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“Special Agent Prentiss, Behavioral Analysis Unit. How can I help you?” Very few calls are directed to her desk in the bullpen. The one time she answered familiarly though—expecting Garcia—she had gotten quite the reprimand from Section Chief Strauss about professionalism. 

“Emily, darling, I had an awfully difficult experience convincing your assistant to put me through. You really ought to have my number programmed to immediately redirect.” 

The agent’s head drops forward. Just barely, she withholds a groan. From his desk nearby, Morgan gives her a concerned look. “Hi, Mom. I don’t have an assistant. Why are you calling me at work?” She keeps her voice level and uninterested, which is much better than the bitter and annoyed quality of her thoughts. 

Her mother, walking somewhere by the click of her heels, sniffs. “I’ll be in the States later this week. I need you to accompany me to a charity gala to speak with some potential donors toward diplomatic efforts in Islamabad.” 

Emily raises an eyebrow. “Pakistan? I thought you were in Jordan?”

“I was moved out of Amman months ago, darling. I sent an updated address. Don’t you check your mail?” 

“Who checks their mail?” Before her mother can retort, she pushes on. “I’m not skipping work to go to a random gala in-”

“New Jersey.”

“New Jersey. That’s at least a four hour drive.”

Her mother tuts. “I will arrange a flight for you.” 

“No.” 

“Emily,” she sighs. “I ask very little of you. I didn’t comment about your education or career choice, nor do I interfere with your affairs. I haven’t spoken to your superiors about a promotion or done background checks on the men you choose to date. I am exceedingly hands off, as you have made this abundantly clear to be your preference.

“I can continue to leave your life unscrutinized. It’s very little effort for you to bend your independent stride for an evening and assist me in my time of need.”

Emily takes a deep breath. She could kick and scream and threaten. She’s done it before. “I’ll think about it,” she says instead, hanging up before she can hear the satisfied little hum of her mother knowing she’s won. 

The black town car trundles behind a half dozen replicas, tires crunching on the gravel path that leads to the gothic manor hosting the gala. 

Emily tunes out her mother’s long list of reminders, ranging from formal etiquette to international relations to prominent attendees. She’s an FBI agent. She went undercover for Interpol. It’s just another identity, one that has yet to be burned. 

Slipping into the role of dutiful daughter scalds her insides, but she manages with minimal shame pooling around her spine. 

The sharp but smiley version of Emily Prentiss—the diplomat’s daughter, the conversation piece, the practiced performer—settles in her lungs just before the chauffeur parks in front of the public entrance. 

Her law enforcement training kicks in as she exits into the open air of this unfamiliar space. There are motion detectors and thermal cameras ornamenting the trees. Traffic is being directed by a large man in a standard outsourced security uniform. Similarly dressed individuals, black suit and gray tie, are posted along the red carpet leading up the steps to the entrance of the brightly lit gala. Three different ‘reporters’ stand like ex-CIA agents with subtle earpieces that match that of the uniformed security team. 

Smartly dressed men and extravagantly adorned women meander up the steps, smiling brilliantly for the press and posing carefully for the cameras. Emily’s father holds out his elbow for her mother. He hadn’t gotten a word in edgewise on the drive over, but he picked her up from the Archie Goodwin International Airport and they had a nice talk in the car. 

She knows the plane ride was a ploy to question whether her passport is still up-to-date, but Emily couldn’t gather the energy to fight about it. 

Following her family is a familiar dance. Twirl here, shoulders back, dazzling smile, twinkling eyes. Sweeping her gaze over the entrance, more details buzz in her mind.

The guards seem to be carrying tasers and tranquilizers, not guns. Every third one grips an oversized medical kit. The manor they enter has been retrofitted with bulletproof glass and automatic doors. A ramp circumventing the press leads up to the door and a young woman in an elegant black dress wheels up it, talking animatedly with an older gentleman. 

Carefully, Emily steps over a scattered coin that looks charred on one side. Her mother emphasizes the importance of re-connecting with fellow Americans while Emily eyes the metal detectors just inside the vestibule. A secondary security team—with a slightly different suit and navy blue tie ensemble—quickly ushers guests through, searching clutches and briefcases. 

Beyond them, an elderly man in an effortlessly soigné suit takes coats and suit jackets. His smile is placid, but his eyes sharply assess each person entering. A staff member in title, a security guard in practice. 

The gala is not in any sort of swing when Emily and her parents make it through security. Her mother nods to the few present targets Emily has been assigned for the evening before dragging her father off to the single German businesswoman who he may be able to schmooze. 

The ballroom is tastefully decorated. Black silk cloths cascade down the circular tables on the north side of the ballroom. Their centerpieces are lilies floating in water, surrounded with smaller, frillier white flowers she doesn’t recognize. 

The tall, marble columns lift the flat ceiling overhead, another sheet of bulletproof glass creating a skylight. Museum-worthy art is displayed against the red wall paper and some attendees self-importantly comment on the paintings. 

On the south side of the ballroom, there’s a small stage with a twelve piece orchestra playing a familiar symphony. A few well-dressed guests standing near the stage clap politely after an intricate violin solo. 

Cycling expertly through the expansive room are a dozen caterers, stiffly carrying appetizers and champagne. A third security team observes from the corners of the room, the southern door to the kitchen, and the northern hallway leading to the manor proper. She spots a few more rotating along the balcony that encircles the ballroom. This group boasts another slightly different standard uniform with black ties. She wonders what caused the host to hire three companies to protect one event. 

Guests continue to enter, the chatter growing in volume until it’s no longer reasonable to whisper conversations. The crowd is primarily distinguished elders and their duplicitous middle-aged inheritors. There is a scattering of lively young adults, a few of whom cart around dutiful elementary-aged children and smirking teenagers. The young adult crowd is where Emily has been directed tonight. 

Thanking a passing caterer for the glass of gold-flecked champagne, she readies herself to approach her first target. 

“And I told him,” the man emphasizes over the sound of the nearby orchestra playing. “I told him on three separate occasions to purchase that bridge, but, of course, who listens to an intern?” He points to himself with both thumbs. “They changed their tune after they learned how much our competitor was making from toll fees. Any day now, the Brown Bridge here in Gotham is going to be up for sale, and my firm will be scooping it up.”

“Gotham has a toll bridge?” she asks, holding the extreme boredom in. 

Terry Latimer is the son of a Connecticut senator and a well-connected attorney. He is largely insufferable. His bootstraps tripped him into a board position for a venture capital investment firm focused on ‘Middle Eastern’ affairs. The vagueness irks her. Emily doubts he has ever set foot in any of the vibrant, sovereign countries that Americans boil down to a geographically meaningless moniker. He probably couldn’t tell Iran apart from Iraq. 

His firm is considering investing in a few projects in Punjab and so here she is. 

The curly hair stiffly jerks as he shakes his head. “No, but there’s no law against us instituting a fee once we own the bridge.” 

Emily sips her drink to keep herself from throwing it in his face. She struggles to think of a response that won’t piss off her mom. Thirty-seven years old and about as no contact as one can get from a woman who has the NSA director on her speed dial. Yet Emily still has to do this song and dance every few years. 

A new man steps into her peripheral vision. Her situational awareness is a little muddled by the third mindless conversation of the night and the sensory overwhelm of the band and the lights. She blames that as to why she didn’t hear him approach from behind. 

He wears a simple suit that silently communicates wealth through the perfect fit and sparkling cufflinks. He’s younger than Emily by quite a few years, but he handles the attention of the room with poise. And there is no mistaking—the attention of the room is his. 

“Richie!” Terry greets gregariously. He reaches out an arm as if to slap the other man on the back, but Richie steps out of reach. 

“Mr. Latimer,” he returns cooly. His assessing gaze settles on Emily. “I was hoping to borrow your friend here.” 

Terry allows this as if he has claim on Emily’s time. When her back is to him, she rolls her eyes. 

“I appreciate your cooperation, Special Agent Prentiss.” 

They’re halfway across the ballroom when Richie finally speaks to her. He works the crowd gracefully, radiant smiles and cheeky remarks carrying them across the space without being stopped. 

Everyone seems to want a piece from him. From local politicians to international socialites. The only person to whom Richie gives more than a moment of his time is an elegantly dressed Chinese woman in her early twenties. They spoke too quietly for Emily to make out, but Richie frowned briefly after the exchange. 

“Is something wrong?” she asks. She isn’t here in her capacity as an FBI agent. It’s not a position her mother brags about. The most she’ll say on the topic is that Emily works for the United States government. 

This partygoer shouldn’t know that title. 

He hums for a moment, complimenting the glittery eyeshadow of an heiress Emily grew up with. The wedding invite arrived a few weeks after she met Doyle. Emily can’t remember the name of the man she married, just that he was in line to inherit a media company based in London. 

“I’ll explain in a moment.” He gestures to the hallway leading further into the manor. “My brother will meet us there.”

Emily nods to an alumnus of her mother’s university. “I believe that area’s blocked off.” 

“For guests,” he agrees quietly. Then, gregariously, “Mrs. Bellencourt, Brucie wanted to make sure you’re enjoying the tea cakes.” 

“They’re delicious,” she enthuses. 

“Excellent.” Richie drops the slightest amount of polished geniality. “I- My family is hosting the gala. Security will let us through.” 

Skirting around the edge of the seating area where no doubt various under-the-table business agreements are being forged, Richie taps on the shoulder of a child no older than ten. The boy’s hair is carefully flattened, his suit unwrinkled despite being a full hour into the gala. His skin is a few shades darker than Richie’s and he levels a distrusting look at Emily with bright eyes. 

“Pennyworth requested that I remain in attendance, Grayson,” the boy mutters. He follows regardless, effortlessly in step with Richie. 

Grayson.

Richie Grayson. 

“You’re Bruce Wayne’s kid,” she realizes stupidly. 

He side eyes her skeptically and doesn’t merit the comment with a response. 

Grayson steps close to the guard on the left and states lowly, “We have a potential unwanted guest.”

The woman nods seriously and starts speaking into her ear piece. 

The music quiets the instant they cross the heavy velvet curtains that cordons off Wayne manor. The noise isn’t the only thing that drops. Grayson’s easy-going demeanor all but disappears. His eyes scan the poorly lit hall with precise saccades. 

“Damian, go to the panic room,” he orders. 

The boy scoffs. “I am perfectly capable of-” 

“Now.” Grayson rests a hand on the boy’s shoulder, two fingers tapping irregularly three times. Short long short. An unintentional Morse code R.

Damian turns on his heel and sweeps silently down the hall. Grayson watches him for a moment, until the same elderly man handling the coat check appears in the path and ushers the boy along. 

Through an antique polished wooden door with a thumbprint scanner discreetly installed above the conventional lock, Emily meets the brother. 

Now that she realizes that she’s with the host—or, the eldest child of the host—she recognizes the figure of Timothy Drake immediately. 

He’s hunched over a laptop, brow creased and frown prominent. “I’m still not talking to you,” he states crisply once the door shuts. 

Grayson sighs silently. “I know.”

“I was in Saint Petersburg. About to make a very important-” His eyes flick to Emily. “-business deal.”

“Tim, I really think-”

“Not talking to you.”

“Fine. Will you go to the panic room?” 

Drake rolls his eyes. “And spend the night with the Demon Brat? I’d rather take a crowbar to the skull.”

Grayson takes a very audible, steadying breath. He turns away from his brother “Agent Prentiss, we have reason to believe that there will be an attempted hostage situation at tonight’s event.” There’s no panic in his voice. Barely any worry. 

“Evidence?” she asks. 

As he speaks, she puts the pieces together as well. Fritzing security feeds, unlocked windows that should be secured, catering staff calling out sick en mass, a secondary radio feed intermittently bleeding feedback into the main channel. 

It’s not until his answer is complete that she realizes she’s treating him as a colleague rather than a potential victim.

She takes it in regardless. “There’s a lot of wealth down the hall. There may be a specific target in mind. They may be targeting everyone or the first person they encounter. Most likely, the assailants will initiate their plan around the time of the auction.”

“Which is in thirty minutes,” Grayson states with a frown. 

“Not enough time to calmly evacuate people.”

Drake shakes his head at the suggestion. “A subtle evacuation won’t go over well in Gotham. Maybe some of the out of towners will obey, but the locals will ignore it. Rogue attacks are a source of entertainment at this point.” He flips his laptop around to reveal a four-way split of camera feeds to her. “A pull-the-fire-alarm evacuation will just result in people getting hurt. Gothamites would be fine, but outsiders would panic and trample people. They know the city’s reputation well enough.” 

There’s a knock at the door. Grayson checks something on his phone then lets the two people on the other side through. 

“Special Agent Prentiss, Barbara and Jim Gordon. Jim is the police commissioner in Gotham,” Grayson introduces. 

Emily shakes hands with the new arrivals. 

“Babs, any chance you’ll go to a panic room?” 

The young woman snorts, locking the wheels on her chair demonstrably after she situates herself next to Drake. “Not a chance.”

Grayson just sighs. 

The younger Gordon commandeers the laptop from Drake and the two embark in a rapid conversation about the security footage. Her hair is still in perfect flowing curls despite an hour in the human warmed ballroom. 

The elder Gordon, the commissioner, crosses the window to peer carefully through the window. “What do we know?” he asks. His posture is that of a man who should be slumped over a desk clutching desperately onto a coffee cup. 

Grayson repeats the same explanation he gave Emily in clipped phrasing. Shorthand. Why would Richie Grayson and the GCPD commissioner have shorthand? 

Grayson digs a spare security radio from his pocket and hands it to the commissioner. He sticks a second one in his own ear. 

The door opens. 

Instinctively, Emily reaches for the firearm she was forbidden from bringing. She sees the commissioner do the same. 

What makes less sense is that Grayson, Drake, and Gordon all reach behind themselves as well. 

The butler who guided Damian away is framed in the hall light. He’s older than the commissioner, skin dry and hair white. Distinguished. Respected. 

Where the commissioner’s aged features seem stress-induced, the butler’s seem hard earned. 

A quiet relief fills the room. 

“Alfred Pennyworth, Special Agent Emily Prentiss,” Grayson states, focus already returned to the security team channel. 

Emily raises an eyebrow. “Are we expecting Bruce Wayne as well?” Half the manor’s occupants are already here. 

A creeping sensation crawls up Emily’s spine when there isn’t an immediate answer. Drake crosses his arms and Grayson frowns so hard she thinks he might start crying. 

Pennyworth clears his throat. “The master of the house is on sabbatical.” Perhaps she didn’t pay as close attention to her mother’s lectures as she should have. 

The tension doesn’t dissipate, but at least Grayson and Drake stop staring at each other. 

“You’re returning to the gala?” Emily asks incredulously. 

Thus far, there hasn’t been so much a plan as there’s been vague references to ‘protocol’ that no one bothers to explain. 

“The ballroom security team isn’t the one compromised,” Grayson repeats. It’s not an argument. She won’t be changing his mind. 

At least she’d figured out the three separate security companies. Diminished possibility of the entire protective staff being threatened or bribed into working with a criminal. 

“You realize that you are the most likely target for the hostage attempt.” She doesn’t repeat that Bruce Wayne would be the only one in line ahead of him. 

“That’s why I need to be out there. I don’t want them searching the house or threatening people to get to me.” 

“And you’re fine with this?” 

She directs the question at the commissioner, but it’s the other Gordon who answers. “Agent Prentiss, we recognize that this isn’t how this situation would traditionally be handled. But Gotham isn’t exactly a traditional place. We’ve done all we can in terms of prevention. The longer we discuss this, the less time Dick will have to get into a safe, but visible position.” 

“You don’t know who is behind the attack.”

“We’ll adapt,” Gordon insists, passing the laptop back to Drake. She adjusts her flowing black dress slightly and carefully settles her hair to frame her face. 

Grayson tosses Drake the security radio. The younger man catches it without looking. 

“Damian’s set up?” Grayson asks Pennyworth. 

The butler nods. “His bodyguard is with him now.” 

Drake rolls his eyes and Grayson nods in relief. 

“Then I believe you owe me a dance, Miss. Gordon.” 

She bats her eyes exaggeratedly. “Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Mr. Grayson.” 

They laugh. Ten minutes until the hostage situation is expected to begin and they laugh. 

“A Team, hold position,” the commissioner states into the radio. “B Team, I want your second in command to start quietly alerting old timers to the situation. We are not evacuating. I repeat, we are not evacuating. Direct the old timers to steer people toward the tables for cover discreetly.” 

Once he receives an affirmative, he clicks off his mic. 

“Tim, are you returning or going downstairs?” the commissioner asks. 

The Wayne heir briskly types a line of code that Emily can’t understand into a black terminal. 

“I’ll head back in. Alfred, are you keeping an ear out for Damian?”

“Just so, Master Timothy.” 

Drake doesn’t look pleased. He sticks the laptop in a drawer and follows Pennyworth into the hall. 

Emily faces the commissioner. “Where do you want me?” she asks. 

“Out of the state.”

She creases her brow. 

“Out of towners don’t tolerate Gotham well and Gotham doesn’t tolerate out of towners. Having a badge doesn’t change that. If anything, makes it worse. 

“Dickie wasn’t wrong for reading you in. He’s one of my best detectives, I don’t doubt his judgment. But I want to be clear: In Gotham, you are a civilian. If you want to help with emergency response after the Rogue is in custody, fine. But until then, leave it to the professionals.”

She has a sinking feeling that he’s not referring to himself. She's heard the rumors about Gotham's night life. 

“Are we understood?” 

Emily considers it. It’s true—there isn’t a federal case here. Her badge has the same authority as one that tumbled out of a cereal box. She doesn’t like her training, experience, and expertise being so blatantly disregarded. She’s been on both sides of a hostage situation before. 

The way she reads people and situations are intuitive and honed. Her competence isn’t to be questioned. If there are lives at stake—and there will be—she can’t ignore her training. 

She won’t ignore local advice either. Even if it turns out wrong, it’s always informative.

“If the professionals handle it without heightening danger, I won’t intervene,” she allows. 

The gala is still in full swing five minutes ahead of the auction. The orchestra is playing a rather stirring movement. The young adult crowd Emily is meant to be winning over dances discordantly around Grayson and Gordon. 

The handful of expensively-dressed children are gathered around Drake at one of the back tables. Catering has left a whole tray of what look like fancy, miniature peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the table where he holds court. He speaks lowly, eyes bright, and pulls a quarter out of a child’s ear. Even some of the moody teenagers have taken note of his close up magic routine. Reid would be impressed. 

An older woman wrapped in a fur shawl and a dress that screams old money comes up to Emily. “Darling, some of the ladies and I were thinking of sitting together for the auction. Why don’t you save us a table,” she suggests in a lilting voice that must get her most everything she wants. 

One of the old timers, hard at work. She sees a man with an unblemished pocket watch talking to her parents, hopefully pulling the same routine. 

Her parents. God, Emily hadn’t even considered how they’d react to this impending threat. 

She stammers out an excuse to the woman, none of the poise that she infuses into the version of herself she brought to this event. Instead, she feels her muscles tightening with the scrappiness that saved Declan’s life. Her mind clears with the strict walls that allow her to happily investigate gruesome deaths. Her feet move with the urgency that carried her to graduate in three years. 

“And what was I to do? Not call my representative in Congress about-”

“Mom,” Emily interrupts. “Dad, come with me.” 

The politician looks perturbed. Her mother looks pissed. She covers it expertly. “Ernest, have you met my daughter, Emily? She works in the government as well.”

“Mom,” she repeats, stubborn and scared. “We need to-”

The lights cut out.

Tink. Tink. Tink. 

Muffled yelps, scrambling footsteps, trembling breaths. 

“Get down,” someone whispers harshly. 

Emily reaches again for the gun that isn't there, the other hand pushing her parents behind her. 

There's an electric hum and then bodies thumping to the ground. Someone chokes out of sob. 

Steady, brisk footsteps enter the room. The quiet snick of safeties being taken off guns. 

A coin hits the ground, scattering the sound of it dribbling to a spinning stop. 

A whir of a backup generator and then the lights come back up at half capacity. 

As she blinks spots out of her eyes, Emily takes stock of the situation. It’s not promising. 

Her mother clutches at her arm, her father’s thin breath fluttering against her shoulder. 

Around the room, security members in black ties are slumped on the ground, their hair on end as if having been struck by lightning. In their place are gun-wielding, masked figures who Emily recognizes as corrupt by their navy blue ties. 

A shadow shifts along the balcony but her attention is drawn to the whimper of a child who ducks under Drake’s comforting arm. The heir’s gaze is sharp, flicking from child to child as he performs a headcount. 

Gordon is the most visible in the room, her bright red hair a beacon drawing attention away from the young adults and middle aged crowd that cowers behind her. Her jaw is set, gaze on her father as the commissioner checks the pulse of a nearby black-tied security guard.

Even in the unknown terror of the moment, Emily scoffs internally at Terry Latimer pushing Mrs. Bellencourt ahead of him. 

On the opposite side of the room, the orchestra holds still. They remain in their seats, bows at rest. The musicians look on stoically, but not scared. A few guns are aimed in their direction, but the rest point at the majority of the gala attendees who hide near the tables. Emily and her parents are some of the few guests not in the relative safety of the crowd, instead facing directly across from the elegant entrance she scrutinized not even two hours ago. 

Between her and the door stands a seething man and the host of the gala. Grayson looks on with steady eyes, hands up placatingly even as a firearm is trained at his chest. 

The other man looks wild. He wears a poorly fitted bi-colored suit. The left side is a burned charcoal gray, the right side an ashy white. He presses Grayson back a step, toward the crowd, the burn scars on his face prominent in Emily’s vision. His teeth break into an angry, sinewy sneer at whatever Grayson quietly assures him. 

Grayson risks a look backward. He catches the eye of the Chinese woman he spoke to briefly on their way out of the ballroom. She crouches at the edge of the crowd, eyes narrowed on the scarred man. When she has Grayson’s attention, she lifts a hand and signs something sharply before slipping into a crowd so quickly Emily loses track of her. 

Emily holds her breath. There are too many lives at risk here. 

She hopes the professionals the commissioner has placed his confidence in will arrive soon. 

“Bring him to me!” the man roars. The gun in his scarred hand shakes with the force with which he holds it. 

Grayson doesn’t flinch even as the crowd shudders at the promised violence. The young heir has the same devastated glossiness in his eyes as when Emily asked about the billionaire before, but he squares his shoulders. “Bruce is on sabbatical,” he states calmly. 

The unsub—and Emily can’t help but think of the hostage taker as an unsub—growls. “Don’t lie to me, little bird.” 

The crowd rustles anxiously, some ducking further into safety, some craning their necks to see the tense stances. 

“Harvey,” Grayson says quietly. It pains him to say this. “He’s not here.” 

This sets the unsub off. He roars in anger, raising the coin in the air. “Wrong answer,” he snarls. “Call it!” The coin flicks upward. 

It spins. 

And spins. 

And spins. 

Just before the unsub can snatch it back, a blur of dark metal slices through the air, bisecting the coin before embedding into a column. Leaping down from the balcony from above Emily’s head is a dark, caped figure. He thuds to the ground hard enough the chairs rattle, a mass of a man shielded in thick body armor. His presence brings relief to the crowd, but not to Emily. A new player only complicates an already tenuous situation. She adjusts her stance again, ready to leap into the action if help doesn’t arrive soon—commissioner's warning be damned. 

The darkly clothed man stalks forward, teeth clenched. There’s a thin white scar along his cheek and another sharp piece of black metal in his grip. 

Emily can’t focus on him for long because twirling down from the other railing in a flash of red and green is a young child, face shadowed by a dark hood. She can’t make out many more features as he flutters from pillar to pillar. “You really ought to check the guest list prior to party-crashing, Dent,” the boy taunts. 

The aim of the navy blue-tied security members hesitates, then jerks to follow the boy’s leaps and rolls until he somersaults out of view. 

“Let the civilians go,” the bulky vigilante growls. 

Dent’s scarred face twitches in agitation. 

“Maybe you should listen to Batman,” Grayson suggests calmly. 

Dent presses the gun against Grayson’s shoulder. “That’s not Batman,” he hisses, desperate and panicked. “I know Batman- Batman isn’t-” 

A whirl of green and red, guiding the aim of the weapons toward the one area of the ballroom where there are no civilians. Across the ballroom, a shadow shifts and a navy blue tie silently hits the ground. “You hear that Batman, this pathetic rogue can’t even identify his own nemesis!”

“Bruce Wayne isn’t here,” Grayson repeats lowly. The words are thick with meaning. Across the space, Drake ducks his head as angry tears spill over. 

Dent slumps forward. In an instant, Grayson has disarmed and restrained the unsub. He disassembles the gun without thought. With a short whistle, the young vigilante turns just in time to catch the main structure of the firearm. He holsters it in his yellow belt just behind a sword. 

“Robin,” Batman rumbles, pulling the unsub away from Grayson with a pair of cuffs that appeared from within his cape. “Let EMS in to treat the security team. Commissioner, triage.” 

Robin clicks his tongue and turns on a dime to the front door. The commissioner gives an affirmative wave of his hand, already directing the gray-tie wearing security team to locking the exits. 

Gala attendees start stretching their bodies, no longer cowering behind tables. Parents call for children, old timers laugh. The orchestra starts playing again. 

Surely it’s not over yet. There are still armed and corrupt security members posted around the space. 

But as Emily tentatively starts scanning the place for threats, all she sees are crumpled security guards in navy blue ties. She doesn’t know when they all got knocked out.

Materializing beside Grayson is the Chinese woman from before. Her smile is dazzling as the detective nudges her with his shoulder. 

The commissioner carts Dent out of the ballroom, accompanied by Grayson. 

Batman stalks through the ballroom long enough to see that EMS has arrived, then both he and Robin disappear over the ledge of the balcony. 

Beside her, Emily’s mother lets out a disbelieving laugh. 

“Are you guys okay?” Emily asks in a rush, checking them over for visible injuries. 

Her mom just shakes her head in shock. “I thought the security briefing was exaggerating.” 

“I’ll call the car,” her dad murmurs, staring at where Dent has disappeared from sight. 

Emily nods. 

There’s a faint tap and a little squeal of feedback. She flinches, directing her gaze to the stage. Grayson is standing there, applauding the band. “Now that the excitement’s over, how about we get to the main event!” Whatever mask Richie Grayson is, the detective is wearing it again. He makes a show of scanning the crowd with a dopey grin. “Where’s our auctioneer hiding?”

As her family exits the ballroom, likely never to return, Emily wonders at the shared grief between Grayson and Dent. Wherever Bruce Wayne is, she thinks it may be hopeless to bring him home.