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indiana_jTitle: The Death and Rebirth of Detective Anna Ramirez
Fandom: Batman (movieverse)
Characters: Det. Ramirez, Commissioner Gordon
Rating: PG-13, just to be safe
Word Count: 2,547
Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Batman franchise and I'm only borrowing.
A/N: Many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nute for beta reading this for me. Also, those who know the Batman cartoon will get the nod. :)
Summary: With the Joker in jail, Batman on the run, there's only one more loose end to tie up.
The pain had finally died down to a dull roar but Detective Ramirez could still taste the heavy flavor of her own blood in her mouth - she'd bitten both her tongue and the side of her cheek when Dent had lashed out at her. Though she knew it could have been worse and she was lucky (luck being the only reason she was in a jail cell and not on some cold slab in the morgue) enough to be around to feel pain.
Not that her current situation was much better.
Bruised, shaken up, arrested and tossed into the Gotham's version of solitary while she waited for someone to come and speak with her. She'd been mostly out of it when she'd been brought in and beyond the Commissioner, she hadn't seen anyone.
Ramirez studied the ceiling while she waited as she tried to find a comfortable spot on the cot. The headache and the tender jaw combined with the gnawing anxiety meant that it was a fruitless search. And wasn't it known that with a head injury of any sort, sleeping wasn't exactly the brightest idea?
But then again, her track record lately was proving to be less than solid when it came to bright ideas.
Her grandmother had been sick for almost all of Ramirez' life - diabetes, cancer and convulsions, just to name a few of the long laundry list. There hadn't been a time that she remembered her Nana being completely healthy or not in pain but it had gotten worse over the last few years. And Ramirez was the only one in her family that had been able to pull in a full time paycheck but in the end, even that hadn't been able to cover it. Health insurance rates were insane in Gotham - and one didn't even think about looking into life insurance policies - and the cost of Nana's medical bills had started to pile up beyond her ability to pay them.
Like most cops, she hadn't approached the mob, they'd approached her. But she was new in the force and so the requests were low-key, almost nothing in the grand scheme of the insanity that was Gotham's normal criminal activity. It was almost like she hadn't even breaking the law in the first place and the fact that the bills started to get paid helped a lot to sooth whatever guilt she'd had.
Until the Batman.
Until the hell that had been unleashed on Gotham the previous year and the sudden, stirring desire to wipe out and erase the mob's influence in the city.
Harvey 'Two-Face' Dent had been on her trail, among others on the force, before he went on to become DA and in the heat, she'd managed to somehow cut her ties with the mob after several of her connections had been jailed or killed in that insanity that plagued the city earlier. She'd come under Lt. Gordon's protective and trusting wing, received a pay raise, and her grandmother had even gotten better. It had all been starting to turn around.
Until the Joker.
Nana had been hospitalized after a fall had broken her hip and they'd found an infection that was almost life threatening; Ramirez found herself sitting by the hospital bed and watching the bills pile up again. It wasn't just Gordon's team that was strapped financially and she had believed Gordon when he stated that he was sorry there wasn't much there for raises that year.
She believed in Gordon but she didn't believe in the city to take care of her family.
All she could remember now was walking into her darkened apartment to find the walls coated in pictures of her Nana - they'd all been recent and taken between her own visits. There were a few that included the Joker's own twisted smile as he posed next to the frail woman in the bed. The note on the table had been to the point because there really hadn't been much to say after the evidence on the walls. He'd even be willing to pay a little and leave her grandmother alive...
There'd been no choice.
And if she repeated that, maybe the face of Rachel Dawes would finally stop being seared to the inside of her eyelids.
Ramirez forced herself to sit up as she caught the soft sound of conversation and the jangle of keys from beyond the door, her body felt heavy and wooden but when someone stepped in the room, her back was straight and her head held mostly up. She was braced against the brick wall of the cell but it was enough for her.
It had to be enough for her.
She blinked back sudden hot tears of shame when she made out Gordon standing in the light, the play of shadows on his face covering his immediate expression. When he turned back to grab for the door to close it, she scrubbed at her eyes though her hands were in her lap when he turned around.
As the door shut behind him, she saw that he'd brought in a chair and wondered if this was where they were going to do the interrogation. Ramirez frowned. This was beyond unusual and broke every protocol in the book that there was. In fact, she couldn't really remember seeing anyone but Gordon from the moment she'd first woken up in that alley.
"Sir..." she started but stopped when he raised a hand.
Gordon was one of the most quiet spoken men she'd ever met. A good, solid man who worked well with what he had, which wasn't very much most of the time. She watched him as he sat, fingers tugging lightly at his tie before he looked up and met her eyes. Ramirez flinched slightly at the look in reflected in them.
She'd been expected hate and fury for what she had to do to his family but what she found there was a lot worse. The type of exhaustion that sank into your soul and grabbed a hold and with it, a deep sadness. She'd caused that.
"Ramirez," Gordon said, voice the same as always. That soft, slightly hesitant tone that most people took to mean that Gordon was someone they could overlook, maybe push around. That was probably the furthest thing from the truth and she knew the man used it to his advantage. Like he always said, he had to use what he was given because he hadn't been given much.
"Lt ... I'm sorry, Commissioner Gordon." She could still remember the flash of happiness she'd felt for him when the Mayor had appointed him; the warmth and strength in his grip when she'd offered her hand to his in congratulations; the knowledge that with him as Commish and Dent as DA that regardless of the Joker, maybe they had a chance after all.
"You're, ah, going to notice pretty quick that this isn't regulation," Gordon said and she just nodded. "For someone who's so dumb, you can be pretty smart so you know that we can lock you away for good with what we have on you." His eyes blinked and he rattled off the charges without missing a beat. "Assault, kidnapping, multiple counts on aiding and abetting a known felon - felons, if you want to get technical - conspiracy, accessory to attempted murder and, of course, murder one."
It was only during the last two that his voice tightened and Ramirez couldn't find it in her to meet his eyes.
The scared woman inside her was screaming that it was the Joker's fault - it was his explosives, his plan, his everything. But the cop in her knew better. The explosives would have turned out to be untraceable; if they were, perhaps, it would lead to a dead end. The obvious connection would be to the mob but no one was going to squeal on something that big. The only real, solid evidence they had was that police officer Anna Ramirez, officially a dirty cop no matter how you looked at it, convinced the now late Assistant District Attorney Rachel Dawes to come with her.
Ramirez might not have had any idea of what they were going to do to the ADA but she had always known that it couldn't have been pleasant.
With Wurtz dead and the Joker firmly in lockdown during that time, she was the only real person they could attempt to pin it on.
She cleared her throat and found herself staring at Gordon's right shoulder, still unable to meet his eyes. "This isn't going to be normal, is it?"
"No, it's not. Dent's dead."
Ramirez forced herself to not react.
"Officially, so are you."
Now her eyes meet his and she knew the confusion was plain to see on her face. If that had been anyone else in that chair, she would have assumed right then and there that she wasn't walking out of that cell alive. But that was James Gordon sitting a few feet away, a man that she'd been convinced was one of the few incorruptible in the entire city. He was a good, solid man and he took care of his own.
More importantly, he believed in his own - and it had almost proved his undoing.
Gordon didn't let her respond. "The official report will be that you were found murdered, one of two police officers who gave their lives defending the city." She didn't understand. She'd almost handed the Joker the keys to the damned city. "There's going to be a double funeral ceremony, for you and Detective Wuertz, but your casket will remain empty."
"What - I don't ... sir?"
He leaned forward, arms hanging slack over his knees as he watched her carefully. "You were attacked and coerced into helping to kidnap my family by former DA Harvey Dent. He'd previously murdered Wurtz and you knew he had the chance to do the same to you. You know this, I know this ... my family, god help me, knows this. The rest of Gotham does not."
"The rest of the force?"
A slight head shake. "You were out for a while, Ramirez, and by the time we figured out where you were I was the one who brought you in. You're in here under a fake ID and the rest of the officers have no idea who it is I have in there. Truthfully, they don't much care. It's a madhouse out there - taking the Joker straight to Arkham this time, mourning two of their own ... no, I pulled some strings but it didn't take much."
Ramirez sat back against the wall and looked dumbfounded. "But why?" she asked. "Why the secrecy? With Dent dead and the Joker locked up, you could have me put away faster if you booked me proper."
"We were, and in many ways still are, a city under siege. Just one year out from the riots and then the Joker comes along. Multiple people murdered, plus numerous by-standers injured or worse, property was damaged and the Joker almost got what he wanted. He wanted Gotham to remain afraid and he put enough fear in the people's hearts that if something else came along, he'd win. Regardless of him being in a cell or not."
There was a small pause as he ran his hand over his face and left it covering his eyes. "Dent was Gotham's greatest hope and the Joker undid everything just because he could. Because he wanted to. Dent was the greatest of us and in the end, the worst. But Gotham can never know that. If we're to rebuild we need his memory as they remember it. The greatest of us fighting against the worst and not succumbing."
Her brain was still trying to wrap itself around this concept. "What's the official story going to be? You're just going to lie to everyone?"
"Yes, Ms. Ramirez -" No longer Officer, or even just the last name; she was back to being a civilian, to being a lesser. It hurt more than she had been expecting. "I find myself doing that a lot lately. I don't claim to like it but ... it's necessary. It's a necessary evil. They will never know the truth. Which leads us to you."
"You're not going to kill me."
Despite it not being a question, Gordon's hand fell off his eyes and she was pinned against the wall by his glare. "You've been working with the wrong people for too long," he responded sharply, shaking his head. "No, you're going to be smuggled out of here and put on trial elsewhere. You won't be tried in Gotham but, trust me, you're not going to get any time off for good behavior. Officer Anna Ramirez is officially dead and she'll be buried with honors. Prisoner Renee Montoya's going to get buried in some far off prison without that luxury."
For a moment it felt like she was suffocating and she pressed her hands against her stomach to quell the panic. Her entire life, gone; but was it really that different than what she would have faced? It was so hard to comprehend at the moment but Gordon wasn't giving her time to adjust.
The little luxuries were no longer hers to have.
"I know you might be thinking what's to prevent you from talking. You know as well as I do what will await you back here."
Arkham. She could just imagine what the prisoners would do with a dirty cop. If she even made it that far, considering all the 'accidents' that could happen on a transit.
"In a way, we're saving your life but you need to do something else for me."
"What is it?" she whispered, licking her lips. She missed Gordon's flinch at the movement.
"I want the names and details of the officers in my squad - well, former, I suppose - who were dirty. If you know anything, you're going to give it up to me. I took a chance on you and Wurtz and you repaid me in blood. Miss Montoya, if I were you, I wouldn't hesitate to hand that information over."
She heard but didn't see him get up from his chair, heard the squeak of wood movement, the rustle of his clothing and the calming sound of the deep breaths he was taking. She didn't see him walk to the door but she heard him pause before opening it.
Finally, she picked her head up and meet his eyes. "Who's getting the blame for all of this?" she wondered.
Gordon sighed but didn't break eye contact. "The only man who could shoulder the burden, Miss Montoya. The best and the worst of all of us." He stopped again, hand hovering above the door. "And just so you know, Anna, your grandmother's hospital bills were paid for by an anonymous donor claiming to be from a charity."
With that, he closed the door on her and she sat back, hands muffling her sobs as she repeated her new name over in her mind again and again.
She'd killed Anna Ramirez just as much as she'd killed Rachel Dawes.
God save both their souls.
Fandom: Batman (movieverse)
Characters: Det. Ramirez, Commissioner Gordon
Rating: PG-13, just to be safe
Word Count: 2,547
Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Batman franchise and I'm only borrowing.
A/N: Many thanks to
nute for beta reading this for me. Also, those who know the Batman cartoon will get the nod. :)Summary: With the Joker in jail, Batman on the run, there's only one more loose end to tie up.
The pain had finally died down to a dull roar but Detective Ramirez could still taste the heavy flavor of her own blood in her mouth - she'd bitten both her tongue and the side of her cheek when Dent had lashed out at her. Though she knew it could have been worse and she was lucky (luck being the only reason she was in a jail cell and not on some cold slab in the morgue) enough to be around to feel pain.
Not that her current situation was much better.
Bruised, shaken up, arrested and tossed into the Gotham's version of solitary while she waited for someone to come and speak with her. She'd been mostly out of it when she'd been brought in and beyond the Commissioner, she hadn't seen anyone.
Ramirez studied the ceiling while she waited as she tried to find a comfortable spot on the cot. The headache and the tender jaw combined with the gnawing anxiety meant that it was a fruitless search. And wasn't it known that with a head injury of any sort, sleeping wasn't exactly the brightest idea?
But then again, her track record lately was proving to be less than solid when it came to bright ideas.
Her grandmother had been sick for almost all of Ramirez' life - diabetes, cancer and convulsions, just to name a few of the long laundry list. There hadn't been a time that she remembered her Nana being completely healthy or not in pain but it had gotten worse over the last few years. And Ramirez was the only one in her family that had been able to pull in a full time paycheck but in the end, even that hadn't been able to cover it. Health insurance rates were insane in Gotham - and one didn't even think about looking into life insurance policies - and the cost of Nana's medical bills had started to pile up beyond her ability to pay them.
Like most cops, she hadn't approached the mob, they'd approached her. But she was new in the force and so the requests were low-key, almost nothing in the grand scheme of the insanity that was Gotham's normal criminal activity. It was almost like she hadn't even breaking the law in the first place and the fact that the bills started to get paid helped a lot to sooth whatever guilt she'd had.
Until the Batman.
Until the hell that had been unleashed on Gotham the previous year and the sudden, stirring desire to wipe out and erase the mob's influence in the city.
Harvey 'Two-Face' Dent had been on her trail, among others on the force, before he went on to become DA and in the heat, she'd managed to somehow cut her ties with the mob after several of her connections had been jailed or killed in that insanity that plagued the city earlier. She'd come under Lt. Gordon's protective and trusting wing, received a pay raise, and her grandmother had even gotten better. It had all been starting to turn around.
Until the Joker.
Nana had been hospitalized after a fall had broken her hip and they'd found an infection that was almost life threatening; Ramirez found herself sitting by the hospital bed and watching the bills pile up again. It wasn't just Gordon's team that was strapped financially and she had believed Gordon when he stated that he was sorry there wasn't much there for raises that year.
She believed in Gordon but she didn't believe in the city to take care of her family.
All she could remember now was walking into her darkened apartment to find the walls coated in pictures of her Nana - they'd all been recent and taken between her own visits. There were a few that included the Joker's own twisted smile as he posed next to the frail woman in the bed. The note on the table had been to the point because there really hadn't been much to say after the evidence on the walls. He'd even be willing to pay a little and leave her grandmother alive...
There'd been no choice.
And if she repeated that, maybe the face of Rachel Dawes would finally stop being seared to the inside of her eyelids.
Ramirez forced herself to sit up as she caught the soft sound of conversation and the jangle of keys from beyond the door, her body felt heavy and wooden but when someone stepped in the room, her back was straight and her head held mostly up. She was braced against the brick wall of the cell but it was enough for her.
It had to be enough for her.
She blinked back sudden hot tears of shame when she made out Gordon standing in the light, the play of shadows on his face covering his immediate expression. When he turned back to grab for the door to close it, she scrubbed at her eyes though her hands were in her lap when he turned around.
As the door shut behind him, she saw that he'd brought in a chair and wondered if this was where they were going to do the interrogation. Ramirez frowned. This was beyond unusual and broke every protocol in the book that there was. In fact, she couldn't really remember seeing anyone but Gordon from the moment she'd first woken up in that alley.
"Sir..." she started but stopped when he raised a hand.
Gordon was one of the most quiet spoken men she'd ever met. A good, solid man who worked well with what he had, which wasn't very much most of the time. She watched him as he sat, fingers tugging lightly at his tie before he looked up and met her eyes. Ramirez flinched slightly at the look in reflected in them.
She'd been expected hate and fury for what she had to do to his family but what she found there was a lot worse. The type of exhaustion that sank into your soul and grabbed a hold and with it, a deep sadness. She'd caused that.
"Ramirez," Gordon said, voice the same as always. That soft, slightly hesitant tone that most people took to mean that Gordon was someone they could overlook, maybe push around. That was probably the furthest thing from the truth and she knew the man used it to his advantage. Like he always said, he had to use what he was given because he hadn't been given much.
"Lt ... I'm sorry, Commissioner Gordon." She could still remember the flash of happiness she'd felt for him when the Mayor had appointed him; the warmth and strength in his grip when she'd offered her hand to his in congratulations; the knowledge that with him as Commish and Dent as DA that regardless of the Joker, maybe they had a chance after all.
"You're, ah, going to notice pretty quick that this isn't regulation," Gordon said and she just nodded. "For someone who's so dumb, you can be pretty smart so you know that we can lock you away for good with what we have on you." His eyes blinked and he rattled off the charges without missing a beat. "Assault, kidnapping, multiple counts on aiding and abetting a known felon - felons, if you want to get technical - conspiracy, accessory to attempted murder and, of course, murder one."
It was only during the last two that his voice tightened and Ramirez couldn't find it in her to meet his eyes.
The scared woman inside her was screaming that it was the Joker's fault - it was his explosives, his plan, his everything. But the cop in her knew better. The explosives would have turned out to be untraceable; if they were, perhaps, it would lead to a dead end. The obvious connection would be to the mob but no one was going to squeal on something that big. The only real, solid evidence they had was that police officer Anna Ramirez, officially a dirty cop no matter how you looked at it, convinced the now late Assistant District Attorney Rachel Dawes to come with her.
Ramirez might not have had any idea of what they were going to do to the ADA but she had always known that it couldn't have been pleasant.
With Wurtz dead and the Joker firmly in lockdown during that time, she was the only real person they could attempt to pin it on.
She cleared her throat and found herself staring at Gordon's right shoulder, still unable to meet his eyes. "This isn't going to be normal, is it?"
"No, it's not. Dent's dead."
Ramirez forced herself to not react.
"Officially, so are you."
Now her eyes meet his and she knew the confusion was plain to see on her face. If that had been anyone else in that chair, she would have assumed right then and there that she wasn't walking out of that cell alive. But that was James Gordon sitting a few feet away, a man that she'd been convinced was one of the few incorruptible in the entire city. He was a good, solid man and he took care of his own.
More importantly, he believed in his own - and it had almost proved his undoing.
Gordon didn't let her respond. "The official report will be that you were found murdered, one of two police officers who gave their lives defending the city." She didn't understand. She'd almost handed the Joker the keys to the damned city. "There's going to be a double funeral ceremony, for you and Detective Wuertz, but your casket will remain empty."
"What - I don't ... sir?"
He leaned forward, arms hanging slack over his knees as he watched her carefully. "You were attacked and coerced into helping to kidnap my family by former DA Harvey Dent. He'd previously murdered Wurtz and you knew he had the chance to do the same to you. You know this, I know this ... my family, god help me, knows this. The rest of Gotham does not."
"The rest of the force?"
A slight head shake. "You were out for a while, Ramirez, and by the time we figured out where you were I was the one who brought you in. You're in here under a fake ID and the rest of the officers have no idea who it is I have in there. Truthfully, they don't much care. It's a madhouse out there - taking the Joker straight to Arkham this time, mourning two of their own ... no, I pulled some strings but it didn't take much."
Ramirez sat back against the wall and looked dumbfounded. "But why?" she asked. "Why the secrecy? With Dent dead and the Joker locked up, you could have me put away faster if you booked me proper."
"We were, and in many ways still are, a city under siege. Just one year out from the riots and then the Joker comes along. Multiple people murdered, plus numerous by-standers injured or worse, property was damaged and the Joker almost got what he wanted. He wanted Gotham to remain afraid and he put enough fear in the people's hearts that if something else came along, he'd win. Regardless of him being in a cell or not."
There was a small pause as he ran his hand over his face and left it covering his eyes. "Dent was Gotham's greatest hope and the Joker undid everything just because he could. Because he wanted to. Dent was the greatest of us and in the end, the worst. But Gotham can never know that. If we're to rebuild we need his memory as they remember it. The greatest of us fighting against the worst and not succumbing."
Her brain was still trying to wrap itself around this concept. "What's the official story going to be? You're just going to lie to everyone?"
"Yes, Ms. Ramirez -" No longer Officer, or even just the last name; she was back to being a civilian, to being a lesser. It hurt more than she had been expecting. "I find myself doing that a lot lately. I don't claim to like it but ... it's necessary. It's a necessary evil. They will never know the truth. Which leads us to you."
"You're not going to kill me."
Despite it not being a question, Gordon's hand fell off his eyes and she was pinned against the wall by his glare. "You've been working with the wrong people for too long," he responded sharply, shaking his head. "No, you're going to be smuggled out of here and put on trial elsewhere. You won't be tried in Gotham but, trust me, you're not going to get any time off for good behavior. Officer Anna Ramirez is officially dead and she'll be buried with honors. Prisoner Renee Montoya's going to get buried in some far off prison without that luxury."
For a moment it felt like she was suffocating and she pressed her hands against her stomach to quell the panic. Her entire life, gone; but was it really that different than what she would have faced? It was so hard to comprehend at the moment but Gordon wasn't giving her time to adjust.
The little luxuries were no longer hers to have.
"I know you might be thinking what's to prevent you from talking. You know as well as I do what will await you back here."
Arkham. She could just imagine what the prisoners would do with a dirty cop. If she even made it that far, considering all the 'accidents' that could happen on a transit.
"In a way, we're saving your life but you need to do something else for me."
"What is it?" she whispered, licking her lips. She missed Gordon's flinch at the movement.
"I want the names and details of the officers in my squad - well, former, I suppose - who were dirty. If you know anything, you're going to give it up to me. I took a chance on you and Wurtz and you repaid me in blood. Miss Montoya, if I were you, I wouldn't hesitate to hand that information over."
She heard but didn't see him get up from his chair, heard the squeak of wood movement, the rustle of his clothing and the calming sound of the deep breaths he was taking. She didn't see him walk to the door but she heard him pause before opening it.
Finally, she picked her head up and meet his eyes. "Who's getting the blame for all of this?" she wondered.
Gordon sighed but didn't break eye contact. "The only man who could shoulder the burden, Miss Montoya. The best and the worst of all of us." He stopped again, hand hovering above the door. "And just so you know, Anna, your grandmother's hospital bills were paid for by an anonymous donor claiming to be from a charity."
With that, he closed the door on her and she sat back, hands muffling her sobs as she repeated her new name over in her mind again and again.
She'd killed Anna Ramirez just as much as she'd killed Rachel Dawes.
God save both their souls.