Batman relaxed his grip around Jack's throat slightly and let him sink down to the floor. "Who are you?" he growled.
Jack struggled against the hold around his throat. "Captain Jack Harkness," he said. "Torchwood, Cardiff." No response. "The British government's answer to alien threats—keeping Earth safe from invasion." Batman released Jack and glared at him. Jack lifted one eyebrow. Who in Cardiff was impersonating Batman and digging out underground bases in Mermaid Quay?—it was absurd.
"Never heard of you." Batman stalked away from Jack toward the glowing plasma screen. His voice was rough, like ground-up glass, and Jack wasn't sure if he was supposed to be scared or amused. Jack took a good look, though, and realized whoever it was, he hadn't just walked over to the nearest fancy dress party shop and picked up some spandex. The body armor was real, the cape as flowing as a watercolor.
"Well, you wouldn't have, would you," laughed Jack nonchalantly, "since you inhabit a fictional realm?" Batman chose to ignore this remark and sat down in the chair in front of the plasma screen and began typing. The thought of Batman typing was too much for Jack, and he gave himself a good slap across the face. Batman looked at him, and even from the distance Jack could feel the sarcasm.
"Do you have some identification on you?" asked Batman.
"Er," said Jack, fishing through his pockets. He found a driver's license. It would have to do. "Catch?" he asked. Batman caught it and stared at it. Then he switched on the lights.
Jack held his breath. If this was the Bat Cave . . . he began to gently tiptoe, wondering where he might find the Batmobile. Meanwhile Batman seemed quite happy to keep typing into the database. Jack saw the screen flash with the words Oracle and sensed Batman's eyes on him even as the grown man dressed in a costume was turned away. "Quite a place you got here," Jack asked, absent-mindedly pinching himself. The computer was flashing and squeaking at Batman, so Jack kept walking around the lair. There was a spare Batsuit in a glass case and a huge metal drawer system that Jack expected didn't hold manila folders.
"Look," said Jack, biting back a laugh of hilarity and insanity, "all I'm looking for is my pterodactyl. I'll find her and be on my way. I didn't mean to barge in on your underground lair."
Batman got up and walked toward Jack. "Oracle says you check out." He handed Jack his ID back.
"Thanks," said Jack. "I'm glad a made-up man from a made-up city agrees that I'm legit."
"If I'm fictional, what does that make you?" asked Batman in his grating voice, this time his dark eyes piercing Jack's with a feeling that was not entirely pleasant.
"Touchy! Okay, I'm sorry about the jokes," began Jack, holding up his hands in surrender.
"If Cardiff is your city, and you protect it, how does that make me any less real than you? You came to find a pterodactyl, a species of flying reptile that's been extinct for millennia. You tell me who sounds like the madman."
Jack figured announcing he was from the enlightened 51st century might not be the tack to take. "Um, not sure what 'Oracle' told you, but I don't just protect Cardiff, Torchwood protects the whole planet. My file should say something about the Sycorax and the Racnoss and the Battle of Canary Wharf."
Jack wasn't sure how he knew this, but he could tell when Batman was raising an eyebrow. "Cybermen and Daleks? Gotham's too busy fighting home-grown psychotic criminals to have time for metal men from Mars."
"A parallel universe, actually, but that's a technicality. We've got home-grown psychotic criminals, too. Ever heard of a place called the Brecon Beacons?"
"There are military outposts there where the British Army trains."
Jack nodded. "Also dodgy Welsh cannibals. Don't ever go if you're planning a holiday."
"Seen my share of cannibals," said Batman with a shudder. "Mutilators, poisoners, paranoid schizophrenics, mob bosses—"
"Try wicked fairies from the dawn of time, Futurekind from the end of the world—"
"Fearmongers, sadists—"
"Corrupt Time Agents, water-dwelling aliens the size of tanks, reanimation—"
"Opportunists, greed, and suffering—"
"Okay!" Jack shouted. "I get it. I don't want to fight. I just want you to know that I'm telling the truth."
"So am I!" bellowed Batman.
Jack took a deep breath and held out his hand. "Truce? All I want is the pterodactyl that escaped from the Hub in Cardiff Bay."
"Why do you have a pterodactyl in your headquarters?"
Jack looked over Batman's shoulder. "For the same reason you have a life-sized T-rex in yours?"
Batman half-turned and smiled. "It's a defunct mechanical model. Long story.1" He seized Jack's hand and shook it. At that moment, the pterodactyl flew over their heads with a high-pitched shriek. Batman gasped. Jack grinned and ran after the prehistoric reptile as it circled and landed on the shoulder of the T-rex. "Oh, look, I think they're in love," said Jack.
"That's impossible," said Batman.
"Nothing's impossible, as my old friend the Doctor used to say," shouted Jack, running around the giant feet of the T-rex, trying to coax down the pterodactyl.
"You say you followed it down from Cardiff Bay?"
"Yes," said Jack, half-distracted by the pterodactyl's refusal to budge from the T-rex model. Batman waxed into a meditative silence as Jack began whistling at the pterodactyl.
"Try a pig call," suggested Batman.
Jack allowed himself a cautious smile. Was Batman making jokes? "By the way, Bruce, you can take your mask off. It's okay—I won't tell anyone."
Batman wasn't smiling. "How did you know who I was?"
"Er . . . it's in your file," Jack lied. "Hey, Caped Crusader, are you going to help me get my flying lizard or what?"
"My identity mustn't be leaked," said Batman solemnly. "It's the only weapon I've got in Gotham right now, my anonymity, and if I lose that—"
"Don't sweat it," said Jack, beginning to wish his flippancy away. "Jack Harkness," he said quietly, "isn't my real name. I met the real Jack Harkness. Handsome devil, good dancer, brave. Volunteer RAF pilot."
"In the Second World War?" asked Batman, voice tight, as if he didn't actually expect an answer.
"That's right," said Jack. "Suppose it said in my file that I'm a time traveller?"
Batman shook his head. "You're asking me to believe things that go against my entire conception of the world as I know it. You say Gotham doesn't exist, yet according to me, that's where we are, right now."
"Bruce," said Jack, "look at the pterodactyl. Broaden your horizons." He shrugged. "Or maybe both of us need a stiff drink."
"Yes, maybe," said Batman. "I'll go get us one."
Jack laughed. He couldn't believe it—having a drink in the Bat Cave? "Jack Daniels if you've got it," he tossed over his shoulder.
Suddenly Batman removed his mask and cowl, revealing a handsome face with high cheekbones and dark brown eyes. "I'll see what I can do."
Jack studied him with a grin. "And Bruce? Why are you hiding under that mask all the time? You are quite the looker."
Bruce Wayne looked down, not quite sure how to respond. "Er. Thanks. I guess."
1 See "Dinosaur Island," Batman Comic #256