Dr. Haas did not run, but she did retreat.
Batman stepped forward from the lamplight, the shadows clinging to the edges of his cape like living things.
She raised one hand instinctively in front of her chest — palm outward — as if that thin barrier might slow him. Her other hand slid behind her back, searching for space, for distance, for anything that widened the gap between them.
"Stay back," she said sharply, though her voice trembled at the edges
Batman did not stop.
He approached slowly, his footsteps made no sound against the floor it was as if he was gliding towards her.
"Tell me about the Court of Owls."
His voice was low — but it carried weight. It felt less like sound and more like pressure, as though it bypassed her ears and pressed directly against her mind.
She blinked once as if confused, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Another step.
She mirrored him immediately, heels sliding across the carpet as she retreated.
"I don't involve myself in conspiracy theories," she added, composure straining but intact. "I'm a surgeon."
"I know you're part of it," Batman said
His tone held no accusations, he said it like it was a fact. Dr. Haas tried her hardest to stay calm but her heart beat furiously in her chest.
"Start talking."
Her jaw tightened.
"I truly don't know what you mean."
He stepped forward again.
She stepped back again.
The distance between them shrank with mathematical precision — his pace measured, hers reactive.
"Leave," she snapped, fear now sharpening into something uglier. "You break into my room, make wild accusations—"
He didn't interrupt.
He simply kept advancing.
"Is this what you've become?" she pressed, anger coating the fear. "The great Batman, threatening a woman in her own hotel room over some fictitious group of elites?"
He didn't react but, behind the cowl Batman's eyes narrowed.
He took another step.
"I never said the Court of Owls was made up of Gotham elites."
Another step.
The words settled heavily in the room.
Dr. Haas moved back once more—
Her hand behind her touched wall.
Solid.
Cold.
Nowhere left to go.
Her breath caught.
Her heart plummeted into her stomach as the reality set in.
Batman stood only a few feet away now, towering, silent, unreadable behind white lenses.
The shadows swallowed the space between them.
And for the first time since he entered—
Dr. Isabella Haas looked truly afraid.
Batman stopped an arm's length away.
Close enough that she could see the faint scratches along the matte plating of his gauntlet. Close enough to hear the steady, controlled rhythm of his breathing.
"A brilliant neurosurgeon," he said evenly. "Educated at the best institutions. Funded by Gotham's most powerful donors."
His white lenses did not blink.
Dr. Isabella Haas kept her back pressed to the wall, chin lifting in defiance even as her pulse raced.
"I restore cognitive function," she said tightly. "I treat trauma."
Batman's voice lowered.
"I imagine they needed someone like you."
His voice was piercing.
"To create their assassins."
Silence swallowed the room.
Her composure flickered — just barely.
"You're insane."
"Am I?"
Batman's cape shifted as he adjusted his stance, blocking more of the lamplight. The suite felt darker now.
"Cryogenic preservation. Neural reinforcement. Memory suppression. Motor cortex recalibration."
Each term landed like a clinical diagnosis.
"You have the expertise to rewire a brain," he continued. "To suppress pain response. To condition obedience."
Her breathing grew shallower.
"That's science fiction."
"You've published on synaptic resilience under extreme hypoxia," he countered. "You studied prolonged tissue viability after oxygen deprivation."
Her eyes widened a fraction.
"You were building a way to keep the brain alive," he said quietly. "Long after they should have died."
The accusation wasn't shouted.
It didn't need to be.
The implication hung between them like a scalpel poised above exposed bone.
"You're reaching," she insisted, but the edge in her voice betrayed her.
Batman leaned closer, his shadow swallowing her entirely now.
"Assassins don't survive years after death by accident."
The word slipped into the room like a blade.
Her mask cracked for half a second.
Enough.
"You think you're hunting monsters," she whispered. "But you have no idea what you're interfering with."
"Then enlighten me." Batman raised his hand as if he was going to grab her throat
"Talons! They are called Talons, okay? Just—stop!"
The word tore out of her.
Dr. Isabella Haas squeezed her eyes shut as tears spilled down her cheeks, her composure finally fracturing. Her hands trembled at her sides, one still pressed uselessly against the wall.
Batman didn't step back.
"Keep talking."
Her breathing came in sharp, uneven pulls.
"I only handled the neurological process," she said quickly, words tumbling over one another. "They approached me years ago. They wanted a way to prolong neurological activity past a certain threshold. Past clinical death markers."
Her eyes opened again, red-rimmed, desperate.
"They funded everything. My lab. My trials. My equipment."
She swallowed hard.
"Do you understand how many lives I've saved because of that funding? Stroke victims. Traumatic brain injuries. Patients who would have been written off as vegetative."
Her voice cracked.
"I advanced my field by decades. Centuries, maybe. You think I did it for them? I did it because I could help people."
Batman's expression did not change.
"And how many people have died because of your work?" he asked quietly.
The question hit harder than any accusation.
"How many corpses did you experiment on?"
Silence.
Her mouth opened.
Closed.
The room felt suffocating.
"They provided the subjects," she whispered finally.
"Dead?"
Her silence was answer enough.
Batman's jaw tightened beneath the cowl.
"You prolonged neural viability," he said. "You preserved motor function. You suppressed degradation."
She stared at the floor now.
"I didn't ask where they came from."
"But you knew."
A tear slid down her cheek.
"Yes."
The word barely existed.
Batman let the weight of that confession settle.
Then—
"Tell me about the Court."
She hesitated.
"Where is it located?"
Her eyes flicked upward instinctively, as if the very walls might be listening.
"They don't meet in one place," she said hoarsely. "It rotates. Old properties. Historical foundations. Underground spaces beneath landmarks. They lead deep beneath Gotham."
"Names."
She shook her head quickly.
"I don't know all of them. I'm not inner command. I'm a consultant."
"That's not what my information says."
Her breath hitched.
"There's a primary chamber," she said reluctantly. "Beneath one of the original Gotham trusts. The records are sealed under shell corporations."
"Which trust?"
Another long silence.
Her fear shifted again — not of Batman.
Of something else.
"If I tell you," she whispered, "they'll know."
Batman leaned closer.
"They already know I'm here."
Her heart dropped further.
"They monitor movement around members," she said faintly. "Security layers. Watchers."
Batman's voice remained steady.
"Location."
Her lips trembled.
"…The old Kane Industrial Trust building," she breathed. "Sub-levels that don't exist on city maps nothing exists on the maps they made sure of it."
The name hung heavy in the air.
A foundation older than most of Gotham's skyline.
"And how do they access it?"
"Biometric gates. Retinal verification. Genetic markers for full members." She swallowed. "There are maintenance tunnels that predate zoning records. They connect through historical preservation corridors."
Batman processed the information in silence.
Her knees nearly gave out beneath her.
"I didn't build the Talons," she said weakly. "I only kept their brains… functional."
Batman straightened slightly.
"You helped make them weapons."
She had no response left.
***
The docks smelled like salt, oil, and cold iron.
Nolan stepped out of the car and adjusted his coat as wind rolled in from the harbor, tugging at the edges like it wanted him gone. He'd expected tension. Wariness. Maybe even hostility.
Quentin usually handled this kind of thing.
But Quentin had insisted.
You need to see it yourself, he'd said.
The warehouse doors were already open.
Two of his people stood outside, dressed in layered coats and knit caps, shopping carts nearby, blankets draped over shoulders — every inch the image of Gotham's forgotten.
They straightened when they saw him.
"Boss."
They weren't afraid.
They were smiling.
That alone made him slow.
He stepped inside.
And stopped.
The interior had been transformed.
What had once been a rotting dockside storage unit was now insulated, reinforced, structured. The floor was clean concrete. Lighting hung from metal beams — warm, not harsh. Shipping containers had been converted into workspaces. A kitchen area gleamed stainless steel. Pallets of organized supplies lined the far wall.
And people.
Dozens of them.
Still dressed like Gotham's invisible — layered, ragged, stained just enough to sell the illusion.
But their posture was different.
They stood straight.
Their eyes were clear.
They looked… healthy.
Color in their faces. Weight on their frames. Confidence in the way they moved.
One of the men peeled away from a group near the center and approached him with an easy grin.
Nolan recognized him immediately — or rather, he recognized what he used to look like.
"Naima's up in her office," the man said. "She's been expecting you."
Nolan blinked.
"You…" He squinted slightly. "You have all of your teeth."
The words came out blunt and inelegant.
The man burst out laughing.
"Boss, you pay us enough!" he said proudly. "I just got them fixed. You like?"
Before Nolan could respond, the man hooked a finger into his mouth and popped out two of the front teeth.
His smile instantly turned jagged. Gnarly. Perfectly destitute.
"When I want to look more homeless, I can just do this." He slid them back in with a practiced motion and flashed a bright, even grin. "Cool, right?"
Nolan stared at him for a second.
Then he smiled.
"Yeah," he said softly. "That's pretty cool. I'm happy for you."
The man's expression shifted — not joking now.
"All 'cause of you, boss," he said. "You gave us real money. Real doctors. Real options."
He stepped aside.
"Won't hold you up."
As Nolan walked deeper into the warehouse, people nodded to him. A few murmured greetings. No groveling. No fear.
Respect.
He passed a small training area where two younger recruits were practicing sleight-of-hand drills — swapping wallets between each other in under a second. Near them, someone was teaching another group how to map patrol routes from memory.
It wasn't chaos.
It was infrastructure.
He hadn't realized how far it had come.
At the back of the warehouse, a metal staircase led up to a second-floor office built from reinforced glass panels overlooking the entire operation.
Naima's office.
He climbed the stairs slowly, boots ringing against steel.
Halfway up, he glanced back down.
They still looked like Gotham's forgotten.
But they weren't forgotten anymore.
And for the first time in a long time, Nolan felt something unfamiliar in his chest.
Not power.
Not guilt.
Pride.
"What's up boss?" Naima said as he entered the room
Nolan smiled, "Let's talk about some feelers I put out, we should call the jade leopards they want to expand this could be an opportunity."
—
A/N: Batman must feel good he finally got to interrogate someone and it actually worked! Unc still got it