Ordinary Heroes

Title: City of Darkness
Claim: Xander Harris
Author: Amejisuto
Prompt: Dark
Written for Crossovers100
Fandom: Buffy tVS/DC Universe
Pairing: None yet, eventual Xander/Nightwing.
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer:Not mine, never will be. No harm, no foul, no money made.
Warnings/Squicks: None really.
Summary: Xander figures out why there aren't that many demons in Gotham, and meets two new friends.
Beta'd by the wonderful Kitty Poker1. Thank you dearest!

Notes: Okay, while Batman might very well be the most recognized character from Gotham City, I can't help but feel that Gotham itself is as much a character in the comics and cartoons as any of the heroes, civilians, policemen or villains that make Her their home. So here is my introduction of lovely Lady Gotham, along with one of her Knights, and her resident Seer. Again, if you have any questions ask. If I don't know the answer I do know where to find the answer out.

City of Darkness

There was something odd about Gotham City. Something that Xander just couldn't put his finger on. For one thing, the city had a sort of dark 30's or 40's look to it. He halfway expected to see gun molls and guys in pinstripe suits jump out of an old looking car and start shooting with tommy guns at any moment.

And, well, considering it was Gotham, he wasn't going to say that out loud. Gotham had mobsters like Sunnydale had vampires. But that was the problem. For the most part, they were human bad guys. In the month he'd been in Gotham he hadn't seen one vampire, demon, ghost or other kind of supernatural creature. No sounds of werewolves howling in Robinson Park. No white ladies or ghosts of people who had killed themselves by jumping off the Sprang Bridge.

Gotham was a city that was just as big as New York, and nearly as populated. And considering that in the past decade there had been a plague and a giant earthquake-- measuring 7.6 on the Richter Scale--that had killed half of the people living there, and add in the various murders, violent crimes and other ways for innocent people to die, the place should have wall to wall ghosts, ghouls and other creatures of the night.

And considering he had an one room flop in Old Gotham and had to travel a couple of hours on either the monorail or bus to get to Port Adams to unload fish, most of it in the pre-dawn hours of the morning, well, he should have seen something.

It was strange. If ever a city was built for vampires to live in in comfort, it was Gotham. There were overhangs and covered bridges and gargoyles and places to walk where the sun never touched. Like Manhattan in New York, Gotham was built on an island connected to the rest of New Jersey by a series of tunnels and bridges. Well, they were connected now. For just over a year Gotham had been cut off from the rest of the world, the idea of the government, who didn't feel like putting any effort into rebuilding the city after the earthquake.

Even though it was over, Xander shuddered to think of it. The thought of being trapped in No Man's Land with no food shipments, hardly any electricity or medical supplies, gangs running in the streets and what few cops there were having no back up…it was scary.

But the Batman and his people evidently kept the city from tearing itself apart. Well, too badly, at least. No one man, or even a group of people, could keep everything together, but they had done their best and the city was slowly getting back to normal and more and more people were making it their home.

Including Xander. Despite the high human crime rate, he liked Gotham. It felt like home, only without the Hellmouth vibes. Okay, so maybe the smog and local climate made the city have more rainy days than most cities, and what if it had this...dark feel to it. It was a comfortable kind of darkness, if there was such a thing.

Maybe it was because he wasn't scared of criminals. Oh, he kept away from them for the most part. The rule for living a healthy life was to keep your head down. Not that he ever walked away from anyone in trouble either. Still, Xander found himself fascinated by the city and its odd Gothic look.

It was one of the old women who worked the Farmer's Market that had given him the first clue. Mable came into the city only on the weekends, from her farm outside Gotham, bringing a truck of produce and homemade jellies, canned food and butter. Mabel had offered him lunch one rainy day and as they walked around she pointed out the gargoyles that acted as water spouts on the corner of one of the buildings nearby, and explained out that historically gargoyles had been placed on churches and cathedrals to ward off evil.

Xander had more than a sneaking suspicion that Mabel was something else, a witch at the very least, but, since she hadn't tried to date him or kill him, he figured she was on the up and up. Which was why Xander found himself wandering around Gotham with a disposable camera. He was taking picture after picture of gargoyles and carvings that he was finding on the buildings, with the idea of sending them to Giles.

He'd even gone to the library and had actually researched. The little old lady behind the counter seemed shocked that a kid his age knew how to work the card catalog but none of the Scoobies had escaped Giles's lectures on properly placing the books back on the shelves where they belonged. Or course Willow had found them interesting, but that was a whole different level of weirdness.

He'd found out a couple interesting things. For one, most of the buildings that had been put back up after the earthquake had been duplicated from blueprints of the old buildings In fact, the unnamed private business that had started the restoration had been insistent that as much of the look of Gotham was to stay the same, right down to the carved stone figures on the buildings and old landmarks.

Most of the designs they had used had been drawn up long before the Civil War by one of the city's founders, Judge Solomon Wayne. From what little Xander could find the man had not only been rich, but had been considered something of a kook. He'd designed many of the buildings with the help of a man named Cyrus Pinkney in the Gothic style, adding architectural details like the gargoyles and windows in the buildings that were narrow to “keep evil out”.

But Xander didn't think he was a kook. He remembered a conversation he'd had with Giles, joking that the Mayor had built much of Sunnydale to be Demon Central. Like the building in the movie Ghostbusters. Giles hadn't laughed, though, and had said it was possible. So if there was a way to build a city to attract demons, wasn't it possible to build one to keep them away?

So now it was his day off and he was taking pictures and using a sketch pad and charcoal to get rubbings from what carvings he could reach. It was his day off but he figured he'd spend a couple of days getting stuff from different areas of the city to send to Giles. It wasn't something you could really do on the bus or in the subways. He had already been walking for hours, and figured he'd check the last few blocks around the south side of Robinson Park before heading home.

Soon Xander found himself crawling along the base of one of the big statues in the park. It was one that had survived the earthquake, probably because there hadn't been any big buildings to fall down on it. There was a big crack in the base, the kind that he'd always pictured the Liberty Bell with, but someone had smoothed in some sort of quickcrete or patch and repaired it.

The statue was of some dead guy on a horse. The kind of thing you saw in most parks. What made it so interesting, though, was that it had what Xander thought were runes, or some sort of weird writing all along the base. Whoever had repaired the crack had done their best to fix the pattern.

He was so interested in the statue, taking pictures and drawing ugly stick figures that were supposed to look like the runes, that Xander didn't even notice it was getting dark. When the street lights finally turned on, he looked up and swore. He was a couple of blocks away from the nearest monorail station, and he wasn't used to this area of town so he had no clue as to where or when the bus would run.

Xander stowed the camera and sketch pad away in his back pack. One of the first things he'd done when he'd moved from the Y into his tiny one room apartment was get a good key chain with one of those cans of mace that were supposed to be made for women. Xander had no problem with the idea of spraying a mugger in the face and running away like a little girl. Running had saved him more than once in Sunnydale against vamps and he was sure it would work with humans just as well.

Which was a good thing, really. Once he'd left the park he'd turned to make his way to a bus stop but had gotten turned around. He walked for a few blocks, trying to be careful but still enjoying the early fall evening. It was kinda neat, knowing that this year he'd be somewhere the leaves were actually changing. A lot of the trees in the park already had red and gold tints to them. As he walked past the Wayne Tower, he wondered if he could get a part time job working for the city raking leaves, if only so he could jump in a big pile of them. That had always looked so fun on the television.

And later on there would be snow! Real snow, not the mystical stuff that had saved Angel's brooding ass the year before. Xander made a mental note to see if he could pull an extra shift unloading fish at the docks so he could buy a warmer coat and some good boots; New Jersey had to get cold. Then again, anything colder than, say, mid-sixties was cold to Xander.

Even though he was thinking about seeing an honest to god winter, Xander hadn't let his mind get too far away. So he noticed the group of teen boys that were surrounding an Asian girl about his age and a young woman in a wheelchair. They were circling around the two women, making noises that partially reminded Xander of the days when Larry was hiding his gayness by being an ass and partially reminded him of the primate exhibit at the zoo.

Which, of course, made him wonder if they'd been possessed by the spirits of monkeys but, then again, what teen boy wasn't? Including himself. He was reminded of some of the noises he made when faced with a good pizza, or fresh Twinkies. Xander took a deep breath and gripped his can of mace. He wasn't able to take on ten or so guys, but maybe he'd be able to make a good distraction and the ladies could get away.

Okay, so he'd probably get his ass kicked. It was only about four blocks to the GCPD. The cops would actually come to their own neighborhood...right?

Before Xander could make a move, though, the younger of the two women sprung into action. She executed the type of kick that would have left Buffy envious. She then went on the attack, striking out against her opponents, blocking blows so well that Xander would have sworn she was reading the boys’ minds.

Meanwhile, the woman in the wheelchair wasn't backing off either. She had some sort of batons or sticks and was doing a pretty good job of whaling one of the thugs upside the head. In the streetlights Xander caught the glint of red hair and he stopped making a move to help the women and just watched in amusement. One thing he'd learned over the years was not to cross Willow or get her in a snit. That rumor about tempers and red hair was true, more often than not.

It didn't take them long to beat off the gang members. The two women worked well together and, while they didn't resemble each other in the least bit, Xander could tell they were family. It brought a smile to his face but made him a bit homesick too. Maybe when he got back to his apartment he'd splurge some money and call Willow.

The last of the boys ran away. Xander kind of wished he hadn't put away his camera. It would have been funny to have a picture of the big, bad, gang members getting their asses handed to them by a teenager and a woman in a wheelchair.

“Well, are you just going to stand there or are you going to rush to rescue the damsels in distress?” The redhead's voice sounded amused and Xander jumped.

“Um, hi! I was going to offer to throw my face in front of their fists for you but, hey, watching you two put a serious hurt on them was more fun. And less painful. That was really cool!”

The younger girl smiled shyly and fiddled with her back pack. She sort of reminded him of Willow without the babble and Xander got the feeling she didn't talk much. The older woman smiled and stuck out her hand. “Barbara Gordon. And this is Cass. And you just won yourself some brownie points for not assuming the chair means I'm helpless.”

Xander laughed nervously. “Yeah, well, my best friend is this little blond girl and she can kick the ass of guys four times her size while I stand in the background and hold her purse. I'm sure if I was patronizing you two would get into a fight over who was going to start hitting me first. I'm Xander, by the way. Hi.” He made an embarrassed sort of shrug. He probably was acting like some country bumpkin, which he sort of was. Well, a Hellmouth bumpkin....

Before he could make an even bigger fool of himself, Xander decided to ask for help. “Look, you two ladies wouldn't know where there's a bus stop, would you? I kind of got turned around.”

Barbara smiled. “Not from around here?”

“Nah. Sunny Southern California. I moved here about a month ago and, while I'm learning my way around, this is one big city.”

The two women traded looks. “Tell you what, we'll walk you to the nearest bus stop.”

Xander blushed. “You don't have to do that. I mean, I know I must seem like a total rube but I have been in rough areas before. I can take care of myself, for the most part.”

“Oh no! We're not about to let one of the few men in Gotham who will ask for directions get mugged and left in a chalk outline. Follow me.” Barbara spun around in her wheelchair and didn't even look back to see if he was following. The other girl, Cass, took one look at his face and laughed softly before following and Xander was left to catch up.

He laughed and ran after the women. “Hey! Wait for me!”

*****

Batgirl landed on one of the ledges of the Clocktower and perched on the window that Oracle kept open for her. Oracle looked up from her data screens and smiled. “Did the kid get home okay?”

“Yeah.” She paused for a moment. “But...there was something odd...” Batgirl stopped and took off her mask. “He would move differently. At different times.”

Barbara frowned. “Do you think he's dangerous?”

Cass shrugged. “No, it's just he moved like he was a different person at times.” It was hard to put into words what she'd seen in the boy's movements. She had grown up knowing people's body language so well it had been all she'd used for communication. She'd only learned how to speak after becoming Batgirl, and still had problems with printed words.

Barbara sighed and went back to her computers. “Well, if you see him out there keep an eye on him. Xander seemed like a nice kid and I'd hate for the Big Bad City to eat him alive.”

Cassandra nodded before pulling her mask back on and going back out the window. Old Gotham wasn't in her usual patrol area, but it wouldn't hurt to swing by. Maybe she'd tell Robin too.

Still, she wished she knew why Xander moved like a normal teen one minute and like someone in Covert Ops the next.

*****