Chapter 6

Coming back to reality is the worst feeling to experience, in any given situation.

You wake up in the hospital, you were hurt.

You wake up in the alleyway, you were probably hurt, or mugged, or drunk, or all three.

You wake up in your bed, in your cozy warm apartment, you realize you have to live another 24 hours before returning.

In the end, you always wake up in disappointment and hurt, wondering if you can just fall back to sleep and forget reality altogether.

But life will not allow that, and because of this, Edward experienced what waking up in a cave felt like for the first time.

"I'll be, urban legends have some merits in them." He loudly proclaims, letting his voice echo through the cave. Everyone else had been feeling as disgruntled as he did, he took pride in being the reason for that. Was a simple request hard to ask? Did he have to get knocked out like that? And lose probably a few brain cells along the way?

He does admit that he can afford some brain cells, but he likes to keep them, thank you very much.

Still, he'd been in a foul mood ever since he woke up in metal cuffs and watched over by the Redhood before the others arrived. Red Robin, the little delightful boy, a far better fruit than the rest of the bunch, had been apologetic the whole time as he uncuffed him and helped him up, tending to his needs before asking for the favor that Edward now regrets offering him a long time ago.

It was just absurd to be in the presence of all of Batman's sidekicks.

At least Redhood brought his rugged laptop as well to help him process the information faster. Not that Batman's own computer wasn't fast, it was just unfamiliar to him, and he trusted his own programming more than other's.

While Batman's programs are high tech, impressive, and well tended to, his own programs are far more superior in gaining the information they needed.

"This is incomprehensible, why would all the rogues work together?" He asks as he flits over the decrypted messages that had been retrieved by the children.

These were message logs.

And they were of the rogues plotting something.

"So far, they haven't done anything to Batman. The worst thing they've done is probably muscle atrophy, seeing as they kept him in Mad Hatter's hold this whole time."

"Months, freaking months, and they let him do nothing." Red Robin was in obvious anger and nervousness at the news. The rest of the children all seemed to be in a ranging scale of anger, especially the youngest.

"Nothing unless someone else came and moved them. Joker's the head, as usual. But they've been having some infighting for some while, see here," He points at some logs that are currently decrypting. "It's about Poison Ivy and Scarecrow's relationship. Two-Face mentioned something about it in another log and- Huh?"

This wasn't right.

"What is it?" The youngest said, too restless to be kept out of the conversation any longer, and finally nudged himself in his breathing space to look.

Everyone read the log with a varying degree of disbelief.

"If you dare do that again, Scarecrow, I'll follow that pretty friend of yours and stab the heart till it's dead."

"Get any closer, and I will concoct a toxin that will make your plants whither in pain."

"Okay, so it's safe to say that they're so close that they know each other's love lives." Edward comments, frowning a bit. "I mean … Scarecrow was never caught before, and neither Penguin, so we don't really know anything about him other than his probable chemical genius. It still feels deranged to know that they have a civilian life."

"Usually Poison Ivy doesn't cross people's families, especially if they're girls, so Scarecrow must have done something really terrible," Batwoman comments, but the youngest Robin scoffs.

"By truly terrible, you mean stepping on one of her plants?"

"Yeah, a rare plant most probably," Edward adds, receiving a confused look from the child before he shook his head and looks back on the screen. Edward follows his example, and paused for a moment, reading the information.

"Hold up, no way." He breathes in, gaping at the new data. "Joker's planning a dinner party."

This really brought a sense of foreboding to everyone. No one liked it when the Joker 'plans' a party of any kind, it usually meant two things, destruction, and death.

"We can get Mad Hatter half way through escorting Batman and save him then. These are the routes … and it's happening at the weekend." He points out, they all nod as they start to plan on saving him. After being silent and listening to the children argue for a moment, Edward really needed to point something out.

"What about the mind control machine? The moment that thing is off, Hatter will figure it out."

"Then we disable it." The youngest says, but Edward makes a noise of disapproval.

"No! You can't simply just disable it! I've gone through Mad Hatter's devices before hands, and they always have a feature that tells him when someone is trying to get his mind slaves out of his control. The process is difficult without knowing how Tetch programmed it."

"Then …" The kids all gave each other looks before looking back at him. "Can't you hack into the device?" Nightwing asked, and Edward grimaces for a second before sighing loudly.

"Can't you hack into the device? He asks. Sure. Sure. I only need to be physically there with my tools, you know, among all those henchmen, weapons, rogues that are probably going to kill me, and the insect-filled forest."

"But you still can." He insists, Edward nods, dreading about where this conversation is going.

Insects. Insects. Insects contaminated by Gotham's waste. Generations of bugs that evolved because of-

"In five to ten minutes." Edward cuts himself off, no need to think about this. "I'll just have to extract the codes to see what each electrode in his device does. Tech's tech usually has a built-in brain map that as a guide reference, and luckily for us, Tetch only uses Wilder Penfield's brain maps-" He stops when he noticed how silent everyone is. He rolls his eyes.

How uncultured.

"Wilder Penfield? The guy who discovered that stimulating parts of the brain with electrodes can produce movements or memories? First guy to try healing Epilepsy by destroying the nerve cells responsible for its seizures? The guy who we still use his brain maps to teach today, unaltered?"

"We're not all college students you know." The blond girl says, sounding a bit irritated. "He's just like my dad, god."

"You said five to ten minutes." Batwoman interrupts, giving the girl a look. "You come with us, disable the device, and we'll get you and Batman out. No problem." Batwoman said like it was the simplest thing they can think up. Edward still had his doubts, but if they needed to save the city, and stop whatever horrible plan the Joker had cooked up this time around, then he'll have to help.

"Fine. Fine, but you'll owe me for this." He grumbles under his breath.

If only everything went according to plan.

0o0o0

The meeting point was as obscure as it could get, it was mapped out so they could be able to get as close to the vehicles as possible without being caught and still stay further away from the destination point.

He doesn't want to admit it, but watching the bat family choose and plan had left him feeling, but he did, in all intent and purpose, a tag along.

And he was a person who hated feeling useless.

When footsteps could be heard, Edward turns around to greet them, only to narrow his eyes at the mirth in the Red Robin's eyes.

"What are you wearing?" He said, still holding his laughter, Edward looks at his clothes and shrugged, replying without making it audible. But the younger man seemed interested and leaned in to hear him.

Edward had an old fashioned coat and hat used in the old days of the mobs, back when they were always visible but never prosecuted publicly because they owned the places they were regulating. Unfortunately for him, his father was one of these mob members, and a made man to boot. He hated receiving his items after the man's death, but something about these clothes interested him. Thus, he took the old earthy colored garment and dyed them in his favorite color as a big Fuck You to his old man.

He couldn't actually wear it, they are after all a mob's dress code, and it was a brighter shade of green than one would see on camo clothing.

He does have a modern coat in the same shade of green that he enjoyed wearing when off duty, no matter what anyone else said about it, he would never take it off for the world.

To top it off, he wore purple leather gloves with a Zorro-esque mask of the same color.

"I have a civilian life that I enjoy keeping."

"Tell me you at least have a weapon, there's probably going to be a point where I won't be able to save you from the- Holy Fu- Where on earth did you get that!?" The teen yells when Edward pulled out a collapsible black cane that immediately cracked with electricity the moment it revealed its length.

"Made it myself back in college. I was doing my laser eye surgery at that time and I needed a cane, but you know how it is in this city, and all my college classmates were jerks and were going to gang over me if I didn't make this." He said with utter pride. The cane had a loop with a button at its end to start the electric discharge, or even to pull off the head to reveal a knife, but he wasn't going to tell this to the teen.

"I even have my electronic watch, it's like a mini computer with the same amount of processing power that you'll get from my laptop. It's not that impressive, it's just a microprocessor attached with an HMI."

"Okay, why invent that one?"

"Listen, kid, I wasn't planning on ending up with a job in the GCPD. I was actually planning on opening up a company with my designs. But I needed to do something else …"

"In the GCPD." The teen said with some skepticism. Edward ignored him as he clicked a button on his watch, the voices of both the youngest Robin and the oldest one were heard as they were discussing what to make for dinner.

This only added to the theory that they were a family and lived together, at least, everyone else but the oldest Robin-now-turned-Nightwing.

"Don't think about lasagna in a time like this, my phone is catching some frequency. I think they're getting closer." He said, silencing both of the boys, only making the teen next to him giggle. Just like he had mentioned, their devices were all picking up signals coming from further away, announcing the arrival of the vehicles they need to stop.

Robin took out his hook and reached out to grab him, ready to jump to the fray once the vehicles were secured.

"And then we bust his skull."

Two-Face's voice was heard through his watch, making him grimace.

"Ain't nobody gonna be busting skulls in my sugah's party!"

"This one's an incoming frequency from another sight. She's not going to be present." Edward tells the team, receiving a confirmation from everyone else that they've heard.

"Y-Yes, that sounds very unhygienic. Although, rabbit meat is considered to be the cleanest meat-" Mad Hatter had spoken until he was cut off by Two-Face.

"Disgusting. No one's eating any human meat."

"He is the white rabbit!"

"White rabbit? He's literally the big black bat!" Harley shouted in the comm. Edward felt his head slowly disintegrating with this conversation.

They can see three vehicles coming.

"Jamming signals initiated in, 3, 2, 1-"

Before Edward could finish his sentence, everything was moving so fast, that he couldn't pick anything up with his own eyes even as he heard every scream of every goon hiding on those cars while guns spiraled about. His shoulders hit the top of an armored van, and Red Robin pulls out a device that he immediately used to cut off the roof. Edward had to shrug off the pain in his shoulders as he pulled himself inside the now speeding van.

He ignored the chaos and anxious fight coming from his comm as he lands inside ...

only to have his breath taken away by the sight of the Batman.

The other goons that were stationed inside the van were already losing, but Robin managed to unhinge the door open, pulling them out of the van and using himself as a distraction.

Now, feeling safe enough, Edward pulls a wire and connects it from his watch to a port he knew would be present from many nights observing the insane criminal's gadgets. He cheers as he starts cracking the program in it, trying to release Batman from Tetch's mind control.

This was far too exhilarating, Edward couldn't help but feel. The rush of cracking something so difficult. Hatter was a master hypnotist, the guy used to teach neuroscience before falling into madness, after all. While he wasn't as good at playing with technology, his methods were still brilliant. It was a puzzle, trying to evade the electrodes designed to kill off the victims or leave them disabled if they had the unfortunate luck of surviving the shock. One misstep in this maze and he could kill the dark knight.

It's dangerous.

Nightwing didn't really understand the dangerous situation he just put his mentor into. How could the sidekick even trust him with such a mission? Naivety? Dispiration?

Anyone else would fail under the pressure.

But Edward?

He thrives, he thrives because of the rush of success overwhelming when he can certainly solve something with any margin of difficulty.

The moment he succeeded, the man plummets down on the steel ground. Edward winced as he pulled off the bunny ears off the man's head.

"Objective complete," Edward yells to his watch. "Batman's released, we need an escape route, he's too heavy for me- Oh god, what the hell?!"

The van took a hard break, dropping him on the ground and hitting his face right next to the caped crusader, letting him hear the man's groan. An incredible feat, seeing as the man should be unconscious after so long under mind control symptoms.

The doors were yanked out, forcefully, and the reason stood in front of the gaping hole that was created.

Two-Face.

"You! You creepy little freak!"

"Hey! I ain't no freak, you dipshit!" He retorts, only to scream as he was pulled off the ground by the back lapels of his coat.

He was brought face to face – Double face – with the man. His eyes were completely looking straight at a split image cropped and stitched back together. Black hair, clear skin, and normal blue eyes contrasting harshly with white hair on the other side, and blazing red eyes with scarred and marred skin and a snarling mouth.

He couldn't breathe.

He could feel his heart beat slowly rising.

"Wait a sec … You? You look familiar. Your eyes-"

"What's wrong with my eyes!" He suddenly demands, what the hell is wrong with these villains?! Always focusing on the weirdest thing-

Then it struck him.

He knew Harvey Dent before.

He knew him, as the head of cybercrime, before the man turned into what he is today.

Holy heck.

"They're real pretty."

"Huh?" All feelings of dread dissipated at that moment, leaving him feeling incredulous. "Err- Thanks?"

Before any more could be said between them, a Batarang was thrown at the man's back, making him howl loudly. Edward took that moment to pull out his electric baton/cane and expanded it in seconds, letting it electrify on the man's stomach.

The man continues to howl as he lets him go, and he sees the youngest member standing there looking ready to kill someone, despite his katanas looking clean of any blood.

"Get Batman out of here." He said as he stood up, the child didn't need any more orders as he particularly ran inside and helped his father up, using himself as a crutch. Showing some pity to the duo, he also helps them out, grabbing Batman's other side and then ran with them, leaving the scene into a safer destination point.

And as they all left, all the goons tied up and the kids sent an anonymous tip the police. Edward couldn't help but stare at his hands for the whole ride, clenching it from time to time as he reminded himself of what it felt to use his cane.

It felt ... good.

He liked hurting Two-face.

But that was ... that was only because the other was a bad guy. A lunatic deserving to live in the looney bin. The man hurt others, killed people. It's fine if he'd hurt him in return ...

Right?

Riddle: Who's not afraid of the big black bat?

Answer: -

Conclusion: Even Joker fears the Batman, now that he thought about it.

AN: -

Wilder Penfield info was found in the [Brain in minutes By Rita Carter] book. I haven't crossed referenced it much to other materials though. But the guy did a study about Deja vu as well. So, go wild, search more about him if you want. (I'm just mildly disturbed with the fact that Penfield as a college student, looked a bit like Mads Mikkelsen).

HMIs are Human-Machine-interface. Basically, the tool you use to contact the computer. Touch screens are famous examples. And to a certain point, mouse+keyboards+monitors are HMI when combined together.

Also, the bats is free! Free I'm telling you!

Eddie can finally stop worrying about the city's safety and start worrying about himself!