"We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged." - Heinrich Heine
•••
Bird's nose wrinkled in disgust as she walked into the mansion that had belonged to Elijah Van Dahl.
The scent of decay was so strong in the air that by the time she reached the dining room she nearly expected Grace's body to still be there.
Flies were buzzing all over the room and the food on the table was covered in maggots; left from the last night she'd been there; the night he'd killed Grace.
Quickly darting out of the dining room, she slammed the sliding wooden doors together in an attempt to keep the stench and bugs in the room she'd fled.
"Hello, Bird."
Turning around she faced Oswald, who had a very pungent odor coming from him.
He was still in the same clothes she'd last seen him in, his hair was greasy and flattened down to his scalp.
"Oswald, I..." Her voice trailed off and her eyes moved to what he was holding in his arms.
"Is that..." Bird's eyebrows lowered.
"Yes." He hummed with a laugh, holding the new decoration out for display as he proudly smiled, putting his stained teeth on display.
In his arms was none other than Grace's severed head, now mounted on a wooden stand for display.
"Oswald!" Bird's voice hurt her own ears and made the throbbing in her head even worse.
Pulling in a breath and trying to get a handle on herself, she said, "What have you been doing this entire time? Just sitting here with her body decaying around you and -and rancid food? You haven't showered or changed clothes even."
With a sniffle, he rubbed his nose with the back of his free hand and then made an attempt at straightening out his suit jacket, "I'm aware I'm a bit disheveled. I've been rather lost since you left." He explained, "Aimless, if you will. Until tonight when I saw the news."
"Then you know?" Bird asked.
"That Theo Galavan walks among us once again?" Oswald smiled, "I do."
Strangely enough, it had been the sight of his former adversary's face that had given him the strength to pick up and get moving with his life again.
It had very much felt like he'd been stuck in place after Bird had left last.
Grace and her children were all dead, Bird had talked of starting a job in her family's company and seemed rather off-put at his idea to cook up Charles and Sasha to feed them to their mother.
He'd been comfortable in the house after she left.
No one to impress, no one around at all.
He'd gotten used to the smell of death and decay to the point that he would sometimes even forget about the rotting body in the dining room.
There was plenty of food in the kitchen to last him and being so shut off from everything and everyone, he hadn't felt the need to shower or change clothes.
One day had been blurring into the next with no end in sight.
That was until he'd turned on the TV and was met by the sight of Theo Galavan's face.
Finally, the loop had been broken and there was a reason to see tomorrow; to kill Galavan all over again.
In the hours since, he'd called in someone to get rid of Grace's body.
Well, the rest of her body; he was keeping her head for decoration, he'd been upstairs picking out clean clothes and was getting ready to draw up a bath when he heard a car pull up outside and looked through the window to see a taxi.
"Are you alright, Bird?" He asked, taking a step closer to her.
The news coverage he'd seen had began with Theo Galavan jumping from the roof of the police station building and landing on-top of a van, then mere minutes later had shown Bird rushing out of the station and promptly tripping and falling to the ground with blood from a previous injury running down her face.
"I don't know." She admitted with a weak smile that slowly faded from her lips.
Every minute that ticked by since she'd seen Galavan again hadn't felt real.
Every step she'd taken had felt like her legs were being swallowed up in a pit of quicksand.
"The last thing I remember is going home after the shootout at the police department." Bird explained, her brows furrowing as she spoke, "One minute I was there and then the next I'm in a car headed up the drive here."
•••
"I don't think he knows who he is." Bird explained as she sat across from Oswald in the front sitting room.
Reaching forward and picking up her cup of tea from the coffee table and shivering from the draft of the wide open windows as they tried to air the mansion out, she added, "Not only is he calling himself Azrael, but-"
"I don't buy into that." Oswald argued as he settled back into the cushion of the high-back chair.
He watched in silence as she reached up and felt the fresh stitches on her scalp to close up the wound she'd gotten from hitting her hear earlier that night when Azrael had thrown her across the police station.
The friends had been reunited for close to three hours now.
He'd bathed and cleaned himself up in preparation for his return to the city and Bird had called a doctor for herself, then proceeded to open up every window in the large house.
"It's not just that. It's like he doesn't even know what year it is." Bird explained, "He got his hands on a gun and called it 'vile sorcery' when the clip ran out."
Seeing the stunned and confused look on his face, Bird nodded, "Yeah."
For the last several minutes Bird had been filling her best friend in on the new developments that had happened in Gotham City since he'd been keeping himself isolated in his father's house.
"I should have came and checked on you." Bird apologized, her lips pressing into a straight line before she added, "But you should have called me or something."
"Agreed." He nodded with a sip from his own cup of tea, "It shouldn't have taken the resurrection of our arch-nemesis to find a reason to see one another."
When curiosity got the better of him, Oswald questioned, "Why didn't you come back to visit?"
"I don't know."
Her eyebrows lowered at the knee-jerk response she'd given.
If there was one person she'd never had any trouble being honest with -it was him.
She wasn't sure at what point that had changed, but it left a bitter taste in her mouth.
Raising her head, she looked at him from under her lashes and knew with the way he was watching her that he didn't buy the excuse either.
That was it.
That was the reason she'd been avoiding him.
He knew her, at times better than she knew herself and trying to hide something from him was impossible.
For a while now she'd been carrying around the weight of what had really happened to Lilith Wayne around with her.
Letting everyone -including Jim and Bruce believe her biological mother had taken her own life.
In the beginning, dragging the secret around with her from day-to-day had felt like having the weight of the world chained to her neck, but as more time passed the load had lightened.
Only she and Victor Zsasz knew the truth of what had happened that day.
No one suspected her and after a certain point she'd started to believe the lie herself.
"Lily is dead." Bird said, breathlessly exhaling her following admission, "I killed her."
"I didn't slit her throat or anything." Bird was quick to add, "I gave her a choice and she chose the path that lead to her demise -but she's dead because of me. I killed her."
Oswald was silent as he heard her confession.
At first it didn't make much sense about why out of all things the death of her biological mother had been keeping her away.
But then he looked at her closer, the way in which she was avoiding eye contact and had seemed to shrink down in the seat she was in.
There was more.
Something else she wasn't telling him about.
"Bird?" Oswald questioned.
"That's the first time I've said it that out loud." She continued on as if she hadn't heard him.
She paused before leading into the next confession, "If Jim finds out... I'll lose him."
There it was.
The cold, hard truth.
"In order to lose someone, you must first have them."
Oswald commented.
"Ah!" He realized out loud, "I see."
"It's just..." She ran her tongue over her lips, "When I was with Harvey, it caused so many problems between you and I... and I don't want a repeat of that."
"Say no more." Oswald held up a hand and feigned a smile, "I understand, but you have nothing to worry about."
He wasn't so sure he could stomach hearing anymore about it.
His eyes fell to where he was now clutching onto the empty cup in his hands.
He could taste blood in his mouth from where he was biting down on the side of his tongue to physically hold back the things he really wanted to say.
Did she really never learn, he wondered.
Wasn't the pain and heartache she went through with Harvey Dent bad enough?
"You sure you're ready to come back to Gotham?" Bird nodded towards the open windows and tried to change the subject, "It's crazy. The dead are walking among us."
"Yes." He agreed with a nod and unhinged laugh, "But there is no place like home."
••• the next morning •••
Taking another drink of her coffee, Bird leaned back in the desk chair in her office and squinted into the sunlight brightened room.
She started to raise her hands up and rub her tired eyes, but quickly stopped herself before she smeared her make-up.
It was going to be an impossibly long day and the only sleep she'd had was in the back of the taxi on the way back into the city earlier that morning.
Picking up her coffee, she downed another swallow at the realization that she probably wouldn't get the chance to sleep until after Galavan had been properly dealt with.
At this point she wasn't even sure where to begin with her tasks for the day, she hated returning business calls, but going over paperwork sounded equally as bad and with her tired eyes she was more than sure that the words would run together.
"Hey! Stop! You can't just go in there!"
Bird's eyes went to where the door to her office flew open and Jim walked in; with her secretary Charmaine, right on his heels.
"I'm sorry, he just-" Charmaine was fast to apologize to her boss, but Bird raised a hand and shushed her, "It's okay."
Eyeing Jim and the angry expression he was wearing from where she was standing, Charmaine asked, "Are you sure?"
"Get the door on your way out, please." Bird nodded as she stood to her feet.
Once they were alone, Bird crossed around to the front of her desk, "Hey." She greeted, "Are you okay?"
"No!" Jim's gruffly answered.
"But apparently you are."
He added as he looked her over.
Aside from the small cuts and bruises on her face and the visible stitches at the top of her forehead disappearing into her hairline, she barely had a hair out of place.
"We find out Theo Galavan is alive and you just disappear!" He angrily yelled, before he was able to pull in a breath and get a hold on his anger.
Stepping closer to her and lowering his voice, but keeping his tone harsh, he asked, "What happened?"
"I don't know-" Bird began.
"Come on!" Jim whisper-yelled.
"I don't, okay?" She loudly spoke over him, "I went home and I was going to call a doctor like I said and then I just... I don't know, but I just couldn't be there anymore."
"You're really pissed at me." Bird realized, seeming genuinely surprised with the revelation.
She'd seen him angry before, had even been the cause of it on several occasions, but not like this.
This was different entirely.
"Yeah?" Jim asked, "How am I supposed to feel? I was out there all night trying to find you. I didn't know if Galavan got to you, if you took off after him on your own or someone else had gotten to you. On top of that you were bleeding from a head injury. You left your keys and your phone behind, your door unlocked and I had no idea if you were okay and I was-"
"Worried about me?" Bird cut in.
"To put it lightly, yeah." He answered, a little calmer than he had been when he'd first arrived.
He'd thought it was a long shot that she'd actually be in her office that morning.
But he knew just how much her job meant to her and how determined she'd been to prove herself in the position the company had offered.
Jim had known if Bird was able to to get to the office that morning then that would be his best shot at finding her.
"I'm sorry." She apologized, "I was going to call you..."
Her voice trailed off knowing that -that meant nothing now, not after he'd spent hours on end not even knowing if she was alive.
"Honestly?" Bird questioned, looking at him from under her dark coated lashes and waiting for him to nod before she admitted, "I was a little out of it at the time and then this morning, I didn't call you as soon as I got here because I figured you were so busy with GCPD-slash-Azrael stuff that you probably hadn't noticed I was gone. I was planning on calling to check in at lunch."
This time it was his face that twisted up in confusion.
Hadn't noticed? How could he have not noticed that she was gone?
This was uncharted territory for her.
Unfamiliar waters that she was still learning how to navigate.
In other relationships; both platonic and romantic, she was always the one who was fiercely protective over the ones important to her.
She'd always felt like when it came down it, that she needed the other person more than they needed her.
What she hadn't realized until that moment was just how much she meant to him.
When he was in Blackgate, she and Bullock were the only ones who'd visited him; they ended up being the only friends he really had.
And even though he'd been exonerated -he didn't really have anyone else besides the two of them still.
The only family she'd heard him mention was an uncle he hadn't seen in years.
Just like she'd been trying so hard to pick up the pieces of her life after what she'd gone through, Jim was also trying to put the pieces of his own puzzle back into place.
He'd been clinging to her like she was all he had because in many ways she was.
"How could you think I wouldn't notice-" He started to ask, but couldn't finish his sentence when Bird stepped forward and kissed him.
"I'm sorry." She whispered after pulling back, "I screwed up. I -I should have left a note so you'd know I was okay, or called-"
"Or not ran off in the middle of the night?" Jim added as the last traces of his anger faded away.
"That too." Bird gave a soft smile.
"You don't need to worry." Bird promised, going in for another kiss, "I'm okay. I went to see Oswald."
Leaning back, Jim's eyebrows raised, "You tell me not to worry and then follow it up by saying you ran off in the middle of the night to see another man?"
He caught a glimpse of the startled look on her face before it gave way to another smile as she realized he was joking, she chuckled and laid her hands on his chest.
Wordless, she shook her head before pressing her mouth to his again.
He hadn't known it, but her bond with Oswald had been the source of many fights between her and Harvey while they were together.
"Wait..." Jim pulled back, "Why did you go to see him?"
Taking a step back from him, Bird pulled in a breath knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.
But just as she insisted on total honesty from him, she was doing her best to be as honest and upfront with him as she could -within reason.
"Galavan's alive." Bird offered up a shrug, "And I guess I just needed to talk to someone who knows how that makes me feel."
"I know-" Jim insisted, but Bird cut him off, "He tried to take everything from Oswald and I."
"He took something from us all." Jim reminded her.
"It's not the same, Jim." Her gaze fell to the floor and she let out a small sigh, "You weren't there."
She knew she was far from the only person whose life had been dismantled by Theo Galavan, but he'd targeted her and her brother above everyone else and had taken nearly everything from her best friend.
There weren't many people who understand just how deep the hatred flowed through her when it came to him.
"Fair enough." He conceded, "But I want him brought to justice just as much as you..."
His voice trailed off when she cocked her head to the side and stared back at him with a look in her eyes that showed there was only one day she'd accept the Galavan situation ending and it didn't involve putting him behind bars.
"That's why you went to see him." Jim realized, disappointment apparent on his face, "Because he wants Galavan dead."
"I want him dead." Bird admitted, "That's the only justice I'm interested in."
"Look..." She breathed, stepping back up to him, "I know you regret what you did. You wish you hadn't killed him, but I don't regret it for a second. The world is just better off without some people in it."
Jim knew there was a high chance that this would all end with Theo Galavan dead -possibly even by his hand again.
But only if it came down to it being Galavan or someone else.
A fight, self-defense or protecting someone from him.
It couldn't end the same way it did months ago.
That wasn't justice.
It was murder and it was a line he wasn't ever going to let himself cross again.
"Bird." He swallowed hard, "We can't do that. Not this time."
"I'm not asking you to." Bird stated, "But I'm not backing down. I sided with you on how to handle Hugo Strange, but not this."
He opened his mouth.
Presumably to argue with her again, a speech at the ready of how killing someone was wrong, but there wasn't any combination of words on earth that could talk her down.
"I know. You think it's wrong, but I don't care." She openly admitted, "We're not going to agree on this. I knew it last night at the police station."
There was an apologetic, yet stubborn expression on her face as she stared at him.
She remembered standing on the roof of the police station the night before with Jim promising that Galavan wasn't going to hurt her again.
She hadn't needed Jim to promise her that.
It was something she already knew; something she was going to make sure of herself.
But she'd known from the look in his eyes when he promised they'd do whatever it took that his first plan and goal would be bringing Galavan in and not ending his life all over again.
•••
"Don't go baby, come on." Butch pleaded with Tabitha as she continued to pack her bag.
"Let's talk about this, okay? Is -is this because I kicked Barbara out?" He asked.
"Just let me go, Butch." Tabitha breathed a sigh.
"Come on." His tone grew frantic, "I'll do whatever you want. I'll eat more fruit. I'll work on the snoring, I swear-"
"Wow." Bird spoke up, alerting them to her presence in the room, "Trouble in paradise?"
When they both spun around to face her, she held up her hands to show them she was unarmed and didn't come there looking to pick a fight.
"What, no Zsasz this time?" Butch questioned, stretching his neck to the side to try and see around her better, "You gonna leave any of my men breathing or take 'em all out again?"
"For the record. I only killed the traitors that pledged their loyalty to Oswald and then bowed down to you." Bird reminded him with a smile creeping across her face, "And I didn't think I needed back up to have a civilized conversation."
"Civilized?" Bullock echoed as he walked into the room with Jim. Throwing an arm out and patting him on the chest, Bullock said, "See partner, I told you we had nothing to worry about."
"Seriously!" Butch yelled as he threw his arms up in the air, "How the hell do people keep getting in here? Do I have no security at all?"
As quietly as she could, Tabitha back stepped, planning to sneak out of the room, but she didn't get the chance, when Bird maneuvered around the room and got in her way.
"Not so fast." Bird said; followed by Bullock adding, "We got a few questions."
"What is this?" Butch asked, his face wrinkled in confusion, "What are you doing with them?" He asked Bird.
"I didn't bring them here." She was quick to defend, her eyes cutting over to where Jim was standing as she asked, "What is this? Did you follow me?"
"No." He answered honestly.
He'd headed to the police station to talk to Bullock after leaving Bird's office.
He didn't know that she'd left just minutes after him to chase down her own leads.
"Followed the same line of thought as you, I guess." He added.
"Sounds like you two have a lot to work out, so I'll just be on my way-"
Tabitha began to say as she tried to slip past Bird but the brunette was quick to move back in her way and take a painfully tight grip on her arm.
"Why the rush?" Jim asked, walking over to them when Tabitha roughly jerked her arm away from Bird.
"Just time to move on." Tabitha tried to play it off, but she knew no one was buying it.
"Oh, yeah, is that it?" Jim asked, his words, tone and posture confrontational, "Or you worried Galavan is coming after you too?"
Butch protectively stepped forward, ready and willing to take on all three of them if they tried to hurt her.
"Come on. Help me find him." Jim tried to get her to work with him as he held up a hand to show Butch he didn't mean her any harm, "You two hardly left on the best of terms."
"Must have been weird seeing your dead brother show up... dressed like a weird ninja from mid-evil times." Bullock commented.
But Tabitha didn't budge -physically or verbally.
"You're scared." Bird read what she was trying to hide from them, her eyes squinted some as she added, "I know I'm not your favorite person. You're certainly not mine -but right now we have an enemy of my enemy sort of situation going down. He might be after Jim right now, but you betrayed your brother -left him to die and at some point we all know he's going to come after you too."
Letting the heavy bag of her belongings fall to the floor with a loud thud, Tabitha walked around her and over to the table where she began to pour herself a drink.
"That thing parading around the city in a mask and attacked the GCPD last night. It wasn't my brother." Tabitha said, raising the glass to her lips to take a drink, "It was a three hundred year old assassin called Azrael."
"Azrael?" Butch repeated back.
"That image I saw on the news. His clothes and the way he moved. It was Azrael. A mythical figure worshiped by the monks who raised my brother. A cold-hearted killing machine sent into the night to kill his master's enemies."
With another gulp of the top shelf liquor down, Tabitha eyed Jim, "And he wants you."
"An ancient assassin..." Jim nodded.
The look on his face showed he didn't believe a thing she was saying.
"A legend." Tabitha corrected, "My family used to tell stories of him."
Filling her glass again, Tabitha opened up more, explaining how she wasn't sure if Azrael ever really existed.
She told them of how her grandfather was an antiquities collector that had been obsessed with Dumas history; he owned the real sword of Azrael.
"I saw it once. It was beautiful." Tabitha told them of the sword, "Forged by the monks themselves. It's said to hold supernatural powers. It's possible that Theo might try to steal it back."
Her best guess was that her brother would be seeking out the real sword, since the one he'd been using had been broken the night before.
"You saying Galavan really believes he's this Azrael?" Bullock pushed for more information.
"You tell me." She answered with attitude, "He convince you he was or did it seem like he was just pretending?"
When no one said anything, she nodded with a somber and knowing expression, "Someone got inside of my brother's head and that is not a safe place to be."
"I want to find that person." Jim assured her, "But first I need to find your brother. Tell me where I can find your grandfather."
"Gotham Cemetery." Tabitha walked closer to where they were standing, "He's been dead for twenty years, but he was buried with his treasures."
•••
"I don't understand why we can't compromise." Bird's arms crossed over her chest as she stood outside with Jim while they waited on Tabitha to come with them to the cemetery to show them exactly where the Dumas mausoleum was located.
Jim's eyebrows went up, but before he could start on his counter argument, Bird added in, "I want to kill Strange, but I compromised and agreed to go after him legally... but you can't do the same thing in this situation?"
"Bird..." Jim shook his head, "There is compromise and then there's murder. You're asking me to just let you murder someone-"
"No." Bird cut in, "I'm not asking you to let me do anything."
"Wrong choice of words." Jim conceded, not wanting this disagreement to turn into an argument over something else entirely, "But you are asking me to just stand back and do nothing."
"Yes, I am." Bird looked over as a car drove down the street, "You regret what happened before with Galavan, so I'm not asking for your help. All I'm asking is that you stay out of my way on this."
Jim stared at her, his eyes locking with hers when she turned back and he knew without a doubt how set she was on making sure that Theo Galavan, going by his own name or Azrael; wouldn't live to see another sunrise.
And while he understood where she was coming from, it had to end differently this time around.
There was a near scowl as her face as she stared back him, entirely unable to comprehend why he couldn't just turn the other cheek and let her handle this.
They'd been fighting on the same side for so long now that it was beginning to feel strange standing on opposite sides of a problem that involved them both, but Bird was determined to do what she had to do.
"I don't want to fight with you." Bird said aloud.
"Me either." Jim agreed, but the stubborn look in his eyes showed he still wasn't caving from what he believed was the right way to handle this.
"But Galavan has to die." Bird added in, giving him the same expression and also unwilling to cave at all from her own views.
"Do you hear yourselves?"
Startled the couple looked over to where Bullock had been standing for some time now.
His entire face was twisted up while his eyes darted between them.
"You're standing out here arguing over killing a guy." Bullock pointed out, wondering how their own conversation hadn't sounded entirely ridiculous to their own ears.
When he heard the door to the house open, Bullock looked behind him to see a frustrated Tabitha walking outside alone.
Her agreeing to go with GCPD and Bird had only started another disagreement between her and Butch.
"For the record." Bullock spoke in a quieter tone as he looked back to Jim and Bird, "I'm with crazy eyes on this."
Since Captain Barnes was currently incapacitated, the GCPD had decided to look to him for leadership.
A role he'd never really wanted to play had suddenly been forced upon him and he felt like someone had just shoved him into the deep end with nothing to help keep him afloat.
The quicker this Azrael situation was said and done -the better.
Bird beamed a bright smile at his words before turning back to Jim with look on her face that practically screamed for him to just jump on board with the plan that everyone else seemed to be game for.
Jim shook his head, his expressions painted with varying shades between exhausted and annoyed as he watched his former partner start to walk over to the driver's side of the car.
•••
Bullock blew out a breath of relief when they finally pulled through the main entrance of the cemetery.
Even though it was only about a fifteen minute car ride, the awkward silence between the unlikely company inside of the car had made it feel like a three day road trip.
"This is it." Tabitha said as she pointed towards one of, if not the actual oldest, above ground crypts in the cemetery.
As the car pulled to a stop and she opened her door to get out, she added, "Dozens of my relatives are buried here."
Once they'd got the gate open -with the help of a crowbar, Jim was the first one to reach the doors to the mausoleum.
He was hit in the face with a blast of musty air right as he got the door pulled open.
Bullock turned his head to the side and coughed from the dust he'd breathed in; felt like the dust had settled in his lungs, he could even taste it on his tongue.
Bird slid past where Jim was standing and Tabitha was right behind her.
"Oh, come on!" Bullock complained, halting to an abrupt stop when a rather large rat scurried across the paved floor right in front of him. "You've got to be kidding me." He mumbled under his breath.
But neither Bird or Tabitha seemed phased by the furry pests as they walked further into the large mausoleum with Jim just steps behind them.
Sunlight seeping in from the still open door helped illuminate the dark space.
As did the light shining through an old stained glass window which cast a rainbow glow over the tops of of the cement tops of the many Dumas' tombs.
"This one." Tabitha announced, the pointed heels of her thigh high boots clicked with the cement as she walked closer to one of the more central tombs. Patting her hand against the dust covered surface she turned back to the group, "My grandfather's."
Jim didn't waste any time in walking over to it, but Bullock was more hesitant, "Wait. Wait. Wait." He held his hand up, "I'm sure we're breaking more than a few laws right now."
"Really?" Jim nearly laughed, "This is where you draw the line?"
"This doesn't creep you out?" Bullock argued, side-eyeing a cobweb covered knight armor off to the side, "Not even a little bit?"
"Nope." Bird gave him a smile as she stepped up beside Jim.
"Come on!" He yelled at them, "It's friggin' grave robbing!"
"Whatever it takes, Harvey." Jim reminded him of the exact same words he'd used to inspire the GCPD force in the speech he'd given at the station earlier.
"Come on..." Bullock mumbled again while he watched Bird and Jim both inspect the tomb, trying to figure out the easiest way to go about opening it.
"This..." He breathed, pointing between them, "I don't like. One of your is rubbing off on the other and I'm not sure which one yet, but I don't like it."
"Don't be such a baby." Bird playfully taunted with raised brows.
"Hey!" Bullock's voice echoed through the space over the sound of the metal scraping cement while Jim used the crow bar to raise the cover of the tomb enough for them to start sliding it off.
Pointing a finger in her direction Bullock defended, "I'm no baby."
"Yeah?" Jim questioned through gritted teeth as he and Bird tried to move the impossibly heavy cement slab, "A little help then?"
Sighing, Bullock looked over to see Tabitha take a few steps back.
She might have been willing to lead them to her grandfather's treasure, but that didn't mean she was going to help them rob his grave.
It took all three of them to finally move the top, but after a struggle they were able to rotate it enough to the side that they revealed the skeleton inside -surrounded by golden antiquities and just as they'd been told -a sword.
Waving her hand through the air to break up all the dust that had been stirred Tabitha explained, "That was said to be Azrael's sword up until the very end."
"He died?" Jim asked.
"No. He disappeared. Azrael's thought to be immortal." She filled them in on all the tales she'd grown up listening to.
In her house these were usual bedtime stories.
Reaching into the tomb, Jim pulled the sword out and upon closer inspection, he agreed with what Tabitha had told them earlier, "It really is beautiful."
"Yeah." Bird agreed.
"I'll take that."
Within a matter of mere seconds Galavan had disarmed Bullock, who'd been the closest to the entrance, and knock him out cold.
He caught sight of Bird from the corner of his eyes and pushed the cement slab from the open tomb into her side, where she was knocked down and just barely managed to scoot out of the way in time before it fell right where she'd landed and would have surely crushed half the bones in her body.
Jim tossed the sword to Tabitha to hold as he drew his gun and fired round after round, but just like before, every single bullet was deflected by the armor Azrael was dressed in.
Azrael grabbed the metal spear the knight armor was display was equipped with and hurled it at Jim, but he was able to duck down out of danger.
Bird had just managed to get raised up on one side when she saw Azrael throw Jim across the top of another tomb.
"James Gordon." Azrael's voice boomed, "Time. To. Die."
With the last word, he kicked him hard enough that Jim's body went flying out of the open doors and rolled violently down the steps outside.
Holding onto her injured side, Bird frantically looked around trying to locate something within reach that she could use as a weapon against him.
Azrael's foot steps sounded heavy enough to belong to a man three times his size as he made his way towards to the doors to finish Jim off, but before he could Tabitha jumped in the way and slammed the doors shut.
"Step aside. He must die." Azrael ordered.
Bird crawled behind the side of a tomb and spied on the siblings while keeping herself out of sight for the time being.
"It's me brother." Tabitha said, "Don't you recognize me?"
"My quarrel is not with you. Step aside."
"Tabitha." She reminded him, locking the doors to the mausoleum behind her so she'd have a chance to try and talk to her brother before Jim would surely try to get back inside, "Your sister."
Walking up to him, she hoped he'd recognize her but she was unable to see his eyes peering back at her from behind the mask that covered his face.
"Tabitha?" Galavan questioned.
"Yes. That's right." She nodded, looking down as he took the sword from her hands.
She then reached up and lifted his mask so she could finally see his face again.
"You remember where we grew up?" She asked him, her voice soft, "The estate by the sea? Before the monks took you? Our dogs and the horses?" She tried her best to smile but her chin started to quiver, "We were happy once."
"You are Theo Galavan." Her voice raised, "My brother."
"Theo..." He repeated.
Sounding strained, as if the name would barely leave his mouth,
"Yes!" She breathed with a sigh of relief.
Her eyes squinted when she saw his head started to jerk and his eyes pinned shut.
"Do you remember now?" She questioned.
"Bruce Wayne." Galavan spoke in a clear and determined voice.
Bird's eyes widened from where she was still watching them and any trace of relief on Tabitha's face gave way to worry as Galavan remembered, "We were sent to kill him."
"We... yes, we were, but that's over-" Tabitha tried to argue.
"He dishonored our family name." Galavan continued.
"Wait... no."
"Death to the son of Gotham." Galavan spoke over her before he plunged Azrael's sword into her abdomen.
At first Tabitha didn't even realize she'd been stabbed.
It hadn't felt like something sharp cutting into her skin -it felt more like a punch.
Like she'd been hit with something so hard it knocked the wind right out of her.
But when he pulled the blade back out and she felt her own blood starting to soak her clothes, there was no mistaking the gaping wound for anything other than what it was.
Her legs gave way and she fell to the ground, not able to speak yet as she clutched onto the heavily bleeding stab wound.
"Thank you for reminding me." Galavan said as he stared down to his fallen sister.
He took another look around the inside of the family crypt, but Bird had already ducked back out of sight and all he spotted was Bullock; still unconscious on the floor.
Jumping up on one of the tombs, Azrael then leapt sideways onto an upper ledge before breaking through the glass ceiling of the mausoleum.
Bird closed her eyes and covered her head and neck with her arms until she didn't hear the glass raining down anymore.
The only sound left was Tabitha's heavy breathing and pained whimpers.
"Well." Bird groaned as she pulled herself to her feet with a hiss of pain. It felt like someone had taken a hammer to her left side where the cement slab had been pushed against her.
"Great job, Tabby." She said, slowly clapping as she moved in closer to the wounded woman still gasping for air where she lay on the floor.
"I..." Tabitha tried to say as blood ran from the corner of her mouth. Coughing and spitting it up, she apologized, "I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" Bird let out a laugh and immediately regretted it when sharp pains shot through her entire body, "Sorry for what exactly? Almost killing me earlier this year or setting your lunatic brother on a mission to try and kill Bruce again? Hmm?"
With a loud cry of pain as she tried to sit up, Tabitha gasped for air and raised her head, her eyes locking with Bird's when she confessed, "For all of it."
Bird's eyebrows lowered when she realized Tabitha actually meant what she was saying.
"I'm sorry." She repeated with tears starting to fill her eyes to the brim.
Standing in place, Bird watched for several seconds while Tabitha started to cough and sputter on the blood in her mouth.
With a sigh, Bird finally leaned down and hooked her arms underneath Tabitha's, putting herself in a great deal of pain as she dragged her body to the closet tomb and propped her up against it so he could breathe a little easier.
Tabitha's vision was growing fuzzy as she looked down to her blood covered hands, but no longer possessed the strength to try and apply pressure to the stab wound.
Kneeling down next to her, Bird waited until Tabitha turned her head to look at her before she stated, "I'm going to kill him, you know?"
"I know." She whispered nodding her head against the cement she was propped up against.
There was only one way this all could end and she understood that now.
This man in a cape running around the city wasn't her brother -it was something else wearing his face.
She'd already lost her brother.
In many ways Tabitha felt like she'd lost him years before, back when the monks first took him away from his training.
Swallowing down the lump in her throat, Tabitha's mouth had taken on a coppery taste from her own blood. Looking to where was Bird was still knelt beside her, she said, "He's my brother. I... I had to try."
"I know." Bird said as she started to pull her own coat off.
Folding it up in her hands, Bird leaned over Tabitha and pressed the balled up fabric against the wound to try and slow the bleeding.
Tabitha's body jerked from the white hot pain that shot through her and she screamed out into the enclosed space loud enough that the echo hurt her own head.
With a groan Bullock's eyes blinked open, raising his head he tried to locate who'd made the cry of pain he'd just heard.
Hearing movement, Bird looked over her shoulder to where Bullock was struggling to get sat up.
"Welcome back." Bird greeted, before focusing back on trying to keep Tabitha awake and slow the bleeding she called out, "We need an ambulance."
Staggering to his feet, Bullock's eyes widened as he saw the thick trail of blood on the floor from where Bird had dragged Tabitha over to help her sit up.
Suddenly, his hands felt all thumbs as she struggled to get his cellphone out and call for help.
By the time Jim had woken up and managed to make his way back inside the mausoleum, he was met by the gory sight of blood smeared across the floor. Bird still tending to Tabitha's wound and Bullock sitting against a tomb next to the two women.
"He got away, Jim." Bullock was still short of breath from the pain his head and body were in, "Back ups on the way."
Following the crimson trail, Jim couldn't hide the look of shock on his face as he watched Bird trying her best to save the life of the very same person who'd shot and came so close to killing her months ago.
Nodding to his partner, Jim knelt down on the other side of Tabitha. He reached out to lift Bird's coat from where she was using it to apply pressure to the wound, so he could see how badly Tabitha was injured, but Bird shook her head at him.
"It's really bad." Bird spoke in a matter-of-fact tone as she added, "She's probably gonna die. But then again -I pulled through, so who knows."
"I can hear you." Tabitha reminded her, with an attempt at a laugh that ended in a violent coughing fit.
If someone had told her months ago that her own brother would try and kill her and the person trying to help her would be Starling Wayne, she'd have bet every cent she owned against it.
Funny how life works out sometimes.
"I'm sorry." Tabitha gasped for air as the coughing slowed, "Bruce..." She tried to tell Jim, but sweat beaded across her face and she was finding it harder and harder to speak.
"What?" Jim pushed leaning in to try and hear her airy voice better.
"Death to the son of Gotham." Bird spoke up, glancing across Tabitha's body to him and explaining everything he needed to know in one simple sentence.
Bird watched as all the color drained from his face and she nodded, "Still think we should try and bring him in alive?"
"We have to find Bruce." Jim stated the obvious, not understanding at the moment why Bird wasn't rushing off to find her brother.
"Already called Alfred." Bullock spoke up, "Bruce is somewhere in the city."
Nodding Bird explained, "Alfred doesn't know where he is, so I highly doubt Galavan's going to be able to find him right now. In fact, his running off into the city is probably the best case scenario right now."
Sensing that Bird already had a plan that she was apparently keeping to herself, Jim paused before questioning, "What are you going to do?"
"Try and keep her alive until the paramedics get here." She simply answered.
"Uh-huh." Jim said with a single nod, "And then what?"
Wordlessly, Bird glanced back up at him and then turned her attention back to Tabitha as she ordered, "Hey! Keep your eyes open."
It was just a few minutes later that the cemetery was a sea of flashing lights from all the patrol cars and ambulances that started to arrive.
Bird did exactly what she said she was going to do and managed to keep Tabitha awake and alive until the paramedics rushed in to take over and move her to the hospital.
"Where are you going?" Jim called after Bird as he caught up with her outside as the ambulance drove away.
"Galavan has to die." She offered up the truth.
The same thing she'd been saying for months on end.
Turning back around, she started to walk away but he stopped her, "You can't do this on your own, Bird. He's cut down a good chunk of the GCPD by himself-"
He'd started to remind her how Galavan was now stronger than any one man should be. That he was more like an unstoppable force at this point and it would be suicide to go after something like alone.
"I'm not alone." Bird interrupted.
"Okay." Jim nodded, his hand grabbing onto hers as she tried to walk away again, "Then let me help you."
"I don't need your help."
Her lips puckered at the way the comment had sounded when she didn't intend for it come out so harshly.
Shaking her head, Bird reiterated, "When it comes down to it, Jim... we have vastly different methods of handling these sort of situations and as bad as this sounds -I don't need your conscience getting in my way right now."
"Bird-" Jim's face twisted up at her words.
"I'm sorry." She earnestly said.
He opened his mouth to promise her that he wasn't going to stand in her way.
That they might have started the day with opposing views on how to take down Azrael, but they were on the same page now.
Truth be told, he now saw he should have been on her side the entire time -but he'd hoped so deeply there would be a chance at resolving this case a different way this time around.
Theo Galavan wasn't going to stop.
He was never going to give up and there was truly one way way to put a stop to his continuing reign of terror.
"Gordon!"
Jim turned his head to where one of the officers at the scene was calling out to him.
Holding up his hand to signal that he'd be there in a minute, he turned back to talk to Bird.
To finally admit that she'd been right all along and he'd help her do whatever it took to protect Bruce, but he never got the chance.
She was gone.
Turning in a circle, he looked around the cemetery, but didn't catch sight of her.
"Damn it." He muttered under his breath, his gaze went to the car they'd came there in but it wasn't drive-able now, not since Galavan had sliced all four tires as his way out of the cemetery.
A line of three more patrol cars pulled into the cemetery with their sirens and lights going. With his eyes locked on them, he jogged over to where the first one in line was slowing to a stop.
Jerking the door open before the car was even at a full stop, Jim gruffly said, "I need this car!"
Shifting into park, the uniformed officer got out of the car and argued, "You're not a cop anymore Gordon-"
Jim roughly grabbed onto the sides of the officer's jacket and shoved him out of the way, "I need the damn car!"
Without another word to anyone he got into the patrol car and sped off.
•••