Gotham v. Joker, 1894 (Chapter Two) [New]

“Oh I’ve missed this,” Richard Grayson mumbles, biting on a cucumber sandwich and chewing to his heart’s content. “You’re a genius, Alfred.” The floor he is sitting on is damp and cold. The fact that it’s a winter morning doesn’t help. There is a chair at Bruce’s study but it has a pile of books stacked on top. Besides, Richard likes the view, how the Batcave looks from the low angle. It reminds him how the world used to look when he was a kid, when things were simpler—the days of the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder.

“When Master Bruce heard you coming, he wanted to throw you a feast,” says Alfred.

“Let me guess. You told him that a tray full of sandwiches would more than suffice.’”

“Uh… those weren’t my exact word.”

“It’d be a bad thing if they were?”

Alfred shrugs, with his hands folded behind him. “No. Except for the fact that those words make me sound like a horrid miser.”

“Either way, you were right,” Richard mumbles again, mouth full of food.

Suddenly there is a ringing noise that echoes within the tall and stoned walls of the cave. Richard quickly traces the sound to a thin pipe that is coming in through the ceiling.

“Someone is at the front door,” says Alfred. “Master Bruce set up the pipe so that the calling bell can be heard from here.”

“Where is he anyway? Is that him at the door?” Richard wants to know.

Alfred laughs. “Master Bruce taking the front entrance? Now that would be a sight.”

Richard laughs too, spitting out crumbs and pieces before he can cover his mouth. “Oh boy,” he mutters, cringing at the littered floor.

“I’ll take care of it once I return.”

“Don’t worry about it!” says Richard, pulling a handkerchief from his breast pocket.

“Oh,” says Alfred, scratching his neck and looking unsteady. It’s an unusual sight for him, seeing Richard wipe the floor, taking care of his own mess. But he has been away for three years. That sort of time changes a person, whether they intend it or not. The boy who left Gotham, leaving a life behind and going on a soul-searching journey, that boy has returned and is now a proper man. Alfred is a little shocked, even at this seemingly slight transformation, but deep down he is also happy. The happiest surrogate grandfather in the world. “Alright then,” he says with a smile and leaves.

As soon as Alfred goes out of sight, Richard’s joyful demeanor vanishes. He stands up and looks around. Everything looks so foreign to him. The study is on the furthest end of the cave now. On both its sides are four more bookshelves than there used to be. The weapons cabinet is fuller than ever, each shelf carrying devices that he can’t even fathom the functions of. Beside a green question-mark-shaped hook-knife is a literal crown with electrical wires coming out of the base. What’s that all about? Hell if Richard knows. Three years is a long, long time. There is a lot of catching up to do.

He looks to the Batmobile on the right hand side of the cabinets and the makeshift garage built around it—cardboard boxes, wrenches and other tools scattered around. It’s clear that Bruce has been working on upgrading the car. The exterior has been reinforced with bronze plates and the glasses have a violet tint now, presumably giving it a one-way visibility. The height of the car seems to have been lowered as well, to compensate for the increase in weight, Richard assumes.

“Do you like the new design?” a voice suddenly calls out.

“Not really.” Richard turns around to see Bruce, standing there as resolutely as ever. He has already taken off his cowl. Richard observes a few cuts in his chin and a slight bruise beneath his left eye. That’s unusual. Has Bruce gotten rusty? Other than that, everything looks normal. He is wearing his usual Batsuit: the tattered and excessively patched grey shirt, with a yellow bat symbol sewn into the chest—it was Alfred’s handiwork—just beneath the high collars. The discolored utility belt with all its pockets. Brown hemp ropes wrapped around his arms like gauntlets and a cape as black as the night. “Why is that?” Bruce asks.

“Criminals will think you’ve grown all timid, with the extra shields and everything,” Richard says. He speaks in a half-joking manner, as he always used to.

“You forget that I’m getting old. Besides, at any age, there’s nothing wrong with prioritizing preparation above presentation.” Richard notices now that Bruce’s hair has started to lose color on both sides.

Richard nods several times with his eyes extremely wide and lips pressed. “Timid and old. Yes, just the combination that will strike fear at the criminals’ crooked hearts.”

Bruce chuckles and then falls silent, looking thoughtful.

“What are you thinking?” Richard wants to know.

“I can’t tell if you have changed or if you haven’t.”

Richard smiles and shrugs. “Maybe it’s not that simple.”

“Maybe not.”

“By the way,” says Richard, turning back to the Batmobile and pointing at one of the tires which seems have a smaller radius and a different tread pattern, “do you have a death wish?”

Bruce laughs again. “The old tires are not capable to bearing the weight of the reinforcement. I’ve had to import the bigger, stronger tires one by one—there is only one manufacturer for them in the entire world.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“It was.” Bruce steps into the garage and opens a giant package. “The last one came in yesterday.”

“Need help?” Richard asks as Bruce grunts to pick up the new wheel.

“No, I’ve got this,” says Bruce, carrying the tire and dropping it beside the Batmobile. “What is it that you call yourself now?” he randomly asks.

“Nightwing.”

“Hold on. That name… I’ve heard it somewhere before, a long, long time ago. Isn’t Nightwing an urban myth originating in Metropolis?”

Richard grins, almost mischievously.

“You found something, didn’t you?” says Bruce.

“You’re the detective. You tell me.”

Bruce picks up a wrench to loosen the nuts on the front-left wheel of the car. Once he’s done, he places a mechanical jack beneath the hatch frame, vigorously pushing down on the lever and lifting up the automobile. The whole time, in his mind’s eye, he tries to piece together everything he knows about the myth and figure out what Richard might’ve learned. “Let’s see,” he says as he plucks out the loosened nuts and drops them in a wooden box one by one. The old wheel comes off. “Nightwing was first sighted more than a decade ago, in the year 1883. He was described as being capable of flight and having superhuman strength.” He pauses to position the new tire against the wheel stud. As he reinstalls the nuts, spinning them clockwise by hand, he speaks again, “All the way back in 1884, when I was keenly interested in this myth’s legitimacy, I had asked a friend of mine in Metropolis to mail me any and all Daily Planet pieces that covered Nightwing. I would receive them weekly. Anyway, I remember reading this one article—I should still have a cut-out somewhere in my files—where a reporter named Lois Lane claimed to have seen Nightwing up close. According to her description, he had black hair and ‘strangely luminescent’ blue eyes. You know who else that describes? Superman.” Bruce sits down on the floor and sighs, finally being done with the tire. “Nightwing was last sighted in the year 1885. Co-incidentally, it was also the year Superman announced his existence to the world.”

“Right on point, detective.” Richard applauds.

“I assume you’ve spoken with him.”

Richard nods. “I asked him if I could use the name. He didn’t seem to have a problem.” He pauses to ponder something and hesitates before he speaks again. “I just don’t feel like a Robin anymore, you know?”

“I completely understand,” says Bruce, waving his hands. “It’s why you left Gotham in the first place.”

Silence.

Bruce peers away, thinking. He takes a deep breath, like one would when they are mustering up courage. “Why did you come back at all?” he asks, with a smile of pure intrigue, although still looking off into cave. “Not that I’m not happy you’re back.” He finally looks at Richard. “I’m delighted to see that you have grown, relieved beyond measure to know that you’re alright—really though, how hard is it to write a letter?”

Richard chuckles, scratching his neck.

“It’s just that… for some reason, I had this feeling you were gone for good.”

“Well,” Richard begins, “I could deliver a speech about how I’ve reconciled with all my demons, found my place in the universe and accepted my responsibility to Gotham, but, let’s be real, I’ve done none of that.” He breaks out laughing.

Bruce cocks his head, confused and concerned.

“No, it’s true that I’m trying to resolve my identity crisis and coming back to Gotham is a part of the process, reconciling with the past and all that. But that’s not the main reason why I returned.”

“Then?”

“I’ve been really missing Barbara,” says Richard. He blushes as he speaks. “What? Not every action has to have a deep and meaningful reason behind it.”

“I understand. Love is a powerful motivator,” says Bruce.

Richard nods, gratefully.

“Did you stop by her office on the way?” Bruce asks.

“Her office?”

“Oh, you don’t know. It’s a detective agency that she set up a year ago.”

“That’s terrific!” Richard almost jumps in delight. “Wait…” He pauses. “Do you think she’ll find it funny if I dress up as an old man, tell her a story about how one Richard Grayson has been blackmailing my family for months, and then by the end of the interview reveal that it was me the whole time? She’ll probably know it’s me the moment I start talking but I say it’s worth a shot.”

“Sounds like a horrible idea,” says Bruce, nonchalantly. “Alfred and I can help with make-up.”

For a while, they talk about the major issues and talking points that have recently arisen in the city, from the worsening living conditions of the people in the Narrows to the campaign in support of death penalty for Gotham’s high profile criminals led by the Regional Organization for Victims of Crime.

The city has had its fair share of minor problems too. Bruce tells him the story of this one man who built a kite-shaped glider. “He was annoying,” Bruce says. “He would pop out of nowhere and start dropping eggs on people’s heads.”

“Why?”

“Hell if I know. Eventually, I had to build a grappling canon attached to a mechanical spool and fish him out of the sky.”

Richard laughs out hard, closing his eyes and throwing back his head. “Like an actual kite?”

“It was a sight to behold!” Bruce says, extending his arms.

Of course, criminals like Kite-Man are more nuisances than threats, more troublemakers than megalomaniacs. Either way, it’s nothing Bruce can’t handle.

“So,” Richard says, “what’s new with Joker?”

Bruce seems taken aback by the question. “I haven’t been tracking his whereabouts, so I don’t know,” he says.

Richard frowns. “Well, shouldn’t you know? You can’t just let him roam free and be himself, Joker of all people.”

“He isn’t free. He has been in Arkham Asylum for three years now, since the last time we put him there. Notably, not a single escape attempt.”

Richard frowns again. “Are you sure we caught the real Joker? Because… let me tell you, that does not sound like Joker.”

Bruce laughs. “It is what it is.”

Suddenly, Alfred comes running into the cave, panting and sweating. He has a chit note in his hand. “I have bad news,” he says, short on breath as he speaks.

“Oh don’t tell me…” Richard says, pretty much like a whine.

“The Joker has escaped.”

“Speak of the devil and all that, huh?”

Alfred shakes his head. “I’m afraid it’s no joking matter. The man has left a massacre, dozens of dead guards.”

Richard looks to Bruce who has already put on his cowl, ready to jump onto the Batmobile. Something has instantly changed in Bruce’s demeanor, Richard notices as he always does but never understands—the mystery of the psychological power of the mask. Bruce is Batman now, in appearance and in spirit. In all his glory.

“Did you bring a suit?” Batman asks, his voice suddenly sounding more authoritative and decisive than before.

“Yes. Of course.”

“Then suit up. We leave in two.”