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The door to the converted vault closed with a burst of stale air. With it, Jim watched the last glimmer of hope -- Gotham’s grey sky in the sliver between the door and the vault -- disappear, long since resigned to his fate. All 6,000 square feet of it.
What should have been a stylish, quintessentially Gotham party had become something akin to a tomb. Jim’s meal ticket into an event that he’d normally need to mortgage his house in order to attend was somewhere on the first floor, still clutching a half-empty champagne flute as he cowered behind a fluffy, overstuffed white chair.
If the hostage takers recognized Gotham’s mayor, they didn’t show it. In the last thirty-five minutes, it had become painfully obvious he wasn’t involved in whatever their plan was. No one in the crowd of Gotham’s elite received a second look. Not even --
The two plainclothes offices Jim had invited along for exactly this reason were also on the first floor, doing a somewhat-adequate job of concealing their firearms in their suit jackets. Which was to say, they hadn’t immediately flashed it to the hostage-takers when they’d hit the ground somewhere in the vicinity of the mayor’s current hiding place.
The second floor balcony remained under far less scrutiny, mostly avoiding the periodic patrols the men made around the vault floor. They knew, as well as Jim did, that there were no other exits. It was in through the vault door and out through the vault door. A space that had once held Gotham’s 19th century gold securely underground was now home, instead, to its glitterati.
Two cops, Jim repeated silently. One detective. 47 civilians. 12 hostiles.
Gotham’s typical robberies tended to be fast, loud, and prone to capitalizing on the initial fear and confusion rather than total firepower. Every other week, a stupid kid walked into Gotham National with a BB gun demanding cash. The mob hits were relatively more sophisticated, but relied heavily on notoriety. No one wanted to cross a mob, even if the opportunity to escape -- or hit the silent alarm -- was painfully obvious.
These men were different. Their leader blended in seamlessly with his forces, his only distinguishing feature a transparent earpiece in his left ear, presumably connected to a local network. As a group, they canvassed the vault floor, marking off certain tiles Jim couldn’t make head or tails of from the second floor balcony. He could, however, make out the compact GPR scanner one of them had unloaded from a backpack.
If he had to guess -- and he was very rarely in the business of guessing -- they were looking for something in the subfloor. A secondary vault under the foundations, perhaps, or an old row of safe deposit boxes that had been forgotten under construction of the new vault in 1846. Jim was leaning toward the latter as more and more tiles were marked off.
After dozens of civilian deaths in the preceding years, the GCPD policy for addressing bank robberies prioritized civilian safety over assets. Or, in the words of Jim’s favorite desk sergeant, stand by, don’t die. Money and valuables could be replaced with insurance. Lives were a bit trickier.
Normally, Jim would have sat back against the wrought iron of the balcony, clawed at the nearest upturned bottle of Miller, and let them have at it. Except the guns downstairs weren’t cheap shotguns or pawn shop pistols. And the fingers on the trigger guard continued to shift back and forth, as if toying with the thought of pulling it.
The longer it took for them to find what they were looking for, the antsier they’d get. And antsy hostage-takers tended to be more than a little trigger happy. Desperation was a hell of a drug. Desperation and the fear of impending arrest was even worse.
He needed a plan. And, as it had for the last 29 minutes, his mind went back and forth between two impossible choices.
It took a few minutes to crawl, silently, over to Bruce Wayne.
Jim moved the moment the hostage-takers glanced away from the second floor, covering just enough distance to pause, convincingly, at his next stop. Six stop-and-go attempts later, his hands and knees were aching, but his disappearance had gone unnoticed.
Bruce Wayne had, within the first ten seconds of the hostage situation, put himself in the ideal vantage point near the balcony staircase. On the way, he’d coaxed several crying, trembling women (and a few men) into a more secure position ten or fifteen feet behind him: the bathrooms, which had been installed when the vault was converted into an event space.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jim had recognized the movement for what it was. There was a brilliant mind hidden behind Bruce Wayne’s blank eyes. If he hadn’t known -- known it, like he knew his own mind or body -- it would never have been believable. Nor convincing. It had its own tells, undoubtedly, but none of them were familiar to Jim. But it was hidden, and if Batman hadn’t emerged from the shadows by now, he never would.
There was a gritty kind of irony in having Batman himself, one of the world’s greatest tacticians -- if not the best -- and fighters six feet away from him. And yet, in the sharp planes of Bruce Wayne’s face, Jim was farther from Batman than he’d ever been.
As he approached, Wayne made a show of closing his eyes, leaning his head back against the wrought iron in a display of complete disinterest. If it wasn’t for the two bathrooms behind him stuffed with innocent civilians, Jim would have almost bought the act. A billionaire, long used to hostage situations, zoning out with the comfort of knowing he had kidnapping insurance worth more than an entire street of banks.
The skin of his eyelids was strangely delicate. Jim could see his eyes shifting underneath the lids, moving to the upper right over and over again. Up and right usually meant someone was thinking about the future. It was the only give away for a man who had relaxed, purposefully, into the present.
Down on the vault floor, one of the hostage-takers raised his voice. Jim made out a few words in the strange mixture of German and French, and surmised that the leader was growing impatient with his men.
“Mr. Wayne.”
Wayne’s eyes didn’t open, though they continued to shift rapidly from left to upper right and back again. Jim leaned down, shaking the closest wingtip he could grab.
“Mr. Wayne.”
Wayne’s eyes appeared like a flash of blue on the horizon. His face unfolded into a polite, unenthusiastic smile. Batman had been shot point-blank in the gut two weeks ago; Jim knew that the casual arm wrapped around Wayne’s belly was anything but.
“Commissioner Gordon. I didn’t realize you were here.” Lie. Wayne smiled, displaying two rows of bright white teeth. “How’s the show treating you?”
Jim sat back on his heels, holding back a sneer through sheer force of will. It was hard to fight through the glittery mirage when every neuron in his mind said he had the wrong man. But he was a detective, and he saw the tiny details others couldn’t: the reason that Wayne’s teeth were expensive, quality work was because they had all been knocked out of his jaw or shattered at some point. His eyes never fully focused on Jim’s face, something most would chalk up to drunkenness. Indeed, there was a cracked martini glass near his foot, and the ground near it smelled faintly of olives. Not vodka.
Bruce Wayne was listening to a symphony Jim couldn’t hear. And his momentary intrusion was simply another line to weave in, quickly subsumed by the melodies and harmonies that made up a plan that had to evolve within quickly-shifting time signatures.
Yet, he made no move. He gave no sign of intervening, even though Jim could guess at the locations of a half dozen concealed weapons or items on his person. Bruce Wayne was, for once, unable to slip away in the confusion and panic. Even if he could, he had no means of returning. They were in a vault that sat under a comfortable two stories of concrete. Even Batman’s communicators couldn’t punch through that much dead zone. Both of Jim’s devices - a GCPD radio and his personal cellphone -- were similarly non-functional.
No one was coming.
“Just fine,” Jim said, relaxing his jaw. He worked his mouth around the question for a moment. “Are you…”
Wayne hummed, closing his eyes again. This time, they remained still. In a way, he was even more distant than he had been before. Because now Jim had been rejected, not just brushed off with a shiny cover story.
The urge to beg, to plead, built in the back of his throat. Jim knew Wayne had never been indifferent to the suffering around him. But, like it was with Dent, speaking directly to the part of him that did was near-impossible. Wayne had every right to sit back and watch instead of risking his identity by acting. Because, in a way, it was that simple of a trade. There was no smoke-and-mirrors way to take out twelve armed men all at once. Batman could; Bruce Wayne could, under no circumstances, do the same.
Below, Jim heard the telltale sound of a gun cocking. Probably a holdout from one of the men with an AR-15. Which meant they were at the execution point of the evening, only a half step before spraying bullets into the crowd.
“Please,” Jim said under his voice, making useless eye contact with Wayne’s eyelids. “Just -- just tell me what to do. You don’t need to say or do anything else. I promise--”
Wayne remained impassive, distant in a god-like way. If he wanted to act, he would. If he wanted to hear out Jim’s clumsy benediction, he would. He was listening -- Jim was certain he never truly stopped -- but the mask remained.
“I’m not --” Jim shook his head, trying not to undo his own progress with the wrong word. “I’m not asking you to be him. I know you can’t. But we need a plan. And I know you’re thinking of one right now.”
Silence. Wayne’s breathing had slowed. If Jim didn’t know better, he’d think the man was meditating. Or asleep.
Jim shed another layer of his dignity, growing desperate. His jaw tightened, sending a cramping ache up into his temples.
“I have two men down there, and that’s it. You know we can’t go in guns blazing. It’s a suicide mission.” Jim took a shaky breath. “But goddamnit, that’s what I’m about to do if you can’t get your head out of your ass and look at me. I know! I know. I’ve known for over a decade, and I know you know I know. And if we understand each other like that…”
A muscle in Wayne’s jaw tensed, then released. His eyes began to move again, right to left, left and up. Memory. Thinking of a plan. Or, maybe, remembering the moments between them in rapidfire recall.
“If we understand each other like that,” Jim repeated, “then you know I can’t just sit by and do nothing. Not if there are lives at risk.”
The moment seemed to stretch out between them, just for a handful of seconds. The voices below faded away. The flashing of gunmetal in his peripheral vision dulled. They were face to face, rawness to rawness. Jim knew this man better than he knew himself sometimes. He would never truly understand him.
The moment slipped back into tempo. Wayne took a deep breath, straightening up from his lazy slouch. His shoulders rolled back. His presence swelled between them, cut free from the simple bounds of Bruce Wayne, Playboy. But he wasn’t quite Batman either. He was something in between. Something, Jim suspected, was far closer to the truth than either of them.
“Start with the two near the vault,” Wayne ordered, his voice lowering near a familiar register. “Get one of your officers to fake a medical emergency and collapse while he pulls out his gun. He’ll block them from the other hostages and he’ll have his gun under him, ready to fire. Use the other officer to corral the hostages back against the wall, in between the dividers there is ideal. They’re thick enough to shield them from the bullets.”
With every word spoken, Jim’s desperation faded away twofold. This was what he needed. Who he needed. This was the general, the tactician of the Justice League. This was a man who’d grappled with gods and had ordered them, too, into action.
“In the commotion, run down the northern staircase -- not the southern one -- and go for the leader as fast as possible to take advantage of his surprise,” Wayne continued. “Rip out his comm if you can, their radios are downlink only and they’re depending heavily on them for staging. Take him down to the floor, knock him out, and try to draw the remaining men to the opposite end near the bar. They’re looking for safe deposit boxes; tell them you’re private security for the building and know where they are, but that you don’t want anyone hurt.”
Jim nodded. Wayne barely paused for a breath, resuming his monotone explanation with a pace Jim knew was meant to conserve as much time as possible.
“Only a few will go with you, but it will be enough. Your men can handle the others. They should try to engage them up here on the second floor, away from the bathrooms.” Wayne glanced at the two doors, as if visually confirming they were still locked. “Before they do, one of them should open the vault door. There’s no code, but it will take approximately ten seconds to release the pneumatic lock. As soon as it’s open, the hostages will try to run; let them. The remaining hostages are up here and safe in the bathrooms. The doors are locked from the inside. They can wait.”
It didn’t feel right, but Jim knew Wayne was right. Getting everyone out all at once would risk hostages. Staging them in strategic exit points made sense, even if it made his lip curl. Sometimes, leaving behind people meant saving people. People who, in Jim’s experience, would remember the back turned away from them and commit it to indignant memory.
“If the silent alarm is tripped by someone outside, don’t wait for emergency services,” Wayne said, as neutral as he could be about GCPD’s mortifying response time. “Get the men into the catering room down the hall and in the first door on the left. Lock them inside if you can. If you can’t, bring them with you to the second floor. Force them to shoot as much as possible while you weave in and out of cover. They only have one magazine each and they’ll be trigger-happy from the adrenaline. Only two of them have hold-outs. The tall one, and the one with the watch.”
Jim wondered, vaguely, how Wayne had recognized that. Despite raking his eyes over the hostage-takers for the better part of an hour, he hadn’t seen the telltale bulge at the base of the spine, nor the slight imbalance of a gun holstered at the ankle. But he trusted Wayne’s word. More importantly, he trusted Wayne’s eyes.
“When they’re out, they’ll try to leave,” Wayne said, a note of finality undercutting his voice. “The only one you want at this point is the leader. Cuff him and lock his ankles together with one of your officers’ cuffs. Clear the scene.”
Jim blinked, committing the rapidfire orders to memory. For an incredibly detailed plan, it flowed easily between if, then and else. It was as fluid as it was firm. There was room for divergence, but only just. Every step was calculated and corroborated the former. It took into account each of their strengths and weaknesses, even the ones of his men -- officers Wayne had clearly identified right away. Straight shooters, decent guys, but not the planning type. And himself, having directed several operations and teams, but still indebted to direction and purpose.
Wayne’s eyes were open again. His eyebrows lifted, as if to say was that enough?
It was as close to an admission as Jim would get. Probably the closest he’d ever get to a full confession. They were still skirting a dangerous line together; acknowledgment, shared understanding, but still, the impenetrable wall up between him and the vast, complex mind he’d come to know. He had the privilege of knowing the Batman, as much as two co-conspirators could. He would never, it seemed, know Bruce Wayne for what he truly was.
For a moment, as their eyes locked together, Jim saw him. A flicker of sharp competency. Regret and guilt at the corners of his mouth. Pain, in the flicker of microexpressions across his face.
He swallowed the shame of thinking Wayne would truly abandon them, of doubting the man’s ability to snap into action. And yet, the relief of hearing that voice -- that voice -- had been all-consuming. It had been everything, for a moment, pounding in his veins and lightening his chest. He wasn’t alone. They weren’t alone.
“Thank you,” Jim said, voice wavering. “I -- thank you.”
But Wayne had already closed his eyes again, slipping out of one truth into another. The gratitude went unheeded. Wayne had given him the gift of structure, and Jim?
He’d always been good at filling in the blanks.