They drove in silence for a few hours, during which time the only thing he managed to accomplish was to make his wrists bleed. The lubrication was not quite enough to let him slip free of the handcuffs, but that hardly mattered. It wasn't as if he had anywhere else to go.

"Look at that sunrise," Al said, startling him. He looked up indifferently. Sunrises coloring the sky like an oil painting had never interested him much. All he was interested in was the direction of the sun, which told him that they were traveling south and a little west. Wonderful. With that information, he should have no problem getting away.

He resisted the absurd urge to bang his head against the window as Al reached over yet again to change the CD to something else he had never heard of and didn't particularly like. The woman had marginally better taste than Harley Quinn. That was about all he could say about her.

"How are you doing over there?" she asked over the sound of music so relentlessly peppy he had to wonder if she was attempting some kind of psychological torture. He didn't bother to answer. "I'm fixing to stop and get gas. Do you need to go to the restroom?" He still didn't answer, although he was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. "Wake up, squish face. I don't want you staining my seats."

Then she poked him.

He was so startled, he squeaked.

She cackled.

"What's funny?" he demanded. In answer, she poked him again. "Stop that!" Poke, poke, poke, she poked him in time with the turn signal. "Stop touching me!" She just poked him again. "Stop it!" He tried to block her finger with his elbow, but the handcuffs held him at a supremely awkward angle, with his ribs mercilessly exposed to her relentless prodding. "Stop!" He pressed his body up against the car door, trying to evade her pokes.

"Is that all it takes to get a rise out of you?" She poked him again, and he felt his wrist start to bleed again when he jerked against the cuffs, reflexively trying to swat her hand away.

"Will you leave me alone?"

"No! I can't leave you alone. That would be wrong." She poked him once more as she pulled up to the gas pump. "So, how about it? I'll let you out for a minute if you need to go."

"I do," he said. She grinned.

"Now, that's the spirit, Squishykins! Politeness can get you anywhere." Whistling, she got out and walked around to his side of the car. Then she opened the door and poked him with the key.

"Stop doing that!"

"Nope." She pulled off the blanket—and froze at the sight of his bloody wrists. "Oh…what have you…have you been…oh, Professor Crane, now honestly." She shut the door on him.

Stupid. He should have tried to clean that off.

She opened the door again and dumped his own first aid kit in his lap.

"Let's try not to let this happen again, okay?" She freed his right hand and locked the handcuffs around themselves, keeping his left hand trapped. Well, she certainly wasn't taking any chances just now. "I'm going to go ahead and assume that you didn't do this to yourself on purpose," she said as she carefully rolled up his sleeve. "Well, scoot over." She sat down next to him, crowding him over to the edge of the seat.

"This is not necessary," he said, trying to take his hand back.

"Of course it's necessary. Do you want it to get infected and fall off?" She dipped a cotton ball in alcohol and touched it to his wrist. Instantly, he tried to pull away. "Oh, yeah. Sorry. This may sting a little."

"Why won't you just leave me alone?"

"Oh, don't be such a baby, Mr. Master of Fear. I know it doesn't hurt that bad." She cleaned his wrist as efficiently as any nurse he had ever had—and was better than most orderlies at holding him immobilized. "Almost done, sweetums. You know, you can cry if you want to. I won't think less of you."

He glared at her, contemplating what he would have to do to reduce her to hysterical tears. Snakes? Spiders? Surely nothing so mundane. Maybe heights? He would quite enjoy dangling her from a skyscraper the way Batman seemed so fond of doing to his enemies. She would scream, and she would cry…

Soon. Very soon.

"I know that isn't necessary," he said when she started bandaging his wrist, using far too much gauze for the job.

"Call it precautionary measures." She reached into her pocket and pulled out, of all things, a roll of shiny silver duct tape.

"What is that for?" She smirked.

"Oh, what do you think I am, some kind of pervert?" The white gauze quickly disappeared under layers of silver tape. "It's like my captain always says: duct tape fixes everything. And Sharpies write on anything." She giggled at some private joke.

A captain? That did put a new spin on things. Was she part of a military group? A police force? A pirate crew? (All equally feasible.) And was she currently operating under this captain's orders, or was she a free agent?

She changed wrists while he was contemplating that. He let out an involuntary hiss of pain at the renewed sting of the alcohol. She refused to let him pull his hand away.

"Well, are you?" he asked. She didn't let him distract her from her work.

"Am I what?"

"Some kind of pervert." She laughed.

"Silly man. You have nothing to worry about. I don't do that kind of thing."

"Well, what do you want?"

"Cooperation. That's all." She finished bandaging and duct taping his left wrist and, with a wicked smile, released him from the handcuffs. "That ought to hold, don't you think?" She dragged him out of the car and gave him a moment to stretch. He realized then that she was a lot smaller than he had originally thought. She just barely came up to his shoulder.

"You are quite short, aren't you?" he murmured.

And she squeaked and twitched away from him.

Was that fear?

Surely she wasn't afraid of being short. (What would that phobia be called, anyway? Microphobia?) He could have taken the opportunity to try to run while she didn't have a hold on him, but…well, now he was intrigued. Besides, now that he had made her flinch, he no longer felt quite so powerless. He could still turn this situation to his own advantage.

"Come on, squish face. And make it snappy." She was brash, overcompensating for whatever little fright he had given her. How very interesting. She walked behind him on the way to the bathroom, keeping one hand on his elbow the whole way.

So, she would offer him what freedom she had to, to avoid attracting any attention, but she plainly didn't trust him not to try to run. He could work something out from that. He was beginning to get a handle on her in spite of her better than average ability to keep herself closed off.

"Are you going to follow me inside?" he asked mildly.

"God, no! It's filthy in there!" she said, and shoved him inside.

Oh. She was right. This place was disgusting.

He used one finger to lock the door and then took a look around.

Oh, the stains. The rust. The smells.

The stains.

It was the most horrifying thing he had seen since…well, since the day he had gassed all those people on the set of that zombie movie. Some of that glorious carnage had been edited into a bootleg copy of the movie that had quickly become a cult classic, and was considered the masterpiece of that lousy hack director, who had fortunately been clawed to shreds by his own scantily clad scream queens.

They didn't make movies in Gotham after that.

But this…this was just horrifying.

He tried not to touch anything as he did what he had to do. Then he tried very carefully to wash his hands, but the water was dubious at best, there was no soap to be found, and one look at the paper towel dispenser made him want to be physically ill.

Truly horrifying.

A quick check of his own pockets told him what he already suspected—she had cleaned him out. His fear toxin was gone, even the tiny emergency canister that he kept in a place he would rather she hadn't looked. His research notebook was no longer in his pocket. His backup notebook was no longer in his other pocket. His pens and pencils (at least one for every possible hiding place) were all gone.

So, there was no chance of leaving an S.O.S., not that anything of his would be heeded amidst the pornographic scrawls that covered those rare stretches of wall that were not disfigured by unidentified crusts. She was right, anyway; he didn't want to be rescued by the police unless it became absolutely necessary.

He had no weapons. Certainly, there was nothing in this filthy public restroom that he wanted to take with him. But he didn't particularly want to go back out there unarmed.

She knocked on the door.

"You done in there, Professor?"

He looked around quickly. Damn. Not even a window to climb out of. Had she scouted ahead? His respect for her rose another notch, as did his resolve to frighten her into a state of witless terror. She would be beautiful as a gibbering wreck. The strong ones were always his favorite to break.

But first he would have to get himself out of her power. No one feared a helpless man in handcuffs.

"Hey, Squishykins?" she called. The doorknob rattled.

Damn her. He unlocked the door. It swung open, and she took a step back, startled by the look on his face.

"Something wrong in there?" She grinned. "Or was it just icky?"

"You are a rotten child," he said. She shrugged.

"Hey, I don't like it either. At least you don't actually have to touch the seat." She took his arm. "Come on. I have hand sanitizer in the car."

This time around, he paid more attention to the car itself. There were no other cars in the lot except for this one, a rather nondescript beige thing with Gotham tags. It was most likely a rental; it didn't have that lived-in feel of most cars he had stolen over the years. There were two bags in the back seat. One was the one she had taken from his place (and he had to wonder just what she had put into that.) The other must be her personal gear. There might be weapons in that. Then again, there might not. She wasn't exactly built like a fighter, in spite of the ninja skills she had already displayed.

Other than her bizarre CD collection, he had not seen anything particularly useful in the car. She didn't even have any maps tucked into that pocket in the door, or a tube of lipstick tucked up above the makeup mirror. For a young woman, this Al was not terribly effeminate. There didn't seem to be much chance that he could find a lost bobby pin that he could use to pick the lock of his handcuffs.

Damn those handcuffs, he thought as she locked them around his wrists again-higher on his forearms this time, where the bandaging was thinnest and they'd be blocked from slipping off. Although he had to admit, the layers of gauze and duct tape did make the situation a lot less uncomfortable for him. It did put an end to the blood lubricant plan, but all in all, he was not the masochist that some of his compatriots were. He could live with the unusual company as long as she gave him something interesting to study.

Which was not to say that he was ready to give up on trying to gain his freedom. But life could be interesting until then.

Interesting.

She lost her casual smirk when she thought he wasn't watching. Pumping gas, her expression was perfectly neutral, a little softer looking than the snarkiness he had already become used to.

Then she rather spoiled the effect by looking in at him and sticking out her tongue.

Wretched little woman.

She went inside, to pay for the gas, he assumed.

Interesting, yet again. She must be paying cash, trying to avoid leaving a paper trail. A criminal status was looking more and more likely.

No time to worry about that now, though. There was no point trying to study her while she wasn't around.

He had more important things to worry about.

He couldn't reach the glove compartment, but he didn't think she would keep anything important that close to her prisoner, anyway. His best bet would be the compartment in between the seats.

The seat belt and the handcuffs made it more than difficult to bend himself into that awkward position, but at last he managed to nudge the latch with his nose. It didn't lift. He shifted position slightly and hit it with his chin. This time, he was able to raise it all the way.

Good. He hadn't been looking forward to using his tongue.

Inside the compartment, he found his glasses (duct taped at the bridge), his notebooks, and his pens. His eyes narrowed. The fear toxin wasn't there, but that wasn't unexpected. She wouldn't keep his greatest weapon where he could possibly get to it.

He picked up a pen in his teeth and let the lid slam shut. One would have to be enough. There was no telling how soon the crazy woman would be back. He slipped the pen into his pocket for future use. It would be a shame to have to sacrifice his favorite Uni-Ball, with the ink like fresh blood, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

Yes, ink like blood. That one always did make him happy. He would think of something good to do with that ink, too. Something she would enjoy.

When she got back, he was under the blanket and basking like a cat in the early morning sunlight. Gotham always had been colder than he would have liked, but it didn't bother him nearly as much as he was letting on. Let her think of him as weak. Let her be lulled into a false sense of security.

She even looked a little guilty as she slid into her seat. Fantastic.

"Are you okay?" He shrugged. "Getting hungry?" He shrugged again. "Well, I've got snacks if you want some." She dropped a plastic bag in his lap and handed him a bottle of water. He stared at her. "What? Would you rather have chocolate milk? Because this is mine." She took a sip from her own bottle (with a smiling brown cow on the label) and then turned her attention to driving.

He opened the bottle of water while she was focused on turning back on to the interstate. Thus it was that he was the first to realize that he could not get his hands anywhere near his mouth.

And now that he actually had a bottle of water in his hand, it occurred to him that he was really thirsty

Now, this was just unfair.

He slid down in the seat, bringing himself closer to the water. Almost…He glanced up at her. Yes, she still had her eyes on the road. He scrunched down a little more, and was finally able to touch the bottle to his lips.

She chose that moment to go over a bump in the road. The water hit him like a cold, wet slap in the face.

Al glanced down at him and quickly turned her eyes back to the road.

Oh, now she was intimidated.

He glared up at her…and realized that her lips were twitching in a concentrated effort not to smile.

"What?" he snapped.

"I'm sorry," Al said, and burst into maniacal laughter. She took a dry corner of the blanket and tried, rather awkwardly, to wipe his face.

"Stop it." She frowned.

"I'm trying to help, you jackass."

"I don't want you to help. I want you to stop touching me."

"You sound just like…" He waited.

Who? "You sound just like" who? A friend? An enemy? A Bond villain? If he was reminding her of someone, if she was beginning to think of him in a different context, well, that was sensitive information.

But she didn't seem inclined to finish her sentence. Maybe she realized she had come close to giving something important away. Maybe she really was as insane as she kept tempting him to think. Maybe she just wanted to annoy him.

It was so frustrating not to know.

There were not many people who could make him lose his cool so easily—and most of those were dead.

When it became apparent that she was not going to say another word, he shrank down in the seat and drank the rest of the water without so much as stopping for breath. She glanced down at him with an expression that he couldn't quite read—and for him, that was unusual in itself.

"Dehydrated?" He shrugged. Give her the silent treatment. Let her fill the silence with conversation if she felt she must. After all, he wasn't going to learn anything by chatting away with her, now was he? "We can stop and get you something else to drink if you want," she said, uncertainty coloring her voice. "You aren't going to die on me, are you?"

"I doubt it."

"Okay…that's good, then." She hesitated. "Do you want some of my chocolate milk?" He shook his head. Chocolate milk had never been his drink of choice, and he was actually fairly comfortable now. He wasn't going to tell her that… "Well, are you hungry?"

"Mmm," he said indifferently.

"Okay, whatever. You know where the food is if you want some. I'm not your smegging mother," she grumbled as she reached into the plastic sack for a bag of chips. She took both hands off the wheel to open it, and he tensed.

Keep your hands on the wheel, idiot! You're doing eighty on the interstate!

"Oh, do I make you nervous?" she said with an audible smirk. He didn't give her the satisfaction of an answer.

But if he had, he would have said that, yes, riding with a maniac driver made him a little antsy.

They didn't die right away, though. He took that as a good sign.

He sat in silence for a while, until he finally decided that admitting he was hungry wouldn't quite amount to handing her a victory. He reached into the bag and pulled out something cream-filled that had about as much nutritional value as a gym sock and tasted like pure sugar.

Well, it was something, anyway. But he couldn't bring himself to eat anything else from her sack of gas station snacks. It wasn't as if he had never dealt with hunger before. A couple of missed meals weren't going to kill him, but this rubbish just might.

It didn't seem to bother her, though. She munched happily on a Moon Pie as she drove, humming along to a heavily censored song about a promiscuous vampire.

Under the cover of his blanket, he took out his pen and quickly disassembled it, removed the spring, and reassembled it, working by feel alone. The pen went back into his pocket for later use; he got to work on straightening out the spring. The thin little wire probably wouldn't be strong enough to pick the lock of his handcuffs, but what could it hurt to try?

Well, it could hurt his hand when he accidentally jammed the wire into his palm. He wasn't used to working blind. This was going to be very difficult to maneuver without alerting her with all his squirming and fumbling about.

Slow and steady, Crane. You can do this Do not doubt yourself.

It was just going to take a while.

"Hey, Squishykins," Al said abruptly, startling him into almost dropping the wire.

"What?"

"If you're hungry…"

"I'm not hungry," he snapped.

"Well, if you were hungry, I could get you something next time I stop. Anything you want, Squishykins; what do you say?"

"Don't call me Squishykins."

"All right, Scarecrow," she said easily. "Do you want a hamburger?"

"No."

"How about a chicken sandwich?"

"No." She considered it.

"Ham?"

"No!"

"Oh, come on. You clearly need a hug and a sandwich, and I'm giving you one or the other, whether you like it or not."

A hug?

She wouldn't.

Would she?

"Do what you want," he grumbled. "I can't stop you."

"You're right. You can't." She poked him again, and he vowed to kill her, slowly, painfully, and as soon as possible.

She left the interstate again, smiling and apparently oblivious to his smoldering fury. Or maybe she was just enjoying it. Probably that, he thought as she poked him again.

"Why are you touching me?"

"Because it's more fun than touching myself."

He glared at the crazy bitch.

"What?"

"You heard me. I like to watch you twitch. Does that make me sadistic?" she asked with an exaggerated expression of wide-eyed innocence.

Then she poked him again.

"Yes! Yes, you're sadistic. Now, stop it." She laughed.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. Do you like Wendy's?" He ignored the question.

"You're sorry?"

"What? You almost sound disappointed."

"Hardly." She poked him again. "Stop!"

"Oh, admit it—you like the attention."

"You must be thinking of someone else," he said stiffly. "Nygma, maybe." There was no mistaking it—she perked up at the mention of the Riddler's name.

"You know him?"

"Of course I know him. He's been in Arkham almost as many times as I have."

"Really? What's he like?" She sounded far more excited than he would have expected. Why would she be interested in the Riddler?

"He's intelligent, but what you might call childish. Insecure, with a tendency to overcompensate. Useful for planning, but not so useful for following through with those plans. Good at chess. Why?"

"How about Man-Bat? Do you know Man-Bat?"

"Dr. Langstrom? I met him once. Why?" She giggled.

"Scruffy little bastard." That was not something he would have expected her to say in quite so delighted a tone.

"If you're looking for help abducting more super-criminals…"

"Oh, please," she laughed. "The Riddler is safe in Arkham, and Dr. Langstrom is married."

What did marriage have to do with anything? He didn't want to ask.

She pulled into the parking lot of some fast food place and put an end to the conversation.

"We're not going through the drive through?"

"Nope. Now it's my turn to go to the restroom. Are you going to tell me what you want?"

"Nope," he replied, imitating her tone.

"You smarmy git."

And then she left him alone.

Strange girl. He had the feeling that this was a scheduled stop, despite her efforts to make him think otherwise. And even though he seemed to be alone in the car with a perfect avenue of escape, he didn't doubt that she had planned ahead.

He went to work on the handcuffs, anyway. He knew better than to pass up any opportunity, even one that smelled like a trap.

A minute passed. Then five. Then ten. By then, he was sweating, shivering, and cursing under his breath, with a dull ache in his wrist that was going to develop into a very sharp pain if he didn't change positions soon. The damned little wire would not obey him; it kept bending instead of staying stiff in the lock. He wasn't a very skilled lockpick under the best conditions; he should have known this wasn't going to work. And now it was too late to try anything else.

He stuck the little bit of wire up his sleeve as the door opened. No reason to throw it away—it might not be helping him now, but that didn't mean he couldn't find some use for it later.

"You're still here," Al teased. "I'm so disappointed in you."

"I just couldn't stand to go without the pleasure of your company," he snarked back, eliciting a hearty cackle from the crazy bitch.

"I'm glad to see you have a sense of humor underneath that old maiden aunt act." She started the engine and, after a searching glance at him, turned the heat up all the way. "I got you a chicken sandwich and some fries. Stuff thyself." She took her own food out of the paper bag and tossed the rest at him. "Do you drink cokes?"

"No." He had put enough unnatural substances in his body over the years, willingly or otherwise, and he preferred not to put in any more.

But the fact that she had called it coke, rather than soda or pop, not the proper noun short for Coca-Cola, but the general term coke, brought him back to a place he had not wanted to think of in years.

Georgia.

"I wouldn't turn down a glass of tea, though," he said, trying not to appear too interested in her reaction.

She grinned.

"I guess that means the Mountain Dew is mine, then." She switched the positions of the cups in the cup holder and handed him the one that had been on her side. After a moment of contortion, he sipped it.

Tea, real iced tea, as sweet as he had ever tasted. He hadn't had tea like this since high school. He even detected the foul aftertaste of imitation sugar—she had sweetened it to her taste, exactly as he would have.

She was southern, all right. If not from Georgia, then from somewhere nearby.

So, what did that mean? What was her connection to him? She probably wasn't related. His mother's family were all tall, slender, and aristocratic-looking; what he had seen of his father's were burly brawler types. She was neither; short, solid but not muscular, built like his exact opposite…not that he took after either side of his family very much, either.

She was too young to have a personal grievance, so she must be here on someone else's behalf. Griggs? Squires's family? Had he finally been connected with that attack after all these years?

Well, his true enemy would be revealed soon enough. Until then, he seemed to be stuck with her. She didn't seem interested in killing him right away, so there was always a chance that she could be tricked or manipulated into letting her guard down.

He ate his sandwich slowly, as if food were the last thing on his mind. He had learned many times over that it was never a good idea to appear too dependent on one's captors. If she got the idea that there was something he really wanted, that would only make her more likely to take it away, if only to force his cooperation. So whether he was hungry or not (and he was; it had been a long time since yesterday's lunch) there was no need to seem too eager.

"How is it?" she asked.

"Fine," he responded. That was the extent of the interaction he wanted. Of course, she had other ideas.