In Gotham City, outside the door of a single hospital room, the night shift was in full swing.
Footsteps echoed in sterile hallways. Machines beeped, gurneys rolled, and fluorescent lights hummed with the particular frequency of insomnia and exhaustion.
Inside the isolated room, a man sat hunched beside the bed, looking like he'd aged ten years in twenty-four hours.
Chuck Brown swallowed his son's fragile, delicate hand in both of his own. Charlie's skin was translucent, his breathing shallow. The monitors showed his oxygen saturation and blood pressure dropping steadily.
"Dad," Charlie's voice was barely a whisper. "I did something bad."
The words hit Chuck like a physical blow. "No, Charlie." He squeezed the boy's hand. "You're a good boy. You didn't do anything wrong. You'll be fine."
The desperate lie caught in his throat.
Charlie's eyes were unfocused, lost in the delirium of failing organs and Riddler's slow-acting toxin. "I said that word," the boy murmured, dreamlike. "The word you said I shouldn't say. And I said it again. Does this mean I'm going to die? Am I going to go to that horrible place?"
Chuck bowed his head. Tears streamed down his face, hot and uncontrollable.
He remembered the kite.
Before the divorce, Chuck had taken his son out to fly a bright blue diamond kite. It had been a perfect day. Pure, uncomplicated joy.
"Charlie, do you like this?" Chuck had asked.
"Damn it, of course!" the eight-year-old had yelled, excitedly repeating playground slang.
Chuck had corrected him gently. "Just say 'of course.' Don't say that word. My mother used to say if you use language like that, that's where you end up. Hell, I mean. The mouth is the root of all trouble."
He remembered Charlie's smile dimming. He remembered the guilt that had immediately followed, and how he had tried to make up for it. "I'm sorry, Charlie. But I won't be able to make your party on Saturday. I have an important project at work. I can't get out of it."
"Okay, Dad," Charlie had said quietly, focused on keeping the kite aloft.
How many times had Chuck prioritized work over his son? How many promises had he broken? Now, there were no more chances.
Chuck snapped back to the sterile hospital room. To his dying boy.
"Dad, I feel a little pain," Charlie whispered without drama, just honest observation.
It broke something in Chuck. Trembling, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the two candies Jude had left on his coffee table.
"Charlie, have some candy." Chuck's voice cracked. "Sugar is sweet. Eat it and the pain will go away."
He unwrapped the strawberry one—Charlie's favorite since he was three—and gently slipped it past his son's pale lips.
At that exact moment, the monitor's steady beeping flatlined into a single, sustained drone. Asystole. Clinical death.
From the shadows behind the privacy curtain, Batman watched. Invisible. Powerless.
His fists clenched, the leather of his gloves creaking. Another life he'd failed to save. Another innocent caught in the crossfire of Gotham's madmen. He had promised Chuck his son would be safe, and he had brought him to a hospital instead of Wayne Manor because the symptoms seemed medical. A fatal, tactical error.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Chuck's tear-streaked face jerked toward the monitor. The flatline was fluctuating. Actual cardiac rhythm.
Batman's white lenses widened. He stepped out of the shadows.
Color was rushing back into Charlie's deathly pale cheeks. The boy's limp fingers twitched. Then, with sudden, abrupt energy, Charlie sat up in bed.
Chuck's brain blue-screened. He couldn't compute what he was seeing. Going from crushing, terminal grief to impossible hope in the span of five seconds left him entirely paralyzed.
"Dad?" Charlie asked, his voice suddenly clear. "I... I seem to be getting better?"
The paralysis broke. Chuck hauled his son into a crushing, desperate embrace, sobbing with joyous disbelief.
"Dad, you're hugging me so tight I can't breathe," Charlie mumbled into his chest.
Chuck pulled back, staring at his living son. Then he remembered the second candy. He shoved his hand into his pocket, violently tore the wrapper off the milk candy, and stuffed it into Charlie's mouth.
"Eat this too. Right now. Swallow it."
Chuck didn't know how the candy worked. He didn't care. He was going to feed his son every piece of candy he could find.
Batman watched the wrapper flutter to the floor. Memories surged. Days ago, in the botanical garden, Jude had casually dismissed Batman's interrogation about the cured gangsters.
"I have a kind of milk candy that can treat toxins. It's that simple."
Batman had assumed it was sarcasm, or a cover for something complex. But watching a clinically dead boy sit up, Batman finally understood. Jude had told the direct, impossible truth.
Batman filed the endless tactical questions away for their next meeting. Right now, there was a more immediate problem.
"Chuck," Batman's rough voice cut through the reunion. "I'm glad Charlie's okay."
Chuck jumped, having forgotten the Dark Knight was there. "You got him here, you—"
"But we have a problem," Batman interrupted firmly. "Charlie has been targeted by both the Joker and the Riddler. Which means he can't be 'alive' right now. Do you understand?"
Reality intruded on Chuck's joy. "You mean—"
"I mean Charles Brown Jr died tonight. According to hospital records, the certificate will be filed" Batman stated. "He'll go into protective custody with the Wayne. If the Riddler thinks he survived, they'll use him against you again."
Chuck looked down at his confused son. He understood. This was Gotham.
"How long?" Chuck asked roughly.
"Until we stop them both," Batman promised. "However long that takes."
The next day, Chuck sat alone in his apartment.
He wasn't drinking. He was modifying his jet pack and kite blueprints, working with a fiery focus he hadn't felt in years.
In the background, the TV played the daily news. Frank and Bill were having their usual debate about whether the city was doomed or merely catastrophic.
"The situation has gotten even worse!" Frank's voice rose in genuine panic over footage of the turf war. "Hundreds hospitalized and a new development of dozens left hanging naked on the street by a new perverted vigilante!"
Chuck's pencil paused. Perverted vigilante?
"No one's been killed yet," Bill tried to interject calmly.
"Where is your Batman?" Frank shot back, mocking.
"He's helping! You see him fighting on the street every night!"
"He helped? Then why did things get worse? What I'm seeing is an actual war, Bill. And we have to choose a side."
Chuck frowned, looking up at the screen.
"What?!" Bill sounded genuinely shocked. "Frank, what can we possibly do? Send munitions to the Riddler?!"
"We need to make a choice if we want to survive," Frank was deadly serious now. "If we want the Joker dead, we help the Riddler. If we want the Riddler dead, we help the Joker."
Silence stretched across the broadcast.
"Help the super-criminals?" Bill asked in disgust. "That's your solution?"
"What else is there?" Frank spread his hands, staring dead into the camera. "Batman can't stop both of them. The GCPD is useless. Someone is going to win this war, and I'd rather be on the winning side than dead in the crossfire."
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