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Bruce has, of course, always expected something like this to happen at one time or the other.
Getting unmasked.
That is always a risk, working the way they do. Even with all the precautions, all the alibis, all the cover stories…there is always the chance that one day one of them might slip up. Or just have a bout of bad enough luck.
It can happen. And he has contingency plans for this. Only… Well. For it to happen this way…
Dammit, couldn’t fate have at least let him retain some dignity?
Look, getting unmasked by some major Rogue? Joker, Crane, even Harvey? That’s one thing. But this? God, he’s never gonna live this down.
Tim – Red Robin – tied to the chair opposite him gives him a look that communicates identical sentiments.
Seriously. Batman. The Guardian of Gotham. Top strategist of the Justice League. The Spirit of Vengeance. Unmasked by a bunch of petty gangsters.
It isn’t like these guys are even big time, that might have allowed for some little dignity.
Tommy Two-Bits and his guys are flotsam. Not even particularly dangerous flotsam, under most circumstances. He hadn’t even paid them much attention, figuring GCPD could handle it.
But of course, the one day – one single day – he forgot to recheck his rebreather…
Bruce isn’t entirely clear on the events of the day just yet, but he can remember enough to know they were dealing with Scarecrow. Only for him to get gassed and flee, Tim pursuing with the antidote.
And both of them blundering into Tommy’s territory. Getting cornered at just the wrong moment, still halfway out of it from the fear gas and the antidote.
Ugh. He really needs to have a talk with the Spectre next time the cloudy bastard turns up. See if he’s accidentally pissed off some cosmic luck deity.
“So” Tommy is grinning like he got dosed with Joker venom “Batman is Bruce Wayne?”
“Boss, what we doing now?”
Tommy pauses. It is obvious he hasn’t really thought this all the way through, or even half way through.
“Um… We could… Hey! We can auction them! Set up a sale on the e-bay!”
What. If he could, Bruce would be banging his own head against the nearest available flat surface right now
. “Yeah!” the rest of the gang fall in with the plan. “Two sales! One set selling his name! The other selling him!”
“And the kid as bonus!”
“No, we can ransom the kid to the bats!”
“No, call Drake Industries, they can get it!”
“Nope, kid is Wayne CEO, let’s call them!”
Tim groans. Bruce can’t blame him. Seriously. Of all the guys to get unmasked by...
He isn’t too worried about the whole tied-to-a-chair situation. It isn’t any of the bats’ first rodeo at this kidnapped thing. Sooner or later one of the others will come by.
The problem will be what to do with this bunch of buffoons. Sure, he has contingency plans for an identity reveal, but to have to put them to use because of freaking Tommy Two-bits? Gag. There’s got to be some way out of this.
“Look” he tries reasoning again “I’m sure we can come to an arrangement if-“
“Nah, nothing doing, Bat-Freak!” Tommy declares, puffing his chest out in what he no doubt imagines to be an action hero posture. “You broke my fucking jaw last time!”
Tim rolls his eyes. Bruce’s sympathy too is limited, given ‘last time’ they had found Tommy about to break the arm of one of his hookers for not earning enough ‘take’. A broken jaw was pretty lenient, in his opinion.
“I had to eat through a tube!” Tommy continued ranting “And there was this fugly nurse at the hospital, bossing around-“
A shadow passes by the window. Tommy freezes in his rant, but only for a moment.
“Bat alert!” one of the guys hisses.
“Which one is it?”
Tommy grabs his gun, almost shooting himself in the foot with it in his hurry.
“Dunno, didn’t see.”
Of course, even as a shadow, none of his kids would let themselves be seen unless they meant to. Bruce can’t help but wonder what the plan is.
Whoever it is would have seen he and Tim are unmasked. Or did they already know before they came?
There’s a sound at one of the windows. Everyone, including Bruce and Tim, turns that way.
The cowled figure looking in through the window is there only for a moment, but that is long enough for everyone to recognise it.
“No way!” Tommy declares, grabbing at Bruce’s own cowl discarded on the floor. “We’ve got him, he can’t be out there!”
Okay, that is one way to beat the identity reveal. Bruce wonders which one is in the suit this time. It will have to be a pretty good imitation to convince Tommy Two-Bits that his get rich scheme is not viable.
“He can’t be there!” Tommy turns to glare at them.
Tim rolls his eyes. “I think you mean ‘it’ can’t be there. Though of course, it is.”
Tommy blinks. “It?”
Bruce tries not to groan. He can see where this is going.
Tim nods, nonchalant. “What? You didn’t know?”
Tommy turns to Bruce, eyes showing a trace of panic. “What the hell does the kid mean?”
Okay, might as well play along. It isn’t like he can possibly lose anymore of his dignity tonight.
“Come on, man” he puts on his most ‘Brucie’ voice. “You actually think I’m in the driving seat when Batman turns up?”
“Yep” Tim chimes in “Come on, Brucie was stuck pulling on a push door for like five minutes straight at that Mayor’s party, you think he is Batman?”
“It’s just an arrangement, you know” Bruce shrugs. “I mean, it is kinda fun? And it is keeping the city safe? Not exactly what I had in mind when we tried that stupid ritual, but hey, what works, works.”
“What…you…”
“They just want the bodies, man” Tim drawls “Why else d’ya think Robin changes that often?”
“It kinda just turned up one night, you know” Bruce moves his shoulders in a move closest to a shrug he can get while tied up “I figured… I mean, why not? And… well. You don’t really get to refuse a thing like that, you know. Not if you wanna keep all your insides inside.”
That gets Tommy and his goons blanching. Tim shakes his head sympathetically.
“This is gonna be a messy clean-up.”
“M…messy?” Tommy looks like he is one word away from fainting like a goat.
Tim nods. “I mean, it depends.”
“On…what?”
“On how hungry it is.”
One of the goons drops his gun. Tommy doesn’t turn to admonish him, eyes fixed staring at Tim.
“How…hungry?”
Another unconcerned shrug from Tim. “I mean, when it has to switch hosts like this… It kinda takes it a bit of time to remember how to act humanish, you know. The first few hours it’s mostly instinct driven.”
One of the goons has started praying. The shadow flits by the window again, causing more than one to yelp and shoot through the glass.
“You may not wanna go and annoy it, you know” Bruce puts in. “It had to switch bodies once already tonight, if you damage the new one and make it switch again…
” “DON’T SHOOT!” Tommy screams at the men. Most of them don’t look like they need to be told
. “Can…can it get in?”
That is answered the next moment when there’s a rustling, dragging sound from the next room. It sounds like something man-sized dragging itself along the ground.
“I think that answers the question, doesn’t it?” Tim comments.
Bruce tries not to groan and give the game away. Of course he had to be caught in this with the most unhinged two of his sons.
By now, there is very little doubt who is in the suit.
If there was any, they would have been instantly resolved the moment the… thing…came into view.
All commands to ‘not shoot’ is forgotten. Bruce has to admit he can’t really blame them.
That weird crab walk thing (he really shouldn’t have okayed picking The Exorcist for movie night) is creepy enough when Dick does it in civilian clothing, in the brightly lit Manor living room.
In the crappy warehouse with flickering lighting, while dressed in the Batsuit? Bruce can fully sympathise with that guy over there who has outright fainted.
Of course, panic does not contribute in the slightest to marksmanship, and it isn’t like Tommy Two-Bits’ men would be winning any prizes in that category even under the best circumstances.
Most of the shots go wide. The few that get close enough are either dodged (he is pretty sure Jason and Dick must have practised this together – Dick moves like he has way too much experience dodging bullets while in this mode) or just get deflected off the suit’s armour.
Extremely effective. Especially with the constant growly murmuring Dick is keeping up.
Said murmur is just counting down from thousand in Romani, but combined with the cowl’s voice modulator? Extremely effective, even Bruce has to admit.
He isn’t sure if Tommy and gang actually managed to empty all their ammo in terror or simply gave up in despair, but by the time Dick has made his way into the centre of the room, the shooting has stopped.
Most of the gang are pressed against the walls or clawing at them in a frantic escape attempt.
A few are kneeling and screaming prayers. Tommy himself is standing frozen, eyes bugging out.
No one stops Dick when he creeps over to Tim and Bruce.
“There you are…” Tim murmurs in a soothing voice, like talking to a spooked animal – or guard demon, in this case. “Yes… It was them…They took us…”
Dick whirls towards Tommy, snarling. Even Bruce winces a little at the sound the voice modulator produces from that snarl.
“That was just him!” one of the goons wails.
“JESUSMARYJOSEPH I had nothing to do with it!”
“We told him to put the kid back!”
“I told him to put them both back!”
“You fucking cowards, you wanted to-“
“Ssssttttoooppp” Dick hisses.
The shouts instantly die down. Bruce is starting to feel a bit jealous.
“Um, Batman?” Tim leans forward worriedly “Can you…untie us before…you know, you start on them?”
Dick pauses as if considering it, then, still keeping his eyes on the gang, moves over to the chairs.
It is easy enough to slice through the ropes, and Dick makes it look like he slashed through them with bare hands. Bruce wiggles his limbs a bit, trying to restore circulation.
“What do we do?” Tommy turns pleading eyes towards them.
Bruce pauses as if considering “Um… Drop the guns, maybe? It doesn’t like guns”
Every gun in the room – even the ones that were hidden – hit the floor immediately.
Tim hurries over with handcuffs – they don’t have enough for everyone, but zipties will do.
Dick moves – this time not a crab walk, but there is definitely something uncanny and double jointed in the way he moves, enough to have Tommy muttering Hail Mary at a rapid fire pace – to Bruce’s side, standing beside him.
“Yeah, I’m okay” Bruce stays in Brucie voice “Batman? Who did you take as host?”
“Thanks for playing along” Dick growls out in Klingon.
Bruce nods as if thinking over the answer. “Oh. I guess… But that won’t last long, will it?”
“Yeah” Tim joins in, looking suitably concerned. “And it isn’t like you can go back to using Wayne’s body again, not now that they know…”
“I really hope Babs is filming all this” Dick comments, this time in Urdu.
Tim shakes his head. “No, Batman, you can’t just keep this body, you just grabbed this one off the streets.”
“Yeah” Bruce agrees “We need someone who’s agreed.”
“Or someone who deserves it” Tim glances at the tied up gang.
Tommy goes even paler. “Nooo….”
Dick hisses at him. Tommy slumps back, whimpering.
“Sorry, bud” Brucie shrugs. “It needs a body, and you lot made mine useless to it.”
“Yep, can’t be Batman if people know who’s the host.” Tim agrees.
“Just…just one, right?” Tommy tries to look hopeful.
Tim hurries to squash it. “Yeah, it will need the others for dinner.”
“What?!?”
“What? Switching hosts is hard work, dude. It needs something to replenish the energies!”
Dick, again murmuring numbers in Romani, prowls through the room, stalking from one guy to the next, occasionally bending to get a closer look, and a couple of times sniffing them.
He has definitely been watching too many horror movies. Effective, though. Tommy isn’t the only one looking like he’s about to have an aneurysm.
“I think it likes you” Tim pronounces, when Dick comes to a stop beside Tommy.
“L.l.likes me as in…”
“Potential host, of course!” Bruce grins, a full on Brucie grin, the type he usually reserves for tormenting Lex Luthor at galas. “I mean, you guys don’t really offer too much selection as far as good host bodies go, but hey, emergency. It isn’t that picky.”
“And you’ll anyway last for a year or so before you burn out” Tim comments. “Enough time to pick a new permanent host.”
“Burn out?!?”
Bruce nods sympathetically “I mean, not everyone is built to host something like it, you know. And now that you’ve unmasked me, my body isn’t of any use to it.”
“W…W… We’ll never tell anyone!” Tommy squeaks. “Promise! Never!”
“Your secret is safe with us!” the others chime in as well.
“Hundred percent!”
“Pinky promise!”
Dick moves his head from side to side like a dog sweeping its gaze through a room, then looks back at Bruce and Tim. The pair exchange glances.
“Um…”
“It is a hazzle changing hosts…”
“I do like doing this… And you like me too, don’t you, Batman?”
Dick responds by plastering himself along Bruce’s side in a one-armed hug. Bruce puts his own arm around Dick.
“Yeah, that’s right… So no changing hosts just yet, okay?”
“I don’t think we can trust them” Tim frowns. “Can we trust them?”
“You can!” Tommy sobs. “Just don’t let that thing take me!”
“And don’t let it eat us!” one of the goons chimes in.
“Hmm… Batman? What do you think?”
Dick growls out something unintelligible and suitably intimidating.
Bruce nods, as if in consideration. “…okay.”
“Okay what?” Tommy whimpers.
“It’s a deal” Tim translates. “For now. As long as no one says anything, Batman can keep using Mr Wayne as his host body. But the moment someone lets anything slip, the moment there is any doubt…”
“I know!” Tommy squeals “There won’t be any doubt! I swear!”
Dick leans closer, hissing, eyes fixed on the guy’s jugular. Bruce resists the urge to roll his eyes. Really. And they all say Jason is the theatre kid of the family.
“Later” Tim puts a slightly admonishing hand on his arm.
Dick reluctantly moves back. “Thirrrssstty….”
“We’ll get you something on the way.” Bruce promises. “Come on, we gotta wrap this up.”
“Maybe we could let him have one of them?” Tim suggests “Maybe a nibble from the boss guy since, you know, he isn’t gonna be a host after all?”
Dick grins.
Tommy faints.