The hotel suite was understated but elegant one of the Wayne-owned properties in Midtown. The penthouse floor had been cleared out for privacy. No staff, no other guests. Just thick curtains, muted lights, and a wide room that smelled faintly of new carpet and polished wood.
Beth sat on the edge of the bed, small hands resting on her lap. The duvet puffed around her like a cloud. She wore borrowed clothes soft sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt several sizes too big. Her bare feet didn't reach the floor.
Across from her, Batman stood near the window, suit still on, cape trailing behind him like a shadow.
"I need to ask you a few things," he said quietly.
Beth didn't respond right away. She glanced at the tray of untouched food by the TV, then back at him. Her eyes were hollow but alert.
She shrugged. "People."
A nod. "that's what I heard."
"What did they want?"
She looked away. "Me."
Bruce's tone didn't change. "What for?"
Beth shrugged again. "I saw to much."
"The man who helped you. Who is he?"
She blinked. "He helps people." ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ ɴovᴇl(F)ɪre.ɴet
"Is that true?" he asked, carefully. "Or just what you're allowed to say?"
Beth looked at him for a moment not scared, not defiant. Just tired. "He's kind to me," she said. "That's what matters."
Bruce took a breath. "You're a telepath?"
Beth's eyes dropped to the carpet. "I hear stuff sometimes. Feel things. It's like… you're sitting in a room and people are whispering behind a wall. Sometimes I hear them. Sometimes I don't."
"You are really quiet but in a scary way."
Before Bruce could ask more, a voice came from the hallway.
"I've arrived," said J'onn J'onzz, stepping into the suite with a calm, slow gait. He wore a coat over his usual form human-shaped, but unmistakably alien in presence.
Beth sat up a little straighter. Her eyes tracked him.
"She's agreed," Bruce said.
J'onn nodded once and lowered himself into the chair across from her. His voice was velvet-smooth. "Hello, Beth."
She gave him a small nod.
"I'd like to take a look inside your mind, if you'll let me. Just to make sure everything is as it should be I heard your a telepath, just try to let me in."
Beth looked at Bruce, who said nothing. Then she looked back and nodded again.
J'onn's gaze softened. "Think of something safe. Close your eyes."
The room fell quiet. Bruce stood still as stone while the Martian extended his consciousness like a ripple into water. Beth's mind met him not fully open, not fully guarded. She wasn't used to being looked at, examined, dissected. This was different.
Memories rose like fragments, long hallways, numbers on paper. Electric buzzing. Screams behind one-way glass. But also warmth fleeting but sharp. A voice in the dark. A hand holding hers. A man wrapped in layers, never the same face twice.
J'onn reached for that presence… and found only fog.
Thick, unnatural fog.
Every time he tried to focus on the man who saved her, the image blurred. His voice turned to static. His outline became smoke.
Even Beth's thoughts couldn't hold him for long.
"I see… something," J'onn murmured, half in trance. "But I cannot touch it."
He pushed again, just gently and the fog pushed back. Actively. It didn't feel like Beth's defense. It felt like his.
J'onn opened his eyes slowly, expression tight.
"She remembers whoever saved her deeply," the Martian said, voice quieter now. "But her memory has been shrouded. Wrapped in something. There are also memories that are not her own inside her mind, it was hard to get a clear look she is stronger than I thought."
"Her savior was he also a telepath?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. No deifiently not and I don't believe it's her doing. Someone or something has cloaked his presence in her mind. I cannot see his face. I cannot feel his name."
Bruce's jaw tensed. "Could she be lying?"
"No. She's telling the truth and more than that, she can't lie about him. The haze is too thick."
Beth opened her eyes slowly. "Interesting. And what about Cadmus and these other memories?"
J'onn regarded her with a mixture of curiosity and respect. "Jarring to say the least, I saw he see the people that looked over Super Boy, she saw other things but the information is tangled in her mind. Most likely because she gained the information right when she awakened as a telepath, that much information at once is too taxing for a human brain."
Bruce stepped forward, frowning. "I see."
"While your here I want you to look at someone else for me."
The map was taped across the battered wooden table in the center of the gutted apartment unit its wallpaper peeled like old bark, and the ceiling hung low with age and moisture. A single hanging bulb swayed overhead, casting dim light over Quentin's shoulder as he leaned in, a red grease pencil in his hand.
Around him stood the five leaders each one worn, hardened by the street, but sharp-eyed. Survivors. Trusted allies. Each person here were individuals that have spent the longest time on the streets of Gotham and have been the most crucial in controlling routes for relocation services.
Quentin tapped the side of the map near the Narrows. "Black Mask's been seen poking into this zone three times in the two days. They're searching for a congregation point before they hit, I know he wants to see blood."
A voice spoke from his left.
The speaker was Terrell 'Stitch' Gaines, a thin Black man with a stitched scar running from his jaw to his ear, always with a denim coat no matter the weather. His people called him Stitch not just for the scar, but because he was always the one sewing things—metaphorically and literally—back together. "We've seen two vans frequently making rounds. Real low profile, but definitely not ours. I pulled my folks back deeper, but we can't keep hiding."
Quentin nodded. "You shouldn't. You hold the Narrows, Stitch. If they take that, they take our middle ground."
Next to him, an older woman leaned forward, her graying braid pulled tight beneath a cap. Marcy Liu, once a librarian, now the matron of the tunnels beneath Old Gotham Station. Her sector ran through the underground subway lines, maintenance halls, abandoned commuter routes. Her people called her 'The Hag,' though perhaps not right to her face.
"We've started rerouting those moving between shelters. No one moves solo anymore. Always threes, minimum. But if they bring fire down into the tunnels… well, I'm not going to let my people die in a corridor like rats."
Quentin looked to her. "We'll start stockpiling down there. Quietly. You'll get a few of the better rifles. You know how to keep them hidden."
She gave a single nod. "We'll be ghosts."
To the right stood Dre 'Wall' Matthews, the opposite of his name in personality. Loud, boisterous, big as a grizzly, he ruled the East End rooftop circuit his people traveled the city by living on the rooftops of buildings, which Nolan learned was apparently prime real estate for homeless people. "Hell yeah. Let 'em try something. We'll drop bricks on their heads. You give us the word, and we'll set traps like real traps. Collapsing boards, weighted nets, broken glass on ledges. You'd be surprised what we can do with some plywood and a whole bucket of hate."
"You'll get your shot," Quentin muttered, his eyes trailing across the East End. "But our main focus is defense, not bloodshed. Not yet."
The last to speak was Naima Rez, a quiet Middle Eastern woman who rarely spoke unless needed. She oversaw the South Tracks near the border of Black Mask's influence. Her district was the most vulnerable, but she kept order with discipline. Her eyes were always scanning. Her voice came cold and clear.
"They're already trying to bait us. Small fires. False cries for help. They want us scattered and emotional. I've told my people: let nothing pull you off your position unless it's confirmed. We'll hold. But we need fallback routes. Hidden ones."
"You'll have them," Quentin promised. "We've started mapping service tunnels and utility corridors. They'll be marked here coded routes. Use them only when heat's too much to handle."
He circled several intersections. "Here, here, and here we set up patrol posts. Three per post, rotating every six hours. We don't need soldiers we need eyes. The moment anything seems wrong, it gets reported up. We move as one."
He paused, let the silence build.
"We've already taken from Black Mask once," Quentin continued, voice measured. "We've bloodied his nose. He's going to hit back harder than before. I won't lie to you it's going to get worse. But we are not prey. Not anymore."
They all nodded, one by one. Silent agreement. No fanfare. No speeches.
It was a weird thought to them going to war with black mask.
A while ago just seeing one of his goons would have been a nightmare.
A lot has changed in Gotham.
A/N: Names people have suggested / some I threw in.
The underpass society
The underground cabal
The drifter syndicate