You Know My Name: A Tale of Gotham Nights

[Publius]

Chapter 1: Bailamos

It was not the weather that seemed to cast a pall of gloom over the city; no, Gotham City never seemed to need the elements' help to achieve that effect. It seemed to have an atmosphere of desolation all its own, come rain or shine. Was it the city's distinct aesthetic — an eclectic blend of old Gothic cathedrals and Art Deco skyscrapers — or was it something more ephemeral? No one could say.

The sun dipped into the evening and the skies burned, a moody red and orange with just a hint of purple. A cold autumn wind was blowing, kicking up the litter that lay strewn on the streets. The streets seemed to empty themselves — and with good reason; it was not safe to walk the streets of Gotham after dark. There were things that went bump in the night.

A black Cadillac DTS limousine pulled off 34th Avenue into an Old Gotham parking lot and came to a halt. The chauffeur came about and opened the car door, bringing his heels together with a click as Oswald Cobblepot emerged from the aft compartment, donning his black silk top hat with a Churchillian scowl. Cobblepot was not a good-looking man; he was short and portly, with thinning black hair that had long-since receded from his forehead, a long aquiline nose and a somewhat peculiar gait that had often been uncharitably described as a waddle. It was with good reason he was known — near universally — as the Penguin.

His black umbrella — as permanent a fixture of his wardrobe as the monocle screwed into his right eye socket — tapped a steady rhythm as he walked toward the door, trailing two bodyguards. Another small group appeared at about the same time, led by a tall man in a striking black and white trenchcoat. Striking, because it was bifurcated down the middle: Black on the left, white on the right. Striking, but not as striking as the man's face, lean, flawless and handsome on the right, and hideously scarred on the left. If there was a good reason for Cobblepot's nom de guerre, there was an even better one for Harvey Dent's.

"Two-Face," the Penguin said, nodding in greeting. There was a peculiar bond among some of the more colorful elements of Gotham's criminal underground; a sort of thrawn camaraderie that united them. Some of them could even be described as friends.

"Gonna be a cold winter," Two-Face said, turning up his coat's collar. Even his leather gloves yielded to his obsession with duality. His black fedora wasn't bichromatic, but it did sport a white silk band, just for good measure.

"All the more reason to feather one's nest," answered the shorter man, drawing a long draught of smoke from the cigarette jutting from the long black holder fixed between his teeth.

Two-Face snorted and flipped the double-headed silver dollar in his right hand. He'd long ago mastered the skill of flipping it even while wearing gloves. A small victory for obsessive-compulsive disorder. He watched its gleaming, glittering flight and descent with rapt attention. What would it be? Virgin, whore? Compassion, cruelty? What face would justice wear? Pristine and merciful? Scarred and draconian? It always fascinated him, how Chance — the most impartial judge of all — could decide between civilization and barbarism. When you got down to it, after all, weren't they just two sides of the same coin?

"On the plains of hesitation lie the blackened bones of countless millions," the Penguin quoted, scowling again, "who at the dawn of victory lay down to rest, and in resting died."

Two-Face snorted. "Thank you, Adlai. What, no Shakespeare? 'Screw your courage to the sticking place and we'll not fail' too cliché?"

The Penguin's face seemed made to scowl. The cigarette holder made a soft clicking noise as it shifted from one side of his mouth to the other. He gestured to the door with his umbrella. By mutual agreement the two men moved forward, their bodyguards trailing behind a respectful distance. As he drew nearer to the door, it opened, a thin-mustachioed man in a cheap-looking suit stepping out to greet him. They were the last to arrive.

Inside the guests milled about uncomfortably, the smoke in the air almost as thick as the suspicion. Business in Gotham had settled down okay for the first six months or so after the war, but things were tense again and looking to get worse. The new capo di tutti capi — he'd actually insisted on using the title — had discovered that his grip on the business wasn't quite as solid as he'd thought. Sure, he'd absorbed the Odessa, the Escabedo Cartel, the Lucky Hand Triad, the Gotham Yakuza, and Scarface's syndicate, but despite what the media reported, that hardly made him the overlord of all Gotham organized crime. The Arañas (formerly the Latino Unified Gang), the Hill Gang, the Five Families, and the Burnley Town Massive remained outside of his control. And then there were the rather more dangerous outfits like those belonging to the Penguin, the Great White Shark, and Two-Face. Things could get ugly.

That was the purpose of this meeting. The most powerful crime lords still operating in the city had been invited to a conference to reach a settlement. Unlike last time, this one was very clearly arranged. There would be no repeat of the disaster that had brought about the war.

"Gents," said a rough voice in the accent of a 1930s movie gangster, "please follow me."

He was a familiar face to the few bosses who'd survived the war. A timid-looking man with thinning white hair and thick glasses, always dressed conservatively in a dark suit with a black bowtie, always holding a wooden puppet decked out in a blue zoot suit with a white fedora and a miniature Tommy gun. The man's name was Arnold Wesker, but his name wasn't what was really important. Wesker was a mediocre ventriloquist whose dissociative identity disorder was even more severe than Two-Face's; it was the dummy in his arms that really mattered. Called Scarface for reasons every bit as obvious as Two-Face's and Penguin's monikers — namely, the stylized scar running down the dummy's right cheek — , the Ventriloquist's fetish had long acted as boss of his own outfit. These days he was first lieutenant to the new boss of bosses.

The guests followed after him, leaving their bodyguards behind as they trailed into the handsomely appointed conference room. Scarface set the example by checking his Tommy gun at the door — miniature though it may be, there was no one present who kidded himself that it wouldn't put ten grams in you if you were on the business end. Two-Face shrugged and handed over both of his custom-made .45 automatics, one gleaming chrome with ivory finish, the other dull black with ebony. Nobody ever accused him of lacking style. The Penguin offered only a scowl when one of the doormen insisted on taking his umbrella. Plenty of men had gotten nasty surprises from the Penguin's favorite accessory.

"Welcome, gentlemen," said their host, Roman Sionis, seated at the head of the conference table. He had his chair pushed back with his feet up on the table, a cigar in his white-gloved hand, ash falling carelessly on the expensive carpet. Despite his wealth and power, he'd never been able to dispel the air of the thug that hung about him almost more stubbornly than the smoke. His suit was well-made, but something about him always made it look cheap, like he'd found it for a hundred dollars off the rack somewhere. He was quite possibly the only man in Gotham who could look at Harvey Dent and say how well he'd kept his looks. Sionis was so horrifically disfigured, so badly scarred and mutilated that most people thought his soubriquet "The Black Mask" referred to his face.

The chair to his right was empty, meant no doubt for Scarface and the Ventriloquist. To his left was seated his second lieutenant, Alexandra Kosov, the former head of the Russians' Odessa Mob; she'd been the first boss to join the Black Mask during the war. Her rank relative to Scarface was a matter of seniority, not a question of ruthlessness or power. She may have been a relative newcomer to the big table, but she'd more than shown in the past year that she was ready and able to play in the big leagues — even if her jeweled false eye and expensive business suit were not quite as exotic as some of Gotham's more colorful criminals.

Seated next to Kosov, hands steepled in front of him and grinning like a Cheshire cat, was Black Mask's chief enforcer, the ill-favored Jervis Tetch, dressed as always in a strangely proportioned top coat and oversized bowtie. From his large teeth thrust forward by his prominent overbite to his broad, beaklike nose, to his sandy, unruly hair, to his black top hat pinned with a large note marked "10/6," Tetch looked every inch the Mad Hatter. The fact that he was both psychotic and the Eastern seaboard's foremost master of mind control did nothing to dispel the air of bizarre menace about him.

Only one bodyguard stood in the room, near the curtained windows, a tall man with a thick mustache.

"Please, please, have a seat," said the Black Mask, his voice like fingernails on a chalk board. The damage to his lips and throat had left him unpleasant to hear as well as to see. "I bet you all know precisely why I've invited you here, so let's cut to the chase, eh? Nobody here wants another war. War is bad for business. Every soldier out fighting is a soldier not attending to business. Loss of revenues. Nasty. But I don't have to tell you boys that, do I?"

He was gloating. Reminding everyone who'd come out the big winner in the last war, reminding everyone of the loss of people, the loss of property, the loss of money. The Black Mask had lost nothing at all in the war, and quite a few of his guests were the third or fourth to take over their outfits since the war had started.

The meeting continued in much the same vein. The host went down each side of the table, reminded each of his guests of his or her vulnerabilities. Nobody wanted a war, after all. He pointed out the advantages of rearranging their affairs. It wasn't so much a meeting as it was a sales pitch, and even that with a certain unstated threat behind it.

The Penguin glanced at his pocket watch and grunted. The Black Mask turned, annoyed. "Am I boring you, Cobblepot?"

"My dear fellow," the Penguin said languidly, pausing to draw a long draught from his cigarette and exhaling leisurely, "your amateurish antics have been boring me since you last reared your ugly head yet again."

"What the hell did you just to me, fat man?" Black Mask's mangled lips drew back into a snarl. "I'll have your guts for garters for that, you old — " He reached under the table to grab for the pistol he'd hidden there —

— and found nothing. "What the hell?"

"A conference," Two-Face snorted. "To iron out our differences. Not another power grab at all."

"My little girl died in the war," said one of the other bosses, the head of the Five Families. "And you really think I'm going to sit here and listen to you threaten me again?"

"Nobody threatens Mr. Scarface and gets away with it," added the supposedly faithful Ventriloquist, a frown on his face. .

The Black Mask was no fool; he knew the look of a plot when he saw one. So Scarface was a traitor, was he? Well, that was fine. The Black Mask knew how to deal with traitors. "So that's how you boys want to play it, eh? Fine by me — " he looked at his enforcer and snapped.

The Mad Hatter grinned at him. "Oh, I've got something special in store for tonight," he said. "I arranged with our friend in Arkham to let our last guest come join the party."

The Black Mask frowned. He hadn't told the Hatter to arrange any deals with the Great White Shark. Nobody was supposed to come out of Arkham; he liked keeping those lunatics in their padded cells where they stayed out of his way. Unless...

... unless the Mad Hatter was a traitor, too.

"Will you, won't you," the Mad Hatter said loudly in a sing-song voice. "Will you, won't you? Will you, won't you — "

Somebody started laughing, a low noise that changed timbre as it grew louder. The bodyguard near the window made a gargling noise and slumped to the ground as the laughter's owner stepped out from behind the curtain. His clothes were clearly tailor-made, cut along classic lines from expensive material but colored in a jarring mishmash of purple, orange, and blue, giving the whole ensemble a kind of bizarre elegance. His skin was chalk white, his hair green, his eyes coal-black and cruel; his ruby lips twisted into a rictus grin as he fixed the Black Mask with a predatory glare.

"— won't you join the dance?"

[LadyTevar]

Oh, if you do not write more, I will be most upset.

[The Grim Squeaker]

My god man, you like adjectives & details don't you . This looks great

Only one bodyguard stood in the room, near the curtained windows, a tall man with a thick mustache.

Is his last name Malone by any chance?

[Shroom Man 777]

No, cause the Joker apparently killed him dead.

This is awesome. *grins*

[Publius]

That was a red herring. No, it wasn't Matches Malone, and yes, the Joker killed him. That is, after all, his schtick.

[Publius]

EDIT: Thanks to Lonestar for suggesting the chapter title.

--------

Chapter Two: Paint It Black

Tim Drake should have been at home finishing up his term paper on Douglas MacArthur's five years as American shōgun of postwar Japan. It was not customary for a boy his age to don cape and costume and crawl along rooftops at night as a masked vigilante, certainly not on a school night. But the cape-and-cowl routine had become such an established part of his life that Tim no longer gave it much thought; he had grown accustomed to functioning (or rather, attempting to function) on only a scant few hours' sleep a night. It barely even registered to him that he was dressed somewhat madly in a black cape, a red cuirass and green leggings with a domino mask. Occasionally he wondered whether his nom de guerre came from the literal red-breasted robin, or after the bandit hero Robin Hood. Strangely enough, he'd never thought to ask.

Once upon a time he'd lived a normal life. Well, a kind of normal. His father was a well-known archaeologist... of sorts. A somewhat less athletic, less exotic version of Dr. Henry Jones (one of the first men to have proven that truth quite often is stranger than fiction). Perhaps normal was a bit of a strong word. But his life had been forever changed that day his parents had taken him to the circus, that horrible day he'd seen the amazing Flying Graysons plummet to their deaths... that day he'd first set eyes on the Dark Knight of Gotham. The day he'd first seen the Batman.

Ever since that chance sighting, Tim had been fascinated by superheroes; he'd devoured every book the library had on the subject by the time he was ten. From the amazing exploits of Henry Jones and Clark Savage it had been a short leap to the thrilling true stories of the men of mystery like the Shadow, the Spider, the Green Hornet, the Crimson Avenger, the Sandman, the Phantom... It had seemed unfair to his childish mind that New York City had practically had a surplus while poor crime-riddled Gotham City had only had one or two. Gotham's only famous man of mystery was the Grey Ghost — and he was a fictional character, not even based on a true story like Zorro had been. I

His excitement had been virtually impossible to contain when he'd heard the stories that the "urban legend" had taken on a protégé, the daredevil Robin, the Boy Wonder; there were no words for how he'd felt when he'd seen video footage of Robin performing a quadruple somersault maneuver that reportedly only three people in the world could do (one of the little bits of obscure trivia that he hoarded like a miser with gold). From there it had been a matter of detective-work-by-numbers to identify Robin with the similarly-aged and raven-haired Dick Grayson, sole survivor of the Flying Graysons and ward of billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. In retrospect, it was almost a rehash of old Diego de la Vega and Percy Blakeney. One of the oldest ones in the book, and somehow it never got old.

It was this bit of detective work that had eventually earned him the right to don the domino mask after Dick Grayson had moved on to become Nightwing. Just imagine! Not too long before it had been his boyhood fantasy to be Robin, to leap rooftops fighting evildoers alongside the Caped Crusader. And then there he was, for real. His childhood idol had become the big brother he'd never had. The Dark Knight had become his mentor. It was like a dream come true.

Of course, it wasn't all fun and games. He'd become Robin after his immediate predecessor, a street urchin named Jason Todd, had been murdered by Gotham's deadliest rogue. His own mother had been poisoned and died; his father had been confined to a wheelchair. He'd seen more death and violence than most career soldiers. And that was before this past year, before even more deaths... two of his closest friends, Connor and Bart... his father... and even —

Tim cleared his throat. He tried not to think about it. At least his friends and his father had, at least, died quickly. Relatively painlessly. Not like... not like she had. Bruce had been mercifully vague about the specific details. By the time he'd seen her body, she'd already been prepared for the viewing. The bruises and cuts had been disguised; the morticians had contrived to restore the face he'd adored. Laying in the casket, she'd been beautiful. Her short blonde hair and fair skin were flawless. But there was no mistaking that lifeless shell for the girl he'd fallen in love with. The tranquil expression on her face wasn't the real Stephanie; and though Bruce's money had bought her a dignified repose it couldn't erase the knowledge that she had been brutally tortured by the Black Mask, that she had suffered agonies he could scarcely imagine.

Stephanie Brown had been his girlfriend for years. Like Tim, she'd been a masked vigilante, calling herself the Spoiler. She lacked the training and equipment that Bruce had afforded Tim, but she was strong, stubborn, and enthusiastic. She'd done all right for herself, built up a solid reputation on her own turf, over by the North End stretching into Widowstone Creek. Nothing remotely as formidable as Bruce or Dick or even Catwoman, but respectable for a self-trained high school girl. She'd even supplied her own costume; Tim grinned every time he thought about her never-ending campaign to convince people that it was eggplant, not purple ("Purple would've looked stupid," she'd insisted). She'd been — Oh, God. He couldn't do this. He couldn't think about her. It hurt so much. Thank God almighty Bruce hadn't put up a trophy case for her in the Batcave. Tim didn't think he could've taken seeing her uniform every time he was there. One of Bruce's rare concessions to human sentiment.

He glanced at the sun dipping beneath the horizon, burning the sky a moody red and orange with just a hint of... just a hint of purple. God. Eggplant, he thought to himself, swallowing hard.

"Twelve o'clock," said one of the shadows. Thank God. Tim had never been more grateful for Bruce's obsession with sneaking up on people. Thankful for the interruption to his train of thought, Tim raised his miniature binoculars to his eyes and scanned the streets in the direction suggested. Everything looked clear; very likely the worsening weather had driven all the casual skels indoors. Not that he blamed them; it wasn't exactly comfortable out.

"I don't see anything."

"On top of the warehouse. Investigate and report back to me."

Tim took no offense at the brusqueness of the order. That was simply how Bruce was when he was wearing the cowl; everything about him changed, from the way he stood to the way he spoke, even down to his voice, a harsh noise somewhere between a growl and a stage whisper. The Batman persona was not supposed to be pleasant or friendly; it was supposed to terrify criminals, whom Bruce had always considered to be a cowardly and superstitious lot. Nobody had ever doubted its effectiveness — he even intimidated other good guys.

Tim moved out, just as Bruce had trained him; quick, quiet, methodical. There was a quiet whuff of compressed gas as his grapnel gun went to work, and Tim efficiently made his way across the rooftops with ease that came from many, many nights of practice. It would have been amazing, how easily he did this sort of thing these days. Would have been, had he actually thought about it. Bruce considered that you weren't properly trained on something until you could do it perfectly while exhausted and disoriented. His exacting standards had literally saved Tim's life on more than one occasion.

"Oh, Jesus..." Tim breathed as he arrived at the rooftop. Even for someone who'd seen as much as he had, it was...

The Black Mask had seen better days.

He was a coughing, wheezing mess. His suit was in tatters, leaving more than half of his body exposed to the elements. The skin and some of the muscle on his left hand had been torn off leaving bone exposed, and his right hand had been left a scorched remnant with third degree burns all the way up to the shoulder. His left leg was missing below the knee, and some of his ribs had punctured through his chest; his skin was broken, bruised, and bloody. Based on the way his blood was smeared on the rooftop, it looked as though he'd been dragging himself along somehow. His already disfigured face was twisted into a rictus grin, and there was a strange quality to his wheezing, almost as if...

...almost as if he were laughing.

"Batman," Tim reported into his throat-mic, "it's Black Mask. Massive polytrauma, critical condition. He's been exposed to Smilex." The so-called Clown Prince of Crime's signature toxin induced increasingly painful fits of laughter as it progressively shut down heart and brain functions, and resulted in a characteristic contortion of facial muscles into a death's-head grin. A horrible way to die; nobody knew how many victims had succumbed to Smilex in the long and infamous career of Gotham's most notorious criminal. The mass-murdering psychopath had a known body count in the quadruple digits — including Jason Todd, the second Robin — , and was reckoned to be the most prolific serial killer in North American history.

Tim was amazed to discover he felt absolutely no sympathy for the latest victim to join that number.

Black Mask was wanted in connection with more than a hundred murders; his gangland dealings had destroyed God only knew how many lives. But one of his crimes stood out in Tim's memory. Black Mask had tortured and murdered a blonde girl who insisted her uniform was eggplant.

"I'm on my way," came the response, a hint of urgency in the raspy voice. Bruce knew the rage and pain that came with the loss of a loved one. He knew the lust for revenge.

Movement. Thinking it was Batman, Tim didn't turn. That was a mistake; the blow caught him across the back of the head and carried him off his feet. He rolled into the fall and came back up in a crouch, and looked up in time to see a figure dressed in a black bodysuit not very different from those the family used; like the family, he was wearing a utility belt festooned with pouches, with the addition of a Sam Browne belt and a dark red hooded cloak. Whoever he was, he was well-trained, that much was clear — Tim had barely heard him before the attack, which meant he was certainly no amateur. Tim brought his telescoping bo staff up just in time to deflect a volley of three shuriken, and was surprised to find that his adversary nimbly leapt over a swipe of his staff. His surprise was compounded by the other man's speed; a right hook that felt like a bowling ball connected with his jaw and took him down.

Tim had been in far more than his fair share of fights, but not too many people had ever hit quite like that. Before he had a chance to get up, the other man turned and drew a wakizashi from a scabbard hidden somewhere within his cloak and skewered the Black Mask cleanly through the left eye before pulling the blade up and away; given the design of the cutting edge, this pulling motion sliced the top of the gangster's head in half. His work accomplished, the figure in the red hood dropped a smoke capsule and beat a retreat from the scene. It had all happened so fast that it was over before Batman had arrived.

"Robin!" he hissed. "What happened here?"

Tim shook his head to clear it; that had really been some roundhouse right he'd taken. "I think Red Riding Hood just killed the big, bad wolf," he managed.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Lovely new chapter .

A pair of extremely minor nitpicky comments:

Occasionally he wondered whether his nom de guerre came from the literal red-breasted robin, or after the bandit hero Robin Hood.

These days has it as based on Robin Hood.

The mass-murdering psycopath had a known body count in the quadruple digits — including Jason Todd, the second Robin — , and was reckoned to be the most prolific serial killer in North American history.

The Joker has a body count well over the thousands, and that's ignoring acts commited indirectly by him, such as the Events of "last laugh". Quintuple digits . (Sorry, but I know how much you love trivia )

[Publius]

These days has it as based on Robin Hood.

But it is not always so. Are you familiar with the term "lampshade hanging"?

The Joker has a body count well over the thousands, and that's ignoring acts commited indirectly by him, such as the Events of "last laugh". Quintuple digits . (Sorry, but I know how much you love trivia )

To some extent this story is set in a hypertime tributary version of the DC Universe. In much the same way that Superman: The Movie and Superman II form a "vague history" to Superman Returns, the mainstream "New Earth" history is only partially applicable here (hence only vague reference to Superboy and Impulse).

[Shroom Man 777]

Awesome! This has the makings of an excellent story! I wonder who this Red Riding Hood fellow is.

[Vehrec]

Me, I'm just still really pissed that they killed of Stephanie Brown. I'm going to go sulk in the corner about that for half an hour, and then go visit CampFuckUDie where she's still alive.
Fuck you DC. I'll go hang out with the Fandom.

[Themightytom]

wouldn't Two face have a serious problem with the joker? Wasn't he the one who threw the acid batman couldn't block?

[Publius]

wouldn't Two face have a serious problem with the joker? Wasn't he the one who threw the acid batman couldn't block?

No. You're thinking of Sal "Boss" Maroni (Rupert Thorne in the animated series).

[The Grim Squeaker]

wouldn't Two face have a serious problem with the joker? Wasn't he the one who threw the acid batman couldn't block?

No. You're thinking of Sal "Boss" Maroni (Rupert Thorne in the animated series).

He would still have a serious problem with the Joker if you're using the events of "The Long Halloween" as a base, what with the Joker beating him to a pulp in his home, and him revenging himself on the Joker.
Still, I'm sure they could work together... For a while at least

[Publius]

Chapter Three: The Worst That Could Happen

The office was surprisingly small for a man of his position. Most people expected that the Commissioner of Police rated something more... well, bigger, more impressive. He was, after all, head of a professional police force of over thirty five thousand officers — the GCPD yielded nothing to the NYPD in size, if not in funding. A dozen years ago that had actually been the case. And even if not for the size, the office was certainly not one would expect from one of the city's senior officers; maps and files were scattered everywhere, and the desk had not been clear in more than five years. That, too, had not been the case in the days of Loeb and Grogan. But then, they'd bought their peace of mind with bribe money. When Jim Gordon had taken the job as commissioner, he'd cannibalized the executive office suite into working space and relocated himself to a much more modest office in the corner of the top floor of Gotham Central. Few people realized at the time that he'd made the move not just out of pragmatism — and he really didn't see the point in having a huge office — but also for its proximity to the service stairwell leading to the roof. He'd found a use for the antiquated Klieg searchlight permanently mounted atop the building twenty-five years before.

Gordon was still at his desk, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour. A styrofoam cup half-full of day-old coffee was perched at arm's reach, next to more than a dozen of its brethren. Thankfully, the unceremonious killing of Black Mask had not resulted in another war. That didn't mean the gangsters weren't keeping him at his desk twelve hours a day, in addition to the usual deluge of felonies and misdemeanors that were Gotham's statistical claim to fame. 'Show me a man in Gotham with no police record,' went the old saying, 'and I'll show you a Metropolitan on an hour layover at the airport.' To say nothing of the traditional seasonal gesture of recidivism — Victor Fries had escaped from Arkham. Again. The revolving door. What was it Doodlebug had spray-painted on the monument that one time? 'Gone to Arkham,' he'd written. 'Be back after lunch.'

It wasn't that Jeremiah Arkham was bad at his job, you understand; God knew the man was doing the best he could with the limited funding he had. The General Court seemed to think that the exorbitent cost of keeping Gotham's worst under wraps in the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane was an engraved invitation to slash the budget. Damned penny-pinchers never seemed to understand the correlation between Arkham's dwindling budget and Gotham's ballooning crime rate. Rocket science, apparently. They'd even seen indications that some of the staff at Arkham were on the dole, working for mass-fraudster Warren "Great White Shark" White, who'd quickly carved a niche for himself as yet another of Gotham's mob bosses, from inside Arkham, no less. Of course, nobody was willing to work with the GCPD to prove it. The only stoolies had been rubbed out by a hitman calling himself the Tally Man. No proof the Great White had been involved. Of course. What did you expect from a city that had acquitted the so-called "aristocrat of crime" Oswald Cobblepot more times than he could count?

Wesker was out free and clear. They'd have to round up another string of witnesses to testify against him before they could send him back to Arkham. Hadn't had much luck there lately; apparently he'd been having a good run at bringing back omertà. The Scarecrow, Dr. Death, and Poison Ivy were locked up tight in solitary confinement, thank God. Mr. Freeze and the Mad Hatter were on the loose; nobody knew what precisely had become of Killer Croc after the gang war. Gordon had seen enough "missing, presumed dead" men turn up to wreak more havoc that he'd issued a policy directive that until and unless an autopsy report was on file, all perps were "at large, presumed armed and dangerous."

Fortunately the coroner had been very, very clear that Roman "Black Mask" Sionis was very, very dead. Cause of death, puncture wound directly to the brain. Even had his head not been cleaved nearly in half, it was a toss up whether he'd have died of the massive polytrauma, loss of blood, or lethal Smilex overdose.

Smilex. Gordon removed his glasses and rubbed tiredly at his eyes. Part of him wished there'd be another gang war so he wouldn't have to deal with this.

The Joker was loose in Gotham City.

Nobody knew who he was, not really. His fingerprints had been burned away somehow, probably by chemical treatment. His biometric records matched no one in any police database, up to and including the FBI and INTERPOL. He spent most of his time in police custody in a state of near-catatonia, unless he was up to something — then the bastard could be whatever the situation called for. Maudlin? Sure. Witty? Absolutely. Charming? Plenty of women had fallen in love with the lunatic. Including his psychiatrist. But most of all, he was a killer. The worst serial killer in known history. A grinning, guffawing, clown-faced angel of death. Once every couple of years he'd escape from maximum security detention and carve a bloody swathe through Gotham, a killing machine that mocked everything decent and good. Hideous as it sounded, Gordon counted the city as lucky if the Joker only killed a few dozen people before being captured again. God knew the lunatic was capable of so much worse. He'd once nearly killed the entire UN General Assembly. Hell, he'd once nearly wiped out all of Gotham City.

It was the Joker that had shot Gordon's daughter in the spine, crippling her for life. And it was the Joker that had shot and killed Gordon's second wife, Sarah. When Jim Gordon had nightmares, they wore the garb and grin of that white-faced horror. If ever there'd been a reason to bring back the death penalty....

"I've heard about Mr. Freeze," came a granite stage whisper, startling Gordon into looking up. One of the shadows was alive.

"Oh. It's you." Gordon sighed. He hadn't even heard his visitor opening the window from the outside. "Freeze isn't really a priority with the Joker at large."

"Agreed. I'm bringing Nightwing up from Blüdhaven for additional muscle."

"That boy's a grown up now, old friend, he's got his own problems to take care of," Gordon said, thinking of how things had turned out with his own daughter. "You can't keep him at your beck and call forever."

"He's a good soldier," the shadow replied. Coming from him, that was high praise indeed. Just a hint of paternal pride in the way he said it. Still, his tone of voice when he'd said it had also made it clear this wasn't something he particularly wanted to talk about.

Gordon replaced his glasses and leaned back into his chair, exhausted by the long day's work. "No sign of him, not since the bank on 3rd and Grand. Interrupted a robbery in progress, stabbed all three robbers to death and then gassed the place. Ten civilian fatalities."

"I located one of his Smilex stockpiles." He placed a typewritten index card on Gordon's desk and retreated back into the shadows. "I've disarmed the booby traps. It's safe to send in MCU to dispose of it."

"I'll have them get right on it." He paused and brought his chair back to the upright position. "Listen — "

"I've ordered Robin and Batgirl to steer clear," he interrupted. They both had reason to be fearful for the children; the Joker had already killed one Robin and crippled a Batgirl. "Standard procedure."

"Right." Gordon nodded. "Meanwhile, it looks like a power struggle's brewing in Black Mask's syndicate. Scarface and Kosov have reached a modus vivendi, but it's anyone's guess how long that'll last."

"The Joker didn't escape from Arkham, Jim," the shadow said. "He was released."

"Right, but by whom? And why? Misdirection to cover for a power grab? The timing's certainly right for it. But then who was this guy in red, this 'Red Riding Hood' character your boy Robin says actually killed Black Mask? And who in his right mind would try to use the Joker, anyway?"

"Someone not in his right mind," the shadow said. "Both the Riddler and the Penguin have done it, several times."

"Penguin certainly stands to gain from Black Mask's death. We've been trying to keep an eye on him anyway, but you know how slippery he is. Riddler's locked up in Blackgate," Gordon answered. "I know it's possible to plan scores from inside; Cluemaster Brown did it, and he's not half the skel Nigma is. I had the Chief call down and move him to a new cell, with additional security."

Edward Nigma, alias the Riddler, was one of the smartest men in North America and one of city's most skilled robbers. And to make matters worse, his heists inevitably involved very public humiliation of the GCPD. It was tempting to take him lightly, since he wasn't much of a killer and certainly not as dangerous as a walking WMD like Mr. Freeze or the Joker. In fact, his reputation as a lightweight was one of the reasons he'd become one of the most successful thieves in the Eastern seaboard.

Gordon grunted. "You know, with the salary that comes with this job, a lot of people can't understand why it's so hard to find someone willing to take it. There's never a shortage of would-be commissioners in New York, sure, but what's the worst they deal with? They haven't had problems like this since the '40s. Here we've got nightmares like the Joker, Bane, Scarecrow, Dr. Death, Hush, Rā's al — "

And he stopped abruptly, smiled ruefully, and shook his head. The shadows were silent. He was talking to himself.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Cluemaster is Spoiler's father, right? Isn't he dead or something like that

[White Haven]

Another excellent chapter...my only gripe isn't with your writing, but with the Batman theme, so it's hardly your fault you're stuck with it. Dammit, if you can't keep prisoners, don't take them.

[Publius]

Thanks to Lonestar for the title of this chapter.

--------

Chapter 4: Sharp Dressed Man

It had been two weeks since the death of Black Mask. Two long weeks; with the Joker on the loose, Gotham had taken on the air of a city under siege. It was nothing new for the beleaguered denizens of America's most ill-favored metropolis; long years of crime and misfortune had left Gothamites with a certain grim fatalism seldom found outside war zones. Once there had been a time when simple mobsters had ruled the streets. That was in the old days. The days before the appearance of the man who laughs. The days before the Long Halloween and the fall of the Roman's empire. The days before the rise of the freaks.

One of the upshots to the Joker's latest killing spree was that it helped to keep a damper on things in the powder keg that was Gotham's mob scene. The Clown Prince of Crime had little sense of discrimination when picking his victims; he'd murder goombas as happily as coppers. Nobody wanted to have to go to the mattresses and worry about the Joker. So instead, the maneuvering was much more low key, much subtler. It was still there, of course; the boss of bosses' chair was empty, and there were plenty of candidates who had in mind to fill it. Nor wind nor sleet nor snow nor psychopath would stop that.

The odd thing about it was that two years ago the situation wouldn't have even existed.

Gotham's organized crime scene had long been atomized; there was no overall boss of bosses, hadn't been since the death of Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice back in the late '30s. The closest anyone had come since then had been the power-sharing agreement between Carmine "The Roman" Falcone and Salvatore "The Boss" Maroni — and that had been brought to an end by their deaths in the Long Halloween thirteen years ago. There had been one serious attempt by corrupt businesswoman Celia "Athena" Kazantkakis to quietly take control of Gotham — she had even succeeded in having herself appointed CEO of Wayne Enterprises — before her Network was dismantled by coordinated action of the whole family. Black Mask had been the first to truly succeed where all others after Big Boy Caprice had failed, albeit briefly. He had filled a much-needed vacuum, if the expression could be pardoned.

Now he was gone, and there were quite a few parties grooming themselves to take his place.

Bruce had decreed that Tim was to focus on monitoring the situation with the mobsters and stay away from the Joker; he and Dick, his first and greatest protégé, would handle that case. There was no surprise there; it was Bruce's SOP that "journeymen crimefighters" — as though the family were some kind of tradesman's guild — were hands-off when the Joker was loose. Tim didn't exactly mind being quarantined; he'd dealt with the Ace of Knaves once when Batman had been... indisposed... and was not eager to repeat the experience. Certainly his predecessor as the Boy Wonder had not been so fortunate in his own encounter. There was a granite headstone and a glass monument case to attest to that.

Tim raised his binoculars to his eyes and scoped the scene. Your basic handoff scenario here, the goods being moved from production to the distributor. Nothing terribly complicated. In the past three and a half years he'd handled this kind of thing with roughly the same kind of regularity that other kids his age had handled varsity basketball practice. Nothing weird about that.

It was far too dangerous to leap into action without first reconnoitering the situation, especially for a youth like Tim; he lacked both Bruce's raw physical strength and Dick's inhuman agility. Unlike the family "masters," Tim could not rely on his superior athleticism to overwhelm adversaries; while he was no slouch as a martial artist, the fact remained that he was a seventeen-year-old kid. He had greater need for careful preparation and tactical planning than they did. No surprise there; Bruce had been donning cape and cowl almost as long as Tim had been alive.

One of Sūn Zĭ's rules of war was to know the terrain; it was also Tim's first rule of engagement. Barring a life-or-death scenario, he never initiated action without reconnoitering the scene first, identifying fields of fire and possible cover. It made it possible for him to herd skels into disadvantageous positions without them realizing what he was doing. It also enabled him to plan his attack ahead of time, striking when they did not expect it (another of Sūn Zĭ's prescriptions, as it happened). Rule number two was to hit hard and fast, take advantage of surprise to break the skels' decision loop and take them out before they had a chance to regain control of the situation.

The fact that he only entered a fight after he'd already planned how to win it meant that he was rarely in the combat zone for more than a few minutes. The swiftness of it meant that the skels rarely had a chance to see him clearly, to size him up; more often than not, they didn't know what hit them. They'd wake up in police custody, with only a vague awareness of having encountered... something... that had caught them by surprise. It fed the urban legend, and kept their kind afraid. It also kept Tim alive. The way he saw it, it was a win-win scenario.

He scoped the terrain, he scoped the players. Dick liked to refer to it as Tim's 'crunching the numbers' routine. It was not altogether inaccurate, but it would be more accurate to call it 'counting cards.' Tim wasn't exactly a sporting pugilist; he liked to be sure the deck was stacked heavily in his favor.

Once he had balanced the figures to his satisfaction, Tim went to work.

A pair of Bird-a-rangs intersected at high speed with the two most dangerous-looking skels' faces, catching them hard between the eyes, followed closely by two flash-bangs and two smoke capsules. Hit them hard, hit them fast. Give them no chance to react. Break the decision loop.

A telescoping bo staff connected with a man's jaw. Another Bird-a-rang flew straight and true. If it were a dance, it were strictly ballroom. Everything by the numbers.

He could have sworn he almost heard the record scratch.

"Oh, sh—! He's wearing red!"

"Shoot him! Shoot him!"

Shots rang out, as shots were wont to do. Ten grams whistled past his ear as he dived behind one of the cars. The skels, confused, frightened, panicked, continued firing. There was a heavy thud as one of them caught a stray in the shoulder and dropped to his knees.

Since when did I get a rep like this? Tim wondered, readying another pair of gas capsules. Not even Bruce provoked such a panicked, mindless response, not generally. Strange.

But there was no time to dwell on the matter. The idiots were still shooting, and someone could get seriously hurt, even killed. Tim finished a secondary reconnaissance of the scenario and mutatis mutandis, finished his work. Hit them fast. By the numbers.

One of them was still conscious. Mr. Zzz. A hulking ox of a man. Professional henchperson. Rap sheet that read like a Who's Who of Gotham crime. Two-Face. The Ventriloquist. The Scarecrow. Dr. Death. Certainly not a made man. Probably on the distribution side of things. Hired muscle. That was his M.O., anyway.

He'd taken ten grams to the shoulder. He was applying pressure to the wound with his good hand, a scowl on his face. He looked a bit like the Penguin like that. He grunted as Tim knelt and began to apply first aid. Number one cause of death in gunshot injuries was desanguination. All gunshots were medical emergencies. Tim had already used the comm suite in his belt to summon the police and an ambulance. He only had to keep Zzz from going into shock long enough for first-responders to arriv — and then it was back into the all-concealing shadows.

"Zzzugh," Zzz said. Something like a smile ghosted across his thick lips.

"What?" Tim's 'working voice' wasn't nearly as effective as Batman's death-rattle rasp or Nightwing's mellifluence, but the voice distorter built into the gorget helped.

The skel chuckled softly, and grimaced at the movement. "Zzz gld 'z yw," he said. "Wrung hudde. Rbn hudde vzz rd riddin hudde. Heh. Mm mzzztik."

That was all Tim got from him before it was time to leave. Mr. Zzz was notoriously difficult to understand. Now he knew what Sam Catchum felt like, bringing Mumbles in for questioning. He keyed his throat-mic and called in for cerebral artillery.

"Go ahead, R," came the feminine voice over a secure channel. Oracle. Once Barbara Gordon had donned a cape and cowl as Batgirl, second member of the family. She'd been good, but there was no denying that her true asset was her formidable intellect. 'Brain-fu,' as Tim and Dick jokingly referred to it.

She didn't crawl rooftops anymore. A chance encounter with the Clown Prince of Crime had seen to that. It had seen to a number of others things, too. Like part of her spine.

"Has anyone else had a problem with ridiculous overreaction lately?"

"This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with shots fired at Kane and West 66th, would it?"

Tim made a face, half-suspecting she knew he was making it. "They seemed pretty freaked out to see me. Any idea why I'm suddenly the terror that flaps in the night?"

"Could be related to the increase in gangland killings lately."

"I've only heard about disappearances so far." He frowned. Bruce and Dick were better at scouting out what skels were talking about than he was. Partially because they could don disguises that would let them hang out in bars. Between the two of them, they accounted for roughly a dozen professional henchmen in Gotham City alone. "About standard for low-level jockeying for position, what with Black Mask's death."

Wait a minute, Tim thought suddenly. Of course.

"Wait, O," he said. "One of them said I was wearing red."

Of course.

Tim remembered reading that one of the old school New York private eyes, Archie Goodwin, had become adept at repeating lengthy conversations word for word, and that this skill had helped him catch details later on that he hadn't caught the first time around. It was a neat trick, and one he'd spent years developing.

Mr. Zzz had been saying something to him. 'Zzz gld 'z yw.' Allowing for his characteristic slur and the shock of gunshot trauma, that could be pretty reasonably taken for So glad it's you. 'Mm mzzztik.' My mistake. They'd seen red and mistaken him for someone else. And what had he said then? 'Wrung hudde.' Wrong hood.

"I think I've got it," he said aloud, half as much to himself as to Babs. "Mr. Zzz said something before the police arrived."

'Rbn hudde vzz rd riddin hudde.'

He'd called Tim Robin Hood.

"O, I think I know who our gangland killer is."

[Lonestar]

I eagerly await part 5

[SCRawl]

So far, I'm suitably entertained. I was quite surprised to see the Archie Goodwin reference; I didn't know that we had another Stout fan in the forum.

Keep it up, if you please.

[LadyTevar]

So far, I'm suitably entertained. I was quite surprised to see the Archie Goodwin reference; I didn't know that we had another Stout fan in the forum.

Keep it up, if you please.

I was just as amused by the Darkwing Duck reference -- "The Terror that Flaps in the Night".

[Publius]

Chapter Five: The Sound of Silence

Time passed. The snows came. Still the hunt for the Clown Prince of Crime went on.

Tim watched as each passing day the obsessive need to find the mass-murdering clown gnawed away at the Dark Knight, a cancerous tumor that grew and grew, disrupting his life ever more. He rarely remembered to shave more than once a week; Bruce Wayne the billionaire playboy went into another of his bouts of seclusion. The bodies were piling up, and still Batman and Nightwing were unable to put a stop to it. It was easy, Tim knew, for people to take for granted that Batman would catch the Joker. After all, he always did, right? It made it far too easy to forget that the lunatic was a criminal genius, and perfectly capable of laying low for months on end between murderous sprees.

Still, he refused to allow Tim to get involved. Which was fine, actually — Tim had problems of his own to keep him busy.

The gangland killings had gone on unabated. Whereas earlier the trend had been subtle enough for him to miss it, it was clear enough now. Red Riding Hood — for lack of a better name — had gone after the organized crime syndicates systematically and with clinical precision. Underbosses and capos had been particularly hardest hit; tactically, it was equivalent to sending a sniper after the enemy's field grade officers.

No war had broken out, after all. The lower and mid-level crooks were too busy worrying about getting killed to give much thought to the power struggle, while the bosses continued their quiet maneuvering. The usual suspects were still at it, with a new addition: a tough, no-nonsense Kurd named Omar Salih, whom the street toughs had taken to calling 'The Mullah.' Privately, Tim wondered where they'd gotten the word.

Tracking Red Riding Hood had proven next to impossible. Whoever he was, wherever he'd trained, he was good. It was like trying to track one of the family. He wasn't great at swing-lining — the fact that he had a grapnel gun at all was interesting in and of itself — but he was fast, and his roofcrawling was as good as Tim's, if not better. Not to mention he'd turned out to be far more difficult to predict than Tim would have ever imagined; his success ratio at anticipating the Masked Red Death was only recently as good as one out of six. Not good.

So here he was, on a Thursday night, perched atop the Sprang Mission in the East End, hoping he'd get lucky. Salih's men had recently started up a protection racket in the neighborhood, which had run afoul of Catwoman, the East End's self-appointed protectress. Word on the street was that the Mullah himself had put a serious hurt on the Feline Fatale. The fact that he'd been man enough to lead from the front went a long way toward solidifying his rep, especially in Gotham. The days of the mob boss who never, ever got involved on the street level were long over. Sometimes a man had to get his hands dirty, especially if he wanted to compete with the likes of Two-Face, the Joker, and their ilk.

Movement. Behind him. Tim reacted, almost too slowly; but Bruce had trained him well, and he was not caught by surprise. His brain kicked into analysis mode instantly. Strange. Red Riding Hood never came after him.

An instant later, he knew his mistake.

This was not Red Riding Hood.

His assailant wore a brown trenchcoat, nondescript. There must be a million of them in Gotham alone. He was built like a tank, a stout man with a grip like a steel vice. Medical bandages covered his face.

Hush.

A man motivated entirely by hate. Hate for his once and former friend, Bruce Wayne — the Batman. Once he had nearly brought Bruce to utter ruin with a web of deceit and manipulation. But then his schemes had been masterminded by the Riddler, a genius; the man himself was far from capable of such artifice by himself. And so he had turned to a less elegant but equally effective method of hurting his enemy.

Striking at those dear to him.

"Youths are in a condition like permanent intoxication," he whispered, attacking savagely. He moved like a panther, his speed fueled by seething rage. Tim was more than a match for most men, but Hush was no ordinary man. "For youth is sweet, and they are growing."

It was, perhaps, inevitable. From the moment the encounter had begun, Tim had been on the defensive. There was only so much he could do to evade the other man's grasp, and once that steely grip locked around his throat, Tim was in serious trouble. The reinforced gorget of his cloak pressed tightly against his larynx. Seconds passed. He could feel the oxygen starvation begin to kick in. Dimly, he heard Hush begin another line from Aristotle — intellectual pretentiousness; the man felt a compulsion to advertise his refinement — when abruptly he heard something else.

It sounded like cloth tearing.

The grip loosened and Tim dropped to the floor abruptly. Hush had turned now, and Tim could see he'd been slashed across the back; a shallow wound, but still enough to make him bleed.

The new assailant crouched low, a short blade held at the ready. He wore a black bodysuit, a utility belt and Sam Browne, and a blood-colored cloak.

Red Riding Hood.

Hush wasted no time. It had been a mistake to slash at him rather than stab him; at their current range, there was nothing at all keeping him from using his deadliest skill: Marksmanship. Twin automatics appeared from within his trenchcoat, and gave utterence to their thunderous voices. Tim made his way to his feet and deployed his telescoping bo staff, snapping it across the back of Hush's kneecap with such force he could hear the crunch of things that shouldn't.

Hush turned and fired at him, but the abrupt shift in his balance sent the shot wide. Tim alone may not have been a match for him, but faced with the combination of bo staff and wakizashi, the bandaged man was in trouble. He was at a further disadvantage: Tim had far more experience at rooftop encounters, and the typical topography of Gotham rooftops suited the prepared combatant. A maze of pipes, chimneys, and ventilation machinery provided him the cover he needed to rob the marksman of his advantage at range.

Still, it wouldn't due to underestimate him, even if he were superficially injured. Hush was a formidable adversary in any state; his twin .45s were perfectly capable of putting an end to Tim Drake regardless of the state of his back or kneecap. The rapid bursts of thunder were doing a fine job of keeping the Boy Wonder and the Masked Red Death at bay, even if they did have an advantage: Hush had to run out of bullets some time.

Strange. Why had the Hood saved him? Up to this point, he'd only turned up long enough to kill someone. Then again, all of his victims were gangsters. Was the Hood an overzealous vigilante? Hardly unprecedented. There was the Spider and the Reaper, after all; even the Shadow had killed, and he had been Bruce's biggest inspiration.

The report of the twin automatics was growing sporadic. Tim edged around to get a look, drawing a cornerview device from his utility belt and putting it to use. There he was, breathing heavily and moving sluggishly, listing to his right (no doubt in compensation for the injury to his left knee). Not surprising; the encounter had now run to nearly twenty minutes, and the adrenaline was starting to give way to fatigue. Still, a man in Hush's physical condition shouldn't have been quite that winded...

Wait. That wasn't the breathing of a man merely winded... That was dyspnea.

Red Riding Hood was drawing closer now, blade at the ready. It was the first time Tim had had a chance to get a good look at him. The bodysuit and mask concealed every inch of skin, and the cloak did a good job at concealing body language. Still, he could see the Masked Red Death was built more slightly than he'd thought; now that he saw him standing rather than crouching or running, it became clear that he was only slightly taller than Tim himself.

"Stop right there," Tim said, stepping around the corner, a razor-edged Batarang at the ready. "You're not killing him."

There was something strange about the Hood's aspect as he tilted his head. "Of course I am," he said — first time Tim had heard him speak; a harsh rasp that seemed incongruous with the man's lithe build (a voice distorter, perhaps?). He shrugged. "I already have."

Hush was wheezing badly, both guns having clattered to the ground. There was something clearly wrong with him, as he tried to say something as he collapsed to the ground.

"What the hell did you do to him?" The bandaged man was clearly in trouble.

Red Riding Hood was silent. Hush was sputtering now, trying desperately to speak. "Te—te—"

Tim kept the Batarang at the ready as he keyed on his throat-mic to call for the paramedics. "Stay where you are," he repeated, even as Hush continued to struggle against his traitor body.

"Tetr—" he managed, practically on the verge of suffocation. He was showing signs of convulsions. "Dot—x."

Dyspnea. Paralysis. Convulsions. And then it clicked. Beneath Hush's bandages was the face of Thomas Elliot, a respected surgeon from Philadelphia. A man of medical training. His desperate attempt to speak was in fact diagnosis.

Tetrodotoxin.

Red Riding Hood's wakizashi must have been coated in the deadly neurotoxin — it was fast-acting and there was no known antivenom. Hush had been in mortal danger from the moment he'd been slashed... and that was before he'd gotten his heart rate up from a twenty minute rooftop battle.

As realization dawned on Tim, it must have shown on his face. The Hood started, and Tim let fly the Batarang. His bodysuit caught most of the impact, leaving a superficial penetration in the shoulder. In an instant Tim was on him, catching him with a flying tackle that carried him cleanly off his feet. They hit the ground hard, but the Hood rolled with it and soon it was degenerated to a tangle of cloaks and scrabbling gloves, each trying to find some kind of purchase.

The Hood was strong, but for the moment Tim had the advantage of being on top. As he reached for the Hood's mask, he experienced an abrupt and unexpected rapid cranial-masonic intersection.

That is to say, Red Riding Hood hit him in the head with a loose brick.

Tim fell over with a grunt, cursing — not for the first time — the state of building maintenance in Gotham. The blow bought his adversary just enough time to beat a retreat; Tim watched helplessly as a flutter of red relayed the escape of the Masked Red Death. Even if he had been forced to leave the wakizashi behind, it was difficult to count it as anything but another setback for the Boy Wonder. Some wonder — he'd been ambushed and missed his chance to unmask his quarry. He got to his feet and hurried back to where the bandaged man lay, as a fresh dusting of snow began. He'd wasted the paramedics' time.

Hush was dead.

And Robin was no closer to solving the mystery of Red Riding Hood.

[LadyTevar]

So here he was, on a Thursday night, perched atop the Sprang Mission in the East End, hoping he'd get lucky. Salih's men had recently started up a protection racket in the neighborhood, which had run afoul of Catwoman, the East End's self-appointed protectress. Word on the street was that the Mullah himself had put a serious hurt on the Feline Fatale.

What did he do to Selena?!?!?!

Hush was dead.

No big loss from what I understand, although I've never read that particular storyline.

[White Haven]

Now to start DNA testing off that batarang.

[LadyTevar]

Test the Batarang. Test the Wakizhasi, find out where it came from/who made it, and where it might have been purchased. Doubtful there'd be fingerprints on it, since the 'Hood' is wearing gloves, but he might have touched the blade when he put the poison on it.

Find out where that poison comes from, who has access, who's got missing shipments or recent purchases of the stuff to make it.

Detective work, my dear... nothing like it.

[Enigma]

It's none other than Jason Todd. lol!