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Momentum:
Chapter Seven
written by destinyawakened
Bruce had shared a few stories with Gordon's son, Jimmy. Nothing that would give himself away in the long run, but enough that the boy was able to relate and understand that certain things happen in life and people have to move forward in order to move on. He explained that Gordon and Babs were two examples of people who, even though they did grieve, were able to accept that things had to go forward instead of living in the past. But Bruce did relate with the teen, if even in the sense that when his own parents died all he wanted to do was live in the past instead of move into the future. It wasn't until years later that Bruce finally understood what it was that Alfred had been trying to tell him.
It had been two weeks since he had seen the Gordon's and talked to Jimmy. The boy had called him once since then, but it seemed like more of a forced thank you from his father than an actual call to talk about anything important. Which was fine; Bruce gave the kid his number in case he actually needed to talk to someone, not to chit-chat, which teenage boys weren't known for anyway.
Bruce had actually relished in the fact that there had been something he could do for the Gordon's, even if it was as simple as telling Jimmy stories about his own childhood. It was something, and he was beginning to feel he was slowly making up for the fact that he wasn't able to help sooner in the way he would have preferred. This way felt better; this way felt reassuring. He was doing something without the use the money and it felt a million times better than having had just thrown a check in Gordon's face to make it better.
Now, Bruce was starting to feel a bit useless again. The only time he really got to see Gordon was on the nights that he didn't have a lot to do, or was shunned off by Commissioner Atkins. Bruce was on the verge of giving up completely with MCU, if not for Stephens, Montoya and Bullock sneaking around the rooftops once a week to give him files of information on the murder cases. Atkins obviously didn't know otherwise he would have given Batman the information himself. Bruce kept wishing there was some way to convince Gordon to take his job back, but it didn't look likely.
There were no real leads on the murders, the killer obviously smart enough to cover his tracks and leave nothing behind. Bruce couldn't help but think it was an inside job, someone who either currently worked for the law enforcement or had at one time. How else would they know what to do, covering every single track, making sure not even a hair or skin flake was found on the scene of the murder.
It was Saturday evening and the three detectives were standing on the rooftop, arms folded over their chests, kicking gravel on the rooftop and sipping coffee. Bruce landed down next to the broken spotlight, still hidden in shadow. He stepped behind the three, folding his own arms over his chest and waited to see how long it actually took them to realize he was there. Each time it took them less, they were slowly getting used to him.
God he missed Gordon.
Stephens slowly turned his head around and jumped at least a few inches. “Christ,” he mumbled as the other two turned around to look at Batman. “You know, you could just announce that you're here instead of scaring us half to death.”
Montoya pushed Stephen's shoulder playfully. “But that wouldn't be any fun for him.” And she winked at Batman, but Bruce didn't flinch or smile. He needed to keep the respect of the detectives in tact. She shrugged. “So what did you find out about our murderer?”
Batman gave her back the envelope of information they had given him the week before. Lucky for them the murderer hadn't struck again since then, but they were expecting another one soon. These types didn't just stop for no reason. Montoya took the envelope, taking out all the paperwork they had given him, but this time with notes in red pen that he had jotted down.
“Inside job?” She questioned, handing the papers over to Bullock, who started to sift through them, scratching his head at a few of the markings.
“It makes sense,” Bullock said, shuffling the papers back together and handing them to Stephens. “It would definitely explain why this guy is so good at covering his tracks and why we can't seem to find a lead on him.”
“Or her,” Montoya pointed out.
Bullock nodded his head at her, annoyed. “Or her.”
“If this is true, how do we start that investigation? Where do we start?” Stephens asked, turning to Batman. Bruce wasn't sure either, obviously background checks had to be done, but first the trio had to run it past the commissioner, get him to okay everything.
“Get the required permissions first from Atkins,” Bruce growled. “Then you can start investigating everyone at GCPD.”
“But how do you know it's not one of us?” Bullock asked, concerned perhaps that Batman had a little too much trust in them. Batman turned to leave but looked back at them, searching each of their eyes for any fear or justification that he should suspect, but he couldn't find any. Just as he'd thought.
“Because you were Gordon's best. I trust him.” And without another word, Bruce jumped down the side of the rooftop into the shadows of the alley below. Gordon never had reason to mistrust the three, and Bruce knew them well enough by now to know that they were dedicated to their work, to everything Gotham was about. If one of them ended up being the murderer, he'd have to rethink his place in Gotham.
----
It wasn't very often that Jim Gordon heard from his old crew from MCU, but when he did he always knew it was for some form of advice. And that really didn't say much considering he'd only been officially retired for a little less than two months. Two very, very long months. So when Montoya, Stephens, and Bullock stopped by his house on Saturday evening, all piling out of one squad car, Gordon couldn't help but wonder what exactly the problem was this time.
He stood at the front door and watched as the three detectives walked up his driveway, stepping up onto his porch. They stood in a row looking at each other and then Gordon with little innocent smiles on their faces. Gordon shook his head and opened the front door wider and motioned them all inside. Each took their turn walking past Gordon and giving him their best angelic looks.
“You're all pathetic,” Gordon said as he shut the door behind him. He stood in front of them, much like olds times, with his hands on his hips and looking them over questionably. “Am I going to get a reason for this visit, or are we going to play charades all night until I guess?”
“We sort of need your help,” Montoya chipped in, shrugging her shoulders. “We need to do more extensive background checks on everyone in the GCPD, but we need Atkins' approval first.”
“We asked him and he refused. He said we didn't have enough 'evidence' to back up claims,” Bullock added. Gordon stared at them for a long moment, before rubbing his forehead with his thumb and forefinger.
“Where do I fit in here? I don't have any authority –” Gordon had started to say, but Stephens shook his head, placing a hand on Gordon's shoulder.
“No, we know that, Jim. We won't be able to convince him so we're bringing the paperwork back to you so you can...” Stephens started to gesture wildly, as if Gordon knew what he was talking about. Stephen's rolled his eyes. “You can give it back to him. He'll have to do the research we can't.”
Bullock pulled out an envelope from his jacket and handed it to Gordon. Gordon looked at it and then the trio. “What makes you three think that I have any contact with him now at all?” The three stared at him, unmoving, knowing gazes that didn't look amused. Gordon sighed and tossed the envelope onto the table. “Fine.”
“Thanks, Jim,” Stephens said, patting him on the arm. “We'd have returned it to him ourselves but we don't really have a way of getting a hold of him.”
Gordon nodded, knowing full well he had his own way to get a hold of the Bat if he needed to. He hadn't used the phone yet, but this seemed important enough to finally use it. “I'll do what I can.”
-----
Gordon waited out on the porch, envelope tucked under one arm, watching the stars. Not a cloud in the sky on a considerably warm spring evening. Babs was in her room with her three girl friends, giggling and gossiping about what, Gordon didn't care to know. Her birthday was technically tomorrow, but he allowed her to have the sleep over Saturday evening instead. He didn't do his usually cake buying even though Babs said she didn't mind, he figured he'd wait until tomorrow to do that – make it a family thing.
“Jim,” came the all too familiar rasp from his left. Gordon didn't need to look over to know. He merely held up the envelope. Batman reached over and took it. There was moment of rustling papers and then nothing. Gordon finally looked at the vigilante, who was reading over the papers, a little confused.
“Apparently they're luck with Atkins is as good as yours. They can't get him to approve the extensive background checks. You're on your own,” Gordon said, giving him a weak smile. Batman put the papers back into the envelope. Gordon wanted to ask how it was that Batman got all his intel anyway, but then he thought better of it. Too many questions usually lead to too many answers he didn't really need.
“How's the family?” Batman asked roughly. Gordon leaned forward onto the porch railing. Batman had started to ask more often how his family was, about the kids, what Gordon was up to. They're friendship was growing and Gordon found the relaxed nature of it comforting. He wasn't sure he'd ever had a friend like Batman before. Well, there had been Barbara, but that was different. He didn't have her anymore. And having Batman as a friend was far better than not having any friends. At least the Bat was consistent in coming to see him more than once a week – it let Gordon know that he actually did care, and just wasn't pretending.
“Good. Babs' birthday tomorrow. She has her friends over tonight. Jimmy's at a his friend's house. Can't blame him, a house full of girls is not exciting.” Gordon thought about that and then caught the smirk on Batman's face, and rolled his eyes at him. “Okay, so maybe it is. Fact is, he didn't need to be here.”
Batman chuckled. “And you?”
“Me what?” Gordon didn't quite understand the question.
“How are you?” Batman asked. Oh, Gordon thought. He never knew how to answer these questions. He didn't do much during the day that changed often, so every time Batman asked it felt repetitive.
“You really asking that?” Gordon questioned, sighing. He placed his forearms on the railing, gazing out over the street. Batman didn't answer and Gordon nodded his head. “I'm fine. Same as usual. Bored to death. Except, tonight I get to deal with teenage girls giggling at all hours of the night and attempt to sleep.” Batman held back what sounded like a snort. Gordon turned his head to the other man and shot him a glare over the rim of his glasses. Batman held his free end up defensively.
“I don't envy you,” Batman replied in haste to cover up for his outburst. Silence.
“You got kids?” Gordon found himself asking and then immediately tried to back track, fumbling to find the words to rephrase it, but there was nothing. Batman's gaze didn't change and after a few moments, he shifted to a sitting position on the side of the rail.
“No. I don't,” he rasped, simply. Gordon then wanted to ask the age-old question of if Batman was married, but maybe that was pushing things. He didn't see how a masked man who ran around in a flying rodent suit could possibly be married – no woman would ever deal with that. And Batman always seemed so lonely; Gordon guessed that the man had no family, none that he lived with anyway.
“What's up next on your patrol tonight?” Gordon asked when the silence grew a little too thick for his liking. It was hard to have real conversation on the porch of your house when you weren't sure who was listening.
Batman held up the envelope. “Shake down a few officers,” he said with a little grin. Gordon raised an eyebrow at him; he knew Batman's tactics and they weren't always the nicest. He found himself giving the vigilante one of his more worried, fatherly looks. Batman hopped down off the rail and stepped towards Gordon until they were just a foot or so apart. “Don't look at me like that.”
Gordon rarely heard the man tease; it did happen, just not often, and it was only around Gordon that he ever did it. Otherwise the Bat was all serious business and that was final. Gordon put a hand on the Batman's chest armor and pushed him away playfully, watching another grin spread across the other man's face.
“Get out of here,” Gordon said turning to face the street for a second and when he looked back, Batman was gone.
-----
Through the giggling coming from Babs' room, Gordon couldn't sleep. He thought if he shut his door he could drown it out a little, but he obviously didn't account for the pitch of each girls' voices and just how much their house carried noises when everything else was silent. So he threw on his robe and trudged out to the living room where he sat on the couch and turned the television on. It didn't matter what he watched or that he didn't turn on a light, he was just trying to drown out the girls.
But even then he felt weird, as if someone was watching him. Gordon put the remote down on the arm of the couch, squinting his eyes into the darkness beyond the television at the front door. He could have sworn he saw a slight movement of a shadow. His first instinct was to grab for his gun, but realized not only did he not have it on him, but he no longer owned one. He would need to remedy this later... hopefully there was later.
Getting to his feet, he slowly made his way to the wall where the light switch was for the kitchen and flipped it on. He looked to the where the shadows had been and saw Batman leaning against the door, holding his right arm. Gordon walked quickly walked over to him, putting an arm around his shoulder to move him away from the door. There was a thick trickle of blood running down the door frame to the floor. He'd been standing there for quite some time it seemed.
“Oh for Christ-sake,” Gordon mumbled through gritted teeth as he helped Batman to one of the chairs in the kitchen. “What happened?” Batman grimaced as he sat in the chair, and Gordon noticed some dark red oozing from the man's hip, right where the plates of armor split.
“Stabbed,” Batman manged to say a little too loud, and Gordon placed his hands on Batman's shoulders and made a 'shhh' sound and motioned to the hall way. Batman sighed heavily, managing a nod. Gordon walked to the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink and pulled out the first aid kit. He returned to the table and placed the kit down, kneeling down in front of Batman, who was trying to remove the plate of armor over his right arm with his free hand. Gordon stopped him, looking the armor over.
“How does it comes off?” Gordon whispered. Batman motioned at the glove on his right hand and then the armor piece of the blades. Of course they would just slip on and off. Gordon pulled the glove off first and then the next piece until he reached the piece he needed, taking that one off as well. He looked at the stab wound, it was pretty deep and probably needed stitches. “This is pretty bad. Does the leg armor come off the same?” Batman gave a curt nod.
Gordon dropped his hands to Batman's left leg and removed the left boot and the rest of the armor until he reached the Bat's hip, the wound easily seen through the mesh bodysuit the man wore. That one was pretty bad, too. For briefest of moment, Gordon thought how odd it felt to be tearing off the pieces of the man in front of him, a vulnerability that he never thought he'd actually see. But Batman trusted him, and that was well worth putting aside his own insecurities about being walked in on by Babs or one of her friends just then. Faith, he had to have a little of it and everything would be fine.
Gordon shook his head and looked up into Batman's eyes for a moment as he grabbed the rubbing alcohol. There was a lot of pain in those eyes, but he didn't wince once when Gordon swabbed both wounds.
“I don't have anything to stitch these with,” Gordon said, finding some large bandages.
“That's fine. I... I have someone who can do it later,” Batman said rather breathlessly, and there wasn't much sign of his deep, raspy voice. Gordon unwrapped the first bandage and began to press it over the wound on Batman's hip. Gordon unwrapped the other bandage, shifting to his left to reach Batman's right arm, placing that bandage there.
“I don't know how well these are going to last. You're gonna bleed through them...” Gordon sighed, the fatherly part of him was saying he needed to insist on taking Batman to the hospital, the cop part of him was saying that was a stupid idea – this was Batman. He looked at Batman worriedly and couldn't help but wonder if when the man left this place he would make him home or not to have who ever was going to stitch him up. “How...” Gordon started to say again, and then stopped. “Can I...” There was just no point in trying, everything he wanted to ask would lead to a revealing he didn't want.
Gordon continued to kneel in front of Batman, confused and lost – so unsure of everything. Batman grabbed the pieces of armor on the table and started to put them on, but his eyes never left Gordon's steady gaze as he did; it was if he knew the pieces by heart now and didn't have to see to know how they fit together.
“Sorry,” Batman whispered. “I didn't mean to intrude. I was in the neighborhood.” His neighborhood? Gordon didn't want to think about who Batman was interrogating in this part town, so close to his home – his family. He didn't voice his concerns outward, it wasn't the time.
“No, no... it's alright,” Gordon said as he finally stood to his feet, offering a hand to Batman, who had just slipped on the last piece of armor and his boot. Batman took the help and hobbled to the door. “Where you going to go?”
“I have someone picking me up a few blocks from here,” Batman said as he slipped out the front door. Gordon couldn't help but wonder exactly who helped Batman. Gordon was never told of anyone before now, never asked either. He sighed, staring out the front window. He really did need to get some sleep.
It had been two weeks since he had seen the Gordon's and talked to Jimmy. The boy had called him once since then, but it seemed like more of a forced thank you from his father than an actual call to talk about anything important. Which was fine; Bruce gave the kid his number in case he actually needed to talk to someone, not to chit-chat, which teenage boys weren't known for anyway.
Bruce had actually relished in the fact that there had been something he could do for the Gordon's, even if it was as simple as telling Jimmy stories about his own childhood. It was something, and he was beginning to feel he was slowly making up for the fact that he wasn't able to help sooner in the way he would have preferred. This way felt better; this way felt reassuring. He was doing something without the use the money and it felt a million times better than having had just thrown a check in Gordon's face to make it better.
Now, Bruce was starting to feel a bit useless again. The only time he really got to see Gordon was on the nights that he didn't have a lot to do, or was shunned off by Commissioner Atkins. Bruce was on the verge of giving up completely with MCU, if not for Stephens, Montoya and Bullock sneaking around the rooftops once a week to give him files of information on the murder cases. Atkins obviously didn't know otherwise he would have given Batman the information himself. Bruce kept wishing there was some way to convince Gordon to take his job back, but it didn't look likely.
There were no real leads on the murders, the killer obviously smart enough to cover his tracks and leave nothing behind. Bruce couldn't help but think it was an inside job, someone who either currently worked for the law enforcement or had at one time. How else would they know what to do, covering every single track, making sure not even a hair or skin flake was found on the scene of the murder.
It was Saturday evening and the three detectives were standing on the rooftop, arms folded over their chests, kicking gravel on the rooftop and sipping coffee. Bruce landed down next to the broken spotlight, still hidden in shadow. He stepped behind the three, folding his own arms over his chest and waited to see how long it actually took them to realize he was there. Each time it took them less, they were slowly getting used to him.
God he missed Gordon.
Stephens slowly turned his head around and jumped at least a few inches. “Christ,” he mumbled as the other two turned around to look at Batman. “You know, you could just announce that you're here instead of scaring us half to death.”
Montoya pushed Stephen's shoulder playfully. “But that wouldn't be any fun for him.” And she winked at Batman, but Bruce didn't flinch or smile. He needed to keep the respect of the detectives in tact. She shrugged. “So what did you find out about our murderer?”
Batman gave her back the envelope of information they had given him the week before. Lucky for them the murderer hadn't struck again since then, but they were expecting another one soon. These types didn't just stop for no reason. Montoya took the envelope, taking out all the paperwork they had given him, but this time with notes in red pen that he had jotted down.
“Inside job?” She questioned, handing the papers over to Bullock, who started to sift through them, scratching his head at a few of the markings.
“It makes sense,” Bullock said, shuffling the papers back together and handing them to Stephens. “It would definitely explain why this guy is so good at covering his tracks and why we can't seem to find a lead on him.”
“Or her,” Montoya pointed out.
Bullock nodded his head at her, annoyed. “Or her.”
“If this is true, how do we start that investigation? Where do we start?” Stephens asked, turning to Batman. Bruce wasn't sure either, obviously background checks had to be done, but first the trio had to run it past the commissioner, get him to okay everything.
“Get the required permissions first from Atkins,” Bruce growled. “Then you can start investigating everyone at GCPD.”
“But how do you know it's not one of us?” Bullock asked, concerned perhaps that Batman had a little too much trust in them. Batman turned to leave but looked back at them, searching each of their eyes for any fear or justification that he should suspect, but he couldn't find any. Just as he'd thought.
“Because you were Gordon's best. I trust him.” And without another word, Bruce jumped down the side of the rooftop into the shadows of the alley below. Gordon never had reason to mistrust the three, and Bruce knew them well enough by now to know that they were dedicated to their work, to everything Gotham was about. If one of them ended up being the murderer, he'd have to rethink his place in Gotham.
----
It wasn't very often that Jim Gordon heard from his old crew from MCU, but when he did he always knew it was for some form of advice. And that really didn't say much considering he'd only been officially retired for a little less than two months. Two very, very long months. So when Montoya, Stephens, and Bullock stopped by his house on Saturday evening, all piling out of one squad car, Gordon couldn't help but wonder what exactly the problem was this time.
He stood at the front door and watched as the three detectives walked up his driveway, stepping up onto his porch. They stood in a row looking at each other and then Gordon with little innocent smiles on their faces. Gordon shook his head and opened the front door wider and motioned them all inside. Each took their turn walking past Gordon and giving him their best angelic looks.
“You're all pathetic,” Gordon said as he shut the door behind him. He stood in front of them, much like olds times, with his hands on his hips and looking them over questionably. “Am I going to get a reason for this visit, or are we going to play charades all night until I guess?”
“We sort of need your help,” Montoya chipped in, shrugging her shoulders. “We need to do more extensive background checks on everyone in the GCPD, but we need Atkins' approval first.”
“We asked him and he refused. He said we didn't have enough 'evidence' to back up claims,” Bullock added. Gordon stared at them for a long moment, before rubbing his forehead with his thumb and forefinger.
“Where do I fit in here? I don't have any authority –” Gordon had started to say, but Stephens shook his head, placing a hand on Gordon's shoulder.
“No, we know that, Jim. We won't be able to convince him so we're bringing the paperwork back to you so you can...” Stephens started to gesture wildly, as if Gordon knew what he was talking about. Stephen's rolled his eyes. “You can give it back to him. He'll have to do the research we can't.”
Bullock pulled out an envelope from his jacket and handed it to Gordon. Gordon looked at it and then the trio. “What makes you three think that I have any contact with him now at all?” The three stared at him, unmoving, knowing gazes that didn't look amused. Gordon sighed and tossed the envelope onto the table. “Fine.”
“Thanks, Jim,” Stephens said, patting him on the arm. “We'd have returned it to him ourselves but we don't really have a way of getting a hold of him.”
Gordon nodded, knowing full well he had his own way to get a hold of the Bat if he needed to. He hadn't used the phone yet, but this seemed important enough to finally use it. “I'll do what I can.”
-----
Gordon waited out on the porch, envelope tucked under one arm, watching the stars. Not a cloud in the sky on a considerably warm spring evening. Babs was in her room with her three girl friends, giggling and gossiping about what, Gordon didn't care to know. Her birthday was technically tomorrow, but he allowed her to have the sleep over Saturday evening instead. He didn't do his usually cake buying even though Babs said she didn't mind, he figured he'd wait until tomorrow to do that – make it a family thing.
“Jim,” came the all too familiar rasp from his left. Gordon didn't need to look over to know. He merely held up the envelope. Batman reached over and took it. There was moment of rustling papers and then nothing. Gordon finally looked at the vigilante, who was reading over the papers, a little confused.
“Apparently they're luck with Atkins is as good as yours. They can't get him to approve the extensive background checks. You're on your own,” Gordon said, giving him a weak smile. Batman put the papers back into the envelope. Gordon wanted to ask how it was that Batman got all his intel anyway, but then he thought better of it. Too many questions usually lead to too many answers he didn't really need.
“How's the family?” Batman asked roughly. Gordon leaned forward onto the porch railing. Batman had started to ask more often how his family was, about the kids, what Gordon was up to. They're friendship was growing and Gordon found the relaxed nature of it comforting. He wasn't sure he'd ever had a friend like Batman before. Well, there had been Barbara, but that was different. He didn't have her anymore. And having Batman as a friend was far better than not having any friends. At least the Bat was consistent in coming to see him more than once a week – it let Gordon know that he actually did care, and just wasn't pretending.
“Good. Babs' birthday tomorrow. She has her friends over tonight. Jimmy's at a his friend's house. Can't blame him, a house full of girls is not exciting.” Gordon thought about that and then caught the smirk on Batman's face, and rolled his eyes at him. “Okay, so maybe it is. Fact is, he didn't need to be here.”
Batman chuckled. “And you?”
“Me what?” Gordon didn't quite understand the question.
“How are you?” Batman asked. Oh, Gordon thought. He never knew how to answer these questions. He didn't do much during the day that changed often, so every time Batman asked it felt repetitive.
“You really asking that?” Gordon questioned, sighing. He placed his forearms on the railing, gazing out over the street. Batman didn't answer and Gordon nodded his head. “I'm fine. Same as usual. Bored to death. Except, tonight I get to deal with teenage girls giggling at all hours of the night and attempt to sleep.” Batman held back what sounded like a snort. Gordon turned his head to the other man and shot him a glare over the rim of his glasses. Batman held his free end up defensively.
“I don't envy you,” Batman replied in haste to cover up for his outburst. Silence.
“You got kids?” Gordon found himself asking and then immediately tried to back track, fumbling to find the words to rephrase it, but there was nothing. Batman's gaze didn't change and after a few moments, he shifted to a sitting position on the side of the rail.
“No. I don't,” he rasped, simply. Gordon then wanted to ask the age-old question of if Batman was married, but maybe that was pushing things. He didn't see how a masked man who ran around in a flying rodent suit could possibly be married – no woman would ever deal with that. And Batman always seemed so lonely; Gordon guessed that the man had no family, none that he lived with anyway.
“What's up next on your patrol tonight?” Gordon asked when the silence grew a little too thick for his liking. It was hard to have real conversation on the porch of your house when you weren't sure who was listening.
Batman held up the envelope. “Shake down a few officers,” he said with a little grin. Gordon raised an eyebrow at him; he knew Batman's tactics and they weren't always the nicest. He found himself giving the vigilante one of his more worried, fatherly looks. Batman hopped down off the rail and stepped towards Gordon until they were just a foot or so apart. “Don't look at me like that.”
Gordon rarely heard the man tease; it did happen, just not often, and it was only around Gordon that he ever did it. Otherwise the Bat was all serious business and that was final. Gordon put a hand on the Batman's chest armor and pushed him away playfully, watching another grin spread across the other man's face.
“Get out of here,” Gordon said turning to face the street for a second and when he looked back, Batman was gone.
-----
Through the giggling coming from Babs' room, Gordon couldn't sleep. He thought if he shut his door he could drown it out a little, but he obviously didn't account for the pitch of each girls' voices and just how much their house carried noises when everything else was silent. So he threw on his robe and trudged out to the living room where he sat on the couch and turned the television on. It didn't matter what he watched or that he didn't turn on a light, he was just trying to drown out the girls.
But even then he felt weird, as if someone was watching him. Gordon put the remote down on the arm of the couch, squinting his eyes into the darkness beyond the television at the front door. He could have sworn he saw a slight movement of a shadow. His first instinct was to grab for his gun, but realized not only did he not have it on him, but he no longer owned one. He would need to remedy this later... hopefully there was later.
Getting to his feet, he slowly made his way to the wall where the light switch was for the kitchen and flipped it on. He looked to the where the shadows had been and saw Batman leaning against the door, holding his right arm. Gordon walked quickly walked over to him, putting an arm around his shoulder to move him away from the door. There was a thick trickle of blood running down the door frame to the floor. He'd been standing there for quite some time it seemed.
“Oh for Christ-sake,” Gordon mumbled through gritted teeth as he helped Batman to one of the chairs in the kitchen. “What happened?” Batman grimaced as he sat in the chair, and Gordon noticed some dark red oozing from the man's hip, right where the plates of armor split.
“Stabbed,” Batman manged to say a little too loud, and Gordon placed his hands on Batman's shoulders and made a 'shhh' sound and motioned to the hall way. Batman sighed heavily, managing a nod. Gordon walked to the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink and pulled out the first aid kit. He returned to the table and placed the kit down, kneeling down in front of Batman, who was trying to remove the plate of armor over his right arm with his free hand. Gordon stopped him, looking the armor over.
“How does it comes off?” Gordon whispered. Batman motioned at the glove on his right hand and then the armor piece of the blades. Of course they would just slip on and off. Gordon pulled the glove off first and then the next piece until he reached the piece he needed, taking that one off as well. He looked at the stab wound, it was pretty deep and probably needed stitches. “This is pretty bad. Does the leg armor come off the same?” Batman gave a curt nod.
Gordon dropped his hands to Batman's left leg and removed the left boot and the rest of the armor until he reached the Bat's hip, the wound easily seen through the mesh bodysuit the man wore. That one was pretty bad, too. For briefest of moment, Gordon thought how odd it felt to be tearing off the pieces of the man in front of him, a vulnerability that he never thought he'd actually see. But Batman trusted him, and that was well worth putting aside his own insecurities about being walked in on by Babs or one of her friends just then. Faith, he had to have a little of it and everything would be fine.
Gordon shook his head and looked up into Batman's eyes for a moment as he grabbed the rubbing alcohol. There was a lot of pain in those eyes, but he didn't wince once when Gordon swabbed both wounds.
“I don't have anything to stitch these with,” Gordon said, finding some large bandages.
“That's fine. I... I have someone who can do it later,” Batman said rather breathlessly, and there wasn't much sign of his deep, raspy voice. Gordon unwrapped the first bandage and began to press it over the wound on Batman's hip. Gordon unwrapped the other bandage, shifting to his left to reach Batman's right arm, placing that bandage there.
“I don't know how well these are going to last. You're gonna bleed through them...” Gordon sighed, the fatherly part of him was saying he needed to insist on taking Batman to the hospital, the cop part of him was saying that was a stupid idea – this was Batman. He looked at Batman worriedly and couldn't help but wonder if when the man left this place he would make him home or not to have who ever was going to stitch him up. “How...” Gordon started to say again, and then stopped. “Can I...” There was just no point in trying, everything he wanted to ask would lead to a revealing he didn't want.
Gordon continued to kneel in front of Batman, confused and lost – so unsure of everything. Batman grabbed the pieces of armor on the table and started to put them on, but his eyes never left Gordon's steady gaze as he did; it was if he knew the pieces by heart now and didn't have to see to know how they fit together.
“Sorry,” Batman whispered. “I didn't mean to intrude. I was in the neighborhood.” His neighborhood? Gordon didn't want to think about who Batman was interrogating in this part town, so close to his home – his family. He didn't voice his concerns outward, it wasn't the time.
“No, no... it's alright,” Gordon said as he finally stood to his feet, offering a hand to Batman, who had just slipped on the last piece of armor and his boot. Batman took the help and hobbled to the door. “Where you going to go?”
“I have someone picking me up a few blocks from here,” Batman said as he slipped out the front door. Gordon couldn't help but wonder exactly who helped Batman. Gordon was never told of anyone before now, never asked either. He sighed, staring out the front window. He really did need to get some sleep.