Quentin moved like a shadow slid into a room calm, and cocky. Nolan's hand had barely closed on the rusted ladder when the switch happened; the posture, the voice, the way the shoulders squared Quentin's presence filled the tunnel before his words did.
He clasped Dre's forearm in a grip that was half handshake, half embrace, then pulled him into a short, rough hug. Dre's face was streaked with grime and exhaustion, but there was relief in the squeeze.
"Good job," Quentin said, voice soft and raw. "Good job. How many did we lose?"
Dre's eyes went dark for a beat. "Fifteen," he answered, the number landing like a stone. "Mostly to the gas. Some took bullets. We—" He swallowed. "We only had so many masks. Some cracked when it hit. We lost good people, boss. Woulda lost more if they got into the tunnels."
Quentin closed his eyes a moment and the tunnel took on the shape of solemn silence. The men and women around them quieted, the only sound the distant drip of water and the shuffle of someone adjusting a bandage.
"If they had family," Quentin said quietly, opening his eyes and looking at Dre with iron in his voice, "get them to me. I don't care what it costs. I'll make sure they're taken care of." He looked around, scanning the ragged cluster of faces. "Where's everyone?"
"Follow me," Dre said, and led them deeper into the maze.
They came out into a wider chamber a flattened central space where several tunnels intersected. Lamps strung from beams turned the damp concrete a sickly gold. People moved like an army in pieces: some tended to burns with rags and whiskey, others carried crates of water and blankets. A pair of kids—too young to be here fresh out of high school, and yet here—passed a box of flashbangs to a man with a loose sleeve. The place smelled of oil, smoke, and sewage.
Not the best combination.
Quentin moved through them, nodding, taking in scrawled maps, patched radios, a whiteboard with routes marked in red. He went to one of the makeshift stations where a monitor hummed and tapped a few commands. Then he turned to face everyone gathered wounded, weary, and awake, impossibly awake as if they feared forgetting the earlier events if they slept.
"I'm having Marcy reroute supplies here," he said, projecting calm and authority. "Ammo, med-kits, and actual gas masks. Scarecrow showed his face last night—so we're going to need distribution points. We'll spread them to every base. Nobody goes without."
He walked the line slowly, making eye contact with as many as he could. When he spoke again his voice rose, not angry but steel-strong.
"Yesterday we were attacked by Scarecrow and Falcone. It's reasonable to think they teamed up." Heads around him shifted, murmurs like ripples. "They're smart enough to see what we've built down here. The tunnels were untapped we took them. You're the backbone—you overhauled this system. And now they want your hard work!"
He stopped, the words hanging. "You did phenomenally last night. But we lost brothers and sisters. Warriors." The anger softened into something like grief, then hardened into resolve. "We will remember them. I don't care what anyone says, these people died brave. They stepped up. That means something. We owe them every chance to be remembered, to never be forgotten."
A woman with a sling tightened her grip on a crate and let out a small, fierce sound; someone else spat into the dirt, eyes wet. The room leaned in.
"When are we going back at Falcone?" someone shouted—too loud with grief and fury.
Quentin's eyes flashed. "Soon." He let the word sit, then added, measured, "But not tonight. We have to take care of our backs first. The Odessa family is pressing harder. They're trying to pry into our territory because they know we're stretched. If we move on Falcone now, Odessa will gouge the rails and take the Whisper lines for themselves. That's not a trade we can afford."
He stepped closer, voice lifting until every man, woman, and kid within the chamber heard clearly. "We will not be stomped. They used to call us rats, they thought they could scare us off with a couple of explosions and gas. We've defended Falcone twice. We took chunks of the Whispers. We dismantled Black Mask's operations. We have defied all odds, we have overcome all doubts and now they see us as threats."
Quentin's hand curled into a fist on the edge of a crate. "At the end of this war," he said, every syllable deliberate, "we will be known. We will be feared. They will stop looking down on us and instead look up. We are not weak. We are not scraps to be dismissed. We will take back what is ours."
He let that sink in, then lowered his voice until it was intimate, directed. "Your friends died for something bigger. We will make sure that something bigger survives. They are the foundation of this thing so we will build higher on their backs. We will not let their deaths be wasted."
Silence held for a heartbeat like a held breath, then the room broke. It began as a few voices—soft, wet with grief and proud anger—until the sound rose to a roar. Men who'd been hunched as if the weight of the world had their shoulders now straightened. A woman with a burned hand slammed her fist into her palm. Someone else banged a metal pipe that echoed like a war drum.
"We will take back what's ours!" Quentin called, and the chamber answered.
Dre felt it in his chest raw, ragged, and newly sharpened. He barked an order into the comms for med teams and supply lines, but his voice shook on the last syllable and he laughed, a short sound that broke into something like relief.
Nolan, in the quiet seam where Quentin's swagger met reality, watched the men rally. For a moment his mouth lifted into a sad, private smile. Quentin kept talking, softening the edges where strategy met morale, detailing distribution points, fallback routes, and the schedule for Marcy's convoys.
They would mourn. They would arm. They would push. For now, the underpass breathed as one hurt, angry, and unbowed—ready to fight again.
****
The cave hummed softly a low, constant drone from the computers and machinery that made up the heart of Batman's intelligence gathering. The daylight from above barely filtered through the rock, but the flicker of monitors painted everything in cold, shifting blues.
Bruce stood before the console, gauntleted hands resting on the edge, eyes fixed on the holographic map of Gotham projected before him.
Robin stood beside him, mask reflecting the glow of the data. "The team's back at Mount Justice," he said. "They're regrouping for tonight. We're planning to hit the docks — take out the supply lines. The gangs won't be getting any new guns or shipments if we pull it off."
Batman didn't look up. "Good." His tone was flat, distant, but there was approval there, buried beneath the gravel.
Robin hesitated, shifting slightly. "We've got another problem though. The Underpass people. We've been able to take out a few of their smaller crews, but…" He trailed off, exhaling. "They're growing, Bruce. Fast."
Batman's eyes narrowed. "Last night," he said slowly, "Falcone and Scarecrow tried to attack one of their bases."
Robin blinked. "They beat Falcone and Scarecrow?"
Batman nodded grimly. "I took down what was left of their strike teams. But the underpass slipped away before I could reach them. Again."
He brought up another projection security footage, satellite images, thermal sweeps. Each showed fragments: figures disappearing into storm drains, tunnels, abandoned train cars. The footage glitched with interference.
"They move through old sewer lines, forgotten subway systems. Every escape route in Gotham," Batman said. "They vanish the second they sense a threat. And there's no telling how many of them exist."
Robin frowned. "Because of the homeless population."
"Exactly," Batman said. His voice was low, hard. "They blend in. Hide in plain sight. Every alley, every shelter could be theirs."
The silence that followed was heavy. The faint chirp of the Batcomputer was the only sound.
Robin crossed his arms. "So what do we do about them? If they're growing this fast, they're going to be more than just a street gang soon."
Batman zoomed in on the docks, a grid of red outlines marking shipping routes and warehouses. "The docks," he said. "What you mentioned earlier."
Robin tilted his head.
"The Odessa crime family has a stake there," Batman explained. "They're trying to push inland toward the railways. That's where one of the Underpass factions operates."
"The rails…" Robin murmured. "That's the one fighting the Whisperers, right?"
Batman gave a single curt nod. "They're entrenched. Both sides have been at it for weeks. If we move now, we can hit both groups cripple the Odessa shipments and contain the Underpass before they expand further."
He straightened, cloak shifting behind him like a living shadow. "If we don't deal with their established areas the rails, the docks, the tunnels we'll spend the rest of the year chasing ghosts through the city."
Robin looked at the holographic map again, watching as the red points pulsed brighter. His jaw tightened beneath the mask.
"Then we start at the docks," he said.
Batman's eyes, faintly blue behind the cowl, flicked toward him. "We start at the docks," he confirmed.
The Batcomputer dimmed to black, leaving only their reflections staring back in the dark mentor and protégé, preparing once more to hunt Gotham's pests.
—
A/N: little detail, in a lot of the speeches I give Nolan you might think I'm repeating similar phrases, I am. It's a little detail I like that he is using these phrases to reinforce the points he is making and firm the conviction of his people.