"You have a lot of explaining to do."
Jude didn't stop walking. He kept his eyes forward and his pace steady, because stopping for Batman in a dark alley was the kind of habit that made a person feel like they were in a very genre of story. The bats moved through the shadows at the corner of his vision—appearing and disappearing with the casual unpredictability of a man who had long since decided that conventional approaches to movement were entirely optional.
"You're back on active patrol already?"
"Inactivity causes skill degradation."
"Is there actually anything to fight in Gotham right now?"
"Not necessarily. Though the two you sent over weren't particularly cooperative about settling in." A pause that carried a certain quality of dark satisfaction. "They are now."
Jude winced internally. He could picture it with uncomfortable precision: Clyde and Farooq, whatever their current state of contrition, being given the full Wayne tutorial in appropriate behavior—which in practical terms meant visits to Wayne Medical and then a very direct conversation about their future employment options. Gotham had a way of clarifying priorities.
"You still sent Bette to watch them?"
"I don't trust any of the three individually. Together, at least, I can monitor all of them at once."
That, Jude thought, is a perfectly Batman answer.
"And Nora Allen?" He kept his voice even. "What's her situation?"
Bruce was quiet for a moment. When he answered, something had shifted in the register—the professional distance thinned, just slightly.
"She was very sad. Is very sad. She was crying when she arrived and she's been asking to contact her husband and son." Another pause. "She told me their names. Barry Allen and Henry Allen, both apparently in Central City."
"Please tell me you didn't call them."
Batman had apparently already noticed something in Jude's tone, because he answered before the question was fully out: "I'm not that careless. Something is clearly wrong with the situation, and I wasn't going to act on it until I understood what." He let that sit. "I haven't contacted them."
Good, Jude thought. Barry having his mother show up alive when her death was the absolute foundation of his entire origin is the kind of thing that requires considerably more preparation than a phone call.
At least the two Barrys wouldn't have to share one mother in the same timeline. That was something.
"Moving on," Bruce said. "The four people you sent all presented themselves as citizens of Central City. I ran records checks against the CCPD's metahuman files and found some interesting discrepancies."
"Clyde Mardon. Weather Wizard. Developed a prototype device capable of manipulating atmospheric conditions. In the records from Barry's universe he was a criminal—in the records I could find here, he's a researcher, and his brother Mark is the one with a file. Mark Mardon, affiliated with the Rogues, arrested twice, wanted in connection with Weather Wizard incidents." He paused. "Clyde is apparently the one Mark killed to steal the research."
Jude muttered something under his breath. Of course. In the original comics, the timeline ran differently—the fraternal dynamics between the Mardon brothers had been reversed, and the technology had passed hands through violence rather than adaptation. This universe kept the original version. The TV show changed it. The screenwriters had made their choices, and he'd been living in one version of the consequences.
"Bette Sans Souci. Goes by 'Bomb Girl' in local records. Canadian national—no military affiliation that I could confirm, contrary to what she told you. Currently active in Central City, apparently working toward Quebec separatism." Bruce's voice remained professionally neutral, which somehow made it more amusing. "A recently emerged metahuman. Not affiliated with any known group."
"And Farooq Gibran—he calls himself 'Blackout.' He and Clyde both presented as people who believe they have superpowers. Clyde's claims were consistent with the Mardon research. Farooq was harder to cross-reference." The pause that followed was brief but pointed. "I did eventually find a reference to the name 'Blackout' and an associated power set. In a Marvel Comics publication."
Jude put his face in his hand.
The Flash's writing room had simply lifted a Marvel character, given him a DC universe address, and hoped nobody would check. He had been living alongside this man's borrowed mythology for months without fully processing its absurdity. A lawyer's letter was probably in someone's future.
"How did you even—"
"Jason helped. He has an impressive comics collection."
"I'm telling you to stay away from him."
The vehemence in his own voice surprised him slightly, and from the sound of it, it surprised Bruce as well. A short silence hung between them.
"You seem particularly opposed to any contact between us."
"Jason is seventeen. He's a normal kid." Jude kept walking, keeping his voice level. "I don't want him getting ideas from you."
Bruce considered this with the thoroughness he applied to everything. "He does display an unusual orientation toward risk," he said finally. "And he's not unsympathetic to Gotham's more unconventional problem-solvers. That combination could lead somewhere problematic." Another pause. "I'll limit contact. With his abilities and intelligence, Wayne Enterprises would be a more constructive path for him."
"You think that highly of him?"
Batman didn't answer.
Which was, Jude reflected, its own kind of answer. The strange thing was that Bruce had apparently never met Jason before—not in this iteration of Gotham, not in this timeline. And yet he described the familiarity Jude had heard in his voice like something that had always been there, an instinct without a source, a recognition without a history.
Don't think about it too hard, Jude told himself. Just don't let the man near the boy with a crowbar.
"The fourth person," Bruce continued, returning to business. "Nora Allen. I found her listed in Central City records as well—deceased. Suspicious circumstances. Husband imprisoned. According to her own account, her last clear memory before arriving here was a speedster attacking her." A pause. "She was stabbed."
"You know about speedsters?"
"Keystone City and Central City have had documented speedster incidents going back decades. Both sanctioned and otherwise." The dry note in his voice suggested he found the question mildly unnecessary. "I follow the broader landscape. I'm focused on Gotham, not oblivious to the world."
"Then you've basically already figured it out."
"Where did they come from?"
"The answer you've already guessed." Jude turned the corner onto his street. "Parallel worlds. Parallel universes. Their Central City and your Gotham exist in the diffrent timeline."
"Will more come?"
"Unlikely. The two universes aren't currently connected, and at this moment I'm the only bridge between them." He found his keys. "That said, this question is mostly academic, because I can't get back to my own universe either. I'm here." He turned the lock. "You can come in, but close the door behind you."
The door opened. Jude didn't look back to confirm whether Bruce followed—he either had or he hadn't, and asking was redundant.
"Why did you come here?"
"I didn't come by choice. I arrived and decided to make the best of it." He moved to the window, looking out at the street below. "It was just work, in the end."
The questions stopped.
But Jude knew Bruce hadn't left. He could feel the particular quality of a Batman-shaped silence in the room behind him—patient, still, the silence of someone turning a remaining question over and deciding whether to ask it.
He didn't prompt him. He stood at the window and looked up at the moon.
The rain had stopped while he'd been walking. Gotham at night without rain was a rare enough thing to be almost startling—the clouds had thinned, and the moonlight was coming through in earnest, laying itself across the rooftops and the wet streets in something that looked, if you were disposed to read it that way, like gentleness. The city was quiet. In the pale light, it seemed like it might actually be capable of peace.
After a long while, Bruce spoke.
"Is there another Wayne family," he said, very quietly, "in another world?"