XXXVI

"Night falls. Or has fallen. Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn? Yet if you look east, at sunset, you can see night rising, not falling; darkness lifting into the sky, up from the horizon, like a black sun behind cloud cover. Like smoke from an unseen fire, a line of fire just below the horizon, brushfire or a burning city. Maybe night falls because it's heavy, a thick curtain pulled up over the eyes. Wool blanket."- Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

•••

Bird managed to get away from the group of Arkham Guards who'd been trying to drag her further into the building.

With a blow from the elbow on her good arm, Bird nearly knocked the one who had a hold on her down and his grip on her faltered enough she was able to pull free.

Taking off in a full sprint, she ran as far away as she could with the sounds of their footsteps chasing after her.

She was briefly reminded of a show she caught on television once where a pack of fifteen gray wolves brought a bison that weighed over nine-hundred pounds.

As she rounded a corner to a seemingly dead end, she flattened her back against the wall, breathing heavily.

There was no way out.

She was trapped now, easy prey.

Using her ability to think fast in dire situations, she realized her only chance at getting free might be if they underestimated her.

Moving as fast as she could and causing herself great pain the process, she moved the sling to her other side and got her good arm placed in it just as the guards found her.

"I give up!" Bird shouted at them, hoping they wouldn't start roughly trying to pull her around by the arm with the badly injured shoulder, she highly doubted she could keep her scream in then, "You boys got me. I'm trapped."

With that she held up her bad arm as best she could in a sign of surrender, "I give up."

They seemed wary at first, but when they grabbed onto her and she really didn't try to fight back they led her to another hallway and down an elevator at the end.

Saving her strength and trying to bide her time, Bird didn't put up much of a protest when they dragged her over to a chair bolted to the floor of the room and started to strap her in.

It took every last shred of strength left in her to not cry or scream out when they grabbed onto her injured arm and forced it down until her wrist went into the restraint cuff.

An act done rather roughly when they thought she was trying to be stubborn all over again; what they didn't know was that she could barely move that arm at all.

When one of the guards started to pull her arm out of the sling to tie her the rest of the way down, Bird yelled out, "No, no, no. I'm not supposed to take the sling off. I have a separated shoulder! I'm probably going to need surgery!"

"Oh, dear…" Hugo Strange bellowed as he walked in the room just in time to see her panicking and hearing her argument, "That's doesn't sound good at all."

"I can't…" Bird whined, still acting as though the arm in the sling was her injured one, "Please, I can't even move my arm. I can't-"
She cried out in a hiss of pain when they tried again to jerk the sling off her arm.

"That'll do." Strange said to the guards, completely buying into the act she was putting on.

Once they were alone, he crossed the room and stood over in front of her as he looked her over.

For Bird and Bruce to have not been actual biological siblings, they did bear a strong psychical appearance.

"I can't tell what it means to finally meet you." Strange said with a surprisingly earnest expression, "You father meant a great deal to me."

Pausing for a moment, he then added, "Bruce reminds me of him very much."

"Where is my brother?" Bird demanded to know.

"Alive." Strange admitted, "Answering some questions -as you will do too."

"Us?" She nearly laughed, "My father was your friend and you hired someone to kill him and my mom -yet you think we're the ones who need to answer questions?"

"Yes." He nodded, taking longer than the average person to say each word, "I suppose you do have some questions."

"What was that thing in the hallway?" Bird jumped right in, "Where's Jim?"

"Yes, Ms. Peabody told me you had a surprise run in with Basil. What a shock that must have been." He empathized before curiosity got the best of him and he had to know, "How were you able to figure out he wasn't the real James Gordon so fast?"

"Because I know Jim and that thing wasn't him." She insisted.

"Fair enough." He chuckled, "But I'm sure he'll do the job just fine."

Bird's forehead lined and she had to give a bit of thought to what he meant, then remembering Ms. Peabody mentioning GPCD, Bird asked, "You think that's going to work? You think that Bullock or someone else at the station will buy into that act too."

"Oh, Miss Wayne, indeed I do." He let out a low chuckle as he stood to his feet and started to walk behind her and over to a small tray set up with a vile of medicine and a syringe.

Bird was too busy looking around the room and trying to hatch an escape plan to realize what he was doing, until she felt the needle go into the side of her neck.

"What -what was that?" She questioned as the effects were nearly instantaneous

Her head started to feel too heavy for her neck and her vision was foggy around the edges.

"A simple honesty serum." Strange answered while capping the needle and dropping it back onto the tray.

Turning his attention back to her, he placed a hand on her shoulder and questioned, "How are you feeling?"

Bird was quiet at first, for so long he almost repeated the question, but finally she answered, "Tired."

"Hmm." He hummed, "Yes. It's believed that it takes more brain activity to produce a lie than to spill a truth."

The medicine she'd been given was made to produce a groggy state, to slow brain function so the person wouldn't be able to come up with a lie.

"Answer this time quickly." He instructed, "Don't think about the answer too long; say the first thing that comes to mind."

Walking around to face her he asked, "How are you feeling? Not on the outside, but the inside."

"Exhausted."

His head cocked to the side.
It was then that he realized she didn't simply mean she was psychically tired, she was answering truthfully.

"Heavy." Bird continued even when she wasn't prompted, "Too much for my own skin."

Her eyes closed and head drooped forward with slow but steady breathing.

"Something is weighing heavily on you." Strange realized.

The point of the truth serum was to find out what she did or didn't know of his benefactors; a clandestine organization who were really pulling the strings; as if Gotham were marionette puppet.

But this was just as fascinating to him; there was nothing quite like broad spectrum of human nature.

It was just mere minutes before that he'd finished interrogating Jim, who didn't know anything useful when it came to the organization, but was still an interesting conversation all the same.

Strange had learned that Jim was overrun with guilt. It seemed as though everything bad that had happened in his life he felt he deserved in one way or another.
He was closer to his mother because he resented his father's strength.

The man who most everyone viewed as a hero, deep down, never felt like he was good enough.

"What is it?" Strange questioned, reminding Bird not to fight the effects of the medicine again, "What is weighing so heavily on you?"

"A secret." Bird admitted with her eyes still pinned shut.

"There is a way to rid yourself of that weight." He pointed out, "The truth will set you free."

"No." Bird swallowed, opening her eyes and finding her vision worse than before.
She tried to look around the room, but it felt like it was taking so long to even get her eyes to move, let alone comprehend anything she could see.

"No?" He repeated back.

"Freedom…" She breathed, "Costs so much."

"You're right." He observed, clearly both taken aback and further intrigued at her thoughts, "It's never something that comes without a price, is it?"

Crossing his arms over his chest he looked around the room, giving the medicine a little more time to knock her defenses down before asking, "What would this truth cost you?"

"Him." She answered, "Jim…"

"Interesting." Strange voiced, "Interesting that you sit here afraid of losing him, while he credits you with most of the good currently in his life."

"He does?" Her head raised, but her eyes still had trouble focusing.

"He told me so." Strange answered.

"That's why he can't know." She reiterated, "Then he'd know what she's always known… that I'm poison."

"She, who?"

"Lilith."

"Your biological mother?" Strange pushed.

"Yes." Bird answered, "She must have known."

"Known what?"

"That I'd be the death of her."

Pulling in a deep breath, Bird didn't plan on saying anything else but she found herself unable to stop, "Falcone told me once that she tried to kill herself while she was pregnant with me. He said she was mentally ill, but I think she knew…"

"Go on." He instructed.

"That it wasn't a baby growing inside of her, that it was an infection and one day it would kill her and I did." She finished as a single tear left a trail down her cheek and she stared blankly straight ahead of her.

"You killed your mother?" Strange verified.

"She wasn't going to stop coming after the family fortune. She was going to use Bruce if she had to. I had to stop her. I -I had to." Pinning her eyes shut again, Bird resumed the fight against the medication.

"You're holding something back." He stepped closer, "Relax. There's no one else here but us. Tell me why you're saying you had to kill her."

"She…" Bird's breathing started to labor, "She disappointed me. She hurt me -and I wanted her dead."

"Oh, my…" Strange breathed with an amused laugh, "What a terrible burden to be carrying around all this time."

He wasn't sure what information he'd get out of her after dosing her with truth serum, but this was far better than he'd have bargained for.

Even more riveting was how she was seemed to feel little to no guilt over the murder itself and seemed more concerned with what the truth coming out would cost her.

"I need to you to relax." Strange said as he walked back around to behind the chair and placed a hand on her shoulder again, "I'm going to help you. Here, close your eyes. Now, imagine that I am all-powerful, that I am God. And I absolve you of all your pain and your guilt. You are not poison… you are human and all you've done can be forgiven."

Applying more pressure with his hand, weighing her down further he continued, "I am God. I put all of that worry and suffering on you and I can take it away."
With that he relieved the pressure and removed his hand from her shoulder all together, "It's gone. All of your burdens are gone."

Bird's eyes opened and she pulled in a gasp of air.

"So, how do you feel?" Strange questioned as he walked back into her line of sight.

"Lighter." She answered with a sleepy smile, "Better."

"Good!" Strange exclaimed with a smile of his own, "Good."

"Miss Wayne-"

"Bird." She corrected, the smile falling some from her lips, "I want to be called Bird."

"Very well!" He clapped his hands together and took a seat in the chair facing hers, "Bird, now you're relaxed and speaking open and honestly. Tell me, what do you know about my work here at Indian Hill?"

"You're bringing people back from the dead." She answered, "You brought Galavan back."

"His reanimation didn't go entirely as planned, but a miracle is still a miracle." He nodded, "But we're doing far more than that."

"You're creating monsters." Bird answered.

"More still." He smiled, "For who?"

"Who?" She didn't seem understand the question.

"Who owns Indian Hill?"

"My family's company." Bird's eyes nearly lit up at seeming to know the answer, "Wayne Enterprises."

"Yes and who controls Wayne Enterprises?" Strange asked, "Behind the scenes. From the shadows one might say."

Strange got to his feet and stood back up, waiting with bated breath for her answer.

"The board of directors." She answered.

With his eyes narrowing inquisitively he clarified, "No, who controls everything in Gotham. Behind the scenes."

"I don't know." Bird admitted.

"Who controls Gotham, Bird?" He continued to push, "Falcone never said anything?"

"No. I don't know."

Leaning down some to get more on her eye level where she was seated, Strange asked, "You've never heard of a… secret council?"

"No." Bird answered.

"Excellent!" He exclaimed, "Excellent. Thank you. That is what I needed to know."

He started for the door, pausing just before opening it and turning back to look at her once last time to see her head was hung again.

"What is it?" He questioned.

"Do you…" She started to ask, "Do you think I should tell Jim? Do you think he'll understand?"

"Understand? Hmm." Strange hummed, "I'm can't say. But love, Bird. Love is our guide. That is why you feel so much guilt for lying to him and why I can't speak for his understanding on the matter of matricide, love is why I'm confident he'd live with it -for you."

"Because he loves me?" Bird questioned, her eyes widened as if this were the first time she'd truly considered it.

With a single, but decisive nod, Strange started to leave again, but Bird stopped him with another question, "Then why I can't tell him what I've done?"

"That's the problem with secrets, Bird." He explained, "They become monsters of your own making. Where fear of retribution often times becomes worse than the act itself."

"I should have told him to begin with?"

"Oh, most definitely." Strange nodded just before a empathetic look took over his features and he said, "It's a shame you'll never get the chance. You've been so honest with me that I feel in the spirit of intimacy and honesty that I should tell you -that you've only got a short time left to live. Maybe just hours."

With that he finally the left room, leaving a more broken Bird behind than the one who'd walked into Arkham of her own free will.

Still drowsy and hazy from the medicine, it took Bird a good ten or more minutes after Strange had left to remember she'd switched the sling over to her good arm before being dragged off.

Wiggling her arm free, she got to work with her clumsy fingers trying to undo the buckle on the wrist restraint for her bad arm.
Once it was free, she gingerly tried to get it back into the sling even though the shock-waves of pain were radiating from her shoulder all the way down into her legs.

It was a struggle, but she also managed to get her legs free from their restraints and then made the mistake of quickly trying to get to her feet, which only resulted in her immediately falling onto the floor.

With a groan and a scream of determination, she managed to grab onto the chair she'd been sitting in and pull herself back up to her feet.

She felt like she'd just came off a dizzying carnival ride, unable to hold her balance for more than a step at a time as she stumbled her way over to a metal cart against the side wall and started jerking open the drawers to find something she could use as a weapon.

Finally, she clutched onto ridged metal handle of a scalpel and made a break for the door.

There weren't handrails in the hallway and her dizzied attempt at walking involved a lot of stumbling about and dropping the scalpel several times, only to nearly fall flat on her face when she tried to lean down to pick it back up.

She was unable to correctly calculate how long or far she'd been walking, but it felt like ages until she passed a door to a room with a window and she could see Jim sitting in a chair very similar to the one she'd been restrained to.

Dropping the scalpel to the floor, she tried to get into the room only to find that the door was locked.

Hearing footsteps just around the corner, she leaned back down to pick up the blade and toppled over.

With a whimper of pain, she scooted back against the wall and looked up to see a guard rounding the corner.
He slowed to a stop when he saw Bird sitting on the floor.

"Hey, you!" She called out, raising her good arm up in the air and waving him closer, "Help me, please. I can't stand up."

He eyed her suspiciously for a moment before walking closer and just as he was asked, helped pull her back up to her feet.

"Thank you." Bird said appreciatively.

He was about to ask her who she was and what she was doing down a staff only hallway, but that was when the light reflecting off something shiny caught his eye and he looked down to see the scalpel on the floor.

Realizing what he'd seen, Bird didn't give him much of chance to react as she brought her leg up and kicked him back against the wall with all her might.

With a pained noise he bounced off the wall and landed on the floor where she delivered another kick, this time to the side of his head, rendering him unconscious.

Kneeling down, she kept her balance her the best she could as she pulled the ring of keys from his belt.

It took a few tries with several different keys, but she finally made her way into the room.

"Jim!" She yelled.

"Bird?"
He looked up startled from the state of near-sleep he'd fallen into.

"What are you doing here?" He asked with heavy eyes as his head seemed to bob with every word.

"I…" She started to say, before she felt her legs starting to grow wobbly again, "I need to sit down."

He watched as she made it over to the chair across from him and sat down, immediately slouching against one of the arm rests.

"Strange drug you too?" Jim guessed.
She seemed to be doing about as good of a job walking as he imagined he could himself under these conditions.

"Yeah." Bird nodded, "Before they grabbed me, I moved the sling to my good arm so they wouldn't tie it down. I managed to get free."

"Smart." He complimented, looking at her with his forehead lined, "That was a good idea."
Unable to stop himself from speaking, he continued, "You get yourself out of dangerous situations all the time and I don't give you enough credit for that."

"Thank you." Bird managed a tired, uneven smile, "I think you're really smart too."

Jim smiled back at her and then said, "I'm gad you're here."

Just as quickly the smile fell from his lips and he seemed to grow restless and angry, "That's not good. I shouldn't be."
Looking back at her he admitted, "Strange said I didn't have a future. That I've got hours at the most left. And if you're here that means the same for you."

"I know." Bird nodded, trying to straighten up more in the seat, "It's okay."

"No, it's not okay." He argued, shaking his head back and forth, "You said the same thing after you were shot and it's not okay. It wasn't then and it's not now. You dying isn't okay."

Bird looked at him as her expression seemed to scrunch up in slow motion, her fatigued brain seeming to have trouble following his words and line of thought.

"I don't want you to die, but I'm glad you're here." He tried to clarify, but then only seemed to further upset himself, "That's not what I mean."

"Jim." Bird sighed, reaching up to push her hair out of her face, "If we're dying then I'm happy I get to see you one last time."

"Me too." He nodded, "That's what I was trying to say."

"You weren't doing a very good job." Bird stated.

"I know." He agreed with a weak laugh as he let his head fall back and stared up to the ceiling.

When he gathered the strength to lift his head again, he looked back at her.
Watching as she still remained slumped over in the chair, but her eyes were darting all over the room like she were looking for something.

"I love you."
It was like someone had loosened the valve from his brain to his mouth and the things he thought were coming out with no filter and no forethought.

Turning her head from where the body of a tarantula had been fossilized and encased in a clear glass block for display, Bird looked to Jim and without hesitation answered, "I love you too."

"I'm not-" He shook his head, "I'm not just saying that because we're going to die. I love you. I really mean it."

"I love you too, Jim." She repeated, "So, so much."

Now it was her turn to look upset as she started to say, "I love you and that's why there's something I need to tell you…"

This was it.
After months of keeping the truth about what happened to Lily from him, she was finally going to come clean.

"I-" She started to say, but stopped when the door to the room opened and a couple of guards dragged the unmoving bodies of Bruce and Lucius into the room with them and then left, locking the door behind them.

"Bruce!" Bird yelled out when she spotted her brother.

"Are they okay?" Jim asked.

He watched as she threw herself from the chair and scrambled over to them.

"They're breathing." Bird answered as she started to shake her brother, but he wouldn't wake up.

"Bruce!" She frantically cried out as she raised her hand and brought it down harder than she meant to and roughly slapped him across the face.

Snapping awake, Bruce put a hand over his stinging cheek and looked at her in shock, for a moment forgetting entirely where they were.

Seeing that had woken her brother up, she did the same to Lucius, who also was startled awake from the pain she inflicted.

Sitting up with a groan he asked, "Bird?"
Then his eyes drifted over to where Jim was sitting, "Jim?"

"Hi." Jim greeted, looking over to them from where he was still secured to the chair.

"Hi." Bruce replied back, sitting up further yet still not making an attempt to stand.

"Are we alive?" Lucius questioned.

"So far, so good." Jim answered him.

"Had to be sure." Lucius strained to stand up, "Thought we were dead."

As Bruce started to wake up further, he turned his head all about looking around the room.

"What are you doing here?" Bruce asked looking at his sister.

"I couldn't sit at home and do nothing." Sticking her working arm up in the air she lazily waved it around and instructed, "Help me up."

Bruce finished getting stood up; he and Lucius got Bird stood up, then watched with a confused expression as she wavered in her walk back over to the chair she'd been sitting in.

"How are things going for you?" Lucius questioned the couple, before stating, "We've had a hell of a time."

"Same." Jim and Bird both answered in unison.

Looking between them, Bruce asked, "Are you okay?"

"A little groggy." Jim answered, "Strange drugged me; made me talk."

Bird nodded in agreement and Bruce guessed, "About Wayne Enterprises, right?"

"About everything." Jim said.

Lucius looked over to where Bird was sitting and then back over to Jim, who was still restrained to the chair and questioned, "Why didn't you untie him?"

"I don't know." Bird truthfully answered, pushing up from the armrest with her good arm to stand back up and help set Jim free.

"Doesn't matter." Jim said paying more attention to where Bird was now standing instead of where Lucius was trying to loosen the restraint and admitted to everyone, "I love her."

Lucius paused for a minute and looked up to Jim and then over his shoulder to where Bird was and Bruce's eyes darted back and forth between them when Bird nodded, "Me too. I mean, not me, I love him."

"Okay…" Lucius breathed, trying to focus back on the built in restraints of the chair, "Bruce, a little help?"

But once Bruce was within reach and one of his arms was free, Jim reached out and grabbed onto it, "Bruce, I never should have made that oath to you."

"That's not really-" He started to argue that -that wasn't important right now. That they needed to figure a way out of Arkham, but Jim interrupted.

"I was foolish and arrogant and naive… and I'm sorry." Jim added.

Bruce's eyes widened in a complete loss with what to say or how to reply to that.

"You believed it at the time." Bird tried to make him feel better, "You were trying to do the right thing."

"I always try to do the right thing." Jim nodded, "But what a fool I've been."

"Uh…" Lucius breathed, glancing over to Bruce who was looked just as confused and shocked as he was, "What kind of drugs did they give you?"

"Truth serum." Bird explained, "And it's horrible."

"Well, as I mentioned we've had quite the ordeal ourselves." Lucius cleared his throat, trying to keep the impaired admissions and love confessions to a minimum, "Strange had us locked in a room where we were forced to answer various questions under the threat of Nygma releasing a toxic gas in the air."

The next half-hour or so was filled with Bruce and Lucius trying to find a way out of the room, while Jim and Bird remained seated, coming out of the effects of the serum but still not up to a hundred percent, until the door to the room opened and Selina came in.

They all watched as she called Bruce over to her and spoke quietly among themselves.

Selina had found Bridgit Pike when she'd broke into the asylum.
Her old friend didn't seem to have recollection of who she was and had been convinced by Strange that she was Firefly, a goddess of fire.

It was a struggle and Selina had nearly lost her life in the process, but she'd finally been able to convince Bridgit that she was her sidekick; a friend.

Since that point she'd learned some very interesting things, like how Strange was in the process of trying to clear out the monsters he'd made. Loading them all onto a bus headed upstate and then was going to set a bomb off under the building.

Due to Firefly's attachment to her and thinking this could also be an interesting experiment, Strange had indulged his reanimate and agreed to spare Selina's life.

"What did she say?" Jim questioned once Selina was gone and the doors were shut behind her.

"That she'll do what she likes." Bruce admitted.
He'd tried to apologize for getting her involved in this mess, but she insisted she did what she wanted. When he tried to urge her to get out of the building, she again let him know that she'll do whatever she pleases.

"And there's a bomb."
Bruce added, looking back over his shoulder to the rest of the group.

"Is she okay?" Bird questioned.

"Yes. She's going to make it out of danger." Bruce answered.

"Great." Bird laughed, "I mean we all came here to rescue her and now we're going to die, but whatever, good for her."

After a beat of silence, she added, "I can't blame her. A couple years ago I've have done the same."

Glancing over in Bird's direction, Lucius commented, "You're having a hard time coming out from that truth serum, huh?"

"No." Bruce answered for his sister, "That's just her."

•••

"What now?" Lucius questioned, looking up towards the ceiling of the room they were locked in as sounds of fighting thundered from above.

"Sounds like warfare." Jim said as he stood along with everyone else.

He and Bird were mostly out of the effects of the medicine now, but were no closer to breaking out of the room that had been locked from the outside.

Just a few minutes later the doors were opened and Selina returned.

"What's going on?" Bruce questioned.

"Simple psychology." Selina shrugged as if it were no big deal that Firefly and Mr. Freeze were battling it out just a floor above them, "Waiting for the right moment."

When the group of four continued to stare at her with stunned expressions she nodded towards the open doorway, "You coming or what?"

She led them out of the room and up a flight of stairs to the room where the fight was taking place.

They all ducked down out of sight and started moving along the far wall.

Professor Strange was knelt down by a table across the room and Firefly and Mr. Freeze were standing at opposite sides trying to kill the other.

She had her flamethrower on full blast and the flames were being met with the liquid from his freeze gun.

Fifteen minutes until detonation.

Fifteen minutes until detonation.

They all looked up towards the ceiling where the automated warning voice played over the speakers; warning of the impending explosion.

Trying to make a move for his own safety and secure his own future, Strange jumped out from where he was hiding and tried to make run for it when both Firefly and Mr. Freeze stopped feuding at the sound of the announcement.

But he'd moved at the wrong time, getting right between them just as the flames and ice started up again, catching him in the middle.

Once they realized what they were doing, they stopped and his body fell motionless to the floor; both singed and frostbitten all at once.

When the coast was clear, Jim ran over over to him and tried to wake him up.
He was their only shot at stopping the bomb that was about to go off.

"Strange!" He yelled, slapping him hard across the face trying to revive him, "I know you're in there. Wake up!"

"Gordon?" Strange asked as he started to wake up, "I surmise my plan must have gone awry."

"You could say that." Jim nearly hissed, "I'm going to stand you up now and you're going to give us a tour of your secret lab."

"No!" He yelled, trying to fight against him, but he wasn't a match for the rage and strength Jim possessed.

Pulling the professor to his feet, Jim asked, "It's this way, right?"

"No. No!" He cried out in protest, "We can't go down there. I set a bomb. The lab is going to blow… we have to get out of here!"

"In ten minutes everything in a quarter mile radius will be dust." He added, trying to stress just how little time they had to get out of there.

"That's madness." Jim's face twisted up.

"We have to get out of here!" Strange repeated.

"I love how this turned into a 'we' situation." Bird commented as she stepped up beside Jim, "When just minutes ago you were going to leave us to burn."

"If you want to live, which frankly I do, then we had better leave." Strange urged, his voice shaky and broken from terror.

"We detected radioactive material down there." Lucius remembered, "You got it out first, right?"

"There wasn't enough time!" Strange screamed, nearly in tears, "They forced my hand, but I calculated the chances of a radioactive cloud as very low."

"If you're wrong then thousands of people could die." Lucius argued.

"Yes, yes, yes." He nodded, lowering his voice finally, "But paying that price will be better than releasing what's down there."

"How do we shut it down?" Bird pushed.

"The security walls are up. The lab is sealed-"

"There must be some way." Jim argued.

"We have to go!" Strange yelled over him, "We have to leave, now!"

Having enough of his refusal to help them undo the path to sure destruction he'd set off with the bomb, Jim roughly grabbed onto his shirt and growled in his face, "Show me how to get that bomb and shut it off or I'll batter you to death right here!"

"In which case… young man." Strange said in a tone laced with defeat, "I supposed I will just have to die."

"Wait!" Selina called out, "Nymga knows a way down there."

"I could use some help." Jim said as he turned to Lucius.
"Yep." Lucius nodded, willing to see this through to the end.

"You got nine minutes." Jim guessed turning to Bird, their eyes locked in an intense stare before he nodded over to where Bruce and Selina were standing and instructed, "Get them as far away as you can."

"No." Bird argued, her expression shifted in anger at his expecting her to leave at a time like this.

"Yes!" He yelled over her, "Go! Run!"

Bird didn't even have time to argue as he turned and ran off the in the direction Lucius had gone seconds before.

"You guys have to run." Bird ordered, as she darted over to where they stood and pressed a quick kiss to her little brother's forehead before pulling back and saying, "Go."

"No!" Bruce argued, not wanting to leave her anymore than she'd wanted to leave when it was Jim trying to tell her to flee to safety.

"Get him out of here." Bird instructed Selina before she turned and ran off after Jim.

"Wait!" Bruce screamed after her, but Selina took an iron strong grip on his wrist and bolted for the exit, dragging him to safety right along with her.

Bird ran into the hallway where Lucius and Jim were trying to find a way to get Nygma out of his cell, neither of them having bothered to try and grab a key before getting there.

"Hey!" Bird called out to them as she jogged to where they were standing and pulled the keys she'd lifted off the guard earlier from her pocket, "Maybe these will help?"

"I told you to go-" Jim started back up, but Bird shut the argument down with one of her own, "Remember earlier when you said you needed to give me more credit for getting out of dangerous situations?"

"Yeah." He said with a weak laugh, "I'm not so sure we're getting out of this one."

"Either way it's my decision." Bird stated.

"Aw." Nygma cooed with his face pressed against the open screened window on the cell door, "Aren't you two adorable?"

Looking between them and thinking this was the last thing they had time for, Lucius pulled the set of keys from Bird's hand and managed to open the door.

As soon as the cell was opened, Jim roughly grabbed onto Nygma's arm and dragged him, demanding to know if he knew a way to get them into the top-secret lab.

"Of course, I do." Nygma strained as he was dragged down the hallway towards where Lucius had detected the radioactive material earlier. Jerking his arm from Jim's grip he asked, "But what is with all the hoo-ha?"

"Ooh, ow, ow, ow!" He nearly yelped as Bird grabbed onto his other arm, holding on and pinching as hard as she could and pushing him further down the hallway.

"This is it." Lucius said when the reached the spot he'd marked earlier as a signal to Jim.

"What is the rush here?" Nygma demanded to know. When Bird finally let go of his arm he turned to her with a smile and questioned, "And what do I get if I do it?"

"You get to live." Jim grumbled.

"Fair enough." He agreed looking over at the former detective before he opened a hidden door and revealed a lock.

Lucius tried to hand him the keys, but Nymga scoffed, "I doubt the key you need is on there."

Carefully, he pulled the lock from the wall to show it was attached to a braided set of wires.
He blocked out the sounds of alarm ringing out all over the asylum to warn time was running out, and just like he'd done to sneak down to the basement on his own, he rubbed the right wires together and started up the elevator.

Security system deactivated.

The group looked around as the automated voice repeated the message before the sounds of an elevator whirring grew closer.

"There you go." Nygma smiled proudly and pushed the wires and lock back into the wall, "Now-" He started to say, but stopped with a hiss of pain when Bird grabbed back into the same spot she'd already made sore on his arm and announced she'd take him back to his cell.

"What's the rush?" He repeated his earlier question when they reached his cell, "Gotta see the monsters for yourself? Because trust me you don't, some things can never be unseen-"

Roughly pushing him back into his open cell, Bird stood in the doorway and admitted, "There's a bomb in the lab… and radioactive material."

The smug expression left his face and he gasped, "What? There's… there's a nuke in the basement?"

"Pretty much." She nodded.

"You have to let me out of here-"

"I don't have to do anything!" She yelled.

He stopped his forward advancement, looking genuinely surprised that she was going to leave him there to die, "You can't just leave me here."

"You locked my brother in a room and threatened his life with poison gas." Bird stated the reasoning for her most recent cause of anger with him.

"Hey, now!" He nervously called out with a loud laugh, "It was just sleeping gas. No harm, no foul."

"Hmm." Bird hummed with a smile as she stepped back and then slammed the automatically locking door shut, trapping him inside.

"We're friends!" Nygma screamed out in a panic, knocking on the door and smashing his face back against the screen as he spoke.

"Friends?" Bird repeated, glancing down the hallway when she heard Jim yelling for her, "You really believe that?"

"Yes!" He insisted.

"Well, then consider yourself lucky, Nygma." Bird offered up with an eerie smile, "If we fail and the bomb blows this place sky-high, then you'll have died among friends and that's more than most can say."

"Miss Wayne!" He practically shrieked after her, banging on the door until his hands were raw, "Bird, come back here! Let me out!"

But she was already in the elevator and couldn't care less about what he had to say.

"You any good at diffusing bombs?" Jim questioned.

"I don't know yet." Lucius honestly answered, "You?"

"Meh." Jim breathed as Bird shook her head back and forth.

Two minutes until detonation.

The second the elevator doors open, the trio spilled out into a long hallway lined with doors.
Some were standing wide open from the experiments Strange had already had loaded onto the bus and others still had the test subjects inside.

Their screams and howls were just barely audible over how loud the alarms were in the lab, but it didn't take them long to find the bomb itself.

"It's, uh…" Bird breathed as they circled around the large explosive, "It's bigger than I expected."

"Yes. Yes it is." Lucius agreed.

"Got any ideas?" Jim questioned.

"You got a knife?" Lucius asked, but Jim shook his head.

"Okay, well we have to do something." Bird pointed to the countdown in bright red digital numbering, "We don't exactly have time to wait on the bomb squad."

Reaching forward she grabbed onto the number display and pulled it forward, causing both men to yell for her to stop.

"You got any other ideas?" She screamed back at them, still holding the electronic timer in her hands.

Lucius reached into the open space the alarm had left and felt a number of wires, but he didn't have a clue which ones would stop the countdown and which ones would cause it to detonate right there.

"Maybe…" Jim nervously licked his lips and wiped the sweat from his forehead off with the back of his hand, "How about we just start pulling all this stuff off…"
He suggested, motioning to exposed wires.

"See what happens?" He swallowed hard.

"There's no cut off program… maybe there's no tamper proofing program." Lucius said.

"Yeah." Jim could barely breathe.

"Yeah." Lucius echoed.

"Fine." Bird loudly exclaimed with the feeling of her heart trying to burst through her chest, "I'm not so sure either of you really believe that, but we can't just stand here and do nothing. So I'm going just to grab a handful of these wires and yank them out."

"Now would be the time." Lucius nodded, they were just a little above thirty seconds left on the timer.

Handing off the attached alarm to Lucius, Bird reached in and grabbed onto the wires.
Hesitating she repeated, "No cut off program, so no tamper proofing program."

"Water." A small voice croaked out.

The trio looked over to see a disheveled Ms. Peabody struggling to sit up after being knocked unconscious before they'd gotten there.
They'd been in such a panic they hadn't even noticed her laying there.

"Water." She repeated, "Need water."

"Water!" Both Jim and Lucius chimed back in unison.

Jim darted around the corner where he'd spotted an emergency eye wash station, but was left a loss of how to transport the water.

"Twenty-five seconds!" Bird yelled.

Breaking the plastic housing from one of the wall lights, Jim filled the plastic with water and rushed back to the as fast as he could -with less than five seconds left before certain death.

His hands were shaking near uncontrollably as he started to pour the water into the open space, with Lucius still holding onto the timer.

The inside of the explosive started to sizzle and pop as water flooded the internal circuit board and then finally, with just one second left, the timer stopped and all the red lights warning of an impending explosion glowed blue.

Bird reached forward and helped Lucius carefully return the timer back into it's slot on the bomb and they both stepped back.

Bird and Jim both smiled as they looked at one another, completely flooded with relief.
Not only were they still alive, but had managed to save countless lives.

"So…" Bird said not taking her eyes off Jim while still a little breathless, "Is this what it feels like to be a hero?"

Jim let out a heaving breath as he laughed and shook his head at her.

"Please!" Ms. Peabody gasped, "Water."
She held out her hand towards them, "Please, water. I need water."

Their formerly thrilled expression gave way to one of shock as they realized she wasn't telling them how to disarm the bomb; she was asking for a drink of water.

"I'm going to call Bullock." Jim announced, unaware that GCPD was already on the scene. He looked to Bird and questioned, "Will you stay with her? She, Strange and everyone else involved in this is going to be taken into custody."

"Yeah." Bird nodded, not so sure her legs were ready for the trek back upstairs just yet anyways, "Lucius will you-" She started to ask.

"Find Bruce and let him know you're okay." He nodded with a smile before following Jim out.

"Water." Ms. Peabody stretched her hand out towards Bird, still desperate for a drink.

Picking up the plastic housing Jim had used to carry water to the bomb, Bird went to the eyewash station and filled it up.

"What happened to you anyways?" Bird asked as she handed her the makeshift cup.

"Reanimate number thirteen." Ms. Peabody answered after gulping down so much of the water it made her feel nauseous, she remembered the subjects name, "Fish Mooney."

"Fish?" Bird's eyes widened, "She's alive."

"And she's got abilities." Ms. Peabody added.

Before trying to bring her back to life, Professor Strange had spliced Fish's DNA with that of a cuttlefish and the result have given the re-living woman special talent.
A psychotropic chemical agent on her skin that let her control others by a single touch.

•••

The scene outside of Arkham was nothing but chaos lit up in red in blue from all the police cars on scene.

Strange, Peabody and several of their staff had all been put in cuffs and loaded into cars to be taken to lock-up. Reporters were already crowding around the marked off areas trying to catch anything they could on camera.

"Hey, you okay?" Jim asked as he finally found Bird outside among the chaos.

"Yeah." She nodded, but the look on her face didn't sell the lie.

Flipping her cellphone closed she started to say, "I need to get a hold of Oswald-"

"Ah, forget Penguin!" Bullock yelled as he strolled up to them just in time to hear what Bird was saying, "You heroic sons of bitches!" He pointed at them, "A nuclear bomb?"

With that he threw his arms Jim in hug that nearly knocked his friend down.

Pulling back, he glanced at Bird and said, "I'd hug you too crazy eyes, but I wouldn't want you getting the wrong idea."

"Shut up, Bullock." Bird couldn't help but laugh.

Looking between them, Bullock said, "You will never guess what took us so long. I mean like in a million years you could never guess-"

"A Jim-lookalike?" Bird guessed, before asking, "How long did it take you to figure it out?"

"Oh…" He cleared his throat, "You know… not long."

He wasn't about to tell them that he wasn't the one who'd discovered it, that it had been Barbara Kean, that was able to figure out in one conversation that it wasn't Jim.

"We've got a problem." Jim said, slapping a hand on Bullock's shoulder, "Whatever was down there. Whoever was down there in Indian Hill, they're not there anymore."

Bird slipped away from the conversation unnoticed and made another attempt to call her best friend.
Oswald was the one who had killed Fish and if their old boss really was walking among the living again that could mean his life was in danger -from a threat he'd never even see coming.

When her calls continued to go unanswered, Bird walked over to where Alfred and Bruce were standing next to a patrol car that Selina was sitting on.

"There she is." Alfred smiled as she approached them.

"Hey." She offered up a smile.

"Well, then…" He cleared his throat and looked between the siblings, "That's the end of your adventures with the police, eh?"

When they both gave him matching expressions, he breathed, "Oh, brother…"

"There's a secret council, Alfred." Bruce explained, "A secret council that runs everything in Gotham. It's them who wanted us dead."

"And I'm not sure how or what exactly…" Bird chimed in, "But Falcone knows something and I'm going to find out what that something is."

"Oh, bloody hell…" Alfred breathed, "You know I don't like you having much to do with him."

"We're so close." Bruce insisted, "So close to the ultimate truth that we can't turn back now."

"Bloody hell…" He repeated, glancing past Bruce to where Selina was sitting.
She threw her hands up in the air and laughed, "Hey, don't look at me."

"Anyone else want to go for coffee?" Bird questioned, "I need the caffeine-"

"Someone say coffee?" Jim asked walking up to them, "It's going to be a long night."

The bus carrying the Arkham test subjects had been involved with a collision with police cars who'd been following it; when back up arrived the bus was found nearly entirely empty.

The things created in that lab were so dangerous that Hugo Strange was willing to set off a bomb to keep them contained and now they were out walking around the city.

Bird and Jim looked at one another, both with soft smiles, silently knowing how relieved the other was that they were okay.

Reaching out he took he hand in his and gave a soft squeeze.

Bruce looked between them and tried to hold back a laugh, but he couldn't contain himself and broke out into a fit of laughter, causing everyone to look at him confused.

"Out with it." Alfred instructed and Selina nodded in agreement, "Yeah, what's so funny?"

"They were both given truth serum-" Bruce started to say, but Alfred cut him off, "That sounds awful."

"It was horrible."" Bird replied.

"Yes, I know." Bruce slowed his laughter some, but was still chuckling when he turned to Alfred and explained, "And they both just kept saying how much they loved each other."

"What?" Alfred now saw the humor in the story and even Selina laughed at their expense as she remarked, "Wow, you two are so lame."

"Okay, we are going over here." Jim said as he started to walk away and tugged on Bird's arm, with the other hand he motioned towards them and added, "Away from this."

As they were walking away, they overheard Alfred telling Bruce he wanted to know the whole story.

"So, uh…" Jim asked with a strained expression as he stopped and turned to face her, "Was it really that bad?"

Bird beamed a smile and glanced up towards the sky as she answered, "I seem to recall Lucius wondering why I hadn't untied you yet and you saying it didn't matter -because you love me."

"Yep… yeah." Jim shook his head, "Now that you mention it, I do seem to recall that."

"And they are never going to let either of us live it down." Bird empathized.

"Hey, what were you talking about in there?" He asked, remembering their conversation when they'd still been alone, "That you had something to tell me?"

"Oh!" Bird's eyes widened a little, "Right, um…"

And there it was, a chance to be entirely honest.
Maybe Strange was right and her keeping the secret was only helping to grow a monster of her own making; that even if Jim couldn't understand why she'd done it, that he'd still love her enough to move past it.

Or maybe he was wrong.
After all the man did create literal monsters in a secret underground lab.

Jim had brought it up, pretty much opened the door for her to just walk through and yet she was getting cold feet.

That's part of the madness of it all.
Sometimes even when someone gives you a way out, you just can't bring yourself to take it, not even to save your own life.

"Fish Mooney is alive." Bird covered, "That's why I've been trying to call Oswald."

"My god…" Jim breathed, his face contorting as he shook his head, "I'm afraid to know who or what else is out there now because of Strange."

"Me too." Bird agreed.

Catching him off guard, she leaned in and pressed her mouth to his, not caring who was around to see it.

"I love you, Jim." She all but vowed.

"Me too." He leaned in, forehead resting against hers. Breathing in, it felt like the first time since he'd stepped foot in Arkham that oxygen had managed to reach his lungs, "I love you too."

•••

A/N - Ahh! Thank you all so much for reading the FINAL CHAPTER of Wasteland! What are your thoughts?

It's so crazy that I'm about to start on the 3rd story for Bird. I can still clearly remember posting We Were Born Sick and being nervous that no one would read it and now it's amazing to be here so many chapters later and still have readers and fans!
Thank you for supporting me and the story I've been telling since 2015. Haha

I want to take a moment and thank AGBreads, ThatMysteriousSlime, Shadow knight1121, xenocanaan, Rasiel Hasu, Love. Fiction. 2018, SmellYourScentForMiles, xxXWolfsLullabyXxx, Katnis789, MisforMiakelson, Havana, DancingDorisDay and the Guests who reviewed chapter 35.

It's bittersweet having this story come to an end, but I'm also really excited for the next installment in the series which will be titled 'Devil's Playground' and cover season 3 of Gotham.
I hope you'll all continue to follow along as Bird's story is far from over.

If you'd like like to know when Devil's Playground is posted let me know in a review or message and I'll let you know when the new story is up.

Gah! There is so much more I want to say, but am coming up blank and this is a long enough note as it is. Lol.
So I'll leave it here, with my unwavering gratitude to each and every one of you.
xx