Emporer's New Clothes
Duke is having what might possibly be the worst patrol he’s had in weeks.
When he means ‘the worst,’ he isn’t referring to facing any rogues on his own, nor does he mean getting injuries that could be fatal. No, no, he means that Gotham is horribly quiet compared to normal Gotham.
He’s been out for hours now, and he’s stopped about two muggings, five attempts at theft and one hostage situation (which the assaulter had a gun but no bullets, what’s up with that), he’s starting to think that one of the Rogue’s are planning something.
Don’t get him wrong, in the day Gotham is much slower and slightly safer compared to Gotham at night, but this is too quiet, and it’s been gnawing at Duke’s instincts. Gotham has always been like a storm, there are points where it gets caught up in the eye, a danger near but not if you stay on the move and flow with the storm.
Gotham sometimes becomes the eye – and nearly always does that mean something bad. The Scarecrow has been out for a while now, Duke just hopes whatever new concoction he’s making is similar enough to the older ones to distribute safely.
Faintly, in the distance, there’s the distinct sound of an explosion and Duke is on the move again before he can fully register what he’s doing.
Duke jumps down from the roof over to where he remembers his bike last, and Barbara makes that the moment when she makes herself known in the comm line.
“Explosion up in Burnley, laboratory in Cliff Boulevard. I can make out four survivors caught up under the rubble on the street cam. There should be more people further in away from what I can see, an ambulance and the fire department are already on the way.”
Duke’s already on his bike, struggling to remember where Cliff Boulevard should be, but he knows he’s not too far away from Burnley. He should be there rather quickly, “Thanks O, quickest route?”
“Follow the main road on the way to Newtown, take a turn at the third street to the right.”
Duke’s bike weaves between cars, at what would be a way concerning to some people, but he isn’t Jason, so Duke’s ‘reckless driving’ seems rather lax and safe.
Duke doesn’t get to Burnley from Otisburg in record time (which is currently held by Damian, with a solid 1 minute and 38 seconds) but it’s not close enough to have Duke panic on not being too late. He practically flies off his motorcycle before it could properly stop, his foot catches on the seat, and he briefly stumbles before he’s at scene. He blames his fumble on the long patrol.
“Oracle? What’s the plan of action?”
“The debris seem stable enough to traverse. Focus on retrieving any victims. To your left should be a woman caved under the rubble.”
Muttering a quiet thanks, Duke bolts to the left, there’s scattered rubble everywhere. Outer walls across the street and the roof caved in, a labyrinthine of debris. He focuses for the sound of any shifting debris, hoping for any hints to help him find any survivors. There’s the faint sound of crying –
Duke skids to a stop, waling hot in his ears, dust and smoke still hanging in the air. It’s hard to make out where it’s coming from but –
“Help, someone, please!”
Instinctively, Duke finds himself already trying to figure out how to get the lady out from underneath the rubble because oh god this is bad.
She’s pinned down by a slab of concrete, coughing wildly and spasming. She’s becoming more frantic, and Duke is certain her ribs have broken. He needs to get her out immediately.
“Ma’am - I’m here – stay calm.”
The woman seems fear stricken and isn’t reacting to his presence, which makes the urgency of the situation more prominent to Duke. He bends down next to her, hands gliding over the concrete. The slab would be too heavy to pick up, but surely there’s some sort of –
“There should be small versions of a hydraulic press in your utility belt – you could place them either side to lift –”
“O,” Duke swallows, gnawing worry creeping further into his mind, “I don’t think I can do that O – there's a – the rebar lodged itself into her back, if I lift the slab, I might cause worse injury.”
Barbara curses, the situation worse than she thought, what the hell is Duke supposed to –
“Signal, I’ve flag down the firefighters to your location, they’ll figure out what to do, for now please prioritize keeping her lucid.”
Duke nods, forgetting that Barbara needs a verbal reply from him.
“Ma’am – Hey, can you hear me? Please keep calm, the –”
“Shut up –” the lady gives a pained gasp, bawling her eyes out while her hands move to push herself up.
“Ma’am - Ma’am, stay still, you could hurt yourself more.” Duke tries to make a reassuring gesture, but he’s unsure if she could even see him properly.
“Hurt myself my ass –” she coughs heavily, Duke worries that she might start coughing blood soon, “That means jack shit if I die.”
“I know, I know, but I need you to keep still if we want to get you out of here alive.”
Her nails claw into the dirt, short spasm shooting through her arms as she tries to comply. The clock starts ticking, and Duke has a duty to make sure time doesn’t run out.
“You’re doing great, stay awake for me, okay? We’ll find a way out of here for you, promise,” whether that’s after or before you die, lingers on his tongue.
She gives him a weak nod as she coughs, black lines flowing down her face as her mascara gets ruined by her tears. He needs to keep her lucid, she needs a distraction.
“What’s your name?”
Duke is certain she knows what he’s trying to do, because she doesn’t hesitate to answer, “Mariah.”
“Okay Mariah, I need you to breathe, can you do that for me?”
His eyes met hers, wide and pleading, shadowed with fear. He could see the glistening tears at the corner of her eyes, and a lump formed in his throat. “You’re going to be okay. Just breathe with me. In and out, nice, and slow.”
Mariah hisses, and shakily takes in slow breathes, clearly a struggle for her lungs.
“Yeah, just like that Mariah, slow and steady, we’ll get you out soon.”
Mariah looks over to him, mouth moving to retort with something maybe offensive before coughing and looking past him. Duke discreetly glances over his shoulder and nearly sags in relief. The sound of clattering boots becoming increasingly louder.
Duke stands up to flag the first responders down, the situation’s dire and Duke isn’t sure how much longer Mariah can hold up.
One of the responders notices him, shouting out orders before rushing over up next to Duke.
“Signal, what ya need?”
Duke gestures down to Mariah, who coughing started another round, “Woman trapped under the concrete, too heavy to lift manually – and the rebar’s gone through into her back. I can’t lift the slab without risking further injury. Her ribs are probably broken too.”
The firefighter curses, and chews his inner lip, Duke can see the gears turning while he taps his thigh, a nervous tick probably.
“We cut the rebar,” the firefighter decides, nodding his head, “We cut the rebar before liftin’ the slab, we keep ‘er still and slowly jimmy ‘er out without jostlin’ the rebar in ‘er back too much.”
“She could go into shock,” Duke frowns, he knows they’re professionally trained but he needs to make sure the inevitable is accounted for, he’s made a promise, and he intends to keep it. Mariah coughs right next to them.
The firefighter nods, understanding his concern, “We’ll try liftin’ it as slowly as possible, the medics will be on standby if things go awry.”
Duke hesitantly nods, and that’s as much as the firefighter needs as he turns around and cups his mouth with his hands, “Layton, ‘erriot! Get the stabilizers and the metal saws! We need the medical team on standby over here!”
Layton and Herriot easily comply, retrieving the equipment with the medical team close in tow, the person who Duke thinks is Herriot stands close to Mariah, noticing her behavior and furrowing his brows, “Wha’s ‘he plan, Weaver?”
Weaver moves over to the side of the slab, “There’s rebar in ‘er back, ya and Layton need to cut through it and carefully pull ‘er out when we lift the slab. Signal, ‘elp me out pickin’ this up?”
Duke nods, getting the idea and moving to the other side of the slab, he looks over to Mariah and the lump in his throat grows heavier, “Mariah, the firefighters are going to cut through the rebar, we’ll need you to stay still, okay?”
Mariah sobs and gasps for air before mumbling out a quick ‘okay,’ it concerns Duke more but it’s apparently enough confirmation for Herriot to power on the saw and slowly start cutting through the rebar.
The moment it cuts through, Weaver nods, discreetly telling Duke to talk to Mariah.
“Mariah, ma’am, we’re going to lift the slab, are you ready?”
Mariah hisses out a strangled yes, gathering dust underneath her nails as she claws to the ground beneath her.
“On the count of three,” Weaver looks up to Duke, positioning himself to pick up the slab, Duke mimics the movement.
“One, Two, Three.”
They lift the slab and Mariah’s head slams into the ground.
“Shi’.”
Herriot pauses but Layton jumps into action, carefully grabbing Mariah’s shoulder and pulling her out, mindful of the rebar and calling out to the paramedics. After Herriot’s hesitance, he quickly regains focus and helps Layton.
“She’s gone into shock, get her outta here as quickly as possible!” Layton gruffs at the paramedics who’ve already taken control of the situation.
Duke and Weaver drop the slab, muscles aching, but something is wrong, Mariah doesn’t look like laboratory personnel. She’s decked out in scrubs more appropriate for a hospital than a lab, what –
“Signal, ya go on and help the others, we’ll take over from this side.” Weaver pats Duke’s back, pointing his thumb over his shoulder towards another team clearing through the rubble.
“Will do – Thanks Weaver.”
“Nah, thank ya, now get.”
And Duke does leave. He helps out the remaining teams with uncovering and rescuing the survivors of the blast. It’s suspicious how nothing is on fire, meaning there weren’t any flammables when it happened. Which is weird because it’s a lab.
“Signal,” Barbara’s voice comes through the comm, her voice urgent, “Signal, this is a rental lab.”
“What about that, Oracle?” Duke might not be the smartest detective bat, but he’s known Barbara long enough to pick up on certain details.
Like, Barbara is usually less ‘present’ during the day than she is at night in the comm line, probably because of multiple factors, like her job, the fact she’s a functioning human being and needs rest, she needs times to relax and distance herself from vigilantism even if it’s only for an hour or two.
Duke is fairly sure he’s caught her asleep on the line once – but he won’t tattle, she needs it, especially since the others are probably giving her gray hairs from the stints they pull.
Barbara is less present on the comms during the day, only jumping in when she thinks something important is writhing in the shadows that the daylight leaves.
“I can’t find any trace of the building being rented out or being used at all in the last three months.”
If it was anyone else, save for maybe Bruce or Alfred (Tim doesn’t make this list because he’s literally seen Tim talking to a wall while on his twelfth can of Zesty and majorly sleep deprived, Duke has lost most of his trust in Tim after that), Duke would’ve asked follow up questions to just to make sure that they’ve checked everything, but this is Barbara Gordon, Oracle and former Batgirl, she does not do half-assing her job.
“You think they were trespassing?” He whispers, it wouldn’t be strange if they did – it's Gotham after all.
“No, I would’ve found the footage of it if they did, something’s off here. Be careful.”
Duke hums in agreement, if Barbara can’t find the footage, then the situation is on a different level of concern. He doesn’t feel like Mariah and the other survivors would’ve willingly trespassed and blown up the lab anyway. The likelihood of it being a hostage situation that went awry is high, especially because none of these people look like they belong here.
Think Duke, hostage situation, explosion, hostages decked out in medical scrubs. Who or what would do something like this?
As Duke pieces the clues together like a puzzle or a riddle, the answer hits him like a bullet train.
The Riddler.
This clearly was a hostage situation, and the Riddler is notorious for kidnapping either volunteers or nurses to course out Batman. The explosion has the rogue’s name all over it.
Except it also doesn’t.
The Riddler doesn’t just explode the hostages before Batman is even on the scene, neither does the rogue operate in the day, it’s hours before the nocturnal Bats are supposed to come out, it just doesn’t seem to fit in with the Riddler’s usual shenanigans.
The explosion is part of the riddle.
That’s what it is, the explosion is part of a more elaborate and larger riddle.
But the day? This is something he’d make sure only Batman would or should be able to solve, he wouldn’t usually have Signal be the one to undercover the first clue.
That must be a deliberate choice, the Riddler wants Duke to play in his game and specifically orchestrated it to have him find it.
Well, good thing Duke studied up on riddles when he was younger.
But, uh, what’s the riddle?
This is becoming too complicated for Duke alone, and it’s probably safer to include someone else in his theory.
There’s of course only one other person on the comm line right now.
“Oracle? I think the Riddler’s involved with this, your thoughts?”
Duke hears the faint sounds of clicking before Barbara answers, “I think so too, although his plan is a bit unclear, so it only goes to speculation. Ask one of the survivors.”
Duke nods, again forgetting that Barbara needs a verbal reply, and moves over the clutter over to one of the ambulances.
He feels a bit bad, but it’s the best option he’s got at the moment. He mildly hopes to find a decently lucid victim to give him a lead.
And, as if Gotham has heard his inner monologue, a worried paramedic calls out after him, “Signal! We need your attention over here!”
He internally refrains from being hopeful, knowing that Gotham might just decide to turn on him the next time she as so much thinks that he needs help. “What’s up?” he skids to a stop, eyes moving to the interior of the ambulance and low and behold, a man with a blanket over his shoulders shivers in his seat.
The paramedic gestures to the man, her voice professional in lui of how frustrated she looks, “My patient refuses medical care without speaking to you first, do something about that.” And as if to drive her point, she points at the man, snapping her fingers to signal (no pun intended) that he needs to get a move on.
Duke can’t do anything but not, anyone with a medical degree shouldn’t be disagreed with when they’re frustrated. Duke’s learnt that the hard way.
As Duke steps onto the platform leading into the ambulance, he raises his arms in a gesture of peace. Taking a deep breath, he prepares to speak when the man in front of him interrupts, “Riddler! He took us—he said something about needing the Signal to solve a riddle, and—” His words tumble out in a frantic rush.
Well, that answers most of Duke’s questions, “Hey - Relax, he isn’t here to hurt you anymore.” Duke lowers his arms, preparing to placate the frantic man, “What’s your name?”
The man stares up at Duke, still shivering, and moves his jaw awkwardly in a way that almost seems like he’s practicing his words carefully, “Gareth.”
“Well, Gareth,” Duke goes to sit next to the shivering man, “The Riddler isn’t here to hurt you, and I’d like to catch him before he hurts someone else. Can you tell me what happened?”
Gareth looked almost too eager to answer, words tumbling out of his mouth in a frantic rush of a retelling, “We were in the breakroom! And then – then people just came in and knocked us out? They grabbed us before we even knew what was happening.”
Gareth takes a shaky breath, hands trembling, “Then we woke up here – some of us I didn’t recognize but mostly just my coworkers. And then the Riddler came in – in his horrible tacky neon green suit – and started threatening us! What – what were we supposed to do? He kept threatening he’ll find us and blow us up if – if we don’t comply.”
“He told us that we need to tell you a riddle he’s made – to have you figure it out. And he said he’ll lure you here – we didn’t know he meant by blowing us up regardless!” Gareth hisses, hands moving up to his hair to tug at it. Duke doesn’t stop him, knowing he’s in a fragile state right now.
Duke takes a deep breath, waving his hand in front of Gareth to gain his attention, “That must’ve been horrible, but I need you to recall the riddle for me, before he does work up to his promise – again.”
Gareth exhales, letting go of his hair before he starts biting his nails, “It’s uh, one of those ‘What Am I?’ stuff, he made us repeat it several times.” He frowns, lip twitching, “'I welcome those at every moment, my cold hands keeping you still and moving. I move and sway where it's most dark, what am I?'”
Gareth sighs, hunching in on himself, “I’m sorry if I can’t be more of a help – that's all I know.”
Duke’s already getting up by the time he finishes the riddle, ideas and theories already formulating in his head, “You were a fantastic help Gareth, I can’t thank you enough.”
He turns, facing Gareth, “Get patched up – the medics are probably worried that you might keel over any second now.”
Duke hears a faint laugh as he jumps out of the ambulance. He moves over to his bike, jumping on more fluidly than how he got off.
“Oracle? Any ideas?”
“Not many, it might be a location, considering the lengths he’s gone to patch this one together. There’s also the ‘I move and sway where it’s most dark’ part, it has to be a place darker than usual Gotham, but it might be hinting at a more emotional level.”
Duke quietly agrees with Barbara, knowing that it’s the most logical explanation. The Riddler is setting something up somewhere, and the riddle must be leading them to it. A physically dark place or an emotionally waying one. Considering that most of Gotham is always dark and doesn’t have very distinguishable places that anyone from Gotham would associate the word with, it has to be something on a deeper level.
‘I welcome those at every moment’ could be a place that receives many walk-ins, something alike to a hospital, but he doesn’t think that it would be. The hostages came from one, setting the riddle up back to its starting location would be too simple and too obvious.
‘My cold hands keep you still and moving’ what would that mean? The hands must be personification of something (thank you, English classes) referencing to maybe an idea or a concept. It could be a play on the emotional waying part.
Emotionally waying, numerous walk-ins, something cold keeping you in place. Maybe...
“A graveyard,” Duke considers aloud, rolling the word in his mouth as if trying to taste the logic behind it. It would make sense; a graveyard is an obvious emotional place many people go to visit passed loved ones. Graveyards in general feel very chilling – whether physical or not and keep people thinking about the deceased, sometimes preventing them from moving on while it still shapes their current actions.
Duke can almost hear the pregnant pause on Barbara’s side of the comm, how she is considering the idea.
“... Perhaps, that would fit the criteria of the riddle.” She pauses, and Duke can hear her typing on her computer, “There hasn’t been much suspicious activity near any graveyards lately, but...”
Duke can guess what she’s hinting at, something is horribly wrong since the Riddler somehow bypassed Barbara’s skills with completely altering or erasing incriminating footage before the explosion. That’s a massive hit to not only Oracle’s pride, but to every single bat too, not many are able out skill Barbara, no less make her doubt her skills. Barbara’s technical support might be compromised in regard to the current situation.
“A physical checkup wouldn’t hurt, right?” Duke carefully suggests, he doesn’t want to seem like he’s trying to exclude Barbara now.
“It wouldn’t,” she agrees quickly, typing furiously on the other side, “Be careful on what you find. But don’t worry, there are eyes and ears everywhere...” She punctuates her words carefully.
Normally, that line would’ve made Duke chuckle, but now it washes over him like a bucket of ice water.
If the Riddler is now capable of bypassing Oracle’s skills, wouldn’t that mean he’s also capable of listening into the line? Heck, wouldn’t that mean he’s able to get access to every file in Barbara’s range of control? This is a major breach in Bat security, this could mean much worse than what the Riddler is leading them into.
“I’ll be careful...” Duke says into the line, more hesitant in his words. Barbara has to be working in overdrive right now, trying to up all her security to make sure there’s no leak.
Duke moves on his motorcycle to every graveyard he can think of. It takes hours, but it’s better safe than sorry. He checks every row, every grave for anything out of the ordinary. Some passersby look at him strangely while he does it, but he doesn’t have the time to care. The situation is horribly fucked, as Jason would say, and might require an emergency call to all the Bats. But that’s also out of the question right now, they have to make sure that the Riddler doesn’t have access to any audio, tracking calls or to any personal files first. They don’t want to compromise anyone’s identity through asking for backup.
“Nothing,” he says, biting his inner cheek, revealing into the comm that he doesn’t have any leads might not be the smartest move, but he needs Barbara to be UpToDate with the situation. All this might just be Bat paranoia, but it’s called for.
“... Have you tried asking the locals?”
That... might actually be what Duke’s been missing during his search. The local population would know a lot more about the current dealings of their area than the Bats currently would. He’s in the Bowery right now, not far from where this mess started and where he went through the entirety of Gotham in a full circle. The people in the Bowery might’ve caught news off what happened in Burnley by now and might have their own form of insight on the news (the fact that any news in Uptown travels faster through word of mouth than anywhere else could be very convenient right now).
Duke gets off his bike, the people in poorer Bowery would have the most intel right now (although might be less willing to share with a Bat that isn’t Red Hood than anywhere less poor), so he moves up to one of the rooves to spot anyone who might be loitering in the street that he doesn’t have to arrest before asking a few questions.
He barely makes it to the edge of a roof a few houses away from his bike before spotting a man on his smoke break (the cigarette looks decently normal, so that’s a plus, even if it's something more illegal he’ll ignore it this time), and he gets down the roof in a series of pre-calculated jumps.
He ends up landing next to the man who’s leaning against the wall of an apartment building with his eyes closed with a thin cigarette(?) in his mouth (not the smartest move, Duke thinks, but this dude could be a well-known gangster or something in the area so who cares) and mentally practices his impromptu interview in his head.
“Hello, er, sir?”
The man opens his eyes and doesn’t look too surprised to see Duke (odd but not concerning).
The man removes the cigarette – which turns out to be a lollipop with sharpie drawn onto it to look like a cigarette (what the fuck) – from his mouth and stares at Duke a bit expectantly.
“What?”
Ignoring the strangeness, because this is Gotham – everything is strange – Duke shakes his head, and crosses his arms to appear more serious, “Have you noticed anything odd in a rogue worthy way recently?”
The man further stares at Duke for a moment, blinking a few times before sighing and putting the lollipop back into his mouth and tightening his scarf and trench coat to block out the cold.
Duke starts to think that the man’s purposefully ignoring him before the man lets his head drop against the wall and speaks with the lollipop still in his mouth.
“Dock’s ‘een strangely active, more than just drug and weapon dealings recently.”
And then the riddle falls back into Duke’s mind.
Many walk-ins, many people always on site, it’s always cold at the docks and the waves are always swaying and crashing against the walls like it’s supposed to move but stays in place.
Well, maybe Bat paranoia had him thinking too deeply about the riddle.
“Thank you – thank you. Enjoy your... candy break.”
The man huffs in an amused way, “Enjoy your future headache, just keep your head from splitting when you get there.”
Duke shakes his head, “Physically or mentally?”
The man full out laughs at that, Duke doesn’t understand why it’s that funny but smiles regardless. The man shakes his head, “Don’t think the first choice is possible in your job description.”
Duke nods, quietly agreeing to the statement before saying his goodbyes and going back to his bike.
It’s suddenly very loud, the noises of Gotham, the night starting to wake and just beyond the horizon. His motorcycle is a lot louder than it was before too, it’s roaring beneath his hands much louder than he remembers (or is it just his mind playing tricks on him? Is he hoping to find something at the docks?).
His stomach twists and turns a bit, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary from what he’s used to. Once the smell of salty breeze invades his senses and the sound of the waves crashing, he’s tempted to use his ghost vision just to see if he’ll find anything – but he refrains from doing so.
Once his bike stops on the asphalt, Duke knows that he has to report to Barbara. Something ominous starts to gnaw at him from the docks, and Duke knows that two heads work better than one even if the threat of potential privacy invasion looms in the back of their minds (no Tim, you can’t convince him otherwise).
“Oracle, I’m at the docks. Think I’ll need an extra pair of eyes on this one.”
Duke hears the telltale click that indicates that his suit’s camera feed has been activated (it’s usually broken and an unreliable narrative, but he hasn’t gotten into a big fight in a while and the feed is much harder to disrupt than a lot of other cameras).
“Okay, I’m on, lead the way Signal.”
Duke carefully gets off his motorcycle and keeps his hand close to his grappling hook. He feels like he should turn invisible for in case the riddle does lead to here and into a trap. He doesn’t, something tells him that it might not be needed.
He checks every crate and peaks around every corner, cautiously looking for anything the Riddler’s set up.
He finds himself on the far side of the dock, the part close to the edge of Crime Alley, before he finds his first clues of disruption.
There’s a wall caved in.
Not just a wall – a series of walls, that have caved in.
“Oracle?”
“... Be careful and follow to where they lead to.”
Duke carefully steps over the rubble, making sure the walls are stable enough for him to pass through before the rest of it caves in on him. All of the rubble lays ahead, maybe a few feet away from the broken impromptu entrances – or exits as they clue to.
As Duke moves inward, he can’t help but catch onto how the walls almost feel like they have emotions behind them. Like the rubble holds emotions that feel like panic, urgency and the need to get out.
Like someone found themselves trapped, got their hands on a sledgehammer and didn’t stop until they were away.
Duke finds himself in a larger room with flickering lights hanging from the ceiling on thin wire, dust collected everywhere and a lot of medical equipment on random upturned surfaces.
“What did you think happened here?” Duke speaks into the comm, picking up random equipment and quietly expecting their contents.
“My only thoughts would be experimentation, some kind of testing done.”
Duke picks up a stray syringe, it has a plastic base, and the needle is still attached. It’s empty but there are traces of some kind of residue still inside.
“You should have a bag safe container to your belt that you could put it in for later testing.”
Duke pockets the syringe into a container and keeps on looking.
He finds a plethora of medical supplies. Things like adhesive bandages, antiseptic wipes, Cotton wool pads, gauze, tweezers and what’s probably most concerning, scalpels with dried blood. Everything that he can find that has obvious human DNA on it he takes for later analysis. Some of the scalpels and bloodied gauze have his ghost vision acting up, but it’s too old to really tell why. Most of the others don’t do that, but it does give him a frightening idea on what might’ve been experimented here.
Most of these people who were experimented on might not be alive anymore, but DNA testing could give more leads on some missing case files.
Duke finishes up in the one room and continues through the broken walls, discovering more and more disastrous rooms, finding more equipment that sets off his ghost vision and more obvious crime scenes.
He wonders if this is even related to the Riddler, or if this is a completely different rogue’s operation. The Riddler isn’t usually this into torture, more so in a way to play with Batman’s head than really finding pleasure in more sadistic acts.
Barbara’s horribly quiet on the line, he occasionally hears pen scratches – which is the product of what he assumes is the currently unsafe Bat system and she has to document the case in a different way.
Duke reaches another room, this one’s metal door splintered rather than a crumbled wall.
Without warning, the door breaks open, nearly flying off its hinges as parts of the metal fly into sporadic directions and Duke gives out a loud yelp while raising his arms in defense as they suddenly fly to his direction –
“Signal! Signal, what’s wrong?”
Confusion wraps itself around Duke, had the Riddler hacked into their camera feed? Why didn’t Barbara see the door splinter –
Why has nothing hit him?
Duke’s eyes swerve to the door, and it looks the same as before, still splintered but like it happened a while ago and not in front of his eyes.
He turns a bit, and the metal shards lay on the ground, away from him like he wasn’t standing there.
“What the hell.”
And then it happens again, in the corner of his eye the door fixes itself and breaks down again and again – like a simulation. Like a bug in a game and it keeps glitching out and repeating itself.
And Duke realizes it’s his ghost vision, the past path of the light moving in front of his eyes.
But his meta-ability doesn’t work like that, why’s it acting up without him knowing? Why is it working the way it is?
Some of the objects in the building have been setting off his ghost vision from the start, but not in the way it allowed him to see anything into the past. The scalpels for instance had him thinking he was hallucinating the blood, with how it kept appearing and disappearing.
Something about those specific items is related to what happened to this door, and whatever the reason this one’s stronger – more recent.
“Nothing, I just thought I saw something, I’ll give you a more detailed report later,” Duke says, knowing that Barbara will catch on to what he really means.
He watches the door repeatedly destroy itself, and Duke almost believes he sees a person in the illusion. He can’t really tell, the lighting of the memory is awful yet so precise.
The memory seems to get slower over time, but by very little. Duke decides that he’s stared at it enough and moves to the horror door and pushes it open, with his heart jumping in surprise every now and then at how it seems to move on itself while the memory continues to play out.
Once he’s inside, he hears Barbara curse loudly.
He looks down and stares at a pool – a faintly glowing green pool.
“Oracle?” Duke asks, not completely certain what he’s looking at.
Barbara is silent for a long torturous time, her pen scratches had stopped and so have her typing. Whatever this is has shocked her, a lot, on a scale from one to a solid Batman pause, she’s in the higher circuits.
“... Lazarus water,” she whispers into the communication line. She says it in a way that almost seems like if she said the word out loud, her greatest fears would come true. Like she’s at the cusp of inhaling too much fear toxin before she’s out of the realm of rationality.
And Duke recognizes the word and recognizes what the pool is. He inhales a quick surprised breath and stiffens, realizing what he’s staring at.
He recognizes the color, where he’s seen it, where he’s seen it be a monstrous thing, a deadly, cursed thing.
Duke recognizes that he’s staring into a Lazarus pit, and the implications of what it means to be here.
He diverts his eyes, spotting a green card blending into the light of the pit.
He picks it up and stares at the bold black question mark on top of it before flipping it over.
“I'm once a hero and sometimes I'm not, I claw through my world and enter somewhere else. I do not fear death. What am I?”
Duke’s heart thrums in his ears, his breathing is loud, and the silence is oppressive on his lungs. The card shivers in his hand, in front of his suit cam. He knows Barbara’s seen it too, he knows something damning is resting in his hands.
“Where’s Jason?” The name slips through his lips, code names forgotten and horror tailoring itself into Duke’s voice.
“He’s been AWOL for nearly over a week now, I – his suit says he’s in Crime Alley. D – Signal, are you going to go find him? What if he’s –”
“We have to, Oracle, the Riddler’s planning something, and he might be involved – hell, maybe the target.”
Oracle goes silent, an obvious sign that she has to agree but doesn’t want to say it out loud, knowing how damning it would be.
Duke wished the lollipop stranger hadn’t hoped he wouldn’t have a headache.
Hope is a curse in Gotham.
Okay so, Peter’s rethinking his life choices for the millionth time.
Always do.
He’s dumpster-dived before, but why does he feel so guilty doing it this time?
Not fault. Careful. Poison in food.
Now avoiding the delicious-looking poisoned bagel, he digs deeper into the trash and topples over into the dumpster completely when the lid slams against the back of his head.
He refuses the urge to projectile vomit what little is left in his stomach into the trash beneath his face, smells squishing directly into his sinuses.
Is the dumpster seeking revenge for its fallen comrade a few blocks away? Is that why he’s feeling guilty? Geez, the dumpsters hate him now too, J.J Jamerson should hire the dumpsters to become the next Spider Slayer, they might actually succeed.
Not Funny.
It’s a little funny.
He re-maneuvers himself inside the dumpster, pushing off the lid from inside and stumbles out of the dumpster and nearly falls face first into the filthy alley ground.
Spider-Man might be graceful, but Peter Parker sure isn’t, especially drugged to hell and back.
Not drugged.
He’s not talking about right now, of course.
He sits up right, crosses his arms and counts his treasures.
Treasure number one: a quarter eaten pizza box. No, literally, a quarter of the box alongside the pizza is gone. It’s not poisoned or anything, just probably not safe to eat for any other person since it comes from a dumpster. It doesn’t smell like any rats have gotten to it yet, so whatever ate the box is unknown and probably shouldn’t be messed with.
Treasure two: Three sandwiches. They’re not the freshest, going from how close the mold is getting to appear, but they’re edible as long as you’re a spider mutate. Which he is. Yay! He found them in separate corners of the dumpster, different sizes and different toppings. Although he’s very wary of the one with the undercooked chicken.
Treasure three: a backpack. While he can’t eat a backpack, although he maybe could if he was desperate enough, it’s still a safe place to put his other treasures in. It might be missing a strap, has a few holes and smells an awful like bleach and blood, but it’s still perfectly usable.
Treasure four: A shirt and some pants. Okay, these may be a stretch, the shirt is a bloody mess even after the previous owner attempted to clean it with parts of its sleeves missing. Although Peter isn’t a fan of wearing someone else’s blood on his skin in general, the thing he’s wearing right now is certifiably unwearable, even by normal people’s standards. Peter doesn’t even want to explain why the pants are unwearable, because it hurts his brain and nose when he even thinks about it.
All in all, Peter thinks he’s hit the jackpot.
Which is horribly concerning. Why’s he so lucky? What’s the universe apologizing for in advance?
Shaking his head, Peter grabs his beloved treasures and stuffs them into treasure three, he’ll like to take a shower first before putting on his new pair of clothes, maybe even wash them out if he has the chance.
He slings the backpack over his shoulder, only using the last remaining strap to keep it in place.
Okay... so, where to find a shower?
Don’t know. Unsafe.
Yeah, he could tell that much, Spidey Sense. Didn’t need to throw it into his face like that.
Gotham has a horribly high crime rate, higher than New York on a busy day. Which says a lot, considering how often it gets destroyed or nearly destroyed on a daily basis.
Peter walks to the mouth of the alley, using his spider senses to ensure that no one's looking to rob him of his treasures while he secures the backpack more firmly over his shoulder. He adopts a bored expression, trying to come off as a local, or as local a green snot covered idiot can at least.
He aimlessly wanders the streets again, avoiding the obvious sounds of gunfire while his other senses try to find any signs of free (re: break-innable) places to shower.
All the lights are still very bright, and momentarily blind Peter every now and then. It doesn’t hurt, but Peter wouldn’t like to have another panic attack while they flash and promptly destroy his retinas. Most of the sewer water smells worse than horrible, and downright almost illegal. Some of the pipes with cleaner water smell of lead and other concerning toxins that have Peter question whether it’s an issue within this universe or the norm.
Maybe it is normal in this universe, and the people of this dimension require different chemicals to function. Would their biological make-up differ from his universe’s? Are there mutates here? Mutants? Is the x-gene a thing? Do their pop-cultures overlap –
Clean. Running. Empty.
Well call him an exorcist and eat Killy won Vicky. Parker luck might actually be on his side today.
There’s an empty gym ahead of Peter with clean running water, if he was to climb through a window, he’d maybe have the chance to not only wash himself down but maybe address his wounds too. His back aches more than it usually does, with the prospect of enhanced healing and all. His skin still itches all over, but less than it did before. It’s less of a burning, dying, dead, help and more of a simple thrum that lingers beneath his skin. Peter also has his suspicions that the green goo might be the source of his spider senses being out of control.
Slinking into the shadows, Peter makes sure no one’s around before he grips onto the wall and testing that his micro spider hairs are still working.
They still work. A bit too well, he might add, but definitely working. It takes a bit more force than usual to dislodge his hands from the wall. Enough so that he worries he might rip the bricks out of the wall.
He shakes his head and starts to crawl over the bricks and towards a conveniently not closed window. He crashes onto the inside of the gym floor, but gracefully saves himself by turning it into a roll. No ghost shall laugh at his clumsiness now.
He blinks a few times to register his surroundings. It’s a very small gym with barely enough equipment for ten people. There’re no cameras, luckily, and it looks homey with random assortment of items and the minimal effort of decorating. How this place stays afloat is beyond Peter, but nonetheless, he’s only here for the shower, so he has no right to judge.
Peter sits up and makes a show of dusting himself off even if the wall dust clings to the green goo. He uses his hearing to pinpoint where the showers are and – ohmigod, is that actually soap?
The actual showering is a careful but paced endeavor. He gets in the shower fully clothed, maybe in an attempt to salvage his earlier clothes as much as he can before giving up and tossing it on the floor as a wet heap of mush. Peter’s decently surprised of how hot the water gets but quickly forgets about it before feverishly rubbing his skin raw without the soap. He wants to get as much of the goo off of him without ruining the bar, because maybe he could take it with him for later use? Just a thought.
Once the green tinge to his skin disappears, he grabs the soap and properly tries to clean himself. If he uses the hand soap to wash his hair, sue him. The smell of blood in his hair has had him on the verge of nauseous the past few hours. Not to mention the headfirst dunk in a dumpster that left unsavory odors.
He uses paper towels to dry himself off, because that’s the only thing he has access to at the moment. He can only imagine that his face is beet red when he realizes he doesn’t have an extra pair of boxers.
Removing the sad piece of clothing from his sad heap of mush, he tries to clean the article as carefully as possible. He has no choice but to wring it dry and put it on with the rest of his found treasures.
Peter tests his new look in the mirror, rubbing away at the gathered fog against it, and what a haunting image that is.
His cheeks are still a bit red from the steaming shower, but the most notable color would be from his lips. They’re still a bloodied mess from his fangs cutting through, even though he’s taken a shower. His face is much gaunter than he remembered, but not to the point that he looks starved. Small mercies he supposes.
The longer he stares, the more he feels like he’s seeing things. His eyes look greener one moment before turning brown the next. Peter assumes it’s because of the green goo from earlier that’s burned into his retinas.
His jaw looks lop-sided, he still needs to put it back in place.
His shirt adds a different haunting effect to the look along with his jeans. The collared shirt is bloodied on its front, giving off office murder vibes. Rather than looking like he’s crawled out of a sewer drain like before, he looks like he committed murder and ate the corpse.
Stop. Image Disturbing. Heal.
Peter could stare for hours and commit each change to memory, but he needs to heal for some of his wounds to heal – and he needs to put his jaw back in place.
And he does just that. In a series of carefully practiced movements, he readjusts his jaw to the way it’s supposed to be and whoops in victory of being able to talk again.
Heal.
“Yes, mother,” Peter rolls his eyes, sometimes his spider sense can be very needy. He sits down and opens his bag, making calculations on what he should eat first, how much he should eat and how often he should with his current dietary needs.
The sandwiches are going to spoil soon, so logically they’ll be the smartest choice to eat first. BUT a bit of mold has never stopped him before, and the pizza will make more of a dent into his metabolism than the sandwiches will. Mold isn’t fun to eat though, very nasty, in fact.
Logically speaking, he should ration his food. There’s no guarantee that he’ll get this lucky on his next haul, but he also needs a hell of a lot of calories to heal properly.
Speaking like a nutritionist, he’ll have to eat everything. The number of calories he needs a day would be more than all these items combined can provide. It could significantly impact his health, advanced healing and all, even if he were to eat three quatres of all his gathered food. He needs to think clearly in order to make a decent plan of action at the cost of maybe starving for a few days.
... He’ll ration his food. He’ll need food for the entire week at least, so eating everything now could lead to dire consequences later (re: he doesn’t want to go into diapause in Gotham just yet).
He’ll eat half a sandwich now and a pizza slice. If he continues like this every day he’ll run out of food in 6 days, but that will be six days to account for at least.
He’ll take a nap right after; just to catch up on some healing. It is probably best to probably leave the gym once it becomes morning and it opens up.
God, this is going to be a long six days.