This should have ended with issue 10 (if not sooner), as
soon as March made his 'reveal' - and long before he put on the suit.
'If not Lincoln
March, then who am I?'
'You're a traitor,' the netting snaps, 'and a thief.' Batman
pulls the netting off himself as March steps back, readying the snare-gun again
in case he needed to 'buy time'.
'You were a member of the Court of Owls, but you betrayed
them,' says Batman, stepping forward...smiling. 'You only killed a handful of
them, though, and the others will come after you.'
'Let them come. I'm pretty damned hard to kill, now.' Lincoln steps back.
'The serum doesn't give you much of an advantage, Lincoln, especially not
against those who know how it works.'
'Wha-?'
'I did what you dared me to do. I found the truth inside the
lie.'
'A truth inside the lie. Exactly, just like with you. Like
when I saw you fight that Talon when we had our meeting in the tower. You were
supposed to die then, and I was going to watch.'
'You didn't know the Talon was going to attack you. I
reviewed the footage of the attack. You didn't know.'
'They said the Talon attacked me by accident. That he made a
mistake.'
'They lied. They lied about a lot of things, Lincoln.'
'Stop calling me that! You found the truth, tell me who I
am!' He fires the snare-gun again, and turns to open the storage cabinet behind
him. A batarang pins his left hand to the door of the cabinet and Lincoln roars with anger,
pulling his hand free as he turns to face Batman.
'You were a patient here during the time my parents were
patrons of the hospital. You were admitted soon after a car accident that
occurred on the junction of Lincoln
and March. The Court lied to you, Lincoln, you're not who you think you are.'
Lincoln
throws the snare-gun at him and again tries to open the cabinet. Batman catches
the gun and fires it at Lincoln,
pinning him, draped over the cabinet, to the wall.
'WHO AM I?! Say it, Bruce! Who. Am. I?'
Batman leans in and says, softly, 'You're not my brother.'
In a rage, Lincoln
roars and tears the net off himself and strikes out at Batman, who parries and
kicks him back into the wall.
'My brother died as a result of that accident.'
'No. I lived.'
'Thomas lived for 12 hours after the accident, but his
injuries were too severe.'
'I. LIVED!' Lincoln
rushes at Batman, who dodges each blow (moving backwards) with a sad look on
his face.
'I wish he had lived. I think about him sometimes...how
things might have been. I thought about him a lot when I was younger, joking to
myself that he would be my Kato or Tonto.'
'I am...Thomas...Wayne....' exclaims Lincoln as he throws
kicks and punches at Batman, steamy air drifting as they both move around the
room Batman has led him in to.
Lincoln
lunges at Batman in an attempt to grapple him to the ground, but Batman leaps
over him, landing softly.
'There's a willow tree near my parents' graves. My mother
planted it with my father, in my brother's memory.'
'Lies! She visited me every day! I remember!'
'No, you only remember what you think you're supposed to.
What you were told to. I'm sorry, Lincoln.'
'THOMAS WAYNE JU-' Enough! Batman's punch knocks
out several of Lincoln's
teeth and breaks his jaw.
'This sick fantasy is over. Your delusions are just that.'
Lincoln
writhes around trying to get up, steamy breath escaping his clenched mouth.
'I told you, Lincoln, the serum doesn't give you an
advantage over those who know how it works.'
End with the external scene of the cold storage room,
leaving the opportunity for someone else to play with the March and Talon toys
later on down the line – if they’re so inclined.
