No Heroes

A Battle Cry

Bruce: A Couple Weeks Later

Bruce, Alfred and Selina walked into Bruce's father's office back at home, at Wayne Manor.  He looked at Alfred and felt a rush of relief.  It had come so close.  So close.  He almost lost his closest friend, his only family.

Alfred mumbled something about going to make a proper meal for them, but Bruce was still processing what had happened to really pay attention.  He was out the door before Bruce could snap himself out of his daze to acknowledge his offer.

After blinking himself back to reality, he turned to Selina, who was sitting on the couch, equally as thankful.  If it wasn't for her, they all would have met a pointless and gruesome demise.  She had rescued both of them, even though there was no personal gain for her.

"Thank you, again," Bruce started as he walked over and sat down beside her.  She smiled and set her legs on top of his.  He reluctantly continued, saying: "I'm not sure what would've happened if you weren't there."

After a minute of hesitation, Bruce bent down and lightly brushed his lips against hers, a silent truce and a promise to be there for each other when they needed to. 

She responded with: "You're welcome." and lightly smiled, which was quickly followed by the question, "Why do you think he's so obsessed with you?"

Bruce responded after a moment of contemplation.  "Jeremiah said all it takes is one bad day to drive a person insane.  I wonder if my parent's dying made me a little insane.  Maybe he sensed that.  Maybe he wanted to bring that out."

"Well, you proved him wrong."

"To be fair-" As if sensing that they were talking about him, Jeremiah appeared out of thin air, making Bruce and Selina jump up in surprise.  "-the day is not over yet." And with that, he pulled the trigger of the gun aimed at Selina's stomach.  She yelled out in pain, and fell backwards into the table.

Bruce took a minute to process what just happened, and watched Alfred tackle the man before jumping to see if Selina was okay.  He quickly realized that his hope that she was okay was completely stupid and childish.  He had been through this before, he knew what happened next, but that didn't stop him from trying to keep her awake.  Trying to keep her alive. 

He started hitting himself as hard as he could, screaming at himself- "WAKE UP!  WAKE UP!"

It wasn't until she stopped breathing completely that he shot up out of his bed.  He groaned as he laid back down. 

He had seen her die before.  Every single night he decided to sleep, what he dreamt of was an unavoidable issue that he would have to work through eventually.  And every single night, he shot out of his bed in a sweat and tried to steady his breathing.

Bruce looked around at his new 'room' which was basically a prison cell where some of his plans that he had scribbled down on random pieces of paper had fallen along the floor.  He looked at the one blood stain in the ground, which always reminded him of who he was fighting and who he was fighting for.

He slipped out of his bed and decided to wander around.  His feet led him along the rest of the cells and into main room, where all of the officers were supposed to be.  Where all of the officers couldn't afford to be.  Because of him.

He stepped away before the anger could change into something he couldn't control.  He quickly went bad to his room and threw his suit on, hopping up the stairs two at a time and practically throwing the door to the roof open.  He ran up to the edge, preparing to jump to the other side, but was cut off by a voice.

"Going somewhere?" Selina interrupted.

Bruce skidded to a halt and spun towards her, whisper-screaming "Are you crazy? 

"I could ask you the same thing." Selina shrugged.

"You more than anyone should know not to do that to someone when they're about to jump!" He gritted through his teeth.

"You were about to kill yourself by going out there anyway.  I was just speeding up the process."

"What are you talking about?"

"Bruce, Jeremiah's getting stronger.  It's not safe to go out alone anymore."

"It's never been safe, but we've always done it anyway.  I can handle myself!"

"Yeah, so could I.  But that didn't stop me from getting a bullet in the stomach!"

Bruce's face drained of color.  He closed his mouth.  Selina sighed.

"Bruce, listen.  It's getting bad.  I can't sleep at night either, but neither of us can go out anymore to blow off steam.  We can't risk it.  We have to stay at 100% for when the real battle begins."

Bruce reluctantly nodded.

"And until we can go out again, you and me can spar." Selina said, moving her body into a fighting position.

Bruce quickly copied her motion, asking: "So what nightmare are you running from?"

"Do you want to talk, or do you want to fight?" Selina responded, avoiding the question.

Bruce nodded, accepting the fact that Selina didn't want to talk now, but also hoped that she might eventually.

The Next Day

Bruce groaned as he woke up.  Last night, him and Selina had fought for about an hour or so. 

At one point, Selina threw a punch and Bruce had caught her fist.  She threw the other one and he caught it as well.  They looked at each other for a moment, and when they noticed how intimate it was, she grabbed his wrists and flipped him.  They awkwardly said goodnight and Selina practically ran to her cell.

Which was why he carefully pulled himself out of bed and slowly dragged his feet towards the break room.

When he got there, he saw Alfred, Lucius and Selina with their heads together, as well as Jim leaning on the counter and talking with Harvey, who was at the stove, flipping pancakes.  Bruce made his way to the table and sat beside Alfred, and tried to motion to Selina with his eyes, but she was either avoiding his glance or too enveloped in what Lucius was talking about to respond.  He had a feeling it was a bit of both.  Her and Lucius had gotten to talking quite a bit over the past few weeks, mostly about hacking and some tech stuff that she was interested in.

"Hey buddy!" Harvey slid him a cup of coffee and a plate of pancakes.  "It looks like you need this more than I do."

"Thank you, Harvey." Bruce nodded towards his 'Kiss the Cook' apron.

Before anyone could say anything else, there was a loud screech.  A battle cry.

Everyone jumped up, preparing for the fight that the sound promised, and someone kicked the door in.  A small head with a big mop of black hair jumped in.  No, he was pushed.... by Tabitha, who quickly followed with a dagger across his throat. 

He heard Selina murmur "Tabs..."

"Penguin." Jim growled.

"If we stopped saying random people's names, maybe this piece of shit could say what he has to say!" Tabitha spat. "Say it, Cobblepot! SAY IT!"

Oswald Cobblepot took his time, waiting for deafening silence before announcing his news.

"I know where Jeremiah Valeska is."