As we settle around the Batcave, having thrown Harley Quinn back into her cell at Arkham, Robin stands still as a blind bat and gazes at Batman with an unfamiliar emotion.
“Why didn’t we finish Black Mask?” He asks, taking off his mask. “Although, yes, we were outnumbered and outgunned, retreating wasn’t our only option. With Harley Quinn on our side, we could have struck a more serious blow to his organization and even arrested him.”
Batman turns around in his chair and locks eyes with Dick as he too unmasks himself. “The destruction of his club is a warning to those who wish to vainly use my name in committing crimes. And, as of the moment, we don’t need to arrest Black Mask. We only need to ruin his reputation and bring into question all his legal businesses.”
“What do you mean?” Instead of answering him, I press the enter button on the keyboard, which prompts the large screens to reveal a dozen versions of Black Mask’s roaring rant earlier in the club. A dozen more videos reacting to it with articles and social media posts
“The power of the internet.” I mutter under my breath, not knowing whether to laugh or cry that one of Batman’s most infamous enemies is temporarily brought down by Cancel Culture.
“So… this was the plan?” Dick couldn’t believe it, I can tell. His eyes are widening by the second, almost ready to pop as the mayor of Gotham is forced to make a last-minute midnight press conference regarding the video file he and Bruce took a few days earlier.
“With his reputation down in the sewers, nobody will want to do the job in fear of risking unnecessary heat from the police or in fear of money bouncing away. It will give me a few day’s time to handle The Reaper and cease the contract I have with the families.”
“I don’t get why you did it in the first place. Why go so low and reach out to the very criminals that you patrol the streets for?” Dick complains, shaking his head in an honest view of his feelings.
Bruce grunts. It appears that he already knew that Dick was going to ask once he knew about the deal and already played that conversation in his head.
“Look, I get it. I… was there. I knew what he did to you. God, I-I don’t want to see it again and I’m sure that if we have another encounter with him, our combined forces and the suits are enough to defeat him.” Dick voices out his thoughts, hope illuminating the tense look on Bruce’s face.
“I’m with the bird on this one, bats.” I speak up, both of them looking in my direction with surprise. “What? Dick’s right. Even if there’s a distinct possibility that a second round goes awry, why go to the criminals instead of the dozen of heroes around the country?”
“Unlike the Penguin and Black mask, Superman won’t make you rob a freaking circus or withhold any help unless you do something for him.” Dick makes an outstanding point.
“Enough.” Bruce hushes us. “I do not need outsiders from interfering with Gotham business, as I do not interfere with theirs unless they have asked so explicitly. They do not know these criminals like I do. Their methods might be brutal, simplistic, and downright craven, but it is effective in dehumanizing and demoralizing those who are not familiar with them.”
Dick scoffs exasperatedly. “The guy with the arrow–”
“Green Arrow.”
“Green Arrow!” Dick thanks me with a nod. “He fights the likes of Count Vertigo and a revivified Catman, people whose powers defy the laws of this world, and is as brutal and-and–”
“What he’s trying to say, Bruce, is that there are other avenues at your disposal. I am sure enough that you did this with the safety of this city in mind, but your incessant attitude to remain insular in face of seemingly insurmountable danger is… it’s hard on us to see you like this and yet find ourselves unable to do anything.” I speak from the truth and I speak with emotion.
The first time I came to know of my bastard father's devious personality, it had come in without warning nor fervor. It wasn’t as if my mother was alright with it, but there was a certain expectation to it. Like he had been slowly corrupted by the nature of his upbringing and inane yes-men by his side.
I wanted to help him–we wanted to help him–but he was stubborn, set on his ways because he thought it was for the best. His father had just died, and the company was in the red. It was what he needed and what was needed.
His affability and polysyllabic tendency became a facade that hid an irritable, self-conscious, and envious man.
“I know you don’t trust them, heroes and vigilantes alike, “ I continue, “But it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to accept help. I mean, you accepted our help. A year ago, you wouldn’t have even thought of letting us join you on a patrol, let alone fight inside Black Mask’s headquarters.”
“Your words certainly hold merit. Yet I cannot, in good conscience, risk the lives of many in an attempt to pass off my burdens to others.” He sighs, more from the exhaustion of the night rather than exasperation from all our yapping. “I am not arrogant enough to think my preparedness and contingencies are an end-all-be-all solution to all my problems. But… should a metahuman like the Flash be mind-controlled by the Mad Hatter or a paragon like Superman be chemically seduced to subservience through Poison Ivy’s psychogenic plants...”
“Thousands will die.” Dick finished Bruce’s train of thoughts.
Bruce nods, “While I may have been… hasty in my decision, it was done, as you said, with Gotham and its citizen’s safety in mind.”
“And the criminals? Cobblepot went free because you let him go free, Bruce.” I narrow my eyes. “You’ve always espoused setting aside emotion in favor of logic. But that day, I killed someone–”
“You did?” Dick’s exclaims at the revelation.
“–and, frankly, I think you were pissed off about that.”
Bruce locks eyes with me as he nods. “That certainly is true. The Reaper’s actions have brought undue consequences to Gotham. Although I can fix it, it’s akin to plugging a small hole into a sinking ship. We need to dock before we sink.”
“And you think shoring aground is much better than docking the nearest harbor?” I ask.
He nods his head before standing from his seat. Robin and I know he’s not one to walk away when his integrity is in doubt, so we silently follow him. His footsteps recede from the main cavern system as we head towards the portion of the Batcave that remains restricted to us.
Even if one of us is his adopted son, it is an inherent nature of his to be hesitant to reveal all his cards. Which, in and of itself, is not a bad thing and certainly not something worth talking about, but being insular has its limits, especially when you’re trying to make someone become a better version of you.
Batman continues. “I don’t ask you to trust everything I do. In fact, I urge you to consider my every action and do not be coy to tell me where I have gone wrong.”
I dislike his usage of coy in this instance, but I hold my tongue as we pass the deepest corner of the cave. Passing by the giant Penny and the large plastic dinosaur, which looks incredibly realistic even from up close.
“But know that there are actions of mine that are incomprehensible to you, actions that have long-lasting consequences. It is imperative that you understand that the world longs for chaos. Order is but a brief reprieve from the madness of humanity.”
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We stop in a dark corridor, the cavern walls surrounding us in a suffocating daze. A deadend lies ahead of us or so I think as Batman stops at the wall, removes his gloves, and places his hand in the perfect center.
[Fingerprint Identification: Bruce Wayne / Batman.]
“Agamemnon Initiative. Mike, Alfa, Romeo, Tango, Hotel, Alfa, One, Niner, Three, Niner.”
[Passcode Authorized. Voice Recognition Authorized.]
Light bulbs emerge along the side of the cavern, illuminating the halls in bright-white lights before the front wall lights up with an even brighter light. It splits in the middle and recedes in six sides, akin to six slices of pizza being pulled apart by hungry maws.
Behind the wall is another steel wall that recedes just like the last, albeit this one parts in the middle. To be perfectly honest, I do expect for another steel wall to appear after the second one and to have it open in an X-shape–big fan of Get Smart–but I’m disappointed to learn that Batman only built two walls.
My disappointment is brief, however, as the inside of the walls are revealed to us.
“Whoa…” Dick exclaims softly.
Shiny metal shelves line the enormous cavern inside, housing hundreds of weapons–both Earthmade projectile guns and alien weapons. At the center of the shelves is a clearing which holds a cylindrical glass chamber containing a familiar rock with gleaming green ores dotting its surface.
Looming above the shelves are towering humanoid machines. Some I remember from previous alien attacks covered by news channels and others I read from newspapers being developed by tech companies or used by supervillains during their reign.
There’s also the Size Modulator used by Toymaster on the plastic dinosaur outside. With respect to the dozens he killed and paralyzed, Krank did such a good job at the Trojan Dinosaur. I never thought that he would have enough balls to steal Ray Palmer’s nanotech just so he can make a small dinosaur toy the size of a house to make a Wayne Enterprise’s Game Development Division vice president have a heart attack.
Batman steps inside and motions for us to follow him as he gives us a tour, “Welcome to the Agamemnon Vault.”
The moment I step a foot inside, my insides feel a rush of energy before a chime rings out around me.
[Target Identified: Edmund Serana / Sparrow. Access Level Unverified. Access Unauthorize–]
“Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”
[Phrase Code Authorized. Override Initiated.]
“Grant access to Robin and Sparrow.”
[Override Command Accepted.]
[Target Identified: Edmund Serana / Sparrow. Access Level Verified. Access Authorized]
[Target Identified: Richard Grayson/ Robin. Access Level Verified. Access Authorized]
“I-s this your… armory?” I ask, briefly touching the nearest shelf when it reacts to my movements by creating a bubble of blue energy. “Do you have a mind-reading device?”
“I do, but it's not activated.” Batman points to the left as we stand in the center of the vault. About thirty meters away, left of a series of glass tubes containing colorful liquids, is a strange orange helm with its components disassembled and arranged to its original shape with a gray gem floating in the middle. “Gorilla Grodd and the Mad Hatter once worked together to create a Psionic Enhancer, and this is the result of it. Had it not been for King Solovar allowing me access to a tracking device inside of Grodd’s left foot, then I would not have been able to stop Grodd from taking over the entire city in time.”
“A trophy room, then?” Dick whistles in amazement as he gazes at a nearby skeleton; albeit instead of white bones, the skeleton is made up of chiming crystals as if singing to whomever is near enough their presence.
Bruce hums as he stares at the rock. “A project I've been working on since the creation of the Justice League, solely built to be the last line of defense against the threats we could face in the probability of any heroes defecting from the side of humanity.”
‘Fucking hell. I knew the name was fucking familiar.’
I try not to show the fearful expression on my face as I turn towards him and say, “You don’t really trust anyone, do you?”
“You don’t really talk like a normal nine-year-old, do you?” Dick snickers at Bruce’s retort as the latter continues to stare at the ore, which, by now, I have already guessed to be the world’s second largest kryptonite ore.
“I know what I’ve done seems wrong. Colluding with criminals goes against everything we stand for. But the Reaper is a different kind of threat—one that requires us to step into the shadows, even deeper than we usually do. I took this risk because I believed it was the only way to stop him before more lives were lost.
But that doesn’t mean I’m proud of it. It’s not a path I wanted to take, and it’s not one I want you to follow. I’ll take full responsibility for my actions, and I’ll answer for them… when this is over. But right now, we need to finish this fight. Gotham can’t afford for us to be divided."
I look at Dick, who’s gazing at Bruce with awe and solidarity, and already know that the Boy Wonder will agree to Bruce’s request.
Bruce turns his head and looks at me with his blue eyes as a grin spreads across my face, “You had me at Colluding.”
----------------------------------------
(Rachel Caspian POV)
The final procedures for my certifications and indoctrination are complete, needing only my signature on one final document before I can enter the nunnery and go on with the grace of God. Just one line, and my dreams for the last ten years will come true. Yet at this very moment, my hand fails me. The tip of my pen hovers over the paper, creating a darkening dot of ink.
“Something the matter, Rachel?” My aging father asks, seated across from me.
I lean back, feeling the ancient couch pressing against my neck. The living room, despite its daily cleaning, feels stifling. The memories it holds have become ghosts, haunting me at the most inopportune moments. The grand pianoforte, once a source of joy for Mother and me, stands silent in the corner, like a monument to a life that feels increasingly distant. The couches in the middle of the room, once a sanctuary, now seem to harbor invisible pests, itching at my skin with each passing second.
My gaze shifts to the family portrait above the fireplace. Mother's radiant smile in the painting... it doesn't seem right. Instead of the memory of a happy family, it has become a reminder of what it once was.
“I… I don’t know what I’m doing.” The words escape before I can stop them, my eyes widening in realization.
“Pardon?” Father tilts his head, one brow lifting in amusement. “Rachel, I’ve told you before, if you’re uncertain, you can always wait. This is a life-changing decision.”
“Right.” I nod slightly, feeling the weight of his words.
Father scoffs lightly. “I just hope you’re hesitating for the right reason…”
A flush creeps up my neck, and I lower my head, knowing exactly what he means. “Father, you know that Bruce and I–”
“Are not yet a couple? Yes, I know,” he says, glancing around the room. “But that man has visited our home countless times and has yet to meet me. You were injured at that child’s party, and he showed no concern for your well-being.”
I want to argue, but there’s truth in his words. Bruce has been preoccupied, even as he comes back from his endeavors more battered each time. I was wary at first, hearing the way Maria spoke of him, and the rumors of his lavish lifestyle. A playboy, they said. A squanderer of his parents' legacy, as Father once put it.
But despite all that noise, I’ve found him to be gentle with me. He never oversteps during our dates, nor does he distance himself. Of course, there are times when he apologizes and leaves abruptly, but I’ve had to do the same when my responsibilities demand it.
Still, it happens often enough to make me wonder. I can see the worry in his eyes, the way his jaw clenches when I talk about the crime stories I’ve heard during my pilgrimages. He sees me for who I am—a lonely girl seeking solace in the heart of God. And I see the same in him. He’s searching for something, someone, to break through the walls he’s built around himself.
'I think I can help him. His habits are a shield, a way to protect himself from the world. Perhaps that’s why I’m hesitating. Maybe I don’t need to be a nun to find peace. Maybe I need him.'
“Father, can I confess something?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
Father’s smile softens. “Of course, my darling.”
“I know Bruce and I haven’t been together long…”
“One month and twenty-six days,” Father corrects with a casual tone.
I suppress a smile. “I… I think I love him.”