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[CENTER][color=darkgray][b][sub]Collab featuring [@Roman][/sub][/b][/color][b][color=BLACK][sup][h1]ONE DARK LOVE[/h1][/sup][/color][/b][/center]
[color=black][b]G o t h a m  C i t y[/b][hr][hr]	[sub]November 18th, 2017 – 7:15am | [i] The Cave [/i][/sub][/color]

	The car rumbled steadily through the hidden tunnel systems under Wayne Manor, the powerful engines roar reverberating back down the silent stone corridors. The Batman hardly heard the noise, nor did he pay undue attention to the ‘road’. He’d navigated these byways so often that at this stage he could do it in his sleep. Right at that moment he had far more important things to concern himself with.

	The night had been frustratingly fruitless. Hours of digging, and all he’d managed to dig up about the victim from the park was a name, Karl – which very well may have been an assumed named – and the fact that he was homeless, which even the rankest amateur detective would have been able to gather after just one look at the body. The investigation may have been more successful if he hadn’t had to divert his attentions to the GCPD. The signal had been lit without authorisation, not an entirely uncommon occurrence, but not usual enough to ignore, either. The perpetrator had been long gone by the time he arrived, though his initial suspicion was that the lighting of the signal was merely a smokescreen, designed to distract him from some other action. 

	He rolled into the Cave proper, steering the car onto the round carousel that bore the rest of his active road vehicles, before popping the canopy open and clambering out. The air in the cave was cool and crisp, hardly the stuffy mugginess one would expect from a hole in the ground. That was all testament to the many air conditioning and filtration units that he’d installed. The place lacked the homeliness it had when Alfred still frequented its depths though. Gone were the days when the old man was there to welcome Bruce home with a mug of steaming coffee and good-natured ribbing. Despite continuing in his services as the Wayne Manor butler, the Englishman was just too old to be spending all night down here, and his illness …

	[color=black][i]No. Don’t think about it. If you think about it, you make it real.[/i][/color]

	He would get an hour’s work done at the computer before heading upstairs for bed. He had a few leads on who was shipping the venom derivative into Gotham he’d like to chase up before the night was over. He realised something was amiss as soon as he drew close to the monolithic workstation. There, dumped carelessly upon the keyboard, was a folded enveloped. 

	The Dark Knight paused, taking stock of the situation. Alfred never came down here anymore, certainly not to drop off mail, and he doubted any of the boys would ever write him a letter. If Babs wanted to get his attention, she’d merely contact him through the comms, and Cassandra would meet him face to face. It could have been Clark, of course. He had always been quaintly old fashioned like that. Something didn’t feel right about that though. His instincts said that this wasn’t a letter from anyone he would want to receive a letter from. 

	He took a steadying breath, picked the letter up, ripped it open, and began to read. He wasn’t through the first sentence when that feeling from earlier returned, ten times as strong. Bruce ripped the cowl off, throwing it to the floor, before collapsing into a chair. His spine tingled violently, like the feeling that you get when you’re alone at night and know, with a certainty that borders on religious fervour, that you are no longer alone in the dark. That something is hiding just out of your sight, lurking in the deepest recesses of shadow, waiting for you to drop your guard and show your vulnerabilities.

	With a sick feeling of dread, he forced himself to pick up the letter once more, unwillingly stalking the words across the page. He couldn’t have read it right the first time. It couldn’t possibly have come from who he thought it had. The Cave was too well hidden for anyone to have found it, to secure to have been compromised, not without Bruce receiving some kind of alarm. Not even S.H.I.E.L.D could break in here without Batman knowing about it. He finished the letter, but it still contained the exact same nightmare. 

	With a dry mouth, he started reading it once more, knowning now that the contents weren’t going to change, but unable to stop himself.

[center][img] https://i.imgur.com/uqoNbWX.jpg [/img][/center]

	[I][color=purple]He[/color] [COLOR=BLACK]knows. 

	How could he possibly know?[/COLOR]
[/I]