2014.04.12 - The Court of Owls: Revelation

It was no small feat, but standing on top of the GCPD building with the Signal switched on made Edward feel like he'd somehow moved mountains. Tired but wired, he stood there with a cup of coffee in hand. His briefcase hung heavy from his hand, and he stared into the night sky. He was going to wait here all night if that's what it took.

He hoped it didn't, but... he couldn't recall the last time he'd had to time a caper by how fast the Signal went on to the response time it got. Those times seemed so far away...

Which was how he liked them. He was here, and he wasn't turning back. The past informed him, but did not define him.

Truth be told, Batman has never been one to go without a contingency plan. As long as the Bat Signal has been installed atop GCPD Headquarters he’s had a link to the GCPD’s CCTV feed so that he can see precisely who is calling him. Call it insurance. After all, he could be walking right into a trap.

So it came as something of a surprise to him when he brings up the feed on the Batmobile’s heads-up display upon seeing the Signal in the evening sky. He frowns and for a moment considers not answering it. The longer he stands around up there waiting for him the better chance he has at the GCPD showing up to throw him in jail for disturbing the peace.

“Hnh,” he grunts to himself, directing the Car into a narrow alleyway and climbing out through the roof hatch. It is only a few moments later that his menacing shadow lingers on the edge of the rooftop, just outside of Edward’s field of vision.

“What do you want, Nygma?”

"I have the pattern. Also, someone tried to kill me the other night and the Joker paid me another visit," Edward said, looking up at the implaccable vigilante. "You want to at least show an iota of enthusiasm? No? Guess this is how Vorpal felt an hour ago."

He set his briefcase on the ledge. "The Owls-- or an immitator group-- have been rustling the jimmies of your personal moriarty-- by the way, anytime you can get him back into Arkham as he hunted me down while I was licking my wounds-- and supplying him with... things. Not sure what... But they're... They're real. I know you think I'm--" he coughed a harsh laugh, gave a sneer, and then said, "--crazy, but they're real. And I have the patterns to prove it. On top of the attempt on my life, anyway."

"A madman sees patterns wherever he wants to see them," Batman growls, not moving from his perch on the stone railing, "That's part of what makes him mad."

"Nobody is denying that someone is using the Court of Owls as a theme for these crimes. But there is no real Court of Owls controlling Gotham. I know."

He leaves his plans regarding the Joker unsaid. He'll deal with that particular loose end soon enough.

"Then they've been doing it a long time. Because I've tracked generational murders across the Five Families of Gotham,, going back hundreds of years," Edward said, teeth flashing in a brief snarl. "Or would you like to tell me that it's coincidence that the McHeighs were slain in a ritualistic recreation of the Wayne's deaths? That before that it was the Marches. Then Powers, and Sionis. Every one of them, founding families of Gotham. Every one of them: two parents killed and a lone male inheritor. Like *clockwork*. Every thirty five years. Every time it leaves a male child between the ages of eight and fifteeen. Every. Time."

He was so tired of not being believed. He plucked his papers out - clippings and photocopies of delicate, aging news print, blown up images from microfiche.

"Wayne was the last one. Johnathan McHeigh said he was bein prepared, he'd be 'the strongest one yet'. But he didn't mean McHeigh. He was on the verge of telling me more, telling what he was supposed to become, before that creep Dr Riddle interfered. And it was no conincidence that the next day, I had the 'Talon' in my house. If your Cardinal hadn't bene near by, I'd be *dead*."

Batman moves swiftly for a man of his size. In the blink of an eye he moves from his perch to a mere half a foot from Nygma, looming over him with an angry, dissatisfied frown.

“You’re not special. You’ve seen a pattern. Whoever is doing this could have seen a pattern as well. You should know better than to accept the first conclusion you draw.”

It’s been a rough day. A rough week. He’s angry and the first two criminals he encountered tonight put their hands up and gave in without a fight as soon as his shadow fell over them. There’s a lot of frustration to get out. If he had less self-control he’d take it out on the former Riddler.

Still, the mention of a Talon is something to think about. He’ll need to speak with Tim about that.

"And the Boy? And Wayne? THere's--"

Something missing. Something he's not getting. Something at the tip of his tongue, right in front of his face. "There's a piece I'm missing. Something that will make it all fit. What did-- Wayne become, the one living Scion, that is so important to recreate?"

He's staring it right in the face.

“Wayne is the definition of idle rich,” Batman growls, “a billionaire who throws money at problems when he can’t run away from them. There’s nothing remarkable about that man except his bank account.”

Edward may have forgotten that particular secret. That’s fine. He’s not going to refresh his memory. The fewer people who know it the better.

"Then why recreate his trauma for Johnathan McHeigh? The McHeighs aren't far behind the wealth of the Waynes!" Edward snapped back, flushed with frustration. "He's-- not the picture of strength, why compare? Why such a ritual? Why did the McHeighs not know they were the ones chosen... to die for the Court?"

"Every generation, we get a Prince of Gotham. March before Wayne, Powers before March, McHeighs just before Powers, and so on... A tragedy strikes, a boy loses everything..."

He stepped back, shaking his head. "It doesn't fit. The idle rich. Is he a Talon? Is this how they're forged, in murder and pain? He fits the build; idle rich, years abroad, he could have trained in anything. Physique is on, and there's... something... else..."

The gears are turning so hard in Edward's head they might as well be audible.

He’d laugh in Nygma’s face but Batman doesn’t laugh.

“And what do you want me to do? Confirm your suspicions? I won’t. The Court of Owls, if it exists at all, is a secret society exploiting a fairy tale. There is no secret cabal ruling Gotham. This is ‘’my’’ city. I ‘’know’’.”

"Because, what, you're--"

Has Batman ever seen anyone have a look of pure, almost blissful epiphany? Like it was release. Like the pressure of having to butt up against someone who refused to beleve him, someone so obsessed with truth, made him realize it. He knew it. He knew it then, and he knows it now.

Edward back peddles abruptly, eyes dropped, briefcase forgotten. The papers spill over the rooftop. He laughs, so briefly, before he claps a hand over his own mouth. He laughs again, muffling it, eyes squeezing shut. It's half a sob. A moment later, he reaches out to kill the signal, it's light vanishing frmo the Gotham night sky. He needs to be in the dark. He needs to not /see him/.

The interesting thing about Batman’s costume is that it’s crafted to instill fear. Sometimes that fear comes from not being seen; from sneaking up and dispatching a target without warning. Other times it is seeing him that is the most terrifying thing of all. The eyepieces of his costume switch to a more obvious glow, his eyes now the only part of him visible as the signal shuts off and plunges the rooftop into darkness.

“Edward,” he growls, his voice full of vicious intent.

"...yes, Bruce?"

It's faint and tired, because its been a long couple of days; right now he wants a hot bath, a glass of good congac, and to forget the last week ever happened, that those damn puzzles came to his doorstep.

"Don't mind me. Just having a moment," he said, hand still on the signal's control panel. "You need to get Johnthan McHeigh. They're not going to make him into a Talon. They're going to mold him into you. Or what they think you are."

“If you’re cracking again,” Batman warns, not addressing the use of his name, “You’ll go back into Arkham. You’re not so well-loved that anyone will fight to keep you out of a padded cell.”

In the pitch darkness his steps forward, the white eyes disappearing and his voice sounding inches from the man’s ear.

“Anyone but me.”

And then he’s gone. When there is finally light or Edward’s eyes adjust he’ll find that many of the papers are gone too along with the briefcase holding them. What was once his evidence is now Batman’s.

"I'm never going back."

He knows he's probably saying it to the night time air, but he says it loud enough, strong enough-- that it's a declaration of intent. Maybe it'll reach him. Maybe it won't.

He stays up there a while, alone in the cool night air. It's the one place he might possibly be safe, watching Gotham move and glow far below him.

He has a lot to think about.