"What? Mr. Bruce is going away?"
Jude's face showed an expression that he hoped read as disappointment but probably looked more like poorly suppressed relief.
Alfred stood in Wayne Manor's sitting room, tea tray balanced on one hand with the effortless grace of decades of practice. If he noticed Jude's reaction was less than genuine, his perfectly neutral expression gave nothing away.
"Indeed," Alfred said, pouring Earl Grey into delicate cups. "Business matters that require his personal attention. He'll be gone for several days, perhaps longer."
"Oh, that's too bad." Jude accepted the cup, careful to use proper etiquette despite his internal celebration. "I was hoping to finally meet him properly. But I suppose in Gotham City, we'll have opportunities to meet again sooner or later."
He took a sip of tea, then reached for one of Alfred's homemade cookies—buttery shortbread with just the right amount of vanilla.
"There's no need to rush a gentleman's friendship," Jude continued, then gestured at the cookie with genuine enthusiasm. "Speaking of which, Mr. Alfred, how are these made? The texture is perfect—crisp on the outside, tender in the middle. Is it the butter ratio, or do you chill the dough before baking?"
Alfred's expression warmed slightly. "A combination of both, actually. I find that European-style butter with higher fat content produces superior results, and a thirty-minute rest in the refrigerator allows the flour to fully hydrate..."
This had become Jude's routine over the past week, ever since Batman had mentioned he'd be "busy recently" and wouldn't be available for their usual rooftop encounters.
Which meant Jude could finally visit Wayne Manor without the awkwardness of meeting Batman's civilian identity face-to-face while knowing exactly who was behind the billionaire playboy facade.
He'd started coming by every other day, ostensibly to thank Alfred for the Christmas invitation he'd never properly responded to. In reality, he came for the food.
Alfred's cooking skills were definitely master-level—possibly even beyond that. Every meal was a masterclass in technique, flavor balance, and presentation. The tea was always perfectly steeped. The pastries were always fresh and expertly executed.
Jude brought homemade offerings in exchange—cookies made with system-produced ingredients and his Advanced Culinary Mastery, bread that used the Horn of Plenty's infinite supplies, experimental fusion dishes that combined his previous life's knowledge with Gotham's available ingredients.
Alfred accepted these contributions with genuine interest, sometimes asking for recipes, occasionally offering gentle critiques that Jude absorbed like a student in a cooking academy.
Wayne Manor had plenty of visitors—socialites and businesspeople and hangers-on who came seeking connections, money, influence, whatever they could extract from proximity to the Wayne name.
But apparently it didn't have many visitors who just wanted to talk about proper creaming techniques for butter and sugar, or debate the merits of French versus Italian meringue methods, or sit in comfortable silence eating scones while rain pattered against the windows.
Alfred seemed to appreciate having a "greedy and gossipy neighbor" who was greedy only for cooking knowledge and whose gossip extended only to sharing recipes and kitchen disasters.
"You're far away from home," Alfred had mentioned once, amused. "It takes you quite some time to drive here from Otisburg."
Jude had shrugged. "Good food is worth the commute."
The truth was more complicated. Alfred was kind, patient, and reminded Jude of the grandfather he'd never had in either of his lives. Wayne Manor felt safer than anywhere else in Gotham—partially because of its security systems, partially because Jude knew Batman would never let anything happen to Alfred's guests.
And yes, the food was genuinely incredible.
Alfred, for his part, had formed a favorable impression of this young man who clearly had no interest in joining Gotham's upper class. All the "upper-class" elements of Jude's visits were visibly uncomfortable for him—the suit he wore was expensive but ill-fitting, like he'd bought it specifically for these occasions and hadn't quite broken it in. His table manners were adequate but unpracticed. His conversational topics veered toward the practical rather than the social.
If not for basic etiquette concerns, Jude would probably show up in jeans and a T-shirt.
But for Alfred—who'd spent decades managing Wayne Manor's endless parade of false friends and genuine sycophants—sincerity and kindness could surpass most breaches of etiquette.
Jude was sincere. Was kind. Asked genuine questions and listened to the answers.
That was rarer in Gotham than master-level cooking skills.
"Now," Alfred said, setting down his teacup with a soft clink, "shall we move on to the puff pastry demonstration you requested? The key is maintaining proper butter temperature during the lamination process..."
Jude pulled out a notebook, ready to learn.
Outside Wayne Manor's windows, Gotham sprawled in its usual state of barely controlled chaos.
But for this moment, in this kitchen, two men who'd found unexpected friendship discussed the finer points of pastry technique.
It was possibly the most wholesome thing happening in the entire city.
In the days without Batman, even Gotham's criminal element seemed a bit happier.
Not particularly happy—this was still Gotham, after all, where happiness went to die. But there was a certain loosening of tension, a slight reduction in the paranoia that came from knowing a vengeful creature of the night might drop from the sky at any moment.
Petty theft increased by 12%. Home invasions by 8%. The usual uptick that occurred whenever Batman was visibly absent.
Unfortunately for the criminals, weird things had started happening across the city.
Things that didn't quite make sense.
Things that would eventually become another strange urban legend in Gotham's already extensive collection.
"Charlie! Hey, Charlie!"
The voice was hushed, urgent, carrying the particular tension of someone trying to whisper-shout. Two masked figures huddled in the hallway of a modest apartment, speaking in low tones as if the neighbors might hear through walls that had never stopped any sound in their existence.
"What's wrong, Walter?"
"Have you finished searching?"
"Yeah, I'm done. You?"
"Same. Got the jewelry, the cash from the safe, some electronics. Not a bad haul."
Both men glanced toward the living room simultaneously.
On the floor, bound with excessive amounts of rope and duct tape, a man and a woman lay trembling. Their hands were tied behind their backs. Their ankles were bound together. More rope wrapped around their torsos, securing them so thoroughly they could barely breathe properly.
Guns pointed at their heads from where the robbers had set them down on the coffee table—a threat and a reminder.
The couple's faces were blurred with tears. The woman was hyperventilating through her nose, the only available breathing passage since her mouth was sealed with tape. The man's eyes were wide with terror, darting between the two criminals, searching desperately for any sign of mercy.
"So, uh..." Charlie cleared his throat. "What about the two of them?"
"Can't we just leave them alone?" Walter shifted uncomfortably. "They're tied up. Won't get free for hours. We'll be long gone."
"Idiot!" Charlie's whisper became sharper. "Then why did you call my name? Is this your first day doing this?!"
Walter's eyes widened behind his ski mask. "Fuck! Didn't you call my name too?"
The realization hit both of them simultaneously.
On the floor, the couple's desperate hope transformed into crushing despair. They'd heard the names. Which meant they were witnesses. Which meant—
The woman began shaking her head frantically, trying to make sounds through the tape, pleading wordlessly with everything she had.
The man just closed his eyes, tears streaming down his face.
"Shit." Charlie paced in a tight circle. "Okay. Okay. What do we do? We have to—we can't leave them."
"Kill them?" Walter's voice cracked slightly on the words.
"Don't use a gun. Too loud. Neighbors will hear." Charlie was already moving toward the kitchen. "I'll find a knife. Make it quick."
He disappeared into the other room, leaving Walter alone with the bound couple.
The woman's muffled sobs were the only sound.
Walter stared at them for a long moment. Then something shifted in his eyes—something dark and opportunistic.
"Charlie!" he called toward the kitchen. "Bring a wet towel too!"
"What for?"
"Wash this woman's face. I like it clean and beautiful"
Walter pulled a condom from his pocket, started unbuckling his belt.
Charlie stormed back into the room and kicked Walter hard in the back, sending him sprawling. "Damn it, we don't have much time and you're thinking about—"
"Why did you hit me?!" Walter scrambled up, furious. "Are you crazy?"
"You're the fucking crazy one!" Charlie brandished a kitchen knife. "Slash their necks and leave! Don't leave any more evidence than we already have!"
The two criminals argued over the bodies of their victims like they were debating how to prepare chickens for dinner rather than how to end two human lives.
The couple on the floor had stopped struggling. Had stopped hoping.
This was it. This was how they died. In their own home, killed by two incompetent thieves who'd gotten their names on a bad day.
Then—
CRACK.
A sound from the window. Sharp, sudden, completely unexpected.
Both criminals spun around.
An eagle perched on the windowsill outside—huge, fierce, with a beak that looked like it could punch through concrete. As they watched, the bird reared back and drove its beak into the glass with tremendous force.
The window shattered.
And in the heartbeat between the glass breaking and the criminals processing what was happening, a black-cloaked figure swung past the window on what might have been a grappling line or might have been sheer momentum.
Two soft thwip sounds.
Charlie and Walter both jerked, hands flying to their necks where small darts had embedded. Their eyes rolled back. They collapsed in perfect synchronization, hitting the floor hard enough to rattle the furniture.
The kitchen knife clattered across the hardwood, skittering to a stop near the bound couple's feet.
The figure outside the window rolled through the broken frame with practiced grace—black cloak billowing, hood obscuring features, moving with efficiency that spoke of training or experience or both.
Jude landed in the apartment, assessed the scene in two seconds flat, made a decision.
He ignored the bound couple for the moment—they weren't in immediate danger now. Instead, he grabbed the unconscious criminals, stripped off their pants and shirts with ruthless efficiency, tied the clothing into makeshift knots around their wrists and ankles.
Then he picked both men up and hung them from the broken window frame by their knotted clothing.
Their bare asses swayed in the night breeze, pale and ridiculous against Gotham's dark skyline.
"We're done with this one," Jude said to the eagle still perched outside. His voice came out filtered through a voice modulator he'd jury-rigged into the hood—deeper, older, unrecognizable. "Let's move to the next location."
The eagle cawed once in acknowledgment.
Jude turned to leave—
And found the couple staring at him with expressions of absolute shock, tears still streaming down their faces but now mixed with something that might have been awe or confusion or hysterical relief.
Right. Witnesses.
Jude grabbed the kitchen knife they'd been trying to reach, quickly cut through the ropes binding their hands, then tossed the knife onto the couch.
"Call the police. They'll find these two hanging outside."
His voice modulator made the words sound ominous, which wasn't the effect he wanted, but there was no time to explain.
Jude climbed back out the window, gripped the fire escape, and descended with the practiced speed of someone who'd been doing a lot of climbing lately (Advanced Climbing Mastery, thank you very much).
He reached the ground in twelve seconds, pulled out his wheelchair from where he'd hidden it in the alley, and paused to listen.
The birds were chattering. A mugging three blocks north. Domestic violence two blocks east. Car theft in progress near the docks.
Jude sighed, climbed into the wheelchair, and activated its upgraded systems.
All the LED lights that normally made the Will-O-Wisp Wheelchair look like a disco prop had been disabled. The special dark matte paint he'd paid $5,000 to apply absorbed light like a black hole, making the wheelchair nearly invisible against Gotham's perpetual darkness.
This was the high-speed night travel mode.
In this configuration, the wheelchair's sound and light reflections were minimized to near zero. The upper speed limit increased from a already-impressive 120 km/h to a frankly terrifying 200 km/h. The rain and wind protective shell had been replaced with bulletproof composite materials that could withstand small arms fire.
It could now serve as mobile cover during gunfights, assuming Jude was insane enough to get into gunfights (jury was still out on that one).
The downside was that other drivers literally couldn't see him coming, which made high-speed navigation through traffic extremely dangerous.
Which was why Jude had spent another significant chunk of money upgrading his Wheelchair Driving Mastery from Advanced to Master level.
Worth every penny. Probably. He hadn't crashed yet, which was basically a miracle in Gotham.
Why was he so obsessed with a wheelchair instead of, say, a motorcycle like a normal vigilante?
Size. A wheelchair could fit through narrow alleys, doorways, between parked cars, across pedestrian areas where vehicles couldn't go. It was more maneuverable than a car, faster than running, and could handle Gotham's broken infrastructure better than most bikes.
And yes, okay, it looked absolutely ridiculous. A man in a black cloak riding a stealth wheelchair through Gotham at 200 km/h. He was aware.
He didn't care.
It worked.
Jude activated the acceleration, felt the familiar g-force press him back into the seat, and shot through Gotham's streets like a shadow on wheels.
Since obtaining Intermediate Nature Language Proficiency, Jude's world had become... louder.
All the birds, beasts, flowers, plants, and trees in Gotham City were constantly talking to him. Not in words—it was more like emotional impressions, directional awareness, a constant stream of biological data that his brain had learned to process subconsciously.
A pigeon witnessing a mugging would broadcast alarm and location.
A tree near a domestic violence incident would communicate distress and displacement.
Rats in the sewers would chatter about the drug deal happening in the warehouse above them.
It was information overload, constantly, 24/7.
Jude had learned to filter most of it—background noise that he could ignore unless he specifically focused on it. But once he heard about a serious crime, he couldn't unhear it.
Which meant he was morally obligated to respond.
In the past, he'd comforted himself with the knowledge that Batman was patrolling Gotham. The Dark Knight had the vigilante activities covered. Jude didn't need to get involved except in emergencies that directly affected him.
But now?
Batman was gone. Temporarily, but gone.
Which meant Jude had become one of the few people in Gotham City who had both the willingness and the means to stop violent crimes in progress.
He'd tried pretending he didn't hear the reports. Had tried going to bed early, putting in earplugs, anything to avoid the responsibility.
But he really, genuinely didn't like seeing people get hurt. And when you knew someone was about to be murdered or assaulted or worse, and you had the power to stop it...
How could you just ignore that?
So here he was, riding a wheelchair through Gotham at midnight, responding to crime reports from sentient vegetation.
This was his life now.
Crime #2: Theft in progress, bodega on 5th Street
Jude arrived to find a nervous teenager holding up the store owner with what was very obviously a fake gun. The "weapon" was plastic, painted black, missing the trigger guard because it was a toy.
The store owner knew it was fake. Was staring at the kid with more pity than fear.
The teenager was shaking so hard his fake gun was vibrating.
Jude deployed a different approach.
He appeared in the doorway, cloaked and imposing, voice modulator making him sound like divine judgment.
"This theft, regardless of circumstances, isn't worth it. Your crime isn't serious enough to ruin your life over."
The teenager dropped the fake gun and ran.
The store owner nodded at Jude in thanks.
Jude left before questions could be asked.
Crime #3: Public indecency, Memorial Park
A man was running naked through the park, screaming about government mind control and aliens living in the sewers.
Jude watched from a distance.
"This naked streaker..." He shook his head. "Mental health crisis. Made me laugh a little. Nothing I can do here that won't make it worse."
He called it in to emergency services and moved on.
Some problems needed different solutions.
Crime #4: Drug deal, abandoned warehouse near the docks
This one was straightforward.
Jude arrived on his silent wheelchair, released several aggressive squirrels he'd asked nicely to help, and watched as chaos erupted.
Dealers and buyers alike ran screaming from rabid-looking rodents that weren't actually rabid, just highly motivated by Jude's promise of unlimited acorns if they'd bite some criminals for five minutes.
Jude collected the dropped drugs, threw them in the harbor, and was gone before anyone recovered.
The dark wheelchair wandered through Gotham's streets and alleys like a ghost, guided by the natural language of the entire city.
Within days of Batman's disappearance, Gotham City would likely develop another strange urban legend