The Batcave was quiet, save for the flickering glow of monitors and the low, rhythmic hum of machinery. Rain tapped gently on the glass of the upper platform, falling steadily over Gotham.
Bruce stood still, arms crossed, eyes locked on the playback.
Frame by frame, he watched Deadshot stumble. The rooftop security cam caught Batman's strike — a clean elbow to the jaw, followed by a knee to the ribs. Deadshot reeled back, boots scraping concrete, then—
Nothing.
Deadshot disappeared.
Bruce narrowed his eyes.
He rewound. Slowed the frames.
Deadshot fell. Rolled out of frame.
One second later, nothing but rooftop and rain. No trace. No trail.
He keyed a command into the keyboard. Another screen lit up. A street cam across from the building. Deadshot never emerged.
A third cam. Same result.
Another dead end.
He exhaled through his nose, jaw clenched. "They knew the camera placements."
Robin's voice came through the comms. "You say something?"
"Deadshot's escape. He didn't vanish, someone extracted him but how, I was right there."
He pulled up another file — timestamps from the GCPD network. He'd been cross-referencing cases over the past three weeks. Low-level criminals vanishing mid-pursuit. Suspects slipping out of view, right at the edges of surveillance.
It was too clean. Too consistent.
He moved to the next screen — a map of Gotham. Red pins marked each incident. Robberies. Drug busts. Getaways.
Scattered across the city. No clear pattern.
But then Bruce overlaid another layer.
Homeless shelter activity. Soup kitchens. Underground service requests. He filtered for spikes. Foot traffic that rose unusually high on days where suspects disappeared.
The overlap was undeniable.
He leaned closer.
East End. Bowery. Parts of Park Row. Areas police barely touched. Forgotten corners.
Something was happening down there.
And whoever was orchestrating it knew how to keep it quiet.
He pulled up grainy footage from a subway security feed. Just outside the perimeter of a recent getaway. A group of homeless men pushing a cart.
One of them paused. Looked directly into the camera. Just for a second.
Then they kept moving.
Nothing illegal. Nothing unusual. Just a cart and a blanket-covered figure.
Bruce slowed the footage.
The form beneath the blanket wasn't sleeping.
It was bleeding.
He zoomed in. Pixelated blood soaked into canvas.
He traced the path they took. A back alley. A maintenance hatch. Sewers.
Gone.
He straightened. Moved to the central console, typing in fast bursts, rerouting satellite imaging. He needed thermal scans. Entry points. Patterns.
The Batcomputer chirped — a soft beep signaling new data.
"Alfred," he said, not turning.
"Yes, Master Wayne?"
"I need every known tunnel access point within a half mile radius of the following shelters." He fed the data in. "And start compiling profiles of shelter volunteers and supply distributors. Someone's organizing this."
"A network?" Alfred asked, voice cautious.
Bruce nodded.
"More than that. A system. Tactical. Efficient. Purposeful. Like a relocation operation built from the homeless people in Gotham, someone has to be organizing this."
"And you suspect Deadshot was… a client?"
Bruce didn't answer.
The evidence spoke for itself.
But this wasn't just a one-off rescue. It was bigger.
He stepped toward the suit vault, activating the platform with a whisper of motion. His reflection in the armor stared back, cold and sharp.
Someone was using Gotham's most overlooked population to hide the city's most wanted.
That wasn't random.
It was design and it seemed to be self sufficient, in most cases you would see a clear heirachy of control. But with these people it's like everyone is the same level working for the same goal.
Something like this is only possible when your operating with people who don't care for heirachy or prestige.
"Prep the Batmobile," he said. "I'm going out."
The rain hadn't let up.
It fell in sheets across the East End, soaking the streets and clinging to the edges of rooftops. Gotham smelled like rust and wet pavement. The kind of night where even the rats stayed under shelter.
A shadow moved under the broken streetlight. Batman stepped from the alley, cape dragging behind him like a torn flag.
A campfire burned weakly in a steel barrel ahead. Four people sat around it two older men, a woman in a knit cap, and a kid barely into his teens. They didn't flinch when he approached. Just watched. Tired eyes in tired faces.
One of the men gray-bearded, missing a front tooth squinted at the cowl. "Thought you only came around for the big fish."
"I'm here for answers," Batman said.
"Lot of people are." The man shrugged. "You looking for a bed or a bowl?"
Batman didn't respond. He stepped closer, letting the firelight catch on the edge of his armor.
"Last night," he said. "Deadshot vanished near this block. Surveillance shows him bleeding out. Minutes later, he was gone. Clean extraction. No trace."
No one moved.
The boy glanced sideways at the woman. She said nothing.
"You're protecting someone," Batman said.
Graybeard's face cracked into a grin. "That what it is?"
"I'm not after you. I'm after the one organizing this."
"You think someone's organizing the homeless?" The woman scoffed. "We can barely organize where to sleep."
"Don't lie to me."
A beat of silence. The rain hissed in the barrel.
Batman's voice dropped lower. "You're not scared of me. That's new."
The kid stared into the fire. "You don't hit people like us."
Batman looked at him. The boy didn't flinch.
Another man, younger, maybe thirty stirred from under a tarp nearby. "We don't know names. No one does. That's the point. You want to find someone, start digging somewhere else."
Batman narrowed his eyes. "Someone gave Deadshot medical attention. That takes infrastructure. Clean syringes. Blood. Bandages."
The woman folded her arms. "And maybe someone didn't want him to die on the street."
"That's not how this city works," Batman said quietly.
She stared at him. "Maybe it is now."
He turned his gaze across the camp. Faces half-hidden by the firelight, soaked clothes clinging to bones. None of them looked like villains. None of them looked like heroes either.
And that was the problem.
Someone had built a system here — a new kind of network, made of people no one tracked and no one protected. No digital signature. No street-level chatter. No names.
Just movement.
Just silence.
He stepped back into the rain. No threats. No violence. That wasn't the way here.
They were ghosts under the system, and someone had actually motivated them to act.
As he walked back into the dark, one of the men by the fire muttered to the others, just loud enough to hear:
"Even the Bat can't find him."
—
A/N: hope this is realistic, Batman is the greatest detective but he isn't god. A lot of fiction show him having god level insight.