Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The incident had been rather unfortunate. The perp had rushed out of the room and shouldered past Daniel. According to the call they were answering, nobody conscious was supposed to be inside so it was a bit of a surprise. Daniel had been unbalanced and took a tumble down the stairs in the hall.

His patrol partner had been able to catch the guy, having been slower in ascending the stairs and Daniel, well, he had only fallen half a flight, so it wasn’t that bad, but he had stepped wrong at some point and his ankle had twinged painfully when he had tried to pull himself up.

It turned out that the one calling it in was the guy himself. His friend overdosed and he wanted to help him. He thought he would be gone before the police showed up. Daniel and his partner had been close, though.

The ambulance showed up and the paramedics took Daniel with them alongside the other guy. The paramedic had taken one glance at his ankle that was already starting to swell and told him he definitely needed to have it checked out. At least they saved him a trip down to the hospital.

Now, Daniel reclined on his couch, his ankle with an icepack on it and hoisted up on the coffee table with a pillow. A blanket lay across his lap, his laptop open in front of him.

He was on sick leave until his doctor cleared him for duty. He was told it could be several weeks. But the doctor had been optimistic. None of his ligaments had been torn. Daniel didn’t know much about that, but no tears or broken bones sounded good. If he stayed home, he could be healed in two weeks

Daniel was already getting bored and restless and it had only been three days.

He had reached the depths of the internet like never before. One website led to another, then a blog, then an interesting comment section, a rather obscure article, a conspiracy theory, a video about cryptids and voila, Daniel had found a conspiracy forum dedicated to Batman.

His initial reaction was to roll his eyes and click the red button in the corner, exit the page, but something made him reconsider as the mouse icon hovered over the button.

The couple days of pure boredom combined with the good old curiosity and Daniel started scrolling.

He hardly considered himself an expert on Batman, but he liked to think that he knew more about the man than your average Gotham citizen. Not as much as Gordon. Not as much as Batman’s close ones who knew his real identity—if there even was anyone like that. But the cops in the city had an advantage and even Daniel himself interacted with Batman pretty regularly.

Gordon had always trusted Daniel so more often than not, before Gordon had accepted the promotion and became the commissioner, he had relied on Daniel to have his back when Batman was involved. Which then put Daniel even closer to Batman.

So, hardly an expert, but a person who somewhat knew Batman nonetheless.

Reading the posts and the discussions with the knowledge he had, well, it was the most interesting read he had had in eons. Entertaining and frustrating, but mostly entertaining. Majority of these people had never met Batman.

Daniel had nearly choked from laughing so hard when he had read the couple posts about Batman not being real at all. The plausibility of some of the theories made him holler.

According to some of the forum users, Batman was just a cautionary tale, something for the criminals to fear, to make them think twice before they did something illegal. Some were convinced that it was all the GCPD and their last desperate attempt to control the streets of Gotham. Daniel was amazed that some actually thought the cops had time for something like this.

The forum had a section dedicated to Batman sightings. Some of the users must have skipped looking through these, but not Daniel.

He scrolled through the pictures. Most of them were dark blurs in a darker night. Each post, after he clicked on it, had another theory, explaining the sighting.

The amount of ‘this black blob in the corner is definitely a cape’ comments was ridiculous. It could very well be someone’s laundry.

But some pictures and videos from right after the flood—well, technically when the flooding was happening—clearly showed the man as he helped people.

Daniel would never admit that he had lingered on those for the longest. It was one thing to hear from Gordon or the various news outlets about Batman seemingly shifting his perspective and paying more attention to helping people rather than just beating up bad guys, and another thing entirely to see it so clearly.

Not as clearly, most of the footage was shaky or from the distance. People had been happy to escape with their lives, happy not to drown. Nobody had much time for filming a random guy in a cape.

And yet.

And yet Daniel watched all of them, on repeat. Mesmerized by the stark difference. It was almost like watching another person with that bat suit on.

Daniel had closed his laptop then. His mind swirled with thoughts. He had seen enough for one day.

He was still on leave, and the boredom came again. Daniel opened the laptop in the evening of the next day, forgetting about the forum until the laptop powered up and showed him the last page he had been on.

He scrolled through just a couple more pictures, and got caught off guard when he spotted himself in one of them. He zoomed in, but yes, it was him. And of course he was glaring at Batman, whoever captured this picture caught them outside a crime scene, Daniel doing his job and Batman entering. Gordon was just a few steps ahead of Batman. Daniel recognized the back of his head easily.

Once or twice, he had ended up on the news, walking in the background or something like this, but it still left him a little unsettled, knowing that somebody was able to take a picture of him without him even realizing.

He had seen enough with those pictures, but there was still a lot undiscovered in the depths of the forum and he ended up in the chats section.

Before he knew it, Daniel was bent over the laptop, scoffing and annoyed. All of these things were such bullshit. He couldn’t just leave it be. He was actually angry right now.

Subject: Abilities
Thelan43, 02:16
--> I’ve been thinking about this for the longest time, why all the bat imagery. It’s sus. Isn’t it? I can’t be the only one?? Batman must have some abilities. He wouldn’t be the first one. What do you think? Maybe some freak accident with bats? Maybe he works at a pet store or a zoo.

lorna_lolr, 02:35
--> omg!!!! yes!! you aren’t the only one, this keeps me up at night,, bats have some kind of echolocation, right?? and he is so silent and always finds the criminals, it would make sense

manbat, 02:39
--> I’m convinced Batman can fly.

Thelan43, 02:39
--> I saw him gliding through the sky once. He definitely can. That’s a fact.

That was it for Daniel. He pressed reply himself, grateful that he didn’t need to have an account to write something. Because he was most definitely not making an account on a Batman forum.

Anon, 02:41
--> He can’t fly. And he doesn’t have any powers. He’s just some guy in a weird costume.

Thelan43, 02:42
--> And how would you know that, anon? Have you even seen him? Because I did and I can tell you for a fact that man can fly. And he is super strong, most likely can heal faster too.

Anon, 02:43
--> I’ve never heard anything more stupid. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

lorna_lolr, 02:43
--> no, no, Thelan is right!! how do you know anon?? hm??? you don’t even have an acc

tarry, 02:44
--> anon’s just a troll, yall, just ignore them

Daniel spluttered. They were the trolls. And stupid. Batman didn’t have any powers. And Daniel had met him, countless times, unlike these people. He had seen Batman bleed and limp and need a minute before he could get back into the fight. He had seen the weird glider when Batman had thrown himself off the precinct’s roof.

Anon, 02:45
--> I’m not a troll, I’m just telling you the truth. Your problem if you can’t see it.

Daniel wondered if getting this riled up over Batman was good for his health. He shut the laptop and threw it to the other side of the couch, done with the dumb forum and the dumb users. If they refused to see that Batman was nobody special, just a guy who probably needed therapy, well, so be it.

But goddamn, Daniel couldn’t stop thinking about the forum for the next few days. Did people seriously think all that about Batman? That he was some kind of a superhuman, some hero, some saint who protected people? While Daniel could admit that Batman did some good, he also did a lot of damage. Daniel couldn’t let those people keep believing in something that Batman was not.

Once again, Daniel found himself on the forum. The most recent post caught his attention immediately.

Subject: The best hero!
BatwithacapitalB, 16:15
--> I have to share something with you, guys. I’m still a little shaken, but okay so I just gotta share. As some of you know, I’m a nurse and when I was getting home last night, this guy tried to mug me. He had a gun, cornered me in this shortcut between two streets (which, I’m honestly never taking again no matter how tired I get, lesson learned). He was shaking and yelling, clearly not okay and I really thought it was it for me, but then Batman showed up!! He knocked out the guy before he could shoot and not my brightest moment, but I had a little breakdown and Batman just sat with me quietly till I calmed down. Then he asked me if I was okay and when I asked him if he could walk me to my place, he nodded right away and did so. I’ve never felt safer. Don’t get me wrong, it was a terrible experience, but it just made me admire the man so much more. He really is the greatest hero Gotham has seen. I’m so glad we have him to watch our backs now.

darcy111, 16:33
--> I’m so sorry you had to go through that, hope you feel better soon! This is exactly why I love Batman! He literally cares so much, but some people just can’t see it. I don’t wish for anybody to go through what you did, with the mugging, but if some people experienced this, they would finally understand who Batman truly is! Thanks for sharing!

totoroto, 16:40
--> Glad you’re okay, and I agree that Bat is doing good work, and has the best intentions, but don’t forget how he’s been before the flood. I don’t know like you, but before I saw him helping evacuate people, I was genuinely terrified of him. If I met a mugger or Bat in some alley back then, it would have been the same thing.

tarry, 16:41
--> good point.. he was kinda terrifying back then

darcy111, 16:45
--> I don’t know. I always thought people were just misunderstanding him. He was pretty brutal, but only to those who deserved it

lorna_lolr, 17:01
--> I agree with Darcy!! he’s never hurt an innocent person, the cops made him out to be this villain because he wasn’t doing it like them, when they are obviously failing to keep us safe,, I was always glad that somebody like Batman had stepped up

Idiolam, 17:04
--> yep! The police are jealous because he’s been doing more for this city than they ever could!

Daniel read through it all, and well, he wondered if Batman had left the mugger for the police like he used to do sometimes, or if he just left him there to wake up and be free again. If Daniel had been working, he probably would have an answer to that.

Something about how these people idolized Batman irked him. The man was far from perfect.

Anon, 17:15
--> I’m happy to hear that you are safe, but I have to wonder.. did you report the mugging? Did Batman? He helps people, but his ways don’t always work. It’s a temporary fix. He saves the person, but what’s next? These criminals can’t be prosecuted with no witnesses, no reports, no evidence. A lot of them end up back on the street the next day. He operates beyond the law and then the law can’t do what it’s meant for. He’s not a solution to Gotham’s problems.

Idiolam, 17:16
--> you say that now, but when he saves you one day from potential death, like he did the OP, then you wouldn’t think like this. All the people who are alive right now thanks to him will disagree with you

tarry, 17:17
--> what’s it with these anons lately on this forum…

totoroto, 17:19
--> Batman saves people’s lives directly. Batman also hinders the police on occasion. Both these statements can co-exist.

Anon, 17:21
--> My point exactly!!!

Daniel was glad at least someone was agreeing with him. He knew that he was right.

For most part, he thought that Batman was a good consultant to Gordon and the GCPD, but sometimes the evidence or confessions he had gotten out of a perp, couldn’t be used in court because of how he got them. It was eternally frustrating. Especially when Daniel knew that with a bit more effort and time, they would have gotten the evidence too.

But Batman always had good intentions. He always did what he did to protect people. To help Gotham. To Daniel, it sometimes sounded like an excuse for him to do whatever he wanted.

Nobody should be beyond the law like Batman had made himself. What if one day he beat up the wrong guy? What if his investigation results were wrong? Daniel had seen some of his methods of questioning. They were nowhere near the legal sphere.

Daniel wished the people on the forum understood that Batman wasn’t a saint. Nothing was black and white. Batman was a complex person, with his own agenda and moral compass. If anything, Daniel saw him more as an anti-hero. The man was on their side for now, but what if that changed one day? He was dangerous.

Daniel refused to put his blind faith in Batman like some of these people. He didn’t have the luxury.

He was never making an actual account on this forum, but Daniel vowed himself he would open these people’s eyes to the truth, show them who Batman really was. They could use some critical thinking, and just maybe, in the long-term, it could lead to them seeing that the police were the answer, not Batman.

Daniel owed it to himself and all his colleagues who were truly trying to do what was right for Gotham’s citizens, who were truly in this job because they had always felt the need to help people somehow.

So he kept replying to some of the posts, trying to debunk all he could.

… he’s nocturnal, another proof he is actually a bat…

Anon, 19:15
--> False. I’ve seen him out during daybreak. Even during the flood. There’s video + photo evidence. It’s even here on the forum in the sightings section. C’mon.

… he hates the police, they keep trying to arrest him…

Anon, 19:26
--> They probably still have the occasional argument, but he doesn’t hate them. The police don’t necessarily hate him either. Neither likes the other’s approach and methods, is all. And nobody’s arresting him. He helps out the police. He personally works with the new commissioner. There are pictures of them together posted all the time. Check your facts before you post this bs.

… he’s an inspiration to young people all over the city, more should be like him…

Anon, 20:01
--> Are you for real? He doesn’t even use a helmet on his motorcycle. I doubt the cowl would count for much if he crashed. The cape is another safety hazard. Please, don’t copy him.

… he’s doing the best he can with the resources he has…

Anon, 21:14
--> This just tells me you’ve never been close to him. Have you seen the suit? I can’t even guess how much equipment like that costs. Not to mention where he even got it. I don’t know who he is, but I doubt resources are exactly a problem for Batman.

… the police stopped him from getting the man the justice he deserves. If they hadn’t…

Anon, 21:36
--> That man got exactly what he deserved for the disgusting things he did, but don’t get it twisted. Batman stopped the police from getting the victims’ families’ justice. If Batman had left the investigation to the police, the man could have been sentenced to a lifetime in prison, not the 25 years he had gotten. Watch any actual lawyer’s reaction to the case and you will see I’m right.

… he broke the robber’s hand and after that they never returned to my store, bless Batman, whoever he is…

Anon, 23:06
--> Glad your store is fine now, but let me ask you. Did you bother reporting it? Give the police the sketch of the robber, anything to identify him? I haven’t heard anything about this case. He might have left your store alone, but what about the others? Batman can help, yes, but you need to report the crimes afterwards. Otherwise the police can’t do their job. This is the biggest problem. It’s not either Batman or the police. As long as they co-operate, it works, but people need to do their part too.

… I’m not kidding, y’all! I’ve seen him take down 15 guys at once, he didn’t even tire at all!...

Anon, 01:36
--> Okay, are any of you seriously going to believe this person? There is no way. Batman, while I admit has some excellent fighting skills, is still just one person. Key word on that person. Stop making him something more. He isn’t some god and he should not be viewed as one.

When Daniel noticed the time, he sighed to himself. Another night that he had accidentally ended up staying up for too long. He needed rest and sleep to heal properly, not this.

He considered just crashing on his couch but decided against that and reluctantly made his way to his bed.

The next day, Daniel did some light cleaning. His place was starting to look like a mess, dust bunnies flying around his floors and the pile of mugs on his coffee table a little too high. He finally felt like his sprained ankle could handle some walking around.

In the afternoon, he found himself on the couch again, Netflix playing some kind of documentary in the background. Daniel had turned it on but stopped paying attention about ten minutes in, scrolling on his phone instead.

When even that had gotten boring, nothing new popping up on his social media, he turned his laptop on.

After nearly two weeks, opening up the Batman conspiracy forum was almost instinctive. He didn’t even think and typed in the name of the website without hesitation.

That should have worried him more than it did.

He always checked the sightings part of the forum first, it oddly let him know if the police were working with Batman on something during his absence, but nothing new popped up overnight.

The post section went next. It had only been like half a day since he was commenting left and right and he wasn’t surprised that only one new post was there. He had noticed that the forum had a whole bunch of dedicated regulars, Daniel could already recognize some of their usernames, but overall, the forum didn’t see as much activity.

Daniel didn’t know what to expect from the post when he saw the subject line but he clicked on it anyway, a bit of anxiety settling in his stomach as he noticed that lorna_lolr was the poster.

Subject: WHAT’S THIS!!?!
lorna_lolr, 11:28
--> I have had enough, this was not what I was expecting to wake up to but I can’t keep ignoring this,, I also can’t be the only one who’s noticed the suspicious amount of trolling on the forum lately.. I’ve got some concerned messages from my friends last night, about this anon coming at them in some of their posts, some super old, and I won’t stand for it!! I went over the posts, I tracked all this random anon replies and now I’m convinced this is one and the same person, whoever this anon is!! WHAT IS THIS YOU COWARD, MAKE AN ACCOUNT IF YOU’RE GONNA KEEP REPLYING!! This hate for Batman is super uncalled for and you are obviously trying to prove something which is just not true, you don’t understand Batman at all, I doubt you’ve ever seen him. Stop the hate!!!

Daniel’s stomach dropped. He hurried to read through the replies.

tarry, 11:40
--> shit, man, you’re right! I noticed the anon, I knew they were sus..

totoroto, 12:16
--> I haven’t seen the replies you speak of, but any bullying here, I don’t condone. I like the community we’ve built here and no hate belongs here. Whoever the anon is, I hope they really take a look at themself.

lorna_lolr, 13:31
--> they are literally the biggest Batman hater, what is this,, why bother coming to this forum if they hate him smh

tarry, 13:45
--> and now we can’t even report them when they stay anon

lorna_lolr, 13:46
--> that’s why they are such a coward, it’s unreal,, they must be so jealous of Batman, I bet

tarry, 13:48
--> yooo, you might be onto something there

Ceruza59, 14:02
--> this hate is crazy, who do they even think they are

lorna_lolr, 14:30
--> yeah, Cer!! they’re the biggest hater, it’s embarrassing

tarry, 14:49
--> they must be seeing this, so anon, you big hater, this one is for you: shut up if you have nothing good to contribute, nobody wants your negativity here

Daniel stopped reading after that, mouth gaping. He hadn’t been trying to hate on anybody. He didn’t hate Batman. He really didn’t. He didn’t like some of his methods, some of… okay, he hated a lot of things about Batman, but not the actual man. He tolerated him now, recognized that the man was trying to do better. And he was getting better, slowly, but the progress was there. And Daniel couldn’t hate somebody like that.

So really, how did the people on the forum misunderstand him so much?

Daniel closed the tab quickly before his sick curiosity could make him keep reading all of the replies. He didn’t need to hear how terrible he was. Accusing him of bullying and hating when he was just plainly stating the facts. Unbelievable.

But Daniel could be the bigger person. He knew he hadn’t done anything wrong. He kept his anger to himself, didn’t go off on a tangent in the replies. He didn’t need to do that to make himself feel better.

So instead, he turned off the documentary, still not knowing what it was about and turned on his comfort show instead. Maybe he was just a little upset over this, not quite admitting it to himself.

If he couldn’t stop their opinions on how Batman was actually a human/bat hybrid, then they wouldn’t stop him from expressing his opinion on how Batman was still harming the society with some of his actions.

The forum users would forget about this hateful anon soon enough. Once it blew over, Daniel would be back, bringing them the truth, even if it wasn’t something most of them wanted to see.

Chapter Text

Daniel had been back at work for a couple days now when Gordon stopped him in the hall. He leaned in close so that nobody else would be privy to their conversation and asked Daniel to watch the stairs and the corridor leading down to the morgue.

He didn’t have to explain why he wanted this, Daniel immediately knew why. He wondered if Batman was already waiting for Gordon down there. It certainly wasn’t the first time that Gordon had asked this of him. It sure hadn’t happened a lot recently, but Daniel wasn’t about to question the commissioner.

Thinking it wouldn’t take that long, Daniel nodded and did as was asked of him, standing idly in the long corridor. Sometimes he wished there was at least one window to look out from, but not in the underground levels.

Unlike the breakroom or so, no cops wandered down here unless they really needed to, so Daniel was alone in the hall.

A detective appeared on the other end of the hall.

Just great. Couldn’t he have waited a few more minutes… now Daniel would have to argue with the man. He vaguely recognized Detective Reed, but from their few interactions, Daniel had never liked him much.

“Sir, you can’t go in there right now,” Daniel said, holding out his hand.

“Like hell I can’t.”

Daniel was forced to move to block the detective. “I have my orders, sir. You’ll only need to wait a couple minutes.”

“Orders from who? Let me through, Officer.”

Daniel shook his head. “The commissioner.”

The detective rolled his eyes. “I won’t be in his way.”

“Still. The commissioner doesn’t want anybody there.”

“Fuck this,” Reed muttered and moved to walk past Daniel.

While Daniel would have loved to grab the detective and spun him around, he couldn’t really do that. “Stop there, Detective!” Daniel yelled after him and moved to follow. He could try again.

He called out after the detective several more times, and by the time Reed turned around, getting a bit red in his face, ready to yell something back, Gordon entered the hallway, the heavy morgue door screeching over the floor, like it always did.

“Is there a problem, Detective?” Gordon asked calmly.

Batman was right behind him. He walked past the detective with a fleeting glance.

Daniel was leaning on the wall with his hand, his ankle hurting a bit as he muttered silent curses. Goddamn Reed had made him rush after him when he was supposed to be on desk duty still.

Batman seemed to be taking him in, keeping his gaze on Daniel for longer than Daniel thought necessary. Not in the best mood right now, Daniel glared at the man. “What?” he snapped.

Batman stared longer before moving on and Daniel wanted nothing more than to strangle the man. He always ignored him, no matter what. Never replying. Was that so hard? Did he really think he was so much better?

“Are you okay?” Gordon asked him. He had walked much closer and Reed was gone, probably doing his work in the morgue. Daniel had been so focused on Batman and his stares that he totally missed whatever Reed and Gordon had been talking about.

“Did you end your sick leave too early? I thought the doctor cleared you,” Gordon added.

Daniel waved him off. “No. I just need a minute.”

“You should leave early today.”

“I’ll pop another painkiller, sir. I’ll be fine.”

“Gordon,” Batman said from somewhere behind them, impatient. He didn’t even bother raising his voice. And really, Daniel had never heard him shout or scream. Grunt, maybe, when he was fighting with somebody. Sometimes when Daniel was on patrol, they ended up answering a call while Batman was still there. But shouting, no, Daniel had never heard that.

Gordon, to his credit, ignored him. “I mean it, Martinez.”

Daniel nodded, ignoring the eyes he could feel on himself. Batman was probably thinking Daniel was wasting their time.

.

At home, Daniel didn’t feel like doing much. He had his ankle on the coffee table, ice on it. He did take that painkiller, but it still ached a bit. The doctor told him this could happen so he wasn’t worried, but it was definitely an annoyance.

Like that, he couldn’t do much, so Daniel opened his laptop and just browsed around until even that couldn’t hold his attention. He ended up on the Batman forum again.

Daniel had been a little frustrated earlier, especially with Batman, and some of that frustration ended up pouring into his replies in the forum. Anonymous, as always.

.

The next day, when he was getting off, his phone rang. As soon as Daniel recognized the caller’s ID as his uncle, he answered.

His uncle needed some help at his small firm. It was really just his uncle, his cousin and one part-time helper. His cousin was on a trip, Daniel knew as much, and apparently the helper had some family emergency and couldn’t make it. His uncle could use some help hauling some stuff from his truck where he needed it, and he argued that not much walking was required.

So Daniel went, desk duty wasn’t as tiring, as it turned out, and getting some exercise after a while would be good for him, get out the frustrations and such. Not that it was technically a workout, but Daniel would take what he could.

He spent most of his afternoon helping his uncle out, well into the evening. At least he got an amazing dinner when his uncle insisted on him joining them. His aunt had also packed him a ton of leftovers so that was great.

Daniel barely had time to check his phone so it wasn’t until he was in bed that night, that he noticed the messages.

On his Instagram, he had several notifications. Much more than usual so it was immediately suspicious. He didn’t panic, didn’t think it was his own family emergency. Nobody would try to contact him through Instagram if it really came down to that.

It turned out all the messages were from the same person. Daniel frowned as he clicked on them and saw all of them, sitting up in his bed. He even reached out to turn his bedside lamp back on. Not that he had any trouble reading off his phone. The dim light was grounding, much better than the dark of this room.

There were a couple digs at his intelligence, his looks, someone obviously hated his moustache. He had an old picture on his profile, from Pride, with Hampton and her wife, so he wasn’t surprised to see a couple homophobic messages thrown in there for good measure.

All of it was mean, some rather derogatory, but not the worst he had seen.

He tapped on the sender’s profile, but the profile picture square was black. Their username was a generic bunch of letters and numbers, no posts, no followers, no followed accounts. There was nothing in the bio, no pronouns. Nobody had mentioned them. Daniel couldn’t find a single thing about them.

He decided to ignore them, whoever they were. He deleted the messages and blocked the account, thinking that would be it.

Daniel didn’t even know who had messaged him all that stuff, and he knew it probably wasn’t anybody important, but still, sleep came to him later than usual. He felt unsettled the whole following day.

It could have been random. His mind wouldn’t let him rest as he kept thinking who might have sent him all that. But what if it wasn’t? Maybe some homophobe saw his post and decided it was their right to come at him just because they couldn’t accept that different people existed. Or maybe it was related to a case. Somebody who he had helped arrest.

Well, Daniel had work to focus on, so the messages were quickly pushed to the back of his mind.

After he replied to two posts, just two, on the forum again, his Instagram inbox exploded not even half an hour later. It was logical to draw a conclusion that these two things must be connected.

Daniel was worried that somebody knew it was him sending out the anonymous messages, but how could anyone find that? Well, he knew from work that it was possible. Through his IP address or something like that. He wasn’t sure on the details.

Ignoring hadn’t worked, so now, Daniel opened the messages, from a different account, but everything about it was the same except the numbers in the username. He texted them back to stop bothering him and only after that he blocked this account as well.

Daniel wasn’t stupid, and he didn’t want this kind of shit in his life, so he decided to stay away from the forum.

A couple days passed and the messages stopped as well.

At work, Daniel was assigned his usual guarding duty on a crime scene. He walked around, checking the perimeter, giving a hand to any other officer who might need it, but his work was pretty routine.

When most of the evidence was logged and taken out, and only a handful of officers remained inside, Daniel went to the entry door of the two-story house and stayed there.

He was a little thrown when Batman walked in, using the front door. Now Daniel had to wonder if Batman always used the door, like any person would, and not crawl through windows and whatever vents. He probably wouldn’t even fit in those, with his pointy ears and flowing cape. Daniel had no idea why he had even thought that. He blamed the forum and their weird conspiracy theories.

Daniel hadn’t felt the best, even after he had stopped going to the forum. Some of the hateful messages lingered. But this, the routine of his job, even seeing Batman on their crime scene where he shouldn’t be, it calmed him some. So he got some weird DMs, but his life was still his and nothing had changed.

“Hey,” he greeted Batman. He didn’t grin, but his lips quirked up a little. He wasn’t all that joyful, but his tone was amicable.

And Batman just walked past him, not even looking at him and heading for the stairs.

Daniel’s mouth dropped. He rushed the couple steps to get under the stairs, one of his hands coming to steady him on the end of the staircase rail. Batman was going up calmly, pace controlled.

“Seriously, dude?” Daniel called out after him. “Would it kill you to say hello at least once?”

Not even a reply, of course. “Asshole,” Daniel muttered, crossing his arms. He returned to his post, huffing in annoyance. Why did Daniel even bother with manners when Batman obviously didn’t have any…

Much later, he knew he should be keeping an eye on the property, but it had been hours, the place was deserted. Nobody was coming here till his shift change at 5 am.

One thing about the anger, it sure kept him up. Awake and not doing his job, and instead opening the forum.

Fuck those messages. People shouldn’t worship that asshole who couldn’t even try to be polite.

He wanted to go and scroll through the posts. Finding one where everyone agreed that Batman was the greatest wasn’t that hard. He didn’t even have to scroll too far. There was a post from two days ago, written by BatwithacapitalB.

Daniel recalled her as the nurse who got saved by Batman a while back. She didn’t post much in the forum, as far as he knew, commented only when she had something good to say. She never interacted with Daniel.

He supposed she had a reason to adore Batman, but it was only fair for her to have the whole picture, wasn’t it… for all of them.

So Daniel started typing, his fingers moving across his phone screen. The forum had a pretty good mobile version too.

Anon, 03:52
--> Your big hero is nothing but a rude jerk who can’t even hold a conversation. The posts like this are absolutely false. He is not your baby, or your knight in a shining armour. He is an asshole who wouldn’t give you the time of the day if he didn’t get to beat someone up on your behalf. That’s all that matters to him. He is arrogant and doesn’t give a shit. He is selfish and does only what he wants. I am half convinced you made it up with him being all nice, because that’s just not him.

To be fair, Daniel was already not doing great with all those hateful messages and nobody could make him as angry as Batman, and today, he really did.

Daniel forcefully locked his phone, fuming. He stashed it back in his pocket, secured it and continued glaring out at the empty street.

Later, after a very long nap and breakfast that was more early dinner, Daniel remembered his angry rant on the forum. He cringed a little, knowing that when he lost his temper and was running on pure caffeine instead of proper sleep, he could say things he didn’t truly mean.

He quickly opened his laptop and scrolled back to the forum, wondering if he could still delete the comment somehow. He couldn’t even really remember what he wrote exactly.

When he saw the long line of replies under the post, he knew his words had ruffled some feathers. It was too late to take it back.

First, Daniel scrolled back to his own anon comment, just to refresh his memory, and quickly regretted that decision.

Yeah, he had been too harsh last night. Especially the part where he accused the nurse of lying, that wasn’t his proudest moment. Of course he didn’t actually think she was lying. Why would he even type that?

Not that he was all that wrong about Batman, but he did exaggerate some. Batman did care, but he showed it in his limited, stilted way, not through small talk. The guy was probably just an introvert and altering his voice must be terrible for his vocal cords. No wonder he didn’t talk much. Daniel should have just kept his mouth shut and let his anger pass.

But he hadn’t and now he would have to deal with the consequences. Hopefully these replies would be the worst of it. Daniel went to read through them. He felt like he sort of deserved this one.

lorna_lolr, 04:12
--> who the fuck are you anon???? leave the op alone!!

tarry, 08:49
--> um, anon clearly has issues

Thelan43, 9:17
--> I wasn’t going to say much about the anon, but this is getting ridiculous. What’s your problem, man???

lorna_lolr, 9:40
--> tarry said it, anon needs to stop compensating for whatever they are obviously compensating and mind their own business,,, i mean, if they had a valid point or even some weird opinion, okay sure, but this is just uncalled for

manbat, 12:08
--> Can’t believe I am here saying this, but the other users are right. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and feel free to express it, but this is not an opinion, it is pure dislike.

darcy111, 12:09
--> WHICH DOESN’T BELONG ON THIS FORUM!!

totoroto, 12:12
--> It was an unnecessary amount of hate and name-calling, but I suppose we all know what to expect from this anon by now.

Idiolam, 13:00
--> Make an account, anon, I dare you

Ceruza59, 13:46
--> shit, man they’re not making an acc after this lol

lorna_lolr, 14:36
--> I dare them!!! they’re catching these hands!!!

darcy111, 14:50
--> If I ever meet them, it’s on sight!

BatwithcapitalB, 15:14
--> I don’t even have words, honestly. Nobody should disrespect Batman like this, he is one of the few good guys in Gotham, but obv the anon doesn’t know him like we do or else they would never say this. And what they wrote to me here, I would say maybe take a look at yourself and think again about who is rude.

totoroto, 15:52
--> Very well said. Sorry you got this, OP. You’ve been through something so scary and they shouldn’t invalidate your experience like this.

lorna_lolr, 16:05
--> yes!!! im so so sorry op!! you are totally valid! not this clown

darcy111, 16:10
--> they’re the whole circus

Ceruza59, 16:12
--> DECEASED

Daniel closed the forum, seeing as the whole forum turned into lingo he wasn’t all that familiar with. He wasn’t old, but kind of too old to understand their weird slang. It just told him he was mostly arguing with teenagers on this forum. What his life had become, seriously…

He did feel bad about hurting the nurse, the original poster. He hadn’t even thought about how his words would come across, he had been so angry with Batman.

Daniel considered shooting a quick apology to the BatwithacapitalB user, but he didn’t think it would mean much coming from him. It might be for the best to stay away from the forum for a while once again.

The next day, Daniel was back on his day shift, meaning he was at the precinct in the morning and would spend his day behind his desk, catching up on all the reports and paperwork. He had been on desk duty for a while so there weren’t many reports, but still.

He booted up his computer and took off his jacket while it powered up. Daniel sat down and tapped his desk while he waited some more. Their work computers weren’t exactly the most modern.

When everything loaded as it should, Daniel opened his mail inbox to check if he had any new messages. There was one with files attached, he instantly knew that was case related. Another officer promised him those files two days ago. There was a short reply from Gordon, the man thanking him for some copies he had sent him. There was a third message.

Not recognizing the mail, and no subject with it, Daniel clicked on it first.

His eyes skimmed through the text, his stomach dropping.

Much like the Instagram messages… the content was pretty much the same, only more aggressive and explicit. His heart raced. He was at work. This was his work mail address.

“Hey, Dan, you okay?”

Daniel tore his eyes from the screen, exiting the page with a swift click. He looked at Hampton, his colleague who had spoken and was now glancing at him with a worried expression. She held a steaming mug in her hand, Daniel recognized the design on it.

“What, me?” he stammered, his voice coming out a little too quick. “Yeah, yeah, totally. I’m great. Don’t worry about me.” He laughed a little, more from not knowing what else to do rather than any amusement.

“You sure?” she squinted at him.

He took a steadying breath. “Yeah, I’m sure, really,” he said, sounding more like his usual self again.

Hampton hummed. “Well, I’ll be at my desk all day, if you need anything.”

Daniel smiled at her, this time more sincere and she walked off. He had no doubt she would be watching him for the next few minutes, trying to make sure he wasn’t lying, which he was, but okay.

He pretended to go about his work, ignoring the mail for a bit. But it soon became obvious he wasn’t going to get anything done. Not right now.

Daniel tapped the tab open again. He knew he should ignore it, but this wasn’t his personal Instagram. How did they even get to his work e-mail?

He hated that these messages were a thing now. He absolutely hated it. And before, it was just insults and such, but this one sounded vaguely threatening.

>> Who are you? Why are you sending me these? You need to stop. I’m a police officer. You’re threatening a cop, just so you know, so better stop now and we can both forget it ever happened.

Daniel doubted it would have much luck, but well, he had to try something.

.

He should have known replying back to the person wasn’t going to work. It made it worse. Three days went by and there wasn’t a single moment that he didn’t have some kind of a notification on his phone, announcing a new message.

Not to his official work mail, so that was nice, but all his social media, his personal mail too, his phone number. Didn’t they go to work? Didn’t they sleep? They kept coming. Daniel couldn’t escape the messages. He couldn’t even mute his phone because what if Gordon called or he was called in, or literally anything else…

He had muted all his apps, and it still wasn’t enough. The messages kept coming from different phone numbers and when he tried calling them it said the number didn’t exist. He couldn’t mute or block a number when new kept messaging him.

It had gone by the point of being annoying. Daniel didn’t know how to stop this. He hadn’t even opened the forum in days now. He thought if he stopped the anon replies, this would stop too, but it kept escalating.

Daniel refused to tell his family about this. They would have made him feel better, sure, but they couldn’t really help with this. They would tell him to go to the police, but he was the police. And that hadn’t stopped whoever it was from sending him all that hate. He didn’t want to drag his family into this.

He should probably tell someone at work, but Daniel didn’t want to do that. Didn’t want to admit to going to that stupid forum. He had been teased enough about his dislike for Batman in the past. He didn’t want to know what his colleagues would do with this one.

Daniel was dealing with this. The person would stop eventually, he was sure. It made no sense to make a big problem out of it, get cops and detectives involved. He didn’t want to bother anyone. They had enough real cases to worry about.

So yes, Daniel would just wait it out.

But something like this, constantly reading that hate, it had an impact on him and his mood. He was far from his usually cheerful and friendly self. Hampton and Gordon, as well as some of his colleagues, kept throwing him worried glances, thinking he couldn’t see it.

If anybody asked, he kept saying he was just tired or hadn’t slept much, which, frankly, wasn’t much of a lie, but he never specified why and people usually dropped it there.

When his shift had been nearly over, and Daniel was seriously looking forward to some time to relax at home, a robbery was called in. The person who called it in was a cleaning lady. Said the owners were gone on a holiday.

It wasn’t an ongoing robbery, so not that many people were sent there, but of course, Daniel just had to be one of them. Looked like he would be working overtime again today.

He and his partner got there first. While his partner went about securing the area so nobody else would come and contaminate the evidence, Daniel went in to talk to the cleaning lady.

As soon as he stepped inside, the signs of the robbery were obvious. Somebody had turned this place upside down. The cleaning lady didn’t sound too bothered with it all, apparently not liking the rich owners all that much. She said she came every day to feed the pets and clean. Everything had been fine the day before. When Daniel asked about the pets, she said they weren’t there for some reason.

Daniel took a note of that. Whoever the assigned detective for this ended up being, they would want to know about that. Daniel didn’t think he had ever heard about robbers taking the pets along with the expensive stuff.

After he had asked her everything he could think of and all they might need for now, Daniel sent her downstairs to the lobby of the apartment building. It housed several apartments, all pretty big, had a working elevator and couches in the lobby, as well as an underground parking lot and a guy behind the desk in the lobby. Not exactly like Daniel’s apartment.

At least he never had to be worried about robbers much. The only sort of fancy things in his place were the tv and the coffee maker. He had invested quite a lot in his mattress too, but he couldn’t imagine anybody trying to steal that.

But people were now apparently taking pets, so who knew.

Daniel stayed behind, in the hallway in front of the busted apartment door, as was standard procedure. It probably wouldn’t take long for the others to get there, and it was starting to get boring, but he wouldn’t take out his phone.

When Batman joined him, entering the hallway from the apartment, not the stairs or the lift, Daniel only sighed. He hadn’t heard anybody moving around the apartment nor coming to stand at his side, until he saw the all too familiar black profile of the bat suit. Daniel didn’t know how much time had passed since he had arrived and spoke to the cleaning lady.

“Gordon called you?” Daniel asked, keeping his eyes ahead, on the atrocious wallpaper. One would think rich people had taste, but apparently not.

“No. There are dead animals on the roof.”

So that solved the animals mystery and brought forth a whole new set of questions. It probably wasn’t even an ordinary robbery, but figuring that out wasn’t Daniel’s job.

“The cleaning lady called in a robbery.”

He could feel Batman watching him.

His phone beeped. Then again. And again.

“Are you going to check that?” Batman asked.

“No.”

It beeped again. Daniel didn’t have to check to know it was going to be those messages. It could be one of his colleagues, but Daniel wasn’t going to risk taking a look with Batman towering over him.

Daniel couldn’t believe he was nearly thirty and getting cyber bullied.

For once, Daniel didn’t try to fill in the silence, not more than he already had. He just didn’t feel like it.

After the fifth beep, his mind brought him back to the messages he had received throughout that day. He was so lost in his head, he missed when Batman asked him something.

He startled at the hand on his shoulder and Batman a little too close for his comfort. “Martinez.”

Eyes wide, he looked at Batman. “What?”

“Are you alright?” Even through the cowl and the dark makeup, Daniel could tell Batman was squinting at him, confused. He looked almost concerned about him.

But Daniel knew that couldn’t be a thing. He shook off the hand and moved a couple steps away, pacing the hallway. “Yeah,” he said briefly.

He took out his phone, checked, just to be sure it wasn’t work related. His breath stopped for a second. Of course it wasn’t work related. If they wanted something from him, the other cops would use the radio.

Daniel put it away and didn’t look at Batman again. He crossed his arms around himself. “The others will be here soon, if you want to take another look inside the apartment or whatever.”

Batman hesitated, but then took the opportunity to look around undisturbed till the rest of the officers showed up.

Daniel knew that he was not doing his job as he should right now. He stayed up there so that nobody would get inside, but he just didn’t have it in him to care tonight. Batman wore gloves and he wasn’t dumb. Daniel would take his chances, and if any issues arose because of it, he would just say Batman slipped by him again. Wouldn’t have been the first time.

Chapter Text

Daniel held the file in his hand. Hampton had asked him to deliver it to a detective since she got called somewhere and they had asked for this as soon as possible. Daniel had met her when he was about to make some coffee. He was dead on his feet, but she had asked and he found himself nodding before his brain caught up to him. Now he had a file in hand related to a case he knew nothing about and he couldn’t quite recall the name of the person Hampton had told him.

Might have been Jake. He knew a detective by that name, two floors up at the homicide department. But it also could have been Jack. Jack Larring usually dealt with robberies. Or had Hampton said Josh?

Daniel collided with something—someone. “Ah, sorry,” he said quickly, his eyes lowered to the file, making sure he didn’t drop even a single piece of paper inside it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something black brush against his right knee. Thinking it was the other person’s coat, he kept going, not turning to them. They weren’t yelling at him, or saying anything really, so Daniel concluded it was fine. He had different things on his mind today.

There were at least two detectives named Josh that Daniel knew of.

When he saw the number of people waiting for the elevator, Daniel opted for the stairs. The whole staircase was empty.

Before he put his leg on the first step, he hesitated. Daniel placed it back on the ground. He stared at the flight of stairs. He didn’t know if he was supposed to go up or down. Didn’t know who he was supposed to deliver this file to.

Daniel still ended up dropping the file.

“Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing his face. He repeated the word several times, each time pouring more and more frustration into it, but he refused to let the tears drop. He put the bottoms of his palms against his eyes and worked on his breathing.

It wasn’t even about that goddamn file. He could just call Hampton and ask her again for the detective’s name.

Even with documents and pictures all around his feet, it wasn’t about that.

Daniel needed to clear his mind. This wasn’t working. He was trying to deal with it, but was failing. It was starting to affect his job, his focus. It was manageable as long as he was inside at the precinct, but once he was on the streets, he would be a danger to himself and everyone around him if he couldn’t get his emotions in check.

When he dropped down to pick up everything, his hands were trembling lightly. He still carefully took every single thing off the ground and put it back into the file. It would be all a mess, but that he couldn’t help.

The stairway was still blissfully empty as Daniel gathered both the file and himself.

He dialled Liza. She picked up on the third ring and he wasted no time with greetings or explanations. “What was the name of the guy I should deliver this to?”

She sighed. “Not a guy, Jen. Jennifer Arley.”

“Oh, Jen, right.”

“Dan, are you—”

“Thanks, I gotta go,” Daniel said quickly and ended the call. He had just got himself in check, he wasn’t sure he would be able to stay like that if somebody had asked him if he was okay right now.

He knew Jen, her desk was just two stories up. Daniel took that first step upstairs. He could do this. Not everything in his life was out of his control.

When he got there, he apologized to Jen about the file, said he dropped it accidentally, laughed it off. He told her not to blame Hampton for the disorganized mess it now was. Jen didn’t do much but shrug, said she could sort it out on her own and thanked him.

Before Daniel returned to his floor to get the coffee he had initially wanted, he stopped by the bathroom. The one on the far side, where the old interrogation rooms were. Nobody really used these anymore and he was grateful for that now as he splashed cold water over his face, his phone and his hat resting on the other side of the wide sink.

He let some of the water run down his face as he looked at his reflection in the mirror. His eyes had a red tint to them. Daniel cursed and splashed more cold water on them. No wonder his colleagues kept throwing him glances. Daniel couldn’t even tell anymore if it was from his lack of sleep or the brief cry he pushed back.

After he dried his face, Daniel reached for his hat again, his eyes glancing at his phone instead. It was silent, had been since yesterday evening. Daniel had thought, optimistically, that that was it. That the rude messages would stop. That whoever sent them, they had gotten tired of them too.

Daniel had really thought that. He had even gotten just a bit more sleep than usual in the past few days. And then when he sorted his mail in the morning before going to work, he found a white envelope with his name and address on it.

He hadn’t thought much of it in the moment. He had flipped it in his hands, but saw no return address nor any logo of a company or such. Mindful of the time since he didn’t like being late to work, he briefly considered leaving it for later, but his curiosity won over and he had opened it.

Daniel regretted that now.

There had been a slip of paper inside. Nothing fancy. Regular white office paper. The words on it were printed in some basic font that Daniel recognized but couldn’t name. There were only two sentences, nothing else.

Words have consequences too. You will pay for the lies you spread about him.

The messages stopped. But now, Daniel was getting vague threats sent to his home and he wasn’t sure which had been worse.

He had to return to work like nothing was going on, pretending he was fine, when he very much wasn’t.

Daniel felt like he was in too deep now. As he finally got to the breakroom and watched the coffee drip into his cup, Daniel realized he couldn’t just ignore this like he had been doing up till now.

He didn’t get much done and spent the rest of his shift avoiding Liza when she had returned to the precinct. As soon as his shift ended, Daniel was racing out of there.

The letter was on his dining table as he had left it before leaving. Instead of starting on dinner, Daniel sat down at the table and stared at it.

With all the messages he had received, there had been nothing to identify the sender. They had revealed nothing in their messages, nothing that could help him get any idea of who they might be.

The only thing he knew was that they were a huge Batman fan and his greatest sin had been going against the man.

Daniel wondered if Batman himself could be behind this. He quickly banished that thought. He might annoy Batman sometimes with his chatter, but he never had the feeling that the man actually hated him. Just like Daniel didn’t actually hate Batman.

So then why would his fan think so badly of him that they would go this far? They seemed to know who he was, his name. Didn’t they know he met Batman often too? Just how much did they know?

Those were the questions that kept him up so late, the reason why he hadn’t been sleeping.

It had escalated to threats now. It wasn’t cyber bullying anymore, but something far more sinister. Or with a potential to be, if Daniel didn’t put an end to this.

He took the envelope with the note and inspected it again, more carefully this time, but it yielded nothing. Just like with the messages, Daniel would learn nothing new from this.

Only, it had referred to some lies Daniel had spread about a man. It was easy to deduce they were talking about Batman. Batman was the common denominator in all this. In all his recent troubles.

Daniel wondered if Batman had ever stayed up too late because of him.

He doubted that. Daniel hated losing sleep to this.

He hadn’t been spreading any lies, if anything, but the wording had some use. It cemented in his mind the idea that whoever was sending him these messages and threats, they were part of the Batman forum.

Daniel hadn’t been talking about anybody else anywhere so it made sense.

It also made sense to go back to the beginning to figure this out. Daniel needed to go back to the Batman conspiracy forum. All his answers would be there somewhere.

But good lord, he was so not commenting anything there ever again.

Daniel moved his dining table to the side, making space, and then went to his bedroom. There, in the small space next to his wardrobe and the wall, was hidden a board. It had been a gift from his friends, back when he had graduated from the police academy. It had been more of a joke. They had told him he could now draw all the connections from his cases and such, find a real nemesis, like all the cops in the movies and tv shows seemed to have.

Somehow, his friends had been right. He did have his own sort of nemesis now and he was also going to use the board to keep track of his private investigation.

He dragged the board next to his dining room table and grabbed his laptop as well, setting it up on the table. He half remembered his original dinner plans and made himself a simple sandwich when his stomach started to rumble. Daniel munched on it as he typed the forum address into his browser.

It had been a while since he had been there, for a good reason. There were a couple of new sightings posted, as well as a handful of discussions about random Batman related topics.

Daniel didn’t linger on those and instead tried to scroll down to the forum topics that he recalled commenting on. He read through all of it again and wrote down usernames of those that replied to him, spoke against him, or were otherwise most vocal on the forum.

He cursed a little when he noticed that the sun was not setting, but rising behind his window. He had work tomorrow—today. He shut his laptop and glanced at the list, he had made progress. Hours and hours going through the old posts, but he now had a list of nine usernames that he thought were relevant in some way.

Promising himself to look into it more later, Daniel headed to his bedroom for a quick nap before he had to be up for work again. He was only still coherent because he was sort of used to the night shifts and his body and mind could take it. He had been pretty engrossed in his research too. As soon as his head hit his pillow, he was out.

His shift had been even worse than the previous day, and this time not because of any threats. This one was on Daniel alone. He should have been more careful, should have watched the time.

He was glad that it was Friday and he had the weekend off. He would have time to properly go over everything.

The first thing he did was another nap. Daniel had gotten home exhausted. At least he didn’t find anything worrisome in his mail that day.

He woke just slightly refreshed so another coffee it was. It was pretty late for it, but Daniel wanted to do some of his own investigation before going to bed. He needed this. He needed to feel like he was doing something useful. Something that would help him end this madness.

At around 3 am he told himself it was enough for the day and went to sleep.

And as soon as he was up, Daniel was back to the forum. Half the day went by, with only occasional breaks for food and bathroom, and Daniel was certain that the nine usernames on his list were it.

One of those people was his tormentor, he was sure of it.

He turned to the board. It was all set up, ready to be used, but then Daniel realized he didn’t have any markers for it. He had to go into the city and get some. While already there, he got some groceries too.

When he was getting back, his eyes landed on his mailbox down in the small hallway just after the entrance door. He hated the way he hesitated at the sight of it.

Daniel should check it, he knew. He had never been this paranoid about things. Now, he couldn’t check his messages, every time his phone beeped his first reaction was panic and fear that anybody would see the notification. The paranoia spread to his mail too.

But he had to do it, so Daniel unlocked the box and took out what was inside. Two envelopes, both white.

His neighbour chose that exact moment to come downstairs, joking lightly about having the same idea and went to open his own mailbox. Daniel said something back, he might have even laughed alongside the other man, but he couldn’t quite remember what his words had been as he walked back to his apartment.

Inside, he put down the bags right by his door and looked at the envelopes properly. The first one had the logo of his electricity provider in the corner, but Daniel didn’t let himself calm down, not until he saw the other one.

He quickly switched their places, pulling the one from the bottom. He figured doing it fast would be better, just like ripping off a bandage.

His heart halted for a beat. His name. His address.

Daniel opened it and pulled out the slip of white office paper. It wasn’t even the recycled one. His legs didn’t give out but he felt his hands shaking, the paper nearly slipping from his grasp.

He should have been stronger, should have kept his emotions in check, but Daniel was tired, tired of being insulted and threatened. It was wearing him down and he still had no real solution to this.

The usernames were a start, but he still had to find those people in real life and that would be much harder.

You hide just like the coward you are. No wonder you hate Batman so much when he is everything you will never be. A cop like you is good for nothing. Batman saves people, but what do you do? Who do you save? You can’t even save yourself.

Daniel folded the paper in half, not wanting to read it again. They were wrong. They were. Daniel was good at his job. He helped people. Maybe not always as directly as Batman did, but Daniel did his part. He knew that.

He wouldn’t let this person make him doubt. He was proud of the career he had achieved and worked so hard for. Still did.

Daniel refused to think about what he should be saving himself from. He hoped they just meant the messages, nothing else.

He quickly threw the groceries that needed to be kept cold in the fridge and left the rest in the bags, he could with it all later. He found the markers at the bottom of one of the bags and ripped open the package.

Daniel had bought the colourful ones, all the main colours. His board would be that much better organized.

First, he drew a column on the edge of it, wrote down LETTERS as a heading and then added a number, a date and a time when he found the letter, approximately. He figured it might be good to keep a record of those. He would copy that on paper somewhere later, too. Just to be sure.

Then, with the green marker, Daniel divided the board into nine parts, more or less of the same size. With a red marker, he wrote down a username into each section. Later, when he gathered more information on them, he would write it down with the black marker on the board.

For now, he had the usernames.

Thelan43
lorna_lolr
manbat
tarry
BatwithacapitalB
darcy111
totoroto
Idiolam
Ceruza59

One of these was responsible for the messages and Daniel would find them.

He would find every single one of them and question them. It would be a gross misuse of his power, but Daniel didn’t see any other solution. Someone would give. Someone would know something. And it wasn’t like he was going to do anything illegal. He would just talk to them, was all. In his uniform. With an officially sounding case that nobody had reported.

Frankly, it was better for them this way. Their names, once he found them, wouldn’t be tied to any crimes or investigations.

Daniel wondered who he should start investigating first. Darcy, Lorna and Tarry all sounded like they could be real names, but the first on his list was Thelan43 so just to keep his organisation somehow, he focused on them.

It turned out to be the right decision.

Daniel didn’t have much in his disposal, but he had google. He combed through Thelan’s profile on the forum, which only told him his age was 26, rather close to Daniel’s own. It didn’t have much else. In his bio, he wrote how he believed that Batman was a superpowered individual. Thelan’s posts were the ones most fitting to the actual conspiracy part of the forum. It was still obvious how revered Batman was, so Daniel kept him on the list.

He fit the criteria for Daniel’s suspect. Somebody who loved Batman so much they would go far to ensure his reputation was protected. Thelan was one of the most active forum users so his love for Batman was rather vocal.

Daniel typed Thelan43 into google and as it turned out, Thelan was one of those people who reused their username for mostly everything. Daniel found a twitch account with a couple streams of some games he didn’t recognize. Thelan didn’t seem to be too popular but he had a few regular watchers, from what Daniel could tell. Now he also knew how Thelan looked. In a chat in one of his older streams, Daniel found a name. Andrew. Next, he found Andrew’s reddit account.

Daniel went through his answers and found out that Andrew was from Gotham as well. That sure made everything much easier.

On his board, he wrote the information down. Daniel screenshotted Andrew’s picture from the small square in the corner of his twitch stream and then tried to run it through google’s reverse image search.

He hadn’t expected much on the first try, Andrew apparently didn’t have Instagram, and the search showed him pictures of random people. So Daniel tried to narrow it down by adding the name Andrew to the search bar alongside the picture.

It was pretty much the same, random pictures of men, most of them from Pinterest or articles about haircuts, or just pictures really. Daniel still scrolled. The picture was his best clue so far and he wasn’t yet willing to let it go. On the third page of pictures, something caught his eye.

A picture of three middle-ages women and a guy who looked like he might be younger Andrew squeezed between them. He had a disgruntled look on his face while the women grinned brightly into the camera.

Daniel tapped on it and it redirected him to a Facebook profile.

The caption next to the picture read: Girls’ tea night, with our amazing waiter Andrew. There was a bunch of emojis. The woman who posted it was Mirabel Lane. She had a profile picture with her hair in a shorter cut and some flowers in the corners. Daniel saw that this picture had been posted nearly 5 years ago.

There were four comments and fifteen likes. Nobody was tagged in the picture but from the comments, Daniel easily found the other two women. When he looked through Anna Shawn’s profile, Daniel knew he had finally found what he was looking for.

Anna Shawn was the kind of lady that loved her Facebook more than anything, updated almost daily, posted her recipes and every cake she baked, every flower arrangement she created. When Daniel went to her information section, he found that she had Gotham as her home address, had her phone number and email there. She had her religion, her university listed. She had seven people in her family section, a brother, a nephew, some other relatives, but she also had a son.

Andy ‘A-man’ Shawn.

Daniel had a feeling nobody really called him that. Unlike his mother, Andrew rarely used Facebook and most of his posts were years old. He had some kind of a game character as his profile picture, one Daniel didn’t recognize. But his age checked out. Andy was 26.

Daniel couldn’t find more about Andrew Shawn even after he googled him with his real name, but he did find Anna Shawn in a registry of sole proprietors. She owned a flower shop.

When Daniel put the address into google maps and checked it through street view, it seemed like there was an apartment above it. Daniel would have to go check on his own if Shawn lived there, but it was a good start. His mother could easily tell him where he would find Andrew. She seemed like the kind that would try to co-operate with the police.

Daniel updated his board. He liked the sight of it. It showed his progress. He was getting closer. Every step took him closer to the end of this.

He wondered if Shawn would find it weird that he came to ask her questions on a Saturday evening. Based on her religion, he supposed it was better than on Sunday. Based on the opening hours he found online, the flower shop would be closed by now, but he could try to see if the apartment above it was hers.

The only problem was, Daniel realized with disappointment, he had left his uniform in his locker at the precinct. He couldn’t just show up as some guy, asking random questions. Not in Gotham.

He would have to go on Monday after work. The GCPD didn’t have extremely strict rules on their uniforms and equipment, as long as they kept it safe and away from other people. It was generally agreed to keep the stuff in their lockers, unless one knew they would be working their shift somewhere else.

Deciding that he had found enough for one day, Daniel closed the forum. He was feeling better than he had in a long time. Like his little investigation was actually doing something. He had a nice start, he had found a lot in the few days that he had actually tried.

When he made dinner, something actually cooked for once, and settled in front of his tv, he checked his phone. No hate messages, no threats. He had an invite for brunch tomorrow with Hampton and her wife and a message from his sister, telling him to call when he had time since it had been a while.

Daniel didn’t feel ready for either. He had been brushing off calls and meetings as much as he could. He feared that as soon as somebody close to him saw him, they would be able to immediately tell that something was wrong and he hated lying to them. He had to, though. At least for a little while longer.

He texted Hampton that he was sorry, but he already had plans with his uncle and aunt, but told her that he would join them some other time. Nowhere in the near future, but he didn’t specify that.

He told his sister he was busy with some work, but would call when he had the time.

Small lies, but necessary. So far, he had managed to keep the messages and threats both to himself and aimed at him only. He would like to keep it that way.

On Monday, Liza approached him, asking how his aunt and uncle were doing. She had met them once or twice and they had gotten along splendidly. She always asked about them ever since. They also always asked about her little family. It was all rather sweet. At her question, Daniel faltered slightly, caught off guard. He should have expected this. He quickly made something up. She gave him a weird look but nodded and left, satisfied with the answer.

Daniel told himself this would all be over soon. He would go talk to Anna Shawn today. Another step closer.

After work, he didn’t even go home, instead he drove to the address of the flower shop that he had written down in his phone’s notes app. It wasn’t a busy part of the city, mostly residential, low buildings, with one or two stories max. He passed a grocery store not that far, and there were few small businesses around. Hairdresser’s, a dentist’s office, a travel company. He parked his car a little down the street, not directly in front of the shop even if there was plenty of space. He didn’t want Shawn to see that he wasn’t driving in a police cruiser.

He walked up to the door and saw that it was already closed, but there was a bell and a mailbox next to it. Daniel rang it and waited.

“Hello?” a pleasant female voice called over the intercom.

Daniel leaned closer to it. “Is this Anna Shawn?”

“Yes. May I ask who you are?” She spoke politely, that was nice.

“Officer Martinez, GCPD. I have a few questions about your son, Ms. Shawn.”

“Andrew? What on Earth has he done?” She seemed shocked.

“Would it be possible to speak face to face?”

“Oh, of course, Officer, I’m sorry. Take the stairs to the left after I buzz you in.”

“Alright. Thanks.”

He heard the door give and quickly pushed it. There was a wide glass door in front of him, clearly leading to the flower shop, he could see the colourful displays from here.

Daniel turned to the left and went up the stairs. The woman from the Facebook pictures stood in the hallway, a door propped open by her feet. She had a long sweater clutched around herself.

“Officer Martinez?” she asked and Daniel nodded as he got close. “Please, come in, Officer. I’ll make some tea.”

“You don’t need to trouble yourself.”

“Nonsense.”

He followed her to the kitchen where she indicated, sat where she told him to. As she busied herself with mugs and the kettle, Daniel asked, “I need to speak with your son, Andrew. Do you happen to know where I could find him?”

She turned to him after she put the tea bags in the mugs. “Yes, I know, he’s in his room, as always.”

“He lives with you?” Daniel asked, a little surprised.

She frowned. “You didn’t know that? I thought that was why you came here.”

“Sorry, we’ve been having some issues with our databases. With the flood and all, you know.”

She nodded. “That is unfortunate. I had to close the shop for several weeks, even this far in the city. Can I ask what you want with Andrew?”

“Right. I have some questions regarding an online forum your son is part of. There’s a cyber bullying case.”

Her polite demeanour quickly turned. “Damn those online games he always plays, he’s always on that computer of his, barely leaves his room. I knew this would happen one day. Nothing good could come from that stuff. Let me get him for you, Officer. Ask all the questions you have, he needs to learn to be careful on those sites.” She was about to rush out of the kitchen, but then turned to him, a smile on her face again. “Watch the tea, dear, would you?”

“Ah, right, yeah, ma’am,” Daniel stammered, trying to keep up with her moods. She disappeared into the apartment. Daniel quickly stood as the kettle started to make more noise. He made the tea for her.

When she returned, she had Andrew walking in front of her, pushing him forward. “Seriously, mum, I didn’t do anything, I don’t—”

He stopped talking when he turned to face the kitchen and saw Daniel there, steaming mugs in his hands. “Uh, hello?”

“Andrew Shawn, I’m guessing?”

He nodded, a little dazed and sat down at the kitchen table when his mother pushed him into the seat.

Ms. Shawn took one mug from his hands, and put it on the table. She then got a can of Pepsi from the fridge and handed it to her son without a word. He didn’t touch it, nervously glancing at Daniel.

“I didn’t bully anyone, I swear,” Andrew started. “Honestly, I’m more the one who got bullied.”

Daniel raised his brows at that and sat down, Ms. Shawn did too, on the head of the table so she could see both of them. Yeah, this was no normal questioning, Daniel felt like.

“Let the nice officer ask the questions, Andrew,” she said, glaring at her son, who quickly shut up.

“We had a report concerning a Batman conspiracy forum, where you have an account,” Daniel took out his notepad and pretended to read it from there as if he hadn’t already memorized most of the forum users, “Thelan43, did I say that right?”

“Yeah.”

“A person, who’s name I can’t tell you, I’m sure you understand, has been getting some nasty messages because of something they have said on the forum. We’re investigating it as cyber-bullying.”

“Don’t detectives do that kind of stuff?”

“Andrew! Don’t be rude!”

“Sorry, uh, Officer.”

Daniel shrugged. “We’re a little short-staffed at the moment. Now, this person has been anonymously sharing their opinions on the foru—”

“The anon? The anon’s getting bullied? But they are the bully,” Andrew said, his voice rising slightly.

“This is not related to personal opinions, Mr. Shawn. Whatever they’ve written on the forum, it shouldn’t have ended in insults and threats.”

This as well as Daniel’s glare seemed to have calmed him some. Andrew nodded, downcast. “That’s not right, yeah.”

“Cyber-bullying is a serious issue. I’ll need to know everything you know.” Daniel didn’t think Andrew was the person sending him the threats. He might have been almost the same age as Daniel, but he seemed to be sheltered, the kind of online user who probably needed to go out and touch grass. With how his mother was supervising their entire conversation, Daniel had a feeling she would have noticed Andrew sneaking out and sending out letters.

Also, Andrew showed no signs of recognizing Daniel. Which, to be fair, could have been acted, and he had seemed surprised to see him there, but Daniel thought the man was more anxious about the cop in there, rather than Daniel there.

“I’ve noticed the anon, I don’t really like them, because they are pretty rude, especially to B. And they always bitch about my theories.” His mother cuffed him for that. “Sorry, mum. Uh, they always tell me I’m wrong and stuff. And like okay, I get it, but do they even know Batman? Who cares? Why can’t they just let me have fun with my theories?”

“So you don’t like them, what else?”

“It’s not just me, okay? Pretty much everybody on the forum hates them.”

Daniel nodded. Yeah, he knew as much. He knew that very well.

“Who is this B you mentioned?” Daniel asked. He thought he knew, but better to ask and make sure.

“This other user, BatwithacapitalB. It’s just what Lorna and I call her. I don’t know her real name. She’s a nurse, though, if that helps.”

Daniel wrote it down.

“And who’s Lorna?”

This time, however, Ms. Shawn answered with a wide smile. “Oh, Lorna. That’s your online friend, no? He talks about her all the time.”

Andrew flushed, all the way from his neck to his ears. “She’s a friend. We talk a lot.”

“I might even have grandkids one day,” Ms. Shawn beamed, and really, even Daniel was feeling the second-hand embarrassment now.

“Muuuuum,” Andrew whined, hiding his face in his hands as Ms. Shawn just laughed.

“So, this Lorna,” Daniel prompted, hiding a chuckle as he took a sip of his tea.

Andrew pulled his hands down, but he was still red. “They go by Lorna online, and by she/they. Their real name is Nancy, but she hates it so yeah. I know she’s studying in Gotham and works at one of the Starbucks part-time.”

Daniel wrote it all down, finally something new. “Any last name?”

“I don’t know that.”

“How old are they?”

“Like 19?”

His mother hit his arm. “Andrew! You’ve been talking to her when she’s 19?”

He turned red all over. “It’s not like that, mum, we’re just friends.”

“Oh but you want more than that. I can recognize a crush when I see one. Andrew, seriously? Did I not teach you anything?”

“Can we not do this now, mum?”

She shook her head disapprovingly.

Daniel was not getting into that. “You said you talk to her, I must ask you not to tell her or anyone else from the forum about this.”

“He won’t tell anyone,” Mr. Shawn assured him.

“I need to hear it from him.”

“I won’t, I promise. Does this mean I’m not in trouble?” Andrew asked.

“If you keep this to yourself, no, you’re not.”

Andrew seemed relieved.

“Are you in contact with anybody else from the forum?”

“Not really. The occasional chat under a post, but that’s it. I really don’t know who is doing this to that anon person. I’m not surprised but yeah.”

“Not surprised? Did anybody talk about planning this?”

“What? No, no, that came out wrong. I just mean, they’ve been sorta… I don’t know, the anon deserves it, is all I’m saying.”

“Deserves to be harassed and threatened?” Daniel couldn’t help snap a little.

“He didn’t mean it like that, right, Andrew?” His mother glared at him.

“Of course not, they don’t deserve something like that. But they should have watched what they were saying.” Andrew shrugged.

Daniel bit his tongue. It seemed like he wouldn’t be getting more useful information from this guy and he better not cause a scene that would get him in trouble with his colleagues.

“Thanks for the tea, Ms. Shawn. That’ll be all.” Daniel stood up. She was ever polite and Andrew just said bye as he left. She even walked him to the door.

Daniel was a little disappointed with the whole thing. He didn’t expect to find the person who was doing this right away, that would have been too lucky, but a small part of him had hoped. At least he now had something to go on with.

Lorna_lolr was actually the one he suspected the most. They had made a post just about him once and always spoke against the anon. He would look for Nancy next.

.

Daniel didn’t have much time to investigate further the next day, he had to go to work and ended up called to a crime scene later that night.

It was a homicide, nothing new in Gotham, but the murdered couple were one of the rich folk. Daniel wouldn’t have cared much until he heard the names. They had been known for their philanthropy and charity work. If they had to kill rich people, why people like them who actually tried to do some good?

The news had been full of them recently. They were opening a new shelter for the homeless. There had been some disputes about where it was being built, Daniel didn’t pay too much attention to the news, but it was something about infringing on a property of some big company and limiting their access to a parking lot.

Rich on rich crime, it seemed to Daniel, but he knew better to make assumptions like that.

Either way, his job here was making sure nobody unauthorized entered. The only exception being Batman, who had come with Gordon, of course he did.

Daniel could always count on his presence when a case was either bizarre or related to somebody influential. Daniel didn’t judge the man for it, knowing it was Gordon who decided which cases Batman was invited to.

Sometimes, though, Daniel caught Batman snooping around very much without Gordon’s supervision, which then Daniel quickly corrected by calling Gordon as soon as Batman was gone. He had a feeling Batman knew somehow. Maybe that was why he never answered Daniel any of his greetings or questions.

Tonight, he didn’t try talking to Batman and went outside where he had been assigned. It would be a busy night, a lot of officers coming and going. Daniel had to make sure nobody fast slipped inside. Especially nobody from the press.

The news of this would get out soon and it would be hell.

When Daniel stood by the door and glanced around, he spotted something shining in the alley almost directly across the street. The other officers who had been there first must have checked the surrounding area for suspects or discarded murder weapons and such, but that was definitely something.

“Hey, man, can you stand here for a sec,” Daniel stopped the closest officer in the door, “I gotta go check something.”

“Okay, Martinez but hurry it up.”

He thanked him and jogged towards the alley. He saw something move in the shadows so he sped up and turned his flashlight on, shining it ahead.

A teenager was staring at him, her mouth open and her phone clutched in her hand.

Daniel lowered the flashlight a little so he didn’t blind her.

“What are you doing out here? What’s your name?” It was the middle of the night. She definitely should be home, in her bed, sleeping so she would be ready for school in just a couple hours.

“I’m Darcy. Darcy Vega.”

“Okay, Darcy. And what are you doing here?” Daniel spoke carefully. She looked like she was one bad word away from getting spooked and making a run for it.

“Nothing.”

“Doesn’t seem like nothing to me. Can I see your phone?”

“Okay,” she said in a whisper and handed it to him.

It was still open on a camera. “You don’t seem like the press.”

“I’m not,” she said quickly. “I don’t even know what’s going on in there.”

“Then why are you taking pictures?”

“Batman’s in there,” she said, sounding more sure of herself now.

Daniel tapped the gallery and saw dozens of pictures already. They weren’t the best from this distance, she clearly didn’t want to risk getting closer to the cops.

“I caught Batman. One shot when he passed the window. It’s for uh, a blog.”

Daniel’s brows rose and he glanced at her, taking a break from going through the pictures she had taken.

“Okay, a forum, same thing.”

Daniel’s mind went blank for a second. Darcy. Could it be the same person? He doubted he would have such luck. Was a coincidence like that even possible? What did she say her name was? Vega? Daniel would have to write that down as soon as he could. Darcy Vega. He would look into that later.

He handed her the phone back. “Keep your Batman if you want, but delete all the rest.”

“Now?”

“Yeah.”

She did a terrible job of hiding her eye-roll from him but tapped around her screen so he guessed she was doing as he had told her. She even turned her screen to him when she was done to show him.

Daniel nodded.

“Can I go now?”

“Not so fast. Where do you live?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yeah, it does. It’s like 2 am. Is it close? Can you get home safely? I can get you a police escort.”

Darcy blanched. “God, no, my parents would kill me.”

“So I’m guessing they don’t know about your little night trips?” he asked and she visibly cringed.

“Are you going to tell them?”

“How? I don’t know them. But you need to stop doing this. It’s dangerous.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“I don’t care if you’re fifty. Same thing.”

“Martinez!” Daniel heard the other cop who was taking his place call his name. He turned to see his colleague looking around anxiously. He probably needed to get back to his own tasks.

“Look—” Daniel turned to address Darcy again but she was already half-way through the alleyway, waving at him with a grin.

“Shit,” Daniel said, but didn’t run after her. She wasn’t a suspect, although he was rather worried about her running around at this time. He watched for another minute, watched her disappear and that was it. The alley was empty again.

He turned to walk back when he nearly ran into a solid wall of black. “Christ, why are you so silent?” he nearly yelled, his heart beating against his ribcage wildly.

Batman just stood there, not moving or bothering to answer him. “Who was that girl?”

“Nobody.”

“What did you talk to her about? Is she—”

“No, she’s got nothing to do with the murder. Leave her alone.”

Batman’s stare was as intense as ever. And whenever Batman stared at him like that, Daniel wanted to speak. He couldn’t bear it for too long, he had to say something.

“Unless you want to make sure she gets home safe, wherever that is.” Daniel squinted his eyes as if challenging him. He wondered if Batman would take the bait. He was really hoping that for once, the man would.

Batman stared for a couple more seconds and then his arm was up, the grapple hook swishing in the air. Batman rose up with it and Daniel watched, mouth slightly gaping, as he got on the roof in a matter of seconds and disappeared from Daniel’s sight faster than Darcy had. And in the direction of the girl, Daniel noticed.

A genuine smile overtook his features. The kind that he hadn’t felt on his lips in a very long time.

Chapter Text

Later, when Daniel had finally slept enough after his night shift and had some time, he tried to find something on one Darcy Vega. He found her Instagram. It was mostly of her with her friends, going out, your usual teenage stuff. She had her age in her bio—just 16. Daniel frowned. She definitely shouldn’t be out taking pics of Batman at night.

The google search found her on her high school’s website. She was listed numerous times for her academic achievements, various projects and competitions. She seemed to be really smart, Daniel gathered. Darcy must have known how dangerous her little hobby was.

When he checked the forum to look at the profile of one darcy111, he quickly realized they were indeed the same person. It wasn’t through her comments, though they definitely had an air of a teenager writing them, it was her own posts. Majority of them were in the sightings section.

Of course, the latest sighting posted to the forum was from yesterday and Daniel immediately recognized the building where the rich couple had been murdered. He hadn’t gotten a good look at the picture of Batman she had captured back then, but it was obviously this very shot.

And it had been posted by darcy111.

He scrolled through her older sightings posts and cursed. She really was smart. She could track Batman better than any journalist he had met, but it also put her in danger. Was this forum so important to her that she would risk her life for it?

Daniel wished he was being dramatic, but he wasn’t. Not in this city. And where Batman dwelled, so did criminals, and she was putting herself in their way.

He vowed to himself to keep an eye on the streets when he was on a crime scene with Batman next, and if he spotted her, he wouldn’t simply let her go. They would go talk to her parents.

Daniel updated his whiteboard and scribbled down some information next to her username. Her name and her age.

For once, Daniel decided to trust his gut when it was telling him that Darcy wasn’t the one sending him the threats. She hadn’t known who he was, though now that he thought of it, Daniel wasn’t sure if he had ever told her his name. He figured that whoever was threatening him knew what he looked like. They had been sending him messages on Instagram first, so they must have.

Knowing that basing his opinions based on personal feelings wasn’t the best basis, Daniel still didn’t think Darcy would be one for threats and cyber-bullying.

He really hoped he was right. Daniel didn’t want to drag a kid into this.

.

Daniel had just gotten to work when he saw Gordon stepping from foot to foot in front of his desk. Despite knowing he was on time, Daniel glanced down at his watch to check the time. He wasn’t late.

“Commissioner?” Daniel asked.

Gordon looked up when he heard him. “Get to my office after the meeting, I’ve got a case for you.”

Daniel’s brows rose, but he nodded. Gordon walked off, as busy as ever.

On this day, every week, the commissioner had a meeting where people updated him on their work, their cases, progress, things like that. Daniel wasn’t present most of the time, unless he needed to be. Not this week, though.

With how it usually went, Daniel had about two hours of time on his hands. He could definitely find enough reports to fill his time.

When he saw several officers arriving into the room, chatting among themselves, he figured it was his time. Daniel slipped his phone in his pocket, as well as his small notepad, just in case, and was on his way.

Gordon’s office door was opened. “Come in, Martinez, and close the door,” he said when Martinez rapped his fingers on the doorframe.

He did just that.

Gordon got straight to the point, handing Daniel a stack of several piles. He noticed that each file was rather thin.

“There’s been a lot of muggings in the area, it’s starting to look like it might be the same guy. I want you to look into it.”

“Me, sir?” It didn’t sound like work for a simple officer like Daniel. He usually did patrols, or secured crime scenes, helped out on arrests, questioned witnesses—the little things that let detectives do their jobs. This seemed a little large scale.

“I have my hands full with the Roshers’ case and Batman’s heavily involved in this one. I need you to be his GCPD liaison.”

Daniel frowned, confused. “Isn’t Batman working on the Roshers’ too? I met him there.”

“He’s working on both.”

“Quite the busy bee, isn’t he.”

Gordon sighed. “Look, Martinez, I know it’s not your usual job, but I need somebody to supervise him.”

“I thought you trusted the guy.” Daniel crossed his arms.

“I do. But he’s still…” Gordon waves his hand in the air as if that made perfect sense. In a way, it did.

“A weirdo in a costume, right.” Daniel looked at the files in his hand, counting them. That was quite a lot of muggings. “Okay, boss, I’ll do it.”

“I’ll owe you one.”

Daniel waved him off. “How does this work? Does he have a number I can call him on or?”

“He’ll find you.”

“But what if I need to find him? Is he gonna show up at my desk during my shift?”

“Don’t think too much about it.”

“These are serious questions, sir.”

Gordon rolled his eyes. “Get to work, Martinez.”

So Daniel did, deciding he would do his work and if Batman showed up, then great, if not, even better. At least he would have some quiet to work on this. Not that Batman was chatty, but his stares were more distracting than any words could be.

When he got to his desk, Daniel finished what he had been working on before and cleared up some space on his desk for the new files. He didn’t want to accidentally mix stuff together.

There were seven reported muggings in total. Daniel read through the reports which detailed what the victims of the muggings had gone through, then he checked any other witness accounts.

Daniel had no doubt that in Gotham, there were countless of muggings occurring every night, but it became pretty clear early on that these were all related.

The MO was there.

The mugger was described as a male in his early thirties, white, with brown hair hanging on his shoulders. He always had a cap on and dark, generic clothes. Of average build and tall. The three sketches all matched up pretty well. The stubble and thin lips and the shape of nose were all pretty similar.

When Daniel sorted them by date, the first mugging occurred five months ago and the latest only two weeks ago. The reports said the mugger always had a gun, but not during the last time. He had a pocket knife with him, but the sketch matched so they were guessing it was still the same person.

What worried Daniel the most was the description of his acting. He was erratic, yelled at his victims, didn’t seem to care much about being overheard. It was a wonder they hadn’t caught him yet. Or that he hadn’t seriously hurt somebody yet.

Most of the people he chose to mug were women, short and with slight stature. There was one instance of an older lady getting mugged and a young guy, described by Daniel’s fellow officer as skinny and nervous. The mugger picked anyone who looked like a weak target.

Daniel didn’t like that. It meant the guy wasn’t relying on his weapon alone, meant that he was smarter than it looked upon first glance.

Then, Daniel thought about why Batman was getting involved in a simple mugging case. It wasn’t so simple after all.

He kept reading the reports. Another pattern emerged. The muggings happened between midnight and roughly 4 am, when it was still dark. And all of them in the downtown area. The person must have been a local.

If he knew the area well, he would have an advantage over them. Daniel would have to try to get Gordon to approve more frequent patrols in the area.

But something about it kept nagging at Daniel. It wasn’t until he was home that night that it occurred to him. He quickly opened the Batman forum and found BatwithacapitalB’s post.

The nurse who had been mugged on her way home. At night. He had a gun, was shaking and yelling. It would fit the series of cases Daniel had on his desk. He checked the date when she had posted and it was right in between the two muggings when the perp switched from a gun to a knife.

Did Batman take his gun?

Shit, how was Daniel supposed to bring this up without mentioning how he knew about it?

The forum was still ruining his mood and he wasn’t even active on it anymore. Daniel cursed the day he was bored enough to click on it. He regretted it every single day now.

Daniel glanced at his whiteboard, Gordon’s words ringing in his head. Batman was going to find him. Did that mean his apartment? Did Batman know where he lived?

He was paranoid enough with all the letters and messages and now he would have to worry about Batman randomly dropping by?

With a sigh, Daniel rolled the whiteboard back to his bedroom and stashed it in the space between the wall and his wardrobe, careful not to smudge the writing on it. He would only take it out when he was investigating.

Next day, Daniel got another threat. He wondered if he should plant a camera above the entrance door. He didn’t have a permit for it, obviously, and if anybody noticed it there, it could get him in trouble. Or maybe he could stake out his own apartment building. But then again, the letters weren’t coming regularly.

So far he had gotten four. After the third one, there had been a longer break. Daniel didn’t get optimistic about it since he still received a couple e-mails and messages on his Instagram again. It seemed like whoever they were, they found they liked this sort of a balance between the threats and nasty messages.

And Daniel, he very much did not like that.

When he was driving back from work, his car stopped at a long line as the traffic light turned red, Daniel spotted the bat signal. It hadn’t been on when he was leaving the precinct, he was sure.

“Is that for me?” Daniel muttered to himself.

Instead of going home, he found the first available parking spot on the following street right after the intersection and dialled Gordon.

“Yes?”

“Commissioner, sir, so, I’m kind of looking at the bat signal up in the sky right now and—”

“Where are you?”

Daniel peered out of the window, squinting his eyes, trying to read the street sign on the nearest building. He had lived in Gotham for a very long time, he still didn’t know the street names, so sue him. “Uh, Marigold Street, I think. I parked to call y— Holy shit!”

“Martinez! What was that?” Gordon spoke hurriedly on the other side of the connection, but Daniel was too busy gaping at his window on the passenger side of his car.

“Nevermind. I’ll see you tomorrow, sir,” Daniel said quickly and hung up.

It had been a knock on his window that had startled him so. He pressed the button and watched as the window rolled down painfully slowly. He glared at Batman. “This how it’s gonna be?”

“Follow me,” Batman said, not answering and was gone from the window in the next second.

Daniel spun around to watch where he was going. He hadn’t even noticed the black motorcycle that had parked right behind him. He had been too busy looking at the bat signal, apparently.

Batman didn’t wait and entered the traffic. Daniel hurried to follow him, closing his window as he steered. He had no idea where they were going and wondered if it was stupid to just follow the guy, no questions asked.

Was it like this with Gordon too? Daniel seriously doubted that. But what else was he supposed to do? Yell through the traffic?

So he followed him and it didn’t take him all that long to realize Batman was leading him toward the origin of the bat signal. Daniel parked the car next to the motorcycle.

“So,” he started, “this your version of a phone call?”

Batman glanced at him and then wordlessly got into the elevator. Daniel guessed he was supposed to follow.

The elevator was kind of small, especially with Batman in it. Daniel wondered if it was only the suit that made the man so bulky. When his eyes met Batman’s questioning gaze, Daniel realized he must have been staring. He flushed and quickly turned away. He should not be having thoughts like that about freaking Batman of all people. He didn’t even know who the guy was under all that.

They finally got to their floor, Daniel was first out of the elevator even if he didn’t really know where he was supposed to go. Batman passed him effortlessly. Daniel watched as he turned off the bat signal.

“I thought Gordon would tell you,” Batman said.

“Tell me what?”

“About the signal.”

Daniel looked at it. “Oh, so it was for me. Did you come here, light it and then go out to look for me too?”

“I turn it on when I need Gordon. Or if he wants to talk to me.”

“So I can come here whenever and turn it on?”

Batman nodded.

“Wow, it really is your phone call version.”

Batman didn’t find it all that funny.

“Jesus, okay, work stuff then.” Daniel found the small notebook in his jacket pocket. Sometimes he accidentally grabbed it when he was leaving the precinct, along with his phone. It was all in his muscle memory. He was glad for it now, though. “The muggings. I have the files, I’ve been through them several times already. What can you tell me that is not in there?”

Batman eyed the notebook.

“What, I’m gonna forget it by the time I get to my car. So?” Daniel leaned on one of the support pillars and got ready to write down anything necessary.

“There’s been more muggings.”

“More than seven?”

“Eleven, at least.”

Daniel wrote down the number. “And all of them downtown, at night?”

Batman nodded.

Then it occurred to Daniel. “You’ve met the guy, haven’t you? That’s why you’re working this case.” Batman shifted, uncomfortable. It was a lot of emotion coming from him. “Freaking hell, you’ve let the guy go.”

“I didn’t let him go.”

Daniel crossed his arms, dragging the notebook with his hand. This was exactly the kind of shit that made him hate Batman’s methods. Also the kind of shit that had gotten him into the whole Batman forum trouble.

He bit the inside of his cheek, reigning in his temper. Yeah, he had seen what his angry words had done. He expressed them and now he was being threatened by some person. Obviously, that approach wasn’t working out that well for him.

“Tell me what happened,” Daniel said instead, still glaring, though.

“He was about to mug a woman. I got the drop on him. She asked me to walk her home. I thought he would still be unconscious by the time I got back.”

“And he wasn’t,” Daniel filled in the blank.

“No.”

“Did Gordon show you the sketches? Do you think you could identify him?”

“Not really.”

“Well, I’ll bring them tomorrow anyway. Did he have the gun then?” Daniel asked despite already knowing.

“Yes.”

“But not after, so what happened to it? Can we find it? Where was that mugging and did the victim report it?”

Batman told him the street name. “I doubt it’s still there. If you don’t know about it then she didn’t, but I know where she lives.”

"Where's that?"

“I don’t know.”

“You walked her home.”

“Yeah, and I don’t know the address. I’ll find it later.”

“Okay, fine, what about the other muggings, what’s your source?”

“A shot victim. A drug dealer. He went to an underground doctor.”

“And let me guess, you keep tabs?”

A nod.

“Right. And the other two?”

“First time I encountered the guy, he spotted me and turned around. He was following a woman.”

“I don’t think that counts as a mugging, but we can pinpoint his location with that, narrow down the downtown area. He must be local.”

Batman nodded and it felt oddly good to have his theory validated by the notoriously good detective who wasn’t actually even a detective.

“And the last?”

“Two teenagers. They ran into me, said some guy mugged them, had a gun. I didn’t find him.”

Daniel’s brows furrowed. “Weird. I feel like you should’ve been able to find him.”

Daniel had a feeling the look Batman threw him was a little hurt, so he raised one arm, placating. He added, “I just mean, it’s one guy, you know? You’ve handled far worse. So what gives?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yet,” Daniel said. He kicked off from the pillar. “I’m going home, man, it’s late. I’ll review the files tomorrow, you get me the woman’s address and we’ll go from there. Same time? No need for the light show.”

“Same time tomorrow.”

Daniel put the notebook in his pocket again and waved over his shoulder at Batman. He obviously wasn’t going to ride the elevator with him, which was fine. Daniel still had a lot to think about.

When he got home, he made more thorough notes in his notebook about what Batman had told him. He would start working on a map tomorrow, narrowing down the downtown area. They had to find the mugger, even if it took going door to door.

The man was clearly dangerous if he had already shot somebody.

Chapter Text

Before meeting with Martinez, Bruce retraced his steps on that night using an online map and the footage from his lenses when he couldn’t recall which turn he had taken.

He was running late, only about two or three minutes, but Martinez was already there when Bruce exited the elevator.

Martinez sat on the ground, not noticing Bruce’s arrival. He was staring off into space, his hands moving in a nervous tick he probably didn’t notice either.

It reminded Bruce of the man’s recent behaviour. Something was off about it. He was spacing out a lot, engaging in less chatter. He now had permanent hints of eye bags under his eyes.

He had been acting odd for a while now. Bruce noticed. It was hard not to notice Officer Martinez.

Bruce remembered Martinez from the former mayor’s funeral. Martinez knew him as Mr. Wayne so Bruce always tried not to talk much in front of him, in case he would recognize his voice. Somehow.

Which maybe wasn’t his best decision as it only drove Martinez crazy, but it was for the best. Alfred was always telling Bruce, when he was venting about it, how he and Martinez would probably be good friends if he tried.

Alfred claimed that they had some opposite characteristics that suited each other, that Martinez made Bruce reconsider things, brought a new perspective. All that good stuff. And Bruce thought Alfred was right. It scared him.

So Bruce ignored the officer. And then ignored Alfred’s disappointed looks when the man caught Batman not replying to the officer on the footage of his lenses.

Then, Bruce had seen the animals. Twisted even by Gotham standards. He had to check it out. Bruce had slipped through an open window, saw the broken furniture. Clear signs of a robbery, but the animals… He had come to stand next to Martinez and something had been definitely wrong with him.

Bruce had seen him on his phone many times when the officer thought that nobody was around, so his refusal to check the notification was odd.

And it hadn’t seemed like a work-related issue. Martinez had looked absolutely exhausted.

Bruce had gone to check the crime scene, using the opportunity that Martinez allowed him, and yes, he could focus in the silence, but it had been too silent. No running commentary. Oddly helpful most of the time.

The silence had been jarring.

When Martinez had literally run into him and hadn’t even given Bruce a chance to apologize, Bruce started to think something bigger was going on with the officer. He had been gone in a flash. Bruce had wanted to go after him, but Gordon had been waiting for him.

Now, on the open floor, the far-off look was back on Martinez’s face. Bruce had to make his steps deliberately loud to draw his attention. After a few long seconds, it worked.

“Oh, hey,” Martinez greeted rather mildly.

“I’ve got the address.” Bruce slipped the piece of paper from one of his pouches on his utility belt and handed it to him. There was a name of the nurse too—Ashley Harper.

Bruce mimicked Martinez and sat in front of him, crossing his legs.

Martinez read the name and the address and then wordlessly put it into his pocket. He then picked up a file that had been resting next to him and took out a map. He unfolded it on the ground and Bruce could see the downtown area of Gotham, with red dots marking all the muggings. At least the ones Martinez knew about.

“I’ve been thinking,” Martinez said, “about that one time you didn’t catch him, with those teens. That area is vital.” He pulled out a red marker. “Where was that?”

Bruce took the marker from him instead and made the dot himself.

“We should go through there first. I’ll go check it during my next shift.”

“With your patrol partner?” Bruce couldn’t quite remember who that was, if he ever saw the person with Martinez. Their paths didn’t often cross when Martinez was out patrolling.

“Uh, no, Gordon gave this case to me.”

“Don’t go.”

“I have to? How will we—”

“I mean, don’t go alone,” Bruce corrected. “I’ll go with you.”

Bruce stared him down. Going alone after a potentially dangerous and armed person was dumb. Unless Bruce did it, but he was trained. More than your average cop.

“And you’re gonna show up like that?” Martinez waved around in the direction of his suit.

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think that’s suspicious? Nobody’s gonna talk to you.”

“But they will talk to a cop?” Bruce asked.

“I don’t have to wear the uniform to just look around.”

“Fine. I’ll stay out of sight.”

Martinez sighed. “Okay, fine. Not like I can stop you.”

“Do you have the sketches?” Bruce switched the topic. He didn’t think he would recognize the man, he hadn’t gotten a good enough look at him, but it was worth a try.

“What sketches?”

Bruce stared at him, mouth opening a fraction.

“Fuck, right, the sketches. I must’ve left them at my desk. Fuck.” Martinez ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll bring them the next time. I’m sorry.”

“What’s going on?” Bruce blurted out without thinking.

“What do you mean what’s going on?” Martinez asked, sounding tired and confused at the same time.

“You’re…” Bruce didn’t know how to finish.

“I’m just tired, man. It’s been a long shift. I’m sure you get it, swinging around and the like.”

“Yeah.” Bruce did get that, but he could tell when somebody was lying and the fake smiles and avoidant gaze, well, Martinez wasn’t that good of a liar.

Bruce dropped it for now. Clearly, Martinez wasn’t going to share.

He told Martinez where to meet the next day and then Martinez was on his way.

Before the elevator door closed, he saw Martinez looking down at his phone, eyes widening and posture stiffening. But then the elevator went down. Bruce watched him from up there, as he hurried to his car. Martinez sat down behind the wheel and just sat there, hands on the wheel, taking breaths, not moving.

A minute later, Martinez went on like nothing had happened and drove off.

.

The next day, they met as promised. Martinez was in his civilian clothing, his badge in his pocket should he need it.

Martinez went around, checking it out. He talked to some locals, checked what sort of buildings were there, looked for any hiding spots. He did his job, and Bruce was mostly on the roof, checking on him, having his back. He only came down when Martinez signalled him that he needed to discuss something with him.

But most of all, Bruce watched him. Martinez kept checking his phone. It was almost obsessive.

Bruce recalled how it kept beeping back then. He would think that maybe it was a dating situation, if not for the distraught look Martinez had every time he checked his phone.

When he saw again how Martinez took out his phone and literally flinched at what he read there, Bruce decided it was time for another chat. He swung down from the roof and landed in front of Martinez who immediately fumbled with his phone.

“What were you reading?” Bruce asked him.

Martinez gripped the phone with both his hands as if Bruce would try to pry it from him. “Uh, work stuff.”

“We’re doing work stuff here,” Bruce countered.

Martinez glared. “Other work stuff.”

“You’re getting defensive.”

“Def— what the hell, man. No, I’m not. Maybe let’s focus on work instead? Did you come here only to freaking annoy me?”

If he didn’t have the cowl on, Martinez would clearly see Bruce raising his brows at the obvious deflection and defensiveness. Somehow, Martinez always redirected his questions back to work.

Bruce allowed it. For now. This mugger needed to be stopped before he did something much worse.

He could admit that he was to blame. Bruce felt guilty for not being more careful. He should have insisted on tying him up or waiting for the police before walking the nurse home. But she had asked him and was in shock. She had barely stopped crying and sobbing a second before, and he hadn’t known how to say no. Leaving her there seemed too cruel.

So Bruce needed to find this mugger. All the other victims, that was all on him.

.

They hadn’t found much. Bruce didn’t like that. He couldn’t take it. He had to do something.

So once he and Martinez went their separate ways, he went back to the bat cave and tried to identify the two teenagers who had been previously mugged.

It was a lot of camera and his own lenses’ footage, but the facial recognition software worked and he found one of them. Aaron. The other was easy to find after that since he was tagged in all of Aaron’s Instagram posts. They were dating.

They really made it so easy. Aaron had posted an Instagram story with their location. They were about to see a movie together.

Bruce got a plan in his mind—wait for them in the alley behind the cinema, talk to them there. But he couldn’t do it. It had been years, but he just couldn’t.

Instead, Bruce watched them walk out of the cinema together and followed them. They were renting a flat, Bruce already knew the address. As Aaron rummaged in his backpack for the keys, Bruce approached them.

It had gotten dark outside, so as he stepped out of the shadows—unintentionally this time—Aaron’s boyfriend Simon yelled when he spotted him. He stopped after it clicked in his mind that it was Batman.

“God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t— How did you— Sorry,” Simon stammered out, looking a little pale from the brief fright.

“The mugging. I have questions,” Bruce said, ignoring the apology.

Aaron managed to look more awkward than his boyfriend. “Okay. Do you want to go talk inside?”

A pause. “Not really,” Bruce said.

Aaron stepped slightly away from the door, swung his backpack back over his shoulder and shrugged.

“What do you want to know?” Simon asked.

Bruce had prepared the sketch. He made a copy from the footage from his lenses. Martinez had shown it to him earlier that day, not that Bruce recognized the guy. Maybe they would.

“Is this the guy?” He showed them the sketch.

“I think so, yes,” Simon said.

When Bruce turned the picture towards Aaron, the man shook his head. “I wasn’t wearing my glasses. I can’t tell you any details.”

“He was pretty tall, though, right?” Simon turned to his boyfriend.

“He was. As tall as you, Mr… Batman?”

Well, at least something. Bruce nodded. He had been described as tall, but having a more precise description was good. “Did he say anything to you?”

“Besides yelling about our money? No. He didn’t seem up to a chat,” Aaron said before Simon elbowed him slightly. “What? It’s true. We chucked our bags at him and made a run for it.”

“What did you have in them?”

“Nothing much except my wallet, some snacks and two textbooks. Those were worth more than what I had in my wallet,” Aaron sighed, “I had my phone and my keys in my pocket.”

“I didn’t, he got everything. Wallet, phone, keys,” Simon said. “I had to cancel all my cards and change subscriptions. I usually just use my phone to find my keys but— oh, right! My keys! I have this GPS tracker keychain on them. My sister bought it for me ‘cause I keep losing them.”

“Okay but like you can only access that from your phone, which the guy took too.”

“Every tracker has a code. Can you find that for me?” Bruce asked him.

“I mean, sure, I have the original package somewhere around. But isn’t that something only the police can access?” Simon said, confused.

“I work with them.”

Bruce had to wait till Simon went upstairs to find the thing, it didn’t take him all that long. The ten minutes Bruce spent waiting, standing on the street next to Aaron, felt like eternity. Thank God the kid didn’t try to talk to him or make small talk.

Getting the tracker information to Martinez was easier than trying to hack the database without police access, so Bruce headed to the officer’s apartment.

He knew where Martinez lived. He knew a lot about him. After it became obvious that Gordon trusted this particular officer a lot, and Bruce himself met him on an increasing number of occasions, he did his littler research. He had to know if Daniel Martinez was trustworthy or not.

So far, he had been, but his recent behaviour was getting incredibly suspicious.

Bruce went up the fire escape on the side of the building till he reached Martinez’s bedroom window.

He knocked and watched as Martinez startled, jumping slightly where he stood and shoved a whiteboard next to the wall. There was some writing on it but Bruce didn’t get a good enough look. He would have to check his lens footage later.

Martinez patted to the window, bare-footed, in sweats and a white tank top. Bruce hadn’t realized how buff the cop actually was. He always wore his uniform jacket when Bruce saw him.

He opened the window. “What the fuck dude, it’s nearly midnight.”

“You weren’t sleeping.”

“Not the point.”

Bruce had been leaning on the railing, he didn’t even need to move closer to hand Martinez the tracker information.

Martinez took it without hesitation. “What’s this?”

“I found the guys who’ve been mugged. The mugger’s description checks out. One of them had a tracker keychain on his keys.”

Martinez’s eyes went wide as he put it together. “If the mugger still has those keys…”

Bruce nodded. They would have him.

“I don’t suppose you asked them to report the mugging?” Martinez asked.

Bruce cringed a little. “It didn’t come up.”

“Of course it didn’t. Well, this is good enough, I guess. Thanks. Hope you didn’t traumatize them for this info.”

“I don’t— They’re kids.”

Martinez gave him this long look that Bruce couldn’t identify. “Yeah, okay. G’night, man. Stay safe?” He said at last, slowly reaching up for the window pane so that he could close it before retreating.

“Good night,” Bruce said and it was all that Martinez needed to shut the window and draw the thick curtains.

Later, when Bruce had spent most of the remaining hours of the dark outside, making sure the criminals didn’t overdo it, he went back to the cave and checked to see if his lenses might have caught Martinez’s scribbles.

No matter how many times he had tried to freeze the frame, it always came out blurry. Whatever Martinez had been doing before Bruce had arrived, he wouldn’t know.

For some reason, Bruce let the footage play. He knew there was nothing else of use for him, but he still let it keep going. He stopped when Martinez opened the window and entered the frame fully.

Bruce wasn’t sure for how long his eyes stayed on the frozen frame.

Before he went to sleep, he made sure to turn the screen off. He didn’t want Alfred asking him questions like he had done with Selina.

.

Martinez lit the bat signal.

Bruce saw it from the Wayne Tower. From the conference room.

The sky was dark enough even during the day to make it out and Bruce was in a fucking meeting with a board of directors or something like that. He hadn’t really paid attention as Alfred had forced him into the room.

He needed to leave.

Bruce stood up, mid-presentation. The poor guy presenting it turned to him. “Mr. Wayne?” he asked timidly, any confidence from his speech gone as he seemed to be shaking like a leaf at the sight of the Wayne heir leaving.

Bruce plastered his phone to his ear as if he was calling somebody. “Urgent business,” he muttered and left the room.

He was not calling anybody. He also didn’t think anybody bought it. Bruce didn’t care.

In a hurry, he got to the cave and changed into his suit and went after Martinez. This was far more important than any company meeting. Bruce could just read the report later. Or Alfred would read it and would tell him if anything important happened. He doubted it, though. It never did. It was the same shit every time.

When he got to the open floor with the bat signal, Martinez was lying on the ground.

Panic seized him as Bruce rushed to his side. He shook his shoulder violently. “Martinez!”

Martinez’s eyes snapped open. He glanced around, appearing confused.

“What the fuck’s going on with you?” Bruce snapped.

“What’s with you, man?” Martinez snapped right back. “That’s not how you wake a guy.”

“How was I supposed to know you were sleeping?”

“What else did it look like I was doing? I just dozed off, jeez. Is your first instinct thinking I’m dead?”

Bruce’s silence was more telling than any words he could have said.

So he might have been a little rough, but it was true, he had thought the officer was unconscious or something. It was just Bruce’s experience. Around him, people were usually unconscious or dead, not napping.

Bruce hadn’t missed the deflection again. Martinez never answered his question.

When Bruce held out his hand to help him up, Martinez took it, even if he was still glaring at him.

Martinez pulled a folded piece of paper from the inner pocket of his jacket. “It’s the location of the tracker. It hasn’t changed in several days now.” He handed it to Bruce. “Just go check it out, don’t wait for me.”

He turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” Bruce asked him.

“Home. I’ve got a double shift tomorrow.”

Martinez never stayed long enough for Bruce to get his answers.

He was already suited up so Bruce didn’t waste any time and went to the location. He found the backpack with the keys still in it. He couldn’t tell outright which keychain was the actual tracker—which was most likely the point. The mugger probably didn’t realize either.

It had been easy to get inside the place. It had the windows covered with wood planks, but the back door only needed a little push and he was in. Just like many after the flood, this property used to be a store, based on the outline and shelves. It had bankrupted or closed down as the result of the flood and the owners never got it running again.

As he glanced around, the place looked lived in. A squat, most likely. Somebody had been there recently, not in the last few days, but definitely recently. The backpack must have gotten there somehow. But Simon had said his phone and wallet had been in there. The mugger had taken those.

Bruce considered whether to take the stuff back to the teenagers or whether to hand it over to the police in case they were able to get prints off of it. He would have to tell Martinez about what he had found. The decision was already made for him.

Bruce watched the place all night, but nobody came. If the mugger was a local who knew about all of these new squat places, it would make sense he could quickly disappear and hide out in one of them.

He would have to tell Martinez to get somebody to keep watch outside this place.

Bruce took the backpacks. He carried some clean plastic bags with him. He never knew when those could be useful. If the cops showed up, cleaning out the place, the mugger would be tipped off and never return, like this, they still had a chance of catching him here.

.

Bruce woke up to Alfred’s incessant calling of his name. He rubbed his face, getting his hair out of his eyes and squinting up at Alfred. “What time is it?”

“Mid-afternoon. I found your drug dealer.”

That got Bruce to wake up fully. He sat up in his bed. He had asked Alfred to keep an eye on that one. He took the paper from Alfred’s hand and looked through it, already getting out of bed.

“You’re going now?”

“Yeah,” Bruce muttered, not really paying attention as he read through the information Alfred had gathered.

“At least have something for breakfast.”

“I don’t have time for that.”

“One day you’re going to faint from hunger, Bruce.”

“I won’t,” he called out, already in the hall.

“The late nights will catch up to you,” Alfred yelled after him, but didn’t follow him.

As he passed the dining table on his way to the elevator, Bruce took a croissant off the tray there. Alfred would see and be satisfied.

Knowing where to look, Bruce found the drug dealer and captured him, tying his hands. He didn’t tape his mouth, though he had wished he had. The man didn’t stop complaining about his rights till Bruce parked the car in front of the precinct. Then he had tried to make a run for it, again, but there was no escaping Batman.

Bruce dragged him all the way to Martinez’s desk, ignoring all the double takes and stunned faces at his presence. It wasn’t like he never came to the precinct because he needed to talk to Gordon or something. He just didn’t do it often in the broad daylight—more like gray-ish day, it was still Gotham.

Martinez seemed just as shocked as everybody else to see him there.

“Who’s this?” Martinez asked at last when Bruce pushed the man into the chair on the side of Martinez’s table.

“The drug dealer.”

“Ah, no, stop right there. You have no proof of that.” The man pointed at Bruce, then turned to Martinez. “You don’t actually believe this guy, do you?”

Martinez was already sorting through a file. “Do you recognize this man?” Martinez showed him the mugger’s sketch.

The drug dealer obviously did, wincing. “Should I?”

“Right,” Martinez dragged out the word. “Let’s take this to an interrogation room.”

“You can’t do that! I didn’t do anything,” he started protesting. Bruce took him by the elbow and made him follow after Martinez to the interrogation room for further questioning. “Okay, fine, fine, I’ve met the guy!” He changed tactics. “But I’m a victim. A-a witness! You have no reason to—”

Bruce stopped him with a strong grip, turning to him. “Shut up. Save it for the questioning.”

That worked.

Until it didn’t. “You can’t do this without a reason!” he called after Martinez, seeing as he couldn’t reason with Bruce. “Is Batman unlawfully arresting citizens now too? Why are you taking me there?”

Martinez turned to face him. He grinned a huge fake grin. “It’s for privacy, no need to worry, man.”

But Bruce had already told Martinez that the guy was a drug dealer. Martinez hadn’t told Bruce to get lost yet, either.

Then it dawned on him. Martinez was doing it on purpose. He was using him. Using Batman to intimidate the guy.

Before Bruce could follow the drug dealer and Martinez into the interrogation room, before he could pass Martinez who was holding the door, Martinez leaned in close, their chests brushing. “Behave,” he whispered to him low enough so that the drug dealer wouldn’t hear him.

Martinez sat opposite the drug dealer, asking him basic questions about his name, age, address, the like, while Bruce stayed in the corner of the room, observing, his arms crossed across his chest. He stayed behind Martinez so that the drug dealer wouldn’t forget he was there.

“You said you’ve met the man. Can you describe what happened?”

“Is this on-record?” the man asked.

“Yes.”

“Uh, I met him on the street at night.”

“When was that?” Martinez asked.

“I don’t remember the exact date.”

Martinez sighed. The guy wouldn’t simply admit to being out selling drugs and then getting shot. “Tell us what you do remember,” Martinez said.

“He got really close with a gun, but I wasn’t just gonna let him mug me, so I fought back. All self-defence, of course. He sh— he hit me, but I knocked his cap off. He does look like that guy on the sketch. He had these really pale eyes and barely visible eyebrows, like this light colour, you know what I mean? And he was super tall.”

“Did he take anything from you? Did you notice any tattoos, any clothing brands, or where he took off?”

“I think he didn’t really expect me to hit back so he freaked out and ran off, back where he came from. What street was that, um, do you have like a map or something?”

Martinez produced a map from a file he had taken from his desk before.

“Ah yeah, right here.” The man pointed to a spot on the man, an alley in the downtown area.

“What did you do after he shot you?” Martinez asked.

“I went to a doctor, what else was I s— ah, shit.”

“So the drugs, did the mugger take those?”

The man stood up abruptly. “Am I under arrest? What’s with these fucking questions?”

Bruce took a step closer, reminding the man he was still very much there. “Sit back down.”

The man turned to look at Bruce, paling. He sat down again. “I don’t know anything about any drugs.”

“We have a reliable witness saying otherwise,” Martinez said.

The man glared at Bruce, pointing at him angrily with his still tied wrists. “You promised! You said if I come here to talk about the mugger, you—” he shut himself up before he could spill the whole thing in front of a cop.

Bruce allowed a smirk to pull at his lips. “I’m not a cop. I don’t make deals.”

The man’s jaw dropped. “I-I want a lawyer.”

Martinez sighed. “Right. Definitely not a drug dealer asking for a lawyer.”

They would now be able to detain him for some time, but unless they got a warrant to search his place where Bruce knew the drugs were, the police wouldn’t be able to do much.

Before Martinez could try asking anything else, another female officer burst into the interrogation room.

“Are you finished here?” she asked, looking a little annoyed.

Martinez threw her a curios look, “Yeah, I think we are.”

Bruce recognized her as Officer Hampton. She had been on a couple of crime scenes with him before. She only seemed to notice Batman standing there. She nodded in acknowledgement at him, which Bruce returned.

“Good.” She dropped something in front of Martinez. His phone. “It’s been going off like crazy. I took it before Witteburn could hurl it out of the window.”

A panicked look crossed Martinez’s features. He grabbed the phone off the table and stood up, getting closer to Hampton to talk to her. Whether he didn’t want the drug dealer to hear or Bruce, it didn’t matter. In the small room, Bruce could hear everything.

“Did you see who it was?”

She frowned. “I didn’t look.”

Only then did Martinez relax. He turned the phone off, not even checking the messages or whatever notifications he had gotten.

With a nod to herself, Hampton left the room. Martinez fiddled with the turned off phone. “Uh…” he faltered.

Bruce would have to take over. The drug dealer wouldn’t tell them more at this time, so Bruce went around the table and made him stand up. He turned to Martinez. “Where are the holding cells?”

“Right,” Martinez said.

When the drug dealer was dealt with, Bruce stopped Martinez before the cop could return to his desk. He couldn’t help the irritation he felt as Martinez continued hiding something from him, lying about it. To his colleagues too. To his cop colleagues. It was suspicious. It made Bruce angry. And Martinez just wouldn’t tell him.

Bruce tried asking one more time. “Who’s messaging you?”

“That? That’s just my sister spamming me. She’s binging a show. She always does this.”

“Then why are you so upset about it?”

“I’m not upset,” Martinez denied. Bruce was silent, staring at Martinez. Eventually, Martinez couldn’t take it and lashed out. “I’m not. Stop asking me personal shit, man, jesus.”

He passed by Bruce, just barely avoiding not hitting his shoulder and hurried out of there.

Martinez could lie all he wanted, but there was one thing he couldn’t hide from Bruce—the raw fear in his eyes. He desperately didn’t want anybody, especially Batman, finding out.

.

Bruce couldn’t figure it out. He hated feeling this confused. His inner detective was screaming at him, telling him he should have noticed more, some signs, some hints. Anything.

Every possibility went through his mind. Why would Martinez be hiding it from the police and Batman? Did he cut a deal? Was he doing something illegal on the side?

The worst things, Bruce thought of them all. Things he never imagined Martinez doing. He felt so betrayed even at the mere idea of it. Bruce didn’t have evidence, any proof, but it hurt. It upset him. And he didn’t know why. Why it was affecting him so.

Or maybe he did.

He trusted Martinez. His trust wasn’t earned easily. Bruce didn’t know how to handle Martinez turning into a dirty cop. Not after everything.

Especially because it was Martinez.

Even Alfred noticed his snappy and sulking mood. “Bruce,” Alfred called him, looking at him with that look. He didn’t have to ask, didn’t have to point it out.

Bruce was already talking. About his suspicions and his worst fears. About Martinez and every little thing that was out of character, that didn’t feel like Martinez.

“Ask him about it,” Alfred said.

“I told you. I already did.”

“But you didn’t ask the right questions. He can’t feel like you are attacking him.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I know that, Bruce, but did he know? He doesn’t really know you. He only knows Batman.”

“So I should just go and ask him if he is on some mob-boss’s payroll now?”

Alfred sighed heavily. “Is that what you took from my advice?”

“What am I supposed to say then?”

“Be gentle. Keep an open-mind.”

“Batman isn’t gentle.”

“But you can be. Whatever is going on, it’s taking a toll on him. Don’t assume the worst about him.”

“So you don’t think he’s turned?”

Alfred shook his head. “The officer’s a person, with a life outside of his police work. Not everyone is like you. It could be a family issue, or something personal he doesn’t want to discuss with his colleagues, and definitely not with Batman. Ask him again, but be mindful of how you do it and when you do it.”

Bruce asked Gordon instead.

He was out on a patrol, late in the evening, when he saw that the light in the commissioner’s office was still on.

Batman didn’t bother with knocking and let himself in.

Gordon looked up from his computer at the intrusion. “I’ll have to call you back.” He put down the office phone.

“What’s Martinez working on?”

Gordon frowned. “The mugging case with you.”

“Other than that,” Bruce specified. “Is he conducting some private investigation, do you have him on a sensitive case? What’s he doing?”

“He might have some other tasks here and there, but no. Where are you getting these?”

Bruce took the commissioner in. He had no idea. That was even more concerning. “Forget it,” he said and left the office before Gordon could ask him more questions.

Bruce nearly ran into Hampton as she emerged from whatever room right into the hallway.

“You’ve been around here an awful lot,” she said with a wry smile.

He was about to leave without commenting on that, when he thought of something. She and Martinez seemed close.

“Why’s Martinez being so weird?” Bruce asked without preamble.

She frowned, not appearing too eager to discuss this with Batman, but then she sighed. “You’ve noticed too?”

He nodded.

“Daniel’s a good friend, I’m worried about him. Whatever’s happening, he’s been shutting me off. He’s been acting weird for weeks now.”

“He’s been getting a lot of messages.”

“Yes. But it’s like he doesn’t want anybody to see.”

“He lied to me about who it was.”

“No offence, but I don’t think Dan’s gonna tell you of all people.”

“He didn’t even tell you.”

Her expression turned sad. “No, he didn’t. I figured he would once he’s ready, but as I said, it’s been weeks now and he looks more exhausted every time I see him.”

“I’ll find out what’s happening.”

She cringed a little. “Do what you gotta do, but promise me, don’t treat him like a criminal. We don’t know what this is.”

Bruce nodded.

Despite the promise and after more time ruminating on this, Bruce was still suspecting Martinez of the worst. Because why wouldn’t he tell his close friend either? Not even Gordon. Bruce had half a mind to track down Martinez’s family and ask them. Maybe that installer uncle of his or the sister he had mentioned.

But that was a little too much, even Bruce recognized that, and Martinez already disliked him enough. Bruce could be patient. He was going to keep observing the man and eventually the truth would come out.

Bruce was going to give him the benefit of the doubt, work the case with him, and if Martinez didn’t say it on his own, Bruce would start pushing. He would get his way eventually.

If Martinez had swayed from the path, Bruce would reveal him and make him face the consequences. Martinez knew what happened to crooked cops in Gotham.

Chapter Text

Daniel was so damn tired these days. He didn’t use to feel like this. Not even after school, after practices, after his night shifts. Falling asleep became more and more difficult with each day, when all he could think about was if a new letter would be waiting in his mailbox.

Even Batman was lowkey harassing him now too. The man probably didn’t even realize it and Daniel had to deal with both him and whoever was threatening him. Their mugging case too.

He didn’t have the energy to deal with Batman and his sudden interest and weird questions. He had the case and his own investigation to worry about.

The tracker hadn’t been as successful in finding the mugger as they had hoped, so next on their agenda was talking to the nurse, Ashley Harper.

Daniel was currently walking up the stairs in the apartment building where she lived, an earpiece hidden with his curls and the hat. Batman had given it to him so that he could talk to Daniel and also hear what she was saying.

They both agreed it would be better for Batman to stay out of this. She had had a good reaction to him—Daniel knew exactly how good—but Batman wasn’t really known for interviewing victims and witnesses.

Daniel also had to write reports about everything in his investigation and it would be so much easier without trying to explain Batman’s presence all the time. How Gordon had been doing it for years, Daniel had no idea.

To make his life easier—that had been the argument Daniel had used to convince Batman to sit this one out. He hadn’t expected that to be the one that actually worked.

With only two floors to go, Daniel realized something. They hadn’t really talked through a cover story. “How am I supposed to tell her I know Batman and found her because you remembered her apartment?” Daniel said, holding the earpiece.

“Don’t hold the device,” Batman said and even though they had checked the connection before, it was odd to hear him right in his ear. Strangely intimate. Daniel squirmed a little, not sure how he felt about it.

He dropped his hand immediately. “I wasn’t.”

“Just make something up.”

“How helpful,” Daniel grumbled and then caught the eye of an elderly guy with a trash bag in his hand. Daniel cleared his throat. “Sir.” He tipped his hat to the man.

“Everything okay, son?” the man asked him with a look of suspicion clearly plastered on his face. He didn’t move from the threshold of his door.

“Yes. No need to worry, sir.” Daniel sent the man a smile and then hurried past him. The man kept his eyes on him until he disappeared up the stairs. Daniel hoped he didn’t hear him talking to himself. Which, to be fair, would probably be more believable than a cop talking to Batman. At least most of Gotham’s citizens seemed to think so.

“Tell her she was seen on a nearby camera or that somebody else called it in,” Batman said just before Daniel was about to knock on her door. They hadn’t used the intercom, fearing that she might not answer a cop since she hadn’t even reported the mugging in the first place. Batman had called Daniel to the other side of the building, holding the back door open for him. Daniel eyed the broken lock but didn’t say anything. If only to keep his sanity.

“Now you speak,” Daniel mumbled, his volume much lower now that he realized he could be overheard and considered an utter weirdo. One suspicious neighbour was enough.

Daniel filed away the possible excuses and knocked on her door.

“Hello?” she said after she opened the door a few inches, the chain still secured.

“Ms. Harper, hello. Officer Martinez with the GCPD. I have a few questions for you, if that’s alright.”

He saw her frown even through the short space. She hesitated, an intense gaze at him. “Alright,” she said at last, closed the door and then fully opened it. “What is this about?”

“A mugging. A while ago.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “How do you know about that? I didn’t report anything.”

“Somebody else did.”

“Tell her it’s not official.”

“If you don’t wish to report, that’s okay, but I’d still like to ask you a couple questions.”

“Ask her to let you come in.”

Daniel cleared his throat again, a little louder than was probably necessary. He was trying to work here. When he had been putting the earpiece on, he hadn’t expected Batman to get so chatty. Distractingly so.

But he supposed some privacy may reassure her, and she also wouldn’t be able to slam the door in his face once she decided she was done answering questions. “Can we talk somewhere more private?”

“I guess. I’ve got a dog, though.”

Daniel couldn’t help perking up, grinning. “That’s perfectly fine.”

She saw his reaction and chuckled. “You like animals?”

“Yeah.” Before he could elaborate, a golden retriever came bolting from the other room, immediately coming to run around Daniel. He held in his squeals and giggles simply because he was in the uniform. He was a professional. The wide grin, though, that he couldn’t hide. “Hello there, sweetheart,” he mumbled, petting the dog vigorously.

“Focus.”

Daniel couldn’t enjoy anything, seriously.

Batman did have a point, though. Daniel was here for a reason. When he straightened up, giving the dog one last pat, he found Ashley already watching him.

She just stood there, not inviting him in further, not offering drinks or anything. Waiting. So far, she hadn’t given him much of an impression. Her dog gave her some extra points, but that was it. She had a soft face, blonde hair just past her shoulders that were obviously dyed. Jeans and a nice sweater in a neutral colour, nails done to perfection but kept short. A hint of a smile always on her lips. She looked exactly like he imagined a nurse his age, though she might have been a few years younger.

That smile bothered him a bit, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Why aren’t you asking?”

Batman’s voice tore him from his thoughts and Daniel took out his notepad. If she didn’t want him sitting on her couch that was fine. As long as she was willing to answer his questions.

They already knew when and where the mugging had happened. What Batman didn’t know, was her forum post, but it still wasn’t quite the report Daniel needed.

“Do you think you would be able to describe the mugger?”

“I don’t remember. He wore a cap. He was a tall guy.”

“Ask about the clothes.”

Daniel barely held in the eye-roll. Of course he knew to ask about the clothes.

“Did you notice anything about his clothes?”

“Just that they were dark.”

“What about the cap? Was there anything on it? Maybe a logo or something?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Is there anything you do remember?” he said simply.

She frowned. “No need to get rude, Officer.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. But if you could recall something, it would be very useful in arresting the man and we can make sure he doesn’t mug anybody else.”

“Can you?”

Daniel’s brows rose.

“Arrest him, that is,” she added, waving her hand in the air.

“If we can find him, yes. You’re not the only person he’s mugged.”

“Why didn’t you get him already?”

“Well, we only recently realized the muggings might be connected.”

“Get back to the point,” Batman said in his ear. Daniel wasn’t startled anymore, but he wished the man would stop. This wasn’t helpful. Was he getting bored up on the roof or something? Reassuring victims was part of the job. He couldn’t just come and ask them about their potential trauma like it was nothing. If she needed to hear reassurance, he would give it.

“I’m sure Batman can take care of that. He’s been doing well so far.”

“I’m sure he’s doing his best, Ms. Harper, but he doesn’t know everything about the mugger. He can’t find him either without any information.”

“I would put more faith in the man if I were you.”

Daniel ground his teeth. He was reminded of the forum again and God. He didn’t want to be thinking about that now. He didn’t want to argue about Batman with the very man listening in.

“Sure. Can we get back to the questions? That okay?”

She crossed her arms. “You’re going to ask your questions regardless, aren’t you?”

“If it’s something you aren’t ready to talk about, I don’t want to push.”

“We don’t have time for this.”

“You kind of are, though.”

“You’re not.”

Daniel ignored Batman. “I’m sorry you see it that way. I can come another—”

“No. Martinez, don’t—”

“—time, if that works better for you. But I don’t think the questions will get any easier. But what you know can help us keep him locked up, where that man belongs. He won’t do what he did to you to anybody else. You can help do that, Ashley.”

She was staring at him for a long time, idly petting her dog who had taken up a spot next to her right knee. Her eyes didn’t move from Daniel, though.

“As much as I’d like to help, I still don’t really remember most of it. I was scared and it all happened so fast. Batman helped me. Why aren’t you asking about him? Isn’t that a big part?”

“It is. And I’m really happy that he was there for you, but it’s the mugger I need to find. Not Batman.”

“You don’t like him, you can say it.” There was that hint of a smile on her lips again, but it felt fake.

“I like him plenty, but I also need to do my job.”

Daniel was starting to think she didn’t even blink with the way she was watching him. “The guy, I don’t know if he was under the influence, but he didn’t seem alright. Or at least he was really angry. But I’ve never met him, I don’t think, so I don’t know what that was about. He yelled a lot.”

“Can you recall any specific words?”

“She’s a nurse, ask her why she thinks he was using.”

Well, at least that was a useful addition. Daniel let it sit in his mind while she thought about the last question.

“He might have mentioned the flood. And peace? And maybe a woman? He said ‘she’ a few times. As I said, I don’t remember much.”

“That’s alright,” he said, writing down all the words in his notebook. “Thank you. Why did you think he was under the influence?”

“The yelling, mostly. I didn’t have time to analyse him.”

“Of course.”

“The gun. Ask if—”

“Did you see what happened to his weapon?” Daniel asked her before Batman could finish the thought.

“The gun? Batman took it.”

“I didn’t.”

“Are you sure about that? You said your memory is a bit hazy. If you really focus on it—”

“Are you seriously trying to gaslight me right now? Batman took it.”

“I need to be sure, is all. So Batman has it? It didn’t drop somewhere? Or didn’t he discard it?”

“I never had it,” Batman hissed in his ear.

And yeah, Daniel knew that, that was exactly why he kept asking her. But he couldn’t exactly tell Batman that without alerting her that he was not questioning her alone. He couldn’t talk to himself now.

“No. I’m sure. He took it.”

“Is that your final answer?” Daniel couldn’t help asking one more time. It might be that she was just confused, remembering it wrong. Traumatic experience like that, the mugging, being held at gunpoint, it could do things to a mind and memories especially.

“I said it like a million times, what’s your problem, D—d-dammit.” She huffed, crossing her arms and finally taking her eyes off of him. “Seriously. I’m here trying my best, trying to remember one of my worst days and you just keep badgering me like I’m intentionally trying to make it harder for you. Which—why would you even assume that? I’ve let you into my home, I’ve been perfectly nice to you—”

“Stop her.”

“Alright, I get it—”

“—now you don’t even let me talk, holy moly, who raised you? Your mama must be—”

“Stop her,” Batman said more loudly.

Daniel raised his hands. “Okay, no, there’s no need to go there.” Insulting his parents? Really? He was just doing his job. Or trying to. Maybe he should have let Batman question her.

“Get out of there. She won’t tell you anything else.”

“Yeah,” he said, accidentally answering the voice in his ear. Daniel cleared his throat when he realized what he had done.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Yeah,” he repeated. He understood as much. She had seemed so nice, on the forum too. He really didn’t understand how they ended up here. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Harper.”

Daniel left her apartment and she shut the door right after him. Well, he didn’t think he would be able to come back here and ask her about the forum cyber-bullying case that he had made up.

“Meet you out back?” Daniel asked under his breath once he was going down the stairs.

“She’s watching out her window. The end of the street.”

“Fine. I’m taking this thing off.”

“Fine.”

Daniel rolled his eyes and took the earpiece out, straightening his curls back under his hat as he liked it.

He didn’t see a reason why not use the main door, so Daniel headed there, only to meet the old man again. He couldn’t help the instinctual reaction at this point and visibly flinched at the white envelope in the man’s hand. He knew it was stupid, but he couldn’t help it. His mood crashed.

“What? Afraid of a little letter?” The man laughed.

Daniel pretended to laugh along with him, taking a step back to let the man go through the door first.

“What a weird fellow,” he heard the man say as he shook his head and waited for the elevator.

“Fucking hell, get it together,” Daniel mutter to himself, wishing he could run a hand through his hair, or just collapse in bed with a nice movie or something. He had been considering ordering that weighted blanket. All this stress wasn’t good for him.

When he crossed the small hallway, and was about to reach for the handle, he realized he was still holding the earpiece. The small blue light didn’t even flicker. He frowned, wondering if that thing was still on even after he had removed it. Did Batman hear all that?

He twirled it in his hand. There were a few tiny buttons, he thought, but it looked kind of expensive and he didn’t want to press the wrong thing and damage it somehow. Would Batman sue him for property damage? Could he even do that, without revealing his identity?

Whatever, he had bigger problems. For now, he could focus on work and just not think about them. It was kind of working. Daniel was starting to get good at compartmentalizing.

He found Batman, or well, Batman found him. He walked out of the shadows like they worked for him. Daniel had no idea how he kept doing that. He wordlessly returned the device. “We should probably look into any drug dealers and such in the downtown area, see if anybody recognizes the sketch of the man, and also check what kind of effect the flood had on this area.”

“I’ll look into the drugs. You investigate the flood.”

“Sure. But please, don’t do anything illegal while you’re at it,” Daniel said.

Batman stared at him silently.

“Nothing too illegal?” Daniel tried. No answer. “Yeah, okay, fine. Better if I don’t know.”

Before Daniel could say his goodbyes, Batman spoke up. “I don’t do that much illegal stuff.”

Daniel’s brows rose. “Are you going there? Because I can make this into a very long debate. A very detailed one.”

“I don’t do it on purpose. It’s faster. More efficient.”

“It doesn’t always work.”

“Most of it does.”

“Yeah, but what about things like this mugger?”

Batman was silent. Daniel knew he hit a sensitive spot. It felt like a stab in the back and it didn’t make him feel good. Sometimes, Batman’s silences were more than words. Daniel was starting to get better at telling them apart.

“Sorry. That’s— well, still your fault, but I know you didn’t mean for that to happen. So yeah. That was a low blow, I’m sorry.” This seemed like a good time to go home and ideally, stop talking. “I should go. Light the signal when you get something, yeah?”

Daniel backed out of the street, putting his hands in his pockets and hurried to his car. He only had about half an hour left of his shift, so to say, but sometimes when he was working outside the precinct, it was easy to disregard the time a little.

Nobody would notice if he went home a bit earlier, so Daniel did. He didn’t really want to, but he checked his mailbox. There was one letter. He recognized it right away.

He stood there, staring at it. Daniel knew he should go up to his place, open it, read it. But instead, he turned on his heel and walked out. Right there, on the open street, he hoped that however was sending these to him was there somewhere, watching. Watching as Daniel tore the whole envelope in half and threw it to the nearest bin.

The regret came only after he made it to his place and locked the door behind himself. He changed out of the uniform, locking his equipment in the small safe in his bedroom.

He shouldn’t have done that. It was too late now, though. Something inside there could have been important. What if there had been a threat? A hint of something that would actually happen? What if they finally got more specific? Now he wouldn’t know. Now he wouldn’t be able to prepare.

Or maybe it had been just something like always. Maybe not reading the contents wouldn’t matter at all.

He still took out the whiteboard and marked the date and time. He made a little dot next to it, to mark that he hadn’t actually seen this one and no longer had it.

But the calm didn’t arrive that day. He had most of the afternoon and the evening to himself. And yet his mind wouldn’t rest. It was like as soon as he got home, the mugging case didn’t even exist and all he could think about were the letters.

If he had stayed home, Daniel would probably break down and cry. It was his home. It wasn’t supposed to feel like that. The one place where he should have been safe and content.

And he had been. But not anymore.

At least at work he could occupy his mind with other things. Surrounded by his colleagues, it was easier to pretend that everything was like it had always been.

But at home, when he was alone, with his laptop opened on google or the forum, the whiteboard out, notes scattered all around his dining table. Daniel couldn’t do it.

He couldn’t.

But he could do something. And he had been. Any spare minute he had, Daniel went to a Starbucks. Sometimes he ordered something, sometimes he just asked. About a 19-year-old named Nancy or Lorna. He wasn’t sure if that was just her online preference or not. A part-time worker.

So far, he had made it through seven of them. His list of every Starbucks in Gotham—he had spent three hours making it—had 134 of them. Not nearly as much as New York or Metropolis, but it would certainly take him a while to go through all of them, and by the time he got to the last one, she might no longer even work there.

Daniel managed to cover eleven more, spent about 30 dollars on random beverages and was about to call it quits, the time approaching midnight, when he was about to drive past another one. It was on the ground floor, floor to ceiling windows showing everything inside. And there, wiping a table near the window was a person with short-ish green hair swept to a side, an undercut and piercings glinting all the way there.

Daniel swerved to the parking place, not even turning on the turn signal. He hit the brake so hard he would have hit his nose on the wheel if not for his seatbelt.

If anyone looked like a 19-year-old Batman obsessed, forum using she/they Lorna or maybe Nancy, this person was them. Or not, but Daniel would take the chance.

He was glad that for once, he wasn’t in his uniform. Lorna_lolr was an avid police hater, as well as suspicious of the anon and very much hating him too, so Daniel figured a more casual questioning would get him farther.

By the time he got inside, they were nowhere in sight, so he headed for the counter where a woman in her thirties or so, was leaning on it. She didn’t bother with standing up straight until he was literally right in front of her. This late, he didn’t really blame her. Night shifts could be incredibly boring and tiring. The worst mix, really, unless you found something to keep you busy.

“What can I get you?” she said, bored.

Daniel ordered some tea. He already had a hard time sleeping, he didn’t need coffee this late. Or maybe he should have gotten a decaf. Well, he was already paying so it was too late. He didn’t really care what he got to drink, though.

She still asked for his name even if the Starbucks was pretty much deserted at this hour. There was only one other person who looked like a student cramming for a final, probably pulling an all-nighter.

As she was making the drink, Daniel figured this was his chance to ask. “Are you the only one working? I thought I saw someone with green hair in the window before coming in.”

She threw him a glance before looking back at what she was doing. “Yeah. That’s Lor, she’s in the back, cleaning up before closing time.”

“Yeah? When are you closing? I thought this one was open 24/7.”

“Used to. It’s till 1, now. Saves on the bills. Why are you asking, anyway? What do you want with Lor?”

Daniel shrugged a little before he realized she wasn’t looking. “I really liked their style, I thought I could talk to them for a minute.”

She looked him up and down, chuckling and then handed him the finished drink. “Nah, pal, I don’t think you’re their type.”

He cringed a little. “That’s not why I’m here. It’d only take a few minutes.”

“Alright. Go sit down where I can see you, I’ll tell them and if she wants to talk to you, she can.”

“Got it.”

Daniel found a spot near the counter. Far enough not to be overheard but still close so the woman could interfere if she wanted to.

“Yo,” a voice next to him said. “You wanted to see me, dude? Daniel, Ivana said? I don’t know you.” Lorna sat down opposite him, leaning her elbows on the table and steepling her hands.

“Daniel, that’s me. Love the piercings.”

“Thanks. So…”

“I’ve talked to Andrew, he told me who you were. From the Batman forum.”

“A-man?” They looked surprised.

“People actually call him that?”

They shrugged. “Sometimes. He likes it, so.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, why are you here?”

“I’ve been trying to track down some users. You’re one of the most active users. With opinions.”

Lorna looked a little paler at the mention of that. “I guess. Um, I should get back to work. Nice to meet you.”

Lorna stood up and was about to walk past him, but Daniel quickly rose from his chair, catching her elbow.

“Hey, hands!” Ivana yelled from behind the counter.

Daniel dropped the hand. “Lorna, please. This is important.”

He sat back down and when Lorna saw his expression, she sat too.

“I’m not really like that. I’m an introvert, I don’t really express my opinions in real life, you know? So I do there, but that’s just online. Fandom spaces. It’s all just escapism, fun. The forum too.”

“Good for you, finding something like that—”

“My point is,” she cut him off, “sorry, my point is, I’m not my online self.”

“You’ve been getting rather heated about Batman haters over there.”

“One hater, more like,” they grumbled. “There’s this one person who really gets on my nerves, but like, that’s just it. If I met them out here, I would probably just avoid them.”

“So you wouldn’t, let’s say, call them slurs and send death threats?”

“What the hell, dude? No, of course not. Also, oddly specific?” Lorna said, horrified. But then they sobered up. “I guess death threats are kind of a thing on the internet now. It’s pretty normal, actually. An absolutely horrible thing to be normalized, but that’s the internet for you. I’ve been online since I was a kid, you get used to it.”

“I take it it’s not something you would do.”

“Absolutely not. I hate it. Like I get it might not be that deep most of the time, but it actually can be so damaging. Saying that to people you don’t even know just because they disagree? A little too much.” Lorna kept going, “Does Andrew have something to do with this? Is he getting threats? Are you one of his friends?”

Daniel sighed a little, knowing this was the time to reveal it. He fished out his badge from his pocket and put it on the table. “Not quite. He mentioned you when I was questioning him. I’m a police officer.”

Lorna frowned. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

“I’ve read some of your forum comments.”

They winced. “As I said, that’s online. This is here.”

“So you don’t think what you wrote there?” Daniel said, a little amused.

“I wouldn’t say that, but I’m also in college on a scholarship, I can’t just,” Lorna waved her hand around, “you know.”

“College, yeah? What do you study?”

“Physics. I’m gonna make it big one day.”

Daniel smiled. He couldn’t believe he had thought lorna_lolr was his greatest suspect. “Impressive. And don’t worry, this is an unofficial conversation, though I’d love to know your real name if I ever need to find you again.”

Lorna sighed. “Nancy Modra. I’d prefer if you kept calling me Lorna, though.”

“Can do.” Daniel smiled.

“So I guess you’re not here, a cop asking about death threats, just for fun?”

“No, unfortunately not.” The smile quickly faded.

Lorna noticed. “I’ll try to help if I can, so ask away. You sure Andrew is alright?”

“Yes, this isn’t about him. Somebody else, though, they are getting these messages and threats and I think it’s from somebody on the forum. So if you’ve noticed anything, talked to others about anything…”

“Is that somebody the anon? It so is. Now I feel really bad.”

Daniel’s brows rose.

“Not because I’m threatening them, I don’t even know who they are, but I do disagree with them on a lot of things, and well, you’ve read my comments, right?” Daniel nodded. “Oh God, you don’t think it’s me, do you?” Lorna added, eyes widening.

“Not anymore.”

“Oh my God! But you definitely thought so coming here,” she exclaimed.

“Not anymore, Lorna,” he repeated.

Lorna lay her head down on her arms, groaning. “Just how mean was I that you would think that, crap. Now I feel even worse.”

“Don’t. You’re not the one sending the threats.”

“Yeah, no, but poor anon. I wish I could help. I don’t like them much, but I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, it must be so hard for them right now. Even the police are involved, damn.”

“You can think. Anybody mention anything on the forum, in the messages?”

“A couple people were angry when the anon first started commenting on stuff, but I don’t really know those people, like their real names or anything, so I can’t really tell you. But it was still pretty chill. I only know Cer. His name’s Erik. Erik Lowe, we go to the same college, we hang out sometimes, with all our roommates too.”

“Cer, as in Ceruza59?”

“Yeah, exactly. I doubt he might know something, but I guess it doesn’t hurt to try asking him too.”

“Do you know where I could find him?”

Lorna gave him the address to the student house where Erik lived right now. Daniel wrote it down in his notebook, along with Erik’s and Lorna’s legal names. Just in case.

“He has a lot of lectures in the afternoon, though, if that helps,” Lorna added.

Lorna didn’t really know more about the whole situation, which was a shame, but at least they have given him something to work with, another name.

“I asked Andrew not to tell anyone about this investigation, I’d ask you the same.”

“That’s okay. I just hope you can find whoever is responsible.”

Daniel nodded. He took the last sip of his drink, the tea had long gone cold. He had just one last question.

“Why Batman?”

He could see as the light returned to their eyes. “Do you want the short answer?”

“Whichever.”

Lorna grinned. “It’s hard to notice, and you would have to pay attention, look behind all his slightly questionable methods, but in his core, Batman is our protector. He’s brutal, yes, but with thieves and murderers, he delivers justice, the kind you know those people deserve but one that they’d never get otherwise. And he’s been that, ever since he started. And if you’ve been watching him as long as I have, you can see his growth, and yet that caring side remains. He instils this hope in you. That he will be there when you need him, when you think it's your darkest hour, he comes, and he makes it better. And if he can’t, then you know that he will make them pay, eventually. And it might not be the most ethical thing, I don’t know. But when you know that your pain isn’t going to be forgotten and overlooked, when you know you will get your justice. In Gotham, sometimes that means more. Some don’t get any other justice. You can feel that he is really on your side. Because he would do anything to save you. How can somebody not see that?”

“You make him sound pretty great.”

“That’s because he is. He might not be a flashy hero, you won’t see him doing interviews and stuff, but he is still a hero inside. It’s a bit of a shame, though,” Lorna laughed softly, “I’d love to meet him, without getting mugged or something, shake his hand, look him in the eyes, you know.”

“They’re blue. Really blue. Very intense. He stares a lot.”

Lorna laughed. “I take it you’ve met him.”

“Yeah,” Daniel nodded, “many times.”

“Then you must know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you see him as, then? I wanna know, honestly. Like you’ve met him, wow.”

Daniel had to take a second to think about it. What did he think, really? Was it still the same thing as when he had been writing in the forum?

“He’s quiet. And it can be infuriating. But I think you’re right. He cares. He’s blunt, but he’ll ask you if you’re okay if you’re spacing out. He’ll listen to your ideas and plans if he thinks they’re good. He’s pretty open-minded about that stuff. He might seem like he’s this lone wolf, but he’s actually pretty good at co-operating. He won’t talk to you unless he has to, but he gets the job done. And I think he has this soft spot for kids? There’s still so much I don’t know about him.”

“Sounds to me like you like him too.”

“Yeah, maybe I do.”

“I would drink to that, but I think it’s closing time.”

“You can’t drink yet. Do you even serve alcohol in Starbucks?”

“Ivana’s Slavic, she probably has a stash somewhere around.”

After his meeting with Lorna, Daniel had a lot to think about, but he was also back to square one, so to speak. He really thought lorna_lolr could have been it. They most definitely weren’t.

The next day, after he spent his whole shift researching what business the flood affected in the downtown area, who lost their lives during the flood, or who had been a victim of some crime during that darker period of Gotham’s recent history, Daniel headed to the address that Lorna had given him.

He was going to talk to Erik Lowe—Ceruza59.

Daniel didn’t think he would have found this particular user so easily on his own, Lorna had really done him a big favour.

The student house was close to the campus and Daniel saw three guys leaving just as he was parking his car. He had changed out of his uniform this time again, hoping his badge and the mention of Lorna would be enough to get this guy to answer his questions.

When he rang the bell, a man answered him. Daniel asked about Erik but this wasn’t him, he did say that Erik was in and buzzed him in. No further instructions were given so Daniel sort of wandered around for a few minutes until he found a guy in a small common room, lounging on a bean bag and playing video games connected to a wide flatscreen.

“Erik Lowe?” Daniel tried.

He paused his game and nodded. “Can I help you, Mr. …?”

“Martinez. I’m with the GCPD. Lorna told me where I could find you. I have some questions about the Batman forum.”

“The Batman forum? Man, that’s not something I expected to hear. Sure, though, let’s talk. I don’t mind. You said Lorna sent you? ‘s cool.”

Erik stood up from the bean bag. “A couple guys are coming over, they went out for some snacks. We can talk in my room.” His eyes flickered to the low table briefly.

Daniel didn’t miss it, following his gaze. There was a half empty bag of weed on the table, right on some magazine. If Erik hadn’t looked there, Daniel would have never noticed.

His brows rose.

“That’s not mine,” Erik said immediately, his voice getting oddly high-pitched.

“Sure,” Daniel said. It wasn’t like he had never tried it before. He had been a teenager once too. And he wasn’t here on an official business. Technically he wasn’t even working right now. “Your room, then?”

“Ah, yeah, right this way.” Erik led him a couple doors down the hall, glancing back at him every few seconds.

Even as they got there, Daniel noticed the desk right next to the window, the laptop open on the forum, the sightings section. He recognized it immediately. And the post two. It was from three days. Not from Darcy, thought. Daniel had been checking.

He asked his questions, similar to what he had already asked Andrew and Lorna. Erik seemed to dislike the anon, like the previous too. He also didn’t know anything about threats. He was a pretty chill dude, overall. Mostly focused on his college work, spend his free time hanging out with his roommates and playing video games.

Daniel wouldn’t find his suspect here.

It left him a little disappointed. Erik didn’t even really know much, nothing that could help him in his search. He seemed to notice that, clapped Daniel on the shoulder, wished him good luck. He even asked for Daniel’s e-mail if he came across something.

That was kind of sweet. These people hated the anon, but the anon—Daniel—didn’t actually hate them. He thought he was even starting to understand them a bit. Understand why they did what they did. Why they liked Batman so much. Or at least the idea of him. They had never actually met him, not in the capacity Daniel had.

They passed the same room with the video game as Erik insisted on walking him out. The other guys hadn’t arrived yet. Daniel wondered if that had been a ploy to get him away from the weed room.

Erik kept glancing down at the bag. “Should I expect to see you again?” Erik asked, sounding nervous.

“No, unless you learn something and contact me first.”

“Cool, cool. And your colleagues?” he asked even quieter.

Daniel laughed. “No, kid. Chill.”

Just then, another guy came barrelling in, eyes wide. “Shit, dude, I let this cop in. I forgot we had that—”

He cut himself off as soon as he noticed Daniel and Daniel recognized the voice as the guy who buzzed him in.

“Don’t worry, I was just leaving.”

“I’m not worried, nothing to be worried about, uh, sir.”

“Exactly. Have a nice evening, guys,” Daniel said, suppressing his laughter. He had almost forgotten how nice it could be, talking to people, about random things. The two of them might have been freaking out a little, but Daniel wasn’t. He felt almost normal. Like a bit of weed was the worst thing that could happen.

But it didn’t last. As soon as he was out, the doors closing, the hushed conversation fading and the last of the daylight disappearing, Daniel remembered why he had been here in the first place.

Now it felt like he was really back to square one. No new names, no new information. And his list of possible suspects much smaller.

.

Bruce had just gone out on his patrol, the sky getting dark each minute, when he spotted Martinez’s car. Bruce knew he would be off work at this time, but this wasn’t the part of the city where he lived. So naturally, Bruce followed.

He watched him enter a student house, of all places. He couldn’t make out much. Martinez talked to someone but soon they both left the room and from his position, Bruce could no longer see them.

After a while, Martinez appeared back at the front door, the man he talked and another student, Bruce presumed, talking with him. Martinez was in good spirits as he left the building.

Bruce saw the grin—the one he hadn’t seen in so long, the one he had begun to miss—fade from his face. Now there was the Martinez he had gotten used in the recent weeks. He much preferred the former.

As Martinez drove off, Bruce had two options, follow or find out what had caused his mood to change so suddenly. He had a feeling Martinez was heading home, so he stayed and kept watching the building.

He went around several times, checking all the windows. It wasn’t long until he found the same man that Martinez had been talking to.

It must have been his room, the guy looked comfortable in the space. He even lit the lamp, not caring about anybody seeing him from the outside. He sat down behind his desk and took out a small bag, holding it in front of his face. He stared at it, then shook his head and shoved it into a drawer.

Bruce only had to zoom in a little to recognize the weed. A connection was already forming in his mind, but he pushed the theories back. It could have been just a coincidence. It was just one bag. It didn’t even look full. Maybe Martinez didn’t have anything to do with that.

He stayed to watch for another minute, but the guy only turned to his laptop, some kind of forum opened on it. Bruce’s eyes widened a fraction at seeing the words Batman on there, even his own picture, but he didn’t care enough to keep inspecting that. There were all kinds of news articles and chat forums about Batman. He never cared much about them. He wasn’t going to start now.

Everybody in Gotham had some sort of opinion about Batman. So this guy had one too. Bruce didn’t care.

He cared about why Martinez was meeting with him.

Chapter Text

Several days passed until Daniel found something that sounded promising. He had a deal with Batman, to light the bat signal if either of them had a lead. Batman was supposed to be looking into drug dealings going on in the downtown area. Apparently, he hadn’t had much luck.

Daniel thought he might have something so he went to the bat signal and turned it on, waiting. He didn’t want to fall asleep again up here, but it was tempting. He had to pace around to keep his energy up after a sleepless night and his whole shift behind him.

Lately, Daniel was sure he was sleeping even less than Batman.

This time, it didn’t take as long for the other man to get there. Daniel had been watching the elevator door for a few minutes now so as soon as it opened, he turned off the bat signal and approached the elevator.

“I think I’ve got something,” he said instead of a greeting. Batman wasn’t much for pleasantries, why bother then. The sooner this was over, the sooner Daniel could go home and try sleeping for once.

Batman froze outside the elevator, not expecting Daniel to get so close, so fast.

Daniel just kept going. “Stephen Nilsson. He matches the mugger’s description. He lives downtown. Worked as a realtor even before the flood, but the property market wasn’t doing good and the firm closed down. His wife left him and moved to live with her parents in Iowa. No kids, no new job. He’s refusing to sign the divorce papers.”

“How do you know that?”

“I talked to his wife. She’s pretty angry, said she doesn’t know anything about him, that she sent the papers months ago and nothing.”

“A realtor would know about all the empty properties.”

Daniel nodded. “The firm he worked at, they focused on the downtown area. It was a small family business. They hired him because they needed more help before the flood.”

“What else?”

“I spoke to some of his old co-workers, that wife. They all said he has anger issues. That as the firm went down, he blamed the owners, demanded money from them. The wife also said their relationship had been terrible for years. She lost her sister in a robbery gone wrong soon after the flood. He wasn’t really sympathetic. He also likes to drink from time to time. He sounds like he could be our guy.”

“Do you have his address?”

Daniel grinned, feeling almost excited. He had put a lot of work into figuring that out. “Yeah, I do.”

It was still evening, late but not that late, so they went right over, agreeing where to meet. Batman couldn’t park his massive car just anywhere.

When they got to Nilsson’s address, nobody was home. Well, Daniel had knocked, tried the bell, called out a couple times and nothing. Then Batman said he was going to make sure and Daniel pretended not to hear it and waited out front.

He half expected the sound of broken glass or something, but before he knew it, Batman was back at his side, confirming that the house was empty.

“What next?” Daniel thought out loud.

“Do you know what’s the closest empty building?” Batman asked.

“Not really, but I can look it up.”

Batman nodded and gave him some space to work. Daniel took out his phone, swiping away all notifications without pausing to read them, and googled all properties for rent or sale in downtown Gotham. He had been pouring over the downtown map often enough that he was familiar with the area now too.

He recognized a couple street names and narrowed it down, deciding what the closest one was. An apartment on a ground floor, with a back door right in the hall next to it. If Daniel should estimate the distance, he would say a two-minute walk from here.

He told this to Batman and they walked there, Daniel keeping his phone out with an online map on it.

A minute into their walk, Batman halted. Daniel had to stop and turn around to see what the issue was, but Batman wasn’t paying attention to him. His head was turned to the side. He was listening. For what, Daniel couldn’t tell. Apart from the usual sounds of a city at an approaching night, he didn’t hear anything unusual.

Before he could ask, Batman took off into a run, right past Daniel and then got up on the roof of the nearest building, using his grapple hook. He was gone, his cape billowing behind him all that Daniel could see until he disappeared.

Daniel stared, jaw hanging open. “What the hell…” he cursed. “Man! Hey, dude, hey!” he yelled out into the night, careful not to call Batman by name, just in case. Of course, he got no answer.

Batman hadn’t bothered to inform him what all this was about, so Daniel had no other choice but to follow him. Or at least try to, in the direction he had gone. Daniel took off into a run, following where he supposed Batman might have decided to go. He only had streets at his disposal, no roof and shortcuts in the air.

He didn’t have to wonder for long. Soon, Daniel heard the signs of a struggle, a woman screaming. He didn’t hesitate, running in that direction instead, picking up his pace. But soon, he realized that was where Batman had gone off to.

About to round the last corner, something clattered on the ground, Daniel heard a fight. He burst into the alley, drawing his weapon, but the sight in front of him wasn’t what he had expected.

A lone girl, on her knees and bent forward, hands around her head as she sobbed violently.

Daniel quickly assessed the scene. The alley wasn’t too long and led out somewhere. Batman must have taken off after—Daniel noticed the door next to the trash cans. The empty apartment. It was right there. Batman must have heard their mugger.

He was dealing with it, so Daniel put his gun away and walked to the girl. There was a pocket knife close to her—the clattering he had heard—so Daniel kicked it away from them. Keeping his distance as if not to spook her, Daniel crouched down in front of her.

“It’s alright now. You’re alright now,” Daniel said in a gentle voice.

She kept crying, so Daniel gave her some time. Her sobs came in less and less.

“I’m here, nothing is going to happen to you now, alright?” She still didn’t move. “My name’s Daniel. Can you look at me? Please?”

Reluctantly, but she did, wiping her eyes and her nose with her sleeve. She seemed so young then, barely a teenager. Until she straightened up and even in the dimly lit alley, Daniel recognized her. “Darcy?”

She nodded. “How did you know?” she asked in a small voice.

“We’ve met before.”

Darcy finally looked at him properly. She had to wipe her eyes again to see through the tears. Daniel quickly found a pack of tissues in one of his pockets and handed it to her. She took it greedily, immediately pulling out a bunch of them. Some fell to the wet floor. Daniel didn’t care.

“You’re the cop who made me delete all my pictures,” she said after she blew her nose. She was pouting slightly even through those tears.

Daniel smiled a little. “Not all of them.”

He could immediately see her eyes welling up again. “You told me it was dangerous. And I— I read that Batman was downtown a lot and I— I just—” Darcy started crying again.

Daniel didn’t bother telling her she should have known better, that he had warned her. It wasn’t her fault Gotham was like this. Wasn’t her fault the mugger had chosen her. And besides, she would probably get plenty of that from her parents later.

Trying to comfort her, Daniel lay his hand on her shoulder. “We can ask him for a picture later, if you want.”

That just seemed to make her cry more, though. Darcy threw herself into his arms, sobbing again and holding on for dear life. Daniel had nearly fallen but managed to keep his balance and patted her back. It seemed like she needed to get the tears out first. Daniel would hold her, he didn’t mind. To be honest, he could have used a hug too. The recent weeks hadn’t been the easiest. He half wished he could cry with her. But Batman could be back any minute and Daniel needed to keep his composure.

They were still like that when Batman got back—Darcy crying in his arms.

Batman didn’t comment on that. “He won’t be going anywhere this time,” he said instead. He stayed a few meters away from them.

“Can you call it in? Tell them my name.”

“Don’t you want to make the arrest yourself?”

Daniel would have shrugged if he could. Another team could arrest the mugger. Batman could go oversee if he wished. “I have more important stuff to do.” He refused to leave Darcy here alone.

He genuinely wanted to help her. But deep down, Daniel wished somebody would be there for him too. That he would have somebody to solve his own personal crisis for him. That somebody would let him cry and hold him and promise him it would all be better from now on.

.

With the man arrested, Bruce made sure of that this time, the case was over. He had done all he could, now it was up to the police and the law to do the rest. He couldn’t interfere anymore. That wasn’t what he did, no matter what Martinez thought. Bruce wouldn’t just go visit the mugger and kill him for his crimes. He wasn’t like that.

But with the case over, so was Bruce’s access to Martinez. He wouldn’t see the cop around as much, only meet him by chance at other crime scenes or run into him at the precinct. His options would be limited now. He wouldn’t be able to talk to him and observe him anymore.

Whatever was going on with Martinez, Bruce hadn’t figured it out yet and he wasn’t going to stop watching him. Not until he understood.

So before his patrols, when he had time during, and when he thought of him after them, Bruce checked up on Martinez. Sometimes the man was still at work. Sometimes he was at home, already asleep. Other times he was out grocery shopping or commuting to and from work. He didn’t go out with friends. Didn’t meet with his family. He didn’t do anything else but work and sleep.

Alfred had told him it could be something personal in Martinez’s life that was making him behave so strangely, so what was it then? He lived alone. Nobody visited him. Was it somebody from work? A problem with a colleague? But Gordon and Hampton would have noticed that.

So what was it?

The next time he saw Martinez leaving work in his uniform still and not going his usual route home, Bruce followed, glad he had taken the motorcycle that night instead. He would blend in more easily, even in the full suit.

He recognized the address, the building. He took a guess on which apartment window to watch and he had been right.

Martinez was visiting Ashley Harper again, for whatever reason.

The case was over. She never reported. Bruce had no idea what Martinez could want with the nurse. She sure didn’t seem to like him. Bruce was surprised to see that she had let him into her apartment after that disastrous last time.

Bruce hadn’t liked her then.

He couldn’t hear them, but the light in her apartment was on and this time, they made it as far as her living room, sitting down.

Bruce watched as they talked, the dog running between them. Martinez was enamoured with it, petting it almost constantly, a grin on his face every time he looked down on it. But when he was talking to Harper, she didn’t seem as happy. Bruce couldn’t tell what the conversation was about, couldn’t lip read from this far, but they weren’t arguing or anything like that.

The conversation was short and Martinez seemed happy, if only for the dog. As he left the building, Martinez was upset again. By what, Bruce had no idea. He didn’t think much could have happened in the minute it took him to get down the stairs and onto the street.

And yet, Martinez looked disappointed, like whatever he had come there for, he didn’t get it.

Bruce told himself to keep an eye on Harper as well. She wasn’t Martinez’s friend, the only connection being the case. Bruce didn’t remember much of her from that time he had helped her once. He would have to search through the logs in his diary to see if he had missed something important from that day.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still missing something. Something big.

.

When Daniel tried finding something on the user Idiolam, he got nothing. Nothing on their profile was useful, no other users had mentioned them when he was questioning them. There were no pictures and no other social media accounts with the same username.

So Daniel left that person for later and focused on tarry. This user hated the anon and trolls, so if anything, they were still suspicious.

He went through their profile first—Tarry, 23, he/him.

His bio was empty and he had never made a post himself, only replied to people and talked to them. He had done that plenty enough for Daniel to notice his online presence.

With some luck, he found a twitter account with the same handle and a name—Taron Hodge. A recent Gotham university graduate in a degree in economics and finance. He apparently did sports during his time at the university. Most of his retweets were about crypto stuff.

Knowing his name, the google search found one Taron Hodge working for an insurance company in Gotham. At least Daniel wouldn’t have to travel far. It made sense that most of Batman’s active fans were from the city itself.

The insurance company was open during weekends, but only till noon. Daniel could make that, meet with Taron before the man went home.

He did just that.

The insurance company was in one of the taller buildings in Gotham, the kind that housed all kinds of firms and businesses. Daniel had to stop at the reception desk to be allowed access upstairs. He didn’t have a meeting set up, but with the uniform and the badge, the receptionist let him in, giving him directions to the insurance company’s offices.

He hoped that Taron wouldn’t have a client as he knocked on the door of the office that had his name on it. Taron called for him to come in, so Daniel did.

As soon as Daniel opened the door, he saw Taron standing up from his desk, going to shake his hand. “Hello. The receptionist called. I was expecting you, Officer, though I must say, I don’t really know why you could be here.”

Daniel shook his hand. “We’ll get to it.”

Taron told him to take a seat, asked if he wanted coffee, said he could get somebody to bring them some. Daniel refused, regarding Taron. He looked younger than 23, his brown hair gelled up to perfection, a nice suit. The office had floor to ceiling windows right behind his desk. For some reason, Taron didn’t quite fit the image with his baby-face.

“Have you ever thought about investing?” Taron said, unprompted, before Daniel could make himself comfortable in the chair and start his questions.

“No.”

“The stocks, crypto, it’s a whole new world out there.”

“I’m sure—”

“You could be making a lot more than on a police salary,” Taron said quickly.

“Thanks. But I’m good,” Daniel said, starting to get a little annoyed and trying not to show it.

“You look like you might be interested in this stuff, if you would—”

“Mr. Hodge, I assure you, I’m not.”

“Right, I just assumed you would be, most s— most men are.”

“Can we get back to why I’m here?” Daniel asked instead. This was his day off, he didn’t want to spend it talking about crypto currencies.

“Of course. Is it because of one of my clients? There’s a company lawyer that handles any issues, not me. My… oh, God, tell me it’s not my father again.”

“Your father?”

“It was— why are you here?”

“For neither of those. Are you the one using a Batman conspiracy forum under the name tarry?” Daniel asked for confirmation.

Taron paled. Then he laughed. “A Batman conspiracy forum? Why would I even be on that?”

“You tell me.”

“I don’t have time for stuff like that. I’m putting my all into my career. Always have.”

“I thought you just graduated.”

“I did. But even before that. My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps. I’ve been— you don’t need to hear this.”

Daniel watched him. “I can make this an unofficial interview. I won’t mention your real name anywhere, but I need you to be honest with me. Are you tarry or not?”

“Are you sure my name won’t be anywhere?”

Well, Daniel couldn’t exactly tell him there was no real investigation and his name would only make it to his whiteboard, but still, Daniel nodded.

“Okay, yes. It’s me.”

“There’s been a report about cyber-bullying related to that forum. You are one of the more active users.”

“I don’t even post anything.”

“In the comments, I mean.”

“I suppose I noticed this one anonymous person disagreeing with most of the other people, but I wouldn’t say they are bullying anyone.”

Daniel had to bite down the first reply that came to his mind with that. He most definitely hadn’t been bullying anyone on the forum. “The anonymous person is the one getting cyber-bullied.”

“They are? Are you sure? By whom?” Taron seemed genuinely surprised.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“I don’t know how to help, I don’t know who the anon is.”

“That’s alright. Are you in contact with the other users? Do you know any of them?”

“I only really know Lorna. I interact with others in the comments, but that’s about Batman, not personal stuff.”

“I already spoke to Lorna. They didn’t mention you.”

“Well, they know me as Tarry, so it’s not like they would be able to tell you much. I try to keep my real life out of that forum.”

“You should probably change your twitter handle. It’s easy to link together.”

“Shit, really?” Taron’s eyes widened. “Sorry. I need to write that down. If my father saw… I don’t even want to imagine.”

Daniel waited as he wrote it down on a sticky note. Daniel closed his own notebook and crossed his arms. “You mention your father a lot. Is everything okay?”

“As long as he doesn’t know, yes.”

“Not a fan of Batman?”

“It’s not that.” Taron winced a little. “He isn’t a fan of me being a fan of Batman. If you know what I mean.”

Daniel thought he might be starting to understand Taron a bit here. “Why do you like him?”

“Like? I didn’t say anything about li—”

“Taron.”

Taron visibly deflated in his fancy office chair. “Okay, I like Batman. And I hate crypto, I don’t even really get it. My uni friends were into it, so I had to be. They all did sports so I did too. And this job is suffocating. These suits are ugly and basic and even though I do everything my father wants, it’s still not enough. So I like Batman. I go to the forum. I don’t have to be what he wants there.”

Daniel’s brows kept rising over the speech. Maybe he had underestimated how long this talk with Taron was going to take. Well, it wasn’t like he was going to do much at home, besides unhealthily obsessing over his whiteboard.

“Take a breath, man.”

Taron did. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from.” He turned red.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Daniel tried.

“I don’t even know where I would start. And you don’t even know me.”

“I don’t. Maybe that’s better.”

“I’ve always been under a lot of pressure. My father had this idea of who I was going to be and he did everything to make me into that. I— once, when I was 12, there was this sleepover. I kissed a friend, and I didn’t know why my father was so angry. He made me never talk to him again, move schools. When I told him I wanted to study dance choreography, he laughed at me and handed me applications for economy departments in the city. So I did that, played some rugby. Now I have this job and he expects me to make a manager by the end of the year.”

“But you’re an adult now. He can’t control you like he did when you were just a kid.”

“I know. He shouldn’t, right?”

“He really shouldn’t. Have you considered therapy?”

Taron laughed. “He would find out somehow. I don’t think I can do that. I have the forum. Who needs therapy?”

“That sounds more like escapism.”

“Maybe. But it’s about Batman. There could be worse things to spend your time on.”

“I don’t know. He can be pretty intimidating.”

“He can. But he’s also—” Taron waved his hand around, as if not able to articulate it. “Ah, I don’t think you would understand that.”

Daniel thought he understood perfectly. “So you have a celebrity crush, we all have that.” He wouldn’t say Batman was a celebrity, but he counted up there.

“Do you?”

“Sure, have you seen Bruce Wayne?”

Taron laughed. This time it felt more genuine. “I have. So you’re…”

“Gay, yeah.”

“I think- I think I might be too.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I don’t hear that often. Back home, at uni, even here.”

“Well, I’m saying it.”

Taron smiled. “I never had anyone to talk to about my crushes.”

“Perfect time to start.” Danile leaned back in his chair. “Okay, tell me. What makes Batman so great?”

“He’s tall, for one.”

“I’ll give you that.” Daniel nodded his head. Batman sure had that going for him.

“He ran past me once, and it felt like I was experiencing it in slow-motion, which sounds ridiculous, I know. But for that second, I could see him so clearly. And all the pictures online, they don’t do him justice. I mean, that jaw? That determined look in his eyes?”

“Is that why you like him so much? Don’t get me wrong, he has all that but…”

“It’s not just that. A guy who decides to spend all his nights being a hero? When he could be doing anything else? But no, he chooses to help people. I really admire that.”

“He hasn’t always been like that.”

“No. He was scary. I think he was figuring himself out, and honestly, I have so many issues, I can’t blame him for not getting it right immediately. I only really started to notice him more after the flood. He was always on the news. Less so now, but I just never stopped checking for what he was up to and the forum is great for that.”

“He’s really changed,” Daniel thought out loud.

“He did,” Taron immediately caught onto it. “He doesn’t go out only at night. And he stays behind to help people, not just beat up criminals. I’ve been seeing him around you guys a lot too.”

Daniel nodded. Now that he thought of it, Batman was at the precinct pretty often. Even before their case together.

And he supposed he was seeing the signs too, that Batman wasn’t really all that bad. He had even walked Ashley back home that one time. Daniel couldn’t imagine the Batman from a year or two ago doing that.

They talked for another half hour. As Daniel stood up to leave, Taron stood too, about to go and open the door for him, maybe shake his hand again, like the perfect professional. But instead, he had this sheepish look on his face.

“Would it be weird if I hugged you?”

Daniel laughed lightly. “Go for it, man.”

It was a brief hug, but as they parted, Daniel was grinning. The smile didn’t leave his lips until he had made it down to the lobby. He had even gotten a rather concerned look from one woman who had taken the elevator with him.

He hadn’t made any progress in the investigation, but he felt like he had helped out the guy and that felt really good. At least today, Daniel wouldn’t let whoever was threatening him bring him down. He could go back to worrying about that tomorrow. For the rest of the day, Daniel wouldn’t even think about the threats.

He stopped by a grocery store on his way, bought his favourite snacks and a bath bomb too. He was going to have a nice evening, watch a good movie. He could think about what to do about his non-progressing investigation tomorrow.

.

If there was one person Daniel was convinced was an adult, and not just an adult, but a real adult adult, it was the user totoroto. In their comments, they always seemed to understand both sides, their opinions were educated and they didn’t like bullying. Daniel didn’t think they were his suspect, but they were active enough that he wanted to find them and talk to them. Maybe they would finally be the one who could tell him more about the others.

There wasn’t much in their profile, but as Daniel went through their old posts and replies, it seemed like totoroto had a problem with keeping personal things offline.

A while ago, Lorna had made a post about celebrating anything good in their lives and the other users all shared something. Sometimes it wasn’t anything significant in terms of real-life influence, but it was all nice things.

Totoroto had written about their kid getting married and how nice the ceremony was in Gotham’s botanic gardens.

With the date, it wasn’t all that difficult to track down the wedding. Many guests had tagged the botanic gardens online that day. With the son’s name, Daniel easily found totoroto, or rather, Rick Thomas.

A while later, Daniel found himself standing outside an office building right after his shift. He was trying to figure out where the bell was since the door had been locked when he had tried, but the office should have been open for another fifteen minutes. He couldn’t have made it sooner because of his own shift.

He was about to try calling a phone number they had on their website, but then an older woman passed by the glass door, stopped short and unlocked it, turning to him with a smile. “Are you looking for somebody?”

“Rick Thomas. I thought you were still open.”

“We should be, but it’s the inventory day.” She shrugged. “Rick’s still in, I can get you to him.”

“I’d appreciate that, thank you, ma’am,” Daniel smiled back at her.

She led him to the area with four occupied cubicles and called out for Rick. The man turned to them, looking more confused than concerned. Daniel asked him to talk somewhere privately so they ended up in a crammed breakroom, if it could even be called that.

Daniel didn’t know what to expect from the 40 year old office worker. That maybe he would try to lie about the forum, be embarrassed to be a part of it, or if he would own it and not mind talking about it.

As it turned out, Rick was the latter. He used to be a great fan of comic books when he was younger and now, with both his kids being adults and away from home, he didn’t have much to do and spent his free time on the forum.

What he definitely did not expect was for Rick to say that his wife might be cheating on him and that the forum was at least something that made him feel happy these days.

Daniel still hadn’t gotten a chance to ask his questions, but with Rick’s eyes watering, he wasn’t sure that was the way to go.

Instead of the forum, they ended up talking about relationships and Daniel seriously didn’t know how his life had turned into this.

“No, I mean it,” Daniel said pointedly, his initial goal of asking about the forum pretty much forgotten, “you gotta keep each other on your toes. Bicker a bit, disagree here and there, but the morals, the core beliefs, that’s what it comes down to.”

“We had that, once. When we were younger. Now we’re both at work and she is always out with friends and when I ask she tells me that I wouldn’t care, but I do and… how can I not think she found somebody else? You know, somebody more exciting than an ordinary office worker.” Rick sighed.

“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

Rick laughed. “She’s this big shot lawyer, makes thrice as much as me. Her suits look a lot better than mine. If we weren’t already together, I’d think there was no chance she’d even look at me.”

“Why not? Is your work all that defines you? What about your character? About how you treat her, how you talk to her, all that stuff. She must have seen something in you, right?”

“Yes, but now…”

Daniel stopped him by putting his hand up. “Mr. Thomas, I’ll be frank here, I don’t think she’s cheating on you. Maybe you’ve just drifted a little apart, maybe she doesn’t feel appreciated anymore. And you clearly don’t either. Why not talk it out? Sit down, try to listen to each other, really hear each other.”

Rick seemed momentarily stunned. Daniel was about to take it back, feeling like he might have overstepped. “I don’t think we tried that. We were both so busy doing our own things, we didn’t stop to consider what the other was going through. Now, it sounds so simple. Just talk it out. We should have done that long ago.”

“Never too late, Mr. Thomas, never too late.” Daniel smiled.

Rick returned the smile warmly. He clapped Daniel on the shoulder and thanked him for the talk. “Oh, right, Officer, your case. We’ve gotten a little off topic, I’m afraid.” He chuckled wryly.

“Don’t worry about it. But if I can ask you a couple things now.”

“Please.”

Daniel took his previously discarded notebook. “Have you noticed anything odd on the forum recently? Talked to anybody about the anonymous user?”

“A lot of people were upset because of them, but the other way round, no, nothing.”

“Do you know any other users, their real names, stuff like that?”

“I helped out Darcy with her math assignments a couple times, so I know she’s still a student. And once I had a really interesting debate with Tar about how Batman influences the insurance business, so I’m pretty sure he is in that field. Lorna and, now I’m not sure if I remember this username right, Idiot- wait, no, nobody would have idiot there—”

“Idiolam?” Daniel helped out.

“Yes, that’s it. So Lorna and this Idiolam, they are both pretty open about the things they dislike. I don’t know either, however. And manbat, I remember that one because it’s just Batman reversed, quite clever, they’re a journalist. They don’t post much. They mostly use the forum for reference.”

“Because of the sightings section?”

“I imagine so. I once saw Batman moving around town, and somebody else had posted a sighting that night, so I commented it and they reached out to me, asking me some questions.”

“Do you know their name or who they work for?”

“I don’t. It was all through the forum, very unofficial. I don’t think they enjoy writing articles about Batman much.”

“Anything else?”

Rick couldn’t think of anybody else and Daniel tried to hide his disappointment.

At home, Daniel tried to recall every questioning he had done and nobody seemed quite like their online persona. No one gave him the vibes of somebody who could be sending out threats. Even Ashley, when he had visited her the second time, was much nicer. She had apologized for being snappy the other day, invited him in to talk about his case, told him all about how Lorna was so against the anon. But Daniel already knew that Lorna wasn’t his suspect.

Either Daniel was really missing something or he had gone about this the wrong way.

The suspect might not even have an account on the forum. They might have been a casual reader who decided that they didn’t like what the anon was writing. Or it could have been any other user.

The next letter he got, Daniel kept it safe. He had thrown out only one of them, but figured it was evidence and if he discarded them, he wasn’t helping himself. So when the next one came, Daniel opened it, resigned to the fact he was about to read something so vile, read it and then put it into a shoebox in his closet. There were now fifteen of those letters and he had to keep them somewhere. He updated his whiteboard with the date and went to work, mentally preparing himself the whole ride there to act like everything was normal and okay.

Daniel hoped that nobody had noticed him taking his gun home with himself almost every night these days. The threats in the letters were starting to get a little too specific.

He tried finding Idiolam again, but that proved to be as impossible as before. He was getting nowhere with his investigation. Until there was a new article about Batman.

Usually, Daniel didn’t read those, especially after how his short trip to a Batman forum had ended up, but something made him click on the headline. He had been hearing about why people admired the man so much, and maybe some of it was starting to make sense. So Daniel opened the article, wanting to prove them right, or maybe prove himself wrong in some of his previous assumptions.

And again, the article wasn’t too long, nobody really knew much about Batman, but it showed him helping a man out of a crashed car. Daniel read the article. Apparently, a jewellery store had been robbed and Batman was pursuing the fleeing thief before the police could get to the scene. Only the thief caused a huge accident when running a red light at one of the busiest intersections. Instead of going after him, Batman stopped to help out the people at the intersection.

There was a short quote from the man who was in the picture, Batman helping him out of the car. He said that his car had a fuel leak and it had caught fire just two minutes after he and his son were out of there.

And as an added bonus in this article, the source under the picture was the Batman conspiracy forum Daniel was more than familiar with.

He checked the forum just to be sure, but yes, they had posted the same pictures.

Like every online article, this one had the name of the author right under the title. Vaneet Bir. Daniel immediately read her short profile on the website, manbat’s bio, checked her social media. She had a pretty decent following on her twitter account. There were dozens of articles about Batman she had written, all sort of short, but there. But it obviously wasn’t her main focus.

The news agency had their own building in Gotham. They were one of the most popular, did tv broadcasts, too. He was certain they still printed actual newspaper too. He was just in the lobby of the building, waiting in line for the reception desk. It was incredibly busy there. He came early, hoping to get in a brief questioning before his shift.

When he was starting to consider going to work instead and returning another time, he spotted Bir making her way from the elevators, speed-walking out of there. Daniel matched her pace, hurrying to meet with her.

“Miss Bir. I was just looking for you,” he said when he got to her. He was struggling to keep pace with her without getting into a jog. He would have guessed they were the same height, but with her heels, she easily towered over him.

“Can it wait? I need to be somewhere in fifteen minutes.”

“Well—”

“That’s a yes or no question, Officer,” she said, not bothering to look at him for more than a sparing glance.

“It can’t.” Daniel was sure he could wait some more, but who knew how long the person sending him threats would be satisfied with threats only. The messages and emails proved to be not enough for them. Now it was letters as well. Maybe tomorrow somebody would throw a brick through his window or slash his tires.

“Fine. You can walk with me and ask your questions.”

“Good with me.” They reached the door and got outside. Wherever she was going, Daniel would have to run back to his car later if he still wanted to make it to work on time. “We’re investigating a cyber-bullying case from a Batman conspiracy forum which you are a member of.”

“Hardly. My boss wants me covering Batman. Someone had to do it and it ended on my shoulders. Batman sure doesn’t make it easier for me. So I use whatever I can. Some of those people there are obsessed with him. It’s a great resource.”

“Do you personally know anyone from the forum?”

“No. I’ve tried reaching out a couple times, but they never had much interest. And a lot of them are minors so I can’t.”

“Did you notice anything odd lately?”

“Not really. They’re upset with an anon over there. But I’ve been in journalism for a while, I don’t really care for comments anymore. Is that all?”

“Yeah, thank you. If I—”

“You know where to find me, clearly.”

“Right. Have a nice day, then.”

She waved over her shoulder, already getting lost in the morning crowd as Daniel had stopped. He had to turn around and jog lightly back to his car, but he still had a few minutes to spare. For that, he was extremely grateful. Hampton would never get off his back if he came late among all the other things.

Later, when his shift was over and he didn’t have anyone else to visit, Daniel went home. On his couch, something light-hearted playing on his Netflix, he found himself thinking.

He was lost again. Frustrated and scared. While he had his investigation, he could still hope that he would find whoever was responsible and end this whole thing. He supposed there was still Idiolam and he could always go sort through all the other users on the forum. But Idiolam had no online presence, no information. There was nothing Daniel could find them with. And the other users… how long would that take? How long was he supposed to deal with all this?

It was exhausting.

How long would they keep this up? Some of the insults and threats, they were repeating themselves. It had been going on for so long. Would they get bored and stop or would they escalate it? Would Daniel be able to stop them? When he didn’t even know who they were?

He wasn’t a detective. And maybe they were right. Maybe there was a reason for that. Not because he was still relatively young and new to the job, but because he just didn’t have what it took.

What if his gut was wrong? What if somebody had lied to them? What if they only pretended not to know him, pretended not to know about the anon and the threats and the whole case? Should he go back and talk to everyone again? Just how much time would that take him? Would he be able to see through their lies the second time?

Daniel didn’t know what he was doing wrong. He couldn’t see an end to this whole situation and it was more frustrating than anything he had ever experienced. Far more than even Batman during his first few years on the scene.

Chapter Text

“You’ve made it to the news again,” Alfred told him in the morning. Bruce just shrugged, not caring much, but Alfred kept going. “They used a picture of you saving a man from a car. You’re looking quite heroic, actually.”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “I don’t do it for the pictures.”

Alfred shrugged, turning the table to show him. “It’s a good shot. I might get it framed for the bat cave, there’s not even any blood.”

“Alfred. Stop.”

The man chuckled. “Did you know there’s an entire forum dedicated to you? You’re Gotham’s first cryptid. They think you can fly.”

“That’s dumb.”

“They have no idea who you really are. It’s quite entertaining.”

Bruce didn’t bother answering that, but later, it kept bugging him. Something about it was familiar. He didn’t want to ask Alfred for the name of the forum, but finding the recent article and then a link to the forum wasn’t difficult.

He quickly realized why it was so familiar to him. That student Martinez had visited had been on this very forum.

Just for that, Bruce decided to check it out properly.

He was positively weirded out by the whole thing, but Alfred was right, some of it was actually hilarious when one knew the truth. But it mostly just made him feel uncomfortable, how some people seemed to admire him so much even without ever meeting him. Or maybe they had met him, Bruce couldn’t really remember.

He took notice of the forum drama that had been going on for weeks now. Bruce found the one person everyone on the forum hated. But as he read the anon’s replies, Bruce didn’t feel the same.

What he felt was suspicion. That person seemed to know so much about the real Batman. More than anyone on the forum, really.

Bruce needed to find out who they were.

It would have to wait, though, until he figured out what was going on with Martinez. He was still nowhere close.

The last time Bruce had run across him and followed him, Martinez went for what seemed like an appointment with an insurance guy. Bruce could have easily seen them from another building across the street since the guy had huge windows in his office.

For a while, Bruce thought it was related to a case because Martinez was dressed in his uniform and had his notebook in his hand, but then before he left, he hugged the guy and even for a friendly man like Martinez, that wasn’t how the cop usually interviewed people. Granted, he had seen him try his best to comfort others, but this didn’t give off that vibe.

Bruce didn’t know what to think.

So he found the insurance guy and followed him for a few days. He was working way too much, went to the gym a couple times, but other than that, he was just home. When Bruce knew he would be at work, he snuck into his apartment and looked around, but there was nothing much. Not even any family pictures.

There was a laptop, however, the light on the side flickering. He must have left it on. Bruce pushed it open, trying to see if it was protected with a password or not.

It wasn’t.

With one click, the laptop unlocked on the now familiar forum. This was the second time he saw somebody using the forum. Either it was a really popular website or this was no coincidence.

What did Martinez have to do with it? There must have been some kind of connection, but how exactly was Martinez connected?

Bruce decided enough was enough. He needed to know what their relationship with Martinez was.

So, earlier than usual, he suited up and took his motorcycle out into the city, heading for the student house. He wondered if the teenage girl who had nearly gotten mugged had anything to do with this too, since he had seen her before, but for now she wasn’t as suspicious. Her presence did seem like an actual coincidence.

Bruce didn’t know the name of the guy that Martinez had visited here, but he remembered how he looked, and most importantly, he remembered his bedroom window. Getting inside was all too easy.

As he waited for the guy to arrive, Bruce had already seen him getting into the building a minute earlier, he looked around the room.

The door opened, somebody hit the light switch, then dropped a bag loudly. “Batman?” the guy Bruce was waiting for yelled, voice getting a little high pitched.

Bruce gave him a minute to compose himself, stare for a bit. The man did, turning to his bag. “Ah, shit, I had my laptop in here.” He picked it up and put it on his bed far more gently. “Are you here hiding out or did you get the wrong building? Literally what is happening right now?”

“No. You spoke to Officer Martinez recently.”

“The cop? Uh, yeah.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I would totally tell you, but he sorta asked me not to. Said he asked the same of the others.”

“What others?”

“He mentioned Lorna, I don’t know the rest.”

“Why did he ask you to do that?”

“I don’t really know, man. I guess it’s confidential? Police stuff.”

“So he’s working a case,” Bruce concluded for himself out loud.

“Uh, yeah, he’s a cop. It’s what they do.”

Only Martinez wasn’t supposed to be working on any case back then.

“There’s no case.” Bruce took a step closer. “Tell me.”

“Am I gonna get in trouble for this? ‘Cause he’s a cop. I can’t afford getting sued or some shit.”

“You won’t.”

“I really want to help you, man, but he already has something on me, okay? He could’ve… he didn’t, and whatever, I feel like I owe him, so I can’t tell you.”

Bruce saw as he straightened up, as a determined look crossed his features. Bruce knew countless techniques that he could use to make him talk, to get that one information he was after, but this man, he was just a student. He wasn’t a criminal, hadn’t done anything wrong. And Bruce wouldn’t use his special skillset on people like this. He would have to find out another way.

“Who’s Lorna?”

Happy that Batman had dropped the topic of Martinez, the man quickly answered. “They’re a friend.”

“Where can I find them?”

“They work at this Starbucks, the one by the Nelstrop Road. Why—wait, are you going to ask them the same thing? He probably asked them not to tell—”

Bruce was already out of the room, he didn’t need to hear the rest.

Now that he had that connection, he realized that he had seen Martinez visit various Starbucks shops around the city. He didn’t really think much of it, just Martinez getting coffee, but maybe there was more to it too.

It was around 9 pm by the time he parked his motorcycle in the alley next to the Starbucks building.

He walked into the place with confidence, drawing every single eye in the crowded room. He hadn’t expected quite as many people getting coffee this late, but maybe he should have. Well, Bruce had never been self-conscious when wearing the suit.

He could already hear the cameras clicking, but he ignored it all and walked to the counter. The line of two people automatically let him through.

“Guess you need coffee too,” the woman behind the counter said. Her tag read ‘Ivana’.

“I’m looking for Lorna.”

Her brows shot up and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Last time it was a cop, now you. What do you want with them?”

“I have questions about that cop.”

“Is he some creep?”

“No.”

“Then why do you have questions about him? He must’ve done something.”

“I’m here to find out.”

She regarded him for two more seconds, then billowed, no care for the other patrons, “Hey, Lor, Batman’s here to see you!”

Almost immediately, a person with a mop of green hair burst in through the back door. “Iva, stop making fun of me just because I’m— holy shit, it’s Batman.”

“What did I just say?” Ivana sighed.

“Can we talk?” Bruce turned to Lorna.

“Yea- yes, of course, we can. Mhmm. Just, over here?” They pointed at the door behind them.

Bruce nodded and followed, happy to be out of sight.

“A police officer talked to you recently.”

Lorna nodded. “I didn’t even really know he was a cop until he showed me the badge, he was nice, asked about the f—uhh, I’m not supposed to tell anyone. Wow, he was right, your eyes are so blue.”

Bruce froze. What.

“Sorry? Forget I said that, please. So what about Daniel?”

“Daniel?”

“It’s the name he used.” Lorna shrugged. “I can respect that.”

“Not very official.”

“He really wasn’t. But the case was legit. I just can’t tell you what it was about, and it’s for a good reason. It’s to protect the victim.”

“A victim of what?”

“Of— nope. You nearly got me there. You’re good.”

The corners of his mouth twitched, but he kept his blank face. “You’re not going to tell me either.”

“God, I wish I could, but I already feel bad enough so if this is the only thing I can do for that person…” Lorna shrugged.

He didn’t end up with any real answers from Lorna, but a picture was starting to form in his mind. It wasn’t anything definitive yet, but it wasn’t nothing.

There were still two people he could try asking, people who might not be as inclined to keep their promises. He had no doubt Martinez told everyone the same thing about keeping it to themselves. Bruce didn’t think Gordon lied to him about Martinez’s case load, but if it came down to it, he could still go ask the commissioner again.

He knew that the insurance guy—Taron Hodge, as Bruce had found out—wouldn’t be in the office at this time, so he headed to his apartment. This time, he rang the bell and watched as the man opened, looking tired and in his pyjamas and then his jaw dropped.

“Am I dreaming?”

“No.”

He reached out his hand like he wanted to touch him to see if he was really there, but he quickly aborted the gesture. “Can I help you with something?”

“What did you talk to Martinez about?”

“That nice police officer?” Bruce nodded so Taron kept going. “He had some questions for me, but the conversation got kind of derailed. We talked about my father, of all things, our crushes. It was a little unexpected but nice. I actually started looking into therapy thanks to him, he’d probably love to hear that.”

Bruce didn’t really know what to take from that. He would need a lot of time to process that answer. “You talked about crushes?” He couldn’t fathom how that was related to any case.

Taron laughed a little. “We sure did. He talked about Bruce Wayne and I— well, you wouldn’t know him.” He laughed again but this time it sounded a little strained.

Bruce was glad for the cowl hiding most of his surprise. Their crushes? Bruce Wayne? Did Martinez— Bruce couldn’t think about that right now. He would have plenty of time to unpack all that later.

“Why did you meet, originally?”

“As I said, he had some questions about a case. I couldn’t really help him much.”

“What case?”

“I can’t tell you, but you sometimes work with the police, right? Why not just ask him? If it’s okay to tell you, I’m sure he would.”

Wherever Martinez went, it seemed like he made some loyal friends. But if they didn’t want to tell him, Bruce was certain the nurse wouldn’t mind as much. Whatever they talked about the second time, the first time she didn’t seem to like him.

“Maybe,” Bruce told him and was about to turn to leave.

“Wait, Batman,” Taron called out unnecessarily loud in the quiet neighbourhood.

“What?” Bruce half turned back to him.

“Could I shake your hand? I’m kind of a fan, and you totally don’t have to, but it would mean a lot to me.”

When Bruce faced him again, Taron was playing with the hem of his shirt anxiously. It was an odd request. He had been asked for a picture a couple times before, but it still felt weird. He figured it wouldn’t hurt, though, so he put his hand out.

Taron immediately brightened up and shook his hand. He had an impressive grip. “Thanks. You’re really great.”

Bruce wouldn’t say he fled, but he definitely quickened his pace a little as he left. Just what was he supposed to say to that?

He figured going to see the nurse this late wouldn’t be exactly socially acceptable and she might be working, so he would have to wait.

So, of course, Bruce spent half his day sleeping and the other half thinking about Martinez potentially finding him attractive. Or at least Bruce Wayne. He definitely didn’t seem to have much love for Batman.

But at the end of the day, Bruce Wayne was very unlikely to meet Officer Martinez so this information didn’t change their dynamic at all.

Only Bruce knew.

No. He could keep doing what he always did. He could pretend he never heard that comment and that was it. He wasn’t just Bruce Wayne. It wouldn’t work. There was no sense lingering on those thoughts.

When he knocked on Ashley’s door, she was home and opened before he could knock again. She seemed surprised to see him standing in the hall but not as starstruck as some others. They had already met, after all.

She immediately took down the security chain and invited him in before he could even really say anything.

Bruce walked into the apartment, already knowing where the living room was. He didn’t sit down, though. He didn’t see the dog anywhere and would have asked, but he technically wasn’t supposed to know about the dog’s existence.

“I don’t think I properly thanked you back then. I was so out of it. But you saved my life.”

Bruce nodded, a little uncomfortable hearing praise. He wasn’t here because of this.

Before he could ask about Martinez’s second visit, she was talking again. “I mean it. You were so nice to me, and you didn’t have to be. I’m always the one taking care of people, I’m a nurse, but that night you were so kind and I won’t ever forget that. And I know I could never hope to return the favour, not like you did—”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“But I feel like I really do. And yes, I can’t save you from fights or so, but there are other ways. You’ve got to battle on all fronts, but you don’t have to worry anymore. I can keep you safe, in my own way.”

“That’s not necessary,” Bruce said. He wasn’t sure how they ended here. There was nobody harming him. He didn’t need anybody saving him. What even was she talking about?

This was getting really weird.

“I know what I’ve read. People have no right talking about you like that. Why would they hate you when they haven’t even met you? They don’t understand you like I do, like the people you’ve saved. But we have your back.”

“What people?”

She shrugged. “You don’t have to worry about that. Everybody like that cop, they’ll learn their lesson.”

“Martinez? What about him?”

“He shouldn’t speak like that about you. But you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

“What did you do?” he asked and started looking around the room. She had several mugs on the coffee table, a blanket nearly falling off the couch. Her laptop was on the edge of the table, like she had been using it before he knocked on her door and had to quickly set it aside. The screensaver hadn’t turned on yet. She had been on that conspiracy forum.

“What I had to.”

“Ashley, what did you do?”

She giggled. She actually giggled. “It’s great. Not as great as you, but it has that sense of justice, you know? Everybody would do it. Don’t worry about the details, really.”

The sounds of light taps on one of the doors further in the apartment drew his attention.

“Oh, that’s Molly, she probably needs to go out.”

Bruce took another glance at the laptop. Ashley was definitely acting suspicious, but if she was this fan of him, like so many people on the forum he had seen, then it made sense she would dislike people who didn’t like him.

Back then, Martinez hadn’t been saying anything rude about him—Bruce heard the whole conversation with Ashley through the device. But she could have still taken it as something that it wasn’t. Who knew.

Maybe last time when Martinez had been there, she had told him something.

As she left to open the door for her dog, getting a leash on the way, Bruce left.

These people Martinez had been visiting, they were useless to him. Ashley too. He wouldn’t learn anything from her. Maybe Alfred had been right. Bruce should just ask the officer outright.

He couldn’t shake the weird feeling as he was leaving Ashley’s apartment building, though.

As a nurse she had access to all kinds of things.

Martinez. She said not to worry about him anymore.

Bruce raced to Martinez’s apartment. He didn’t bother with knocking and burst inside, breaking the security chain with his strength.

Martinez was washing dishes, the counter positioned just right for him to see into the small entry hallways where Bruce was right now. Martinez gaped at him, speechless.

Bruce kicked the door shut and went to look around for anything suspicious. Anything she might have done. Might have sent. Would she actually do something like that? Risk her career for a disagreement?

But Bruce had seen the forum. Read the clearly delusional messages of people who adored him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Martinez hurriedly drying his hands.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Martinez said, his voice rising dangerously as Bruce continued rifling through his apartment. “How dare you just— come and what are you even doing?”

Bruce could hear the anger in his voice as Bruce ignored his questions.

He could see as Martinez was about to physically grab him and make him stop, but at the same time, a white envelope caught his attention and Bruce plucked it from the pile of mail on the table.

He held it out, effectively halting Martinez. “What is this?” It was still sealed, but had nothing but Martinez’s name and address on it. As privileged as he was, Bruce knew what an envelope looked like. Or was supposed to. This one was missing certain elements.

There had also been that one thing he had overheard. Martinez hadn’t turned off the device after Ashley’s questioning. He must have run into an elderly man, because Bruce had heard the man jokingly ask whether Martinez was afraid of a simple letter. It hadn’t made much sense then, but Martinez had been thrown by that sentence.

Now, there was an odd letter on his desk.

Martinez faltered, stumbling over words and making no sense. “It’s probably just junk mail. I was going to throw it out,” he said at last.

But when he reached for it, Bruce held it up.

“You did not just do that,” Martinez huffed as he couldn’t reach it this high up.

Bruce wasn’t beyond thinking that Martinez would try to kick his leg out to get it back so he stepped away, the letter still in his hand. He was about to ask him about the people from the forum, his visits, but then Martinez’s bell rang and they both froze.

Bruce reacted first, stashing the envelope behind his belt as he moved to get the door. It could be anything. But before he could get to the door, Martinez beat him to it, getting in front of him and holding his hand against Bruce’s chest.

“What’s your deal, seriously? You’re acting weirder than usual,” Martinez said before sighing. He dropped the hand and opened the door, shaking his head in a resigned manner when he noticed the ruined security chain.

It was a package delivery. Daniel took it off the guy, no signature required.

Bruce was instantly ready to take it from him and inspect it. People could send all kinds of stuff these days. He and Alfred definitely knew how that could turn out.

Martinez just side-stepped him, ruining his efforts. “It’s just from my sister.” He tipped the small package to the side. “See?” He showed Bruce the package, holding up the return address.

Bruce didn’t know where his sister lived, but if Martinez was sure then Bruce couldn’t question that. It was something Martinez would know.

He took the package to the small kitchen area and got a knife. He cut through the tape and opened it. “The hell’s this,” Martinez muttered and took out a folded piece of thick paper.

Martinez opened it and some kind of powder exploded in his face.

It happened so fast neither could do much about it.

Bruce couldn’t stop it now, but as he watched Martinez crumble, he rushed forward, catching him under his arms before he could hit his head on the floor.

Chapter Text

When Daniel woke up, he was in the hospital. The sterile smell and the steady sound of the heart monitor were familiar. It took him a moment to find the energy to open his eyes, knowing he would be blinded by the harsh white light.

But when he did, his uncle was there, sitting on a chair by Daniel’s side, looking somewhere off into space and fidgeting with his hands. The sight of that, of his uncle so frazzled, made Daniel panic. His heart rate spiked for a second, his uncle immediately looking at him.

Whatever had been in that envelope—Daniel could remember inhaling some kind of powder and then everything turning black—it must have been bad.

His uncle read his expression, moving out of his chair. “You’re going to be alright, Danny. You’re alright,” he said, brushing Daniel’s curls away from his face.

It worked wonders. Daniel calmed down, letting his uncle comfort him. He must have been there for some time now, he must know what was going on. If he said Daniel would be fine, it was probably what the doctors had said. And besides, his uncle wasn’t the type to lie, even if the lies were sometimes nicer than the truth.

He helped Daniel drink some water from a glass with a straw, told him the doctor would be there soon to take a look at him, now that he was awake. Said the doctor would explain everything to him, it had gone right over his uncle’s head, but they were certain Daniel was fine now.

“Your parents will be here soon. You haven’t been out that long. Your sister will come in the morning, said she’ll take the little one with her too. As will your aunt. Can’t let you live on hospital food, eh?”

Daniel smiled with his uncle, not bothering to ask if he was even allowed to eat anything not provided by the hospital.

It didn’t escape his notice that his uncle got fidgety again.

“There’s somebody who wants to see you. He, uh, he’s been here the whole time.”

Daniel frowned, confused. His uncle called out for the person to enter. Daniel remembered all too fast how Batman had been in his apartment when the whole thing happened.

It was hard not to, as Batman stepped into the room.

“Keep it short, the doctor will want to see Daniel soon,” his uncle said. Daniel heard the hard tone that his uncle reserved for asshole-ish customers. He was also glaring suspiciously at Batman. “I’ll be outside, if you need anything,” he said when turned to Daniel again.

Daniel cringed a little. Was his uncle trying to intimidate Batman on his behalf? It was oddly sweet, but not really necessary. “I’m gonna be fine,” Daniel addressed his uncle. “Batman and I are pals.”

Of course, Batman was dead silent. He didn’t even glance at Daniel, too busy having some weird eye staring contest with Daniel’s uncle. But Daniel supposed that the silence could also stand for an agreement.

His uncle did leave them alone, though, repeating how he would be right outside the door.

Batman didn’t waste a second. As soon as the door shut with a click, he was facing Daniel. “You were poisoned.”

Daniel let out a slight laugh that didn’t feel all that genuine even to him. “Well, that’s a new one. Figured it would happen eventually in Gotham, but you know.” Daniel shrugged.

“You should be taking this more seriously.”

The last hints of an awkward smile slipped from his face. Batman’s tone—so neutral, so emotionless, but strong and unwavering. Daniel sobered up, his eyes welling up. He had to turn to the side, away from Batman and his observant eyes.

He had been dealing with this for so long. He was so tired. And now this.

“I am,” he said, but it was small, barely audible in the silent hospital room.

“You know why this happened.”

Daniel wondered if Batman had meant it as a question, but it was more a statement, really.

Daniel didn’t answer, so Batman took a step closer. Without a shred of doubt, Daniel knew that Batman was about to start his questioning, his interrogation, but right now, Daniel couldn’t. And he wouldn’t.

“You should leave. I’m tired.”

“You’ve been asleep long enough.”

“I was unconscious, doesn’t really count.”

Batman pulled out the envelope that he had taken at Daniel’s apartment before the package had been delivered. Daniel saw that it was still unopened. Batman had stormed his place earlier but at least he hadn’t completely breached his privacy. “What’s this?”

“Give that to me,” Daniel said instantly. He wondered how fast he could get to Batman to snatch it out of his grasp. Seeing as he was still hooked up to an IV, and bundled in a blanket, it wasn’t likely to work out.

“What is it?”

“I’m not freaking telling you, man. Just give it back.”

Batman was silently watching him, not making any move to return the envelope. Daniel tried not to do anything that would indicate to Batman, through his body language, that he didn’t want Batman seeing what was inside, didn’t want him opening it. Not even Daniel knew what kind of threat or insult it would be this time and how the fuck would he explain that to Batman? To anyone?

His uncle chose that very moment to re-enter his hospital room, god bless him. Whether he somehow sensed Daniel’s distress through the wall, or simply got tired of waiting around, Daniel was eternally grateful.

He took one look at Daniel eyeing the envelope, frowned and strode up to Batman. Not seeing his uncle as any threat, Batman allowed it. “What do you have there?” he muttered, plucking the envelope from Batman’s hand.

Daniel bit down on his tongue to keep from laughing, seeing the bewildered expression on Batman’s face.

“It’s for you, Danny,” his uncle said after reading the name on the envelope. “You’re delivering mail now? You could’ve just given that to me, no need to wait for hours.”

He handed the envelope to Daniel without really looking, keeping his eyes on Batman. His uncle crossed his arms. “Mail delivered. It’s time to leave.”

Surprisingly, Batman did.

Later, when Daniel opened the letter, read it and started crying. His uncle didn’t try to pry it from his hands to read it. He was there for him, letting Daniel cry it out instead of asking questions. He didn’t try to come up with solutions. He just held him. It was honestly everything Daniel needed at that moment.

What Daniel didn’t know, however, was that Batman hadn’t quite left. He was still around, watching, and getting even more concerned.

A doctor and a nurse came not long after that. It wasn’t anything lethal, they said. A powdered mix of some sedatives and light poison. Daniel couldn’t remember all the official names, actually tired. He hadn’t lied to Batman about that. The doctor said it had been a small dose and that he was lucky to have gotten help so quickly.

Daniel made a mental note to thank Batman, no matter how meddling and annoying the other guy could get.

There would be no long-term side-effects, but they still wanted to monitor him for 24 hours. Just to make sure, but it seemed that Daniel would be fine. He would be released home soon and after a few days off, he could return to work like nothing had happened.

A detective came to take his statement too. Daniel couldn’t tell them much. The conversation was rather brief.

His parents came, worried, but placated quickly by his uncle. His sister showed up, along with his niece. That cheered him up enough. He had almost forgotten why he was in the hospital in the first case. It was so easy to pretend it was just like always, something going wrong at a crime scene or while doing the job.

But that didn’t last long.

Daniel was released. His parents were assured he was fine and would call. They went back home, as did his sister, his uncle. And Daniel, Daniel was back at his apartment, alone.

Police had retrieved the package earlier for evidence and all the remaining powder had been cleaned off, but there were still footprints all over his floor and his security chain was still very much broken. He even found a forgotten glove under his table.

Daniel immediately tidied up the place, not wanting to see the traces of what had happened any longer. Not in his own home.

By the time he was done, he felt positively exhausted.

After taking a well-deserved shower, Daniel laid on his couch, trying to get some rest. He meant to turn on the tv, but he couldn’t get himself to move. He sat there in silence, lost in his head.

Somebody knocked on his front door.

Daniel jolted in his seat, shooting to his feet, freaked out.

He didn’t use to be this scared of anything, not even Batman, not anything on the job. But lately, Daniel was paranoid and suspicious of everything.

As silently as he could, Daniel walked to the hallway, keeping his eyes on the door. What if it was them again? What if they had a gun? Daniel froze in his slow approach. What caliber would it have to be to shoot right through the door?

“It’s me, Martinez,” a voice spoke from the other side of the door.

Batman.

Instead of scared, Daniel turned angry. Couldn’t this man just leave him alone for one day? Hadn’t he been through enough already? His anger worked wonders.

Daniel marched the last few steps to the door, throwing it open. He didn’t have to bother with the security chain—thanks to this very man.

He glared at Batman. “Do you seriously need to bother me right now? Are your questions oh so important?”

There was silence as they stared at each other. Then, Batman lifted up a plastic bag that Daniel hadn’t noticed till then. “I brought food.”

Daniel didn’t know whether to laugh or think that he was still unconscious. Maybe the poison had killed him and this was some kind of comic joke, his last moments, his brain going haywire. But he was also hungry, so he allowed it.

He wordlessly turned and walked back into his apartment, not closing the door. Batman took the hint and followed him to the kitchen.

Daniel set a plate for Batman too and surprisingly, Batman took it, sitting on his tiny kitchen island with his cape and all. The food itself was amazing.

“What restaurant did you get this from?” Daniel asked in between bites. He hadn’t seen any logo or anything, just plastic containers. When Batman didn’t offer a name, Daniel asked in wonder, “Did you cook all this?”

“No,” Batman said. It sounded final, so Daniel shrugged and kept eating his fill.

After he put the plates in the washing machine, Daniel sighed. “I guess I owe you some answers, after a dinner like that,” Daniel said, not quite looking Batman in the eyes. He moved from the counter to the couch, which with his small apartment wasn’t really that far. “But you better sit, I’m not doing the whole intimidating criminals into confessing thing with you.”

Batman sent him an odd look. He was still sitting on the bar stool in the kitchen area.

Daniel rolled his eyes as he made himself comfortable on the couch. “Sit here, jesus.”

Batman followed him—oddly hesitantly for Batman—into his living room and sat down, super uncomfortable as he folded the cape underneath him. He was sitting with his body turned to Daniel, which Daniel hadn’t quite anticipated.

“Gordon said you told the detective you don’t know anything.”

Yeah, Daniel had sort of omitted some things. “It’s probably somebody with a grudge. Some criminal. Who knows.”

“It’s not that.”

“And how would you know?” Daniel glared a little. Those intense blue eyes were way too close.

“You’ve been meeting with some people.”

Daniel gaped. “What the fuck, man? Have you been spying on me?”

“You were acting suspicious.” Batman didn’t even squirm.

It all angered Daniel even more. “That’s no reason to— are you kidding me?”

“Who are they?” Batman asked, ignoring his indignation. “They’re nobody important. They don’t deal—”

“So you thought I was dirty? Drugs? That’s why you’ve been watching me? After all this time? How many times have we worked together? I know I’m not Gordon, but— do you not trust me at all?”

“I— you’re important. I had to make sure.”

Daniel took his eyes off the man, reclining on his couch and putting his hands to his face. He wanted to laugh but also shake the unbelievable man. “You’re impossible. Why didn’t you just ask me about it?”

“I did.”

Daniel pushed his hands away from his face, looking at Batman, his brows furrowed. When had he asked him that? Daniel tried to remember. There had been a couple questions, asking if he was okay. Gruff and short. Daniel resorted to his usual glare. “Those questions? Man, that could have been about anything. You should’ve been more to the point. How can anyone guess from that vague shit?”

“I’m asking now.”

Daniel sighed to himself. “Your personality seriously needs some work.”

“Who are they? Why did Harper poison you?”

Daniel immediately straightened up. “Harper? The nurse? Freaking hell, it was her? But she was the least suspicious.”

He could tell that Batman was getting confused too. “You didn’t know?”

“No! She sounded so nice the second time. She’s a nurse. I didn’t think she had it in her.”

“She poisoned you.”

“I don’t mean that, I mean the threats.”

“What?”

Daniel sighed. So Batman hadn’t figured that one out yet, and he had just told him. Great. Daniel didn’t meet his gaze again. “I’ve been getting threats. For a couple of weeks now. I’m dealing with it—”

“You were poisoned.”

“I was dealing with it. Okay, so I didn’t quite expect that, but—”

“Why the threats?”

“Jesus, this is embarrassing,” Daniel muttered, hiding his face in his hands yet again.

Batman took his hand and drew it away from his face. “This is serious.”

“I fucking know that,” Daniel snapped a little. “You think I don’t? I— I’ve been getting them for months…” His anger faded as he thought about all of that. The slight fear was back in his eyes. “I thought I could— I don’t know, find out who it was. But none of them… all my questions. They all passed.”

“The people you’ve been visiting.” Batman was still holding his wrist. “Does it have something to do with the conspiracy forum?”

Daniel’s eyes widened. “How do you know about that?”

“Two of them had it open after you left.”

“You’ve been on the forum?”

Silence.

It must have been as embarrassing for Batman as it was for him, admitting to reading his own forum.

“I’ve seen some of it,” Batman admitted at last.

“I’m just gonna come out with it,” Daniel rushed through the words before he lost his courage, “I may have commented some stuff on there and they decided I hate you, which I don’t, and somehow, everyone just agreed that I’m the biggest hater.”

“You’re that anon?”

“Yea— you’ve seen some of it?”

“I was… investigating.” Daniel swore he could see hints of a blush underneath the dark cowl. “It was the only link between the people you questioned.”

“So how much have you read?”

“Enough to know it’s not hate. You don’t worship me and that bothers them.”

“This conversation is so weird,” Daniel said.

“You’re getting threats,” Batman switched back to their original topic, probably finding that easier to talk about, “…because of me?”

“One way to put it. I think of it more like my inability to shut up.”

“You’ve never approved of my methods.”

“And I still don’t, and I don’t have a problem telling you the same thing to your face.”

“That’s not necessary. I’ve read your comments. You’re right. I could be helping the police more.”

That, Daniel didn’t expect. His voice turned gentler without him doing it consciously. “Yeah. I can give you pointers. Even small things can make a huge difference.”

“Alright.”

And maybe, Daniel had been wrong about this man. Batman didn’t seem as bad right now. Maybe the people on the forum hadn’t been so wrong either. Maybe they just saw this side of Batman when Daniel couldn’t.

“You still need to tell the detective all this,” Batman said.

“I know. I didn’t know it was the nurse before, though.”

“The threats, how do they—”

“Spamming my dms everywhere, at first. Then it was my mail too. And then the envelopes. She switches it up. I have a whole pile. I kept them, filed the date I found them. To cross check the alibi one day. If I figured out who it was. No such luck, but I guess it was the nurse all along.”

“Might be.”

“You think it’s more of them?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll get it to the station tomorrow. I doubt the detective is still working tonight.” One glace outside his window told him it was already dark and late by now.

“You should call him now.”

“Nah, I don’t want to bother. It can wait.”

“That’s not a matter of bothering. It’s his job.”

“But it’s this late and—holy fuck, she knows where I live.”

“That’s why you should—”

“No, no, that’s not— she knows where I live. She tried to kill me. What if—” It all dawned on him. Daniel was starting to hyperventilate, unable to keep talking. It had been a few very long months dealing with it all alone. Then he could have been killed, and then he was at his apartment, dealing with it alone again.

Batman moved off the couch and grasped his shoulders, leaning in close. “She won’t. Not when I’m here,” Batman told him, voice firm. It worked to draw Daniel’s attention.

Batman guided him through some breathing exercises. “You’re not dealing with this alone anymore,” he told him when Daniel felt like he could breathe again.

Daniel let himself be comforted with that. He knew this wasn’t his uncle, he knew Batman wouldn’t give him a hug. Well, maybe if he asked for one…

But Batman wasn’t a man of comforting words. He offered solutions instead.

“Go stay at the Wayne Tower,” Batman said. The confusion alone distracted him from any thoughts Daniel might have had. “Wayne owes me a favour.”

“I can’t,” Daniel said instantly. “I could never impose on Mr. Wayne like that. He doesn’t even know me.”

“It’ll be alright with him,” Batman assured him. “You most likely won’t even meet him. It’s a big place.”

Daniel didn’t have an argument for that. He did feel a bit silly for assuming otherwise, though.

“Give me the letters you collected. I’ll take a look and then give them to the detective for you. You should still rest.” Batman straightened up to his full height. “Pack some stuff for a couple of days. You won’t be staying here tonight.”

He did need the rest. Daniel was too tired to argue. He gave him the shoe boxes filled with the letters and a list of the dates when they had arrived.

Then, Batman was gone and Daniel felt just a bit more unsafe without him there.

Chapter Text

Not that long after Batman had left, Daniel heard a car pulling up next to his apartment building. He tried to glance out of his window without actually standing in the window. Paranoid, still.

However, the car that was now parked by the curb was rather fancy, with black windows and a driver that was dressed for the occasion. Daniel had no doubt this was the work of Batman, and Mr. Wayne in addition.

The tiny suspicion with the driver was still there, though. But as soon as the back door opened and Mr. Pennyworth stepped out, Daniel relaxed. He recognized Alfred Pennyworth instantly. It was hard not to. The man almost always accompanied Mr. Wayne or spoke on his behalf.

Daniel wondered what kind of favour Mr. Wayne owed to Batman of all people.

Mr. Pennyworth was extremely polite and helpful, showing Daniel his temporary room, telling him which corridors would get him to the kitchen the fastest, the like.

It wasn’t even that late, but Daniel couldn’t sleep and well, he supposed if there was a place that had snacks in the kitchen at all times, Wayne Tower would be it. At least he really hoped so.

When he got down to the kitchen, Mr. Pennyworth was there, some papers in front of him, busy. Daniel didn’t try to look into what he was doing, smiling at the man politely and greeting him yet again that night. They made some small talk as Mr. Pennyworth asked him why he was down there. Daniel was told he would find all kinds of things in the fridge and to feel free to pick anything to his liking.

With a grin, Daniel opened the door of the fridge—it was massive, double doored. His eyes raked over the selection. At first, he didn’t stay on the plastic containers for long, skimming over them, but something made him look up again. The food inside was familiar.

Daniel didn’t want to jump to conclusions, though, he had to make sure. Slowly, he took out one of the containers and popped the lid open. Even the smell of the spices was the same. Daniel gulped, still looking at the container and the meal in his hands.

“Everything alright, Officer?” Mr. Pennyworth’s voice sounded from behind him. He must have stood up and walked closer while Daniel had been busy inspecting the food.

He replaced the lid on the container and slipped it back to its place. He turned to Mr. Pennyworth, an easy smile on his face. He pointed to the row of containers now behind him with his thumb. “Must have been quite some dinner. Did you cook that?”

“I did,” Mr. Pennyworth said, crossing his hands over his cane. Daniel didn’t miss the careful tilt of his voice.

“It was really good,” Daniel said. He closed the fridge, any snack forgotten.

Pennyworth froze for a second.

“Where’s Mr. Wayne?”

“Sleeping, I’m sure. Why do you ask, Officer?” The politeness had dropped, even if the words were still proper. Daniel had no doubt this man could be dangerous. Not your usual butler.

“I need to um, ask him something.” Daniel didn’t know if Mr. Pennyworth knew or not.

“It can wait.”

“It really can’t.”

“I assure you—”

Daniel didn’t wait for him to finish the sentence, making his way out of the kitchen. “Mr. Wayne!” he yelled out into the hall.

Nobody answered him. Not that he really expected it.

But Daniel was determined. He went around the place, calling out Mr. Wayne’s name repeatedly. Until he found him. In Mr. Wayne’s bedroom. He was most certainly not sleeping.

Mr. Wayne stood by a tall desk, a makeup removing wipe in one hand. He stopped in his tracks when Daniel stumbled into the room.

Pennyworth was right behind him, walking into the room with a loud click of his cane. It was the only sound in there as Daniel and Mr. Wayne stared at each other.

“It’s alright, Bruce, I’m dealing with it,” Mr. Pennyworth said with a strong voice.

Daniel steadily ignored him.

“You are Batman?” he pretty much shouted at Mr. Wayne who still wasn’t moving.

“Leave us,” Mr. Wayne told Pennyworth. His voice almost a whisper compared to Daniel’s.

Pennyworth visibly hesitated, but he couldn’t fight all of Mr. Wayne’s battles for him, so he left after Wayne gave him one final look. It was almost like watching a silent conversation that Daniel wasn’t a part of.

Daniel didn’t wait. Pennyworth’s reaction was enough to assure him that he was right. He pointed at Wayne. “You are Batman!” It sounded like an accusation even to him.

“Why do you think that?” Wayne asked him, oddly calm about the whole situation. His body language was different, though, his closed fists and the tight hold he still kept on the wipe were a dead give-away. He wasn’t as calm as he tried to project. He was nervous.

“Dude. There are literally leftovers from our dinner in your fridge. I may not be a detective, but I’m not dumb.”

“You’re smarter than you let on.”

“Don’t try to flatter me right now!” Daniel hated that he was actually getting flustered. This was Mr. Wayne after all.

But he was also Batman.

“I kind of see it now,” Daniel added, lowering his volume. “The eyes, the jaw.” He waved his hand around as if to drive the point.

Wayne crossed his arms, not commenting.

“This is so weird,” Daniel sighed. He got a frown in response. “I mean. You’re Batman, but also Mr. Wayne.”

A nod.

“I’ll need a minute to get used to this.” Then it struck him. “You aren’t even gonna try to deny all this?”

“Should I?”

“Yeah, no. I already got it all figured out.”

“It was a matter of time. With you and Gordon.”

“Just us?” Daniel was actually surprised by that. It felt odd to think he was one of the very few who had the actual chance of finding out who Batman really was.

Wayne shrugged. “I can’t seem to escape you.”

Something warm stirred in him, made him grin. Daniel indeed ended up meeting Batman on quite a lot of occasions. “It sure seems so.” He laughed a little, adding, “Please, let me know as soon as Gordon knows too. I’ll absolutely need him to know I figured it out first.”

Wayne rolled his eyes lightly, but there was no heat behind it. “I’ll try to remember.”

“How did he not get it all these years, though?” Daniel wondered.

“Luck.”

“For you, maybe.”

“I don’t think he wants to know. Makes it easier,” Wayne said with more consideration.

“Easier to overlook stuff. Tell me about it.” Daniel groaned. “God, work is gonna be so fun now.”

Wayne cocked a brow at that.

“Not that I’m gonna tell anyone. You don’t have to worry about that. Your secret is safe with me. I value my life.”

“I wouldn’t do anything to you.”

“Sure, but Mr. Pennyworth might.”

That drew a smile from Wayne and Daniel froze. He had never seen that, he thought. Batman smiling. Mr. Wayne smiling at him. It shouldn’t feel like the greatest accomplishment of his life and yet it did. Daniel couldn’t explain it.

Then he thought about why he was the one who had figured it out sooner than Gordon.

Maybe Wayne was right about that. Gordon never actively tried to find out who he was. He never paid attention too closely. But Daniel, Daniel did. Without even being aware of it. Every time Batman appeared on their crime scene, Daniel was drawn to him. He just had to say hi, talk to him, comment on something, follow him around. Every time. It was like he couldn’t stop it, doing it without thinking for all these years.

And if that wasn’t a whole new revelation that night.

With their impromptu talk over, Daniel noticed the makeup wipe still in Bruce’s hand. He must have been awkwardly holding it all this time.

As if reading his mind, Bruce looked down at the wipe, as if only realizing it was still there just now. He moved to throw the wipe away, but Daniel stopped him.

“No, wait. You’ve still got some…” He tried to indicate where the black makeup still remained on his face, but Bruce was looking at him with his brows furrowed in utter confusion. “Oh, just give it here.”

Daniel took the last few steps towards the other man and took the wipe from his grasp. He reached out, putting one hand to the back of Bruce’s neck and pulled him lower. The man was freakishly tall even without the bat getup.

Then, Daniel wiped under his eye the last remnant of the makeup, ignoring the gaze heavily settled on him.

He was just helping him out, that was all.

Feeling his stomach stir at the sudden closeness and the heat in his cheeks, well, Daniel ignored that, just as he ignored those intense eyes on him.

Chapter Text

Daniel was in the kitchen with Alfred, eating breakfast at an ungodly hour. It was so early it was still dark outside. Apparently, this was a normal morning routine for Alfred. Daniel just needed to be at work earlier than usual. He had to catch up on work, so he figured an extra hour or two in the morning would do him good.

Bruce chose that very moment to enter the kitchen as well, heading for the sink and retrieving a glass to have a drink. Daniel watched him as he chewed. The dark makeup was still around his eyes, his hair falling over his forehead. Bruce didn’t seem to care at all and Daniel was just a little horrified at the time.

“Your schedule is horrendous,” he finally said when his mouth wasn’t full.

Alfred vehemently agreed.

While the two got into a discussion about it, Bruce disappeared along with his glass of water. Daniel needed to head to work soon, so it was fine. Bruce would probably be out cold in his bed the whole day.

A couple hours into his work—when most officers on the day shift were arriving—the detective dealing with his case showed up. “You’re back to work, I see,” the man commented. “How convenient.” It sure saved them on the gas. All they had to do to talk to each other was come down a couple floors.

Daniel sent the man a half-smile. The detective had all the threats and the messages that Daniel had received and while the detective respected his wishes and didn’t share them with their colleagues who weren’t working on the case too, it left Daniel feeling a little uncomfortable that even one person had access to all that. He knew he shouldn’t feel that, it wasn’t his fault, and yet he did.

“We have the nurse in custody.” Daniel’s brows shot up and the detective nodded.

As far as Daniel knew, they were struggling with locating her. As soon as the package was delivered to Daniel and Batman had left her, she had packed her bags and left. Ashley had called the hospital, said she was taking a sick leave, told her friends she was going away for a while, took her dog too.

“Batman found her last night. She was at some friend’s house. Nobody we have questioned. He called it in, waited till we showed up to arrest her.”

The warm feeling was back again.

The detective told him they planned the interrogation for the next day. They had enough evidence to keep her there and they were still working on the right strategy to get her to confess to everything.

Later, when Daniel got home—to the Wayne Tower—Bruce was still there. He had half expected him to be out on the streets, doing his vigilante stuff. The sun had already set, so it was plenty dark.

Daniel stopped him before he could actually leave the spacious living room. “You could have told me in the morning. About Harper.”

Bruce watched him silently, as if he was trying to come up with the right words.

He hadn’t been avoiding Daniel, or anything like that, now that Daniel knew about his identity. They hadn’t run across each other much in the tower, but that was mostly for their opposite schedules.

Whenever they did, however, Daniel was starting to see the similar micro-gestures, the mannerism, the little quirks. He was just a bit weirded out, trying to put all he knew about Batman into Bruce Wayne. He didn’t really know Bruce, but he figured it was still the same person.

This, the silent stare, Daniel was all too familiar with it.

“I told you. You aren’t alone in this anymore,” Bruce said.

Daniel’s mouth quirked, a small smile on his face. “Yeah. I guess it’s just hard getting used to that. It’s been a long time like that.” The smile dropped slightly. “It was—” He took a breath, shakier than he anticipated. “It was hard.” His voice broke.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Bruce offered, looking unsure but determined to do just that if it was something Daniel truly wanted.

Daniel laughed a little, eyes watering. He thought he was fine, dealing with it, like he had said so many times. As if saying it would make it truer. But maybe he had just been keeping it all in, suppressing it. He shook his head lightly. “I could do with a hug.”

He didn’t know what he was expecting. He didn’t expect much.

Wordlessly, Bruce pulled him into his arms and damn, if it wasn’t much nicer than Daniel could have imagined. Mr. Wayne’s embrace. It featured prominently in some of his fantasies, when the nights got too lonely. Batman’s definitely muscular arms. A thought Daniel had tried to bury deep. Very, very deep.

Bruce held him for a long time. Daniel shed some tears and Bruce still didn’t care, didn’t recoil. Just held him closer.

.

Ashley’s interrogation was the first thing in the morning. Daniel couldn’t participate since he was technically a victim, but his colleagues, as a courtesy to him, let him observe from behind the one-way mirror.

She had tried to deny it, looking all righteous. But the detective’s questioning strategy was good. He knew all the right questions to ask her. It didn’t take long for her to admit to everything, though she showed no signs of regretting any of it.

“Idi helped me.”

Daniel watched as the detective took a look at his notes. “That would be Idiolam?”

Daniel knew that already. It couldn’t be anybody else. The only forum user he hadn’t been able to track at all.

Ashley nodded. “I call him Idi, it’s shorter, and I don’t know his real name. He helped me with the contents of the threats.” She squirmed in her seat a little. “I only talked to him through the forum.”

An accomplice whose name they still didn’t know. Great. Daniel figured at least it was beyond him now. The investigation was up to somebody else.

One thing, though, Daniel was glad to know that he hadn’t been completely wrong. The threats hadn’t sounded quite like Ashley. His gut wasn’t totally off. It had been Idiolam writing them. At least the more extreme stuff, Daniel was sure.

By the time he listened in again, Ashley was talking again. “—Lorna for help. She found out who the anon was for me.”

“Lorna?”

“Her online name, yeah.”

“How did Lorna find out?” the detective asked.

Daniel gripped the desk in front of him till his knuckles turned white. Lorna? Lorna had known all along?

“I don’t know the details. We chat sometimes. She mentioned a close friend in the IT industry, so I asked them if they could find my ex for me. I told them he was bothering me online, using fake profiles. I only needed to find out where he was, told them I needed to know if it was really him.” Ashley shrugged.

“So you coerced Lorna and her friend into helping you, based on a lie?” the detective clarified, and Daniel was really happy that he did.

“I guess. The friend helped. When he found Martinez was a cop, he got scared, said he didn’t want to be involved. I told him he wouldn’t be, that it was fine. Just some issues with my ex.”

“I will need a name.”

“I promised not to involve him, though.”

“We’ll still need to talk to him.”

Ashley glared at the detective for a couple seconds before giving up the name. She tried to be nice, but she really wasn’t. Not deep down, anyway. Daniel shouldn’t be surprised at this point. She had tried to kill him.

The detective called for a short break after that. Went to get himself coffee. It didn’t seem like it, but a long time had passed since the interrogation had started.

Daniel found the detective in the break room before the interrogation could resume. “I know who Lorna is. Their real name is Nancy Modra, but they prefer Lorna.”

The detective made a note of that. “We’ll call them in for questioning, along with that IT friend. Did you catch anything else?”

“Ask Harper about the gun.”

“What gun?”

“Remember the serial muggings case I worked?”

“I heard about it, yes,” the detective said.

“Harper was one of the victims. Batman helped her before anything really happened. The mugger had a gun on him that he lost that night. We couldn’t find it there, but it’s been a while. She never reported. The odd thing, though, she kept insisting that Batman took it, but he didn’t.”

“And you trust that guy more?” The detective was sceptical.

“Yes. Ask her about that.”

“Alright, why not.”

When the interrogation started anew, the detective asked about the gun. Thinking she might as well, after all this, Ashley admitted that she had returned to the alley after the mugging. She had seen where the gun had fallen after their fight. It was well hidden and still there when she came back for it.

A gun that wouldn’t be registered in her name. A thing like that could be useful in Gotham.

When the detective asked her if she had plans of using it when her powder hadn’t done the thing, she only nodded.

Ashely would be going away for an attempted murder, the threats. The gun also didn’t look good. She wouldn’t be Daniel’s problem anymore.

He wondered what was going to happen to her adorable dog now.

Idiolam was still a problem, though. He knew of Ashley’s plans, was all too happy to threaten Daniel, knew where Daniel lived.

Lorna and her friend were quickly brought in. The other officers managed to locate them and take them to the precinct even before Daniel’s own shift was over. So, the detective jumped from one interrogation to another.

They were both seated opposite the detective, uncuffed. Must be co-operative, then.

“I believe Officer Hampton already explained to you why you’re here?” the detective started.

The IT guy—Luis, his name was—nodded, while Lorna talked, “She said one of the forum users tried to kill that nice officer. I didn’t know he was the anon. Or that the other user went as far. I mean, I didn’t even know who Luis was really looking into. She told me it was her ex. That’s all. I would’ve told him if I knew. I swear.”

It didn’t take an expert to tell that Lorna was anxious. Daniel recalled her saying she couldn’t afford to lose her scholarship. She was just trying to help a friend who they thought was bothered by an ex.

The detective held up a hand. “We’ll get there. No need to rush.”

“Luis, can you describe what happened on your end first?”

He nodded again. He was young. As young as Lorna. An adult, but still in his teens. He wasn’t in the IT industry. He was an IT student. “Lor told me they needed a favour for a friend. I don’t use that forum but if it was Lor asking, so I wanted to help.”

The detective nodded, encouraging him to go on.

“I gave B his e-mail address,” Lorna piped up.

“Yeah. Ashley, that’s her real name, isn’t it? Her e-mail was ashleyh something. I don’t remember the full thing. She sent me a message, saying she was having trouble with an ex. It was pretty long. I think I could still find it. I get a lot of mails in my inbox daily, but yeah.”

“We would appreciate that,” the detective said.

Luis nodded. “She said the ex was attacking her online, on that forum, but she couldn’t prove it. That’s what she needed me for. I traced the IP address, but that isn’t a crime, right? I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. I was pretty sure.” Even Luis started looking a bit panicked here.

“Finding somebody’s IP address isn’t illegal,” the detective said, “but, if there’s an intention to use it for illegal purposes, such as cyber bullying and threats, it becomes our problem.”

“But that was all her. When I found Officer Martinez, I got a little worried, but she assured me that that was what she wanted so I gave her the info I found. I did see his insta, he had this picture from Pride there. I was pretty sure the man’s gay, but I already gave her the stuff. It didn’t add up, but it wasn’t my problem anymore. She said she wouldn’t drag me into whatever was going on with them.”

“Christ, Luis, why didn’t you tell me all that?” Lorna asked, looking just as surprised as Daniel felt.

“I thought the less people knew about it, the better.”

“You knew it was wrong,” the detective said.

“I had a feeling, but I didn’t want to involve Lorna. She was just trying to help out a friend. I was too. We really didn’t mean for it to end up like this.”

It was true, Daniel could tell. They were just trying to do a good thing for a friend and it backfired. They were both so young, still students. Daniel decided then and there not to press charges against them. He was fine, Ashley would get what she deserved. Daniel would let them off, he didn’t want to ruin their future with this.

The detective asked them about Idiolam but neither knew anything about him.

The police wanted to go a similar route, tracking him by the IP address. They had to get a warrant, though, if they wanted to find more information about Idiolam.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a problem,” the detective told Daniel. “The victim’s a cop, but Harper’s already arrested and she’s the main suspect. The warrant won’t be a priority.”

Daniel relayed these happenings to Bruce later in the tower.

“I don’t need a warrant,” Bruce said.

Daniel paused. “I hate you.” They both knew he didn’t mean it. He was just annoyed with Bruce for being so… Batman.

“Is that a no?”

“It’s not a no.” Daniel sighed. He really wanted this whole thing to be over with. He wanted to go home, where all his things were. He wanted to feel fully safe again. “Show me your magic.”

Daniel was rather impressed with the whole bat cave and all the fancy equipment down there. He didn’t even hide it.

They sat in front of several screens, Bruce’s very own bat computer.

“I was getting ready to find you with this,” Bruce admitted out of nowhere. “I was… suspicious of somebody on the forum. The anon. They knew so much about me. I wondered if they knew my real identity.”

“They do now.” Daniel chuckled a little. “What stopped you?”

“I don’t use this for private stuff. If I can help it.”

Daniel read it for what it was. Bruce might have been some rich kid, but he truly tried to do what he could to help Gotham and its citizens.

They found the last person—Idiolam.

There was something familiar about him.

Igor Smith. He was an avid hater of cops, which was obvious from his criminal record. Daniel wasn’t surprised that Bruce could access that too.

Daniel skimmed the list, staring at the picture of the man. “I know this guy,” he said. Daniel pointed at one item on the list of his crimes. “I was there when Smith tried to rob that store. He only had these huge sunglasses and a pocketknife. He thought the clerk was an easy target, a woman alone in the store. But her husband was there too, a big burly man. He was stocking the shelves behind the counter, right next to her. Smith didn’t see him when he entered and started threatening her.”

Daniel recalled the night. He was on a patrol with his partner, called there. The woman was the one who called the police while her husband watched Smith like a hawk. “I didn’t even have to do much, just pulled out my cuffs. It was an easy job. Smith got two years for that.”

There were some other minor offences on the list that Daniel didn’t know about. Apparently, Smith had slapped a cop once, too.

Daniel sent all this info to the detective, saying that Batman had stopped by with it. It was a pretty believable excuse.

“This is so convenient,” Daniel said to Batman when he was done with the e-mail to the detective. “Where did you even get this stuff?”

“Wayne Enterprises.”

“I haven’t seen bat suits on the market.”

“It was an unused military prototype.”

“With the ears and all?”

“Most of it was an unused military prototype. We stopped that branch a long time ago, but the prototypes stayed.”

Daniel was about to ask him why he wasn’t doing more with the money he had, but then he thought about the past few news he had heard about Bruce Wayne. Granted, Daniel had been pretty busy recently with his own personal dramas, but he caught some mentions here and there. Bruce Wayne was helping more, had been ever since the flood. It made sense, even Batman had changed attitudes, of course Bruce would too. They were one and the same. He was donating more, overseeing the money more closely so that nothing like the renewal fund thing would happen again.

Instead, Daniel asked something else. “Do you want to watch a movie?”

He himself wasn’t sure what that had come from. Or maybe he just didn’t want to acknowledge it yet. But the words were out there now.

“Unless you have to be out there every night,” Daniel added.

Bruce watched him, considering. “I can go out later.” He shrugged with one shoulder. “I don’t go out every single night. Most nights, but… Alfred worries.”

Daniel grinned at him, that all too familiar now warm feeling encompassing him. A movie night with Bruce Wayne—Batman. He couldn’t wait. Couldn’t wait to see what kind of a movie Bruce would pick. Which snacks he liked. Couldn’t wait to find out if he was a cuddly sort of person, if he would hog the blanket, even want a blanket. Maybe he ran too hot for that. Would he comment the movie? Or get annoyed with Daniel’s commentary?

Daniel wanted to know everything.

Bruce picked a thriller. A B-rank movie, really. It was hilarious in how serious it wanted to be.

Bruce didn’t comment, but he hummed appropriately to Daniel’s commentary. Daniel caught him smiling once or twice. He did however share his theories. Which were always right. Daniel had accused him of seeing the movie before. Bruce hadn’t.

Bruce didn’t run hot. His hands were always cold. He didn’t hog the blanket, he was perfectly polite with it. But when Daniel asked for blankets in the first place, Bruce had said there were some in the cupboard, but had come back with one only. One which they shared the whole evening. He hadn’t moved away when Daniel had shifted on the couch and their thighs touched, and remained touching. As the evening progressed, so did their hips, and their shoulders. And neither had moved.

Bruce liked the salty snacks more. And he shared.

It was too soon to judge on the cuddly thing. They had never been this close. Daniel didn’t know what was happening. It was like they were tiptoeing around this line, neither sure if they should cross it.

Daniel didn’t know when he had fallen asleep. Must have been sometime during the second movie, an old comedy that Bruce hadn’t seen but Daniel swore by. When Daniel woke up, he was in his temporary bedroom, the sun already peeking through.

Bruce had forgotten to draw the blinds when he had carried him over. It must have been him. Daniel still had about an hour till his alarm would go off, so he just turned around, buried his face in the soft pillow, ignoring the light.

He hadn’t been this content, hadn’t slept this good, in a very long time.

Chapter Text

When the police had Igor Smith in custody, there was no reason for Daniel to stay over at Wayne Tower. He returned home. He was always going to return home eventually.

Daniel was done with the forum. That was the one place where he would never return. Never again. He had enough trauma to last him a while.

Turned out he didn’t even have all that much time for it anyways.

He ended up meeting with Bruce often. More often than he had anticipated.

Before, it was a solid zero—if he didn’t count the Batman encounters, since he didn’t know before then—so even one meeting was an improvement.

Ashley had been arrested, Smith too. At some point, Daniel would have to go to the trials and stuff, but he could deal with that later. Now, he was surprisingly dealing with Bruce and it was a whole nother matter.

There was this whole ‘are they, aren’t they’ thing going on.

They were definitely friends now. It had come naturally. Easily.

They hung out, did stuff together.

Bruce looked tired some days, the eye bags prominent on his pale skin, but when Daniel told him to cut the day short, that they could go to their respective homes instead and that Bruce could go sleep, Bruce was always against that.

So they hung out and Bruce always made time for Daniel.

And Daniel, he couldn’t help but start reading into it.

On another day, they went for dinner. Bruce gave him a lift back home on his motorcycle. He had the backpack with him, the one with the bat suit. Daniel knew it was going to be one of those days when Bruce was out all day, was tired, then stayed with him to go for dinner and was going to be out again. Daniel was worried about him. It couldn’t be good to be fighting sleep-deprived.

Bruce walked him to the door of his apartment building. Daniel turned to face him, about to try one last time to convince him to head back to the tower and take at least a short nap before going out again.

Before he could open his mouth, Bruce stepped forward and pecked his cheek. He left without saying anything, erasing every single thought in Daniel’s mind.

Bruce just left like nothing had happened. Daniel didn’t know how long he stood in front of the entrance door, frozen.

Did Bruce even realize he did that? Was it sleep deprivation? Or was it intentional? Was it a habit? But who did Bruce kiss on the cheek? So guess not that one… Could be the lack of sleep, or he just wanted to play it all cool and left because he didn’t want to see Daniel’s reaction.

Daniel didn’t get an answer. He definitely wouldn’t get it in front of his door. He didn’t get to sleep either, ended up called in. A murder case. Three people. He could feel it in his bones, this was going to be a big case.

When Daniel arrived, his eyes immediately found Batman. Batman was already watching him.

That kiss on the cheek—it had been intentional.

Daniel could see it in the way Bruce looked at him now. A little unsure, but with no regret in those eyes.

When he could, Daniel found a moment when it was just the two of them. He pulled at the cape lightly and leaned closer, his shoulder next to Bruce’s. It wasn’t too suspicious should any other cop walk in. It would almost look like Daniel was about to shoulder Batman. Or at least that was what most of the other officers would assume when seeing them like this.

The closeness was just enough for Bruce to hear him. “We are going to talk about that.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Daniel wasn’t a coward once he set his mind to something. “I wouldn’t mind if that happened again.”

Bruce stared at him.

Daniel shrugged. “We’ll talk later,” he said and he meant it. Bruce wouldn’t escape this conversation. He wouldn’t let him.

The next day, after Daniel returned home early from work, Bruce showed up at his door. With expensive takeout no less. Daniel felt like he was having a déjà vu. He let Bruce in, and took the food from his hands.

He put it on the kitchen counter quickly and got back to Bruce who still hadn’t made it past his small entry hallway. “Come here,” Daniel muttered and grabbed Bruce’s face, a hand resting on each side.

“Am I reading this right?” Daniel asked when they were so close. Bruce put his hands on Daniel’s hips as if on instinct. Like they belonged there.

“Yes.”

Daniel grinned, but his eyes were gentle. He ran a finger under Bruce’s eye, his grin softening into a content smile. The eyebags weren’t as prominent, Bruce must have gotten enough sleep. Not nearly enough, but that was Bruce for you.

“Can I kiss you?” Daniel held his gaze, but it was a near thing. He wanted to look at those lips.

“Yeah,” Bruce said, his voice barely a whisper.

They kissed. It wasn’t a heated thing, it was tentative at first but warm and slow. It was like coming home. And Daniel couldn’t get enough.

But there was dinner and they were hungry. So they ate their food and then kissed again and again. Each one with just a bit more passion. Bruce tasted like the takeout, Daniel must have too. He didn’t care. Bruce also tasted like Bruce, something distinctly him and Daniel was really enjoying this.

“Do you have to go out tonight?” Daniel asked him later.

Bruce got this little panicky look about him, but Daniel assured him with gentle touches, trailed kisses down that sharp jaw. He was a touchy person with his boyfriends. Always had been. “I want you to stay over, but not like that.”

He just wanted to be with Bruce for a bit longer.

“I’ll stay,” Bruce said, drawing Daniel’s mouth back to his.

They watched a movie. Bruce was definitely a secret cuddler, when he allowed himself to be. Daniel missed a good portion of the movie.

He didn’t offer the couch, Bruce followed him to the bedroom when both their eyes started drooping in front of the tv.

They ended up cuddled together on the bed too, just fitting against each other. There was no pressure, no expectations. They were taking it slow, just enjoying each other’s presence.

When Daniel woke up, he felt oddly cold. It took his still sleepy mind a second to figure out why that was wrong. There was supposed to be somebody with him. The bed was empty.

His heart shattered.

Maybe he had read it all wrong. His mind filled with the worst possible ideas. What was he thinking? A cop like him and Batman? Him and Bruce Wayne?

His thoughts were interrupted as he smelled something burning.

Daniel immediately got out of bed, stumbling only once. He rushed to the kitchen and saw Bruce, looking sheepish, with a pile of burnt toasts on one plate and something steaming dangerously on the stove behind him.

“I wanted to cook breakfast,” Bruce said.

“And how’s that going?” Daniel grinned as if the waking up, the panic, the heartbreak, never happened.

Daniel moved behind Bruce to check the thing on the stove. Scrambled eggs, not fully burnt yet. They looked salvageable, so he took over. Bruce didn’t bother answering him. The answer was obvious when he took in the state of his kitchen. It wasn’t too big of a mess, to be fair, but it also wasn’t all edible.

After he plated the eggs, Daniel turned to Bruce and hugged him from behind. Bruce was still trying to figure out how his toaster worked. “I appreciate the idea,” Daniel kissed his shoulder, “but next time just wake me up.”

Bruce grunted and Daniel could feel it reverberating through his back. He peered from Bruce’s side at the toaster, watching as Bruce put in a fresh slice of bread. He counted in his mind, knowing when the right time to take it out would be. “Hit that button, now.”

Bruce did and lo and behold, two perfectly golden toasts appeared.

“See?” Daniel leaned his head on his shoulder as Bruce took them out, with his fingers, not a single reaction to the hot toasts. “You should stick to hugs,” Daniel said. “You do those much better.”

Bruce turned in his hands and hugged him properly. Daniel grinned again. “G’morning,” Bruce muttered.

Daniel squeezed back. “Definitely a sight I could get used to. Not the burnt smell, though.”

He was sure that once Bruce bent down towards him, and kissed him, and Daniel started protesting that he hadn’t brushed his teeth yet, he was sure that Bruce smiled against his lips.

Maybe he could get used to this too.

.

Bruce was in his bat suit, walking Daniel back to his car. They had been at a crime scene, when somebody noticed the suspect still hanging around. Daniel was the closest one, chased him. Till the patrol car with a backup arrived to cut the suspect off, they had run through several blocks already.

And of course, there was no room for Daniel, so he had to walk back.

Their knuckles kept brushing. Even skin on glove, it was exhilarating. Out here, Daniel didn’t dare take Batman’s hand into his, even if both of them wanted it.

Daniel and Bruce were dating now. But not Officer Martinez and Batman.

It was the middle of the night, morning almost. Just something past 3 am, not many people were around in this part of Gotham, but they still had to be careful. If there was a picture of Daniel walking hand in hand with Batman, he didn’t want to know what the reaction on the forum would be.

He never replied to anything on the forum anymore. But he did check it sometimes. When he knew Bruce had been out being Batman and wasn’t answering for longer than was usual. When there was nothing on the news, he checked the sightings. That one journalist had been right, the forum was a great resource.

They turned a corner. A short figure was approaching them, or rather, was walking in their direction. The closer she got, Daniel could spot similar features. He had seen this girl before. They had met four times already.

Darcy.

That one time he caught her taking pictures of Batman, then when she got mugged and then twice more at the precinct, just briefly, as the mugger was being dealt with. He had met her parents then too. He had a feeling she would no longer be out on the streets, chasing Batman.

He must have been wrong then. He hated being wrong this time round.

Darcy stopped in her tracks, her round jaw falling open. “Batman.” Only one word left her mouth.

Daniel’s brows rose. “Not even a hello?” he asked with an amused grin. He couldn’t help it. Bruce next to him was equally frozen.

The man was used to dealing with criminals in that suit, not to obsessive teenage girls that adored him.

It might as well be their first proper interaction. The last time, Darcy wasn’t in the best mental state.

“Officer, hi,” Darcy said but her eyes never left Batman.

Daniel glanced at Batman. He was meeting her gaze head on, but Daniel had a feeling he wasn’t even breathing under that heavy suit.

As the silence grew, even Daniel was starting to feel the awkwardness seeping out of Batman. Not Darcy, though, she was too happy gazing at her hero. Stuff like the natural passage of time probably didn’t even occur to her.

“You should be at home,” Batman said, sounding stilted to Daniel.

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed. “I thought you stopped—” he waved his hand around, not wanting to say it in front of Bruce in case she wasn’t comfortable with him knowing “—all that.”

“Um, yeah, at night, maybe. But, I was at my girlfriend’s place. We had a fight so I left. I think we both just needed some space, you know?” she said, pulling her arms around herself. Her voice was shaky.

Daniel heard Bruce audibly gulp next to him.

“I’m sure you can work it out. Get some sleep, rest, talk again,” Daniel tried. He regretted that Hampton wasn’t there. She always had the best dating advice. She would know what to say to a distressed teenager.

Batman nodded, as if he agreed with Daniel’s words. Maybe he just didn’t know what else to say.

Darcy quickly wiped at her unshed tears with her sleeves. “I’m so sorry. Gosh, this is embarrassing. I can’t believe I meet Batman and it’s tonight.”

“We’ve met before,” Batman pointed out.

Darcy lifted her gaze off the ground, her eyes shining with something else now. “Y-you remember that? I barely remember that.”

Batman nodded.

She sighed a little. “I’m really sorry about this.”

Before she could wipe her face with her sleeve again, Batman produced a pack of tissues from somewhere in his suit and wordlessly handed them to her.

“Thank you,” she said in a small voice, taking one out and handing the pack back to him.

“Just keep it.”

She nodded and put them in her pocket, blowing her nose loudly. Daniel smiled fondly at the sight. This girl was really something else. He would have chuckled, if she wasn’t still on the verge of crying. He could read a room.

“I’ll walk you back. I know where you live,” Batman said.

Her eyes widened. “You do?”

Daniel could answer this one. “Remember that time I caught you snooping next to the crime scene?” Daniel waited for her to nod. “I sent him to make sure you got home safe.”

“You didn’t send me.”

“I implied I wanted to send you. You still went, same thing.”

“Oh, you did? Really? I— wow. And you— wow.”

“I think you just broke her,” Daniel chuckled.

“I didn’t,” Bruce sounded almost offended.

“C’mon, kid, we’ll get you home,” Daniel told her.

“Can I go with Batman instead?”

Daniel huffed. Fans, of course. “We’re a package deal tonight.” Batman rolled his eyes.

She shrugged. “Good enough. You’re not too bad either.”

“A backhand compliment, wow, why do I even try.”

It made Darcy grin, though, so he took it as a win.

“Does your girlfriend know where you are? Did she follow you outside?” Batman asked. And yes, Daniel could see how those were some important questions, but the grin immediately dropped from Darcy’s expression. Daniel would have smacked Batman’s arm but that wasn’t appropriate for the level of relationship they were supposed to be showing here.

He did mean well. But what a terrible timing.

“I don’t know. I kinda hoped she would, but it’s been a while. I could call her, I guess.” She seemed really unhappy with the idea.

Batman took out a phone. “What’s her number?”

Shocked, Darcy recited it from memory. Before she recovered, Batman was already holding the device to his ear. “Are you Darcy’s girlfriend?” A pause. A female voice on the other side. “Yeah, she’s safe. Don’t go out.” Another pause. “Then turn back.” Few more words. “Fine.” A response. “You can talk to her tomorrow. I’ll get her home.” A longer response. “Uh, Batman.” A louder response. “I don’t care. Text her if you want.” The beeping sound as the line went dead.

“I don’t think she believed me,” he said, forlorn.

Darcy’s phone went off with text messages then. She checked it. “She doesn’t. But don’t worry.” Darcy typed out a reply with an incredible speed. “Thanks. I don’t think I’m ready to speak to her now.”

Batman nodded.

“Let’s go then. Are you cold? Hungry?”

She shook her head. “I’m good.”

“Right.”

Daniel watched them talk, watched Bruce show his caring side. He was awkward with it, but god, did he care. He really wanted this girl to be comfortable and safe. He wanted to make sure she got home tonight. Wanted to make sure her girlfriend was also safe at home.

Watching it all, Daniel’s heart was melting. This man was incredible. How he hadn’t seen it before, how he only saw the suit and nothing behind it, Daniel didn’t know.

As they walked with her to her house, Daniel noticed that she kept stealing glances at Batman. She clearly wanted to ask something.

Daniel wasn’t the only one who noticed. Of course.

“What is it?” Batman asked.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you take a picture with a fan before, but, I mean, would that be a weird thing? Can we take a picture? I wouldn’t even share it anywhere. Just for me.”

“Nobody asked before,” Batman said, his voice neutral, but he must have been uncomfortable with that. Or at least weirded out. He wasn’t refusing her outright.

“Please?”

Batman hesitated. “Yeah, okay.”

“Don’t post it, though. Okay?” Daniel said, taking her phone as she handed it to him to snap the picture. Somebody might have recognized Bruce from it.

“I promise.”

“He can find you if you do.”

“Yeah, old man, I get it.”

“Jesus,” Daniel grumbled. He wasn’t that old. The lighting at night wasn’t the best, not even with the street lamps, but it was an okay picture. He snapped several. She could sort through them later.

Daniel returned the phone and naturally switched his place with hers, getting to Batman’s side again. Darcy grinned at her phone and then raised it up. “Smile, guys!”

They were both too caught off guard to do so.

She frowned, lowering the phone. “Seriously?”

“I didn’t expect that,” Daniel defended. “Okay, wait, take another.” He threw an arm around Batman’s neck, making him bend down, and grinned. He heard the click and that was it. He let go of Bruce who slowly straightened up to his full height, looking a little stunned.

Darcy looked at the picture. “Aw, that one’s really sweet.”

“Thanks,” Batman said while Daniel grinned at her.

“Now, a selfie.”

She was demanding. And the two of them, they obliged without a protest. Daniel was about to move out of the way when he felt a tug at his uniform jacket. Batman dragged him right back. Darcy didn’t say anything so she probably didn’t mind. She snapped several more, finally happy with the results.

She clutched the phone close to her chest. “I will treasure these forever.” Her expression was so earnest, so adoring. Daniel knew it wasn’t aimed at him.

“Okay,” Batman said. It wasn’t a long reply, but Darcy seemed to be perfectly fine with that.

She didn’t stop smiling for half of their walk. Daniel was glad she wasn’t thinking of the fight with her girlfriend, at least for a while. He was glad Batman could do this one thing for her, cheer her up. Social awkwardness at all. Daniel had a feeling Darcy didn’t care, would worship the ground Batman walked on regardless.

When they were about to pass an alley, they heard an odd sound coming from there. Batman held out his hand, stopping them. “Wait here.” He didn’t wait for their reply and went to check it out on his own.

Daniel only rolled his eyes. Sometimes Bruce tended to forget he was a trained police officer with access to a gun.

Darcy used this moment to lean in close. “Don’t think I can’t see it. You literally have heart eyes. Just like the rest of us.” She giggled to herself.

She was right, but… “You’re getting a little too comfortable talking to me,” he said, crossing his arms. The smile tugging at his lips showed her he wasn’t all that serious.

Darcy ignored him. “Don’t worry, I can send you those pictures. Gimme your number.” She quickly pressed her phone to his hands and when he didn’t immediately start typing in his phone number, she hissed, “C’mon, quickly, before he gets back.”

He typed in the number under ‘Officer Martinez’ so she would know who he was and handed it back. Just a second before Batman appeared again.

He was holding a bright orange cat in his hands. But its fur was a little mated, clearly a stray. “It was just a cat.” He tried to scritch between its ears, but the cat seemed done with him and wriggled until he let it down. It sped off down the street. Batman looked a little sad watching it go.

Darcy nodded solemnly. “I’m a cat person, too, I get it.”

“Yeah,” Batman sighed, but it sounded more like Bruce than anything.

Later, around noon, when his phone buzzed a couple times, Daniel was reminded of all the messages he had gotten in the recent months. He flinched, despite his best efforts, but he knew that the threats were over now.

The messages that awaited him were something far more pleasant.

Darcy had sent him those pictures.

Daniel stopped at the one of him and Bruce, the one when he had thrown his arm around him. Daniel was beaming, but Bruce, he had a smile on his face too. A small one, just one corner of his lips upturned, but Daniel knew it when he saw it.

She had been right. That one was really sweet indeed.