Jude had spent long enough in Gotham that some of it had rubbed off on him, which was not entirely a comfortable thought.
It wasn't intentional. You didn't set out to absorb Gotham — it just happened, the way mold happened, or debt. Spend enough time navigating a city where the criminals were theatrical and the heroes were worse, where everyone from the corner store owner to the District Attorney had a contingency plan for the contingency plan, and something of that orientation worked its way into you. He'd watched Batman long enough to understand that the man wasn't a person so much as a methodology, and methodologies were inherently contagious. The Robins were proof. They'd come to him as kids and left as people who checked exits when they entered rooms.
Jude checked exits when he entered rooms now.
"I don't love this," he said quietly, watching the nanobot feed from the rear of the Blacks' building. The alley was still and dark and completely uninteresting. "But we prepare for the worst."
Yomogi, curled on the passenger shelf of the three-wheeler, said nothing. She was already asleep, which Jude found professionally enviable.
The next morning, Central City woke up to a headline.
Cisco was holding his coffee in one hand and his phone in the other when Barry came through the lab entrance at a pace that was technically within the bounds of normal human movement, which meant he was distracted.
"Barry." Cisco straightened up with the barely-contained energy of someone holding very good gossip. "Have you seen the news?"
"Not yet. Why — new meta?"
"No meta. But I promise you, this is earth-shattering. Look at Caitlin — she's a bioengineering expert, she's been staring at her screen for twenty minutes, and she looks personally offended."
Barry turned. Caitlin was at her workstation, dragging the article's progress bar back to reread sections she'd already been through twice, her jaw set in the particular way that meant she was working very hard not to say something unprintable.
"Okay, okay, I'll read it myself—" Cisco started.
A gust of displaced air hit him. His phone went from his hand to Barry's and back again in under a second. Barry was now standing in front of the main screen with his mouth open, wearing an expression nearly identical to Caitlin's.
"I understand what's happening," Barry said slowly. "I do not understand what is wrong with the world."
"Okay, that's genuinely rude." Cisco retrieved his phone, aggrieved. "I had a whole dramatic reading prepared. The Speed Force is not a gossip-interception tool, Barry."
Barry wasn't listening. He was already reading the secondary sources.
Across the top of the main screen, in bold type large enough to be read from across the lab:
100 VICTIMS FILE JOINT SUIT AGAINST STAGG GROUP — "ANNUAL BEST" AWARD BECOMES ANNUAL JOKE?
"I almost took a job there," Caitlin said. Her voice was very flat. "I thought Stagg was doing genuinely important work in biological engineering. I respected the institution." She scrolled down, teeth pressed together. "Infringement. Infringement. Patent theft. Defamation countersuit against the original inventor — they sued the people they stole from for calling them out—"
"How many researchers did they bury?" Barry said. "People who actually invented things, whose work just got taken—"
"Watch your language, Mr. Allen."
Dr. Wells came in from the corridor, wheelchair moving at its usual unhurried pace. "Star Labs also collapsed, as you'll recall, and I find it's better for my disposition if the topic comes up less frequently."
Cisco looked up hopefully. "Doctor — the news—"
"I've seen it, Cisco."
The hope curdled. "Does anything surprise you?"
"Stagg's character has been an open secret among people who've dealt with him for years. His business practices were — consistent with his character." Wells folded his hands in his lap. "I'm sorry to deprive you of your moment."
Cisco put his phone away with the air of a man whose entire morning had been systematically dismantled.
"Workplace harassment cases too," Barry said, still reading. "Multiple." He glanced at Caitlin. "It's a good thing you didn't go."
Caitlin looked at the screen for another moment. "I can't say which would have been worse. But I don't regret being here." She said it simply, without elaboration.
Cisco looked over at her. He knew that expression — had known it for years. She wore it whenever the thought of Ronnie surfaced and she'd decided not to let it through all the way. He'd learned not to push.
"Right." He clapped his hands once, redirecting. "What happens to people like Stagg is above our pay grade. We have actual work. Don't we, Caitlin?"
She looked up and gave him a real smile, small and still a little sad around the edges. "We do."
Barry, who had been following none of this, was still reading. "Eamon Zachary — architectural designs. Rand Gilbert — fire-resistant materials." He scrolled further. "And the organ cloning research — that's the biggest one. Someone named Danton Black. He developed the foundational cloning and transplantation technology, and Stagg just—" He stopped. "Before today I'd never heard his name. The news only ever talked about Stagg."
Across the room, behind the comfortable expression of a man mildly interested in unfolding events, Wells had gone very still.
Black Pharmaceuticals.
He'd seen the headline that morning in the archive — the altered one, the future one. Black Pharmaceuticals achieves another technological breakthrough, cloning therapy to record low medical costs. He'd known the name for days, had been turning it over, looking for its origin point.
And he hadn't made the connection. The name had been sitting right in front of him.
Sloppy. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and he didn't intend to let it persist.
"Danton Black?" he asked, with the measured interest of someone hearing the name for the first time.
"Yeah — do you know him, Doctor?"
"I don't." Wells settled back in his chair, expression returning to its baseline of thoughtful calm. "I'd never heard of him before this morning. It's a shame. By the sound of it, he's a genuinely talented researcher."
He let the moment close naturally, the way he let most moments close.
I'll be meeting you soon, Mr. Black, he thought. One way or another.