Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2014-03-17 21:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, door: dc comics |
Who: The Bat
What: Narrative: Taking care of the water supply.
Where: Gotham's main water distribution center.
When: Nowish, but before this happens.
Warnings/Rating: Violence?
Pinpointing the location where Crane was depositing his drug cocktail into Gotham's water supply wasn't difficult. It was merely a process of quick elimination, of connecting the dots and finding the one point where all the water lines and pipes to ensure widespread containment. And he knew it wouldn't be just one or two hired criminals dumping in the drugs, but he wasn't worried. Not in the slightest.
What he was was angry. Very, very angry. He was angry at Crane, angry at himself, and angry, too, at Selina, at her assumptions and her outright refusal to listen to anything he said. Two years, and it was always the same. Nothing he said or did ever made a difference. The Bat knew he was at fault in more than one instance; he knew he was terrible at communicating. But he'd tried. Months and months of trying, years of trying, and none of it amounted to anything. And now, now he'd ruined everything. Watchtower ensured that. He'd risked her life, plain and simple, and that was all that counted. It didn't matter that he'd tried to minimize the risk. It didn't matter that he cared. No, what mattered was that she'd almost died because of him. Because she trusted him, and yet, he hadn't known. He never knew where they stood.
Now, though, he did. And he was done. He was so very done with so many things. Selina deserved more; he couldn't be what she wanted. What she needed. And so it was better this way, this severing of ties. He told himself he didn't care, and maybe, just maybe, if he repeated it often enough he might actually start to believe it. Now that he remembered everything, now that the lie was completely gone, the guilt and self-hatred came back; he had enough of both. He didn't need to bring more upon himself. And it wasn't giving up if there was nothing to give up on, was there? It wasn't failure if there had never been any chance of success. Selina thought she knew how he felt about her, didn't she? So why bother trying to convince her of something she was never going to believe? Years, and he hadn't managed it. He'd only managed to make things worse and worse, and he was tired.
With Eddie and Stephanie handling recovery efforts, his sights were on the water distribution center. For some, anger might be blinding, might be a hindrance, but for the Bat it sharpened his senses and brought the world into stark clarity. He could focus. Anger outweighed his guilt, it outweighed his pain, and while it wasn't quite as good as numbness it was a close second. Weeks of happiness, of lightness, and now he welcomed all that repressed anger back. Anger had turned him into this, after all. Why not use it?
From the outside, all looked quiet, but the Bat knew better. Two men stood guard just inside the locked doors and his sensors picked up signals deeper within the building; his estimate hadn't been that far off.
He entered from above, breaking into the ventilation system and making his way down. First, he took out the two sentries, swift and quiet, and then he made his way into the main area. Thugs were gathered there, surrounded by unlabeled steel drums they were working on opening and discussing the 'boss's' instructions to dump in another batch.
Except that wouldn't be happening.
Click, went a button on the Bat's belt, and each and every light in the area shattered. Darkness plunged down, all-consuming, amidst cries and shouts and the cocking of guns. They scrambled to see, to coordinate, but they were too slow. Night vision slipped into place and he swooped down like a nightmare come to life, and while there were gunshots, temporarily lighting up the blackness, none met their mark. When it was over, the final slam of kevlar-ed fist meeting flesh, the men were sprawled out and the Bat stood over the open pipe and watched the water rush, rush, rushing past.
Time ticked by. He gathered the men together, disarmed every single one and restrained them all, first individually and then in small groups. The drums were emptied outside, one by one, where the drug could infect no one. The Bat searched every inch of the building to ensure their was no remaining trace of the cocktail and clicked on his comm to contact Eddie, to see how many police officers were still active.
And then some very, very familiar voices came in over the line instead. On another frequency he heard reports of chaos, of Gotham Bank and buildings burning and a very distinct lack of police presence. His anger spiked, then, a dangerous thing, and he gritted his teeth together. He was trying to bring this city back, to keep people from killing themselves, and this was what they did? Of all the irresponsible, stupid--
Dark, dark clouds gathered in his thoughts. The Bat locked the unconscious thugs in a maintenance closet for later collection and went to survey the damage for himself.