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Everything hurt.
He had chased the three robbers across several streets and then engaged them one by one. The first two were fast but their combat skills couldn’t compare to his.
The last one had been a problem. By the time Bruce got to him, he was whole blocks away from his motorcycle. The robber had dropped the duffel-bags filled with jewelry when Batman had cut him off in a street.
Bruce had been winded from the long run in the heavy suit, but so was the robber. With his hands free, the man had pulled out a gun. One guy with a gun—Bruce could deal with that.
But it wasn’t just three people as he had thought. He had been focused on dodging the bullets, his suit could protect him only so much, when he missed something crucial.
A van had skidded to a halt behind him. The door flew open and the person inside fired at Batman from the back. The robbers’ getaway car had arrived late, but just in time for the last guy.
Only the person in the van didn’t carry a hand-gun, they had an automatic rifle. And Bruce hadn’t seen them.
They didn’t care to check if he was still alive. The guy grabbed his duffels and ran into the van. Bruce saw his feet in between white flashes of excruciating pain. He heard the van speed off and then blacked out for a couple of seconds.
It couldn’t be more than that. He was still in just as much pain. He couldn’t stay there on the ground. He was disoriented and got more lightheaded with every minute he wasted on the dirty Gotham pavement.
He couldn’t get up so he shot off his grapple hook to the nearest wall and let it do it for him. Bruce screamed as his whole body was jostled. He felt hot blood pool under his suit.
Eyes frantically moving around, he searched for any landmark or building he recognized, a house number or a street name. The wall supported him till he got to the last building, smears of blood everywhere.
A street name.
He reached inside the pouch on his leg, groaning and biting his lip to keep himself from screaming again. He had to call Alfred. But the communication device he painstakingly lifted from the pouch was damaged, a hole going through it. Now that he saw it, he realized blood was coming from his leg too.
It wasn’t the kind of damage he could fix in his state.
Bruce dropped the useless thing and thought through the haze of pain. Where could he go in the suit? Where would his identity be safe?
He couldn’t think of many places, but the street name was familiar. He knew a person who could help. At least Bruce hoped they would. It was a risk and he couldn’t know for certain, but he calculated it to be his best shot at surviving this thing.
He would have to hope for the best and deal with the consequences later.
The apartment was close enough, but if he didn’t make it, the consequences wouldn’t matter.
.
Daniel woke up suddenly. For a long moment he was lost, unable to figure out why he was awake when it was still dark outside.
His alarm hadn’t rung—he didn’t have a shift the next day.
He turned to his bedroom window, realized he had forgotten to pull the blinds down. His upstairs neighbor had these potted plants on the fire-escape and refused to take them inside. The vines often went through the floor and hung outside his window.
Now, they swayed in the night, illuminated dimly by the closest street lamp. It wouldn’t be anything odd if not for the torn leaves.
Daniel kicked off the blanket and knelt by his bedside table. He kept his eyes on the window. He quickly typed in the code to his safe and pulled out the gun issued to him from work.
He switched the safety off and approached the window from the side—as much as he could in his small apartment. The gun aimed to the floor, he glanced out.
There was blood in the corner of his window that made him frown. Then he saw the huge black shape on the landing of his fire-escape.
His eyes widened. Daniel was about to turn the fuck around and call the cops—actual ones on duty right now—when the bat ears caught his attention.
“Fuck,” he said out loud and nearly let go off the gun. Just nearly. The safety was off so it would be dumb, but he also didn’t know why Batman was outside his window and who could be there with him. Or against him, more like.
He assessed the back alley but couldn’t see any movement nor any weird shadows.
He put the gun away, still in reach though, and quickly moved to open the window.
“Batman,” Daniel hissed, feeling weird for calling out the man by his hero moniker, but well, it was what people called him. He got no answer. “Man, hey,” he said, louder this time.
Still nothing.
Luckily, the window was wide enough and only a few feet from the landing. Daniel reached out, guessing where the man’s shoulder could be, and shook him. Gently at first, then with more strength as it yielded no answer.
A groan. Finally.
“You with me?”
Another groan. Great. Batman barely spoke to him on better days. He didn’t seem to be willing to change that now. But Daniel had to try. This situation was odd enough. He could at least ask what the hell was going on.
He did just that.
“Why are you here? What’s going on?” Daniel would have liked to think he was calm but he wasn’t and his voice wasn’t either.
Before he could forcibly turn the man around to face him, a hand sluggishly shot out from beneath the black cape. The gloved fingers brushed against the soft cotton sleeve of Daniel’s sleep-shirt.
Batman’s grip was weak and the hand slipped almost right away, leaving blood behind. Same as in the corner of his window. Batman must have tried to get in. And failed—both worried Daniel equally.
It wasn’t his usual refusal to talk to anybody, Daniel realized. Batman couldn’t talk right now. For whatever reason. One thing was for certain, though—Batman was injured and he had risked coming to Daniel’s place.
“Can you get inside?” Daniel asked and reached out for the nearest hand. He began to pull the massive man into his arms. He knew that most of that bulk and weight was probably the armor, but it didn’t make it any easier to lift him up and get inside his apartment. Through a goddamn window.
Daniel thanked god that his neighbors were used to him accidentally making a racket when he came back from a shift in the middle of the night and wouldn’t think of anything when he got Batman through and knocked down a couple things on the nearest shelf.
At least it wasn’t the gun.
Batman wasn’t much help. He hissed and groaned as Daniel got him inside, breath labored. He definitely wouldn’t answer any of Daniel’s questions. Not that he was asking right now.
“Hold on,” Daniel said, wondering if Batman could make it as far as the bed, or wait till Daniel got some towels on it before he got it all bloodied.
“I’m- I… can’t…”
Batman fainted in his arms, answering his unasked question. So that was a no on the bed. Daniel cursed as he laid him down on the fluffy beige carpet. He would have to get rid of that later, he was certain.
Daniel couldn’t make out much in the dark and with the cape in the way. Once Batman was firmly on the ground, Daniel quickly drew the curtains and switched on the main light.
The thing about blood—it wasn’t visible through the dark suit, but it did glisten in the artificial light.
Daniel ran to the bathroom for his first aid kit, already knowing whatever he had in there wouldn’t be enough.
He knelt by the man, the kit next to his knee. Daniel wanted to stop the bleeding, that seemed like the logical first thing to do. Only he would have to find it first to do that.
His eyes roamed around the suit, the armor, the plates of it. He had no idea where to even start to pull it off. The cape too. He imagined Batman would forgive him this much. But the suit was more complicated than it seemed. Daniel had seen it before, had touched it, but he had never desperately needed to get it off.
Should he tug at the plates and pauldrons? What if he made the man’s injuries worse?
Daniel called out his name a couple more times, trying to wake up Batman, but there was no response and with each passing second Daniel was beginning to panic.
He was about to slap Batman across the face to wake him up but his hand froze and his heart skipped a beat. There was blood leaking from under the cowl. Daniel had a small light somewhere on his desk. He ran to grab it and then tried to pull open Batman’s eyelid to flash the light in his eyes.
One of the pupils seemed smaller than the other—that meant a concussion, didn’t it?
Or something worse. A head injury.
He let go of the eyelid and noticed the blood mixing in with the dark paint. He reached out to touch the back of the cowl, Batman’s neck, and his palm came back covered in blood.
This wasn’t good. This was fucking terrible.
Daniel had to check his head. Batman wasn’t waking up. It could be serious. Or it was a cut. But he had to check. He had to get the cowl off.
Batman’s life could depend on this. Daniel had to decide quickly. Save the man’s life or his privacy. In the end, the decision came easily.
It took him longer than he would have liked, but Daniel managed to pull the cowl off. The man was a mess. Dark make-up smudged with blood and sweat, skin sickly pale, his hair wet and everywhere.
He was hurt. He was also Bruce Wayne.
Daniel only allowed himself two seconds of gawking before he was back on his task. He checked his face and the scalp hidden by all that hair. He didn’t stop until he found the source of the bleeding. A long gash on the back of his head. It still bled, albeit not as strongly as he had suspected it might have before. It wouldn’t require stitches, he guessed.
He only had enough bandages for two wounds, so for now, he put a pillow under Bruce’s head and hoped it would do the job for a bit.
All that blood wasn’t from the head injury.
The continuous lack of consciousness was worrying, but Bruce was probably in too much pain right now to stay awake.
He hadn’t figured out how to get the armor off yet, but a small pool of blood on the carpet next to Bruce’s thigh told him where to look. Daniel had seen plenty of bullet wounds in Gotham.
A graze, this one, deep enough to require stitches. Daniel settled for bandaging it through the pants.
With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Daniel realized one cut on the back of his head and a graze to his leg wouldn’t have toppled Batman. He was still missing something. Something more serious.
And the goddamn suit was in the way. He wanted to scream and just rip it off, but that would probably hurt him more than anything.
After some deliberate choices, he figured the pauldrons had to go first. With the shoulders armor-free, he had access to the clasps of the cape and the breastplate. Once he had been through a couple of the clasps, the rest came easily. The front was gone, now the back.
When he pulled the back plate from under the man, breathing heavily as he had to lift Bruce’s dead weight, he saw the biggest problem. The last remaining bandage wouldn’t be nearly enough.
His carpet would have been fully crimson if not for the cape still underneath the man.
Daniel had to turn the man around. His head injury would bleed slightly, but he was losing far more blood from the back. Again, Daniel had to prioritize. His mind was now filled with a steady stream of curses.
The black bodysuit he wore underneath all the heavy armor was much easier to deal with. It clung to skin, drenched, but Daniel managed to cut through it with the strongest scissors he had in the apartment.
There was a bullet still lodged in Bruce’s hip and another bullet wound just an inch next to it. This one had made it out from the front. Massive bruises covered his entire back. Cracked ribs, at least. He would be lucky if he didn’t have any internal bleeding.
Daniel did his best to cover both wounds with the same bandage, but it wouldn’t hold for long. Bruce needed a hospital. Immediately.
He didn’t stop to think about how fast his mind went from Batman to Bruce. About how fast he had accepted the fact. He had a suspicion it would all come later, crash into him and leave him overthinking every encounter with both Batman and Bruce Wayne over the past couple years.
In the moment, he couldn’t care less who Batman really was.
He only cared that he was currently bleeding out and dying on his carpet.
Daniel couldn’t be the only one that knew Batman. Nor the only one that cared about Bruce Wayne.
Going through all the pockets and pouches on his suit seemed like a waste of time he didn’t have, so Daniel quickly went through his phone. He still had the number saved, he knew. From some case way back. It didn’t matter now as long as he could find it.
He dialed the Wayne Tower and waited, barely breathing, as the phone rang. He didn’t know what the time was, but it had to be early in the morning. Would anyone pick up at this time?
“Wayne Towe—”
“Mr. Pennyworth? Sir, is that you?” Daniel nearly yelled into the phone, gripping it tightly, as he interrupted the man.
“Yes. May I inquire who you are, calling at this time?”
“I, uh, shit.” What if Alfred didn’t know? “I have… a bleeding bat problem on my hands.” Daniel couldn’t be more subtle. Or well, couldn’t think of saying it any other way without giving Batman away. “He needs a hospital,” he added, voice getting a little panicked as he glanced down at Bruce and the bandage on his back already nearly soaked through.
“Give me your address,” Alfred said, voice going firm and serious in an instant.
Daniel rattled it off without hesitation. He included his unit number and told him the door would be unlocked.
“I’ll be there in 5 minutes,” he said. “Keep him alive,” he added, just as firm, but Daniel could hear the worry and love in it.
Daniel hurried to open the door and then went back to Bruce. He put another towel to his back and held it. The bleeding wouldn’t stop without enough pressure.
He lost sense of time until he heard heavy steps and taps of a cane down the hall. Mr. Pennyworth arrived in a hurry and a frown. He didn’t falter at the sight of Bruce, but Daniel could see how pale he had gotten.
“Help me get him out of that. The ambulance will be here in a minute.”
Alfred dropped a big bag next to Bruce and together they managed to get all the obvious parts of his suit. Alfred obviously knew what he was doing, where to unclasp or which way to pull.
The EMTs ran into the apartment next, Alfred’s driver leading them. They immediately started asking questions. Daniel glanced at Alfred, not knowing what he could say.
Alfred gave him a small nod and so Daniel told them everything about the injuries, nothing else. He didn’t know how Bruce got them. Daniel thought the EMTs hadn’t recognized Bruce in his condition.
It made things easier. But of course, the bullet wounds were just as obvious to them as they had been to Daniel. He had seen enough and had no doubt they had seen even more.
They would have to call the police. But that was something Daniel could help with. He flashed his badge and said he would answer all the questions later. They seemed to be okay with that. Alfred gave him an odd look but didn’t say anything in front of the strangers.
They took Bruce out and to the hospital. Mr. Pennyworth promised to be right behind them. The driver was already on the phone with somebody. Daniel wouldn’t be surprised if Bruce would be wheeled off to a VIP wing as soon as he arrived in the hospital.
“I won’t tell anyone,” Daniel said, unprompted.
“I’ll be seeing you soon, Officer Martinez,” Alfred said and hurried out of the apartment. He had to go take care of Bruce, Daniel understood even though he had millions of questions.
The blood-covered bat suit was stashed in his closet. They didn’t have enough time to fit it all into Alfred’s bag.
He would have to get involved. His name would be on the report. Connected to Mr. Wayne for the rest of time. Unless Mr. Pennyworth had enough contacts and resources to bury it all. Daniel wouldn’t be surprised at that. Bruce Wayne was the richest person in Gotham after all.
But if that couldn’t be done, Daniel was ready. They would have to come up with some believable excuse to explain why Bruce Wayne was in his apartment at night, shot and dying. And why he hadn’t called an ambulance right away.
Saying he panicked might not work as well seeing as he was a cop.
Whatever, Daniel had time to think about it. Alfred would undoubtedly try to come up with a solution of his own.
Daniel was ready to go along with it.
Batman had saved countless people since the flood, during the flood too, and while he would only admit this begrudgingly, Batman had saved a lot of people before the Riddler case too.
This once, Daniel could save him instead.