Chapter Text
The Gotham Project- Year Fifteen- Excerpt, shortly after codename- ‘The Asylum Incident’ Made during the flight back to the Batcave
How could I have missed this? The dots line up, the answer fits the puzzle, and yet, I want to doubt my answer. I want to bury this answer and never look back. But that would stand against everything the Batman is. It would be proof that I am every bit the hypocrite Harvey accuses me of being.
But… If I were to have been right… This changed everything. It would explain why Harley had been missing through the series of events that led to Oracle’s legs being lost to her.
It would explain why she seemed more unhinged when she had returned, only stabilising recently. It would explain why Hugo managed to gain so much influence over the crazy couple in so little time.
They had let him into their heads. To make them forget. Or perhaps Harley had a bit of Harleen left inside her.
I digress. In the latest escapade of the Joker, aided by the likes of Zsaz, Harley, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, the Riddler, Bane of all people, though it is to be noted that he is still significantly weaker in comparison to his prime. Also on the roster was the Scarecrow.
Scarecrow had an altercation with Killer Croc. His survival is expected. It must be noted however, that his face was significantly harmed during the altercation.
Before the night’s final confrontation, which would have been against the Joker, who had foolishly enhanced himself with an obscene amount of Venom.
I had dealt with him easily enough. The excessive amount of Venom in his veins made his attack patterns overly simplistic and easy to predict, avoid and overcome.
Upon dealing with him and leaving him to the authorities, I had a… hunch that I was missing something very important. I followed my instincts and they took me to the Warden’s office.
It took me a while, but I realised what had set me off. One of the wall panels had been made of an entirely different material. Sturdier. Also making it easier to hide a false chamber within. Doubtless that, if I searched the room enough, I would find the access pad for it.
It took three charges of explosive gel to blow the panel open and to see what lay within. Unsurprisingly, the warden had been holding several items of significance within. All, seemingly about a new project.
A city, for a lack of words, to house all of the poor souls housed within the asylum and Blackgate for good measure. The plan seemed to have been made with good faith, and may actually have good prospects for the future.
‘The Prison City of Arkham’. At the very least, the damage caused by the people will be mitigated within this project. I can see how this might have cost the man his job. It was much too ambitious a project. I handed it over to Commissioner Gordon and told him it had my blessings.
But before I left the little alcove with the blueprints, I noticed something in the corner of my eye. In a corner of the wall, cleverly hidden, was a little false back. Not much, just over three square inches.
Behind the false wall was a tiny safe. It fit perfectly in the cusp of my hand. It was too small to have any of the harder-to-crack mechanisms. But what it did have was a hefty double-core interior with seven different pins. The thing was basically an overly elaborate lock with a tiny space within to contain whatever the warden wanted so elaborately well protected.
I did not expect much. It was more than likely to pertain to his private life than his encounters as Warden. What could he possibly be so frightened of, that the horrors of the Asylum did not beat out on?
In the end, I had to rely on a tiny wire, no more than a hair in diameter, inserted through the back, before tugging down hard once it had wound around the second core, immediately deactivating the mechanism and opening the safe.
Within, lied a little data card. I did not have any compatible device capable of reading it on me, so I secured it and walked out of the office. There were no more incidents this night.
To Be Remembered, Mors, Year-Fifteen, Incident 303
A hundred and sixty eight is the number for this day. No more is to be said. How much is too much?
End Of Excerpt
When Batman finished writing his newest entry in the Gotham Project, a project that had the end nowhere in sight, the Batjet had already reached the Batcave. He jumped out of the jet as it slowly set its feet on the floor, landing a bit unsteadily on the floor. Despite appearances, he had indeed been injured through the course of the night.
Nothing that a good night’s rest would not fix. He took a step forward and winced. Maybe three nights of sleep would be closer to the mark.
Bruce walked toward the mannequin head as he took off his helm. The time for Batman was done for the night. He placed his helm on the mannequin and walked to the Batcomputer. He took off pieces of his equipment as he did so.
His cape, tattered and very nearly ruined, but would doubtless be of use come the time he needed it again.
His belt, still in good shape, unbuckled and placed in its pedestal, with several checks to be run at a later time.
He did not take off any other piece of his equipment. He would take them off when Alfred reminded him to, as was the norm.
He had one last order of business for the night, to verify his suspicion that the data card he had taken from the ex-warden’s secret safe would not contain important information. Thankfully for Bruce, the batcomputer was already running with a very capable user at that moment.
“Barbara, how is the night looking? How is Dick doing on his rounds? Should I suit back up for the night?”
The technology expert of Batman's various experts, the voice in his ear informing him of the various misdeeds being committed by his rogue gallery in near-real time.
The woman behind the chair, the once-Batgirl, now dubbed Oracle, Barbara Gordon rolled herself into view from the corner she had been in, talking in a sing-song voice, “Bruce, Dick finished his rounds over two hours ago, while you were under the effects of Scarecrow’s new toxin. It is almost dawn, and you know you don’t suit up in the day, right? Right. Alfred will be coming here soon, and he told me that he is bringing his old tranq gun from his time in Africa to, and I quote, ‘to put down an overly enthusiastic beast that has forgotten all control and pacing’. So, um… Maybe go to sleep?”
Bruce blinked at her coffee-fueled tirade and offered his techie-in-all-but-name a smile as he offered her the data card to look through data.
She did not even bat an eye at his crude attempt at changing the topic of conversation. They both knew that sleep would only come to him once he believed his work for the day to be complete.
It was standard procedure for them at this point in time. Like clockwork, Batman overworks himself, Barbara tries to reign him in unsuccessfully, then Alfred comes in to finally break the stalemate and get Bruce to sleep and heal.
“So, how many dirty pictures do you think we will find in this card? My bet is on about five hundred.” Quipping was her method of showing unease. She was spending too much of her time with Robin, noted Bruce.
The Batcomputer cracked the code to the card within seven seconds, as was expected. The safe housing the card had probably never been touched since it had been hidden away, and that had been at least six years prior.
Bruce walked away, heading to the elevator to the Mansion, before stopping dead in his tracks at an unexpected sound from Barbara’s place behind the wheel and ran back to the computer, where Barbara had apparently been so shocked she dropped her book.
She never dropped her book.
Bruce got to her and saw her hold back her shocked screams with her hands using all the force she could muster. Her eyes were wide open and disbelieving of what she was seeing.
Bruce saw what was on the screen, and immediately grabbed his belt and tattered cape. He grabbed his helm on the way out and climbed on top of the Batjet.
In his haste, he called Robin, a seventeen year old who had been at the job for much longer than any seventeen year old should have. Bruce still felt guilt over it.
But Batman knew that it had been the best, if maybe not the most moral, way to make sure that Dick Grayson did not turn to the dark side, so to speak.
But this time, it was different. He had to stop the Joker from ever knowing about his discovery. He had to stop him from twisting a child to his ways. Not when he had an actual decent chance in succeeding.
Not when the child in question did not even have a choice in the matter. After all, who in the world could choose their parentage?
Batman sat in the cockpit and entered the coordinates of his destination, the point nearest to the Gotham Orphanage, a building held by the organisation of the same name, which, despite its admirable cause, was inches from being thrown down the pit of bankruptcy, where he could get off the jet unseen.
He reached his destination at the same time as Robin. He would have arrived earlier, but he had seen a couple of thugs in a back alley near his drop-off location. One swift attempt at coaxing the thugs to rethink their lifestyle, a couple of broken femurs, his belt lighter by about two metres of zipline, and one fractured orbital later, they would have a few weeks of peace and calm in a blue environment.
And Robin was at the orphanage, right on top of it, in fact. He did not notice when Batman landed behind him or when he took a perch next to him.
“Did Oracle tell you why I asked for you to be here?”
Robin, to his credit, only flinched slightly before answering. Once upon a time, he would have very well decided that his head needed a very quick get-together with the floor before coming back to his senses.
“How do you keep doing that? No, Bruce, Barbara did not, in fact, tell me why I was told to be here. Is it important? Did Zsasz get out? Is he nearby? I knew he had been taking it too easy in the Asylum. What is it? Is it Clayface? I’m not properly equipped for Clayface right now. Is it Fries? Cuz I could totally-”
Robin stopped his tirade when he saw the way Batman was looking at him. He did not reflect on his actions, but he knew what he did wrong. That was enough.
Batman silently handed over a data card, made by Oracle, with the exact same data as in the original, but now usable through the experimental AR system in the visors.
Robin accepted the card with clear vitriol. He did not believe the card could possibly contain data that could have shaken the Batman so much.
The data within was very simple. It had within it a file, which had been written by one Doctor Hugo Strange with regards to a certain conversation he and one Miss Harleen Frances Quinzel, codenamed Patient 1(a) for the purposes of the evaluation, had.
It was supposed to be a standard psych-eval, noted the file.
Instead, the patient had spoken of how she fought through the madness, and in her one act of sanity in a long while, wished for just one thing.
She wished to be put in a coma till the time her child was born, and for the very existence of the child be wiped from her mind.
I obliged, said the file . I helped in the process myself. I never had to medicate her till the day she came to term. Instead, she seemed to regain more of her previous sanity the longer she cared for the child within her.
But, I complied with her wishes and installed a mental block upon making certain the birth had left no signs on the woman.
The next time she woke, she had regressed entirely to her state prior to learning of her child. It is to be noted, however, the file noted, that Harley Quinn was not too far from regaining her sanity.
The file ended at this point, with a single picture attached to the end. The picture was of a little baby, with a character profile attached.
GIVEN NAME- HANNAH
MIDDLE NAME- N/A
LAST NAME- N/A
PARENTS- DECLARED DEAD
CURRENT STATE- LEFT AT THE DOORSTEP OF THE GOTHAM ORPHANAGE
SECRECY- N/A, ALL DATA TO BE PURGED
DANGER LEVEL- NONE
Robin felt queasy. He felt ready to puke. It was not like what he had thought. It was not as bad as his worst-case scenario. It was far worse.
“Bruce, what do you plan to do? The kid would be six, at the very most right now. You can’t possibly be-”
“Bruce Wayne is going to get a daughter. She will not be harmed. She will not be taught the way you were. She will be completely ordinary. She does not need to be the enemy. A happy childhood is the best way I can think of to eliminate the threat.”
Robin blinked his eyes and noticed that his mentor was indeed carrying a bag with him. It had been hidden by his cape previously. He quickly changed outfits, removing his gauntlets and boots, along with his visor, using them to replace the contents of the bag.
Within half a minute, where once stood Batman, nightmare of all who walk the crooked path and hero of Gotham, was the eccentric billionaire philanthropist playboy Bruce Wayne, in a three-piece suit complete with a tie.
He silently jumped off the building, throwing the bag with his equipment over to his protege. His landing was not nearly as silent, with his shoes landing on the garden, breaking quite a few of the branches in his path downwards.
He rearranged his clothes and confidently walked towards the main entrance of the Orphanage, hit the buzzer and fiddled with his suit. He made sure to put on his best smile, after all, what was so harmful about a smile? It didn’t cost him anything after all.
The matron in charge, a surprisingly young woman who could pass as a model, opened the door, took one look at him, and immediately changed her tune from a patronising one to a happy one.
Bruce smiled, it would be easier than expected for him to do his task. He walked up to the matron and kissed her palm, breaking her calm and posture in one go.
“M-Mister Bruce Wayne Sir, what brings you here? It is much too early for-”
Bruce’s smile widened, “Why, but it is never too early for me to meet with a beautiful lady such as yourself.”
The children of the orphanage would be woken two hours later than usual, by a highly ruffled matron with a heavily blushing face. Since it had been a weekend, the other sisters and matrons had left to enjoy their day-offs.
It took an hour for all of the children to properly wash up and ready themselves to see their guest, who they found to be in the small garden hidden in the backyard. He was weeding the plot for some god forsaken reason with a bright smile on his face.
The children nearest to the head matron found that, for some reason, her face had become even redder. In fact, she seemed to have grown weaker in the knees.
Before she could collapse, her eldest wards held her up from behind, with giggles and smiles. The sound of the giggles snapped the woman out of her handsome-man-who-gave-her-an- extremely -good-time induced reverie and brought a semblance of seriousness into her face.
But, before she could pick up the leftover pieces of her dignity, a small child, one of the most beloved in the orphanage ran forward to the man washing the dirt off his hands.
And kicked his shin for all she was worth. Which was not much. All it got out of the wayward billionaire was a small belated ‘ouch’, which sounded more obligatory than anything else.
Then he had the sheer audacity to take off his semi-ruined jacket, wrap it around the little trouble maker and pick her up.
He held the child in such a manner that her face would have been directly at eye-level with him. It took the kid a couple jerks to free herself from her jail made of expensive cloth.
As she struggled to free herself, her voice could be heard, “Let go of your evil magic bad guy! Let Matron go! Hannah wants nice bad guy to make Matron normal again!”
Nobody noticed, but at the mention of her own name, the man froze for a split-fraction of a second before continuing in his teasing.
It was when he was just about to hand the child over to the matron that she finally managed to unbind herself and show her face to him.
Her face was white as snow, almost albino but still looking healthy, her hair was blonde with green highlights.
What gave her identity away to the World’s Greatest Detective, however, were her eyes.
Her left eye was blue as a cloudless sky, her right eye was green and they both had gold flecks in them. Her right eye looked exactly like the Joker’s. His were just very, very crazy.
Hers were just full of childish curiosity and innocence.
Bruce had found who he had been looking for, and the Wayne household had a new name amongst them.