Interlude #37
The Chemical Factory looked worse in daylight.
The concrete was slick with chemicals that had eaten through industrial sealant, leaving patches that steamed faintly despite the cool air. Each step required calculation -- where to place weight, which surfaces might give way, what might explode if disturbed.
The figure in tactical gear moved through the space as if carelessness was a professional liability. Boots found purchase on stable ground with unconscious precision. The rifle swept corners more from habit than expectation, muzzle tracking threats that weren't there.
Yet.
The silence bothered him. Places like this should have been swarming -- police, cleanup crews, opportunistic scavengers. Instead: nothing. Just the ambient drip of toxins eating through metal and the occasional groan of compromised structure settling under its own weight.
His eyepiece painted the space in tactical overlay -- structural integrity percentages, chemical composition readings, heat signature analysis. All the technology money could buy, compressed into a heads-up display that turned chaos into data.
The factory floor opened before him like a stage after the performance had ended badly.
The vat dominated everything. That nightmare green still bubbling, still steaming, still waiting with patient malevolence. Stories about this place circulated through Gotham's underworld like cautionary tales -- how the Clown Prince had been born here, baptized in chemicals that had rewritten him at a fundamental level.
And now, if the intel was accurate, something new had gone swimming in those same waters.
Twice.
His eyepiece tracked heat signatures across the grating. Most were hours old, thermal echoes fading. But the patterns told stories for those patient enough to read them.
Boot prints in chemical residue. Multiple sets. Expensive soles, even weight distribution, professional stance. Men who knew how to move, how to position, how to kill. All converging toward the vat in patterns that suggested coordination.
Or had, before something had gone catastrophically wrong.
He knelt beside a dark stain near the vat's edge. His eyepiece analyzed: 43% human hemoglobin, 31% unknown organic compounds, 26% Joker toxin derivatives. The blood was hours old but the chemical composition was fresh. Active. Still metabolizing.
His jaw tightened behind the mask.
The target had been here. And bleeding.
More stains led away from the vat in patterns that spoke of desperation. Not controlled movement. This was stumbling. Dragging. The gait of something held together by stubbornness and chemistry rather than anatomy.
His rifle tracked to the bodies: corpses in expensive suits, crashed bones, missing limbs, others collapsed into each other.
He crouched beside makeshift bandages scattered near the tunnel entrance. Torn fabric in clashing colors -- suit material, sequins, worker's coveralls. Someone had wrapped wounds with whatever they could find. Badly.
The blood trail led toward the tunnel entrance. Two sets of tracks. One dragging the other.
He approached slowly, rifle raised, finger resting on the trigger guard. The tunnel mouth yawned before him, darkness absolute beyond the first few feet. His eyepiece compensated, painting infrared overlay across thermal gradients.
The entrance showed recent structural compromise. Cracks spiderwebbed through concrete overlaying decades of water damage and neglect. Something had hit this section hard, recently.
He was three steps from the tunnel when his eyepiece registered displacement behind him.
Not through heat signature or movement. Just the subtle shift in air pressure when something massive occupied space it hadn't occupied a moment before.
His rifle came around in a practiced arc, stock finding his shoulder, eye finding scope, finger finding trigger. The entire motion took less than a second. Muscle memory refined through ten thousand repetitions.
The scope's crosshair settled on the tunnel entrance.
On the figure that filled it completely.
Massive frame. Mask made of leather and metal, studded, with tubes feeding directly into it. One eye visible behind the apparatus, studying him with the patience of something that had no doubt about the outcome of any confrontation.
And on one massive shoulder, draped like a broken doll: a figure. Smaller. Female. Ponytails -- one pink, one blue -- hanging limp. Dead weight.
His eyepiece calculated firing solutions automatically. Seventy-three percent chance of immobilization. Thirty-four percent for a kill shot. Ninety-two percent chance of provoking immediate retaliation.
His finger stayed on the trigger guard. Not squeezing. Not yet.
The figure emerged fully into the factory floor's light, boots finding purchase on chemical-slicked concrete without apparent concern. The woman on his shoulder remained motionless, chemical burns visible on exposed skin, chest moving with shallow breaths that suggested broken ribs at minimum.
Recognition clicked into place with the finality of a chambered round.
"Deadshot." The voice carried an accent that turned each syllable into something measured. Deliberate. A statement rather than a greeting.
Deadshot's rifle lowered incrementally. Not holstered. Not safe. Just... adjusted.
"Bane." His voice was flat. Professional. The tone of two specialists acknowledging each other's presence.
He watched Bane shift the unconscious woman's weight with casual ease, adjusting her position like someone repositioning luggage. The movement revealed more damage -- the signature colors of Harley Quinn's outfit torn and bloodied, makeup smeared beyond recognition.
Reports from the bank heist had mentioned her involvement with the Spider. Shown the transformation. Mentioned a lot of things that were supposed to end with the Spider's corpse. Bane emerging with her broken form might have ensured it.
"I expect," Deadshot said, eyepiece tracking Bane's vitals through his scope, "the confrontation between you and the Spider resulted in death." His pause was calculated. "His."
Bane's visible eye gleamed with something that might have been amusement.
"I admire your reverence, Deadshot." The accent made his name sound foreign. Almost formal. "But I must say that one of us is already dead." His pause carried weight. "It is just a matter of when."
Deadshot's expression didn't change behind his mask. His eyepiece was already recalculating -- Bane's stance suggested readiness despite the cargo, weight distribution indicated he could drop the woman and attack within half a second, optimal firing solutions updated in real-time.
But his voice carried professional disdain when he spoke.
"You lost."
The words landed clean. Precise. Deliberately placed to cut.
"Typical," Deadshot continued, rifle still lowered but ready, "How far the mighty Bane has fallen."
Bane's frame went rigid. Not preparation for attack -- this was controlled fury. The tubes pulsed faster, responding to the spike in chemical demand. His hand tightened fractionally on Harley's unconscious form.
"The man who broke the Bat." Deadshot adjusted his rifle's strap, the motion casual but placing the weapon within instant reach. His voice carried across the factory floor with deliberate volume. "Who almost destroyed Gotham." His pause was surgical. "Now he can't even squash one little Spider."
"If it's a fight you're looking for--" Each word was carved from something cold and final. Every muscle in Bane's body was coiling, tubes pulsing faster, the body preparing for violence even as the mind held it in check.
Deadshot turned. His back to Bane. The ultimate insult between predators.
"I don't have the time." His voice carried that dismissive tone -- the sound of someone with targets to acquire and contracts to fulfill. "I've got myself a Spider to hunt. Now that he's no longer in the tunnels, he's got nowhere to hide."
Bane's tubes pulsed. His hands flexed. The Venom demanded release -- demanded to break the man who'd just dismissed him like some washed-up relic.
"On the contrary," Bane's voice came out surprisingly calm and controlled. "The Spider has everywhere to hide. It's his flames that burn too bright to keep him hidden."
"Sounds like he will be easy to smoke out," Deadshot was already walking toward the exit. His stride was unhurried -- the gait of someone with actual work to accomplish.
His hand found the rifle, adjusted the scope with practiced ease. The motion was casual. Confident. The body language of a man who believed his next shot would end this particular problem permanently.
"I give him three days. Four if he's smart."
He walked out of the factory leaving Bane alone, standing with unconscious cargo.
Bane adjusted Harley's weight. She was heavier than she understood. She was the fuel to a raging fire that threatened to consume.
She had created a monster that would come for her throat first, wanting to finish what Bane had interrupted.
Bane's smile was invisible behind his mask, but his visible eye gleamed with anticipation.
"Vengeance does not require wings," Bane said, speaking to the empty factory. "Only teeth."
"Come then, Spider," he murmured to the empty factory. "I'll be waiting."
While predators circled the Spider's trail, the families were already moving.
🕸️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕸️
Salvatore Maroni's patience had limits.
The Stacked Deck occupied a converted warehouse in Gotham's Burnley district -- close enough to the docks for quick exits, far enough from GCPD's Twenty-Third Precinct to conduct business without immediate interruption. The building's previous life as a playing card factory had amused Maroni enough to keep the name.
Tonight, the irony felt appropriate. Everyone was holding cards. The question was who was bluffing.
The back room held twelve men. Soldiers and representatives from four families -- Maroni's crew, obviously, but also the Odessas (Ukrainian muscle running protection in Gotham's Diamond District), the Skeevers (Irish, controlling the Tricorner shipyards), and the Galantes (old Gotham money laundering through legitimate construction).
Maroni stood at the head of the scarred poker table, expensive suit doing nothing to hide the threat in his frame. His hands were spread flat on felt that had seen better decades, fingers splayed.
"Two hours ago," he said, voice carrying the rough edges of Crown Point, "Edward Nigma walked into my social club. Alone. No theatrics. No riddles." His eyes swept the table. "Just information."
Heads turned. Not surprised -- the Riddler selling information was practically a second career. But interested. Concerned. Because Nigma didn't deal in small gossip.
"He says Falcone's ring is gone." Maroni let the words land like dropped cards. "The Roman Ring. Destroyed. Consumed by that Spider freak who's been robbing Gotham."
Silence.
Then Yuri Odessa leaned forward, gold teeth catching the overhead light. "Riddler says many things. Usually wrapped in puzzles that waste everyone's time."
"He wasn't riddling." Maroni's jaw tightened. "He wasn't selling either. Straight information. Said he was doing it for Gotham. Breaking the facade."
"You believe him?" Tommy Skeever's Boston accent made the question sharper than intended. "Could be bullshit. Could be Falcone paying him to spread panic, see who moves first."
"Could be," Maroni acknowledged. "Which is why we're not moving. Not yet."
He pulled out a chair, sat deliberately. The posture of a man settling in for a long game.
"Here's what we know for certain," Maroni continued, voice dropping. "Nigma lost his cane to the Spider. Penguin lost his umbrella. Half a dozen other crews got hit. And Falcone?" His pause was surgical. "Falcone's been dodging meetings. Sending Milos Grapa. Making excuses about 'security concerns.'"
"The ring's ceremonial," offered Vincent Galante, older than the others, cautious in ways that came from surviving forty years in Gotham's underworld. "Symbolic. Doesn't actually mean--"
"It means everything." Maroni's fist came down on the table. Not hard enough to damage. Hard enough to punctuate. "That ring is why we don't tear each other apart every month. Why my guys don't shoot your guys over dock access. Why the Odessas don't expand into Skeever territory when they think nobody's watching."
He straightened, adjusting his tie with deliberate precision.
"Falcone held that ring for ten years. A decade of stability. Of everyone knowing their place. Of understanding that crossing certain lines meant the Roman reminded you why those lines existed." His eyes found each face. "And if Nigma's telling the truth? If that ring's actually gone?"
The implications hung like smoke.
"Territories open up," Yuri said quietly.
"Old agreements become suggestions," Tommy added.
"A decade of grievances come due," Vincent finished.
Maroni nodded slowly. "But we don't know. Not for certain. Nigma could be lying. Could be Falcone testing us. Could be--" He spread his hands. "Could be a dozen things. Which is why we're going to smoke him out."
"How?" Yuri leaned back, arms crossed.
"We challenge him." Maroni's smile had teeth. "Publicly. Respectfully. We request a meeting at the Sink -- neutral ground, witnesses, the whole nine yards. We say we've heard rumors. We say we want reassurance. We give him every opportunity to prove the ring's still his."
"And if he refuses?" Tommy asked.
"Then we know something's wrong." Maroni's fingers drummed once on felt. "If he's got the ring, he shows up and flashes it. Puts the rumors to bed. Business continues."
"And if he doesn't have it?" Vincent's voice carried the weight of experience. "If he shows up without the ring, or doesn't show at all?"
The room's temperature seemed to drop.
"Then Gotham burns," Maroni said simply. "And from the ashes, a new order will rise."
~Mimiclord
I fraggin' love writin" and reading these interludes. Interlude #59 is also out and Arc 4: The Mechanical-Arm Spider is ready for takeoff. Your presence in Patreon.com/mimiclord is highly anticipated.
Thank you for reading.