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It starts out simple enough. Unfortunately, you can almost never tell when things are going to take a nosedive.
Peter and Jones are in the van, listening in as Neal attempts to infiltrate an underground smuggling operation. It’s nothing he hasn’t done before, and he’s pretty confident in his ability to see it through.
Neal gets the last of his information, grabs the bag containing the fake gems, and turns to leave. He makes it three steps before a hand on his bicep stops him.
“Not so fast.”
Neal freezes. Inside, his heart races, but years of training under Batman has taught him better than to show it outwardly. He gives the man a friendly smile. “Is something wrong?”
The man doesn’t return the smile. His face is set in a frown, and his once polite expression now seems menacing. “The boss wants to see you.”
Neal fundamentally disagrees with Bruce on many things, but the importance of backup is not one of them. Right now, he is more grateful than ever to be wired and to have his every movement monitored.
He hears Peter voicing his confusion in his ear, but Neal isn’t able to respond. He’s surrounded by at least twenty gang members, so revealing that he is working for the FBI—while dangerous under any circumstance—would only end one way.
The man guides him down a hallway, holding on to his arm the entire time, as if he is afraid Neal will run. To be fair, that’s a valid concern. Neal could make it out of here, but not without a few bullet wounds for his trouble.
The door at the end of the hall is propped open. It’s metal, and the red paint is chipped. The appearance of the door matches the rest of the place—unmaintained and rundown.
The man pushes him forward. Neal trips over his own foot, but quickly catches himself. The door closes behind him, eliminating any chance of him escaping.
“Imagine my surprise when my men reported seeing you in New York,” a deep voice says.
No . Not now .
Neal looks up and meets the eyes of the person at the desk. He’d hoped to never see that charcoal skin and tailored suit ever again. How cruel fate can be.
“It’s good to see you, Mr. Caffery,” Black Mask says.
Neal rolls his eyes. “I’d say the same, but then we’d both be liars.”
Black Mask sighs. “I figured you would have earned your manners by now. How foolish of me.”
Neal subtly adjusts the earpiece, part of him hoping Peter is hearing this. The other part of him desperately hopes he isn’t; he doesn’t think he can explain this away as easily as he’d like to.
Black Mask laughs. “They can’t hear you. See the little box on the wall?” He points to it in the corner. “That’s a signal jammer. Your little friends in the florist van outside are listening in to the conversations happening in the coffee shop next door.”
Neal curses. So much for backup. “What do you want?”
“I’m glad you asked,” he says. He leans forward, planting his elbows on the desk as his creepy, sunken eyes bore holes through Neal. “You owe me. I need someone taken care of.”
Neal shakes his head. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“Oh, but you don’t have a choice,” he says.
Neal raises an eyebrow. “Don’t I?”
Black Mask sighs. “You caused a lot of trouble for me in Gotham. The empire I built is gone , reduced to rubble. If you want to continue your little game here in New York, you’ll do exactly as I say.”
Neal had been angry when he came back. Rising from the grave was hardly a pleasant experience, and then everything with Bruce and Joker had just compounded, and… he lost it. But Roman deserved what he got. Bruce had taught him to protect the innocent, to fight for them, but that was something Jason Todd had learned before Batman had ever parked the Batmobile in an unassuming alleyway. Some things are innate, and the instinct to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves is one of them.
Neal doesn’t regret what he did. He doesn’t feel remorse for the nameless scum he’d taken off the streets, even if those days are long behind him now. Even Black Mask can’t make him repent for that.
Black Mask is handing him an ample opportunity to continue what he’d started in Gotham, and he wasn’t going to turn that down.
Besides, Neal wants Peter to know who he is, he just wants it to be on his terms.
Neal sits at the kitchen table, flipping through the file Black Mask had given him. He’d scanned it for trackers and poisons, but he’d come up empty. Maybe Roman really was that desperate.
The target is a man Neal has never heard of in his mask life or otherwise. He’s rather unknown. Neal had expected some sort of mogul or socialite, someone with a trail. This man, though, is a simple janitor. He works for the city, pays his bills and his taxes, drives safely and has no criminal record.
It’s pretty suspicious. If this man landed on Black Mask’s radar, he’s unlikely to be an average civilian. Something is off.
Neal finds the man leaving work on Thursday afternoon. He gets into his used car and drives to his rundown apartment in the Bronx, which is where he stays until nine at night. Then, he gets into the same used car and drives down to Brooklyn, a few blocks away from where Peter lives. He goes inside, picks up a duffel bag full of god-knows-what, and drives to an office building in Red Hook.
Neal sits on an adjacent rooftop for nearly four hours before the man reappears, carrying three black garbage bags. Each of them are heavy enough for him to have to take a break in between one and the next, and Neal has a feeling he knows what’s inside.
After a while, Neal’s eyes begin to droop. The only thing that keeps him from falling asleep is the loud backfire of the man’s car as he leaves.
As Neal follows the man to the East River, he begins to contemplate tampering with the man’s engine just so he can go home and sleep. Following this guy around all five boroughs is cutting into valuable sleep time, and it’s starting to grate on Neal’s nerves.
The man opens the trunk of his car and pulls out each bag. He tosses them into the river, one after another, and tosses the empty duffel bag in too.
Neal sighs. He’s gained enough information. He can go home now.
“Why do you want a cleaner dead? I thought guys like that were pretty useful to guys like you.”
Black Mask sighs over the phone, the noise loud and grating. Neal pulls the phone away from his ear. “I told you that you’re not to ask any questions.”
“I’m not killing a man with no information to go off of,” Neal says, lowering his voice so the agent passing by doesn’t hear.
The white collar office’s bathroom isn’t the best place to have this kind of conversation, but he doesn’t have much choice. If he doesn’t answer the phone when Black Mask calls, he’ll hand deliver a USB drive containing photos and videos of all the men Neal has killed. Neal didn’t know there was a USB drive that could hold that much information.
“In the spirit of fairness, I’ll give. The man I sent you after works for me. Well, worked. He decided that he could find better opportunities elsewhere, and you know how I feel about turncoats.”
Neal shakes his head. Loyalty is a virtue within Black Mask’s world, but he had taken it to an extreme. He had offed anyone he deemed a threat, even if they weren’t. “Whatever. It will be done by the end of the week.”
“Attaboy.”
Neal finds a vantage point on top of a three-story apartment building. The man is working in a building across the street, cleaning up a mob hit that even Neal thought was extreme.
He’d brought his best rifle with him, one with both a scope and a silencer, but the man won’t be dying tonight. If all goes well, the whole thing will be done and over within an hour. All he has to do is wait for his moment.
Black Mask is waiting for a photo of the man’s body. Instead, what he’ll be receiving is a swat team busting down his door and cuffing him.
Black Mask had gone out of his way to threaten him, and now it’s going to backfire. Karma is so sweet.
By the time the sun is setting, Peter and Neal are sitting on Neal’s balcony, sipping beer and wine.
“Did you really steal his kryptonite shipment?”
Neal smiles, setting his wine glass on the stone railing. “Sure did. I’m pretty proud of that one.”
Peter laughs. He takes a sip from his beer and admires the skyline. The silence between them is comfortable, not at all like Neal expected it would be.
He expected a tense, angry silence. Neal had killed people, and none of it was an accident. Neal didn’t lose sleep over any of them. That’s not to say he enjoyed the act of taking a life, but he knows that in a place like Gotham, you have to harness a darker part of yourself. Batman’s methods are more parental than anything else, and god knows putting the Joker in time out hasn’t taught him anything.
Sure, Peter had been angry at first. Everyone knows the Red Hood and what he’s done, but after hours of explaining and walking Peter through his life, Peter had calmed down. He’s not
okay
with it, but he understands that Neal isn’t that person anymore. If Neal wants to put it all behind him, that feels like a start.