Chapter 15: Slip And Fall
Selina had kept an eye on Max all night long, as she often did whenever he stopped in to work late night shifts for her at the Tin Roof Club. This time around, she noticed something very uncharacteristic about him. He had a markedly more pleasant demeanor, and had been much less sarcastic and snippy.
He had even hung around all night until after last call to help her close up the bar. He never did that, especially on a school night, which it was.
"Okay, what are you into?" She eventually asked as he put away the chairs throughout the establishment.
Max paused long enough to look back at her before he continued with his manual labor, "What?" He replied in passing.
Selina shook her head. She knew he'd heard her clearly the first time, "You're in too good of a mood. That means you either made a big score, which you didn't because if you had you would have told me about it-," For some reason, Max seemed to take his ideas to Selina, as if he wanted her to grade them like he was in school, "-Or something else is happening. So come on, kid, spill. What are you into?"
Instead of getting defensive, Max sauntered over to her with a big grin plastered on his face. Oh yes, he was definitely feeling too pleased with himself for whatever reason, "I'm not into anything. I'm just happy to be alive. Can't I be happy?"
"Nope. It doesn't fit your narrative," Selina declared bluntly, "Max Gabriel is a wretched excuse for a teenager, which is saying something, because most of you are miserable to begin with. At least you don't brood. Ick. Then I wouldn't have anything to do with you."
"Oh, you don't like broody guys?" Max teased, finding an easy target to go after, "Don't know what you see in Batman, then."
"Such a smartass," Selina replied, taking the jab in stride, "You really must be feeling good today."
Now this, Max couldn't deny. He was feeling good. Great even, "Things have been going my way. Everything's been coming up 'Max' lately, and I don't want to jinx anything, but I have to say that it's about damn time."
XxX
(Metropolis – LexCorp Headquarters)
Construction was coming along nicely on the 'broadband towers' that were going up all over the country, courtesy of LexCorp.
Luthor couldn't help but be pleased with the progress that was being made. In just a matter of weeks, maybe months at the latest, he would have what he needed to turn the United States into an anti-Kryptonian zone. They wouldn't be able to get within a fair distance of the coast. Any coast.
And being inside of the country itself… they were all as good as dead. Superman, Supergirl, Superboy… any being with so much as a speck of Kryptonian in them. The radiation would do away with them in short order.
His technicians were quietly working at the same time as the rest of the crews involved with the construction, getting everything together. The same machine in charge of the signal would be linked with what was projecting the Kryptonite. One would have to know exactly what they were looking at to tell otherwise, which could not be done by someone without a deep understanding of the blueprints.
He had the only blueprints available. From what had been taken from the stolen plans, he had twisted them into something that an engineer that had worked on the original design couldn't even recognize.
The day the towers were all activated, that would be it.
He couldn't wait.
XxX
(Moon's Surface – Justice League Watchtower)
Every week or so, a news story would pop up about the progress of LexCorp's intended broadband tower project. It looked to be business as usual for the company, but because it was Lex Luthor's company, it required a measure of scrutiny.
Lex had been quiet ever since resigning his position as President of the United States and tediously restoring his reputation, which he was still doing. It seemed like he saved these large-scale philanthropic projects for when he was really trying to buy his way back into the good graces of the general public whenever his attempted manipulation of events and facts didn't work.
The annoying thing was that it usually seemed to work anyway. People would forget that he was a scumbag when he was paying for a multimillion upgrade to their city or town.
"Metropolis is definitely the city of tomorrow. But I believe all of America has the potential to be the same. The first step is making sure that as many people as possible out in our rural areas have access to the same quick, reliable internet as the people in our major cities. One strong connection will lead to another that's much more important for all of us."
An android, red in color with yellow markings and a blue cape watched the short report and sound bite of Luthor with an unreadable expression as other heroes moved about the Justice League Watchtower.
"I'm not sure what to make of this," The android said after the story ended to the only other person sitting and watching it with him, "What do you think, Jefferson?"
Sitting with him, scrutinizing the report just as closely was a black man garbed in a dark blue bodysuit with black lightning shaped designs trimmed in yellow and a black domino mask with amber-colored lenses. Jefferson Pierce was very familiar with Luthor, both from his time as a member of the Cabinet, and as the superhero Black Lightning.
"Luthor was into this sort of philanthropic crap all of the time back when he was President, but I figured out how to find what his game was quickly enough whenever he did. What he had to gain from it, you know?" The African-American superhero's brow furrowed in thought, "Other than people paying for broadband under LexCorp's umbrella, which will make him more money. But other than that… I can't see anything illegal here."
Which was a problem.
He'd spent his entire time as Luthor's Secretary of Education keeping an eye on the man as President, and he still had trouble thinking of the way the man tried to operate. The only thing he knew for sure was that Lex didn't do anything that wasn't designed to put him above someone else.
XxX
(Gotham City – Max's Apartment)
Rose drummed her fingers off of the kitchen table, her nails tapping against the wood underneath the sheet of paper that sat in front of her.
On it, a list of names of some of Gotham's criminal movers and shakers.
Names that Rose was meant to thin out in some regard, to get things buzzing out on the street and make it easier for Intergang to establish a slice of the city for themselves. She was armed, she was motivated, she was ready.
Her weapons had arrived, courtesy of a brave soul willing to transport her gear from Metropolis. She had been exceedingly grateful, almost giddy when they'd been dropped off in broad daylight. Hopefully Max wouldn't mind that she hid them all in the hallway closet. All that was in there were coats and other cold weather clothes too big for Max to fit. They were probably his parents' belongings.
The guy never talked about them, even less than she herself talked about her own family. There was likely some bitterness there, though with her own twisted feelings about Deathstroke, she couldn't really talk.
'Whatever. It's not my problem,' What was her problem however, was this hit list of hers. She didn't have to get them all, as it was quite lengthy, but she had to make a decent enough dent to where Intergang could safely make some kind of move to establish themselves.
Thankfully, she'd already done a bit to mark off at least one of the names on the list. The Trigger Twins had been on it for whatever reason, and she had killed them. She'd killed the hell out of them. With a smile, she crossed their names out.
Now who would be the softest target? Not only that, but who would be a significant target, as well as one that wouldn't necessarily create much of a fuss for the others to get up in arms about after the fact?
As she considered her options, Max opened the door to the apartment and walked in with a yawn after a long night working and a long day at school. Seeing that she was too preoccupied to greet him or so much as acknowledge that she was back, Max reached out and sent a miniscule jolt of electricity through the metal frame of the chair that Rose was in, giving her a shock on the back of her legs.
She let out a yelp before quickly realizing what had happened, "Sparks, you're so dead," Max turned around in the hall just in time for Rose to throw a punch at him. However, no part of her body could get within a foot of him, "What the hell? What did you do?"
A tired smile came to Max's face as he watched Rose struggle to try and get close enough to pay him back for shocking her, "Fuckin' magnets. How do they work?"
Rose gasped in shock before grinning evilly and charging right at him full-force. She never made contact, but instead pushed him behind the wall of magnetic repulsion that Max had set up in the first place. Even if she couldn't touch him, she was still physically stronger than him.
"Shit!" Max shouted before his back slammed into the far wall, followed by Rose crashing into him once the concentration holding up magnetic repulsion wall fell. Thoroughly squashed with the breath knocked out of him, he slid to the floor in a boneless heap, "…Ow. I have neighbors, you know."
"Serves you right for playing with your powers on me," Rose taunted as Max remained seated on the floor against the wall, "Is it just me, or are they weaker without the suit on?"
"They are," He acknowledged, knowing full well how strong he wasn't without the suit. He'd spent days at school just messing around with his powers in his spare time to see how difficult it was to do things that he wouldn't think twice about in the supersuit, "At least I still have some juice to me without the suit on."
His powers worked like a muscle for the most part, in that the more he used them, the more potent they became. That went for both in and out of the suit, and they were proportionate. The stronger one became, the stronger the other one would get in return.
Rose grabbed Max's hand and yanked him up off of the floor back onto his feet, "Trying to figure out what life without the suit will be like when you finally tear it to shreds?"
He didn't want to think about it that way, but it was definitely a factor. Hope was still alive that he could find someone out there that could fix it for him, or at least point him in the right direction to fix it himself, "There's got to be something I can do."
"Well if you had the material to fix it yourself, this might not be a problem," "You said you've got the blueprints to the suit, right? You can't be so dumb that you can't give it a patch job."
She was probably right. From what he'd seen when he'd been shot, slashed, and stabbed, the material around the true frame of the suit would weave itself back together from small things. If he could set some of the same material in the places that had been damaged, it would probably fix itself. The problem was, he didn't know where to get it from for himself.
"I'm not a sciency kind of guy. I don't know where they would keep the kind of materials that my parents used to make-," He stopped in his tracks, considering just what it was he was talking about.
His parents. His parents who were scientists.
Scientists who worked for other places in town.
Places that they were able to procure materials from in every place they worked.
With all of that in mind, Max stood up and made for the door. He had some pondering to do, "…I'll see you later," He said, abruptly leaving Rose without prompting.
Rose moved out of his way and watched him head down the hallway to head out, "What? Where are you going?"
"Gonna go figure out how to rob Wayne Enterprises. Don't wait up."
"Hold on. What?"
Max stopped and let out a sigh, realizing that Rose wasn't privy to his parents' background, "After they got fired from S.T.A.R. Labs, my parents bounced around as scientists to anywhere that would let them do their research on the stupid suit on the side," He explained, condensing the career portion of his parent's lives. He still didn't like talking about them, "They worked for a branch of Wayne Enterprises for a while."
When he was digging up information from their notes on the suit back around the beginning of his time learning how to use it, he learned that they had worked on different aspects of it while they had been employed at different companies. Wayne Enterprises had been where they had come into possession of the regenerative fibers that comprised the suit's padded protective exterior.
"And that means you're going after them, why exactly?" Rose asked, "You could just buy it."
Right, because he had money now he was supposed to do things the right way. That had always been the plan, right? "…Or I could do it the free way. And not give the world's best detective a clue on finding me by doing it in-costume."
Rose opened her mouth to try and serve as the voice of reason before stopping to question why it even mattered to her. There was that backbone she was hoping he'd show more of. Taking the initiative to do something like that just because he felt like it was a step in the right direction.
"Well when you put it like that, have fun," She told him as she sat back down at the kitchen table and waved goodbye without looking his way again, "I'll just be here, figuring out who to kill on this list first."
Max nodded, not at all disturbed at his roommate's casual mention of intended murder, grabbing a jacket on his way out, "Okay, bye."
He had long since gotten past the part where he would have felt bad about not being disturbed by Rose's homicidal eccentricities. At least none of it was directed at him.
XxX
(Wayne Industries)
Null could see his breath in the winter air, but his focus wasn't on the temperature outside. Other than in the places that had been damaged, his suit took care of his body temperature well enough to put it out of his mind.
He had spent hours both as Max and as Null, digging into public records of Wayne Industries facilities in Gotham City and casing the location that he had deduced as the one he wanted.
Matching the place of his parents' employment at the time that they incorporated it into his supersuit's design allowed him to narrow things down it being Wayne Industries, and from there it was easy to find the facility that had what he wanted. He knew the name of the material he was looking for, and it wasn't exactly used widely because of its cost and difficulty to make. Very few places would have it at all.
It didn't take a master hacker skills to find it. It didn't take any hacking at all, really.
Even so, it was another big-time heist, and this time he didn't have the plan of someone else to go off of, the way he had during the S.T.A.R. Labs job. He had to do his research and do it well.
Getting more of the regenerative fibers wasn't his only reason for being there. If he could get his hands on the process behind making, he could probably find a way to get them made for himself when he needed them again. So that was the primary goal. If he could find some of what he needed first-hand while he was inside, that was all the better.
Since his powers had evolved, Null found it easier to disrupt cameras without being seen or outright breaking them, so moving about the property wasn't such a big deal. He still had to avoid being seen by human sentries, but startlingly enough, at this facility, there were no human sentries. It was all automatic security. Infrared sensors which would further lock down doors that were already bolted tight to begin with.
It was odd though. Since there were no guards, if he tripped some sort of security trigger, who would come running to get him? The police wouldn't make it fast enough to stop him if there was no one there to even try to hold him back.
'There's something to this I'm not seeing,' Null thought to himself as he disrupted the magnetic lock on the door to the next wing of the facility.
He was inside of a factory and storage facility that didn't make money, yet seemed just as up-to-date, if not more so than any other Wayne Enterprises location that he had seen. He kept expecting to turn the next corner and run into some space-age secret that was being kept under wraps as a part of some big conspiracy.
Instead, he found an almost empty shipping wing. Large shelves meant to store massive crates that would be unpackaged and split up to be sent to other locations sat empty except for a specific few in certain areas. The lights automatically flickered on once he stepped inside and started looking around for what he'd come for.
His footsteps were silent. Even though he was alone and there wasn't a soul within the entire building, he felt as though making a single sound would make him.
Checking several of the containers, he eventually found a crate inside one that matched the formal name for what he was looking for. Just one crate though. Why so little?
Either way, he opened it up and quickly ripped open the packaging on an individual sheet of fabric. Sticking it in place at the edge of the hole in the supersuit, he watched it meld into place in under a minute. Flushed with success, he took as many more as he needed to finish the job.
Null let out quiet laughs of triumph as he could see the regenerative fibers almost immediately taking effect, patching the missing chunk of his suit to the point that it was before it was damaged so severely against Felix Faust.
He quickly put everything back the way he found it before he'd come, putting the lid back on the crate and shutting the container he'd found it inside of before backtracking his way out of the facility.
There was an added skip to his step as he retraced the path he'd taken to get in, set to make a clean getaway. By the time anyone there figured out anything was wrong he'd have been long gone. Besides, he hadn't taken that much of anything. Just what he needed for maintenance on his suit. It wasn't his fault that they kept so little of it.
As he reached the outdoors and started traversing the outside of the facility, he heard the faint sound of the alarm going off inside and cringed.
That wasn't possible. There was no one there but him. He had checked all over before he had even begun to try and steal anything. There hadn't been another thief around who could have blown it for him. There was no security patrol that could have noticed something amiss. There wasn't even some guy watching monitors inside.
Either way, it was time to make himself scarce. He'd had no run-ins with the police up until this point, and if he made himself scarce in a timely enough manner, he could change and be halfway to the nearest train home before any costumed crime fighters showed their faces.
Magnetically reaching out for the nearest sturdy metal object, Null yanked himself off of the ground and clear out of the facility grounds and broke out in a full sprint.
He used everything he had ever learned about shaking potential pursuers. Alternate between the alleys and the rooftops at random. Don't make the mistake of heading down into the sewers; those held dangers of their own even if you knew how to traverse that labyrinth. Don't be predictable in your course; you know Gotham City well enough to figure out where you are and get back on course whenever you find yourself to be safe.
It wasn't enough.
As he descended into another alley and sprinted through, focusing on regulating his breathing and listening out for trouble over the pounding of his heart, he passed by a device hidden in the dark that let off a proximity beep as he got close. A blast went off right at Null's feet just as he passed by, sending him flying into a wall. He smashed into the brick and rolled off, hitting the ground hard, his head swimming, "Shit. What the…?"
He got up and tried to keep going, but found himself with some company when he tried for a change of scenery and switched levels to the roof. Null saw no shadow when the attack from above was launched against him, but he felt her enter his static field and reacted accordingly to protect himself.
Turning around, he redirected two Batarangs thrown his way and narrowly avoided a diving kick, aided by a grappling gun.
"How'd you get here so fast? The alarm just went off!"
"I've been chasing you for twenty minutes," For whatever reason, she clearly was in no mood for banter and quickly attacked Null again.
Her pace was furious and constant, and even after fighting her a few times, her talent was above his to the degree that holding her off was quite the feat. This was where routinely fighting against someone as well trained and physically enhanced as Rose as training for as long as he had came into play.
Batgirl watched Null's body wave and weave around and under most of her attacks, seemingly refusing to attack in return until he had the perfect opening. If nothing else, he knew that he didn't have the skill to be the aggressor and expect to win.
Null's eyes went wide as Batgirl threw a punch that he intercepted, letting the bottom of her fist slide past the back of his hand in a parry. Using that move, he grabbed her arm underneath his own, locking it in place.
With one arm trapped, Batgirl went for an unconventional move and reached for Null's hood with her free hand. Grabbing behind his head and giving it a sharp tug, she failed to remove it, finding it stuck to his head as though it were connected to the roots of his hair.
Even if his hood remained on, she still yanked his neck back by his head, and such a thing wasn't exactly a comfortable feeling. Quickly moving to reverse his fortunes, Null bent his body underneath Batgirl's reaching arm with her other one still tucked under his. The odd jockeying for position resulted in his grabbing her in a straightjacket hold from behind, binding her arms across her chest.
"Okay, what I took was pretty expensive, but this is a little much," Null said, holding Batgirl in place despite her efforts to struggle away from him. No matter how tightly he grabbed her, she wouldn't stop trying to fight him. After the third attempt to headbutt him, he gave her a good shock to calm her down, "Ooh, I stole from a rich guy's company. I didn't take anything that couldn't be replaced."
Getting tased took the energy right out of her, at least temporarily, leaving her visibly drained, even as she tried to glare at him awkwardly over her shoulder, "How much?"
How much what? How much did he take from the facilty?
"I just told you, I didn't take that much. Even if you busted me for it, I probably wouldn't go to jail for it for that long anyw-," He stopped his roundabout explanation when she started fighting his grip, his answer apparently enraging her enough to raise her spirits anew, "Hey!"
"No, how much did they pay you to set those explosives!?" Batgirl snapped at Null, much to his confusion, "Who put you up to it this time?"
Not a single thing had blown up in Null's presence for the duration of his theft. He hadn't destroyed anything. Even the cameras he'd zapped would have only gone down for a short time, "What explosions?"
When he said that, Null looked up and could see the smoke rising from different areas across Gotham's skyline. If he focused over the sound of the cold wind blowing in the open air, he could hear the distant sirens carrying over to them, albeit faintly.
Someone had blown something up in Gotham City. Multiple somethings.
Batgirl believed that it was him.
This was not good.
Null's heart dropped to the pit of his stomach. As far as misunderstandings went, this couldn't have possibly been any worse, "W-Wait a damn minute. I didn't blow up anything!"
He couldn't take the blame for something like this. Not this. Stealing? Sure. No matter what it was he stole, it wouldn't be anything that bad punishment-wise. Not in comparison to an act that could be considered terrorism. He was a thief. Any job he took was centered around thievery.
But any little credibility he'd had to defend himself was likely shaky after stealing the sole physical weakness to the strongest being and greatest hero on the planet and handing it off to a contract killer.
What could he possibly say that anyone would believe up front? That was what mattered at the moment, and he had nothing. Had Batgirl looked back at him, she would have seen a marvelous impression of a deer caught in the headlights of an 18-wheeler.
"Save it," She said gruffly, "I hope whatever you did this for was worth it."
Batgirl dropped to her knees, bringing her crossed arms over her head so that she could lean forward and yank Null over her head for a throw. He was agile enough to flip through it and land on his feet under normal circumstances, but because he was still stunned by Batgirl's accusations, his body was sent flying. He slid off of the roof and caught himself on the ledge. His grip slipped and dropped him four stories to the ground, only now he was aware enough to lessen the force of his fall and land on his feet.
He felt like a shell of himself. He'd expected a certain level of enmity for the things that he'd done and would do. He was thief. A common criminal. This was so much more than he'd ever thought he'd have to shoulder.
The fabric of Batgirl's cape moving let him know that she had descended down to street level to continue dealing with him. Through the eyeholes of her cowl he could see her blue eyes glaring at him.
So judgmental. So condemnatory.
In the past, it didn't bother him. He deserved the third-degree he received for the things he'd done.
This was not something he had done.
Hurt and fury filled Null's chest at the accusation. He was a lot of things, many that were none too good, but to be considered the kind of scum that would blow up several other buildings and put innocent people in danger it was enough to elicit true anger from him.
Batgirl lunged for Null again, but having previously altered her natural magnetism to the exact opposite of his when he'd gotten his hands on her, she didn't get close enough to attack. Stopped short of hitting him mid-swing, she was close enough to see the faint nuances of his facial expression.
In the time that she had interacted with Null, Batgirl had seen several emotions show in what was visible of his face. Annoyance, confidence, desperation, determination, but never had he looked to be as furious as he was at that exact moment.
"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!" Null bellowed, using his magnetic repulsion abilities against Batgirl's opposite field to his own. He sent her flying with more force than he'd remembered throwing another person since he'd gotten his powers.
Batgirl gasped more from surprise than anything else. The impact was between two magnetic fields. It had nothing to do with her body, at least not until she flew through a nearby storefront, crashing through the window display and coming to a stop on the floor. Surrounded by broken glass and other haphazard objects, she slowly pushed herself up, getting her senses together after the quick ride and the sudden stop.
Outside, Null reached beneath his hood and ran his hand up his face and through his hair. This was awful. But it wasn't the time to dwell. He needed to go, immediately.
He'd bought himself a moment, but she would be back up and on him all over again if he didn't take the time he'd gained and make something of it.
She was tenacious in that way. They all were.
Making himself scarce once more, Null headed off on his way, more dedicated than ever before to get away without leaving any signs of which way he may have gone.
Entering a concealed alley, Null figured it to be as good a time as any to return to the rooftops and get his bearings. There were no fire escapes or any kind of riggings that he could use to give himself a boost. Fortunately he could still cling to surfaces and began to climb by hand, only for his ankle to be grabbed once he got five feet off of the ground.
Unceremoniously yanked from the wall, he dropped to the ground on his back and looked up at the sight of Gotham's chief defender. Harsh and taciturn, he stared down at Null without moving a muscle. A shadowy statue that seemed to be waiting on Null to make a move. To do something. Say something.
Null didn't waste his words. Anything he could have said would have come out in an unintelligible stream of consciousness. It also wouldn't have helped him. Not even to buy time to make an opening. He had been presented with a situation where none could be found.
A narrow alley with a dead end, high walls, no doors, and nothing for Null to weaponize as an object of opportunity.
They had not wound up here by chance. It had been by design.
Batman waited and watched. Whenever he'd come across Null, he followed him until they were close to an area without metal, then let his presence be known once he had corralled him there.
There was nothing metal to grab. He couldn't feel anything within his reach that he could manipulate. There wasn't so much as a Batarang on Batman's person to grab. He had come unarmed, specifically so that nothing he had on his person could be used against him.
Null turned onto his hands and knees and mule-kicked at Batman before taking off in a dead sprint straight to the end of the alley.
'Don't stop. Don't give him anything to grab onto to stop you! Watch your damn feet so he doesn't trip you!'
Null ran. Glancing blows to the side of his face and the back of his head as he scrambled for dear life did nothing to stop him from moving forward. He moved like a rat trying to keep out of an exterminator's grasp.
As he got closer to the mouth of the long alleyway, the feeling came to him like the touch of cold water to a thirsty traveler. The moment Null felt the slightest tingle of metal in his magnetic field of awareness, he grabbed for it and directed it right at Batman.
Turning around and reeling the object in, he saw a metal object go flying at the dark-clad hero and felt temporary triumph, "Ha! Gotcha, bitch!" What he thought was Batman was only a shadow of Batman, "No," He whispered in horror.
Whichever direction he turned to look in next was not the right one. Batman was so close to him that he couldn't figure out which direction he was in with the field surrounding him alone. Batman grabbed Null by the back of his neck, but Null reached behind him and grabbed the man's wrist before he could rabbit punch him. He twisted his own body to get free and face his attacker, but it required him to duck under Batman's arm, exposing him to the lift of a knee that struck him in the forehead.
Null's head and upper body snapped straight upright from the impact, lifting him onto his tiptoes. He got the best look at Batman he'd ever gotten for all of half a second before his vision was filled with Batman's fist.
As a combatant, Null was more than passable. Trained in how to handle himself in street fights by Catwoman, taught techniques in martial arts to supplement the basics he'd been taught as a younger teenager, and forged into a formidable foe by fights with people much better than him, including his own constant training partner, he knew what he was doing.
He knew when he was outclassed, and this was the first time in a fight where he not only had no answer in hand-to-hand combat, he couldn't imagine a circumstance that could arise that would grant him one.
It felt like fighting a ghost. The cape didn't help, as it was the only thing he ever seemed to make contact with when he tried to hit back, and even that was a weapon. Getting hit with the end of it was like taking a cat-of-nine-tails to the side of the face. Stunned from the quick blow, Batman swarmed him and devastated him with a quick flurry of blows that Null couldn't identify in the dark.
Knocked to his back hard enough to roll all the way over to his knees, Null caught sight of a kick coming right for him that he caught underneath his armpit. Despite the immediate pain in his ribs even from the muted blow, Null lashed out desperately with a downward elbow to the top of Batman's captured knee, just above the patella.
It was a solid blow. Null could feel it. It had been the kind of shot that if it didn't immediately leave you lame, would have you limping unquestionably the next day.
Batman's retaliating blow was better.
He slapped his open hands on both of Null's ears as hard as he could, and there was no question that he had done serious harm. Blood trickled from one of his ears and his vision swam. Null's equilibrium was completely destroyed, likely along with one of his eardrums.
While he was disoriented, Batman grabbed him by the wrist, straightening his arm and forcefully dislodging his weakened grip. In one fluid motion, he slammed his forearm into the back of Null's elbow, forcing it to bend about thirty degrees the wrong way.
Null's mouth opened up in a silent scream, the sudden shock of pain ripping through his body sapped his ability to make any kind of functioning noise. His body was paralyzed as Batman let go of him and let the useless limb dangle limply at his side.
His arm. Oh God, his arm. It wasn't supposed to bend that way at the elbow.
Stunned from the previous blow, he was left wide open for a right hook that would leave his jaw opening and closing with click for some time after that day forward. Null's entire body turned a 180 from the force of the blow as he dropped facedown into a puddle, motionless. He moaned in worthless pain, half of his face submerged in the murky water. The cut opened up on the bridge of his nose from Batman's blows bled down, staining it with tinges of red.
Batman stood over him and stared down at the young criminal who only moved for every breath he took. Something about this wasn't right. It didn't sit well with him. As far as Null's modus operandi, destroying anything intentionally had never been part of it. But even if he believed that Null wasn't the one responsible, he still stole again. Stole from his company directly, even if the boy didn't know it.
His little bout of amnesty was over. He was just the same as any other criminal again, and whether he was responsible for the explosions or not, he was still to be judged for what he had done.
"You made your choice. I don't know why, and it doesn't matter. But you had your second chance," Batman said to the unresponsive teenager. As he turned his back, cape billowing behind him, he shook his head, "…What a waste."
XxX
(Two Hours Later)
As he sat in the back of a squad car, Null kept his eyes low to the ground, trying to focus on breathing evenly. He could feel his own heartbeat through his injured arm. The white-hot, searing jolt he received every time he moved it in the slightest would have been enough to elicit whimpers out of a weaker person.
Every officer that had come up to him had tried to yank the seemingly loosely wrapped garment from his head, only to find it stuck fast with static cling. The harder one pulled, the worse a shock they received automatically. At least he could keep his identity concealed for a time. That likely wouldn't last, however.
"The alarm probably stopped him before he could set the last charge. The asshole probably blew the rest of 'em when he was caught."
Null could hear what was being said about him by detectives on the scene of his arrest. Every little thing they did, trying to establish his motive and the possible actions he took to do what they said he had done made him grit his teeth a little harder.
But to anyone looking from afar, not a single expression formed on what could be seen of his face underneath the hood. He wouldn't give any of those gossiping hens the satisfaction of hearing him proclaim his innocence at the top of his lungs. Even though it was the truth, because of what he was no one would listen anyway. It would just be a waste of time and effort
Time and effort that could be better spent figuring out what he was going to do to get away.
"Why did you do it?" Batgirl asked, "How much were you paid to pull this off? It couldn't have possibly been just to buy time to get whatever you took from the last storehouse."
"I didn't do it," He spat, before trying to calm down and speak reasonably, "I steal. I don't blow things up, even to cover my tracks. But you're not going to listen to a word I'm saying, so why am I wasting my breath?" Null said to Batgirl. She was angry with him, and not just over being a thief, "I never, ever tried to make up any excuses, or make it look like I'm better than I really am. I'm not even mad about this," He said, gesturing to his position handcuffed in a police cruiser, "This is what I expected to happen, eventually. I hoped I could've made it out before, but if it ended, I always figured it would wind up this way."
Only, he expected it to be for something he had actually done. The theft he'd performed would only be tacked on to half a dozen counts of whatever you got charged with when you blew up private businesses.
Batgirl tried to read him beyond what he was saying. It wasn't quite resignation to his fate. Instead, it felt like acceptance that this was the way it was going to be… for now.
"You're going to go to Blackgate, you know," Batgirl said, "For this? It's not something any judge will go easy on."
Fear shone in his eyes for a moment before they returned to nothing again. He slowly turned his head toward her and looked her directly in the face, "Batgirl," He said, choosing his words deliberately and carefully, "If you send me to Blackgate… whenever I get out, and I will get out, I really will be as awful a person as you think I am."
Blackgate Penitentiary did not reform criminals. It took confused young men and turned them into the kind of monsters that Gotham City was known for breeding. Men went in petty criminals and came out as veritable foot soldiers with connections some crime family or one of the numerous psychopath criminal outfits in existence in the city.
This would never be Null, because Null was nothing if not self-aware.
He came first, period. He wouldn't be someone's underling, and if he did it would only be for as long as they had any sort of 'power' over him. What specific few morals he took a hard line on now would be cast away in a heartbeat to survive in that horrible place and put himself in an increasingly improved position.
Everyone would be a potential victim, a target, a mark. Something to benefit off of. Nothing or no one would be off-limits. By the time he escaped to get out, because that was what it would undoubtedly take, he would be nothing more than a warped version of himself.
It was the absolute last place he wanted to go for any considerable stretch of time.
"You've got to go to jail, Null," Batgirl said. She was stern, but there was a degree of regret there. She knew that he was right. Any good in him would likely be gone if he was thrown in that place, "Good luck," If he was fortunate, he wouldn't be tried as an adult.
The redheaded heroine's addition to her own statement was enough to make Null smile, though not one of good humor. It was more of a smile asking if she were serious, "Luck, huh? I guess we're done here then."
There was nothing more to say. The only thing he was grateful for was that he didn't have to look at how smug Robin would likely be seeing him in custody. The only thing that would probably make it better for the young hero would have been to be the one to bring Null down himself.
Null remembered watching Batgirl walk away, and then everything else was a blur. The movements around the squad car were all a blur as he worked to prepare for his escape. His powers were becoming more of a part of him. He could feel things with his magnetic powers as though he were touching them with his fingertips. Even precise, delicate actions, he could feel them and control them more delicately.
"What's a kid like that think he's doing tangling with the Bat?" He heard one of the officers in the front seat say aloud, not even trying to hide their conversation.
"Trust me, I didn't want any part of that," Null interjected. He was in the backseat behind the grate. There wasn't really anything they could do to him without stopping the car and going back there themselves if they were the forceful type, "Needless to say, I didn't have a choice. If I did, I wouldn't be here with my arm dangling. Did you really have to cuff me?"
"We were told to take extra caution with you," "I don't see why. Never heard of you before. You don't look like much," And with a broken arm, he wasn't going anywhere.
They should have ziptied him instead if that were the idea.
The entire time that he had been sitting in the car, the entire time that they had been driving, Null had been focusing on the handcuffs around his wrists. Batgirl hadn't seen him fight in forever. With how he had always been told by Selina that Batman prepared rigorously for any enemy he knew he would likely face, he was certain that measures had been taken to try and deduce his powers. The last time any of them had seen him in combat, they probably figured he needed both hands for magnetic things.
He didn't even need to differentiate repelling and attracting between his hands anymore. He could do both with either.
Whether he knew it or not, Batman did underestimate him to a degree. Not in a fight, or as a criminal, but the scope of his powers. He had been informed by the Atom that Null's powers would grow. He probably figured that it would take longer for them to do so.
Constant use and experimentation, physical and mental stresses and traumas, significant magical interference, hell - even drug enhancement. Whatever reason that could be logically considered would consider probably would have fit into why it seemed to happen within such a short time span.
Batman did him a favor by beating him so decisively and quickly, as brutal as it was. He didn't give Null time to show more of his hand, so to speak. If he had, the police wouldn't have even given him enough freedom to so much as wiggle the fingers on his good arm.
"The boys are gonna have fun with a kid like you in Blackgate," The other officer sitting in the passenger's seat said, looking back at the young criminal through the barrier separating them. It was clear that he was attempting to intimidate him, "And with what you did, you'll probably never see the light of day again."
Instead of fear in Null's eyes, he saw a man who had not resigned himself to any sort of fate. He was still thinking, "You're right. I always told myself that if I went down for something I did, getting locked up would be what I'd deserve. I knew what I was getting into when I threw this getup on. It's just… the thing is-," His defiance was not yet dead and buried. Not even close, "-This wasn't something I did."
His words barely disguised the click of his handcuffs being undone. When the officers looked back in reaction to the sound, Null shut his teeth tightly to endure the pain in his arm and rolled to his back in the seat, pulling his legs to his chest and channeling his magnetic repulsion force to the bottoms of his feet. With a mighty kick of both legs, he sent the door flying off of the hinges.
"What the fuck?" The driver shouted, caught completely off-guard by the sudden action.
The squad car swerved dangerously on the road from the sudden impact and loss of the door, with Null sliding right out and onto the road. He rolled and crashed along the pavement as cars tried desperately to avoid running him over or hitting the door.
Gasping horrendously, Null got up as quickly as he could and took off. He wouldn't let himself be caught this time. Going down for theft was one thing. Being brought in for allegedly destroying properties of Wayne Enterprises and putting hundreds in danger was not something he would take responsibility for.
So he ran. He ran as far and as fast as he could. Every twist and turn, leap and fall, were all orchestrated to get him as far away from the sounds of sirens as possible. All the while, he watched over his shoulder for the slightest hint of a looming shadow meant to return him to captivity.
He made no mistakes. There was no one around to pick up any missteps and follow them. There was no master tracker to find him when there was no trace. This time, he was not stopped.
XxX
(Undisclosed Location Elswhere in Gotham City)
A step in the right direction.
That was what the radical activist Anarky thought as he sat down in front of his computer. All of the money he had stolen from Wayne Enterprises' more controversial branches was now being dropped into the coffers of struggling third-world countries around the world.
But no one was even looking at that. No one would until at least halfway through tomorrow. The more pressing concern was the explosions that had taken place at all of those locations throughout the night.
All except one, but only because it was in the middle of being robbed by some greedy scavenger that was too convenient a scapegoat to pass up. To blow him up would have been making things harder than they needed to be. Now the buck of blame would be passed to him, without anyone looking Anarky's way just yet, if they ever would at all.
He did still wish he could have destroyed it though. It was simply a waste of space, money, and other resources. An extravagant facility only kept active in his mind because of Bruce Wayne's vanity.
"No employees," Anarky said to himself as he groused about the storage facility and what he'd dug up on it, "And all it seems to do is hold specific products that can only be sold to someone looking to outfit a fighting force."
Anarky wore a loose red jumpsuit with red wrappings around the wrist and forearm along with a red, wide brimmed hat baring a circle-A insignia, a golden, metallic face mask made of reflective, flexible material that allowed facial expression to be shown, and a yellow supply belt with a circle-A design for the buckle.
Despite his triumph of the evening, there was still so much work to do. Things were only just beginning.
"Gotham City is just a machine, churning out the corrupt. The entitled elites don't do anything to take action in this place to make a change," "Wayne Enterprises is run by a soft-headed, entitled billionaire more concerned with being seen out on the town with models than fixing what's wrong with this place. But he's just someone unwilling to do what he's truly capable of to make a difference."
This world needed cleaning from the bottom up, and Gotham City was an absolute cesspool, with just as much needless decadence as there were feckless elites willing to abuse it and exploit the remainder of the population.
It was high time the city was reintroduced to a little Anarky.
XxX
(Max's Apartment)
It was hard for Max to keep from fidgeting as he could feel the tiny needle going in and out of the flesh on his nose, but compared to the pain in his arm, it was much easier to try and ignore it. Even so, every so often Rose would make it obvious that she was no professional with a sharp poke that went deeper than it needed to, "Ouch!"
"Shhh…" Rose shushed Max as she stitched the horrid cut spanning the bridge of his nose shut.
When he had flopped through the window to the apartment in a beaten, disheveled heap, she could only imagine what had done this to him. She didn't think there was much that could do Null this sort of harm now. He was dangerous in his own right in a fight.
Then he'd told her that Batman had come to put him away personally. In that sense, it was entirely understandable as to why he looked like he had been chewed up and spit out.
Rose stepped back in the low light of the kitchen and examined her handiwork. She wasn't a nurse, but from her time around heroes and villains alike, she learned how to mend minor wounds to a respectable degree. As far as sutures went, if he wanted a better one, there was always the hospital.
"You're lucky I didn't go out tonight," Rose said, seeing to the copious other abrasions that covered Max's torso and arms. They weren't nearly as bad as some of the wounds on his face had been. Even with treatment, the one on his nose still had a chance of leaving a scar, "Otherwise you'd have been bleeding on the floor with the window open until sunrise."
She had been studying some of the targets on her list and gathering rudimentary intelligence all evening when he showed up. It was quite the pathetic sight to watch Max in-costume try and fail three times to push himself up off of the ground with one good arm.
Eventually, when he'd gotten settled enough, he told her what he knew of what happened.
"Sounds like an old-school frame-up, Sparks," Rose told him after getting the gist of everything that he could recall about his evening, "Wrong place, wrong time."
It couldn't have been just that simple, and Max refused to accept it as such. Yes, bad things happened to him all of the time, but most of them made more sense than this, "I don't get it! How could someone frame me? I didn't even know I was going to do this until I was talking to you about it earlier! And who even knows me to frame me in the first place?"
Rose pressed a hand on his good shoulder and kept him seated before he could stand and raise a further stink about his circumstances, "Calm down. You got out, and no one saw your face, right? So what's the problem?"
Max let out his stress in one long sigh. What was wrong? So much that he didn't even know where to start, "That was way too close," He told her, "I… he… I lost so bad. He didn't leave anything to chance. He stomped the devil out of me."
Batman didn't underestimate him. He clearly looked down on him, but not for a moment did he pretend that Null wasn't exceedingly dangerous and savvy enough to do him remarkable harm if he gave him an opening. Batman beat Null worse than he'd been straight-up beaten in his entire life.
Eventually, they got to the worst of his injuries. One that they couldn't put off any longer; the dislocated elbow. Max and Rose stared at each other, knowing just how unpleasant this would be for the recipient. Stalling wasn't something that they could do at the moment though. The longer they waited to put it back in place, the worse it would be later.
"Alright, this is gonna hurt. Like hell," Rose said, gingerly grasping around Max's forearm with one hand and around his bicep with the other, "You ready?"
Max bit down on a pillow and nodded, frantic breaths coming from his nostrils. Rose was quick and decisive with her movement, jerking the appendage back into joint with an audible pop that sounded out through the apartment. It was then followed by Max's muffled wails of pain that he just knew could be heard, despite his best efforts to try and keep himself quiet.
He didn't thrash as badly as Rose figured he would, but even so, it was hard to watch him turtle up and hold the straightened arm against the length of his body, as if keeping it still would make anything feel any better. Rose simply sat nearby until he stopped fidgeting altogether and the silence became deafening.
"If your home is going to be your base, you need to move somewhere more private," Rose said, taking that moment to give out the obvious advice, "This sort of thing is going to happen to you a lot if you can't get to a black market doctor."
"Yeah… I'm thinking I should move pretty soon after this," Max said, thinking aloud. He was certain he'd made more than his share of loud noises of suffering over the course of the night, "Neighbors'll probably have a few questions I don't need to answer tomorrow."
"You can't be going to school tomorrow," The silver-haired girl said, "Talk about questions you don't need to answer. The first teacher who sees you walking with a limp will pull you aside and start grilling you 'for your own wellbeing'. Goddamn busybodies."
Max stood up and took several steps to test how difficult it would be to walk. It hurt, but he could fake it without a limp and let Rose know as much. Needless to say, she was still skeptical at his ability to deceive.
"And the arm?"
Max looked at his injured arm and tried to move it. Everything above the elbow still worked perfectly. Everything below it took much more effort, but it was still doable, "I'm right-handed anyway. I'll barely even use the left until it feels good enough to move."
It was going to swell up like a balloon by sunrise though. Good thing it was winter. He could break out the long sleeves and cover the damn thing.
"I don't get you. I swear to God, I don't get you," Rose said, stopping Null in his tracks before he could retire to his room and try to figure out how to get a few hours of rest, "Why? Why does it matter if you show up for classes? Why are you trying so hard to juggle being Null and Max? You can't be both. It just makes being either harder."
Max turned around with a serious look, "Because I want to, Rose," He knew it just made things harder. He knew that if things went south as Null, the Max portion of his life would be unquestionably ruined, "I want to be both. I can't tell you why. I can't. I just know that I do. And if I want something, I can't let it go."
He'd obtained something as Null. Made things happen when he should have and otherwise would have been powerless. He'd taken it for himself and he hated giving things up. Giving anything up.
He knew from the beginning that Rose had always seen his trying to split everyday life with thieving as a distraction. As he looked back at her, he could tell that now that his being stubborn over this matter was really getting to her.
There was no need, as she would do whatever she wanted anyway, but it only felt right to him to give her an out.
"You can go," Max told Rose, "My shit never had anything to do with your shit. This is…" He tried to come up with something to say and failed, instead shaking his head and letting his point continue, "…You don't owe me anything."
From the silence and the complete and utter lack of any kind of movement, it seemed that she was deeply contemplating getting up, gathering her things, and heading out the door.
Well, it was nice having a roommate while it lasted. Seriously, even if he and his parents hadn't been on the same page near the end, it had been lonely around that place ever since his father had died.
Rose pursed her lips in thought before finally speaking aloud, "If Batman hadn't already done such a good job beating the crap out of you, I'd punch you in the face right now," She stated, "Are you kidding me? I don't owe you anything? Don't you fucking say that to me!" She snapped, standing up and taking a threatening step Max's way, "We aren't even."
"If you think you owe me for this and that, just forget about it. I don't-."
"I don't give a shit," Rose said, cutting him off before he could say something else pseudo-magnanimously. It would have been enough to make her gag, hearing him 'aw shucks' her until she got out the door, "It's not about you. I say we're not even, and the debt's on my side. So shut up."
Max didn't know exactly how to respond to that, except for one thing that came out of his mouth almost out of reflex, "Thanks."
"Didn't I say shut up?" Rose asked, with a threatening lift to her voice. Clearly, she wanted the issue dropped, "Now, on a scale of one-to-ten, with ten being the highest possible, how pissed are you?"
A good question, with many possible answers, "Depends on who we're talking about here."
"Bat-people."
"Four."
"Really?" She said, honestly surprised, "Okay, then how about the guy who screwed you over?"
That hit a bit closer to what she had been looking for out of him, "Eight with potential for upward mobility," Max said without a moment's hesitation, "…I'd need to see their face to figure out just how mad I really am."
Then he would attempt to smash whoever it was in the face, or not. There was an 80% percent chance that he would though.
A devious grin crossed Rose's pretty face, "I know a guy who can help," She informed her ally, "We won't exactly be clearing your name here, but I can imagine that you hate being accused of something that you didn't do. Especially when it overshadows what you did do."
She wasn't necessarily wrong.