Chapter Text
Prologue
Luke searches for Marquis’ location while Ryan walks into the Jeturian Industries science wing to check on Jada. She tried to call several times, but Jada never picked up. If Marquis was angry enough to kidnap Sophie to get revenge on Ryan, there is no telling what he might have done to Jada.
She realizes immediately that Marquis had done a lot of damage. She spies four dead bodies – two scientists and two security people- before she finds Jada on the ground. Her stomach drops until she hears the woman groan and start to stir.
Ryan rushes over to her and kneels down beside her and helps her sit up. “Jada, what happened? I thought you had this freeze formula figured out?”
Jada looks at Ryan sadly, “I did, but…”she pauses “… you have to understand that this is my son and it hurt seeing him in so much pain. He pleaded with me to help him and when I got close enough he knocked me out.”
Ryan has to suppress the urge to lash out. On the one hand she understands that Marquis is her son and that this is hard on Jada, but now that Marquis has escaped and is feeling betrayed whatever part of him that was still holding his dangerous side back is gone. Now four people are dead and he has Sophie in his clutches. She sees that Jada is moving to stand up and grabs her hand to help.
Once they are both standing, Jada turns to Ryan “How did you know something was wrong?”
“He took Sophie,” Ryan says her voice trembling with a mixture of worry and anger.
Jada’s eyes widen and shock and her gut clenches at the despondent look in Ryan’s eyes. She had gone back and forth since that dinner party on whether or not Ryan and Sophie were actually in a relationship, but Ryan’s reaction tells her everything she needs to know. “I’m sorry I brought you into this, Ryan.”
Ryan can tell that Jada is genuinely sorry, but right now all she can think about is getting Sophie back. “Do you know where he might have taken her?”
“I don’t, but I can get my people to look into him.” Jada pulls out her phone.
“Okay you do that and I’ll see what I can find on my end. Call me if you get any relevant information.” Ryan rushes out of the lab before Jada can utter another word.
Sophie comes back to consciousness and is shocked to find that instead of being in Ryan’s bed, she’s tied up in a chair fully dressed in what looks to be some kind warehouse. How did she get here?
For a moment she thinks that Ryan whisking her up to the loft and then proceeding to spend the night having her way with Sophie had been some kind of dream. It would make sense since dreaming about Ryan has become a regular occurrence lately, but the hickeys that are littered all across her cleavage prove otherwise. Not to mention she specifically remembers the note that Ryan left her. She’d read it during the brief five minutes she woke up to go to the bathroom. So it happened, but how did she get here of all places?
It could be the Black Glove Society since her last interaction with them resulted in her using a blow torch to one of their enforcers before he ended up killing himself to keep from revealing information about the BGS. Then again she has also made a lot of enemies as a Crow and as one of Batwoman’s allies so it could be related to one of those situations.
Her thoughts are interrupted when a somewhat familiar voice speaks.
“I see you’re finally awake. Between the tranq dart I shot you with and my baby sister it took you a while.”
Her eyes narrow and she sits up at attention as Marquis walks into the room with several women and men flanking him.
“I like exhausting my bed partners too. Looks like me and Ryan have something in common other than sharing a mom,” he laughs, but Sophie can tell that there isn’t any form of amusement in it. “Ryan must have done a good job because you never even heard me come in.” He pauses for a brief moment before adding, “If you’re worried that I saw your goods, I had one of my people dress you,” he gestures toward one of the women. “I’m not a complete monster after all.”
Although his voice sounds calm, Sophie feels her heart begin to beat a bit faster when she sees the cold look in his eyes. She’s looked into the eyes of enough dangerous people to know when she’s face to face with another one. And now she’s wondering how she didn’t see it before because it’s right there.
Not wanting him to see her fear, she wills herself to calm down. “Why am I here?” She asks once she’s calm enough.
“Damn you really did miss all the fun,” He moves close enough to her that she has to look up to meet his gaze. “Your girlfriend listened to our mother’s sob story about me being a dangerous sociopath and decided to lure me to an empty parking lot so our mother could use cryogenic formula on me.”
Sophie’s eyes widen in shock. So that’s why Ryan had such a big turnaround about Jada in less than 24 hours. Jada must have asked for Ryan’s help to subdue Marquis and Ryan must have been afraid something like this would happen and gone into protective mode. Part of her is touched that Ryan wants to keep her safe, but another part of her hates that Ryan felt that she had to do this alone.
“That still doesn’t explain why I’m here,” Sophie says calmly, in an attempt to get more information out of him.
“I was actually planning on taking Ryan, but when I saw you there instead of her, I realized taking you would be a much better plan. Ryan tried to take my freedom from me and now I’m going to enjoy torturing the person that is most important to her. You.” He smiles as he pulls out a knife and stabs her deep in the shoulder before pulling it out. He grins sadistically when she screams out in pain.
“I really hated to do that,” he says though it’s clear that he’s actually enjoying this, “but I remember how you handled yourself during that dinner party even after being drugged with that paralytic and I can’t have you trying to ruin my plans for Ryan by escaping and taking out my people before she gets here.”
He turns to one of his men. “I need you to watch her” he turns and points at a man and a woman, “You two will stand guard at the door and bring my sister to me once she shows up.” The two guards nod and leave the room before he turns to his remaining people. “The rest of you will stay posted in your usual spots.
One of the male guards starts to walk away, but Marquis grabs his hand. “You, come with me.” The guard smiles and soon Sophie’s all alone with the guard that was assigned to watch her.
Despite the pain she’s in, Sophie is relieved that Ryan wasn’t the one taken. She would endure the worst torture if it meant Ryan didn’t have to.
Ryan paces back and forth in the bat cave as Luke continues looking into potential hiding spots for Marquis.
“I don’t understand how Marquis even managed to take Sophie. I’ve seen her take down multiple people within a few seconds before,” Luke says he clicks on yet another property that Marquis has in his name.
“She was asleep in my bed when he got into the loft so he probably tranqed her.”
“But from what Mary has said, Sophie is a very light sleeper so I don’t see how she managed to sleep so heavy at your…” he trails off as it occurs to him why Sophie would be asleep in Ryan’s bed so late at night. “Oh,” he glances at Ryan who has stopped pacing to give him a ‘you seriously only figured it out now’ look.
Before either of them can say another word they hear a beep indicating that Luke’s latest search has found something. Ryan rushes over to get her suit as Luke pulls up the information.
“Looks like Marquis is linked to some guy named Justin Vanderpool. This Vanderpool guy has a real estate company that is very successful.” He pauses for a moment. “A little too successful considering the slump going on right now in Gotham for real estate. So I did some digging and apparently Marquis has been bankrolling this guy and in exchange Vanderpool put a property of Marquis’ choosing in his name.”
Luke clicks on another link and pulls up satellite footage. “The warehouse is just outside of downtown Gotham and from what I can see from satellite footage there has been a lot of activity there in the last two months. And get this. Activity has been at its peak in the time since Sophie was taken. I think this is our best bet.” He looks up to see Ryan in the last stages of putting on the batsuit.
“Do you really think that’s a good idea, Ryan?” Luke asks as she puts on her cowl and then starts grabbing items from the weapons cabinet. He does a double take when she grabs a tactical knife that they normally keep for Sophie. “Marquis specifically asked for Ryan, not Batwoman. So you have to know that he might do something drastic if Ryan doesn’t show up.”
“Luke, he managed to kill four people and kidnap Sophie within a few hours. Going as Batwoman is the best way for me to get Sophie out of this safely.”
“Then let me come with you.”
Ryan shakes her head, “Luke, your shoulder is still messed up. Besides I need you on comms so I’m not going into this blind.” She can tell there is more to his protests, “What is it?”
“I just don’t want you to do something you might regret. I haven’t seen you like this since you first became Batwoman.”
Ryan can hear what he’s not saying. Back then she had planned on killing Alice for her part in Mama Cora’s death and it was all she could think about for awhile. He’s afraid that when she finds Marquis and whoever else helped him that she could be capable of killing. Ryan would like to promise him that she wouldn’t but she can’t. Not when Sophie’s life could depend on it.
“Ryan?” Luke frowns when he sees the look on her face. “You can’t be serious!”
“Luke, he has Sophie! Are you telling me that if someone had Mary you wouldn’t be ready to go to war for her? That you wouldn’t be willing to go to war for her right now over this Poison Ivy situation if you had to?”
Luke doesn’t say anything else, knowing that deep down Ryan’s right. “I’ll be on comms, let me know if you need something.”
Ryan gives him a nod before rushing to the Batmobile.
Sophie hisses as the wound in her shoulder begins to throb. She can feel some blood soaking through her shirt, but from what she can tell Marquis stabbed her in a way that meant she won’t bleed out. At least not for a while. That has her thinking that this isn’t his first time inflicting that kind of wound on someone.
It looks like Marquis planned on causing her enough pain that the thought of even trying to escape would be the last thing on her mind. It would be a good plan for anyone else, but she’s had worse wounds before. Not to mention she also has the motivation to make sure Ryan gets out of this situation safely once she arrives.
She hisses as pain overwhelms her again, but this time she sees the guard look at her with some sympathy and adrenaline rushes through her as an idea comes to her.
It doesn’t take Ryan long to get to the warehouse and right away she sees two guards—one male and one female-- standing at the main entrance, obviously on the lookout for her. She stays still as she listens to the conversation the guards are having.
“I can’t believe Marquis is wasting us on a boring job like this. When he hired us he promised that we would have fun, not watching out for some stupid CEO,” the male guard grumbles.
“Mitch, not this again,” the female guard groans, clearly having heard this complaint before. “Boring or not he’s paying us a lot of money for this job.”
“I don’t give a damn about the money, Hilary. You know that. I’m in this for the torture.” He glances back at the warehouse. “I wish I could have stabbed that bitch we kidnapped instead of watching Marquis do it.” He pauses for a second, his voice changing from annoyed to hopeful. “Hey, Hilary? Since we both know the boss is busy with Dennis right now, you think you could cover me so I can go torture the bitch for a little while?”
“Hell no,” Hilary scoffs. “I’m not about to piss Marquis off.”
From her hiding spot, Ryan goes through several emotions at once. Horror at the thought that Marquis might have actually killed Sophie, relief once the guard makes it clear that Sophie is still alive, and rage at the thought of Marquis and this Mitch guy putting their hands on Sophie.
“Ryan, you’re breathing is telling me that you ‘re angry. You might want to calm down a little before you jump into this,” Luke’s voice fills her comm.
Ryan ignores him and makes her way toward the guards. Before either Mitch or Hilary can react, Ryan grabs Mitch and uses her momentum to push him to the ground.
Mitch looks up from the ground, shocked, “Batwoman? What the fuck?” He was expecting some weak CEO not Batwoman to show up.
Hilary moves toward Ryan and attempts to punch her, but Ryan catches the fist and shoves her back. She then kicks her feet from out from under her, causing her to land on the ground with a loud thud.
As this is going on Mitch stands up and pulls out his knife, but Ryan is ready for him and smashes his elbow, causing the knife to fall to the ground. Ryan kicks it away and then punches the man in the jaw.
Mitch groans as he falls to the ground, clutching his now broken arm and screaming in pain. “You broke my arm you crazy bitch!”
“Your own fault for taking this job,” Ryan grunts out as she kicks Mitch hard in the head. She kicks him two more times and on the last kick his eyes roll up in the back of his head. He’s knocked out, but the only thing in Ryan’s mind is hearing this guy gleefully talk about torturing Sophie and her anger rises. Ryan moves to kick him a fourth time when a voice crackles in her ear.
“Batwoman, I think he’s had enough!” Luke cuts in, clearly unnerved by what he is hearing. “You should be trying to find Sophie.”
Hearing Sophie’s name is what brings Ryan out of her haze and she takes a deep breath to calm herself down. “I’m good now. Thanks, Luke.”
“No problem.”
Ryan walks into the warehouse and spies several guards. Knowing that using the element of surprise is her best advantage, she wastes no time fighting though them. And about five minutes later all of the guards are unconscious on the ground.
Slightly winded, she lets out a breath and is about to figure out her next move when she hears a familiar raspy voice nearby that automatically fills her with relief.
“Look, I don’t blame you for doing your job, but I need to put some pressure on this wound. So will you please untie me? Besides between the tranq dart and this wound it’s not like I would be any match for you right now.”
Ryan slowly moves closer, hoping to give Sophie a chance to implement her plan. She gives it a few more seconds before stepping into the room. Neither the guard nor Sophie notice because both are focused on getting the ropes off of Sophie.
The moment Sophie’s free; she jumps to her feet and hits the guard in the throat.
‘Damn that looked like it hurt’, is Ryan’s first thought. ‘Good’ is her next thought. Still as good of a hit that was, it’s not enough to take the guard down completely.
The guard grabs Sophie’s injured arm and slams her into a wall. Ryan is about to jump in when apparently sensing her presence, Sophie’s eyes meet hers and she shakes her head, halting Ryan’s movement.
Ryan raises an eyebrow when Sophie then smirks at her and mouths “hey”. All Ryan can think at the moment is that woman she loves is a little crazy. Still she wouldn’t have it any other way. The smile falls from Sophie’s face as she hits the guard again, knocking him out.
After that Ryan takes a step forward into the open and is getting ready to approach when Sophie yells out “No!” and rushes forward herself.
She is confused when Sophie grabs at her, but doesn’t have time to ponder Sophie’s behavior because she hears footsteps indicating that someone is behind her. She spins around and is about to reach for her staff when she sees Sophie bent over staring at the ground and then a few feet away another guard on the ground with a tactical knife protruding from his chest.
Ryan’s hand moves to her utility belt and immediately realizes that the tactical knife that she had is missing. Aside from wondering how Sophie managed to get it and throw it at the guard without her noticing, she has to wonder why Sophie seemed so frantic when her suit would have protected her.
She glances at Sophie and then at the dead man with a knife still in his hand. Ryan’s eyes widen when she sees that the knife is made of the same material they found out a few months ago can actually penetrate the Batsuit. Luke has been working on finding a fix for it, but so far hasn’t had luck figuring it out. Still, that means Sophie saved her life because she has a feeling that guard would have been aiming to kill.
“Sophie.” She reaches out for her, gasping when she sees the huge blood stain covering Sophie’s shoulder.
“I’m gonna kill him.” Ryan says with a growl. Despite this, her hands are gentle as one cups Sophie’s face while she uses the other to check for other potential injuries. “That better be the only other injury because if it’s not –”
Sophie covers the hand on her cheek with her own. “Ryan, I’m fine. My shoulder is gonna need some stitches, but I’m okay.”
Ryan has to stop herself from checking out the wound herself, knowing that this is not the right time. Still her eyes go back to Sophie’s and she steps even closer.“Are you sure?”
Sophie feels her heart beat faster at Ryan’s proximity. “Yeah.”
Ryan studies her intently for a beat before smiling and gently caressing Sophie’s jawline with her gloved knuckles. “Good. Now let’s get out of here. ”