The Perfect Hostage (Batman Fanfiction)

Chapter 1

Batman POV

I activate the thermal vision in my cowl. I detect 30 people in the warehouse. 28 of them armed the other 2 are the hostages. Up on the balcony, I see Black Mask. I can tell as he is the only one in the room to have no thermal output from his head. With him are two of his trusted lieutenants, one pumped full of venom and the other is a normal human who I don't recognise. Switching to X-ray view, and accessing Gotham dental records, I work that this man is the person that I met over 15 years ago: Joe Chill the man who killed my parents in front of my eyes.

I look over to Robin, my son. I've taught him everything I know. The thing is though, he has something that I hopefully never will: an assassin's killer instinct. I signal to him; telling him that there's nothing in the warehouse that he can't handle. He smiles. He knows what to do.

Using his grappling claw, he whizzes to the top of the warehouse and positions himself above a glass panel in the roof. He looks over at me and grins. I notice that the glass panel is right above the to hostages strapped to two chairs facing away from each other . If I could deploy smoke pellets, then Robin could get between the thugs and the hostages before they were threatened. Checking my utility belt, I found the foldable drone that I had Lucius Fox create for this exact kind of situation.

Black Mask has recently been broken out of Arkham Asylum and during his imprisonment his gang has fallen apart, his territory snapped up by rival gangs mostly by Harley Quinn's which has been overly aggressive lately. well, more than usual. Many of the members of Black Mask's gang have been snapped up by rival gangs as well. This stunt is his way of telling everybody that he's still in the game. These hostages are the lawyers present at his trial. One was the accusing lawyer and the other was his own.

I activate the drone and set up the video recorder. It streams straight from the drone to my holographic screen on my arm from which I can also control the drone directly. I do a quick circle of the building. Like most of the buildings in this district, most of the windows of the warehouse are smashed. One of these is a window which overlooks a dock on Gotham canal on the second floor. This window leads to a small manager's office. I realise that this office leads on to the balcony I saw earlier. I smile to myself. Perfect.
With just a quick glance at Robin, I grapple through the broken window and land with a barely disguised thud. I curse. I should have entered silently. None of the thugs in the warehouse hear me though, especially not Black Mask. The mask he wears muffles his hearing. The rest of them are too busy taunting the hostages. Animals.
Over the communication system I inform Robin that it is time.
I burst through the door leading to the balcony, lobbing a handful of smoke pellets as I do. Within a few moments, this cluster of pellets fill the room with smoke. Several of thugs are now coughing, probably as I hit them directly with a smoke pellet. Under the cover of the smoke, Robin smashes through the glass panel and, using his specially designed bulletproof cape, glides to floor. Due to the distraction, Robin only has to knock out a few thugs before he reaches the hostages. He grabs hold of the two chairs containing the hostages; grapples on to one of the support beams of the warehouse. Once on the beam, he secures the hostages using his state-of-the-art carbon-fibre rope  to the beam and out of the way.
Bursting through the door has knocked Black Mask and Joe Chill off the balcony leaving me alone with the Venom intoxicated thug. He is huge with rippling muscles the size of my head; he must at least 8ft tall. However, all this muscle makes him slow. He charges me; I jump him and sling myself onto his back. He goes crazy, trying to swat me off his back. He tries to butt me off at the wall. He charges once; just hits his head. He charges again for the same result. He charges a third time; at the last minute I leap off and he charges through the wall and just keeps going. He desperately tries to stop but crashes into the metal outer wall head first and crumples. I check his pulse. Out cold.
I leap off the balcony and join the confusion. Through the smoke, I catch glimpses of Black Mask and Joe Chill trying to regain order; Robin running along the support beams occasionally snaring thugs and hauling them feet first up to him and then leaving them to hang from the beams.
Suddenly, notice one of the thugs aiming his gun at Robin. In the split-second that it takes me to reach the thug, he has already fired several rounds at my son. I hold my breath as I pause to watch Robin dodge the bullets perfectly. I smile again. I taught him well. Then I'm on top of the gunman in a whirl of fists, knees and elbows. Each shot is perfectly placed: the first tithe solar plexus, the second to the temple and the third to the groin; he crumples.  I turn around to see that the crowd of thugs have regrouped. Idiots. They think it'll help.
I leap into the middle of the crowd and start striking bodies here and there. Never stay still to long though, not allowing any of them to stand a solid blow. I move from one thug to the next planting a solid blow on each but almost never enough to knock one of them out. Each blow is expertly placed to not only knock out but to cause maximum pain. A blow to the base of the neck; another to the kidneys; a third to base of the skull. I quickly become the centre of a swirling tornado of thugs; every so often another hits the floor. I notice that one of them draws a knife. It doesn't matter though I made sure Alfred constructed my new Batsuit out of Wayne-tech patented advanced ballistic fibres. As I predicted,the knife just sparks off my armour. I decide to just ignore this knife-man and leave him till last.
Suddenly, I see this thug zip upwards. I cast my gaze to the ceiling and grin as I see Robin hoisting yet another thug onto that beam. Except this one has a knife. Which I see Robin pocket immediately. That kid's as paranoid as I am.
I shake my head a little and realise nobody has attacked at the perfect opportunity. At the same time I also realise there are only five thugs left and that they in a circle around me. Black Mask strolls through the circle like he has all the time in the world with Joe Chill right behind him. Robin leaps down from his beam and glides to my side.
"Well. Well. Well," Black Mask drawls. "If it isn't the dynamic duo."
"Well if it isn't old skull face." Damian retorts, commenting on Black Mask's seemingly pointless mask.
"You know," Black Mask replies. "If you say one more thing ignorant boy, I'll have Joe here shoot you rather than have fist fight you."
I look over at the boy wonder. He's grinning. I catch his gaze and his smile widens. He knows exactly what to do.
At the same moment that I leap for Black Mask, Robin leaps for Joe Chill. In mid-air, I wonder why the thugs haven't shot at us once yet. Then I realise. Black Mask's ego won't allow anyone to kill Robin and I but him and possibly Joe.
I tackle Black Mask to floor but see that Robin has instead wrapped his legs around Joe's neck so that his face is forced into Robin's stomach. Quickly planting the stun pads that I invented on Joe's back, Robin leaps from Joe and thumbs the activation button for the stun pads. I watch as Joe writhes on the floor.  Then I'm hit with what feels like the force of a moving truck to the base of my jaw, one of the only places not protected by my Batsuit. And suddenly, Black Mask is on top of me hailing me with blows; inside it is myself beating me up. I shouldn't be over-protective of Robin. He can handle it.
With that Robin and Joe are forgotten. I plant a double-footed kick on my stomach, winding him. I hear a gunshot but ignore it instead hitting the nerve-cluster in Black Mask's shoulder. He won't be moving it for at least a week. Realising his defeat Black Mask, who I have in a choke hold on the floor, signals to his goons.
At once they lob a mixture of flash-bangs and gas grenades at me. I stumble off the masked man, fumbling for my breathing mask. When my vision clears, Black Mask and his goons have disappeared but in the distance I can hear a helicopter's blades.
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