Truth & Justice II #2

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Truth & Justice II #2

Written by JC Roberts (Calamityjamie)
Edited by Daniel Dyer (Spider-Man Beyond)

As he listened to Batman describe the “exceptionalities” of his newest inmate, Michael Hartrampf, Devon Persky had reached surreptitiously into his trouser pocket and fondled a loose Tums he always kept for these occasions. Persky had not gotten into psychiatry for this. He was perfectly OK with “criminally insane”. He could even deal – at least intellectually – with the concept of the Joker, who might have been the maddest madman on the planet, but at least lacked the ability to fly, turn into living clay – or manifest multiple personalities by morphing into various gang members.

“How many people does he become?” asked Persky. He had tried to keep the anxiety out of his voice.

“Four that I could see,” said Batman. “Three of them heavyweights.”

“Do we need to put him on the third floor?” Persky had asked.

“No. He doesn’t have super-strength.” The right wing of the third floor was designed to hold the deadliest of Arkham’s inmate population, and the slipperiest. Not for the first time, Batman said, “You get that third floor ready for the Joker – and Sean Fray.”

Persky had nodded. “We’re working on it. The architect and engineers are working with a specialist in meta-human physiology. You get Fray here and we’ll hold him.”

Batman’s eyes narrowed. Arkham had only managed to hold the Joker a few weeks the last time around. “You may want to assign Hartrampf to Dr. Kent. She’s had some experience with shape-shifters during her service with the Justice League.”

This had been fine with Persky. He had hired Martha Kent the previous year in part because she was the League’s new team doctor – good publicity – and she had quickly proved herself his most talented fellow.

“But he’s got no other powers?” the director had asked. “Just the morphing?” It disturbed Persky to learn that Superwoman and Quiver had actually delivered Hartrampf to Arkham’s intake wing. Why had it taken three super types to capture the guy?

“No. But he’s very strong. And insane.” Batman had apparently said all he needed to say. He was stepping towards Persky’s open office window. In what he would later regard as his lamest moment during this rare private conversation with Batman, Persky attempted a “guy” moment.

“That Quiver,” he had said. “She’s... spicy, isn’t she?”

Boredom, mixed with a hint of annoyance, had filled Batman’s eyes. “I’ll tell her you said so.” Then he had vanished, leaving Persky feeling much more like a dorky adolescent than the director of Arkham Asylum.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Martha Kent had been relieved to hear her alarm clock go off the morning after the BOHICA party. She hadn’t slept well. She couldn’t remember her dreams, but the hole in her mattress did not suggest a scenario involving sexy lumberjacks and a chocolate bath. When she signed into Arkham twenty minutes early, she went directly to the cell of Michael Hartrampf. He was awake, too.

She didn’t reveal her presence immediately, watching with fascination as the flat-panel monitor outside his cell revealed a thickset six-foot Polynesian man who was carefully examining every fiber on his padded walls for a potential flaw that could somehow be exploited. After a few minutes of this, he colored angrily and brought his fist down on the padding. The injured hand Hartrampf brought to his mouth moments later was darker and the body belonging to it was even taller and broader. Martha was impressed with the subtlety of the morph: Hartrampf was now a glowering African-American man with the barest brush of dark-brown hair and a scar encircling his left eye. This persona seemed less preoccupied with the physical make-up of the cell. He sat on his cot and rubbed his face, thinking. Suddenly, he looked sharply at the door. Martha wondered if he’d sensed her presence. She pushed a button and a panel on the wall slid back to reveal a thick sheet of bulletproof acrylic glass. Hartrampf hurtled himself at her immediately, which offset Martha’s impression that this incarnation might be the thoughtful one. As he picked himself up from the floor, she activated the intercom system.

“Hello, Michael. I’m Dr. Kent. We met yesterday.”

“Get away from me, you bitch!” he shouted this in the middle of a new transformation. Hartrampf was now a Sumo-sized white guy with long, thinning stringy brown hair. Martha remembered this persona from the night she and Quiver had brought him to Arkham. He had been unconscious then, the recipient of a flying sidekick delivered by Batman with ease and style. Superwoman and Quiver had arrived just in time to see it.

“You work and work to get a medical degree and no one wants to call you ‘Doctor’.” Martha shook her head. “I am away from you, Michael. There’s a thick piece of Plexiglas between us.”

“You’re lucky there is. I’d kill you.”

Martha raised an eyebrow. “Because?”

Strands of greasy hair were hanging down over Hartrampf’s eyes. With the sweep of one thick right hand, he pushed them back and glared at her.

“Maybe,” said Martha thoughtfully, “you think that killing me might make the Joker less angry with you? I mean, he needs you, and here you are in Arkham.” That was what Batman’s note had been about. Martha had called him during her commute to Arkham. Originally, he had thought Harftrampf a free agent, but he’d heard on the street that there might be a connection between the thuggish one-man street gang and Fray. This had been confirmed just a few hours ago by a second stooge Batman picked up with a kilo of corpulthesizine.

Hartrampf wasn’t as stupid as Martha had hoped. “I don’t know the fuckin’ Joker.”

Martha didn’t blink. “That’s funny. Sean Fray says you do. They picked him up last night.”

“They didn’t.” Hartrampf shrunk into a runty, pock-faced teenager.

Martha knew she was walking a thin line and she would now have to stop. She was Hartrampf’s psychiatrist, not a police interrogator. She wouldn’t get anywhere with him if she couldn’t convince him to trust her. She willed herself to look as young and clueless as possible and found a less antagonistic voice.

“No, I’m sorry. It wasn’t Fray. Someone named Langer who said the two of you were scoring ‘corp’ for Fray and the Joker,” she said.

Hartrampf swelled and darkened. He was the Polynesian man again. “I’m not some low-rate punk like Langer,” he said. “I don’t score corp.”

You don’t score well on IQ tests, either, guessed Martha silently.

“Batman couldn’t even take me down himself,” added Hartrampf.

“Really?” asked Martha, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice. She remembered how pleased she had been to see Batman’s right heel thrust into Hartrampf’s temple. He had used a lot of hip in the kick. His leg seemed completely healed.

“I went toe-to-toe with him and Quiver,” announced Hartrampf, whose hostility had dampened at the prospect of sharing this information. “It took the two of them and Superwoman to bring me down.”

Martha was a terrible actress. She had to hold herself still for several moments in order not to burst out laughing. She and Lian had been patrolling when they saw Batman pummeling Hartrampf in an alley just behind the Crooked Cobra Bar. He had most certainly not needed their help. The women had taken the unconscious thug to Arkham because the Dark Knight had a lead he needed to follow, apparently one that had linked Hartrampf with Batman’s current obsession, Fray, and his lifelong enemy, the Joker. Hartrampf hadn’t even been conscious when Superwoman and Quiver landed in the alley, nor had he roused before they’d left him at intake. One of the guards must have told him who had brought him in.

“Wow,” she finally managed to say.

“Yeah,” said Hartrampf.

“I can understand how valuable they would find you,” Martha said softly.

“Damn right,” said Hartrampf.

Damn fool, thought Martha.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Martha unlocked the door to her office, flicked on the lights and allowed her eyes to sweep the room for anything peculiar. This early-morning ritual was among several advised by her first mentor at Arkham, whose failure to follow his own counsel had resulted in his death by exploding office chair. Everything looked OK. She tossed her briefcase onto her desk and slipped behind it, booting up her computer while flipping open her cell phone and depressing a number on the speed-dial menu.

“Hi, Alfred,” she said cheerfully, a minute later. “How’s it going?”

She smiled at the elderly butler’s enthusiastic response and asked, “Is it OK if I drop by for a few minutes after work? I have a new tea I want you to try.”

Alfred replied that she was always welcome at Wayne Manor. Martha could feel her cheeks straining to accommodate a deepening smile.

“Thanks,” she said warmly. “Would you please tell Bruce I’m coming? We were talking about this tea a little earlier. He may want a taste.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Martha reached under her desk and pulled out two bottles of iced green tea. Without releasing her grip on one bottle, she tossed the other to Harvey Dent. “Try this. It’s got a little mango in it.”

Harvey let the bottle cool his hands for a moment. “You’re giving an Arkham patient a glass bottle? Are you insane?”

“And,” said Martha dramatically, “It’s caffeinated.”

“You’re not allowed to have a refrigerator,” he said, managing to sound stern and amused at the same time.

“Do you see a refrigerator?” Martha asked.

“I would if I got on my knees and crawled around to the other side of your desk,” Harvey said.

“Don’t do that, Harve. It’s undignified.”

“You’re just trying to distract me,” said Harvey, twisting open his bottle. The vacuum seal broke with a sudden pop and he jumped a little.

Martha studied him. “You OK?” Harvey had been having nightmares on and off since the attack on Arkham.

He shrugged. “Same old thing. Why did he let me live?”

“Joker? Or Batman?” At different times, Harvey had asked the same question about each of these men.

He worried the edge of the tea bottle label with a thumbnail. “Take your pick.”

“Batman doesn’t kill. Joker’s an unpredictable lunatic. And your number’s not up,” Martha said. “Nothing deeper than that.”

Harvey nodded, plainly not convinced, and took a swig of tea.

“You want something to help you sleep?” Martha asked.

Harvey shook his head. “Not yet.” He took another sip and inspected the bottle. “This isn’t bad. But – ” he looked up at her. “– you’re still trying to distract me. What’s with this cell that seems to have a different guy in it every time the guards pass by?”

She shook her head. “I’d like to tell you, Harve. But I can’t.”

It wasn’t just a matter of professional ethics. Harvey’s trust was not to be taken for granted. He was still paranoid. If Martha was cavalier about sharing the details of another patient’s history, Harvey might begin to wonder how vigilant she was in keeping his own confidences private. The doubt would gnaw at him until, at best, he was no longer comfortable talking with her, and, at worst, he allowed a vengeful Two-Face to re-surface. She could not afford for that to happen. Martha’s desire for Harvey’s trust was no longer solely professional. Weird as it might seem, she considered him a friend.

“I’ll find out,” said Harvey. He probably would. He networked the guards like a tabloid reporter. “Then we’ll discuss it.” He peeled a strip of label from the now-empty bottle. “I have an interest in the whole multiple personality thing.”

“I know,” Martha said gently. She glanced at her watch. “I’d better take you back.”

“Leaving on time? You?” he asked.

She started to shut down her computer. “Yep.”

“Got a date tonight?” Harvey asked.

“Yeah.” She was meeting Josh for dinner.

“Good,” said Harvey. “You need to get laid.”

Martha burst out laughing. “Look who’s talking.”

Harvey smiled. “Want some of my medicine? Takes away that… edgy feeling.”

“No thanks.” She slipped a hand under the desk to make sure the refrigerator door was completely closed, then rose to take him back to his cell. “I think I have a better solution.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

One advantage Martha found to working late was that she usually missed rush-hour traffic. It rarely took more than half an hour for her to drive from Arkham to her northeast Gotham apartment. Wayne Manor was just a little off her route – perhaps ten minutes out of the way. On the one evening she really needed to be somewhere, the expressway was a parking lot, something that had not been clear to her until she was trapped between two exit ramps. It was after 6 PM when she finally eased her battered red VW bug around to the mansion’s service entrance. She wouldn’t be able to stay long. Josh was picking her up in less than an hour.

Bruce and Alfred were waiting for her in the kitchen.

“Sorry,” Martha said, hugging Alfred and slipping a small tin into his hand. “Traffic.”

Bruce was sitting at the kitchen table, where he’d apparently been snoozing into his hand. He lifted sleepy eyes toward Martha, his head still cradled in one large palm.

“Relax,” he said. She felt a little odd when he pulled out the chair next to him. Their previous encounters in his kitchen had not been friendly.

“Thanks.” She perched on the chair, still stressed from the prolonged commute. “You were right about Hartrampf. He’s working for them.”

Alfred slipped steaming mugs of tea in front of each of them. Apparently, he had boiled the water in advance. Martha smiled up at the old butler and noticed that he looked particularly pleased about something.

Bruce sniffed at his cup. “Spicy tea?” he asked.

“Spiced Organic Triple Chai,” Martha said. “It’s a blend of green, white and black leaves.”

“We thought the tea was a metaphor,” Bruce said. He sipped it cautiously.

“A metaphor for ‘information on a multiple personality shape-shifting meta-villain’?” asked Martha, grinning. She felt herself loosening up.

He tilted his chin toward her in a gesture meant to encourage Martha to continue her report on Hartrampf.

“I don’t have a lot for you,” she said. “I think I can learn more over the next few days. He’s not bright and he’s got an ego. He was totally insulted when I implied he just ran corp with Langer.”

Bruce downed another mouthful of tea and asked, “Has he seen Fray? Or the Joker?”

“I think Fray, at least,” Martha said. “Hartrampf didn’t believe me when I told him Fray had been picked up. Maybe it was wishful thinking... or maybe he knows something.”

Bruce rubbed his bristly cheeks thoughtfully and Martha noticed that glints of silver highlighted what was still mostly dark-brown stubble. After a moment, he said, “Langer said they move around a lot.”

She nodded. “Not sure I can get him to give up a location, but I’ll see what I can do.” Her eyes sparkled. “According to Mr. Hartrampf, Batman couldn’t take him alone. Or even with Quiver’s help. It was like a Justice League gang bang getting him behind bars.”

Bruce smiled grimly. “Batman’s getting old.”

“Yeah, right,” Martha said.

He stood up, rolled his neck until there was an audible pop and then walked over to the stove, where the tea kettle was still simmering. Martha did a quick scan of the kitchen and saw that they were alone. She had not noticed Alfred leaving the room.

Bruce returned to the table with the kettle and poured scalding water into a cup that was now empty except for a soggy brown tea bag. Martha realized she hadn’t touched her mug and took a quick sip. Her eyes shifted briefly to the silver deco clock hanging over the dishwasher. She really needed to get going.

“Will you be staying for dinner, Miss Martha?” Alfred had re-appeared, a bag of red onions in his hand. Bruce sat down again and started fiddling with the tag of his teabag.

“Oh,” said Martha regretfully. “I wish I could. I actually have to go.”

“We would certainly enjoy the company. There’s a ratatouille I’ve been –”

“She’s got a date,” interrupted Bruce.

Alfred looked at Martha inquiringly.

“I do. And I’m kind of late,” Martha said, wondering what she had done to clue Bruce in on her evening plans.

This news seemed to subdue the elderly butler’s earlier radiance. “Another time, then?” he asked.

Martha looked nervously at Bruce, who seemed to be studying a scratch on the kitchen table. “Um, sure,” she said.

Bruce surprised her by walking her to her car.

“Thanks,” he said, as they reached the red bug and she dug through several pockets for her keys.

Martha stopped digging and looked into his eyes. “I want to catch them, too.”

“We will,” he said.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Roy Harper shook the sweat out of his eyes. His footwork was light and loose, a lateral, shifting rhythm that brought him gradually closer to an opponent who seemed to be waiting him out.

“C’mon, fast boy,” said Roy. He dropped his guard slightly, an invitation.

His adversary took the bait and lunged. Roy met him with a backfist-right cross combination that had spelled instant oblivion for half a dozen bad guys over the years. This time, neither blow quite hit. A membrane-thin channel of air had formed between Roy’s fists and their intended target.

Roy stepped back and dropped his hands.

“Well, if you’re going to cheat…” he said to a grinning Wally West.

“I’m not cheating,” Wally said. “I’m using the gift God gave me.”

“The gift modern chemistry gave you,” said Roy. “But we agreed to work on the ‘what if I lost my powers?’ scenario.” He glanced briefly over at Grendel Gardner, who was stretching in another corner of the Watchtower gym.

“Sorry.” Wally resumed his fighting stance. “Let’s go again.”

This time Wally stuck to the plan; he’d have bruises to show for it later. But Roy was big on this particular exercise. Superman and Flash had found themselves powerless on several occasions and once Gren had almost lost his ring. No one was going to die on Roy’s watch because they didn’t know how to fight the old-fashioned way.

Gren finished stretching and sauntered over to watch.

“Do you want constructive criticism, or should I just show you how many openings Harper didn’t exploit?” he asked, when the older men stopped to catch their breath.

Wally gestured toward the mat. “I learn best by doing.”

Roy chuckled and slapped Wally on the shoulder, then headed towards Midori, who had entered the gym sometime during the sparring match. Roy led her to a smaller, threadbare mat and they started to stretch.

“You’re still bouncing a little,” Roy said. “Try to be more static.”

“OK,” Midori said.

He continued to scrutinize her efforts until he was satisfied with the smooth flow of her movements.

Midori didn’t love training, but she never questioned the need for it and she always strove for perfection. This made her easy to teach, but occasionally caused her to become disheartened. All of her teammates had at least a decade of fighting experience, most of them considerably more. No one expected her to catch up in the course of a year, but Midori had one thing in common with every other member of the Justice League: She was hard on herself.

Content with the quality of Midori’s stretches, Roy allowed himself to appreciate her cropped canary-colored T-shirt and the white gym shorts that accentuated the lines of her lean green legs. The shirt proclaimed “Geek Goddess”. Roy was certain it had been a present from Lian, Midori’s self-appointed fashion consultant.

He got to his feet and motioned for her to join him, but before he could introduce the day’s lesson, he glanced towards his sparring teammates and stopped to savor the sight of Gren eating his words.

Wally’s openings were apparently harder to exploit when you were actually fighting him. Gren’s sweat-soaked tank top was plastered to his long, sinewy body and his chest was heaving. Wally wore a cut on his right cheek that hadn’t been there when Roy had walked off of the mat, but he wasn’t nearly as soggy or winded as Gren.

Roy smiled and turned back to Midori.

“You want to have dinner with me tonight?” he asked. He had meant to wait until the others had gone to ask her, but the sight of his best friend outpacing their much younger teammate had filled him with confidence.

Her yellow eyes widened apprehensively. “Are you going to try to have sex with me?”

Roy grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the gym.

“What is it with you and sex?” he asked, as soon as they reached the empty corridor. Over the last few weeks, Midori had asked nearly everyone she knew if they were having it; the timing of her inquiry had rarely been appropriate.

“I don’t understand it,” she said despondently. Reproduction on Colu had been handed over to the laboratories centuries ago and the concept of sex for emotional bonding or pleasure was literally alien.

“What don’t you understand?” asked Roy, who regretted the question the moment it tumbled out of his mouth.

“There are contradictory models for standard performance,” Midori said. “Which are more accurate, the pornographic films or the romance novels?”

“Neither!” said Roy, horrified. He willed away the image of Midori soliciting recommendations from patrons of a seedy video store porn section.

Crushed that her research had come to naught, Midori asked, “Is there any alternative to failure analysis?”

Roy heard laughter coming from the gym. “Look,” he said hurriedly. “Have dinner with me. I promise not to try to have sex with you.”

“OK,” she said.

Roy pushed through the swinging gymnasium door, then stopped and turned back to grin at her. “You’d better not try to have sex with me, either.”

“I won’t,” Midori said gravely.

Humor might prove to be an even harder concept than sex for Midori to comprehend, thought Roy. He was sure it would be less nerve-wracking.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Roy did have an agenda for the dinner, but it was only vaguely related to a possible change in his relationship with Midori. She had been on Earth for more than a year and during that time he had acted as her guide and mentor. Martha and Lian hung out with her when they could, and she’d been a frequent guest to the suburban Montreal home of Meera Buhpathi and her wife, Emma Jai, but most of her time had been spent with Roy. It was time for Midori to assume a little more independence, to get a place of her own – she was living in a small room in the upstate New York headquarters – and to explore the life on Earth she’d been so attracted to when she petitioned to join the League.

He handed his menu back to the waitress at the Indian restaurant Midori had chosen. Before he could explain why he’d asked her to dinner, she decided to resume the discussion they had started on the Watchtower.

"Lian has a lot of sex," she said conversationally.

“Lian’s not the person to emulate in that area,” he said sadly. “Which I guess is my fault.”

“I don’t understand,” Midori said.

The waitress approached with a steaming basket of freshly baked naan bread. Roy waited for her to leave.

“You can have sex for as many wrong reasons as right ones,” he explained when they were alone again. “Lian doesn’t generally choose the right ones. She’s tied her self-esteem to the number of men who find her desirable.”

“All the men find her desirable,” said Midori. “And a lot of women. She must feel very good about herself.”

“She doesn’t,” he said.

Midori’s forehead crinkled. “And this is your fault?”

“I was away a lot when she was little,” Roy said. “I had good people caring for her, but they weren’t her father. When I was there – well, she saw me with a lot of different women.

“I was looking for a relationship,” he added. “I just went about it badly. I’ve never been sure what Lian is looking for.”

"Lian's never been in a relationship?" she asked.

Roy didn’t answer right away. He picked up a piece of the hot, buttery bread. It burned his fingertips, but he didn’t put it down. "She was in a bad relationship once," he said finally. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell Midori about this. "He was married. And abusive." Most of the injuries had been emotional, but not all of them.

"He… hurt Lian?" Midori asked.

"Yes," Roy said. He fished an ice cube out of his water glass and ran it across the reddened tips of his fingers. “He had super-powers.”

"He was a super-hero?" she asked.

"No," said Roy shortly.

His daughter had been living with Martha at the time, but Lian hadn’t had to hide the bruises. Her roommate, consumed with the demands of her final year of medical school, had assumed they were battle wounds. Lian was almost a year into the relationship before Martha grasped its true nature.

As soon as she understood what was going on, Martha had confronted Lian, who responded by moving out. Guilt-stricken and anxious, Martha had called Roy. They found Lian and held an intervention, with Meera acting as facilitator.

“It worked,” said Roy. “She got away from him. Martha was a little worried last year that she might be seeing him again, but it must have been someone else.”

Disbelief mingled with sympathy in Midori’s amber eyes.

“Look,” he said, desperate to change the subject. “This isn’t why I asked you here.”

Midori did not take Roy’s plans for her independence well. The room she had now wasn’t much smaller than the one she’d had on Colu and she felt safe living at headquarters. She was unhappy at the prospect of seeing less of Roy and uneasy at the idea of being alone in a new place.

“People stare at me,” she said.

“Of course they do,” he said. “You’re –”

“It’s not because I’m gorgeous,” she said miserably. “It’s because I’m green.”

Roy bit back the impulse to say it wasn’t easy being green. Instead he promised they could re-evaluate her living situation after a couple of months. Eventually, she agreed to give it a try.

“Any idea where you might want to live?” Roy asked.

“Gotham City?” suggested Midori.

“No,” said Roy firmly. “You’re not ready for Gotham City.”

“Canada’s too cold,” said Midori. “Somewhere near headquarters? Hudson?” They had gone with Grendel to a coffeehouse there once. It was a quaint little town, peppered with antique shops and unique restaurants.

Gren lived in Catskill, a few miles from Hudson. He could be there in a minute if Midori needed help. Roy was pretty sure he could trust Gren to watch over her without complications. In the past year, he had seemed to mature in his attitude towards women, or, at least, the female members of the team.

“We’ll find you a place in Hudson,” said Roy. “And once you’ve got this independence thing down, I’m going to ask you to dinner again.”

“And try to have sex with me,” said Midori.

“And try to kiss you,” said Roy. “I’m not as easy as I used to be.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Gren conjured up a slim green bottle opener and popped the cap off a Corona Extra.

“You totally cheated,” he said, handing the frosty bottle to Wally.

Wally grinned. “Just using the gift God gave me.”

Gren opened another bottle and leaned back against the couch in his sparsely furnished apartment. “Just so you admit it.”

“How many hours a day are you training?” asked Wally.

Gren swallowed a mouthful of beer. “Three. Four.”

“You make me feel lazy.” Wally massaged a knot in his shoulder and lifted his bottle to his lips.

“Harper’s right,” said Gren. “Don’t want to get caught with my ring off.”

Wally picked up a small framed photograph Gren had sitting on his coffee table. Martha, Lian and Midori were mugging for the camera. Each of them had an arm wrapped around a blissful-looking Gren, who was leaning on the handlebars of a mountain bike.

“You want to come over for dinner?” Wally asked.

Gren hesitated. “I don’t know if your wife likes me.”

“She does,” said Wally quickly. “It’s just – this life hasn’t been so easy on her. And the Justice League takes me away a lot.”

Gren studied him. “Things OK between the two of you?”

“Much better,” said Wally. He set down the photo. “It’s not easy, though. You probably think the bachelor life is better for guys like us.”

“Nope,” said Gren. “I know exactly who I’m going to marry.”

Continued...