Then Be Batman [DC SI]
- Thread starter Nugar
- Start date
Vulpine Fury
in socks
Hell, SI-Bruce just earned a TON of "Batman" XP and is, through the Transitive Property of Narrativium inherent in a Bat-Skill, helping Batman in other universes to manage the billionaire playboy philanthropist side of the secret identity divide.
- Location
- US-Ark
When I was writing her, I originally intended for her to be the date. But as I was describing her and doing the setup, I realized that this was a lady with no time nor patience for that sort of nonsense, she has shit to do.
She'll be a major supporting character, kinda like Lucius Fox but for charity instead of business.
Unpretty is the single biggest inspiration for this, both for me as a writer, but also for the SI, who's read fanfics as well as comics. That's the Batman he wants to be.
So he actually didn't get any Batman XP for doing this.
But more on that later. It's good of you to notice that there SHOULD be XP for it.
Modus_Tollens
SCREAMING AT THE APOCALYPSE
- Location
- ALSO SCREAMING.
Which kind of had me imagine Batman and Bruce Wayne having their own character sheets. Which would be hilarious, I admit.
Mors
Searching for immanence
Yup, Nugar said there's no Batman XP, so my first reaction was - did he get Bruce Wayne XP?
Suit up and beat up criminals -> Bat XP. Go to parties and do charity -> millionaire playboy philanthropist XP. Makes sense for a Gamer!
Modus_Tollens
SCREAMING AT THE APOCALYPSE
- Location
- ALSO SCREAMING.
From the looks of it this Bruce is going to be going to be a bit more of a Renaissance Man in his pursuit of Noblesse Oblige. He blew in like a storm and immediately rewrote how a charity should be expected to function, detailing the step-by-step and making it happen by force of personality and the might of his checkbook. If he keeps this sort of thing up he's going to make Carnegie look like a chump and he'll be looking into dipping his hand into city planning shenanigans.
Until Batman starts taking down terroristic villains who are going to be racking up four digit kill counts, well, at this rate its going to be the Bruce aspect that is over leveled.
That's when Batman will go for a walk in Gotham.
A very enthusiastic walk.
Had a stroke.
Rest well and recover soon, Nugar.
Ethan Eldritch
Multi-Dimensional Eldritch Tree
- Location
- The Void between
- Pronouns
- Tree
Bro no one would expect you to be writing any time soon.
- Location
- Somewhere with a Thousand Watchful Eyes
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Good luck with your recovery.
Get better soon and become immortal so that we can read your stories forever please...
Chapter 5
- Location
- US-Ark
Running around Gotham rooftops in the middle of the night while dressed as a giant bat sounds a lot cooler than it is.
Actually, it fucking sucks.
It's hot. Grit and Endurance mean I'm even more resistant to heat now than I was growing up in Louisiana without air conditioning, but it's still unpleasant. It was early June and the temps were climbing, and the breeze was going towards the ocean.
Mostly, though, I just can't get over how ridiculous this is.
I'm dressed as a giant goddamn bat. I'm a billionaire running around trying to personally stop crime. I'm not even being loud and visible, which does more to stop crime than sneaking about trying to catch people in the act. There's a reason cop cars are easily identifiable when they do patrols.
It's stupid. It's just so goddamn stupid.
I know I need to do it. I'm obligated to do it.
Doesn't mean I don't hate every moment of it.
Anyway. I'd actually originally intended to wait a bit before I went back out. I need to redesign my grapple harpoon. I also need to design some solid anchor points I can quietly install on rooftop edges.
But I'm out here for one very good reason.
Kaye Austin, the woman whose husband was abusing her the night before?
She never went to a shelter.
Now, there's potentially plenty of perfectly understandable reasons for that.
Her husband got his arm dislocated and an enforced power nap last night. He almost certainly ended up going to the doctor. She might have thought he wouldn't be a threat for a while. Or maybe she was just bunkering down, and kicked him out of the apartment. Or maybe she had family to go to.
Or maybe she didn't trust the intentions of the giant guy in the black bat suit who broke into her home and punched her husband.
All perfectly understandable reasons to not go to a women's shelter.
Worse reasons include things like, forgiving her husband, or being too scared of retaliation to leave him.
I intervened once, and now I've gotta go check on her. I stepped in to stop her from getting the shit beat out of her by her husband, and now it's my responsibility to keep checking in on her. Sort of like that old saying that, once you save a life, you're responsible for that life.
Please don't be dead.
Please don't be dead.
That's all I could think about as I made my way through Gotham that night.
There's lots of reasons to not go to a shelter.
Just don't be dead.
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Fuck.
She's dead.
God. Damn. It.
I should have put that abusive fuck in a body cast. I should have escorted her to the shelter.
I should have, I should have.
But instead, I was staring in the apartment window at the dead woman on the floor of her kitchen.
All of my civilian mindset was saying things like, if I break in, I could potentially contaminate the scene. I should just call the cops. It was obviously the husband, even Gotham PD isn't likely to fuck that up.
But that's not taking responsibility. And what if it wasn't the husband? There's plenty of other murderers in Gotham. I'm in the shoes of the guy who should have been the world's greatest detective. I'm not a civilian. I'm a vigilante.
Time to vigil.
There weren't any bars over the windows on this building, and while there were locks, I've got a flat tool purpose made to jimmy open windows. Also, while I'm a big man, my agility is high, and I slipped in without making a mess, closing the window behind me.
I had my Observe skill going the entire time.
Observe is based on the common ability in litrpgs, tied to the conceptual gestalt of Batman detective abilities across the multiverse. I actually have it going pretty much continuously, though I generally don't bother giving it actual attention unless I need it.
I needed it here.
Kaye Austin had been dead for one hour and seventeen minutes, killed by nine stab wounds to her neck and upper chest . She'd been killed by a kitchen knife, which was still sticking into her aorta. The knife had a long, slender, eight inch blade, made for deboning meat, but was low quality, stamped stainless steel with a metal grip.
By Observing it very closely, I was able to detect the fingerprints on the handle, as well as the fact that the man's hand had slipped down and been cut on the blade when one of the stabs had met sudden resistance in a rib.
Observe is nearly magical. It's not instant, but as my highest rated skill, currently at a 33, it can do things you'd need a lab to do otherwise.
Those were Ennis Austin's fingerprints. That was Ennis Austin's blood.
Ennis Austin had killed his wife by stabbing her repeatedly with a kitchen knife in his off hand after I had dislocated his right shoulder a day ago.
I checked out the rest of the apartment.
Fresh empty beer cans overflowed from a trash can near the couch. There was an empty pain pill bottle on one of the kitchen counters with today's date on it. The bedroom was a mess, but more in the way an angry person would just throw stuff around, not someone looking to steal things.
Bloody clothing was in the hamper. Looks like Ennis had the presence of mind to change clothes and wipe himself off, but not actually wash himself more than just using the sink and putting a towel around his hand. Then he'd left.
Mrs. Austin had promised to call the police last night and turn her husband in for battery. I don't know if she actually did that.
Dammit. I don't actually have easy access to Gotham's police database. For one thing, I don't think there IS much of a database at this point in time. I'm pretty sure most of it is actual paper files in cabinets. Without a man on the inside, like a commissioner, I'd need to actually physically check the files myself, which isn't viable.
But that's just firming up the details.
Roughly what happened was, Ennis went to the doctor and had his shoulder reset. They gave him a few pain pills. He came home, ate them all in one go, and chased them with alcohol. That kept him quiet most of the day, which was probably a relief to Kaye, who might have had a decent day with her husband so quiet.
Him being injured, but also in a narcotic and booze slumber, probably influenced her decision to put off dealing with her abusive relationship another day.
But then he woke up.
And he was out of pain medication. I bet he accused her of somehow hiring me to come beat his ass, or maybe she was cheating on him with me, or something. Maybe he was just angry he'd gotten a taste of his own medicine.
So he killed her and stumbled into the night with a cut up hand.
Gotham was a dense city, so they didn't own a vehicle. But he WAS bleeding, and a good cut on your fingers can soak through a towel in a hurry. There were blood spots all over the apartment, many of which he'd stepped in and tracked further.
It had actually been kind of a chore to avoid stepping in them and contaminating the place myself.
Hmm.
Observe.
The blood trail left the apartment. It grew fainter and fainter, but, like I said, once a skill or stat got past human peak at 25, it just got into comic book levels of 'no real person could possibly be able to do that'.
It was somewhat slow going, as I had to study the ground very carefully as I walked, but I tracked that blood trail down the hall, down the stairs, out the door, and onto the sidewalks.
And then it stopped.
Because of course it did.
I had been hoping the murdering asshole had decided to walk to a friend, or head to a bar, or something. But nope, he got into a vehicle of some sort, probably a cab.
I didn't have access to phone records any more than I did police records, and while I suppose it's possible super high levels of Observe might be able to track a vehicle, I didn't have access to that.
Damn it.
Damn it damn it dammit.
Not that the guy was likely to get away with this. The near helpless cops from the 60s Batman show could have figured out that this guy was the murderer.
In pre-CSI days, the case would be handed to a detective. The detective would talk to the neighbors, find out the guy had a history of beating his old lady, disappeared from his home on the date of the murder, and had cuts on his off hand. The hardest part would literally be finding the guy now that he left.
Once found, he'd be arrested, brought to trial, and, not being particularly powerful, wealthy, or popular, would have been swiftly convicted by a jury of his peers and sentenced to whatever was typical for murder at the time. One of those cases where the justice system would work properly.
The only reason I was involved at all was that I was the catalyst that caused him to murder his wife.
I felt sick to my heart.
If I found this guy, I was going to fuck him up.
I am too emotionally invested in this. I cannot allow myself to be the one to find this fuck. Batman is only worthy as a hero when he does what the police CANNOT DO.
Not as a rich fucker taking out his mental issues on the poor and insane.
It took me several minutes on a rooftop to get myself under control. When I finally took one last deep breath and withdrew from self-imposed meditation, I realized I didn't even remember getting up there. I must have used the bat-grapple.
Properly, I mean.
Something to think about later.
I glided down to an alley and found a pay phone in the lobby of the apartment building, then did a little bit of voice disguise when I called the cops.
"911, what is your emergency?" asked a man on the other end.
"Hey, uh, I got a… Well, you see, there's this woman, Faye, and her husband, Ennis. Uh, Austin. Last name Austin…" I rambled.
"Sir, is there an emergency?" the man asked, somewhat testily.
Poor form on his part. People often ramble in an emergency. Part of being able to handle emergency calls is in guiding them, not getting mad at them.
"Yeah, there's a goddamn emergency!" I snapped back. "She's dead! Ennis finally killed her!"
There was silence on the other end. Then rapid-fire typing. "Sir, I need an address."
I gave him the address, then kept talking, even talking over him when he tried to ask my name. "Look, Ennis has been beating her off and on since as long as I've known 'em. Something happened last night, another fight. They was quiet today, but then there was a bunch more shouting. Thought about calling the cops, but they never do anything, and the yelling finally stopped. But I saw Ennis leave a while ago, dripping blood from his hand. I tried knocking on the door, but Kaye never answered. Didn't want to do anything at first, but I got worried, and I climbed the fire escape and looked in the window, and she's dead on the floor with a knife sticking in her. You guys need to send some cops out here, and maybe arrest that fucker Ennis, too."
"Sir, I need your-"
"Maybe he was going to the hospital?" I hinted. "I dunno. But next time maybe do something when people are beating their old ladies? Before they kill 'em?"
"Sir-"
I hung up and vacated the premises.
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When Bat Mite, along with help from the totemic spirit of the Bat, created the Gamer system I now had, he asked me to swear an oath as part of the process.
Not just an oath, but an Oath. A full magically binding promise. A bane, a taboo. A thing that simultaneously limited and empowered the swearer.
Batman does not kill.
If I was to be Batman, Bat Mite wanted me to swear to not kill.
And I so swore.
Because, you know, one of the things I've always kind of appreciated about the character is that self-awareness of his own mental illness. Though the Doylist explanation is, of course, that the character was meant for children, and also had to deal with the comics code authority and censorship and all that, I'm fucking HERE in the goddamn story now so it's the Watsonian explanation I have to deal with on a daily basis.
Bruce Wayne is a man aware of his own potential for evil. And everyone else's. His paranoia of others turning evil is trumped only by his paranoia of himself doing the same, which has caused a tremendous amount of pain and suffering for himself and others. Bruce Wayne is not a healthy man. He refuses to kill, even people that so clearly, obviously need to be killed, because he's sure that it's not so much of a slippery slope as an actual precipice with no bottom in sight.
One step and he'll turn into a fascist tyrant.
So Batman doesn't kill. Doesn't compromise his morality. He's not Owlman, he's fucking Rorschach. Black and white never mix, no compromise, not even in the face of Armageddon.
That's not me.
Well, that's not who I was. I was just some guy.
And I suspect that's why I was chosen.
When Batman died, at least two factions of the higher order beings who fuck with this set of multiverses fought over what to do.
And I am the COMPROMISE. Sure, that's a nice vote of confidence, that the forces of good think there's at least a decent chance I won't fuck it up. But that's a hell, no, a Hell of a blow towards my self-image as a basically decent person.
Some serious fucking Evil thinks there's a pretty good chance I'll either just fail to do my new job, or fuck it all up, or worst, go bad.
I don't want to be Evil.
Like Batman, I'm a fairly introspective person. I'm pretty sure I am aware of my own capacity for evil. Everyone has intrusive thoughts. But part of me has always wondered: Just how much Evil could I do before I got stopped? And then, because I'm that kind of thinker, a guy who wrote stories as opposed to just reading them… I'm pretty sure I have a better idea of the horrors I could do than the average person.
Most murders are done in the heat of the moment. Serial killers and the like are hard to catch, because they don't follow established rules, but also relatively easy to catch, because they're usually insane and make illogical choices. There's this saying that there's no such thing as a perfect crime, but there totally is. Shit goes unsolved all the time. There are serial killers who have never been caught. Fortunately, as someone who wasn't actually insane, who didn't wrestle with those demons, it's easy for me to make the choice to not do evil things. Also, as a relatively powerless person, I also didn't have to wrestle with temptations, either. Power corrupts. I didn't have any power. I was squeaky clean from corruption.
But.
But but but.
Here I'm rich. I'm powerful. It's like a Mary Sue fantasy come true, except it-
SCARES THE EVER LOVING FUCK OUT OF ME.
I'm a bit lazy. Not in the sense that I want to lay around and not do anything, but that I don't like doing things that are difficult. And suddenly I have money? A whole lot of spending money? Yeah, I needed to grind my construction stat, but the reason I built that cottage was because I've always wanted to build a cozy little cottage. I couldn't justify self-indulgences like, say, flying out to scuba dive and fish at some remote tropical island, or finally getting to eat ortolan bunting with my napkin over my head to hide my sin from God. But building something I could use later? That's not really being lazy, I tell myself. That's a secret tool which will help us later.
That's a lie. I built that fucking thing because I'm overwhelmed and I needed the relief. I built that thing because, while there is a tiny little artificer in the workshop of my heart screaming 'MAKE SOMETHING MOTHERFUCKER' at me while hammering on an anvil, that little guy looks around at the completely alien physics of this universe with quite a bit of trepidation. Yeah, it's exciting. But it's also weird and alien and intimidating. Carpentry at least makes fucking sense. Stonecutting is a new thing to learn, but also works under a ruleset I'm familiar with. It's an acceptable 'newness'.
So, right away, I'm afraid I'll be too lazy to be Batman. His ridiculous drive and discipline is the most inhuman part of him, after all. Even Superman goes home to eat dinner with his parents sometimes.
And, obviously, I'm afraid I'll fuck up. The classic thing about comic books was that the hero always wins eventually, right? But that actually hasn't been a thing in a long time. I grew up in the gritty, edgy 90s, where it was cool to see the heroes lose and die. And there are so god damned many bad or evil worlds in this multiverse. But there's worlds that are made to go evil, and then there's the worlds where they just struggle and suffer.
I hated the Young Justice TV series. It was good, and it was engaging. But between all the invasions, and the world being split along age lines, and the attempts to turn off the sun, and all the other shit they were often only able to reverse after the fact… That was not a very happy setting. It makes me hyper aware that my decisions can potentially get a LOT of people killed.
But you know what I hated the most? The thing I most revile about all of the DC continuities?
Injustice.
Fucking Injustice. Now, admittedly, Superman killed the Joker. There's a lot of potential reasons that can be a bad thing, especially for someone as weak to magic as Clark. Have it be the result of the horrible curse-focus of Gotham's evil on the Joker, jumping to the man that kills him. And I really appreciated the Injustice what if/elseworld where Batman snapped the Joker's neck. While it's kind of ridiculous that they really did put Bruce in jail after that, given he's a hero and the Joker literally tried to nuke a US City, fine. Maybe it was them just giving in to Bruce's demands for punishment.
Also, that gave me the idea that might really be the way to safely kill the Joker. Kill him, and accept the punishment. Publicly. I talked about it with Bat Mite, and while he won't confirm it, he did say I'm on the right track.
Anyway. Injustice. I'm okay with Superman going fascist, especially as a result of some sort of curse.
But I hated, just hated that some of the other heroes went with him. Especially Diana. Doylist, I suppose it's acceptable as a story. But the story is suddenly far more real now that I'm in the goddamn story. And so I hate it.
I hate seeing paragons brought low, especially ones as noble as Superman and Wonder Woman. Let Superman pastiches become evil. Omniman, The Homelander, et cetera. Or use corruption effects, like curses.
But even those corruptive effects bother me now.
I have a new nightmare.
The Bat Who Laughs.
Marvel has universal and multi-universal scale atrocities happen all the time. But while I've always considered Marvel to have a higher average quality than DC, DC has higher highs.
And lower lows.
And I also fucking hated The Bat Who Laughs.
It happened 'here', for sufficiently large values of here. It's why I'm in this fucking mess.
I freely admit to not understanding all of it. Frankly, even as a 'comic book multiverse', it's too big for one normal human mind to handle. Even the multiuniversal, higher dimensional being Bat Mite quietly confessed he didn't understand everything that happened, either.
But as an Outsider who has his own level of insight into it, I'm exempt from some of The Rulez about what Bat Mite can and cannot do with lower beings. So, keeping in mind that I have both an imperfect memory and imperfect understanding, and Bat Mite also has imperfect understanding, most of the current situation I find myself in is Barbatos's fault.
He's dead. Or defeated, at least. What is not truly alive cannot be killed, with strange eons et fucking cetera. But my existence here is the result of efforts by the Hyper Adapter, a localized part of the larger multiversal evil Barbatos, to subvert the Batman concept.
Not ideal!
But it's been defeated! Barbatos is not the evil vaguely eldritch horror slumbering under Gotham! It's also not the bat that scared this young Bruce and set him along the path to becoming Batman! The Hyper Adapter/Barbatos can time travel, though, and in some universes went back in time and ATE the horror under Gotham, and also the totem spirit of the bat, becoming those things, and retroactively becoming the focus of Doctor Gotham and the Court of Owls. But Barbatos was defeated, and never got a chance to do that shit here.
So I've got that going for me, which is nice.
But I'm still here. Someone who shouldn't be Batman, but is.
And in my own rambling way, what I'm getting at is, I'm here because I also have a great capacity for Evil. Both, or either, innately but also if I get corrupted.
It's so tempting, right?
Find Jack Napier. Is he going to be the one that becomes the Joker here, or is it going to be one of the others? Why take chances, right? Kill his ass.
Him and so, so many more. My personal highest level of contempt for comic book heroes' unwillingness to kill has always been with Victor Zsasz. He's not a themed criminal, he's literally just a serial killer. Come the fuck on, people! He doesn't get the revolving door treatment like Joker, but he still keeps getting out.
And while I'm at it, why not start dealing with some of the international villains? Queen Bee? Count Vertigo? Doylistically, DC comics has been shy about looking too hard at the shit China gets up to, leading to a happy Watsonian result in them being significantly more palatable here than on Prime Earth, but they still have Socialist Red Guardsman.
I'm pretty sure Merry Olde England has the Caligula Club and its shenanigans going on. Here in America, we've got General Eiling, Cadmus fuckery, and all the other secret agency evils. Oh, and all the fucking alien empires and villains. Just here in Gotham I've got the fucking Court of Owls to deal with, as well as the mafia.
The problem with my situation is that I am aware of the scale of the task ahead of me.
And right now, I've even failed to stop a simple abuser from killing his wife.
It's too much. It's just too god damned much to take on. It keeps coming back to me, over and over.
Strike first, strike hard.
DO NOT LET THEM SEE YOU COMING.
DO NOT LET THEM ESCALATE.
…
…
…
I don't want to be that guy.
I don't want to be the guy running a fascist police state, even a mild one. The only part I really liked about Nolan's Dark Knight movies was the eventual destruction of the massive privacy invading cell phone echolocation thing.
But I could totally be that guy.
The guy that said 'Fuck it, everybody finds out now.'
The guy that woke up one day and chose violence.
I've got a lot of rage in me. A lot of hate.
I swore an Oath to not kill people, only monsters, only the truly, unquestionably irredeemable, and even then only if they're an active threat.
But I can put them in body casts. I can revoke their spine privileges. I can trap their regenerativly immortal asses in a personal hell of being constantly dissolved.
I've got too much shit to fight for even Bat Mite to figure out a way of completely constraining my actions morally without setting up guaranteed failure.
I could have put that abusive asshole in the hospital for real. I could have, through sheer force of personality, dragged Faye to the shelter. Walked her through pressing charges. Set her up with a hotel room.
Poor Faye. The woman who'd been ground down so thoroughly that the only thing she knew anymore was how to endure. How to get through one more day, so she could get through one more day, so she could get through one more day.
And now she's ran out of days.
All it would have taken on my part would be to step in and be her everything. To take away her choices as thoroughly as her abusive husband ever did. And I don't want to be that guy, either. I've got too much shit to do to take the time it would take to rebuild someone.
But if I had, she'd still be alive.
Now all I can do is see that her husband gets his due. But I can't even do that, at least not personally. Gotham PD is just gonna have to do it's goddamn job.
I am not vengeance, and I don't want to fucking BE vengeance. I just want to help people.
But if I see Ennis Austin…
…
…
…
"Hey," Bat Mite prompts from beside me. "Sorry you're going through that. For what it's worth, every Bat-Man has had failures, even at the height of their career. And while I'm here if you want to talk about it later, I would like to point out that there's a fire starting over there," he said, pointing.
Shit!
It was only two blocks away in this residential neighborhood, and the orange glow of flames on the dark brick that made most of the buildings in the area was getting brighter.
I leapt to my feet and started roof hopping, giving Bat Mite a quick thanks as I did so.
And damn, was that fire growing fast. Flame had already burst a second floor window-
Wait.
No it didn't.
Observe told me that the window had been broken by a crowbar. And that the fire was also on the third floor. And the fourth. And the first, and the fifth. And…
Ah! This was arson. Someone had poured gasoline down a badly rusted, barely hanging on heater pipe running up an internal wall. The accelerant had dribbled out along the way, and been lit after it had time to spread. A few windows had been broken to give it plenty of air.
There the bastard is. I pulled out a compact camcorder I carried around, which had an excellent lens and zoom, and recorded a well-built man hurrying out a side door, carrying a crowbar. The man, who popped up as Earnest Olivine, Arsonist in Observe, got into a waiting sedan.
I got the plates on the sedan, and an okay partial side view of the driver, from above, on film.
James Carlevaro, Slumlord.
Thanks, Observe.
So at least I'd get to put the kibosh on their little insurance scam…
Screams interrupted me. Screams from inside the apartment building.
Are you fucking kidding me? They're burning the building with people still living in it? God damned evil pieces of-
I jumped off the roof and glided down, leaving the camera behind.
It's Gotham, I should have known.
I don't have the fancy lenses built into my mask yet, since the various vision modes are still in development, so I kept some goggles in a belt pouch. They didn't do anything but protect my eyes, but that's actually pretty useful, so I slipped them on as I kicked in the door and ran into the burning building. Also, unlike the usual Batman, who never covers his mouth, I had prepared a menpo style face mask that clipped to my belt. It covered everything my cowl and mask didn't, and, in addition to having a gas mask style filter, had a port where I could connect an air bottle. Since a lot of my gadgets were still in development, I actually had several tiny, eight minute air bottles in my belt pouches. There was room.
I didn't need the canned air yet, fortunately. I'll give this to the arsonist and the slumlord, not all of the building was occupied, and they did start the fire on the side with no people. Ten families lived in the building, across four of the floors. It was very much a slum, and I could see why the guy had decided to burn it.
That didn't make it any less of a murder attempt, though.
Especially in the middle of the goddamn night.
There weren't even any real fire alarms, or hoses, or fire extinguishers. The sum total of fire prevention was that each floor's hallway had a single house grade smoke alarm, which were obligingly beeping.
I banged on doors and yelled 'FIRE! GET OUT NOW!' as I sprinted through the halls. Once I hit every floor and every door on the way up, I started from the top and started kicking in doors, starting closest to the fire. I'd noticed an internal address chart in the lobby, which had a name beside apartment numbers, but I checked the ones that were supposed to be empty, too. I didn't want to miss a squatter or vagrant who'd set up in one of the empty rooms.
Door jams splintered under my boots and I Observed everything, looking for anything alive. Other than the sound of a cat scrabbling down the fire escape, the top floor was clear. Given the state of the building's actual roof, I could see why. The top was a write off even before it was set on fire.
The fourth floor had one guy living on it. As a guy who didn't wear pajamas, I felt for him. It sucks to be expected to get up and go outside in your boxers. He didn't really need my help, though.
It was the third floor where I ran into problems. It had two families, one older couple, one younger with a single child. The young couple had themselves sorted. The old couple didn't answer the door.
They had also installed extra locks. Like eight of the damned things. It took several long moments of flying kicks before the door disintegrated around me as I blew into the room.
Where the old guy shot me, because of course he did.
"There's a fire, dumbass!" I yelled, snatching the pistol away from him and chucking it across the apartment.
"I've called the police!" he yelled back. "You won't get away with robbing me this time!"
Observe told me he was lying, not that it mattered. He was also trying to put himself between me and the closed bedroom, which I could hear barking coming from, so I kicked it open. Immediately, an elderly mini schnauzer attacked my legs while an old woman shrieked.
I had three more floors to cover, so I might have been somewhat brusque as I grabbed her and slung her over one shoulder. She was less than helpfully screaming things ranging from RAPE to MURDER, with lots of begging for help from her husband.
For his part, her husband tried to brain me with a lamp, but got pulled short because the power cord was still plugged in, and he lost grip on it when I just grabbed his wifebeater shirt and dragged him out of the apartment. Fortunately, their little dog kept pace, nipping at my calves the whole time.
I had to carry them both all the way down the stairs and out into the street, where they continued to yell some frankly fairly rude things about me, despite the increasing smoke and small stream of other people going the same way. It was a relief to dump them outside and go back into the burning building.
Like, yes, I am dressed as a giant bat, I get that. It's not actually helpful here, if it is anywhere. But there is, in fact, a fire.
The second floor had largely sorted itself out, except for one guy who was trying to coax his pet cat into letting him pick it up so he could carry it out. He had a pet carrier, and between my cat proof gloves and incredible reflexes and agility, I got that sorted.
The first floor had more problems. Two separate apartments, both with elderly. One had a lone woman in a wheelchair, and she was both weak and trying to pack her stuff, mostly meds, but also toiletries and such. Three people from other apartments were trying to help her. Really, it was nice to see, and I understood the concern, because she had a lot of medicines and was worried about going without them while she was homeless.
But there WAS a fire.
The second apartment had an insensate old man, possibly with dementia, or just extremely weak. His wife was doing her best, but she was unable to handle it all herself, and unlike the old woman in the wheelchair, didn't have any friendly neighbors helping her out.
It took a bit to get everyone out.
During which time, the yelling old guy from the top had attempted to reenter the building twice, been stopped by his neighbors both times, and then proceeded to collapse with a heart attack. I started CPR on him.
If you've ever done CPR, you know that, during chest compression, the ribs often break, and that's even on young people.
It sounded like I was massaging a glowstick as I pressed on the old guy's chest over and over and over again.
It wouldn't beat on its own, so I had to keep doing it myself. Compressions, breath, compressions, breath, over and over. Just over and over.
The fire department got there and started fighting the blaze. One offered to take over on the old guy, well, actually, he just tried to take over, but I had it, and he needed to see to the others, at least until more firefighters or paramedics arrived.
So I kept doing CPR.
Cops showed up. In between breaths, I told them I had seen Earnest Olivine come out of the burning building with a crowbar, and get into a car being driven by James Carlevaro, the building owner. That I had video footage of them fleeing the arson.
I even used the word arson, and I talked loudly. Observe wasn't something that would hold up in court, but between video evidence of them leaving the burning building, and the suggestion effect I used on both the police and the residents, the two arsonist attempted murderers were going to have a bad time.
And still I did CPR. I did CPR with skill a veteran paramedic nurse would envy.
And that heart.
Would.
Not.
Fucking.
Beat.
It wasn't until the actual goddamn ambulance got there, well after the fire and police, that I allowed myself to step back and let the medics take over, hauling the poor old guy away in the van with a medic still doing CPR. His wife had passed out.
The people all murmured and occasionally cried out in shock when I zipped up the side of the building, then glided back down with the camcorder. It's shitty little LCD screen was primitive, but it indicated my claim of having seen the building owner and his thug was accurate.
A police captain on scene- and wasn't it a surprise that a captain had shown up, not just a lieutenant or sergeant- announced that that was good enough for him, and for some of his men to go pick the criminals up.
Of course, then he started asking questions about ME.
Who was I, why was I videotaping on top of buildings, why was I dressed in a funny costume, why why why.
"Because I'm Batman, and I fucking have to do this shit, I guess," was probably not the answer he expected or wanted.
But I had a bat-grapple and I could just disappear into the night to avoid awkward questions, or dealing with my problems.
That part is great, not going to lie. I see why all the other Batmen do this every time someone turns around.
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AN: A one week delay. Not bad for having two strokes. Things are a lot better now. I've regained most of my head/face sensation and some in my arm and hand. Still having some serious issues with my hand and stomach, but given how much has already improved, there's good chances for things to keep improving.
In fact, the biggest issue now is that, at some point a couple weeks ago, the local DHS office lost some of my paperwork, and my renewal of medicaid and foodstamps, which has to be done every three months, didn't go through. I found out when they sent me a letter saying there was a problem. The letter turned out to be wrong. The problem wasn't a problem. But while talking to them, they found an actual problem. So technically, right now, I don't have medicaid, or food stamps. It's being worked out, but it'll be over a week before I find out how much of a problem it's going to be on the longer term. Money is kinda tight, I was expecting to be able to get some groceries this weekend. Frustrating.
And, unfortunately, my frustrations have leaked into my status updates, and a bit into my writing. Had someone drop their patreon support because my writing is 'bitter and cynical' now. I thought Ice Pie was nicely upbeat, actually, but I admit, SIBruce isn't enjoying being Batman. Now, it's important to show the problems, but I agree. Fanfiction is an escape, plenty of people are having a rough time right now. And also, it's bad for ME to dwell on the gloom.
So. Here you go. This chapter is literally the darkness before the dawn. Things get a lot better in the next chapter, which IS out on patreon, or I can send it to you manually if you want. Although your support is always appreciated, I'm not locking anything behind a paywall. I'm just not posting it publicly until I have the next chapter written.
Nugar | creating Original Fantasy and/or Scifi, and occasional fan proje | Patreon
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Actually, it fucking sucks.
It's hot. Grit and Endurance mean I'm even more resistant to heat now than I was growing up in Louisiana without air conditioning, but it's still unpleasant. It was early June and the temps were climbing, and the breeze was going towards the ocean.
Mostly, though, I just can't get over how ridiculous this is.
I'm dressed as a giant goddamn bat. I'm a billionaire running around trying to personally stop crime. I'm not even being loud and visible, which does more to stop crime than sneaking about trying to catch people in the act. There's a reason cop cars are easily identifiable when they do patrols.
It's stupid. It's just so goddamn stupid.
I know I need to do it. I'm obligated to do it.
Doesn't mean I don't hate every moment of it.
Anyway. I'd actually originally intended to wait a bit before I went back out. I need to redesign my grapple harpoon. I also need to design some solid anchor points I can quietly install on rooftop edges.
But I'm out here for one very good reason.
Kaye Austin, the woman whose husband was abusing her the night before?
She never went to a shelter.
Now, there's potentially plenty of perfectly understandable reasons for that.
Her husband got his arm dislocated and an enforced power nap last night. He almost certainly ended up going to the doctor. She might have thought he wouldn't be a threat for a while. Or maybe she was just bunkering down, and kicked him out of the apartment. Or maybe she had family to go to.
Or maybe she didn't trust the intentions of the giant guy in the black bat suit who broke into her home and punched her husband.
All perfectly understandable reasons to not go to a women's shelter.
Worse reasons include things like, forgiving her husband, or being too scared of retaliation to leave him.
I intervened once, and now I've gotta go check on her. I stepped in to stop her from getting the shit beat out of her by her husband, and now it's my responsibility to keep checking in on her. Sort of like that old saying that, once you save a life, you're responsible for that life.
Please don't be dead.
Please don't be dead.
That's all I could think about as I made my way through Gotham that night.
There's lots of reasons to not go to a shelter.
Just don't be dead.
xxxxxxxxx
Fuck.
She's dead.
God. Damn. It.
I should have put that abusive fuck in a body cast. I should have escorted her to the shelter.
I should have, I should have.
But instead, I was staring in the apartment window at the dead woman on the floor of her kitchen.
All of my civilian mindset was saying things like, if I break in, I could potentially contaminate the scene. I should just call the cops. It was obviously the husband, even Gotham PD isn't likely to fuck that up.
But that's not taking responsibility. And what if it wasn't the husband? There's plenty of other murderers in Gotham. I'm in the shoes of the guy who should have been the world's greatest detective. I'm not a civilian. I'm a vigilante.
Time to vigil.
There weren't any bars over the windows on this building, and while there were locks, I've got a flat tool purpose made to jimmy open windows. Also, while I'm a big man, my agility is high, and I slipped in without making a mess, closing the window behind me.
I had my Observe skill going the entire time.
Observe is based on the common ability in litrpgs, tied to the conceptual gestalt of Batman detective abilities across the multiverse. I actually have it going pretty much continuously, though I generally don't bother giving it actual attention unless I need it.
I needed it here.
Kaye Austin had been dead for one hour and seventeen minutes, killed by nine stab wounds to her neck and upper chest . She'd been killed by a kitchen knife, which was still sticking into her aorta. The knife had a long, slender, eight inch blade, made for deboning meat, but was low quality, stamped stainless steel with a metal grip.
By Observing it very closely, I was able to detect the fingerprints on the handle, as well as the fact that the man's hand had slipped down and been cut on the blade when one of the stabs had met sudden resistance in a rib.
Observe is nearly magical. It's not instant, but as my highest rated skill, currently at a 33, it can do things you'd need a lab to do otherwise.
Those were Ennis Austin's fingerprints. That was Ennis Austin's blood.
Ennis Austin had killed his wife by stabbing her repeatedly with a kitchen knife in his off hand after I had dislocated his right shoulder a day ago.
I checked out the rest of the apartment.
Fresh empty beer cans overflowed from a trash can near the couch. There was an empty pain pill bottle on one of the kitchen counters with today's date on it. The bedroom was a mess, but more in the way an angry person would just throw stuff around, not someone looking to steal things.
Bloody clothing was in the hamper. Looks like Ennis had the presence of mind to change clothes and wipe himself off, but not actually wash himself more than just using the sink and putting a towel around his hand. Then he'd left.
Mrs. Austin had promised to call the police last night and turn her husband in for battery. I don't know if she actually did that.
Dammit. I don't actually have easy access to Gotham's police database. For one thing, I don't think there IS much of a database at this point in time. I'm pretty sure most of it is actual paper files in cabinets. Without a man on the inside, like a commissioner, I'd need to actually physically check the files myself, which isn't viable.
But that's just firming up the details.
Roughly what happened was, Ennis went to the doctor and had his shoulder reset. They gave him a few pain pills. He came home, ate them all in one go, and chased them with alcohol. That kept him quiet most of the day, which was probably a relief to Kaye, who might have had a decent day with her husband so quiet.
Him being injured, but also in a narcotic and booze slumber, probably influenced her decision to put off dealing with her abusive relationship another day.
But then he woke up.
And he was out of pain medication. I bet he accused her of somehow hiring me to come beat his ass, or maybe she was cheating on him with me, or something. Maybe he was just angry he'd gotten a taste of his own medicine.
So he killed her and stumbled into the night with a cut up hand.
Gotham was a dense city, so they didn't own a vehicle. But he WAS bleeding, and a good cut on your fingers can soak through a towel in a hurry. There were blood spots all over the apartment, many of which he'd stepped in and tracked further.
It had actually been kind of a chore to avoid stepping in them and contaminating the place myself.
Hmm.
Observe.
The blood trail left the apartment. It grew fainter and fainter, but, like I said, once a skill or stat got past human peak at 25, it just got into comic book levels of 'no real person could possibly be able to do that'.
It was somewhat slow going, as I had to study the ground very carefully as I walked, but I tracked that blood trail down the hall, down the stairs, out the door, and onto the sidewalks.
And then it stopped.
Because of course it did.
I had been hoping the murdering asshole had decided to walk to a friend, or head to a bar, or something. But nope, he got into a vehicle of some sort, probably a cab.
I didn't have access to phone records any more than I did police records, and while I suppose it's possible super high levels of Observe might be able to track a vehicle, I didn't have access to that.
Damn it.
Damn it damn it dammit.
Not that the guy was likely to get away with this. The near helpless cops from the 60s Batman show could have figured out that this guy was the murderer.
In pre-CSI days, the case would be handed to a detective. The detective would talk to the neighbors, find out the guy had a history of beating his old lady, disappeared from his home on the date of the murder, and had cuts on his off hand. The hardest part would literally be finding the guy now that he left.
Once found, he'd be arrested, brought to trial, and, not being particularly powerful, wealthy, or popular, would have been swiftly convicted by a jury of his peers and sentenced to whatever was typical for murder at the time. One of those cases where the justice system would work properly.
The only reason I was involved at all was that I was the catalyst that caused him to murder his wife.
I felt sick to my heart.
If I found this guy, I was going to fuck him up.
I am too emotionally invested in this. I cannot allow myself to be the one to find this fuck. Batman is only worthy as a hero when he does what the police CANNOT DO.
Not as a rich fucker taking out his mental issues on the poor and insane.
It took me several minutes on a rooftop to get myself under control. When I finally took one last deep breath and withdrew from self-imposed meditation, I realized I didn't even remember getting up there. I must have used the bat-grapple.
Properly, I mean.
Something to think about later.
I glided down to an alley and found a pay phone in the lobby of the apartment building, then did a little bit of voice disguise when I called the cops.
"911, what is your emergency?" asked a man on the other end.
"Hey, uh, I got a… Well, you see, there's this woman, Faye, and her husband, Ennis. Uh, Austin. Last name Austin…" I rambled.
"Sir, is there an emergency?" the man asked, somewhat testily.
Poor form on his part. People often ramble in an emergency. Part of being able to handle emergency calls is in guiding them, not getting mad at them.
"Yeah, there's a goddamn emergency!" I snapped back. "She's dead! Ennis finally killed her!"
There was silence on the other end. Then rapid-fire typing. "Sir, I need an address."
I gave him the address, then kept talking, even talking over him when he tried to ask my name. "Look, Ennis has been beating her off and on since as long as I've known 'em. Something happened last night, another fight. They was quiet today, but then there was a bunch more shouting. Thought about calling the cops, but they never do anything, and the yelling finally stopped. But I saw Ennis leave a while ago, dripping blood from his hand. I tried knocking on the door, but Kaye never answered. Didn't want to do anything at first, but I got worried, and I climbed the fire escape and looked in the window, and she's dead on the floor with a knife sticking in her. You guys need to send some cops out here, and maybe arrest that fucker Ennis, too."
"Sir, I need your-"
"Maybe he was going to the hospital?" I hinted. "I dunno. But next time maybe do something when people are beating their old ladies? Before they kill 'em?"
"Sir-"
I hung up and vacated the premises.
xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxx
When Bat Mite, along with help from the totemic spirit of the Bat, created the Gamer system I now had, he asked me to swear an oath as part of the process.
Not just an oath, but an Oath. A full magically binding promise. A bane, a taboo. A thing that simultaneously limited and empowered the swearer.
Batman does not kill.
If I was to be Batman, Bat Mite wanted me to swear to not kill.
And I so swore.
Because, you know, one of the things I've always kind of appreciated about the character is that self-awareness of his own mental illness. Though the Doylist explanation is, of course, that the character was meant for children, and also had to deal with the comics code authority and censorship and all that, I'm fucking HERE in the goddamn story now so it's the Watsonian explanation I have to deal with on a daily basis.
Bruce Wayne is a man aware of his own potential for evil. And everyone else's. His paranoia of others turning evil is trumped only by his paranoia of himself doing the same, which has caused a tremendous amount of pain and suffering for himself and others. Bruce Wayne is not a healthy man. He refuses to kill, even people that so clearly, obviously need to be killed, because he's sure that it's not so much of a slippery slope as an actual precipice with no bottom in sight.
One step and he'll turn into a fascist tyrant.
So Batman doesn't kill. Doesn't compromise his morality. He's not Owlman, he's fucking Rorschach. Black and white never mix, no compromise, not even in the face of Armageddon.
That's not me.
Well, that's not who I was. I was just some guy.
And I suspect that's why I was chosen.
When Batman died, at least two factions of the higher order beings who fuck with this set of multiverses fought over what to do.
And I am the COMPROMISE. Sure, that's a nice vote of confidence, that the forces of good think there's at least a decent chance I won't fuck it up. But that's a hell, no, a Hell of a blow towards my self-image as a basically decent person.
Some serious fucking Evil thinks there's a pretty good chance I'll either just fail to do my new job, or fuck it all up, or worst, go bad.
I don't want to be Evil.
Like Batman, I'm a fairly introspective person. I'm pretty sure I am aware of my own capacity for evil. Everyone has intrusive thoughts. But part of me has always wondered: Just how much Evil could I do before I got stopped? And then, because I'm that kind of thinker, a guy who wrote stories as opposed to just reading them… I'm pretty sure I have a better idea of the horrors I could do than the average person.
Most murders are done in the heat of the moment. Serial killers and the like are hard to catch, because they don't follow established rules, but also relatively easy to catch, because they're usually insane and make illogical choices. There's this saying that there's no such thing as a perfect crime, but there totally is. Shit goes unsolved all the time. There are serial killers who have never been caught. Fortunately, as someone who wasn't actually insane, who didn't wrestle with those demons, it's easy for me to make the choice to not do evil things. Also, as a relatively powerless person, I also didn't have to wrestle with temptations, either. Power corrupts. I didn't have any power. I was squeaky clean from corruption.
But.
But but but.
Here I'm rich. I'm powerful. It's like a Mary Sue fantasy come true, except it-
SCARES THE EVER LOVING FUCK OUT OF ME.
I'm a bit lazy. Not in the sense that I want to lay around and not do anything, but that I don't like doing things that are difficult. And suddenly I have money? A whole lot of spending money? Yeah, I needed to grind my construction stat, but the reason I built that cottage was because I've always wanted to build a cozy little cottage. I couldn't justify self-indulgences like, say, flying out to scuba dive and fish at some remote tropical island, or finally getting to eat ortolan bunting with my napkin over my head to hide my sin from God. But building something I could use later? That's not really being lazy, I tell myself. That's a secret tool which will help us later.
That's a lie. I built that fucking thing because I'm overwhelmed and I needed the relief. I built that thing because, while there is a tiny little artificer in the workshop of my heart screaming 'MAKE SOMETHING MOTHERFUCKER' at me while hammering on an anvil, that little guy looks around at the completely alien physics of this universe with quite a bit of trepidation. Yeah, it's exciting. But it's also weird and alien and intimidating. Carpentry at least makes fucking sense. Stonecutting is a new thing to learn, but also works under a ruleset I'm familiar with. It's an acceptable 'newness'.
So, right away, I'm afraid I'll be too lazy to be Batman. His ridiculous drive and discipline is the most inhuman part of him, after all. Even Superman goes home to eat dinner with his parents sometimes.
And, obviously, I'm afraid I'll fuck up. The classic thing about comic books was that the hero always wins eventually, right? But that actually hasn't been a thing in a long time. I grew up in the gritty, edgy 90s, where it was cool to see the heroes lose and die. And there are so god damned many bad or evil worlds in this multiverse. But there's worlds that are made to go evil, and then there's the worlds where they just struggle and suffer.
I hated the Young Justice TV series. It was good, and it was engaging. But between all the invasions, and the world being split along age lines, and the attempts to turn off the sun, and all the other shit they were often only able to reverse after the fact… That was not a very happy setting. It makes me hyper aware that my decisions can potentially get a LOT of people killed.
But you know what I hated the most? The thing I most revile about all of the DC continuities?
Injustice.
Fucking Injustice. Now, admittedly, Superman killed the Joker. There's a lot of potential reasons that can be a bad thing, especially for someone as weak to magic as Clark. Have it be the result of the horrible curse-focus of Gotham's evil on the Joker, jumping to the man that kills him. And I really appreciated the Injustice what if/elseworld where Batman snapped the Joker's neck. While it's kind of ridiculous that they really did put Bruce in jail after that, given he's a hero and the Joker literally tried to nuke a US City, fine. Maybe it was them just giving in to Bruce's demands for punishment.
Also, that gave me the idea that might really be the way to safely kill the Joker. Kill him, and accept the punishment. Publicly. I talked about it with Bat Mite, and while he won't confirm it, he did say I'm on the right track.
Anyway. Injustice. I'm okay with Superman going fascist, especially as a result of some sort of curse.
But I hated, just hated that some of the other heroes went with him. Especially Diana. Doylist, I suppose it's acceptable as a story. But the story is suddenly far more real now that I'm in the goddamn story. And so I hate it.
I hate seeing paragons brought low, especially ones as noble as Superman and Wonder Woman. Let Superman pastiches become evil. Omniman, The Homelander, et cetera. Or use corruption effects, like curses.
But even those corruptive effects bother me now.
I have a new nightmare.
The Bat Who Laughs.
Marvel has universal and multi-universal scale atrocities happen all the time. But while I've always considered Marvel to have a higher average quality than DC, DC has higher highs.
And lower lows.
And I also fucking hated The Bat Who Laughs.
It happened 'here', for sufficiently large values of here. It's why I'm in this fucking mess.
I freely admit to not understanding all of it. Frankly, even as a 'comic book multiverse', it's too big for one normal human mind to handle. Even the multiuniversal, higher dimensional being Bat Mite quietly confessed he didn't understand everything that happened, either.
But as an Outsider who has his own level of insight into it, I'm exempt from some of The Rulez about what Bat Mite can and cannot do with lower beings. So, keeping in mind that I have both an imperfect memory and imperfect understanding, and Bat Mite also has imperfect understanding, most of the current situation I find myself in is Barbatos's fault.
He's dead. Or defeated, at least. What is not truly alive cannot be killed, with strange eons et fucking cetera. But my existence here is the result of efforts by the Hyper Adapter, a localized part of the larger multiversal evil Barbatos, to subvert the Batman concept.
Not ideal!
But it's been defeated! Barbatos is not the evil vaguely eldritch horror slumbering under Gotham! It's also not the bat that scared this young Bruce and set him along the path to becoming Batman! The Hyper Adapter/Barbatos can time travel, though, and in some universes went back in time and ATE the horror under Gotham, and also the totem spirit of the bat, becoming those things, and retroactively becoming the focus of Doctor Gotham and the Court of Owls. But Barbatos was defeated, and never got a chance to do that shit here.
So I've got that going for me, which is nice.
But I'm still here. Someone who shouldn't be Batman, but is.
And in my own rambling way, what I'm getting at is, I'm here because I also have a great capacity for Evil. Both, or either, innately but also if I get corrupted.
It's so tempting, right?
Find Jack Napier. Is he going to be the one that becomes the Joker here, or is it going to be one of the others? Why take chances, right? Kill his ass.
Him and so, so many more. My personal highest level of contempt for comic book heroes' unwillingness to kill has always been with Victor Zsasz. He's not a themed criminal, he's literally just a serial killer. Come the fuck on, people! He doesn't get the revolving door treatment like Joker, but he still keeps getting out.
And while I'm at it, why not start dealing with some of the international villains? Queen Bee? Count Vertigo? Doylistically, DC comics has been shy about looking too hard at the shit China gets up to, leading to a happy Watsonian result in them being significantly more palatable here than on Prime Earth, but they still have Socialist Red Guardsman.
I'm pretty sure Merry Olde England has the Caligula Club and its shenanigans going on. Here in America, we've got General Eiling, Cadmus fuckery, and all the other secret agency evils. Oh, and all the fucking alien empires and villains. Just here in Gotham I've got the fucking Court of Owls to deal with, as well as the mafia.
The problem with my situation is that I am aware of the scale of the task ahead of me.
And right now, I've even failed to stop a simple abuser from killing his wife.
It's too much. It's just too god damned much to take on. It keeps coming back to me, over and over.
Strike first, strike hard.
DO NOT LET THEM SEE YOU COMING.
DO NOT LET THEM ESCALATE.
…
…
…
I don't want to be that guy.
I don't want to be the guy running a fascist police state, even a mild one. The only part I really liked about Nolan's Dark Knight movies was the eventual destruction of the massive privacy invading cell phone echolocation thing.
But I could totally be that guy.
The guy that said 'Fuck it, everybody finds out now.'
The guy that woke up one day and chose violence.
I've got a lot of rage in me. A lot of hate.
I swore an Oath to not kill people, only monsters, only the truly, unquestionably irredeemable, and even then only if they're an active threat.
But I can put them in body casts. I can revoke their spine privileges. I can trap their regenerativly immortal asses in a personal hell of being constantly dissolved.
I've got too much shit to fight for even Bat Mite to figure out a way of completely constraining my actions morally without setting up guaranteed failure.
I could have put that abusive asshole in the hospital for real. I could have, through sheer force of personality, dragged Faye to the shelter. Walked her through pressing charges. Set her up with a hotel room.
Poor Faye. The woman who'd been ground down so thoroughly that the only thing she knew anymore was how to endure. How to get through one more day, so she could get through one more day, so she could get through one more day.
And now she's ran out of days.
All it would have taken on my part would be to step in and be her everything. To take away her choices as thoroughly as her abusive husband ever did. And I don't want to be that guy, either. I've got too much shit to do to take the time it would take to rebuild someone.
But if I had, she'd still be alive.
Now all I can do is see that her husband gets his due. But I can't even do that, at least not personally. Gotham PD is just gonna have to do it's goddamn job.
I am not vengeance, and I don't want to fucking BE vengeance. I just want to help people.
But if I see Ennis Austin…
…
…
…
"Hey," Bat Mite prompts from beside me. "Sorry you're going through that. For what it's worth, every Bat-Man has had failures, even at the height of their career. And while I'm here if you want to talk about it later, I would like to point out that there's a fire starting over there," he said, pointing.
Shit!
It was only two blocks away in this residential neighborhood, and the orange glow of flames on the dark brick that made most of the buildings in the area was getting brighter.
I leapt to my feet and started roof hopping, giving Bat Mite a quick thanks as I did so.
And damn, was that fire growing fast. Flame had already burst a second floor window-
Wait.
No it didn't.
Observe told me that the window had been broken by a crowbar. And that the fire was also on the third floor. And the fourth. And the first, and the fifth. And…
Ah! This was arson. Someone had poured gasoline down a badly rusted, barely hanging on heater pipe running up an internal wall. The accelerant had dribbled out along the way, and been lit after it had time to spread. A few windows had been broken to give it plenty of air.
There the bastard is. I pulled out a compact camcorder I carried around, which had an excellent lens and zoom, and recorded a well-built man hurrying out a side door, carrying a crowbar. The man, who popped up as Earnest Olivine, Arsonist in Observe, got into a waiting sedan.
I got the plates on the sedan, and an okay partial side view of the driver, from above, on film.
James Carlevaro, Slumlord.
Thanks, Observe.
So at least I'd get to put the kibosh on their little insurance scam…
Screams interrupted me. Screams from inside the apartment building.
Are you fucking kidding me? They're burning the building with people still living in it? God damned evil pieces of-
I jumped off the roof and glided down, leaving the camera behind.
It's Gotham, I should have known.
I don't have the fancy lenses built into my mask yet, since the various vision modes are still in development, so I kept some goggles in a belt pouch. They didn't do anything but protect my eyes, but that's actually pretty useful, so I slipped them on as I kicked in the door and ran into the burning building. Also, unlike the usual Batman, who never covers his mouth, I had prepared a menpo style face mask that clipped to my belt. It covered everything my cowl and mask didn't, and, in addition to having a gas mask style filter, had a port where I could connect an air bottle. Since a lot of my gadgets were still in development, I actually had several tiny, eight minute air bottles in my belt pouches. There was room.
I didn't need the canned air yet, fortunately. I'll give this to the arsonist and the slumlord, not all of the building was occupied, and they did start the fire on the side with no people. Ten families lived in the building, across four of the floors. It was very much a slum, and I could see why the guy had decided to burn it.
That didn't make it any less of a murder attempt, though.
Especially in the middle of the goddamn night.
There weren't even any real fire alarms, or hoses, or fire extinguishers. The sum total of fire prevention was that each floor's hallway had a single house grade smoke alarm, which were obligingly beeping.
I banged on doors and yelled 'FIRE! GET OUT NOW!' as I sprinted through the halls. Once I hit every floor and every door on the way up, I started from the top and started kicking in doors, starting closest to the fire. I'd noticed an internal address chart in the lobby, which had a name beside apartment numbers, but I checked the ones that were supposed to be empty, too. I didn't want to miss a squatter or vagrant who'd set up in one of the empty rooms.
Door jams splintered under my boots and I Observed everything, looking for anything alive. Other than the sound of a cat scrabbling down the fire escape, the top floor was clear. Given the state of the building's actual roof, I could see why. The top was a write off even before it was set on fire.
The fourth floor had one guy living on it. As a guy who didn't wear pajamas, I felt for him. It sucks to be expected to get up and go outside in your boxers. He didn't really need my help, though.
It was the third floor where I ran into problems. It had two families, one older couple, one younger with a single child. The young couple had themselves sorted. The old couple didn't answer the door.
They had also installed extra locks. Like eight of the damned things. It took several long moments of flying kicks before the door disintegrated around me as I blew into the room.
Where the old guy shot me, because of course he did.
"There's a fire, dumbass!" I yelled, snatching the pistol away from him and chucking it across the apartment.
"I've called the police!" he yelled back. "You won't get away with robbing me this time!"
Observe told me he was lying, not that it mattered. He was also trying to put himself between me and the closed bedroom, which I could hear barking coming from, so I kicked it open. Immediately, an elderly mini schnauzer attacked my legs while an old woman shrieked.
I had three more floors to cover, so I might have been somewhat brusque as I grabbed her and slung her over one shoulder. She was less than helpfully screaming things ranging from RAPE to MURDER, with lots of begging for help from her husband.
For his part, her husband tried to brain me with a lamp, but got pulled short because the power cord was still plugged in, and he lost grip on it when I just grabbed his wifebeater shirt and dragged him out of the apartment. Fortunately, their little dog kept pace, nipping at my calves the whole time.
I had to carry them both all the way down the stairs and out into the street, where they continued to yell some frankly fairly rude things about me, despite the increasing smoke and small stream of other people going the same way. It was a relief to dump them outside and go back into the burning building.
Like, yes, I am dressed as a giant bat, I get that. It's not actually helpful here, if it is anywhere. But there is, in fact, a fire.
The second floor had largely sorted itself out, except for one guy who was trying to coax his pet cat into letting him pick it up so he could carry it out. He had a pet carrier, and between my cat proof gloves and incredible reflexes and agility, I got that sorted.
The first floor had more problems. Two separate apartments, both with elderly. One had a lone woman in a wheelchair, and she was both weak and trying to pack her stuff, mostly meds, but also toiletries and such. Three people from other apartments were trying to help her. Really, it was nice to see, and I understood the concern, because she had a lot of medicines and was worried about going without them while she was homeless.
But there WAS a fire.
The second apartment had an insensate old man, possibly with dementia, or just extremely weak. His wife was doing her best, but she was unable to handle it all herself, and unlike the old woman in the wheelchair, didn't have any friendly neighbors helping her out.
It took a bit to get everyone out.
During which time, the yelling old guy from the top had attempted to reenter the building twice, been stopped by his neighbors both times, and then proceeded to collapse with a heart attack. I started CPR on him.
If you've ever done CPR, you know that, during chest compression, the ribs often break, and that's even on young people.
It sounded like I was massaging a glowstick as I pressed on the old guy's chest over and over and over again.
It wouldn't beat on its own, so I had to keep doing it myself. Compressions, breath, compressions, breath, over and over. Just over and over.
The fire department got there and started fighting the blaze. One offered to take over on the old guy, well, actually, he just tried to take over, but I had it, and he needed to see to the others, at least until more firefighters or paramedics arrived.
So I kept doing CPR.
Cops showed up. In between breaths, I told them I had seen Earnest Olivine come out of the burning building with a crowbar, and get into a car being driven by James Carlevaro, the building owner. That I had video footage of them fleeing the arson.
I even used the word arson, and I talked loudly. Observe wasn't something that would hold up in court, but between video evidence of them leaving the burning building, and the suggestion effect I used on both the police and the residents, the two arsonist attempted murderers were going to have a bad time.
And still I did CPR. I did CPR with skill a veteran paramedic nurse would envy.
And that heart.
Would.
Not.
Fucking.
Beat.
It wasn't until the actual goddamn ambulance got there, well after the fire and police, that I allowed myself to step back and let the medics take over, hauling the poor old guy away in the van with a medic still doing CPR. His wife had passed out.
The people all murmured and occasionally cried out in shock when I zipped up the side of the building, then glided back down with the camcorder. It's shitty little LCD screen was primitive, but it indicated my claim of having seen the building owner and his thug was accurate.
A police captain on scene- and wasn't it a surprise that a captain had shown up, not just a lieutenant or sergeant- announced that that was good enough for him, and for some of his men to go pick the criminals up.
Of course, then he started asking questions about ME.
Who was I, why was I videotaping on top of buildings, why was I dressed in a funny costume, why why why.
"Because I'm Batman, and I fucking have to do this shit, I guess," was probably not the answer he expected or wanted.
But I had a bat-grapple and I could just disappear into the night to avoid awkward questions, or dealing with my problems.
That part is great, not going to lie. I see why all the other Batmen do this every time someone turns around.
xxxxxxxxx
AN: A one week delay. Not bad for having two strokes. Things are a lot better now. I've regained most of my head/face sensation and some in my arm and hand. Still having some serious issues with my hand and stomach, but given how much has already improved, there's good chances for things to keep improving.
In fact, the biggest issue now is that, at some point a couple weeks ago, the local DHS office lost some of my paperwork, and my renewal of medicaid and foodstamps, which has to be done every three months, didn't go through. I found out when they sent me a letter saying there was a problem. The letter turned out to be wrong. The problem wasn't a problem. But while talking to them, they found an actual problem. So technically, right now, I don't have medicaid, or food stamps. It's being worked out, but it'll be over a week before I find out how much of a problem it's going to be on the longer term. Money is kinda tight, I was expecting to be able to get some groceries this weekend. Frustrating.
And, unfortunately, my frustrations have leaked into my status updates, and a bit into my writing. Had someone drop their patreon support because my writing is 'bitter and cynical' now. I thought Ice Pie was nicely upbeat, actually, but I admit, SIBruce isn't enjoying being Batman. Now, it's important to show the problems, but I agree. Fanfiction is an escape, plenty of people are having a rough time right now. And also, it's bad for ME to dwell on the gloom.
So. Here you go. This chapter is literally the darkness before the dawn. Things get a lot better in the next chapter, which IS out on patreon, or I can send it to you manually if you want. Although your support is always appreciated, I'm not locking anything behind a paywall. I'm just not posting it publicly until I have the next chapter written.
Nugar | creating Original Fantasy and/or Scifi, and occasional fan proje | Patreon
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FatBaldBastard
Hentai Antagonist
Excellent chapter. Hope your health stays with you.
- Location
- US-Ark
Thanks for the thought. And it's cool, I'm making it. Everyone is having problems, so don't feel bad. Take care of yourself first!
I also bat grapple away from all my problems and inconveniences.
Nitronorm5688
The Armchair Reader
- Location
- Oakdale, CT
Thankyou for the chapter and I hope you get well soon!
- Location
- USA
I half expected the fire to be the first of Batmans rogues, namely Firefly.
But I suppose the Bat is still in the mobsters and thugs phase.
I do look forward to getting into the meat and potatoes here, when we finally start seeing Rogues, Robin's, other heroes.
But I suppose the Bat is still in the mobsters and thugs phase.
I do look forward to getting into the meat and potatoes here, when we finally start seeing Rogues, Robin's, other heroes.
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GeekGod_of_Speed
He Who Enjoys The Big Words
How long will he be Batman before dick arrives? Will Damian even be born?
I prefer Terry McGinnis.
Talia is that one gal SI Bruce Wayne should stay away from. Especially when she's gonna be the vessel of her Daddy Dearest eventually.
GeekGod_of_Speed
He Who Enjoys The Big Words
I do too but isnt McGinnis genetically related to his parents and not Bruce? I know Waller did some splice and gene changing to make him as close to Bruce as possible but his parents actually were his parents, weren't they?
(it doesn't make perfect grammatical sense but I'm to tired to fix it and it makes enough sense)
Yes, and that Old Man Bruce Wayne already figured it out Terry McGinnis was genetically related to him but kept it to himself.
Terry McGinnis found out by checking on the compatible donor for Old Man Bruce's organ transplant and confronted Old Lady Amanda Waller about it.
The last episode of Justice League Unlimited was pretty nice and melancholic. Like Ace's death and Batman stayed by her side.
- Location
- USA
I feel confident the SI is smart enough to not stick it in crazy.
...cept' maybe Harley Quinn.