Disclaimer: I can't seem to come up with an especially creative way to say that I have no legal rights to any Batman-related characters, or that I'm not making any money from the use of such characters, or even that the CATverse timeline can be viewed at www. freewebs. com/ bitemetechie/ catverse. html (and should be used as a helpful guideline, because...well, I swear there is a method to our madness.)
If you don't care to track down the timeline, just consider this story to follow BiteMeTechie's "Year of the Snake."
And happy reading.
Discovering that a group of friends who should have been dead are, in fact, very much alive is never the simplest of situations for any man.
Things became exponentially more complicated when that man was Jonathan Crane.
The fact that he was willing to apply that word to these people was just wrong in so many ways.
But they kept…changing things. Every time he thought he had things settled, they changed his world around, and they changed him.
And he hated that, every aspect of it, especially the way they had made him glad to see them.
There was nothing like a near death experience to make a man happy not to be alone.
Even if he couldn't stand his companions.
Could he?
He wasn't sure anymore. And that kind of uncertainty could spell death.
But so could trying to live without them. There was just no way to win at this.
So far, they had managed to avoid any deep, meaningful discussions about the past fifteen months, but he was getting antsy, and the peace wouldn't last. He had to talk to them. He didn't want to, but it had to be done.
He had to know what they planned to do. They said they were done "playing Elvis," but if they were just going to run off again the next time they did something stupid and got scared…well, damn it, he had a right to know. He couldn't go around relying on support that wasn't going to be there.
He just had to know. Not knowing would kill him as surely as anything else.
But he was going to have to talk to them. Actually seek them out and talk to them.
He didn't want to. Neither did they, apparently; they were avoiding him like the carrier of a zombie plague, while still hovering around the edges of whatever activity he undertook, always vanishing when he tried to look directly at them.
But it had to be done.
Or so he kept telling himself as he made his way to their side of the lair.
Al's door was closed. That was his first stroke of luck. She was the one he wanted to deal with least.
Techie's door was also closed, although he could hear movement from inside as he passed by. But he didn't bother knocking there, because the Captain's door was wide open.
She was sitting on her bed, hugging her giant Batman pillow and staring off into space. She didn't seem to notice he was there, so he spent a few moments just observing her. Not that he was feeling timid about approaching her with this. Absolutely not. It was just that...she was different.
They had all changed, in their time away from him. Al's slight limp had become more pronounced. Techie had developed a habit of playing with her hair that he had never noticed before. But he thought the Captain had changed the most. She no longer cracked her knuckles when she was restless. Her hair, previously cut short or pulled back in a severe librarian's bun (very interesting when bright blue) was grown long and dyed an unusually normal shade of blond, though he could tell by the length of her dark roots that it wouldn't be that color much longer; she couldn't stand the sameness. She had braided it, two little pigtails making her look even younger than she already did. She had new glasses, round ones that reminded him of John Lennon. And her pink unicorn pajamas were the girliest things he had ever seen her wear.
And the new glasses didn't seem to impede her peripheral vision as much as the old ones had.
"What?" she asked, without looking up. She sounded exhausted. He glared at her.
"You could be civil."
"I was civil yesterday. And the day before that. What more do you want from me?"
"I want you to recognize the nature of our relationship and act accordingly."
She flopped back on the bed, still hugging the doll.
"You're not my friend. I get it," she said to the ceiling. "This is me not being nice. Aren't you happy?"
"I don't do happy." Somehow, he found her lack of a response infuriating. "You're right, I'm not your friend. I'm your employer, and I demand—"
"What? What do you demand, Jonathan?" She sat up, eyes blazing, suddenly every bit as furious as he was. He found it rather difficult to answer, realizing for the first time that he was going to sound absolutely pathetic if he came right out and asked, Don't you love me anymore?
"What right do you have to demand anything?" she continued. She was squeezing that doll so hard, its seams were starting to split. "Everything we've ever given you, you've made painfully obvious that you don't want."
"What have you ever given me that I asked for?"
"You won't ask—your stupid, stubborn pride sees to that—and we know you won't, so we have to guess!" She jumped off the bed and threw the Bat-pillow at him. "Here! Here! Happy twenty-six-months-late birthday! Go set your stupid present on fire!"
He stared at the slightly mashed toy in his hands.
"Birthday?"
"Yeah. Birthday. You were supposed to find it when you realized we were gone and came searching for clues. There's a whole box of stuff with your name on it under my bed. I made you a scarf…but I won't make you wear it."
"What do you mean, I was supposed to find it?"
Her glare sharpened.
"Al and I left our doors unlocked. Didn't you think that was a little odd? Or were you too busy reading Techie's diary to notice—and for your information, that was a really cheap trick. You could have gotten us killed, you know. We locked her door for a reason! Why did you bother breaking in there, anyway? What, am I not good enough to spy on?"
"You're jealous?" he said incredulously.
"Well, Al's door was standing open, and you picked Techie's lock, but everything in my room is exactly as I left it. All I can infer is that you missed two thirds of us, and it's not hard to guess who's the odd man out."
"Idiot!" He whacked her with the pillow. "I checked your room first! Haven't you noticed that you're short one guitar? That's because I broke it over Nightwing's head when he interrupted me in here—and you should invest in sturdier equipment, Captain. My God, if you're going to be irrational, at least pick a real issue to be upset about!"
"Oh," she said. Her gaze flickered to the place where the instrument in question had once stood, and back to him. "I didn't...I'm…sorry, Squishy."
"Don't call me that."
"Sorry."
He tossed the toy aside.
"Why should you care whether or not I searched your room, anyway? You gave me no reason to believe—was that you on the phone?—and the hospital?—and the funeral home…" Now that he thought about it, there had been rather a lot of evidence…but still nothing tangible. Nothing that would have been sufficient to make him believe that the world was not as he had always known it, that he wasn't alone.
"The hospital…when you were…" She looked like she wanted to cry. "I'm sorry we let that happen to you. We wanted to come back after that, but…we were scared. And you didn't seem like you wanted us."
"Of course I didn't want you. No one wants the harbingers of doom."
"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition," she said with a smile. "But, really, didn't you miss us at all?"
"What kind of question is that?" he snapped.
"A serious one! I want to know—did you or did you not want us to come back?"
"I—I don't have to answer that!"
"It only requires a one-syllable answer, Jonathan! I don't think I'm really asking all that much! I just want to know if we wasted all that time agonizing over you—'Is he okay? Is he eating? Is he lying dead in a ditch? Does he need us?' We were worried sick about you, you jerk! And you didn't make things any easier with your constantly getting into trouble!" She jabbed him in the chest, apparently forgetting just how recently he had last been hurt. He knocked her hand away.
"You left me!"
"Do you think we wanted to?" she screamed. "In case it's somehow escaped your notice, you colossal idiot, we love you!"
"Well, I love you, too!"
He froze.
What had just come spilling out of his mouth?!
"I mean—"
She flung herself at him. He winced as she jarred injuries that he would have preferred to let heal undisturbed. But she was clearly in no mood to pay attention to any part of him other than his lips.
She was kissing him.
She was kissing him?!
Her tongue was in his mouth!
Belatedly, he reached up to push her away, only to find that she was already pulling back, her face a vibrant shade of cherry red.
"I…um…I d-didn't mean to do that," she stammered.
"Then you really need to work on your willpower," came a voice from behind him. He turned, glare at the ready.
Al and Techie were standing there, both staring. Techie was giggling like mad. Al just looked shocked.
"Um…" said the Captain. Al promptly disappeared. Techie watched her go.
"You, too," he growled.
"Are you kidding? I don't want to miss this!"
"Go!"
"But…wouldn't it be nice to have witnesses?" the Captain squeaked.
Techie decided to leave, but he could only assume she would be listening at the door. He turned his attention back to the Captain. For the first time he could remember, she looked genuinely afraid. Of him.
"Well?"
"Um…heat of the moment?" she said eagerly.
"Fine."
"We both said and did things we didn't mean?"
"Of course."
"Let us never speak of this again?"
"Agreed."
"And there's no need for any kind of vengeance!"
He raised an eyebrow.
"We'll see."
"Oh…um…I'll make sure Al and Techie don't bring this up, either. Okay?"
"That's a start."
"I'll...never let it happen again."
"And?"
"And...I'll never try to get a baby out of you. Even if I really, really want one."
"Very good. And?"
"And..." She looked lost. "What else do you want?" He just glared at her, waiting to see what else she would come up with. "A hug?"
"No."
"A sandwich?"
"Maybe later."
"A...hug?"
"Captain, in what way do you think that physical affection will make up for your transgression?"
"Look, I told you I didn't mean to do it! We just missed you so much, we were so worried about you, and--and--I'm never going to leave you alone again, you know that? We are never leaving you again." She was crying now, and breathing in that raspy, squeaky way that said she was going to be unconscious soon. He made no move to comfort her.
"You expect me to trust your word? Have you heard the promises you've made?"
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for everything." He shifted uncomfortably.
"Well, it's nothing to cry about..." She turned away from him. He sighed. The anger might hae been a cry for attention, at least in part, but this had to be real. He knew she never used tears as a weapon. She hated to give any evidence that she even had the ability to cry. "Captain...really..." She kept crying. "I'll just...leave you alone..."
"Wait!" She took his hands. "Squish--Jonathan, do you...do you think you can forgive us for abandoning you?"
He looked down into the tear-filled eyes of a woman who genuinely--he had to use the word--loved him, and knew that she had meant every word she'd said.
"Just...don't do it again," he said gruffly.
A smile lit up her face.
"We won't!"
He shook her off before she could hug him, or worse.
"I'll just...be getting back to work now. You...do...whatever it is you do with your free time. And, Captain? If this is what you do when you get your feelings hurt," he said, referring to the thing that would never be spoken of again, " please try to grow a thicker skin. I don't want to see what happens if I forget your birthday."
"Which is?"
"October seventeenth," he answered, and then mentally kicked himself. He shouldn't have remembered that!
The Captain's smile was teasing when she said, "Forget it." She held the Bat-doll out to him.
He looked at her--still teary, and looking very much like a child--and shook his head.
"You keep it, Captain. You need it more than I do. There are matches in the kitchen."
He left her, only to be waylaid by Techie in the hall.
"I'm sorry, too," she said. He moved past her.
"Get your own schtick."
"You hurt Al's feelings," she called after him.
"Tell Al if she tries it, she's dead."
"We love you!"
"You can go 'love' yourselves."
But he said it with a smile.