. The mouth looks just like Mary’s, same with the nose. But the rest… I never thought I’d see my brother’s eyes again. Out of all of us John was the only one with blue eyes, a recessive gene from our father’s maternal grandmother. You can have your blood sample.”

“Thank you.” Barry smiled softly and genuinely. “What else can you tell us about your family? Is there anyone that may have had a child you weren’t aware of?”

“My wife, Karla, her family was all from Louisiana, though they disowned her when she ran away with me.” A fond smile tugged at his lips for just a moment before he frowned. “They refused to even meet my Johnny when he was born. Said the ‘gypsy spawn’ was no kin of theirs.”

Barry nearly blanched, disgusted but far to used to hearing and witnessing the prejudices of others. “We’re sorry to bring up painful memories.”

“All of the memories of my family are painful.” Rick said after a hiss of the ventilator filled his lungs. “Mary’s people were still in eastern Europe, last I knew. But that was a few months before what happened. Her maiden name was Lloyd and her grandfather was just a child when the Soviet Union deported him to Türkiye during World War Two with other Polish refugees. The clan that took him in started travelling again in the early sixties. I’d have no clue where you’d start looking for them.”

“What about your side of the family?” Jim was writing down the information in a little notepad.

“Spread throughout Europe and central Asia. The four of us lost touch with the clans when we joined Haly’s after a show in Greece.”

“The four of you?” Barry pressed gently.

“John was the oldest at nineteen, Mary was seventeen and they had just been married.” Rick explained. “I was the youngest at fourteen and our brother, George⁽¹⁾, was sixteen. We came to the US two years later and, about a year after that, George was fired for stealing from the box office. I haven’t seen or heard from him in more than twenty years. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, gentlemen.” The nurse said contritely when she approached them. “But it’s almost time for Rick’s physical therapy.”

“Of course.” Jim stood and Barry followed suit. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Grayson. We’ll arrange with the staff here to collect the blood sample.”

“Will you tell me?” Rick asked before he could be wheeled away. “If I am related to the boy?”

“We can do that.”

--- --- --- --- ---

“He’s dead.”

Jason looked away from the monitor displaying the feed from Batman’s cowl and to the preteen spinning in the chair with a laptop on his knees. It was the first night he had been able to convince Bruce that he’d be fine if Batman returned to patrol, and he was. He would have been fine weeks ago, but he had to admit it was nice having his dad just hanging out with him again.

Craning his neck to look over the back of the rotating desk chair, getting a look at the screen Tim was navigating, Jason frowned. “Did you hack the Federal Bureau of Prisons?”

“Maybe.” Tim admitted absently. “I was going over the update Mr. Allen gave Bruce the other day.” The younger boy waved his hand toward the whiteboard that had been set up.

Despite wiping the virus from the computers, Bruce and Barry weren’t taking any chances with their investigation. Nothing was being uploaded on the off chance whoever hacked the cave would do it a second time. Everything Batman had on John Doe, Wraith, and the Court of Owls was being kept strictly to hard copies. It made things a little tedious, but Jason could understand the precaution.

“What part?” He asked the kid, halting the dizzying spinning when Tim was facing him again.

“The Graysons.” Tim turned the laptop around so Jason could see the screen and the insane number of tabs and windows that were open. “The blood Batman got from the jacket Wraith left with you shared about twenty-five percent of the genetic markers we got from Rick Grayson.”

“Right, they’re related.” Jason nodded, following so far.

“Right, but without DNA from the rest of the family we’ll never know exactly how.” Tim repositioned the computer on his lap and continued clacking away at the keys. “According to Superman, the bodies of the three Graysons buried here in Gotham are still in their graves and don’t look like they’ve been tampered with. It’s highly unlikely any judge would sign off on an exhumation order for us to check DNA so, I was looking up George Grayson.”

“Okay…”

“George William Grayson immigrated to the US on a permanent work visa and had been in and out of prison since he was nineteen.” Tim told him, casting a criminal record onto one of the smaller monitors for Jason to see. There were a handful of mugshots from different states, all the same man. The similarities to his family were obvious, the same facial structure, same dark olive skin, the same black curls, the same deep brown eyes. “He died in the ADX Florence in Colorado eight years ago. He’d been serving multiple life sentences for assault and battery, violating a protection order, breaking and entering, grand theft auto, armed robbery, one count of aggravated assault with a weapon, two counts of kidnapping in the first degree, and two counts of murder in the second degree.”

“Sounds like a peach,” Jason commented as he scanned the man’s record while Tim continued.

“Victims were Bradly and Clara Higgins and their two-year-old son, Zachery, from Davenport Iowa.” The file contained a portrait of the young family, smiling and happy. But the difference in skin tones between the three made it obvious that Zachery was not Bradly’s biological son. “There is no father listed on Zachery’s birth certificate, but Bradly adopted him when he and Clara married when the boy was only four months old.”

“Assault and battery charges as well as the protection order were from Casper, Wyoming.” Jason leaned forward in his seat, tapping his foot as he read the court documents in more detail. “Beat the crap out of his then girlfriend, Clara Castillo when she was five months pregnant.”

“Clara fled to her sister’s place in Davenport where she met and married Bradley Higgins.” Tim scowled as he brought up the pictures collected during the investigation. “Grayson broke into the home, shot Bradly, who survived, stole the Higgins’ car and kidnapped Clara and Zachery. FBI became involved when he crossed state line into Illinois. He was apprehended two days later in St. Louis, Missouri after he tried to rob a convenience store with the same gun that he shot Higgins with. The car he stole was found in the Missouri River a week after, but only Clara’s body was recovered. Police got Grayson to confess and plead guilty to lesser charges to avoid the death penalty. He claimed Zachery’s death was an accident, that he’d just wanted the kid to stop crying and accidentally suffocated him. He shot Clara when she became distraught then disposed of their bodies with the car. He’d left the windows open so it would sink faster. Police believe the current swept Zachery’s body out of the vehicle.”

Noting the dates of the events, Jason looked over at the white board. “George Grayson died only a few weeks after the attack on Haly’s Circus.”

“He was a model prisoner until about two weeks before his death.” Tim was still clacking away at his keyboard. “Guards and the Warden reported during the investigation that he became agitated during one of his days in the prison library. They don’t know what set him off, but he started demanding to see his lawyer. He was found dead in his cell two days before the – woah!”

Jason looked at the younger boy, hands frozen above the keyboard and face blanched white. “Timmy? What is it?”

“Uh, George Grayson’s official cause of death is suicide, but I found this buried on the Warden’s computer.” Tim tapped a couple keys, and a picture was shared on the larger monitor.

He stared at the image, stunned, for a moment before he glanced at Batman’s camera feed and opened the comm. “Osprey to Batman; if you’re clear for the night you’re needed back at base.”

“Is everything all right?” Batman’s worry was evident.

“It’s fine, just… You’re going to want to see this sooner rather than later.” Jason looked back to the picture of a man pinned to the wall in his cell by several familiar blades, the front of the body soaked with blood from the single slice across his throat. “And you’ll want to bring the Commissioner with you.”

--- --- --- --- ---

Batman clocked their shadow several blocks ago and he knew Osprey had picked up on it not long after. Neither acknowledged it, nor were they worried as they knew it meant them no harm.  It was keeping its distance, observing and not interfering with Osprey’s first night back on Gotham’s streets.

From his spot on the roof above the parking lot, he watched his partner taking on the two crooks that had been breaking into the electronics store. Pride coursed through him at the progress the boy had made, the resilience to come back from something that would have broken many. His protégé, his son, was determined not to let what the Joker did to him defeat him. Whatever the drive behind it, whether that was just Jason’s own tenacity or the resolve to live up to the words of the man that rescued him, Bruce was grateful.

“I was disappointed I had to learn what happened from Harley.”

He didn’t move a muscle as the woman slinked out of the shadows to stand next to him. The black latex of her suit blended perfectly in the night, and only his familiarity with her had allowed him to notice her following them. “I had other priorities.”

Catwoman hummed and looked down, a smile forming on her painted lips as they watched the young hero securing the now unconscious would-be thieves for pick up from the GCPD. “He seems to be doing well?”

“He is,” Batman admitted. “While extensive, his injuries were not life threatening. Though they easily could have been.”

“Rumours among the general populous is that you exacted your revenge and ensured the clown is out of the game permanently.” The burglar hooked her arm through his elbow and clung to him, her lithe body leaning against his side. “The Bigger fish are telling a different story.”

He could guess, but still he asked, “Which is?”

“Ozzy’s saying the gangs in the Alley are afraid of a ghost.” She purred. “One that’s been around a lot more recently than the big bad Bat. Or at least it was.”

“Was?” Osprey’s grapple had him on the roof next to Batman, a scowl on his face at the woman’s words. “What happened to Wraith?”

“That his name?” Selina disentangled herself from Batman and swooped in to hug the young man. “I’m so glad you’re alright, Birdie.”

“Hi, Lina.” Beneath his mask, Jason smiled and accepted the embrace. “It’s good to see you. Now what were you saying about Wraith?”

“Only that he hasn’t been around since Bats started flying in the night again.” Draping herself on the ledge of the roof, Catwoman swung one leg lazily in the air. “Some of the girls on the alley said he could be seen nightly after what went down with the Joker. He’d check in with them regularly, chase off some of the nastier clients, even convinced a couple of the worst pimps to take a step back. One of the street boys flagged me down, wanted to me to make sure you hadn’t chased him out of Gotham now that you’re back out.”

Batman shook his head. “I’ve been looking into him, for obvious reasons, but for the most part I’ve been leaving him alone.”

“Might want to rethink that.” She leaned back on the palms of her hands and looked up at him. “A couple of my informants said this guy’s making waves in more than just the gangs. Dent, Thorne, Sionis, just to name a few that have been shaking Penguin down for information.”

“Does he know anything?” Osprey asked.

“If he does, he’s not sharing.” Catwoman admitted. “Though it sounds like Penguin’s got his hands full with the legitimate side of things these days. He’s bringing in a troop of performers from Asia for a limited time engagement.”

“I’d heard.” Batman nodded. “I received an invitation to the opening night benefit performance. I hadn’t planned on attending.”

“Apparently, he’s partnered with the Marcus Casino in Blüdhaven and they’re sparing no expense.” The woman smirked, a visible glint in her eye which typically meant something had caught her interest. “They’re closing off the entire street for the afternoon and have invited street performers from both cities to perform. There’s to be a market, food carts, games, fun for the whole family. It would be a shame to miss it.”

With a stretch like her namesake, Selina slithered to her feet and leaned forward to place a kiss on Osprey’s cheek. “Take care of yourself, Birdie. I’ll see you around.”

“Sunday brunch,” Osprey lightly snagged her wrist in his hand when she walked past him. “Penny One would love to see you again, BW is going to be there, and you can meet Dryas⁽²⁾.”

Batman nodded once when she looked to him and even after all this time, he still felt the flutter in his chest when she smiled softly. “Please.”

Disentangling her hand from Jason’s light hold she vaulted away. “See you Sunday, boys.”

“Marcus Casino,” Osprey muttered as they watched the woman disappear. “Isn’t that–”

“Roland Desmond.” Batman scowled even as he reached for his own grapple. “A mafioso that seemingly came out of nowhere to take over organized crime in Blüdhaven a year ago. Calls himself Blockbuster.”

“And now he’s partnered up with Cobblepot.” Osprey glanced over at his partner. “So, we’re gonna go to the carnival and benefit, right?”

--- --- --- --- ---

The alarm was soft, more of annoyance than noting any real danger, and Constantine watched with a roll of his eyes as Cyborg glared at the cause of the Zeta Room’s disturbance. With one last drag and huff, the smoke curling slowly past his lips, the demonologist dropped the half-finished cigarette onto the otherwise pristine floor of the Zeta platform and snuffed out it’s glowing end with the toe of his shoe.

“If you’re here for the meeting, you’re too late.” The man snarked as Constantine walked toward the doors. “It ended a few minutes ago.”

“S’why I’m here now, mate.” He answered without looking back. “Just need to talk to the big man.”

“Superman should still be in the conference room.”

“The Big big man.” The doors swished open an instant before he swept through them, a new cigarette pressed between John’s lips as they closed behind him. He was greeted almost immediately by the imposing and statuesque beauty of Wonder Woman.

“I see now why I felt the need to leave the meeting immediately at its end.” The Amazon’s gaze lingered on the empty space around him before meeting his eyes. “The gods whisper the gravity of the news you bring.”

Absently tilting his head, the tip of the cigarette dipping into the flame of the lighter in his hand, John sighed. “Your gods or mine, Princess?”

“Both.” She answered succinctly. “Come, those you came to speak with are still here.”

He fell in step with the demi-god easily, her presence as comforting as it was intimidating. They walked through the corridors of the Watchtower, and he was grateful for her escort. He never came up here, not if he could help it, but it was the quickest way he knew to pin down the elusive Bat.

The last thing he needed was a pissed off Dark Knight because the House kept taking him to Gotham.

“– when you had the chance.” Lantern was ranting when John neared the open door to the meeting hall, the man’s voice carrying over the low din of voices. “Now the trail has gone cold.”

There was a dozen or so heroes lingering in the large room, all of them doing a poor job of pretending to not be listening to four of the founding League members. Superman was standing behind his seat at the large table, arms crossed over the infamous symbol on his chest, and scowling disappointedly at Green Lantern who in turn was glaring at Batman. As always, the Flash was playing mediator between the two clashing men.

“That’s not fair, Hal, and you know it.” Flash had a hand on the verdant hothead’s chest and pushing slightly to keep the space cop from squaring up against the stoic Caped Crusader.

“Fair?” Jordon’s nose wrinkled as his mouth curled with a harder glare. “Fair would have been not losing the kid we’ve been looking for! Fair would have been making sure he was safe before the fuckers took him again!”

“There’s nothing to indicate that he’s been taken.” Superman sighed when Batman made no move to defend himself. “And we still don’t know for certain Flash’s John Doe is the same man that stopped Joker.”

“Come off it, Supes!” The lantern’s breath expelled hotly as he threw his hands up in the air. “You know it’s him! We all do, and he’s been missing again for – how long now Bats? How long have they had to hurt him again or worse?”

“Twenty-three days.” Batman’s tone carried his usual stoicism, however even John could hear the unease in the words.

“You left so quickly I didn’t think I’d get to talk to you tonight, Aunty D.”

Turning his head to the smaller figure that came to stand beside the woman, John couldn’t stop the shiver up his spine at the shadow clinging to the boy. And from the way Diana suddenly enveloped Batman’s son and the horror on her face it was obvious she could see it too. “Sweet Hera! How did I not see it before?”

John scowled as the shadow faded by the claws remained in the young hero’s aura. “You weren’t meant to.”

“Uh, hey, Johnny.” Osprey muttered in confusion, and no small blush, from against the woman’s ample bosom. “Do I want to know what’s wrong with Aunty D?”

“Forgive me, Osprey.” Diana let the embarrassed teen step out of her arms, but her hand swept over his hair in a very motherly manner.

“Hey Kid.” John took the cigarette from his lips and held it out to the teen. “You’re looking good for a dead man.”

With a quick glance at Diana, and when she did nothing to stop him, Osprey accepted the cigarette. He took a drag from the cig, the motions familiar and practiced, holding the smoke in his chest as he handed the slim stick back to its owner. Slowly he let it out, the kid’s shoulder’s dropping minutely as he watched his mentor. “Someone stopped the Joker before he could follow through.”

“I heard.” He said, turning back to the foursome that were becoming even more heated now that Batman was an active participant in the conversation. “Your guardian angel has a lot of folks in a tizzy.”

A strong hand on his upper arm had him looking down at the kid that was nearly as tall as him already. Between the grip on his arm and the squaring of the teen’s jaw, it was easy to see the intimidating bruiser he’d become in just a few years. “You know something about Wraith?

“I just might,” he admitted.

Pursing her lips, Diana stepped forward and a sharp whistle cut through the noise of the growing argument. The four men, and every other eye in the room, snapped over to the woman. “Maybe it’s time to let someone else do the talking, Hal.”

Ignoring the way the galactic hero tried not to bristle at her words, John pinched off the half-finished smoke and tucked it into the pocket of his overcoat while Osprey nudged him forward.

The Flash, congenial fellow that he was, met him a few steps from the group and shook his hand. “Hey, John. Don’t usually see you up here.”

“Prefer to keep my feet on terra firma.” He looked past the crimson clad man and focused on the Dark Knight behind him. “But when demons and gods alike turn their eyes to Gotham, figure I need a one on one with its resident protector.”

“We can go to the Cave.” Batman started to move but stopped when John held up a hand.

“Something tells me these fellows aren’t going to be kept out of it.” He tilted his head to the others.

“Shows over, everyone.” Superman ordered with a glance around the room. “Give us the hall, please.”

Without hesitation, the lingering heroes scattered through one exit or the other. As soon as the last one was gone, Diana sealed the room as the six of them settled around the table in the centre of the room.

John began when they were all situated, meeting Batman’s gaze through the lenses of the cowl. “You’ve got a player making moves in your city and he’s playing a very dangerous game. The last few days, it doesn’t matter where I fall asleep, every morning I’m looking out my window at Gotham skyline. House of Mysteries won’t give me more than that, but it’s something big if it’s not letting me leave. So, I did a scrying last night, see what’s causing trouble in your neck of the woods. I barely completed the incantation before the obsidian stone I was using shattered.”

“I may not know magic,” Superman’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “But I know that’s not a good thing.”

“It is not.” Diana confirmed. “It means that some very powerful measures have been taken to hide what is happening.”

Hand twitching toward the pack of smokes in his pocket, John crossed his arms over his chest to stop himself. “I reached out to a couple of magi I know in Gotham – minor practitioners with barely any talent in the art – when I had a visitor. Several, in fact. The Seven Hathors brought me a message.”

“Who the hell is Hathor and why are there seven of him?” Hal asked boorishly, which was typical of the pilot when he didn’t know something.

“A type of Egyptian deity.” Batman answered and John was not surprised that the man knew. “Egyptologists believe she served so many purposes in their pantheon that she could manifest aspects of herself to reflect the different traits.”

“Mainly the stars, joy, sexuality, motherhood, fate, foreign lands, and the afterlife.” Osprey added as if he were in a classroom, which had John hiding a smile at the kid’s eagerness. “Right?”

“Those are the big Seven,” John nodded, and the teen’s eyes lit up. “They’ve manifested several hundred aspects throughout history.”

“And they sought you out?” Flash brought the conversation back on track. “About something going on in Gotham?”

“What was the message and who was it from?” The Dark Knight all but growled at the implied danger to his city.

John really wanted that smoke.

“Their mother.” Diana answered for him, and he nodded. She turned to Batman with a seriousness rarely seen on her face outside of battle. “For months the priestesses of Themyscira have been receiving signs and trying to interpret their meaning. Thus far they know it only as a warning from Nyx, a primordial goddess and personification of Night.”

“Nyx is the Grecian pantheon incarnation of Nut.” He told them, his tone leaving no doubt the gravity of the situation. “And the message given to me by her daughters is as simple as it is dire. The Chosen of Nut has been hidden from her.”

“There are few powerful enough to deceive the Sky Goddess,” Diana emphasised. “And fewer still with the heart to do so.”

“Nut, that’s the name Dr. Fate gave you.” Any attitude the green glowstick had vanished as Hal looked over at the Flash. “Said she marked the kid.”

“What do you know.” Batman stated, never a question with him because he always knew when John had more.

“After they left, I did another scrying, one for any major players in Jersey making waves in my world.” John admitted. “What can you tell me about Roland Desmond?”

Batman and Osprey shared a look before the big man answered. “Gangster from Blüdhaven. Came out of nowhere and is looking to expand into Gotham.”

“Not so nowhere.” Sliding his hands into his pocket and held out a simple black business card with golden letters. Superman took it from him and frowned. “Man made a deal with one of Neron’s – the demon that took Lucifer’s place when the devil moved to LA – lackies about a year ago. Bune, demon known for making men smarter, more charismatic, and very, very rich. One of the Gotham magi came through with some intel. A lieutenant in Rolly’s organization came to him with a handful of others looking for a geis, something beyond this guy’s capability. My informant directed him to New York. Specifically, to Nicolas Nolan.”

“Also known as Nick Necro.”

It shouldn’t have surprised him that the supposed world’s greatest detective knew the name, but it did. “You know your magi.”

“He knows anyone close enough who may pose a threat to Gotham, magi or otherwise.” Osprey’s eyes couldn’t be seen beneath the mask, but John didn’t doubt the kid was rolling his eyes at his old man.

“What’s a geysh?” Flash asked, the American accent practically butchering the Irish word.

“Geis,” he enunciated. “Essentially a curse, something that could potentially have some nasty effects for the person it was meant for and even nastier if broken incorrectly.”

Superman frowned. “Did your informant tell you want kind of effects this curse would have?”

“Illusion, at least,” he said. “My guy didn’t get a lot of details but told me he was shown nearly two dozen pictures. Subjects were teens and young adults, male and female, Asian or Persian descent. All scarred to some degree which Desmond’s people wanted hidden. Including the exact same brand on their left hip.”

“They were all victims,” Flash muttered, his lips turned down in a very unhappy frown. “Trafficked through the same stable.”

Tilting his head in acknowledgement, John continued. “There was one that stood out, worse than all the others combined. The kid in the pic, male, was restrained, hooded, the brand was fresh, and his body scarred like someone had tried to butcher him every day of his life. Just touching the picture left my guy nauseated and his skin crawling. He’s an empath and said he could feel the pain and suffering inflicted on the kid through the picture. The way he described this kid to me, if even half of the scars were as he said they were, it would take the average practitioner at least a year to cover every one of them, especially the ones across his throat.”

“Damn it,” Barry pulled the cap of his uniform off his scalp and ran his hand through his hair, pale skin looking nearly as green as the glow from Lantern’s ring.

“Sonuvabitch!” Osprey hissed through his teeth, fury emanating from him so heavy that the hair on John’s arms stood on end. “They found him.”

“No.” The growl was missing from Batman’s voice and somehow it made the man sound even more menacing. “Whoever had him – whoever hurt him before didn’t brand him.”

“Shit luck to be abducted and trafficked once in your life let alone twice.” Hal snarled.

“We still don’t know its him.” Superman reminded them, but the fisting of his hands exposed the alien’s thoughts on the matter. “We don’t even know if John Doe is Wraith.”

Diana frowned. “Kal-El–”

“It’s him.” Batman interrupted with such certainty no one deigned to contradict him. “The boy in the picture the magi saw was John Doe and he is Wraith. The question now is, who has him and how did they do it? He faced off against and beat the Joker. Alone. Something only a handful of people would be capable of doing, and all but myself enhanced. We’ve seen the footage; we’ve seen the way he fights; Wraith is too skilled to be taken by the kind of men employed by Desmond.”

“What did this Nick guy say?” Green Lantern asked with the authority that made him feared throughout the cosmos.

John rubbed at the short hair on the back of his neck and shook his head. “Nicolas and I haven’t exactly been on speaking terms lately. He won’t say anything about a potential client, especially one with the supernatural connections and wealth like Desmond has, at least not to me. However, I know him well enough to know that he’ll squeal like the weasel he is if you four are with me.”

“Five.” Diana met the eyes of the men around her, none of them willing to deny her.

“Six.” Osprey spat.

“No.” Batman barked. “It’s too dangerous. You’re going back to Gotham.”

“Like hell!” The kid snapped right back. “Wraith saved my life, B! If you think I’m not going to be a part of this, you can go fuck yourself! I’m going with or without you!”

It was official. Osprey was his new favourite.

“While the profanity was unnecessary,” Superman levelled a disappointed look at the youngest member of their circle, though Osprey missed it as he was locked in a silent stare down with his father. “He’s already involved, Batman. Out of all of us here, he’s the only one who’s interacted with Wraith.”

“Fate said John Doe was meant to be connected to us all before whoever took him changed his fate.” Flash reminded the Dark Knight. “Not just us, but our proteges too.”

“We all know you wish him far from harm’s way, Batman.” Diana began, reaching out and placing a hand over the man’s gauntlet and drawing his gaze from the teen. “But Osprey has his part to play.”

When the shadows coalesced around those gathered at the table, John stopped resisting and took the half-finished cigarette from his pocket. No one said anything as he lit it and inhaled a long drag before speaking again. “We all do. Stars, joy, sexuality, motherhood, fate, foreign lands.”

As he spoke, he pointed to them one by one. Bruce, Barry, Hal, Diana, himself, and Clark. Turning to Jason, once again offering the boy the cigarette. “The afterlife.”

Blanching beneath his mask, uncaring of the eyes watching him, the teen took the cig and drew on it deeply.

“No.” Bruce clipped but it was more frightened than John could ever remember hearing from the man.

Diana held her friend’s hand tightly, the comfort she tried to give him going unnoticed. “We have all been marked by the gods, Bruce. And come what may, the Keres have touched your son. A death violent and painful was meant to be his fate.”

Clark reached out and put a hand on Jason’s shoulder when the boy visibly shuddered and the hand holding the cigarette began to tremble. Finishing off the smoke, Jason stubbed it out carelessly on the table. “That’s why you called me a dead man.”

“Fates change, Kid.” John tried to assure him. “Your guardian angel changed it when he took down the thing that was going to kill you.”

“Nut’s Chosen.” Clark kept his arm around the boy’s shoulder.

“To be the Chosen of a god is to be the embodiment of all that they are.” Diana explained. “To be a herald of their will in the mortal world and to have the ability to break the threads of fate.”

“Not to break them,” John clarified, watching as the shadows around them faded into a vision he wished he could unsee. A body, male, strong, beautiful, bloody, and so very dead. “But to take them on as his own.”

“Your saying Jason’s death is now Wraith’s fate?” Hal was, surprisingly, the first to make the connection.

Feeling the weight of six pairs of eyes falling onto him, John nodded. “And if the gods are intervening and sending signs and messengers, we better damn well pay attention because time is running out.”

“Then we find him.” Voice strong and filled with absolute conviction, Osprey once again looked to his mentor.

“Jason,” the father began.

“We know enough to start looking.” Barry said quietly.

“Nicolas Nolan.” Superman stated.

“Roland Desmond.” Hal added.

“Gotham.” Batman snarled, the gravel of his voice rumbling through John like a roll of thunder.

“Gotham.” John nodded. “Whatever is going to happen, whenever it’s going to happen, it’ll happen in Gotham.”

“He saved my life, Dad, and I am going to save his.” The young man said it with such finality everyone there knew no argument could be made to stop him.

And John…

John couldn’t help but believe him.