A/N: Warning! There will eventually be romance. This is basically a warning to everyone who doesn't like pairings with OC's. Why am I saying this now? Because I can. And because I sort of forgot to the last two chapters.


Chapter Three

Partners

His awakening the next morning was not a favorable one. The bright lights, switched on without any warning, seared the back of his eyelids a violent red. He opened his eyes just a sliver and quickly closed them against the bright lights overhead. Turning over, he buried his face in the back of the couch, trying desperately, and in vain, to fall asleep again. After a minute or so, he realized that wasn't going to happen, and turned over again, sitting up groggily. The clock on the oven cheerfully proclaimed that it was 5:04 AM and he cheerfully cursed the world and everything and everyone in it. 5 AM was not the time of morning that he wanted to wake at.

Standing in the kitchen, humming cheerfully to herself, was Janice. She was wearing a white button-down blouse and a denim skirt, along with black, 5-inch heels that couldn't possibly be comfortable, but that she seemed fine in. Her hair was still slightly damp from her shower. She was standing at the stove, an open carton of eggs beside her. There was a slightly burnt smell hanging in the air.

"What are you trying to do now?" he asked, his voice hoarse. He realized that sleeping on the couch without any sort of blanket in an apartment with little heating had probably caused him to contract a cold, but he shook it off. Nothing to worry about. She turned around and stuck her tongue out at him, and he noticed that she was wearing a dark shade of cinnamon colored lip gloss.

"I'm making myself breakfast." she answered. "I have to get to work in 2 hours and I have to take the bus." He raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

"Don't have a car?" he said. She shook her head.

"Cars are expensive, not to mention the gas required to drive them. My inability to hold down a job sort of quashed any hopes of ever getting one." she explained, picking up the frying pan she was tending and scraping the rather burned and runny contents onto a plate. He noticed that she had been trying to make herself scrambled eggs, but had failed miserably.

"Is that even edible?" he asked, standing and running a hand through his dark brown, almost black hair, which was thick with knots. She whirled around and glared at him.

"Yes." she replied. He looked at the plate.

"You're sure about that?" he asked. "I'm not sure you whisked it enough, and you definitely overcooked it."

"Oh, so besides being a master interior decorator, you're also a chef, huh?" she said.

"I don't need to be either of those to be better than you at those particular arts." he replied. "It's not really that difficult."

He jumped to the left just as a mug, still full of coffee, sailed towards his head. It ended up colliding with the wall behind him and shattering, leaving a large coffee stain on the wall.

"You're going to have to clean that up." he pointed out. Janice shrieked a little, then looked at the clock. It was now 5:16.

"Oh, fuck you." she said, grabbing the plate and scraping the eggs into the trashcan.

"You wish." he replied, leaning back lazily against the counter. He was forced to jump to the left again as the plate was sent flying like a Frisbee directly towards his face. It then smashed against the wall in almost the exact same place as the mug had. She flipped him the bird as she grabbed her purse, checking to make sure that she had everything, and ran out the door. He grinned maliciously, then pulled his hand through his hair again and sneered. He needed a shower, badly.


Janice glanced around the office as she shyly entered, clutching her purse to her chest like a lifeline. It had been a long time since she'd been in a high school. In fact, she hadn't been in one since she had been in high school. She'd never been asked to be a substitute teacher before, even though her name had been on the list for years, ever since she got her teaching license during her first year of university. She actually had gotten a record number of degrees in four years, according to her university. Only two of them were legitimate, however; her medical degree and her psychology degree. The rest had been obtained through less.. scrupulous means.

She walked up to the desk. The tired looking secretary looked up from her paperwork and adjusted her spectacles, which were too big for her wrinkled face.

"Yes?" she asked.

"I'm the new substitute teacher, here to sub for Mr. Reese." Janice explained. "Principal Baker asked me to meet with him so that he could talk to me about my payment and show me around the school."

"I see. His office is just through there." the secretary said, gesturing towards a door in the back of the room, behind the room-length desk she was sitting at. Janice nodded and mumbled a weary 'thank you' before shuffling around the back of the desk, her heels making a sharp click against the linoleum. She opened the door at the back and peered inside. Sitting at the desk was a man that couldn't be much older than her, filling out some paperwork. He looked up when he heard the door shut behind her. For a moment, he was speechless, with his mouth hanging open, no doubt not having expected such a beautiful woman (she did have the stereotypical latina charm when she took the effort to, passed down from her mother) to be the substitute he had hired. But he managed to regain his composure rather quickly.

"Ah, Ms. Michaels, I presume?" he said with a smile. She smiled back.

"You presume correctly, Principal Baker." she replied. She extended a hand towards him and he shook it. She made note of his strong grip. "Now, down to business..."

"Ah, yes, your pay. Like I said, we're willing to pay you Mr. Reese's full rate, seeing as you'll be subbing for him for quite a while. We'll pay you on a weekly basis, in case Mr. Reese comes back early." he explained. "Will that be OK with you?" he asked. She nodded, and he rose from his seat. "Well then, would you like to see the school?"

"Actually, is there anywhere that I can eat? A self-proclaimed food critic prevented me from getting a decent meal this morning." she explained. He chuckled at her, and she smiled. She had almost forgotten what a sincere laugh sounded like.

"First stop: the teacher's lounge, then." he said, walking towards the door. He opened it for her and she walked out with him, following him out of the office, down a few hallways, and into a room at the far end of the school. At the back of the room there was a couch, a few chairs and a coffee table, at one side there was a series of vending machines, and at the other there was a long table with many kinds of food laid out on it. They walked over to the table. "Help yourself." he said. She went over to the coffee maker and poured herself a cup. Baker held up a box of donuts. "Would you like one?" he asked.

"No thanks." she said, taking a piece of toast from a nearby plate and taking a bite of it plain. "I'm good with just this." He looked at her oddly, but smiled.

"OK then, if that's what you want." He pulled a donut out of the box and took a bite of it, before pouring himself his own cup of coffee and wandering over to the couch. Janice sighed to herself.

Why can't Riddler be as nice as him? She asked herself. Oh right. Self involved psychopath. I guess that's the price I pay to stay Question Mark.


When Janice entered her last class of the day, all of her students were already sitting at their desks. Some were doodling in their notebooks, some were chatting loudly with their friends across the room, but all of them were there, at the very least. She tossed her bag onto the chair behind the teacher's desk and sat on the desk, looking at the students.

"Afternoon, guys." she said, shifting to get herself comfortable. The students looked up at her. "Mr. Reese is gone for his chemotherapy, as I'm sure you all know, so I'm going to be your substitute teacher for quite a while. My name is Janice Michaels, and if you call me Ms. Michaels, I'm going to have to kill you for making me sound old. So just call me Janice." she said. They all nodded. "OK, great! Now, let's see...since this is current events class, and because I really don't want to have to read the like, 5 page lesson plan your teacher left for me, I figured we should just discuss a topic. Now, does anyone have any suggestions?" Several hands went up, and she was about to select one of them, when her cell phone started chirping in her pocket. She swore under her breath and pulled the phone out. The screen on the front of the phone proudly displayed her home phone number, so she knew immediately who was calling her. "Would you guys excuse me for a minute? This is an important call." With that, she slipped out of the classroom and into the hallway. She flipped open the phone and put it to her ear. "Do you have any fucking idea what time it is, you bastard?" she hissed.

"Oh, did I interrupt you in the middle of class? I'm so sorry." Riddler replied smugly. She hissed a stream of creative curses for a while.

"That's just mean." she grumbled. He chuckled.

"You should have been expecting it. Now, are you done? Because making you look like an idiot in front of your students isn't the only reason I called." he said.

"I'll bet it's one of the main ones." she muttered.

"Actually, the reason I called was I just heard about a shipment coming in at Animex Robotics tonight, and we'll be paying them a visit." he explained. She rolled her eyes, even though she knew he couldn't see her.

"And you interrupted my class for that, when you could have just told me when I got home?" she said, her voice rising a bit.

"Yes, well, it serves you right for not having your priorities straight." With that, he hung up, leaving her to listen to a dial tone. She squeezed the phone in anger and in seconds, it was in pieces in her hand. She cursed.

"Damnit, cheap fucking thing. I needed that."

She stuffed the broken remains of the cell phone into her purse and slipped back into the classroom, silently fuming. The students stopped talking and looked up at her.

"Everything OK, teach?" ashed a red-headed girl sitting at the front of the class. She massaged her temple and sighed.

"Yeah, yeah..." she replied, leaning against her desk. "Anyways, have you guys thought of any good topics?" she asked. The red-head's hand shot up. She nodded at her. "Yes, Ms...?"

"Gordon, Barbara Gordon." she replied. Janice nodded. This girl was Commissioner Gordon's daughter, according to the notes left for her in her class roster. "I was thinking that maybe we could talk about the Batman." she suggested. In seconds the class was buzzing with excited whispers and murmurs of agreement. She looked around; nobody seemed opposed to the idea. She pulled herself up so she was sitting on the desk.

"What is it exactly that makes the Batman so intriguing?" she asked, smoothing a wrinkle in her skirt. Several hands shot up and she nodded at a freckled blond boy towards the back.

"Well, he does a lot of cool things, like arrest criminals." he said. "He's like those guys on Saturday morning cartoons, only he's real, and just a guy with cool stuff." She nodded at another boy with long, greasy black hair, sitting in the second row back.

"I think a lot of people are interested in him because of how mysterious he is. I mean, nobody knows who he really is." he said. She nodded.

"On that note, I have another question for you guys; do you really think it's a good idea for us to trust our city to a man who hides behind a cowl and a silly costume?" she asked. "How do we really trust a man we barely know?" More hands shot up. She nodded at another boy, although she was unsure of who he was.

"Well, he's kind of proven that he's a good guy, since he's caught all those freaky criminals." he said.

"But the freaks didn't start appearing until the Batman showed up." she reminded him. "So has the Batman really done anything to help us? Or had he just made things worse?" Everyone grew quiet, unable to think of an answer. But Barbara's hand shot up almost immediately, much to Janice's surprise. "You disagree?" she said, almost in surprise, and certainly in confusion. Barbara nodded.

"The Batman's done a lot for Gotham. Maybe a few criminals, freak shows who think they can get away with anything, were brought out by the Batman, but thanks to my Dad's job, I've seen some of those freaks, and most of them would've gone nuts without the Batman's help. And there's no way the police could stop them." she said in defense. "My dad said so himself." Janice nodded thoughtfully.

"Maybe so." she replied. "But does that really make up for all the criminals he did bring out?" Another boy put his hand up.

"You mean like the Riddler?" he asked. She nodded.

"Exactly. Actually, I got a chance to speak with Riddler when I was a psychologist at Arkham." she said, almost boastfully.

"Hey, wasn't there a Riddler copycat who broke into Arkham and trashed the head-guy's office and like, spray painted question mark's everywhere?" the freckled blond boy asked. There was another bout of murmuring.

"That's stupid. Why rip off such a lame villain? Why not try to do something original?" asked a girl in the front, seated beside Barbara Gordon. "They must have been pretty hard up for ideas."

Janice gripped the desk as tightly as she could, feeling her fingernails leave crescent markings in the varnish. She gritted her teeth as she tried to ignore the outbreaking discussion about how pathetic the Riddler copycat was. Finally, she cleared her throat.

"Well, um, why don't we get back on track? Does anyone else have an opinion about whether the Batman is helping or hurting the city?" she asked, reaching desperately for a distraction from her growing anger. The students were quick to oblige, spouting off the arguments. Barbara was looking at her suspiciously, but she shook it off.

After all, it was normal for students not to trust their substitute teachers.


"So, how was your first day, Janice?"

Janice looked up from organizing her purse to see Jonathan standing beside her desk, smiling at her. She smiled back.

"It was OK. The students were well behaved, and there were no problems during class. A way better first day than I expected to have, all things considered." she replied, closing her purse and pulling it over her shoulder.

"I'm glad to hear that." he said. "I guess you're one of the lucky ones. Most of our substitutes run away screaming after their first class." She smiled.

"I hope you're joking." she said. He chuckled.

"I wish I were." he replied. There was a moments pause. "So, Janice, me and a bunch of the other teachers are all going out for a drink tonight, as sort of a farewell party for Mr. Reese. Would you be interested in joining us?" he asked. She smiled apologetically.

"Sorry, but I can't." she said. "I have a prior commitment, and I'm afraid that I really can't cancel."

"I understand. But if you change your mind, we'll be at the bar on 43rd Street, and here," Jonathan took a piece of paper from the desk and grabbed a pen, scribbling something on the paper. "Here, this is my cell phone number. Call me if you need anything." She took the slip of paper and tucked it into her purse.

"I will. Thanks." she said. The clock proudly reminded her that she was running rather late, and she still had to stop at the cell phone store to pick up a replacement for the one sitting in pieces in her purse. She cursed under her breath and jumped up, headed for the door. "I'll see you tomorrow, Principal Baker."

"Please, call me Jonathan." he said. She smiled at him.

"See you tomorrow, then, Jonathan." she corrected, before dashing out of the classroom.

As she made her way towards the bus stop, she sighed, wishing that Riddler could at least be as civil as her new employer.


"I'm home." she called, walking through her doorway and tossing her purse onto the table. Riddler looked up from her laptop, which he had borrowed without her permission (not that he cared in the least), and frowned angrily at her.

"You're late." he said, closing the laptop. She frowned at him.

"Well, soorrryyy." she said. "But thanks to a certain someone, I needed to go out and buy a new cell phone." He rolled his eyes at her.

"That was not in any way my fault. It's your own anger." he said.

"Well, besides that, I also got caught up talking to the principal." she said. "Nice man."

"You really should prioritize better, Janice. After all, how do you expect to focus on being my partner and being a teacher at that school at the same time?" he asked. He moved the laptop over to the cushion beside him and crossed his legs, leaning back confidently. "Being my partner has to come first, otherwise I'll have to let you go." he said. She growled at him.

"Need I remind you that I know the locations of all of your hideouts?" she said. He chuckled lightly.

"I can always get new hideouts, Janice. But enough of that now." he said, opening the laptop again. He opened a file and gestured for her to come over. She wandered over to the couch and sat beside him so that she could see the screen, but maintained as much distance as she possibly could. A map appeared on screen. "This is the layout of the Animex Robotics Corporation. The cameras in the lobby could present a challenge, but if we sneak past them correctly—"

"This is wrong. All wrong." Janice interrupted, pointing at the markings showing where the cameras were located. "These should be over here, and this one is waaaay farther down than that, and that one's on the other side of the room." she said, moving her finger across the screen to show where the cameras should be. He looked at her oddly.

"And how do you know that?" he asked. She shrugged.

"I used to work there, once upon a time." she said. "About 2 years ago."

"So how could you remember the locations of the cameras all this time?" he asked skeptically.

"I have a photographic memory." she replied. "It could have been 20 years ago, and I'd still remember it like it was yesterday." He scoffed.

"I have a hard time believing that. Photographic memories are rare." he said. She glared at him, then took a deep breath.

"'Edward J. Nigma, alias 'the Riddler'. Suspected psycho- and sociopath, not often agreeable. Must be monitored at all times. A highly intelligent man, but quick to anger. Approach with extreme caution.'" she quoted. "Your Arkham file, word for word. It was in size 12 font, Times New Roman, and included an 8x10 glossy of your mugshot." Riddler thought for a moment.

"Well, Janice, perhaps you do have some useful talents." he said, changing the positions of the cameras on the map per her instructions. The compliment caught her off guard. "Of course, you're still essentially useless, but what am I to do? We have a deal, after all."

Janice smacked him, leaving a violent red mark on his pale cheek.

"At least I don't get beat on by a guy in a bat costume."


It was much later that night before they actually tried to sneak out of the apartment building. Janice had changed into her Question Mark outfit, complete with a mask that was quite similar to Riddler's, which she had bought at the same time as her new phone.

Riddler opened the window and stepped onto the frame, pulling himself through. The night air was cold, and stung the exposed skin on his face and arms. He looked down at the ground below; the height wasn't extreme, being that they were only on the second floor. He pushed off of the frame and let himself fall towards the earth. Using his staff to slow his descent by scraping it against the wall as he went down, he landed easily. He then turned back towards the window and saw Janice frozen in the window, apparently fearful about the drop. He rolled his eyes.

"Not scared, are you?" he asked. She growled.

"I'm not a freaking ballerina like you." she said. "I can't land a 2 story drop like a freaking cat." He sighed.

"Well, what do you suggest, then?" he asked. He then held out his arms. "Jump down. I'll catch you." She scoffed.

"Yeah, right. You'd love to have me jump to my death." she hissed.

"You don't have much of a choice. Unless, of course, you want to give up being Question Mark, in which case I'll understand completely." he said. She made a noise of discontent that was something between a hiss and a snarl.

"I hate you so much, you know." she said. He chuckled.

"I know." And with that, she jumped.

True to his word, Riddler caught her, barely flinching under the sudden added weight. Janice was shocked. She had expected to merely be let drop to her untimely demise, but apparently Riddler had a stronger sense of character than she had thought.

She was about to give him more credit when he slid his arms out from underneath her, letting her fall to the cold, hard ground. She cried out as her tail-bone protested the sudden pain.

"Why you—" she started, but he put a finger to his lips in a 'shush' gesture.

"Remember, there are other people in the building. We don't want them to hear us, Question Mark." he said mockingly. She narrowed her eyes and glared at him menacingly, but he merely started to walk away again. "Hurry up, or I'll have to leave you behind."

With a growl, Janice got to her feet, and followed.