by Marla F. Fair
Dick awoke to the sound of a baby crying.
He opened his eyes, half expecting to find he was lying in his bed and that his wife’s tanned and exquisite form would be nestled against his back. In a minute her long toes would nudge his calf and her husky voice tell him to go check their son.
It didn’t.
Above him a single bare bulb burnt like a cold unfeeling eye, casting its harsh glow over the room. It swung as if someone had tapped it and then run. The analytical portion of his mind noted instantly the faded wallpaper and peeling plaster which indicated he had been moved. Unlike the cement box he had awakened in the time before, this place had once been lived in. It looked like a home.
Then he heard it again. The sound of tears. A child. A young child, crying. Cautiously lifting his head from the ratty flooring, he rose to a seated position. A moment later he drew a deep breathe and stood.
So far, so good. No one attacked him and nothing exploded.
He glanced at his arm and saw the blood on it was still fairly fresh indicating very little time had passed since he had been confronted by the creature that called itself ‘the Pretender’. His cool blue eyes sought to pierce the shadows which surrounded him, watching as the dancing bulb seemed to make them shift with a life of their own. Concentrating made his head hurt, but he did it, scanning the room until he was certain he was alone.
Here, at least.
As he paused sorting out his thoughts, the child cried out again and this time, he recognized it as his son. It took everything in him not to burst through the door calling his name. But he knew caution was necessary. Acting hastily might well get them both killed.
Moving with stealth he slipped into the hallway and began to make his way towards the spiral stair. He could hear John sobbing above him. The poor kid must have been terrified. As he began to ascend, a deep rage awakened within him, more profound than any he had ever known. It was one thing for his enemies to seek to kill him or Bruce, or even Kory...but an innocent child? A baby who in no way could defend itself? That was the act of something more than a madman.
It was the act of a beast.
As his foot touched the tattered carpet that lined the upstairs hall, he realized John was in the room on the left hand side and at the far end. Glancing both ways, assessing all exits and entrances, noting the positions of both windows and doors and whether or not they were open, he began to move towards him. If they were both to escape alive, the decisions he made might have to fly faster than Kory. He paused outside the door, his lean frame pressed to the wall and listened. He could hear nothing but the child’s soft sobs, but that wasn’t proof his son was alone. Steeling himself he plunged into the room head-first, rolling as he did, and landed in a fighting posture near its center. Air streamed in through an open window and an empty rocking chair—which held a crazy-quilt teddy bear—slowly rocked as if someone invisible occupied it. Behind him there was a crib and in it was a child with bright copper hair and great shining eyes, his hands reaching towards him.
Dick turned and stared at the boy. Then he shuddered and tears rolled down his cheeks. He glanced at the chair again and knew it couldn’t be that simple. Still, he couldn’t let the boy stand there screaming, wondering why his Dad didn’t pick him up.
“Johnny, it’s Daddy. We need to— ” Fire cut a path through his brain and he fell, hobbled by the pain. As he hit his knees he heard his son shriek.
“Da-dah!!”
He pressed his fingers into his temples and sought to find his center. His breathing was labored, but he managed to growl. “I don’t...care...what you...do to me. But please...not...in front...of my son....”
“Ah, yes. The love of father and son. We know all about that, don’t we, Tomas?”
Dick couldn’t lift his head, but he watched as a pair of mismatched boots moved towards the crib. One pant leg was well pressed and pleated, like a business suit. The other was purple, knit, and showed the well-formed calf-muscles. He shifted ever so slightly and saw the Pretender lift his son from the crib. John was still sobbing, but became intrigued when the creature dangled a bouncing coil of metal in front of him like the ones he had found melted in the warehouse where he had first been shot. Then, seeming to sense his father’s gaze, John wriggled in the Pretender’s grasp and looked at him. Then he screamed again.
“Father and son,” the Pretender repeated the words in a sing-song manner, “father and son. Meant to be together. In life.” It’s voice took on a curious edge as it gripped the baby’s chubby arm. “And death.”
Chills ran down Dick’s spine. “Whatever...you want,” he panted as he reached towards his child, “I’ll do it. Don’t...hurt...my son. He’s only...a baby.”
“Now that, Grayson, is what I wanted to hear.”
Dick pivoted. So fast he felt nauseous. Still he managed to hold onto consciousness as a second figure moved from the shadows to kneel at his side. In its hand it held a small keypad and as one gloved finger touched it, the pain in his head subsided so he was able to think.
He raised his head and then he knew.
“Two-face?”
Bruce had his back to Koriand’r, but he could hear the incredulity in her voice. He nodded as he steepled his fingers and leaned his chin on them. “Yes. I believe so.”
“I thought he would have been dead by now.”
The skin around the Batman’s ice-blue eyes crinkled. “Princess, Harvey and I are the same age.”
She tossed her voluminous hair and crossed her arms over her ample chest. “Sorry. It is just....”
He spun in his chair and looked at her. She was standing so the computer monitor cast a soft blue glow over her features and he thought again how truly beautiful she was. Not that he would ever tell her or Dick. He enjoyed their mock combat all too much. “What?”
“You are not like other men.” She said plainly.
“No?” he almost laughed. “And what am I then?”
She hesitated, as though paying him a compliment were outside of her nature, “You seem—ageless.”
He ran a hand through the hair at his graying temples. “I thought I was an old man,” he tossed at her as he spun back to face the board.
Koriand’r pursed her lips. Though they were her words, she had flung them at him in anger. “You are not old. You will ever be young,” she remarked enigmatically. “Even when you are dead, old man, I will not be rid of you.”
He twisted to look at her, but she had turned away and was staring at the costume of his former partner which stood enshrined in glass.
Clearing his throat, he pressed a button and pointed to the screen as a picture of the man known as Two-face appeared. “The last I knew, Harvey was on the run with Bane after they destroyed the Manor.” Another switch brought up a photo of the original Wayne Manor, devastated by his foe’s hate. Bruce leaned back and pinched his pursed lips. “In the days that followed, with the war and all, I lost track of him. I have had no word since. I thought him dead, or fallen off the edge of the world— ” He turned in the chair and rose. Then he moved towards the alcove where his enhanced costumes hung.
“What makes you think he is behind this?”
“There have been several clues,” he said as one of his robot butlers began to carefully extricate him from his street clothes, “first there is the duality of father and son being chosen as victims.” He glanced at her and saw her flinch. “Then there was the note. You remember what it said?”
“How could I forget?” She struck her fist into the console, belying the calm exterior she had learned to show. “The words are etched on my soul.” She shook herself and moved to his side. Dismissing the robot, she began to help him into his suit. He glanced at her warily, ready to protest, but her deep green eyes, so sad and sober, stopped him. “Go on,” she said.
“ ‘For sale, cheap. One crime-fighter. Slightly-used. Much abused. Going fast. Won’t last.’ Groups of two. And then,” he accepted his cowl from her hand, “the fact that it said— ”
“Twenty-two hours instead of twenty-four.”
“Yes.” He nodded. She was sharp, this one.
“And the other part,” she closed one of the fastenings on his shoulder, “about calling Hell and asking for him by name?”
He locked the cowl into place, musing on the irony that he continued to hide behind it when it was no longer necessary. “That has me puzzled. It doesn’t sound like Harvey. It would seem to indicate a ‘resurrection’ of sorts,” he glanced at her, “like yours. Of course, if he thought I thought he had died....”
“You don’t think Siddig al Ahmuhd has returned....”
“No. He was dead.” He frowned as he pulled on his glove, thinking of the madman who had almost ended Dick’s life in Ra’s hideout in Africa, “But I do think there is something more to this than just Two-face’s return.”
Bruce finished with his other glove and turned. Nodding his thanks to her, he headed for the stair and the others who were waiting above. “Something more? Bruce... What are you thinking?”
He turned to face her. “I’ll let you know when I do, Princess. For now, let’s just try to find my son...and yours.”
“You want me to what?”
“Kill the bat.” Two-face’s demented eye flashed as his twisted lips peeled back in a grin. “I can’t make it any plainer.”
“You must be mad.”
The man who had been Harvey Dent glanced at his bizarre companion. Then he began to laugh. He lifted the device he held in his hand and touched the keypad and Dick screamed as his shoulder exploded and he began to bleed.
“Obviously, Grayson. Mad and loving it. Undeniably infuriated and insane. I thought I had rid the world of that black bastard years ago—blew up his house you know, with him in it—and yet now, when I return to Gotham to take my rightful place as its King and begin my dynasty, why—there he is.” Two-face stood and moved to the window. The steady breeze lifted the graying hair on his head and ruffled the white shirt collar which brushed his unblemished cheek. “I saw him on the television, rededicating Wayne manor and using it as a hostel for recovering super-punks. It made me burn.” He stamped his foot and his fingers tightened on the keypad. “It isn’t fair, I tell you!”
“Father....” the Pretender approached Two-face, still holding John in its hands. The baby was squirming and reached for him as they walked past. “Fairest day. Right as rain. It will work out. You’ll see.”
Two-face struck his hand against the wall and then smiled crookedly.
“You are good for my soul, Tomas.
Good for my soul.” He turned then and touched the Pretender’s cheek tenderly.
“Yes, yes. You’re right.
It is just that I had everything planned.”
“New plan now. Better than
the old.”
There was a moment of silence which made Dick more nervous than all the words that had passed between this curious pair. Abruptly Two-face turned and looked at him. “But we have been remiss. Here we are, family, joined together in one cause, and we keep you from yours.” He waved his hand, and as Dick winced, waiting for another explosion, he told his ‘child’ to, “Let the boy go to him.”
Dick watched in disbelief as John’s fat feet hit the floor. The baby wobbled a moment and then fell to his knees and began to crawl to him as he had often done before he learned to walk. His bright blue eyes fastened on his father’s face and as he reached out, the child fell into his arms and began to wail. He hugged him tight, breathing a prayer that the boy wouldn’t have to watch him die. With one eye on his captors, he lifted John up and held him tight.
“How touching.”
Dick’s eyes closed. Two-face was wily and wise. The madman knew he was one of the few people who could get close enough—and was trusted enough—by Bruce to kill him. He gripped his son tight, knowing it might be the last time. The little boy’s heart was beating fast against his own.
“Two-face, I can’t— ”
The grotesque face contorted with in a maleficent smile as the fingers of his disfigured hand went moved towards the black keys. “Perhaps this will change your mind....”
Dick braced himself, but there was no way he could have prepared himself for what was to come. John stiffened in his arms and shrieked. When he pulled the boy back, a thin trail of blood was running from the child’s nose.
Continued in Chapter Two