The night was sharp, biting.
A frigid wind howled across the rooftop of the Zeus Hotel, whistling through shattered glass and twisted steel. It had been nearly two hours since the incident—a gas bomb, a crowd in panic, a crisis barely averted. Now, the revolving restaurant on the top floor stood deserted, its once-vibrant ambiance buried beneath debris and silence.
Only two cops remained, huddled in the cold.
"Jesus, this wind's gonna kill me…" one of them muttered, shoving his hands deeper into his sleeves. His nose ran as he stamped his boots on the ground, trying to keep warm. "Everyone else is probably nursing cocoa in the lounge downstairs. Fire's crackling. Girls in tight uniforms on their laps. And we're up here like a couple of frozen sardines on a tin roof."
His partner nodded, just as bitter.
"Right? This damn hotel's all flash and no soul. That nutjob Zeus didn't even acknowledge us. Hell, we're the ones locking down his crime scene! You'd think the rich weirdo would toss us a drink, at least a hot cup of coffee. Capitalists, man. Miserly bastards."
Just as his grumbling reached full speed, his belt phone buzzed. Startled, he yanked it up.
"Yo. Who's this—Sun-dae? Sundae? Sunday?" he said into the receiver with all the respect of a man forced to work unpaid overtime.
On the other end was Adam.
The Arkham Division detective.
"What's that? You wanna know if we found any playing cards? Circus props? Surprise boxes?"
The officer scoffed, his patience dissolving.
"What the hell's this got to do with Arkham, huh? You already cleared it with our department? Great, good for you. Still ain't our job to be hunting balloons, pal!" Google seaʀᴄh NovᴇlFire(.)nᴇt
With that, he hung up and shoved the phone back into his coat.
"God, this guy. Still calling us about clues this late? What's he expect—extra credit? Ask us if we found any snacks instead, damn it."
His partner chuckled.
"Right? Screw the crime scene. Speaking of poker, there's a casino on the second floor, isn't there?" He raised his brows with a sly grin. "What say we sneak down, warm up with a few hands?"
"Don't gotta ask me twice."
The two collected whatever loose change they had, shoved their hands in their pockets, and strolled off into the elevator. No backup. No care and without a sense of duty.
After all, who the hell was gonna wander up to the top floor this late at night?
A shape emerged from the shadows.
A towering figure cloaked in darkness, his silhouette cut like a blade against the night sky. His cape fluttered in the wind like the wings of a great, silent predator.
He moved with purpose.
Every step deliberate. Every breath measured.
His cowl swept from side to side, scanning the devastation. His voice came low and controlled, barely above a whisper as he spoke into the comm in his cowl.
"Alfred, the scene's contaminated. Completely. We're too late for clean evidence."
Back at Wayne Manor, Alfred's voice crackled into his ear, calm and quintessentially British.
"Master Bruce, regardless of evidence, the incident was resolved. Lives were saved. And you didn't even have to intervene. That, I'd say, is a small miracle in Gotham."
Batman didn't answer right away.
He crouched beside a broken toy doll, its smile painted wide and hollow. He turned it over in his glove, eyes narrowed.
"How's the wound?" Alfred asked gently.
Batman's jaw clenched.
He remembered the moment clearly—descending toward Zeus Hotel in the chaos, only to feel a sharp impact strike his side midair. A bullet. The Kevlar stopped it, but just barely. He hadn't seen the shooter. He hadn't heard the shot. It had come out of nowhere.
Later, when he pulled the slug from his armor, he was stunned. A standard-issue round—fired from an old police revolver.
From a rooftop that high, with a weapon that inaccurate?
That shot should've been impossible.
And yet, someone had pulled it off.
His delay had given others the stage: Adam. Nygma. Deadshot.
They'd solved the crisis.
And Batman had watched from the shadows, bleeding.
"Still," he muttered, "the perpetrator escaped."
He stood, scanning the room again. "Had the police secured the perimeter sooner, conducted full sweeps... we might've caught the bastard."
"Regret will not rewrite the scene, sir," Alfred replied gently. "Besides, your young detective acquaintance—Adam—he handled things well. Showed initiative. He didn't pause to worry about protocol or jurisdiction. That alone makes him stand above most of Gotham's blue line."
Batman didn't respond. Instead, he pulled out a scanning device and waved it across the shattered remains of the toys.
Chemical readings pulsed across the HUD.
"Interesting…" Batman's brows furrowed. "This gas—its molecular structure doesn't match anything in the Joker's previous arsenal. The compound's been altered… redesigned. This isn't just laughing gas. It's a new creation. Something more unstable. More lethal."
He quickly stored a sample in his utility belt.
"Whoever designed this isn't just a maniac. They're a scientist. A chemist. A sadist with imagination."
But it wasn't just the formula that bothered him.
It was the design. The setup.
"This whole act… it wasn't even done with full force," Batman said slowly. "The layout, the traps, the gas… they weren't optimized. It's like—like someone was just playing around."
He turned toward the shattered window, wind tearing at his cape.
"Like a child experimenting with how far he can push before things truly break."
Back at the manor, Alfred closed his eyes.
"Master Bruce," he said softly, "Gotham is a vortex. It draws in madmen the way flame draws moths. Each one more strange, more terrifying than the last. But... perhaps there's a story I once heard that may shed light on your current puzzle."