"Are you watching this?" Bruce asked Lucius as soon as he answered is cell phone.
"The whole city is watching," Lucius told Bruce.
It was the middle of the night but the news coverage on every channel was focused on the brawl ensuing at Gotham Stadium. Helicopter cameras showed the stadium which was empty apart from a few figures that could be seen.
"I counted 8," Bruce said to Lucius.
"So did I," Lucius replied.
Eight drugged people, fighting and attacking each other. Fighting and attacking Shade.
"I can't stand here and do nothing," Bruce said.
"She's doing well," Lucius said. "Look...she's taken one down-"
"There are too many," Bruce said and watched as she flipped a second man over a balcony. The fall was high, and he would have broken bones, but it was clear that he was still alive and trying without much success to get up after the fall.
"She can do this," Lucius assured Bruce.
.
.
.
Bruce held Adriana as she cried. She returned home and had collapsed in to his arms. He could feel her exhaustion. He knew it well. He had felt this way countless times before. Vigilantism was not for the faint of heart. He remembered fighting with all of his soul, giving all of the energy and will in his body..willing it not to break him.
"Adriana," Bruce said as her cries quieted. "Are you hurt?"
She lifted her head from his lap as they sat on the couch. Bruce could see that she had not even considered that she might be hurt. Adrenaline made him forget to check on himself countless times.
"No..." she said. "No I don't think so...I'm sore but I don't think I have injuries."
She closed her eyes, trying to pay attention to how her body felt.
"Yeah...yeah I'm okay," she told Bruce.
"Okay," Bruce said.
He watched her sit with her eyes closed. She was remembering everything that had happened.
"You did amazing," Bruce assured her.
She nodded, eyes still closed. But then she began to shake her head.
"Maybe you were right.." she said. "You and Jack. Someone is doing this.."
"I agree," Bruce told her.
"Why were there so many of them? All at once? In one place?" Adriana asked.
"I do not know, but this is best left to the police," Bruce told her. "Our efforts are best used to trying to locate the source of this drug."
"But you have people working on that around the clock and we are no closer to finding out anything," she said.
She was right, and Bruce had no argument against what she said. All that he knew was that he wanted to to stop fighting this losing battle. All the lives she saved would eventually be lost because it seemed the drug and its effects could not be cleared by the body.
"You think what I'm doing is pointless," Adriana said.
"I never said that," he said.
"I can't hear your thoughts but I know that's what you are thinking."
Bruce looked away. "I can't entirely disagree, although I would never say it like that," Bruce said.
"Not to my face anyway," Adriana sighed.
