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Chapter Text

For the first time since Gordon had known him, the Bat looked startled.

Well. Relatively speaking. His head was slightly tilted, upper body reared back at least half a degree more than normal, and a flicker of reflected light betrayed that the eyes behind the cowl may have widened a little. It was Batman. Some reading between the lines was crucial.

“So, you’re saying a single GCPD unit brought down an entire arms trafficking operation in one night.” There was a hot note of skepticism in the Bat’s cool, rasping voice. Gordon knew well that Batman himself had been tracking the same ring for weeks. He couldn’t remember when the vigilante had last been beaten to the punch by the police, but he had a sneaking suspicion it was never. And that would have been satisfying in its own small way, except –

“No. I’m saying someone impersonating a GCPD unit did. Whoever this is, they’re not one of ours.”

There was that tilt of the head again. “One person? Two? Has anyone gotten a good look at them?”

“No idea. No one’s seen them, as far as we can make out; they’ve only seen the car. Which has flawless GCPD markings and a set of fake plates that even match one of our real squad cars, or did. We changed our unit’s registration when we worked out it was showing up in two places at once.”

“And no idea what they might be after?”

“Well, at first, we assumed some kind of vendetta against these traffickers in particular. Though even that seemed strange; how often do gangland vendettas end with an entire gang neatly trussed up and left out, unharmed, for the police?” Gordon shook his head impatiently, a tuft of white hair blowing over one eye as the night wind sliced across the roof. It made him shiver. “And then the next night, it was a mystery police car cutting off a weapons trafficker’s escape, and the night after that, Joey Fingers – you know him, used to run a small-time protection racket until Penguin chased him out, now he works as muscle for whatever gang is hiring? He walks into the station and turns himself in, babbling about a police car that tried to run him off the road while reciting a list of all his crimes.”

“Any connection among the three sets of perpetrators?”

“All three had links to arms running, but none of them worked for the same outfit, or for groups even loosely allied to each other.”

“Certainly doesn’t sound like a vendetta, in that case.”

“No. You know what it does sound like, though? A vigilante. Gordon,” the commissioner barked into his phone, turning away. “Yes. Yes, the files on the Caldere case – hang on.” He half-turned back, glancing over his shoulder. “Batman, you may want to… oh.”

The roof was deserted, only Gordon and the wind.

“Dammit.”

***

“It must go somewhere, Oracle.”

Barbara Gordon sighed on the other end of the comm, but Batman sensed the frustration was not with him. “The same traffic cams have picked up the cop car after every incident, apparently heading towards the same neighbourhood. And then they just… vanish. Nightwing’s done his own sweep of the area, and our rogue cop is nowhere.”

“Underground garage, then? Hidden entrance?”

“I’ve looked at plans and construction activity going back more than five years. Nothing like that is on record, and if someone’s built one secretly, they managed to do it without equipment or waste materials going in or out. It’s not impossible, but...”

“Isn’t there that abandoned warehouse on 13^th?”

“Yes, but it’s not just abandoned. The whole place was cratered when Mr. Freeze’s ice blast went off last year. It’s essentially a pit, covered in debris. Quite a hiding place for a person, if they didn’t mind the lingering ice, but you could never drive a car down there.”

“I see. What about widening the search radius?”

“I have. Should be able to send you the new data in – heads up, Batman. Riddler goons approaching your location.”

Sure enough, a featureless white van pulled up moments later, and four men in green spandex climbed out, each sporting a purple domino mask. They converged on the main door of the bank, and one began to carefully drip the contents of a bottle of what Batman assumed was acid onto the hinges.

He was poised to jump when he spotted it.

It was eerie, how quietly it moved. No lights, no sirens, naturally – but more than that, there was

barely any sound of tires on the wet asphalt of a quiet street. The rogue police car just… drifted into position behind the van, out of sight of the henchmen. The interior of the car was too dark to make out the driver.

Batman could feel his pulse quicken. The crime in progress first… but now that he’d found his rogue cop, he wasn’t about to let them go.

He leapt.

The Riddler henchmen barely had time to look up before Batman’s foot connected with the jaw of the one with the bottle. The others darted back to avoid the arc of acid as it went flying from their companion’s hand, and Batman whirled, ploughing his fist into a second one’s face at such an angle that the blow lifted him off his feet and sent him straight into the third man. He was just turning to deal with the last of the henchmen when he saw the man flying through the air, to hit the pavement, roll, and lie still. Batman’s head snapped to the side, staring incredulously. There was the cop car, not ten feet away. There was a smear of blood on its front bumper.

One of the Riddler goons got unsteadily to his feet, his bruised jaw hanging open as he looked from his two unconscious comrades to the unmoving body of the last. Trembling, he took to his heels.

As Batman turned a venomous glare on the car, it abruptly slammed into reverse, tearing away from the scene. Batman didn’t even think. He hurtled forward and took a flying leap. For the briefest of moments, he was sure he’d miss, but his instincts didn’t fail him. He landed with a thud on the roof of the fleeing car. He could hear the metal shriek under him as the driver veered wildly from side to side. It almost felt as if the car itself were thrashing, trying to shake him off.

“Oracle!” Gritting his teeth and digging his fingers into the seams of the doors, Batman clung on like grim death as the car swerved. “Get an ambulance to the bank. Three suspects down, one possible fatality.”

“Batman, repeat – did you say fatality?”

“Affirmative. It seems our police vigilante just crossed the line into murder.” Batman flattened himself against the roof of the car as it sped towards a low bridge. The metal was curiously warm.

“Are you currently in pursuit?”

“You could say that!” The car made a sudden hairpin turn and almost succeeded in flinging him off. Batman slid across the roof and dangled precipitously for a second. Through the dark glass of the driver’s-side window, he could just make out a figure inside – sturdy build, blond hair, and a GCPD uniform.

The killer had the sheer gall to wear the uniform.

Notching a grappling hook onto one side of the car for an anchor, Batman paid out enough rope to allow him to hike his body out over the other side, until he was half-lying off the car’s edge, nothing but thin air and the street racing past underneath him. Bracing himself as best he could, he pulled back, swung, and smashed the window, making a grab through the broken glass for the driver.

Two things happened at once that threw him. The first was a yelp, like an animal in pain.

The second was the fact that as soon as Batman reached for them, the driver winked out of existence and Batman’s hand closed on nothing.

The distraction was just enough. Batman overbalanced as his lunge carried him further than intended, and another savage swerve sent him tumbling backwards. He hit the ground hard, and released the rope to avoid being dragged behind the speeding car.

Helpless, he watched it recede into the night.

***

Bruce Wayne started out of his thoughts at the soft clink of a tray being set down. A bowl of soup steamed gently on it, next to a mountain of sandwiches.

“Thank you, Alfred, but I’m not h– “

Alfred Pennyworth raised an eyebrow. Smiling a little ruefully, Bruce reached for a sandwich. “Thank you, Alfred.”

The crusts had been trimmed off, he noticed: a preference that had been a childhood quirk of Bruce’s, one he’d gotten past once he grew up. He couldn’t remember when Alfred had last made him a sandwich with that little bit of extra pampering. Bruce raised an eyebrow in turn. “Someting bothering you?” he asked, before taking a huge bite.

“I can see why you’d ask, Master Bruce. After all, I haven’t left the cave in almost two days, and I’ve barely paused from staring at these monitors long enough to eat. Or, no, wait...” His brow furrowed. “Am I confusing myself with someone else?”

“Very funny.” Bruce rubbed his forehead.

“Sir, if I might ask...” Alfred seemed uncharacteristically hesitant. “While Commissioner Gordon’s work in fighting corruption and brutality in the GCPD has been admirable, this is hardly the first police officer to go too far in your time.”

“No.”

“And in the past, you’ve allowed the commissioner to take the lead in bringing such people to justice.”

“I trust Gordon, and the police are his remit. But this one isn’t operating as a police officer.”

There was a pause, and then: “Ah.”

“Exactly.” Bruce pushed away from the monitor and pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes. “When the people of Gotham can’t trust the police, they turn to me. They know what I stand for. If someone is out there, purporting to do what I do, but ready to kill in order to accomplish that...”

“Miss Barbara did say that the Riddler’s man survived the attack, and is on the mend.”

“A stroke of luck. You didn’t see the way that car went for him, Alfred – the world’s best driver couldn’t be sure that blow would leave him alive. It’s only a matter of time before someone dies, and I can’t let that happen on my watch.”

Alfred’s hand briefly wrapped around Bruce’s shoulder. “Rest, Master Bruce. You’re in no fit state to figure things out now.”

Bruce’s protests were interrupted by a yawn, and he subsided. “Maybe you’re –”

At that very moment, the computer pinged, and Batman’s eyes went wide.

Chapter Text

For the tenth time that night, Vinnie Brisco cast a nervous glance towards the rooftops.

Vinnie was an old hand in the Gotham underworld. He’d served the Falcone family in the old days, before the fall of the mafia and the rise of the costumed crowd that now held sway over the city. Since then, he’d called a lot of people Boss – the Penguin, Mr. Freeze, the Riddler, the Penguin again. Tonight, he was on the Scarecrow’s payroll. Which he didn’t mind, he reflected, straightening the lapels of his jacket. At his age, Vinnie was over the idea of themed crime outfits, and at least the Scarecrow let them wear their own clothes.

“You boys just get me the vials I need,” the Boss had sighed in that cultured tone of his, soft and scratchy as straw, just the slightest hint of a drawl. “I’ll take care of the theatrics.”

Still, an old hand in Gotham knew the risks he was running, and from which direction danger was likely to come. Vinnie tore his gaze away from the skyline to mutter, “Hey, kid, you almost done loading those crates?”

“Almost! It’s just, the Boss said it could be real bad if we jostle this stuff, so –”

“Is that so? How interesting.”

The voice was a low purr, and it wasn’t coming from the rooftops. Rather, it was at ground level and far too close – in the driveway, right in front of their van. Right between the two men and their escape. To his credit, the kid managed to set the last crate down shakily before fumbling for a weapon. Vinnie drew his own gun, and flattened himself against the door of the van, carefully craning his neck to peer around it.

A pair of headlights lit up, almost like a smile, in the dark.

***

In the Batmobile two streets away, Batman was adjusting the settings on the device he’d installed that morning. Tim Drake’s voice filtered through the comm. “Are we saying our rogue cop car is some kind of… what, AI?”

“AI, remote controlled – we won’t know until we capture it and take it apart. I suspect that what we find will lead us to whoever’s controlling that thing. You’re in position?”

“Yes. I’ve got visual on the two thieves.”

“Good, because I need you to be my eyes when our robot car turns up. Then we can test whether the computer’s analysis was right -” He tapped the device’s controls – “about this being able to stop it.”

“Batman… are you sure about this? Using these guys as bait, I mean. This thing has already come pretty close to murder once -”

“And we need to make sure it doesn’t get the chance again. This is our best shot to do so.”

There was a breath, as if Tim were about to object – then he said, “Hang on. I’ve got movement.”

***

“C’mon, Vinnie, let’s leave it and get out of here,” the kid hissed. Vinnie ignored him. You didn’t get to be an old hand, after all, without a solid sense of the hierarchy of threat in Gotham. The Bat? Now that would have been a problem. But a solitary cop car trying to play hero? Well.

Slowly, taking care to remain mostly hidden behind the bulk of the van, he raised the gun. “Hey, buddy, we’re just doing a job. We don’t want trouble. Why don’t you get out of the car, and we can talk, man to man?”

The voice sounded faintly amused. “I don’t think so.” And the engine revved, and something deep in Vinnie’s hindbrain suddenly whimpered. A mechanical noise shouldn’t sound so… hungry.

“Why don’t we all take it easy?”

That voice definitely came from the rooftops. Vinnie whirled to see a figure outlined against the moonlight. Not the Bat, but almost as bad – that kid of his, Robin.

Cops at his back, Robin in front of him, and a van beside him stacked with explosive chemicals. Vinnie made a split-second decision, and fired.

***

The second he heard Robin speak, Batman abandoned the plan and gunned the engine. Tim wasn’t supposed to intervene – he was supposed to wait for the cop car to make a move, and for Batman to arrive with the device – but if he’d sensed the situation getting out of control –

The Batmobile squealed around the corner just in time for its driver to witness the older of the two thieves taking aim at Robin and squeezing the trigger. Batman recognised the weapon’s design: one of the Scarecrow’s gas guns. For a fraction of a second, he felt relieved. They’d already put together that the Scarecrow must be behind tonight’s heist, and both Batman and Robin were sporting gas masks, fully prepared for the fear toxin. This was hardly their first time around the block.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the Scarecrow’s, either.

What emerged from the end of the gun was not a cloud of gas, but a dart that Batman helplessly tracked as it flew and buried itself in Robin’s neck. Time seemed to slow. Batman couldn’t see Tim’s expression – the night was too dark, and he was still too far – but he recognised the jerking and trembling of his frame, the wild scramble backwards, away from some imagined phantom. Tim was screaming at something Batman couldn’t see.

And then the scream turned to a shrill wail of terror as Tim, in his haste to get away from his own hallucinations, missed his footing and plummeted from the roof.

Batman was flinging up the car door before he could think, already knowing that he was going to be too late. But something was ahead of him. Where the cop car had been, a great hulking thing arose, pushing itself up on massive metal limbs. There was an unsettling grace to it, for something so huge. It sprang forward, so fast it was almost a blur, arm outstretched –

He felt his throat close. On sheer instinct, Batman slammed his hand on the new button on the dashboard, and the device activated just as the thing reached Tim. Batman leaped out of the Batmobile and raced forward as electricity lashed out in an arc from the Batmobile to the thing’s back, but its hands were already closing on Tim and –

– catching him.

One hand cupped under Tim softly, giving with his weight so that it slowed him gradually rather than letting his body smack into the metal. The other hand came up to shield Tim’s head. Batman checked and faltered mid-leap, but then the electromagnetic pulse hit the robot square in the back, causing its limbs to seize and lock. To Batman’s horror, it started to tip over with Tim still clutched in its grip. With what looked like the last of its strength, though, the robot twisted in the fall and brought its hands up, cradling Tim safely against its chest.

It hit the ground, and the impact rocked him, and the Batmobile… and the van full of chemicals.

The two thieves took one look at the van rearing up on one set of tires and took to their heels before it hit the ground. Batman glanced back, in a single instant registering their fear and putting it together with a skimmed report on the Scarecrow’s recent chemical thefts. He whirled and slammed the van doors in an effort at containment, then turned his back on it and spread his arms, the cloak sheltering Tim where he lay, still wide-eyed and hyperventilating, pinned against the unmoving, dark-eyed hulk of the robot.

There was a soft phoom behind Batman, and a rush of heat against his back.

Pain flared briefly, but the cloak did its work and the heat receded, leaving barely more than a singe. When Batman looked again, the van was burning merrily. A few bursts from the Batmobile’s extinguisher took care of the flames, and Batman was finally able to turn his attention back to his charge.

“Robin – Robin, it’s going to be okay. Focus on my voice.” Batman crouched next to the robot. He kept his tone as steady as possible; it wasn’t easy, but this was hardly the first time he’d encountered the Scarecrow’s toxins, and more panic around the victim just made the situation worse. “Can you hear me? Robin.”

Tim closed his eyes, tears still streaming. He took in a vast gulp of air, then another. “I hear you.”

Brave, brave kid. Bruce felt a stab of affection so strong it practically staggered him. “Good. Just try and match my breathing, all right?”

A few more frantic inhalations, and eventually, Tim’s breath evened out. He opened his eyes. A few twists were enough to let wriggle out from between the robot’s still fingers, and Batman checked him over briefly for injuries; none visible, though full recovery from fear toxin needed time. Meanwhile, Tim’s gaze hadn’t left the robot’s unmoving form.

“Come on.” Batman allowed himself to rest a hand on Tim’s shoulder, just for a moment. “We’ll get you home, and then I’ll deal with that.”

“He saved me,” Tim said, his voice a raw croak. “Do you think someone told him to do that, or…?”

Batman’s own throat tightened. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

***

The vast shape of the robot lay unmoving, bound to the warehouse wall with the heaviest chains Batman had been able to find. Even so, he knew the chains on their own were more or less notional. That was why he’d rigged a way to run a current through them, powered by the Batmobile’s engine, which should hopefully be enough to restrain his…

Specimen? Prisoner?

Batman had to admit that he didn’t like either answer.

Whatever this thing was, it had saved Tim from a fall that might have been fatal. That meant either that the person controlling the robot-car remotely had a conscience, however deeply buried; or that the robot had been programmed to protect humans who weren’t designated targets, or…

Or it had decided to on its own.

The question had been running through his mind for hours. If this thing was merely a drone, then he needed to find out where it had come from – and quickly, before its creator decided to send more. That meant disassembling it, to examine the mechanism and figure out whether this was the work of a new player on the scene, or perhaps an old enemy stepping up their game, attempting to take down their rivals and rule the Gotham underworld solo. If it was sentient, however – if there was even a chance – then taking it apart was unthinkable. It would be murder.

He had to be sure.

He’d set up the Batmobile’s scanners to monitor the electricity flowing through the thing’s systems and alert him if the robot showed signs of coming back online, and yet they stayed silent. Instead, what tipped Batman off was a faint gasp, hastily muffled, and then the soft scrape of someone very gently tugging at chains to test their strength.

He turned to find the robot slumped in not quite the same position as before, its eyes dark.

Batman stayed in the shadows. He didn’t know whether robots could feel fear, much less what might inspire it in them, but he wanted to hold onto as many of his cards as possible. He said quietly, “I know you’re -” ‘On’ seemed like the wrong word. “– awake.”

The eyes suddenly flared to life with an eerie blue glow.

“Can you communicate?”

The head came up. Batman wasn’t expecting words – it seemed excessive to equip a battle robot to speak, intelligent or not – but perhaps it could nod or gesture, if it understood. However, it made no move to do so.

“When I speak to you,” Batman tried, deciding to simply ask the question plaguing him, “am I talking to the entity in front of me, or the one controlling it?”

The robot stared straight ahead, making no attempt to follow his voice. Batman shifted to the side, drawing a bit nearer. “Who sent you?”

Silence.

Closer, still: “Who made you?”

And all of a sudden, the robot’s head snapped around, pinpointing Batman as easily if it were broad daylight. Its lip curling with an unnervingly human contempt, it parroted back in a voice dripping with venom, “Who made you?”

Batman recoiled, pulling back almost to the far wall of the warehouse. The robot watched him go.

“I understand,” it said after a moment, in a thoroughly different tone – conversational, without heat - “that captured human soldiers are generally ordered to reveal only their name, rank, and serial number to their captors. The answers are, in order, you can’t pronounce it, you wouldn’t understand it, and I don’t need to give you humans any more encouragement to think of me as a machine.”

Its voice had a soft metallic reverberation to it, but apart from that, it sounded remarkably unmechanical. It was a smooth tenor, expressive – pleasant, even, under other circumstances.

Batman considered. “Is that what you are?”

“A machine?”

“A soldier.”

The robot snapped its mouth shut and straightened, a hint of what might have been uncertainty in its bright eyes.

“Who do you fight for?” Silence, again. “All right. An easier question. Who do you fight against?” That didn’t spark any more of a response. “Humanity?”

“No.”

“Good. We’re making progress. Who?”

“Stay out of this, human.” There was just a shade of weariness to the thing’s voice now. “This isn’t your fight.”

Batman grit his teeth, and remembered the Riddler’s men being tossed around like rag dolls. “You made it my fight. You came to my city, you tried to murder a man in front of me –”

“I don’t kill humans.”

“Tell that to the man you ran over!”

“He’s alive, isn’t he? I know my own strength. I know your weaknesses, too – where you can hit a human to knock them out, how you can stop them without doing permanent damage.”

Batman felt an abrupt trickle of cold down his spine. “And how did you ascertain those limits so precisely?”

This time, the voice sounded almost amused. “I read books.”

“You –”

“I know what I’m doing. I can track eight hundred moving objects at once; I’m hardly going to make a mistake when it’s only one.”

Something was gnawing at the back of Batman’s mind. “Why do you care, though?”

“Because casualties should be minimised wherever possible, and casualties to civilians most of all. I imagine you understand that, don’t you?” The robot shifted, resettled, the chains clanking. It smiled at him. “You are the one I’ve heard about on the police scanners, after all. And in the newspapers. The Bat.”

“I am.”

“The heroic guardian of the city.”

“Not according to the papers.”

“It is, if you read between the lines. They say you don’t kill. Is that true?”

The conversation had turned uncomfortably back on him. “It’s true,” Batman growled.

“I suppose peacetime carries the luxury of purity, for its heroes.”

Bristling internally at the low drawl and its contemptuous implications, Batman filed away both his initial reactions, so you are a soldier and if you want to see a war, look around you, and said instead, “You just said you don’t kill.”

“I said I don’t kill humans. That’s not the same thing. You’re bystanders, and what’s happening isn’t your fault. My moral standards may not be as clean and shiny as yours when it comes to my enemies, but at least my standards cover other sentient species.” Those eyes were piercing. “Do yours?”

In a hushed voice, Batman asked, “Are you afraid of me?”

And just like that, the blue gaze flickered, and dropped.

“You weren’t expecting me to take you down. Weren’t expecting a human to be able to do that.”

“No.”

“A member of a completely different… sentient species, you put it. Bystanders. So whatever we’re bystanders to – that’s something happening among your kind, isn’t it?”

Whatever we’re bystanders to was a threadbare euphemism, he was realising. A soldier meant a war – and a war waged entirely by larger-than-life robots was a numbingly horrible thought.

How many of you are there out there?

When the robot spoke, it was soft, almost to itself. “I should have anticipated that you would be different from other humans. I should have been prepared.”

“You said my enemies. You were talking about people like you.”

The barest flicker of blue eyes, and then the robot went back to studying the floor. “Maybe. Once.” It was so quiet that Batman had to inch closer to hear. “The thing about war is, you stop seeing them as your own kind, after a while. Or if they are, that only makes you hate them more. Because people who share a shred of commonality with you shouldn’t be able to do the things they do. To their own kind. And to other species, as well.”

“To us.”

The robot squirmed unhappily.

Batman decided it was time for a show of good faith. Stepping out of the shadows, he waited until the robot’s head lifted, and its eyes flickered to his. “You need to tell me,” he said gently. “I accept that Gotham isn’t in danger from you. But if we’re in danger from your enemies, then you need to talk to me, for us to have any hope of defending ourselves.”

Something about the way it ducked its head and bit its lip uncertainly reminded Bruce of Barbara, how she looked on the rare occasions when she had cause to doubt her own analysis. Maybe that was what led him to draw closer still, until he could place a gloved hand on the robot’s knee. The metal was warm, even through fabric. Batman said gently, “You don’t have to fear me.”

The robot murmured, “I know,” and then something too quiet for Batman to hear.

He leaned close. “Sorry? I didn’t catch that.”

“I said, the charge on these restraints wears off, you know.”

The world was suddenly a rush of movement, the clatter of chains being cast off and a thirty-foot-high mass of metal moving like a viper; and then the robot’s hand was closing around him, walls of metal tightening –

And stopping. The thing’s fingers enclosed him, pinning him in place as carefully as if he were an egg.

“Now I will only say this once, Batman.” The robot’s voice was terribly even. It was the kind of voice that suggested its owner could, calmly and with perfect reason, disassemble him without batting an eye. Batman knew it well; he’d used it himself often enough. “Stay out of my way. You cost me my quarry twice, not to mention leaving me with this.” He curled his lip and rolled one shoulder, showing off the fractured window glass of his door. “If you truly want to protect the people of Gotham, then you’ll let me carry out my mission. Believe me, my opponents share none of my scruples. They’ll turn this entire city into smelted glass if it gets them an inch closer to their goal.”

“What goal?” Batman didn’t struggle, exactly, but he writhed around until he could crane his neck back and meet the robot’s eyes. “We can’t protect ourselves from what we don’t know! Where are all your supposed scruples, if you’re just going to leave us defenceless?”

“You don’t need to defend yourselves. I’m taking care of this.”

Batman stared defiantly up at that daunting mass of steel and sheer power. “You must know I won’t stop investigating. That I won’t stop coming after you.”

The giant head suddenly bent uncomfortably close, and the grip of those huge fingers tightened fractionally, enough for Batman to feel his lungs constrict. “Then give me one good reason I shouldn’t prevent that here and now, by just… squeezing.”

“You told me you don’t kill humans.”

“And you believed me?”

“Yes,” said Batman simply.

He was gratified by the reaction: the robot’s grip loosened, and it reared back, looking startled. Batman went on, “I don’t believe everything you say. I think you can lie, I think you do. I don’t think you were lying about that. But if I’m wrong, well. Go on. Prove it.”

An emotion he couldn’t identify – and really, how much had his expectations been turned on their head, that Batman was surprised when he couldn’t see what the robot was feeling? - passed over his captor’s face. Then the robot placed Batman down on the floor with exaggerated care.

Out of nowhere, it produced a device. For a terrible moment, Batman thought he’d made the wrong call, as the robot swooped the strange black tube down close to Batman’s face… but then it pressed a button, and a holographic image sputtered up from the tube.

“Fine. You want to play hero so badly? Here’s what you’re up against.”

Batman’s breath caught.

It was a gun. Bruce could usually set along his feelings about guns long enough to assess them, to figure out how he was going to counter the threat they posed, but this… this seemed to exude menace, from its wickedly tapered muzzle to the strange, pointed, mouthless purple face etched on its barrel. Next to the image, a list of statistics unspooled, cataloguing range, calibre, accuracy, damage. He made himself read them twice, his heart sinking.

This weapon was a game changer. Fifty – no, even twenty of them on the streets of Gotham would lead to chaos. In the hands of one of the city’s supervillains, or one of its broken and embittered Mob factions… this could mean open war for supremacy.

“You see,” the robot said softly. It wasn’t a question.

“This is why you’ve been going after weapons smugglers, isn’t it?” A faint nod. “This is what they’ve been trying to transport into Gotham. But why? What’s their endgame?”

The hologram snapped off. “That’s all you’re getting. You complained you didn’t know what to defend yourselves against; now you do.” And just like that, the robot rose to its full height, and began stalking towards the door of the warehouse. As it wrenched the steel shutter up with one hand, it half-turned to regard Batman over the curve of the broken door on its back. “Leave the rest to me, and you won’t get hurt.”

If the transformation from car to humanoid form had seemed monstrous, the first time Bruce had seen it, the opposite transformation struck him as almost… beautiful. The robot rippled like water, flowing in a sinuous cascade of metal and pooling into the familiar shape of a police car. No sooner had its tires hit the ground than the car was peeling out of the warehouse at breakneck speed. Batman raced to the Batmobile, but it was already far too late. His opponent would be long gone.

Batman could only hope the robot wouldn’t find the tracker he’d planted on it.

Chapter Text

“Rescued by an actual sentient robot,” Tim said with a rueful smile, “and I didn’t even get to meet him.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Batman remarked absently, glancing at the computer screen in front of Tim. It displayed a single blinking dot in the warehouse district, showing where the robot had gone after leaving Batman behind. “Even if we trust his story – and I have my doubts – he’s still dangerous to be around.”

Tim paused in the middle of typing. “What do you think the truth is? Did someone build him – them, his whole species – and brought them to life accidentally? Or on purpose?”

“I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of time travel of some sort,” Oracle put in. She had six screens all arrayed in a semi-circle around her, and was swinging her chair back and forth, fingers flying across multiple keyboards, dancing from one to the next with single-minded intensity. “Or even a supernatural influence. We don’t know at this point if he’s purely technological in nature.” She ran a distracted hand through her hair, a sign of frustration Bruce recognised from when she’d been a college student, irritated when her textbooks couldn’t give her the solution to a problem. “At least his ability to transform explains how he’s hiding out in the ruins of a warehouse that would be inaccessible to a car, so that’s one mystery solved.”

The glimpse he’d had of the new super-weapons had unsettled Batman enough that he’d come to Barbara’s clocktower to enlist her help in person, rather than requesting it remotely. Tim had asked to accompany him, insisting that he felt better, although Bruce was keeping a close eye out for any lingering symptoms of the fear gas.

“So, in most of the busts our robot friend was involved with, it seems that arrests were made, but they were low level. All the weapons seized were conventional.” Oracle frowned. “No – wait. All the ones the police actually managed to get their hands on were conventional, but in a few of the suspects’ confessions, they mentioned a special shipment – either part of the larger shipment, or scheduled to come in at a later date. None of them had ever seen the contents of that shipment, but it had been explained to them as a small consignment of rifles for particularly select customers. In a couple of cases, those guns had actually been at the scene, but were always somehow spirited away before the police arrived.”

Batman paced, gazing out at the city through the ornate gears of the clock face. “So he’s been successfully blocking the shipments from coming in, but whoever’s been trying to get these weapons into the city is still trying. Which means they’re likely to break through eventually, if we don’t find them and shut them down.”

“Well, luckily, we have access to a few resources that I doubt he can reach. Here.” Oracle tapped the screen. “It’s buried a few layers deep, but a number of the shipments have links to this shell corporation. Kane Holdings.” Barbara’s frown deepened. “Batman… if these enemies your new friend has –”

“Not friend.” Batman stopped in his tracks. “We need to be on our guard against trusting this – this being too quickly.”

Tim glanced up at that, a grave expression on his face, but Barbara took it in stride. “If his enemies are really robots, as well, they’re ones with significantly greater understanding of Gotham than this –” Her glance cut to the slide slyly. “I’m assuming ‘Robocop’ wouldn’t be an acceptable codename.”

“Oracle.”

“Right. Let’s call him Unit X. Whoever’s behind the weapons smuggling has the savvy and the connections to expertly fabricate a legitimate-looking corporation, and hide their tracks in ways it seems that Unit X hasn’t been able to uncover.”

“That does make some sense. Unit X referred to his enemies as a group, but from what I could gather, he himself appears to be working alone.”

Quietly, Tim murmured, “Must be rough.” When both adults turned to look at him, he ducked his head and buried himself in his computer search. “I just mean. It can be hard enough doing what we do. With no resources and no one to help him – that must be so much harder.”

Bruce could feel himself bristling. He fought it down. He wasn’t going to snap at Tim, just because…

… just because there might be some merit in the comparison?

You know what it does sound like? Gordon’s voice tickled his brainstem. A vigilante.

No – even if Unit X counted as a vigilante, he and Batman weren’t the same. Unit X was a soldier; he was unapologetic about killing his own kind, even if his code prevented him from extending that to humans. What would it take, to write off large swathes of one’s own species as fair game? That wasn’t what Batman was about. Batman, as an idea, existed to protect the whole city, not just a part of it. And if –

“That’s it,” he said out loud. Tim startled, and Oracle glanced round in surprise. “Oracle, you said that the weapons smugglers have a better understanding of the city than Unit X. Well, so do we. We need to stop thinking like him, and start thinking like Gothamites again. If you wanted to move an illegal shipment into Gotham, and you were having trouble… where would you go?

***

Oswald Cobblepot turned the crystal goblet in his hand, admiring the way the light from the chandelier picked out rich threads of purple and black in the deep garnet of the wine.

“So let me get this straight, dear boy,” he murmured. “You’re offering me a choice: first crack at bidding on these delightful toys of yours, or the opportunity to host an open auction for the same, for, I must admit, quite a generous percentage of the final sale, plus expenses.” He paused politely there, even though he already knew he’d understood the offer. It never hurt to be courteous this early in a negotiation. Other methods of persuasion had their place, too, but let those come later.

“That’s right, Mr. Cobblepot.”

“It’s an intriguing proposition, Mr. Kane. Though I will own, I’m not sure why you came to me.” He lifted the wine bottle enquiringly, but the young man seated across from him waved Oswald away from his still-untouched first glass. Oswald acquiesced, setting the bottle down and favouring his guest with a genial smile – while doing nothing to hide the frank assessment in his gaze.

Kabos Kane returned Oswald’s look with a twinkle in those wickedly beautiful eyes. He was a small man, but his outsized presence, his impeccably turned-out appearance – from the rakish fall of his black hair to the tips of his polished shoes – and the way he spoke with his hands and lounged as if he were at home anywhere, all conspired to make him appear taller than he was. Of course, the suit helped with that. Mustard-yellow and purple would be a bold combination anywhere else, although in Gotham it seemed almost subdued. It complemented Kane’s violet eyes startlingly well, Oswald had to admit.

“Now, what kind of businessman would I be if I tried to set up here without first coming to pay my respects to the King of Gotham?” Kane smiled dazzlingly. “I’ll level with you, Mr. Cobblepot. Your city has a wide range of… colourful characters, but I don’t think anyone’s mistaken about where the real power lies. It ain’t with City Hall, and it ain’t with the GCPD – and it ain’t with loose cannons like the Joker or the Scarecrow, either. You’re the one person who could shut me down before I even got started. The way I figure it, I can either try to go up against you, which isn’t going to go well for me, or...” He shrugged. “I can make it worth your while to let me operate here.”

“I see.” Oswald made a show of turning the question over in his head. “In that case, I believe I will host this auction for you. Shall we say, here in the Iceberg Lounge, this evening?”

Kane beamed. “It’s a date.”

“Don’t you wish to know why I passed on the chance to bid for your merchandise myself? I thought you might be disappointed.”

“May I take a guess?” Oswald didn’t quite manage to suppress the flicker of interest in his eyes, and Kane grinned wolfishly, leaning close. “One businessman to another, we both know that’s the right call. These beauties -” and he jerked his head towards the leather case held by one of Oswald’s guards – “they’re capable of providing a player on the Gotham scene with a significant edge, it’s true. But because of that, they’re also going to turn whoever buys them into the number one target for every bit player with a two-man crew and dreams of the big time. A piece of technology like this? It’s bound to cause a little chaos.” He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And where I’m from, the word for ‘chaos’ is the same as the word for ‘opportunity’.”

“And where are you from, exactly, Mr. Kane?”

A pretty, self-deprecating laugh. “Okay, you caught me, it isn’t really. Just makes a good metaphor.”

It was a non-answer, but Oswald couldn’t grudge Kane his privacy – at least not while he had perfectly competent spies working on uncovering Kane’s backstory anyway.

“Well, you’re not wrong. One businessman to another.” Oswald permitted himself a small, private smile. “Then I shall put out the word to your most likely buyers, and begin preparations. Should you wish to get in touch before then, you know where to find me.”

The bodyguard who escorted Kane out of the Lounge was jittery; it was almost two, and he didn’t intend to miss a moment of his favourite soap, As The Kitchen Sinks, for the sake of escorting some bozo. He was therefore as brisk as his position allowed him to be with the Penguin’s guests. Once Kane was safely deposited on the street, the man turned and left, calculating as he went that he wouldn’t need to miss much of the opening credits. And in his haste, he didn’t notice Kane suddenly look up at a nearby skyscraper, and then vanish from sight.

***

Batman reeled back in the listening device and tucked it away, shifting grimly on his perch opposite the Iceberg Lounge. Having found the source of the guns so quickly gave him little satisfaction. If the prospect of a single gang in Gotham having advanced weapons was bad, the thought of every faction competing for them was chilling. He had to stop the auction before –

“Hey there,” breathed a voice in his ear.

Batman swung round wildly. He hadn’t heard even the faintest sound of anyone approaching; and yet, there, crouching at a near ninety-degree angle with the ground on the sheer side of a building, with no visible rope or harness, was a dapper man in a yellow and purple suit, smiling.

Batman had a fraction of a second to take this in before the cosh the man was wielding connected with the back of his skull.

Chapter Text

“Batman? Batman!”

Oracle pounded her hand against the desk in frustration. Batman’s end of the comm link had registered a loud thunk, then gone abruptly to static; now, it was picking up street noise again, but Batman wasn’t answering. There had been no sound of a struggle, which worried her even more. And that wasn’t their only problem.

“Batman, the tracking device shows the goddamn fake police car right on top of your location. Please come in!”

It was at moments like this that Oracle felt awfully alone, in a way she hadn’t even when she used to operate as Batgirl. A vigilante could call for backup; Oracle, though, was supposed to be that backup. Who could she call? She mentally ran down the list. Robin: Tim might be able to check out the location for her, though she balked at putting him anywhere close to whatever might have happened to Batman. (Her gut twisted at the thought of what that might be.) Nightwing: Dick was often her first call, but he wasn’t even in Gotham right now. Black Canary was on a mission, Huntress likewise; besides, Barbara felt strangely protective of the little team of operatives she’d put together, reluctant to pull them in on something as uncertain as this. She supposed she could -

There was a scraping noise, and then a new voice came over the comm link. It was a pleasant tenor with a faint metallic reverb, and it made Barbara’s blood run cold.

“I’m afraid they’ve taken him.”

“What do you mean? Identify yourself!”

“I don’t know how else to put this, miss, but… I’m the goddamn car.”

***

The world revealed itself gradually, in greyscale blurs and the metronomic clack of a train, somewhere overhead.

Batman slitted his eyes open, trying to get his bearings. He seemed to be lying on a soft surface; leather, going by the scent of it. Car seat? No – sofa. His cowl was still on, always the first check after being captured. More startlingly, he realised he wasn’t bound. He struggled to a seated position, just as a voice with a heavy Gotham accent chirped, “Look who’s awake!”

Batman clutched his head and let out a groan. “Where… where am I?” It never hurt to play up the disorientation.

“Drink.” An arm in a particularly expensive suit jacket thrust into his field of vision, holding a glass of water. When Batman hesitated, the man laughed prettily. “Go on, it’s fine.”

It did seem that if his captor wanted to hurt him, he could have done so while Batman was unconscious. Sipping the water slowly, Batman tried to focus on the cool sensation sliding down his dry throat, and use that to anchor himself, ignoring the throbbing in his head.

“As far as your question goes, you’re safe. For now. Gotten yourself in with some pretty dangerous company, though, haven’t you?”

“Have I.” Surreptitiously glancing around, Batman realised that this wasn’t the usual underground lair or abandoned warehouse that so often greeted him when he’d been captured. Instead, the sofa he was sitting on was to one side of a stylish modern office space, with bare brick walls and the kind of eclectic furniture several designers of his acquaintance would kill to get their hands on. There was a single spray of purple orchids in a vase on the glass coffee table.

The man laughed again, and circled around, crouching down in front of Batman. “Yeah, I just realised how that sounds. I don’t mean me! I’m talking about your new friend – an old sparring partner of mine, believe it or not.”

The pain in Batman’s head sharpened. “You mean –”

“Tall, Dark and Metallic. Uh-huh.”

“And you grabbed me because you think I’m working with him.”

“Aren’t you?” At Batman’s stony silence, the man shrugged. “Hey, you can tell me. I’m not one to judge a man by the company he keeps.”

“That’s an awfully convenient philosophy, for an ally of the Penguin.”

“Can I level with you?” The man’s smile faded, until it was only a faint, wry ghost of his earlier grin – but it felt honest, for all that. “I don’t like working with criminals. Very law-abiding by nature, me. But our enemies haven’t left us much choice. We have to survive.”

“And that robot is – your enemy.”

“Didn’t he tell you about us?”

The pain in Batman’s head intensified, and he had the feeling it wasn’t purely the aftermath of the blow. “He isn’t exactly a friend of mine, either. The one time we spoke, he just ordered me to stay away from his operation, and refused to tell me anything.” Except that his enemies hadn’t been human, now that Batman thought about it. Which meant either that they’d recruited a human – however they’d managed to convince him – or that… He remembered how this man had suddenly appeared on the wall beside him, and thought of reaching through the robot police car’s window and grabbing thin air where the “driver” had been.

“Typical Prowl.” The sudden venom in that gentle voice took Batman aback. “Can’t unbend from his ridiculous arrogance long enough to even try to make allies.”

“So why don’t you tell me the real story?” As the man opened his mouth, Batman cut in, “But first, I like to know who I’m talking to.”

“Of course!” Abruptly, his captor was all smiles again. He stuck out his hand. “Kabos Kane. It’s a pleasure.”

Batman took the offered hand, and then used it to yank the man in closer. “I mean who I’m really talking to, Mr. … Kane. What I’m seeing is a remarkable illusion, but it is an illusion, isn’t it?”

Kane’s eyes turned hard for just a moment. Then he threw his head back and laughed warmly, without a trace of resentment. “Not bad! I see why everybody talks about you.”

The hand in Batman’s grip began to dissolve. There was no other word for it. It was as though it were melting, but instead of running out between his fingers, the liquid then simply dripped away into nothing. Even more unnervingly, just as Batman registered that his grip was empty, the hand came back – weaving together, sinew by sinew, until the warm shape of each finger was back where it had been, clutching Batman’s.

He stared at Kane, who smiled.

“So your real body, then –“

“Is around, don’t worry.”

Batman wondered how close the robot would need to be to project the holgraphic form, but decided Kane was unlikely to answer a direct question about that. Instead, he asked, “And the hologram is solid – it can interact with the world around it.”

Kane’s voice dropped to a husky whisper. “As solid as you want me to be, sweetheart.” At Batman’s glare, he laughed again, good-naturedly. “No, huh? Well, you can’t blame me for trying. But I didn’t bring you here to flirt, or to talk about presentation tech. I wanted you to know what kind of a person you’d made an alliance with. If you and Prowl aren’t allies, though, then I’m glad I got to you first, and that’s all the more reason for me to tell you our story.”

He rose to his feet, and refilled Batman’s water glass. He also poured him a couple of fingers of what Batman could smell, even without picking it up, was very good scotch, and set both on the table in front of him. Kane didn’t fix himself a drink; Batman imagined that there was little reason to keep up the pretence that the body in front of him was human, now.

Kane took a seat in an armchair facing the sofa, and began.

“My world – my home – is called Cybertron.” He paused for just a minute, violet eyes flickering to Batman. “No – no reason you’d know that name. It’s pretty much a wasteland now, in any case. All because ordinary folks had the gall to stand up for our rights, and ask for the most basic say over our own lives, and the tyrannical government we lived under would rather burn everything to the ground than let us have that.

“I was part of the freedom movement – the Decepticons. They called us that because we dared to point out where the powers that be were lying to us. The government sicced its lackeys on us, the Autobots – a bunch of petty enforcers and dirty cops. And when they’d killed most of us, and the rest fled, they decided to chase us across the stars. All the way to your world.”

Batman digested this. Not the rogue creations of some human scientist, then. Beings from another world entirely; beings of metal, who could hide in plain sight. He found himself wishing he could talk to Clark, ask him if this rang any bells. “And this… Prowl...”

“One of the worst. A two-bit cop before the war, who rose up the ranks because he was willing to be more manipulative, more vicious, than anyone else. Now he’s here to round up the rest of us, and he doesn’t care how.”

A chill ran through Batman. Because just for a second, it was terribly plausible. What did he really know about Kane’s opponent? Only what the robot himself had told him, and half of that had been a ploy to lure him close enough to attack. And what little he had been able to get out of – Prowl – didn’t exactly refute Kane’s claims.

The thing about war is, you stop seeing them as your own kind.

And yet. There was something wrong about the picture Kane was painting, something… off.

“Where do the guns fit into all this, then?”

Kane shrugged, and repeated, “We have to survive.”

“What is it you need the money for? Weapons? Fuel?” Batman wasn’t sure he could even begin to calculate the costs involved in feeding an alien robot army, but - “What if we could find some kind of… alternative arrangement?”

Kane was smiling again, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee and long, elegant fingers playing over his lips. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. Money’s great. I like money as much as the next person – probably more, if I’m honest. But selling our tech – that’s not about money.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “Mostly.”

“Then what...”

A terrible supposition unfolded itself in Batman’s mind.

A turf war on the streets of Gotham. One sparked by horrifically powerful weapons – but there were other, easier ways to start a war, if that had been the aliens’ only aim. The guns, then, weren’t likely to have been developed for the sake of manipulating the Gotham underworld. Kane and his Decepticons would have invented them for a different purpose, or, more probably, would have already had them.

The alien robots were impervious to ordinary gunfire. To conduct their war, they must have their own weapons; weapons an order of magnitude more powerful than the average gun. Put those in the hands of Gotham’s criminals, and…

… and point them in the right direction…

The word for ‘chaos’ is the same as the word for ‘opportunity’, Kane had said.

“You want us to kill each other, so you can take advantage of the chaos,” Batman said softly. “To… position yourselves, just as you did with Penguin. And in the end, you’ll be left with a force equipped and trained with weapons that can kill your enemies. You’re going to try to turn Gotham’s criminals into your own private army.”

“Right again! Do I love this guy, or what?” Kane chortled. “Although I prefer to think of it as leveraging Gotham’s unique capacity for chaos. This city is always one lit match away from open warfare. I’m a fan, I have to admit; it reminds me of home. Anyway – from your perspective, isn’t this better? A Gotham we control will be so much more organised, so much less violent, than it is now. And what’s left of that violence will be levelled at the scary alien invaders, not one another.”

Batman picked up his drink as a cover to let the other hand slide casually behind him and begin taking inventory of his remaining equipment. Batarangs, good; grappling hook and line, even better. No communicator, of course, but he’d expected that. Never mind. He had everything he needed.

Toasting Kane with the insouciant smile of a Bruce Wayne, Batman murmured, “I think you underestimate Gotham, Mr. Kane.” Then he threw the glass, dousing Kane in very expensive scotch, and dove for the window.

The building was old and unreinforced; the ageing warehouse glass shattered on impact. Batman caught himself on the sill, dangling only long enough to snag his grappling hook on a nearby gargoyle before swinging free.

Kane hadn’t made any attempt to stop him.

Landing on the roof opposite, Batman stole a glance behind him. He could just make out Kane sitting serenely in his armchair, and that was somehow more unnerving than being chased. No time to consider it, though: he detached the hook with the ease of long practice and set off at a run, putting two, three, four city blocks between himself and Kane’s hideout. Get back to Penguin; press him for information, make him see that Kane’s planned war would be as much a disaster for his empire as for the rest of Gotham. Maybe that would be enough to buy Batman a little more –

A shape loomed out of the yawning gap between skyscrapers.

Batman caught a confused glimpse of two enormous violet lights. Then huge metal fingers closed around him, snatching him midair. The rope he’d been swinging from slapped, empty, into the side of a building as Batman was dragged down.

He landed hard on a leather seat. Immediately, straps wriggled up and snaked around his waist, his ankles, his neck. He turned his hands so that he could touch the bindings at his wrists, and found them oddly familiar.

Seatbelts?

An engine roared to life. Batman could see as a complex dashboard lit up that he was in some kind of military vehicle, pinned securely to the driver’s seat. Kane’s voice sounded all around him.

“Now, really, what kind of a thank you is that for your host? And just when I was about to make you the offer of a lifetime.”

The voice wasn’t coming from the speakers, Batman realised, as the jeep took a sharp turn and began to barrel along an alley by the docks. It was all around him. This… this was Kane’s body, his true body, that Batman was inside.

“We could use a human with your particular skills. How’s about it? Come with me; leave all the petty crime and infighting behind you, and do something that will actually bring peace to the city you love.” The omnipresent voice was warm, even sympathetic. “And keep the people you love safe, too.”

Batman’s eyes began desperately scanning the dashboard, the steering column, the pedals, looking for any vulnerable bit of machinery he could kick and tear at if he managed to get free – but the seatbelts tightened warningly around him. “Ah-ah-ah! Don’t even think about it.”

He sees me, somehow. It was even more unsettling than the thought of being inside Kane.

“Why bother trying to win me over? Why not just kill me?” Batman growled, testing his weight against the straps.

“Maybe I like you,” Kane said. “Although, I should warn you, I’m pretty resourceful. Whether you take me up on my offer or not, I’m sure we can still find a use -”

Suddenly, the jeep jolted as something smashed into the side of it. Batman gritted his teeth against the bone-shaking vibration as whatever it was scraped slowly along Kane’s chassis. Kane let out a gasp, and then muttered, “Someone wants to play rough.”

Restrained as he was, Batman could turn his head just enough to make out a pale silhouette, and the flash of red and blue lights. Even as he looked, a siren started to wail.

“Let the human go, Swindle,” called a familiar voice.

The vehicle he was in buckled hideously, and Batman drew in a deep breath, ready to try to kick his way out before he was crushed – but then the metal flowed around him and he was once more clutched in the fingers of a giant robot.

“Back off, Autobot. This one’s mine.” Batman could feel the fingers tightening fractionally around him.

The police car changed, too, with a soft hiss of hydraulics, until the police robot – Prowl – stood opposite them, his hand outstretched. “Swindle -”

“Now, Prowl!”

Batman’s eyes darted frantically from Prowl to Kane. Kane’s hand was continuing to close, the vice-like pressure making him gasp; Kane didn’t seem to notice. Neither did Prowl, who wasn’t backing off.

If he was going to avoid becoming collateral damage in this fight, he was going to have to end it himself. “You might as well do as he says,” he managed to wheeze.

Prowl shifted his sharp gaze to Batman. “What?”

Kane’s fingers instantly released, which allowed Batman to speak more easily. “I never asked for your rescue,” he continued, staring at Prowl. Willing him to back away, and let Batman handle this. “And after what Kane’s just told me about you and your Autobots…”

“Pfft. You believe a word that con artist says?”

“Are you saying I can believe you?”

“He even lied to you about his name!”

“So did you. You told me I wouldn’t be able to pronounce it!”

“You wouldn’t! ‘Prowl’ is an approximate translation, it’s –” Prowl broke off with a frustrated snarl of his engine. “More to the point – in case you missed it, detective – Swindle just kidnapped you!”

“One thing I’ve learned through decades of surviving in Gotham,” Batman said, “it’s that just because someone’s response to a dire situation is wrong, it doesn’t mean that the problem that set them off isn’t real.”

That hadn’t been entirely what Batman had planned to say, but, weighing it up in his mind, he found it to be true. It did the trick, at any rate. Prowl fell quiet, staring at him. Even Kane – Swindle – had paused in his escape, and was watching the two of them intently.

“Another thing I’ve learned,” Batman added, very softly, “is how much damage a bad system can do. He told me you’re a cop.”

There was a pregnant pause. “Was.”

“A corrupt cop. An enforcer of an unjust system.”

“Those two aren’t the same thing.”

“Does that matter? Maybe Swindle is in the wrong, but he can promise me that he’ll keep my people safe. You can’t. And face it, you haven’t given me a single reason to trust you over him.”

Swindle glanced down at him, those huge purple eyes alight with surprise. If Batman had gotten Swindle to believe him – however briefly – then it might just work on Prowl, too.

And it seemed it had. But not in the way Batman intended.

Rather than back off, Prowl was frozen, staring at a point very far away. Batman could just make out, fascinated, as the cords in the robot’s throat moved convulsively. It was so like a nervous swallow, so human, that it shocked him.

“Oh, this I gotta hear,” Swindle murmured.

Ignoring him, Prowl fixed his gaze on Batman.“The politics that led to our war were… complex. Yes, I was an enforcer under the old order. Was I corrupt? No. Did I overstep my authority?” The next words came in a near-whisper. “Yes. Sometimes.

“Did I uphold an unjust system?” Prowl tilted his head. “I’ve read up on Gotham. A long, long history – by human standards, at least – of police corruption, political graft. A city that was all but owned by organised crime, until the Batman came along. There are those who say you’re responsible for cleaning up the system. Tell me -” and Batman gazed into those huge eyes, feeling himself disarmed and not liking the feeling – “did you know the system was the problem from the start? Or did you start out simply trying to stop people committing crimes on the street, believing that would make Gotham a better place? How long had you been the Batman, before you realised that the old order had to be burned down?”

Batman thought of the slow unpicking, the months of investigation, that led to his final unravelling of the old mafia dons like Carmine Falcone, who’d ruled Gotham for so many decades. “I started out because I didn’t want anyone else to be murdered in an alley over a few dollars. It took time to realise that I’d need to take down the mob to ensure that.”

“And there are those who believe that in doing so, you unleashed something worse. Costumed criminals, supervillains, without even the rudimentary code of Gotham’s former criminal kings.”

Batman wanted to recoil, and forced himself not to show any reaction. Somehow, Prowl had managed to slip like a knife under his ribs. That soft voice and the hint of a smile made it even worse. Batman ground out, “If I had to do everything over again, I’d still do the same.”

Prowl nodded. “That’s the choice. To tear down a bad system and risk total chaos. And there you have the Cybertronian civil war in a nutshell.” The smile broke through, and it didn’t seem triumphant. It looked like it hurt. “The Senate’s enforcers – we realised too late that it wasn’t a matter of a bad politician or a bad policy. The whole system was rotten to the core. The trouble was, the Decepticons got there before us. And by the time we were ready to discuss real change, they were all the way down the path to violent revolution.”

“A violent revolution that you’ve now brought to our world.”

Prowl flinched, but his gaze didn’t waver. “Unintentionally, but yes.” All trace of that smile was gone, now. “Not just yours. You need to understand, our world –” And there he did glance away. “Our world died. The war kicked off an environmental catastrophe. The Decepticons decided that what resources they needed, they’d take from other worlds – inhabited or not. As far as they’re concerned, organic life is just an obstacle to getting what they want. And so they go from world to world, infiltrating, sowing chaos, until they can take advantage of the divisions they’ve created to take over. It’s our job to stop that happening.”

Batman could feel Swindle’s fingers twitch around him. Could see Swindle’s expression hardening, aware too late of the danger in letting Prowl make his pitch. “He just admitted the war was their fault,” Swindle muttered. “I don’t know why you’re even still listening to this.”

Batman knew that the horror he felt must be seeping into his voice, knew that if Swindle had been sceptical about whether Batman was truly considering an alliance with the Decepticons before, this might put paid to the illusion altogether. He still had to know. “What becomes of those worlds, if you can’t stop the Decepticons?”

“Don’t listen to him!” Swindle hissed. “Can’t you tell that he’s lying through his –”

“Cyberforming.” Prowl’s voice was hollow. “Total reconfiguration, to optimise them for Cybetronian life. It’s like what you would call ‘terraforming’, but with metal and –”

Swindle’s fist tightened enough to make Batman audibly choke. Prowl did notice, this time, and broke off, a flash of alarm in his wide eyes.

“Enough.” Swindle’s grin was vicious. “Let’s try this again, without the theatrics. Autobot. Stand down or I turn the human into jelly in front of you.”

Prowl carefully backed away. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat. “Fine. I’ll let you leave here, Swindle, but when I see you again...”

“When you see me again, it’ll be the last thing you ever see.” There was a sweetness to Swindle’s voice that made Batman suddenly go cold.

Swindle turned, Batman still in his grip, and transformed, trapping him with the seatbelts as before. Batman twisted just long enough to look at Prowl receding behind them. Then he gazed down at Swindle’s dash, and asked, as calmly as possible, “Now about that deal...”

“Deal’s off, pipsqueak. I don’t buy that you won’t sell me out the first chance you get, after that.” All the sweetness was abruptly gone. “I’d forgotten what suckers you organics are for an Autobot sob story. No – I’ve got something better in mind for you.”

They drove straight towards a warehouse, the door opening in front of them at some invisible signal, and Swindle bound Batman hand and foot before dumping him in a dark room. “Don’t have too much fun while I’m gone, sweetheart!” With that, Swindle slammed the door.

There must be a way out of here. Batman blinked, willing his eyes to adjust faster. He could just make out a window, set high up in the wall; definitely the most promising option he’d spotted. He turned around, slowly, and –

There were the guns. Rack upon rack of sleek, futuristic-looking weapons that could change the balance of power in Gotham, and give the Decepticons a foothold in the city.

Well, thought Batman, maybe I’m not in such a hurry to leave right now after all.

***

At the same time, Oracle was taking a precious second to look away from her screens and press cool fingertips to her eyelids. “And then you lost them?”

“If I’d pursued, Swindle would have killed him out of spite.”

There was a silence.

“I… appreciate that…” The voice on the other end of the comm link hesitated. “That I haven’t given you much reason to trust me – any of you.”

“You haven’t,” said Barbara baldly. “But I’ve made a decision to take that risk.”

“… Thank you.”

“I hope you understand that if you turn on me, and that leads in any way to Batman getting hurt, I can and will destroy you. I don’t care how advanced your technology might be. The system hasn’t been devised, by a human mind or otherwise, that can keep me out forever.”

“I believe you.” There was a low, rueful chuckle on the other end of the comm. “When this is all over, I don’t suppose you’d be interested in coming to work for me instead?”

“I’ll take it under consideration.” Barbara found her lips quirking up into a smile in spite of her best efforts.”

“So, the algorithm you used to track Swindle’s movements earlier; I don’t suppose it’s thrown up any possibilities for where he might be hiding out now?”

“I don’t think we’ll need it,” Oracle replied, as a notification popped up in the corner of her eye. “I’ve just intercepted an invitation, issued to a very – select – group of guests, for an event at the Iceberg Lounge tonight. I think I know where our weapons will be, and I can’t imagine Swindle will be far behind. The question is, how are we going to get our hands on him without giving him a chance to hurt Batman first?”

“Is there any way you can get optics in that room?”

“Sure.”

“Then I have a plan...”

Chapter Text

“Ladies, gentlemen, and – well, all the rest of us, am I right?” Batman could hear the grin in Swindle’s voice. “Welcome! And a big thank you to our gracious host, Mr. Cobblepot, for letting me use his fine establishment for this event. Folks, we’ve got something pretty special for you tonight. Get ready to charge your glasses, and get ready to charge your credit cards – little joke there, my friends, it’s actually cash or precious metals only – because some of you beautiful, lucky people are gonna walk away with spectacular new toys. And the rest of you… well, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to walk away at all.”

There was a murmured chuckle from the audience. In the close, gasoline-scented darkness, it felt like the voices were all around Batman. And there was an edge to them that sounded hungry.

“But first!” Swindle’s shout suddenly loomed up right in Batman’s ear. “A little appetizer that I know you’ll all want to bid on. Now, when I first arrived in your fair city, I heard tell that you were plagued by a certain… let us say, pest. A noxious flying rodent, with big ideas about interfering in people’s legitimate business interests. Well, with a little luck and a lot of diligence – because that’s the kind of businessperson I am – I’ve managed to track down this scourge, just for you. And now he’s yours to do with as you please! ‘You’ meaning the highest bidder, of course.”

Batman felt himself shoved forward. The light changed, and the space around him opened up, full of a rustling anticipation.

“Masters of Gotham, I give you –”

The bag was ripped form his head.

“– the Batman.”

And Batman looked out at sea of disbelieving eyes, as ever costumed criminal in Gotham stared, riveted, up at the handcuffed form of their greatest enemy.

There was Two-Face, flipping his coin, Harvey’s mismatched eyes raking down Batman’s form. Poison Ivy sat nearby, her lip curling as she looked at him. There was the Riddler, looking like he’d been punched in the stomach; there was the Scarecrow, Crane’s expression unreadable beneath his mask, but his long limbs unfolding like a mantis’s as he leaned forward. There was Penguin, looking flabbergasted. Apparently, his guest (because this was unmistakably the Iceberg Lounge, Batman realised) had failed to tell him about this little prelude to the planned weapons auction. There was Killer Croc, and the Mad Hatter, and there -

There, all the way at the back, perched next to a startled Harley, was the Joker. On his face, alone, surprise had given way to an even stronger emotion – one that made Batman’s skin crawl in recognition.

Rage.

Next to Batman, Swindle’s holographic form – Kane, as Batman had come to think of him – was standing between his captured prize and a pedestal bearing a single, gleaming example of the guns he would be auctioning later. He had a showman’s grin on his face, awaiting profit and applause.

In the utter silence, the Joker lifted his hand and pointed. “That. Is not. My Batsy!”

The murmurs started again, but they had a mutinous undertone now. Kane’s smile faltered.

“Perhaps, dear boy,” Penguin said, in the kind of elegant, cut-glass tone that somehow gave the distinct impression that said glass could easily be smashed against the edge of the bar and slashed across your throat if he didn’t like your answer, “you could show us some proof that this is Batman?”

“What – what do you mean?” Swindle sputtered. “Scan his vitals! Check his chemical fingerprint! Of course it’s him!”

The blank, unimpressed stares he got in return made the hologram step backwards, a flash of something like real fear in its eyes.

Throwing up his arms, Swindle shouted, “He’s wearing the damn costume! What more do you want from me?”

And – with a surge of something almost like affection – Batman knew that Swindle had made a fatal mistake. Batman’s enemies might hunger to see him captured and helpless, but they weren’t about to just accept that some no-name outsider had managed to do what they, the kings and queens of Gotham, couldn’t: take down the Bat. And just like that, Batman also saw his way out.

Steeling himself, Batman fought down every instinct screaming at him and, right in full view of all his enemies, did the one thing he would normally brave death to avoid.

He took off his cowl.

“Hello? What’s going on?” he chirped in a voice that was 100% Bruce Wayne at his ditziest, all trace of Batman’s growl gone. He pretended to fumble with the cowl for a second. “I have to say, even for a practical joke, this is taking it a bit far – oh, hello!” The cowl finally slid off, and he blinked owlishly, his hair on end. “Costume party, is it? You picked a hell of a way to convince me to attend, Mr. Kane.” Bruce turned and wagged a finger at a gobsmacked Swindle. “You could have sent an invitation to my people, like anyone else, you know! At least give me the chance to pick my own costume.” He made a show of glancing mournfully at the Batsuit. “I mean, who is this supposed to be, anyway?”

“Did you...” There was a kind of suppressed, astonished glee in the Riddler’s voice. “Did you kidnap one of Gotham’s most famous citizens, dress him in a knock-off bat costume, and try to sell him to us?”

“I’d quite like the answer to that, as well, now that dear Edward has brought it up,” the Penguin said softly.

“What? No, look!” Swindle’s voice held a note of panic now. “If this guy –”

“That guy is Bruce Wayne,” Two-Face pointed out.

“Fine, okay, Bruce Wayne, whatever. This is the vigilante, I caught him wearing a bat costume halfway up a wall! So if this is Bruce Wayne, then your Bruce Wayne is Batman!”

A noise began to bubble up from the back of the crowd. It was a melodic sound; the kind that should be pleasant, if it weren’t so loud and so unhinged that it scraped the nerves raw. A babbling brook in a blender. The Joker was laughing.

“Bruce Wayne!” he howled. “That’s the ticket! The stuff even the weirdest conspiracy nuts won’t even touch! Bruce Wayne is Batman!”

Bruce kept the blandly pleasant, oblivious look on his face, while something in the back of his mind recoiled and whimpered at hearing those words, however sarcastic, in the Joker’s voice.

“God, not this again.” Poison Ivy stood, and began a casual saunter towards the stage that had everyone in a five-foot radius hastily backing up. “That was the moronic theory that went viral a few years back -”

Prometheus groaned. “Wasn’t the last idiot to claim that Batman might be Bruce Wayne essentially hounded off the internet?”

Nice work on that little bit of misdirection, Tim, Bruce thought.

“I must say, my dear Mr. Kane,” purred Penguin, “it appears you’ve mistaken us for chumps.” His bodyguards in their fine tailcoats were discreetly shifting closer to Swindle – but they weren’t his only problem. Joker was on his feet. Victor Zsasz had started muttering to himself. Scarecrow had a gas gun in his hand, and was making adjustments to it idly, humming as he did.

“You know what?” Swindle raised his hands. “Fine. Fair! I’ve clearly made a mistake, and I apologise. Here, keep this guy. My compliments. But we can’t forget what we all came here for, right? These beauties!” He picked up the display gun, which was noticeably shinier than those in the crates Batman had spotted by the back door. As soon as the gun’s weight lifted from the pedestal, a target rose into view at the far corner of the stage – gleaming in purple and black, with dancing lights around the edge.

“I promised you a demo, didn’t I?” Swindle’s wink did nothing to take the dangerous edge out of his voice. It didn’t escape Bruce – nor, he imagined, anyone in the crowd – that the muzzle of the gun swung wide at first, sweeping over them all before settling on the target. Gotham’s criminals paused, momentarily frozen. Swindle sighted along the barrel and pulled the trigger on the most concentrated firepower Earth had ever seen.

Nothing happened.

“But -” He tapped the trigger with increasingly desperate speed. The gun remained stubbornly silent.

“Mr. Kane, I do believe you’ve exhausted my patience.” And Oswald Cobblepot snapped his fingers.

Everything seemed to happen at once. Penguin’s guards rushed the stage; Poison Ivy got there first, though, and the guard in front came skidding to a halt as her mind-controlling pollen reached him. He stood staring wide-eyed at her, entranced. Two-Face slammed his coin down and charged the lot of them, bellowing for them to stand aside – only to get elbowed out of the way himself by Killer Croc. Meanwhile, Scarecrow circled the stage looking for Kane, and ended up face-to-face with the Joker, who’d gone the other way. Scarecrow growled and pointed his gas gun; Joker reached into his jacket, the rictus grin on his face widening -

– and the skylight above shattered as Batman came plunging through it.

Bruce hurriedly stepped back, getting as much out of the way as he could, and watched the cowled figure dive straight into the scrum, knocking out a guard here, sending a criminal sprawling there. For a second, it looked as though Batman might manage to take down the entire crowd single-handed, but then –

“Everybody on the floor!”

Swindle was standing with his back to the wall, his teeth bared. In his arms was another of his prototype guns, this one taken directly from the crate. Unlike the demo weapon – which had sparkled so brightly that it had been a cinch for Bruce to identify and sabotage it while he’d been trapped in the warehouse – this one was untampered with. Its weathered surface shone with a dull, workaday gleam that made it seem far more frightening than the previous gun.

Evidently, the crowd thought so, too. Every one of them froze and began to lower themselves to the ground, including Bruce. Even Batman knelt, casting Swindle a dark glare but not moving to stop him.

“You stupid fleshbags, all scrambling over each other to be the king of this dirtball of a city,” Swindle said, his breath ragged. “All so hung up on this place. Cities that were worth a thousand of this one have fallen, and this scrapheap is still here and you’re treating it like a lover you’re fighting over. Trust me, this miserable planet’s going to be better off without you.”

There was the whine of a gun charging. Bruce started calculating who was in reach whom he could pull down and shelter when the blast went off.

“In fact, maybe I just –”

Swindle’s eyes went wide. And he vanished.

It wasn’t a slow fade, either. One moment he was there; the next he’d simply popped out of existence. The gun clattered to floor, making everyone jump.

At that moment, a single siren began to wail outside, and what Bruce now recognised as Prowl’s voice sounded, amplified by a police loudspeaker: “We have you surrounded! Come out with your hands up!”

A heartbeat passed as the assembled criminals – at least, those still on their feet – stared at each other, and at Batman (ignoring Bruce completely), and more or less collectively shrugged. Then they bolted en masse for the back exit.

“Bad show, Ozzie, old boy!” Joker called back over his shoulder, cackling. “Especially the finale – I was hoping for something so much more lingering.”

“Believe me, if I ever manage to lay hands on Kabos Kane again, ‘lingering’ will be insufficient to describe it.” The Penguin did something obscure to a wall panel hidden behind a potted orchid, and an escape hatch opened. He climbed in with the grace of long practice. A second later, the wall had sealed up as if the hatch had never existed.

Harley Quinn made a half-hearted dive for the gun Kane had dropped, only to be stopped by a black boot suddenly pinning it to the floor. “Keep moving,” the figure in the Batman suit growled.

Bruce merely pressed himself against the wall, trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible while the room emptied out. Once the Lounge was deserted, ‘Batman’ picked up the abandoned rifle and laid it carefully in the nearby crate with the others. “Mr. Wayne,” he said in a forced rasp. “Getting yourself in trouble again, I see.”

“I could say the same about you,” Bruce replied, dusting himself ostentatiously.

Batman turned to face him, and Dick Grayson’s eyes gleamed at him from behind the cowl. “Come on. There should be actual police officers arriving by now, they’ll take you home.”

***

Bruce spun a close-to-true tale for an exhausted-looking Commissioner Gordon: a casual business meeting to explore possible collaborations, Kane had offered Bruce a drink, and gosh, Commissioner, it must have been spiked with something, because Bruce woke up with a bag over his head, moments from being auctioned off as “Batman” to a gang of criminals. Dick had wisely vanished before he could be questioned, and Gordon quickly tired of Gotham’s most kidnappable millionaire and waved Bruce towards a waiting police car, saying that the officer would escort him back to Wayne Manor.

Easing himself into the passenger seat of the squad car, Bruce sighed. “I appreciate this, Officer. It’s been one hell of a day. I don’t suppose we could stop for a hot dog on the way back?” He gave the cop his trademark grin.

The cop turned to him. His expression didn’t change, but his outline flickered and blurred.

Batman narrowed his eyes. “You.”

“I thought this was the easiest way for us to talk.” The holographic driver’s lips moved just a second out of sync with the words.

Batman looked away from the disconcerting sight. “Fine.”

The parking brake clicked off on its own, the car gliding forward and merging seamlessly into traffic. “Seatbelt, please,” Prowl said primly. “Just because you’re a vigilante operating outside the law doesn’t mean I’m going to tolerate pure anarchy.”

Batman was just drawing breath to tell this alien interloper exactly what he thought of being bossed around like a child when the playfulness beneath the deadpan tone actually penetrated.

Prowl was teasing him.

Grudgingly buckling his seatbelt – at least Prowl had asked, when, going by Swindle’s example, he could just as easily have wrapped a belt or three around Batman on his own – Batman asked, “How did you and – and the other Batman end up working together?”

“Nightwing, you mean? A fascinating agent by the name of Oracle. Swindle accidentally put us in touch, when he tossed your communicator before kidnapping you.” Now there was an open note of amusement in his voice. “For Swindle, maintaining his holographic form perfectly through such intense interactions requires concentration, and it also means that his holoform can’t stray too far from his body. So I drew a perimeter around the Iceberg Lounge, at the maximum distance Swindle could have gone, and Oracle and I searched within it. Once we’d located Swindle, I realised that his level of concentration prevented him from noticing my sneaking up on him. So I hit him with a massive electromagnetic pulse and knocked him out.”

There was a loaded pause, and then Batman blurted, “That’s my move!”

“I improved it.”

“Did you.”

“Of course. I developed a way to deploy it without needing a cannon, for starters. Subtlety isn’t really your strong suit, but I suppose that doesn’t come as a shock to a man who runs around the city in a cape. Anyway, once Swindle was unconscious, his holoform disappeared. He really should be better about watching his own back, for someone who’s so fond of stabbing other people’s,” Prowl mused. Then he let out an engine huff that it took Batman a moment to recognise as a laugh. “Come on, that was a little funny.”

Batman glared at the dashboard. “Speaking of backstabbing – he’s not the only person you’ve been manipulating. You were following me while I investigated Penguin, weren’t you? That’s how you figured out Swindle had me in the first place?”

“I think the words you’re groping for are thank you.”

“The words I’m groping for are you set me up.”

That actually did seem to startle Prowl. “What?”

“You’ve been trailing me for days – to the bank heist, to the Scarecrow’s job. When it was clear I wasn’t looking into the arms trafficking quickly enough for your taste, you told me to back off from the investigation because you suspected I’d do the opposite – and then you followed me to see what I learned. For all I know, you wanted me to capture you in the first place. Because you knew I knew Gotham, and you needed me, but you couldn’t bring yourself to just ask for help. So you used me. Just the same way Kane was planning to use the people of Gotham against you and yours.”

“A minor deception to catch a criminal, versus that criminal’s plan to turn your entire city into a war zone.” Prowl picked up speed as he wove through traffic, and Batman dug his fingers into the underside of his seat for purchase. “Even you – especially you – can’t seriously believe those things are the same. Or is it more that it hurt your pride to be left out of the loop?”

“Leaving me out of the loop almost got me killed!”

The holographic driver next to Batman abruptly disappeared.

Batman fought down his instinctive moment of panic – there’s no one driving! - and instead just held on tighter, watching the brake adjust under an invisible foot, the wheel move smoothly of its own accord. After a long while, the hologram flickered slowly back to life.

It didn’t turn its head or move its lips, though; Prowl had abandoned that particular illusion. Instead, the voice came from the vehicle itself. “You’re right. And I’m sorry. I… miscalculated.”

Batman considered the glow of the dashboard lights. “I… I appreciate you admitting that.”

After a moment, Prowl asked a little plaintively, “Could you let go, please? That pinches.”

“Oh!” Batman pulled his hands away from the seat. “Sorry.” He could feel them slowing, the ride becoming smoother.

“One question,” Prowl said.

Batman nodded, wondering whether Prowl could see him in the same way Swindle could. Somehow, it wasn’t quite as terrifying a prospect.

“Did you really consider joining up with Swindle?”

“Not for a moment.”

“Even with everything he told you? Everything I told you, for that matter?”

“Prowl. I can’t begin to untangle the morality of an alien war I only just learned existed. I can’t parse how guilty either of you are, let alone absolve you. But...” Batman rolled the words around in his mind for a moment, testing them. “Between you and Swindle, I’ve only seen one of you show any concern at all over whether humans get hurt. You didn’t need to come after me, let alone twice; you could have waited for Swindle to dispose of me and lose his bargaining chip. And even if you did intend me to capture you – I could be wrong, but I don’t think saving Robin was part of your plan. I think you did that on instinct.”

“Ordinarily, I’d call that a moment of weakness.”

“I wouldn’t.” Batman laid a hand on the dashboard, and it might have been his imagination, but it seemed to warm minutely beneath his touch.“So. What happens to Swindle now?”

“I’ll call my people to get him off-planet. Prisoner exchange, eventually; there are more than a few Autobots languishing in Decepticon jails. And I know Swindle’s unit commander will jump at the chance to get him back. From what I can piece together, this entire mission was unauthorised – an attempt to get back in Onslaught’s good books after a previous assignment went south. Swindle thought he could present his boss with the conquest of Earth, or at least a decent headway into it, and all would be forgiven.” There was something dark in Prowl’s voice. “I wouldn’t like to be left to Onslaught’s tender mercies after pulling a stunt like this, and failing.”

“Will they kill him?”

“Not a chance. Onslaught’s far too pragmatic to waste resources. It just won’t be especially fun to be Swindle, for a while.”

Batman asked, “And you?”

“What about me?”

“With Swindle gone, are you leaving, as well?”

“No. My assignment here is permanent, unless I receive orders to the contrary. Earth is my beat now; my responsibility. So you’re stuck with me.” The flash of amusement in his voice died quickly. “This isn’t over. Swindle’s failure will most likely keep the other Decepticons steering clear for the moment, but make no mistake, their attention has been drawn to Earth, now. And to Gotham specifically. It’s only a matter of time before there’s another attempt.”

“Why Gotham?”

“If you can make it here, you’ll make it anywhere, I’m told.”

Batman rolled his eyes.

“Seriously, though,” Prowl said, “hasn’t Gotham always drawn the power-hungry, the ruthless? I can think of worse places to gain a foothold in the conquest of a planet.”

“I can think of worse places to make a stand against that conquest.” Batman watched the lights outside – almost liquid themselves, in the rain-streaked darkness – splash past the window as they drove.

Prowl spoke up after a while. “Wayne Manor, then? Or did you really want that hot dog?”

Chapter Text

It was the last barrier, but Batman couldn’t quite bring himself to let the alien robot in the Batcave. That Prowl knew his secret identity, that couldn’t be helped, but to show him all of Batman’s methods, his secrets – that, he wasn’t ready for.

Instead, they gathered in the foyer: Barbara, who’d rushed over from the clocktower; Dick, now changed out of his borrowed suit; Tim, thoroughly enraptured; and Prowl, who discovered he could make it inside the manor’s grand double doors if he stooped almost to crawling. The entrance hall was double-storey, luckily, and the grand staircase big enough to let him sit down.

Bruce left the robot lounging on his stairs, chatting animatedly with Oracle (“No, I didn’t build the chair myself, but I added a few convenient modifications – see?” “It’s fascinating! Such an inventive way for humans to get past the disadvantage of not having wheels!”), and went into the kitchen.

“Ah, Master Bruce,” Alfred said, without so much as glancing up from the tray of fresh scones he was taking out of the oven. Bruce had no idea how he’d timed them so perfectly, but he’d long ago stopped trying to plumb the mysteries of Alfred’s scones. “Would you happen to know if there’s anything I can offer our guest? A siphon of gasoline from the Mercedes, perhaps?”

“You’d have to ask him.” Bruce leaned back against the cabinets, closing his eyes.

“I shall; I would hate to be inhospitable. Especially as Miss Barbara gave me to understand that he was a great help in rescuing you. She was quite concerned about you, you know.” The faintest hint of strain roughened the edges of Alfred’s voice. “We all were.”

Bruce opened his eyes and put a hand on Alfred’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m sorry.”

“It’s nothing you could have prevented, I know that.” Alfred briefly covered Bruce’s hand with his own. “After all, hunting criminals is one thing. An alien war landing on our doorstep is quite another.”

“Unfortunately, we probably haven’t seen the last of this war, or of our guest.”

That got a half-smile. “I take it you’re not as enchanted as Miss Barbara, or young Master Tim?”

“It’s not that I distrust him… much. He’s just going to be a pain to work with, I can sense it. He’s arrogant, and he withholds information because he’s convinced he knows everyone’s best interest better than they do. And he’s shameless about figuring out how people are likely to behave, and using that against them.”

“Really? Imagine that,” said Alfred inexplicably, and went to serve the scones.

***

Bruce managed to get Prowl alone, after the first flurry of excited questions an explanations – on all sides – had ebbed a bit.

“All right,” he said, settling himself on the steps beside Prowl. “If we’re going to work together in the future, we need to clear one thing up right now. The moment it looks like the Decepticons are back – the moment you even suspect – you come to me, and you tell me what’s going on. No trying to go it on your own. No manipulation. I won’t take it well if you attempt that again, and…and you don’t need to.”

Prowl tilted his head, huge blue eyes transfixing him. “Really, you’d be willing to work with me?”

“You said it yourself. Earth is your responsibility – and Gotham is mine. As far as I’m concerned, we need each other.”

Those eyes slitted, the vivid glow sweeping Batman from head to foot. Then a massive metal hand was moving towards him. Batman forced himself not to tense. Prowl paused a few inches away, his palm turned upwards. Offering.

Batman laid his hand atop Prowl’s, and shook it as best he could.

“So,” he said, fighting a smile, “have you ever considered a black paintjob, perhaps with a bat theme?”

“Frag, and I cannot say this strongly enough, all the way off.”

Bruce burst out laughing, just as Alfred and Dick turned up, balancing a canister of motor oil between them, and Prowl accepted it delicately, lifting it in a toast.

“To Gotham’s protectors,” he said.