"I am disappearing, maybe I'm already gone." - Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places

•••

"My office just responded to an anonymous tip and arrived here earlier this evening. Upon entering the construction site, my men discovered the bodies of four male victims. It'll be some time before we have any information about their identities." Captain Barnes said to the small gathering of reporters just outside of the crime scene tape.

Behind him was a construction site who's centerpiece was now the dead bodies of four men, strung upside down with their heads fully encased in buckets of now dried cement.

Taking in a deep breath he listened to their questions, voices blurring together.

He didn't know what else to say.

His money was on the victims having still been alive when their heads were submerged in the cement, meaning they probably suffocated to death. A horrible way to die.

He couldn't begin to explain how or why a human being would do something like this to another.

Just past the blur of camera flashes and countless microphones and hand held recorders being shoved in his face, Barnes caught sight of Bullock.

Only he wasn't alone, he had Jim, Bruce and Bird with him.

"Uh... uh... that's all I have for you at this time." He said, dismissing all of the questions he'd been asked and leaving the reporters frustrated.

"Hey, Cap." Bullock cheesed a smile, "Look who I found..."

"Shut it, Bullock." Barnes ordered before turning to Jim, "You have one hell of a nerve,"

"Listen-" Jim tried to get a word in, but his former captain wasn't ready to buy what he was selling.

"You think I don't know it was you who busted out Karen Jennings?" Barnes stepped closer, getting in Jim's face, "Tell me it wasn't you."

"Captain-"

"I don't want to even hear it." Barnes scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief, "How do I keep falling for your games? Really, it's a mystery to me. Every time you come back, I truly believe that you've changed. You're like a-an optical illusion."

"Listen, I just need five minutes of your time." Jim continued on, as if he wasn't being given far more than a cold shoulder reception.

"Hargrove! Snead!" Barnes yelled a few of his uniformed officers, "Escort Mr. Gordon off my crime scene immediately."

"You-" Jutting a finger in Bullock's direction, Barnes sighed, "We're gonna have a little discussion about this in the morning."

"Captain Barnes, please. Hear him out." Bruce pleaded.

"Listen, kid..." Barnes let out another heavy sigh.

"Excuse me?" Bird's tone was sharp when she took a confrontational step forward.

"Mr. Wayne." Barnes corrected himself, knowing that least of all was Bruce Wayne to blame for anything that had happened, "I don't care how much money or pull you have in this town. I want Gordon out of my sight."

"Well, I'd like to live in a city where the people who are supposed to keeping the citizens safe actually do their jobs for once." Bird's eyebrows raised.

"That's rich, coming from you." Barnes retorted.

If that was the case she'd have been behind bars a long time ago.

"Bird..." Jim quietly said, knowing the only thing she was going to accomplish was pissing his former boss even more.

"About as rich as someone who claims they're here to clean up the city, but isn't willing to listen to information brought to him." Bird said without missing a beat as she held her hand up to the side in an attempt to stop Jim's useless protests.

"I'm done." Barnes shook his head, "I'm done talking to him and I'm done talking to you."

"Are you through listening to truth?" Bruce's piped up from where he was standing partially behind his sister from where she'd stepped closer to the police captain.

Bird looked down, her dark brunette hair falling into her face and shielding the smirk on her lips from Barnes as she stepped back and let brother have his shot at getting what they wanted.

"Oh, come on." Barnes' face contorted, the bare skin of his bald head reflecting the flashing lights from the police cars nearby as he looked around them, "Give me a break."

He was already angry with Bullock.

Jim was managing to get under his skin like no one else could.

And Bird was one of the last people he'd willingly choose to speak to.

But Bruce Wayne was innocent in all of this.

He represented everything Barnes' had sworn to protect and defend.

"Alright." His voice lowered in defeat, "Five minutes. No, three minutes."

•••

"So, in a nutshell, Hugo Strange is making monsters out of dead people in his spare time and he had Karen Jennings killed by Victor Fries, who's been dead for more than a few months?" Barnes rehashed everything he'd been told.

"I know it sounds far-fetched." Jim's eyebrows slanted down towards the sides of his face.

Just hearing it repeated back to him sounded utterly ridiculous.

Something he wouldn't believe if he hadn't seen it for himself.

"Far-fetched?" Barnes echoed, "No, it sounds insane."

"But it's true, trust me." Jim pleaded with him.

"How can I trust you when you're talking crazy?" Barnes asked.

Bird looked over to where her Bullock had taken her brother off to the side so she and Jim could speak to the captain.

"Are you really not the type of person capable of learning from their mistakes?" Bird questioned.

"My mistakes?"

"Yes." Bird gave a single nod, "Months ago I was standing in your office trying to tell you who Galavan really was and you wouldn't listen because you thought I sounded crazy." Bird reminded him, pausing for effect, she finished, "And we all saw how that played out."

"Miss Wayne, months ago when you were in my office you looked to be on the verge of a psychotic break. Nothing that came out of your mouth sounded even slightly believable to anyone listening." Rubbing his forehead he reminded her, "You slapped a district attorney across the face!"

"That district attorney was also my ex-fiance."

Her arms crossed defensively over her chest.

"That doesn't make it okay." Barnes pointed out, his expression twisting up from her words with a look of disbelief on his face.

He glanced over to Jim wondering if he was the only one who thought she still sounded a little crazy.

"You have to trust us." Jim urged.

"Trust?" His voice raised.

Bird was a known criminal who never had to face down the implications of the life she'd chosen.

She lived outside of the law -and it seemed anymore that outside of the law was exactly where Jim was choosing to spend his time as well.

He felt a lot of things towards them both, but at the moment trust wasn't on the list.

"Yes-" Jim wanted to plead his case again, but Barnes had heard more than enough from them both.

He was sick of even looking at their faces.

"You lied to me!" Barnes interrupted.

"I lied to you because it's hard to tell you the truth!" Jim's tone raised to match his former captain's, "You're stubborn and you're angry and the GCPD has paid the price for it!"

"Really?" Barnes' expression fell somewhere between a scowl and smirk, "You self-righteous, punk. You think you have all the answers? Maybe you should run it yourself!"

"Maybe I will one day!"

"In your dreams!"

"Hey, hey, hey." Bird yelled, physically getting between them and placing a hand in the center of Jim's chest to push him back from where he'd gotten up in Barnes' face, "I don't have time for..." Looking between them, she shook her head in defeat, "Whatever the hell this is."

When they quite yelling at one another, Bird stepped back beside Jim and faced Barnes as she spoke, "Look, I'm not admitting or confessing to anything here, but it's not exactly a secret that my usual way on handling these situations doesn't involve GCPD. But I'm here. I am trying to do the right thing and you won't even hear me out."

"Yeah." Barnes wiped the sweat away that had beaded across his forehead, "About that. Why are you here?"

"For my brother." Bird admitted, "He-"

Jim at first thought Bird was either getting choked up from emotion or had lost her train of thought, that was until he heard metal clanking from off in the distance of the construction site.

"Who's there?" Barnes called out, expecting to get an answer from one of his many officers still on site to process the crime scene. When he didn't he squinted his eyes in the late evening shadows, "I said who's out there?"

"What the hell..." Jim breathed as a tall shadowed figured finally stepped into their line of sight.

The man was dressed in armor from head-to-toe, complete with a cape and a hood over the mask shielding his face.

"James Gordon." The nameless man spoke, his voice was deep and sounded distorted, "The time for your penance has come."

"You know this guy?" Barnes asked looking over his former star detective.

"Who are you?" Jim yelled back.

"I am Azrael!" He answered, rolling his R's he continued, "Righteous scourge of sinners, and I have come to kill you, James Gordon."

Jim and Bird exchanged looks, not sure what to make of the person who stood in front of them.

The threat of the moment wasn't fully realized until the masked stranger brandished a sword and started to descend on the ever confused trio.

"Drop your weapon!" Barnes yelled, drawing his gun and Jim did the same, "Put the weapon down."

Slowly, but not seeming to be in fear of the weapons pointed at him, Azrael knelt down but didn't drop his prized sword.

It was barely even a split second later that he'd ducked out of sight behind a stack of wood pallets.

"Where' he'd go?" Barnes asked, but neither Bird or Jim could give an answer.

They hadn't seen any more than the captain had.

Picking up a crow bar from the ground, Bird adjusted her grip and looked around them just in time to see the flash of a cape off to the side. "There!" She yelled.

Turning, Jim started to open fire, but Azrael was hiding back in the shadows before he'd barely gotten two shots off.

Jim's eyes darted around the room, as he turned more and put his back towards Bird's, both trusting each other to watch out for the threat.

But Barnes didn't stay with the group, he'd ventured off a little ways after thinking he'd saw movement across the large empty room of the building construction was being done in and around.

Catching movement from the corner of his eyes, Barnes turned and started to fire at Azrael, but the masked man was much too fast and far too strong.

He knocked the captain's arm back and before Barnes could react, Azrael raised a leg and kicked him hard in the center of his chest -sending him flying backwards into the stack of wood pallets.

"Captain!" Jim yelled as he tried to rush his aid, narrowly avoiding getting sliced from the sword that Azrael brought down.

Just as he'd done to Barnes, Azrael kicked Jim down and raised his sword up with every intention of making this breath his last, but before he could impale Jim with his blade, Bird was there -hitting Azrael in the side of his head with the crowbar she was holding.

Only the impact barely seemed to have an effect.

Looking down to the crowbar in shock, she took a step back from the masked figure, not understanding how the blow hadn't brought him to his knees.

She'd hit him with such force that she could still feel the vibrations moving through the bones in her arms and shoulders.

Impossible. It was impossible that he was still standing.

"Stand aside." Azrael warned, "Or face my judgment."

Without answering him, Bird swiftly moved the crowbar through the air, hitting him in the head again -this time the impact left her right hand numb and pain shooting up her arms.

With a hiss of pain, the bar fell to the ground and she stumbled back.

"Bird!" Jim yelled, from where he was frantically trying to get up from the ground, but he didn't have much time to warn her before Azrael took hold of the shoulders from her coat and tossed her across the room as if she was the weight of a feather.

"Your time has come, James Gordon." Azrael turned back to him, sword high in the air, but before he could make a move, Bullock had rushed into the building with a team of officers responding to shots and commotion they could hear outside.

"Jim!" He yelled, with his weapon already drawn as he fired round after round at the masked figure.

Now being on the receiving end of retribution from about fifteen armed men, Azrael gave up on his task for the moment and fled the scene.

He ran to the back of the building and jumped up onto a construction platform in front of the second floor windows, from there he scaled up the wall, up a few more stories before finally jumping out of one of the empty window frames.

Bruce stood and stared up to where the man had disappeared.

He'd never seen anymore be able to move like that. To jump upwards several feet like that.

Looking back around the room, he saw Jim getting on his feet and Barnes was in the process of standing up himself -both of them looked just as shocked and confused as he was sure he appeared himself.

Catching movement from the corner of his eyes, he looked over to see his sister on the floor.

"Starling!" Her name left his tongue carrying the full weight of the fear he was feeling.

"I'm okay. I'm..." She breathed out in a wince as she sat up.

Dropping on the floor next to her, his eyes darted around to make sure there wasn't any blood. He'd seen the masked man carrying a large sword, but luckily she didn't seem to be cut.

"Something's wrong." She said reaching out and grabbing onto his arm.

"Don't move." Bruce ordered, "You could be severely hurt-"

"No. Not with me." She quickly tried to put his fears to rest, "Bruce, that... thing, picked me up and threw me over here like it was nothing. I- I..." She stammered, "I hit him hard enough that his skull should have cracked open and he barely flinched."

With the pit in his stomach deepening, Bruce looked behind him back to where the man had escaped.

How was that even possible?

"Are you okay?" Jim questioned concerned as he walked over to them, relieved to see that she was at least able to sit up and conscious.

He'd had no idea how hard she'd landed.

"Yeah." She nodded, doing her best to hide the pain she was in as Jim and Bruce helped pull her up to her feet.

She was sure the entire left side of her body was going to be one huge bruise by the next morning.

"We lost him." Barnes sighed as he joined back up with the group, pausing for a moment to looking around he questioned, "Anyone hurt?"

"We're okay." Jim answered.

"Good." Barnes gave a single, abrupt nod, "Then you're all coming back to the station for a little chat."

•••

"I need information now." Barnes said as he shut the door to his office and turned back to face Bird, Jim and Bruce who now stood in his office at the GCPD precinct, "What do we know about this guy?"

"Just what you saw." Jim answered, "Calls himself Azrael. Wants to kill me."

"We know Hugo Strange is the one behind this." Bruce spoke up.

"Told you so, did he?" Barnes shot back.

Bruce bit down on the side of his tongue and shook his head.

The police were supposed to be good guys. The ones who'd taken an oath to keep the city and it's citizens safe and yet he was being met with nothing but resistance while trying to bring them a lead.

"Who else could it be?" Bird's eyebrows furrowed.

She was beginning to regret ever have chosen Jim's side in the argument over how to deal with Strange.

"I have no idea." Barnes was quick to cut them down, "I have to find out the facts. The fun part about being a police detective instead of a loose canon vigilante."

"Excuse me, captain." Bruce cleared his throat, "I find your flippant attitude to be appropriate."

A stunned expression fell over his face as he stared back at the youngest Wayne, before his eyes moved over to where Bird was trying her best to hold back a laugh.

The similarity between them was unmistakable.

Not only in their looks, but in the way that neither was afraid to speak their mind to persons of authority.

Even if Bruce was far more polite about it.

"I find you to be kind of a pain in the ass." He spoke in a deadpan voice as he looked to Bruce.

"What's he even doing here?" Barnes questioned, his line of sight falling heavily on his former detective as he added, "And her? What are either of them doing here?"

"I'm a concerned citizen. I want to know what you're doing about all of this." Bruce handled himself with the eloquence of someone more than twice his age.

"What he said." Bird smiled proudly.

"I..." Barnes began, clearing his throat and taking a second to compose himself, "I'm going to assemble the strike-force, call in all off duty police personal and we're gonna dragnet the living daylights out of this wacko. A knight from outer space shouldn't be too hard to find, right?"

With a smile he continued, "What you're gonna do is go home and stop inserting yourself into police business."

"Captain..." Bruce started to argue.

"That's the final word." Barnes spoke as if he was scolding a young child, complete with a stern look right at Bruce's eye-level before he left the trio alone in his office.

Bruce couldn't hide the apparent shock on his face.

The police captain didn't have right to speak to him that way. He hadn't done anything wrong.

His own parents wouldn't have tried to assert their authority over him in that manner.

Shaking his head as if he turned and looked at his sister, "What do we do now?"

Bruce had no idea what it would entail, but Bird always seemed to have a plan.

He was sure the entire time Barnes was lecturing them, that she had to be scheming against his orders.

"You're not gonna like it." Bird said as she stepped closer to where he was standing on the other side of Jim, "He's right-"

"He isn't." Bruce argued, "Captain Barnes was wrong about everything-"

"Except the part where it's time for you to go home." Bird answered.

She hated this part.

Trying to tell him what to do, especially when she understood more than anyone how hard it was to just sit back watch everything unfold around you.

"This isn't right!" His voice raised.

"Bruce." Jim calmly said, "You need to leave the rest of this to the police and to me. I can't make the moves I need to if I'm worried about you."

"So you both are going out there to risk your lives, putting yourselves in danger and I'm just expected to go home?" His eyes darted between Jim and Bird.

He didn't say it out loud, but he was finding himself missing the days when they could barely get along.

Now they were close friends -possibly more and to make matters worse, he felt like now he didn't have either of them on his side.

Instead they were teaming up against him.

"Starling?" He pleaded as his eyes met his sister's.

She'd been the one who'd taken over most of his training.

Taught him how to not only properly defend himself, but how to fight back.

He could be useful to them if they'd only give him the chance; he was sure of it.

"Come on." She said as she walked closer and put a hand on his shoulder, "We're going to find Bullock so he can drive you back to Wayne Manor."

Silently, he let her lead him from the room, knowing he didn't much have a choice in the matter anymore.

When would it be his chance to make decisions, he wondered as they headed down the stairs from the captain's office.

He understood that the people closet to him were worried about something bad happening to him, but couldn't they see that he was worried about the very same thing when it came to them?

"I know you're mad at me." Bird said, looking over at him, "And I know it doesn't seem fair, but the best place for you is at home with Alfred for now."

"Yes, well, when will that be my own decision to make? Why have I spent so much time training and growing stronger to just stay inside the walls and safety of home?" He questioned.

Coming to a stop she she turned to face him, "You mean when will it be your time to go running into the line of fire?"

Without giving him any chance to respond she smiled, "When I'm dead and gone, little brother. But while I'm alive, I will do everything in my power to keep you safe."

"The disregard you show for your own life and well-being is alarming, Starling." Bruce answered with a purely unamused expression on his youthful face.

•••

"He calls himself Azrael." Barnes addressed the entire police force, "He's armed, dangerous, and has exhibited some extraordinary physical abilities. But no one... and I mean no one... comes into our city and tries to carve up my officers. We're gonna go out tonight, and we're gonna comb each and every block until we find this masked freak and put him behind bars where he belongs."

"Any questions?" He asked.

"No, sir!" They echoed back."

"Good. Now get out there and get him!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Barnes saw Bird and Jim starting to leave too.

"What are you doing?" He called after them.

"Going out there." Jim answered.

This wasn't just police business.

Not only was Azrael apparently out to kill him, but he knew without a doubt that Strange was ultimately pulling the strings behind this entire operation.

"The both of you?" Barnes walked closer to where they'd stopped when he called to them.

"Yes." They both answered in unison.

"The hell is this?" Barnes asked, "You two a packaged deal now or what?"

"Something like that." Jim answered.

"I don't care." He sighed shaking his head, "She's going home and you're staying here for your own protection."

"Excuse me?" Jim asked before Bird could say anything.

"That's an order." Barnes spoke in a tone similar to the one in which he'd ordered Bruce around with.

"I'm not a cop anymore, remember?" Jim spoke with animosity in his tone the very phrase that everyone loved to keep reminding him of, "I don't need to follow your orders."

Bird's dimples showed as she smiled at the look at Barnes' face.

The captain of the GCPD wasn't having a good day at all and she couldn't deny how comical she found it.

"You're absolutely right." Barnes nodded.

Looking past them to a few uniformed officers, he ordered, "You two. Put Mr. Gordon and Miss Wayne, here in lockup."

"What?" Jim yelled at the same time Bird angrily argued, "You can't do that!"

"Oh, but I can." Barnes offered them both a satisfied smile, "I'm holding you both on the suspicion of breaking Karen Jennings out of GCPD custody."

They'd been nothing but a pain in his ass for the last few hours and this was the only way he could keep an eye on them.

"Don't do this." Jim pleaded with his former boss as the officers led him and Bird over to the holding cells in the station.

"It's already done."

•••

"I can't believe this." Jim muttered under his breath as he stood at the front of the cell and held onto the bars, staring out into the rest of the police station at the few handfuls of officers that had stayed behind while everyone else was scouring the city for Azrael.

"I can." Bird answered from where she was sitting on the built-in bench towards the back of the cell they were sharing, "He's impossible.."

There was truth to her words; but he also knew that Barnes was one of the good ones.

His first day on the job he'd fired a group of corrupt officers and had been doing everything in his power to clean up the city.

But that now seemed to be the problem, Barnes' power only reached as far as the arm of the law and in a place like Gotham the wasn't very far.

"We have to get out of here."

Bird's eyes titled upwards at Jim's need to state the obvious.

"No kidding." Bird sighed, "We're sitting ducks in here."

Turning back to face her, Jim watched as the look of anger an annoyance faded from her face and turned into a smile with a mischievous look in her eyes.

"What?" He questioned as she stood up and walked closer.

"Call one of cops with keys to these cells over to us." Bird answered, "Get him close enough and I'll grab the keys."

"We can't do that." Jim was fast to shoot the idea down.

"Why not?" The playful look in her eyes gave way to a scowl on her face.

Standing around and saying they needed to get out of there wasn't helping anyone at all.

They needed to take steps to actually break free.

"Because you've both probably broken enough laws for one day."

Walking into view, Barnes looked between them expecting an argument from Bird, but instead Jim surprised and disappointed him yet again as he argued back, "There are times when breaking the law is the right thing to do."

"And who gets to decide that, you?" Barnes asked. Facing down the one who used to be his star detective. Someone he'd looked at as more of a son than an employee.

"Someone has to." Jim solemnly spoke and Bird nodded from where she stood beside him.

"No, Jim, you're wrong." Barnes could barely remember a time when he felt more disappointed in him.

"No." Bird shook her head, "You're the one who's wrong."

With a shrug she added, "I don't know how you can't see just how wrong you are."

"I can see where Gotham is going." He answered, "Maniacs, perverts, freaks, are crawling out of every hole. It's like a sea of evil of flooding the city."

His gaze landed on Jim and he spoke in an all-knowing tone, "If a man doesn't cling onto the law, he'll lose sight of his bearings. Drown."

Jim took a step back away from the bars, his gaze falling to the floor.

Barnes' arrogance over how to handle the crime in Gotham was burrowing under his skin, but perhaps what bothered him even more was realizing the change within himself.

A few years ago, he thought the same way his captain did. That by using the law they could combat crime, clean out the dirty cops and maybe the city would start to trust the police again.

But that wasn't practical. Not in Gotham.

He knew that now and while he did regret certain actions he'd taken and couldn't deny the toll that killing Galavan had take on him.

"They're not afraid of you." Bird finally said as she faced Barnes through the bars, "The maniacs and perverts and freaks that you're saying are a flooding the city. They're not afraid of you."

"They should be." Barnes argued with her, "Because I'm not going to stop until everyone of them is brought to justice."

"Can you not see what you're up against out there?" Bird scoffed, "You're standing here talking law and order while the city is being terrorized."

"You can't put out a fire by adding more gasoline, Miss Wayne." Barnes started to argue his point that you can't fight fire with fire, but she wasn't finished talking.

"Crime rates have soared in the recent months and calls to the police are at an all time low!" Bird spoke over him.

When she was met by stunned expressions from both Jim and Barnes, she gave a small shrug and explained, "My secretary filled me in on some of the statistics today at work."

"Right." Barnes nodded, "Speaking of your new job. The crime scene today -the bodies with their heads in cement, I couldn't help but notice the Wayne Enterprise name on the construction site."

"Probably one out of every ten buildings that goes up is linked to my family's company." Bird reasoned, "What's your point?"

"Sure, but this building is going to be one of the shelters your opening, is it not?" Barnes continued.

Bird didn't answer him, but she could feel Jim's eyes on her now.

Wondering why she hadn't mentioned that to him sooner and if she knew more than she was letting on.

"I didn't kill those guys." Bird was quick to defend, "I don't even know who they were."

"You don't think this might have been some sort of message?" Barnes pushed, "Maybe even a warning of some kind?"

"A message to who? Me?" A smiled crept across her lips, "I doubt that very much, Captain."

Jim watched her closely, knowing there must be something else going on.

"But even if it were -you wouldn't tell me." Barnes voiced out loud.

"Captain, enough." Jim cut in, "You have to let us out of here."

"No, I don't have to do anything. And you're in there for your own good-"

His sentence abruptly cut short when the entire police station went dark.

"What the hell?"

"What gives with the lights?"

"Everything's down!"

Bird stayed silent listening to the panic start to rise in the officer's voices as they were left with once of their five senses impaired.

"Blackout?" Barnes questioned, taking a step back closer to the cell.

"I don't think so." Jim answered.

Feeling Bird's hand on his arm, he looked over at her in what little light was coming in through the windows and could see she was looking across the station with her head titled back some, her gaze directed up towards the ceiling.

Following her line of sight, he saw what had caught her attention.

Outside of the large windows above the entrance to the station, there was a shadow moving between the streetlights outside and frosted glass.

He opened his mouth to tell Barnes, but before he could the shadow burst through the window, sending shards of glass flying all over the interior balcony floor.

Azrael stepped up onto the balcony railing, surveying the room and seeing several men with guns pointed at him.

Jim stepped back further from the cell bars and pulled Bird back with him when Azrael jumped down from the second floor and landed perfectly at the head of the room.

"James Gordon!"

Azrael's unnaturally deep voice echoed off the walls in the otherwise silent building.

"Back up, against the cell. Move!" Barnes commanded his officers to shield Jim from the harm Azrael was there to inflict on him.

Bird noticed the surprise in the captain's voice. Like he really couldn't believe this man had just stormed the precinct.

She, however, wasn't the least bit surprised.

After all, with keeping Jim there at the station while a masked assassin was on the hunt for him, what had he expected to happen?

"This is Captain Barnes of the GCPD!" Barnes yelled, as his officers shined their flashlights around the station searching for where Azrael had went, "Whoever you are, step into the light or we will take you out."

"But I am the light." A voice answered back, "Tasked with vanquishing the evil in that cell."

"You can die trying!" Barnes retorted, his eyes darting all over the place as he tried to pinpoint where the voice was coming from.

"You lead these men, so I will parley with you." Azrael continued to speak.

"Parley?" Barnes breathed.

"Order them to stand aside and allow the sinner, James Gordon, to be punished. Do this, and I will spare them all. Decline and they will face my judgment." Azrael continued, "Their lives now rest in your hands. How many will die? All? Or one? Decide, Captain."

"You can go to hell." Barnes nearly growled, readjusting the grip on his gun and waiting for Azrael to come out of hiding and show his masked face.

"I've been there. You go." Azrael said.

The next noise was a pained grunt from one of the officers who'd been quickly disarmed and knocked down by the masked man.

Heightened panic moved through the police station in waves, each bigger than the last as Azrael was able to move among the shadows unnoticed and took out the police officers one-by-one.

"Over there!"

"You see him?"

"Where'd he go?"

Each officer sounded increasingly fearful as their brothers and sisters in arms were being executed; their blood sprayed the walls.

Red spattered across the paperwork and open case files that were still strewn on the desks while cries of pain rang out.

"There!"

"You got eyes on him?

"Where is he?"

"I don't know..."

Jim stepped back up to the bars, concern and pain flooded over his face as he saw the carnage Azrael was leaving behind through the moving beams of flashlights from the officers still standing.

Whoever this man was, he was impossible foe. Moving quicker than anyone he'd seen before.

Possessing superhuman strength and for whatever reason was there to put him down.

This masked man wasn't going to stop and Jim knew that he'd kill every single person in the station to get to him.

"Jim!"

Hearing Bird's voice, he looked over to see she was on the floor against the far side of the cell with her arm reached through the bars as far as she could stretch.

"Help me." She whisper-yelled as her fingertips just barely scraped against the fabric of a fallen officers shirt.

Realizing she was trying to drag the slain officer's body closer in order to reach the keys on his belt, Jim darted over to her.

Working together they manged to pull the body closer to the cell and Bird grabbed onto the keys.

Scrambling to the door, she reached through and tried to focus on getting the cell door unlocked instead of the stress and fear so thick in air the that you could taste it.

Rapid fire gun shots bounced back off the walls as a few men caught sight of Azrael while he scaled the corner of the room.

"Bird-" Jim's voice shook as he heard the thud of another body nearby hitting the floor.

"Shut up." She hissed through her clench teeth, "I'm trying!"

Once she finally got the door unlock, she let the keys fall from her hands and pushed the door to the cell open.

With Jim right on her heels they walked out into the rest of the room, both living on a prayer that they weren't going to walk right into the one sent there to kill him.

They'd only made it few steps out of the cell when they heard movement from beside them and looked over just in time to see Azrael walk up behind an officer and effortlessly snap his neck.

With a single flick of the arm, he managed to knock Bird out of his way and send her flying over the top of a desk.

Azrael grabbed onto Jim and lifted him up in the air before slamming his body down on the top of another desk with such power that all the air was forced from his lungs, leaving him helpless and choking for a breath.

Following the sounds, the still standing officers opened fire on Azrael, who picked up a gun one of the slain had dropped and shot back at them..

"Such an amazing tool of destruction..." He said, looking down at the metal weapon before pointing it at Jim and pulling the trigger, but the clip was empty.

Confused as to why it didn't work anymore, Azrael looked back at the gun and complained, "Vile sorcery!" Before tossing the weapon to the side.

Raising his leg, Azrael kicked Jim off the desk, sending his body flipping violently through the air before he slammed into the wall and fell to the floor.

Bird pulled herself up from the floor just in time to see Jim's violent impact with the wall.

Barnes got up from where he'd been knocked down just as Bird darted past him over to where Jim was.

Seeing Azrael was following her, no doubt to finish what he'd started with Jim, Barnes rushed at him. Using every ounce of strength left in his body to knock the masked man down.

"Jim!" Bird dropped to the floor next to him.

Looking up at her with a pained grimace on his face, he saw the lines of blood running down from her hairline where she'd hit her head.

With her help, he managed to get stood up and they both limped their way over to where Barnes was standing in front of Azrael, who was sitting against the outside of the holding cell.

Cocking his gun, Barnes fired every last round in the chamber at the downed assailant, but each and every shot proved utterly useless; each bullet barely left chinks in his armor.

But for the moment he wasn't moving, just stayed motionless.

Thinking that maybe he was knocked out from the fall, Bird started forward.

The only way they were going to be able to kill this thing was if they could actually make contact with his skin. If she just could just get his mask off then they could shoot him in the head.

She wasn't sure what the hell Azrael was, but a head-shot would surely put a stop to his short reign of terror.

Jim grabbed onto Bird's arm to keep her back.

He had a pretty idea what she was planning, but getting that close was too big of a risk, especially when he was still holding a sword.

A low growl emanated from behind the mask before Azrael started to move, they could hear bones popping back into place as he rolled his head from side-to-side.

The trio all stepped back away from the waking beast.

"We need a bigger gun." Jim said.

"Yeah." Barnes spoke quietly as they all three continued to back away from Azrael, "I'm going to lure the freak up the stairs then you show up with something that will tear a hole in this bastard."

"You got it." Jim agreed.

"Let's get to the roof right now!" Barnes yelled to sell the lie as he made a run for the stairwell.

Following behind him, Jim grabbed onto Bird's hand and pulled her with him as they ran past the stairs and towards the end of the hallway that held a weapons locker.

The detour only took a matter of minutes; getting the key and retrieving a few shotguns from the locker, but they weren't quick enough to make it to the roof before Azrael had seriously injured Captain Barnes.

Just as they ran through where the door to the roof had been busted off it's hinges, they saw Barnes' body fall to the ground while a now unmasked Azrael stood above him with the blood covered piece of broken sword he'd just plunged into office's abdomen.

"Captain!" Jim yelled, horrified by what they'd just seen.

"Oh my god..." Bird breathed, her eyes widening as Azrael turned to face them, "No..." Was all she could manage to say.

"Yes." He answered back, adjusting his grip on the blood slicked handle of his sword.

"You..." Bird stammered, "You're supposed to be dead. You're dead."

"Not anymore." Theo Galavan laughed in his newly deepened voice.

Jim stared at him with wide eyes, for a second hardly even able to comprehend what was happening and who was standing in front of him.

Clutching onto the shotgun, Jim felt like he might trip over his own feet as he slowly advanced forward.

"Come to me!" Galavan ordered, holding his arms out to the sides, "And I will show you the way to hell."

Raising the gun, Jim answered back, "I know the way."

With that he cocked the shotgun and fired, but Galavan was much too fast and managed to not only dart out of the way, but even took the time to pick his mask up from the ground as he went.

He avoided every single shot Jim fired at him, until one hit his leg.

The shell didn't pierce his armor, but the force of the bullet did slow him, nearly knocking him off his feet.

A few more blasts from the shotgun proved much more dangerous and painful than he'd expected and to get away from the shots, Galavan-turned-Azrael lept from the roof and fell onto a parked car in the street below.

Landing right in front of the sea of bright lights and reporters from the news vans that were waiting outside of the station.

"Go!" Jim yelled, looking back to where Bird hadn't moved a muscle since seeing Galavan in the flesh again, "Call for ambulance"

Bird blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision from where she'd been staring unblinking for an uncomfortably long time.

Her gaze moved from the spot where Galavan had jumped from the roof, to where Jim was knelt at his boss's side.

Dropping the shotgun she hadn't even had the coherency to use on the ground, she turned and darted back into the building, racing down the stairs as fast as her legs could carry her.

Throwing the doors open to the front of the building, she got tripped up on the uneven pavement outside and hit the ground with a hard thud.

"Oh my god!"

"Is that Starling Wayne?"

"Miss Wayne!"

"Was that the former mayor?"

"Miss Wayne!"

"She's bleeding!"

"We're you present for the shootout inside of the station?"

"What did you see?"

"Miss Wayne!"

"Was that really Theo Galavan?"

With a blank expression she blinked up at all the lights and cameras being shoved in her face, the reporters voices all blurred together like the sound of fly buzzing, lodged deep in her brain.

"Are you okay?"

Bird's eyes finally focused on the concerned face of one of the EMT's who'd been waiting outside of the police station for the all the clear to go in and help the wounded.

She watched as he waved another EMT over and started telling the reporters to back up and give them space.

"You need to get to the roof." Bird said, reaching up and grabbing onto his arm with her trembling hand, "Captain Barnes is down. He's on the roof... it's really bad."

Seeing the reluctance to the emergency responder had to leave her, Bird promised, "I'm fine. Go!"

In the seconds it took her get up from the ground and back to her feet, the reporters were closing in again.

Each one trying to yell their questions louder than anyone else, to be the first ones with the inside scoop on what had happened.

The buzzing sound started back up like a bug burrowed into her brain, so much so that she could have sworn her brain was vibrating in her head, sending tremors down through all of her bones and muscles.

All she could manage to do was stare wide eyed into the lights, each flash adding another dark spot over her vision.

"Back up!"

Bullock gruffly yelled at the reporters before turning to where more officers were making it onto the scene and telling them they needed to get a perimeter blocked off around the building.

"Hey, you okay?" Bullock asked, getting between Bird and the crowd that had swarmed her.

Trying but failing to blink away the dark spots over her vision, Bird couldn't find her words to speak to him.

Instead she looked down to where she had bits of gravel and small jagged rocks stuck in the palms of her hands from where she'd fell minutes prior.

Bullock's brows raised at the shell-shocked expression she was wearing, before his sight moved past her and to where EMT's were bringing out officers on gurneys and he started to fully gather how much destruction had been left behind.

"Where's Jim?" He asked.

Lifting one of her hands, Bird pointed upwards.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He yelled, growing increasingly frantic.

Bird wasn't someone to be so easily rendered into a shocked state like that.

So he was sure whatever she'd seen it was bad and now he had no idea what she was trying to tell him.

"Up-" She started to get her voice back.

"Up?" Bullock cut in, "Up? Up where? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

As more bodies and fatally injured officers were being carted out of the building, his mind went to the worse case scenario and her pointing up towards the sky didn't help matters any.

"The roof." Bird said once she was given a chance to speak.

"Why didn't you say that in the first place?" He asked as he started to head into building but then turned back to see was still standing in the same place and he knew given the chance the reporters were going to swarm her again.

With a sigh, he turned back, "Come on." Sliding am arm behind her, he led her back into the building and towards the stairwell.

As they reached the roof he was able to breath a sigh of relief when he saw Jim was alive and standing; albeit a little bruised and bloody.

"Radio Gotham General, let them know we're coming in hot."

Bullock looked over to see three EMT's wheeling a severely wounded and now unconscious police captain past them on a gurney.

"Jim!" He jogged towards his partner, "What the hell happened?"

"It was Galavan." Jim said, thinking that it didn't sound any less insane being spoken out loud,

"What?" Bullock asked, out of breath, "You sure?"

"I know it's hard to believe, but Azrael is Galavan." Jim faced him as he spoke.

"Damn..." Bullock breathed, taking his hat off and rubbing a hand over his head."

"Guess that explains why crazy eyes has gone mute." He added as he slid his hat back on.

Jim's eyebrows furrowed in response until he looked over and saw Bird standing towards the top of the stairs.

"Bird?" He asked moving closer.

But she didn't respond, just continued to stare blankly in front of her.

"Bird."

The feeling of his hands on her arms brought her back to the present and slowly she blinked her yes and until her vision managed to focus on him.

"What?" She questioned.

"We need to get you checked out, okay?" Jim said, as he leaned in to get a better look at the still bleeding wound on her head, "You've hit your head pretty hard."

"I'm fine." She argued.

"You're not fine." He didn't miss a beat, "You've been thrown across the room, your bleeding and Galavan is alive. You're not fine."

"I'm okay." She promised, her voice quiet and bit too calm considering what they'd all just seen, "We knew this was a possibility, right? I mean Strange brought Victor Fries back to life. So why not Galavan too? I mean..."

Her voice trailed off and she shook her head.

Even though he was standing right in front of her, Jim felt like she was no longer aware he was there. The blank look was back in her eyes.

Out of nowhere Bird burst into a fit of unhinged laughter that drew the attention of everyone still on the roof, "I mean this guy single-handedly ruined my entire life. I -I... I finally got the pieces picked back up... so of course he comes back from the dead."

"Bird." Jim tried to keep his voice level and calm, but it was easier said than done when she was still laughing like a madman.

"It's going to be okay." He promised, taking her face in his hands, doing his best to avoid the thick trails of blood down the one side, "We're going to find him and we're going to stop him. He's not going to hurt you again-"

"How are we going to do that, Jim?" Bird asked, having a little trouble breathing after she'd finally been able to reign in her laughter.

"By doing whatever it takes." He answered, "He's not going to win."

"Okay." Bird answered with a slow blink and look in her eyes that he couldn't quite place.

Reaching up she pulled his hands from her face, and said, "I want to go home."

"Yeah." He nodded, "I need to talk to Bullock but then we can-"

"Stay." Her eyes met his, "Stay and do whatever you need to do. I'm going home."

"Bird-"

"I'll call a doctor when I get there. I promise." She cut his argument short, knowing he was getting ready to point out how she was hurt and bleeding again.

•••

It was a few hours later that Jim made it to Bird's townhouse. Coming to a stop at the bottom of the handful of stairs leading up to the door, his shoulders slouched in exhaustion.

Each stair in front of him might as well have been a mountain to climb.

He was heavily feeling the aches and pains from where Galavan had kicked him across the police station earlier that night.

Every single bone ached.

Every muscle in his body was sore.

The fatigue ran much deeper than just the physical effects. He was having trouble seeing straight from as tired as he was.

Even if he managed to make it up the stairs to get in the house, he was planning on crashing on the couch, he didn't think he had it in him to make up the stairs to the bedroom.

Just as he reached the top step, he saw the door was ajar and worry took over the tiredness.

Getting a second wind fueled by fear, he drew his gun and pushed the door open, surveying the entryway before walking the rest of the way inside.

He'd tried to call Bird about twenty minutes ago to let her know he was coming over, but she hadn't answered.

Knowing how tired she must have been too, he'd assumed she'd already went to bed.

"Bird?" He yelled out, but didn't get an answer.

His heart thudded away inside of his chest as he followed to low murmur of voices into the sitting room where he found the TV was on, but the room was otherwise empty.

Crossing the room and switching the set off, he was at least relieved to see nothing in the house seemed out of place.

No signs of a struggle.

Staying alert and with his weapon at the ready, Jim climbed the stairs and made his way to the master bedroom, calling out her name again as he went.

Only any hopes that she'd simply not gotten the door entirely shut and was safe in her bed were dashed when he found the room was just as empty as downstairs was.

The doors to her walk-in closet were standing wide open, but from what he could tell nothing much was missing.

He checked the rest of the house but couldn't find her.

Taking his phone from his pocket, he tried calling her, hoping that wherever she was that she at least had her phone and would answer him.

He looked around when he could hear her phone ringing from inside of the house.

Holding his phone out to the side, he tracked the sound into the bathroom attached to the master bedroom.

But still no sign of Bird.

Her phone was laying on the counter next to a bloody washcloth that he assumed she'd been washing her face with and her keys.

It looked as though she'd gotten home, started to wash up and get ready for bed and then had simply dropped everything and walked away.

He shouldn't have let her leave, he thought to himself.

Galavan's resurrection had -had a profound effect on her and he knew this.

Not only had her entire world been flipped upside down in matter of minutes, but there was also the factor of her having hit her head.

He had no way of knowing if she was okay, or wandering around the city still injured.

Jim's heart sank into the black pit his stomach had turned into.

He had no idea where she was or if she was even okay or if she'd ever called a doctor like she'd promised.

The only thing he knew was that she was gone.

•••