Who: The Bat and Catwoman, featuring Iron Man What: CrazyBats is on the loose, part 2. Where: Gotham. When: Continuation of this. Warnings/Rating: Violence.
The Bat had no idea that she was precariously close to letting him go, to allowing him to continue onward with his quest to cleanse Gotham of its criminals, wiping out complex networks and large groups in what could only be described as a massacre; he was too twisted and warped by the drug to see her as anything other than an enemy to be destroyed. Under different circumstances, had he known, he would have used her own desires against her, promising vengeance, but then again had he been capable of such arguments he wouldn’t have been making them in the first place. His intentions were, at their very core, good, but the drug tainted them, mutilated them, into something unrecognizable from his usual firm beliefs, where a world in which he ruled as a dictator and crushed all those who opposed him seemed like an entirely logical, plausible scenario.
“On the contrary, cat, killing Crane will accomplish a great deal,” he countered with derisive scorn. “No one else will suffer at his hands. Who will his death affect? Who will mourn his passing? Men like him cannot love. They are incapable of caring for anyone other than themselves. No one cares for him. If you intend to sway me through words, you’ll have to do better than that.” The Bat was hardly going to spare his prey because of family. No one had cared for his, had they? His parents had been gunned down in an alley like dogs. Rachel had been blown to smithereens, leaving him without even a body to bury. Children lost parents, parents lost children; who cared for them? Who gave them justice? No one. No one except him. “No, I haven’t given Gotham everything. I haven’t given them enough. This, this is what they need. They need to be free of crime and corruption. I can give them that. The only way to stop criminals is to eliminate them. I am what Gotham needs, and no one controls me,” he snapped. “My parents died for this city. I will not fail it, and I will not fail them. Blood has tainted this city, and so with blood I will cleanse it.” He was almost manic in his beliefs, like a religious fanatic lost in their own obsessive convictions, and his eyes burned with a strange sort of fire as he spoke, with a sort of reverence.
He felt the blade slice through fabric and skin, as though they were one and the same, and the Bat lamented, just for a moment, that he had refrained from using such a weapon for so very long. This was what he had been trained to be, yet he had denied it, suppressed his abilities, and in doing so failed to live up to his full potential. But the satisfaction of drawing blood was short-lived, immediately followed by the impact of her boot against his back, catching him low, and he had no time to react before the blows came in succession. Oh, she was fast, and his balance suffered for it, but he refused to go down. The worst possible thing he could do was let his weight fall to his knees; there was no more vulnerable a position, and something like panic rose within him when he thought of his plans being cut short. There was still so much more for him to accomplish; he simply couldn’t stop now. The Bat went forward, unable to keep upright, but instead of hitting the ground in a mass of dead weight he rolled, putting distance between himself and Selina before leaping to his feet once more. “I’m tired of your games,” he spat, and none of it clicked; the antihero, Blondie, who she might be trying to reach. None of it mattered. He’d wasted enough time here. “This ends now.” He withdrew his blade, and the metal sang as it cut through the air, a lethal extension of his arm, and as he leveled it at her there was no doubt that his aim would be true. The Bat took a step forward, tensed like a spring prepared to uncoil--
And then he stopped.
Luke’s presence was inconsequential, utterly ignored and not acknowledged in the slightest, but it was still there, and somehow Wren’s well-being was enough to make it through the haze of the drug to put up a fight. Admittedly, it wasn’t much of one, but it succeeded in giving the Bat pause, and he brought his free hand to his temple with a wince. All he knew was that something within his mind was telling him to stop, to leave her, and it hurt. No, the Bat thought, no, he couldn’t let her live-- but then the pain flared again, and he stepped back, towards the ledge, rather than towards her. “Fine,” he muttered, through gritted teeth. “I’ll spare her life.” Then, louder. “Run, cat, before I change my mind.”
Selina wasn't enough of a hypocrite to argue for Crane's life when he laid the good doctor's crimes out like things to be counted. She believed Crane should die; he didn't. The man the Bat normally was didn't, and that was all that mattered in this moment. If, sane and whole, he decided that Crane deserved execution, that would be another conversation. And, given the little trust he'd showed in her, it would be a conversation he'd probably prefer to have with someone else. But it all gave her something to think about as the sliced fabric of her suit went sticky with blood. It meant she could plant that boot against his back with the force she desired, and almost meowed in relief when she sensed him moving forward. The height was precarious, and she didn't want him to fall, so it was a short-lived sensation, one that normally would have been followed by a heartless blow over the ledge of the roof, had it been anyone but him. But it was him, and killing him certainly wasn't on the agenda for the kitty cat's evening.
It was that moment of concern that resulted in a blade leveled at her with perfect accuracy, and nothing but the drop at her back. She could feint, but the kitty cat knew when some one had her made, and right then, in that moment, she was done. Even a backflip would fail, the slice against her skin too raw for her to make a large jump without the aid of her whip. She thought she heard something in the distance, high, and she hoped it was the tin man. As long as he got here, then the rest didn't matter. It made her think of how angry her Bat had gotten when he'd learned about her death wish. It made her think of how different this was, here, now. See, the kitty cat had lived with death on her shoulder all her life, only to find she didn't want it there now. Wasn't that just back luck?
She was about to ask him how it felt, getting ready to finally run her through - but then he stopped.
That free hand to the temple concerned her, but more than that, it was a weakness. She didn't know what had done it, but the antihero had just earned himself considerable points if he'd had anything to do with it. Instead of running away, she took advantage of his pain, of the teeth he'd gritted so tightly, and she rushed him, using every bit of her remaining strength to plant both of her grip-booted feet in the center of his chest, her hand shoving at the blade as she managed the kick, not caring if the metal cut through her gloves as she pushed it aside. This was her one chance to get him down, now that he was in pain, and she was going to give it everything she had left. "See, Bat, it doesn't work that way. Haven't you figured it out yet? Cats come when they want to, and they leave when they want to. You don't call the shots."
The kick would put them both precariously close to that edge, but she was counting on whatever was still him to make him stop the fall and keep them both from dying. The kitty cat took too many risks sometimes, if they were necessary; the pounding in her chest (fear, pure and simple, and not for her own kitty hide) said now it was necessary.
The Bat should have seen the kick coming. He should have, but he just wanted her to leave so the pain would stop, so he could continue onward in peace, and the drugs coursing through his veins made it a compulsion; he had to. Stopping, even for a short period of time, was torture, and beneath the cold apathy of a killer was a little boy who would do anything to keep his parents with him, and he was distantly aware that they had begun to bleed, like they’d bled that night in the alley. But he barely had time to get an arm up as Selina rushed him, in mid-motion when her boots hit his chest, and the force knocked the breath out of him for one terrible moment. He remembered the blade as he gasped for air, tried to bring it down, but with her shoving at it, her hands were the only part of her he was able to wound.
“This is my city,” he hissed, even as the blade slipped from his grasp and hit the ground with a metallic clang. “Mine, and I won’t let you destroy it. You can’t stop me. No one can.” As powerful as the drug was, it couldn’t eliminate instinct, and it was instinct that kept the Bat from going over the edge. Oh, he went down, but he took her with him, and in his blind rage it was just the two of them. His blade was forgotten; it didn’t matter. He hardly needed a weapon to kill her when his own two hands would suffice.
Iron Man came out of the sky at a pleasant 180 knots in a red and gold streak, and it was quite obvious why he didn’t find stealth particularly necessary: he was going too fast for anybody to dodge even when there was a couple seconds’ warning. Commercial jets flew somewhere around 500 knots (about 575 mph) and while Tony could go that speed when he was trying to visit China in a timely fashion, if he tore through Gotham at that speed chances were he’d hit something and tear it into tiny bits. So he cut his acceleration early, using a facility that most air force pilots probably took years to learn, and JARVIS made a few quick calculations for him as the hydrogen-fueled plasma heated by magnetic fields died down from rocket-roar to a hissing zip sound. Iron Man caught the both of them in hard arms that cushioned the impact as the two struggling bodies flailed over the edge of the building.
His panels were showing him the radio source of Catwoman’s signal not far away on the rooftop, but he was too busy getting a grip on a cape and a God-knows-what-part of a catsuit to really notice. The metal man pulled up in a hard arc, pinging off the edge of a fire escape and roaring back upward into the sky before anybody had time to react. He was actually talking through a short-range speaker through all this, audible only once the roar of the acceleration turned into background noise: “Today this rare footage gives us a glimpse of these insane nocturnal creatures in their natural habitat. We’re seeing unusual aggression in marsupials this season, perhaps because of the abrupt shift in temperatures that interfere with the natural mating cycle.” Catwoman was dropped abruptly from about six feet up, but Tony tried to keep hold of the Bat, hoping to separate him from the woman long enough to get a low voltage shock and stun him long enough to administer an antidote.
As good as the Bat’s reflexes were, even he had his limits. A few seconds was usually enough time to avoid an oncoming attack; in fact, he could work with less, but typical criminals didn’t have iron suits or the ability to fly. No, in Gotham he was accustomed to having the most sophisticated technology, and in that sense, surprises were few and far between. Had he been in possession of logic and reason, he might have considered the possibility that whoever Selina had been leading to his location came from a different door, even that it might be Tony Stark himself, but he wasn’t, and so the thought hadn’t crossed his mind.
There was barely enough time to formulate the thought of moving, never mind translating it into action, and in a blur of sound and air and movement the Bat found himself suddenly weightless, his confused, drug-addled mind desperately attempting to process the situation and adapt to it. He’d had hold of Selina before the flying stranger interfered, and he dug his fingers into fabric and skin, refusing to relinquish his prize, and while being held in mid-air was an uncomfortable position indeed, he didn’t go quietly. He struggled, lashed out with one hand despite not being able to see his target clearly; if he could just get an elbow in the right place, or make a dent in all that metal... the height didn’t bother him. The Bat had survived worse falls-- all he needed was to be let go. Whatever the metal man was saying became inconsequential, and he didn’t allow himself to listen, shifting his focus instead to attempting to free himself from his cape. The muscles in one arm screamed as Selina’s weight suddenly became wholly his buren, and he tried to keep hold, he did, but it was all so much, and somewhere he could hear screaming, sobbing, and he let out a wordless roar of rage that ended in something choked and desperate.
Cats didn't like having their paws off the ground, and Selina was no different. Her entire reason for taking on the name, the suit, the persona and its feline third-person, was because someone had thrown her off a roof once; she still hated the sensation of falling. The tin man's grab, though, that was welcome. Less welcome than his quipped humor, but Selina could ignore that. She'd never been the kind to joke when death was around the corner, but everyone coped in their own way. Anyway, right then the kitty cat was only concentrating on one thing: The Bat. And right in the middle of all that concentrating, she found herself free-falling again. The fall was nothing, but she barely landed on her feet. Blood welled up along her torso as she rolled into a protective crouch, one that she had to physically force herself out of.
But Selina did force herself out of it. She stood, ignoring the blood and torn suit, and she looked up. "Put him down, tin man, before you drop him while he struggles," she called out. "Unless you think you can't hold him in all that iron?" she asked, and it was almost teasing, or it would have been, if the worry in her voice hadn't canceled it all out. She definitely didn't have the strength left to contain the Bat herself. This was their one chance and, from what the tin man had said, they actually needed to try multiple antidotes to see if they worked. Standing there, as she listened to the Bat's wordless rage, she decided the tin would get to try three... then she was calling Ivy.
Now that she didn't have to worry about fighting, the sting in her stomach tried to steal of Selina's attention, but it was surpassed by other things. Worry. Concern for Damian, for Jaybird. Anger at Bruce for not telling her this in the first place. Hatred for Crane. She hissed, and she leaned back against the air conditioning unit behind her, where she inched close enough to the roof's edge to take out anyone who approached; she didn't want to linger here long. "We're not taking him back to the cave," she informed Tony, in case he got any bright ideas about flying the Bat back home. "Somewhere else."
Tony was busy attempting to restrain a fully-grown, expertly trained man (who probably weighed as much as he did while he was still in the suit) in mid-air, and for once he didn’t have time for a witty rejoinder. He didn’t need to hold him long, however, and even as his helmeted head bounced to one side under the impact of a flailing blow from weighted gauntlets, the armor lit up with a shock meant to stop a man twice Batman’s size in his tracks. It probably hurt, but Tony had already run a scan plus any known medical history (not a lot but some), so he was pretty sure he wasn’t dealing with any heart defects or seizure issues. There was a buzzing sound not unlike a bee breaking the sound barrier, and the shock went through the suit and everything touching the armor.
Rather than dropping the man from his current height, Tony cut his hovering low-grade acceleration and clanked heavily to the rooftop before lowering his weight. He had no idea how much time he had before Batman was up and fighting again (probably not a lot), but he still wasn’t sure about which antidote he should be administering and for what form of poison. He ignored Selina’s directions, turning glowing blue-white eyes toward her as he popped open a compartment on his left forearm. The suit ticked like a Ferrari engine cooling by the side of the road. “What’s he been like? Symptoms?”
Selina moved toward Tony when he landed on the roof, and she rushed forward when she saw the visible element of that shock to the suit the Bat wore. "That wasn't necessary," she hissed, stopping just a foot short of where the Bat had gone limp from the effect. She looked a mess, suit sliced from rib to hip, blood covering every bit of pale skin along the diagonal, and yet she still considered a sharp kick to the front of the tin man's mask. "This isn't the tin man's show, and it isn't the tin man's city," she reminded him, the kitty cat who was plenty ready to unsheathe her claws just then. "It's not safe here. I told you." And it wasn't. The sound of sirens was too close for comfort, and she didn't trust any of the other members of the Batfamily to take him, even with her communicator (and any way to track her) destroyed and multiple roofs away.
"He's been angry," she said, and she left it at that. No need to tell the tin man about the murders. "Inject him, or move him," she insisted, moving forward and crouching beside them with a hiss and a wince, both of which went completely ignored a moment later. "We should tie him up and relocate him. What if that doesn't work?" she asked, distrust in every syllable, her gaze moving away from Bruce's still form, to that compartment on his wrist. "He's going to be hurting afterward. I got him in the kidneys pretty good with my claws. You're going to need to move him anyway," she reasoned, and her voice said she would start issuing orders any second, if he didn't listen. "Warehouse is just north of here."
Tony made no visible movement with his limbs or head, but the face mask flipped up with the hiss of clean steel and a clank of it in place above his forehead. The carefully groomed moustache and much-lined face was completely unsmiling, not a trace of humor in his mouth or the edges of his gaze. “Shut up and focus, we’re on a clock. Forget what happens afterward. We treat now, then we move. He was angry. Did he talk? Was he seeing things? Reflexes?” He moved with efficiency and there was no sign that the sound of oncoming sirens troubled him. Tony could handle anything on up to a small army, and he was focused on what he was doing.
His eyes left her face and dropped again down to his arm where several vials were lined up in a row in the compartment. All of them were the same clear color, lit up by the same blue that gleamed from his chest piece. “They’re not all injections,” he said, absently, clanking down onto one knee next to the fallen Bat and trying to find a clean wound so he could get a blood sample. “Dammit, the both of you are a mess, I need his blood, not yours.” This was the messiest situation he’d come across in a while, and it astonished him there weren’t people around that could stop one mad rampaging man. The fact that the City looked like a graveyard with dying Christmas lights gave him the creeps; maybe this was the kind of place where everyone just dove for cover. Tony had been to such places, in the Middle East and elsewhere, warzones peopled by refuges and criminals and everything in between. He focused on a some claw marks and used what looked like a white laser at his index finger to get the armor out of the way long enough to get a dab of blood and smear it onto a panel on his left arm.
The Cat glared when he lifted his mask and snarled at her, but she didn't argue with his logic. "He talked. He was saying things that he'd never normally say. He needed to kill people, to cleanse the city. He said his parents were with him. They're dead," she added, in case he didn't know. "That they approved of what he was doing. His reflexes were fine," she added. "Same as always. He wanted to kill me. He only stopped once, when I talked to the antihero and taunted him with the fact the driver would resist if the roles were reversed," she explained, looking up from the prone body. "Sorry, tin man, but I think antihero would fall on his sword for Blondie, and he actually got through to the Bat for a second there. He told me to run. I didn't," she explained, reaching out a hand gone bloody through the fabric of her glove and resting it on the Bat's shin.
"Go for his back," she said of a place where he could get blood without it being mixed with her own. She lifted her hand, showing her bloodied claws, and then pointing to one of the Bat's kidneys. The state of Gotham didn't surprise the Cat and, right then, it didn't concern her either. "I think Jaybird's around somewhere, based on the chatter I heard before he destroyed my comm. More dead bodies wherever he is, and the baby bird is on his tail, which means this needs to be quick. You have another stop to make with your little vials once this is done," she ordered, just like she'd been ordering the entire Batfamily around since this mess began. She wouldn't stop that until Bruce was on his feet again, but she didn't have any faith in her own ability to call the shots. The kitty cat wasn't a leader; she was a loner. This wasn't her place, and it wasn't her calling. But the Batcave was locked down, and Fingerstripes was in Metropolis playing Bat, and Lois was writing an article about the Dark Knight's presence in the sunny city. Hopefully the baby bird would bring Jaybird home unharmed, and the Bat would end up back on his feet just long enough for her to kill him. And then she'd worry about stitches, and if the antihero even tried to blame any of this on her, she'd kill him too.
Tony didn’t have too much against Luke. Silver had issues, and though Tony was generally Team Silver when he was in the movie seat popping popcorn, he didn’t have any team gear and he didn’t pay much attention to the scores. He nodded when she mentioned the young man’s presence, and he even went so far as to look impressed. “If Silver decided to go on a rampage, I’d have a snowball’s chance in hell,” he said, much too readily, as he was focusing on his panel readings and not really anything else.
He took his palm out from underneath Batman’s shoulder where he’d lifted him far enough away from the ground to get a blood sample, and he used his newly freed fingers to fiddle with the vials. He yanked one out and tossed it over his shoulder, allowing it to shatter with a tinkle, and then he closed the hinge of armor that concealed the rest of the vials. There was a whirring sound as the new concoction started cooking. “Got to watch the strength of this. Based on weight and blood pressure--which you just brought down thanks to your shenanigans, by the way.” There was a happy little ding sound, like a kid’s Easy Bake Oven, and the compartment popped open again. Half of the vials were now a cloudy grey color, like a dirty martini. Tony took one out, closed the compartment, flipped his arm over, and loaded it into another spot on top of his wrist rather than under it. He crouched once more, and again without warning, his face mask clanked into place. His face “You’re going to want to back up.” Then he put his left palm an inch away from Batman’s face and a puff of unseen gas evaporated into the air.
The shock that coursed through his body came with a surprising amount of pain, and afterward the Bat found himself engulfed in a dizzying haze of numbness and shadows, only distantly aware of what was going on around him. He tried to speak and found himself unable to do so, tried to move, and his limbs were too heavy for him to control. Still conscious, but barely, he could do nothing but lay where he was situated, motionless, as the conversation above him went on and on, like a broken radio signal full of static and fuzz. He thought he might be on a rooftop, but maybe not; maybe he was in an alley, and maybe it was years ago, and maybe it hadn’t been an electric shock at all, but a gunshot. If this was what it was like to die, it wasn’t so bad, really; the pain had been brief, agonizing but fleeting, and to finally feel nothing at long last might be nice...
But no, no, he couldn’t think like that. Not while Gotham still burned, and he still had a duty to uphold. He couldn’t rest until he had succeeded, and if he failed, he would lose everything. His city, his parents, and any hope at peace he might have once had.
All the while, as he thought these broken, disjointed things, the shock slowly began to wear off, and the Bat became aware of the feeling returning to his limbs bit by bit. Someone--the tin man?--was moving him, and he heard a faint sort of ding, like a bell, that he didn’t understand, and he tried to turn over in an attempt to discern the actions of the man crouched above him. “What...” Somehow, he forced his lips to move, and he flexed his fingers in an attempt to find the strength to lift his arm, but it was too late. He couldn’t see the gas that had been released into the air, and he didn’t have the clarity of mind or the understanding to refrain from inhaling, from taking it into his lungs, and there was a few seconds of nothing before he began to feel its effects. It all crashed down around him; the fire, the blood that fell like rain, the imagined cries of his people and the desire to kill, to destroy, to cleanse and cleanse until nothing remained. He lashed out at nothing, at images that flickered before his eyes like a dying signal, and he writhed on the ground, clawing at his chest as though it might somehow stop what was happening. “No, no, stop,” he screamed, over and over, until his cries became wordless, nothing but sound and anguish as the antidote ran its course. He kept thrashing until his strength began to ebb away, until the pain began to set in, the ache of claws and blows he hadn’t felt before, and then his cries turned to whimpers, pathetic little sounds more suited to a child, and as he curled in on himself he begged for his parents, reaching blindly for that which had never been there in the first place, and never would be, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t alone.
Selina didn't back up. It didn't matter what the tin man said. There was enough space, and she could hold her breath if she needed to. Alright, so maybe it wasn't precisely well thought through, but the Cat wasn't good at planning, remember? She inched back just enough so that the tin man would think she was behaving, like a good kitty cat, and then she crawled forward again once he pulled his palm away from the Bat's face. She didn't expect Tony Stark to understand; she wasn't sure if there was anyone in his life that he would refuse to back up from, even if it was the smart thing to do. Maybe she'd ask him, once this was all over.
When Bruce spoke, she tensed, anticipating another fight, and she looked up just for a second, meeting the tin man's gaze. But then Bruce was lashing out at things she couldn't see, and she assumed the antidote hadn't worked. "He's worse," she hissed at the tin man, even as she moved closer, trying to keep Bruce from thrashing as much, hands on his shoulders and blood from her stomach dripping onto his suit. He was stronger than her; it was as simple as that. Without the advantage of speed, weight and acrobatics, he was impossible for her to keep still, and the more he screamed, the angrier she became - she envisioned Crane's head clawed through, she became angrier with Bruce himself (for not telling her about this), she even wanted to tear into the tin man for not having the right antidote.
When Bruce began begging for something to stop, Selina stood, and she extended a clawed hand at the man in metal. "FIX IT," she hissed, and it didn't matter that she wouldn't be able to get at any vital organs with him wearing that tin suit, or that she wasn't in any state to fight anyone, not going paler by the minute from bloodloss. "Fix it," she repeated, "and then leave." She vaguely remembered being terrified when Crane had injected her at the campground, and she vaguely remembered that debilitating fear. But remembering it wasn't the same as seeing it, and all she could think of was that Bruce wouldn't want anyone seeing him like this. Maybe she counted among that number, but she wasn't going anywhere, not a chance. Point made, she crouched again, and she took one of Bruce's hands when he reached out for something that wasn't there. "It's okay. It's going to be okay," she promised, even though she wasn't sure that was true. It didn't matter; she would have told him everything was fine right then, even if the Gotham sky was falling down around them.
Bruce’s first panicked flailing successfully knocked a three-hundred pound suit to one side like a tin can, and it took time for Tony to pick himself up again. He would have held Selina back but the man was between them and he didn’t have time to manage it before he was occupied with more important things, like vitals readings and anything else Jarvis could pick up. His face mask was impassive in the dull-eyed glow of his unblinking gaze and it was possible to hear his voice, very muffled as it was not projected on the speakers, as he went back and forth with Jarvis about the readings and the blood analysis.
He woke up from that as the thrashing worsened, and again ignoring Selina’s panicked hissing, he moved closer and crouched once more, the enhanced reflexes of the suit snatching a flailing arm and attempting to hold the man down before he tore himself to bits. There was little he could do other than weigh him down as the blows glanced off his armored face and chest. “I did fix it,” he said, sounding sharp in his own concern and defensive about the antidote set he’d been working on for weeks. “Second analysis checked out, give him time.” When the flailing ceased Tony immediately loosened his grip and switched to a hand on the inside of Bruce’s arm, taking infrared and pulse readings.
The Bat’s previous anger and thirst for blood had been a result of Crane’s drug, though one might argue that the toxin had merely amplified it, removed the walls that usually kept it in check, rather than creating it entirely. Regardless, the introduction of the antidote stripped that all away, revealing what lay beneath; which was, simply fear. Fear led to panic, particularly when both Selina and Tony attempted to hold him down, though he was unaware of whether or not his blows met his mark. It was purely driven by the instinct to fight, that which cornered animals possessed in spades, and only faded when his strength failed him and his focus shifted from whoever was touching him to the pain, an unpleasant shock considering Crane’s toxin had rendered all injuries inconsequential. He was beginning to understand, at least, that something had gone terribly wrong, but it was a slow realization, and he clung to Selina’s hand with a surprisingly strong grip when she reached for him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and it was fairly obvious that he was somewhere else, seeing someone else, as he looked up at her, his gaze hazy and unfocused. “Don’t-- don’t leave me.” He let out a long, shaky breath and closed his eyes, his hold on her hand loosening, though he didn’t let go entirely. “Let you die... let them die... wasn’t enough.”
That was the last coherent sentence, or close to one, he managed to get out, the rest nothing more than disjointed muttering as his breathing regulated and he stopped trying to fight invisible nightmares brought to life. In fact, the Bat went fairly still considering his previous outburst, and when he did win the struggle to open his eyes again, after what felt like an eternity, the wild rage was gone and replaced by a weary sort of dullness. He still lacked full understanding of what had occurred, the combination of pain and sheer exhaustion leaving him confused and disoriented, but he remembered one thing, the last sane thought he’d had before the drug kicked in. “Jason,” he said, voice hoarse. “Where... is Jason? Have to find him.” He tried to sit up, but his limbs were weak, muscles like water, and he just ended up on the ground again.
Selina didn't like the tin man's calm response that she should give Bruce time, not when it was so obvious that Bruce was suffering, and it was only the tightening grip on her hand that kept her from yelling at the tin man. Give him time. As if the tin man had any idea what the pain and terror associated with Crane's toxins were. "Don't apologize. You didn't do anything. Shhhh. You didn't do anything," she assured Bruce. "You didn't blame me for the things I did when I was infected, and you don't get to blame yourself either," she insisted, with a decided lack of third-person nouns. "I'm not going anywhere," she promised. "Wild cats wouldn't tear me away," she said, the smile in the words not actually showing anywhere on her features. She reached up with one hand, and she shoved her cowl back, the goggles tangling with her short black hair and revealing bright green eyes that were markedly damp. "Shhhh."
The silence weighed on her more than the words, more than the squeezing of her fingers, more than any of the people he'd killed, and she looked up at Tony during the lull. "You take him to the nest now. I can get there on my own steam. Three blocks down and a left at the dock. Last warehouse on the corner. Watch out for Talons." It was the apartment she sometimes shared with Jason, sometimes shared with Damian, and it sounded like a better option than the warehouse right now. "Topmost apartment, on the corner," she clarified, looking down when Bruce asked about Jason, her free hand moving to his chest in an attempt to keep him from moving. "Damian's tracking him. Tony's going there as soon as he drops you off at the nest." She nodded at Tony, because finding Jason was definitely the next priority. "He's fine. Damian's good, Bruce. Jason's fine, and we'll get the antidote to him in a minute." And she really and truly believed that, the reassurance in her voice entirely honest.
The Iron Man didn’t say anything. Instead of watching this touching scene, he had directed his impersonal, glowing gaze over the edge of the rooftop, watching the flickering blue and red lights as they approached. Without further speech he clanked heavily over to Bruce and crouched down to lift him in a flawlessly executed fireman’s carry, dragging him up by the elbow and pulling him over both shoulders. He looked over at her, eyes glowing. A hiss of hydraulics accompanied his left elbow extending out toward her. “Step on my foot and hold on.” As if carrying two people would be any trouble for this kind of machinery. As long as Selina was conscious, he could do it, and he could probably hold Bruce with one arm and catch her with the other if she fainted. He figured they could make it four blocks. “Before you both bleed out, please.”
"You're terrible at following orders, tin man," she said, but he had Bruce, and she wasn't going to be stubborn about this. The last thing she wanted to do was pass out on a roof, not when it would slow him down. He needed to get to Jason and, he was right, both she and Bruce needed medical attention, which she could take care of at the nest. She glared at him, but she did as he asked, stepping onto his foot and holding onto his arm. Kitty cats didn't like to be off the ground, but she would make an exception this once. She considered telling him not to jostle the Bat, but she held her tongue. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, and now that Bruce was quiet, she was starting to feel her own aches and pains in a way she hadn't before. She nodded, and she said nothing, already worrying about what would happen after this, both in Gotham, and in the desert.