Despite Alfred and, to a lesser extent, Bruce's best efforts, Rowan had always felt out of place in Wayne Manor.
It was nothing either did, honest!
It was more a matter of the environment.
As the saying goes, you can take the monkee out of the jungle, but the jungle will never quite leave the monkey, and like any street urchin, he found the place a little too nicely-scented, a bit too expensive-looking, and worst of all just a tad too fragile. Even the Batcave, cool as it was, was crammed with expensive gadgets and technology Bruce had invented, or peeled off villains he'd beaten.
The secret tunnels, on the other hand, were just right. It was dark, damp, smelled a little moldy, and happened to be the one spot where he could be away from people, or as 'away' as you could get with THE Batman around. More importantly, the silence allowed him think with a sense of clarity that was usually out of reach in the city.
But too much of anything could also harm more than it helped. Take the dark, for instance. It hid him and granted him another layer of protection, but the same blindness that hid him from the world hid him from himself. And a person unseen would feel unjudged, dregging up the worst in anyone. His worst was not kind to himself, nor to anyone. And clearheadedness was often poisonous to a mind weighed heavy.
The ground shook from an explosion above, and a loud ringing bloomed in his ears.
Who could be doing the shaking if not the good, kind people of Gotham?
Rowan clicked his tongue as his ears began to register the hiss of burst pipes, a hiss his restless mind immediately turned into loud, blood-curdling shrieks. And the longer he waited in the darkness, the more familiar these voices grew.
'Forty-three…' Rowan recalled, his gloomy expression tightening ever so slightly before composure returned. In the past week the total he'd brought to Ivy and Victor was forty-three. Forty-three criminals, nineteen of whom had been reduced to bonemeal for Ivy. Nineteen whose lives he'd indirectly ended. He knew, of course, that people wouldn't approve, but what else could he do?
Wait for the government? Ha!
Already a no-entry order to Gotham had been passed.
Already they'd been isolated and forsaken…
And even if the government agreed to send in someone—anyone, or Proto-Justice League decided to gather their shit in a sack and get to helping, half of them would be just as affected by the toxin, while the other half were happily jerking it on another of their space escapades.
No. This had to be done.
So what if their bloodshot eyes and their shrill cries followed him into every quiet hour from here on out? If this worked, it'd be well worth it.
He squeezed the canister tighter without thinking as the Batcave came into view.
Without Alfred to tend to the place, it had fallen into disarray over the past few weeks.
The bright white light caught the dust particles as Rowan neared the holding cells.
Already he could make out the screams carrying down the hallways, stilling his legs under him while filling his mind again with all the what-ifs.
Sure, they'd tested the cure twenty times over on subjects of every age and sex just to be safe, but what if? What if this was the one time it failed?
What if they looked at him with disgust for what he'd done?
What if, what if, what if?
At the cusp of the door he steeled himself, let out a sigh, and waited for the short hiss of the automatic hydraulic door before entering.
In an instant all the animosity they'd been throwing at each other was directed at him instead. Barbara and Ted threw themselves at the glass like starved beasts, with the first immediately begging to be let out, and the latter demanding a rematch. The fact that it hadn't worked once didn't seem to deter either of them whatsoever.
Selina, on the other hand, ran her nails down her own cleavage. She'd been at it since the day they first laid eyes on him after his 'growth spurt.'
Rowan inpatiently tapped the control table, fogging her glass, and killing the comms to her cell.
Dick, meanwhile, wailed in misery like Rowan had gone and kicked his puppy. "Rowan, Rowan! Let me out, please! I'll be good! I'll be—" With an irritated jab, he did away with the kid along with the rest, until only Alfred was left to watch him with an amused grin that said he knew something Rowan didn't.
"Master Rowan…" Arms folded behind a back straight as a pole, Alfred regarded him with a knowing smile and tilted his head slightly.
Even gripped by the throes of madness, Alfred Pennyworth was graceful to a tee.
His grey vest and dress pants hung wrinklier than usual and sweat had matted his hair, yet he had an air about him that reminded Rowan of an old sage. Unfortunately, experience told Rowan that under that calm, polite facade was a man who wouldn't hesitate to choke the life out of him the moment he had his back to him.
Alfred's eyes flicked toward the canister in his hand, then curved into crescents.
"Whatever it is you came down here to do, I assure you I shan't hold it against you." His head tilted an inch or two. "Though I confess I'm curious which of us you intend to start with. There's a propriety to these things, you understand…? One does so hate to be kept waiting."
"I don't know." Rowan admitted with a shrug. He'd been mulling it over since the moment he got his hand on the cure.
The obvious answer was Alfred or Ted.
Both men had lived long and incredible lives, while Barbara and Dick were only just getting started. The logical choice would be them. But it was Alfred. And though Rowan himself might not be as close to Wildcat, did that warrant putting his life at stakes?
His next pick was Selina Kyle.
Unlike the rest of them, she was a bona fide criminal with actual murders under her belt. Killing wasn't her style, of course, but make no mistake, Selina Kyle could have made a terrific serial killer. Those claws weren't just for show, after all.
But given his relationship with yet another of Gotham's femme fatales, picking her just because of that would be too hypocritical. Moreover, what would Ivy think? Would she start seeing herself as disposable to him? What would Bruce when he saw her dead?
He shook his head, grip tightening on the canister.
"I don't know, and I can't choose, so I'm not going to," Rowan laid the canister on the ground and gave it a spin, watching it quickly pass one cell after another.
"Is it not rather cowardly of you?" Alfred mused. "At least have the decency to look us in the eye as you schedule our execution."
"IT'S NOT—" Rowan snapped, then caught himself and sighed. "It's not an execution. It's the cure which we've tested extensively."
Or as extensive as they could manage. Compared to actual FDA-approved trials, sure, they'd been a little too quick to jump to human experimentation, and they hadn't had the time to test for long-term effects, but this was the best anyone could do in such a hurry.
"You don't look too sure of yourself," The Batler said, prowling around his cell like a caged animal as the canister spun a fourth time and slowed just as it swiveled toward him.
"Nothing's ever sure, Alfred."
"So it seems."
At last, the canister wound down and stopped, pointing straight at him.
"End of the road, Master Rowan." Alfred smiled and returned to the plastic chair he'd set in the middle of the cell. "Have at it."
"I'm sorry, Alfred." Rowan sealed the air vent and released the canister into the room. Seconds ticked by, then minutes, then an hour as the green gas filled the room and Alfred coughed his lungs out. Three hours passed before the last of the gas cleared, leaving the slumped, unconscious form of the Batler and a Rowan who was holding his breath behind.
It was as Einstein said, time was relative… What should have been another two hours had instead felt like days of unblinking staring, until Alfred, who had been twitching and groaning the whole while, decided to stir. "Ugh…" The old man groaned, prompting Rowan to skitter forward, the butt of his pants scraping along the ground.
"Master Rowan."
If Alfred were himself, he'd surely have a word or two about the complete disregard for millions of dollars' worth of tech. Then again, most of his equipment had broken down during the skirmish anyway. Not even the glider had been spared the spots and holes. He'd mostly been relying on Ichor for transport since to gallop or to glide across the rooftops.
"You're—" The Batler raised his clouded gaze, as though only now seeing him for the first time in weeks. "Certainly no longer a boy. Must I truly remind you how dirty that floor is, or how precious these fabrics are?"
"Alfred!"
He looked normal now. Gone was the wild derangement under his hooded lids, gone too the disheveledness of a madman straining to pass for normal. The deathly pallor of his skin had given way to patches of returning color, and the green flecks had cleared from his blue eyes. Rowan forced his joy back down as he popped the cell open, schooling his face into a cautious gladness he didn't even have to fake. He caught the old man as he stumbled toward the door and patted his back, leaving himself utterly exposed in the doing.
Beneath them both their Shadows writhed, sprouting three pairs of eyes just shy of the old man's sight. If 'Alfred' so much as twitched the wrong way, Rowan would know the cure had failed, and would be able to react accordingly. "How are you?"
"Fine…" The old man swayed and caught his own throat, as though forcing something back down. "On second thought, I'm terribly dizzy."
"Get it out of you, you'll feel better."
"And then clean it up myself, in this condition? I think I shall hold out for the bathroom."
But he hadn't been entirely honest.
He felt like he'd come out of a long coma, and somewhere inside that coma he'd done… Things. Horrible, horrible things. Alfred yelped as the young man holding him went to the right, causing his upset stomach to surge to his throat. He wrenched himself free of Rowan and braced against the wall, dragging in such large gulps of air that his vision blurred.
Coincidentally, he stood directly over his treasured golf club, which he'd only broken out a handful of times to clean or muse over. Alfred looked down at its twisted length and reached for the piece. He pushed aside Rowan's hand, still traumatized by the near fall, and ushered the boy forth as a wave of nausea washed over him. "Go… Go ahead, sir. I'll be behind you."
He half-expected to have to insist, only for Rowan to agree and, without any hesitation, turn his back to him.
Golf club in hand, Alfred froze as he saw himself take a swing at the boy's head. It hadn't felt like a dream, or a vision. No dream could possibly be so detailed, nor could any vision replicate the sensations so convincingly. Alfred pressed a hand to the side of his head as bulging, deranged eyes emerged from the darkness beside Rowan.
There was no denying how closely the ghastly visage resembled his own.
If a life of addiction and crime had been his lot instead, Alfred Pennyworth imagined he'd have come to look just like that.
"Do it…"
That 'him' whispered.
"Do it.
Do it!
DO IT!!!"
Its face slinked back into the darkness, then emerged from behind him without a sound. "You know you want to…" Having been to war, Alfred had seen the insides of plenty of heads, but, "Is the brain of a Demon different from a human's?Why don't we find out?!"
He gritted his teeth, hands sweating and unsteady from the phantom sensation of the swing.
Alfred stared at the boy's back and wondered why Rowan would turn it to him in the first place, until the realization came over him. 'So it's a test.'
His gaze swept stealthily over the nigh unnoticeable pairs of eyes scrutinizing him in the dark. A lot had happened, he could tell that much, yet nothing came to mind when he tried to recall what he'd done these past weeks. And the little flashes that did surface were spotty and nigh impossible to grasp.
He did remember what had happened before these weeks, though.
He'd been taking care of Dick, then turned in to bed one night, and then… And then…
"Urgh."
So befuddled was he that Alfred hadn't even realized he'd made it to the Batcave, where his young ward awaited him with unblinking eyes.
"If you could tell me what happened, sir…"
"What do you remember?"
"Not much. I recall tucking Master Dick in bed, and then rousing from my sleep the same night." Green. His room had been green, and the green had made him so incredibly sleepy. "Fog entered from the windows, and I went to find Master Dick before… Before…"
He trailed off as the demonic face in front of him caved in under some unseen force, yet the boy didn't seem to realize it at all. "Alfred?"
"A-Apologies." In the blink of an eye, Rowan returned to normal, though the Batler's eyes couldn't help but catch the slightly unfocused look in those good eyes, as if he could only see well squinting. "Forgive an old man, but could you tell me what happened afterward? I seem to recall…"
'Trying to bash in your brain,' Went unsaid, neither needed reminding of what he was really asking.
Rowan gestured at the chair he'd left out in the open, while he himself leaned against the Batcomputer. "It's a long story." On and on he spoke, his gaze softening as he seemed to uncoil. Maybe it was because he was sure the Alfred he was talking to really was Alfred, or maybe it was because he could finally confide in, but he was slowly reacting, until he got to the trials.
He could've hidden the fact, but it'd come out sooner or later. As far as he was concerned, better to rip the bandage straight off than to dilly-dally anxiously over it.
From across the room, Rowan could tell the old man was having a tough time digesting what they'd both done.
Contrary to his expectations, though, it only reassured him.
Although there seemed to be some side-effects going by Alfred's behavior since the moment he woke, but the Afflicted could never produce such convincing micro-expressions of concern over others. Looking as though he had aged a decade and more, the old man muttered, "I… I apologize for whatever inconvenience I caused you, sir."
Rowan breathed a sigh of relief.
From his expression, he could tell the old man wasn't judging him so much as judging himself over his failure.
"And Master Bruce?"
"He's gone on a one-man crusade to find Scarecrow and Joker." And so far had had no luck, if words on the street were to be believed. Rowan had drifted into his own thoughts when he caught the older man's rambling. "Master Bruce, he… He's going to—"
Before he could ask Alfred about it, the eye-shaped icon of Brother Eye flashed across the Batcomputer, bathing the Batcave in a harsh white glare.
[Sirs, I believe you should see this.]
Both turned their gazes to the grainy broadcast of a warehouse, where a group of thugs surrounded a taller silhouette. His cape pooled dramatically over his feet as Batman took down one with a punch, a second, then a third with the same roundhouse.
The Dark Knight taking down thugs was common enough that neither would have been too worried, if not for how sluggish he looked on-screen.
"Something's wrong," Rowan whispered, clenching his fists as a baseball bat exploded against the man's back. How could Bruce-'prep-time'-motherfucking-Wayne be caught lacking? And by regular goons, at that!
"Master Bruce!"
Something was definitely wrong.
"Where's this feed coming from?"
[It's being broadcasted, sir.]
He had seen Bruce take down hundreds in a night without the Symbiote! There was no chance a few dozen could take him, even if they'd caught him literally with his pants down. Not to mention he seemed to be telegraphing his exhaustion with every strike. The Bruce he knew would have prioritized taking enemies down with fast, efficient blows.
He wouldn't have bothered with such theatrics if he was truly over his limits… And he definitely wouldn't have let himself get dogpiled like that.
"What is he doing?" Rowan cupped his chin and contemplated. Why charge into a battle exhausted, much less refuse to grapple-hook out of harm's way? Bruce was stubborn, not stupid. If a strategic retreat was called for, Rowan had no doubt he'd take it. The whole thing stank of a conspiracy… Then a light bulb buzzed to life above his head, illuminating the only possibility, "Bait."
Since Bruce couldn't find the men himself, he'd made himself out as bait.
Knowing Scarecrow and Joker, neither would be able to resist gloating over a victory against the Bat. 'He's betting both will show up for his capture.' Rowan grinned. 'He's betting on their arrogance… Bruce, you sly dog.'
"Master Bruce…"
"—Look, Gotham. Watch your last hope beaten down. Watch it die."
Scarecrow's voice crackled to life. "There will be no rescue. No savior. I'll peel back the mask and show you that beneath his 'legend' there's only a man."
"Don't worry. He's just throwing out baits." Rowan scoffed, crossing his arms.
"No… That's not what I'm worried about. Master Bruce's going to kill them."
Rowan's eyebrows jumped at the old man's mumbling. "What did you say?"
"He… He came to me. He came to me while I was locked away, and he asked that I look after you and Master Dick in his stead… He said he meant to end this for good, sir."
"He said that?" Bruce Wayne, of all people, resolving himself to kill? Color him surprised.
"I know this might be asking too much, but you must stop him, Master Rowan…"
The old man pleaded, though he hardly needed to. Rowan had known several iterations of Batman who crossed that line, and none of them ended up better for it. It was as though whatever pretense of humanity Bruce had held onto would slough off, rendering him less of a hero or even a man, and more an unforgiving symbol. A violent, murderous and over-zealous symbol.
In this world, anyone could kill.
Anyone but the Batman, if only because where killing someone might feature the nightmares of other heroes, it was however a dream come true for the Dark Knight.
Only then could he shed all moral restraints.
Only then would he be truly free…
But going by his meta-knowledge, Bruce was incredibly tolerant of evil. What could've pushed him over the edge? Seeing the man he thought of as a father succumb to the Toxin? His lover? His friend and mentor? "Could you have, I don't know, misunderstood what he meant?"
The Batler shot him a wry glance. "There's not a great deal to misunderstand about 'I'm going to end this for good,' sir."
"Fuck…"
Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Rowan grabbed his gauntlets and slid them on, while on the screen Batman was beginning to 'succumb.'
"Send me his coordinates, Brother Eye."
[I cannot, sir. Batman has disabled his location.]
"Was it broken, or was it…"
[It was turned off, sir.]
"Holy shit, he's really planning to kill them." Rowan had to manually close his mouth from the shock.
"So I fear. You must stop him, Master Rowan."
"I know." He raced for the top of the Batcave. "Send me the coordinates of where he was last seen, then. And Alfred?"
"Yes?"
He tossed a handful of canisters that the old Batler hastily caught.
"Please administer the cure for the rest. Oh, and if you have time, please negotiate with the military on my account."
"Negotiate for what, sir?!" Alfred called after him from below as he shot up the exit connected to the old well.
"For a shipment of chemicals! Or to have them spray chemtrails over the city!"
With the cure proven effective, the time had come to distribute it. But if they waited on Ivy's plants alone for production, it'd take months, if not years to procure. They needed a supplier, which was where the military that had been on their asses this whole time came in.
If it push came to shove, Alfred would be able to apply pressure on the military through Wayne Enterprises far better than Rowan. "Call me! We'll discuss it on the way!"
Staring at the boy who'd lost both his innocence and his boyhood, who'd been through enough over the course of the ordeal to call for a psychological evaluation, Alfred collapsed bonelessly into the chair. He was no longer the spirited young man he'd once been. He was old now. He was old and softhearted, and only hoped life might go a little easier on the boys he'd raised.
Alas, Gotham seemed adamant about defying his wishes.
All he could do was aid them from behind even as the city hurled ever more outrageous scenarios at them in the hope of breaking them. And he had failed at even that much.
"Good luck, sirs."
__________
A/N: Okay, can we just talk about entitlement? Now, Hellbred is free. That much should be obvious. If you want to support me, you can here: P 4 tr3on . C0m (slash) Regularrr , but it's not like the story is locked behind a paywall. You'll just get updates a little slower, but you will get update. Now, sure, I sometimes ask for Power Stones and reviews, but I feel like that's something all authors want, and it costs nothing but a few minutes, prolly less if you're only spamming GOOD! GOOD! GOOD! or BAD! BAD! BAD! for a couple of lines. But that's not what I want to talk about today, what I want to talk about is the sheer fucking entitlement of some people. Like, look at this from Mr. SkilleR:
Really after this whole time you dare add system like why you need that for first time... Like you don't think that not everyone like that stupid popularity of this overused idea
How dare I... How dare I?!
Now, you are free to dislike my direction with my story and shit on it if you wish.
I cannot satisfy everyone and frankly a story written for everyone is a story written for NO ONE, but HOW DARE I? Really...? Really? Never mind the fact the System tag was in the Prologue of the story, never mind the fact it's not even prevelant in Book 1 (Actually in the story once and referrenced like... Twice?) and is a major plotline for Book 2, to the point that the entire Book would not work, not thematically nor philosophically nor logically nor narratively... Never mind even the fact it's tied to Rowan's development as a character, and I'm not talking about just Stats and shit...
Did this mf really just tell me HOW DARE I write my story the way I want? How dare I? Excuse me? Oh, sorry, I didn't know I was your slave! I didn't know I was talking to God Almighty! Shall I ask you when I may take a piss as well? Are you kidding me? There are actually people who think like this?