Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond or YuGiOh. I don't even own an iPod.

Ryuuji Otogi Goes to Gotham

Ryuuji believed that the Batman had always been on the forefront of superhero fashion. It was all about accessories, and while other heroes simply went with a cape and voluminous hair, Batman had his cowl and that ingenious piece of fashion equipment, the yellow utility belt. Between the dark boots and the pointy ears, the belt offered a nice change of colour and a sense of humanity. Batman became more than a crime fighter, he was Gotham's Mr. Fix-It. More amazing what that while Batman had succumbed to the superhero cape, it wasn't just relegated to swishing around him. Ryuuji had always admired the trick with the wrapping of the coat around while hanging inverted from a ledge. It was just too cool.

The cape was gone, now, though. The new Batman had compact little wings, still expertly balanced in red with the logo on the front of his outfit, but nowhere near as romantic. The utility belt had also lost some weight, but then, so had the Batman. Daring as ever, the Batman had made a total fashion upgrade. While Superman was only changing colours to match his grey hair and others were still trapped in rearranging their time worn reds, whites, blues, and yellows, the Batman had tightened everything up, streamlined, covered the face while lengthening the ears, and shocked the world with utility belt stage grey. It was modern and it was beautiful, and Ryuuji knew no-one else to improve so much upon a theme.

The other people who occupied Ryuuji's life, however, failed to understand.

"Ryuuji, what is this about?"

Ryuuji looked up from his desk and the mass of scribblings that populated it to Seto Kaiba. In Seto's hand there was a scrapbook of newspaper clippings Ryuuji had been compiling for the past three years and was distressed to see Seto holding upside-down so carelessly. He'd found it on the floor a few days earlier, evicted from the desk by Ryuuji's laptop, and had begun flipping through it at leisure. What he saw disturbed him.

"A scrapbook."

One of Seto's eyebrows rose questioningly. Ryuuji reached out to take the book from him. Seto waited a moment before reluctantly handing it over.

"Hm," said Seto thoughtfully, situating himself in the seat across from Ryuuji. "Well, it looks more like a portable shrine to me. Every image published of Gotham's Batman must be in there. I wasn't aware you liked that sort of thing."

"Yeah, well, you know me. I fixate. It's the secret to my success," said Ryuuji cheerily. He seemed to find nothing very unusual about the scrapbook.

"But why him?"

"I dunno," said Ryuuji with a shrug. "He's got a great style, though. Love the ears."

Then Ryuuji's cell phone rang and he became preoccupied with that. Seto frowned disapprovingly.

In his own way, Seto had been hurt to find his boyfriend to be the adoring fan of one of those abominable American superheroes. For starters, obviously it wasn't very patriotic of Ryuuji, but that wasn't what bothered Seto most. What made Seto nervous in that small part of him that still frequently felt nervous was that Ryuuji was totally obsessed with another man. Certainly Ryuuji would never meet this man, and certainly his admiration was merely childishness and nothing more, but Seto couldn't help not to become suddenly uneasy when he saw the scrapbook. This was because for the past two years there had been a new Batman, and while Seto hadn't seen this revamped version in Ryuuji's scrapbook, he could only assume that there had to be another, possibly much larger tome devoted to the man and not yet completed.

"So we'll talk about maybe inviting Mr. Yamanouchi to see the facility next week, before I go on vacation. I'm sure we won't have any problems. Yes, I'm still taking that vacation. I'm not Kaiba Seto, I don't relegate my monthly breaks to leaving the office for thirty minutes to pester my boyfriend when he's working," said Ryuuji, chatting easily into the phone because he had a gift for this sort of thing most of all. He looked up to see how Seto would react to the jib, only to see Seto had gone and taken Ryuuji's scrapbook with him.

"Not to say he doesn't do a very good job of pestering with such little practice," said Ryuuji a bit more sharply. He sighed angrily and began looking under piles of papers to see if he'd only misplaced the scrapbook. "So, how's the problem with the printer's coming along?"