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 13th?”
“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.