No Heroes

Wanted

That Night: Bruce

Bruce awoke suddenly with a cold sweat. He snapped up from his bed within seconds. Once he was more aware of his surroundings, he exhaled.

It happened again. He had been having the same recurring dream for six months. He wondered if it would ever go away:

Bruce was on the street, like any other night, out hunting for the criminals that had taken over Gotham within the past months. He crept down the streets and prowled among the shadows. He was silent, he should've been absolutely untraceable, but they still found him.

They gathered around him in a circle, so it was impossible to see all of them at once. By the time Bruce could count the amount of men there were, they had swarmed him. The criminals grabbed him and held him down without struggle.

He knew who controlled them. Jeremiah. Bruce heard the clicking of the madman's dress shoes long before he saw him appear from the shadows.

"Hello, Brucie!" Jeremiah would cackle, "Did you miss me? How has the dark island of Gotham treated you?"

Bruce didn't hesitate, he just spit in his face. The countless arms of Jeremiah's minions squeezed his shoulders back tighter. Bruce had to bite back his cry of pain.

"I don't appreciate the hostility, Brucie! It disappoints me very much, but not to worry," he paused and gave Bruce a wicked smile. "I don't take my anger out on my friends."

Out of nowhere, Bruce heard two voices call out his name simultaneously. He recognized them both. Alfred and Selina. They called for help and begged for mercy. Bruce twisted and turned, desperately reaching for his friends voices, but couldn't loosen the minions' grasp.

"LET ME GO!" He screamed.

After an unknown amount of time, Selina and Alfred came into the light. They'd been running from something they were terrified of. Jeremiah.

Before Bruce could warn them, Jeremiah raised his handgun. With a giggle of delight, he pulled the trigger. He hit Alfred in the leg first and then Selina in the arm. They yelled out in pain, but no one, not even Bruce, could end their suffering.

"I prefer my target practice to be silent!" Jeremiah hissed. He continued to shoot Bruce's friends in different limbs, each place more painful than the last. He never took his eyes off Bruce. The last shot Bruce witnessed was the one that went into Selina's stomach, and the scream that came after.....

Bruce wasn't sure how much longer he could relive that dream. He already felt guilty enough for leaving Selina, especially when she needed him. But he needed to protect Gotham.

He had remembered when Alfred had told him to make the choice: Selina or the work. Bruce hadn't taken it seriously. He thought that he could have both. He couldn't have been more wrong.

Bruce sighed and rubbed at his eyes. There wasn't any chance of going back to sleep, so he rolled out of bed. On his way to his desk, Bruce could swear that he heard a faint noise of someone's voice. His shoulders tensed, ready for anything, just as Alfred had taught him.

After a few minutes of complete silence, Bruce told himself that it was a voice in his head and continued to creep toward the desk. After sitting down, he logged onto his old (more like decrepit) computer, in which he had asked Lucius Fox to update around six months ago. He had obliged, as he always had. Lucius, along with Jim and Harvey, had kept him sane for awhile now, but Bruce still did his own work on the side at night. He had to catch Jeremiah without them.

Bruce had been searching for the son of a bitch for so long, but he hadn't even come close to catching him. As Bruce scoured throughout the web, he saw a message on the screen pop up.

Wanted: Bruce Wayne
Deliver to: 1258 Landen Rd
Reward: $50,000,000

Bruce raised his eyebrows in surprise. The only one who could've done that was Jeremiah. He knew that the lunatic still remembered their friendship from his pre-crazy state, but he was more confused by his blatant disregard for subtlety. Surely, he would've known that Bruce would see the message if he sent it out to everyone-.

-Everyone. Jeremiah sent that to everyone. Literally everyone would be looking for him. Bruce immediately started thinking of a new hiding spot, or somewhere where he could escape the hordes of people bound to come his way.

He was so busy trying to come up with a plan that he didn't hear the floorboards creaking behind him until it was too late. His thoughts were interrupted by a board of wood crashing on his head.

He fell into his stomach and clutched his aching head in his hands.

Damn, he thought, they don't waste any time, do they?

Bruce staggered into his feet and swung at the wobbly figure in which he saw two of. A piece of cloth covered his face for a short period of time before his consciousness took away the rest of the light...

A Couple Hours Later

Bruce was surprised that his head hurt less now than when he had his first hangover, but then again, he had completely jacked the bar. It had been a dark time in his life.

Still, he groaned in pain and it hurt to open his eyes. The light blinded him beyond reason, and the chains around his wrists were too tight for his liking, but than again, if it were up to him, he wouldn't have any chains around him.

There were no windows, but Bruce knew that he was in a vehicle due to all of the bumps and curves he went through. He tried kicking the door, but it just busted his toes. He was far too experienced with kidnappings to try to scream.

Bruce sat there for what felt like and what probably was hours. He decided to take the time to ponder.

He wondered what else Jeremiah had planned for him. He wondered what Selina and Alfred were doing in that time. They were probably still in the hospital, after all, Bruce had researched countless times how long it would take her to recover. He wondered-

-suddenly, the van stopped. They had arrived. Bruce heard the latch on the door unlock and used the full force of his body weight to ram his shoulder into the door.

He unexpectedly fell through and landed on the ground with a painful thud. His unspoken question as to why people weren't there to soften the blow was immediately answered by the sound of fighting.

He jumped to his feet and rushed to join the fight. He saw the few people who ambushed him and two figures covered in black. Fighting was a kind way to put it. It looked more like the mysterious people were kicking his captors' asses.

His first instinct to jump in was crushed by a voice in the back of his head saying, run. They were probably just other criminals aiming to win Jeremiah's prize. Bruce made a quick decision to listen to the voice. Where to, he had no idea.

He kept running, and picked up speed when he saw them chasing after him. He refused to get captured. Again.

He looked back again, and noticed that one of them had departed from the other on the race to Bruce Wayne. He turned back around, only to be tackled by the one who he thought had vanished. Bruce landed on his back and the woman, he now realized, landed on top of him. She held his arms down with her own and straddled him to keep his body steady. He writhed against her grasp until her hood fell off and she yelled "Bruce! Bruce! Calm down! It's me!"

He went limp under her.

"Selina?" Bruce gawked.

"Who else were you expecting?"