Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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Chapter 1. "2 plus 2 equals 5 (The Lukewarm)".

"It's the devil's way now,
There is no way out.
You can scream and you
can shout,
It is too late now.
Because

You have not been
paying attention."

I am, informally, Caroline Burke.

There is nothing more profoundly disheartening than the recollection of childhood dreams. When I was young, I—much like other children my age I'm sure—wanted to be a whole slew of different and impossible things. I longed to be an astronaut, a fairy princess, a sea captain. I wanted to be Sailor Moon and I was absolutely desperate to be a famous artist. Each scenario played out rather expectedly. And unfortunately, for it always came as a blow to the spirit. I was never good enough at math or science to float out among the stars or to gaze up at them from the sea. Nor was it any more likely that I could somehow become an illustrated character or rule a nonexistent realm full of tiny, winged people. I was also, and still am, a terrible artist. So much so that even my adolescent attempts at abstract sculptures made my teacher wince behind his delicately veined hands. We come to regard these rites of passage as the beginnings of a lifetime of cataloged disappointments. Mark my words, they shan't be the last. Or the least.

In the present, at the age of twenty-three, I am a waitress. And a full-time student. These things just sort of write themselves, don't they?

I am not a lifetime resident of Gotham City. I came here for school after I'd graduated at eighteen. And god, wasn't that a fantastic choice. Because going to the rinky-dink college upstate would totally have left about twenty years on my lifespan, whereas Gotham has undoubtedly sucked them away. At first I'd thought it was bumpkin-snobbery. I'd never even been downstate until I moved here for school. Oh, and boy, was I ever in for a surprise. This place, this entire city, is rot. And it's still rotting. But I've got a bit of optimism in me yet. I can still find that elusive silver lining. We do happen to have this absolutely hilarious mascot. He calls himself "Batman", and he dresses the part. The truly unfortunate thing is that we, the people of Gotham, actually need him. This, mind you, is coming from someone who has suspicions that the Italian restaurant where they work the dinner rush is actually a front for the mob. How very 1930's Hollywood noir of me.

But really. Who am I kidding? Salvatore Maroni eats there every night. He probably owns the place. It's a fucking mob joint. And right now I'm on a bicycle, high-tailing it through the rain-slick streets of Gotham, trying to get to work with enough time to cool off and get changed before I have to bust my ass on the floor. My American Lit. class got canceled today, which gives me plenty of time to cover Bonnie's mid-afternoon shift and make some much needed extra cash. So I pick up the speed—which is hardly advisable—and continue my serpent's weave through traffic. The humidity and the rain still sprinkling through in patches makes my clothes stick like a second skin, and I can't help but be thankful that I've got my work uniform in my backpack. Tied back at the nape of my neck, my long brown hair whips about chaotically in the wind.

I arrive at the restaurant with a little time to spare, and haul my bike in through the back door. Tony, the manager, took pity on me when he saw me pull up on it my first day. When he opened the door and looked down at me, winded and eager, trying to chain my bike up to some piping in the alley, the poor bastard just shook his balding head and told me, in that wise-guy, city accent of his, "Look doll, if you do that you'll never see that thing again. The bums and junkies'll strip it down and take the lock too." Provided that I don't track in anything, he lets me store it in the employee bathroom. His occasionally fatherly attitude almost makes up for the fact that he's a colossal douche-bag. Almost.

The employee bathroom at La Dolce Vita (that is it's name, I shit you not) is about the size of a hall closet. Leaning my bike up against the toilet that hasn't worked longer than I've been alive, I wring myself out and start trying to make myself look presentable. This involves a bit of half-assed drying with paper towels, a lot of brushing, and the classic white-button-down-blouse, black-dress-pants and a-black-apron ensemble, the standard waitress attire of the Western world. I apply a bit of powder to cover some of my worn appearance, brushing it over my still-red cheeks, over the small and likely precancerous dusting of freckles and under the bangs on my forehead. Dull blue irises reflect off the dusty mirror surface. I haven't even started my shift yet and I want my cigarette break. But I could have it worse. Much, much worse. Pulling my hair back and up into a haphazard bun, I smooth myself out. I stash my backpack beside my bicycle, and head out onto the floor.

The great thing about La Dolce Vita is that nearly all of the people who come here are regulars. The elderly gentleman enjoying a plate of manicotti in booth six, for example, has eaten his supper here every day for the last god-knows-how-long. I've seen him here every shift since my first, save the week or two he was laid up after heart surgery last summer. There's not a lot of new blood in here customer-wise. Or server-wise, for that matter. Other than the buss-boys, I'm the only person working here under the age of thirty-five. This is both heartening and mildly depressing, because all of the other servers here are lifers and the last thing I usually want to do is work another fucking night in this hole. But really, when the money's good, and some of the old folks and the wise guys take a shine to you, you can't really say no. I'd be hard-pressed to find myself another job while I'm in school that gives me good money to take home each night and decently flexible hours.

All right, one that doesn't involve me spreading my legs on a mattress in a cheap hotel in the Narrows.

The place is sparse. Uncharacteristically quite compared to the dinner-time din. I occupy myself by doing the rounds on the tables, making sure the salt and pepper and place settings are all good to go. I refill the elderly gentleman's water. Eventually I retreat to the little side station by the kitchen, fixing myself a cup of coffee while I polish some silverware for the dinner rush that's two hours in coming. I've been up since five and I can feel the weight of my eyelids. Tony comes back from behind the wall that separates the front of the restaurant from the seating area and the bar in the back and catches sight of me. He approaches with a dour expression carved into the lines around his mouth. I do my best to, at the very least, appear pleased to see him. "Good afternoon. Business go well this morning?"

Tony pours a cup of coffee for himself, appears to think twice, and dumps it out. He's a large man, broad in his stature with a mightily protruding stomach. He takes a napkin off the shelf, wipes his forehead and throws it into the garbage can. "Bonnie send you to cover her shift, Caroline?"

I take a sip of my coffee and continue to polish. "She did. I was the only person who could come in.. Christie and Janice were both unavailable, and Angela's visiting her brother in the hospital. It's not a big deal. Class was canceled this afternoon, anyway."

"Huh." I glance up at Tony neutrally, trying to read into him. He's always got a bit of a scowl going on, and it's definitely there right now. Tony is, for all intents and purposes, a very intimidating guy. "That's funny. I told her this morning that she didn't have to send anybody in. Sal's renting the place out for a few hours. The last guy we've got here before we close up shop 'til five is old man Verillini."

This might seem out of the ordinary were it not so frequent an occurrence. None of us are stupid, and we'd all learned better than to question whatever arrangement Tony and Maroni have going on. "Oh. I guess she must have called while I was in class," I said, after a moment, putting the silverware away. "I'd forgotten to take it off silent. Should I just book-it for a little while and come back later?"

His massive shoulders shrugged. "Finish takin' care of Verillini and then go to a coffee place for a while or somethin' an' study. Maybe all of that reading'll get you to stop stealin' my coffee."

I rolled my eyes. The fucking attitude this guy gave at the slightest amount of pressure was ridiculous. "Yeah yeah, I know. Thanks Tony."

It wasn't ten minutes later that I heard the front door chime. A dirty plate in hand, on my way back to the kitchen, I quickly ducked into the side station and deposited it into a bin half-filled with food-crusted platters and bowls. Verillini's bill in hand, I strode toward the front. "Good afternoon. I'm terribly sorry, but due to maintenance the restaurant will be closed until five o'clock this-"

A group of men appeared from behind the wall. I paused my gait, looking to the man in pin-stripe. Salvatore Maroni held up a hand, stopping me mid-sentence. "I'm well aware, tootsie. Thanks." I barely received a bemused glance as they strode back through the doors that led to the kitchen. I glared at their backs as they walked through, slighted at the way I'd been spoken to, as though I were a child. Or an underling. With a curse on my breath, I put on a pleasant face and delivered old man Verillini his bill.

Cleaning up after him was a breeze. I bussed the table and when the second group of men came in, all of them more irritable-looking than Tony's mood had been earlier, grabbed my backpack and exited through the side door. While curiosity was certainly a viable element, none of the men in the last group were men I'd ever seen before. And they'd all looked pissed. Whatever they were talking about in the kitchen appeared to have crossed the gang divide, and the knowledge of this made me distinctly uncomfortable. It was weighty, dangerous stuff. Setting my backpack up on the lid of a trash can, I stood under the eaves of the building and lit myself a cigarette, watching water trickle out of the gutter onto the dirty pavement beneath my feet. The day remained unremarkable and overcast.

One can lose themselves utterly in a myriad of thoughts and notions while smoking, and not be at all bothered by time slowly tick-tick-ticking by. I'd decided against getting a cup of coffee down the street and opted instead to leaning back against the brick wall of the building. In essence, I'd chosen the option that involved the least amount of physical activity in favor of saving my strength. I had some reading I could catch up on for my Lit. class while I was out here, and I wasn't about to let that time go to waste. I was on my fourth or fifth cigarette, luxuriating in the fact that I didn't have to finish them all in one drag, when it happened. I was nearly done with Faulkner's "Barn Burning". I was musing over just how satisfying the character development was, when the door to my right burst open, nearly catching me full in the face. I startled and promptly dropped my textbook onto the sodden pavement.

This is a surefire way you can tell someone's a real tried and true, broke student. The immediate realization that I would not be able to re-sell this book back to the campus book store—now that it had taken a proverbial dip in the pond—was nearly all-consuming. My face fell as I scrambled to lift it out of the filthy water, my brain dutifully calculating the cost of the book itself; three nights worth of tips and a week of living on nothing but packaged ramen noodles. All of it now null and void. To my right, I heard someone let loose a low chuckle in the open doorway. Bent over, I froze.

"Hee hee. Ho. Ha ho. Ha. Haa."

I lost it. "You asshole. Do you have any idea how much this textbook cost? I can't afford to-" The words, quick to burn, turned to ash in my mouth as the figure stepped out of the doorway and stood beside me in the dreary mid-afternoon light. Cigarette still burning between my fingers, my other hand reaching out for the book, I kneeled as Judgment personified, unbalanced and irreparably swayed. This wasn't one of the men I had seen earlier in the restaurant. There was something tangibly off-kilter about him, something that raised my hackles. Anyone with eyes—or, noting that laugh, anyone without them as well—might have agreed. Swaddled in a rich plum, he wore a child's crude version of war paint. It might have been innocent were it not for the obviously sinister overtones, the blackened eyes. Mouth curved up in a perpetual smile, bloody and fresh. Wrong. All of it. The eyes that burned down upon me from on high. The argyle of his socks. The faded green tinge to his greasy hair. A grin of cruel scar tissue. Abruptly, he kneeled down next to me.

"You plan on picking that up-uh?" I spared a glance at him, tying in vain not to belay my discomfort. Eyebrows slightly raised, lips pursed, he watched me expectantly. I raised an eyebrow in return—par for the course—and reached for the book again, frowning at the weight of the saturated paper. Every muscle in my body wailed at his presence. I begged them to be quiet, if only for a moment longer. Ignoring the different bells and whistles my brain sounded in alarm, I put my cigarette between my lips and closed the book with both hands. The movement seemed slow, pantomimed, much as one acts in front of a snarling, spitting beast. I exhaled smoke.

He rocked once on his heels. Something—no, somethings—clanked and clinked in his coat. My heart ran crazed circles within its bony confines. A pink tongue flicked out to run over his lips. "So, do you-uh, always stand here. Reading."

I'd spent nearly every night for the last two and a half years feeding mobsters. Granted, I hadn't really dwelled on that fact too often, but I had certainly grown up a lot since I'd first come to Gotham. My skin had toughened pretty considerably. But this guy had it damn near crawling off my bones. "Sometimes. On my breaks, or if I get here early." I answered, pulling the cigarette out from between my lips and flicking it off down the alley.

"Ah. Aha-ha. How very scholas-tick-uh." He was studying me, I could feel it.. The creepy bastard was looking me over like I was a specimen strapped down to a table, well within reach of a scalpel. With that realization went the rest of my reserve. My muscles won and I stood abruptly. It didn't matter if I had to run around to the front of the restaurant so long as I got away from this guy. Now. The mounting unease was unbearable.

"Well, it sure was nice meeting you, but I really should get back-"

He held up a hand, like Maroni had earlier, though there was nothing dismissive about it. It was a command. I froze. "Hold on a secon-duh now, sweetie. No one's going to be cook-ing a-nee-thing in that kitchen un-til they clean it up. A bit." He smiled at me like he was doing his Martha Stewart best. I gripped my literature book with white knuckles trying to keep myself still. "Tell me, doll. You-uh, got a name?"

I am, formally—and perhaps soon-to-be formerly—Caroline Burke.

"Caroline." Hesitation wasn't an option here. Muscle memory kicked in and my body went on auto pilot. I stuck out my hand like I was a goddamn Cub Scout getting a medal from the Mayor. He looked down at it for a moment before swiveling his eyes back up to mine. For a moment, neither of us did anything. We just stared. Then his face split open across the middle and he laughed. He cackled and he choked. I'd never heard a more unsettling sound in my life. It was so primal, so unnervingly animal to the core that I failed to suppress the chill that skittered up the length of my spine. As if cued from offstage, he stopped. I looked down to the watch-chain at his hip but a moment before I cleared my throat.

He breathed deep, inhaling my apprehension. "Caaar-o-line." He clasped my hand and shook it eagerly, jarring me. "Well. It is, ha, really nice to meet such a sweet gal like-uh, yourself. Hold on a minute, I-uh have something. Ha. For you." As he began to pat his pockets I began to calm. Perhaps he was just a little disturbed. One of those special sorts they have homes set up for. One of the unfortunates. What he might have been doing crashing a gang meeting was utterly beyond me, but perhaps, perhaps, perhaps I was just being paranoid about this whole ridiculous situation.

My suspicions were confirmed when I noticed satisfaction light up his face. His hand returned from his trouser pocket grasping a dog-eared playing card. "Here. This—" he licked his lips again "—is my card if you need-uh to ge-t in touch." He winked exaggeratedly, pressing the laminated paper into my palm. Relief washed over me, and I smiled at him genuinely. The man was probably border-line retarded. It was the least I could do.

"Thanks, that's awfully kind of you. I really appreciate it."

His rictus grin turned and, for one awkward moment, I thought that perhaps I might have been mistaken. Something within him seemed to have been decided the instant I spoke. Cogs churned into place. It flickered briefly and faded. He patted my cheek, a leathered finger-tip tracing down to the corner of my mouth. I swallowed.

"Call me sometime." He giggled again, setting off down the alley without waiting for a response. His leather shoes splashed through puddles. When he'd disappeared round the corner and out of sight I slumped against the brick at my back, my textbook forgotten on the trashcan lid beside my school bag. The experience, however frivolous, had exhausted me. As an afterthought, I peered down at the card he had given me. The jester emblazoned at its center drew little comment from me, save for a slow shake of the head. He—whoever he was—was obviously insane. He likely escaped from Arkham after the whole Scarecrow debacle. I took another cigarette out of my pack and stuffed the playing card into my pocket.

"Caroline? Caroline?!" I nearly inhaled the unlit cigarette, leaping a good two feet off the pavement. Tony's voice bellowed out from the side entrance and I cursed, poking my head in through the open doorway.

"Jesus Tony, don't yell like that. Are we back on?"

Tony hauled over to the door and yanked me back inside. I barely had the wherewithal to grab my things before he slammed the door closed. We stood close in the small side station, surrounded by cutlery and spare glasses. His face appeared drawn, the lines more pronounced in the glare of the cash register light. A pallor had settled upon his cheeks. "I thought I told you to get a cuppa' coffee. What the hell were you doin' out there?"

I looked up at him. "Smoking. Studying. I didn't feel like spending the money on coffee today. What's the matter?"

"It's dangerous outside. You know better than to mope around out there." Tony studied me for a moment. "You didn't see anyone takin' out the trash, did you?"

This entire fucking day deserved raised eyebrow after raised eyebrow. "Tony, what the hell are you talking about?" I thought for a moment, reconsidering. "You don't mean the guy with the clown make-up, do you?"

There was a moment of tense silence. Tony ran a meaty paw down his face and sighed. "Yeah, sure. Him too. Get yourself back out on the floor, kid. We've got the dinner rush in an hour."

As Tony moves out into the dining room I cannot help but feel as though something irreparable has occurred within the span of that single afternoon. The atmosphere here is changed, charged with the remnants of something explosive. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Suddenly, I don't want to know what's bringing Tony down, what's got him so spooked. Unconsciously, I bring my hand to my face, lightly tracing a line from my cheek to the corner of my mouth. It takes me a moment to realize what I'm doing, and I stop myself with a shudder. Giving myself a quick once-over in the warped metal of the paper towel dispenser, I brush the bangs off of my face and step out into the seating area. Left alone, I begin to entertain a cornucopia of disquieting thoughts. And I am thankful that we are empty yet, though I know we shan't be for long. Outside, the city of Gotham moves to its own shambling, damaged accord.

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A/N: Reviews/feedback are more than appreciated. Thanks for reading, I'll try and get the next bit up ASAP.