The aftermath of the highway rescue still clung to them—sirens echoing faintly in the distance, the acrid scent of burnt asphalt and explosives lingering in the air—as Batman and the others redirected their pursuit from the explosion at the highway, and toward a new disturbance.
Reports had been flooding in, overlapping and frantic, all pointing toward an active shootout erupting within a nearby parking complex. By the time they arrived, the Gotham City Police Department had already begun to secure the perimeter, their cruisers casting alternating red and blue across concrete pillars and oil-stained floors. Yet the timing was off, they were too late.
Red Hood and Grifter had already moved on, leaving behind only the hollow echoes of gunfire and the uneasy tension of a fight that had slipped through the cracks right before the cops made it to the scene.
Batman advanced into the parking structure with unhurried steps, his cape dragging softly against the ground as his gaze swept across the scene with passive observation.
Above, perched along the edge of a rooftop overlooking the structure, Nightwing and Robin remained behind, their silhouettes framed against the dim skyline. Nightwing's posture was tight as he remained on alert, his escrima sticks resting loosely in his grip, while Robin stood rigid beside him, eyes sharp with restrained impatience, both waiting for the signal to move.
The distant staccato of gunfire muffled through the night air like a weak beacon, of which even the GCPD had caught wind of it, but this part of Gotham carried a reputation that made even seasoned officers hesitate. Reinforcements, planning, hesitation—it would take time they didn't have.
Determined not to lose the thread entirely and be left chasing ghosts, James Gordon made the call to ask Batman to take the lead on this one. With a steady voice edged with urgency, he redirected Batman toward the source of the second report. If anyone could see this through to it's roots and return with something concrete, it was him. Information, context, intent—anything that could explain what Red Hood was escalating toward and what kind of battlefield they were walking into.
It didn't take long before Batman regrouped with them, his presence alone was enough to shift the atmosphere as they fell back into motion without needing words. The trail was still fresh—another shootout had erupted not far from their current position, this one quieter in the public channels but no less violent.
Without further delay, the pursuit resumed. Batman and Nightwing moved as one, slipping into the Batmobile as its engine growled to life with a low and predatory roar. Behind them, Robin retrieved his bike from the vehicle's rear compartment. And in one fluid motion, the vehicle hit the pavement with a thud as he hopped on it, before roaring to life beneath him.
The three split into formation, engines tearing through the night as they followed the fading trail of chaos left in the wake of Red Hood and Grifter.
Every second counted now, every turn seemed to be a gamble, as they pushed forward with a singular goal—intercept the clash before it reached its inevitable conclusion, and stop Red Hood before Black Mask became just another body in his war.
"A security camera caught everything," Batman's voice came through the low hum of the Batmobile's engine, sounding calm but weighted with certainty. The interior glowed faintly from the dashboard, reflecting against the hard lines of his cowl as his eyes remained fixed on the road ahead.
Beside him, Nightwing leaned slightly forward in his seat, attention locked in, while Robin's presence came through the comms—his engine a distant, aggressive roar beneath the connection.
"And as we suspected… Red Hood is behind tonight's dishevelment." There was a brief pause, just enough for the information to settle before he continued. "Jason was engaged in a fight with a mercenary—likely hired by Black Mask. The footage confirms Black Mask fled the scene during the confrontation."
The line stayed open, but for a moment, only the overlapping sounds of engines and rushing wind filled the silence. Then Robin's voice broke through, sounding more contemplative than usual, though no less of his usual sharp tongue. "Something about this doesn't sit right with me." He weaved through the streets as he spoke, the city lights streaking past him in blurs of neon and the dark of the night, his grip tightening slightly on the handlebars as his mind worked through the few pieces.
Nightwing let out a faint breath, shaking his head as he rested back into his seat. "In case you haven't noticed," he replied, a trace of dry humor slipping into his tone, "nothing about this feels right." But Robin didn't take the bait this time, there was no retort, no bite—just silence before he pushed forward, his focus clearly elsewhere.
"Why do you think Jason wants to kill Black Mask this badly?" Robin asked, the question reverberating through the comms. It wasn't just his curiosity this time around—it was his sense of analysis, an attempt to impose logic over something that refused to fit neatly into place. "He's acting reckless… even for him."
"Well," Nightwing shrugged lightly, though the motion carried a hint of unease beneath it, "the guy did put a bounty on his head. That's enough to set anyone off." His lips quirked faintly, but the humor didn't quite reach his eyes as he continued, more thoughtful now. "Still… as unpredictable as Jason can be, I never pictured him firing an RPG at Black Mask. That's not just reckless, but completely off-script."
Batman remained silent for a beat, the city rushing past them as the Batmobile surged forward. When he finally spoke, his voice came at a more measured pace, carrying the weight of deduction rather than speculation. "If his goal was simply to eliminate Black Mask, he's had countless opportunities to do so without drawing attention." His grip on the wheel tightened almost imperceptibly as his gaze narrowed. "This level of noise… this exposure… it increases the chances of Black Mask escaping. It doesn't align for an efficient result."
Robin's response came after a brief pause, his tone shifting—less questioning now, and more certain, as if he had settled on a conclusion that made the most sense to him. "He enjoys the hunt," he said, the words carrying an unsettling clarity.
The wind howled louder through his mic as he accelerated, but his voice remained steady. "To him, ending it quickly would be a waste. He wants Black Mask to run… to think he has a chance. He's stretching it out—turning it into something more… entertaining." There was no humor in his voice, just his forever cold observation.
A silence followed that lingered just a little too long before Nightwing finally exhaled, shifting in his seat as a faint crease formed between his brows. "Okay…" he muttered, clearly unsettled by the implication, his earlier levity gone entirely. He glanced briefly toward Batman before looking ahead again. "Putting that aside… who exactly is this mercenary Black Mask hired?"
"We might as well find out for ourselves… we're here." Batman's voice came low and with a decisive tone as the Batmobile eased to a controlled stop, its engine settling into a quiet growl that seemed almost out of place against the stillness of the junkyard.
The headlights shone through the darkness, spilling pale beams across mountains of twisted metal and discarded machinery, casting long, jagged shadows that made the entire place feel like a graveyard of forgotten things. Robin's bike rolled in shortly after, its engine dying down as he pulled alongside them, the faint ticking of cooling metal filling the brief silence before they stepped out into the night.
The moment their boots hit the ground, the air itself felt wrong—thick, heavy, carrying the unmistakable scent of burnt metal and something far worse. Their eyes adjusted quickly, and what came into view was enough to halt even seasoned vigilantes for a fraction of a second.
Bodies—everywhere. Scattered between rusted car husks and broken steel frames, sprawled in unnatural positions, some half-buried beneath others, others lying out in the open as if dropped where they fell. It didn't look like a fight—it looked more like a massacre.
Nightwing's gaze swept across the carnage, his expression tautening, disbelief flickering across his features despite everything he'd seen in Gotham. "What the hell…?" he muttered under his breath, the words barely came through the oppressive silence.
Then the silence broke.
A contained explosion cracked through the yard, snapping all three of their heads toward its source. The sound echoed off the metal heaps, ringing out just long enough to leave a hollow aftershock.
Their eyes landed on the kneeling body of a man several yards away—what was left of him. His lower half remained upright, frozen in that final moment, while his upper body had been completely obliterated, leaving behind a grotesque, smoking ruin.
Batman's eyes narrowed as he shifted his focus. From the corner of his vision, just beyond the skeletal outline of a collapsed crane, he caught it—a fleeting, blurred figure scaling through the darkness, propelled upward by the sharp pull of a grapple line. It was quick and almost indistinct, gone as soon as it appeared, but it was enough.
The silhouette, the movement… and most telling of all, the unmistakable flash of red where a helmet caught the dim light for half a second. He didn't need more confirmation than that.
"Over there." The words left him as he was already moving.
Batman's arm snapped upward, the grapple gun firing with a metallic click as the hook shot forward and latched onto a distant structure. The cable went taut instantly, yanking him off the ground and sending him surging through the air in pursuit.
Nightwing reacted a split second later, launching his own grapple, while Robin kicked off from the ground and followed suit as he joined the chase. For a brief moment, they moved through the night in perfect sync—three shadows chasing a fourth.
But it didn't last.
The trail vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. One second there was a direction, a path—then nothing. No sound, no movement, no trace. Just the empty stretch of Gotham's skyline and the distant hum of the city carrying on as if nothing had happened. They slowed, landing across separate vantage points, each scanning their surroundings, searching for even the slightest sign they could latch onto—but there was none. Red Hood was gone.
Somewhere beyond their reach, Jason had already moved on. After dealing with Grifter, the brief glimpse he caught of them had registered—but barely. It wasn't fear or urgency that drove him away, but indifference.
A chase with Batman, Nightwing, and Robin would only slow him down, and tonight, time was something he couldn't afford to waste. There were still a target waiting at the end of all this chaos. Black Mask.
At this point, the crime lord had become more than just a mark—he was the culmination of everything Jason had pushed through that night. A reward for his troubles. And Jason had no intention of letting that slip away.
So he disappeared into the city like a ghost, as he stealthily weaved through its veins with ease until even the idea of a trail became meaningless.
"We lost him." Nightwing's voice came through, sounding steady but edged with frustration as he dropped down from his position, glancing toward the others as if hoping one of them had something more.
Batman landed moments later on a nearby rooftop, already pulling a pair of customized binoculars from his belt. He raised them to his eyes, scanning the horizon for potential routes—anything that could give them a tip. "We did," he admitted after a moment, his tone remained calm but far from defeated. "But we know where he's headed." There was certainty in his voice now.
Nightwing exhaled sharply as he turned back toward the edge, rolling his shoulders as if shaking off the tension. "Finally," he muttered, a hint of irritation slipping through. "I'm getting real tired of that brat giving us the slip." There was a faint, humorless smirk on his face, but it didn't quite mask the underlying concern. Without wasting any more time, the three of them regrouped, dropping back down toward the vehicles below—gearing up for the next move in a night that was far from over.
Batman had already forwarded the details of the vehicle Black Mask used for his escape to Alfred, trusting him to do what he did best. The data streamed silently through encrypted channels, license plates, damage reports, traffic cams—all from the time period of that night, and feeding into the Batcave's systems.
But this wasn't a straightforward track. Black Mask, for all his arrogance, wasn't careless. He had ditched the original vehicle after a tire had long blown out, abandoning it like a shedding skin before slipping into another stolen ride.
It forced Alfred to pivot, retracing the route of the compromised car. Time stretched in that quiet, tense way it always did during a hunt, each passing second pressing against the edge of urgency—until, finally…he got a location.
A hotel.
The moment Alfred confirmed it, the information was relayed without delay. Batman didn't hesitate as all three redirected toward the designation.
"If Jason chooses to continue his pursuit tonight," Batman began, his voice sounding steady and calculated, "it will take him time to relocate Black Mask." There was a subtle edge to his tone—not quite confidence, but something close to it.
An advantage had presented itself, maybe fragile but real, and he intended to use it. Even if the possibility of Red Hood appearing remained unpredictable.
Nightwing exhaled through his nose, shaking his head slightly as he leaned back. "That's assuming he can even pick up a trail that's been dead this long," he replied, his tone laced with skepticism. In the back of his mind, however, a completely different thought lingered—incredulous, and far more personal. If he ran into Jason tonight, he already knew what his first words would be. 'Really… a frigging RPG?' The absurdity of it still hadn't settled.
Batman didn't indulge the doubt. "We do everything we can to stop him from killing Black Mask," he stated firmly, leaving no room for interpretation. His grip tightened slightly as the Batmobile surged forward, its engine echoing off the surrounding buildings with distant ravings.
Robin's response came almost immediately, his voice came through the comms with restrained frustration. "I still don't understand why we're trying to save him," he said, weaving through the streets with controlled movements.
"Black Mask isn't innocent. He's exactly the kind of person Jason's trying to remove." The words carried more than confusion, they carried challenge. To Robin, this wasn't just a mission. It was a question of principle. Why stop someone from eliminating a man who had poisoned Gotham time and time again?
Batman didn't answer right away. When he did, his tone was somewhat quieter, but no less resolute. "I'll explain later. For now, focus on the mission." It wasn't dismissal, more like prioritization. The answer existed, but it wasn't for now.
By the time they reached the hotel, the city had settled into that late-night stillness where everything felt more exposed. They took position atop a nearby rooftop, the gravel crunching faintly beneath their boots as they crouched along the edge.
From that vantage point, the scene unfolded clearly below them—and it was already in motion. A swarm of security personnel poured out of the hotel entrance, their movements hurried, disorganized, as if reacting to something already in progress. Their attention wasn't behind them, but ahead—toward a building across the street, where something unseen had drawn their focus.
The three of them exchanged silent glances, the shift in atmosphere was immediate. Whatever was happening, they were already seconds behind it.
Fortunately, the hour worked in their favor. The streets below, usually choked with traffic and restless crowds, were nearly empty—just the occasional flicker of headlights passing in the distance. No pedestrians to slow them down, no distracting vehicles to jump or navigate over.
Moving in near-perfect sync, they descended from their vantage point and crossed toward the adjacent building, their approach was swift and unobstructed as they slipped through the quiet like shadows converging on the next stage of the chase.
"Don't tell me… no way he beat us here." Nightwing's voice carried a mix of disbelief and irritation as he vaulted forward, his boots barely making a sound against the rooftop surface before he dropped into motion. The three of them moved fast, angling toward the direction the security guards had flooded toward, but unlike the chaos below, their approach came from above.
Even with the vantage point, even with the speed, there was nothing. No flicker of movement, no telltale sign, no glimpse of a red helmet cutting through the dark. Red Hood was gone… again.
The realization settled in slowly but heavily, like a weight pressing down on all three of them as their search stretched thin and eventually collapsed into nothing.
Their pursuit that night, despite every lead and every calculated move, yielded nothing but dead ends and fading echoes. By the time they finally called it, the city had long since returned to its uneasy quiet, and they were left with the bitter aftertaste of a chase that had slipped clean through their fingers. Red Hood had outmaneuvered them at every turn, elusive to the point of frustration.
- - -
Back at the Batcave, the atmosphere shifted into something less chaotic, but far more suffocating. Despite the failure of the night's operation, Batman remained as he always did: composed, unmoving, his presence seemed as if carved from restraint.
The frustration was there, buried beneath layers of his own discipline, but it never surfaced—not in his posture, not in his voice. Nightwing, on the other hand, made no such effort to conceal his irritation. He paced, muttering under his breath, frustration bleeding into quiet curses directed squarely at Jason for dragging them across Gotham in a relentless, fruitless chase.
As they approached the central console, Alfred stepped aside with grace, vacating the seat for Bruce without a word. The chair turned slightly as Bruce settled into it, the faint hum of the system responding to his presence.
With a slow but deliberate motion, he reached up and removed the cowl, revealing the hardened expression beneath—his features were tight, eyes shadowed with thought rather than exhaustion. The glow of the monitors painted his face in shifting light as he leaned forward, fingers already moving across the keyboard.
At the center of the cave, the largest screen display a paused frame from the hotel's security feed. Bruce pressed a key, and the footage resumed. Dick and Damian fell into stillness beside him, their earlier energy redirected into focused attention as they watched in silence.
"From the hotel's security footage," Alfred began with his usual calm, "the guards stationed outside Black Mask's room appeared to notice something… unusual shortly before your arrival." On-screen, two armed guards exchanged subtle glances before pushing into the room. Seconds later, they stumbled back out with urgent movements, hands rising instinctively to their earpieces as they attempted to alert the others.
Bruce didn't hesitate. A tap of a key shifted the footage to the hallway, then another—now the lobby. The sequence played out seamlessly as more guards reacted, converging, then spilling out of the building in a rush, weapons ready but direction uncertain. They crossed the street in a swarm—the exact moment the three of them had arrived on scene. The connection was immediate and undeniable.
From what they could see, the conclusion was clear. Black Mask had been taken—lifted straight out of his own room—and yet there was no trace of Red Hood entering or leaving through any visible route. No hallway footage, no lobby exit. Nothing. That left only one possibility.
"The balcony," Bruce murmured under his breath, more to himself than the others, his eyes narrowing slightly.
Nightwing folded his arms, leaning back slightly as he let out a quiet scoff, though there was no real humor behind it. "If he makes it out of this alive," he muttered, his eyes still on the screen, "Black Mask might want to reconsider what he's paying his security team."
Damian didn't entertain the comment. Pushing himself off the edge of the console, he stepped forward with his attention fully to Bruce. "Now would be a good time," he said, his tone sounding firm but controlled, "to explain why we're going out of our way to save Black Mask—even if it means crossing paths with Todd."
Before Bruce could respond, Nightwing cut in, his voice edged with lingering frustration. "Just because we don't want to step on toes doesn't mean we let him keep doing this," he said as his gaze flicked between Bruce and the screen. "Jason doesn't get a free pass to play judge, jury, and executioner—no matter who's on the receiving end."
Damian didn't so much as glance in Nightwing's direction after the interruption, his attention remaining locked on Bruce with a quiet, unyielding intensity that made his stance unmistakably clear. Whatever Dick had to say, it simply didn't register as relevant in that moment. This wasn't a discussion he intended to share; it was a question directed at Bruce, and Bruce alone.
Bruce, for his part, had expected this line of questioning. The moment Damian pressed him earlier, it had been inevitable that the conversation would circle back here.
He leaned back slightly in the chair before shifting his body just enough to face his son more directly, the glow of the monitors casting a dim, shifting light across his features. His expression remained composed, but there was a deliberate weight behind his gaze now. He mightbas well teach his son a little lesson on how thing works in Gotham's underworld.
"As you know," Bruce began with a steady voice. "Black Mask holds significant influence within Gotham's underworld. His control extends across multiple territories, and his presence—whether we like it or not—anchors a portion of that system." He paused briefly, not out of hesitation, but to let the words settle, to ensure they were understood rather than merely heard.
He continued, his tone lowering slightly as he leaned into the point. "With Joker gone, and the Bertinelli family reduced to little more than remnants of their former structure, the balance that exists—fragile as it is—is already strained. Removing Black Mask from that equation now…" His eyes narrowed faintly, the implication hanging in the air before he finished it. "…could act as a catalyst."
Damian didn't need it spelled out further. "A power vacuum," he said, stepping forward slightly and already connecting the threads. "One that others would inevitably try to fill."
Bruce gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. "And those who reach for it won't do so quietly," he added. "They'll fight for it. Ruthlessly." His gaze hardened just a fraction, the weight of experience settling into his words. "That kind of conflict doesn't stay contained. It spills over—into the streets, into neighborhoods. Innocents get caught in the crossfire."
The cave seemed quieter for a moment, the hum of the systems filling the space as the reality of it settled in. Bruce held Damian's gaze, ensuring the message landed fully before pressing forward. "Now you understand why we can't allow Jason to go through with this unchecked," he said, his tone firm but not harsh. "The consequences wouldn't just affect him—they'd ripple through the entire city."
Nightwing shifted slightly where he stood with his arms folding across his chest as he let out a quiet breath. "Which," he added, his voice carrying a dry, matter-of-fact edge rather than sarcasm, "means a whole lot more work for us."