Fandom: Batman Begins AU/Shadowrun crossover
Prompt: 075. Shattered
Wordcount: 4434
Beta: by temve, all remaining errors are mine
Summary: In an alternate future the League of Shadows begins the war against a far greater Evil than just civilization.


A New Player

Any other woman attending the party paled in comparison. She was tall and lithe with large green eyes and long, midnight-black hair. Her looks and her smile charmed the men and her voice spellbound the masses. Everything about her was natural, none of her perfection owed to surgery or cosmetics. That was of great importance to him. She complemented his human shape. When he kept his true shape, she was Nadja Daviar, His Voice, who translated his mental speech for the cameras and microphones.

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Tags: au100, in gotham's shadow

Fandom: Batman Begins AU/Shadowrun crossover
Prompt: 085. Missing
Wordcount: 4146
Beta: by temve


Shadows of the Past

The vast floor-to-ceiling glass window allowed Bruce Wayne a spectacular view of Gotham. The evening sun threw long shadows over the cityscape. With half an ear he listened to the news trid reporting about the last hours of the elections. Nothing was yet decided. Dunkelzahn and his main rivals were extremely close in the polls.

The world has so much changed since the Awakening. Magic has returned, we have had to get used to metahumans and paracritters. Technology has blurred the line between men and machine. He glanced at the trid screen where the report cut to Dunkelzahn's speech. Dragons run for presidency. Sometimes it feels too strange. I belong too much to the old world of my youth. And at other times it feels the same, Gotham with its glittering outside, corporate and political battles hidden behind smiles, afflicted by barely restrained corruption and crimes inside.

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Tags: au100, in gotham's shadow

Fandom: Batman Begins AU
Prompt: 076. Rebirth
Wordcount: 695
Beta: by temve


Foreshadowing - A Prologue

The first sensation when he opened his eyes was a biting smell that made him gag. He coughed up a greenish, stinking fluid. The same, he realized, that covered his skin from head to toe. He was naked - that was his second realization. It was warm. There was uneven rock under him and a few feet away he could see a small pond, shimmering a sick yellow-green in the dim light. Everything else was hidden in the damp fog. His mind worked far too sluggishly and he couldn't remember how he had ended up in this place.

Then adrenalin shot through him as his last memory returned to him. The hostage-taking on a friend's yacht. The terrorists who wanted to prove just how serious they were about it. The raised machine gun. The bullets he had no chance to dodge, sitting as he was in the wheelchair.

He flopped on his back and ran his hands over his chest. Smooth skin. No mark, no sign of a bullet wound. He hadn't dreamed that, had he? There were only a few fresh cuts and scrapes on his hands, and another memory rose as he looked at them, of him screaming as he crawled from the shallow pit, ranting and beating against shapeless shadows and the rock with his bare hands. Had this been real?

A door creaked. Steps approached. Bruce rolled onto his side and flattened himself to the ground. But the steps unerringly came to him.

"There is no need to hide, Bruce."

The voice was familiar. In shock, Bruce surged to his feet, only to stumble and to fall to his hands and knees in even greater shock.

"You!" and then "How?"

Ducard - no, he was Ra's al Ghul, Bruce needed to remember that - squatted down next to him.

"I have given you a gift only very few even know of. Rebirth, Bruce. And complete healing." He smiled at Bruce's incredulous stare. "The secret of my immortality, Bruce."

Bruce needed a few moments to get his bearings, to let his mind catch up with what it was being fed. The sensations swamped him. He could feel his kneecaps scrape on the rough ground. He could curl his toes. It should be impossible, but it wasn't. Finally he found his voice.

"Why? We are enemies, Ducard!" The familiar name slipped unbidden over his lips instead of the hateful Ra's al Ghul.

Ducard cocked his head thoughtfully. "Maybe because my world would be poorer without you. Maybe I enjoy it too much having an adversary who can keep me on my guard. Maybe I care for a certain young boy who needs his father. But mostly," and his voice took on a deadly seriousness, "because the world we know is about to change and I prefer to keep at least one familiar constant in it."

A chill swept through Bruce. "What are you planning? Another mass murder?" Possibilities, one worse than the other, flitted through his mind.

"I? I plan nothing but to wait and see. This great change has nothing to do with me. I don't even know what is coming, just that it is."

"You are speaking in riddles."

Ducard leaned forward, his demeanour even more intense than before.
"I have read the omens, Bruce, I have seen the signs. It is coming and it will be soon." He met Bruce's incredulous stare.

"I know that you don't believe in matters science can't explain - yet. But you will see. This change will affect everyone. I feel it in my bones."

He rose, indicating that their conversation was finished. "You will need to train your muscles before you will be able to walk again. But I can trust you to take care of those details. I have arranged for your return to Gotham, my boy. For the time being, farewell!"

With that he vanished into the fog. Bruce himself felt like in a daze, even as some men came to help him up and get ready for his journey.

He still brooded over Ducard's words for a long time after he returned home to the Gotham of the year 2010.

Tags: au100, in gotham's shadow

Fandom: Batman Begins AU
Prompt: 029. Teammates
Wordcount: 100 without title
Beta: none

Complication

Bruce turned sharply when he heard the faint scuffle from the hallway. He hid the photocopies in his back-bag and ghosted to the door.

A dark-clad man crouched over an unmoving form. Bruce bit back a curse. The break-in had been too easy. They had become careless.

The other looked up. "He was patrolling..."

"And you let yourselves be seen?" The last word was a hiss of displeasure. The other shrank back. His distaste of unnecessary deaths was well-known. Bruce stared him down and considered contingency plans.

"Torch the place," he ordered his teammate. "Make it look like an accident."

Tags: au100

Fandom: Batman Begins AU
Prompt: 089. She
Beta: none

Justitia's Sword

"Rachel? Rachel!" She jerked her gaze away fom the candles when his voice penetrated the daze she had fallen into. She looked at him and he could see the deep exhaustion.

"I'm sorry", she apologized. "Here I am having dinner with a wonderful man and all I can do is thinking about work."

"You had a trying day", he answered with a weak attempt at a pun. "But you won."

"No, I lost." Frustration etched sharp lines around her mouth. "Zsaz is only a thug. But we lost a vital witness and so Judge Faden didn't even deign to hear about the evidence of Falcone's involvement. Again.

"Falcone is doing what he wants and everyone covers it up." Her hands closed to white-knuckled fists on the white table cloth.

"Sometimes I wish I could break the rules too. To bring them to justice." She pressed her palm to her forehead. "Forget that I've said this, Henri. I shouldn't even think it."

He smiled in understanding and squeezed her hand in wordless comfort. Soon, he thought. She was almost there.

Tags: au100

Title: Hot and Cold
Fandom: Batman Begins AU
Prompt: 051. Water
Word Count: ??
Rating: PG
Beta: none, all mistakes are mine

***

Cold and Hot

Bruce keeps up the harsh training regimen he learned years ago in the monastery. But there is one thing he has changed.

Years ago he stood shivering in a drafty room, hastily washing away the sweat from the long training hours with fast cooling water from a bassin, coarse soap and a wet rag.

This is so much better. He rests his face at the tiled wall and lets the hot water pound his back and shoulders, warming him.

He doesn't want to be shivering from the cold water ever again. Because he had killed the one who had warmed him afterward, years ago in the drafty rooms of the monastery.

Tags: au100

Title: Heir (2/5)
Fandom: Batman Begins AU
Characters: Bruce
Prompt: 008. Weeks
Word Count: drabble, 100 without title
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: Drabble series. Thought as sequel to the Surprise! crack!fic.

***

After the shock wore off Bruce found himself enamored with the idea of being a father. However, he had to convince Ducard that the boy should grow up as a Wayne. Bruce had the distinct feeling that Ducard appeared only so stubborn so that they spent the last weeks before the child's birth together. Still, Bruce was weak with relief when Ducard agreed. Between Wayne influence and Ducard providing the necessary legal documents for a mother who didn't want to be known (and didn't exist) the bureaucratic process proved to be surprisingly easy.

The newspapers, however, were a different matter.

(144 words with header)

Tags: au100

Title: Heir (1/5)
Fandom: Batman Begins AU
Characters: Bruce, Alfred
Prompt: 007. Days
Word Count: drabble, 100 without title
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: Drabble series. Thought as sequel to the Surprise! crack!fic.

***

Bruce needed days to gather enough courage to confess to Alfred. For long moments Alfred had sat like frozen. Finally he asked pointedly "Do we need to have the talk about safe sex again, Master Bruce?" Bruce colored from embarrassment and guilt. There was no excuse.

Then the butler rose from the kitchen table and unearthed a dusty flask from a obscure compartment. "As unusual as the means to that end were - I am glad. I had already given up hope." He brought the flask and glasses back to the table and poured for them. "To the next Wayne heir."

(138 words with header)

Tags: au100

Title: Surprise!
Fandom: Batman Begins AU
Characters: Ra's al Ghul (Ducard)/ Bruce
Prompt: 028. Children
Word Count: 206
Warnings: crack!fic, MPREG, slash implied
Rating: PG-13
Beta: None
Author's Notes: 10-minutes-fic. This evil plotbunny that was bred in this comment thread (thank you very much, bwinter and neotoma. I hope that I slew it fast and cleanly.

***

Surprise!

Stealthily he entered the compound. The ease of it concerned him. Ducard - no, Ra's - must know that he would object of the League of Shadows establishing a base in Gotham. Was it a trap? He found Ra's in a half-lit room, reclining on a couch.

"Ah, Bruce. I had hoped that you visit that quickly."

But Bruce wasn't inclined to exchange pleasantries. "What do you want in my city?"

The other man rubbed a hand over his belly. "This is my reason."

Bruce looked closer. Ra's belly was obscenely swollen and distorted. Despite himself Bruce felt concern. What could afflict the usually indestructibly appearing man so? "What happened?"

"I thought a child should grow up with both of his parents. You will want to raise your son, won't you?"

"Child? Son?" Bruce took a step back. That must be a hoax!

Ra's couldn't hide the unholy glee at Bruce's shock. "You don't remember our last time together?"

Of course, he remembered. For once he had been the one in control when they... Bruce sat down when the realization hit him.

I should have known that he didn't let me shag him without ulterior motives.

(276 words with header)

Tags: au100, b/d

Title: Resolutions
Fandom: Batman Begins AU
Prompt: 095. New Year
Word Count: 178
Rating: PG
Beta: none, all mistakes are mine

***

Resolutions

A man stands in the darkness of an empty office and looks at the nightly Gotham. Fireworks dances above and around Wayne Tower. It's only one of many but undoubtedly the most glorious. This night Gotham hides his rotten ugliness behind showers of many-colored sparks and short-lived stars as well as drunken festivities.

The man doesn't celebrate. He knows that the Prince of Gotham hosts the New Year party for all who have rank, name and money. He wouldn't be welcome there. Bitterness fills him.

We should be together this night, Bruce, and celebrate the removal of this cancer. Instead you waste yourself by trying to heal the incurable. How long will it be before you realize the futility of that?

He shakes his head thinking of his too willful and stubborn student. He knows that Bruce Wayne is probably determined enough to die trying the impossible.

He silently salutes in the direction of Wayne Tower and makes a promise.

But I will make you see, Bruce. You will return to me.

(205 words with header)

Tags: au100