red skies take warning.
joe, michael, and inferno.
The Batcave is nestled beneath an old building that Michael can see resembles The Manor in his mind if it were twenty years abandoned. How everything is working here, as he drives through the access tunnel in his car, he's not sure. In the backseat of the car, Ace is curled up with Jarro, both of them not too pleased about being roused early. Michael had gotten up around three, gotten them together and gotten on the road as soon as he could. He'd dropped off the coordinates and extra entrances to joe before bed, trusting him to meet him there.
If there's something that really does make him certain he's apart of bruce wayne, it's the odd calm that settles on him when the car bumps, hits the main platform of the Batcave. It's as if he's....home.
Which can't be right, at all. He'd never liked caves or climbing or being outside too much as a kid. Here in the dark as the lights pool on and the car is lifted up to where it needed to be in the cave, there's a strange sense of excitement and peace that has him cutting off the radio. It hadn't been too loud anyway, and Michael glances back just once to see Ace's ear flick. Jarro peers up from his paws, apparently content to just watch from where he is.
Once they're on the main platform, the car is rotated until the door is at the main walkway. He climbs out, his boots not making much sound. "I'll keep the door open for when you two want to get up."
Goodnight, dad. Jarro curls back up with Ace, and he smiles.
The walk way to the main part of the cave isn't too long, the computer humming, right where bruce had left it. On and off, he'd been coming around here to upgrade it's parts, to run protocols and check for updates.
Something about the place just feels... Good as he, runs his hand over the panels, the consoles. Connor had been around here too, doing his own adjustments he can see.
This morning though, it's not what they're here for. "Just to be sure," the computer hums at attention as he speaks, "Joseph Warren has the same access and authorization as I do. Now let's put you through your paces while I make breakfast."
The computer hums and Michael pops out the micro sd he'd had in his glove on the way. He puts it in the slot, allowing the computer to take over.
In no time, he's got coffee brewing, has shot Connor an email, and has breakfast on a plate not too far from the computer, looking at report after report of missing children comes across the screen, one by one.
He doesn't look up from the screen until he can hear a familiar sound of wings, eyes flicking to the side. "Hey, sweets. Cream and sugar is in the cabinet near the coffee. Ace and Jarro might wake up soon but I already got started."
He’s heard before he is seen—not by a rumble of engines through the tunnel, not by headlights cutting through the shadows, but the rush of air, a low, heavy displacement that echoes down the cavern like something large slipping through open sky. It builds only a moment, wings catching the updraft from the cave entrance, the sound brushing the stalactites and concrete walls until Joseph drops down from the darkness above.The landing is controlled, but isn’t delicate, boots hitting the platform with a dull, solid thud, wing snapping outward instinctively to bleed off the last of the momentum before folding back in tight behind him. A few loose fathers shake free, drifting lazily toward the cave floor until he picks them up, pockets them, intent on his promise to fashion Jarro some sort of feather blanket before Ace could steal them for himself.
He straightens, rolling his shoulders once, looking nothing like a boardroom with wind-tossed hair, pushed back with one impatient hand, and wearing a battered leather jacket over a dark shirt that wrinkled still from the flight. The boots are heavy, scuffed and practical, put through the paces. Joseph looks less like a billionaire CEO and more like someone who just rode the wind in from a midnight bar fight.
He glances up to the ceiling once, judging the space, then his gaze drops to the glow of the computer banks and the familiar shape standing in front of them.
“Well,” Joseph calls, voice carrying easily through the open space. “This might be the best way to start the morning.”
No, he didn’t necessarily enjoy the notion that there were children going missing, the possibility of another Inferno knowing how close they were to ruin last time and just what could have happened to the mutant children kidnapped—all pieces of Warren’s memories shining through, be it in his dreams or the waking world, however hazed—but breakfast ready and work to be done? That might as well have been singing Joseph’s, if not Warren’s as well, language.
He settles in, eyes looking at the screen. Missing children reports slide past—photographs, dates, jurisdictions, timelines, and the light from the monitors throws sharp angles across his face, highlighting the sudden focus settling in behind his eyes.
“That’s about what I expected,” he said, reaching out for the cabinet Michael mentioned, finding the cream and sugar without hesitation. Coffee is poured, stirred once, twice, and then he takes a sip.
“You find anything that repeats? Any common threads other than borderline children, potential shifter promise—” It briefly came to mind to reach out to the C.S.A.—at least one agent in particular—to get an answer. “—timelines or anything?”
"In the dark, in front of a computer? Could do a lot worse!" Michael calls back, hearing Joe get himself together. Where Joe looks like a guy who'd just flew in from a bar, Michael looks more like a classical mobster himself, with a a white dress shirt on, suspenders on both shoulders, driving gloves tucked into a back pocket, his own boots still on. It had felt like the right thing to wear, given what he had guessed was doing to be a lot of hours. Anything less and he felt as if he wasn't ready to take it seriously. And the Batcave, being asked to do something like this? Felt very, very serious for him.
Taking the computer has been easier too, with every second he uses it, as if there's a part of his brain that's flexing like a muscle in remembrance of the keys, of commands, of how to move around. The sound of Joe moving around, getting things together just falls in line with that, as if the Cave has been built for such a thing.
And, well. It sort of is, isn't it?
He hums at the questions. "All of them came from families who visited fertility clinics around New York. Most of their parents were people who were looking to have a biological child at some point in the past five years." Parents faces line up with the children's, one by one.
"The ages are all over the place. Youngest is five so far, oldest is around thirteen. Two of the oldest ones reported having blackouts to their guardians or parents. If any of the other ones had issues, they aren't officially recorded anyway." He taps a key, shifting them around. "I think I have a hunch that they're all in sort of state or government list though — I started to pull a fine tooth comb through them, only got through the two youngest."
Michael taps on another button, showing two children. "Trista Simonson, age five. Robert Wells, age six. Trista was adopted by her family, so she's on an official record. Robert, he was in foster care too. So they both have government bodies involved. I know it's early but... it's one of the few things I've got."
He turns to look at Joe fully, grinning at how he looks, reaching out to tug Joe closer by his belt loop. "Any of the names sound familiar?"
Joseph listens without interrupting, eyes moving across the screens as the parents’ photos slide beside the children’s. His posture leans forward slightly, one hand braced on the console, wings tucked close so as to not brush the equipment. There’s fertility clinics, five to thirteen in age, blackouts reported, and names–names that are associated with a moment Warren knows at least a part of.He leans closer when Michael pulls up the youngest, studying the photos with a sharp, deliberate, certainly hawk-like focus, fingers tapping on the console as he thinks–at least until he is pulled over, leaning in closer, studying the photos. He reviewed the paper trails that touch state databases, the adoption records and foster systeming, and while there is quiet amusement present, it doesn’t shift his focus much.
His eyes narrow.
“Wait,” he says, exhaling through his nose. “No–these aren’t random kids.”
Joseph straightens, one hand sliding over the keyboard so he can dig through the files. They won’t match what Warren’s memories are feeding him, but at the same time, they aren’t different.
“They showed up in the Inferno mess–on the other side,” he says, tone tightening. “Late eighties fallout with demon incursions and Limbo breaching into the living world. The whole city turned into a giant supernatural nightmare for a few days. These two were part of the group.” He explained. “They were flagged after–chidlren exposed to demonic energy. They were tracked for a while, nothing public–but they exist in that world.”
He looks back at Michael.
“They were supposed to be safe,” he said, “so if they’re missing now, they weren’t just random grabs. They’re survivors, just in this life.”
The hawk like attention makes sense to Michael in a way: that Joseph would take on more avian traits and that there's a part of him that takes to his whole thing like a duck to water. Someone with experience in this that he doesn't, more Warren than Joseph yet at the same time... It's not.
Will he and Bruce be like that one day? Where most of the time they're indistinguishable form each other while other times it will be more Michael than Bruce or more Bruce than Michael? The thought occurs to him in a way it hasn't before as he watches Joe hit the keyboard, going through everything.
The two kids were part of the group on the other side. Which meant—
"Do you remember their names? What they were like? Is there any way we could see if the names keep matching up or if they have more things in common?" That they're survivors, he doesn't feel surprised by. He and Bruce both understand that, being survivors on both sides. "Was there anyone else involved with them on the other side too, that we could look at?"
Shifters seem to find shifters. It makes sense to him, looking at the names there. "It would have to be someone who remembered or was close to all of this."
He stops, fingers hovering over the keyboard for a moment, the rhythm of the investigation pausing just long enough for memory to creep in. The glow of the monitors reflects faintly off his eyes as he leans back a fraction in the chair. Michael’s right–this isn’t just pattern recognition. This is remembering, and Joseph exhales quietly through his nose, one hand rubbing along his jaw before he looks back at the screen.“Yeah, I remember them,” he says after a moment, voice not exactly distant, but carrying the tone of someone pulling files out of a mental archive that hadn’t been opened in years.
“That was chaos,” Joseph says, eyes flicking between the photos again. “Demons in the streets, buildings turning alive, subway tunnels opening into Limbo–the X-Men and half the city’s supernatural population were trying to contain it and everyone else was just trying to survive it.”
“Robert Wells–six at the time. Foster system kid even back then,” he said, mouth pulling faintly to the side, finger shifting to Trista. “Trista was younger, an adoption case. He,” he said, pointing to another–Timothy–”was kidnapped from a family outside of the city if I recall right. I’m not sure about the rest of them, but if there’s a pattern in the names, we’re looking for Alex, Bob, Shauna and Toko as well, and Nathan, but–well, if someone tried to kidnap him, they’d need a whole lot of firepower.” Or a replacement, and Joseph wasn’t too keen on who may have been considered knowing who Nathan was to Madelyne.
“This definitely wouldn’t be someone just pulling random files,” he agreed, stepping back, away from the computer, pacing as he thought, digging through Warren’s memories.
Demons.
N’astirh.
New orders.
Go to the orphanage.
Find babies!
While portions of the memory were hazy, certain events clouded in anger and rage, the conflict itself–what was ultimately lost–wasn’t. Joseph’s face pales as he comes to a stop in his steps, arms crossing though it brings him little comfort as he seems to stare towards the ground–through the ground–as more filters in.
Demons will carry off your children.
"You hear anything from Candy recently?"
Magic is something that Michael hasn't really thought about, in reality. That he's listening to Joe describe something that sounds unequivocally like a magical disaster isn't lost on him. Nor is the fact that not everything is as he thought it was when he was younger, and this is one of htem as he listens, watching how Joe reacts. The moment he starts dropping names, he's pulling pen and paper, writing them down—Robert Wells, six. Trista, adoption. Timothy, outside of the city. Alex, Bob, Shauna, Toko, Nathan. "You know Nathan? Should we be alerting him?" He writes INFERNO VICTIMS at the top of the list, able to ear the sound of Ace deeper in the cave. Probably awake and hungry.
They're secondary for a moment though, as he watches Joe more, aware that the computer is going to help them keep up. "I can get the computer to start running those names, I think that's the lion's share of the kids we can't find."
Candy though, is new, Michael raising his eyebrows. "Candy? Is she a shifter?" The computer isn't what he needs, pulling out his cellphone, one of the burners. "Last I heard she shifted into being your entrepreneur wellness Mom routine not too long ago." With just a few flicks, her Instagram count is open to him. There are plenty of posts there that he can see: vacations, sponcon, promotions. Promotions that stopped at the beginning of the year, with only clearly scheduled posts being out there, none of them one of he more organic, fun loving posts.
Shit.
A pang of guilt hits him that he hadn't noticed. Even they weren't nearly as close as they used to be, even though he had to pull away from her with Halia in her circle...
He should've seen that something was wrong.
"She hasn't posted anything that isn't an ad in about three months on her Instagram," Michael hands his phone to Joe, feeling grim. "Computer, can you see if you can track any movements for Candace "Candy" Southern from the past six months? Start with her social media, and go further. See if she's crossed paths with any of the missing children."
A quiet breath leaves him, half thoughtful.“I know Nathan.”
He doesn’t elaborate right away. His gaze drifts back to the screens, expression tightening slightly in that way it does when he’s deciding how much to say. “He’s older now. Runs with people who would notice if something like this started happening.” His voice steadies again. “If he’s connected to this list, he’s likely already aware of it and I’d be surprised if he wasn’t already breaking down his mom’s door to figure out what is going on.”
“As for Candy,” he said, sighing, “as far as I know, not a shifted, but we have a common thread which was and I’m going to be very disappointed, at the very least, if my hunch is on,” he says, voice going quiet the way it does when his head locks into place, recognizing that a few months of radio silence, only ads to speak for her, is out of normalcy.
“If my hunch is on, we need to find her.”
A pause.
“And we need to find Cameron.” Joseph says, fingers tapping on the desk. "Because if he is a shifter, I know who he is and I know what he'll do."
A line goes through Natha's name at that. "He can protect himself, and he's got a mother. Alright." He looks up at Joe with the mention of Candy, narrowing his eyes a bit. Common thread? Between them and Beth, they probably had more than a dozen rich kids, dealers, and——Cameron Kessler.
His face comes back into detail in his mind, the way he'd screamed all those years ago when they jumped him outside of his place, the revolting look on his face when he'd seen Joe walk through that door with Candy, and how disgusted he felt seeing him. Coupled with what they'd talked about weeks before...
And he's a shifter?
Ace must pick up that his heart is beating a little quicker, given how quickly he seems to come to Michael's side, ears flicking. He reaches out to give him a soothing pet. "If he's a shifter—who is he? How dangerous is he?"
Without waiting for an answer though, he's tapping on the keyboard in front of him. "I still had one account linked to his. I haven't checked on it in months though." It doesn't take more than half a minute for him to get his accounts displayed on the screen. "He knew I had a burner watching him years ago — It's been long enough though, that— there."
Private videos, Snapchats, all of it unfurl. More than a few of them have Candy in them or they're near Hartford. Not openly, though: almost every picture that comes up on the screen in the past three months, she's in the back and not tagged of the few he puts up. Or she's in the back, talking to someone else, clearly not wanting to be seen.
All bad, bad news. The pieces are coming together in a way for him that has something in his gut turning into a knot, a foreboding sense in him that they're maybe too late to this, that they're two steps behind when they need to be three in front. Fuck.
But Joseph is the one with more experience with this, the one who knows what's going on personally. It should be his choice what to do next, so Michael looks at him, ready for whatever direction he gives, just like Joe had been waiting for him when they were with Sal.
"Your call: we check up on Candy first or we hunt him down first."
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