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fordarkisthesuede · 5 years ago

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The Tolls of Justice - Chapter 9

Whoooooooooo boy, are you ready for a long, long chapter??? So long it took me over 150 days to write it??? I hope so!!!

If you are sensitive to talk about mental illness (specifically disassociation and mental breakdowns/crying), mentions of medications, and mentions of past deaths [within this story], please read the spoiler tags carefully.

Please enjoy this chapter at your own pace, and know that I love you. ♡

IMPORTANT SPOILER TAGS: sexually suggestive situations; discussion of mental illness[es]; paranoia; discussion of dissociation/depersonalization; hero-complex mention; mental breakdown/crying; car crash mention; thisisfine.jpg meme mention; p*lice mention; emt mention; past-death mention; r*talin mention; r*hypn*l mention; injury/bruise mention; gun/gun violence mention; food mention

Read on Ao3 or continue below:

[Chapter 9 - Strength in Numbers]

John could feel a warm weight on his collarbone as everything in him seemed to echo with his pulse.

Things ached where they normally didn’t. Tenderness sat in one of his kidneys and just over his heart, radiating with each breath. A slightly familiar soreness sat in his hips.

He was practically melted into the mattress under his back, feeling like a pile of warm jelly stuck to a plate by the summer heat, yet he could still tell he had bones and flesh intact.

I’m definitely not in Arkham anymore.

He didn’t need to open his eyes to see Bruce lying next to him, his arm draped around John’s collar and his face buried into the pillow, but it certainly was a sight to behold. Especially when he stirred and moved to kiss John’s cheek like he’d been waiting for the opportunity.

“Good morning,” Bruce said in his ear, not sounding as awake as he seemed. Black hair mussed, eyes darkened like the ocean depths, a real smile floating on his lips - there was nothing about the whole look that didn’t make John’s heart give that funny little shake that only seemed to come with certain experiences with Bruce.

“I’ll say.” He snatched a kiss for himself, taking the opportunity to trail his fingertips up and over the arm over his chest. The curves of hard muscle were practically begging to be pet. “That dance… You really know how to show a guy a good time. Kinda makes the emotional turmoil worth it.”

Bruce turned on his side, his cute sleepily-contented expression moving to something more contemplative as the sheets moved with him, exposing the little black chest hairs and very lickable pectorals of his torso. He was bruised in places, and John eyed the marks his boot heel had made.

“Reeeally worth it,” he purred, rolling to face him and run his fingers over the marks. Bruce grunted when he pressed in, sending a lovely pang of heat to John’s groin. “Did that hurt?”

“You know it did,” Bruce frowned slightly. No, wait, it looked more like a pout... How cute! So cute it made him want to tease him.

“Want me to kiss it better?” He traced over the bruise gently, playing over the little hairs brushing his fingertips. Everything felt so real. Everything was real. Bruce was aaallll his - his to touch, his to love, as real as John himself. “I can soothe all your aches and pains, if you’d like. You just have to tell me where it hurts.”

“What about you?” Bruce asked, making John’s heart shiver as he stroked his thumb over John’s arm. “We got kind of rough last night.”

Why would Bruce want to take that away? John needed this. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I was very into that,” John answered, “You don’t know how amazing these aftereffects are. I feel like I’m floating and sinking into this bed - everything is so...solid.”

Bruce didn’t seem to really like that. He seemed like he was rolling the words around in his head, not touching in a way that was deliberately comforting anymore. He was clearly choosing his next words, because John had inevitably said the wrong thing, again, and now he ruined their morning just as it was starting; Bruce was going to corner him into something unpleasant, and John could feel something in him shrink and bristle.

“John,” Bruce started in that I’m-just-concerned-about-you tone John had long grown accustomed to from everyone else, “why didn’t you tell me you were still struggling with your perception?”

John didn’t have any other option but to answer. “Ha, I can see you just fine,” he dodged, hoping Bruce would drop it and forget he ever asked, “You’re a solid ten-outta-ten in my twenty-twenty, Brucie.”

Bruce’s brow furrowed. John knew that look in his eye - he wasn’t in the mood for messing around. “You know that’s not what I meant. You told me you were having vivid nightmares. Last night, you said you were having problems making sure things were real; that you’d wake up thinking of Ace Chemicals-”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” John said a little too loudly as he rolled over, turning away from the image of barely-covered Bruce trying to push John’s demons front-and-center for him to see.

“You already talked about it,” Bruce admonished in a huff.

“Then I don’t need to say it again!” John shot back.

Silence.

Silence and the vision of an unpowered digital clock on a bare nightstand and a boringly-painted wall with stripes of sun that said it was probably past noon. John could hear breathing, but barely, hearing his own pulse and the quiet guilt piling in his chest more than anything.

Movement next to him, the shuffle of sheets, something thick in John’s chest threatening to choke him inside-out - he took hold of his neck, feeling all the words he’d been holding in there, half-wishing the hallucination of everything would break, and felt the ache of reality as they began to spill out in a strangled voice: “I-I just -” the hand on his shoulder was very real, so heavy and hot – “don’t LOOK at me!” John curled a little more into himself. Warmth lingered as weight left, all real real real. Bruce’s weight settled behind him in a swish of fabric and shift in balance.

“There,” Bruce said, sounding like he was talking to the opposing wall, “I can’t see you.”

He couldn’t bear to look at him directly. Eyes were the windows into the soul, after all. The wall was boring, but it was like talking to some of the Arkham therapists. Less like he was spilling the darkest parts of his guts to the one person who always saw him.

“I…keep thinking I’m still in Arkham,” he said, curling his fingers in the sheets by the pillow, “That I’m... I’m just waiting to wake up there like nothing’s changed, that…all of this has been some whacked-up ha-hallucination. Ha ha ha - that I’ve just been imagining these things! I mean, it’s so unreal, how you and I are working it out, having friends, having this...weird pseudo-family thing. Being…being happy.” His eyes hurt. He wanted to close them, but he’d lose focus, or worse, lose the grip on his shaky feelings. “I admired you for so long, just being with you is like a dream. I could only ever imagine I’d get this far, or that you’d stick with me, or…anything. I can feel everything, remember everything, but it’s like it’s not enough - and the worst part is that I can’t tell anyone this, or… I’ll just get tossed back!”

“You wouldn’t get put back in Arkham, John,” Bruce said softly.

“Ye-ha-ah I would! You think any of the white coats won’t use any excuse to lock me away? Any at all?” John spat, hugging himself a little too hard, aware of how much pressure he was putting on his sides but not caring. “They’d slam me in the hole if I so much as hinted at a relapse!”

“They’re your doctors.” So what? “St. Dymphna’s New Life Home isn’t Arkham -” Same stupid uncaring people, anybody can be bought - “it’s rehabilitation, John, not imprisonment. They know you’re still recovering.” That’s what they all say, at first. “Do you really think I’d let the court send you there without researching them first?”

John’s train of thought broke. He turned to look at Bruce, at the smushed black hairs on the back of his head that had been finger-combed into an angled mess, and wanted to see his face instead.

“I did extensive background checks on the facility, its patient care, its staff – I wasn’t about to let someone send you to another Dr. Quinnzel or Dr. Crane.”

John felt his heart squeeze. He never thought about that. Bruce had reassured him the days leading up to his move, but he’d just taken it as a loving-boyfriend-thing. “Why… Why aren’t you mad at me? I’ve – I’ve been holding out on therapy – practically cheating!” Bruce still just laid there, all quiet and calm. “Come on, just say it! You’re disappointed in me, right?!”

“No,” he answered, “I just wish you told me earlier. You shouldn’t have to hold all that in. Not with me.” He paused, stiffening like he was stopping himself from something. “Can I look at you?”

John took a deep breath, smelling stale sweat and cum and faded laundry-safe bleach. He clenched the cotton sheets under his hands, feeling the fabric and the bittersweet ache in his chest. He was real, Bruce was real, the feelings laid bare last night were real - could he live with Bruce seeing him like this, heart out in the open and primed for stabbing?

Hadn’t he seen the worst of him? John spattered with blood and begging him to believe him like no one else ever had? John at his worst, uncaring and hostile and full of rage and vengeance, covered in blood he’d spilt before Bruce’s very eyes?

He’d sat across from him then, battered and bruised, and told him they were friends, despite just shoving a Batarang into his hand to stop him from doing any more harm. He’d seen John in Arkham, his no-name existence shoved into a single cell on display with his sickness, and he came back. He’d rushed to rescue him from Dr. Crane’s experiments and the temptation to step backwards and take revenge. He kept coming back, over and over and over, chasing after John to save him from himself.

John stared at his back, at the scars on his shoulders he wanted to kiss better, and knew. “Yeah.”

Bruce turned back around, the covers slipping with him, and faced him with all his wounds on display. “I know I kept things from you that I shouldn’t have,” he said as unthreatening and unmalicious as John had no right to expect, “and that I keep doing it. I should’ve told you about me and the Agency, about Tiffany working for me, about keeping us a secret - every time I didn’t, it was because I thought it was for the better.”

John didn’t want him to look at him like that. He didn’t stop holding the sheets, knowing if he let go that slapping his hand over Bruce’s eyes to cover the honesty that was too much like that night wouldn’t go over well.

“You keep proving me wrong,” he said, looking hurt - by himself or John, it was difficult to tell. “I keep hurting you, and I keep making things worse. I know there are things you haven’t told me, and things that you feel you have to keep from me. And I know I don’t deserve to hear any honest answers with the way I’ve treated you, but… I’m not going to run away from you.”

Bruce held out his hand, laying it in the space between their pillows.

He wasn’t running, or judging, or looking confused. He wasn’t angry or disappointed in John for failing in the one thing he was supposed to be doing right. He was just there, with him.

“I just… I want to be near you,” John admitted, barely feeling the words leave his throat as he wound his thin fingers between Bruce’s, feeling imperfect rough parts where nicks and cuts left lasting marks, “so badly… Not just to be with you. You know how I’ve always admired you.” He still did, and Bruce had to have known that. “You’re always...respected - even if they don’t like you, they listen to you,” he explained, seeing the slight confusion on Bruce’s face at the word respect, “You’re someone people want to be,” he continued slowly, “People talk about you, talk to you, look at you... People don’t...forget you.”

Bruce seemed to understand the unspoken words that used to eat at John’s brain, because he squeezed John’s hand back.

“It’s like… I’m drifting in the ocean, and I keep trying to swim towards the lighthouse - and just when I get close enough, the current pulls me away into the rocks. And I just...want to reach you. Hah, isn’t that stupid?”

“No,” Bruce answered, not looking away for a moment, “But...I don’t think you realize how much closer you are to me,” he said with a little tilted smile and a very low hmph, “If I’m not knee-deep in the water already, I’ve definitely run out to help you.”

“Ha ha - that’s so typical, steering my insane metaphor to suit your hero-complex,” John shot back with the smile he felt tugging at his lips at the mental image.

“I don’t have a-”

“Yes you do,” John interrupted, pulling Bruce’s hand up to give him a peck on the knuckles, “And I love you for it.” Bruce’s mouth was still scrunched a little; he seemed to dislike the idea he had a complex at all. “So – since we’re spilling secrets,” he started, settling their hands between the pillow as he thought of the best way to phrase it, “what’s the other reason you didn’t tell anyone about us?”

“There’s isn’t any other,” Bruce stressed, “I just wanted them to see you as you. If I came home with you and reintroduced you as ‘my boyfriend John’, that would be the only thing they’d think of.” He paused for a second, seeming to rethink. “Well, after Joker,” he added with a slight nod to the side.

“You don’t think they’d have given me a second chance right off the bat, huh?” John puzzled, “Even after what happened with Dr. Crane?”

“That...was a bit of a mess,” he said, looking somewhat embarrassed, “It was an emergency. I don’t think they really saw the best of you.” Bruce held his gaze. “I’ve gotten to see the best parts of you every day. I just want them to experience that.”

John was tempted to make a joke out of that, but a nagging question leapt out of his mouth: “And what if they still rejected me?”

Bruce’s emotions were subtle, but John could tell he’d made him uncomfortable. He didn’t want to answer that. He didn’t like the answer.

Well, it was honesty-hour, and John bared his heart for him, so Bruce could do the same. “Would you still run after me?”

“Yes.”

There was no doubt, no dishonestly, no lingering maybe. He would, as sure as Batman’s armor was black and John’s hair was green and Bruce was a sturdy pillar of reality.

“But what would you do about them?”

Bruce breathed, not really looking at him, hard and stony like he wanted to turn tail with a swish of his bat-cape. John slowly ran this thumb over Bruce’s knuckle, softening him into something John would almost call vulnerable. “I don’t know,” he admitted like it was some shameful secret.

John had never known Bruce to not have a plan. He always had a backup for his backups. It didn’t make sense, it was almost like… “You’re scared of that, aren’t you?” He asked, realizing the answer without ever hearing it, “That’s why you planned everything out.” (It wasn’t excusing it, he reminded himself. Bruce hurt him and he should know it... But he couldn’t watch him suffer forever, and he shouldn’t want to.) “Oh, Bruce. Honey. No one can know everything; not even you. I mean, look at how my life turned out - I don’t think anyone could’ve known how I’d end up. Or even that I’d live this long.” Bruce seemed to be absorbing that, which was good; he wasn’t running away from his own truth. That was progress. A different Bruce in a different time would’ve denied being scared of the unknown at all. “Besides, did you really think they wouldn’t figure it out eventually, with my shameless wolf-whistling?”

There it was: the tiny spark of humor that pushed away the clouds. He didn’t have to smile for John to see it; he could tell. The little change of light, the tiny bits of relaxation in his brow and mouth. “I sort of had the idea we’d make it gradually more obvious.”

“Gradual - me? Do you even know me?” he teased, “I’d take two miles with any inch you’d give me. Especially with those eight you’re packing...”

Good gracious, Bruce was cute when he smiled. Cuter when his little snort developed into a chuckle into his pillow. “Honestly, that was really the most appealing part,” he continued, voice lighter than before but still a little guilty, “I like how you talk. The tension would’ve made it easier to explain why I pulled you away to make out with you somewhere.”

John tittered at the image of a flustered, frustrated Bruce giving in and showing him what-for in some undisturbed part of the manor. “Oh, buddy, I can only imagine what that kind of tension could do for us. I had some good fantasies about us sneaking in those little hideyholes at Arkham, and if they’re anything to go by... Ooh, do you have any secret passages in the manor we could use? Arkham had a few; not counting the air vents and sewers, of course, I mean the real hidden passage kind.”

John watched as Bruce’s eyes widened with the look of just remembering something important as he practically leaped out of bed to search his pants on the floor, clad in nothing but boxer-briefs, his demi-godlike body on display for John to stare at as blood tried to rush inconveniently to his groin. (Oof, he’d put his weight behind him last night, all those heavy moves and hits controlled until the very end, and just thinking about the power locked away under the same strict moral code that Bruce unleashed on the unsuspecting dirt in Gotham made John feel like he was going to melt. Batman was truly a wonder, even out of the suit… And boy, he fucked like it.)

“Bruce,” John managed, sitting up and trying not to drool too obviously, “I never thought I’d say this, but please put on a shirt on.”

Bruce tossed an almost-pocket-sized hardback at John’s lap. “Check the map page.”

And he was being bossy. “You could’ve said please,” John grumbled for Bruce to hear, not disliking how the commanding voice still did things for him. “What are you looking for?”

“I want to know if there are any Owl markings near downtown Gotham,” Bruce answered, dutifully throwing his shirt back on as he checked his phone, “Specifically nests. Please.”

The map page was fairly simple. The illustrator had gone out of their way to make a nice key to detail the “important” areas of worship or decision-making “parliaments” or leader’s houses, versus the hideaways that were “nests” and burial sites of nameless victims. John spied the owl-face stamp on Arkham Island and forced himself to ignore it. He knew - roughly - where most sections of the city were cut.

“Well there’s nothing specific in Downtown - you have to go up and over to see the nearest nest. Which according to our author was one of the last added before the birds went completely coo-coo.”

Bruce did a tame belly-flop next to John - still sans pants - and pulled up his own map of Gotham, looking like it was pulled straight from the Batcave’s supercomputer. John could see the little red pins Bruce had marked on what looked like deaths. “Here’s The Lot, and if the nearest nest is here… Look,” he tilted the phone towards John, showing off the yellow flag he’d made to mark the nest and the newly-added blue lines highlighting pipes, “it’s a bit far, but I was thinking last night about how the woman disappeared from The Lot so fast, and I thought about how the old sewers still connect with the newer parts of the city as it expanded-”

“Wait, last night? When did you have the time?”

“It was after you fell asleep,” Bruce answered simply, “But I realized the sewers still connected everywhere, so they probably used that for a quick escape. It’s not too difficult to get from one section of the city to another underneath it, if you know where you’re going - I had to do it myself a few years ago, back when I was looking to make some smaller hideouts. I didn’t think about it until you mentioned the Court of Owls. I figured they might have had a car waiting on another street, but it could be that they took only a few streets away to get into a getaway vehicle. I checked the saved camera footage last night, and I think it’s a good possibility, considering a couple of promising possible cars parked in the street for short periods of time, but since this nest is just outside of the Downtown area, it wouldn’t be an overreach to say someone took the sewer the whole way.”

John blinked. “Just how long were you up?”

“About fifteen, twenty minutes. I was originally going to tell you when you woke up.”

From zero to all the ideas in fifteen minutes while in a haze of afterglow… He really was amazing. And breathtaking. And completely ludicrous. “Hah ha! So if fist-fighting and hard sex after a long day aren’t enough to stop you - geez, what even are you?”

“I’m Batman,” Bruce answered with a smirk, “I think it’s worth looking at the building itself - that area’s been closed for construction for a while, the city’s put a halt on tearing the structure down due to historical value.”

“Pfft, historical value, sure…” John peeked at the picture Bruce had pulled up: a rather small, plain-bricked theater with a very yellowing sign.

“It was one of the first theaters in Gotham,” Bruce explained, “A historical preservation group is trying to save it. Someone on it could be an Owl. I don’t like to think it’s a coincidence.” He frowned a little at the device as he put it aside, seeming to decide something, and when he looked back at John it was with the same determination as before. “When Jackie brought you here, did you two discuss anything?”

“Only the very basics of what happened with you. She’s been on sessions with me before, she’s used to seeing me angry.” He’d only be asking after the topic of owls for one reason. “You think she’s one of them, huh?”

“She knew I cared about you enough to use me against Dr. Crane, she could’ve figured I would have kept you in the house and used the Gala as an excuse.”

He...supposed. She did crash it, and she wasn’t alone, and it was true how she had a list of dead friends as long as her arm and how some of them had been the result of murder and manslaughter, but... “She didn’t really look like she wanted to be there, though,” John said thoughtfully, “She’d said helping her boyfriend research at the gala was better than -” Research? - “ohh, I see what you mean! Could be, could be…”

“How was she last night?”

“Well, uh, I was kiiinda paying more attention to me, Bruce. Specifically the dark swirling thoughts of how I’ll never be truly accepted and how much of an idiot I was to think I would be. And how much I hated feeling everything around me. But that’s a hole we can spelunk into another time - how about we just go pay her a visit?”

As if on queue, like they were in some ridiculous play themselves, Bruce’s phone began to buzz by his hand, and Tiffany’s face took over half the screen, looking happier than John had ever seen her.

Bruce took a breath, nothing in his expression but the cool, collective sense of duty, and answered, bringing it to his ear so John couldn’t listen in. “Yes?”

John could hear something that sounded like ‘why didn’t you tell me you were okay’, but he could barely hear it over the tinny electronic whistling tune emitting from his own phone, telling him the person on the other end was a mystery.

Unknown contact, but a Gotham area code.

“Clown Funeral Services, where your last ride fits twenty,” John answered cheerfully, “Who’s the lucky bozo?”

“…John, do you answer all your calls like that?”

“Mickey! I didn’t know you had a contraband phone, you rascal! You should’ve told me, I would’ve thought of a better greeting for you.”

“I’m using the hotel’s landline,” the gruff voice of Mickey Williamson answered with a tone of mild bewilderment, “I’m calling because… You know how you were asking about that Ian guy the other day? The one who left after a month?”

“Yeeeah?”

“I saw him leave just a few minutes ago.”

“Ian just left The Lucky Hotel?” Ian Coggs, who Tiffany had been trying to track, who was the only known lead to finding Roman Sionis’ hideaway, was staying here? Was this some kind of whacked-up dream of a coincidence, or was it fate itself following them from the shadows? Either way, Bruce was paying attention, now. “Mickey, if I weren’t in a committed relationship with the love of my life, I’d come out there and kiss you right now.”

Bruce glanced over at him with a jealous squint and raised brow. John just nudged him with his foot in return.

“Um…thanks,” he answered, not sounding like he was really that appreciative of the idea.

John had several questions - What room did he come out of? What was he wearing? Did you see his car? – but figured he’d boil it down to the most obvious one: “Please tell me you overheard detailed plans of where he was going.”

“No, but, uh, I got the license plate of the car he hopped in. Does that help?”

John felt a laugh bubble in his throat, and he didn’t bother to stop it. “Does it-?! Yes, you big galloot! Ha ha ha! Oh, man, hang on a sec’,” he paused and snatched the hotel pen from the floor, where it had rolled with the broken lamp, and put him on speaker so Bruce could hear. “Okay, lay it on me, Mick’!”

“C-P-5-K-1-N-G.”

Bruce was suddenly paying attention, phone partway away from his ear, blinking at the phone in John’s hand as John scribbled the letters and numbers in ink on his palm. John couldn’t hear what Tiffany was saying on the other end, but it was quieter than before.

“Mick’, you’re truly my number two guy,” John praised, “Remind me to buy you lunch one of these days.”

“Thanks. I’ll…remember that.”

The call ended without a goodbye, but John beamed proudly at Bruce, who was ‘uh-huh’-ing seriously into his phone. “Right. Twenty minutes.” A pause, during which John could hear Tiffany’s tone all soft despite the muffled words, and Bruce gave a sigh through his nostrils. “I’ll check.” He put the phone down, muting it and staring ahead with a somewhat tired expression, and then looked back to John. “Tiffany wants to talk to you.”

John definitely did not want to talk to her. Not when he was in such a good mood; not when he’d finally ironed out a bit more of the grievances between him and Bruce. He wasn’t ready to take on more emotional pain. Not now, not later today…he’d prefer not to for the rest of his life.

“Don’t make that face,” Bruce admonished lightly, “she wants to apologize.”

“Don’t tell me how to feel,” John snapped lightly, “I don’t have to talk to anyone if I don’t want to. Especially not someone who was rude to me.” (He knew how that sounded. Like the old John. But it was how he felt, and wasn’t he still John? Weren’t his hands still that John’s? Wasn’t the scar on his hand a sign of the past and present and future blended together?) “Just…not right now,” he added, staring at the faded white line as it covered Bruce’s hand still lying on the sheets. Bruce’s skin always seemed warmer than his own. “Please.”

Depths of blue and black had never looked so non-judgmental as they did today. It must’ve been love. (No, it was. It always was. He’d always known it was, the fascination, the curiosity, the concern, the sympathy and understanding and passion of all kinds no matter how subtle – all Bruce’s love, on full display with a glance.) “You’ll have to talk to him later. Yeah. Bye.” The phone was black when he put it back down. “Tiffany’s informant here said the same thing: Ian Coggs left here five minutes ago, riding in a black sedan with the same plate. Tiffany’s following it – it’s heading west.”

“You’re following after them, aren’t you?”

“I have to.”

No you don’t, John wanted to say, but it wasn’t the truth. Bruce always had to follow through. Had to make that catch. “I know.”

“I’m heading right there, so Iman’s coming to pick you up,” he said, typing away a message in rapid swipes, “I want you two to check out the Nest on the Aylin Street theater. I’m telling her to bring some of my gear for you to use; I think the Nest is just used as an intermittent safe house, but take precautions.”

John was going on an investigation. He was getting responsibility – trust – directly from Batman, while his body ached and tingled with constant reminders of what happened between them last night. He couldn’t have felt more wonderful than if Bruce was jacking him off and letting John film the whole thing. “I won’t let you down!” (Did that come out too enthusiastic? Aw, hell, what did he care?!) “I’ll tell you what – I’ll interrogate Jackie while I’m waiting, too! She shouldn’t be too tough an egg to crack – not when we’ve split it open once already.”

He looked like he was going to protest about the idea, but he softened with a slight sigh and one look over at John. “You’d do it even if I told you not to, wouldn’t you?”

“Just as sure as you would,” John needled with a grin.

“Just…be careful,” Bruce seemed to land on as he slid away and started to put on pants, keeping eye contact for most of it, “I don’t want to catch Roman and then find out you’d been kidnapped because Jackie has a Talon on speed-dial.”

“Ha, that’s cute, you think kids still use speed-dial.”

“John, she’s almost three years older than Tiffany, she’s not a kid.” (“It was only a joke,” John muttered to himself as he made a mental note of Tiffany being twenty-three.) “Besides, my point still stands. Keep your eyes and ears open, and call me or Iman if you think something’s wrong.”

Bruce was edging on babying him again. A twitch of anger came, but John breathed slowly, staring at Bruce’s hard shoulders as he let it pass. There was more than one way to make him understand that he didn’t need that. “The same goes for you, Bruce,” John purred, throwing covers and any minute sense of so-called decency he had away to stroll up to Bruce, feeling proud at how Bruce’s face turned a nice shade of red as he seemed to struggle not to look everywhere he clearly wanted. It was funnier to see it burning in his eyes as John gently straightened his shirt by its ends. He could practically feel the rope on Bruce’s self-restraint. “Dancing wouldn’t be the same without my partner,” he teased slowly, trailing his fingers to the curve of Bruce’s rear, “You know I’ve always got your back,” he emphasized with a gentle squeeze. “You call, and I’ll come after you.”

Poor Bruce was trying so hard to keep himself together. It was so cute. John had to pretend not to see his Adam’s apple bob in his peripheral vision. “I’ll be fine.”

“I know you will, Batman,” John hummed, pecking him and feeling the brief warmth burst new life in his grin as he slipped out of Bruce’s arms and turned to clean himself up properly, “because I will be, too.”

† † † † †

The time it took for John to redress and down a very sugary cup of the terrible brown liquid that the hotel passed for coffee was small and unmemorable and annoying. The time it took for Bruce to snatch his arm in the hallway, kiss him deep, and wish him luck in a whispered voice coupled with adoration and determination in his eyes was only a handful of a seconds, and yet John felt like he was holding onto them and stretching them into something of an hour as he licked his lips, watching Bruce’s back disappear around the elevator doors with his own call of good luck still echoing in his mouth.

Jackie’s room was right across the hall from his. One heck of a coincidence, in John’s mind, after he ruled out the ridiculous idea of Mickey somehow being in on the whole thing. It was mere luck, and something even Jackie was surprised at when she walked him there last night.

He knocked, deciding on a fun pattern of ‘da, dada-da-da, da-da’, and heard shuffling. Then a pause, and he had the feeling he was being watched.

“Are you alone out there?”

“Aren’t we all?” John joked, rocking on his heels.

Jackie appeared in an instant, familiar dark circles under her brown eyes and her little spackle of freckles in full view. Her eyebrows were lighter than yesterday, her eyelashes weren’t as long, and she didn’t seem to care that she was only wearing men’s boxers and an oversized shirt with an oozing orange skull front-and-center. She looked at his neck, and then his arms, where Bruce’s hands had pressed sweet reality into John the night before. “Where did you get those?”

“It’s not important,” he waved off, not wanting to spill any details of last night, “You’ve got makeup, right? Think I could borrow some of your clown-whitest? I, uh, don’t want to be seen like this.” It was a complete lie, and she might know it – John wanted nothing more than to show off the yellow-purple mark left from Bruce’s hand. “Not by my therapists, anyway,” he added.

Jackie stepped aside. “I should have something. Come on in.”

Jackie’s room was identical to the one he slept in, sans the broken lamp and teeming with the contents of her luggage. She clearly didn’t care about her shoes, as they were thrown in the corner, but her dress was hanging in the open closet next to a neatly-kept tuxedo in a thin plastic sheet. He recognized the stuffed black cat lying sideways on the sheets, being the same one that had sat on her desk in her old apartment. Both pillows were dented and the bed was unmade.

“Sooo,” John stretched, noticing the desk-vanity had a variety of dirty makeup brushes left on it, “Your boyfriend around?”

“He had work this morning; some indie film, he’s been doing it most of the week. Take a seat – do you want coffee?”

John wrinkled his nose. “I’ve had enough hotel garbage water, thanks.”

“I brought my own grounds,” Jackie added, swinging a half-empty bag of hazelnut roast she’d picked up from the corner of the dresser. “And I’ve got good creamer.”

“Is it pumpkin spice flavored?”

“Caramel,” she answered, already heading to the bathroom. John leaned just enough to see and make sure she was doing what she said she was. Coffee was being put in the strainer and sure enough, there were little cartons of caramel creamer on the countertop, along with various sugar packets and jams he was sure she swiped from restaurant tables. “I’ve also got mini-muffins.”

Actual sugar? Owls, schmowls, he wasn’t going to pass up free breakfast along the way. “In that case, Jackie, have I told you you’re an absolute angel?”

“No, but please, feel free to tell me I’m a multi-eyed messenger of God whose physical form is incomprehensible to men,” she answered with a definite note of humor, “It sounds much better than ‘sweetie-pie’ or ‘doll-face’. Though… It is nice just hearing my own name again.”

John wondered how that felt. He’d been called ‘John Doe’ for so long he couldn’t imagine responding to any he might have had before. But he shook the thought away, a new question forming in his head as he scooted towards the makeshift makeup table. The little box on the corner looked like it was chock-full of goodies. “Your boyfriend doesn’t call you Jackie?” He asked, checking the labels - almost all of them had Janus stamped on them in elegant print. Powders and liquids and creams, oh my. It was probably worth taking a quick snap of anything that might help, so he pulled out his phone to whip open the camera app - snap!

“He doesn’t know me as Jackie,” she answered, something too flat about her tone of voice to be what John knew as dismissal, “I’m only Jaqueline to him. And the rest of the world.”

That must’ve been a weird adjustment… What did people say to things like this? He couldn’t just blurt out wow just how little do you trust the guy you like. He supposed joking about all the world being a stage would help, maybe with a French accent, but… Something didn’t feel right. If it were Bruce… “Um… I’m sorry to hear that,” he tried, “Even if you did sort of do it to yourself.”

“...do you think Batman would say that, too?” She sounded slightly...what, mournful? Maybe?

Well, why lie? Why not say what he thought and knew in his heart of hearts? “Probably. If he thought you were bad enough, anyway,” he chose, taking a peek into the trashcan nearby - a hand-sized piece of rubber or thin beige plastic was ripped and thrown in there along with some makeup wipes. Hmm. Picture-worthy, for sure. “You did try to kill a guy - and even if he does deserve to rot, pinning the blame on someone else falls a little high on the bad scale. But he did let you go, so it’s not like he’d think you’re complete scum or something.”

It was quiet, and John, despite knowing he could easily take Jackie down by herself, wondered if he’d said too much. The bathroom alcove was still.

“I’m glad you can say stuff like that,” Jackie answered solemnly, making John slowly move for the butterfly knife in his pocket and waiting for the ‘because it’s the last thing you’ll ever say’. “No one else is that honest.”

John hovered his hand over the knife handle.

“It’s weird how you’re one of the few people who’ve seen the real me,” she continued, not sounding like she was going to come out with a gun in her hand, “Everyone else treats me like some tragic heroine - I just tell people I used to live here and they pretend to be sympathetic.”

She seemed to be spilling out grievances rather than vengeance. John took the opportunity to peek into the dresser drawer. It was like three different men crammed their best outfits in one drawer, minus the shoes. Not exactly the artsy or fashionably-trendy wardrobe he expected from a handsome actor.

He should probably say something to continue the conversation as he poked around, though, to avert any suspicion. Time to see if she could crack. “What, do they think Gotham’s some crime-infested city where bat-people roam the streets and not having mace is practically illegal?”

There came the distinct noise of a choked laugh, and John knew he’d won a point or two in his favor. He pushed some of the material aside, but nothing was hidden in-between them but a few crumpled receipts that had definitely been shoved aside for later. (Bad Italian place, 13th Street gondola, All Stitched Up, good Italian place... Wow, The Two Gilded Cups was pricey - 223 bucks for two people?! And that was discounted, yeesh! Snap, snap, snap - he captured the whole drawer.)

“You know a lot of people thought it was really weird that I carried brass knuckles around?” Jackie asked bemusedly.

“So do I, a knife is way easier to hide on yourself, Jackie.” The second drawer had some of her trademark blend of dark and fall colors - even in underwear - as well as a lumpy plastic bag of used things he was not going to touch. It didn’t feel the same as when he poked through Bruce’s closet. It didn’t have that rush of being somewhere he shouldn’t… Maybe because he was nervous. Bruce wasn’t liable to whip out a Taser or whatever else Jackie might have on hand because he was snooping through delicate places; Bruce would just bottle it up a bit and pout.

“Heh… No, it was more that I was carrying around anything. I think only some of the girls I worked with carried mace. And I was always like, ‘what, you only carry mace? I’ve got three things on me at all times!’”

He could hear actual humor in her tone. See, she’s not going to run out with something in her hand. She’s fine. Just keep it up. “Ooh, what’s number three?” he teased, pushing aside some t-shirts. (She seemed to have dumped her professional-psychologist wardrobe in favor of comfier clothing. At least for her stay here…)

“A derringer.”

John stared at the tiny gun in its tiny Kevlar holster, hidden between a pumpkin-orange shirt and a thin yellow-plaid hoodie. How did these things keep lining up in perfect time for him?

“Oh, don’t worry, I don’t have it on me right now,” she waved off, “It’s tucked away. I won’t… I mean, you’re not - I don’t have any reason to use it.”

“I hope not,” he muttered to himself, carefully placing the fabric back around it closing the drawer quietly. There was a little buzz from the coffee maker, and John hurried to make himself look like he’d been sitting at the desk the whole time. He was glad she wasn’t there to see him wince and wiggle on the seat as aches from last night’s spanking-session sent a wonderful flare to his brain; that would’ve been very awkward to explain away. He distracted himself by poking around a bit more.

The makeup case was interesting. A lot of neutrals were used recently. And often, apparently, if their large portions of missing product were any indication. There were also little hard scraps of paper and a damp washcloth thrown on it. He took one last picture and shoved his phone in his pocket.

The foundation, brow, crease, and blush brushes had been used. John could see the clumps of powder and wet paste. He couldn’t resist the urge to touch the foundation one - smooth goop smeared on his fingers. Decent quality. “Must be a cheap set if your boyfriend has to apply his own makeup before he leaves, huh?”

“That’s the indie-film life,” Jackie shrugged, setting the foam cups and a plastic case of miniature blueberry muffins on the table, “Guy’s got to supply the costume, too. But he wears makeup everyday anyway, so I don’t think it’s that big a deal. Let me get my case, I should have Cadaver Paint to blend with some pale skin tones.”

Everyday really explained the missing chunks of neutral colors in the tubes. But something bugged him. A lot. “What kind of film is it?” he asked, popping a muffin in his mouth and peeking at a sealed Janus-brand tub of something called Moddy; it looked like a face mask clay.

“Some action thing. He always says he’s too good to play a small part, but he tends to take them if it’s something he hasn’t done before.”

The Moddy tub was almost empty. John spied another underneath its spot in the case. He pinched a bit of the stuff between his fingers from the open tub - it was almost like Play-Doh, only it made a funny tingling sensation on his skin, like he was dipping his finger in something warm and heavily carbonated. “What is this stuff?” he asked, wiping it off on the wet washcloth.

Jackie brought over a little plastic cutting board that had been stained with almost a rainbow of colors in one hand and tubes of cream makeup and a tiny spatula in the other. “Modification putty. It’s like sculpting clay for your face - you can use it to fill in gaps, add pieces to faces to make them bigger; pretty much anything. It’s good for temporary stuff if you don’t have the money to buy prosthetics. Or hate spirit gum,” she explained, squeezing white face paint onto the board and putting in tiny dabs of pink to blend. He could see Cadaver Paint in old-timey cursive on the white tube – definitely not a Janus brand. “I’m gonna test some spots on you first. You’re gonna be a fun challenge,” she added with a tiny smile. “Hold out your hand.”

John let her test colors, his mind churning like an ice-cream machine. Janus makeup wasn’t cheap. Matt-the-actor did his own makeup. Three different men practically sat in the dresser drawer. The thing in the trash had to have been a bald cap. Moddy could easily be used to cover and expand areas. It wasn’t a stretch to think Matt Chaney was the mysterious man-of-two-criminal-faces. In fact, it was a completely logical conclusion to come to, given everything in the room…

“Matt seems to go through a tub of that stuff every month,” Jackie commented, sponging a second test on his hand as he half-listened. “He has some serious facial scarring from a bad car accident in college. But you didn’t hear it from me,” she said with a sly smile at him. “I only found out because I caught him reapplying it in the dressing room when I was playing Antigone on a shoestring budget.”

John could practically feel his thoughts halt in their tracks as a pun bubbled in front of them. “Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, you must’ve been a shoe-in for that role!”

Her mood had improved drastically, pride and joy lighting up her face. “Well, I did pop some of a prospects’ tires just in case, but yeah, I was. It wasn’t a good production, though. We did a fun 1930’s version of Romeo and Juliet that was way better; that one lasted a full month. You would’ve liked it, actually, it had gangsters versus cops instead of royal families.”

“So they didn’t take the two houses alike in dignity line seriously, then?” he grinned, seeing the punchline land successfully with her open laugh. “Romeo, Romeo - come out wit’ your hands up, Romeo,” he mocked, earning a sturdier giggle.

“What’s funnier is that was actually a line!”

Compliments, the way to anyone’s confidence, he told himself. “I bet you killed it,” he chose and regretted the second they left his mouth. But there was no fear, no pause, no shift of any kind to indicate she was thinking about her near-brush with being a murderer. Just a normal, non-malicious smile. The nice, honest sort he’d seen on Bruce, like it was a reflex they couldn’t help.

“I did. I even got reviews to prove it – my performance ‘turned a predictable script into a rollercoaster of dark comedy’. Didn’t have to pop anyone’s tires to get the lead, either.” She tilted his hand in the light, inspecting her work. “I think this matches, don’t you?”

It was hard to believe she was involved. He didn’t want to force her into a corner when she could be a bystander; it was better to build her up. “It’s like you skinned me and put me in a tube,” he praised, watching her nose scrunch in mock-disgust even as her smile stayed put.

“So… Did Bruce end up calling you or something?” she asked, sponging some of the foundation on his neck. John could see the bruises begin to disappear in the mirror as he popped another muffin in his mouth. “You seem a lot better than how I left you.”

He was so tempted to be honest. Mostly. He’d kept all the relationship stuff secret for so long. But it would be dumb to say anything when she could, potentially, pass information along. “Something like that,” he answered vaguely.

“Booooo. Come on, John, it’s just me; what am I gonna do, post it on Friendbook? Vlog about it? Run to the Moonrise? I’m practically the only person you can tell.”

Cheerful bonding followed by an I’m-the-only-one-you-can-trust speech? He wasn’t going to fall for that Harley-league talk. No siree, Bob - not this time. Two could play that game of manipulation. “Hmm, I suppose we do look like virtual strangers to each other,” he started smoothly, “Jaqueline Latern doesn’t know anybody real in Gotham… And Jackie Lant doesn’t have any friends left to tell...” That clearly struck a soft spot. “The only ones who know who and where we are are each other… Well, and I guess Matt has half an idea.”

“He doesn’t know you’re here,” she answered, dabbing slower with the less-pleased look of honesty, “He stayed behind to schmooze with some director. I didn’t think he’d take me driving another guy back here very well.”

“Ha! Don’t tell me he’d be jealous of someone like me.”

“Why not?” she put the paint aside and started to mix flakes of white foundation-powder with a pale neutral on a clean section of the plastic. “I lied to him about how I knew a good-looking guy - he’s already fragile with me knowing what he actually looks like. Not that he should be; I like him, you know?” She returned to powdering over the makeshift-foundation with a fluffy brush.

“Just ‘like’, huh?” he teased.

“It’s…more than ‘like’, I think. But I’m not sure how to put it.” Her brown eyes turned soft and contemplative. “It’s inspiring to see him on stage. He has this...presence, and it’s so immersive, it’s real. Some days I’m not sure if I want to just watch him and…I dunno, absorb it all, or if I want to be with him.”

That wasn’t good: John could feel a connecting sort of something in him. Like before, in her apartment, watching her pour her feelings out on camera. He was dangerously close to feeling sympathy for someone who might not be deserving of it. And this time it wasn’t as ironically funny.

“I mean, he’s also full of himself,” she added with a little tilt to her lip, “but he’s still thoughtful. Doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t seem to judge… Well, much.”

He didn’t know what he wanted to do. She hadn’t been a good would-be-doctor, but she might be trying to butter him up by pretending to feel the exact same way he did about Bruce. She might have heard him in those rare moments he talked about him, she might’ve remembered things, she might be throwing him off by making him sympathize with her and thus throw the whole idea of her being involved with Owls away. She might’ve planned this whole damn thing, there was no such thing as coincidence anymore and look where he was, right on the x on the antagonist's set with their guilty evidence in plain view like he couldn’t connect dots together and see the gun in her hand...

But the deepest part of him - the one that said Bruce loved him, that said he should take his meds, that told him he was here when sensory input was in focus - said she was being honest. He almost hated that.

She was putting the makeshift foundation on his wrist, seeming to think about who-knew-what. He snatched her hand, not caring if he got messy, the urge to squeeze hard sitting in his fingertips.

The proverbial cogs turned behind her darting eyes as fight or flight lit up her brain; John’s window to ask the questions that had been on the table since he walked in was shrinking.

“Sorry,” he said, half-meaning it as he let go, “It’s just…” People appreciated kindness, and honesty was usually a part of it - he had to lead with something he was sure she already knew and make it seem like a big deal, and let her talk. “Uncanny - how we feel about our prospective muses. They feel like they’re something otherworldly, but just seeing them makes you feel so real, doesn’t it?”

Jackie’s primitive urges died as understanding kinship seemed to take over.

“Of course, you’ve probably spent more time here alone with yours than I ever have,” he trailed with a shrug and a pout. “Though if I add every hour I’ve spent with Bruce up…” He pretended to count on his fingers. “Do you guys get a full eight hours’ sleep together, or…?”

“John,” she snorted into a smile, “even if he didn’t have a film to shoot, he still scouts jobs and visits his agent. I’m not around for all that. Trust me, you and Bruce have way more time together under your belt than the…” Jackie whipped out her phone and tapped around. “One-hundred and forty-four we’d potentially spend.”

One-hundred and forty-four divided by twenty-four… “You’ve been here six days already?”

“Mm-hmm.” Jackie sipped her coffee. “Matt started shooting on Monday night. I was pretty pissed about that - thank God for those corner gondolas.”

He left her here? That sounded like something Harley would’ve done. “Doesn’t he know how much you hate Gotham?”

Jackie scowled slightly into her cup and took another sip. “He knows I have issues here.” She picked up the powder brush and dabbed it over John’s arm, covering the last of the foundation. It was like John had never been bruised at all. It made the small pink cuts on his arm from where he’s torn the bandage off last night stand out a lot, but he didn’t mind walking around with those. “I mean, what am I supposed to do, tell him how I’m permanently mourning a lifetime of dead friends and my own name? Or how I almost killed a guy just to get out of the debt I sank myself in for a career I didn’t want? People already get weird around me when I get all moody,” she grunted, “He shouldn’t have to deal with all that.”

Aha ha ha hee hee! Now their kinship was ironically funny! “J-Jackie, you - you really do make a terrible psychologist,” he managed, his ribs aching with the rapid movement, “Mine have all been telling me to be open about these things with people, and until recently, I just ignored them! I mean, what do they know? Rejection for us in our cases means spiraling into another nasty bout of bad symptoms.”

He could tell she understood. He could see the dark sense of understanding there. They might have very different illnesses, but they were both a product of Gotham, with him born on the wrong side of its blanket and her forcibly rolled over to it. It was something she and Bruce shared - he couldn’t help but see it, and he felt the urge to both poke it and push it away to see what she’d do.

“But you know, it turns out they’re kind of right,” he continued, deciding to soften her up a little more with the truth, “I’d been hiding my symptoms from Bruce because I didn’t trust him not to be disappointed in me, and it only hurt us. Turns out telling him just opened both of us right up,” he emphasized with a spread of his hands. “I get not telling Matt about the whole attempted-murder thing, but to me, it feels like you don’t trust Matt enough with your feelings, and you excuse it by putting his before yours.”

She definitely seemed softened, if surprise counted as such. “I hate it when you do this,” she said, frowning into her cup and taking a not-very-angry sip. “Though I guess it’s easier to work through others’ problems than your own, huh?” she jabbed, taking a seat on the edge of the large bed.

“Now you’re just deflecting,” he teased, crossing his legs and taking a long sip from his own cup.

“Maybe,” she grunted, “It’s just… Matt and I have known each other a few months, but I’ve spent six days back in this shithole city, and it’s like I hardly see him. Monday was ‘surprise, honey, I have a shoot tonight’; Tuesday was ‘oh I have to shoot until after dark, my bad’! Just constant ins and outs and ‘my agent’s calling me,’ or ‘they need me back on set’ bullshit. I don’t even have the opportunity to open up to him.” She took a long sip as John nodded along.

“Matt’s the reason you’re in town, though, right? Since I saw you Saturday, there must’ve been some good days,” he said as innocently as he could, mentally ticking off the box for Muddy Nye’s and Ian Coggs’ doppelgangers.

“Saturday was supposed to be good,” she grumbled, “That went fucking bust. The best day was...probably Wednesday. We spent most of the day together… I got to see him eat a Peralta’s cruller first-hand,” she answered with a wistful little smile. “He makes a cute mmm-face... And he had this great idea - dress up as the producers he’d met on set, go to a fancy-ass restaurant, and reap in their frequenter-discount while they were stuck shooting a night scene. That was worth it.”

The Two Gilded Cups. Hmm, hmm, hmm. “Well, now I’m curious! How’d you look?”

“You tell me,” she smirked, handing him her phone.

Sonja Townsend, in an ironed pant-suit that Jackie definitely did not and would not have in her wardrobe, beamed at him from the selfie-style picture. Vindication burst in his head like a bottle of champagne - his prime suspect for The Wednesday Nighters’ murders was at dinner that night (according to Tiffany), and if Jackie was the one at the dinner, then it only reasoned the real Sonja was at The Lot.

“Pretty good, huh? I worked off a picture he took; no one suspected a thing,” she chirped, “We had to drop the costumes off at his costar’s place afterwards, but it was fun. We got prime seats, a special discount - even got a free bottle of wine out of it.”

But she had no idea. She had no inkling of what had happened this week. His joy at finally being completely right at something was quickly souring. Jackie was an innocent pawn. Disgust was twisting in his throat and palatable on his tongue. He couldn’t find it in himself to walk away and leave her there while he tracked her lying pig of a boyfriend down and gave him some scars he wouldn’t be able to hide… After all, it was much more cathartic for her to get some hits in.

“Uh, are you okay?”

Of course he wasn’t. He felt angry, and guilty, and really annoyed at how he couldn’t be happy about being right. “You really don’t know who this is, do you?” (He never could understand how Bruce kept so much anger out of his voice. How did he not feel it bubbling under his skin and radiating from his tongue?)

“A Mrs. Sonja Townsend - she and her husband are small-time producers.” She stared him down, searching and annoyingly stony. “Why?”

“She works for Wayne Enterprises.” John forwarded the picture to his phone and tossed hers next to her lap, scrolling through his own gallery. Eenie, meenie, miney, moe - the very-much-alive picture of Muddy Nye pulled from the BatComputer was the lucky first choice in the presentation he was about to throw her. “Have you seen this guy before?”

She glanced at it, recognition flashing in her eyes. “Where did you get that?”

“So that’s a definite yes. I’m guessing you don’t know who he really is, either? This,” he emphasized with a grand gesture of his hand at the picture, “is Muddy Nye, a once-budding member of the False Face Society turned-traitor and presumably-lone-survivor of the East Dock murders on Monday night. He was found chucked in a dumpster on Wednesday.”

He didn’t mind how she pulled the phone towards her to look. She was staring down at it, seeming to take in every detail, with a look John could practically feel. It was almost as if he was seeing her in his place, standing on the railings above vats of steaming chemical soups.

Treat people the way you want to be treated, he remembered. But you didn’t get a co-conspirator - innocent or not - to talk by being gentle, and he needed her to see the same reality that he could feel in the chair, in his pulse, and in the aches of his breath. “You said yourself that Matt’s shoot started-”

“This is a coincidence,” she said, staring back at him with clear denial as she tossed the phone back, “Matt always uses real-life references. What does this have to do with that woman I played?”

He fought back the urge to snap at her to just listen by squeezing his hands and remembering that her excuses were natural in the given circumstances. It was a very Bruce thing to say, really. “You haven’t read the news lately, have you?”

She sucked her teeth with a light sneer. “I stopped reading Gotham news a month after I left.”

Of course she had. Matt probably knew that. Or maybe he didn’t, and he didn’t care. “Well, that woman you played killed seven people in a casino on Wednesday night. Her only alibi is that she was at dinner with her husband.”

The surprise on her face shifted, and if looks could wound, he was sure he’d have a hole in his arm right now. “And you think we had something to do with it?”

No, I think your boyfriend did, he thought. Any hostility would result in a bad time. He had to be careful. “If I did, Jackie, I wouldn’t be talking to you - you’d have a knife lodged in your shoulder to match ol’ Scarecrow’s scar.” She sank a little. Funny how that seemed to be an okay thing with her. “I just need to be sure. When Matt left today, what did he look like?”

“Why?”

“Because someone visited All Stitched Up Alterations, threatened my very nice boss into filling a vest with plastic explosives, and handed it off to Black Mask to try and kill the only good Wayne at his own party - and I’m positive that someone isn’t who they say they are.”

Jackie was still for a moment, staring him down like she used to do at her notepad in the sessions she was ghosting on. Back then, she seemed to be a mile away or more, likely trying to plot her escape to try and distract herself from the way Arkham’s walls practically bled with the compounded toxicity of Gotham. The Jackie right now didn’t seem so different, only that she was doing it in her makeshift pajamas.

She stood, handing him her foam cup with a “hold this” in an oddly steady voice, and John watched as she dug around in what must’ve been Matt’s luggage, sorting through boring men’s shoes, short black umbrellas, and a curling iron to retrieve a rather expensive-looking digital camera. He heard a lot of beeps as she cycled through the pictures. “He doesn’t upload everything,” Jackie managed to say, only slightly shaky on the last word, “but he’s always proud of his work.”

In other words, he was narcissistic enough to leave some evidence behind. John hoped he didn’t like to throw away perfectly reusable costumes, too.

Jackie just stood there, gripping the camera too hard, looking caught between the budding reality that the person she admired the most was as rotten as the residents of Gotham Cemetery and the mind’s emergency exit.

“How about we trade?” he offered, wiggling his phone at her. “So we know for sure what the other saw.”

She blinked. “Alright.” There were a few beeps from the camera, and in turn he pulled up the picture of Ian Coggs. “Just don’t cycle back too far.”

“Ha! Ditto. On three,” he said, holding his phone sideways as she extended the bulky end of the camera at arm’s length, “One…” She didn’t look ready, but then again, who would be? “Two...” There was no time to think about what he would do if she went off the deep end. “Three!”

His phone was snatched out of his hand as he yanked the camera from hers.

Sure enough, there was Ian ‘Nito’ Coggs, tilting his head and trying to scowl in much better lighting than the hotel room actually had, in the same jacket and jeans that John had seen on Wednesday, piercings and tattoos in full view. He’d taken multiple shots, showing off the makeshift tattoos on his hands and neck (the sock and buskin masks still peeking out over the top of his shirt), doing multiple expressions and close-ups, and going back further were similar pictures of Muddy Nye in what looked like a studio apartment.

He’d hit the jackpot, but the same ugly disturbance sat in his mouth even as sparklers lit up in his brain.

He looked up at Jackie, half mad at her for ruining what should’ve been a good moment of catharsis by making him feel sympathy, and wondered if that was how he looked back at Ace Chemicals when the gray-hued truth had smashed the black and white lines his mind had drawn in the shape of a bat.

At last, it was like he could see the yolk for a second time, but it was in danger of bursting and slipping out of the shell and into the bubbling vats. She looked like she might somehow break the phone in her hand like a peanut.

So John did what he thought was best - he gently put the camera down, stood in front of her, and carefully put his hands on her shoulders to bring her back to Earth and away from the chemical fumes.

Jackie looked up at him, a step away from the big red exit sign with its tempting whisper of antagonistic nihilism, and pulled him into a crushing hug.

He didn’t know what to do. He was standing on the floor of the mediocre hotel room, letting her fingers dig painfully into his ribs as she squeezed him, hearing her scream into his shirt. And then choke into a sob and wail-scream like Cannibal Carl when he was desperate for his sense of taste to return at one in the morning.

Despite how this was really real and definitely happening what with all the different sensations he was experiencing, he had even less of an idea of what he should be doing. Still, life was short and fairly pointless and not knowing something hadn’t stopped him from experimenting before, so he reached around to return the impromptu hug and gave a pat for good measure. “It’s okay,” he tried, remembering how comfortable and reassuring Bruce’s hugs were, “Iiit’s okay.” He kept still, feeling a little less awkward as her grip loosened a little amongst another scream. “Cry it out, pumpkin-head, Joker’s right here.” There was a lower wail in response. “Do you want me to scream with you, so you don’t feel left out?”

Her sob choked into a laugh, shoulders shaking like there was no difference at all, and her grip on him loosened substantially. The laugh still came in little bursts as she pulled away, tears still streaking down her reddened face. “No - no, you don’t have to.”

“But I could if I wanted? Because it is really fun, especially when everyone’s asleep...”

She gave another few ha’s and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “It’s past noon.”

“So? We both know place doesn’t have a lot of early-risers.”

She sank back onto the bed with another amused ha-hmm. “When did you take that picture?” she sniffed as John picked the fallen phone off the bleached carpet.

“Wednesday morning, at the alterations place up the road.”

She was getting that bent-over-her-notepad look. “He walked me over there on Monday to drop off my dress.”

Scouting the premises, most likely.

“He chose this place, too,” she commented, wiping her face with downcast sort of sneer, “Said it was convenient.”

“It kinda is,” John noted aloud, taking his seat back in the desk-chair and scooting it closer to her, “Muddy Nye was found in the alley behind All Stitched Up’s fence. Closer to the docks.” He waited a beat as he let it sink in. He knew she didn’t like too much sympathy – it was best to get her mind jogging. “What did Matt do with his outfit on Monday night?”

“I never saw that one,” she shrugged, “only the test shots he’d taken. He said was getting changed on set that day.”

John pulled up his map application and zoomed in on 13th Street until he found the Lucky Hotel. “Do you remember where you went on Wednesday night, to drop the ‘costumes’ off?” he asked, doing his best to think like Bruce.

“Yeah,” she muttered, scrolling right and down and left, and swiping with an occasional pause – he noticed she had scrolled all the way to the Two Gilded Cups, and now was taking turns down streets like she was trying to remember the driving route. Apparently, they took some detours. “Here,” she said, pointing to the corner with the fishmonger and Muddy’s makeshift coffin of rotting fish, “We changed clothes in the car. His costar offered to let him drop them off.” Her face twisted into a teary scowl. “I’m so fucking stupid. I should’ve known something was off when I didn’t see any lights on upstairs. But nooo, I trusted him…”

John remembered the empty rooms above the fish place. That had been Tuesday, but what if… “What’d you guys put the clothes in?”

“A duffle bag. I thought it was something he’d borrowed from the set.”

“Ooh, that’s devious,” he chuckled to himself, “These guys have got balls, I’ll give ‘em that.” She looked confused. “See, Muddy was found here,” he accentuated with a point at the alleyway, “There’s spaces above the fish place. I bet they had that bag waiting in one of those rooms. Wednesday, Matt goes to pick it up, brings it here, you guys play dress up - and once it’s over, he throws it back right where he found it, and someone probably came to pick it up the next day. Probably Sonja herself; she or some P.A. she’s got on a leash came around before I got to work on Tuesday – looong story there - and as far as I know came back after Wednesday.”

“Uh…what?”

“Look, I said it’s a long story. The short, short version is someone close to Sonja dropped off an item at work and it was still there when I left Wednesday.” He sat back on his hands, tapping his feet to help him think. It might be safe for her to check out that place. She wouldn’t be as obvious, and she could probably think up a good excuse to go in the first place. Hmm…

“Well… At least everything else suddenly makes stupid sense,” Jackie muttered, “Earlier, I kept thinking ‘He wouldn’t have brought me with him if he knew Black Mask would crash, right?’ But why else didn’t he want me seeing him on set? Why didn’t he want me meeting anyone he worked with? Why was it sheer luck that he pulled me out of the party to go bone in the bathroom minutes before it all went to hell?”

“So that’s where you went!” John exclaimed, “I thought I didn’t see you during the raid! I thought you just hid under a table or something…”

Jackie seemed surprised at that. “Wait, you went back – did you and Batman team up?” she asked, leaning in with an almost awed sort of look, “Everyone was saying he crashed! How? Did he follow those masked guys there? Did he follow you there?”

It had certainly changed her mood, but he wasn’t about to suggest that… Well, actually, maybe. Hah - why not?! “He came there to see me,” he boasted, “Bruce took me out of my home-away-from-home after the little attempted-murder-by-sniper incident the other day, and Bats was hounding me for clues.”

“You were shot at?!”

“Oh, yeah, that’s another story. Stuff just keeps piling up, really,” John added, tapping his feet together, “Though that does bring up something - you remember the Court of Owls, right?”

“Uh… Yeah, Dr. Crane was interested in them.” She squinted at him, seeming to put the pieces together. “You’re not saying they’re behind the attack on you?”

“Bingo. The mass murders of Black Mask’s crew on the boat and the docks, Muddy Nye and Hubbard Jr.’s murders, the casino slaughter of The Wednesday Nighters – all of it was orchestrated by them, using Black Mask’s inside info. Which is where Matt came in. Oh, and me and Catwoman got targeted, too, but…here I am!”

She seemed… Well, the best thing he could think of was the sort of bewilderment that might come with finding out aliens were real, but also ate planets whole. “O-kay… That’s a lot.”

“Ha ha! Yeah, it’s been one hell of a ride!” he chuckled to himself.

Jackie breathed deep. The tears had long stopped trying to flow, but the tracks could still be seen on her flushed face. “Okay… Ignoring my constant internal screams and urges to bite anything in range, you and Batman are working together on this, right?” She looked at him with a sort of wild, determined hope that made him think she was going to start muttering to herself that everything would be okay.

“Um, yeah?”

“Thank fuck. I know this is all evidence, but you have no idea – that is the only thing stopping me from destroying everything in here right now.”

“Ha ha ha hee he! I have plenty of ideas, actually - you’re feeling like everything you knew is breaking apart, right? It’s like -” he made a fist and slammed it into his open palm - “BAM! There goes your hopes and dreams!” He kicked the air in front of him. “SMASH! Your trust in anything is gone! WHAM!” - he flung himself backward in the chair, exaggerating falling - “Nothing matters anymore! Aha ha ha ha ha haa! It hurts reeeeal bad!” he added, sitting back upright and giving her a light smack on the shoulder, “Trust me, Jackie, I’m literally the only person in Gotham who knows exactly what this feels like.” Did that sound like too much? He wanted her help, but getting it was going to take more than repeating things… Though it was also the truth. “It’s gonna hurt like hell for a while, but I know you’ll pull through!”

She looked at his thumbs up and offered a little chuff noise and tiny smile in return. “I don’t know how you’re so optimistic about it. Then again, I don’t have a Batman here to beat some sense into me,” she joked. It faded after a moment. “Thank you for telling me all this, John. And...being here. I don’t think I’d be able to restrain myself if I discovered any of this on my own.”

“Hey, what are friends for?” John nudged, the Speaking of which on the tip of his tongue dying as she scrunched her brow in the confused manner that couldn’t be good…

“We’re friends?”

At least it wasn’t derisive sounding. Or sarcastic. Or anything that made it a clear rejection, actually, but it was best to cover himself... “Well, yeah, we both went through the whole Scarecrow fiasco together – sorta – and you helped me out last night without asking for anything in return. And now that you know what it feels like to have your muse break your perception of reality, I’d say we have a proper enemies-to-friends buildup here,” he finished with a general wave to the empathy-fueled-vibes between them.

“I’d say ‘knowing my track record, this won’t end well’… But you are weirdly lucky. And annoyingly right about some things.” She pursed her lips and blew air up at a stray lock of her very curly hair, slapped her knees, and stood as tall as her legs would let her. “Okay. Let me help you guys. I know Matt, I can find any evidence you might need and tell you anything you need to know – passwords, phone numbers, whatever. He’s too proud to just throw his tools away; I’d bet anything he stashed his costume someplace, probably with his other one for the dead guy. I can find them and either put them here or in my car, whichever’s safer.”

Yahtzee! “And you promise you won’t run off with any of it?”

“Because as much as I’d love to burn everything he ever had to the ground right now,” she scowled, poison practically dripping from her mouth, “I’ve been through enough breakups and psych classes to know that won’t fix anything. The only way I’ll get any kind of catharsis is to see him break – and I guarantee he’ll do that before a judge.” She picked her phone up and tapped around. “Besides, we’re friends, I’ve got nothing to lose, and if I can help out some of the only people worth a shit in this hellhole, I’ll do it. Here, add your number.”

John dolefully typed in his personal number, adding the little joker-card emoticon on either side of his name, and sent himself a text. “Think you can copy what’s on that camera for me?”

“Sure.” She took her phone back. “I’ll send you his MuSec and InstaPic logins, too,” she added as John’s phone gave another short buzz. “Might be worth a look.”

The text was from Iman: I’m out front.

“Looks like I’ve got the red light, kiddo.” John dusted himself off a bit, failing to brush off the empathy that seemed to stick there. He guessed he had to learn to live with this, too, like he didn’t have enough guilt and woe and bouts of sympathy to deal with. “I’ll give Matt a little stab in the kidney for you if I see him,” he joked, taking the edge off himself.

“Your prince is waiting to take you away in his chariot, huh?” Jackie picked up her coffee cup, drained the last of it, and crushed it in her fist, not seeming to care about the drops on the carpet or her hand. “That’s okay. I’ll text you if I feel like I’m going to high-dive off a building or something.”

John snorted into a laugh. “Aw, Jackie, we both -” John emphasized with a light boop to her nose - “know you’re more a danger to others right now. You should really just call me if you feel like you’re going to go off the deep end, anyway, a real voice helps more. And that includes if you get gun-happy.”

Jackie had gotten a little pink in the face, but she looked better, even mumbling a sincere ‘okay’ as she followed him to the door.

“Text me anything you find and I’ll make sure you get a few brownie points from Bats, too.”

“If these come in the form of an autographed photo, I’ll take ‘em,” Jackie seemed to joke, “Oh, and you can do me a favor, since I keep helping you out - tell Bruce to stop and say ‘hi’ before he leaves next time.” He must’ve had the ‘but how did you know?!’ written on his back, or else he froze in the doorway a second too long, because she snorted before he even turned to look over his shoulder. “You make it too obvious. Besides, I know a hickey when I see one, Joke-man,” she elaborated with a smirk. “Stay safe out there.”

With a little wave his way, John was again alone in the hotel hall at a loss for meaningful words, feeling like he was in some weird space where time didn’t mean anything. “Uh, thanks,” he said to the door, unsure if it was the right thing to say.

He breathed in, focusing on the plot of his feet on the out-of-date carpet and the smell of diluted off-brand cleaning solution that seemed to stick everywhere. It might have felt like a strange place, but this was a strange week and he was able to cross multiple goals off his list barely an hour after waking up. He was so damn right about so many things! And he had evidence to prove it! He could take this all back to the rest of them and shove it under their noses and go HA!

“That went well!” he affirmed to himself as he strut into the same elevator Bruce had taken down, “Bruce’ll be so proud!”

† † † † †

True to her word, Iman had been parked and waiting right outside the hotel in a very sleek silver sedan, the tinted window rolled down so John could see her face. Upon closer inspection, the car had no identifying hood ornament. Or really, anything extraneous at all.

People had always joked about how you could always tell an Agent by their shoes, but surely an unmarked car was another dead giveaway.

“Gooood morning, Iman,” John greeted, sliding into the passenger seat, “You ready to do a B-’n’-E?”

“I like to think of it as more of a surprise covert inspection.”

That would explain the dark jumpsuit and the messy bun she’d put her hair in. “What’s the ‘G’ for?” he asked, pointing to the patch over the breast pocket.

“Gotham Construction. Bruce thankfully has a closet full of things like this. Though I don’t know why the ‘G’ on some of them are shaped like this

gear… But it was the only one that fit me. Yours is behind the seat. I also picked you up-”

John was already popping open the grease-spotted paper bag next to the matching jumpsuit, the unmistakable smell of grease and fried meat hitting him like a slap in the face. “A pancake burger?!”

“Egg-sausage-muffin. I’m guessing a pancake burger is exactly what it sounds like?”

“Yup! I’m about ninety-percent sure I didn’t dream that food-truck,” John said, biting into the woefully-unsyruped sandwich. At least it had cheese. “T’ey’re ‘mazin’.” Realizing he was being rude, he swallowed to speak. “But this is good, too!”

“I’ll have to find that truck for next time,” Iman smiled as she merged into traffic. “I’m guessing things went well last night?”

“Mm-hmm!” John flashed a thumb’s up her way while he swallowed another bite. “I’m glad you’re not weirded out about it. I take it this is your way of apology for not telling the others? I mean, you did figure it out before last night, right?”

Iman shot him a look he couldn’t decipher. “I’m not apologizing for anything; I just figured you’d be hungry by now. And just because I figured it out on my own months ago doesn’t mean it’s my responsibility to act as Bruce’s psychiatrist and tell him what to do, let alone tell his secrets for him.”

He didn’t want to tell her she should’ve said it anyways for his sake. “I bet you still hint at him,” he said instead, hoping that was true, “You’re good at subtlety.”

“Only when I think he’s going to do something...” she trailed off, seeming to search for the word she wanted.

“Stupid?” John offered, “Asinine? It’s okay, you can say it - for all his smarts, he has his dumb moments.”

“I was going to say ‘detrimental to the cause’,” Iman finished, not looking at him. “I joined the Agency because I wanted to help save lives. But I’ve always admired Batman’s commitment to pursuing justice outside of the legal limits that don’t always work in our favor - it’s why I came to Gotham on the Riddler case.”

He felt like he was back at the visiting table in Arkham, examining her little movements and steady gaze with as much scrutiny as he could allow. She was holding herself up, all pride and seriousness, reminding him very much of Bruce some days. “I…kinda knew that.”

“Batman’s whole purpose is to clean up the parts of the city where regular law enforcement don’t. I’m proud to be a part of that, even if I’m not in the field,” she noted with a twinge of regret, “But Bruce is Batman, and he’s human - consequently more people know about Batman. If I thought someone, or something Bruce has done was going to interfere with Batman’s work in some way, I’d tell him.”

They stopped at a light - she looked back at him, serious but not reprimanding or upset. It did not calm him at all. He could feel stress blooming in his brain at the implication she was making. He couldn’t bring himself to speak, let alone think – he might as well not be in the car or the city at all, but on Dr. Leland’s bench.

“I know you won’t betray Bruce, John,” she said with all the honesty of the top brass of St. Dymphna, “and I know that he trusts you, but I need to know you can work with us on the same level.”

Relief unraveled the knot in his stomach with one simple tug and let the air out of his lungs in a joyous burst. “Ha ha ha ha ha! That’s all? Whelp, good news – I’m way ahead of you!” John whipped out his phone to pull up the gallery, finding a text from Jackie with app links attached:

MuSec has play scenes with lofi and some sos of Bludhaven. :/ So good luck with that. InstaPic has got a million selfies of his usual looks + stage work at least, maybe prototypes.

“I’ve got all the dirt on our two-timing man on the inside.”

Sos??? he typed back.

Shot on shitteos. Grainy vhs filter + dark filter + indie = ~tortured artist~ lol

“Such as?” Iman asked, clearly waiting for more. John supposed it wasn’t a great start to their team-up to get distracted.

“Name, real face, evidence a-plenty! Guy by the name of Matt Chaney – a real master of makeup with image issues. He crashed the Gala last night with our little pumpkin-headed former-antagonist.” He pulled up InstaPic and logged in, finding rows of Matt’s face in various outfits, makeup tweaked just enough to make him look like whatever character he was playing while maintaining his Hollywood-handsome face. Jackie was next to him here and there, along with other co-stars. “Not that she’s been part of it. Knowingly, anyway.”

“You’ve…lost me.”

“Oh, you never met Jackie, did you… Bruce has her pumpkin mask in the case by Scarecrow’s.”

“Jackie Lant.” Iman scrunched her face thoughtfully. “You don’t think she’s had a hand in with either the Owls or the False Face Society?”

“Nope! Because I was right - Sonja Townsend is our Lot killer. Matt coerced Jackie into dressing up as Sonja, and they made sure Mr.-and-Mrs. Townsend were seen on Wednesday night.”

“And you have proof of that?”

Something about her tone rubbed him the wrong way. The way that started to brew that old familiar feeling in his head that normally lead to…outbursts. “Sonja actually being there is…complicated,” he shrugged, trying and failing not to sneer, “You guys never said you found anything at the scene, so I only have her signature on that alterations receipt. And the relation to the card-carrier. But I know I’m right!” He knew it wasn’t what a lawyer might call concrete, especially since you weren’t supposed to show yourself riled up in court, but that was what brass-knuckle confessions were for. “Here’s Jackie as Wednesday-Sonja,” he emphasized, pushing the picture he’d gotten into her field of view. “And I have the receipt from their little excursion – the time on it puts her squarely there! And I’ve got a gallery of proof that Matt’s Ian Coggs!”

Iman glanced over, seeming to take it in, and returned to driving as usual. “I meant of Matt coercing Jackie. I can stretch my sense of disbelief to include Sonja Townsend masquerading as a younger woman and using her son-in-law’s card to register the room. But it’s hard to believe a young woman who had once planned a murder and eventual cover-up by pretending to be someone just swept up in a psych-experiment-gone-wrong could be coerced into anything. I watched the tape of her shooting Dr. Crane,” she added with an air of one of the Arkham doctors walking him through the concept of ‘consequences for his actions’, “It was cold and calculated; she’s the type to plan far in advance. Neither you nor Bruce had suspected her of tampering with your visiting rights at the time. And if ‘Matt Chaney’ is the one who’s disguising himself as Muddy Nye and Ian Coggs, then there’s no one to say Jackie Lant isn’t doing something similar.”

“I can say it,” John grumbled. Iman didn’t see her try to desperately cover for Matt before scream-crying on him.

“But I only have your word.” The car stopped again. “I want to trust you on this, John, but I can’t trust your interpretation without any proof.”

“You’d trust Bruce’s,” he scoffed quietly, spitefully taking a larger bite.

“You know Bruce would say the same thing,” Iman added gently. “Send what you have to the BatComputer and we’ll look over it together.”

John could easily imagine Bruce asking for evidence, but that didn’t stop irritation from growing and sitting in his jaw. He didn’t know how else to prove that Jackie was exactly as innocent as she seemed without any physical proof, and she was currently trying to gather further proof that Matt had been Muddy Nye.

Hey, send me your InstaPic too, he typed, hoping she had something that concretely put her far and away from any of Matt’s fishy business.

What you can’t see my face on Matt’s page? 9_9

xXPumpkinPrincessXx

Sure enough, Matt’s InstaPic account had Jackie’s face near the top of his friends-list. John decided to check that last.

Matt had a lot of stuff in his direct messages from people trying to impress him with reactions, flirty messages, and boasts about buying tickets to various projects he must have had a role in. John couldn’t really see the appeal of him, outside of his mildly-handsome face and lightweight build – sure, the costumes were nice when he wore them, but Matt had far too many public-facing selfies, the majority of which was just Matt doing normal things. A simple picture of him drinking a smoothie in a tank top got him fifteen-thousand likes, and the ones that featured Jackie or other people he guessed worked in Bludhaven’s theater troupes (an awful lot of women, John noticed) got maybe six-thousand at most. There were some flagged-for-review selfies that definitely edged the line between appropriate and softcore porn that had gotten a few thousand before they were pulled from the public. Ones of him in costumes seemed to get ten-thousand on the regular, with the most-liked in the bunch being a silent time-lapse video of Matt transforming into a near mirror-image of Vincent Price two months ago – even John had to admit that the head-explosion emoticons people had commented with were appropriate…

John blinked, looking at the grid of pictures, and realized that something was missing from the looping .gif of Matt in the makeup chair. Something obvious. Something he’d seen in plain daylight for himself.

“Now that’s interesting…”

“What is?” Iman asked from the driver’s seat. John didn’t look up to see where they were, but they were still moving.

“Matt Chaney didn’t have his tattoo two months ago. The one with the theater masks.” John scrolled down – there were some entries that had been removed for violating the site’s policy, but the last shirtless picture Matt had taken was three months ago. John circled back to the top, looking at the picture of Matt sucking just a little suggestively on the smoothie straw four weeks ago in his plain white tank, and noticed the inked mask of comedy sitting above the fabric line. “But he had it last month.”

“Quite a few of the False Faces had mask tattoos,” Iman commented thoughtfully, “Including the theater one.”

“Oh yeeeah,” John mumbled, “Roman split the gang up into sections, didn’t he? What was that Melpomene-Thalia group assigned to?”

Iman’s mouth curled into a disgusted frown; that was a first for her. Her eyes crinkled and narrowed, like the car in front of her had a racist bumper-sticker. “I don’t believe those are as cut and dry as some of the others.” Her clean polished fingers clenched the steering wheel a little. “One of the masks we captured last night was on the Agency’s watch-list for threatening public officials, suspected blackmail, and grand arson. Another had a previous charge for assault, vandalism, and stalking. What does that say to you?”

Ooh, test time! Threats, destruction, stalking abilities… Put together right it could be a little terrorist group. But unlike Harvey Dent and his little militia, Roman didn’t seem to have an interest in taking a government position or two and using it for personal vendettas; he liked keeping things underground. “Sounds like the right-hand messengers – dish out destruction as your last warning before the boss order’s your death.”

“Exactly. They’re some of the top brass, so to speak. So why leave ‘Ian’ out of the Gala… Just because he was newer?” She tapped the wheel as they came to a stop. “Matt might have done the initiation and gotten the tattoo in Ian’s place, assuming Ian was dead before that. But how long had he pretended to be him? How did Ian get pulled into the gang in the first place…?”

“Probably knew a guy who knew a guy,” John shrugged, thinking of the cronies that had been brought into the Pact. “Word gets around in all kinds of circles. I bet Matt was doing ‘research’ and overheard some of Black Mask’s goons looking to hire. I’d be surprised if he didn’t stalk Ian for a while beforehand.” He drummed his fingers on his phone. “Besides, Ian’s real-life-rap-sheet wasn’t up to their level, so I bet he got put on retainer in case the Bat hit the fan. That, or they drew straws.”

She blinked, arching a brow at him. “Straws? Really?”

“Sure, the guys did it all the time in the Pact! Only hand-picked ones got to have the special jobs, y’know. The light’s green,” he added with a point.

Iman didn’t say anything, but the ‘why didn’t I think of that’ look said enough as she took off again. “I’m guessing Matt wasn’t in the ballroom when Roman showed up,” she said stiffly.

“Nope. Took Jackie to bone in the bathroom. Her words,” he explained at the look thrown his way, “Guy really plays both sides of the field – he could’ve high-tailed it before the masks arrived, but he went and stayed behind to see who survived.”

“He wasn’t there to see the end results, John – he was there to spy on Bruce.”

The thought hadn’t occurred to John before, but it seemed like made sense. “You think?”

“Bruce is a billionaire with some serious social connections and an infamy for throwing money around various charitable causes. I’d be surprised if the Court of Owls wasn’t trying to circle his heels – on paper, he’s a potentially ideal pigeon.”

John’s grin practically split his face in two as he cackled, slapping the door’s armrest before remembering he shouldn’t break things that belonged to friends. “Ahee ha ha HA – a-a STOOLIE thinks Bruce is a PIGEON !”

John could’ve sworn he’d heard something that sounded like a chuckle not coming from him, but Iman definitively cleared her throat as his last laugh petered out.

“Ha ha, sorry – I couldn’t resist. You really think they’re after him for his money?”

“If not, it’s probably to get close enough to kill him,” she continued as if she wasn’t also feeling like icy water had slipped down to her stomach, “He might have had a hand in dismantling the Pact, but even if they don’t put his own criminal behavior during that period or his family name against him, everyone knows he’s close to you – they might want to kill him on principal.”

That was an interesting thought. The kind that jabbed him in the ribs but sent that helpless spark of intrigue into his brain. “I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am,” he ribbed lightly, “Guess I should’ve taken that book’s quote about the slightest hand being guided by the Devil a little more seriously…”

“Well, I didn’t think about it until this morning, either.”

There was a pause, and John drummed his fingers against his thigh, unsure of what to say. If Iman was right – and there was a pretty darn high chance she was – that meant Bruce wasn’t safe in or out of the Batsuit. And he was already halfway into the suit, following an Owl wearing a literal False Face right into Black Mask’s hiding spot. That…might not end well, if Matt was able to get a message out to the Owls before Bruce or Tiffany body-slammed him.

It was probably a good idea to tell Bruce that. Just in case something over-the-top levels of weird happened. Be careful buddy!!, he started, Jackie’s boytoy from the party is our mysterious double-agent – aka that guy Matt Chaney ur chasing rn. And yeeees I’m uploading everything so just concentrate on plucking his feathers and punching Skullface so I still have a Bat to smooch later. ;p

Iman seemed to be thinking. That, or she was concentrating on the road – they had come to a weirder part of town, where street names were confusingly labeled with similar (if not exact) names one after another. They passed a Rodney St only to see Rodey St right after it.

John decided to scroll through Matt’s MuSec page, which automatically sorted by most popular and didn’t change when the filter was set to sort by date. A lot of it looked like duplicate videos from InstaPic, but the ones of Bludhaven stood out like the Batsignal against a cloudy night sky, most of them looking just as Jackie had described. He ignored the bulk of them, eying date stamps instead, thinking back to the original Ian Coggs’ last day in Bludhaven’s mental care facility.

Nothing, nothing, and more nothing. He guessed it was too much to hope for something obviously linking him to Ian ‘Nito’. The only thing he could discern was that Matt never seemed to take videos with other people unless he was on stage with them. No hangouts with friends, no secret recordings of strangers – just Matt, his career, and his home. Just him, him, him.

It didn’t feel familiar to John at all. He pulled up InstaPic again, scrolling through the group-shots - it was just the same kind of smile on Matt’s face plastered on each one, barely varying between fans and costars, the angle always being a tilted selfie from Matt’s hand. It was almost like the attempt at Bruce’s charming photo-ready smile John had seen back at the Gala. But of course anyone who knew Bruce beyond the surface knew that those smiles were -

…ah.

As fake as Bruce’s past “romances” – maybe some had substance, somewhere, but ultimately they meant nothing.

The MuSec page might have held no criminal evidence, but it sure helped prove that Matt Chaney was a selfish prick.

Now Jackie Lant, on the other hand… One glance told him her MuSec was the opposite of Matt’s. The thumbnails showed clear collaborations and only a couple of standalone videos of her on stage or in her makeup chair. Her InstaPic showed a lot of the same things, but with a UBox link at the top and Matt’s face on every row of images with some different and seemingly-genuine expressions. She had less

followers – 3055 - to Matt’s ridiculous 8055 – but she had likes and reblogs a-plenty on both pages, and where Matt had three uploads all week, Jackie had three or more every day. Particularly of various takeaway outings, the last of which showed a Citizens Against Bats flyer in the window – the bat symbol crossed out in red, of course, and a group meeting advertised for next week with a burner number – and the caption “signs that your restaurant is a front for something shady #OnlyInGotham #atleasttheirpizzasmellsgood”.

The upload times were erratic, but Wednesday highlighted her story of being out with Matt there – any opportunity for a picture of or with him was there for everyone to see. Nothing concrete from a hah-they-weren’t-doing-crimes-together perspective, but from a character one…there was only one conclusion he could draw.

“What’s so funny?” Iman asked from the driver’s seat.

He’d didn’t think his giggling was that obvious. That, or her peripheral vision was really good, even when driving. “I was in a really dark place last night. The itching to hurt myself and anything around me kind of place. And when I saw a car pull around at an opportune time, I didn’t care who was in it – and for someone who couldn’t sympathize enough with the horrible thoughts us patients spilled on the couch, Jackie had no problem putting up with me. Even today! She just welcomed me in helped me out like we were pals. And I didn’t really think about it before, but picture after picture here proves what I could guess - she did it because she was lonely! Ha ha ha - imagine being so desperate for company you’d let me, the mental patient your boss wouldn’t let you talk to without supervision, in your car! Aha ha ha ha ha haa!” The laugh made his lungs ache with pressure, but he didn’t care. “What’s funnier is… I get it! It’s like getting a visitor after being in the Hole: you don’t care who it is; anything’s better than being by yourself.”

“I don’t see how that’s funny,” Iman said coolly, “She didn’t have many friends living in Gotham by the time she left. I imagine she’s had a hard time really bonding with other people due to losing so many in traumatic fashions – and after a traumatic event like last night’s hostage situation, it’s reasonable that she wanted to help you, especially since she knows you already. It would be both grounding and give her a sense of accomplishment and heroism that she couldn’t have fulfilled at the manor.”

Man, Iman sure had a way with words. “Yeah, but you missed the point – it’s me. That’s what makes it funny. If it were almost anyone else…ehh,” he added with a shrug. “I mean, if we only mildly knew one another – like we parted ways after my whole stunt trying to kill Waller – and you saw me stop your car and just hop in it, gnashing my teeth and barely holding myself together, would you just go along with it?”

“Yes, I would,” Iman answered, not a dishonest syllable to be heard, “Though I’d make sure we’d talk to your doctor right away and get you to a safer place than that hotel.”

John hadn’t really expected that answer. He knew Bruce would say yes, but he didn’t like leaving hurt people alone to begin with, and Bruce was less likely to call a doctor and far more likely take care of things himself. John had expected Iman to think carefully before answering with a noncommittal variation of ‘yes’. What a caring gal. “Man, you were wasted on the Agency,” he answered warmly, “You’re way too good for them.”

Iman gave a soft smile in return, which John took as a wordless ‘thanks’. “Is everything sent to the BatComputer?”

He’d forgotten to start the transfer. “Iiit’s still working on it,” John fumbled as he pulled up the share function of his phone’s gallery. Sure enough, the crummy tower signal he was getting told him it would take a while to upload anyway. Sharing the texts was much faster, at least. “Still no response from Bruce, though…”

“Just because he can text on his gauntlet doesn’t mean he should,” Iman teased, “He’ll be fine. He and Tiffany are looking after one another.”

John hummed, wanting to believe that despite the sting at the mention of Tiffany. Bruce usually texted back fast, even as Batman…

The Herold Rite’s Theatre appeared around the corner, tearing John away from his thoughts. Its old playbill sign was yellowed and empty, but the lights surrounding it weren’t broken and the theater’s name was still perfectly legible. It just looked…dreary. Sunburnt paper covered the inside of the ticket booth’s glass behind the thin metal storm shutters. Laminated notices on each of the doors’ shutters showcased the place as under construction, do not enter, yadda yadda yadda, but the fractured plastic and faded ink reminded passerby’s it had been out-of-commission for some time.

“I’m guessing we’re not taking the front door,” John joked.

“There’s a staff exit we can break into around the back.” Iman pulled the car into the shady alleyway nearby. “I’ve already checked for city footage, this place is almost invisible. City inspections haven’t been officially done in a month, and it’s been closed for a couple of years now.”

“So we should expect lots of graffiti and garbage inside, huh?”

“Most likely. I’d be surprised if someone hadn’t tried living in it before now. If anything, we at least have to watch out for rats.”

“I thought owls ate those,” John nudged, getting a chuckle in response.

“I don’t think they’ve gone that native.” She parked just in front of the dumpster. “Get changed, I’ll wait where you can see me.”

The jumpsuit was loose enough to cover John’s clothes; he didn’t like the idea of taking anything off in Iman’s car (even if the windows were tinted and she was waiting with her back to him by the driver-side door) so he simply zipped it over everything else, tossing his St. Dymphna phone in the center armrest for safekeeping. The coveralls were annoyingly baggy to the point where he found himself pulling at the bunches of fabric around his waist and trying to figure out if he could tuck them in as he trailed behind Iman’s flat thuds of proper work-boots.

The sun was clearly already in early-summer mode, beating down on his shoulders the second he’d stepped out of the car – it didn’t matter that the sun wasn’t actually shining in their dark little corner, of course. It was omnipresent and tearing through layers of brick to hit him, specifically, like a punishment for looking where he shouldn’t. At least it felt like it.

John rubbed the back of his neck, the heat of his palm not helping. He didn’t know why he felt...paranoid. He was here, right now, growing steadily sweaty with stupid layers and summer heat, and he had a right to poke into business if it was his. Which this definitely was. He looked over his shoulder, not seeing so much as a camera, and looked around the roof edges for any sign of life.

Of course there was nothing there, because for all the strides he’d taken, his brain still liked to trick him.

Iman bent before the door with a very used-looking toolkit. John wondered at what to say.

He pushed the ideas of ‘Should we really be here’ and ‘Do you think they roost on rooftops’ away. “Didn’t you normally just kick the door down?” he joked lightly.

“I thought it would be best to be stealthy about this.” The lock clicked. “Besides, it’d be a waste if I didn’t get to actually use this after all the practicing I’ve done,” she boasted, tucking the kit away in one of her very deep pockets.

“You’re not gonna start wearing leather and cat ears on the job, are you?”

Iman pulled a face somewhere between amused and disturbed. “No. At least I hope not.”

The theater was even drearier inside. It reminded John of the Old Five Points, minus the working lights and water, and plus the smell of buttered popcorn practically soaked into what was left of the carpet. It felt as damp and dark as it looked, mold and mildew creeping in his nose to mingle with popcorn only a few steps in.

Iman passed him a small clip-on flashlight, having her own clinging to the pocket with the gear-shaped ‘G’. John clipped it to his jumpsuit’s collar, remembering how Bruce had a similar one on his cape when they had explored the mausoleum last year. Only now they were dependent on only the flashlights and not on loud EDM and glow-stick-filled pumpkins to guide them.

“There don’t appear to be any heat signatures in any of these…” Iman turned her head slowly, seeming to scan the hallway of supply rooms like a robot.

“Ooh, did you steal Bruce’s special contacts?”

“I borrowed them – with permission. Same goes for these,” Iman emphasized with a smile, handing John a few Bat-decorated goodies. A small can of tear gas, two Batarangs, and a palm-sized remote taser . John ran this thumb just over the edge of the thin blade, excitement prickling at his temples. “Hopefully, we won’t have to use them. These are strictly loaner pieces.”

John tucked them all away, no longer hating the roomy coveralls. “Oh, no worries, I get ’cha.”

“You can’t keep them,” she added pointedly.

“I wouldn’t dream of it! And I’m sure you wouldn’t keep them in your car for a rainy day and write the loss off as a misadventure,” he needled, “Not that I’d say anything if you did.”

Iman looked like she was definitely noting that to herself. “Let’s start checking rooms. I’ll take the right side.”

“You got it.”

Graffiti of all kinds was plastered on the walls, mostly tags covering parts of worn-out posters or stickers. Which would’ve been fine, if it hadn’t been clear that someone had gone to the trouble of drawing thick black lines over the middle of them all, regardless of size. It reminded John of censor marks over people’s eyes in photos. Some were darker than others, showing the paint can was running out but still usable, and it brought to mind the tics made on the asylum walls, counting days like they mattered.

A couple of Bat-symbols not unlike the one shown from the G.C.P.D. roof were scattered around, all but one in bright yellow crossed out. The paint had dripped from the wing and tail end before it dried. John took a picture of it, feeling like he’d seen the beacon itself, and then opened the supply room it was next to, finding replacement seats stained with something dark he didn’t want to think about and two very broken popcorn makers shoved inside.

A prop room was next, so cluttered he didn’t think he could walk three feet into without getting impaled on a plastic spear. He spied a copy of his clown smiley-face tucked away by a familiar red-pyramid-and-floating-eyeball that had been crossed out with a large ‘x’, but decided against taking a picture of it. He wasn’t sure if he liked his logo there, sitting among the scrawled-out bats…

“Nothing here.” Iman had seemingly found a cleaning closet with a crudely-drawn pentagram and ‘hail satin’ still legible by the door.

“Ha, talk about your false idols,” John cracked as Iman followed his line of sight, “Now, velvet - there’s a fabric I could worship!”

“Personally I don’t think there’s anything better than a cashmere sweater, but I don’t think I’d hail it,” Iman shot back with a chuckle.

John peeked in a blank dressing room, seeing nothing but a costume rack with two moth-eaten dresses, a dressing table with half its bulbs missing or broken on the floor, and a lot of molding cardboard boxes, most of which had been upturned and whatever contents inside torn apart or left on the floor. John spied a broken beer bottle and a suspiciously familiar sort of stain on the wall. “Nooothing here.”

“John, come look at this.”

John went over to her side, passing two doors that clearly didn’t open, and peeked over her shoulder at what looked like a dressing room. This one had more dust-covered boxes and a foggy vinyl sheet hanging over a long rack of costumes shoved in the back, with just enough room to walk. It looked like just another haven for moths and dust. “It sure is a room of gross moldy boxes,” he commented.

“No, look – that costume rack is half-full.”

“So?”

“So there’s a pathway back there and the people who trashed this place didn’t think to take a look?”

“Ah-haa.”

Iman went straight for the rack, carefully stepping around boxes as John examined the ones that seemed open, finding old promotional trading cards for an old sci-fi film with big-brained aliens sitting on some boring looking documents in one. Another had costume pieces, which he almost didn’t bother with until he saw a flash of purple, and then the instinct to rifle through things fell in his hands. He tossed things out and shoved everything aside in a flurry of colored fabric and plastic and pulled out what he could only think of as the best hat he’d ever seen.

A violet-colored and practically pristine wide-brimmed fedora. John couldn’t help but let out an ooh and turn it over in his hands. It was almost, if not exactly the color of his long coat back at the cave. It was like it was made for him. Even the dark fabric band on it was more deep green than black.

“John - don’t. You don’t know where that’s been.”

“Aw, come on, it’s clean! And look, it has a real label inside!” He flipped it to show her the faded gold print, hoping to turn her concerned frown upside-down. It did not, and he could practically hear what she was going to say next. “Fiiine, I’ll keep looking for evidence,” he groaned, putting the perfect hat gently back in the box. “I’ll come back for you later,” he muttered to himself.

His phone buzzed in his pocket – another text from Jackie:

Camera pics uploaded to my share drive: https://bit.gt.gd/S3272019F?=RO

Sorry it took so long. Kinda forcing myself to feel like this rn lol

She tacked on a picture of a dog calmly sitting at a table surrounding by a raging fire, staring at their coffee mug like nothing was wrong. John snickered to himself.

Ha ha ha ha!!! You’ve done it!! You’ve boiled this whole week down into a single classic meme!!! He texted back, Thanks pumpkinhead, I’ll pass these on to Bats!! ;D

“Was that Bruce?” Iman asked as John forwarded the link to the BatComputer’s catch-all.

“Nope. The other photographic evidence finally came in,” he answered, resuming his search.

The last visible open box held a lot of plastic badge holders – the kind that he’d seen the Arkham and St. Dymphna staff use to display their ID’s. But behind the boxes, not covered in a speck of dust… “Now what do you suppose a perfectly good printer is doing in a place like this?” John asked rhetorically.

“Probably making ID’s to match these.”

John peered over at the costume rack –polo shirts, dress pants, and bullet-proof vests hung there with an array of logos.

“Gotham Construction, Janus Industries, G.C.P.D., Gotham E.M.T. – Wayne Enterprises…” Iman grumbled, her thoughts seeming to swirl behind her brow. “Is there a laptop or tower connected to that printer?”

“Nope. There’s only…that thing near it.”

She peered over his shoulder. “That’s a signal repeater. It’s an older model.” She looked at her phone for a moment, poking around. “We can probably trace the router signal; the network its broadcasting isn’t from the surrounding buildings.”

John snapped a picture of the setup. “What, you think they have an Owl-themed computer set up somewhere?”

“That’s possible, but I was thinking more like a tablet or laptop that’s making the IDs. They’re portable, easily hidden or disposed of, and can easily support the software. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were trying to take down security systems or using social media to recruit, too – but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

He snapped a picture of the rack of clothing, too. “You really think they’ll leave that laying around in here?”

“I’m more hoping they have. But I bet we’ll find the nest if we find the router this signal is coming from.”

The room next to it was wide open and all but beckoning them inside, a spray-painted black bat flying above the door. It was another dressing room, but it looked cleaned out – the makeup table was dust-free and had all its bulbs, and there was a minimal amount of boxes in there.

Iman walked in, heading straight to the lone garbage can and squatting to take a better look. “At least we know someone used this one for more than making fake IDs.”

John took a look at the table. A smear of a peach-toned neutral was left on the surface otherwise wiped off with what smelled like cheap makeup remover. “And they left a mess.”

“That’s good news for us,” Iman chuffed, “Looks like they tossed their contact in the wrong place. It doesn’t look tinted – probably corrective.”

John watched as Iman pulled tweezers out of her pocket and prepared to tuck the evidence away into a small plastic bag. “Someone came prepared,” he muttered enviously, looking around for anything that could be considered useful.

The streak was likely residue from Sonja’s makeup, since Bruce thought it was connected to The Lot. She might have changed in there, too, both heading in and out… If Bruce were here, he could likely use his amped-up forensic skills and handy-dandy gear to analyze the chair, but unless Iman had a pocket-sized version hidden on her, that was a moot option. What he did have was an imagination and a penchant for peeking in places he normally shouldn’t.

The only working drawer had a mish-mash of makeup in a rainbow of powders, pencils, and various flesh-toned pastes sitting next to a tub of Moddy and an empty bottle of Janus Clear-Away Makeup Remover. The tiny brushes and sponges besides them were all, unfortunately, clean as bristly whistles.

John eyed the streak on the tabletop, picturing someone sitting there and wiping foundation away…

Actually, the smear on the surface went all the way around to the edge, like someone had spilled or squirted too much from the bottle. And there was one broken bulb at the corner of the lined mirror, like something had knocked into it…

“Hey, Iman – the Lot shooter, were they left handed or right handed?”

“Left handed.” Iman stood next to him, examining the table. “She carried her purse on her right shoulder and opened the room door with her left hand.”

“And Jackie’s right handed, further proving my side,” he rubbed in, “So if I dropped it here,” he tried, miming dropping a bag on the table and sliding his hand on the left to crash the bottle of foundation into the bulb, “it might’ve fallen over.”

“There’s scuff marks by the chair,” Iman pointed out, “She was wearing heels, I wouldn’t be surprised if she slipped after wearing them for so long. Especially if she’s not used to them.”

“So, like-” John popped into position, miming a fall while keeping his balance on one leg – “whoooops!” He spread both hands, as if knocking things over while trying to catch himself on the table. “Crash!”

Iman kneeled to the right of his leg. “There’s a tube of foundation under here. And it looks like...” She reappeared a moment later with a poker chip held in her tweezers. “Good thinking, John.”

John straightened, pride inflating with a self-esteem boost.

“Looks like a promotional chip – they leave them in the rooms for guests.” She turned it over, exposing the logo – it looked a series of sticks in a fist. “It’s definitely from The Lot.”

John took a picture of it. “Five bucks? Cheapskates.”

Iman tucked the new piece of evidence back where she had picked it up from. “I’ll just make a note of this one.”

That was…unusual, to say the least. “Uh, why?”

“Because the Lot killer wore gloves; this just proves that they stopped here. If the G.C.P.D. does a raid later, they can point to it as evidence. Even though it’ll be labeled as circumstantial, it’s something noteworthy.”

“Buuut you’re taking the contact lens…?”

“So I can run a DNA match, if there’s anything on it. I’ll just put it back later.”

“Iman, that’s cheating,” John said with a titter, “I knew I liked you.”

There didn’t seem to be anything left in the room for them to search, so they moved on, turning the corner and finding locked or obstructed doors or rooms stuffed full of garbage from squatters one after another the closer they got to the stage entrance; the graffiti continued with them, countless symbols of anarchy censored out, the bat symbols disappearing altogether as the wireless signal Iman was tracing got stronger.

Iman pushed open the stage door, a dreadful squeal ripping through the air. John expected a pigeon or two to fly from the holes in the curtains up to the burnt, partially-dilapidated ceiling barely illuminated by a few leftover construction lights running on power-saving mode. The projector screen that had clearly been added after the initial build was still hanging stubbornly from the shoddy catwalk. The whole place smelled strange, must and mold mingling with a smell like cigarette burns on sheets.

“There should be a trapdoor under the stage for performers,” Iman commented as she led the way, “I’ll bet that’s where our nest is.”

John followed her, glancing out over the open stage and feeling something hitch in his stomach at the sight of the rows and rows of empty seats. They stood sturdy against the test of time despite the occasional moth-eaten holes, all silent and dark, not a flutter of movement among a single seat all the way up to the rafters. He could see the black, shadowy area in the back where the fire had seemed to start and trail away up to the ceiling. “Why is this place so creepy?”

“Because you’re expecting an audience when you go on a stage, and there isn’t one,” Iman said, prying at a section of the floor with a small crowbar she had pulled out from her jumpsuit. She grunted, prying hard at the section of floor that was suspiciously less dusty than the rest. “Can you give me a hand?”

He couldn’t resist. The joke was right there. “Sure!” He clapped his hands together. “Good hustle, kid! I like your realism!”

“Very funny,” she grumbled, prying again.

“Ha ha, sorry – but you walked right into it!” John moved to the opposite side of the trapdoor, stomping hard on the end he was sure was meant to go down. One foot wasn’t enough, but he felt a shift, so he stomped harder as Iman pried. “Ugh, come on, move!” He jumped on the end with both feet, realizing too late it was a bad idea as the floor gave away.

He landed with a hard thud on the balls of his feet, automatically bending at his knees and finding himself still stumbling to his side and knocking over something tall with a fwump and clatter of wood. “I’m okay!” he called up, rubbing his newly-bruised elbow, “But I definitely didn’t stick the landing!”

Iman landed next to him with a soft plat of boots, hands already steadying him as he rose back up. “Are you sure? Can you rotate your ankles?”

“Ha, it’ll take more than a poorly-placed coatrack to take me down.” He squinted at the little green light in the corner of the room over her shoulder. “At least we found your mystery-router.”

The wireless router was plugged into an outlet that looked like it had hastily been rewired, sitting by an open door that was obviously made to blend into the wall. There didn’t seem to be any lights strung up anywhere for easier viewing.

“Hopefully we’ll find what they were connecting to it, too.”

Their clip-on lights illuminated some of the room, showing another costume rack with several empty hangers and not a piece of clothing in sight. An old map of Gotham could be seen among a throng of paper tacked on the walls. A few plastic grocery bags holding emptied, bug-attracting food containers and the squashed couch shoved in the corner with a cheap blanket made it feel like it was a squatter’s den; the difference was the large picture of an owl that had been carved on the wall over a century ago, it’s clawed feet bared viciously at them.

“Seems like more of a burrow than a nest,” John commented, spying a cockroach scurrying to hide beneath one of the makeshift garbage bags, “‘No amenities; makes Arkham feel welcoming. Zero stars.’”

At least that made Iman laugh a little, which toned down the creepy vibe and widened the smile on John’s face.

Iman seemed to gravitate towards the wall of paper, so John followed suite. Mug-shots and stolen police forms were front-and-center, faces crossed out with a black ‘x’.

“Ugh, and someone’s crossing people off their little list,” John grunted in disgust, looking over the crossed-out faces. “Hey, that’s the guy who got stabbed in the eye on the Chandis!”

“That’s not surprising, Randolf Barron is over here. And Jack Whendleham, Kirby Noltz… It looks like everyone found on board the ship is here.”

“Plus a few gals from Poison Ivy’s gang… I know that guy’s in with the 8-Bits… Little Nel from the Rossi family? I thought he left Gotham seven years ago.”

“He did,” Iman grunted, “He was released from prison on good behavior; the Rossi’s blew up his car when he decided to leave the mob. He changed his name and moved to somewhere on the East coast. I think we can officially cross off any personal grudges,” she continued, shining her light elsewhere, “since Selina Kyle’s picture is also over here.”

Hers was the only one unmarked, and one of three on the whole wall that weren’t official police photos. John (thankfully) did not see his own face up there.

Iman turned to face the old wooden office desk behind them, so John followed along.

A knife was sitting on a pedestal there, clearly some kind of ceremonial dagger with the image of an owl bearing its claws and spreading its wings up the handle. The filing drawer was ajar and the surface was partially littered with highlighted and circled article pieces about Batman, even the Gotham Moonrise picture of Batman, Joker, and a somewhat-concealed Jim Gordon standing at the back of an ambulance.

Only where Joker was supposed to be, there was nothing but crooked edges– John had been cut out of the picture entirely. “Looks like our Owl’s a jealous rival Bat-fan, too.”

Iman flipped through the other half of the papers. “Looks like they stalked Selina for a while,” she mumbled, “They found her rental contract for her gallery and got a copy of the blueprint.”

John peered over at it – exits were marked and security shifts were scribbled on the printed map. Pictures were called for; he made sure to get the whole wall of photos.

Iman pulled open the top drawer slowly, revealing several charging cables in varying degrees of broken and two bottles of medication with the labels torn off. She shook the bottle to take a closer look at them without opening it. “White powder, pullapart capsule type… NVR R20. And I don’t have a signal down here. I wish I knew a pharmacist.”

John perked up. “Ooh, wait! I know that one…” he trailed, mentally sorting through the list of all the drugs he’d ever used, traded, or stolen, “Ritalin!”

She hummed thoughtfully, putting the bottle back and taking out the other, with little dull-green capsules rattling around. “And what I’m fairly sure is R-2 - Rohypnol.”

“I don’t remember seeing anyone up there being drugged before they died. That we know of, anyway…”

“They could be using it as a counteractive to the Ritalin, if they take a high enough dose. Some cocaine users take Rohypnol to come down easier. Anything in your side of the desk?”

John pulled open the first drawer. A few more paper copies of police reports and photos, with Harvey Dent’s picture on the top of the pile. His police report and a messy copy of his Arkham admittance sat underneath. “Looks like our next set of fresh victims include some more notorious Gothamites; ‘Big Bad Harvey’ is in here.” He flipped more, spying ‘Cannibal’ Carl Whistley and Victor Zsasz. “And some of the guys from my floor…”

“I’m not surprised, at this point,” Iman commented, wedging open the stuck filing drawer.

John flipped further, and felt his heart jolt horribly. “And Bruce.” He was sure he wasn’t imagining the photo in his hands of Bruce Wayne at the podium during his publicity stunt almost two years ago, where he announced devoting his money to fixing Arkham before he was almost run over. Everything felt too real. “I can’t believe they’re using this photo.”

John had found the whole segment amusing at the time, mulling over how handsome he seemed, all clean-shaven and acting all daring by getting out of the way just in time like he’d done it before, wondering to himself just how much danger Bruce could actually handle, how much they could both put themselves in on the outside together…

John scoffed at himself. “I really should’ve put Bruce and Batman together when I saw him dodge that van like it was no problem. But I thought ‘nah, Batman’s a completely different person!’ But I also thought Bruce would fit in with Harley’s ideas about stealing a potential cure for our little problems – shows how much I knew.” He flipped the picture over, spying the very shoddy record of Bruce’s time with the Pact laid out in a photocopied police form. “Looks like you were right about Bruce’s Pact past coming back to bite him; his form’s in here.”

“At least we know he’s not a current target,” Iman said, not comforting John very much, “This person seems like they want to finish what they started before moving onto something new. And if they were after Bruce now, they would’ve followed him straight to you a dozen times by now. We know that’s not the case,” Iman soothed with a light hand on his shoulder. She took it away a moment later. “And there is some good news – we have their tablet,” Iman added, holding up a tablet computer that was far too thick to be new. “Which means we can get out of here and reconnect with Batman and Robin.”

“I don’t know about the Robin part right now,” John pouted, walking out alongside her, “but I’m all for leaving the Gallery-o’-Death.”

Iman tucked the tablet into the fabric belt around her waist and dug her foot into the makeshift foothold nailed to the wall who-knew-how-many years ago. John looked away, not wanting to be weird and watch her as she hoisted herself up to the edge of the opening, but didn’t want to turn around entirely in case she slipped or needed a boost.

Just as he folded his arms and tapped his fingers against the healing cuts on his forearm, he heard an odd hiss.

He looked up too late – Iman slipped back down, coughing as she landed on top of him, sending them both to the ground in a bruising heap.

John grunted, trying to sit them both up and ending up sliding backwards instead as Iman struggled to not collapse back on top of him, coughing into her hand and trying to wipe away something from her face. “Hey – are you okay?!”

She didn’t look like she was. She was blinking hard, taking in sucking breaths, and doing a bad job of trying to point upward. John followed her finger towards the only exit.

The light was blocked out and there came a soft thump as a tall dark figure with broad shoulders and the painted wooden face of an owl with short horns protruding from the top of their head faced him, the eyes glowing white in the light.

The Owl-man tilted his head, as if regarding John like a curious animal, and light blue mist puffed out of the thick metal tube wrapped around his outstretched arm before John could move away.

John coughed and sputtered, tasting salt, and saw the world around him tilt on its axis as he tried to move backward, Iman’s weight collapsing onto his legs with a sighing breath.

There was little room to move and Iman was suddenly heavier than normal, but John still fumbled for the Bat-stamped taser in his pocket, hoping he could throw it or shock the Batman-knockoff when he came close enough.

He thought he might throw up from the sudden blurry movement of everything. His fingers wouldn’t move the way he wanted them to. Everything felt like it was teetering nonstop.

He felt the taser in his hand. Heard boots on the floor as he blinked away the awful seesawing layout.

He could feel the button trigger under his thumb, he just had to get his arm to move...

John blinked hard, feeling a familiar tug of his conscious towards the void at the back of his brain as he tried to focus on the closest thing he could, the bare coatrack lying on the floor.

“You shouldn’t be here,” a low, hoarse voice whispered to him in the dark, as it had done a hundred times before...

† † † † †

Notes: John's path to a better life outside of Arkham is a rocky one filled with the kind of problems he's very tired of dealing with. But unlike Bruce, who channels his issues into his drive to keep Gotham and his loved ones safe via detective work and kicking criminal butt, John finds it difficult to sort through his problems because he mainly needs emotional support. He and Bruce both have to face harsh things in this story, but John's journey is always the driving force behind it's very creation. It's interesting to really look at the parallel between Bruce and John right now: John has few people who's supportive of him (and would have less if "the player" made bad decisions regarding his new friends) and desperately needs it, and Bruce has a very steady group behind him 24/7 but still struggles with wanting to be alone; John struggles to hold onto reality and needs to remind himself that Bruce is always there for him, and Bruce just wants the escape from the world that John brings but can never seem to have him around long enough; Bruce is almost overly-protective over the people he works with and John is a little over-confident in people's abilities to take care of themselves. (Though both have problems taking care of themselves, ha ha!)

Have some fun facts!: 1) In this storyline, if Iman wasn't around, John would've gotten a Ryde; in the Villain route, John's clown-posse would've picked him up…or maybe he drives his own clown car? 2) If Jackie wasn't around, John bumps into Matt directly at the Gala, steals a car to go to the Hotel/the Theater, and searches the hotel room by himself. Jackie's part of Sonja is instead played by an innocent nobody Matt is dating and John doesn't get as upset. 3) I debated the "destined hat" John finds for, like, an hour. I think BtAS had Joker in a bolero, and I am a sucker for that style and making loving homages. I ended up with a fedora because it leans more with John's budding mockery of a classic detective. 4) You know, I mentioned the villain route…yes, Bruce has the option to fuck Joker (/cheat on Selina, if applicable) last chapter in that route, too, because who am I to stop you? ;) He and John do still have their little heart-to-heart here, but since the story plays out a little differently, it's missing the heart-wrenching confession John gives and the acceptance he gets, and is instead a convo/argument centered around John's and Bruce's possessiveness over one another. 5) If there's no Robin or Iman, Alfred is actually who alerts Bruce to BM's hideout, even if their relationship is rocky and regardless of which John you have. 6) If by some miracle Jackie is here, but your John's a villain, their interaction is a lot more tense and there's no real friendship forged. 7) The camera feature John has wouldn't be allowed all the time - like you couldn't take pictures of Bruce's butt, or the inside of Iman's swanky ride, for example - but I think there would be spots, like the Theater or Hotel Room, where you'd have free range. If I were making this a real game, I'd probably sneak in a bunch more Easter eggs: references to Condiment King, Bat-Cow, fandom members' usernames… What would you guys add?

If I had to pick a favorite thing to write this time around, the first is John's conversation with Bruce because I've been building to it, and the second is Jackie Lant! My Halloween baby, my pumpkin-pie, my darling depressed mess! I was planning her breakdown with John ever since the start of the story, but it was nice to craft her and John's bonding points over time.

Next chapter (which hopefully will be less than 3 months from now) we join back with Batman and Robin. Considering the timing of everything I've planned, it might be the first chapter that has both Bruce and John's "perspectives" in it… That, or I'll have to split it into two chapters. In the meantime, wear your mask, wash your hands, donate to BLM any way you can, and take care of yourself. (⌯˘̤ ॢᵌ ू˘̤)യ♡

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