BATMAN: The New Continuity

"Does it seem like this day is just dragging on and on to you?"

Tim had just failed an Algebra II test. He knew it. He wondered why it was even necessary for the teacher to check it, he was so certain he'd bombed the exam worse than any exam had ever been bombed before. As he trotted down the steps, he suddenly realized what he was doing and almost smiled; it was refreshing in a bizarre sort of way to be preoccupied with something school related, rather than worrying about who Homicidal Lunatic #117 was going to kill next.

Ariana had said something. Tim looked over at her as they walked out to the student parking lot, his face shrinking, his brow wrinkled. He sucked air through his teeth and regarded Ari apprehensively. "Did you say something?" he squeaked out quickly. Ari's mouth fell open, then curved into a wide-eyed grin. She punched him in the arm with faux anger.

"You should've been listening," she chided him.

Tim nodded his head shamefully. "I know, I know. . . . But, seriously, what'd you say?"

"I just asked if this day seemed to be dragging on really long to you."

"Oh," Tim said, deadpan, as if he were expecting Ari to have asked him something far more grave and important, "well, maybe a little. Seventh period -- I thought I'd never get out of that class."

"Algebra?"

"Algebra Two."

Ari shrugged. "Whatever."

Tim regarded her snidely from the corner of his eye. "Uh-huh." They walked up to Tim's van, Ari going around to the passenger side. Tim unlocked the door and climbed in, leaning across the seat to open the other door for Ari. "I mean, you'd think he would spend a little time making sure we know this stuff before testing us on it," Tim continued when they were both inside.

Ari put her hand on Tim's shoulder, squeezing it then patting it gently several times. "Don't worry about it."

"I'm not."

"Oh, you are too."

"Well, I'm not from now on."

Ari smiled and nodded her head, satisfied. "Okay. See that you don't." She watched Tim silently for a moment, waited for him to start the engine and back out of the parking space. When they were in motion, driving toward the outlet to the road, she asked him, "Want to do something tonight?"

Tim shrugged, thought a moment, then nodded slowly, taking to the idea more with each nod. "Sure. Sure, we can do something tonight." Tim turned out onto the road and smiled. A night out with Ariana; what a concept. "Like what? What'd you have in mind?"

Now Ari shrugged, thought a moment, then shrugged again and looked beside her out the window. "I don't know . . . I'm just sick of talking on the phone."

Tim nodded strongly in agreement. "I heard that. But, come-on. You brought it up; you've gotta have something in mind that you want to do tonight." Tim's eyes left the road and looked at Ari for a moment. She met his eyes and shrugged apologetically. "Whatever you wanna do, I wanna do," Tim said.

"Feel like going to see a movie with me?"

Tim broke into an ornery grin and focused back on the road. Ari regarded his grin curiously. "What? What is it?"

Tim shook his head innocently, fighting off the grin. "Nothing. It's . . . it's nothing."

Ari slapped him easily on the arm. "Come-on, what's so funny?"

"All right," Tim said, inhaling deeply, composing himself. "It's just that, you tack 'with me' onto the end of asking me to do anything, and I'm gonna do it without even having to think about it."

Ari laughed out loud, then regarded Tim with a big smile and a shake of her head. "Oh, right. Like you'd go on a neighborhood killing spree if I asked you to do it with me."

Tim tilted his head to the side slightly, then shook it several times. "Well . . . no, no. There are limits just like there are to everything. But if you were to, for instance, say 'Hey Tim, will you swim naked in a big vat of broccoli soup with me?' or 'Hey Tim, will you come over and help me impale beavers on tent spikes?' . . . I'd be over there before you could count to five."

"Swimming naked in broccoli soup? Is this another look into your twisted mind or something?" Ari asked, eyeing Tim with a sly smile.

Tim returned her look in kind and shrugged. "Could be, although in fairness, I did just make it up."

Ariana's house was coming up. Tim eased down the brake and turned into the driveway. He shifted into park in front of the house and turned to face Ari. "Look, you check the paper or something, see if there's a movie you want to go to playing anywhere. Call me, lemme know when I have to be here, and I'll be here."

"Got it." Ari leaned in and kissed Tim quickly on the lips, then opened her door and slid out. Tim shifted the van into reverse, but held on the brake and watched Ari walk up to her front door. She looked back to him and gave a wave before going inside.

900 Block, Border Avenue
4:38 p.m.

As Nightwing, Dick had been to Bordertown many times before, always at night. He didn't like it then. Seeing it now in broad daylight, being able to fully behold the decay that held onto the area like an iron clamp, he liked it even less.

He hadn't driven the van before. According to Alfred, the van had come into service right around when Tim first put on the Robin costume. Not yet able to drive, Robin had needed Alfred to chauffeur him through Gotham when circumstances required he go on a solo patrol, and the van was the most efficient, least-conspicuous way of doing it. By the time Dick returned to Gotham for good, Tim had his special driver's license and Robin had the Redbird.

It made for a nice ride, Dick thought. Tim had obviously been taken with it, since he got one for himself shortly after getting the Redbird. Dick couldn't see owning a van, though. It's what driving your father's car must be like, he thought to himself, not that I'd know exactly what that feels like . . . But, no matter how nice it drives, it's still your father's car.

The van was as sophisticated on the inside as the Batmobile, only there was room for more. The equivalent of a full-size computer monitor sat next to the driver's seat up front, built into the cockpit at an angle that allowed it to be observed easily from both front seats and anywhere in the back. Currently, the monitor displayed a moving schematic of Border Avenue, with the van represented as a blue icon on the far left. As the van moved along up the street, the map would scroll to indicate the vehicle's movement without having to change its position on the screen.

Dick checked the map, then out the window; he'd just passed 987 Border Avenue. His motorcycle, according to its tracker, was somewhere close up ahead. Dick reached down and pressed a key on a control pad just below the monitor: a small program window opened up in the screen's upper right corner displaying the location of the motorcycle.

The motorcycle was represented on the screen by a red icon. The red icon was flashing over 997 Border Avenue on the map in the small window. "That's different," Dick heard himself say. In the Batcave, Dick had looked at the trace map Bruce had displayed; that map showed the bike's probable location as out on the sidewalk, in front of the buildings. Now, apparently, it was in one of them.

Dick pulled the van to a stop along the curb across the street from 997 Border Avenue. He left the vehicle, locking it and activating its security system. Any attempt to steal the van while its security systems were activated would be an exercise in futility. Not that vans were popular targets for car thieves anyway, although in Bordertown nothing that wasn't owned by one gang member or another stayed that way for long.

Starting across the street with his hands in his pockets, trying to appear as casual and at-ease as he could, Dick scanned the area around him incessantly. His eyes swept back and forth ceaselessly as he walked. As Nightwing, he felt his instincts naturally heighten themselves whenever he was in Bordertown; now, in civilian clothes, his instincts were running on overdrive.

Building 997 was condemned. So were most of the rest of the structures all up and down Border Avenue. Old, dilapidated, falling apart -- the city would have ordered them torn down years ago if only there were someone willing to do it. The decrepit neighborhoods of Bordertown were home to every kind of urban criminal street trash, but like so many other evils of modern society, it had simply been accepted by people who then did their best to ignore it.

Building 997 had a double front door that opened up wide enough to accommodate a motorcycle the size of Dick's easily. The front doors were open of course, they had no locks -- in Bordertown, locks were pointless. Dick walked inside and stood in a stairwell. It was dark, since most of the windows were nailed shut and boarded over with sheets of plywood. Dick naturally had keener-than-average sight in the dark and therefore hadn't brought a flashlight with him, but even he was finding he had to squint at the floor to see where he was stepping. Up ahead he saw a sliver of light shining out from beneath a door.

The room was still very dark, of course, when Dick reached the door. He ran his hands across it, sliding his palm from one side of the frame to another. The door was wide enough to fit the bike through. Dick leaned into the door slightly -- it was latched shut -- and put his ear next to it. He heard no voices inside, no movement. He looked down near his feet: the sun was still out, and the light coming from beneath the door was just dim enough that it could have been natural.

Dick took a moment, then decided that the room behind the door was empty. He felt for the knob, grasped it in his palm and turned it, and pushed the door open. He opened the door approximately eighteen inches and peered through the opening into the room: it was sunlight he had seen coming from beneath the door, shining through several broken windows along the opposite wall. The room appeared to be empty. Dick opened the door the rest of the way, and there wasn't a person to be seen.

The room was, or at least had been, the living room of an apartment. In one corner, set apart from the rest of the room by a countertop, was what had obviously once been a kitchen area, now fully gutted and useless.

There was a large oil spot on the floor, stained into the already filthy carpet. Dick knelt down at the spot and touched it with his finger. It was still wet. Dick didn't waste time wondering where the oil had come from. He stood, turned to his right and started toward that wall, where there was another door.

On the other side of that door was another, larger room -- larger because a wall that had once divided the space in half had obviously been knocked out. Dick saw a collection of boxes pushed and piled against the wall to his left as he entered the room. The boxes were assorted, some plastic storage crates, some simple cardboard, all labeled with single words that vaguely alluded to their contents: "Engine", "Lights", "Seats", and so on. The boxes in each category were stacked up three high except for "Lights", of which there were only two boxes. Across the floor on the other side of the room, Dick saw what was left of his motorcycle, basically the handlebars, gas tank, wheels, and headlight. A skinny, head-shaven, rough looking White man was kneeling at the front of the bike, working on disconnecting the headlight.

Dick stood just a few feet inside the door. On the floor beside the man was a cardboard box -- the third "Lights" box. Dick watched the man work on the headlight for a few seconds more, then inhaled long and sharp through his nostrils.

The man working on the motorcycle stopped and looked over at Dick. A moment later he stood up, looking angry and confused all at the same time. "You figure you'll get a good bit for the guts of my bike when you fence 'em?" Dick asked, sliding his palms into his back pockets.

"Who the fuck are you?" the man demanded, tilting his bald head slightly to the side.

"Nobody you know," Dick said with a gentle shake of his head, looking the man in the eye. Dick looked back at the remnants of his bike. "So, really, how much do you think you'll get for it?"

The man was staring at Dick, and was now plainly more confused than angry. "What the fuck are you talking about? Get the fuck outta here!"

Dick held up his right hand, palm out, fingers up, and gently patted the air in front of him. "Relax, man. I'm only asking you because this wasn't originally my bike. I just sort of kept it after it was abandoned by the owner. I'd like to know how much it was worth, that's all. How much would you say?"

The man turned his back on Dick, walking around to a tool bench on the other side of the bike, mumbling "What the fuck . . ." to himself as he went. He reached for something on the bench.

Dick took a long slide-step to his left and opened up the top "Light" box, pulling out a headlight. Keeping one eye on the man at the workbench, Dick unscrewed the glass lens from the light and kept it in his right palm, leaving the rest of the light in the box and stepping away again.

The man turned away from the workbench, bringing his right arm up and pointing it in Dick's direction. In his right hand he held a small revolver. Dick looked at the gun with mild interest. He shrugged with his eyebrows, then looked in the man's face. "A little old fashioned for this neighborhood, isn't it?"

The man cocked the gun's hammer with his thumb and held its muzzle steadily pointed toward Dick's chest. "Gets the job done."

Dick let the lens slip from his palm to his fingers. He stepped quickly to his right. The man fired the revolver out of reflex, then looked immediately at Dick with annoyance. He started to move the gun over in line with Dick's chest again. Dick stepped back to the left, brought his right hand up to his chest, and flung the glass lens out like a Frisbee.

The lens spun across the room and struck the man on the forearm of his gunhand. He yelled "Fuck!!" in both pain and shock, and dropped his arm.

As the lens had been flying toward its target, Dick had been moving toward his. The instant the man dropped his gunhand, Dick was there, his right hand clamped onto the wrist of the man's gunhand, his left hand on his collar. Dick squeezed his wrist hand, and the man dropped the gun.

"Now, you tell me how it happened that my bike ended up in your makeshift garage here," Dick ordered, still in a calm, almost conversational voice. As he spoke, he spun the man around, wrenching the man's arm around his back into a vicious hammerlock, and pushing him forward against the workbench. "Who gave it to you?"

"Fuck you."

Dick groaned. "Didn't you ever learn any other swear words? Or do you have a sentimental attachment to 'fuck'?"

"No one gave the goddamn thing to me," the man spat out, laying his head down on the surface of the bench.

Dick nodded, a somewhat pleased expression on his face. "That was good, 'goddamn' is good." Dick tightened the hammer lock, coaxing a strained groan out of the man. "So, where'd you get the bike?"

"The fuckin' thing was outside a little while ago."

"Awww," Dick said scoldingly, "now we're back to 'fuck'. That's not progress. . . . You just found it outside on the street?"

"Fuckin' right. Figured it might've been a gift or somethin'."

"A gift? From who?"

"One of my fences. . . . Sometimes they find shit they might be able to sell, but they can't do mechanics for shit. So they let me have 'em to take apart."

Dick nodded with understanding, then tightened the hammerlock even further, and pushed his left hand down on the man's head, pressing it hard against the top of the bench. "Any of your fences happen to also be murdering psychotics?"

". . . the fuck are you talkin' about?"

Dick released the hammerlock, lifting the man's head up two inches from the bench then smacking it back down. The man yelled out in pain, then held the sides of his head, shaking off the blow. Dick took a few steps away. "Where's the steel box?"

The man shook his head several more times, then looked sideways up at Dick from a bent-over position. "What fuckin' box?"

"The 'fuckin' box' that was on the bike. The locked steel box mounted behind the seat."

"There wasn't no fuckin' steel box on the thing."

Dick walked over to what was left of the motorcycle and looked behind where the seat used to be. On the metal wheel guard where the box had been mounted were two holes, through which had run the bolts that fastened the box to the bike. Dick ran his thumb over the holes, then looked up at the man. "You didn't take the box off of here?"

The man shook his head, holding his temples. "Fuck no."

Dick shook his head, biting his lower lip bitterly. He turned his back on the bike and the workbench and the man who still held the sides of his head. Dick started out of the room. "Just keep the damn bike," Dick told the man as he stepped out the door, "it's all worthless anyway."

Outside, Dick found the van just as he'd left it.

Drake Mansion
5:10 p.m.

Tim had just finished up his homework and was laying down to see how far he could get on his daily nap when the phone rang. Suspecting it was Ariana, Tim answered it after the first ring. "Hello?"

It was Ariana. "Hey, Tim," she greeted him warmly.

"Hey . . ." he replied in a soft, doting tone that he was certain conveyed the smile on his face right then. "So," he began after a moment, "where're we going tonight?"

"Well . . ." Ari began, a curl in her voice seeming to betray a smile of her own, "I was looking through the newspaper and I found this ad for a movie showing all this week at a theater downtown."

Tim's eyebrows went up with interest. "Oh yeah? What movie?"

"The Mark of Zorro!"

Tim nearly dropped the phone.

Having nothing else to say, he cleared his throat and tried not to be too loud about it. "Zorro, huh? Which . . . version of Zorro?"

Ari let out a small laugh that she quickly suppressed. "It's the classic one, with Tyrone Power!"

Tim cleared his throat again, then took a deep breath and started nodding to himself, hardly conscious he was doing it.

"It's playing downtown at the Crestfall Moviehouse," Ari continued, giddy self-satisfaction growing in her voice. "Do you know what's special about that movie?" she asked all of a sudden.

"Hmm?" Tim intoned immediately, as with the clearing of his throat only because he was unable to say anything else.

"You must be wondering why I'm so excited about seeing this movie."

"Oh," Tim spoke finally, "no -- I mean yes! No I don't know, but yes I'm wondering . . ."

Ari cleared her throat delicately. "It's the movie that my parents saw when they first fell in love! Before they even came to America, they saw it in an old discount movie house in Ukraine. . . . They weren't too much older than we are."

"Oh," Tim said rather absently. "Oh," he immediately corrected, "that's terrific. That's great." He was trying his best to sound excited instead of more than a little creeped out.

"Is something wrong?" Tim's uneasiness was apparently finally beginning to filter through Ari's blind enthusiasm. "Don't you want to see this movie?"

Tim abruptly stopped his unconscious nodding and immediately started unconsciously shaking his head. "No, no, it's not that," he tried to assure Ari, and himself. "I'll take you to this movie. Sure. I'd love to. I've never seen it, you know."

"Why are you talking so fast? What's wrong?" Ari sounded both puzzled and concerned.

"Nothing's wrong," Tim replied immediately, his voice firm until it broke near the end of "wrong." He further assured her, "You tell me what time the movie starts, and we'll be there. I promise. Remember? I said anything you want."

"Okay . . . as long as nothing's wrong," Ari said, sounding a little more confident than she had a moment ago. "It starts at seven-fifteen, but we should leave soon to make it on time: it's downtown and I don't know if there'll be a line or . . ."

Tim began nodding again, scooting to the edge of the bed, and standing up a moment later. "Sure, sure. I'll leave here to pick you up in a few minutes. Sound good?"

"Yep," Ari said, short but clearly pleased. "See you in a little while . . ." Her voice trailed off in that slow, soft way that Tim loved.

"In a little while," Tim repeated, smiling at the thought of seeing Ari, not at what they would be doing. "Bye."

Tim hung up the phone, his hand lingering idly on the handset for a moment before he picked it up again and dialed a number quickly with his thumb.

Beneath Wayne Manor
5:17 p.m.

Bruce was in the gym, on his eleventh mile on the treadmill. He always did twenty. He listened to Dick as he ran.

"You don't seem too upset," Dick observed cautiously.

"I don't get upset if I can manage not to," Bruce answered, not averting his eyes from straight ahead for a moment, not losing a step.

Dick crossed his arms and nodded. "You're managing pretty well."

Bruce reached down with his right hand and turned up the speed on the treadmill, quickening his step appropriately. "It's not an unsolveable problem. Things could get very difficult for us, but it's certainly manageable."

A phone rang from somewhere nearby. Dick reached immediately into his front pants pocket. "Still you have to admit," Dick said to Bruce as he looked down at his pocket, "I screwed that pooch over pretty . . . I screwed that pooch."

Bruce shook his head. "If you want to be upset for something, be upset for letting the Joker escape, which is something I've let happen more times than I wish I could remember." The phone rang again. "Don't kill yourself over the theft of the suit -- that was purely coincidental."

Dick pulled a small cellular phone from his pocket. "That's me." He glanced at the phone's LCD display. "My home line," he added as an aside before answering the call and bringing the phone up to his ear. "Dick's place."

"Dick, hi," came Tim's voice over the tiny speaker. "Can you talk?"

Turning his back on Bruce and the treadmill, Dick left the gym and walked slowly toward the shadowy edge of the lower plateau. "Sure, Tim," he said in an easy, quiet voice. "What's wrong?"

"Well . . ." Tim began, sounding a bit puzzled about something. He stopped for a moment. "What's with the sotto voce?"

Dick laughed weakly. "Where'd you pick that up?"

Dick imagined Tim shrugging in response. "We're reading a film script in English class; that was one of the directions for a character's dialogue."

"Really?" Dick asked, genuinely interested and selfishly curious. "The script for what movie?"

"Ah, it's called 'Pale Hand of Death,'" Tim explained somewhat disdainfully. "It's an old script by Ed Wood that was never filmed."

Dick raised his eyebrows at that. "Ed Wood wrote a movie that he never made? How bad is it, anyway?"

"Pretty laughable so far, like you'd imagine a typical Ed Wood movie would be. We're only about a fourth of the way through it so far."

Dick sighed, began shaking his head ruefully. "We never did anything even close to that interesting in my high school English course. It was always stilted, supposedly-creative writing prompts, or over-analyzing a poem that chances are I enjoyed before that class."

"Yeah," Tim said with understanding, "that's mostly what my class has been this year. But our teacher, Mr. Mackson, told us when he passed out the scripts last week that he was deviating from curriculum temporarily in the interest of delaying the death of our imaginations as long as possible."

Dick chuckled. "I never had any teachers like that. They were all cogs, you know? Rock-solid establishment guys. . . . Sotto voce . . ." Dick gave another sigh, then put his free left hand in his pocket and started back across the cave floor toward the elevator platform. "So, why'd you call me?"

"What movie did Bruce go to see with his parents on the night they were killed?" Tim asked immediately, almost blurting it out.

The question caught Dick off-guard, to say the least. He turned his back on the edge of the plateau and started away from it. He stepped up on the waiting elevator platform. "What's got you thinking about that?" Dick asked as he pushed the elevator's control handle over to the Up position.

The platform started up, its motor humming steadily beneath it.

"Well-- . . . That sounds like the elevator in the Cave," Tim observed uncertainly.

The elevator reached the Cave's upper plateau and came to a stop. Dick shifted the control handle back to the Off setting and stepped off. He started toward the computer console. "Yeah, I just came back from the city, I'm still at the big house. I got the call on my cellular. We can still talk, though -- Bruce is still down on the treadmill."

"Right. Okay," Tim said, sounding reassured. "So . . . ?"

"Okay . . ." Dick said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I thought you already knew."

"I think I do, but I just want to hear you say it."

"Alfred told you, right?"

"Yeah," Tim said, growing impatient, "Alfred told me the whole story before Bruce ever gave me the costume. But I just . . . want to make sure."

Dick exhaled uncomfortably into the phone. "Okay, I'll tell you. Just . . . hang on."

"You didn't forget did you?"

Dick scoffed, "What? Right, like I'd forget that. No, I just need to . . . check something . . . first." Compelled by a natural paranoia, coupled with his strong instinct of self-preservation, Dick turned around and stared glanced sideways at the stone staircase, then straight ahead at the elevator platform, making certain he was alone as he prepared for what he was about to say. "The movie was . . . 'The Mark of Zorro' . . ."

Dick gave a long, exaggerated sigh of relief, then grinned into the phone. "Sorry," he said, still grinning, "it wasn't that hard."

Tim gave a longer, lower, more genuine-sounding sigh of his own. "Okay. Thanks."

"Right, no problem," Dick said, turning around and sitting down at the computer console, putting his feet up on a clear space near one of the corners, "now it's your turn. What's going on?"

"Ariana . . ." Tim began slowly, "wants me to take her to see . . . that movie tonight; it's playing at some old movie theater downtown."

"Not the Monarch, is it?"

"No . . ."

"Yeah, because that would be downright damn eerie."

Tim gave a shallow laugh. "Which would make this situation what? Quasi-eerie? I mean, I'm going to take Ari and see this movie with her, but there's no way I'm going to enjoy it. What's she gonna think when she looks over at me and sees how . . . sees what I'm like?"

"You know that . . . that it's an option of yours to tell her. Didn't Bruce tell you keeping your secrets was up to you?"

Now as his young friend spoke, Dick imagined Tim shaking his head. "No," Tim said, flatly dismissing the suggestion. "When I told Ariana 'everything,' I only really told her things that directly affected me and her. That movie is a personal thing for Bruce -- he didn't even tell me about it. Telling her who Batman and Robin and Nightwing are goes together -- if she knows one, she ought to know all, know what I mean?"

Dick nodded for a moment, then stopped. "Is that how it's going to be with Spoiler?"

"Spoiler's not going to find out anything," Tim answered with resolve.

Dick shrugged. "You might tell her eventually."

"Uh-huh," Tim said skeptically, "and given enough time, it might snow in Hell, too."

"Right. Got it."

Tim sighed, and was quiet for a moment. "So, really, what am I going to do? Not going is out. Telling her is out."

Dick shrugged again. "Fake it," he suggested simply.

"Fake it?" Tim asked, incredulous.

"Exactly. Act like nothing's bothering you. Bury it. Practice now, and in time you might be as good at it as Bruce is now." Dick glanced behind him briefly: he was still alone.

"But the whole reason I told her the truth was so I wouldn't have to lie to her anymore."

"Well, you wouldn't be lying really; you'd be hiding your feelings. Men are supposed to do that anyway."

Tim sounded reluctant. "Just . . . hide it? It's that simple?"

"It's just like putting on a mask," Dick explained, as if it were the simplest of acts to do what he was describing. "It'll be a lot easier once you're actually doing it. Just watch the movie, watch Ariana, smile whenever she smiles, put your arm around her . . . watch the movie like a critic, too, so you can talk to her about it in the van on the way home."

"No," Tim said with finality, almost certainly shaking his head. "No, I can't do that. I wear the mask, I'm Robin. I can't put-on for Ariana, especially not for her."

Dick sighed. "Okay. Go to the movie with Ariana and watch it. It'll be hard, but just remember that just because that movie means one thing to Bruce doesn't mean it has to be a soft spot for you, too. Leave open the possibility that it can hold a different meaning for you."

"Right," Tim said, satisfied, "and if she notices something wrong with me . . . I'll just do my best explaining it to her."

Dick nodded reluctantly. "Right . . ." He cleared his throat. "Okay. You set now?"

"Yeah. Thanks a lot, Dick."

"You bet. Anytime." Dick shut the phone off and put it back in his pocket. He stood up from the computer console and walked to the edge of the plateau. He looked down: Bruce must have still been in the gym.

The Walking Wing�d Caf�
6:23 p.m.

Oswald Cobblepot dabbed at the corners of his mouth with the cloth napkin, and his waiter, who said his name was Brent, lifted the plate that had held the appetizer to take it away. "Thank you," Cobblepot offered, almost an afterthought as the waiter walked back to the kitchen.

Groverton regarded his employer and friend from across the table. "I suppose you're going to work off that second appetizer with an extra game of eight-ball tomorrow."

Cobblepot gave Groverton a withering gaze as he folded the napkin neatly in half and laid it down on the table. "Spare me, Groverton, spare me your dietary ridicule."

"I apologize," Groverton said, holding up his palm. "I thought you were watching your diet these last few weeks. I thought a gentle reminder was prudent just then."

"I was watching my . . . food intake," Cobblepot said with a nod as he reached for the wine and took a sip, "but last night I got a bit more introspective than usual during a late-night session at the pool table, and I realized how utterly without consequence my physical appearance was." He took another sip of wine, then set the glass down. "It's definitely not something I need to be that preoccupied about."

Groverton leaned forward, propping his right elbow on the table and resting his chin in his hand. He sighed. "It's not appearance that you should be worrying about, Oswald; it's health. You're not a naturally-obese person."

Cobblepot raised an eyebrow and leaned his right arm on the tabletop. "I certainly didn't have to work at it."

Groverton rolled his eyes with mild exasperation, shaking his head and staring down at his own lap.

"I appreciate the concern," Cobblepot began, "but I wish you'd understand how little the size of my stomach means to me. Possible extension of lifespan aside, we both know that I didn't get to where I am now because I was in good physical shape." He took the wine up and emptied the glass, swallowing the last of it and looking at the glass as he gave a satisfied sigh. He put the glass down again and interlocked his fingers over his stomach as he regarded Groverton. "My wits can carry me no matter how heavy I get -- they always have."

Brent returned with the main courses. Both men had ordered steamed lobster, no butter -- Oswald had allowed Groverton to talk him into it. Cobblepot broke open the lobster tail as Brent walked back to the kitchen. "Besides," he began, picking up a knife to help the white meat out of its brittle red shell, "I don't weight that much."

Groverton started into his own lobster. He stopped, pointing at Oswald with his knife. "For your height, you weigh too much. It's not that you look bad, because you don't -- it's your height."

"Ah," Oswald responded, feigning enlightenment with a nod, "so I have to be taller then."

Groverton seemed to sense he was being toyed with and sighed, massaging his forehead gently with his fingertips. Still, he was apparently willing to play along. "If you were taller, you wouldn't need to lose weight. But, since you're shorter, you can't afford to be fatter."

Cobblepot raised his eyebrows and stood from the table. "Behold Groverton, unchallenged king of the land of Convolutia." He looked toward the back of the dining room and started away from the table. "I need to use the gentlemen's before I start that lobster."

When Cobblepot walked into the men's room, he went straight for a urinal. He didn't notice the man who was standing behind the door until he had walked away from the urinal and was standing in front of the mirror above the sink. Oswald recognized who it was as soon as he saw the man. Afterall, with this man's looks, who else could he possibly have been?

Cobblepot washed and rinsed his hands calmly, turned off the water, shook the excess drops from his hands, then turned and faced the Joker. After pausing for a moment, he acknowledged the purple-suited man with a simple nod, then pulled several paper towels from the dispenser on the wall and began to dry off his hands.

"I didn't expect running into you here," Oswald remarked as he balled up the paper towels and tossed them into the trashcan beneath the dispenser.

The Joker's eyes fell down softly on Cobblepot's stomach. "Eating well, I see," he said, putting his hands in his front pockets and leaning back against the wall.

Cobblepot watched the Joker silently, his gaze lingering for a few seconds, then looked abruptly away. He moved toward the door, but the moment his hand was on the door's handle to open it, the Joker's hand was gripping his wrist. Oswald looked from the Joker's hand on his wrist, up the Joker's purple-clad arm to his shoulder, then up and over to his pale, narrowed madman's eyes.

The Joker's eyes darted down to Oswald's hand quickly, and he cracked a wide grin. "Such a lack of couth, leaving before we've even had a chance to chat. I really expected better of you, Penguin."

Oswald clenched his jaw and met the Joker's gaze straight-on. "You do not intimidate me, you know. You can't keep me in here."

"Don't I?" the Joker asked, sounding as if he were crushed by what Cobblepot had said. He grinned even wider, looked down and removed his hand from Oswald's wrist. His look resettled then on Oswald's eyes. "Can't I?"

Oswald gritted his teeth and looked down at the handle of the door. "What the hell are you doing here?"

The Joker's grin went from mildly maniacal to a look of frighteningly false sweetness. He regarded Cobblepot with a slightly tilted head. "I saw you and your lackey come in for dinner. The way you eat, I figured you'd have to come in the bathroom sooner or later."

Oswald rolled his eyes. "But why me? Why follow me in here, dammit? What do you want?"

The Joker leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms and tilting his head back, looking down his face at Cobblepot. He seemed to try and stifle another grin, but couldn't. He smiled wide and watched Oswald with anticipation.

Cobblepot's face took on an expression of disgust as he looked at the Joker. He began shaking his head slowly. "You don't scare me. Not even a little."

Now the Joker shook his head. "So . . . fucking . . . self-conscious . . ." he muttered, half under his breath. Then the Joker squared his shoulders, cleared his throat, folded his arms, and regarded Oswald from behind an inquisitive, scholarly mask. "You're not?"

Cobblepot shook his head matter-of-factly. "No."

The Joker nodded, pushing out his lower-lip thoughtfully. He touched the fingertips of his right hand lightly to his chin and continued nodding. "Why is that, do you think?"

Oswald reached again for the handle of the door. "I'm not going to stand here and--"

The Joker's right hand lashed out and slapped Oswald's hand hard away from the door. The Joker looked on Cobblepot, eyes wide like those of a teacher who was silently reprimanding a persistently disobedient child. "Why is that, do you think?" he repeated calmly, his right hand going back to his chin.

Cobblepot took a breath and thought for a moment. He looked briefly at the floor, then back up again, meeting the Joker's eyes with a sharp gaze. "Most people fear you, but I don't. You're utterly unpredictable, and that makes them fear you. And that fear allows you to control them. And knowing they're being controlled makes them even more afraid." Oswald shook his head slowly, deliberately, every movement driving home his conviction. "I don't let myself fear the unpredictable."

The Joker's eyes widened with interest. "Oh, really?" He took a step away from the wall and clasped his hands behind his back. He looked at Oswald thoughtfully, his eyes drawn narrow. "You know," he began, "for most people it's not my being unpredictable that scares them; it's the fact that I'm utterly out of my fucking mind!"

The Joker nodded lightly several times, seeming totally satisfied with his explanation. "Being at the mercy of a physically grotesque lunatic who has killed without conscience in the past and, frankly, enjoyed the hell out of it . . . well, that'll just flat-out scare the shit out of some people." The Joker's face lit up briefly, as if struck by a flash of clarity. He pointed to his own chest with both hands. "But don't ask me to explain it!"

"I am leaving this men's room," Oswald explained in a calm voice. "I own this restaurant, and I always have at least four armed security guards undercover in the dining room at all time. If, when I open this door and leave, you as much as brush against my shoulder -- if you as much as let one of those guards see your face, all four of them will soon recognize you as a threat and shoot you down."

"They can't do that!" the Joker exclaimed, his face a mask of exaggerated shock. "I'm not the sheriff!"

Oswald groaned in disgust and started to open the bathroom door again.

This time the Joker didn't move, but simply tilted his head back and calmly asked "Wanna kill Batman?" before Oswald could step one foot out into the dining room.

Oswald froze in the open door. After a moment, he reluctantly stepped back inside, closing the door. He couldn't help feeling defeated somehow, still in this bathroom.

"Then that's the reason you're in my bathroom," Oswald said, folding his arms.

The Joker grinned sheepishly. "I know I could have brought that up sooner . . ."

"How is it you plan to kill the Batman?" the Penguin asked, getting immediately to the point.

"Well . . ." the Joker began, turning away modestly, "I wouldn't let you kill, of course. But, I do have a certain item that I guess a chap in your position could use. Not you personally, because of your weight problem, but it would benefit you."

The Penguin narrowed his eyes, looked at the Joker skeptically. "No," he said, shaking his head. "No deal."

"Aww," the Joker said, seeming crestfallen, "why not?"

"If there's anything I've learned from your history with people, it's never to let you do me any favors," the Penguin explained simply.

The Joker put his hand on his chest, his mouth falling wide open. He seemed absolutely taken aback. He pointed at the Penguin, a look of uncertainty on his face. "You thought I wanted to help you? Do a good deed? Help out a fellow rogue, or some other unbelievably trite thing?" The Joker broke into boisterous, if brief, hysterical laughter. He stopped laughing abruptly, his manner taking on an eerie instant calm. "No, no, no. Certainly not."

The Joker put his palms together, interlocking his fingers and holding his arms straight down in front of him like an eager child. "I'm not doing this to help you! No, hell no. I'm just giving you this little gift, which fate just dropped into my lap like an inconvenient child, because I can't use it right now." The Joker put his left hand firmly on the Penguin's shoulder and looked at him with utter seriousness. "We all want children of our own sometimes in our lives," he started to explain, "but when the child is unwanted, you just have to get rid of the little bastard." The Joker brought up his right hand and held the Penguin by both shoulders, looking meaningfully into the other man's eyes. "My God, Ozzie, don't you know that . . . abortion doesn't mean you love your baby any less. . . . It just means that you love you more! . . ."

The Joker stepped back from the Penguin and cleared his throat. "I'm not giving you this as a favor," he began again. "I'm letting you have it because I need you to keep darling Batman busy until I can work up my next little surprise for him. It's all really selfish."

"Uh-huh." The Penguin crossed his arms and looked at the Joker with the sharp eyes of an intelligent, careful businessman, a practiced deal maker. "So, what sort of item are we talking about?"

The Joker shook his head profusely. He put both hands on the Penguin's shoulders again and turned him so that he was now directly facing the bathroom door. "No, no, no. I couldn't live with myself if I spoiled the surprise. I left a note for you about it in your office, where you could find it and everything."

"You were in my office?" the Penguin asked, looking back toward the Joker.

"Oh, don't worry," the Joker said in a hasty, reassuring tone, "I was only there for a few minutes. And your desk should be easy clean-up." He gave the Penguin a gentle shove toward the door. "Now go fill in that dimple."

The Joker reached over the Penguin's shoulder and shoved him out into the dining room.

Oswald took a moment to straighten his jacket, then started back for his table. On the way over, he tried his best to think of how to explain to Groverton why he had taken so long.

Crestfall Movie House
7:08 p.m.

Tim took a deep breath as he stepped out of the van and tried not to let Ariana see him do it. "Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro," read the marquee. Tim put his arm around Ari, and as they walked beneath that marquee up to the box office, Tim wondered if Bruce had seen a similar sight entering the Monarch Theater that night twenty-five years ago.

After that, he tried his best not to think about it. That attempt lasted for the eleven seconds it took him to pay for he and Ari's tickets and walk inside to the lobby.

"Popcorn?" Ari asked, insistent, pulling Tim over to the snack bar by the left arm.

"Sure," Tim replied half-heartedly as he allowed her to lead him over to the line, which consisted of only two other people.

"Doesn't look like there's too many people here," Ari observed excitedly to Tim, standing directly in front of him, facing the snack bar ahead.

Tim shrugged. "Maybe. Or, maybe we're just early."

Ariana frowned, raising her eyebrows thoughtfully for a moment, then bringing up her left wrist to check her watch. "We're not that early; the movie starts in, like, five minutes."

Tim took a half-step out of line and looked over at the entrance to the theater, the doors propped open. There didn't seem to be too many people inside. "I didn't know you were into older movies like this," he said, stepping back in behind Ari, putting his hands on her shoulders.

She shook her head. "I'm not really, you know? I think black and white is kinda boring."

Tim raised his eyebrows. "You'll never get into film school with that attitude, missy."

"Oh no, I guess I'll just have to live without that," Ari said, dryly feigning disappointment. "No, really," she started again, "the only reason I really want us to see it is because Mom and Dad did. I just thought it would be . . . I just wanted to see it." She turned around and looked at Tim. "Do you know what I mean?"

Tim nodded, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Sure. Absolutely."

Ari was next in line. The guy behind the snack bar, who looked like he couldn't have been older than Tim and Ari by more than two or three years, smiled warmly at her. "Hey," he said in a voice that was just inviting enough to force Tim to give a bitter smile and look down at the ground.

"Popcorn?" Ari asked Tim quickly over her shoulder.

Tim put both hands on her shoulders. "Sure," he said to her, then looked up and met the eyes of the guy behind the snack bar.

The guy looked away, abruptly turning around and facing the empty popcorn bags stacked up behind the counter. "What size popcorn?" he asked, his back still to Tim and Ari.

Ari looked up at Tim, and he shrugged. "I don't care," he whispered to her. "Wanna just get a large and share?"

"Large popcorn," Ari said. The guy behind the counter immediately grabbed a size Large bag and began scooping popcorn out of the machine and into it.

"Butter?" he asked.

"Drown it," Tim responded, then smiled down at Ari. Tim reached back for his wallet. "Two Cokes to drink, too. Size Medium."

The popcorn and drinks paid for, Tim followed Ari into the theater. She slowed up and let him walk up beside her when they started down the center aisle. "That guy acted kind of nervous -- did you notice that?"

"Yeah, I saw that," Tim said, grinning.

"What do you think his problem was?"

Tim shrugged. "Well, I think when he first saw you, it was love at first sight, but he was too dumb to see that you were with me until a few seconds after. He was probably more embarrassed than he was nervous."

Ari picked out a pair of seats in the back corner of the theater, the darkest part of the auditorium, and one of the farthest from the screen. Tim sat down next to her, placing the bag of popcorn on his lap and his drink on the floor between his feet.

The screen was blank, giving off a faint silvery sheen beneath the dim illumination of the aisle lights. Tim stared at the screen, checked his watch, waited for the film to start. Helplessly, his thoughts drifted to Thomas and Martha Wayne, people he knew only as faces in a painting, but people with whom he now felt a shared intimacy. Bruce Wayne's parents had sat in a theater that couldn't have been too unlike this one, and watched this same movie Tim was about to watch on the night Batman was born.

He was about to see one of the last things Thomas and Martha Wayne ever saw, Tim realized, probably the last thing that ever made them smile.

Tim thought of his own mother, wondered what had been the last thing to make her smile. Then he shook his head and took a handful of popcorn.

A glance to the right showed Tim that Ari was watching him with quiet concern, and apparently had been for more than a moment or two. She took the popcorn from his lap and sat the bag down on the floor between them, then put her hand on his shoulder. "Hey . . . are you all right?"

Tim met her eyes hesitantly. The projectors weren't even running yet, and already he was going to have to spill at least a portion of his guts to her. He held Ari's worried gaze for a few more moments, tried half-heartedly to force a smile, but abandoned the effort after only a moment.

Ari leaned into him. "What's the matter?" she asked, whispering into his ear, then pulling back and looking him in the eyes again. "If anyone should be misty about seeing this movie, it's me. I mean, it was my parents --" Ari stopped in mid-sentence, her mouth opening involuntarily. "Did -- . . . was it your mother? Were you thinking about her?"

Barely thinking about it, Tim nodded. "Just then I was," he whispered to her, nodding.

"Oh, God . . . I'm so sorry," Ari said, her voice cracking slightly as she whispered. Her hand went to Tim's neck, and she gently stroked the back of his head with her index finger. "Was it me talking about my parents? Is that what got you thinking about her?"

Tim tried to think of what to say, but only opened his mouth, mute as he looked at her.

"I'm sorry," Ari said again, laying her head on Tim's shoulder.

Tim reached his right arm up and put it around her shoulders. "I know," he said, nestling his cheek in the soft black hair atop her head. "It's not your fault," he assured her in a soft, calm voice.

The lights in the theater went off, save for the two thin glowing strips that ran up and down the floor, marking the aisle. The screen was lit first by a light of pure white, then by a darker gray peppered with specks of white and black, the outlines and shadows of hundreds of tiny dust particles and hairs that had found their way onto the old film.

Ariana turned Tim's face toward hers, reaching across and putting her right hand on his left cheek. She kissed him gently, deeply, for several seconds. They broke the kiss, looked at one another for a quiet moment, then kissed again, Tim's right arm hugging her around the shoulders.

"We're missing the opening credits," Tim breathlessly reminded Ari when that kiss was over.

Ari shot a momentary glance at the screen, then moved for Tim again. "I know," she said the instant before they kissed again. "You didn't think I really wanted to watch this, did you?"

Tim didn't even consider the question. He kissed her again, holding the right side of her neck gently with his left hand. He felt her arms go around his neck, and moved from her lips to the corner of her mouth and kissed her there. He kissed her cheek, letting his lips linger over her soft flesh, then slid further across her face and caressed his lips beneath her ear.

Her arms went tighter around his neck, and Ari held him close to her. She sniffed, then let out a shallow sob.

Tim pulled away from her abruptly, he now eyeing her with concern. A tiny tear appeared in the corner of her right eye, and Tim swept it gently away with his thumb, taking her face in his hands.

Ari's eyes darted quickly over at the movie screen, then back to Tim. "Sometimes I forget how much I miss them," she whimpered, holding his wrist, caressing his hand with her thumb.

Tim's arm went back around her shoulder and he hugged her to him again. She tilted her head sideways onto his shoulder, and he in turn rested his head gently atop hers. Her right arm went across his chest. "I know you miss them," he said quietly to her. "I know you do."

Avian Paradise Casino
7:22 p.m.

The elevator doors slid open and Oswald Cobblepot stepped out, followed by Groverton. The penthouse was dark. Groverton walked several steps to the left of the door and hit the lights.

A dead man whom Cobblepot recognized as Levon Dunning was slumped over the top of the desk that sat across the floor on the other side of the expansive living space. Blood, presumably Dunning's, saturated the leather blotter atop the desk.

"Call Devonshire, tell him I need him here tonight," Cobblepot ordered Groverton over his shoulder.

Groverton nodded. "Should I contact Quentin as well? Start looking for leads into who did this?"

Cobblepot shook his head. "No," he said shortly, "I already know who did it. For now, there's nothing that can be done."

Rolling the body of Dunning onto the floor, where it landed with a sound thump, Cobblepot found a metal box sitting on his desk, a box which Dunning had been slumped over. The dead man's blood covered the top and sides of the 12-inch square steel cube.

A strong lock on the front of the box was forced open, broken, Cobblepot assumed, by the Joker. He flipped open the top of the box and found a mass of dark blue and black material inside. Placed on top of the material was a sloppily written note, scrawled on yellow ruled paper and reading:

I know it feels good against the skin, but I wouldn't wear it all the time if I were you.
--J

Cobblepot put the note down to the side and pulled the mass of fabric out of the box. The first article he removed was a black tunic, very distinctive. As he realized what he was holding, a smile both of amazement and possibility crept over the Penguin's face.

"Groverton," he called to his associate, who stood at a phone near the middle of the room. Groverton looked up expectantly. The Penguin licked his lips thoughtfully, considered things for a moment. "Call Sir Edmund," he said, lowering the tunic below his eyes and looking across at Groverton.

Groverton looked at what Cobblepot was holding, regarding it with interest. Recognizing his assistant's curiosity, the Penguin brought the tunic back up and turned it around so Groverton could see it.

Seeing the front of the tunic, Groverton's eyebrows went up, and his face took on a look of surprise and confusion. Emblazoned on the front of the tunic, before an oval of yellow, was the familiar form of a bat.