John Doe Part 4 (Patreon)

As a general rule, Gotham vigilantes tried to avoid operating in the day.

Or more, that was the reputation.

There was some truth to it, Spoiler had found; her best guess was it was easier to dodge bullets in the dark and it also made their operations more deniable to the cops and city hall.

This didn't mean crime 'wasn't' fought in the day, just that it was unusual to see a vigilante skipping across rooftops in the early evening.

Spoiler, as always, was the exception.

Granted she had only taken to the rooftop one street before Lita's apartment; also taken from the hospital database during her initial search. Keeping herself low and central to avoid being spotted as she raced across the residential apartments.

They were pretty, she decided, the paint work could be better and they didn't 'gleam' like in the diamond district, but the graffiti was minimal the decay was well covered and she hadn't seen or heard much violence. People could even have little balconies and gardens hanging out their windows, the latter of which said Poison Ivy didn't roll through all that much.

'No surprise, she sticks to the West Side with all the parks... Huh I wonder if she buried the kid?' Unlikely, but maybe worth looking into.

Dismissing it for the time, Spoiler smirked behind her mask at the sight of the open window and leapt, rolling into a ball and slapping her hands against the windowsill to vault herself onto the couch which squeaked in protest but didn't break.

'Window's open, probably home, I should make this quick- Shit!' She could hear footsteps coming and nice as the apartment was it wasn't 'big'.

'Well, honesty is the better part of valor, or whatever,' she decided, drawing out the papers and thumbing one of her capsules expectantly as the scent of coffee and the sound of a tapping cane struck her senses.

Lita turned the corner, she was a woman of middling height, a bit taller than Spoiler -who knew she was tall for a fourteen year old- but not much taller. She was notably broader, with soft cheeks and dark hair done up in a bun. She wore a loose fitting summer dress and had a bandaged ankle, supported by a cane.

All in all, not really fitting the look of a villain, Spoiler mused as the woman lurched back in horror, empty coffee mug hitting the carpet as she gasped to scream.

"John Doe, who is he?" She said sharply, holding a large picture of the boy in question and ducking herself low to look less threatening.

Lita stilled and then winced as she slowly took the weight off her injured foot.

"Sorry, here let me," Spoiler said, skulking even lower, capsule still at the ready to pick up Lita's coffee mug and retreat backwards.

The woman furrowed her brow, "You cape types are pretty late finding that boy, and you come to me? Don't you think if I knew who he was I'd have contacted his family by now?" Then she frowned, "Unless they did that to him."

Snorting, Spoiler placed the mug down on the little coffee table between the lounge and TV, "Yeah pull the other one, its got bells on."

"Pardon?" Lita answered, now frowning as she looked Spoiler over in that appraising "This is just a kid" way, Spoiler loathed.

"You seriously expect me to believe you've been risking your ass, your job, keeping some no name alive on other people's insurance, knowing if it gets uncovered you'd be imprisoned at best, out of what... Goodness of your heart?"

Lita shrugged a low huff escaping her lips, "Woulda thought you cape types would know a little something about bending the rules to do the right thing."

'Well shit, that's a point,' Spoiler mused, leaning back and staring at the older woman. "If that's true you won't mind me poking around for secret compartments an other crime shit would you?"

Lita scowled, but shrugged, "I can' stop you, but try not to break anything and tidy up after yourself, girl."

Nodding and marching away, Spoiler disappeared down the hall, listening intently for the sound of being followed, of a cocked gun, or phone ringing.

But all she heard was a tired sigh as Lita went and sat down on the lounge.

'Well now I feel like the asshole,' she sighed, turning back around from the door to the nurses bedroom and shuffling back into the living room.

"Done already?" Lia asked, not hotly but definitely reproachingly.

Spoiler shrugged, "Look, I didn't throw on a cape and go out to fight criminals because the world's a nice place and people are all good."

"Fair," Lita said, not sounding like she thought it was fair at all as she put her injured foot up, "But there are good people, and if you're trying to find out the truth about that boy I will help, but I can't offer much."

Perching herself on the windowsill Spoiler nodded, "Is there anything you can tell me that's not in the files. Strange visitors, besides me," she cut in at the woman's arched brow, "Or like, anything that might not have been written down?"

Lita leaned back, staring at the cream ceiling, "Not that I can think of except... It was raining."

"Raining?" Spoiler asked head tilting.

"Raining, a terrible storm, one of the worst of that year. If that boy pulled himself from the ground, well," she shuddered, "I'm amazed he didn't drown."

"Hmm," Spoiler's foot tapped against the wall, "That helps narrow it down a bit more maybe, anything else?'

Lita frowned, "I think he led a violent life, but he's so young and so hurt I couldn't just assume the worst."

"Cos of the injuries, looked like he got worked over pretty bad before he was buried," Spoiler said.

Lita shook her head, "That was obvious, but he also had four scars on his chest, from bullets."

That made her eyebrows rise, "And he survived? So body armor then... Huh, that's... That's something."

"I hope it is, because its all I have, sorry kid." Lita sighed, "Not sure what you think you can do that the Gotham PD didn't."

"Gotham PD are idiots," Spoiler countered, drawing a snort of amusement. "Before I go, uh, sorry for breaking in, can I get you anything?"

Lita shook her head, "Just try and get that poor boy back to Bruce."

"You think he knew a Bruce? The files implied you thought it was his name."

Lita shook her head, "That was the attending, and even he wasn't sure, but I remember... I remember he said, 'Bruce... My dad...' Once, I'm sure I didn't imagine it, but it was late."

"That helps, all of it, thanks ma'am and I'll do my best to get him home," She saluted and contorted herself out the window with a, "Later hero" and jumped.
___________________________________________________________________________

Spoiler hadn't hit a brick wall exactly, but she had run headlong into the worlds longest, most tedious overpass and if she didn't want to spend the next three months chasing down false leads she needed a faster solution than what she currently had.

'Its not that I can't break in to the Security Cam facilities, but I don't even know if they store anything that far back, and I don't have anywhere to store the info even if I did find it.' 

If she expanded the search radius past where the cops thought it was 'realistic' to look, then there were too many places he could have been buried for her to cover with a quick scan.

The potential for a dad named Bruce was good, if weird, but it was potentially a false positive and while the bullet scars might help, that was a shit ton of hospitals and clinics she'd need to break into on the off chance the John Doe had been treated there.

Thus it had been as the evening sun was disappearing behind the toxic horizon that Spoiler decided she might need some help.

'Batman and Robin are out, so,' She frowned and stared at a nearby security camera, before a devious smile began t stretch its way across her ace.

'I need some sticky tape!'

Two hours later and Spoiler was putting the finishing touches on her masterplan.

Namely, taping a sticky note reading, 'Call me at 303 404 591' in front of every security camera surrounding Two Face's primary business compound.

It had taken half an hour for this 'Oracle' to notice; at which point her pager had been buzzing angrily for nearly twenty minutes as she finished up. But all Stephanie did was peel back one layer of sticky tape and waggle the burner phone in front of the camera before sealing it back up.

Finally, there was a ringing.

"You got-"

"Take those off my cameras now, Stephanie Crystal Brown, or face the consequences," Rasped a baleful mechanical voice.

"Need your help with a case-"

"Now! This isn't a game."

"Neither is this, I got a Jon Doe who crawled out of a shallow grave and I want to know who put him there!" She snapped and was rewarded with some brief, blessed silence.

"Explain, efficiently," the mechanical voice hissed.

"Been working a Jon Doe case. Working my way backwards. Narrowed it down the twenty four hour interval when he dug himself up twenty months ago. Can you access old security footage from the cemeteries' and parks eleven and more miles out from Gotham Mercy?"

She kept each sentence short and to the point and was rewarded with a drawn out mechanical sigh.

"That is a lot of catalogued records, in the cases where they still exist."

"I know, but this is important," she stressed.

"What's your Email Address, I can send you a Zip File of the records still in the system."

"... You know I'm broke as shit right? I stole this phone from a pimp who was beating up one of his workers, heh, he'll be singing soprano from now on."

There was a strange, almost hissing noise on the other side of the phone before a moment of silence, followed by, "I created a drop box. I'm texting you the address, access it at any given net café or library, now take those notes off my cameras and never do this again."

"Sure, sure, thanks Oracle and next time, if there's a world ending threat, I'll just shoot signal flares into the sky and hope for the best."

She might have been imagining the mechanical chuckle on the other end, but Spoiler liked to think she wasn't.

With her victory assured, Spoiler set about removing the tags from the cameras and stole away into the night, none the wiser.
___________________________________________________________________________

Spoiler had to swoop back home briefly to put on the frozen pizza and scoff her third, before re-packing her kit and riding off into the increasingly dark and windy night.

'Net Cafe's might be open but they also cost money, libraries on the other hand are free!' She mentally sang, climbing through the window of her schools library and dropping down to the worn shag carpeting.

She marched to the center of the library where a singular load bearing pillar was surrounded by three desks, each with an old computer on it.

Taking a squeaky seat at the sole terminal she'd powered up, Spoiler pulled up her mask and took a sip from her water bottle.

'Time to get to work!' She enthused, opening the drop box and boggling at the number of records Oracle had been able to pull in mere minutes.

'This... Might take awhile...'

As it happened, she was being optimistic.
___________________________________________________________________________

The hour was late and frankly, Spoiler half expected the sun to be rising soon, as she lazily sped through footage of everything from drug deals, to public urination and a rather memorable duel between Crazy Quilt and Kite Man of all people.

She may have re-watched that one a few times, for posterity.

'I finish this on Gotham Cemetery and come back tomorrow,' she decided, rubbing her eyes and hitting play, squinting through the miserable rain for sign of any... thing?

'What the fuck?' She thought, leaning forward and watching a dark shadow rattle against the gates of Gotham Cemetery and then managing a pained flip 'over' the tall, ominous gates.

"The fuck!?" She hissed, wincing in sympathy as the suited figured stumbled and nearly crumpled over, shaking and quaking in pain as the rain pelted their body.

'No way, no way, no fucking way,' he hadn't seen anyone go in, or leave, not before the kid nd if he had been buried there it would be impossible for someone not to notice right? It had to be someone else...

but the longer she stared the harder it was to deny as she watched a pale kid, maybe a year older than her, with dark curly hair and a decaying suit stagger to their feet and lurch down the street.

'That was two miles, he walked two miles to get hit where he did!?'

Whoever this kid was, Spoiler could tell he was anything but ordinary; but all the same...

"Woooo!" She screamed, throwing back the chair, arms high in victory, her brain buzzing through the haze of exhaustion, because she had it, she finally had her truest lead!

That joy screeched to a halt when the library door was thrown open and the familiar voice of her gymnastic coach and someone unfamiliar echoed in the library.

"Who the fuck is here!?" He roared.

"Did you rat on us, bring one of your students for a fuck, idiot?"

Spoiler darted behind the pillar, something sick clenching in her heart at the fury in her teachers voice, the one who said she could be an Olympian, the one who treated his students so warmly so... Affectionately.

'Did he bring one of his students for a fuck?' Something was boiling, sick and angry in her gut, memories of half caught shoulder rubs and private meetings with a team mate making her teeth gnash and.

"There!"

"Shit, its one of the bats squires!"

"Bastard!" She didn't even bother thinking, just surging forwards, a chair in one hand and capsules loosed and smoke exploding across the two men.

"Ah!" she hissed, a bullet brushing against the chemically reinforced material off her mask before she lobbed the chair at the shooter.

He let out a shriek and was thrown to the ground his gun misfiring as she jumped the man she'd once called teacher, all claws and screaming as she used her momentum to fling her self over his grasping hands.

'You don't get to touch me!' She seethed, swinging herself around in a sharp spin and driving both feet into his back, launching him forward and sending him crashing into an off computer, pained screeching filling the air.

The gunner was up, but his aim was wavy, his shots clumsy as his eyes watered and Spoiler blurred forward, fists flying, one to the gut, another to the throat, a third across his cheek and finally a chop she'd once seen Batman to do his hands, lading his gun on the ground.

Barely paying attention to his gagging pain, she jammed a foot into his knee and the shooter crumpled, making it easy to snag his flailing arms and link them with some handcuffs she'd stolen from her fathers collection.

Then her teacher came from behind.

"Bitch!"

Spoiler knew how to roll with the punches, so the chair crashing against her side and the leg smashing her cheek didn't hurt as much as it would someone else as she fell into a roll and then skidded to a halt.

Bloody faced and furious, her teachers short brown hair clung to his face, his track suit stretched with every heaved breath as he charged her.

Spoiler leapt forward, meeting him in the middle with a violent tackle right into his gut, forcing the air from his lungs and sending him staggering. She didn't hold back, grasping his shirt she cracked his nose against her forehead and shoved him backwards so he fell to the ground.

Then she raised her foot and stomped.

Hard.

His yowl was one she was familiar with and as his hands raced down to protect himself, she drew a second set of handcuffs.

"Bastards, both of you," she spat, eying the fallen shooter as he winced and groaned in pain at every feeble attempt to reach for his gun.

"Who the fuck- Ah!" She stomped on her former teachers leg for good measure and stepped back. "I'm leaving you both for the cops, confess, or I'll find your homes and break 'every' bone rather than just a few."

"Fuck you!" The shooter shouted, only to shiver and try crawling away at her approach, but instead Spoiler just snagged his pistol.

Drawing one of her stolen switch blades and clambered onto the near desk and with a grunt she hilted the blade into the masonry and with it, impaled the gun by its trigger in the wall and out of reach, but very much in view.

"Please kid, I'm not a bad guy, I'm just tryna make do," Her teacher begged, he didn't deserve a name and she barely resisted the urge to spit on him.

"So if I asked your girls if you sell to them, what you accept instead of money, they'd just be confused?" He lurched back as if struck and she snorted, "Piece of shit." She began gathering her things, pressing the power button with so much force she heard the terminal whine and then she raced out the door, stopping only long enough to take the keys and lock the pair inside.

'Hope you two fuckers rot in a cell,' she thought, rubbing her shoulder as she marched away and towards home.
___________________________________________________________________________

The sun is rising when she gets home, and the lights are on.

'Shit,' she curses, hastily dipping behind one of the bushes she'd actually managed to keep alive and peeling off her gear and stashing it in the brush. 'It's gonna itch next time I wear it,' she thought sulkily.

Shaking that off, she jumped the fence and raced back around to the front door, key at the ready and excuses running circles in her brain when the door flew open.

'Please be happy to see me.'

Her mother grasped her arm and dragged her inside, slamming the door behind her, eyes wide and grip fierce if not terribly strong these days.

"Where in the hell have you been? Is that a bruise!?" She asked, voice rising higher.

"Mum, its OK, I just got jumped on my way home, I took care of it-"

"What were you dong out so late? You know what this neighborhood is like!" Her mother grasped her shoulders, nails digging into the thin green sweatshirt.

"I'm sorry I was hanging out with some friends and we wandered way too far into Gotham-"

"Don't lie to me!" Crystal shrieked as she shoved Stephanie back, there were tears in her eyes.

'You did this to her, just like dad,' A little voice whispered.

"You think I'm stupid, you think I don't notice," Crystal sobbed and seethed, forcing Stephanie back until she was against the wall. "You think I can't tell you're becoming just like him!"

Her gut churns, like its filled with snakes, and she whispers, "I'm sorry mom, but I'm not-"

"Sneaking out, getting into fights, I don't even know where your money comes from!" Crystal slammed her palms against the wall and nearly doubled over, half screaming into her face. "Why are you doing this to me? Was I a bad mother, is that why you hate me? Is that why you're stealing from me!?"

Something burned on her tongue, "I'm not stealin," she choked out.

"You took my medicine!"

"Your drugs!"

Stephanie slapped her hand over her mouth but it was too late, she'd yelled and her mum reared back like she was slapped.

"So that's it, you think I'm not sick, not hurting, its all in my head, an excuse!"

"No, mum, please-"

"You wanted to send me away, just like he did!"

Rehab, her first visit, born out of a threat, rather than love, 'You're going to kick this filthy habit or I'll snap your neck.' He'd hissed.

"Mum, I'm trying to help-"

"Just like he did, just like him!" She screamed, staggering back and when Stephanie tried to get closer, her hand shout out defensively, only practice let Stephanie avoid a scratch or mark. "Get out! Get out and go to your 'friends' then!"

"Mum!"

"OUT! OUT OUT OUT!" Crystal was shrieking, sobbing, howling and with every step Stephanie took closer she looked more haunted more horrified, hands lashing out wildly.

"OK, mum," She whispered, shoulders sagging as she stepped away, eyes stinging but she'd learnt not to cry along time ago.

Stephanie pulled the door open and whispered, " I love you," as her mother sat on the steps, red rimmed eyes glaring balefully at her, like she was an unwelcome intruder.

Stephanie closed the door and ran.

She ran, feet pounding against cracked cement until she hit Dean's house, jumping and scrambling along the worn roof and crawling into his room.

"What?" He groaned, he smelled like a bar, but she didn't care right now.

"I just wanted to see you," she lied, pulling off her jacket and crawling into the bed.

Dean cracked open an eye, familiar crows feet not hidden in the full moons light as he sighed, before smirking, "Later babe," before opening his arm and letting her snuggle up against his larger frame.

Pressing her against his bare skin, large, familiar hands squeezing her tightly, pulling her closer against him and his smirking lips brushing against her neck before slumber struck.

She could ignore the touches, the smirks, the sensations that she could not name for moments like this. Wrapped in someone's arm, in a warm bed and not alone.

She could almost pretend it was love.