Batman: Purgatory

CHAPTER 2

"Do you know how bad this looks on us Jim? Letting a masked vigilante into a police interrogation room and beat a suspect halfway to death on the grounds of NO evidence?"

"I know. It's messy, that's for sure. But listen to me, he's not just some 'masked vigilante'... He's... He's the Batman goddamn it! He is not our enemy!" Gordon cries over the phone as he sits in his dimly lit office.

"If he does something like that again, you bring him in," the mayor groans over the phone, "This is gonna be devastating for my re-election cycle if it gets out."

"Oh go to hell," Gordon proclaims as he slams down the corded phone, rubbing his head to temper his growing headache. Muttering that he needs a smoke break, Gordon bursts out of his office. The chilling midnight breeze runs into his face and whisks his hair back in the wind as he arrives at the rooftop. He blindly shoves his hand into the pocket of his tired, ragged trench coat, pulling out a cigar and a lighter. Gray puffs of cloudy smoke carry his pent up stress into the skies of the gothic hell-scape. What was once the centerpiece of the roof catches Gordon's eye like an afterthought, that thought being the sight of the dormant, eroded Bat-Signal; with veins of rust running down the metallic case for the only source of life in the city. The visual hits him like a freight train. Gordon's thoughts however are interrupted by the vibration of his cellphone. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and answers the call, throwing it up to his head. Gordon's heart stops. The chilling words of the voice on the other end bulldoze his mind and make his eyes flood open.

"Hello, father... It's been a while. Come see me. I have a lead."

"..-unngh... where am I?" A greasy thug grumbles, finding himself tied up in a snug metal chain. Blood rushes to his head, his arms compacted into his sides as he desperately tries to shake himself free. He hangs upside down, helplessly twirling in circles amongst the all encompassing darkness.

"I wouldn't worry about that," echoes a dark voice lurking in the unknown of the shadows, "I would worry about if you want to walk out of here or crawl out of here." Batman steps out of the shadows with his sharp glowing eyes.

"Y-you... you don't scare me... you won't kill me... everybody knows that," he nervously mutters while his head becomes as light as a cloud.

"There are pains worse than death," Batman tells him, the man's sweat dripping down his ghostly white cheeks and falling to the ground like rain drops. "I'm going to ask you a simple question. If you comply, you can leave this room without a scratch and go back to your life pretending nothing ever happened. I am not going to repeat myself. What. Happened. To. Leslie. Thompkins?" Batman demands from the thug as he marches around him in a circular motion, staring a hole through the man's head with his scowl.

"I'on't know, honest to God. I'm just a street guy, I work around. I don't have any affiliations, I don't know!" The thug desperately pleas, sheer horror pushing up through his throat.

"You're right. You're a nobody. But, you have recently done jobs for Oswald Cobblepot. Jobs that none of his own men were on. Just no-names, like you. People that didn't have anyone to go run off and spill his secrets to... in other words..."

He stomps over towards the thug and grabs the man's arm, setting it free from the chains before stretching it to be as straight as a tree trunk. "NO NO WAIT PLEA—" Batman's elbow drops down on his joint like the blade of a guillotine. His arm crunches like a twig. "...strike 1," Batman finishes.

"YOU PSYCHOPATH YOU'RE INSANE, MY GODDAMN ARM!" The thug cries out. His throat burns and his eyes begin to water. The man's breaths come as quickly as a rushing river, "I PROMISE I DON'T KNOW, PL-PL-PLEASE MAN, I HAVE A KID!"