Biological Reality
Arriving at the scene, he found things were more or less contained. The police had put up an effective barricade by using a chemical that he guessed was harmful to plants. Poison Ivy herself was down to only the plants she had around her, which she had formed around herself, fueled by a broken sewer main. At the present, she was strong, but her powers were limited; she was cut off from any outside aid. Nightwing had been fighting to help contain her and it looked like he was on his last legs.
"Batman," he managed right as his former mentor appeared. Alfred had actually parked the battle vehicle and allowed him to walk the rest of the way. Even if I'm not in the best shape, we can't afford to have him seen here. Someone might recognize him. "Now I see why you took so long."
Remembering his promise, he did not respond. It was likely that the young man could detect the slightest limp, the slightest lack of sureness of foot, rather, and conclude that he had been injured in some way. Can't let Ivy take advantage of that information. Can't let her figure out there's something going on with my head, either.
"Do you think this will be enough, Batman?" the ecoterrorist taunted. As long as he was being honest with himself, he knew why she was upset about the basically constant turmoil that other species were suffering because of humans. At the same time, he was not going to condone the slaughter of living people as a punishment or as a deterrent to the problems that they presented. Also, he was not going to talk to her, not in public, where his words and movements were probably being recorded, if the drone flying overhead meant anything at all.
"Believe it or not, we do," Nightwing said after a moment. "I've almost got this. Consider this an opportunity to show you how much I've learned on my own."
He nodded. Whether his old apprentice was picking up on his need for him to take the lead or not, he was not sure, but if so, he disguised it well. They both sprinted forward, and he knew that there was something wrong; it was as if he was off his game and had no idea what was going on, but that had nothing to do with his injury. He felt strong, but not strong enough. It felt like his blows against the monstrous plant-human hybrid were hardly doing anything, and he was giving it all he had. When a chance opened up, he struck the enemy directly in the face, and when she tried to twist out of it, he retracted his fist, slashing her with the blades on his gauntlets. She gave a mirthless laugh as his partner took the opportunity to put her in a hold.
"I've never seen you fight like that, Batman," she said. "It felt so... natural."
"You don't represent nature, if that's what you're thinking," he said. "Humans and plants are both part of nature."
"Both are part of mine," she said. "Perhaps we can see eye to eye after all, then."
"We'll see about that when you're in a cell," Nightwing said as police in specialized suits moved to intercept.
"Does she do this a lot?" he asked quietly as soon as she was in the back of an armored car.
"Do what, try to appeal to our love for nature?" He shook his head. "It varies. She realized she can't control you with pheromones years ago, so she tries anything that might work. We should get to the top of the Ace Chemicals building if we're going to talk about this. There are never any cameras up there."
"How do you do that again?"
"Let's just go through the building."
His partner picked a lock as soon as no one was watching them and they went up a service ladder to a level that allowed them to get outside, and from there they grappled up to the roof after a brief demonstration.
"Oh, cool, there are wires going through the suit that keeps the grapple from putting too much strain on your arm."
"Yeah, that's how it has to work. Even someone really strong wouldn't be able to pull his own weight with just the muscles in his arm. How much do you remember?"
"It's not all that clear. I cited a paper I read on recombinant DNA and Alfred looked like he was about to beg my pardon. I don't know who you are. I don't really know who I am. Well, I don't know my name. I know I'm not the guy who normally wears this suit."
It was an interesting philosophical point about how a man may know himself versus simply knowing who he was, but it seemed that Nightwing was uninterested with the finer points at the moment. His eyes narrowed.
"We've dealt with body swappers before. What confuses me is why you're not still in the cave. You seem like... well, you seem like a pretty normal guy."
"That's kind of a mask. I don't remember a whole lot, but, well, if I've got a problem, I sometimes cover it up with jokes. I can't let anyone take advantage of my doubts or hangups. Alfred also thought it was weird that I wanted to go out when I'm getting over an injury, but I couldn't just do nothing. I know that's not what I normally do."
"Well, you've got a reasonably good sense of responsibility and more knowledge of biology than I think Bruce ever had."
"Yeah, about that- I think I've got a way to treat Poison Ivy."
"Treat her?"
"Yeah. I came up with a solution that uses a restrictor enzyme to block her recombinant DNA. During normal cellular regeneration, she'll gradually turn back into a normal human."
"I don't know what you know about her, but she doesn't want that; she's not some kind of victim in all this. I suppose that would keep her from using her powers to escape, though. We could put her with the rest of the prisoners and-"
"The rest of the prisoner- she didn't only do all this because-"
"I don't know." Nightwing sighed. "To say this is uncharacteristic is-" He shook his head. "I don't actually know all that much about her, not since I moved out to Blüdhaven; I've been focusing on other villains. Whenever I was working under you, I didn't know nearly as much about her as you did-"
"Well, we'll hear it out of her. As you said, it should still make it harder for her to break out."
"I don't know how to tell you this, but this isn't our only problem. There's something on the horizon, something much worse than just Ivy. At the moment I'm thinking she only broke out to protect the plants while she still could."
"Do we need to call... do we have anyone to call, actually?"
"The League isn't able to handle this kind of problem. It's kind of like a sledgehammer when what we need is a scalpel. It's not that none of the heroes over there ever deal with complex problems, but if they do, they're dealing with their own problems. We don't tell the Flash how to take care of things in Central City."
"Where's that?"
"Missouri."
"Okay, yeah, that's far away and I don't think I've ever been there."
It was more or less agreed that they would allow Nightwing to do the talking with the police over the radio on the way to the station while he went over his equipment, which was all interesting to him, but mostly the grapple and the retracting claw; some of the more technological things like the signal jammer and the decrpyting gadget were beyond him; he had no idea how they worked and no idea how to apply them. The explosive gel was simple enough, and for that he was grateful.
"They normally have to put her in a special cell?" he asked as the radio disconnected.
"Yes. It wouldn't be so much of a problem if she didn't keep breaking out of it, which requires them to have to build a new cell."
"Maybe they should install a chloroplast if they want to build a plant cell."
Nightwing smiled before doing a double take. He then shook his head.
"Yeah, you're not Batman."
"I mean, I'm wearing the suit. Isn't anyone wearing the suit Batman?"
"I don't know. We had another guy try to take over once while you were out of action, but that didn't work out; he had his own way that he wanted to do things."
He took a second to think about it. I know I've got my own way I want to do things. I hope Alfred and Nightwing don't mind too much; I don't know what I would do if they didn't want to work with me. Then again, I don't know what I'm doing here in general.
Though everyone else described it as 'fighting injustice' and that was not exactly how he would put it, going up against bad guys and protecting the city by extension was something that felt familiar. He doubted he was a fireman, not with all his lab experience, but he had to be something like that. They've made reference to other heroes out there. Maybe I'm one of those guys and the real Batman is out there somewhere.
Why does it feel like it wouldn't be that easy, though?
If he had to explain the apprehension he had in the time they had left before they got to the station, he would probably have to go back to the clues that Alfred had shared with him back at the cave. It looked like his partner had a different question. They stopped the car, but did not get out yet.
"Alfred, take the Batmobile back. We'll be here a while," Nightwing said. "You. Where did you learn to fight?"
"I don't know," he said. "Poison Ivy said it looked natural, and I guess it is. I know I've been in a thousand fights at least."
"What the hell are you, then? You've got the suicidal tendencies of someone in our line of work, you've done post graduate work in biology, and you tell jokes all the time-"
"Maybe I'm unemployed, now that I've got such an erratic resume," he said.
"I can't see Batman ever not knowing who he was. There were things he repeated to himself like a mantra."
"Yeah; at this point I'm not surprised. If you want something to repeat, take a look at this," he said, showing Nightwing something he had absently written on the drive over there on his arm console. His partner pressed a button to send it to himself as the appropriately named Batmobile left them at the station. "Alfred wanted you to do the talking. Might as well know what you're talking about."
"Thanks," he said after a moment. "This should prove the concept without requiring a demonstration."
They followed the directions of the police, though his partner was going into the interrogation room itself, while he was going to the observation behind the famous one-way window. I'm glad they're working with us rather than against us. It's easy for them to misunderstand what we're doing. It's also kind of not legal, I think.
Things were quiet for a moment as Poison Ivy woke up. She looked around to find that sure enough, she was not in a specialized container, but she had no plant allies around to help her. Nightwing was looking at the explanation of how the solution he had in a spray bottle worked.
"Oh, so it's the student coming to interrogate me, not the master? I notice Batman has been more taciturn than normal. Do you happen to know anything about that?"
"Do you happen to know anything about restrictor enzymes? Apparently, they can keep your cells from regenerating according to your recombinant DNA." The cops in the observation room were a little surprised to hear the full explanation, looking back and forth between Batman, Nightwing, and Poison Ivy, watching as the expression on her face changed to horror. Panicking, she transformed her hand into a wooden mallet, but it was not enough to surprise her interrogator. He dodged, twisted her arm behind her back, then knelt on top of her. She switched to pleading.
"No, you can't turn me into a normal human again- please, anything- I'm not Dr. Jekyll suffering from occasional transformations; this is who I am-"
It seemed she was saying anything she could possibly spit out to keep him from using the solution on her. Strangely a lot of it was sounding familiar. Nightwing was demanding some reason why she should not be turned back into a normal human and she started to say something about how she had to protect the plants when Batman turned to the cops in the observation room.
"Turn off the recording; I'm going in."
"No problem."
He opened the door and both occupants of the room stopped what they were doing to turn to look at him.
"Please, you know me, Batman- this is who I am! Pamela Isley died and now-"
"I don't know you," he said. "If you want to stay like this, though, you're going to have to give us a reason. I already thought of one."
"What?" Nightwing asked.
"Arkham Asylum is a revolving door and we keep having to build new containment facilities for you. I've had enough. You work for us now. If we hear about any breakouts, we're coming back with the solution. There won't be any bargaining a second time."
It was his partner's turn to be surprised and Poison Ivy's turn to be grateful for the strange turn of events.
"Batman, you can't be serious-"
"We'll let her keep a garden in the Asylum; endangered species of the region and in return she has to lock the place down. She knows I can mass-produce the solution and crop dust her with it if she steps out of line. We're leaving."
He turned around and Nightwing followed him out of the police station. It seemed he was not the only one confused; the police were giving him strange looks as well. He went out the main entrance and his partner caught up with him as they grappled up to the roof of a nearby building.
"Okay, first of all, you weren't supposed to be talking."
"I couldn't have done nothing."
"Wait, you thought this up and then you started to feel bad for her-"
"She reminded me of someone-"
"And that's a good enough reason?" he asked. "I- I genuinely don't know what to make of this; it's like you couldn't be further from Bruce-"
"That's his name?"
"Yeah, that's the guy; he never believed in rehabilitation, he never thought his enemies just needed help, and most of the time he was right, even when I disagreed with him I ended up having to admit I was giving them too much credit. This is legitimately one of the most painful lessons that I've had to learn in my entire life and I've never been more certain-"
"I don't know about rehabilitation versus punishment. I don't want to have that debate," Batman said. "Look, to be honest, I'm not really someone who integrates with the law all the time. I don't even know my way around a police station. I don't know what I used to do, but I'm starting to think I spent a lot of time fighting and I just let the cops handle the investigations. There was always some big bad guy threatening to tear the city down."
"What city was this?"
"I don't know." He sighed. "Look, if you're worried about Poison Ivy turning on us, we still have the solution. I wasn't bluffing; I really can mass-produce it and if her human DNA has been making her immune to pesticides so far, well, this'll account for that. Don't even think of this as 'reforming' or 'rehabilitating'. I wasn't even looking at it in those terms. Thing is, we can't afford to let everyone escape from prison all the time, especially not with whatever might be on the horizon."
"You might be right," Nightwing said after a moment. "We know several hero types that might know something about biology, but I can't help but think that if Bruce woke up as one of them, he'd have contacted us by now."
"What if he doesn't remember who he is either?"
"I wouldn't worry about it. He's practically been preparing for this exact scenario, as well as several others. He should realize early on that he's in someone else's body, and then... I don't know exactly. He would probably hear about Batman and realize that's a lot closer to his central nature."
"I guess. I hope I don't come off as irresponsible for taking things one day at a time. I don't know how I know this, but I'm used to constant surprises."
"Do you remember any names? Dates? Places?"
"No, not really. I don't think I traveled through time, though; all this technology is pretty familiar."
Nightwing sighed.
"We'll reach out to the League and we'll see if there are any male heroes who might work in a lab setting who are reporting memory loss."
"Are all heroes part of the League?"
"If they're not League allies, they at least know about it." He sighed. "Depending on how much he forgot, though, his cautious approach might keep him from contacting us entirely. He might think that we represent some kind of trap. To make matters worse, we've been trying to pretend that you're the same guy. If Bruce is out there, we need to give him some reason to suspect you."
"I don't get it. If we leave something that's enough of a clue for him to figure out that I'm really... not him... then wouldn't anyone else figure it out? Everyone else has the benefit of having their memories."
"I wouldn't worry about it," his partner said for the second time. "He's the world's greatest detective."
"What's next on the agenda?"
"We've got a lot of ground to cover to get you caught up on everything that's been going on in Gotham. I can't even stay here. I have to get back to Blüdhaven before its organized crime presence starts to miss me."
"Well, you've got your problems; I guess I'll stick with anything related to cross-species genetics. I said this to Alfred, but I've never heard of it being done with plants; I've only heard of human-animal hybrids."
"Like Man-Bat?"
"Wait a minute, there's a Man-Bat?" he asked. "Isn't that some kind of infringement on our branding? Do you think we could take him to court over it?"
Nightwing laughed.
"I never thought I'd hear you telling jokes." He shook his head. "Sorry, it's an adjustment. I should be able to tell that it's not Bruce by now, but... I guess you are still pretty similar to him at some level. Maybe it's just funny hearing you say things in his voice."
"How do I get back to the cave from here?"
"It's best just to radio Alfred to pick you up at the edge of town. Can you drive?"
"I think I learned at one point, but I never really used it."
"Oh, so you're a city boy, then. That's something else that'll help us narrow you down."
He would have loved to come up with more things that would help with the search, but he really only knew that he was unable to drive when it came up. Maybe I should worry about more than just myself and this Bruce guy, though. If there's something big on the horizon, like some new, powerful bad guy, I have to get ready for that. Batman is basically a normal guy with a lot of resources, so I should be learning what I can do with them. I can't assume my friends are going to be around every time some villain causes trouble in the city.
Nightwing left him alone and he went over a few things in his equipment, which he knew he had not used before, though he really had taken a liking to the claw retractor. Though it was really just an attachment for his grapnel gun, what he found he wanted was something that could do both, something that could pull him, but also give him control as to how far the steel cable was extended at any given time. Though physics and engineering had never really been his strong suit, he figured he could tinker around with it until he could get it to do what he wanted. I feel like this is a really underrated piece of equipment if all the regular Batman uses it for is pulling things that are in the way and grappling up to high places. If you had enough control over the extension, you could take advantage of centripetal force and really start slinging things at bad guys.
When Alfred showed up, he got in the car without delay.
"I'm starting to think the real Bruce might be out there somewhere," he said. "We should give him a signal."
"Did Master Greyson tell you the name, then?" He shrugged, since it seemed like someone was in trouble. "What is your suggestion?"
"I just have to make a few changes to the costume," he said. "If he's really a great detective, he could make the connection between some kind of change going on within Batman and that same change going on in himself at the same time. He'll realize that when Batman started to act more like I do, that'll coincide with his waking up in the body of some younger man," he said. "I have to go to the cave."
"For the record, Nightwing and I considered simply keeping you in the cave whether you liked it there or not."
"Yeah, I probably wouldn't have been able to see that coming. I feel like I'm practically deaf." He hung his head a little. "Look, I know I'm not the regular Batman, but maybe we got swapped for a reason. Maybe right now he's doing something even more important and he can't afford to come back."
"I very much doubt that," Alfred said. "While you and he might be cut from the same cloth of bravery and duty, I can only imagine how he might be acting without his formative memories. I also have no idea what your regular profession is. Because Master Greyson seems to approve of you, however, and because he most likely needs your help for the coming calamity, I am inclined to allow you to continue as Batman."
"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence," he said holding up a thumb. "I'll do my best."