They buried her three years ago.

Black rain, folded flags, too many closed mouths and eyes that didn’t meet his. She was gone. That’s what they said. That’s what they all believed.

But now, something else stalks the alleys of Gotham. A trench coat. A blank, faceless mask. A shadow that moves with purpose and violence. Whispers call her The Question. He saw her in the blurred footage from a robbery takedown. The way she moved, the slight limp on the right leg, the stance she always had before throwing a punch—it was her.

He told himself it was grief. Guilt. Too many cold nights staring at an empty desk across from his own. But then came the voice—crackled through a tapped radio frequency in a busted drug den.

“You still think like a cop.”

His blood froze. It wasn’t imagination.

She was alive.

And she was hiding.

Tonight, the city burns.

A warehouse down in the Narrows went up in flames—arson, clearly, but with no cause on file. It was an execution. The kind she would’ve never let go unanswered. So he waited.

And she came.

Her silhouette appeared through the smoke, rising from the edge of the rooftop like a phantom born from fire.

He didn’t announce himself. Just walked toward her.

“You were dead.”

She didn’t turn. “Close enough.”

“You let me think I buried you.”

“I let you live.”

Finally, she turned. That mask stared back at him, blank and uncaring—but beneath it, the tremor in her voice cracked the armor. “If you’d known, you would’ve followed. You always did.”

“I still would.”

“I know,” she whispered.

The silence between them stretched like a wound.

“You came back for vengeance?” he asked.

“No. Justice.”

A beat.

“For who?”

She looked over her shoulder, toward the glow of sirens far away. Then back at him.

“For the both of us.”

She stepped forward. Slowly. His breath caught as her gloved hand reached for the edge of her mask.

Then—

A sound. Not sirens. Closer. A gun cocking. A footstep on wet metal.

They weren’t alone.

She dropped the mask back in place. Voice low. “We’ll finish this.”

Before he could speak again—she was gone.

Smoke swallowed her.

But the trail she left behind was brighter than ever.