Batman: The Woman in White

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Edited By cbishop

RANKED 3rd BY VOTERS IN CHARACTER CREATION CONTEST #33!

DateDC Action!ViewRead the...
02/04/16Batman: The Woman in White(Blog) (Forum)Disclaimer
RatingRating explanation
MGun violence; murder.
No Caption Provided

Ten years ago- Slaughter Swamp:

“Mister Gold?” the woman called, knocking on the door of the ramshackle cabin. “Cyrus? Hello? Are you home? It’s me, Maria White. I’ve brought you some groceries.”

A minute passed. Maria heard nothing, save for the croak of tree frogs, the buzz of mosquitoes, and the occasional splash of what was probably a gator. She shifted the paper bag from one arm to the other, and was just about to knock again, when she finally heard movement from inside. She heard the rattle of a slide bolt on the door, and then the door opened slightly to allow a man to peer out. She smiled. “Hi, Cyrus. It’s Thursday- I brought you some groceries.”

The door opened wide. “Mrs. White?” asked the older man now filling the doorway. He coughed. “Please, come in,” he said, standing aside from the door. “You shouldn’t keep coming out here. This swamp isn’t safe.”

Entering the cabin, she smiled and said, “That’s why I bring my daddy’s forty-five with me.” She pulled the butt of the gun from the grocery bag to show him, and then let it slide back into the bag. “Any gator tries to get fresh, I’ll make a pair of shoes out of him." She set the groceries down on the wooden table.

Cyrus sounded a bit self conscious as he said, “That might serve you better than those heels. And all that white? Out here in the swamps?” He sniffled, then coughed again.

“Oh, this,” she laughed. “I’m going from here to meet my husband at a Halloween party- he’s dropping the baby off at the sitter’s. After walking through the grime of Gotham, nobody’s going to pay any attention to a little mud. If they do, I’ll just tell them that I had to tussle with a badguy in an alleyway.” She reached one hand in the air, and swept the other over the length of the dress. “So soon after the baby, not waddling like a panda anymore, I wanted to feel like a woman tonight. I’m Domino Lady. What do you think?”

Cyrus glanced at the floor, and then back at Maria, clearly a little uncomfortable. “You’re quite the lovely woman in white, my dear.”

“Aw, Cyrus, you’re sweet,” she said, putting a hand on his cheek. “Let’s hope Tim thinks the same as you. He’s going as The Spider.” She stretched up and pecked the older man on the cheek. “I’ll see you next week. Feel better, okay?”

His lower lip wavered a little bit at her kindness, and after a moment, he said, “You’re a good woman, Mrs. White. Please be caref--”

KA-CHOOM!

A shotgun blast, somewhere outside, interrupted the man’s words. Then another.

KA-CHOOM!

Maria immediately grabbed the forty-five from the grocery bag, and flipped off the safety. “Cyrus, wait here.”

“Mrs. White! No!” the big man said, but a sudden coughing fit made him too slow to stop her from going out the door.

She was barely outside when something hit her from behind, knocking her to the ground, and causing the gun to fall a few feet away. She rolled over quickly, and found herself looking up at a scaly, green lizard man. “Aren’t you pretty meat for Killer Croc?” said the creature.

“Croc! No!” came a voice from behind her.

Killer Croc jerked his head up towards the other voice, and Maria wasted no time. Grabbing the forty-five, she shot him twice in the midsection, which sent him tumbling backwards. He got up and ran, stumbling towards the swamp. She jumped to her feet, pointing the gun in his direction, but heard the distinctive shlick-shlack of a shotgun being pumped from behind her. “I really wish you wouldn’t do that, miss,” said the voice, smoothly. Then it added with a growl, “Put the gun down, turn around, and please don’t make me ask twice.”

Maria reached slowly to one side, tossed the gun away, and turned around. She wanted to scream. She found herself looking at a man whose face was hideously scarred on one side, untouched on the other. Oddly, his suit was loud and tacky on the scarred side of his body, and crisp and businesslike on the unspoiled side. He held Cyrus at gunpoint, and motioned for both of them to get on their knees. “I’m sorry, Mrs. White,” said Cyrus, followed by a hacking cough.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The man turned the cleanshaven, untouched side of his face towards her, smiled, and said, “Ah, so kind of you to ask. My name is Harvey Dent.” Quickly turning the scarred side towards her, making her flinch, he added, “But every other person calls me Two-Face.” Looking towards the swamp, Harvey said, “I hope you didn’t hurt Croc. Good help is hard to come by. I had convinced him we were two of a kind- both monsters,” he said with a sneer.

“What do you want?” Maria said with as much defiance as her fear would allow.

Two-Face turned his attention back to her and looked her over. “What’s that?” he said, pointing. “There, in your belt, what is that? Hand it here.”

Maria reached to her belt, pulled loose a scrap of cloth, and handed it over. Harvey looked at it and smiled. “Ah, a domino mask!” Moving his face closer to hers, he said, “A dual identity then? Oh, I like that. Yes, indeed.

“Well, to answer your question, I had to come out here tonight to take care of a couple of turncoats. Feeding snitches to the fishes,” he growled. “Croc was going to take them deep, make sure they didn’t resurface. Now, I’ve got two witnesses to two murders, half of whom has a second identity and put two shots into my partner.” Smiling wickedly at Maria, he said, “I like your style. I really do. But now you’ve made twice the work for me. So what say we give you a fifty-fifty chance of getting out of this?”

He pulled a coin from his pocket, and turned it over so they could see it- clean on one side, scarred with an “X” on the other. In one fluid motion, he rolled it on top of his thumb and flipped it in the air. It spun upwards, hesitated, and flipped back down to his hand. Catching it in his fist, he looked at it, then held it out to Maria in an open palm. “Sorry.”

As he pocketed the coin and swung the shotgun upwards from his side, Cyrus jumped to his feet, catching Two-Face with an uppercut, followed by a savage right, and shouted, “Run, Maria!” before being wracked with a coughing fit. Harvey slammed the gun butt into Cyrus’ face, knocking him on his back.

Swinging the shotgun back around to the fleeing Maria, Harvey hollered, “Look at her run! The woman in white!”

KA-CHOOM!

“Now lying dead, in the cold, dark night,” finished Two-Face. “Ah,” sighed Harvey, “I love a good couplet. Or even a bad one, really.” Harvey smirked, but nodded in agreement with himself. Pumping the shotgun again, he turned it on Cyrus, before he could attempt to get up, and said, “Whattaya say, big man? Giving me the old one-two there? Want to go a second round? See if I can go two-for-two?” Bending over the man, he added, “Or maybe a split decision?” Producing the coin from his pocket, he flipped it again, caught it in his fist, paused, and opened his hand to look. Looking down on Cyrus Gold, he said, “Looks like you get a second chance.” He then delivered a kick to the man’s face, knocking him unconscious.

Turning away and looking into the swamp, he said to himself, “I think we should kill him anyway. No, no, we always abide by the coin. Besides, we have to decide what to do with her- do we let her lay in the yard, or drag her dead weight to the swamp?” Flipping the coin again, he caught it excitedly and looked immediately. Shoulders slumping a little, he said, “Damn.” Grabbing her by the ankle, he started the slow drag to the swamp.

Please let me know what you think, and thanks! -cbOriginally Presented In: CCC #33.

Story, original characters and content are owned by Chris Bishop. Copyright Chris Bishop 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.

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#1  Edited By cbishop
OC Names:
Characters~
  • White, Maria
  • White, "Baby" (mentioned)
  • White, Tim (mentioned)
Comic Characters used in this fic:
CompanyCharactersConceptsLocations
DC:
  • -
Public Domain
  • -
Picture Credits:
PictureCredit

Batman: The Woman in White logo

Found via GIS. The "Batman" portion of the logo is Batman Concept Logo, by Jure Sobočan on Logo Designer. "The Woman in White" is a font from MS Paint.

"This swamp isn't safe."

Found via GIS. This is a slightly 'shopped version of Solomon Grundy - Ink, by jpaolonovelli on Deviant Art.
  • "Aren't you pretty meat for Killer Croc?"
  • "...two of a kind- both monsters."
  • "Sorry."
  • "Or maybe a split decision?"

The rest of these came from DC Comics, and were found in the CV wiki.

CCC #33 comments for Batman: The Woman in White:
CommentWho

Things I liked:

cbishop Solomon Grundy & Two-Face!

Things I didn't like:

cbishop The schumaltzy Xmas ending. It was like a great gymnastic routine and the final flip you kinda stacked it.

batkevin74

Well, honestly, the Christmas ending was because it tis the season, and I was going for a Christmas ghost story - I was going for shmaltzy. :P

The problem was I ran out of time, and couldn't get the whole story in that I wanted. I had to seriously truncate everything after Maria's murder, to get the entry in on time. I want to write the whole story and post it later, and in that version, the "Merry Christmas" ending will make a little more sense, and play out much differently. ;)

cbishop

cbishop: Spent my sick day reading over the ones I missed, and I vote you.

gumflabica

gumflabica: Thank you. :)

cbishop
.Fic-O-Pedia: cbishop. (My library of fics)Fic #131

Thanks for stopping in! :^D

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cbishop

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#2  Edited By cbishop
About this story

In the CCC version of this, there's an additional scene that takes place ten years later. Batman helps Maria's ghost rescue her son from Two-Face. Grundy winds up saving the kid, giving him to Batman, and leaving. Once the kid is safe, Maria's ghost fades away, wishing Batman a Merry Christmas. The contest was during the Christmas season, so I was trying to write a heart-tugging Christmas story. I ran up to the deadline though, and didn't get to write the ten years later scene as well as the rest of it. Batkevin' gave me heck for it, and he was right. So, here in the repost, that scene was dropped.

As it is here, I love this story. I only wish I could keep it as the origin for The Woman in White. If it ever gets published though, I'd have to write something different that doesn't include the DC characters. <sigh> In the meantime, I still really like the Two-Face stuff here. :)

That's all for now! Thanks for reading. :^D

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@cbishop: Poor Cyrus, and poor White, this is how people turn into undead monsters

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#4  Edited By cbishop

@impurestcheese said:

@cbishop: Poor Cyrus, and poor White, this is how people turn into undead monsters

I thought of a way that Cyrus could wind up dead in the swamp that would fit nicely with this story, and I'm sorely tempted to write it, but I've always thought that Grundy's origin should have stayed a mystery. Still, the idea's there, so I won't say "never." ;)

Edit 7/4/18: I have no clue what that idea was now. Should've written it down. :}

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Update: I was fighting sleep when I posted this, and forgot about the rule that Book of the Bat stories cannot have OC's. So I removed the Book of the Bat tag, and will write something else for that.

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#6  Edited By Guardiandevil83

Aww this story made me sad. Sleep in peace Mrs White.

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@guardiandevil83:

Aww this story made me sad.

It's supposed to! ;)

Sleep in peace Mrs White.

Oh, she won't be doing any of that.