Endless Legacy (DC Comics)

A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!

Barbara and Lucien engage in some pillow talk.

-x-X-x-

“… We know about the call you made to Mercy Graves after your talk with Batman.”

Lucien blinks and looks over to see Barbara Gordon studiously staring up at the ceiling and not making eye contact even as she drops that bombshell in his lap. Then, as if realizing how such a thing might come across, she glances at him and bites her lower lip.

“I meant what I said earlier, Lucien. I don’t think you’re a bad guy. In fact, I like to think you’re a good man on some level. You’re just… trying to make your way in the world. I’d rather view you as an ally rather than a suspect or an adversary.”

Oh. Wow. Honestly, Lucien knows they probably shouldn’t have slept together. He’d kind of had a feeling this whole dinner was designed to extract more information out of him. A honey pot, though a rather blatant and obvious one. And now Barbara wasn’t even trying to pretend anymore.

Still, he could kind of respect her blunt admissions. Even if he found himself struggling with how exactly to respond to it. But then… as it turns out, she’s not quite done yet.

Blowing out an explosive breath, Barbara looks back at the ceiling.

“I’m not just the Police Commissioner’s daughter, or someone who works with Batman to be clear. I’m also… Oracle.”

There’s a pregnant pause at that which quickly becomes a little awkward. Mostly because… Lucien won’t lie, he doesn’t know who that is. Barbara finally looks at him again, clearly sensing his confusion. Her brow furrows and her lips drop into a bit of a pout in response to his baffled expression.

“The information networker? I help out all of the different do-gooders here in Gotham! I also help coordinate the Justice League during planet-level events like alien invasions!”

Lucien gives Barbara his most reassuring smile.

“I’m sure you’re integral to their efforts?”

And he means it too. But that only seems to make Barbara deflate a bit more as she groans.

“Ugh… what am I saying? Of course you wouldn’t know who Oracle is. You’re neither a hero nor a villain. I don’t know why I thought name dropping myself like that would be some big reveal. Look, I just want you to know I trust you. And I want you to feel like you can trust me as well. Because you can.”

He could appreciate that sentiment. Really, he could. It was just… difficult to accept her overture of friendship (or was it allyship?) when it came with one great big glaring caveat.

“Your loyalty to Batman will always take priority though, won’t it?”

Barbara frowns at that, as he’d suspected she would.

“… In most cases, yes. But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad for you. Batman has already mostly cleared you… he even let you stay in Gotham City. You realize that he kicks out most metahumans from out of town as soon as he possibly can, right?”

Lucien tilts his head to the side at that. He thought he vaguely recalled something like that, yeah. Rolling over, Barbara lays her hand on his chest and looks him in the eyes as she presses her naked body against his side.@@novelbin@@

“If a metahuman isn’t effectively ‘born’ here like say, Poison Ivy… then they don’t last long. Batman makes sure of that. And he especially doesn’t allow metahumans with heroic inclinations stick around for long either. You’re the exception Lucien. That must mean he sees something worthy in you. He’s not your enemy. You’re certainly not his.”

On the one hand, that actually did go a long way towards setting Lucien at ease. On the other hand… now his curiosity was piqued.

“Why DOESN’T Batman allow heroically inclined metahumans to set up shop in Gotham? Hell, if he just let someone like Superman or Wonder Woman do a sweep of the city once every month or so, the whole place would probably be better off, right?”

Barbara pauses and grimaces at that. She looks off to the side for a moment before letting out a long, drawn out sigh.

“It just… doesn’t work out. I’ve asked myself that same question more than once, you know. And I’ve even asked Batman too. He tells me it’s about escalation. If someone like Superman comes to Gotham, then the bad guys have to get worse. They have to get stronger, better, more powerful. It’s like a nuclear arms race and when one of those happens, its always the little guys who lose out.”

Shrugging, Barbara looks more upset about it then Lucien is, truth be told.

“Superman and Wonder Woman respect Batman too much to go against his desires. And to be fair, groups like Batman and his sidekicks, or the Birds of Prey do a fine job of cleaning up Gotham anyways.”

Lucien almost doesn’t say anything. But… he can’t help it.

“Do they?”

Barbara shoots him a look, but at this point he’s in too deep to back out anyways.

“Do they really do a fine job? Look, I’m not going to say they aren’t doing their best. I’m sure they absolutely are. But… I’ve only been in Gotham for a couple of weeks now and even I can tell you that it’s not doing well. Is this really ‘cleaned up’? Is this really the best it’s going to get? Or are the people like you who are trying to help this city barely hanging on by the tips of your damn fingernails?”

Maybe it’s because he’s showing he’s upset on her behalf, but in the end, Barbara deflates after a moment rather than getting outraged or offended. With another long sigh, she lays her head down on his chest and just… rests quietly for a time. Lucien, recognizing that she needs a moment, stays quiet as well and waits for her to speak again.

When she finally does, she doesn’t lift her head. Her voice is little more than a low murmur, though thanks to his enhanced hearing, Lucien can make out her words clearly all the same.

“… Sometimes it feels like it. Sometimes it feels like nothing can ever go right, and all we can do is perform triage on an already poor situation. It’s like trying to put a band-aid on a gaping bullet wound… with the bullet still inside. I don’t know if bringing in stronger heroes would make things better though. I know Batman doesn’t think so. And… my own research shows he might just be right. Letting someone like Superman or Wonder Woman spend too much time in Gotham might wind up causing far more harm than good.”

What, because of the nuclear arms race thing? Lucien isn’t sure he buys that. Except… Barbara lifts her head and makes it clear that’s not what she’s talking about.

“There’s a darkness here in Gotham, Lucien. I’ve researched the city’s history, baffled to find that it’s always been a hellhole somehow persisting in spite of how terrible it is to live here. I think… I think Gotham City might be alive in some way. I think it revels in its own darkness too.”

Barbara grimaces, looking like she’s embarrassed by this theory. But when Lucien doesn’t laugh and call her an idiot for such a thing, she continues on all the same.

“Magic is real. Hell and Heaven are real. We know this for a fact at this point. Gotham… Gotham might just be the closest thing to Hell on Earth. And I think, personally, if someone like Superman tried to make it a better place against it’s will, Gotham would retaliate. It would lash out. Whether that’s in the form of Joker coming up with Kryptonite Laughing Gas or something else… I don’t know. I don’t think it’s worth the risk.”

Lucien hums, giving Barbara’s words the consideration they deserve. If she’s right… then the policy makes sense. And he doesn’t bother asking her why people like Batman are allowed to operate in Gotham under this ‘Sentient City’ theory. Because it’s obvious, isn’t it? Batman doesn’t try to bring Gotham into the Light. He doesn’t try to do away with the Darkness. Instead, he embraces the Darkness as Gotham’s Caped Crusader. He becomes one with it.

It also fits rather neatly in with Lucien too and has him thinking about his connection to Death. Perhaps that’s why Batman doesn’t see a need to get Lucien out of his city. If Gotham is sentient and likes Batman, maybe they’re connected on some level that not even Batman realizes exists. And maybe… Lucien is ‘acceptable’ because of whatever his own connection to Death means.

It's funny… it hasn’t been that long since he and Death last spoke. Not really. And yet, it feels like an eternity. Lucien is reminded of the old saying “there’s years when nothing seems to happen and weeks when an entire lifetime seems to happen”. That’s how it feels like things have been since he and Blackfire came to Gotham.

Letting out a sigh of his own, Lucien looks back up at the ceiling for a moment before finally biting the bullet.

“… I did call Mercy after Batman and I talked, yes. I had to warn her that our worries about my father’s clone went beyond just whether he would notice what I was up to or not. I don’t think my father, the real one anyways… I don’t think he would ever turn on Mercy. And she would never turn on him either, not even for my sake. But a clone of him that didn’t act like him might be capable of anything. I needed her to know that so she wasn’t caught off guard or stabbed in the back thinking she could trust him.”

There. That was the truth. Lucien supposed he should have known better than to think he could slip one past Batman. But whatever. He hadn’t really done anything wrong and Barbara herself had said she trusted him.

“… Thank you for telling me, Lucien. You really care about Mercy, don’t you? Do the two of you have a very strong connection?”

Lucien pauses at that, turning over the question in his head for a long while. Did they? Eh… he wasn’t sure the answer was ‘yes’, truth be told. If not for Death, Mercy would have been the woman who took his virginity. She technically was the first human woman he’d slept with. Not to mention, he’d developed something of a rapport with her over the years. Back when he’d been sickly, Mercy was pretty much the only one who ever had a smile for him. Not even his own father had ever seen him in a positive light.

And yet… Lucien wasn’t so childish or naïve as to think that meant Mercy liked him or loved him or anything like that. Except now that he’s thinking about it, he does realize… he kind of imprinted on her. Like an abandoned baby duckling, he’d taken to Mercy’s rare showings of positive reinforcement quite swiftly. Like a parched man finding an oasis in the middle of the desert.

It was why he felt obligated to warn her. And to be fair, Mercy had gone out of her way to help him more than once. Not in a way that went directly against Lex of course but knowing that his father had been replaced by a clone had allowed Mercy to divorce the things she’d done for Lucien from disloyalty to Lex in her mind.

He cared about Mercy and he thought she cared about him too. But did they have a strong connection? In the end, Lucien has to shake his head and let out a rueful laugh.

“It’s… complicated.”

And funnily enough, he can tell Barbara gets it. She doesn’t ask him to elaborate either, which Lucien is honestly grateful for. Instead, she continues to rest her head on his chest, trailing her fingers along his abs.

“Stay the night?”

Lucien blinks, because he honestly hadn’t expected her to offer despite what they’d just got done doing. And yet…

“Sure.”

“Mm, alright. Sleep well, Lucien. Heh… I’m going to be so sore come morning.”

A smile comes to his face then, even as Barbara slowly drifts off right there half draped over him. That, more than anything, reveals to him how much she trusts him. She feels safe with him and Lucien… Lucien can’t help but feel like he wants to earn that sense of trust and safety. He wants to prove her right about him.

Maybe that’s all part of the scheme, but he can’t really bring himself to worry about it for overly long. Besides… he has another engagement to get to anyways. One that doesn’t require him to really do much moving for, thankfully.

Closing his own eyes, Lucien reaches out even as he wills himself to sleep there in Barbara Gordon’s head. He reaches out somewhat blindly… but when he does, there’s a hand there waiting for him to clasp onto, pulling him… elsewhere.

When Lucien opens his eyes again, he’s back in the Dream World with Death of the Endless standing there, her hand in his. She smiles at him coyly as their fingers intertwine together.

“Long time no see, Lucien~”

It really hasn’t been that long at all, but as they begin to walk through the beautiful meadow, taking a stroll through the forest, Lucien finds himself gratified that it felt like a long time for Death too. After all, time must feel very different for her than it does for him. And yet… they’d both missed each other, hadn’t they?

“Have you been keeping an eye on me?”

Death hums and then nods.

“Yes. You’ve been quite the busy bee since fixing things in Jump City and coming to Gotham. And I’m sorry, but it was rather amusing watching you try to lay low, only for nobody to let that happen.”

Lucien huffs good naturedly at that. He’s not going to be offended that Death got a couple laughs off at his expense. It WAS rather funny, wasn’t it? Still…

“Is there any truth to Barbara Gordon’s theory? That Gotham itself is sentient and revels in its own state of perpetual darkness and tragedy?”

The Endless pauses at that and looks at him, her own eyes becoming somewhat shadowed.

“Starting off with the big questions, are we?”

Lucien offers an apologetic smile but shrugs, not taking the question back. Finally, Death nods.

“Yes. She’s right. Gotham is its own entity. Batman is smart to keep the other members of the Justice League away from Gotham as much as possible. He dwells in the shadows as Gotham’s favored son, so he gets a free pass with all of his antics. But if someone like Superman tried to set up shop in Gotham for even a week, things would almost certainly go poorly. Even worse for a heroine such as Wonder Woman.”

Worse? In what- oh. Lucien grimaces at what Death is implying.

“But did you really reach out to talk to me about Gotham, Lucien? Or did you reach out for something else?”

Lucien blinks at Death’s intrigued tone. He gets the impression that there’s nothing behind the question except for simple curiosity. She’s not expecting him to bed her again unless he wants to. Obviously, he does want to. He’s just… not sure he has anything more to show for it than he did on his last attempt…