In the far corner of Haly's cramped office, a faded circle-game machine droned its verdict in garish red, the words GAME OVER flickering across its scratched display. Bruce Wayne watched it from the rafters, where he stood half-submerged in shadow. His stillness was so complete it made the drifting dust look purposeful as it floated through the single dirty pane of sunlight that managed to slip inside. Below him, Mister Haly worked beneath a cheap, overly bright desk lamp that washed him in a sweaty, anxious glow. His trembling hands sorted through grimy bills that carried the greasy scent of popcorn and the sharper, metallic edge of fear. The whole room felt steeped in canvas dust and an exhaustion too old to name.
Crush the parasite. A voice slid into Bruce's consciousness, not a sound but an intrusion. It formed a hollow cavity inside his mind that elbowed out every other thought until only the command remained. His flaw festers. Remove him. Destroy him.
Bruce didn't so much as flicker. He'd trained himself to let that icy pressure surge through him without drowning in it. He grounded himself in whatever reality he could reach: the rough grit of the beam beneath his gloves, the faint beep-beep-beep of a circus truck backing itself into position outside, the hunched, collapsing geometry of Haly's shoulders. The man counted out the last of the money and slid it into a yellow envelope. Payment for Tony Zucco. Payment for a fate that had sent Dick Grayson's parents plunging into the void, the trapeze line snapping with the brutal finality of a gunshot.
Haly sealed the envelope and exhaled a weary breath that filled the narrow office. Bruce shifted his weight.
He stepped down from the darkness as if it had shaped itself into a body around him. Haly yelped and spun, knocking over a mug of cold coffee that bled across Zucco's newest warning. It was an unsettling cartoon of a skeletal trapeze flyer dangling from fractured supports.
"Jesus!" Haly rasped, clutching his chest. "Who—"
"Don't send it." Bruce's voice was quiet, almost conversational, but it carried an undercurrent like gravel dragged across stone. He hadn't bothered with the mask tonight; he didn't need it. Bruce Wayne, unvarnished and stripped bare, carried something darker riding just beneath his skin. That alone was sharp enough to wound.
Haly blinked at him, terror wrestling confusion for space in his eyes. "Send it? It's… it's protection. You don't understand. Zucco, he—"
"I understand." Bruce closed the distance, letting the desk lamp carve harsh planes across his face. The light caught in the deep hollows beneath eyes that had watched worlds collapse. "He threatens your people. Your performers. The Graysons." His gaze flicked to the coffee-blotted drawing, a flimsy little scrap that felt like a gnat whining at the edge of a hurricane. "He won't touch them."
Haly stared at him, stunned. "But how? He controls half the docks. His men—"
"Are irrelevant." Bruce crushed the stained drawing in one gloved hand, reducing it to a wet lump of pulp. Much like the future Zucco imagined for the Graysons. The vision flared in Bruce's mind: Dick Grayson's bright laugh, a streak of color slicing through Gotham's filth. A partner. A spark of light. An unwelcome vulnerability. The cold presence inside him recoiled, spitting silent contempt. Solitude is strength. The child drags you down.
Bruce pushed the thought away. Focus. Haly needed certainty, not whatever inner battle he was fighting. "Zucco ends tonight. His racket ends tonight. Your circus is safe." He dropped the ruined paper onto the desk. "Get rid of it. Forget the envelope. Close up your wagons and get everyone out."
Something in the steadiness of his voice cut through Haly's panic. The man nodded mutely and began to move, stumbling but obedient.
Bruce was already melting back toward the door, the darkness embracing him again. Behind him, the ancient arcade machine blinked to INSERT COIN, its glow trembling across the floor. He had no use for coins tonight. His currency would be something else entirely.
Pain. Fear. Silence.
***
The stench of stale beer, cheap cigars, and fish entrails drowned the warehouse Zucco used as his headquarters. From somewhere in the back office, a tinny, overly aggressive jazz number scratched at the air. Bruce drifted through the wide room like a wisp of smoke, his movements brushing past the tripwires Zucco's men still believed were ingenious. He saw them with sight that wasn't truly sight at all. Quivering strands of tension hung invisibly, the acrid sting of expectation suspended above the two goons playing cards beside a pyramid of crates labeled Fragile: Venetian Glass. Illegal guns. Predictable.
He did not arrive quietly here. Not tonight.
He stepped into a patch of dirty yellow light beneath a dangling bulb.
"Hey!" One of the men threw down his hand and snatched for the baseball bat propped beside his chair. "Who the hell—"
Bruce was already on him. It wasn't a punch but a blur, a firm hand clamping around the man's wrist and twisting until a foul crack split through the warehouse. It was louder even than the scratchy jazz. The man let out a thin, high yelp and folded inward.
His partner lunged forward, hurling a wild haymaker. Bruce slipped back, moving with a speed that seemed unreal. The fist missed the length of his jaw by inches. Bruce slid into the man's space and drove an elbow straight into the solar plexus, shattering it with brutal precision. The breath blasted out of the man, and he crumpled to the concrete floor. Silence settled. It was broken only by the first thug's pained moans and the oblivious chatter of the jazz.
Bruce moved toward the office door just as it burst open. Three more men spilled out, animated by the screams. They were bigger and angrier, their knives catching the light. Bruce pushed through them with ruthless efficiency. One kick crushed a kneecap. One palm strike caved a jaw sideways. When a forearm deflected a stabbing strike—bone against metal with a dull, unforgiving ring—he snapped the attacker's wrist, spun, and rammed the man's own knife into his thigh. The wet, guttural sounds they made clashed hideously with the jazz.
The inner door slammed open again. Tony Zucco appeared, his flushed face twisted with anger, a greasy .45 clutched in his puffy hand. He wasn't a large man, but he radiated an overinflated menace. He saw the heap of bodies on the ground. He saw the dark figure standing untouched amid the chaos.
"Batman!" Zucco spat the name like an oath as he raised the gun. "You think you can come in here? This is my town!"
Bruce didn't respond. He simply walked toward him—slowly, deliberately. The jazz seemed to wilt, thinning into something cheap and mournful.
Zucco fired. The pistol's report exploded in the confined space. Bruce blinked once and shifted. Just a flick of the head. A quarter inch of movement. The bullet cut through the space where his cowl had been a moment before and buried itself in a nearby crate. The wood splintered.
Zucco's eyes bulged. He kept firing. Four shots in rapid succession. Bruce flowed around them, his movements smooth and impossible. He read each trajectory before Zucco even finished squeezing the trigger. Curves of lethal potential traced across the air. He slipped through them unharmed, advancing.
Panic overtook Zucco. He hurled the empty gun at Bruce's head. Bruce caught it without breaking stride and crushed the metal casing in his hand like tinfoil, then let the mangled remains clatter to the floor.
"No!" Zucco stumbled backward into his office. He pawed desperately through a heavy metal drawer, hoping for another gun or perhaps money. Anything.
Bruce was already inside. He closed the door behind him with a slam so final it felt like the seal of a tomb.
Zucco spun with a snub-nosed revolver in hand, but he didn't raise it more than halfway. Bruce's other hand clamped around his wrist. Bone scraped against bone as Zucco shrieked and dropped the weapon.
Bruce shoved him—not hard, but with enough force to send him stumbling into his enormous leather chair. It groaned beneath his weight. Zucco cradled his mangled wrist and whimpered as he stared up at the unrelenting figure looming above him. The icy presence in Bruce's mind rose like a glacial tide. It whispered: See his fear. Savor it. It is power.
Bruce leaned forward with both gloved hands on the desk, holding Zucco in place. The cheap wood creaked. He didn't need the cowl lenses to read the raw fear in Zucco's eyes. He saw the sweat gathering on his brow, the frantic pulse pounding at his throat. He could feel it radiating off him, thick and smothering. Zucco's fear wasn't merely psychological. It was a physical presence in the air, metallic and acrid beneath the lingering scent of fish and cigars. Bruce sketched it in mentally, sharpening it, shaping it.
"Haly's Circus," Bruce said. His voice was low and flat, the tone no more emotional than a dropped gavel. "You will forget it exists. Your boys will forget it exists. Your protection racket ends. Tonight."
Zucco tried to muster bluster, but his voice cracked. "You… you can't just… Do you know who's backing me? Falcone—"
"Falcone is irrelevant," Bruce cut him off. The name meant nothing against the vast, impersonal force murmuring behind his thoughts. Gotham's little kings were insects. "Your supporters are irrelevant. Your threats are irrelevant." He leaned closer until the blank, unblinking white lenses hovered inches from Zucco's sweating face. "You are irrelevant."
The fear reached its peak. Bruce could almost see it bleeding off Zucco in a black halo. The presence within him stirred, predator to prey. It whispered coldly: Make him understand. Make him bleed understanding.
Bruce didn't need the voice. Pain was a language he knew well. His hand flashed out—no punch, just a brutal grip. His fingers locked around Zucco's jaw like metal clamps, yanking his head back and exposing his throat. Zucco gagged, a strangled gasp tearing out of him as his eyes bulged.
"You terrorized children, Zucco," Bruce snarled. His voice dropped into a gravelly, nerve-stripping rumble. He could feel Zucco's terrified heartbeat thrashing against his hand. "You plotted murder for acrobats. For a boy." Dick Grayson's potential orphaned eyes flickered before him again—bright, hungry, unnecessary. The cold presence hissed approval. Bruce tightened his grip a fraction, and Zucco moaned. "That future is extinct. You go to Blackgate. Your operation collapses. Tonight."
He released Zucco's jaw. The man bent forward, gasping as sweat and tears mingled on his face. Bruce stood upright and pulled a slim device from his belt. It wasn't a Bat-communicator but a burner phone. He dialed one number. Gordon's direct line. He said nothing, letting the open connection broadcast the screams of the injured men and Zucco's choked whimpers. Then he tapped another button, sending a compressed digital package. Bank accounts. Vulnerable communications. Illegal firearm manifests. All of it streamed straight into Gordon's system at GCPD headquarters.
Bruce turned away from Zucco, who slumped trembling in his chair, and walked toward the office door. Behind him, Zucco's voice rose in a desperate, broken cry. "You think you've won? You stopped me? You just… you just ruined that kid's life! His parents… they're lost without me! They'll get reckless! They'll fall!"
Bruce paused in the doorway. He didn't turn. The words hit him not as accusation but as confirmation. Yes. I killed Robin before he was born. The coldness in him hummed with profound satisfaction. A city free of distractions. A Gotham shaped entirely by his will.
He opened the door. Outside, the groans of defeated thugs were fading, and distant sirens wailed closer. Gordon worked quickly.
Bruce slipped into the shadows near the loading bay doors. He watched silently as the first GCPD cruisers screeched to a halt, red and blue lights spilling across the scene. Gordon stepped out, trench coat flaring, his expression stern as he assessed the wreckage. The groaning men. The splintered crate. The crushed gun. He barked orders, and officers surged inside.
From the dim doorway, Bruce watched Gordon move toward Zucco's office. The commissioner's hand instinctively drifted to his holster when he saw Zucco slumped over his chair. Then he relaxed slightly upon noticing the defeated man's empty hands. A small, grim nod settled on Gordon's face. The evidence Bruce had sent would be flooding across his monitors now, undeniable and extensive. The case was already closed.
The entire debacle had been so mind-bogglingly easy. Effective. Efficient. Almost insultingly simple. There had been no flailing acrobats. No stunned boy suddenly orphaned. No dazzling sideshow ricocheting through the Batcave. There had been only silence, an unbroken sense of purpose, and the steady, glacial calm that thrummed through Bruce like a second bloodstream. Solitude. Concentration. Power.
He slipped into deeper shades beside the loading bay doors. He did not vanish in a dramatic billow of smoke. He simply ceased to exist in any recognizable way. Gordon glanced toward the shadows with a faint furrow in his brow, momentarily certain someone stood there. One blink later, the presence was gone. Nothing remained but a patch of empty darkness and the distant wail of sirens threading through Gotham's concrete canyons.
The Batcave greeted him with its familiar litany. The low thrum of the mainframe. The patient drip-drip-drip of a stalactite in the dark. The mineral scent of ozone mingled with damp stone. The illuminated Pennyworth crest loomed high against the cavern wall, casting a subtle glow over Alfred. He stood beside the polished Batcomputer console with the immovable poise of a statue. Page Monroe faced the console itself, her posture deliberately relaxed, arms folded over her breasts. She was a striking counterpoint to Alfred's crisp restraint. Her black eyes trailed Bruce as he approached and removed the cowl. Their brightness sharpened as they registered the tension in his jaw, the subtle stiffness of his movements, and the lingering smell of cordite and fear clinging to his jacket.
Alfred spoke first, his tone embodying a clipped, almost ritualized British restraint. "Master Bruce. Welcome home. GCPD radio reports described a… successful operation at the docks." His eyes narrowed by the faintest fraction. "Are you quite all right, sir?"
Bruce set the cowl down on a workbench in a smooth, efficient motion and raked a hand through his damp hair. "Fine, Alfred." The words were flat and uninflected, matching the cold steadiness inside him. Fine. Equilibrium. Unencumbered.
Alfred's eyebrow barely twitched. He recognized "fine" for the fiction it was, thicker than Gotham's fog. He also knew that pushing Bruce rarely yielded more than resistance. With a slight incline of his head, he murmured, "Very good, sir. I shall fetch some refreshments." His footsteps clicked with precise rhythm across the polished stone until he disappeared into the elevator that led up to the manor.
Silence settled over the cavern, thick and suffocating. It was broken only by the computer's persistent throb and the steady dripping in the distance. Page stepped away from the console and closed the space between them with two measured paces. She did not touch him. Not yet. Instead, she studied him, particularly the taut line of his shoulders beneath the dark kevlar plating.
"Successful?" she echoed, borrowing Alfred's word but infusing it with a quiet weight. Her tone dropped lower, softer, threaded with questions she did not fully voice. "Gordon sounded pleased. Said Zucco went down like wet paper. Said the evidence was untouched." She tilted her head, her dark hair brushing her shoulder. "He also said Zucco was ranting about rescuing some boy. Something about doomed parents?" Her gaze locked on his, dark irises reflecting the pale cave-light and seeing far too much. "What did you rescue him from, Bruce?"
Bruce held her stare, seeing the quick flash of insight behind her eyes. The sharp intelligence sliced cleanly through the mask he kept cultivated. He could deflect, easily and elegantly. He could fabricate another danger altogether. But the cold presence coiled inside him, territorial and possessive, pulsed with a quiet insistence. She desires knowledge. Provide diversion. The creature's urges were simple and undeniable. They rose through him as a slow, unsettling warmth beneath the hardened ice.
He said nothing. Instead, he turned toward her in a deliberate motion and lifted a gloved hand. It was still marked by cordite residue and warehouse grime. He cradled her cheek. His thumb brushed the corner of her mouth, cool leather meeting warm skin. He felt her breath catch. He saw the subtle dilation of her pupils. He watched the hardness in her expression melt into something darker, warmer, and far more dangerous.
"Irrelevant," Bruce murmured, his voice dropping into a rough whisper that seemed to drag along her nerves. He stepped closer. His body radiated heat in stark contrast to the cave's chill, his scent... sweat, leather, ozone, and the unsettling trace of someone else's terror... wrapping around her. "Tonight… tonight was about removing a parasite." His other arm circled her waist, pulling her against him until the rigid ridges of his armor pressed into her softer frame. He could feel the warmth of her abdomen against him, startling in its intensity. "Gotham is cleaner."
Page searched his eyes. The lie hovered between them, flimsy and transparent, but what she saw beneath it was no triumph. It was a kind of finish line... an unnerving stillness edged with a hunger that matched the low burn in her own stomach. The questions about doomed parents evaporated under the gravitational pull of the tension thrumming through Bruce's body.
"Cleaner?" she breathed, her voice barely audible. She reached up slowly and rested her hand against his chest, feeling the hard muscle beneath the armor. "Do you feel clean?"
Bruce's eyes narrowed, and the icy presence within him surged, merging with the heat simmering in his veins. Show her. The directive was not spoken but carved through him with the inevitability of instinct. He dipped his head until his lips grazed the curve of her ear, his breath warm against her skin. "I feel… centered." His hand slid lower along her waist, following the arc of her hip in a possessive glide. "Unencumbered." His mouth traced the line of her jaw. Each contact sparked heat across her skin. "Stronger."
He kissed her then... a sharp, claiming kiss that stole her breath and left no room for ambiguity. It was not gentle; it was a declaration, channeling every ounce of force he had exerted that evening into a single moment. Page exhaled against his mouth, her hesitation dissolving as quickly as it surfaced. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer as her body curved into his. The kiss deepened, growing hot and ravenous, shot through with threads of desperation and relief and something far older and colder pulsing beneath Bruce's skin. She tasted faintly of honey and coffee, a grounding sweetness that cut through the metallic tang still clinging to him.