The WBG Library Presents...
A World Builders Guild Collaboration.
BATMAN
SHADOW OVER GOTHAM
Written by PyroMancer and rainshadow.
With contributions by kazbrit10.
BATMAN created by Bob Kane. Shadow Over Gotham is set in the universe created by Christopher Nolan in the films Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. BATMAN and all related names, characters and elements are trademarks of DC Comics © 2008. All rights reserved.
A shadow hung over Gotham City in the same way a thick fog would hang over a hushed shoreline. The people of Gotham had not been this devastated since the loss of Thomas Wayne and his wife. Never before had such widespread panic seized the city as it had during the past few days.
The Joker, the chaotic madman responsible for the unpredictable reign of horror, had finally been apprehended, though the casualties were many. Among them, Gotham’s White Knight had been found near the rubble of a warehouse after having fallen, thrown from the upper levels of the ruined building. Worse, evidence linked Batman to Harvey Dent’s murder, and the murder of two police officers.
One man in particular found the whole scenario
to be devilishly amusing. The people’s veiled
protector, their silent guardian, the one man the
innocents could rely upon for justice when all
else failed had fallen into the depths of the
destruction he had sought to end.
Gotham’s people were scared and confused, the city reeling in the aftermath of the Joker’s unprecedented violence. Even the criminals were scared to come out of their holes.
It was the perfect opportunity to take control, and the Penguin chuckled in delight. In his clean, crisp tuxedo, the short, thickly built man shuffled through the city’s darkest alleys. He couldn’t say he had planned for the events of the past few days. In all likelihood, no one had. But he had a plan now. Harvey Dent was dead, and the Batman shamed. Gotham had never been so ripe for picking, and the Penguin viewed himself as the city’s pristine opportunist.
He had chosen his name in a fit of hilarity. His tailor had made a foolish wisecrack about the Antarctic bird. As idiotic as the jest had been, the squat entrepreneur couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of the criminal underworld referring to their boss as ‘Mr. Penguin’. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.
And so he gathered his few trusted men about him, and began the lengthy process of persuading, coercing, blackmailing, and forcing the criminals of Gotham City to do the Penguin’s bidding.
“Why did Batman run away?” the boy had asked.
“Because we have to chase him.”
“Why?”
Jim Gordon hated the answer, hated himself for having to bear the truth alone, but it was the cold hard truth. Harvey Dent was gone. In his passing, Batman had assumed the only role he could think of in order to preserve the legacy of Gotham’s White Knight. In essence, he effortlessly became exactly what Gotham needed him to become: the villain.
The newly assigned Commissioner could only watch from the sidelines as his partner, indeed his friend, fell of his own free will.
Two days had passed since that terrible choice. Harvey’s memorial service had come and gone. Today was the day his Gotham squeeze would finally be laid to rest. Gordon had chosen to attend. It wasn’t a matter of whether or not he could actually make it. More so, he was partly to blame for horrible end that had befallen her. There was simply no choice in the matter. He was obligated to pay his final respects. It was more than simple obligation, though; Rachel Dawes had been a friend.
Using a wet hand towel, Gordon wiped away the condensation that had collected on the bathroom mirror. Leaning heavily against the sink, he stared hard at his reflection, eyeing those first few unexpected strands of grey that had seemed to pop up out of nowhere. It was a poor indicator of his true age. He supposed the stress of running a police force in the world’s most crime-ridden city had that effect on a man.
The job was harder than he’d ever anticipated, even with a masked vigilante on his side. In many ways, it had proven even more difficult than before Batman had appeared.
Escalation. That had been the term he’d used on the rooftop after the Rā’s al Ghūl incident. Gordon regretted how dangerously prophetic his statement had been. More than escalation, the Joker’s arrival had shared the characteristics of a volcanic explosion.
“Jim?” The gentle question stirred him from his thoughts. His wife Barbara stood in the doorway, her robe wrapped tightly to her slender frame, her expression solemn. Gordon watched her through the mirror.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
He grunted, forcing a little smile as he gave a light tug to one of the strands of grey. “I’ve been better.”
She smiled and moved up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist. Gordon lay a hand atop hers, and they stood there in silence for a long time, letting the dreadful memories of those long, treacherous days linger, hoping they would be caught in a breeze and drift mercifully away. Highly unlikely. Not with the funeral looming close. Not with the uncertain fate of Gotham City still masked by lingering shadows.
After the funeral, the chase would resume. Gordon knew they could not catch their prey, no matter how hard they tried.
All the better. He needed Batman on the streets, lurking in the shadows, flying on rooftops.
Being the menace to Gotham City’s underworld that he had always been.
Half a city away, in a private suite atop one of Gotham City’s tallest skyscrapers, an alarm went off. The clock radio next to his bed buzzed annoyingly until he pounded down on the snooze button. Pain rippled up his side, reminding Bruce Wayne of the horrible events of the past few days. As the pain lingered, he stared up at the ceiling for a time until the door opened, and a familiar voice called out.
“Good morning, Master Wayne.”
“Good morning, Alfred.” Bruce sat up on his bed, clutching his right side. Alfred and Lucius Fox had been able to remove Harvey’s bullet, but the wound would take more time to heal. One of the terrible burdens he would have to bear due to his more recent failings.
“How are you feeling, sir?” Alfred carried a tray of breakfast, and placed it gently on the nightstand.
“I’m fine, Alfred.” Bruce reached for a slice of toast, wincing slightly as he twisted to reach it.
“Sir, perhaps you shouldn’t–”
“I’m going. If anyone notices I’m hurt, I’ll tell them it was the car wreck.”
“Very well sir. I’ll lay out a suit.”
“Oh and Alfred. That letter from the other day,” Bruce paused and a shadow flitted across his handsome face. “Who was it from?”
Alfred, almost to the door, looked over his shoulder at the boy he helped raise to manhood. “It was a thank you note. From Harvey Dent, for the fund raiser.” The lie hurt, but Alfred knew it was for the better. He closed the door silently behind him, leaving his master to brood about the future of Batman, a future without Rachel, but filled with the uncertainty of an impenetrable fog.
Bruce Wayne was hesitant. He felt more than a little uncomfortable in the suit Alfred had chosen for him, but he wore it well enough. As dark and silent and ominous as he portrayed the Batman, he was equally as skilled playing perhaps a much more difficult role, the part of multi-billion dollar playboy, the face known far and wide as the figurehead of Wayne Enterprises. This was the mantle he wore from day to day, in order to show not just Gotham City, but every watchful pair of eyes from across the globe that he could fill the enormous shoes left to him by his father.
Like his father before him, Bruce left the corporation’s business in the hands of better men. He had far more important dealings of his own. After sunset, when darkness consumed the city, a side of Bruce Wayne few had ever seen, and fewer still would ever understand, went to work. Difficult as all that might be, however, this was infinitely harder.
“Second thoughts, Master Wayne?”
Bruce shifted his gaze from the rows of tombstones to the caretaker of Wayne Manor in the driver’s seat. “As a matter of fact, yes,” he admitted. Doubt had settled in after Rachel’s death and he felt it still deep down. What right did he have to be here? Rachel may have been his friend, but in the end he had failed her, same as he had failed Harvey Dent. “But I owe her this.”
From his spot behind the passenger’s seat, Bruce pushed the door open and stepped out into the street. Without a word he shut the door and stared once more out to the throng of people standing amongst the tombstones.
“I’ll park the car then,” Alfred said to himself.
As the car pulled away, Bruce started off onto the grass. As he traversed the graveyard toward Rachel’s final resting place, he took in the faces he saw. Most were people he didn’t recognize, likely family and friends of the deceased. He also spotted a number of people he did know… James and Barbara Gordon among them. However, it was a lovely, sixty-year-old woman in a plain, black gown, weeping gently as her fingers trailed lightly over the coffin that stirred his deepest emotions.
“Miss Rose?” he said as he approached, addressing her by the name she’d asked him to in his youth.
She turned to him, emerald eyes glistening up at him as she studied his strong, dark features through her tears. He could see the gears turning for several moments before recognition seized her features. “Brucie,” she whispered, and threw her frail arms around him. “Oh, Brucie, I can’t believe it’s you!”
Rosalyn Dawes appeared every bit her sixty years and then some. Bruce smiled in relief to see her, though his heart broke for her all the same. The years had been rough, but then, so they always were in Gotham City after his father died.
Following the Wayne murders, Rose and Rachel had packed up and moved away, and it was years before he’d met up with Rachel again. Rose was another story entirely. He hadn’t seen her since she’d climbed into her car after the funeral. They had parted during dark and miserable times. Bruce eyed the coffin; their reunion was no different.
“Thank you for coming, Brucie,” she whispered. She’d used the nickname since she’d met him years ago, when he was a babe in his mother’s arms.
After a long silence, he looked into her eyes. “Rose, I’m so sorry…”
He could tell by the look in her eyes that she misunderstood his meaning.
Seventeen down, one more to go.
The Penguin enjoyed crime, particularly the profit it gave him, the power, the fear. All the same, he never enjoyed the lead-up. It had taken him two days to hunt down every remnant group of organized crime and street gangs remaining in Gotham. With each one, he’d marched straight into their holes with his men, and took immediate control of the situation. Sometimes he’d have to kill one or two of them to convince each group to do his bidding. In the end, they all saw things his way.
Now he kicked in the rusted metal door that would lead him into the lair of the last group of cutthroats and thieves this city had hiding under her skirt. Some whore screamed, and the dirty criminals in the dimly lit lounge reached for weapons. Before any one of them could pull a piece from their waist bands, the Penguin’s men held rifles, shotguns and a motley array of pistols to the gang bangers’ heads.
“Now, now,” he began, having had plenty of practice, “there’s really no need for us to get jumpy. My name is–”
“We know who you are, psycho!” The butt of a shotgun closed the insolent man’s mouth.
“My name,” he said again, pausing both for effect and to quickly adjust his impeccable suit, “is the Penguin.” Despite the gun in his face, one stupid thief could not withhold a guffaw. Calmly, the Penguin reached into his suit, withdrew his own pistol, pointed it at the fool’s face, and pulled the trigger.
His ears ringing in an otherwise silent room, he smiled.
“Please, friends, I’m not here to put an end to your little operation. I’m a business man, and I’ve come here with a proposition.”
The gang eyed him warily, and the one with a bruised jaw line spoke up. “What did you have in mind?”
“That’s the spirit! I appreciate good business sense. So here’s the deal. I provide weapons and equipment, and perhaps once in a while call in your services for something specific, and you give me 60% of your profits.”
“Sixty—that’s absurd!” The bruised man tried to stand up in protest, but was pushed roughly into a nearby chair. He glared at the man with a gun to his face. “It’s too much. We can’t live off 40%. How about fifty?” As the punk was speaking, Penguin lifted a finger, demanding silence. “If you… provide… us with…”
The punk obediently stammered to a stop when the Penguin began to fidget. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was horribly wrong. On instinct, he began to examine his clothing, distracted, leaving the injured thief’s thought hanging in the gloom. Just as he suspected, on his right trouser leg sat a disgustingly perfect droplet of blood. Plucking the handkerchief from his breast pocket, he carefully dabbed at the gore, careful not to spread it further. Nonetheless, the blood had soaked in. He sighed; another dry cleaning bill. Tossing the useless rag aside, he stood straight and fixed his long-nosed gaze on his latest business partner.
The man swallowed. “How ‘bout fifty-five?”
“Excellent! Now that’s good business. Fifty-five seems reasonable. I’ll send a man to collect the payments and take requests once a week. Oh and one more thing I shouldn’t forget. Don’t get any fancy ideas. I own the underworld now. If you follow me, we can do something grand in this city.”
With that, as quickly as he had come, the Penguin and his men took their leave through the broken-down door. The Penguin was careful to avoid stepping in the puddle of blood. After all, these shoes were expensive.
Jim Gordon mingled, offering condolences as the burial came to an end. His phone buzzed lightly in his pocket. Turning away from the grievers, he flipped it open.
“Gordon.”
“Commissioner, I’m sorry to bother you. It’s Detective Banks. He says it’s urgent.”
“Put him through.” A moment passed, and his phone chimed. Irritated to be bothered here, he said, “What is it, Detective?”
“Sir, I’m sorry, but I thought you should know. One of my CI’s called me this morning. I don’t have all the details yet, but it looks like we’re dealing with some kind of Joker copycat. We won’t have the time we thought we had before the underworld reorganizes. It’s already happening.”
Gordon swore softly. “I’ll be at the station as soon as I can.” Without waiting for a reply, he snapped the phone shut and sighed. As he looked across the faces in the graveyard, his eyes rested on that of Bruce Wayne. Gordon nodded a quick acknowledgment.
After telling his wife where he was headed, he walked hurriedly back to his car.
After the burial, Bruce still hadn’t had a chance to talk to the Commissioner, though he had kept an eye on him since arriving. Until the moment when Gordon answered his phone, everything had seemed normal. At least as normal as it could be in a place and time of mourning.
All that changed when Gordon snapped shut his cell phone. Suddenly on full alert, Bruce watched as he whispered something to his wife and hurried off through the cemetery.
He found Rose one last time to say goodbye and then left himself.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Please direct comments to rainshadow and PyroMancer at the WBG.
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