It was late at night. Bane and his squad moved like a silent shadow through the forgotten slums of Gotham City.
In the minds of ordinary citizens, a supervillain is often imagined as a towering, unthinking brute—muscles bulging, voice thundering, a primitive monster out of a nightmare, the kind who could eat children whole in breakfast.
In Bane's case… they would be entirely right. Standing at a colossal height of 10 ft, he was a literal mountain of engineered muscle.
And yet, in Gotham, even monsters get prayers. Desperation makes saints of devils.
"Excuse me… can you save my mother?"
A little girl stood directly in the path of the hulking juggernaut. Her tiny, dirt-caked fingers clutched a worn-out puppet—found in a trash heap, much like her own hopes. Her tattered dress swayed in the grimy, wet wind.
"She has cancer," the girl whispered, her eyes wide and begging. "She's in too much pain. The clinic turned us away. People say only God can help her now."
Bane raised a massive, scarred hand, silently stopping his men from shoving the child aside. He crouched slightly, the tubes running along his spine hissing softly as a controlled dose of Venom pulsed through his veins.
"Where is your home?" his deep, gravelly voice rumbled.
The girl pointed to a crumbling, rusted shack behind her. Bane stood up, walked past her, and stepped inside.
Minutes later, he emerged into the alleyway, calmly wiping dark blood and organic matter off his heavy tactical gauntlets with a rag.
"Your mother will never suffer again," Bane said coldly, looking down at the stunned, silent child. "Bury her."
The girl stared at him, stunned and paralyzed.
"Do not ask for help so easily," Bane warned, his glowing eyes cutting through the darkness.
"The world brings only agony to those who beg for mercy. There is no God in this world. But Bane is."
He turned, lifting his chin to look at the sky. The stars were entirely swallowed beneath Gotham's black, toxic veil.
---
Gotham's night was as peaceful as a fresh tombstone.
Acid rain drizzled over cracked neon signs and polluted alleys. The air reeked of rust, sulfur, and broken dreams. On a distant rooftop, Floyd Lawton—Deadshot—methodically loaded a heavy mortar, his specialized cybernetic eye scoping the skyline.
Below on the streets, a sports car roared through the puddles, violently splashing a pedestrian on the sidewalk.
Without missing a beat, the drenched pedestrian pulled a submachine gun from his coat and emptied a magazine into the retreating vehicle.
Da-da-da-da-da-da...
Gotham.
A city so absurdly exaggerated it felt like a parody.
I really hate this place.
"Let me remind you again, Deadshot," a voice echoed sharply through Deadshot's earpiece. It was calm, precise, and carried the slightly nasally tone of Arnold Wesker. "This contract requires zero civilian casualties."
Deadshot sneered, adjusting the mortar's trajectory. "Ventriloquist, you've been running with back-alley syndicates your entire life. When did you suddenly develop the conscience of a Hero?"
"A villain should act like a villain."
"You sure you're not Batman's new informant?" Deadshot mocked, locking the coordinates. "Did the Bat make you wear those classic Robin green briefs under that oversized suit? The ones that leave the thighs completely bare to the Gotham wind? No pants included?"
Thump.
The mortar launched, its arc through the rainy night elegant and lethal.
"Your pay will be cut by fifty percent for every confirmed collateral kill," the Ventriloquist replied coldly.
"Yeah, yeah, I copy." Deadshot licked his lips, lifted an anti-tank rocket launcher to his shoulder, and pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
A rooftop across the district erupted in a spectacular cascade of shredded concrete and fire, perfectly blasting open the Mad Hatter's reinforced safehouse. Screams of panicked henchmen immediately cut through the rain.
The ants had been thoroughly stirred.
"See?" Deadshot muttered, peering through his sniper scope. "I told you I'd flush the Mad Hatter out intact. But… now, I don't feel like finishing the job anymore."
"…But now I don't feel like finishing the job anymore."
"What?!"
"You freaked him out. He's going to bolt into the sewer network. Tracking him down a second time is going to cost ten times the effort, and honestly, not many mercenaries are willing to take Gotham gigs these days with that Bane running around."
A heavy pause lingered over the radio. Then, the Ventriloquist sighed. "Fine. Name your price."
Deadshot smiled at the polluted sky, looking as righteous as a television preacher. "It's going to cost a lot more."
---
Elsewhere in the night—a high school corridor bathed in moonlight and sirens.
The Cheshire Cat walked with slow, graceful steps, her silhouette almost theatrical against shattered glass.
"You do know Victor Zsasz is a psychotic serial killer, correct?" the voice in her headset spoke—this time routed through the pre-recorded, simulated voice of the baby Batman puppet.
"I have no doubt you can defeat him, but my requirement is the safety of every student hostage," the voice rumbled through her earpiece, routing Bruce's cold directives through the communication link. "So, you'll first need to separate Zsasz from the female students, and then—"
"Oh, really?"
Cheshire's long fingers traced her slender waist and the captivating flesh of her chest, lingering on her smiling cat-face mask.
"I don't think that's necessary. Don't you think?"
"What are you saying—"
"She's not talking to you."
The cold moonlight, mixed with the flashing red and blue beams of distant police lights, cut through the high school windows to illuminate the killer rising from the shadows.
A dense, sickening network of tally-mark knife scars etched his massive muscles. His grin was entirely feral.
"Why don't you take off that mask, ma'am?"
"Oh no. You know the rule," she replied, turning slowly as a pair of poison-tipped kunai slipped effortlessly into her hands. "A cat never unmasks—especially not in front of a naked exhibitionist."
Zsasz chuckled, his eyes dancing with madness as he raised his carving knife. "Let's see how many marks a cat is worth."
---
Deep beneath Wayne Manor, the Batcave glowed with dim light.
Batman—or rather, Bruce—used the voice of the ventriloquist to coordinate his mercenary army.
"State your conditions directly," Bruce muttered into the receiver, his eyes scanning the financial wire transfers. "What? More money? Fine. Transferring the retention bonus now."
He hung up the secure line, exhaling a heavy breath, and froze.
Tim Drake, the third Robin, stood a few feet away, his face pale with a mixture of rage and utter disbelief. Because Bruce had strictly ordered him to remain silent while the comms were live, the boy was furiously scribbling on a notepad, thrusting the paper directly into Bruce's face:
-("Batman, I can't believe you didn't take me with you. You hired mercenaries to take down Bane? And worse—you brought bad guys into our house!")
In the corner, the real ventriloquist crouched on all fours, wagging an invisible tail, pretending to be a dog.
Tim clenched his fists. He couldn't punch the clown in front of Bruce. Instead, he continued scribbling:
-(You're not even hiding it anymore! You are actively running a criminal syndicate right in front of my face!)
Bruce sighed and hung up his call.
Tim stared, waiting.
Bruce slowly removed his cowl, revealing a face lined with exhaustion. He looked at the frantic notes, then reached out, placing his heavy hands firmly on the boy's shoulders.
"Is this about Jean-Paul?" Bruce asked quietly, referring to Azrael, whose chest had been crushed by Bane's fist just days prior.
"Not exactly," Tim choked out, his voice cracking. "Bruce, you're losing your mind."
"Listen to me, Tim," Bruce said, his gaze steady, misty, and entirely devoid of the usual dark obsession. "I'm retiring."
"…What?"
"Youth fades, Tim. Passion disappears. The old dreams… they are gone. Batman is just a magnificent, tragic dream that an eight-year-old boy refused to wake up from. But I am finally awake."
Bruce leaned in, his voice dropping to a gentle, human warmth Tim had never heard from him before.
"I will do this one last thing for Gotham. I will erase Bane from the board, and then I am done. And you, Tim… you should be too. You are incredibly smart. You have something rare in this city—a real, living family. A mother. A father. Don't waste your youth fighting a war that never ends."
Bruce smiled faintly, a genuine, bittersweet expression.
"Go to school. Fall in love. Maybe she'll have golden hair, or red hair. Maybe her last name will be Gordon, or Brown. But someday… she'll be a Drake. You will live the normal, beautiful life that I was never allowed to have."
Behind them, a sharp clank echoed through the cave.
Alfred Pennyworth stood frozen by the elevator, the silver tea tray having slipped from his fingers, shattering the porcelain cups across the stone floor. The old butler covered his face with his trembling hands, tears instantly spilling past his fingers.
"Is it real, Master Bruce?" Alfred sobbed, his shoulders shaking with a lifetime of released grief. "Am I… am I truly not dreaming this time?"
Bruce didn't answer. He didn't need to. He simply looked back at the monitors, his sharp, transmigrator mind calculating the coordinate matrices for the upcoming mercenary ambush.
He loved the Batman lore. He respected the tragic mythos. But actually living it?
Sacrificing billions of dollars, his physical health, and his sanity to play dress-up and fight clowns in an alleyway while a universe full of invincible Kryptonians and immortal Amazons existed to handle the world-ending threats?
Absolutely not.
Once Bane was ground into paste by his paid cannon fodder, Bruce Wayne was going to take his billions, pop the finest champagne in Europe, and live a life of uninterrupted, decadent luxury.
"Alfred," Bruce said softly, a razor-sharp, pragmatic smile returning to his face. "Clean up the tea. We have a war to fund."