Batman glided to the top of Gotham City's main police station. Jim Gordon was standing there, waiting for him.
"'Bout time you showed up," Gordon said gruffly. He flicked off the switch to the Bat-Signal, shrouding both of them in shadow.
"I... I needed to do some thinking. After Bat-"
"Barbara," Gordon said. He looked away for a moment, trying to regain himself. "Believe me, I know. That bastard Joker. Barbara told me what happened to her. The truth."
Tommy shifted his weight nervously. "She did?"
"Yeah," Gordon replied. "She told me how Joker... how he crippled her. He wanted to show the both of us what it was like to lose someone. He wanted to break us."
"He did," Tommy replied. He guessed that Barbara wasn't in a hurry to tell anyone the truth about her accident.
"But we're not him," Gordon replied. "We're better than that, right?"
"Sure," Tommy lied. He wanted to get off this subject. He was ready to be Batman again but he wasn't ready to relive that night.
"Anyway, I didn't call you up here to cry about our problems," Gordon said. "Someone's been attacking our police officers. Cops. I've had 4 officers go down in the past week to some sort of fear paralysis. They're all in the hospital. One can't be left alone without crying and another can't get off the floor because they're afraid they'll fall. Someone's been dousing them with-"
"Scarecrow," Tommy jumped ahead. He was confused; as far as he knew, Scarecrow had been put in Arkham Asylum 2 years ago by the other Batman.
"That's what I thought," Gordon said. "But there's no toxin in the blood. Whoever is doing this is doing it to them without fear gas."
"Any leads?" Tommy asked. He was eager to get off this roof and track down a criminal. He thought it would be nice to take his mind off his problems by beating the shit out of some hoods.
"Just one," Gordon said, straining his eyes to read the papers in his hand. "All of the cops run the beat on Midtown, near the museum. I think that if you hang around there, before too long you'll-"
Gordon looked up and saw that Batman was gone. He smiled. "Just like old times," He muttered to himself.
***
Tommy crouched on a roof across the street from the Gotham Museum of Art. He had been tracking an officer as he walked his beat for almost an hour and so far Tommy hadn't seen anything suspicious. A couple drunks, sure, but that wasn't out of the ordinary this time of night. Tommy was thinking that maybe this wasn't such a good lead after all.
The cop whistled as he walked, twirling his night stick absent-mindedly. He walked by a side street, paused, and then backtracked. The whistling stopped. Slowly, he walked down the side street.
Tommy couldn't see the cop as he disappeared into the alley. Night Vision was being clicked on right as the shouting began.
"Aaaaahhhh get 'em off me, get 'em off me!" He heard someone shouting.
Tommy quickly grappled over to a building closer to the side street. As he did so, he faintly made out a tall, sweeping figure standing over the cop. The cop was cowering on the ground, his hands fervently trying to brush something off of himself.
"Hey!" Tommy shouted, grabbing the evildoer's attention. The villain ran out of the side street, their long cape trailing behind them. They ran in the direction of the museum.
Tommy didn't immediately follow. First he dropped down to the street and checked on the cop. The man was still rolling around on the ground, trying violently to remove whatever was on him. Tommy couldn't see anything.
"What's wrong?" Tommy asked urgently, trying to mask his voice.
"Spiders! They're everywhere!" The cop shouted. Tommy looked closer but there was nothing there. He wasn't sure what to do; he couldn't help this man but he couldn't exactly leave him like this. He did the first thing he could think of: he cracked the policeman upside the head, knocking him unconscious. Tommy used the officer's radio to call for an ambulance. Then he turned towards the museum and began to run after his suspect.
***
Tommy entered the museum cautiously, dropping in from the roof. He had seen the tail of his suspect's cape flutter through the front door of the museum but he wasn't sure where the fiend was now. He was going to have to be cautious.
Tommy crouched low and worked his way down the halls of the art museum. He was passing by works that numbered in the hundreds of thousands of dollars but he didn't know or particularly care about any of them; there was work to do.
As he worked his way down the high halls of the art museum, Tommy was getting nervous. He was beginning to think that maybe his prey had tricked him somehow and wasn't actually in the museum. He began searching faster, getting more and more agitated, not checking before he turned a corner. He turned one corner without looking and almost literally ran into his suspect. They had been waiting for him.
"Hello Batman," his suspect said with a British accent. Tommy slid to avoid running into the woman standing before him. She was wearing a form-fitting suit that was green with black highlights. It showed off her lithe body and round, firm breasts. Behind her was a cape that touched the floor and then arched high around her head to form a sort of shield around her head. It made her look intimidating. Her costume had a cap attached to it that wrapped around her head, covering her hair. She had dark black lips and high, arching eyebrows.
"I figured that you'd show up eventually and try to spoil my plans," the villain said. She held out her hand and a pink light seemed to emanate from it. "Now let's see what you fear most..."
Tommy's world fell away from him. The walls and floor beneath him seemed to retreat, leaving him in infinite blackness. He saw two figures approaching him; as they neared, he retreated in horror.
"You did this to me!" One of the figures shouted at him. It was Barbara. She walked towards him, her torso twisted and deformed. She was tilted to the side at an impossible angle, her spine snapped in half.
"No... it can't be... Barbara, I'm sorry," Tommy stuttered, cowering backwards.
"Yes you did!" The other figure shouted. His face came into view and Tommy noted with horror it was Bruce Wayne, just as he appeared in the paintings hung high in Wayne Manor. "You are a failure as Batman! You don't deserve to wear that cowl."
Tommy blubbered, choking back a sob. He knew deep down that both of them were right; he was responsible for Barbara's condition and he was a horrible excuse for a Batman. He dropped to his knees and covered his head.
"Please... please... I'm so sorry," He called out weakly. He felt them kick him in the ribs, knocking him over to his side. They rained blows down upon him and Tommy covered up. He wished they'd just kill him.
As Tommy was being attacked, he suddenly heard a different voice coming from inside him. It sounded like him but the voice was deeper, gruffer. Tommy was startled to realize that it WAS him; it was what he sounded like when he was Batman.
"Get up," the voice said. "Get up and fight."
"I can't," he replied, "This is all my fault."
"Yes, it is," The voice said to Tommy, surprising him. "You caused Batgirl's accident and you are not a very good Batman. But you need to move on anyway. You need to fight."
"What if I fail again?" Tommy asked.
"Then you fail. But at least you tried," Batman told him.
Tommy let the words sink in. He was still being attacked, kicked, clawed at. He looked up and saw Barbara raise an arm high in the air, ready to bring it down on his head. She swung and Tommy reached up, blocking the blow.
"What?!" Barbara said in disbelief. But... it didn't quite sound like Barbara. Tommy grabbed her arm and brought himself slowly up to his feet. "I failed you, Barbara, and for that I'm sorry," Tommy told her. "And I'm sorry, Bruce, that I'm not who you believed me to be. I'm still going to try. But I'm still going to fight. Always."
Bruce's face seemed to twist, swirling in on himself. His body fell into a black hole and disappeared. Barbara's face began to twist too, hers slowly morphing. The walls and floor rushed back to Tommy and he realized he was back at the art museum. He looked at Barbara and realized she wasn't Barbara anymore; she was the villain he had been chasing.
"This is impossible!" The villain shouted. "No one can overcome my power!"
"Apparently I can," Tommy told her. "All I had to do was face my fear."