Chapter Text
Chapter 1: December’s Children (And Everybody’s)
MOUNT OLYMPUS - THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO
Harmonia stood upon a great and expansive stone balcony, jutting from the very rock of Olympus itself. The sun was shining in her face, and she was in the company of her fellow Gods.
The Goddess of Harmony and Concord folded her arms across her chest, and glanced at either side of her. To her right was her mother, Aphrodite, her long pink silks and blonde curls hugging and accentuating a figure that sculptors and painters would spend centuries attempting to do justice. And to her left was Ares, her father, forbidding in black armor and helm, red eyes glowing in shadow.
Harmonia was the daughter of both Love and War.
At the crest of this balcony, sitting in his throne, was Zeus, his long white beard draped over his formidable bare chest. To his right, standing next to the opulent throne was his wife Hera, Queen of the Gods. The rows and arguments between Zeus and Hera had already become legend to the mortals beneath them, but on this day, the eyes of both King and Queen were downcast. Their shoulders slumped as though beneath an invisible weight.
Finally, breaking the silence, Zeus said “Bring her in.”
A door opened in the middle of the balcony, revealing a set of stairs. Up this stairwell strode two clay automatons, imbued with the power of the Gods, with the bodies of men and the heads of bulls. And between them, bound by glowing golden ropes was their prisoner.
Harmonia heard this prisoner before she saw her face.
“Unhand me, you foul things,” the prisoner said. “You know not to whom you…”
The prisoner stopped when the sun that bathed Olympus hit her. Her gray robes were ragged. The braided rows of blonde hair upon her scalp caught the glare of the sun. Her green eyes burned with fury when they saw Harmonia standing there.
“You!” the prisoner said.
Harmonia cocked her head. “Hello, Nemesis.”
Nemesis, Goddess of the Unjustly Slain, reared her head back, and spat upon the stone of the balcony.
“Betrayer!”
“Enough!” said Zeus in a deep bellow as he stood. “Bring her before the throne.”
The automatons drug the grunting and kicking Nemesis toward the throne. Zeus held out his hand, and tendrils of lightning emerged from his fingertips.
From within his robe, the gentle pull of the lightning produced a small green stone. He then ceased his lightning, and the green stone fell to the balcony with a weight and a sound that something that small had no business being.
“You cannot destroy it, can you?” Nemesis asked, her smile bitter.
“No,” Zeus said, “it seems you have crafted something beyond even my power. Harmonia told me of this… abomination. Nemesis, what have you done?”
Nemesis levelled her burning green eyes at the King of the Gods. “I hold no judgement of your dalliances with the mortal women below, Your Majesty, so do not judge me for how I make myself happy.”
Zeus’ brows lowered, and behind him, still standing next to the throne, Hera visibly bristled.
“And yet,” Zeus said, “we do sit in judgement of you.”
Nemesis scoffed. “None of you are fit to do such a thing, Zeus, not even you.”
She looked at Ares. “Lord Ares, are you seriously willing to decide my fate when I have devised something that would greatly aid your ends? Are you saying you don’t want what I’ve created?”
“I crave war,” Ares said, his rasp echoing from within his helm. He pointed at the green stone. “But this… This is desolation.”
“War is war, you fool.”
“War requires a victor,” Ares said. “There is no victory in that thing. And if you created such madness for the use of anyone beside yourself, you would have made it so someone beside you could use it. You act solely in your own interests, Nemesis. ‘Twas ever thus.”
Nemesis sneered, and measured the balcony and all who stood upon it. “So what now? Banishment? Rendering me mortal and sending me to the foul creatures below?”
“No,” Zeus said. “You have defied my will and crafted something of unimaginable horror.”
And it was only now that Harmonia noticed that the gravity of the situation had finally settled on Nemesis.
“No,” Nemesis said. “You… You…”
“If you’ve any final words,” Zeus said, “You should speak them now.”
Nemesis immediately craned her neck and glared at Harmonia.
“You meddled in affairs that were not your own,” Nemesis said. “Your loose tongue resulted in my demise. You think death will stop me? If it takes eternity, I will avenge myself upon you! This I swear! I shall avenge myself upon all of you! Not even Hades Himself can stop me!”
“I have heard enough,” Zeus said. “We all have.”
Zeus reached out and grabbed Nemesis’ head. The veins of blue lightning around his fingers grew and intensified until they shot directly through Nemesis’ skull.
Nemesis' corpse went limp instantly, dropping to her knees, her head hitting the stone floor between her legs.
“Take her to the island below,” Zeus said to the automatons. “And bury her deep.”
The automatons, dragging a Goddess’ dead body behind them, walked back down the stairs. The door in the floor shut behind them.
Harmonia thought that, with potential disaster averted, her sense of unease would be lifted.
But no.
If anything, the whispers in the back of her mind that had accompanied her since her creation had only gotten louder.
Zeus stretched out his hand again, and yet again the lightning appeared.
The green stone, the stone whose crafting had resulted in the death of its creator, lifted into the air.
With a show of force that caused sweat to form on the brow of the King of the Gods Himself. The lightning enveloped the green stone, until the lightning struck away from the balcony, sending the stone… somewhere.
Hera walked up to Zeus, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Where did you send it, husband?”
Zeus sighed.
“Far away,” Zeus said. “And deep underground. If anyone were to find that foul thing, it would take eons for them to do so.”
GOTHAM CITY DOWNS - NOW
On this Friday night in the middle of December, Gotham City Downs, the most famous dog track on the eastern seaboard, was running late races for that specific breed of gambler flush with their Christmas bonuses. Millions of dollars were currently flowing in and out of the establishment.
So of course it was getting robbed tonight.
Lady Vic held sway in the eastern count room.
In her old life, Lady Elaine Marsh-Morton was the last descendent of a long line of English aristocrats. But old blood did not automatically result in new money, so she christened herself Lady Vic and fashioned herself as a no-job-too-dirty mercenary to keep her family’s estate from foreclosure.
During the tenure of her mercenary work, Lady Vic had shown no resistance whatsoever toward the murder of small children to get her paycheck, so the four mid-thirties blokes who worked the eastern count room of Gotham City Downs had reason to be worried. They were being held at gunpoint by Lady Vic’s six henchmen in the expansive chamber outside the count room proper.
As big as this operation was, though, Lady Vic wanted discretion. They had snuck in during a late rush with weapons under trench coats. She didn’t even wear her mask for this heist, as everyone would recognize a supervillain in Gotham City if they saw one.
“Time?” Lady Vic asked as she was stuffing ten thousand dollar bundles into the canvas bags in the count room that were meant for bank deposits.
“Nine-oh-five,” said the henchmen closest to the count room. The guy that he had his gun on (whose name-tag said “Dennis”) was sweating bullets.
“Any word on the scanner?”
“Nope.”
“And do our friends about town see a signal in the sky?”
“Last I heard… there… wasn’t…”
There was a deep thrum. As though a thin sheet of metal were being stepped on. And it was coming from inside the walls of the chamber outside the count room.
One of the grates that covered the side vent on the eastern side flew out of the wall with a loud crash.
A smoke pellet came out of the vent next, and it quickly polluted the air with a thick, viscous miasma that made it impossible to see. Lady Vic stood on the door way, frantically fanning her hand to clear some of the smoke, but to no avail.
It took eight seconds for the smoke to clear.
Once it did, a towering man in gray armor and a black cape was standing directly in front of Lady Vic.
Batman.
But what caught Lady Vic’s attention was who was standing behind Batman.
A young man, not a day over eighteen, standing in the middle of the room in black and red armor. Black cape with yellow lining, and a black domino mask.
Lady Vic reckoned this must be the new Robin.
At Robin’s feet were six hunks of black metal, and Lady Vic had to squint for a moment before she realized what they were.
During the interval of smoke, Batman, Robin, or both, had surreptitiously relieved the semi-automatic weapons that her henchmen were holding on the race track’s employees of their clips.
It took a second for Lady Vic’s henchmen to realize this as well.
Robin looked around, and found the employee Dennis.
“You might want to get your friends out of here.”
Dennis nodded, and he and the three other Gotham City Downs workers ushered themselves out of the chamber amidst the looks of the confused henchmen.
“And as for the rest of you…”
Robin relieved a collapsible metal bo staff from his utility belt, and set it down in the middle of the magazines on the floor as though he were Moses parting the Red Sea.
“...come get ‘em if you can.”
Lady Vic levelled her gaze at Batman. She unsheathed a pair of kukras from beneath her black longcoat.
“I’ll have you know I’m not the only one out and about tonight.”
“I’ll have you know,” Batman said, “that neither am I.”
GOTHAM CITY MUSEUM OF ANTIQUITIES - NOW
Margaret Pye used to work here.
Before she began her life of costumed supervillainy under the name “Magpie,” she was a curator at this museum, seeing all of the shiny, enticing relics of days past and coveting them in a way she found that she would never really covet another human being.
That these shiny coins, jewels, vases, and various other gleaming bits of ephemera would never find their ways into her hands was an atrocity that, quite frankly, Margaret Pye thought too heinous to bear. Surely one or two going missing would break neither the backs nor the banks of the legal owners! They should be in the hands of someone who loved them, who cared for them, and not in the clutches of those who saw them as numbers to be moved from ledger to ledger.
One or two turned into a spree. Margaret Pye turned into Magpie. A job at the museum turned into extended stays at Arkham Asylum.
But tonight, though? Oh, tonight, she wouldn’t be alone. Tonight she would have help. Tonight she would be after the Pondicherry Sapphire.
Originally discovered in India, this royal blue gem weighed in at 114.73 carats. Its price at auction, would it ever make it there, was estimated to be in the low eight figures.
But Magpie didn’t care about the money. Money was common. Everyone had it, from sickeningly rich CEOs who had all their value in abstract figures to bums on the street who could jingle dull coins in dirty coffee cups. But who could lay claim to this marvelous jewel?
Just Magpie.
Just tonight.
Magpie, dress tight, fishnets on, black wig in her customary triple-mohawk style, walked down the narrow hallway to the storage vault. Her red high heels clacked on the linoleum, as did the clomp of the boots of the six henchmen flanking her.
The seventh henchman was already at the vault door, gloppy beige pustules of C4 already applied.
“Is it active?” Magpie asked.
The seventh henchman nodded.
“Then you know what to do.”
The seventh henchman ran to Magpie’s side, twenty feet down the hall, and pressed the small detonator he had in his hand.
Magpie saw the light of the explosives going off before she heard the deafening roar. The hallway filled up with smoke.
As soon as it cleared, Magpie saw that the vault door had practically disintegrated. Leaving only thin air between herself and the object of her desires.
Ears ringing, Magpie ran to the opened vault. She fanned smoke away, and peered inside.
The glass display case for the Pondicherry Sapphire was shattered.
The jewel itself, however, was nowhere to be found.
Indignity in horror rose in Magpie, until she heard a woman’s voice above her.
“Uh-huh…”
Magpie looked up.
Of course, Magpie thought. Of course the person who could have gotten past this vault without explosives and snagged the sapphire would have done it tonight of all nights just to make her look foolish.
“Catwoman?”
Above her, hanging from the ceiling by what must have been adhesives in the gloves and boots of her suit, was Catwoman. Suspended from the belt of her Catsuit, right next to her bullwhip, was the Pondicherry Sapphire in a plastic bag.
Catwoman, who had a hand to the ear of her cowl, looked at Magpie.
“Shut the fuck up, Margaret, I’m on the phone.”
Magpie looked at Catwoman incredulously, as Catwoman continued her conversation.
“I’m sorry,” Catwoman said to the person she was talking to. “You were saying…? Um, camera feed to my goggles says seven… You want me to take care of them…? You want… Well, far be it from me to stand in your way. See you in a few.”
Catwoman ceased her conversation, and looked at Magpie as she dropped from the ceiling.
As she got to her feet, Catwoman said “Hate to use F-bombs so early in a conversation, but you are genuinely rude and completely off-putting.”
“Give me the sapphire,” Magpie said.
Catwoman groaned. “When has that ever worked? When have you ever just asked for something like that in this business, and the sap just gave it to you?”
“I’m not alone tonight, Selina,” Magpie said. “I have seven henchmen eager to do my bidding for the plunder in this vault. And you don’t have Batman here to protect you.”
Catwoman just looked at Magpie.
“What is it?” Magpie asked. “Did Batman get jealous when you married Bruce Wayne?”
“Well, it’s hard to afford the finer things on a costumed do-gooder’s salary,” Catwoman said. “I traded up.”
“Does Batman see it that way?”
Catwoman rolled her eyes. “As for your henchmen, I’ll be seeing them shortly. But you’re not strictly right on me being alone tonight.”
And with that, Catwoman turned and walked to the gaping hole in the vault. She unfurled her bullwhip and cracked it.
“Hey boys,” Catwoman said to the goons out in the hallway. “I haven’t kicked a henchman’s ass in a while. You mind helping me see if I still remember how?”
Now! While her back is turned! Take the jewel!
Magpie readied her fingers, getting ready to reach out and--
BOOM!
A concussion mine on the inside of one of the display crates that lined the wall of the vault exploded, knocking Magpie onto the floor.
It took a moment to clear her head, but Magpie finally looked up.
Stepping out of the ruins of the crate was a woman in a black bodysuit, with purple piping up the side. Her cape was purple, as was the hood over her black mask that covered the entirety of her head. The mask had white lenses that doubled as eyes. She had a metal staff in her hands.
No… Now that her eyes adjusted, that cape was more of an eggplant than a purple.
“Hi,” the woman in eggplant said in a high, chipper voice. “My name is Spoiler, and I’ll be your superhero for the evening.”
THE X RIVERBOAT CASINO - NOW
X, in pirate legends, marked the spot for treasure. This was something that the supervillain Cap’n Fear knew in his blood.
Named so by millionaire Pietro Anagnos, who couldn’t stand the thought of Oswald Cobblepot’s Iceberg Casino Hotel having the only claim on Gotham City’s weird zoning laws in regards to legalized gambling, the X Riverboat Casino had a pirate theme. All the blackjack dealers wore the tricorn hats with the skull-and-crossbones logo, and all the waitresses wore wench corsets that gave them back problems and made it hard to breathe.
No eyepatches, though. That would interfere with dealing and counting.
Cap’n Fear brought twenty henchmen with him. All in better pirate outfits than the X provided, and all armed with decidedly un-piratelike twelve gauge shotguns.
The Cap’n, his metal peg leg thumping on the red carpet of the mid-deck, his robotic parrot whirring on his right shoulder a few inches away from his metal mask, stopped to talk to one of his shotgun-toting henchmen by one of the roulette wheels.
“Yarrrrrr,” Cap’n Fear said, “where be th’ gamblers and th’ scallywags who work here?”
The henchman scratched under his eyepatch (as Cap’n Fear had a tighter dress code for his employ than the X Riverboat Casino did). “We put them up in the theater downstairs. I can do the dime for armed robbery, but I don’t want a murder beef behind this, you feel me?”
And Cap’n Fear just stared at him.
The henchman stared back. “Seriously?”
The robotic parrot on Cap’n Fear’s shoulder whirred to life. “RRAAWWK-Talk the talk or walk the plank-RRAAWWK!”
The henchman sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Yarrrr, they be down stairs in the palladium… or whatever the hell, I don’t know.”
“Good,” Cap’n Fear said. “Keep yer blunderbusses handy. Th’ Bat be out tonight.”
With that, Cap’n Fear strode toward the casino managers office, wherein lie the computer system that opened all of the count rooms and cages. Plunder and booty, ahoy.
Cap’n Fear wrenched the manager’s door open, walked inside, and shut the door behind him. Only someone was waiting for him.
They were in a black leather longcoat, with gray metal chest armor beneath. Their face was covered by a green mask, and the deeper Cap’n Fear peered, the more he was convinced that that mask was holographic.
This person was typing rapidly on a holographic keyboard while they sat behind the manager’s desk, wrangling lines of code on a similarly holographic display.
“What ye be doin?” Cap’n Fear asked in surprise.
“Right now?” the person in the mask of green light asked in a digitally distorted voice. “I’m hacking your parrot.”
Cap’n Fear’s parrot swiveled its metal head to look at him.
“What a kid I got,” the robotic parrot said in the voice of late and beloved stand-up comic Rodney Dangerfield. “I told him about the birds and the bees, and he told me about the butcher and my wife.”
Cap’n Fear groaned, and used the hook on his left hand to shut his parrot off. Then he turned to the person sitting behind the manager’s desk, rage radiating from behind his metal mask, and his right hand producing his cutlass.
“Yarrrrrrr,” Cap’n Fear said. “Who be ye?”
“Yarrrrrrr,” the person behind the desk said. “I be Oracle. And right now, you’re in Shit Cove without an oar. Because a friend of mine’s coming that you are not going to be happy to see.”
“I’ve twenty buccaneers with blunderbusses on this deck,” Cap’n Fear said. “Whoever yer heartie be, nah even th’ Almighty Hisself could beat those odds.”
Oracle clenched her fists twice, and the holographic keyboard and display disappeared.
“Buddy,” she said, “if you think twenty guys with shotguns can stop what’s coming… then you’ve clearly never heard of Orphan.”
One of the henchmen made a mad dash for the magazines on the floor, and he was the first one to get whacked into unconsciousness by Robin’s staff.
Hit first, he thought, and hit once .
As Batman engaged in a close-quarters brawl inside the count room with Lady Vic, two of the henchmen started barreling toward Robin, using their unloaded rifles as cudgels.
Robin brought his staff up to block an overhand swipe, but the other henchman rammed the stock of his rifle into his solar plexus. Thanks to WayneTech and the miracle of kevlar, Robin barely felt it. More than that, he knew it was coming, and prepared for it.
He brought the staff down to bring the rifle to the floor, and then back up into the bridge of the henchman’s nose. Robin heard a crunch, and saw him drop.
With one henchman dealt with, the other opted to use his rifle for a baseball swing directly at Robin’s head. Robin ducked it, and the stock of the rifle sailed over his head. He stood up, and rammed the end of his staff into the tip of the henchman’s chin. He heard the guy’s teeth slam together, and when the henchman raised his hand to his mouth, Robin drove a fist into his temple. He saw the guy’s eyes roll back into his head as crumbled to the ground.
Robin felt a tap on his shoulder.
He turned around to be greeted by a right cross to the face from one of the three remaining henchmen, staggering him back into the wall.
As Robin checked his nose to see if it was bleeding, the remaining three advanced on him. The one in the middle was cracking his knuckles.
Robin dropped his hand to his utility belt…
...and up came his prototype “Bang-a-rang.”
It was like an average Batarang, except thicker. And once it made impact, it was supposed to act as a flashbang.
He lugged it at the one in the middle, and clenched his eyes shut.
Robin heard a light “FWUMP!” and heard one of the henchmen scream “My fuckin’ eyes!”
He opened his own, and saw the three henchmen with at least one hand to their eyes, stumble about.
Robin cracked the staff into the ear of the one on the right as hard as he could. He had heard it said that Major League baseball players know when they hit a home run even before it sailed over the left field wall, because when the ball made contact, the bat didn’t vibrate.
Robin’s staff did not vibrate.
The henchman on the right was already unconscious when he flew into the henchman in the middle, knocking him to the ground.
Robin turned his attention to the henchman on the left. He had his right arm raised, ready to strike.
Unfortunately for him, Robin already had it scouted.
Sadly, Robin’s arm did not fare as well under the metaphor of the baseball bat not vibrating. The blow he struck on the left henchman was savage, and its reverberations were felt all the way up to the elbow. It put the guy down, but still.
The henchman who had been in the middle was on all fours trying to get to his feet.
One baseball slide and a knee to the temple later, and Robin put that silly idea to bed.
He got to his own feet, and put his hand up to his nose again. It still smarted.
“Good work,” a gruff voice said.
Robin turned, and saw Batman standing in the doorway of the count room. Lady Vic was zip-tied and unconscious behind him.
“Thanks,” Robin said.
“Your prototype worked.”
“Yeah.”
“Is something wrong?” Batman asked.
Robin huffed. “I got hit in the face.
Batman cocked his head to the side. “You fought six people and won. It happens.”
“But it shouldn’t have happened,” Robin said. “It-It’s all I’m saying…”
“All of my life,” Magpie said as she and Spoiler circled each other, “I have put up with people like you mocking me and--”
THWACK!
Spoiler used her staff as a mini pole vault, and drove her right foot into the tip of Magpie’s chin. Her head snapped back, and bounded off the cold floor as she fell, with a thud that made Spoiler’s stomach do a half-assed somersault.
She flourished her staff, waiting for her to get up and make her next moves in the fight as she heard the errant thumps and thuds of Catwoman’s struggle against the seven goons outside the vault..
But Magpie did not get up.
Spoiler blinked behind her mask.
“Uh… Magpie?”
Magpie still wasn’t moving.
Spoiler very carefully got down on her knees and checked Magpie’s pulse with gloved fingers. She was still breathing, so…
“Everything okay?”
Spoiler turned and saw Catwoman standing in the hole that used to be the vault doorway. There was a sheen of sweat on her forehead, but Spoiler couldn’t tell if it was from exerting herself dealing with seven goons, or the new insulated Catsuit that WayneTech had provided her. Perfect for Decembers like this one.
“I… I just kicked her in the face, and, um… She plotzed.”
Catwoman looked the unconscious Magpie over. “One kick?”
“Yeah.”
“So… You bagged your first supervillain.”
It was as though a light bulb had appeared over Spoiler’s head, and she could feel the broad beam of a smile behind her mask.
“Yeah,” Spoiler said, the smile in her voice.
Catwoman opened her arms. “Well bring it in, Goddammit.”
Spoiler got up, and walked to Catwoman. She hugged her mentor as tight as she could.
As soon as the embrace was over, Spoiler asked, in a hopeful voice:
“Mojitos?”
“Hell no.”
“Why not?” Spoiler asked. “You let me drink vodka during the whole Undying thing.”
“Yeah,” Catwoman said, “in my apartment. You start guzzling booze in Wayne Manor, Bruce is gonna give me the stink-eye.”
Cap’n Fear raised his cutlass, ready to run this Oracle fool through, when he heard one of his henchmen’s shotguns going off.
Then another.
He turned to the closed door of the manager’s office.
Cap’n Fear heard lighter reports from outside, but it took a moment for him to realize that those weren’t handgun shots.
Those were punches.
Someone was hitting his henchmen so hard that they sounded like pistols going off.
Cap’n Fear had a mind to sheathe his cutlass and go out to lend support, but as soon as that thought entered his mind, someone, most likely one of his men, was vaulted into the other side of the door. Not hard enough to break it, but hard enough to truly hurt someone.
Pity for his men and cowardice for his own fate infused Cap’n Fear. He wasn’t going out there.
He heard one of his men mere feet from the door on the other side.
“GET AWAY FROM ME! SOMEONE HELP! HELP M--”
Cap’n Fear heard the sickening crunch of breaking bones, and that same buccaneer screaming himself into unconsciousness.
The ensuing seconds felt stretched to hours. Loud punches. Shotgun blasts. The rumble of destroyed scenery. Until finally, mercifully, the carnage on the other side of the door lapsed into a heavy silence.
So in the grip of terror was Cap’n Fear that he hadn’t heard Oracle walk up behind him.
Oracle reached out, and opened the door…
This deck of the X looked like a tornado had rolled through. The unconscious bodies of his goons were spread about like beer bottles in a sloppy drunk’s bender. Two roulette tables and two blackjack tables had been completely destroyed. Playing cards and casino chips blanketed the destruction like a freshly-fallen snow.
And standing in the middle was someone small enough for Cap’n Fear to assume was a girl. She didn’t stand an inch over five five. She was all in black and gold. Knee-high boots. Baggy pants. Black and gold armor covering her torso, with small gold armor plates spread across the outsides of her arms. Her head was covered in a full black mask with black lenses over the eyes. Cap’n Fear had to squint his one eye, but he saw stitching on the mask across the nose and down the sides.
Her shoulders gently moved up and down with the breaths she was taking.
And her fists were clenched.
“Hey Orphan,” Oracle said. “You feeling tired? Wanna take a break?”
“No,” the girl in black and gold said in a deep and craggy voice that clashed with her slight frame.
“You think this was easy, or do you think this was hard?”
“Easy,” Orphan said.
Oracle nodded, then turned to Cap’n Fear.
“The next few minutes are gonna go down one of two ways,” Oracle said. “You can surrender, and the next person to lay a hand on you is gonna be a member of the Gotham City Police Department. Or you can attempt a flex, and go toe-to-toe with my girl, here. And you heard her yourself. She’s not tired.”
Cap’n Fear stood still and silent. Oracle leaned in to speak softly in his ear.
“If you listen closely,” Oracle said, “you’ll hear the bell for round two. So… What’s gonna happ’n Cap’n?”
Orphan tilted her head to the side, and Cap’n Fear could hear the vertebrae in her neck pop.
Cap’n Fear threw down his cutlass.
After Lady Vic, Magpie, and Cap’n Fear were all safely within police custody, the six crimefighters met Kate “Batwoman” Kane at the agreed-upon rendezvous point: the roof of an abandoned storage facility on the outskirts of the East End.
Batwoman spoke to Barbara “Oracle” Gordon as Cassandra “Orphan” Cain, Tim “Robin” Drake, and Stephanie “Spoiler” Brown huddled together behind a billboard, out of the way of the mid-December wind.
Batman and Catwoman, however, talked amongst themselves on the roof of an old bakery across the street.
Cassandra took a deep breath and let it out, tendrils of fog seeping from the stitching on the front of her mask.
“I got punched in the face,” Tim said.
“Wow,” Stephanie said. “That sucks. Did you win?”
“Yeah.”
“How many?”
“Six.”
“And that’s what you decide to lead with?” Stephanie asked. “You got punched in the face?”
Cassandra, through methods both deeply cruel and undeniably effective, had the gift of reading people’s body language. She noticed that Tim and Stephanie were completely comfortable around each other. They had dated for a couple of months, until Tim broke up with her because… reasons? Cassandra wasn’t entirely clear on what “distant” meant in relation to romance. She knew the word meant “very far away,” but as far as Cassandra knew, Steph hadn’t left Gotham City.
She hadn’t been entirely sure what “breaking up” meant at the time. She thought Tim had actually, physically hurt her, which resulted in Cassandra finding Tim in the garden of Wayne Manor, and punching him in the throat. After Stephanie explained the ins and outs of the concept, Cassandra felt terrible, and told Tim she was sorry. To this day, she dropped an “I’m sorry” to him every once in a while, and they’d been broken up for over a year.
Stephanie said she’d wanted to be friends with Tim, and judging from their body language, that’s exactly what they were. Not like Dick Grayson and Starfire, both of whom seemed stiff at Bruce and Selina’s wedding when they had spoken to one another.
She had heard Starfire had said something to Bruce at the wedding, and that something had not been nice.
Cassandra wondered if she could punch Starfire in the throat and get away with it.
She was pretty sure she could.
“Bagged my first supervillain tonight,” Stephanie said. “With one shot.”
Cassandra patted Stephanie on the shoulder as Tim said “Nice.”
Kate broke from her quiet conversation with Barbara, and looked at Stephanie.
“Wow,” Kate said. “You one-shotted Magpie. How’s it feel being the smartest kid in summer school?”
“I dunno,” Stephanie said. “How does it feel being a ginger piss-flap who would burst into flame in direct sunlight?”
Cassandra cringed. Stephanie and Kate didn’t like each other, and she didn’t know why. She was fairly sure that even Kate didn’t know. The way they stood and pointed their bodies at each other told her that while they hated each other, they weren’t going to actually start a fight. Which confused Cassandra. It was like two warriors flinging snowballs at each other when there were perfectly good swords all about them.
Though she was sure that Kate had no idea about the genesis of Stephanie’s animosity toward her, Stephanie herself had been surprisingly stingy with details on what Kate had actually done. Cassandra asked what Kate had done, to which Stephanie relied “Just look at her.”
So Cassandra looked at her. A lot. Kate was quite skilled, and rather nice to Cassandra herself, but she read no malice within her. Just a front of confidence that was obviously fake to her, if not to anyone else. Cassandra wanted to tell Kate that everything would be okay and she didn’t have to pretend to be cooler than she actually was, but she wouldn’t have had the words for it. So every once in a while, Cassandra just patted Kate on the shoulder.
The whole thing made Cassandra uncomfortable.
“Hey,” Barbara said to Stephanie after turning off her voice scrambler. “She’s not the only ginger up here. Both of you knock it off, or I’ll get unpleasant.”
“You do know you can’t take me in a fight, right?” Kate asked.
“Yes,” said Barbara. “You do know that I can tank your credit rating and leave you homeless, right?”
“I’ll be good.”
“I thought so.” Barbara looked at Cassandra. “You crashing with Steph in the East End apartment tonight?”
“Yes,” Cassandra said.
Which reminded her…
She tapped Stephanie on the shoulder.
“Did you… bring it?” Cassandra asked.
“The PS4? Of course I brought it,” Stephanie said. “What the hell kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?”
On the roof of the bakery across the street, Catwoman was standing with her body toward the shadows. She had the zipper of her new Catwoman suit opened halfway down her chest, and she was clutching the side with one hand, and fanning her cleavage with the other.
“Is everything alright?” Batman asked.
“Lucius does his job too well,” Catwoman said. “It’s December, but I’m almost dying in this damn thing.”
The new Catsuit that Bruce had had made for Selina was made of a form-fitting and lightweight material that adhered to Catwoman’s aesthetics (only with silver accents instead of purple ones) and need for stealth and speed, while also protecting her from inclement weather. So effective was the patented WayneTech thermal material that it could withstand shots from Mister Freeze’s weaponry.
“If you like,” Batman said, “I could have Lucius make some adjustments with the formula.”
“Nah,” Catwoman said as she zipped herself back up. “It had one upside that I want to talk to you about.”
She pointed at the zipper around the entire waist of the Catsuit.
“It’s a two-piece,” Catwoman said. “I haven’t had that until now. So if I have to pee, I don’t have to strip down to my undies anymore.”
“I thought you’d appreciate it.”
“And you thought right,” Catwoman said. “Spoiler bagged her first supervillain tonight.”
“Congratulations,” Batman said.
“How’d your boy do?”
“Very well,” Batman said. “Wiped out six henchmen.”
“I hope he’s proud of himself.”
“That’s the thing,” Batman said. “He’s beating himself up over getting punched in the face.”
“How many times did he get punched?”
“Just the once.”
“And he’s reading himself the Riot Act over getting hit once while fighting six guys?” Catwoman asked. “I fight six guys and get punched, I don’t even blink anymore.”
Batman sighed. “Robin really does need to lighten up.”
Catwoman turned to him, smirk in place and fool-spotting eyebrow raised.
“Sailor… You do know the definition of ‘irony,’ right?”
Bruce and Selina Wayne got married a month and a half ago, on Halloween.
The next day, their honeymoon was to start.
At six AM, Bruce Wayne stood in the hangar that housed his private jet as workers loaded their bags onto the plane, when Selina stepped out of the women’s restroom, and walked up to him.
“Hey, Sailor,” she said.
He looked at her, eyes curious.
She walked up to him, and whispered in his ear…
“Truth or dare?”
Bruce blinked. “What?”
“Truth… or dare?”
He regarded her a moment longer. Their wedding night had been marred somewhat by a stern and icily angry talking-to given unto him by Starfire after the reception. She had hit him where it hurt on a few subjects, and while he had objected rigorously to the time and place in which she had chosen to rank him out, he ultimately couldn’t bring himself to disagree with anything she had said.
Selina had spent a great portion of the evening once they had gotten back to Wayne Manor talking him through it. Getting righteously indignant on behalf of her new husband.
So Bruce opted to humor her. It was only fair.
“Dare,” said Bruce.
Selina put her arms around his waist, and briefly kissed him on the lips.
“I dare you to walk out of here with me right now,” Selina said. “We go somewhere, buy some cheap clothes to put on our backs… and we start hitchhiking until the game ends.”
Bruce looked at her, his face stern but his cobalt eyes glinting… and nodded.
What was to have been a getaway to the French Riviera that would have lasted a week, became a zig-zagging, nearly-aimless trek across the interior of the United States that nearly lasted a month and a half. They were both extremely wealthy, so resources were not a problem. And safety wasn’t an issue, as they were both dangerous members of the Justice League in their off-hours.
To be safe, Bruce called Dick Grayson, and asked him if he would be so kind so as to help Batwoman, Robin, Spoiler, Oracle, and Orphan in their patrols of Gotham City whenever he could in his capacity as Nightwing, as he had no idea when he would back.
Dick replied with the request that Bruce take as many pictures as he could, and to tell him who won.
The dares were the most fun. Selina dared Bruce to sing Purple Rain in a karaoke bar in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Bruce dared Selina to break into the Flash Museum in Central City and deface all of the Wally West statues inside with big curly Sharpie moustaches. Selina dared Bruce to go streaking at midnight across a college campus in Lincoln, Nebraska. Bruce dared Selina to hock a loogie in the clam chowder of a fellow patron of a restaurant in Chicago, who had been rude to his waitress.
Which wasn’t to say that the truths revealed in this game of Truth or Dare were unenlightening. For example, Selina learned that Bruce’s first celebrity crush was Monique Powell, who was the lead singer of the late-nineties ska band Save Ferris.
By contrast, Bruce learned about the worst date of Selina’s life. Nothing had happened during the date itself, but once they got back to his apartment, and the gentleman retired to use the bathroom, Selina saw a copy of Atlas Shrugged on his book shelf, at which point she calmly left the apartment and ran for the elevator. If the guy was into Ayn Rand, he was probably into some sick shit.
The game ended in a bar on Fawcett City. They were sitting in a booth at twilight, Bruce nursing a ginger ale and stroking the beard he’d grown since the beginning of November. Selina was people-watching, on her second white wine.
“Truth or dare?” Bruce asked.
Selina frowned while weighing her options. “Mmmmmm… Truth.”
Bruce took a deep breath. “Why did you take my last name?”
Selina levelled her brilliant green eyes at him.
Bruce folded his hands on the table. “I mean… I’m grateful you did, I’m honored you did. But I really hope you don’t mind my saying that such a move doesn’t fit Catwoman’s MO.”
Selina Wayne looked at Bruce Wayne as though he had posed a grand philosophical concept worthy of meditation and thought, instead of a simple question about how she signed her checks.
She extended her hand across the table.
Bruce shook it.
“Good game,” Selina said. “I’ll get you next time.”
They were on the first flight to Gotham the following morning. That evening, Batman, Catwoman, and their merry band of partners and associates launched their three-pronged assault against Lady Vic, Magpie, and Cap’n Fear.
Bruce and Selina learned a great deal about each other on their honeymoon. Bruce learned that his initial observations about Selina’s caginess concerning questions about her life were incorrect. She was revealing, but she liked to pepper the things she told about herself with little inlets and tributaries, funneling whomever asked about her to the truth. It was her way of maintaining control. Save, of course, for the matter of changing her surname, which she guarded like Fort Knox.
Selina, however, learned that, since she was the only one who could make Bruce Wayne genuinely laugh, then Selina was the only person to whom he would crack jokes.
Which, of course, leads us back to…
“Sailor… You do know the definition of ‘irony,’ right?”
“Certainly,” Batman said. “It’s what iron tastes like.”
Catwoman’s eyes went dreamy, and the ghost of a smirk appeared on her lips. It was the look a parent gave to a child that had destroyed the kitchen trying to make that parent breakfast in bed.
“I’ll get you one day,” Batman said.
“But it ain’t today, Batman.”
Batman nodded. “Robin doesn’t want to make the trip back to Miagani tonight. Is it alright if he sleeps at the manor?”
Catwoman shrugged. “Why are you asking me? It’s your house.”
“I’m asking because I’m your husband, and it’s your house, too.”
At this point, Batwoman chimed in through the radio. “Batman, do you copy?”
“What is it Batwoman?” Batman asked as he held his finger to his cowl.
“I have it for the rest of the night, if you wanted to turn in.”
“Are you sure?” Batman asked.
“Yeah,” said Batwoman. “It’s quiet, tonight. You two are probably still jet-lagged, right?”
The original Gotham Central precinct was erected on the mainland in 1946, one of the big construction projects that were common in every major city after World War II. And it had begun to show its age.
Mayor Mattia Bardolo, who had taken over the position after previous mayor James Gordon had resigned in order to take his old job as Gotham City Police Commissioner, had successfully wrangled the city council into having a new one built on Founder’s Island. Founder’s Island itself had been without a major police presence since two Julys ago, when The Undying had attacked the city.
The lowest bid on construction went to a new outfit: Harmony Enterprises.
The framework of the first few floors had been built, but it was what was happening beneath the foundation on this chilly December night that was of the most note.
Underground, where members of a cult had excavated, the Goddess Harmonia stood, reaching outward with her mind.
It was down here, somewhere. Beyond this dirt, beyond this rock, the Stone of Nemesis lie dormant.
It was the only way to stop the whispering in her mind that had plagued her for millenia.
Harmonia turned within the chamber, and saw The Imp, who had appeared behind her.
The whispers that she sought to destroy amplified to screaming when she saw the three-foot Imp who went by the odious and ridiculous name of “Mister Mxyzptlk.”
With a twitch in her eye, Harmonia asked “What do you want?”
Mister Mxyzptlk adjusted his orange and purple derby hat atop his balding head, blew a gust of bubble gum-scented cigar smoke out of his mouth, and said “You’re not winning this one. You know that, right?”
Harmonia rolled her blue eyes, and walked right past him, her robes trailing on the subterranean soil behind her.
“I mean,” Mister Mxyzptlk continued, “you come into my house, you steal what’s rightfully mine, and now you come here to tangle with you-know-who?”
Harmonia whirled at him, glaring. “I know the forces against which I fight. Do not think that just because the Gods live high atop Olympus that we are so deaf to have never heard of The Batman. I will divide and conquer.”
“The classics, huh?” Mister Mxyzptlk asked. “I hate to break it to you, but harmony is your strong suit. It’s right there in the name. You want war? I hear you’re supposed to go to the other guy.”
“I do not need to be an expert in warfare to destroy a mere mortal.”
Mxyzptlk smiled. “Someone very scary in another life once said that there’s nothing mere about that mortal. In the best of circumstances, your chances were low. But you’re looking to make things personal. Bold… but I don’t like your odds.”
“Begone, foul thing,” Harmonia said.
Mister Mxyzptlk shrugged. “Alright,” he said, “but don’t come to me crying with a boot print in your ass if it goes pear-shaped.”
And with a loud pop, Mister Mxyzptlk was gone. The screaming in Harmonia’s head went back to its usual whisper.
Harmonia shuddered. She was the Goddess of Harmony and Concord, and the only way to bring some semblance of Harmony to this strange world was a clean slate.
Somewhere down here was the device that Harmonia would use to bring an end to this world.
She did not want to do it. She did not want to sentence a brilliant realm teeming with life to an end in blood and horror.
But she desired harmony. Balance. And an end to the centuries of whispers.
If Harmonia could not have order… then Harmonia would have silence.