Chapter Text
Bruce Wayne has been dying for the past ten years, which is why we were all so surprised when he actually finished the job. He had been cranky and decrepit for so long, I guess we all believed he would go on like that indefinitely.
Three mornings ago, when I told my parents he had passed, Dad actually looked confused. “How?”
I frowned at him. “In a hail of bullets, beating the shit out of a terrorist.”
Dad glared at me over his coffee. Coming over from the kitchen island with a mimosa pitcher, Mom said, “You think you’re joking, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”
That was because she had not seen Wayne face to face since my sister’s college orientation last year. Had she visited in the last few months, she might have heard the old man wheeze for breath or seen him struggle to bring a spoon to his mouth. “McGinnis says he went very early this morning, in his sleep. They had him so full of morphine, he hadn’t been responsive for thirty-six hours prior.”
My parents exchanged glances, then they both sighed heavily. Mom leaned her head on her fist and said, “How’s Terry?”
It was hard to tell in an email. He sounded tired, maybe. Businesslike. Wayne didn’t really have anybody else, so at the end, managing the medications and home care all fell to McGinnis, and now the funeral was his to organize as well. After months of wiping drool from the chin of the man he respected most in the world, maybe part of him was even relieved. “I really couldn’t say.”
“It’s probably too early for anyone to know the details of the service,” Dad said quietly.
“You want to go?”
He frowned at me, as if it should have been a given.
But there were thirty years of mutual resentment between my father and Bruce Wayne. Even when Team Bat and Team Arrow were intimately dependent on each other to take down Ra’s al Ghul, Dad and Bruce had “professional disagreements.”
I once attempted to clarify: “Because you sometimes killed people, and the Bat didn’t?”
“That was certainly not a point in my favor,” was all he replied.
Mom was not much more helpful when I tried her instead. “You’ve met them, honey,” she said on a heavy sigh. “Dad gets an idea in his head, and it takes a near death experience to get it out. And then there’s Bruce, who is utterly convinced that his way is the best way, because if there were some better way, that’s how he’d be doing it.” She gave an irritable shake of her head. “Of course they didn’t get along.”
It wasn’t hard to picture. One dickish comment here, one shithead reply there. “And the twenty years of mutual silent treatment?”
Mom’s expression sobered. “After what we did to the League, and what happened to Dick…” She shook her head. “I guess they felt like there was no coming back from that.”
“You say ‘what happened to Dick’ as if I know.”
She avoided my eyes. “He was killed in action,” she said, with finality.
McGinnis couldn’t pry it out of Wayne either. Whatever happened in ‘19, these guys never forgave each other for it. So I admit to some surprise that Dad wanted to fly across the country and arrange his face into a somber expression for a man he hadn’t even liked for thirty years.
In the event, it’s a family trip.
My parents are eager for the chance to see Abby, and it is never difficult to entice Tish with Gotham. She only balked at attending the service, on the grounds that, “I’ve never even spoken to Mr. Wayne.”
“Who cares?” I said. “You’re my date to the funeral.”
“Besides,” Mom chimed in, “I can write your airfare off as a business expense.”
Shameless nepotism is a beautiful thing. I spent most of 2045 trying to convince my mother to hire an assistant, and she spent the whole year telling me she didn’t need one. “Besides, we’re keeping way too many secrets to give somebody that much access to my life.”
But my mother is fifty-seven. The days when she could survive on four hours of sleep and half a gallon of coffee are long over, and they’ve taken their toll. In the fall I started occasionally finding her on the sofa in her office, curled up in pain and nausea with the lights out. The third time it happened, I had to carry her to the car.
A couple of weeks after Tish graduated from SCU, Mom leaned her head in my office door with an impish smile. “Come meet my new executive assistant.”
“You hired somebody?” Without even running them by me first?
I followed her to the corner office, where a woman was seated in front of her desk. Narrow shoulders, dark reddish hair braided and pinned up. She stood at the sound of footsteps, and I’d know that ass anywhere.
“Tish?”
She smiled and held out her hand. I shook it, heroically resisting the temptation to yank her into a hug. It was her first day, and she wore slacks and everything. She obviously wanted to look professional.
I turned to Mom. “Are you for real?”
“You told me to find someone I could trust,” Mom says. “She seemed like the perfect solution.”
In the two years since, I have never once dragged Tish into my office and bent her over the desk, nor have I so much as played footsie with her in meetings. We are grownup professionals doing serious work at our serious workplace. But having her here is a vast improvement over the previous situation, when I might go for days without seeing her except to sleep next to her.
“There aren’t enough hours,” as I once whined to Dad. “Even if I could keep track of them like I’m supposed to, there are literally not enough.”
If I’m not at Panoptic, I’m out somewhere in the dark jumping rooftops or beating someone up or planting surveillance tech. If I’m not hooded up, I’m training for it, because every skill I can burn into my brain and body is one more that might save my damn life some night. The end result is something like an eighty to one hundred hour work week. That doesn’t leave much time for trivialities like Netflix, doing my own laundry, cooking for myself, or maintaining human relationships.
“How did you do it?” I asked him.
“You mean date someone? It was simpler in my case,” he pointed out, not without sympathy. “Your mother was doing it with me.”
These days I have Tish in the office with me, where I can take her to lunch and pull her pigtails. And now here she is, climbing the steps of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine with her hand in the crook of my arm.
“It looks like one of those drip sand castles,” Abby says on my other side, “but one that somebody made on their vacation from, you know, the Black Death. You think Catholic churches are creepy on purpose?”
Tish gives her a tolerant smile. “This one is Episcopalian.”
It is not a sand castle; it’s a few hundred nooks and perches where you can see without being seen. Maybe Dad is thinking the same thing, because a few steps ahead of us, he pauses in the throng of people to stand and tip his head back. Mom steps up next to him and slips her hand into his, and annoyed mourners stream around them.
Tish, Abby, and I come up behind them just in time to hear Mom say, “He’d fit right in, wouldn’t he?”
He’s imagining the old gargoyle crouched up there. I wonder if McGinnis pictured the same thing, walking up these steps.
Dad squeezes Mom’s hand and leads us through the vast, unwieldy brass doors with twisting human figures embossed on all twenty feet of them. We pass into the dim grandeur of the cathedral, and the private security professional in me takes one look around and suppresses a chuckle. Thank God this is someone else’s problem.
The acoustics are weird, there are fat marble pillars screwing with the lines of sight everywhere, and your bodyguards have to be on their best behavior. No flicking holy water at each other.
You would not expect that last problem from adults entrusted with the personal safety of others, but the last time Jones and Ramirez were working a wedding, he simply couldn’t resist. “I’d have punched him,” she said, “but Our Lady was looking right at me.”
The security here is well-behaved and unobtrusive. I count a half dozen posted beneath the stained glass windows, and doubtless there are more outside. One gaggle of three seems unattached to any principal in particular, but they could belong to anyone on a guest list that includes several sitting US senators, mayors of Gotham both current and former, and the CEOs of several of the highest-valued publicly traded corporations in the world.
A couple of faces are familiar. On the other side of the sanctuary, I catch sight of Laurel’s ex-husband Paul Kord, president of Kord Industries. He gives me a friendly, understated wave, and then he goes to find his seat, shadowed by a giant of a man wearing sunglasses indoors.
Up by the front, I spot McGinnis in a knot of people. His mother and brother flank him for moral support, and nearby stands Max Gibson, whose bright pink hair looks muted somehow. Police Commissioner Barbara Gordon, I know by reputation and by McGinnis’ occasional bitching about her.
When we say our hellos, the Commissioner listens indulgently to Abby going on about how much music Mr. Wayne introduced to her. He often gave her tickets to the Gotham Philharmonic. When Matt draws my sister into conversation, Gordon’s eyes follow her. “I see Bruce found someone to spoil.”
I do not like that word in connection with Abby. A few years back, the girl I was dating, who seemed bizarrely jealous of my sister, called her a “spoiled daddy’s girl” to my face. It was our very last fight.
But Gordon is smiling fondly. “I’m glad he got the chance, right there at the end.” Then someone catches her eye, and she nods hello to the middle-aged couple heading our way. They both wear well-tailored suits, and she glitters with jewelry that probably lives in an alarmed vault when not in use.
They brighten at the sight of my parents, and the woman comes over to distribute the kind of affectionate greetings I haven’t seen since I dated a Zeta.
“Stephanie!” Mom says, with a slightly trapped expression, the moment before the oncoming hug makes landfall. “Good to see you again.”
“And is this Jonathan?” Stephanie says, turning to me. “Oh, honey, I haven’t seen you since Paul’s wedding.” She pulls me down into a hug, and over my shoulder she says to Mom, “He was the most precious thing in his bow tie.”
Mom looks mollified by this. Or perhaps by the look on my face.
Stephanie is already moving on to Abby, whom she proclaims “the most photogenic child I ever saw - I swear, she could have been a Gerber baby.”
Now that I’ve been released, Dad pulls me over to introduce me to Tim Drake, head of Applied Sciences at Wayne Enterprises. Mom edges her way over as well, because it’s clear who the kindred spirits were back in the day.
Drake’s greeting is much quieter than his wife’s, but somehow he seems amused by - I don’t know, exactly. Perhaps by my existence. “Firm handshake like your father’s,” he observes. Then his mouth quirks, and he adds, “Same calluses too.”
I try my best not to react, but I can’t help glancing at my parents. Mom looks like she just swallowed some gum, but Dad is perfectly content and maybe even holding back laughter. He gives me a nod: relax .
Old friends, I guess. Christ, I hate not knowing everyone’s twisty backstory. Maybe Tim designed and fabricated equipment for Dad and Wayne back in the day. No telling how he ended up with Miss Congeniality.
Just before I turn away, I catch sight of a girl with Asian features and a surprising splash of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Despite her height, severe bun, and unflattering pantsuit, she still looks too young to be wearing an earpiece and a sidearm discreetly concealed under her blazer. She catches me looking, and she gives me a long, slow blink, the way cats do when they trust you.
I nod acknowledgment to a fellow private security professional. Then my attention is forfeit to Stephanie Drake, who pats my arm and gestures at Tish. “Jonny, is this your girlfriend? Oh my God, well done.”
A few minutes later, as we walk away Mom hisses, “She’s like a senior superlatives yearbook page. ‘Most adorable! Most photogenic! Absolute bestest ever!’”
“Felicity,” Dad says. “You know she means every word.”
Mom closes her eyes, and the tendons stand out in her neck. “That’s the worst part.”
“She’s always reminded me of your mother,” Dad hazards.
Mom silences him with a look, and we find our seats.
Bruce’s final send-off involves all the pomp and circumstance of a state funeral. Barbara Gordon’s eulogy hits all the right notes about how Wayne turned his personal tragedies into generosity and dedication to the people of Gotham. If you didn’t know the Big Black Pointy-Eared Secret, it would sound like innocuous smoke blown up the ass of a wealthy philanthropist.
Abby sits next to me, and very genuine tears are sliding down her face. Since she moved here for school two years ago, she and Wayne have had occasional tea parties. God knows what they found to talk about, but the way she tells it, “he was actually really sweet.”
McGinnis assures me that the sweetheart who poured my sister Earl Grey was in fact the same judgy stone-faced curmudgeon who worked mission control for us. Wayne vaguely disapproved of me before I ever picked up a bow, and his opinion only marginally improved afterwards. The first night I ran a mission in Gotham, while the Bat and I waited to ambush a convoy of arms dealers, Wayne said in my earpiece, “Arrow, I’m surprised your predecessor never taught you to sit still.”
“I am sitting still. I have been for twenty-eight minutes.”
That gravelly voice said, “You’re bouncing your knee up and down.”
“No, I’m--” I looked down at my knee. I stopped bouncing. “No, I’m not.”
He could always find fault with me, and most of the time he could blame it on Dad.
The priest summons the pallbearers, and Terry gets to his feet and falls into companionable step with Tim Drake heading up the aisle. Mrs. Drake and Commissioner Gordon follow, and with the help of two silver-haired men whom I don’t recognize, they lift the casket onto their shoulders the old-fashioned way.
They pass in silence, and in silence we follow them.
We all stream out into the sunshine in a mass of dark clothing and a building hum of conversation, and my family keeps left and finds a patch of lawn to linger on. At the curb, McGinnis does more than his share of the heavy lifting to load the casket into the sleek hearse. The doors close, and he stands staring at them, looking a bit lost.
Then he puts his hands in his pockets, squints against the glaring sun, and trudges across the grass to us. He takes up a post next to me, and I bump his shoulder with mine.
For a little while, we watch the mill of the crowd, until finally he says, “Gordon didn’t mention his sunny disposition.”
I nod. “Probably got nervous and forgot.”
Tish leans around my arm to look at McGinnis, and then she glances up at me. It’s plain on her face that she firmly believes a medicinal hug is indicated, and her only question is, Do you want to administer it, or should I?
He’ll accept one from her. With the faintest pressure between her shoulder blades, I send her his way.
That’s when shit starts blowing up.
The pyrotechnic boom bypasses my brain and goes straight to my gut. Without conscious thought, I’m down on the grass with Tish squashed under me, arms covering her head. McGinnis hunkers down next to us.
Screams peal across the lawn, and then comes the rush and crackle of fire. A single car alarm starts to wail. I look up, and halfway down the block a plume of flame is leaping up high enough to to be visible over the parked cars. Whatever is burning is sure doing it loud and flashy and huge.
From various spots nearby, where they’ve been hugging dirt like the rest of us, men in suits and earpieces get to their feet, and they start cautiously approaching the fire.
Tish uncurls beneath me, and to our left, Mom and Dad have both smooshed Abby in an awkward-looking pile-on. Dad and McGinnis push up into nearly identical crouches and scan the area clinically. All around us, people in their designer funeral wear lay frozen or shaking.
Fifty feet from us, the four security guys break into a half-jog toward the flames, hands hovering near their sidearms.
It was not a bomb that just went off. It didn’t throw enough shrapnel, and it only kicked off one car alarm. No, this thing was designed for maximum noise and pretty colors.
Which means it’s a distraction.
Deep breath. Something else is coming. “Keep down,” I say quietly, laying a hand on Tish’s back.
McGinnis nods agreement. “This isn’t over.”
Tish keeps down, and she crawls over to grab Abby’s hand.
“Some kind of big, high-powered flashbang?” Mom asks Dad.
“An M80, probably.” His eyes sweep the street, and he glances at me. “The man wearing work boots with his suit. White, 5’9”, short brown hair.”
“Yeah, I’m looking. Or the three guys with earpieces and no apparent billionaire.”
Security is staring intently at exactly what they’ve been given to stare at, which is embarrassing for them, professionally speaking. We’re scanning the crowd. But there are too many people, most of them still half-crouched or hidden. They’re all wearing approximately the same color, and some of them are distractingly hysterical.
“There,” Dad says.
Not far from the cathedral steps, the back door of an SUV has just swung open. Two men in dust gray khakis and long black sleeves are calmly, forcibly escorting Paul Kord toward an SUV. Behind them, the giant in sunglasses lies spreadeagled on the grass.
They have Paul Kord. He looks almost comically affronted.
What happens next happens fast.
Dad yells, “Paul!” and for a second, he looks over at us.
But then all three men tumble into the SUV, the door slams, and the vehicle pulls smoothly away from the curb. They don’t peel out, and there are no squealing tires. It looks almost normal, how easily they glide away down the street.
Fuck no, they’re not stealing my sort-of aunt’s ex-husband from my best friend’s sort-of father figure’s funeral. That is not fucking allowed.
I look to McGinnis, but the second he meets my eyes, I realize that he can’t be much help here. In this company, he is strictly a civilian, and damn is he pissed about it. Dad is wearing an identical expression, because he is under the same constraints.
But I’m not. I’m a private security professional known to law enforcement as “that idiot who chased Ilinca Nicolescu up an exterior wall and got himself kicked off a third floor balcony.” I can pursue whoever I want, and they’ll assume I’m stupid, not a secret vigilante.
I’m going to have to do it in a borrowed car, once I yank one of these Uber drivers out from behind the wheel. And I’m going to have to do it unarmed, unless you count the knife, length of cord, and square of duct tape that live in my pocket at all times. I feel naked in this suit, and these shoes aren’t broken in, and all in all I’m pretty pissed off at the bad guys’ timing.
But there doesn’t seem to be anybody else.
All this runs through my head in about three seconds. Decision made. All right. Let’s go.
I pop into a crouch, eyes fixed on the license plate - LVX 497 - and I ignore Mom yanking at my sleeve.
I make it three steps. Then a black sedan pulls hard left out of the funeral procession, right into the oncoming SUV. The screech and crunch are loud even from here. Both vehicles skid sideways into each other and come to rest in a V, nose to nose.
That buys us a little time. So first priority: weapon.
I run for Kord’s downed bodyguard, who is either dead or concussed. I lay two fingers on his neck, flip aside his jacket - I think that’s a pulse, and that is definitely a SIG Sauer.
The Arrow can’t be seen with a gun in his hand, but the managing director of Panoptic Security can. It’s not my weapon of choice, but Dig made sure I knew how to use it. None of our bodyguards would do a damn thing I said if I hadn’t murdered several hundred paper targets alongside them.
I snatch up the SIG, and hunched in the half-decent cover of a parked car, I check the safety and the chamber. Good to go.
I peek over the hood of the car.
I’m not the only one crashing this kidnapping. Finally, one of the security personnel has got eyes on the right spot. It’s Freckles, the Drakes’ bodyguard. She just crouched down two cars away from me. Her eyes sweep the street, and they land on me. She gives me a little nod of recognition.
And there she goes, moving low and careful between the bumpers. Not getting too close to the SUV jerking around fruitlessly, just getting into place while they’re too busy to notice her.
Does she expect me to follow? She may feel like she knows me by reputation, but I’m a stranger to her. No guarantee we can work together on the fly.
The SUV driver is working the wheel, trying to back out of here. Gotham’s streets were constructed in the horse and buggy era, and they’re too narrow and congested for a three-point turn. The road is half-blocked by the crunched Jaguar, and the shoulders are chock full of cars.
Freckles catches my eye again, and she jerks her head toward the driver’s side of the SUV, fully expecting me to handle it.
The kidnappers have finally realized there will be no backing out of this one, and a man with ink sleeves jumps out of the rear passenger side. He yanks open the driver’s door on the Jag and reaches in to fumble awkwardly with the unconscious driver’s seat belt. Drags him onto the pavement, and all of a sudden I recognize Tim Drake.
Ah. Freckles let her principal drive right into traffic. Of course she can’t let this go without a fight.
Tattoo Addict gestures to his buddies in the SUV. They’re switching getaway cars.
Freckles and I lock eyes. These guys are vulnerable while they make the transfer. Once they slam the doors of Drake’s Jag behind them, we won’t get another opportunity like this. I tuck the SIG into my slacks at my lower back, which is not my favorite way to carry, but it’ll have to do. Here’s hoping I won’t have to use it after all. Guns provide some amazing mechanical advantage in a fight, but I don’t much want to open fire on a crowded street.
Freckles moves fast and easy around the far side of the Jag. Only the driver gets out on the near side of the SUV; the other three are hustling out the passenger side.
The driver is mine. I leap out from hiding between the parked cars and catch him just as he rounds the rear bumper. The double-headed eagle tattooed on his neck is a helpful “Grab Here” sticker. With both hands, I smash his head into the window.
It’s not the kind of thing you can do quietly. His strangled scream and the satisfying thunk alert the other two flanking Kord. They look over sharply, all jangling nerves and drawn weapons.
The one with the iron grip on Kord’s arm looks remarkably like David Beckham.
Tattoo Addict leaps into the driver’s seat of the Jag, yelling for the other two to get in the fucking vehicle.
Kord glances from one of his captors to the other, and then he does the smartest thing I’ve ever seen an untrained civilian do in a situation like this. He crumples to the ground.
Instantly, they are both yelling and pointing weapons at him, trying to force him to his feet. But they can’t afford to shoot their own prize. They’ve got no leverage here. And while they’re fucking around with empty threats, Freckles is sneaking around the Jaguar’s bumper.
In the fifth grade, our class pet was a ball python named Julius Squeezer. He ate like an emperor - live mice only. At feeding time, we would watch wide-eyed as he curved sinuously around a corner with his sights on something terrified and squeaky.
Freckles looks like she gave him lessons.
Then she breaks focus for half a second - just long enough to look me full in the face. We both know this is our shot. Got to move in sync.
I just hope to God she doesn’t mean to take a literal shot. I don’t want to catch a stray bullet.
At the exact same moment, we exchange nods. And then we leap.
Beckham looks up just in time to sweep his muzzle my way. Not in time to stop me slamming into him. He knows enough to stagger back and absorb the impact instead of letting me take him to the ground, but he can’t keep hold of his weapon, and it skitters away under the body of a parked car.
“Paul, move!” I bellow, but he doesn’t need telling. He is already crawling away.
In the driver’s seat of the Jag, Tattoo Addict realizes the mission has gone to shit, and he suddenly remembers a pressing appointment elsewhere. With a screech of metal on metal, he peels out of here.
Beckham is a pro, so of course I haven’t disarmed him. A knife has materialized in his hand, and he’s doing his damnedest to slide it up under my ribs.
I left my kevlar in my other suit jacket. I backpedal fast.
In the space I’ve created, I’m aware of Freckles in my periphery, using Beckham’s momentum against him to swing up and wrap herself around his neck and shoulders. They both stagger backwards into the side of the Jag with a thud.
She’s got this.
I slide right, leaving my back wide open for her to cover, and I square up to Beckham and force him into the corner formed by the crumpled noses of the two cars.
I’ve got a knife too, asshole.
Fights like this happen fast. There is no choreographed dance, no give-and-take, and not a lot of technique going on. He lunges, I slash, he nicks me. We close.
Two messy seconds later, he’s bleeding all over my bespoke suit, and the knife falls from his hand. I lock an arm across his neck, kick his weapon away, and slowly lower him to the ground. He curses and struggles all the way down, clawing at my arm and going purple in the face.
Footsteps come running up behind us as he loses consciousness. Hold, and keep holding - I need him out long enough to restrain him. A few more seconds of reduced blood flow to his brain aren’t going to kill him.
“Here,” Dad says, kneeling next to us and tugging his tie from his neck. He yanks Beckham’s wrists into place and starts binding him with practiced efficiency.
Nearby, McGinnis is politely offering duct tape to Freckles, who is perched on her kidnapper’s back. Her mouth doesn’t so much as twitch, but she seems to smile up at McGinnis with just her eyes. She makes a “be my guest” gesture, and her eyes twinkle when he goes to work.
Panting, I sit back on the asphalt, absently loosening my tie and taking stock. At the SUV’s rear bumper, Commissioner Gordon and one of her officers are attending to the man I concussed. On the church lawn, Paul Kord is lying in the grass looking dizzy and barking at the gathering crowd to back off.
All around us, people are slowly daring to surface, craning their necks to survey the scene. Some shocked, shaky people are clutching at each other or crying with the adrenaline comedown, and others are loudly demanding answers of law enforcement officers who don’t have them.
“Nice work,” Dad murmurs to me as I pass him my tie for our new friend’s ankles. “Is any of the blood yours?”
I tug at the gash in the shoulder of my suit, where the bloom of red on my chest originates. The blade went through one layer of wool and one of cotton to bite into my skin. “I can’t see it; my neck’s not that bendy,” I tell Dad, leaning toward him for inspection. “Feels like surface damage, though.”
He pauses in his knots to frown at the wound, and then he frowns at me. “Closer to your jugular than I’d like.”
“Hey. Any one you walk away from.”
His scowl intensifies. He hates that expression.
Then he turns his attention to Beckham, who has begun to stir in his bonds. I make a noise that means, May I please be excused from the scene of the assault?
Dad grunts assent, and he puts his knee in Beckham’s back.
I lurch to my feet, and I head over to Freckles, still perched on her catch. She is watching with detached interest as McGinnis and a uniformed officer help Tim Drake to his feet and walk him over to a bus stop bench. She makes no move to go to him, so I guess I won’t be interrupting if I offer my hand.
“Hey, nice working with you. I’m Jonathan Queen.”
She accepts the handshake with a very formal incline of her head, and she gives me the same faint smile she gave McGinnis.
I guess I have to prompt her. “I didn’t catch your name before.”
She lays a hand on her chest, and the smile finally touches her mouth. “Cassie.”
That’s about when law enforcement starts swarming us in earnest, with proper handcuffs and buzzing radios and other official paraphernalia. “Why don’t we take him off your hands?” they’re asking both Cassie and Dad.
“All right, buddy. Let’s get you taken care of,” a grandfatherly man in a GCPD vest says, laying a hand on my arm. He starts leading me away, probably toward a nice EMT.
“I’ll catch up with you in a minute,” I toss over my shoulder to Cassie.
She gives me a cheery little wave, and then I lose sight of her.
It takes five minutes for Abby to stop shaking, ten for the EMTs to clean and stitch the gash in my shoulder, and an hour for GCPD to grill me about my every microdecision from the time of the explosion to the moment they took over the scene. They confirm with a dozen witnesses that my description is accurate.
Such close scrutiny feels like being called a liar, but I realize Gordon is doing me a favor. No one will be able to claim later that my use of force was unlawful.
When the cops are done with me, I sit on the lawn with my family, and we do what people usually do right after an interruption to their regularly scheduled programming: we tell each other the story of what we just saw. First to confirm that it did in fact happen, then to round out the details from various angles.
“How did Mr Drake get clear?” Abby asks McGinnis. “One second I saw him, the next I didn't.”
“Stephanie went running in there and dragged him out.” At the looks on our faces, he says, “What? She's tough. Does a lot of hot yoga.”
I never do catch up with Cassie.
There is still a body to bury. Only a small contingent is invited to the little cemetery on the grounds of Wayne Manor, with its low wrought iron fence and its imposing marble headstones. McGinnis takes pride of place closest to the rig that will lower the casket into the waiting earth. Without much fanfare, we mutter along to the quick graveside service. Most of the attendees only linger on the lawn for a little while.
Only the people here for McGinnis - his family and mine - walk up to the mansion afterward. The high ceilings and echoing finery seem even more impressive with all the black crepe, and we keep our voices down as we file into the foyer.
“Ace,” Abby says, opening her arms to the Great Dane trotting down the hall. “Come here, buddy.” She has probably been wanting to hug on Percy for the past hour and a half, but I guess this big slobberer will do.
By unspoken arrangement, my parents lead the civilians into the largest of the manor’s multiple parlors, and Mom launches into the story of the first time she met Bruce Wayne. Matt and Mrs. McGinnis don’t even notice when the active vigilantes slip away.
We head for the grandfather clock in the west hall. McGinnis gently opens its face and adjusts the hands, and a section of walnut paneling swings open onto pitch blackness.
I busted out laughing the first time I watched him do that, until the look on Wayne’s face shut me up. I don’t feel like laughing today.
I follow McGinnis and Max down the rough steps cut into the stone, and motion detectors flip the lights on for us. The Batcave looks exactly as it did last time I was here: remarkably similar to the lair. A bank of computers much like Mom’s stands against one rough wall, weapons and training equipment line another, and at the far end mannequins stand at attention in the uniforms of yesteryear, frozen behind glass.
You need the same things, no matter where you do the job. Tech, gear, floorspace. Memory.
Unlike at home, a thin layer of dust coats the desktops.
Max and I take up our accustomed positions at the console and leaning against the work table. McGinnis looks us over, then nods decisively. "Whoever did this, they did it at his funeral."
"I know," Max says softly.
"We're going to find them," McGinnis says dispassionately, "and we're going to fuck them up. So let's talk about how.”