Chapter Text
It says something about the general state of Gotham that it takes two days before anyone really notices the people in black robes and eyeless white masks creeping through the city with the grid-sweep precision of the thoroughly prepared.
Red Hood's seen a lot of weird shit in his time-- to put it lightly. Gotham is a breeding ground for crime and psychosis, and it has more than its allotted yearly quota of people who deal with their issues by wearing costumes like a second skin and hanging their enemies upside-down over pits of acid or ravenous sharks. And yes, he's counting himself in that equation, along with the rest of his family. He's not about to sit here and pretend that any of the things he and the various Bat People get up to are signs of healthy coping mechanisms.
"They've been alarmingly quiet," Oracle says over comms. She sounds a little annoyed, a little confused. Mostly focused on the task at hand. "And... mundane? They rode in on a city bus and just started moving. It's..."
"Not what we usually expect from masked weirdos in Gotham?" Hood supplies. He stands on the edge of a rooftop with the new moon behind him, watching the robed figures slip through Crime Alley, their shapes silvery-green through his helmet's night vision. He counts three of them, though he knows there's at least three more somewhere nearby.
Six people all wearing the same thing. One of them should have gone home to change.
Oracle gives a soft hum of agreement. "They're pretty low-tech, too. Only one of them has a cellphone, and it was old-school ten years ago. And they barely say anything over comms. I'm starting to wonder if there isn't some sort of low level psychic communication going on here." She puffs out a sigh, annoyed by their tech's refusal to offer up any simple answers. Hood has to admit that it would make things easier. "But I'm not picking up any sign of that, so..."
"Can't tell if they're smart or just out of touch," Hood says, watching as two of the Robes climb into an abandoned apartment building's first floor through a broken window. Their movements are too clumsy for them to be trained assassins or hired killers. This is something else. Something that would usually be the strict purview of the GCPD.
Honestly, this newest sect of poorly-handled personal issues would probably have escaped vigilante notice entirely-- it isn't actually illegal to walk into Gotham in a weird costume, despite any number of rumors saying otherwise-- if not for their run-in with a couple of Hood's informants the night before.
Hobb and Stig were low-level thugs, and yeah, maybe they were a little slow, a little too given to holding people at knife point and then forgetting which end was sharp, but they were mostly harmless. Stupid, in a way that made other people talk a bit more freely around them. Not smart enough to hire on as henchmen, but still thugs, and even Hood can recognize that neither of them deserved what happened to them.
"They're looking for something, clearly," Oracle continues. She's probably watching them all through her network of cameras, some of which Hood spent a lot of time installing himself-- hidden, of course, since Crime Alley isn't exactly the best place to leave high-end technology just sitting around. "It would help if we could figure out what."
"S'why I'm doing recon first," Hood replies. Even though he would really rather go in, guns blazing, and show these backwards creeps that Crime Alley isn't theirs to claim. He hates taking things slow like this, trying to pick up the trail of a mystery before he acts. Feels too much like Batman's style.
But he's not an idiot, is the thing. Hood might want to show these idiots the business end of his gun, but he also wants to know what they're doing here in the first place. If they're after something in Gotham, it seems important to figure out what that is, and get to it before they do. It could be anything from a secret ritual chamber for blood sacrifices to an encrypted USB with a list of names on it, and the general rule of thumb in Gotham is that if a group of people in masks want something bad enough, it's probably not good.
That's all just supposition right now though. It's technically a low-priority case, something in the vein of a string of muggings or a subway flasher, but one Hood claimed the minute it hit his radar, because Crime Alley is his more than it's anyone else's. Things might be slightly improved between him and Bruce at the moment, but Hood still doesn't like the idea of the Caped Crusader casting his pointy-eared shadow over his patch.
Speaking of which...
"B still busy with Scarecrow?" He asks, tone relaxed, like he doesn't actually care.
"Him, Robin, and Red Robin," Oracle replies. "Why? Do you think you'll need back-up?"
Hood watches the third Robe try to climb into the apartment, fail, nearly fall on their ass, and then choose to make a sweep around the opposite side of the building instead.
"Nah," he replies. "Don't think I'm dealing with heavy hitters here."
"You sure?" Her tone has shifted, become the one that Babs likes to use to tease him when she thinks it's funny. "Because Black Bat and Spoiler aren't far away. I could have them over there in--"
"No way." If Hood is being honest, he prefers to work alone. Less messy. Less annoying. "Think this will be easier if those two aren't here to drive a car through a building again."
"If you're sure," Oracle chuckles, and then she inhales softly and says, "Oh," in a tone that Hood knows means she's just figured something out and isn't happy about it. He can hear the faint, static-y hum of someone-- probably one of their quarry-- speaking over whatever comm line they're using that Oracle's hacked into. He can't make out the words, but they sound urgent.
Below, the Robe heading around to the other side of the building breaks into a run, and Hood slips closer to get a better look, immediately on alert.
"What'cha got, Oracle?"
"They aren't looking for a 'what'," she replies. "It's a 'who'."
And that, well. That changes things, although Hood's not quite sure how, yet. "You have visual?"
"Hold on. I'm patching you into the security cameras."
The screen overtakes one of his lenses, and Hood finds himself watching the inside of a building that should've been condemned a few decades back and is too decrepit these days for even the most desperate of squatters to claim. He sees the Robes-- despite the fact that they dress like gothic vultures, they're at least human-shaped in infrared-- like he expected, but they're more focused now, like big cats with a scent of prey who aren't quite sure where it's hiding just yet.
Then he spies a flicker of unfamiliar movement, and just barely catches a glimpse of another person-shaped heat signature beating a light-footed retreat up a flight of stairs that creak and shift dangerously beneath the slightest pressure. She pauses on the landing above, waiting, listening, and he thinks it must be another Robe until his view shifts to a secondary camera at a better angle.
She's wearing a cloak, sure, a hood, but there's no mask in sight, and he can still make out the shape of normal clothing when she moves. She holds still for several seconds, waiting, and he thinks about how deer fawns drop to the ground and go unearthly still when danger is nearby, and how often predators manage to overlook them. Then she moves, crouched low. She's not carrying herself with the same purpose as the Robes. She's more cautious, quiet, moving the way any Crime Alley street rat would be in the face of lurking danger, except he doesn't know of any street rats that go around with metal collars on their necks.
"Huh. And 'Wing said cameras inside the buildings was a waste," he muses, mostly to distract himself from how much the collar immediately pisses him off. He's not enjoying the picture it's all starting to paint. He grapples over to the apartment building's roof, then drops down to the fire escape which, being made of solid iron, is at least willing to hold his weight. For now.
"I'll pass on the message," Oracle says, only a little smug. Then she inhales sharply. "Hood--"
The collared figure, moving cautiously through the second floor, chooses the wrong place to put her weight. Near-ancient linoleum flooring bends, then breaks, and she goes crashing noisily down to the bottom floor in a shower of dust and termite-eaten wooden beams.
The Robes converge like wolves on a downed elk.
"Damn," Hood says, and moves.
++
You consider the possibility that you have the worst luck out of anyone alive.
You land clumsily, worse than you want, and even though you're winded and you think there's a thick splinter of wood lodged in your hip, you waste no time before you roll to your feet and bolt.
There's no way they didn't hear that. You're pretty sure people in Metropolis heard that.
You haven't been hiding out in this wreck of a building long enough to know the layout very well, but you figure moving is better than standing still regardless. You slip into a room, find a window, and try to shove the wretched thing open, except some enterprising Gothamite nailed the fucking thing shut back when this place was a home and not just a dilapidated death trap.
"Fuck," you say.
The sigil on the back of your neck grows warm.
They come for you, fierce one, Artemisia's voice breathes inside your mind. You can tell she's worried, anxious, more used to being predator than prey, but that's the problem with living inside a body that's not yours-- you don't always get to choose the kind of trouble it gets into.
"I know," you spit back, even though she'd hear you if you just thought it because it makes you feel a little better. You turn, cross the room just as a hooded figure looms in the doorway, and you squeeze through a sizeable cleft in the wall and stumble into the next room. A kitchen once, maybe. Nothing much of it left now, except a few rusted pipes jutting out of the wall.
Arm thyself, whispers Nix, the sigil on your left shoulder igniting with her power, images of possible uses for old jagged pipes flashing through your mind, but you shake her away. She hisses in displeasure. Fool, thou wilt die fleeing!
"Bad spot to fight." It's cramped and you'd be trapped. No room to maneuver. She seethes, but concedes the point.
You cast around for escape; there's a small window over the space where you think a sink once nestled, half-open to the humid night air. It would be a tight squeeze to get through.
Maybe, says Maybe, which is all she ever says, the sigil over your heart flashing briefly before it fades.
You don't have another option. There's a Robe scrabbling through the wall after you. You lunge for the window, hooking one arm over the sill and using the other to shove it up and open. The wood squeals against the frame, decades of disuse and rust fighting against you.
Clever girl! Bellamy's laugh is boisterous and too loud in your mind, the way he always is. Let me help ye.
You suck in a breath. "'The weight would have folded a lesser man,'" you recite, the words as familiar in your mouth as if you'd written them yourself, "'but Bellamy Brazen lifted it with-- ease--'"
The sigil on your right shoulder flares, flooding your arm with strength belonging to someone with more muscle than you, and wood chips rain down as you shove the window up all the way. You push your head through, metal collar catching briefly, stubbornly, before you shove with all your weight and change the angle enough to manage it. Your shoulders come next, then your arms and chest. Wood and metal carve shallow, burning scrapes up your sides through your clothes as you fight physics to squeeze through all the way, but you make it through and drop down just as a reaching hand closes right where your ankle just was. You hit the ground running.
You slip into one side alley, then another, breathing hard, sucking in air that reeks of oil and grime and the stagnant film of poverty that is apparently native to this part of Gotham. You haven't slept in two days, haven't eaten in three. Your hip is really starting to hurt now, and you don't know these streets, but at least it isn't just your mind seeing through your eyes, choosing which way to go next.
If it were, you'd be caught already, and you know it.
Left, Artemisia says, and you go left because you trust her judgement. You can almost feel her running beside you, the buildings and streets turning briefly to forest and trees, the wind whipping at your cowl. Your lungs burn and your hip aches, but she's keeping you moving as best she can. Left again. Onward, fierce one.
Steady. Forward. Each breath the push and pull of waves upon the shore. Lun's voice is quiet and firm, steady in a way that's usually comforting, and would be now if you weren't running for your life. The sigil just above your tailbone warms, and you think of salt spray and stones beneath your feet. You've never been to the ocean.
"You know," you say, stumbling to a stop, hand bracing against the wall as you suck in aching lungfuls of air-- Gods, there's really only so much running a body can take. "That's actually less helpful than you think, right now."
You look around, more minds than yours taking stock of your surroundings. The alley is slim and presses in uncomfortably on all sides. The walls are too slick with muck and damp and whatever-the-fuck-else sort of grime clings to any flat surface in this cesspool of a city to scale bare-handed. The exit spills out onto a narrow road that seems empty, though you don't trust it. You eye the gutter on the far side and consider whether it would be worth it to try and make it into the sewers.
Wouldnae be the worst place ye've ever scarpered, offers Bellamy.
You decide, just then, that you hate Gotham.
You hate it because it's awful, smells like piss and vomit and blood soaked into stone too old to be real, because there are too many people and none of them give a shit about anything that doesn't bother them directly. You hate it because you can't even be angry about being here because this was your choice. You wanted this. You broke out of the compound and crossed three states in two weeks, mostly on foot, just to reach this glowering feral gargoyle of a city.
You hate it because you think it might be the one place in the world you could theoretically be safe. There aren't a lot of places that you know of that could keep the wolves away from your door (although your knowledge of geography is, admittedly, somewhat lacking). But Batman casts a long and terrifying shadow, and sometimes even cultists can have loose lips about what the big boss is concerned about, especially when they think no one else is listening.
You came to Gotham because the cult is stupid, but their leader isn't, and he knows exactly what happens to groups of brain-washed sycophants with an eye for control of the planet who try to set up shop here. Arkham maybe wouldn't put a stop to them the way they really need to be stopped, but it would definitely make shit a lot more difficult.
You really, really doubt Dredge will be happy when he learns his followers trailed you this far. The smart thing to do would have been to follow you to the edge of the city, then fall back and regroup. These idiots must be new, or over eager, or stupid. Or a combination of the three.
And it should be comforting, really, that there's a place you can go that you know Dredge won't, except that it doesn't fucking matter because you haven't seen hide nor hair of that caped bastard since you got here. It's not like you're eager to meet the guy-- frankly, you're pretty sure you'll end up in a jail cell the minute he sees you-- but this is getting ridiculous. You might not have a bat signal to shine into the sky, but he's supposed to be the sort of hero that shows up right when you need him. Like he has a sixth sense for trouble, like the city talks and he listens. You're beginning to consider setting fires until he turns up.
"Here!" The sharp voice snaps you out of your musings; you turn and see one of Robes pushing down the narrow alley after you, their companion not far behind, and you decide that Bellamy is right and the sewers don't seem so bad. You take two quick steps and leap out onto the open street.
An arm locks like steel around your waist, catching you out of the air. You're pulled back harshly against a wiry frame and held there.
Thou'rt a fool! spits Nix, and you know she's right. You know better than to take an exit without making sure there's nothing on the other side.
"Got you," says the Robe, and you think his voice is familiar-- Adam, maybe, or Alan, something with an A-- young and immature and terrifically stupid because he thinks grabbing you is a good idea. The others really should have warned him or, if they did, he should have listened, or at the very least covered your mouth. Idiot.
"'His body was a weapon, hewn from steel'," you recite. The words draw power from Lun, and you feel the sigil on your tailbone spill power up the carved line along your spine and down the ones on your arms.
Your palm comes up and catches his chin hard; his head snaps backwards, but his grip tightens on your waist. You drive a knee up and into his stomach and he lets you go as the breath is forced from his body. You kick off from his waist and land nearby as he falls to the ground in a wheezing heap, and you take off at a run while, behind you, you hear the sound of his fellow Robes finally making it through the alley.
Distance, Nix says, sharp and determined like a stiletto blade in the your hands. Thou must have distance, that we may reassess.
"Working on it," you grumble. Gods, you're tired.
You slip down a side street, throw yourself into a chain-link fence and scale it with aching limbs, then drop down on the other side. You look back once-- they're still following, of course they are-- and when you turn back a trio of shadows is waiting in a loose semi-circle around you, pale masks gleaming in the dim street lights. One of them has a knife.
"Be calm, Blessed One," that one says. Your spine stiffens, because you know her voice, would recognize it anywhere in the world. It's a voice that haunted your every waking moment as a child. It makes you think of dark water closing above your head and a firm hand holding you under.
You can see that it's here, now. She's taller than the others, imposing, the line of her shoulders still clear beneath her robes. The fact that she's here means the cultists who followed you aren't new-- well, not all of them, anyway. They're just desperate.
"Back off," you snap out, hands lifting, feet bracing. Lun's power still sings through you. "I'm not going back, Chelm."
That's one thing you are absolutely fucking sure of. You won't go back. You won't. You'll die before you let that happen.
Instructor Chelm makes a disgusted noise behind her mask. "Insolent whelp. Your imagined status has disabused you of respect for your betters." The knife in her hand shimmers as she points it towards you. It's curved and vicious like a cat's claw. You remember what the handle of it feels like digging into your chin. She says to her companions, "The Blessed One is disoriented. Bring her. Use force, but do not kill her."
The Robes at her side move as one, and you curse beneath your breath when you see the faint glow of power beneath their heavy garments. Of course Chelm would bring the Honor Guard with her. Bitch.
"Stay away," you warn them, and try to keep your voice from shaking because you're exhausted, truly, tired in a bone-deep way that is quickly becoming untenable. "You know what I am. You know what I can do. Back off!"
Your warnings do nothing. They approach slowly, steadily, with the caution one might give a wounded animal. You wonder if they're even still people in there, or if Chelm's influence has scraped them out and left them empty.
Cut them down, hisses Nix, power sparking just beneath your tongue.
Aye, lass, it's time ye fight, agrees Bellamy, and you can feel them reaching for one another, because a single body fights better if the parts are aligned. And you want to, Gods do you want to, but you're smart enough to know that a fight here is exactly what Chelm wants. It'll give her rabble time to catch up. Numbers and exhaustion will undo you.
There's nowhere to run without leaving yourself open. You're trapped.
The sigil on the middle of your back, dormant until now, pulses to life and, like always, it hurts.
Trouble, Palisade groans in your mind, groggy but waking, voice cracking like the ground in an earthquake. Drawn out of sleep by the threat to your body, by the racing of your heart and the feeling of walls closing in. Danger!
"No," you snarl beneath your breath, fighting back against the nauseating muscle-deep tremor of power, because if Palisade has his way a fight is all there will be. He won't run when the chance comes. He'll keep going. He'll level a city block to keep himself safe. "Go back to sleep."
A shadow passes, briefly, overhead. You blink, eyes flickering up because it was too big to be a bird and you don't think the cult knows how to fly, so who--
It's a momentary lapse, but the Honor Guard sweep in within that split second. Grasping fingertips catch briefly in the fabric of your cowl--
A falcon strikes from above! Artemisia cries.
A booted foot lands heavily on the head of the nearest Guard, and they go down with a shocked gurgle; the second reels back, startled, and a clenched fist holding what seems to be a fucking crowbar smashes into the side of their head, sending them crashing to the ground a few feet away.
Your first useless thought is that you've never heard of Batman beating someone up with a crowbar before. Then you realize that your savior is definitely not Batman. Not in the slightest.
Well, not unless he suddenly decided to give up the pointy ears and cape in exchange for a red helmet and leather jacket.
You try, desperately, to rifle through the list of masked vigilantes that you know call Gotham home, but the danger being so close has left your mind empty of anything but survival and Palisade's rumbling groans as he fights slumber.
The woman at the truck stop had listed so many-- and there were others who didn't belong to Gotham who still sometimes patrolled it, and--
The Red Hood, Artemisia says brightly, because Artemisia remembers things even when you don't.
Ye could do worse than him, muses Bellamy, who remembers any story he's heard that involves fighting.
"Huh. Sorry about that," the Red Hood says, resting the crowbar across his shoulders and stepping away from the groaning Guard beneath his foot. He doesn't sound sorry. He sounds almost bored. "Guess I should watch where I'm going."
Chelm's eyes narrow behind her mask, assessing. "You interfere," she warns, with the harsh-edged irritation of someone who's used to her world fitting into neat categories and has just found a piece of it annoyingly out of place. "It is not your business, fool. Begone from here!"
Red Hood leans back and studies her the same way you think you've seen Chelm study insects on cave walls. "Yeah, well, you sort of made it my business when your goons," he motions to the Guard, who are slowly picking themselves up, "decided to kill two... mostly innocent men." He pauses, considers, then adds, "Well. Two guilty men who couldn't rub enough brain cells together between them to be a threat."
Chelm scoffs. "Those two! They thought to steal from me." She shrugs, as if the incident were so inconsequential she has already all but erased it from her mind. "My Guard defended us."
"I don't think 'self-defense' really covers what you did to them," Red Hood says, something low and threatening creeping into his tone. "Too many visible internal organs."
You can't help the laugh the bubbles up through your chest. All heads snap towards you, and you think Red Hood is probably wondering if you're insane, but you don't care. This is too good.
"You killed people? Oh, Chelm," you say, and shake your head disapprovingly. You're grinning, because you know she'll hate it more if you do. "In the Bat's City? Dredge is going to be pissed."
Chelm is fuming; beneath her mask, you're sure her face is red. "That's Father Wordsmith to you!" She snarls, like that name means anything here. She whistles twice, sharp, and the two Guards rise to their feet like marionettes ready for their next performance.
"Stand aside or die, fool," Chelm spits towards Red Hood. "I care very little which."
Red Hood grunts a sound that you think might be a laugh. "If you think you can make it stick this time, you're welcome to try," he replies. "I'm not going anywhere."
He turns his head towards you, and says, a little more quietly, "Stay behind me."
You decide it would be rude to laugh right in his face-- helmet?-- and it probably wouldn't help you beat the 'clinically insane' allegations, so you don't. Chivalry isn't dead, apparently, but it's wasted on you.
You know what you look like. You might not be that intimidating, but you carry yourself like someone who knows how to keep themselves alive. You wonder how someone who supposedly works with Batman can't see that.
Or maybe he does, and he can also see how fucking tired you are. Either way, it doesn't matter.
You narrow your eyes, and then roll your shoulders. "I can handle myself," you say, and then, because you figure this will work out better if you warn him, you add, "You're gonna want to keep them from speaking."
You wonder if he's even going to listen. It wouldn't be the first time in your life a man ignored you.
He doesn't. Instead, you see the helmet incline just slightly in your direction. "Any reason why?" He asks. His voice is rough and deep, but not nervous. Not afraid. Just curious.
"Words have power," you say, because it's what you were taught. A lesson hammered routinely into your bones. "Especially the words they'll use. Trust me."
And maybe he does. Maybe he just recognizes that you know more about the situation than he does. Or maybe he just doesn't have a reason not to listen. Either way he nods, once, so slight you almost don't notice.
Danger, fierce one, Artemisia warns, and a flare of power strikes like a match up your spin from Palisade. You whip around, then dance backwards when two more Robes drop down from the fence. Your pursuers have caught up.
You can smell the power on them. What is Chelm thinking?
"Uh, so," you say, "I don't think your whole 'stay behind me' thing would have worked, anyway."
"Change of plans," Red Hood says. You've retreated enough that you're near back-to-back with him, can sense the heat of his body. "You sure you know how to fight?"
Bellamy laughs so hard in your head you think he might throw up. You can't help from smiling, and you aren't amused, not really, it's just such a ridiculous thing for someone to ask you.
Like fighting isn't everything you are, like it isn't purpose carved into your flesh and then beaten into your mind again and again and again.
"I'll manage," you say, a touch dryly.
"Your orders are the same," Chelm calls to her cohort, hiding her anger behind the stern mask of a commander. "Bring the Blessed One to me. The other has seen too much. He cannot be suffered to live."
The Guards rush in.
Red Hood doesn't move the way you think he should. He might be broad and heavy, a real brick fucking wall of a man, but the way he clotheslines the first Guard, sweeps them off their feet by their throat and sends them careening directly into their twin is almost graceful.
Oh, I like this one, says Artemisia, sounding much too pleased.
You don't have time to admire his form for long. The other two Guards are focused on you. You dodge backwards as they reach out, grasping for your arms, your cloak, your collar.
"'Nix's blade shone sharp and sheer 'neath the stars'," you recite. Power surges from the sigil on your left shoulder, down your arm, until the familiar weight of a balanced dirk settles in your palm, a construct of deep purple energy you know the sensation of in your bones.
Finally, hisses Nix, satisfaction blooming behind your eyes.
You hear the left Guard inhale, a Word in their throat swiftly moving to their tongue. You swipe up, the tip of Nix's blade scraping a needle-thin line up their mask, dislodging it slightly and forcing them to jerk away. You flip the blade, drive the pommel into the side of the other Guard's head. They dip away too fast for the blow to be more than glancing.
Your blood sings and old rhythms take over. Anything that isn't the fight fades into the background of your senses.
Red Hood doles out damage with all the careful restraint of a speeding freight train, and you accommodate his power with sharp, quick jabs and swift feints. You've never fought beside anyone before, and the novelty of that is strange and unfamiliar and, you think distantly, worth picking apart at another time. The only reason you manage it without ending up in a mess of tangled limbs and crushed feet is because it's not just you in your head, and no one knows paired combat the way Bellamy does. Flickers of movements from battles you've never fought push your body into place, and the ghosts of allies that aren't your own flicker at the edges of your vision.
Give 'em Voidstuff, lass! Bellamy roars in your head. Show 'em the meanin' of fear!
You duck and weave, sidestep and twist. Red Hood catches a punch meant for your jaw with one hand, twists the Guard's wrist to a dangerous angle and then shoves them backwards. You slip beneath his arm and drive the pommel of your dagger into another Guard's throat as they try to exploit the opening, and they fall to the ground croaking and gasping, scrabbling at their throat beneath their rob.
"Nice," you hear Red Hood say.
That's the way ye do it, bonnie lass!
"Thanks," you say. The fight is still in you, but you can feel the weight of recent events beginning to overcome your will. Your body is flagging; you realize abruptly that you don't have much longer before you're just dead weight. You roll across Red Hood's hip and bend back to dodge his elbow. "We need to wrap this up before--"
"'Force'," one of the Guards says, too close to evade, toneless as their power surges. Your face pales.
"Fuck--"
They're on you before you can blink, arm sweeping upwards, fist clenched. Red Hood curses and steps between you, maybe because he's a superhero and they take oaths about protecting people, or possibly because he's an idiot with very little in the way of self preservation instincts. It doesn't matter. It's happening too fast to stop it.
You don't have the chance to warn him before the blow meant for you connects with his chest. The air between fist and body armor compresses, loud, deafening, then flashes outwards, and then Red Hood is crashing into you, and the two of you are crashing through the side of a run-down shop nearby.
There's enough power in the Word to send you straight through the crumbling architecture and into the barren interior. The only reason you don't break your back or your skull when you hit is because Palisade's power sweeps up your spine to soften the worst of it, cradling your bones in a way that's too rough to be comfortable. You imagine that you're the thing that cushions the Red Hood from any permanent damage-- that, or he's just wearing really good armor.
So neither of you die, which is maybe a small blessing, but you're definitely hurt, and you land in a tangled heap on the ground as debris and dust and probably more asbestos than is healthy showers down from above.
The breath is gone from your lungs; your vision is white, and the only thing you can hear is a steady, high-pitched tone that makes your head throb.
Distantly, you consider the possibility that you have a concussion.
The world comes back in bits and pieces, too slow to be comfortable. You suck in air, choke, breathe again, ribs fractured and aching. Your vision clears enough that you see the Guard lurking outside the hole your bodies made, and Chelm stepping through with her blade at the ready.
The Red Hood is lying half on top of you. He's heavy and solid and you can't find the strength to move. He groans-- you feel the sound more than hear it, your ears are still ringing-- and then he shifts, pushing himself up with one arm. He drags himself off of you. What a guy.
"Okay," he wheezes, sounding angry now, sounding annoyed. You can barely hear him. "Don't let them speak. I get it."
"No, you don't," Chelm sneers as she steps closer. You think it would be smarter of her to let her Guards do the dirty work, but she's always been too prideful to be truly intelligent. She'll want to be the one who ends this annoyance, even though you doubt Dredge will be singing her praises if she comes back to him with the blood of one of the Bat's people on her hands. "And now you will die."
Red Hood barks a laugh, rough, sharp, unamused. "Been there, done that," he says. He climbs to his feet, brushes debris from his shoulder like it's nothing, but he's still catching his breath, still reeling, and Chelm is getting closer. His crowbar is gone somewhere, lost in the fight, and it would be smarter of him to retreat for now, wait for back-up, but the idiot takes up a stance in front of you and doesn't move.
Protecting you. He doesn't even know you.
Chelm's blade is very sharp.
To thy feet, Nix says, stern, desperate.
Don't ye just lie there, lass! Bellamy calls, all humor gone.
The mountain does not bow before the wind, Lun intones, steady, but maybe a little strained.
You must get up, fierce one, Artemisia urges, the most emphatic of the lot. You must!
"Working... on it," you gasp out. The world feels dark at the edges. Gods, your head hurts. Thinking is hard. Moving is harder. You consider just lying down and giving up.
Thou wouldst dishonor thyself with defeat?! Cowardice!
Come now, up ye get, come on!
Arise, because you must.
Please! Please get up!
You roll to your stomach and try to get your arms beneath you. Your mind is a cacophony of voices not your own. Images flash, memories that don't belong to you, narratives that don't fit the shape of your body, and you could cry from the pressure behind your eyes.
Time is moving strangely. Chelm steps closer. Red Hood stands firm, like a bulwark, like a shield, but his knees are shaking, almost imperceptibly. It's too much. He's hurt, and Chelm isn't. She'll overwhelm him.
Up, thou swine!
Can't let 'em see ye fall, lass--
Arise, or shoulder the burden of death.
Please!
"Please."
Danger.
Palisade groans to life in your head, fully awake now, his flames burning hot and bright from your spine through to your chest. His voice hammers against your will like fists. Danger! Protect! Let me! In!
"You know what?" You wheeze, still half breathless, reckless and afraid and wanting more than anything for this to just be over. It's not like anyone is giving you any better offers right now. "Sure."
All the other voices cease at once. Suddenly there is only you, and Palisade, and a roll of power as you lower your walls, spread open your arms, and let him in.
The pain disappears. You push yourself off of the ground. You find your feet. You stand.
Your blood is burning in your veins, each pump of your heart pulsing and hot and almost painful. Red Hood looks at you sharply, and you can't read his face behind his helmet but you know he's confused, that he doesn't understand what's happening, what you're doing, why suddenly the air seems to tremble in your presence. He doesn't falter when you push past him. Just watches.
The Guards back away, rightfully fearful, because they do understand.
Chelm stares at you, frozen in place by the heat rolling off of you. She didn't expect you to give in to the worst of what lurks in your mind, you realize. She didn't think you could do it. She still thinks of you as a child, willful and rebellious but afraid enough of what you can do to keep it locked away. She's realizing that the need to survive has changed your perspective. She's afraid, suddenly and completely, and trying not to be.
The terror in her eyes feels like victory.
"Blessed One," she says, tone warning, like you're six years old again and she's seen your stance falter, like the heel of her foot will hold you down unless you meet her exacting standards. "You will not--"
"'He rose, and the waves split and parted above his crown'," you recite. The power sings in your voice. The world turns red. There is nothing in you but pain and heat and the need, above all other things, to survive. "'The ground shook beneath his feet. His enemies trembled before him.'"
"Blessed One--" Chelm takes a step backwards, but there's still that part of her that grasps for control. "Do not--"
"'He smelled their fear,'" and you can smell it yourself, the stink of terror in your nose like perfume, and your voice is changing until it doesn't feel like your voice any longer. "'And they were right to fear him. He raised his arm--'" Your arm lifts through a will not your own, a motion remembered from a tale that doesn't belong to you. The heat swirls and roils, drawing taut like the string of a bow.
"Wait," you think you hear Red Hood say, but his voice is distant, far away, and suddenly unimportant.
Chelm gives a cry of alarm and desperation and surges forward, blade flashing, as if she can stop this, as if she can end your recitation before--
"'--and brought it down,'" you snarl as your arm falls. Your palm catches the top of Chelm's head and slams it down into the floor with enough force that the old chipped tile craters beneath her skull. Her shout cuts off abruptly. Her body goes slack, and her knife falls to the floor with a clatter.
She is still.
The faint power emanating from the Guards vanishes in an instant. Chelm is their source, her will their battery, and now it's gone. They're nothing more than mortal now, just screaming figures tripping over themselves to flee their impending doom.
But Palisade does not want them to escape. The threat remains so long as they live. If they escape, they will be back. They will bring others.
There is no safety in allowing that to happen.
You step forward, glowing eyes trailing after them. You lift your hand again, palm out, the words that would end them flashing through your mind, curling on the very tip of your tongue.
"Hey," Red Hood says. He doesn't approach, doesn't put himself between you and your quarry, but his voice is firm. "Enough."
"Not enough," Palisade growls with your mouth. "They live."
Soon, they won't. You take another step forward, ready to speak, ready to end it-- and then stop, knees locking. A growl bubbles up from your chest, frustrated and confused.
"No," Palisade snarls, not to Red Hood, but to you. "They will! Return! They will! Hurt! Us!" The desire to stop them sits burning in your chest, white-hot and bone-deep, a beast's instinct to guard it's life, and it takes everything you have to force it back.
Palisade wants to hurt them and, Gods, you do too.
You want it more than you want anything else. You want to hurt them the way you were hurt, hold them down and burn histories into their skin, work them through training until their fingers bleed and their palms split. You want them to understand a fraction of your pain. You want them to suffer.
But... you aren't a monster. And you don't want to kill anyone.
You never have. Even though it's what you were forged to do.
And even if Palisade doesn't understand that, can't understand it, because his mind doesn't work the way a person's does, not when he's like this, you won't let him make you do it.
Because it would be your mouth saying the words, and your body letting loose the power. Your hands covered in blood.
"Enough," you rasp, your voice now, not his. "It's enough, Palisade."
The beast tries to retain his hold, but you pry his claws loose one by one. You wrestle back control with a choked groan and crouch down instead, press your hands to your chest and hunch over them like that alone can keep the violence simmering inside you from boiling over. You grit your teeth against Palisade's frustrated snarl as he roils within you like a child throwing a tantrum.
"No," you say, still your voice. "No. Enough."
"Uh," Red Hood says. You hear him come up behind you. Crouch down to your level. "Hey. You alright?"
You throw a hand back to stop him before he touches you. You don't know if he intends to, but you can't take the chance. There's heat coming off of you in waves. You don't trust he won't get burned.
"Just... a second," you grit out. Palisade snarls and lashes out against your will. The collar feels hot on your neck. You desperately need a nap.
The words, Artemisia murmurs, soft and close. Do you remember them?
Maybe, says Maybe, sparking to life as briefly as she always does.
Of course you remember the words. You always do.
"'The danger gone'," you choke out. You feel like there's fire rising up from your chest, out of your throat. You fight it down until only your voice makes it through. "'He returned to his slumber'."
No, Palisade growls, but you can feel his will slipping, the heavy echo of slumber dragging at the edges of his thoughts.
"'The danger gone, he returned to his slumber'," you say again, stronger this time, more sure of yourself. The heat is receding. You can breathe again. You feel each broken rib when you do.
Danger, Palisade tries again, but he's fading now. Drowsy. Uneven. Make it. Safe!
"'The danger gone,'" you say, quieter now, soothing, "'he returned to his slumber.'"
Palisade growls a final time, but the sound fades at the edges and then, after a moment, disappears altogether. You feel the moment he succumbs, falling dormant within you once again. Your body sags. You close your eyes and seriously consider falling unconscious. It is an alarmingly appealing prospect.
Silence, blessed and somewhat eerie, settles around you. You're given to understand that quiet like this is rare in Gotham. Then Red Hood clears his throat.
He's crouching down beside you, elbows resting on his knees. You lift your head enough to look at him, unsure what to expect. You're not sure what you look like just now, but you imagine you're a bit of a mess, and he just watched you go through something strange and probably a bit alarming. The silence stretches between you.
Maybe he doesn't know what to say, himself. It's impossible to tell what he's thinking behind the mask. Maybe he's waiting for you to speak first.
You wish you had more experience in social situations that didn't involve the various persons living in your own mind.
"You're heavy," you say, because you don't have anything else to offer. "Please don't ever land on me again."
He makes another sound that might be a laugh. Some of the tension in the air dissipates. "I'll try not to make it a habit," he says. He pauses, like he's listening for something, and then adds, "Won't be alone here much longer. Got a few people on their way to see what the commotion was all about."
People, you think, confused, and then realize what he must mean.
"Oh Gods," you groan, hiding your face in your hands, because the idea of facing Batman and Robin and whatever other various caped crime fighters currently making a bee-line for your position right now is overwhelming enough to make you feel nauseous. Or maybe that's just the head trauma.
You're going to end up in Arkham tonight. Red Hood's seen what you are, and you don't know if Chelm is still breathing or not-- you think she is?-- and people are going to ask questions that you'll have to answer, and--
"Hey."
You pry yourself away from your internal agony and look at Red Hood again. He watches you carefully for a moment, assessing, and you're too tired to control your expression so you don't know what he's seeing. Then he jerks his head over his shoulder. "C'mon. Let's get out of here before the Bat Brigade shows up."
You blink and yeah, alright, you're a little surprised. He wants to leave before the others get here. He's offering you an escape. You can't figure out why.
"I," you say, trying to find the words to explain what's happening in your head right now.
You came to this cesspool of a city for Batman, and now you're too scared to actually meet him. Alright, maybe you'd just sort of hoped he would turn up, stop your pursuers, and you'd be able to slip away and live in blissful anonymity inside the city-- and you're realizing right now how far-fetched that idea was-- but the idea of actually talking to the guy is...
And this guy in a red helmet and a leather jacket seems to know that, somehow. And normally you don't like it when people know things about you that you don't tell them, but in this case it might be for the best.
You close your mouth and swallow hard.
I mislike his intent, Nix says, because Nix doesn't trust anyone, ever.
Beggars can't be choosers, Artemisia murmurs, and you find yourself agreeing with her. Even though you know for a fact that she would love to meet the Batman. She's something of a fan.
"Okay," you say, because you don't know what else to do, and then you suck in a breath and add, a little more strongly, "Okay."
Red Hood gets to his feet and offers you a hand. You take it, too exhausted to hesitate at the unfamiliar touch. He's wearing gloves, anyway. You push yourself to your feet--
and promptly pass the fuck out.
Oh dear, Artemisia says from somewhere very far away, just before the darkness closes over you.
++
Hood catches you before you hit the ground, mostly out of instinct.
"Shit," he says, even though he should have seen it coming.
He takes a minute to check that you're still breathing before he does anything else. You're definitely hurt. His helmet screens are spitting out a list of injuries it would be a good idea to have a professional look at, and it would probably be best for you if he dropped you off at the nearest hospital, except...
Well. He's not convinced you wouldn't wake up freaked out and turn into a walking furnace again. And it isn't like Gotham's various hospitals don't have experience dealing with metahumans, he's sure they could work something out, but it'd be messy. Someone could get hurt.
And you'd probably be the one that ends up holding the short end of the stick. Damned if he doesn't know what that feels like.
"Hood?" Oracle's voice is in his ear. It's the first thing she's said since she told him the others were on their way.
"Yeah," he says, adjusting his hold on you until he's got you bridal-style, since that seems the most comfortable. Your head lolls loosely against his chest. The collar is still heavy on your neck, and looking at it is really starting to piss him off.
"Batman en route," Oracle tells him. "ETA five minutes. Spoiler and Black Bat have your escapees in custody."
That's good, at least.
"Got one more here," he says, but he isn't talking about you. He looks at the unconscious Robe nearby, the mouthy one with the knife, his helmet reading off her vitals to him so that he knows she's breathing. "Might need the EMTs."
Even if he has this feeling in his gut that she doesn't fucking deserve one.
"And the girl?"
Hood looks down at you again. There are dark circles under your eyes like bruises. Your clothes are road-worn and dirty. You have scars on your fingers and arms that seem almost as old as you are. He wonders how long they were after you, how long you were running from them before you ended up here.
God. You're not even wearing any shoes.
"I have her," he says, quietly. Thinking. Assessing.
You'd been afraid of them, he thinks. Under the bluster, and whatever powers you had, you'd been afraid of them. You'd said something about not going back. You'd said it like it was the only thing you knew for sure, like it was the only thing that had ever made sense to you. Like you were tired of choices being taken away from you.
And that voice, the one that hadn't been yours-- he doesn't think? Desperate to protect itself. Ready to kill to do it, until you forced it to stop, because you didn't want to do it. Didn't want to be be that.
He doesn't like this. The entire situation makes his fucking skin crawl, and he's seen a lot of weird shit in his time, so that's not easy to do.
"Good" Oracle says, breaking him out of his thoughts. "Whatever she did knocked the cameras out. They're coming back online now. I'll have visual in a minute. Stay on site. I've got paramedics--"
"No," Hood says, then, "I mean yeah, send the paramedics, but we're not sticking around."
"'We'? What do you-- oh." Oracle is silent for a long stretch. Then she sighs. "Hood, you know he's going to want to talk to her."
Red Hood is already moving. He ignores the ache creeping up his spine, ignores the exhaustion dragging spidery fingers over his mind. He's walked off worse than this. He can keep going.
He holds you securely with one arm, then shoots a grapple onto the nearest building and swings onto the roof. He starts running.
"Yeah, well, I got this theory," he says. He's moving slower than he'd like, but he knows Crime Alley better than anyone in the city. The others won't be able to catch up until later. "Something about waking up in a strange place with a giant bat looming over you being bad for your health."
Oracle makes an unsatisfied sound. "He's not going to like this," she eventually allows, not like she's warning him, because he already knows. Of course he does. More like she's just wary of the ensuing argument.
Hood barks a laugh. "He doesn't like most of the things I do," he says, because it's true. He drops down onto a balcony, then to the street. Finds his bike where he stowed it in the shadows and climbs on, hunches over to keep you in place while he starts the engine and revs it. "He'll get over it. Red Hood, out."
He turns off his communicator, kicks up the kickstand, and tears off into the night.