Commissioner of Police

The man paused in his step suddenly when he realized someone had addressed him. The movement was deliberate– the sound had not startled him, as if he had known he was being followed the entire time. There was an odd grace to his step and how he held himself that didn’t seem to make sense considering his size. He stood silently for a long moment before turning his head just enough to make out the man in his peripheral, eyes narrowed. 

He wasn’t a distrustful person, but he had seen both sides of humanity for the past year as he wandered around. People had been very good to him– offering him food, helping him to get a job. But he had also been treated with contempt by those who saw him as homeless, and several attempts had been made to rob or harm him by those who were in the same situation as he. 

“I… do not have a destination.”  So technically he wasn’t lost. His voice was low and rumbling, his tone neutral, with an odd accent that modern men would not recognize. Although his clothes were dirty his face and hands were clean of grime as if he had bathed recently. “You are?”

Jim had grown up in Chicago, joined the military, then spent more than half his life in Gotham before moving to Star City. He’d seen some of the strangest things and people the world could offer up, so there wasn’t much of anything or anyone that caught him fully by surprise anymore. A big man in dirty clothes certainly wasn’t going to do it. Still, just because he wasn’t affected didn’t mean that somebody else wouldn’t be, and that was all the more reason to see if he needed to step in preemptively. 

-

He lifted the corner of Jim’s file slightly, enough to get the gist of the paperwork underneath before looking back at the older man. “Does it make me a bad DA that I’m really happy about a lot of that?” he asked. When it had first been introduced he’d been in favour of The Hero Ban; he’d hoped it would keep people like Matt safe and lessen the collateral damage battles between heroes and villains seemed to whip up. As it stood, crime had gone up and NOVA came along to capitalise on that fear and make just being different a crime in itself.

“Huh.” he opened the file again, “Hell, I’d been in law school back then. I remembered using this kinda stuff as a case study for essays.” Before going to parties with Matt. “Well, maybe if we pull the most successful parts of each we can patchwork something workable that can evolve over time? If we set something rigid there’ll be holes in it within two months. I reckon we’re gonna have to play some parts by ear.” A novel concept but he wanted the law to do what it was supposed to: protect people.

“There’s worse things in the world than being a bad lawyer.” It wasn’t as if Jim enjoyed putting away people for things that shouldn’t have been criminal offenses in the first place, but it had never been his position to decide what the law was. He could try to bend the right ears and get people to listen, but his job was focusing on how to handle things on the ground, which meant he was right in the middle of the mess caused by the people in charge of making those laws pulling the rug out from under them, even though it had been a horrible rug to begin with. 

Hercules Unbound...and In Star City (open starter).

The man was very, very tall, and very large with dark hair and eyes. People turned to glance at him as he slowly walked down the sidewalk. It was getting to be evening and he didn’t have a place to sleep yet. He carried on his shoulder a worn backpack that matched his dusty jeans and dirty work boots. His flannel shirt seemed clean enough, though, his hair and beard neat and not so ragged that he seemed completely homeless or destitute. 

It had been almost an entire year since he “woke up”, found naked on the side of the road in a small town in Oregon. He had been without clothes, identification..and oddly enough also without an inch of hair on his body–not even eyelashes. He could barely speak or walk, and was found by a couple of hunters driving early one morning. After spending several weeks in the local hospital he still had no idea who he was, though despite his memory loss and lack of hair he was in perfect health. He barely even needed to eat or sleep. 

Since then his hair had grown in normally and he fit in with other people just fine. Except for his memories. Those still had not returned. He could speak all right, and read and write at this point. But it had come to him slowly, like water dripping from a leaky faucet– a drop here, a drop there. Nothing substantial, but enough to get him by. Because he did not know his own name, he had picked one at random. William Smith. He had seen the name Smith often on billboards and in the papers– it seemed to be a common name, and William as well. He was not a creative man, and simplicity was what he desired in most things, including his name. 

He had come to Star City for a reason. But now that he had arrived, he did not know where to go. So he walked. The streets were loud with cars and buses, and  he walked by many people as he made his way down the sidewalks. There were some money in his backpack, but not much, most he had made doing odd jobs in the towns to the south of Star City. He couldn’t use a computer and did not have any ID, but he could do any manual labor asked of him, and had done so for many months. Lawn work, laying bricks, unloading boxes at warehouses– he did it all without complaint and without seeming to tire. It was only a few months after he had woken up that he realized he was not the same as other people. He was much stronger and faster, his endurance unsurpassed. He quickly learned to hide this as well. The looks and whispers he got did not go unnoticed. 

Strange sights weren’t new in Jim Gordon’s life, and a massive man walking down the street barely even qualified. Still, anything that got attention was something that might deserve his. In the wake of the ban being lifted and NOVA leaving, a vacuum had been created that left him and the SCPD with plenty to deal with. If he could head something off before it became a problem, he’d rather do that. Or maybe it’d be as simple as giving some damn directions. He could to that, too. In his particular career, sometimes it was easy to lose sight of the fact that sometimes the solutions weren’t complicated at all. 

There was no need for the badge. All he’d been doing was walking back to the station from the diner where he still had lunch practically every day. Jim quickened his pace and soon found himself falling into step with the mystery man.

My Life’s a Fucking Comedy || Joker and Jim

The railing system must be fucking ancient if it was this easy to stop the electricity flow to the subway cars on the A line. Joker grinned as he stared at the sparking box he had just fired three shot gun shells into just as the 7:00 train came screaming by. He was going to have a little fun. Or try to. It all made no difference anymore anyway. He laughed, even if he felt like crying, as the lights flickered and the train came to a complete stop. The sickly light of the emergency illumination made an already pale Joker almost green, a welcome contrast to the monochrome of everything on him.

He’d given himself a makeover. Out of respect. Or perhaps it was madness. Or perhaps he had just needed a change. Ha. Ha. Ha. No purple, no green. Why bother? What about seeing the world from the Bat’s perspective. Gray and Black and white. Good or evil. Sane or insane. Perhaps it was an homage. He didn’t care all that much. 

Glass shattered as he put his fist through it to close his fingers around the axe designed for ‘in case of fire’. What about ‘in case of existential comedy’? 

Whistling that same Irving Berlin song that had been stuck in his head for a long while–since the news–the newly black and white clown made his way to the very first window where the driver was on the radio. “Heeeere’s Joker!” he shouted as he swung the axe into the window before pulling a pistol. The brains spattered in a pretty Rorschach test over the window as he took to whistling again. “Hello, ladies and gentlemen,” he said as he stepped into the main car. “How would you all like to hear a story? A tragedy of comedies. Or a comedy of tragedies. Or maybe it’s both.”

The screaming began and the Joker rolled his eye before the shotgun swung around from his and a man who had gotten up to try to pry the door open slumped to the floor.  “Have I got your attention now?” He asked.

There were phones out. Joker didn’t mind so much as he caught sight of a crying little boy holding onto his mother’s hand. “Dear God, kid. With a mug like that, you’re lucky she loves you. What’s the saying? Face only a mother could love?” As the bottom of his barrel tipped the kid’s chin up, he considered. “Maybe I could just do ya now so that mom doesn’t have to cry over you later. Would that be mercy or messy?

The boy’s mother swallowed hard. “P-please. He’s only… s-seven.” 

“Seven? Practically a grown up, kiddo.” Without warning, he reached into his pocket before producing… a lollipop.

“Where was I?” He asked to his now rapt audience. “Ah yes. Tragedy and comedy.”

@commissionerjg

Within a minute of the train being stopped, a call came through to the SCPD. Jim didn’t always take them personally. He was the police commissioner, after all, and not just another pair of boots on the ground. Still, he couldn’t sit behind a desk and anytime something major happened or they were a little short handed, he was in the field without fail. The fact that it was Joker involved would have got him there even if neither of the other things were true. A lot of Gotham’s darkness had ended up in Star City. It had followed Batman, or it had followed him, or both, but Bruce was gone. He wouldn’t be answering this particular call. It felt like Jim’s responsibility even more than usual.

There was no way to get right to the scene. They couldn’t drive squad cars down the tunnel, and it took them more time than he wanted to reach the train. Jim knew from countless experiences with the clown that he couldn’t go in light, and he had a dozen officers with him as backup. Still, he led it. He had to. Crouched too low to be seen from the windows, they surrounded the stopped train and Jim pried open the doors two cars down from where Joker had placed himself. 

-

While Foggy was actually pretty thrilled the government had repealed The Hero Ban and NOVA were no longer around (course he wasn’t thrilled about the death…) it had of course some with a mountain of paperwork and legislative change. He knew Mayor Dent would have the final say on how the city should proceed but as DA it definitely fell to him to try and put forward some changes while also deciding which legal proceedings to halt until they had a clearer picture of what was and was not still considered a crime. Needless to say, he’d started early and hadn’t stopped.

He was elbow deep in paperwork and legal volumes when his door opened and he looked up to see the Commissioner in his office. He offered the man a slight smile, “Great minds.” he said in lieu of a greeting. “Take a seat Commissioner I reckon we’ll have something workable for the mayor by next week if we go without sleep.” he reached for his intercom and buzzed through to his secretary, “Elizabeth, could you run and grab us a couple of coffees? Get one for yourself as well. Thanks!”    

“These,” he pushed over a large stack of files, “Are ongoing cases I’ve frozen proceedings on till we can be sure they’re actually prosecutable offences.  

Jim tossed down the file he’d come in with in favor of picking up one of Foggy’s. “Can’t touch these for awhile,” he said after just a glance over the first couple of pages. Unlawful Use of Superhuman or Genetic Abilities. He sighed and laid it back down again before taking a seat on the other side of the desk. It would’ve been a damn fine thing if they could just feel the relief he imagined a whole lot of others in the city were getting, but there was no time at all for that. “Most of them are going to get thrown out anyway. Probably for the best.”

Thirty something years as a cop and a handful more in the service had left Jim well acquainted with the idea that life, especially his own, was not guaranteed every day. Over and over, he made the choice to go out every night anyway. Someone had to do it, someone had to make the sacrifice and see the terrible things, so that at least there was a chance of it being dealt with and fixed. He’d always been able to handle it, or get as close to handling it as any person could, so he’d done it. Again and again. 

It had meant a lot of moments where he wasn’t sure he’d see his daughter again. There were a lot of reasons that Bruce Wayne’s death hit home, but that was one of them. The universe just didn’t make any damn sense, sometimes, and he couldn’t stand it. There was no reason a man like that was dead and Jim was still alive. There was no sensible path that led to Batman being gone, his kids being without their dad, and Jim Gordon still being there. He was, though. He still was. Barbara had her dad, he still had his not-so-little girl, and he’d taken a damn day off work for once. 

Maybe he was being an old sentimental fool that day. Given how rare an occasion that was, he thought she might forgive him for it just the once. He called first, though he was already parked in front of her building.

Richard will always try to place his best foot forward and do his job well. He might be a goofball sometimes but often when it comes down to doing this line of work … it was taken seriously. He doesn’t allow himself to get distracted from the goal in mind either, seeing how quickly any situation can escalate in an instant. He has seen planets die and entire civilizations get wiped out in the war. Every moment is precious so Rich puts all his effort into solving a case since for most of his life there was nobody else to lean on. He had to be the best because there was only him but it’s different being part of SCPD. Richard isn’t alone anymore but still upholds the effort put into his work.

“I hope that I’ll be able to prove to you how dedicated I am to the department. I want to be known for doing what I do well.” He nods and maybe for once Rich is nervous despite his confident attitude. In the meantime, his fingers flip through some more of the pages in the file that’s given to him but closes it and keeps it in his lap. “Interesting that there isn’t any witnesses …”

“That’s part of why I’m putting you on this,” Jim told him after Rich’s observation. “With the area that happened, there’s no way nobody saw a thing, but nobody’s talking. Got any guesses about why that might be?” He looked at him over the top rim of his glasses with one brow just slightly arched. “Somebody gave them a reason not to. So why don’t you start there...” he leaned back in his chair, “and keep me up to date about what you turn up. Take Quill with you. He needs to pull his weight.”

When Dick heard that Jim Gordon was waiting in the parlor, he hadn’t been fully prepared for the emotions that flooded him. Jim and Alfred had a unique relationship with Bruce, one he would never understand, because they knew him when he was young. They both had insight on his life that Dick would never share. What they lost was entirely different from the tragedy he was experiencing. What’s more, Jim was a father-figure all of his own that he’d always looked up to. He was one of those steadfast figures that people took for granted. When Dick had worked for the SCPD, he’d done all he could to live up to Jim’s expectations. Sometimes he still felt guilt for eventually turning in his resignation, but it had been the right decision. There were too many factors involved and he was too compromised.

Every now and then he ran into him on patrol. He’d shared information with him as Nightwing, even though his identity was public and there was no reason for Gordon to even pretend like he didn’t know who he was.

But he never imagined seeing him in this capacity. In mourning. It was something he had to prepare himself for.

When he finally appeared in the doorway, he seemed calm and stoic. His clothes were clean. Other than the dark circles under his eyes, he seemed entirely normal. The previous night had been spent exploring the database Tim had given him access to, reviewing files, and he was relieved not to come across any surprises. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t, but he was prepared for the possibility. The only files he hadn’t perused were the people he was closest to. It felt wrong to scan through Clark’s file, or Donna’s file, and the thought left a bad taste in his mouth.

Maybe that was even more reason why the cowl shouldn’t be his responsibility alone. They each had their biases, but Batman was supposed to have none.

“Good morning, sir,” he greeted, offering his hand out of habit.

It had been a shame to lose Dick Grayson as a detective and an officer. He’d been good at his job, before all of the external conflicts made it impossible to continue. Dick had done them the favor of resigning before Jim had to ask him to. Still, he’d often thought about how he wished it had turned out differently. It was difficult to find people to trust even to do the basics of their jobs, let alone in any higher capacity. Jim had high expectations of people, but he was always willing to work with them to get there. There was no undoing what had been done, though, not when it came to any of the circumstances that had led them to that moment.

Jim shook his hand. Along with Batman’s identity had come all the other ones, too. Dick Grayson as Nightwing, Jason Todd as the damned Red Hood, Tim Drake as Red Robin, so on and so on. He still ignored much of that and compartmentalized. He wasn’t there for Detective Grayson or Nightwing. Jim was there for the young man who’d just lost his father. It didn’t matter that he’d been adopted. It mattered that he’d lost two sets of parents, now, at an age before anyone ought to lose even one.

The repeal of the SRP and NOVA being abolished were both things that should be celebrated. Theoretically, anyway. On the ground, it left a vacuum. They’d been given little immediate guidance from any level of government. Overnight, an enormous list of things that had been illegal were suddenly no longer offenses. All of that in the wake of death and destruction, including someone who was personally incredibly important to Jim, had him grasping. He would pull it together and keep order in the city, but it was more difficult than he wanted it to be.

Until higher guidelines were issued, their only path forward was to look to local government - Mayor Dent, specifically - to help keep order in the city. Jim figured the best way to do that was to put something together. Recommendations. Anything at all. He showed up at the District Attorney’s office without an appointment. Nobody had time to deal with secretaries and schedules just then. The longer they waited, the more likely it was that things would get out control right beneath their noses. 

There had been times back in Gotham that they’d been without Batman. Jim didn’t always know what the story was or what had happened. What he did know was that every night Bruce Wayne put on that mask and cape, he was on borrowed time in the same way that Jim was when he stepped out wearing the badge. It was a calculated risk that they both took time and time again, often in such close proximity to each other. He knew that. Knowing it, and having known it for the decades they’d worked together, did not lessen the impact of hearing that he’d had been killed in that explosion. 

It wasn’t only Batman who’d died. It wasn’t just the vigilante that Jim had relied on so many times (and often in secret) to help him keep Gotham as safe as Gotham could ever be. It wasn’t just the confounded man who got some twisted pleasure out of scaring the hell out of him by showing up in silent, dark corners when he could have just walked in front of him like a normal person. No, it was Martha and Thomas’s boy who died, too. Jim had known for a long while, even if he’d simply chosen not to acknowledge that he knew, that Bruce Wayne and Batman were one in the same. Once he’d had to face it, it got a little harder not to see the boy whose parents had just been killed in front of him. He’d died in that explosion, too, far younger than he should have. Jim shouldn’t have outlived him. That wasn’t how it was meant to be.

The world had lost a hero and good man. Jim had lost a friend and a partner. Bruce’s children had lost their father. Jim had asked him, as he lay recovering from a gunshot wound, to look after his own daughter if anything were to happen to him. It would have been wrong of him, selfish of him, to make that request and be unwilling to do the same in kind. It didn’t matter if the Wayne kids didn’t need him or want him to do it. He was doing it anyway. 

When Richard was growing up …  becoming a cop never seemed to be what he envisioned for himself. He didn’t know what to do with his life but the universe made a decision for him. Which is how his life got thrown together with becoming essentially a SPACE COP and becoming engrossed into politics of the universe. Which included his own planet. He knows that everything works differently here on Earth and it’s nice not having control while working his job as an officer HERE. It’s crazy to think of how long his life has been surrounded by this life but being hired by the SCPD was the best fit for him. He’s good at this job and just wants to show Jim that he made a good decision on bringing him in.

Rich steps into the office, wondering why Gordon wanted to see him but held onto hope that it wasn’t anything negative. “You wanted to see me, sir?” He nodded at the response telling him to have a seat. He quietly sat down in the chair positioned in front of the desk. There’s some silence before a file is placed down before him. His hand reaching out to hold it — opening it and reading over the information on the first page. “I won’t let you down.” He really means it, always pouring a hundred percent into any case given to him. He turns over the page, looking at the contents on the next one.

“People not catching my attention around here is a good thing. So far, I haven’t had any reason to look twice at you, which either means you’re doing your job well or you’re not doing it badly enough for me to have to look into it.” But Jim didn’t need people who were there just to coast and get a paycheck, if that was what was going on. He’d rebuilt the department from the ground up, fired nearly everyone who’d been with the SCPD when he transferred to Star City, and he wanted to keep things in the hands of people he could trust to uphold the structure he’d managed to get in place. “Here’s your shot to show me which one is right.” 

[Jim:] What do we need to discuss? 

[Bruce:] That Nabel woman has been pulling SCPD files. I think I know why, and it’s something you’re already working on.