Jude Leigh Bell [ The Marquise ] (malgraine) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2010-12-10 10:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, nightwing, robin, roxanne |
Who: Luke, Wren, Thomas Batman, Roger Nightwing, Marquise
What: Rescue
Where: Warehouse
When: Day 3
Warnings: Violence. Seriously. Capital V, Violence. And it's also as long as War and Peace.
M.’s conversation with Thomas had changed quite a few things, and when she returned to the freezer in the middle of the night, it was with a man at her shoulder, armed, and a smile on her face. She had not been expecting Thomas to choose as he did. She had somehow assumed he would make a choice to protect a little, unknown girl. She wondered, in that moment, if he knew his adopted child at all. She had only just met Luke, and yet she knew he would be able to handle being tortured better than he would be able to handle watching the girl be tortured.
She opened the door to the freezer, and she called out as she did. “Luke, darling. Thomas and I had the most interesting conversation,” she said, looking toward the cot in the corner of the room. “He was infuriating, which is expected; those of us with money generally are. And he refused to pay the entire amount, which was very disappointing, but we came to an arrangement. Would you like to hear it?”
Since sleep was the last thing on his mind, Luke rolled over immediately when he heard noise coming from the freezer door. The fact that it wouldn’t have made a difference if he had a night, a day, or even a week to make a decision didn’t matter - he was supposed to have a night. He needed time to prepare himself for what he was going to do. The opened door was eyed with an almost animal-like kind of distrust, which wasn’t surprising considering he was stuck in a freezer naked with a rope around his neck. The only scrap of dignity he had left was being given the freedom to choose how he was going to die.
Luke couldn’t help but react when M. mentioned that she’d spoken to Thomas, but whatever hope he’d had vanished when she said he refused to pay the entire amount. Luke knew that Thomas wouldn’t just leave his life to chance, which meant that she must have requested an impossible amount of money. He slid towards the edge of the cot, buying time to get rid of the lump in his throat so he could actually form words without sounding pathetic. “What’s the arrangement?”
“I let him pick between you and the girl,” M. said with feigned apology and a splay of fingers at her side. “But first, torture, for playing games with me, and I let him choose that, too. Can you guess who he chose?” she asked it with a smile, one that widened a she watched him. She liked that anger in his eyes. It hadn’t existed before she came along, and she had put it there. She had taught him that life was a bitch, and that there wasn’t anything he could do about it. She had made him feel things he had never felt, things he might never feel again, and that was the whole point. The point for Thomas, too. She smiled more, still. “I wonder how disappointed you’re going to be in your father figure once you walk out of here. What do you think, little one?” she asked.
The armed man was the only reason Luke remained still. He hated her more for what she was doing to Thomas and the others than for what she’d done to him, and the fact that she was enjoying every minute of it just made things worse. Her smile didn’t give away very much, and he tried to think of who Thomas would have chosen. On the one hand he’d never willingly allow him to be hurt, but on the other... Thomas had to be aware that he could handle torture better than Wren could, even if he didn’t know her as anything else but ‘the girl’. He had to know him well enough to realize that he would never choose to spare himself at the expense of someone else, fatal flaw or not.
“You have no idea how much it would take for me to be disappointed in him.” Luke met her gaze with a defiant one of his own and prayed he wasn’t wrong. “I think he chose me.”
M. shook her head slowly, as if she was really troubled to tell him the truth, but the glee of it was in her eyes. “He chose the girl. Selfish choice, isn’t it? To torture her, to kill her, when this has nothing at all to do with her.”
M. nodded to the armed man, and he banged the freezer door from the inside. It opened, a moment later, and a television was wheeled in. It was large enough to take up a good part of the wall in front of the cot, and the man turned it on to reveal a streaming video from another location within the facility. On the screen, Wren was bruised, bound and hooded, kneeling, hands behind her back. There was audio, and Mike could be heard talking, vulgar words pouring from his lips. He had a gun, which he kept pretending to load, and which he then kept firing from different angles near Wren’s head, causing her to scream and flinch and try to duck with each shot. “He chose psychological torture, your father. She thinks they’re playing Russian roulette, and they’ve been at it for an hour,” she said, smiling at Luke. “I think we’ll tell her you’re dead next, and then I think I’ll let him have his way with her. He’s been asking, you know,” she told Luke with a smile. Then, as if she was offering him the best option in all the world. “Or you could kill her yourself and put her out of her misery first, without us waiting until sunrise. It is, after all, inevitable.”
Luke winced, a small part of him understanding why Thomas would have made that choice but still not agreeing with it in the slightest - and, although he’d never admit it, he was slightly disappointed. If Thomas was in his position he never would have put more value on his own life at the expense of someone else’s, no matter who they were.
He backed up against the wall when the television was wheeled in, feeling the panic begin to set in even before it was turned on. Somehow he managed to hold himself back from launching himself at the screen and smashing it, mainly because he knew not being able to see it didn’t mean it wasn’t happening. This was what he’d brought upon Wren, whose only misfortune was being his friend, and Thomas’ decision had ruined his plans of trying to protect her as much as he could. “He wouldn’t,” Luke whispered, wanting desperately to believe that M. was lying and she was only telling him that Thomas had chosen this because she knew it would bother him. Deep down, however, he knew that wasn’t true. The glee in her eyes was enough to confirm that she wasn’t lying, because the truth always hurt and that was much more enjoyable to watch.
The thought of Mike having his way with Wren was enough to paralyze him for a terrible moment, but his only other option wasn’t any better. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. This wasn’t right. It was meant to be his choice, and this wasn’t what he would have chosen. Not in a million years. “No.” He dug his hands into the mattress in a failed attempt to keep himself from shaking, turning to look at M. with clear desperation. “Please. If you want to hurt Thomas Brandon, then hurt me instead. He doesn’t care about her, can’t you see that? Everything you’re going to do, do it to me!” His voice had risen painfully by the end, but despite being forced to resort to this kind of shameless pleading he was still terrified that it wouldn’t work. Luke knew he couldn’t physically kill Wren, but he couldn’t sit by and watch her be tortured either. He was, quite literally, at an impasse.
“You’d rather her go through hell for hours, just to die in the end?” M. asked, that smile still in place. She sighed, as if she was terribly disappointed by his choice, the sigh followed by another fake gunshot and another scream on the screen. “I didn’t think you cruel, Luke,” she said, with the sort of disappointment that was learned over many years with disappointed parents. She shook her head, and she ran her fingers along the edge of the screen. “This isn’t about hurting him, silly boy. It’s about feeling. What do you feel right now?” she asked, and immediately after, she turned toward the freezer door. “Are you coming? Or is your decision final?” Another gunshot and scream punctuated the question, followed by Mike telling Wren that Luke had gone, that he’d left her there and chosen to free himself. M. glanced at the screen, and she rolled her eyes. “I hate improvisation,” she said, even as the hooded girl replied that she was glad Luke had gotten out, muffled, but intelligible and angry.
Luke stared at her like she was speaking another language. Hadn’t she just heard what he said? He was trying to trade places with Wren, hoping that maybe M. would like the idea better than the two options she’d just given him. Why wasn’t she acknowledging that? What the hell was this about, if not money or hurting Thomas? He couldn’t calm down enough to think straight, but there had to be something he was missing.
Then it clicked. This wasn’t about letting him choose between Wren’s life and his, not really. She’d never intended on letting him die. It was always going to be Wren. The realization hit him with enough force that he reacted by doubling over, struggling to regain his breath before he ended up suffocating on the spot. Either he could sit here and watch as Wren was tortured and eventually killed, or he could kill her himself and make it quick, make it painless. He could be merciful where Mike would be anything but. What did he feel right now? Luke looked up at her, his expression saying more than words ever could. On the screen he could hear Mike’s voice, unable to shut it out any more than he was able to ignore Wren’s muffled response. He wasn’t going to be allowed to sit and refuse to make a choice, because if he didn’t then M. would make one for him. At the very least, he owed Wren the decency to spare her from any more pain. “I’m coming,” he said with a great deal of effort, getting up from the cot slowly. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, and he hated himself a little bit more with every step he took towards the freezer door.
It was a long but straight road from the small box outside of Aubade to the quiet packing plant where Luke and the anonymous “girl” were being held. During that time, spanning two nights, Thomas hadn’t slept. His ability meant this had little effect on him, but it indicated a psychological effect that kept him functional--he just turned emotion off. Usually it was a lot easier; focus on the science, cause and effect, fall back on training, narrow everything entirely on what needed to be done, that and that only. As he got tired, of course, this effect dwindled, and perhaps later someone would explain to him that the lack of true panicked response was why he had failed so badly to convince the blackmailer of anything at all.
There were things that trickled through, however. He kept hearing Luke’s voice in the recording whenever his mind turned from one task to the next. He was hesitant about actions he should not be hesitant about--Johnny’s question about going to the press, Alfie’s difficulties dealing with the money, his conversation with the blackmailer. He suspected that somewhere he had made a mistake with Luke’s Bunny, but the consideration was such a small thing, because if Luke died it didn’t matter what Bunny thought, and if Luke was alive, he would fix it. Thomas had never been good with people, missing many of the intricacies of typical conversation and doing things he considered to be inherently logical but somehow bypassed social norms he missed. Very few people liked him very much and he was aware of it, but he didn’t live his life to be liked.
Thomas lived to be effective.
And he was. The box’s manufacture and trace evidence had taken him to a flower shop. The threat and the Cayman account combined with the records of the shop via Oracle took him to this “Jude” woman. The woman’s purchasing habits combined with the guard’s overheard comment via Corbinian as well as the chatter of teeth in Luke’s recording brought him to the former meat-packing plant--and the plant’s freezer location had led him here. The plant had been on public record, which meant that it had been inspected by health officials. From those records and the architectural plans of similar plants built by the same construction company, Thomas had a working layout of the building without ever being inside it.
A wet rain slid off the carefully designed cowl, avoiding his eyes and dripping down on either side of his cape. He listened at the door but heard nothing, and a quick canvas of the area revealed fifteen parked vehicles within walking distance of this dock location. Reasonably Thomas could estimate that a third of those people were using the lot as free overnight parking despite the theft danger or working late--which left ten cars. Ten cars. Say half those carried two people for a worst-case scenario, and Jude could have anywhere from ten to fifteen assailants inside. The estimate could be generous, but it still did not look good, and he was moving blind.
Thomas--the Bat (they were more one than two)--hesitated at the door, and then decided to call in one person. One person could spread the word to others if Thomas failed, and that one person was less likely to bring in an army that could kill Luke, the girl, and anyone stupid enough to be inside rescuing them. Rather than risking a comm, Thomas activated a homing recording that his set-up in his own warehouse would forward to Nightwing’s communicator--and Nightwing alone.
The recording was a computerized female, and it said: “Distress signal communicator 001. GPS Coordinates...” It would then read off how far away Roger was from his own location, and hopefully get him here with a minimum of fuss.
Satisfied that a failsafe was in place, the Bat listened closely to the door, shutting out the sound of rain. He couldn’t hear anything. He picked the lock, stood to the outside of the door, and cracked it a centimeter. No sound. No lights. He waited--the Bat was good at waiting--and thirty-seven seconds went by, more than enough time for a waiting assailant to do something stupid, like shift or make some sound to see what was coming. The Bat slipped in to the dark main floor of the warehouse. He had the impression of large space, and he found cover to one side, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the blackness. Once they did, he noted two hallways and stairs leading down, and indistinct sounds from both. He strained to listen to the one nearest.
The hallway nearest was silent. It led to Luke’s freezer, but the door was open and Luke was no longer inside. He had been walked across that silent expanse of warehouse a moment earlier, and it had been a near miss, only seconds added onto those thirty seven. In the room Luke had called home for the past three days, there were signs of the boy having been there, and the television was still streaming video from the other hall.
Outside the other freezer, M. was handing Luke a gun with one bullet, just one. Because even if the boy chose to shoot her in the forehead, there were three other armed men there, and they had their orders. She was unworried, and it showed on her face. “If you shoot me,” she whispered in Luke’s ear. “It will be worse for her. You only have one bullet.” She held a finger up to her lips, as she pushed the door open, silencing Mike and the others. Wren was still hooded, and she was still as naked as Luke was. “You can talk to her first, or you can just walk in and shoot her,” she said, nudging Luke forward.
Luke had already considered shooting M., but he knew it wouldn’t accomplish anything. He thought about shooting one of the armed men too, but that still left him with impossible odds - when she told him there was only one bullet, he believed her. Shooting himself wasn’t even an option at this point, not anymore. He only had two choices remaining: shoot Wren, or do nothing and allow both their deaths to be slow and painful. He accepted the gun reluctantly and let it hang loosely from his side, stumbling into the freezer and nearly losing his balance. Like hell he was going to just shoot her without saying a word - he wasn’t that much of a coward. Instead he crouched in front of her, ensuring that he didn’t get too close at the risk of infuriating M. or any of the men who stood guard. “Wren...” He gave a shaky breath and laid the muzzle of the gun against his knee. “I’m so sorry. It was only supposed to be me.” Out of all the time M. had, surely a couple of minutes wouldn’t make a difference.
It made all the difference in the world to Thomas. He had enough time to move silently but swiftly down the now empty hallway, take in the freezer and its purpose, and assess the number of assailants from the camera that now displayed all of them. He also got a piece of very vital, very welcome news: both prisoners were still alive.
Without hesitation now, the Bat crossed the large, empty space, as inevitable as death. He went down the thin hallway, the one in which he was nothing but a target, and he did so with as much stealth as ten years of training could give. The woman was the one closest to Luke, and the crowd of four (Mike was inside the door) prevented him from seeing what they were doing, but ultimately that didn’t matter.If they shot him it was a better chance than Luke had.
At the end of the hall the Bat threw something small and sharp for the nearest man’s leg. Wisdom said he should aim for the largest target, the torso or even thigh--skill, however, had him aiming for the back of the knee. He wanted the man down and out of the way. It would alarm the rest, but then they would turn toward him--and that was the direction he wanted them facing.
The man’s cry was followed a second later by a compressed fwomp of a miniature smoke bomb, and the Bat, who aimed the moment before the smoke went off, hoped that the second shuriken found its mark, because that disabled one more gun pointed where he had been silhouetted.
When the shuriken hit flesh, M. turned, and she caught the shadow of black at the end of the long hall. It only took her a moment to slam the freezer door, closing it between herself, the prisoners and the Bat, Mike still holding a gun firmly at Wren’s head. The door’s lock was on the outside, however, and she knew the man would get inside eventually. The other four men were lost, as far as she was concerned, and she grabbed for the rope at Luke’s neck, dragging him out of his crouch and away from Wren, who was trying to struggle free of the bonds, and reaching for his gun as he fell.
In the hallway, the men were doomed. There was no place for them to find cover, no way to get past the Bat and down the hall to safety. They emptied their guns, aiming for head and torso through smoke, and then they waited, looking at one another uncertainly without M. to issue orders. They were only hired guns, after all, with no particular passion for anything more than money and staying alive.
They were shooting in the wrong place. Only an idiot would have stayed exactly where he’d been the moment before the smoke went off, and any sane person would have retreated until the bullets were gone. The Bat went forward. Under the cover of smoke as the men panicked and the second shuriken sliced a mild but painful line through a second man’s bicep, the Bat dived low and came up about a foot and a half away from the group of men, who simply brought up their guns and fired hopelessly somewhere over his head.
When the Bat came up out of the smoke it must have been like looking into hell, because he was absolutely merciless. The first one who got in his way found out what it felt like to have your elbow break in entirely the wrong direction. Outside of further damage with his back to the wall, the Bat shoved the man down by lifting on the shattered arm, and he aimed a high kick that took the fourth man in the lowest rib, snapping it like dry wood. It made much the same sound, and the man with the mild wound ran for it, leaping over the one still bleeding from the first shuriken. The fifth man was trying to load his gun, which turned out to be a mistake, since the Bat used it to break his nose.
The Bat didn’t have time for further damage, he just kicked the last man out of his way (heel to the hinge of the jaw, easy as walking) and then went for the door.
Roger knew two things. One, the Bat was out there risking his life and limb for Robin without asking for direct help from the rest of them. Two, Roger wanted to help. Granted, he wanted to help in most high importance situations (hell even trivial ones), but this felt personal. He had given the Bat a hard time about adopting Luke, but the severity of being so rich and famous never dawned on Roger. A wealthy life was such a foreign concept to him, but as a cop he understood criminals that demanded ransoms. He knew exactly what lengths they would go to for their money.
And, then he got the emergency signal. Roger was the kind of guy who had his communicator on almost all the time or at least within reach. Tonight, he was sitting at the computer when the electronic female voice started instructing him how far away he was from an area. Confused, Roger jumped to his feet and decided that since it was coming from his communicator and it was deathly impersonal, it had to be important. Forgetting completely if he had work or not, Roger suited up in full Nightwing attire and headed down to his motorcycle. He thought about telling Max, or hell Oracle, but knew it would just alarm them. Back in Musings, when there was a serious matter to deal with, Roger knew how to trek through it alone.
His motorcycle roared to life and Roger decided to do a test run as the robotic voice repeated how far away he was from something. As expected, when he drove down one street, her coordinates started to change, which meant all he had to do was to play hot and cold until he was going in the right direction. This was more Roger's style. He was quick at figuring out little puzzles and clues, so something that essentially told him where to go wasn't a problem at all. Soon, he was on the right track and speeding down the Seattle streets towards the predetermined location.
After a reasonable amount of time, Nightwing knew that he was going to be far behind whoever sent him this signal. At first, it seemed like a harmless enough building and he almost thought this was some sort of red herring or a prank. He knew, though, that anyone who could have Bat on the chase for this long had to be smart enough to pick a place that wasn't immediately obvious like a warehouse on the docks or some crack house. Plus, he was already here, it was worth checking out. Nightwing turned off his communicator as the robotic woman repeated over and over that he had reached his destination and decided to scout the place out. He knew his role was backup in this situation and wasn't about to do anything until he felt it necessary to jump in.
Even as he gripped the gun and prepared to lift it, Luke knew he wasn’t going to be able to pull the trigger - not when it was aimed at Wren, at least. His attention was caught by the sound of something foreign meeting flesh, and even though he only caught a brief flash of whoever was out in the hallway, it was enough. Suddenly the gun in his hand wasn’t so useless anymore, especially not when M. slammed the freezer door and cut them off from all but one of the armed men. It was almost like poetic justice, really, that Mike was the one still inside the freezer. He started to bring the gun up just as the rope around his neck was yanked back, throwing off his balance and bringing him to the floor - but he let it happen. He let her think he was going to allow himself to be dragged without a fight, even sliding backwards to aid the process, but in truth he was just waiting for the right moment. While he was running on minimal sleep and no food he wasn’t at a complete disadvantage, not when he had a fair amount of anger and a desperate need to keep Wren alive as his driving force.
When he felt the moment was right, Luke lunged forward and threw everything he had into the motion, ignoring the almost unbearable pressure around his neck that came as a result. At the same time he raised the gun, leveling it at Mike as well as he could in the haze of panic and split-second reactions. He didn’t think. There was no time for anything but instinct, and instinct made him pull the trigger.
The shot went high, catching Mike between chest and shoulder, and M. reached out and let the back of her hand fall hard, sharp and biting against Luke’s cheek as the shot rang out in the space. Wren, for her part, though hooded and bound, rolled from her knees backward, and combined with the force of the shot to Mike’s shoulder, and the back of her head connecting with his kneecap, Mike’s gun fell from his fingers to the concrete, one shot firing as it landed, the bullet ricocheting throughout the freezer with enough ominous echo to be heard outside.
M. grabbed for the gun, her hand on Luke’s rope tight enough to bruise and draw blood, but she wasn’t close enough to reach it. Her goal became keeping Luke from reaching it as well, and she pulled tighter, trying to plunge him into darkness to give herself the opening she needed. Her only win, she knew, was to get the gun and fire it when the door opened. “I’ll strangle him,” she called out, hoping her voice would carry across the door. “Stay where you are,” she added, as Mike started to lumber to his feet. “Get up,” she hissed at him.
No no no no no.
Nothing could have kept the Bat from coming through that door, not when he heard the bullet explode from the gun--and then another as he hauled back on the door, darted to the side to avoid being an obvious target (out of training rather than intent) and came through the door. The threat to strangle Luke was no such thing, as it only gave the Bat more incentive to get through the door faster to stop her. When he had a split second to think, it also told him that Luke hadn’t been shot, since if he had there wouldn’t be a reason to shoot him.
When he saw Wren on the floor and the man not far away, his first assumption was that they had been hit. He had been at this long enough to never turn his back on a fallen enemy, but at this point he was six people deep without actually thoroughly incapacitating more than two, and he didn’t care. He kept going through the room and looked for the most immediate threat--Mike’s gun on the floor nearest.
The Bat slid forward, so fast his movement was just a flap of displaced air, and the heel of his boot snapped Mike’s hand on the way to the gun, which he kicked to the side and out of the way before wheeling to face the woman in the corner and Luke in front of her.
The blow to Luke’s cheek was a small price to pay for the knowledge that his shot hadn’t missed, especially when Wren’s efforts ensured that Mike was disarmed - even if it was temporary. Luke immediately got as low to the ground as he could in order to avoid the ricochet, but he didn’t waste any time in attempting to scramble forward to get to Mike’s gun before he or M. could grab it instead. The rope tightened even more painfully around his throat and slowly cut off his air supply, but he refused to let everything go black. One hand clawed at his throat to loosen the pressure while he attempted to reach back and tug at the rope itself with the other, but once the door opened he felt an unexpected wave of relief and if he’d had the lung power for it, he would have given in to the sudden irrational urge to laugh.
Luke had known who was in that hallway from the moment the first man cried out, and he’d also known that there was no way in hell he was going to stay on the other side of that door no matter what threats M. threw at him. Once the Bat had the loaded gun out of the way Luke stopped focusing on fighting forward and instead fell back, gasping for air. He kept his hand around the rope that had served as a leash the entire time he’d been held captive, however, and managed to turn his head enough to fix M. with a look that was a clear unspoken threat. He hadn’t fought back until now, but he wasn’t going to stop until she let go of the damn thing - and the Bat’s presence in the room helped.
M. did not let go, even with Mike’s loss of the gun and their situation, she did not let go. She yanked harder, almost merciless, her goal now just to inflict as much pain as she could. She had no idea why the Bat had come, and she did not care. “Doesn’t he look pretty with his little leash?” she asked, giving the rope another yank. The freezer doors opened, then, and one of the men came in, gun regained and leg bleeding, and he leveled the gun at the back of the black expanse of shoulder and kevlar, and he pulled the trigger.
The Bat didn’t have time to reply, but there’s a good chance he wouldn’t have been able to say anything at all. The usual cool, blank calculation that he usually sank under while he was working was entirely gone, replaced by a hot anger that kept interfering with his vision and his judgment. The relief of seeing Luke alive was now brushed aside with a familiar but nearly-forgotten need for revenge. The Bat took a menacing step toward M., still in total silence, one arm coming up--and he didn’t react to the sound of the door in time.
The Bat wore over forty pounds of armor and he could take a lot of damage, but the gunman was about five yards away with a large target. The impact sent him sideways and down, sliding into Wren’s abandoned chair.
In a lot of ways, Nightwing was trained by the Bat when it came to breaking and entering. Sure, he could do it with a hooligan sort of efficiency, but the Bat always had a calculated way of getting through any given space. Even though he believed his role was to scout and be potential back up, Nightwing couldn't help but feel like he needed to do more. Clean up. He'd make sure whatever goons this psycho had helping would be down for the count. The Bat usually tore through low level idiots with the sort of efficiency that didn't need a double tap, but in this case there may not have been much time for elegant execution. And, if there was one thing that bit a vigilante in the ass, it was miscalculating the odds.
The closer he got to the building, the lighter on his feet Nightwing felt. He saw that the door was already broken open and kept on the Bat trail. The problem with picking a place like this for kidnapping was that sound was amplified. The tail end of a gunshot could be heard as he reached the second hallway and he saw evidence of the Bat's doing. Guys spread out on the floor like a hurricane tore a specific hole right through their patrolling area. Maybe the Bat didn't need clean up duty after all. Amused, but not enough to show it, Nightwing made quick work of anyone moving and broke into a sprint towards the original sound of a gunshot.
There wasn't any time to think. Nightwing sprinted towards the man holding the gun and stomped the bleeding leg like it was a family of spiders. The man cried out and in two sharp movements, Nightwing elbowed him in the back of the head and took his gun. Breathe. Holding the gun with the sort of professionalism he was taught in police academy, he took a second to get an actual look at the situation.
"Let him go." Nightwing turned the attention towards him. He had seen the Bat shot before in much worse ways and knew that he could still salvage the situation without another shot being fired. The determination in his voice, though, suggested that he wasn't afraid to shoot a hole through the woman's chest if he had to.
Luke was too busy tugging on his end of the rope to notice the freezer door opening until it was too late, having assumed that all the men outside would have been taken care of. Under different circumstances he probably would have realized that the Bat wore a lot of armor and the bullet might not have done too much damage, which would have resulted in a much more rational reaction. As it was, though, he wasn’t quite in the best state of mind - so when he heard the gun go off and saw the Bat go down he immediately thought the worst. What was meant to be a shout of no came out as a wordless yell instead, half-strangled by the rope around his neck when he tried to move forward. He wasn’t sure what else he said, not that any of it sounded like anything other than incoherent noise, but he was blindly determined to break free and make sure Thomas was alive.
It took Luke a second to register Nightwing’s arrival, but once he did Luke immediately turned his attention to the familiar figure in the doorway. He was relieved to see that he’d managed to take out the man who previously stood there and had his gun, which diminished enough of his panic to allow for slightly more coherent thought. The pain around his throat was still fresh, but it was ignored in favor of forcing words out - Nightwing was their best chance now, but it wasn’t M. he was mainly worried about. “Fine, I’m fine, just make sure they’re okay,” he rasped, referring to the Bat and the still-hooded Wren. “And the other guy, Mike, watch him.” Then, barely a second after he’d finished speaking, he finally did what he should have done right from the very beginning. Using the fact that he was still on all fours to his advantage, he gathered his remaining strength together and pushed off the ground with his feet, throwing all his weight backwards directly at M. while forcing his elbows back at the same time.
Wren, beneath her hood, recognized the voices - the Bat’s from meetings and the communicator, Nightwing’s from the night at the storage facility - and she knew how much kevlar weighed (thanks to Quinn), and when the body crashed down beside her, the force of the fall alone let her know it was the Bat. She couldn’t do much of anything at all, tied as she was at wrist and ankle, so she just ducked her head and tried to be as small a target as possible. When Luke spoke, she breathed a sigh of relief; the fact that he was issuing orders, it made her realize he was actually going to walk out of this place.
Luke’s elbow connected with M.’s chest. She had been concentrating on the newcomer at the door, at barking desperation-tinged orders at Mike, and she hadn’t seen the boy on the leash as a real threat, not realizing that he cared at all about the man who had fallen. She dragged Luke with her when he fell, grabbing at that rope hard enough to pull him down with her, and then wrapping the rope around his neck as soon as his water and food deprived body hit the concrete. If she was concerned about the man with the gun, she didn’t show it. She just held Luke down and pulled at the rope, trying to inflict as much damage as she could in a fight she knew she was going to lose. She couldn’t reach the gun, and Mike was moaning in the corner. This was the only win she had remaining.
Being shot in kevlar felt a great deal like being hit with a sledgehammer. All that force was distributed over a larger area, and unlike the fantastic films where people are saved by small things like crosses and bibles, you didn’t just jump up and do a grateful jig afterward. The Bat certainly wasn’t dead, and he was fortunate enough not to pass out, mostly because instinct meant he had been in the process of turning when he’d been hit, so when he’d been thrown to the side it hadn’t been with full force.
He came up onto his feet in a preternaturally graceful stagger, thanks to the cowl and concealing cape, and it looked very much like Nightwing had an overlarge demonic shadow coming to life. Every ounce of him was focused forward on Luke’s captor, the back of his mind taking in small details, how pale he was and the change in silhouette that meant starvation was being held off, the wounds at his throat and the dark prints under his eyes. Everything in the room suddenly became very sharp.
The Bat moved around Nightwing, literally walked in front of his weapon, stepped further aside, and in a move like a predator’s pounce, closed one hand over the noose at Luke’s neck, hauled back to prevent him from being further choked, and hit M. with four weighted knuckles on the side of the jaw. A little higher and the Bat could hit hard enough to knock her out. A little to the side and he could give her a black eye. He went lower and broke her jaw.
Nightwing was glad he didn’t have to use the gun and the second Bat hit the woman, he disabled it completely. A gun was a necessity on the force, but after working with the Bat for so long, it became something of a nuisance. Then, as if he had done it a thousand times, he almost casually made his way over to that Mike fellow and tied his hands behind his back before disabling the second gun on the ground. With all the main threats subdued, Nightwing put his attention on untying the girl prisoner on the ground, pulling the bag off her head to reveal a familiar face.
“Can you stand up?” Nightwing asked Wren, his arms out a little to show that he could carry her if needed. This mask business was a little inconvenient, all things considered. Back in Musings, when he rescued someone, people saw the concern on his face followed by a badge and it made them feel safe. He wasn’t sure if he could provide that to Wren if she needed it. But, hell he was trying. With a glance over to the Bat and Luke, Nightwing made a face like they needed to get the fuck out of there on the double.
Wren nodded, her gaze immediately scanning the room for Luke as she waited for Nightwing to untie her. She was bruised and as naked as Luke was, but that didn’t matter. She put a shaky hand on Nightwing’s shoulder to help push herself up, her knees buckling as she stood. “Is he okay?” she asked, sounding worried. She couldn’t see Luke; the Bat was blocking both Luke and M., and she was almost too scared to move forward and verify that he was okay. “Luke?” she said, a little louder.
The shrapnel-sharp pain of the weighted knuckles against her jaw made everything go black and pinpoint white for M., and she let go of the rope and lost her hold on Luke altogether. She smiled through the blood welling up at her lips, even as everything threatened to blacken. “He’ll never forget me,” she said, managing to sound like she was happy, even through the blood and pain. “He’ll never be the same again.” It was a whisper hiss of nothing, almost unintelligible through the crooked jaw, and blackness threatened and retreated and threatened again.
“Neither will you.” It was a voice not at all like Thomas’, frightening in its chill certainty rather than its uncontrollable anger. As she released Luke he separated him from his captor, reaching to catch the hand that held the rope a second ago and twisting the thumb back against the top of her wrist, using minimal effort and letting leverage do the work for him. The cape brushed past Luke’s shoulder and there was a dull series of pop noises--one for the thumb, one for the joint, and a particularly tearing one for the wrist.
Then the Bat hit her again, this time on the other side of her jaw, and if something didn’t shatter he wasn’t doing his job right. He wasn’t in the mood to listen to her, so he was going to make it extremely difficult for her to get out anything but a whimper.
Luke lost track of what was happening after he hit the ground and the rope was pulled taut again. The majority of his remaining strength had been used to get M. down in the first place, and there was little left to fend off her attempts to choke him. All he knew was one moment he couldn’t breathe and the next the pressure around his throat was gone, but the most he was capable of was a feeble half-crawl forward. He tried to concentrate on taking shallow breaths as he waited for his vision to slide back into focus. It didn’t take long to realize the important things, though; the Bat wasn’t dead, Nightwing had taken care of the remaining weapons, and Wren was okay. Everyone was alive, no thanks to him.
He registered that Wren was saying his name, but the sound of what the Bat was doing to M. somehow ended up sounding a lot louder. A part of him did feel satisfied, knowing that the pain was a taste of what she deserved, but he also knew that this was exactly the kind of reaction she wanted. Luke pushed himself up on shaky limbs into a kneeling position to support his weight, reaching out with one hand to tug at the closest thing he could reach - which happened to be the Bat’s cape. “Don’t,” he said hoarsely, tasting copper in his throat when he tried to swallow. “She’s not worth it.”
Anyone who was under the illusion that the Bat would be bothered about violence against women specifically would have to readjust their perspective quickly. In his experience, women were just as lethal as men in nearly the same ways, and he did not have any compunction against hitting one. Chivalry was dead.
M.’s face was now unrecognizable, and it was hard to tell if the Bat was considering trying to find something else to break, or if he was just pausing for breath. The cowl turned and looked over and down at Luke, who couldn’t even stand, and there was a split-second pause while the Bat fought against a different part of his nature that might have liked dragging M. off for further ironic retribution, probably in much the same as what she had done to her victims, but in the end Luke’s voice appeared to have an effect.
The Bat stepped back and dropped the woman, who he had been holding off the floor by the shirt, and she fell into a heap against the wall. Already regretting this act of mercy, he dropped into a low crouch and unfolded a silver square the size of a post-it note and the consistency of a trashbag. It kept unfolding into a thermal blanket, which would pass for cover at the moment. “Should I call for help?” he asked, seriously, willing to bring in paramedics immediately.
The Bat turned and, catching Nightwing’s eye, handed him a similar blanket for the girl.
Luke felt no pity for M. when she crumpled against the wall, and he certainly hadn’t stopped the Bat for her sake. The thermal blanket was more than good enough for him, since it was the first actual form of cover he’d had in days, but he paused in the midst of pulling it around his shoulders to consider the question. It didn’t take long for him to decide that he didn’t want a hospital, and his injuries weren’t serious enough to warrant one. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not for me.” He tried to get a look at Wren, unsure of just how badly hurt she was, and he didn’t even bother mentioning the gunshot wound yet - there was no chance of the Bat going to a hospital even if he should have.
“Just make sure they’re taken care of,” Luke added with a faint flare of anger, gesturing halfheartedly towards M. and the other men. All he really wanted now was to go home.
Wren shook her head, resilient. No hospital. She didn't need one, not with what she was accustomed to, and now that she could see Luke, she just wanted him out of the cold and where someone could take care of him. She looked up at Nightwing, and she touched his shoulder gently as she took the blanket, voice reassuring. "I'm okay," she said, wrapping the blanket around herself, her knees threatening to buckle and her fingers gripping his shoulder tightly again. "They need to go home." Luke and Thomas, both.
The one thing that never crossed Nightwing’s mind was telling the Bat to stop punching in someone’s face. He had seen brutality from the Bat before, that was completely deserved, but Nightwing knew the man well enough that he would never take it too far. Did Luke think the Bat was going to kill her? No. They had to be close enough that he knew that sort of thing just wasn’t in Bat’s nature. Still, the comment made Nightwing snap out of his professional attitude for just a second. Max was right about the Bat caring about people too much, of course, but the violence that came along with it was unsettling. It didn’t matter. The Bat trusted him enough to call him in for backup and that was a step in the right direction.
Nightwing looked down at Wren and steadily kept his arm around her back so that she wouldn't fall. The one thing he remembered the most about her from the night at the storage yard was that she had a tendency to make sense. “Agreed.” He nodded down at her and then turned to the Bat. “All right. I can round these guys up and call the cops if you want to get the kids out of here.” It was more of a question, really. He didn’t know how much Thomas had told the cops or how deeply he wanted them to get involved. If anything, Nightwing would be content strapping M. to the back of his motorcycle and dropping her off at the police station like a present.
The Bat hesitated. There it was again, all the emotion, some of it anger, some if it relief. He couldn’t be sure if his impulses were correct. He stood there in the middle of the freezer and thought about it for a few strange seconds in which there was nothing but uncertainty in the air, even if his expression revealed nothing.
Then the Bat said, “You don’t have a reason to be here. I do. You can take them to a secure location--” His warehouses, all of them, had medical supplies. “--I can stay here and wait for the police, give explanations.” Without a mask, obviously. “Make sure that she does not get away with this.” It was, oddly, phrased as a question in Luke’s general direction. He didn’t want to leave the boy, not in this condition, but protecting him also meant protecting him from the law as much as the criminals. If Luke refused, however, the Bat wasn’t in a position to argue.
Luke wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there, but he knew that all of this would have been for nothing if M. was allowed to escape proper punishment. Something had to be done with them, of course, but he hadn’t gotten beyond that vague point. Thomas might be able to handle the police and their questions - he didn’t doubt that it would be done without a mask - but they would want to talk to him too, wouldn’t they? Surely they’d ask where he was, why he wasn’t there. He frowned, frustrated at his own inability to figure out what he was supposed to say.
Luke was silent for a long moment, thinking. “No. You were shot, and... you just can’t.” Did he really need to explain himself? He glanced at Nightwing and Wren, as though searching for agreement (or the opposite). Maybe a small part of it was selfishly motivated, but leaving Thomas alone to face the police didn’t seem like a good idea. Surely there was a better one.
Nightwing didn’t totally have a problem with Bat’s plan, except it would be difficult for him to explain how he took down about six armed mooks all by his lonesome. There were already too many connections between Thomas and the Bat publicly. Showing anything more than playboy money throwing would be a mistake. “I’ll call the cops. Tell them Thomas went to me for help because the kidnapper didn’t want the police involved.” Nightwing tried his best to tip toe around identities, but he figured Wren knew the connection between all of them by now. “I won’t let them too close. Just enough to see that I’m a mask and then I’ll make a run for it. We need good press anyway.”
Nightwing had seen how cops react to a helpful vigilante before in situations like this one and was banking on the fact that they’d all be a little bewildered and even grateful. With that kind of attitude, it was easy to get the hell out of there before they tried to chase him down. It was risky, sure, but much less so than Thomas trying to handle this alone.
Wren, who was leaning heavily against Nightwing's arm now, had been watching Thomas (she knew he was Thomas) and Luke throughout this. Thomas was hurt, and Luke couldn't even stand up on his own. She shook her head, finally. "If she talks, she's going to say it was the Bat," she said. "It's better if no one stays here. Lock them up? The freezers lock from the outside. Luke can call the cops with the tip and hang up, say the Bat got him out, then it's just another rescue. Thomas can thank the Bat publicly in the paper, maybe?" she suggested, quiet calm despite everything that had happened in the past 72 hours.
Luke had forgotten that M. and even some of the men would be able to identify the Bat until Wren mentioned it, and the look he gave her was a mixture of relief and gratitude - not only was it an important bit of information to keep in mind, but it made him even more convinced that Thomas staying behind wasn’t a good idea. Between the two vigilantes Nightwing was less recognizable, at least in the sense that M. wouldn’t be able to match him to a specific name. Luke knew well enough that no one inside the freezer would be able to get out once the doors were locked, so that would work, and he could tell the police a convincing story that - with any luck - they wouldn’t question too much. “I think Wren’s idea would work. That way it doesn’t matter if they mention the Bat’s involvement or not, because that’s what I’ll tell the police anyway. And it’s believable enough.” The newspaper suggestion was a good one too, and it would underline the distinction between the two of them. He wasn’t sure how she managed to think so clearly after everything that happened, but he certainly wasn’t complaining.
Thomas had every reason in the world to conceal his identity, despite the fact that the number of people who knew it was growing at an alarming rate. He nodded briefly at Nightwing--or perhaps Wren, it was impossible to tell--and moved out the door to haul the ones in the hallway into the freezer. He was not gentle about it. After several unfortunate prone bodies were unceremoniously dumped in a corner, the Bat moved stiffly into the center of the room and made a brief gesture at Nightwing. “See what you can do about the recordings,” he said, lifting the gesture to indicate the cameras. To Luke he said, “Can you walk?” He could carry him or Wren, but not both.
Luke shrugged at the question, because despite his doubts he wasn’t quite sure what would happen if he tried to stand (never mind walk), but Wren didn’t look very steady on her feet either. “I can try.” He focused on getting to his feet first, and although it took a couple of tries he managed to stand without falling over. From here he was fairly sure he could manage walking, even if he probably would end up being slow. “Yeah, I’m good.” He had to be, because he definitely wasn’t making Wren walk.
Wren had gone days without food before, and she knew perfectly well Luke hadn’t, even without everything else he had been through, and she smiled a little, sad-fond at his insistence on being brave, even now. She moved away from Nightwing, holding onto his arm for support until the very last moment, and the stopped in front of Luke. They both looked like hell, but he looked so much worse, and she cupped his cheeks and kissed him affectionately, a quick thing of a kiss. “Go with him,” she said softly, urging and looking toward Thomas. “Once he gets the recordings taken care of, we’ll get out. You both need to get looked at,” she said, quieter, an almost whisper, giving Luke a look that said Thomas needed to get help almost as much as he did. She wasn’t about to be the one slowing them down. She stretched up, pressed her cheek to Luke’s for a moment, and then rocked back onto her heels and held a hand out to the wall for balance. “Go,” she said, again, softly, with an encouraging nod.
The Bat kept his opinion of this exchange to himself. As always, there was nothing to see of the cowl, as it hid his slightly raised eyebrows at the intimacy between Luke and Wren, whom he had previously dismissed as a social embarrassment (at the worst) or friend (at best). He was, however, fully aware that he was responsible for some of what had been done to her, and he was both impressed and grateful that she was on her feet and thinking outside herself. He put out one dark hand and steadied her until Nightwing moved again to her side.
The Bat met Nightwing’s eyes, trusting him to handle whatever was left here, and then he turned to Luke. “This way.” He supported the boy’s back and arm. It seemed to him an important thing for Luke to walk out of the warehouse on his own if at all possible; once outside the Bat would move him where he thought he should go, but there was something about leaving this hellhole on his own steam that would help him when all the stress caught up with him.
Luke knew she was going to disagree with him as soon as she started moving, and he watched her with a hint of sadness until she stopped in front of him. The kiss wasn’t as unexpected as it should have been, but the majority of his discomfort came from guilt mixed with the knowledge that the Bat was watching. Arguing with her was pointless and would only end up wasting precious time, so he stifled his protests and sighed instead. At least she would be with Nightwing, who he fully trusted to take care of her. “Okay,” he said quietly. “I... I’ll talk to you later.” The last part was a whisper, and he gave her hands a quick squeeze as he pulled back and turned away, towards the Bat, pointedly avoiding his gaze all the while. He shot Nightwing a look of thanks over his shoulder as he made his way out, admittedly slow but still stubbornly determined to do it on his own. Once enough time passed he’d call the police, and everything else could wait until later.
Nightwing was grateful for the face shield around his mouth. He still needed to work on hiding how he felt, but at least they wouldn’t see the open slack jaw caused by the two kids kissing. He didn’t know why he was surprised, as he was personally macking on girls at that age, but it was a little like seeing two kittens snuggle. Way too fuzzy for the everyday life of Roger Darman. Recovering quickly, he gave Luke and the Bat a small half salute as he usually did when parting ways with people he worked with and turned his attention back to Wren.
“Shit, you must be starving.” Nightwing started searching the black utility belt around his waist until he found a somewhat broken and perhaps slightly undesirable Powerbar. It was meant to be his midnight snack, but he was happy to hand it over. Roger almost gave her a lecture about making sure to drink water and lots of it when she got home, but decided against it. “I need to find the security room.” Stating the obvious for the sake of understanding each other. “I won’t make you walk far, but I ain’t leaving you very far from my sight.” He gave her a steady look and then lead her out through the hallway into the main warehouse area. The unconscious guys made him a little edgy, though they were going to be out of there in a matter of minutes. Luke’s call would get even the laziest cop off his ass since it was such a high profile case. Cops loved showing up to a historic crime site and a rich kid getting kidnapped was a golden opportunity.
Nightwing found a door with all the typical signs of being a security room, set Wren down and hustled his ass over. With a moment of easy lock picking, he snuck in and started going through the computer records. Digital recordings made his life a lot easier. Back when security rooms had VHS he would just switch off labels, but here he just had to delete files, copypaste some old ones and then rename those. Once done, he turned the lights off, relocked the door and then carefully took Wren outside to his motorcycle. It was going to be decidedly uncomfortable for her, but that was the price Nightwing paid when he didn’t buy a crime fighting minivan.