Strange Behavior – Chapter One
This is my response to Batman #600 – the start of the Bruce Wayne: Fugitive story line. I am rushing the writing of this story to get it out before it becomes completely out of date. That's my excuse for any errors! It is already somewhat outdated by Birds of Prey #41. I think that's why the Black Canary forced her way into this story. She wasn't in my original plot concept, but she isn't a lady I care to argue with.
All characters in this story are copyright DC Comics and I have used them without permission. I am making no money from this story.
The Clock Tower
10:25 PM
"How can he do this? Give up being Bruce Wayne! Is he crazy? Of course, he's crazy! 'Bruce Wayne is a mask I wear, but it's become a liability so it's over.' What a crock! Is he going to wear the costume to bed? Wear it while he brushes his teeth so he won't see Bruce Wayne's face looking back at him in a mirror? How can he even think of doing this?"
Barbara Gordon pushed up her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if that could stem the incipient headache. Dick Grayson, in full Nightwing garb, paced back and forth around her wheel chair. This had been the constant refrain since he had returned from the Batcave. She had been sympathetic for the first twenty repetitions, but now her sympathy was wearing thin.
Robin -- no one bothered pretending any longer that she didn't know he was Tim Drake – had returned to Brentwood, his boarding school, primarily (she was sure) to escape Dick's tirade. Cassie (Batgirl) had disappeared without anyone noticing. Barbara's status board showed she was out on patrol. She was probably taking her unhappiness out on any crook unlucky enough to cross her path.
"I don't know how he could do it, Dick," she replied as patiently as she could manage.
"I can't believe he would do this!"
"Well, he did!" Barbara exploded. "Instead of bemoaning that fact, let's deal with it."
Dick Grayson snorted. "And how are we supposed to do that?"
Barbara wasn't sure, but anything was more productive than this. "Well," she temporized, "we need to start by recognizing that, ever since my father was shot, Bruce has been acting increasingly…" She hesitated, trying to find a more diplomatic word than 'unstable' or 'weird'.
"He didn't do it!" Dick shouted. "He did NOT murder Vesper Fairchild!"
"Fine!" Barbara yelled back. "He didn't do it! That still leaves us with Vesper's computer hard drive to explain. Someone went thru it and erased every mention that Bruce is Batman, and did it so well that the police didn't notice anything. If Bruce didn't do that, who did?"
Dick just glared at her.
"Stop emoting and start detecting, former boy wonder! If Bruce didn't do it, then what does that mean?"
"He was set up!"
"Wonderful deduction, Captain Obvious! Anyone could tell you were trained by the World's Greatest Detective!"
"What do you want from me?" Dick shouted. "We've been working on this for over a week without getting anywhere. And you expect me to pull a Sherlock?"
"But now we have more to work with," Barbara said quietly. Dick stopped and stared at her. "Bruce may have been acting strangely before, but tonight's performance was the strangest yet. By far."
Dick's face mirrored his concern and guilt. He hadn't spent much time with Bruce in recent years, Barbara thought, and now he is feeling guilty about it. As if his presence could have prevented any of this.
"You really think he's crazy?" he asked so softly she had to strain to hear it.
"That … isn't the only possibility."
"Mind control?" Barbara could see him weigh the possibilities. Finally, she thought, I've got him thinking rather than reacting. She could see him replay tonight's events in his memory.
"Not mind control like the Mad Hatter," she said slowly, "but maybe something more subtle."
It was fascinating, she thought. Previously, he couldn't keep still. He had paced around the room, waving his hands wildly. Now he could be a statue.
"Babs", his quiet voice startled her out of her reverie. "Do you remember what he said when you told him Vesper knew he was Batman?"
"Sure." Having a photographic memory, she could hardly forget. "He said, 'That's not true.'"
"Exactly."
"So he didn't know." Removing his best reason for wanting her dead, if you believed him.
"Babs," said Dick patiently. "He said it's not true."
"So?" She couldn't see what he was getting at.
"He knew she was investigating the Batman. He broke up with her to avoid the chance he might give himself away. Don't you think he would have kept tabs on her? Had a whole scheme of disinformation in place in case she got lucky?"
"Of course he would," Barbara responded. "He's the Batman. He has a plan for everything." Except he hadn't had a plan for his former girlfriend being murdered in his house. "But then…"
"Maybe she didn't know he was the Batman. Maybe we are just supposed to think she did. Not the police. What's the point in erasing the notes if you want the police to see them? Just us, just Batman's closest allies. The people who would never stop working to clear him, unless we thought he was guilty. He wanted to destroy Bruce Wayne, to destroy the trust and belief in him of the people around him, but he didn't want to reveal he was Batman."
"Dick, isn't that reaching? It took me hours of work to recover those notes. How could he know I'd manage it? For that matter, how could he be sure the police wouldn't?"
Dick waved this away. "There are few people as good with computers as you are, Babs. I doubt the GCPD has access to an expert of your caliber. Besides, why would they even look? They have their perp and an airtight case; they're not thinking about a possible frame.
"It would mean the killer knew Bruce was the Batman, but we already guessed that. He would also have to know us well enough to know we would find what he planted."
Barbara shivered at the thought.
"The very difficulty of finding the information would make it more convincing, more damning. He intended to turn us against Bruce, to isolate him psychologically, cut him off from all his friends and family."
"But Dick…"
"Think of the agony of finding Vesper dead in his house, Babs, of being arrested for her murder, locked up and unable to do anything to help himself or protect his city. Then add on top of it the pain of finding that his closest friends believed him guilty. That's what the murderer wanted to do to Bruce. It wasn't enough to neutralize the Batman or kill him. He wanted to completely destroy him. Yet he wanted to preserve the secret of Batman's identity.
"It would have to be someone who knew Bruce was Batman; more, who knows what makes him tick and is ruthless enough to exploit the knowledge. Someone who prefers subtle psychological mind games to direct physical action. Someone who is patient enough to spend months or years setting this up. Yet he protects the Batman's secrets. Why? With Bruce in prison or … dead … there would be no Batman. Unless…"
They turned to each other and saw the dawning realization in the other's eyes. Simultaneously, they shouted:
"Hugo Strange!"
"We know he wants to be the Batman; he dresses up in Batman's costume 'to tap the totemic power of the archetype.'"
"He held Bruce captive not long before your father was shot."
"And he drugged him. He could have planted a post-hypnotic suggestion as well. All he would have to do is reinforce Bruce's deep-rooted fear that everybody who gets close to him dies. Bruce's subconscious would do the rest: forcing everyone away to protect them."
"Bruce used self-hypnosis to forget he was Batman, in order to convince Hugo that he wasn't. That might have left him unusually suggestible."
"But he has been in Arkham ever since." Barbara quickly pulled Arkham Asylum records. "According to this, he's still there."
"Wanna bet?"
"Given Arkham's past performance, are you kidding?"
Arkham Asylum
11:45 PM
Nightwing moved silently down the corridor to Hugo Strange's cell. He paused outside, alert to any sound. He had 20 minutes before the night watch man was next due. Plenty of time. It took less than a minute to pick the lock and enter. He quietly closed the door behind him. The cells were soundproof: a necessity for a place that regularly housed the Joker. No one was going to hear what happened in here, except Oracle.
Nightwing's flashlight swept the cell, then steadied on a figure huddled in the corner. He was not asleep; instead he was rocking back and forth, moaning: "I killed Batman, I am Batman, I killed Batman, I am Batman." Over and over again. He looked like Hugo Strange. He sounded like Hugo Strange. Nightwing suppressed a stab of disappointment and crouched next to the rocking figure.
"Hugo, Hugo." The figure kept rocking and repeating his litany.
Nightwing slapped him lightly and the man's eyes focused on him, then bulged out in recognition.
1 "No! Stay away! This is my house, don't make me leave!"
"Verbatim from his transcripts," Barbara muttered into Nightwing's ear via com link. "It hasn't changed since he got here."
"Maybe," Nightwing responded quietly, lifting the man's glasses off his head and looking thru them, "but this isn't Hugo Strange."
He could hear Barbara's sudden intake of breath.
"Are you sure?"
"Hugo is extremely near sighted. His glasses are like Coke bottles. This guy is only mildly near-sighted.
"Also, I think…", he grabbed a handful of beard and yanked. "Yes! The beard is fake. I doubt Hugo Strange was ever here."
"You'd lose that bet, twenty-something wonder. He visits once a week like clockwork."
"Oh?"
"Guess who this poor slob's psychiatrist is."
"Herr Doktor Fledermaus, perhaps?"
Barbara chortled. "Not quite. Doctor Wayne Thompson." Thompson, Tom's son. Thomas Wayne's son: Bruce.
"That's our Hugo: bold as brass and too clever for his own good. When is he due back?"
"It appears he is on vacation at present. He isn't due back for another two weeks."
"How surprising." Nightwing put the glasses back on the man.
"So where to now, Short Pants?"
"Blackgate. I need to talk to Bruce's former bodyguard."
En route to Blackgate Prison
12:35 AM
"Good thing Bruce keeps a boat handy under an assumed name."
"What can I say? He could give the Boy Scouts lessons in being prepared."
"I've already spoken with Sasha Bordeaux. She's not talking. Period."
"She's got to talk now. Strange couldn't have accomplished all this with a post-hypnotic suggestion. He must have had further access to Bruce to work on him, most likely at Wayne Manor. We know Hugo got in and out of there unobserved the night he killed Vesper. As his bodyguard, Sasha was constantly around Bruce the past year. She had to have seen something useful.
"You said she knows Bruce is Batman?"
"She didn't give anything away but, yes, I'm positive she knows."
"Good. That simplifies things."
"Something occurs to me, Dick. Last time, Hugo Strange got to Bruce thru Wayne Enterprises. He was 'psychologically evaluating' all the top executives, including the CEO, Lucius Fox."
"Lucius was young to have a stroke, wasn't he? And no risk factors: he didn't smoke, he kept himself in shape."
"I'm checking … no family history of strokes, either."
"And Bruce depended upon him."
"More than that. He was a friend. Bruce doesn't have many of those left."
"There are drugs that can simulate a stroke."
"Yes."
"When does Lucius get out of the hospital?"
"Still no word on that."
"When I get my hands on Strange…"
"Yes."
This is my response to Batman #600 – the start of the Bruce Wayne: Fugitive story line. I am rushing the writing of this story to get it out before it becomes completely out of date. That's my excuse for any errors! It is already somewhat outdated by Birds of Prey #41. I think that's why the Black Canary forced her way into this story. She wasn't in my original plot concept, but she isn't a lady I care to argue with.
All characters in this story are copyright DC Comics and I have used them without permission. I am making no money from this story.
The Clock Tower
10:25 PM
"How can he do this? Give up being Bruce Wayne! Is he crazy? Of course, he's crazy! 'Bruce Wayne is a mask I wear, but it's become a liability so it's over.' What a crock! Is he going to wear the costume to bed? Wear it while he brushes his teeth so he won't see Bruce Wayne's face looking back at him in a mirror? How can he even think of doing this?"
Barbara Gordon pushed up her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if that could stem the incipient headache. Dick Grayson, in full Nightwing garb, paced back and forth around her wheel chair. This had been the constant refrain since he had returned from the Batcave. She had been sympathetic for the first twenty repetitions, but now her sympathy was wearing thin.
Robin -- no one bothered pretending any longer that she didn't know he was Tim Drake – had returned to Brentwood, his boarding school, primarily (she was sure) to escape Dick's tirade. Cassie (Batgirl) had disappeared without anyone noticing. Barbara's status board showed she was out on patrol. She was probably taking her unhappiness out on any crook unlucky enough to cross her path.
"I don't know how he could do it, Dick," she replied as patiently as she could manage.
"I can't believe he would do this!"
"Well, he did!" Barbara exploded. "Instead of bemoaning that fact, let's deal with it."
Dick Grayson snorted. "And how are we supposed to do that?"
Barbara wasn't sure, but anything was more productive than this. "Well," she temporized, "we need to start by recognizing that, ever since my father was shot, Bruce has been acting increasingly…" She hesitated, trying to find a more diplomatic word than 'unstable' or 'weird'.
"He didn't do it!" Dick shouted. "He did NOT murder Vesper Fairchild!"
"Fine!" Barbara yelled back. "He didn't do it! That still leaves us with Vesper's computer hard drive to explain. Someone went thru it and erased every mention that Bruce is Batman, and did it so well that the police didn't notice anything. If Bruce didn't do that, who did?"
Dick just glared at her.
"Stop emoting and start detecting, former boy wonder! If Bruce didn't do it, then what does that mean?"
"He was set up!"
"Wonderful deduction, Captain Obvious! Anyone could tell you were trained by the World's Greatest Detective!"
"What do you want from me?" Dick shouted. "We've been working on this for over a week without getting anywhere. And you expect me to pull a Sherlock?"
"But now we have more to work with," Barbara said quietly. Dick stopped and stared at her. "Bruce may have been acting strangely before, but tonight's performance was the strangest yet. By far."
Dick's face mirrored his concern and guilt. He hadn't spent much time with Bruce in recent years, Barbara thought, and now he is feeling guilty about it. As if his presence could have prevented any of this.
"You really think he's crazy?" he asked so softly she had to strain to hear it.
"That … isn't the only possibility."
"Mind control?" Barbara could see him weigh the possibilities. Finally, she thought, I've got him thinking rather than reacting. She could see him replay tonight's events in his memory.
"Not mind control like the Mad Hatter," she said slowly, "but maybe something more subtle."
It was fascinating, she thought. Previously, he couldn't keep still. He had paced around the room, waving his hands wildly. Now he could be a statue.
"Babs", his quiet voice startled her out of her reverie. "Do you remember what he said when you told him Vesper knew he was Batman?"
"Sure." Having a photographic memory, she could hardly forget. "He said, 'That's not true.'"
"Exactly."
"So he didn't know." Removing his best reason for wanting her dead, if you believed him.
"Babs," said Dick patiently. "He said it's not true."
"So?" She couldn't see what he was getting at.
"He knew she was investigating the Batman. He broke up with her to avoid the chance he might give himself away. Don't you think he would have kept tabs on her? Had a whole scheme of disinformation in place in case she got lucky?"
"Of course he would," Barbara responded. "He's the Batman. He has a plan for everything." Except he hadn't had a plan for his former girlfriend being murdered in his house. "But then…"
"Maybe she didn't know he was the Batman. Maybe we are just supposed to think she did. Not the police. What's the point in erasing the notes if you want the police to see them? Just us, just Batman's closest allies. The people who would never stop working to clear him, unless we thought he was guilty. He wanted to destroy Bruce Wayne, to destroy the trust and belief in him of the people around him, but he didn't want to reveal he was Batman."
"Dick, isn't that reaching? It took me hours of work to recover those notes. How could he know I'd manage it? For that matter, how could he be sure the police wouldn't?"
Dick waved this away. "There are few people as good with computers as you are, Babs. I doubt the GCPD has access to an expert of your caliber. Besides, why would they even look? They have their perp and an airtight case; they're not thinking about a possible frame.
"It would mean the killer knew Bruce was the Batman, but we already guessed that. He would also have to know us well enough to know we would find what he planted."
Barbara shivered at the thought.
"The very difficulty of finding the information would make it more convincing, more damning. He intended to turn us against Bruce, to isolate him psychologically, cut him off from all his friends and family."
"But Dick…"
"Think of the agony of finding Vesper dead in his house, Babs, of being arrested for her murder, locked up and unable to do anything to help himself or protect his city. Then add on top of it the pain of finding that his closest friends believed him guilty. That's what the murderer wanted to do to Bruce. It wasn't enough to neutralize the Batman or kill him. He wanted to completely destroy him. Yet he wanted to preserve the secret of Batman's identity.
"It would have to be someone who knew Bruce was Batman; more, who knows what makes him tick and is ruthless enough to exploit the knowledge. Someone who prefers subtle psychological mind games to direct physical action. Someone who is patient enough to spend months or years setting this up. Yet he protects the Batman's secrets. Why? With Bruce in prison or … dead … there would be no Batman. Unless…"
They turned to each other and saw the dawning realization in the other's eyes. Simultaneously, they shouted:
"Hugo Strange!"
"We know he wants to be the Batman; he dresses up in Batman's costume 'to tap the totemic power of the archetype.'"
"He held Bruce captive not long before your father was shot."
"And he drugged him. He could have planted a post-hypnotic suggestion as well. All he would have to do is reinforce Bruce's deep-rooted fear that everybody who gets close to him dies. Bruce's subconscious would do the rest: forcing everyone away to protect them."
"Bruce used self-hypnosis to forget he was Batman, in order to convince Hugo that he wasn't. That might have left him unusually suggestible."
"But he has been in Arkham ever since." Barbara quickly pulled Arkham Asylum records. "According to this, he's still there."
"Wanna bet?"
"Given Arkham's past performance, are you kidding?"
Arkham Asylum
11:45 PM
Nightwing moved silently down the corridor to Hugo Strange's cell. He paused outside, alert to any sound. He had 20 minutes before the night watch man was next due. Plenty of time. It took less than a minute to pick the lock and enter. He quietly closed the door behind him. The cells were soundproof: a necessity for a place that regularly housed the Joker. No one was going to hear what happened in here, except Oracle.
Nightwing's flashlight swept the cell, then steadied on a figure huddled in the corner. He was not asleep; instead he was rocking back and forth, moaning: "I killed Batman, I am Batman, I killed Batman, I am Batman." Over and over again. He looked like Hugo Strange. He sounded like Hugo Strange. Nightwing suppressed a stab of disappointment and crouched next to the rocking figure.
"Hugo, Hugo." The figure kept rocking and repeating his litany.
Nightwing slapped him lightly and the man's eyes focused on him, then bulged out in recognition.
1 "No! Stay away! This is my house, don't make me leave!"
"Verbatim from his transcripts," Barbara muttered into Nightwing's ear via com link. "It hasn't changed since he got here."
"Maybe," Nightwing responded quietly, lifting the man's glasses off his head and looking thru them, "but this isn't Hugo Strange."
He could hear Barbara's sudden intake of breath.
"Are you sure?"
"Hugo is extremely near sighted. His glasses are like Coke bottles. This guy is only mildly near-sighted.
"Also, I think…", he grabbed a handful of beard and yanked. "Yes! The beard is fake. I doubt Hugo Strange was ever here."
"You'd lose that bet, twenty-something wonder. He visits once a week like clockwork."
"Oh?"
"Guess who this poor slob's psychiatrist is."
"Herr Doktor Fledermaus, perhaps?"
Barbara chortled. "Not quite. Doctor Wayne Thompson." Thompson, Tom's son. Thomas Wayne's son: Bruce.
"That's our Hugo: bold as brass and too clever for his own good. When is he due back?"
"It appears he is on vacation at present. He isn't due back for another two weeks."
"How surprising." Nightwing put the glasses back on the man.
"So where to now, Short Pants?"
"Blackgate. I need to talk to Bruce's former bodyguard."
En route to Blackgate Prison
12:35 AM
"Good thing Bruce keeps a boat handy under an assumed name."
"What can I say? He could give the Boy Scouts lessons in being prepared."
"I've already spoken with Sasha Bordeaux. She's not talking. Period."
"She's got to talk now. Strange couldn't have accomplished all this with a post-hypnotic suggestion. He must have had further access to Bruce to work on him, most likely at Wayne Manor. We know Hugo got in and out of there unobserved the night he killed Vesper. As his bodyguard, Sasha was constantly around Bruce the past year. She had to have seen something useful.
"You said she knows Bruce is Batman?"
"She didn't give anything away but, yes, I'm positive she knows."
"Good. That simplifies things."
"Something occurs to me, Dick. Last time, Hugo Strange got to Bruce thru Wayne Enterprises. He was 'psychologically evaluating' all the top executives, including the CEO, Lucius Fox."
"Lucius was young to have a stroke, wasn't he? And no risk factors: he didn't smoke, he kept himself in shape."
"I'm checking … no family history of strokes, either."
"And Bruce depended upon him."
"More than that. He was a friend. Bruce doesn't have many of those left."
"There are drugs that can simulate a stroke."
"Yes."
"When does Lucius get out of the hospital?"
"Still no word on that."
"When I get my hands on Strange…"
"Yes."