Following Cass further into the labyrinth, aware that at any moment Alleytown could come crashing through the ceiling, Bruce continued to contemplate which problems to solve, and the order it would have to be done in, what resources were available.
Could they stop Alleytown's destruction? The League's victory speech suggested that there was no way to evacuate in time. Even if nobody died, and the Lazarus Lake could restore every civilian, there was still the problem of an entire borough of Gotham with Lazarus Fever.
There was Altair to deal with, Tim had reported his presence and that Ra's was not a threat- as Bruce had suspected from JJ's photograph of the man, restrained and vegetative. Another issue. Saving Ra's al Ghul whilst he was in need of life support. Alleytown was the higher priority but it reaffirmed to Bruce that they needed to prevent the cataclysm, and soon.
If Altair had planned the detonation, then Bruce would simply have to break the information out of him. He clenched his fists, rhythmically, reminding himself that his children could take this information. Take it and save Alleytown.
The Lazarus Lake itself was a concern, but it could be handled after- and Bruce couldn't help the sickly urge to wonder if Hal could... if- if that could be undone. If blood could be washed from Steph's hands before it dried.
To Cass, he communicated in silent, clear body language, capture the clone. We need to stop his plan.
Summary: Bruce's Events of the Last Few Hours of Drama
Please mind these content warnings and stay safe:
Canon-typical violence
Minor Unsafe Medical Procedure
Forced but non-sexual nudity
Intimacy Coercion (Joker)
Gotham, Bruce thought. Holding onto that one, brilliant clear thought in the fugue state Wilson had left his head in. I am still in Gotham.
He couldn't be completely certain. The false Batman he had held his ground against- a barely trained, but Lazarus touched bulk of muscle and rage - but Ra's apparent heir, the meticulously trained and fiercely intelligent, Altair tipped the scales. All too much like Tim, Bruce acknowledged as he was driven down and still and finally, into that smoke-streaked limbo between alert and not conscious anymore.
He tried to count the turns. Restraints blunted through his armor. Pain a throbbing storm that ran down his temples into the ocean of his body. Captured glimpses of where he was being brought. Struggling to name this particular part of the city, but recognizing it.
Gotham, he repeated, as he was brought into a terrace house that would probably fall down in a gust of wind. And then. Shining and clear. Alleytown.
Except. Here was the thing.
When exactly had there been a Lazarus lake beneath Gotham's Eastern Boroughs?
Not a pit. A chasm. The seething green being fed and fattened with green-rusting pipes. An underground, cavernous lake. Dread gnawed in his gut as he was shoved past the lake- usually such primordial places, not this... this industrialism?
But he remembered it. Acknowledged the immensity of the cavern, hollowed below Alleytown. Ready to make his report when he got loose-
And he would get loose. He had to get loose. His kids were out there. Dickie was out there. Facing down Slade Wilson who had been both obsession and obsessed. Nemeses were tricky things. And Ra's was involved, Ra's was involved in this.
He was needed. His city needed him, his children, the boy in the concrete box who had done nothing wrong except be a Robin in another universe.
This intel was crucial, but Bruce couldn't stay here. He would tear himself to pieces to escape.
Ra's was a cautious opponent, a few centuries of your own machinations built a healthy suspicion, so Bruce was unsurprised to be stripped. His belt (and pockets, and hidden pockets, and hidden batarangs, and the collapsible sword) had been removed from his person as soon as he'd been contained. What surprised him was that he was not being offered an ostentatious robe, and possibly even Arak, before Ra's deigned to speak with him.
Instead, Bruce was showered down in a tiled room that was stark. Freezing water making his teeth grit, and thoroughly inspected for sub-epidermal trackers- which were removed to confirm their deactivation. A process he 'enjoyed' without anesthetic.
And Ra's never showed himself.
The Joker did, freshly sane from the Lazarus pools- Bruce was beginning to suspect the large one was being fed by a number of sources, though again... questions. He'd been brought by a hooded figure- but one Bruce could now place as Altair -and left with Bruce in the tiled room.
The Joker was not a pleasant companion. All smiles and taunts and guilt peeking through now and then, frustration. Sanity didn't really endear him to Bruce, but he could at least understand. And with little left to hope for, he'd asked, voice raw and honest:
"Help me and let me go," asking with all he had, pride eating a hole inside him, "work with me, Joker."
Jaybird. Jaybird. He was working with the Joker.
"Why should I?"
"...because it's me asking."
Don't think about what that means. Don't think-
"Can I get a kiss?"
Nausea erupted bright and scalding in Bruce's stomach. The drop in his gut. Disgust folded itself away with the shock, and Bruce weighted his options.
Jaybird. The Joker's harassing him in laughs, echoes, a shadow of himself burying a fist in Bruce's gut mid-fight. Jay.
"...yes."
He had to get to the boy in the concrete box, Jay's son. To Dick, suspended like a bird on a string. Tim with his dangerous and potentially obsessive alter-ego. The League's long claws reaching for Damian. The Joker shooting darling Babs, beating Bruce's son to death. The wide breadth of the Lazarus waters he had seen.
He had to.
"Eh, your lips are kinda crusty… No thanks."
Bruce loathed the deep disappointment that bubbled up. The noxious seethe of it. He was still trapped here.
As he suspected, they had been keeping him in the decontamination units. It made sense; depriving him of resources was the surest way to ensure he stayed put. That and the concussion. What the League had paid Wilson for a strongly debilitating injury without brain bleed was...
Probably in his budget, if Bruce was that sort of man.
The reminder only pushed Bruce to work quicker. Dick had been locked in combat with Deathstroke, and... Deathstroke had a way of rattling Dick's marbles. JJ was alive, at the least, Bruce had been unexpectedly rescued by the lad's lockpicks.
Resource assessment.
Joker's jacket, functionally not useful wrapped around Bruce's hips, but better than facing a ninja with everything- well hanging out. He really could not reiterate how little he liked fighting naked.
A set of lockpicks. Useful, simplistic. Partially destroyed by having to use them to break out.
Handcuffs, no key, but functional.
As expected, Bruce could not find his cowl, suit or belt. Not one batarang was in evidence, but the decontamination unit did have cupboards filled with... he held it out with a squint. Essentially a bathrobe ending near his knees. He grimaced, but pulled it on and tied in, only briefly glancing at the League's crest on its breast.
I look like I've had a one night stand at the world's least edifying spa, Bruce grunted as he considered the jacket...
Useless. And yet- after everything he had been through, his knuckles were still clenched in the fabric. What had been the purpose of dunking the Joker? Ordering the hit just to revive him?
He broke even. Reaching into the inner lining to withdraw the trademark card he just knew would be there. That he slipped in the pocket of the robe, along with the picks. The cuffs he looped over the soft fabric belt tied at his waist.
Okay. Time to go.
@shh-its-cass @jokerwithcrowbar (unsure if you're coming with, but here's what he's up to)
Currently Bruce Wayne has been captured by Ra's al Ghul, and is being held under Alleytown in Gotham. He has seen a VERY big Lazarus Lake under there which did not get planning permissions from the city.
His trackers were deactivated and removed.
At present, nobody knows his location, though happy to plot a rescue / escape down the line, but since I'm busy ooc today, for now he can sit there and think about what he did and gather intel on Ra's.
He's with @jokerwithcrowbar and having... a time of it.
