The Bat Chapter 3, a batman fanfic

THE BAT:

SECRETS

By LJ58

Part 3:

Barbara looked down her body, still feeling peculiar over having Batman standing there between her legs as he ran a peculiar, humming device she had never seen between her thighs. He said nothing as he continued to inspect her inner thighs, and her dark corral slit he had earlier examined with such intensity she thought he might just end up doing far more before he finished.

"So, how does it look," she asked, feeling a little anxious yet as she lay there with her legs in the air, and being strapped down without being able to move much at all.

He looked up at her past the swell of her still firm breasts, and mostly muscular upper body, and merely nodded. "Promising," he told her, and set the odd device aside, and now squeezed some clear lubrication into his palm.

"Um, what are you doing now?" "Acid test," he told her with a faint smile, and lubricated his fingers on his right hand before he slid first one, then two fingers right into her long unused slit.

She gave a soft grunt, astonished to feel the tug and stretching of her most intimate parts after so long, but she knew he wanted a thorough examination of her body as it progressed through recovery, so tried not to think too much of what he was doing.

"I…I can actually feel your fingers," she told him as she dropped her head back on the table, and knew, too, her open puss was actually starting to react, to lubricate itself for the first time in many years. "It's……wonderful," she moaned, her eyes closing as she just lay there and let his fingers slide back and forth for several minutes.

She even gasped when a third finger suddenly slipped into her increasingly moist channel, and Batman continued to slide his fingers deeper into her spongy, pliant flesh. Every teasing stroke brought his thumb to her suddenly responsive clit. She was so distracted by the growing pleasure she had not felt in so long that it took her bemused, and slight befuddled mind several minutes before something occurred to her.

"B-Batman, are you…..Are you fingering me," she rasped, wishing she could push her surprisingly sensitive groin up to meet those delightfully knowing fingers.

"Figured that out, did you," he smiled smugly as he continued to work her liquid flesh with stronger, and more direct shoves into her now opened, and well-lubricated sex.

"This….This is part of….your test," she asked.

"No," he said, his fingers pulling back to leave her feeling achingly empty after what seemed to her a lifetime of numbness. "This is," he chortled, and drove this rampant shaft right into her as he made her cry out in shock and bliss as one. I think an acid test, as it were, will tell us how successful we can expect this experiment to be," he told her as he pushed himself deeper into her sex-starved body.

Nothing had prepared her for this moment as her sex-starved body trembled violently in response as she shouted again as he pulled out, then shoved his thick shaft right back into her hot, wet hole that easily welcomed the invader, just as it had the first time.

"Oh…Oh, God, Bruce," she called him this time as she looked up at his face. "We….We shouldn't be doing this," she protested, her body straining to move, though she was still bound, and helpless to move the parts of her body that were still under her control.

"No?" "No," she moaned as he continued to stroke her clit with one hand while the other reached up to explore her fat, round orbs as he hunched into her immobilized body with grim determination. "But…don't stop," she ordered him in the same breath. "It feels….so good.

"Finally, I feel….."

Her words faded as she now resorted to soft grunts and groans to vocalize her growing bliss as the grim hero continued to drive his thick cock into her naked sex, at times even nudging her cervix, and virtually penetrating the mouth of her womb.

He pulled back each time, thinking abruptly of the other two women he had recently fucked. Claimed, came to mind even as his questing rod stabbed deep, swelling as his body bucked, and began to pour his thick, life-giving seed into Barbara's womb. He continued to plow her wet slit the entire time, hesitant to give up his new lover as he teased her fat nipples in turn even as he forced his seed into the redhead's hungry sex. The need to do so overwhelmed all else just then, and later he might realize it fueled his growing certainty there was more to his new body than he had realized after all this time.

Still, as he stood before the redhead, driving his cock into her now reawakened body, nothing else mattered beyond his immediate possession of her. Even as he finished emptying his cum into her ripe womb, he kept driving his still hard rod into her, forcing the whimpering moans and grunts of helpless pleasure from her lips.

When her body finally went into a series of uncontrollable spasms, and she was screaming in mindless ecstasy, he finally withdrew, and put away his still partially erect shaft. Even as a part of him surveyed his new conquest with grim satisfaction, another part of his ever analytical mind was trying to understand just when he had lost control of the animal side of his nature. For one minute he had been dutifully studying the progress Barbara was making, and the next he was fucking her like a madman.

Something was definitely off. Something that had not come up in the careful initial study of his new body in all the time he had been living in…..

Seclusion.

That could have been part of it. No one knew he was here at the time. He had definitely not been around any women in all those years. Could it be a gross overcompensation of some sort by his instincts being hyper-sensitized by his new body just the way his senses had been augmented? Even as he stared down at Barbara, he knew, absolutely knew, he had just impregnated her.

As he had Pamela, and Selina.

This, he decided, was getting out of hand.

"That….That was wonderful, Bru…Batman," she sighed, looking down the naked slope of her own body at him as he simply stood there lost in his own speculations.

He smiled wanly, choosing to say nothing about her pregnancy just then. She'd learn soon enough. Instead, he gently cleaned the swollen, ravaged slit still dripping with his seed, and on impulse, kept the damp cloth to study the fluids. It might give him another clue into the inner workings of this strangely human, yet not quite human form he had been given.

"I think we can safely say the experiment is likely a success," he told her blandly as she stared up at him with the same adoring gaze Ivy used now.

"Yes," Barbara smiled. "And I cannot wait to thank you again, and again," she cooed quite seductively.

He didn't smile as he merely turned away to preserve the semen on the cloth he was holding for future study. This was an aspect of his new incarnation that definitely required closer scrutiny. What, for instance, had draw him to Pamela, Selina, and Barb, while he had all but ignored the other women he had seen, and encountered over the past week? He had to find out. Before he ended up with a harem of pregnant women feeling bound to him.

Even as Bruce Wayne in his heyday, that would have been a horrific vision. He could just imagine what Alfred would have had to say about that, too. He felt a surge of grief for his old friend, proving that in part, at least, he was still human enough to feel those things that he should.

"I'll call Dick to let him know…."

"I'd prefer you didn't," Barbara stopped him as he started to leave the chamber he used as a medical clinic.

"Why not," he asked as much out of personal curiosity, as from a need to explore this phenomena more deeply.

"Well, there really wasn't much between us anymore than friendship, and a few poorly remembered liaisons anyway. When you mentioned this….possible procedure, we thought it might bring us back to where we were. On a…sexual basis, anyway. But I know now….I just feel….I could never go back to him. Not after knowing you," she smiled at him, looking every inch the seductive woman despite being bound atop a examining table.

"I see," he murmured. "Well, you're still mayor of Gotham, so in a few more minutes, I'll help you up, and get you back upstairs so you can get back in time to recover for your….normal duties."

"You want me to go," she actually pouted.

"For now," he told her. "You should….continue as is normal for you," he told her, borrowing the tact he had inadvertently used on Ivy that first night. "We don't want people connecting us, after all.

"Especially one man in particular."

She paled, then scowled. "Of course. You're right. I just hope you nail him quickly. I have to admit, I wouldn't mind seeing that bastard fry one more time," she told him in an unexpectedly fierce tone.

He understood all too well.

"We'll get him," he told her as he came back with her clothes before he started unstrapping her.

"I really mean it," she told him as she sat up with some effort after tugging her lower limbs about on the table once the stirrups were pushed out of the way.

"Mean what," he asked her.

"That I'd like to do this again," she told him with a smile as he helped her dress.

"I'll certainly keep that in mind on my….slow nights," he told her blandly as he then carried her to her chair, and only then signaled Dick, who would be waiting above anyway, knowing his former partner, and ward.

"How very interesting," the reedy voice sniggered as jaundiced eyes watched the flickering images as the small speaker gave a static-filled, but intelligible transmission of words that explained much, and yet hinted at greater mysteries.

"Master," a dark-clad figure asked.

"Imbecile," the skeletal hand waved the servant aside when he stepped between the watcher in the scarlet robe, and the monitor that showed a dimly lit chamber where a cloaked figure was preparing to go once more back into the night.

"I…Forgive me, master. I brought your medicine," the cowed servant bowed low, holding out a small tray with several small cups of various colored liquids.

"Yes, yes," Ra's glowered as a trembling hand reached for the preservatives that kept his withering body going despite his great age that was rapidly catching up to him.

He finished the necessary doses, then turned back to the monitor. "Now that I know the how. I just need access to the technology," the old man smiled cruelly as he studied the now empty screen.

"He has secured the cave since our visit, master," another servant told him. "Our scouts indicate the tunnels we have utilized in the past have been closed, and the others secured with a technology we cannot yet penetrate."

"More of his….off-world gifts, no doubt," the cadaverous features smirked. "Still, there is a more…direct path into the detective's lair. Even if it might seem….roundabout. Call the mercenary. Tell him….I have a job for him."

"Yes, master," the second servant bowed to Ra's al Ghul as the ancient assassin continued to smile at the transmission that came from the hidden camera in Talia's life support cylinder.

Operating on a cloaked frequency that randomized its transmissions, it had obviously escaped the detective's attention since it was still operating. He had learned just enough from the encrypted broadcasts that he realized the Batman was no longer truly just a man. Perhaps no longer even human. True, human enough in visage, and manner, but it was obvious he was now truly beyond the scope or mortality of ordinary beings. How ironic that he had found what Ra's had been seeking for generations, that he had gained through his sacrifice what Ra's would have wrested by force from the gods.

Still, if he moved carefully. Cleverly. He would still have the technology that now powered this new Dark Knight. He would have immortality, and freedom from the uncertainty of the Lazarus Pits, and the fear of death itself.

And if a few more common drones had to help pave that path with their blood, then so be it.

Richard yawned as he swung his chair away from the desk, and the endless parade of tedious reports that now comprised his day as Wayne-Tech's CEO and heir to the Wayne empire. Of course, his usual routine was changed somewhat by J'onn's insistence on running his new appendage through every test he could think of, and then some.

Incredibly enough, it bled when cut, the red fluid indistinguishable from his own blood, and he could actually feel pain, or anything else his original limb might have felt. If anything, it was actually more sensitive, feeling imperfections even in something as smooth as the polished wood surface of the antique desk he now sat behind.

J'onn found nothing that might actually prove a hindrance to the future product testing before submitting the usual trials through the AMA and FDA for public consumption. If anything, he was surprised to find it was a perfect blend of organic technology, and seemed to show no downside at all. If anything, it was true miracle. And as to its integration into his body, he couldn't tell where his original arm had ever been severed now. It truly had become a part of him, and in only a few days. He was already so used to it, it almost seemed as if he had never lost his arm.

Were it not for the suddenly recurring nightmares that followed that last battle with Whip.

He grimaced, ignoring the view of the city from his office, and looking farther out, across the horizon where the sun was just starting to set. It was almost eerie how things had changed so much, or so fast after Batman had once more spread his shadow over the city. The corrupt and criminal were fleeing in fear, and people were starting to regain hope Gotham might just yet outgrow the title of the most dangerous city on the planet it had gained in the past decade.

He had yet to actually see it for himself yet, but he had heard Ivy was turning the park into a playground for families, and not one mugger dared trespass there. Not since she had taken an active interest in keeping them out. There were, naturally, heated editorials demanding the apparently penitent murderess be brought in to stand trial now that she was acting so civic minded, but even Bullock had agreed that as long as she wasn't doing anything criminal now, they should just leave her alone.

Or as the ever blunt commissioner put it, "Do you clowns really want to piss her off again?"

He sighed, feeling oddly restless, and knowing well enough part of the problem. True, a part of him missed the 'scene.' but he really was well rid of it. He was getting too old for that life now, even if he was still in better shape than most men half his age. What really annoyed him was that even after Barb had come back with glowing reports of how well her procedure seemed to be working, she still wouldn't let him back into her life.

He could almost understand her previous arguments, but now, when she could apparently feel long-lost sensations again, and was no longer calling herself just half a woman, she still wouldn't let him see her. Not in any personal capacity. Publicly, Wayne-Tech's CEO remained a fierce political ally for the mayor, and her progressive projects in the city that had taken on a new life with Batman back to protect the workers, and families that were now taking back the old neighborhoods once again.

Turning from the panoramic view from his modern office, he started to call it a day when the intercom buzzed. Knowing it could be anyone, from anywhere, he snapped the switch impatiently, and asked, "What is it, Mary?" "Sorry to bother you, Mr. Grayson. There's a man on the line that won't give his name. He says he has important information for you, though. Something about a….project called Nightwing?" "Nightwing," Dick rasped. "Put it through," he ordered her crisply, then waited for the ring before he snapped on the frequency scrambler that would keep anyone else from overhearing this cryptic call.

"Grayson," he snapped at whoever was on the line, knowing there was only a handful of people on the planet that knew his other identity.

"Hello, Birdboy," a chilling voice from his nightmares sniggered. "Take a look outside."

He turned, and looked out the window. Thirty floors below, in the middle of the street, a tall, blonde in silver spandex, with glittering silver eyes looked up at him as he held a cell phone to his ear. "Hiya, Birdboy," he waved with one hand, holding the phone with the other. "Heard you grew a new wing." "I don't know what game you're playing, but…." "Save it, Birdboy. We both know who you are. Or were," came the mocking snigger. "I want that new wing for my collection. Sooooo," the swaggering meta glowering up at his office drawled. "Either you come out and play, or I'm going to start carving my way up there one floor at a time. And you know I can."

"Just what do you expect….?" "Five minutes. I'm counting," the murderous meta spat, and tossed his cell behind him to shatter on the concrete walk as a growing circle grew around him. In Gotham, people were long used to costumed madmen, and this visitor definitely had the look.

Dick glared down at him, then walked away from the window. Swearing, he triggered a hidden stud on a corner of the old desk, and opened a panel he had not used in many years. Stepping inside, he closed the dusty panel behind him, and reached for his tie.

"Looks like the old man was right," Whip cackled as Nightwing swooped down from atop the Wayne building to land lightly before him as if he had not been sidelined years past. "All I had to do was shake the nest, and the birdie came running. Oops, or should I say flying," the meta sneered as he flung both hands out, psychic whips lashing out from both palms even as he spoke.

Dick cart-wheeled out of range, and then fell into a low squat before launching himself at the man, both hands flinging his distinctive batarangs at the cold-blooded meta's palms. Only as fast as he managed to sever those deadly tendrils of energy, Whip reformed them, and lashed out at him once again.

Spinning in midair to avoid them, he landed right at the feet of the mercenary half the world wanted for dozens of murders, and yet could not hold if they found him. His psychic whips made him literally unstoppable, since he could form them at will, and they could penetrate, or cut through anything.

That did not stop Dick from trying.

He barely hesitated as he sent a hard chop to the man's right shoulder, immobilizing his arm for a brief second as he sent a curved palm up under Whip's chin, rocking him back several steps before the man could recover.

"Not bad, birdy," Whip grinned, licking at the trickle of blood that fell from his own split lip. "I see you aren't too rusty at all.

"Now, let's move right to the coup de grace, shall we? I have a buyer for that wing, but I think I'll take a leg this time, too," he grinned, and held up his left arm, focusing all his power to form a thick tendril of living energy that he sent flashing out at him.

Faster than even he could even think of it, his right hand flashed out, and grabbed the psychic whip, and held tight.

Whip's silver eyes rounded hugely. "How….? No one can do that," he howled in protest, trying to pull his whip back from Dick's clenched hand. "No one!"

"Just call me nobody," Dick growled, and put more than ten years of therapy into the tug that brought Whip's stunned body flying toward him at the end of his own whip just before his hard, right fist slammed into the meta's jaw, closing his eyes as he landed unconscious on the street before the triumphant hero.

"Good job," a gritty voice crackled in his earpiece he had put on out of habit. "Now, blindfold him. He gains his power from light absorbed through the retinas, and releases it the same way."

"I am not going to even bother asking how you know that," Dick grumbled quietly as the spectators cheered this hero's apparently triumphant return.

"Never mind. Get back up to your office. The police are on the way, and they are going to want to know what business that lunatic had with you. Or rather, Richard Grayson."

"What about…..?" The Batmobile slid to a halt behind them, and out leaped the usually nocturnal hero. "I'll take this one from here. He's too dangerous for Gotham PD to hold," he said, noting the cuffs and blindfold already on the still unconscious villain.

"If you were here already…." "Go," the grim vigilante growled, and dumped the meta into the passenger seat of the batmobile before he sped off without showing any hesitation himself.

Richard Grayson turned from his window just fifteen minutes later as several police officers entered the office, already barking questions as he began to feed them the usual pat answers. Apparently, he told them, the bizarre mercenary had heard of his new prosthetics program, and being a known collector of limbs from his victims, and other famous personages, he had wanted it stopped since it made him feel he was being somehow cheated of his mementoes.

Or that was the story he had been fed by Batman even as he had sped away with the villain in custody.

As to Nightwing, he didn't know anything about him, or that the Batman had obviously been staking out Wayne-Tech on some hunch. He was grateful that the city's champions had been around to help defend his employees from the obvious madman. For the time being, Dick Grayson's identity, or rather his former identity, was safe.

What he couldn't figure out was why Bruce, why Batman, had taken Whip. Why take the psychotic assassin wanted by half the world's government, when surely the police could handle him once he adequately restrained?

The sleek, black car slid to a halt along an overgrown, dusty lane somewhere in the country. "Where are we," the blindfolded thug demanded as Batman leapt out, then hauled him out to land in a heap beside the still idling car that sounded like an idling jet engine ready for flight with just a rev of the turbines. "What's going on? Is that you, Birdboy?" "Wrong guess, assassin," Batman growled, dragging the man toward the sheltering trees that held darker shadows beneath their recesses despite the bright sun overhead.

"The Bat," the silver-eyed man hissed, looking around blindly once he was released again to go sprawling in the damp foliage lining the forest floor. "I thought you avoided the daylight. Like….Drac, or something."

He chortled. It was not a pleasant sound as he knelt to test the bonds holding Whip's wrists and ankles together, leaving him helpless. Not so helpless as the makeshift blindfold wrapped around his eyes, though.

"Wrong bat, assassin."

Whip definitely did not like the way that voice sounded.

"You know I'm going to fuck'n kill you and Bird-boy both the minute I get loose. And I will get loose. No one can hold me."

"You and I are going to have a chat. Now, the thing, assassin, is I already know most of the answers, so I will know when you're lying. And lying will have definitive consequences."

"Screw you. Just take me to jail, and I'll be out before you can change your tights, old man."

"Now, that's not being very cooperative. Not at all," the cold, menacing voice said just before something sharp, and white-hot pierced his left eye. "I don't like that," the voice informed him blandly, though it sounded like steel grating on steel in his ears.

Blinding light filled his dark vision for a moment, and then it went absolutely black. Not gray, like before. Black. And for the first time since Whip had found he could kill with impunity, he was afraid. Truly afraid.

"Shall we try again? With a little more cooperation," came the taunting voice out of the darkness.

"The assassin failed, master," a servant informed the withered husk in the special life-support apparatus before the endless rows of monitors, and computer screens by which Ra's was now forced to handle his once global empire. An empire that was crumbling rapidly with rumors of his poor health, and imminent demise.

"Obviously, you dolt," the man who had once tumbled kings and empires on his own grumbled. "Fortunately, I have….contingency plans in motion. I have learned a few things in dealing with the detective over the years. One can never underestimate him, or his fledglings. They have an annoying propensity for ripping victory from my hands at every opportunity."

"Then you….expected the assassin to fail?" "Did I not just say so?" "But….I do not understand, master. Why send him at all if you knew….?"

Ra's al Ghul glowered at his servant. The younger generation had no concept of strategy, or gamesmanship. It was one of the simpler joys that he had missed when the detective had apparently been slain on some alien battleground. He had actually mourned the man, and even attended Wayne's memorial service when they finally declared him dead, his people having arranged some nonsensical accident which claimed the playboy's body, but accounted for his demise.

"Never mind. Just go see Sayid. He knows what to do."

"Yes, master," the lackey bowed low, ever respectful despite his wasted condition. His minions had seen him rise phoenix-like too often to count him dead when breath still filled his lungs, and his heart still beat.

"This very well may be our endgame, detective," Ra's murmured as he felt the uncomfortable awareness of his own mortality after so many centuries. Even his stopgap measures were beginning to fail of late again.

He had to find another way.

He had to survive.

It was his destiny.

"I just don't get it," Richard told him as he came into the cave that night before Batman had left on his nightly patrol. "I caught it. I actually held his energy whip, and that was supposed to be impossible. Those things he creates are supposed to cut through…..virtually anything."

"Apparently not," Batman drawled as he eyed Richard flexing the arm as he followed him to the equipment he had been upgrading lately.

"There's more. When I tossed my batarangs….."

"You were faster than normal?" "Yes," Richard nodded adamantly. "I barely managed to toss two with my left hand, while my right launched six before I could even throw the others."

"I anticipated this," Batman told him. "Your bio-tech limb is, simply put, a more efficient appendage than your other arm could ever be. It processes neural impulses faster, allowing you to move faster, and harnesses your own adrenalin to fuel your strength, and movement on a level you aren't used to as yet. Practice. You'll get the hang of it soon enough."

"Right," Richard muttered as he watched his onetime mentor disappear back into the shadows. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me what you did with him?" "No," the voice emanated out of those shadows as he did something Richard couldn't see, working over equipment in the darkness without using light to guide him. The man, he decided, was getting scarier every day. Every night.

"By the way, I hear half of Gotham is wondering who was in the park the other day."

"Oh?" "Yeah," he nodded. "Seems Ivy caught some thug, and then this strange guy shows up, kisses her silly, and disappears before they could even get his name. It's rather funny."

"What's funny about that?" "We both know you can't even touch that woman without suffering some serious toxic reactions," Dick snorted. "And I meant funny as in strange. Not…." "I knew what you meant. As you are, as you say, out of the business, don't let it bother you. Pamela is neutralized. She won't hurt anyone so long as they leave her alone."

Richard said nothing as his onetime mentor continued to work in the darkness. "Are you going to tell me anything," he asked as the Batman came out the shadows in full cape and cowl, looking ready for business. "Going out again?" "I have a stop I have to make."

"I don't suppose it would do any good to…..? No, I didn't think so," Richard sighed as the man swept past him, and leapt into the Batmobile to speed away without a backward glance.

"Some things just don't change," he muttered as he headed for the hidden stairway, and Richard Grayson's planned evening.

"Hello, Tim," a gravelly voice drawled as the young district attorney gave a startled gasp.

"Damn," he hissed, turning from the fridge where he held two glasses, and a bottle of wine in one hand he had just pulled from the appliance's lower drawer. "You almost made me…. Never mind, I know what you want," he said, and he gestured with the hand holding the glasses toward the room he used as an office at home.

"I hope you had better luck than I did," the grim vigilante drawled. "I know what's going on, I just cannot prove it. Yet."

"Well, technically I can't either. The DNA results are enough to make Joker's death unlikely. The real Joker, at least. But there isn't anything I can find on any recent medical records on Mr. Thomas Thorne to link him to the clone. I did find out that Rupert Thorne is still alive, under the alias of….."

"Robert Rose," the shadowy detective nodded. "I needed confirmation before I went knocking on windows at a retirement home," he told the surprised D.A.."

"Never stopped you before," Tim muttered, turning his gaze in the direction of his wife's voice who had called out for him. Too late, she appeared in the door, and gaped as the darkly caped hero simply stared back at her. "Mrs. Drake," he nodded curtly.

"My God," the shapely brunette gasped. "You are real."

Tim sighed as his bride Ariana Drake simply stared at the Bat as he took the disk that had the little he had found on the searches he had made. "I hope this helps. By the way, Polanski is being extradited on federal charges. D.C. has been after him for sometime, it turns out, under another alias."

"I know," the Batman drawled blandly. "I sent them the tip."

"Figures," he murmured, and looked to his wife, who glanced his way with wide, dark eyes.

"When they both looked back, the Batman was gone. As silently as he had come.

"You actually know him," Ariana exclaimed, still looking astonished.

"I don't think anyone really knows him," Tim said, lifting the glasses, and wine he had brought into the room. "Now that work is officially over, though," he smiled. "Shall we continue our celebration?" His pretty wife of just three months grinned. "Naturally," the woman who had been his on again, off again girlfriend for some years now grinned. "Just tell me one thing," she asked, smiling coyly. "Is he really….the real Batman? I've heard…."

"He's the one," Tim sighed, wishing he had never told her he had once been Robin, and had once spent the nights fighting crime at Batman's side before the days of the old Justice League faded, and the boy became a man with other crusades to follow.

He had wanted to be honest with her, though. He had wanted her to understand all those missed dates, and mysterious calls.

Ariana nodded as she slipped an arm around her husband. "But you're not going back?" "Not a chance. Being the city's D.A. is challenge enough for me these days. And I know you remember what happened to Nightwing."

She shuddered, recalling the night the hero had shown up bleeding to death as a crude tourniquet kept his amputated arm from bleeding out. If he hadn't sought them out, she knew that young man might never have lasted long enough to have gotten proper care. She had never revealed she had figured out who Nightwing was, or by process of elimination, who Batman had been, but now she was wondering. If Bruce Wayne was dead, how did the Batman come back stronger, and better than ever? She wasn't going to ask.

She refused to give in to her own curiosity. Only one thing really concerned her just then.

"Promise you won't go back," she said instead.

"I promise. You're my life now, Ari," he told her earnestly. "I'm just doing some…research for him. That was always my strong suit anyway, and he knows it."

"Good," she smiled, her robe falling open to reveal the lacy nothing she was almost wearing. "So, about that celebration?" "Mmmmm, right," he grinned, his eyes drawn to his wife's charms like steel to a magnet. "Definitely need to celebrate," he told her, and almost dropped the bottle, and the glasses he held.

"Master," came the transmission of Ra's al Ghul's most trusted aide.

In this century, at least.

"Report," the ancient assassin rasped as he reached for the communication switch with a trembling hand. "What is your progress?" "We have her, master," Sayid replied smugly. "It was child's play to circumvent her guards, and her security. We should arrive within the hour."

"Excellent. Do not harm her.

"That pleasure is reserved for myself," he chortled as he leaned back in his life-support chair, and smiled smugly. "Be sure you are not followed, and do not attract unwanted attention."

"Of course, master," came the smooth reply. "You know I will not fail you. We shall be there soon."

Cold eyes narrowed as a gloved finger stabbed a small button, and a GPS grid lit up, and showed a tracking beacon on the small console. He hit another switch, and the black silhouette of his vehicle seemed to fade as he started the engines, and moved quietly, and invisibly, down the mostly empty streets after the old van most thugs seemed to favor for their illegal activities even after years of being discovered quite easily even by average lawmen.

He barely paid any attention to the frantic call from Bullock's office that the mayor had just been kidnapped. He had anticipated this move from the start, and had already taken precautions. He was now moving toward his target, and this time, he would ensure the master of assassins learned his lesson. He was finished with playing games with him.

He thought briefly of Talia, still lying in her frozen sleep, and shrugged aside the emotion that thought engendered. He was working now. The time was past for any sentiment on his part.

Barbara Gordon woke in a surprisingly well-furnished lab, laying on an exam table, thankfully, still fully clothed in her usual, cotton night dress. She had her arms bound to the sides of the table, but she looked down to see her feet were still free. No surprise, since she couldn't move them anyway.

She looked around again, but saw nothing that told her where she was, or what was happening. The last thing she recalled was going to bed, and then waking here. Wherever here was, she mused grimly. She could guess it wasn't a good place judging from some of the vicious looking instruments laying around her.

She forced herself to remain calm in spite of thoughts of the Joker that inevitably rose to mind. Had he learned who she was, or had been? Had he moved on her just out of spite, or on some whim? She didn't know. Questions, she had learned, were the hard part of life. Especially when they had no real answers.

She forced herself to remain patient even as she wished she had her special gloves on just then. The ones with the lock picks, and the small file in them. Not that she had even worn them in years now, but the idea of them would have been comforting.

All she could do just then, though, was lay there, and wait for whatever madman had taken her to appear.

She did not wait long.

"Ah, you are awake," came the weak, trembling voice of a man not far from death.

"Ra's," she named him in an accusatory tone.

"Now, Now, Ms. Gordon, why sound so surprised? Or do you prefer Oracle? Maybe even….Batgirl? Yes, I know all about you. Not that it matters. None of that matters. What matters is the alien technology implanted in your body. Technology I mean to have. And I trust you will be modest enough, and well-mannered enough, not to bore me with any of the usual unpleasantries," the old man said as a bald giant in a red and gold leather vest that contrasted well with his black pants.

"Nice costume, baldy," she smirked. "Thugs R Us having a sale," she demanded as she noted two other men wearing the same uniform enter the room to don white lab coats.

"Really, Ms. Gordon," Ra's drawled. "This doesn't have to be….distasteful. We're just going to remove enough of the technology implanted in you to study, and replicate. After that, you may go."

"After that? If you know what….he did to me, then you have to know it's a part of my own nervous system by now. If you cut it out, you could kill me. If you don't paralyze me completely," she spat.

"A risk I'm willing to take," Ra's drawled blandly.

"How magnanimous," she muttered coldly.

"Ah, right. You were a librarian. A woman of intelligence, and some breeding. You might even have made a fitting consort at one time," he smiled cadaverously at her as his doctors approached her, one lifting very sharp scalpels. The other lifting a prepped syringe that could be holding anything.

"He'll kill you for this," she hissed, looking fearfully at the men as one used the scalpel to slit her gown up the side to pull it up to her waist.

"He will never even know I'm involved. My assassin failed with your occasional lover, but I always plan ahead. That is why I, Ra's al Ghul, am immortal, and will always succeed where others fail. When you are returned before dawn, there will be nothing to know. Nothing to discover. No one will ever even know I took you, or for what purpose. For we'll also erase whatever memory you hold of this night. Regrettably, it will also shroud your entire week in forgetfulness, but that is also a risk I am willing to take."

"Well, I'm not," Barbara rasped, and to her surprise, as well as the men's, her left leg suddenly cocked up, and slammed her heel into the jaw of the man with the needle aimed at her hip. Then it flashed horizontally to drive the scalpel bearer's head into a nearby counter.

Both men did not get back up.

"Interesting," Ra's drawled as Barbara stared at her own legs that now moved for the first time in decades. "I believe you are as surprised as I at your recovery. This technology is obviously all I had hoped," he smiled cruelly as Sayid now moved carefully forward to bind her ankles down to the table as well, rendering her completely helpless.

"Still, regrettably, you have shattered the narcotics I meant to be used to spare you pain. Yet that will not dissuade me," the ancient assassin told her with a cold gleam as one of the men in white recovered enough to stagger to his feet still clutching his scalpel. "I will have this technology, woman. If it must be cut from your dying flesh," he swore.

"You'll never….get away with this," she swore impotently, struggling in vain as she watched the furious medical man approach her with that scalpel again.

"Who will stop me," he cackled madly.

"I believe that is my cue," a gravely voice drawled as a living shadow dropped from the skylight and landed lightly beside the exam table.

"Leave," Batman growled at the man in the lab coat.

He couldn't leave fast enough.

Ra's sighed. "You remain an annoyance, detective. I thought it would be fun to spare you, and toy with you again through the years.

"I have changed my mind.

"Sayid," he barked.

Even as the bald assassin moved, twin daggers appearing in his hands, a single gloved hand flashed, and a net that sparked with a self-contained charge wrapped around the assassin's man, sending him writhing to the ground before the charge faded, leaving him completely unconscious even if his body continues to spasm periodically.

"Detective," Ra's grumbled frigidly as he eyed the Bat from hooded eyes. "You do continue to surprise me. How did you know that Sayid was a cybernetic construct, susceptible only to sudden, electrical shock?" "I still have my own secrets, Ra's," he growled, not bothering to tell him he had heard Sayid's internal gears grating and moving that first time in the cave. "Now, I have to deliver a warning to you, old man," he added as he quickly freed Barbara, and lifted her into his arms. "Stay away from me, and my people, or Talia spends the rest of whatever life she has in that stasis tube."

"Are you implying you can spare her that fate," Ra's demanded in the same cold tone.

"Easily," he remarked in a similar tone. "Only I will not spare one moment for her so long as you continue to harass those under my protection."

Ra's glowered, clenching spindly fingers into weak fists. "You could share your miracle with me, detective. A minor exchange, and I could easily…."

"No bargains, assassin. Stay out of my way, or….." "Or what? You don't kill. We both know that."

"I don't have to kill you," the Bat smiled coldly from behind his mask. "I simply don't have to save you. Or Talia."

Ra's gasped, a thin hand clutching his chest as he felt the impact of those words.

"You have my word," the assassin finally sighed, sagging visibly in his chair. "I…will not interfere with you, or your…..wards. So long as you spare my daughter her own fate."

"Recall your own honor, assassin, and recall, too, I do not break my word. Now, get out of my city," he spat, and lifted his right arm, his left cradling Barbara.

He was gone in the next instant.

Ra's glared at the still twitching cyborg, shaking his head. Then he frowned. "He knew," he realized, thinking of the hidden transmitter in Talia's support system. "He knew, and left it open all along."

"Tell me we got something," he demanded of his doctor when the man finally dared slink back in to check on him.

The doctor went to the nearby scanning device adapted from an MRI, and checked its readings. "We….have something," he told him. "I…I cannot yet decipher some of these readings, but….we have enough to start trying to simulate some of the organic technology found in both of them even without the actual samples. Only…."

"Only," Ra's asked.

"According to this, the Bat is still human. Fully human. He is not, as you theorized, a construct of any kind."

"Interesting," the light in the man's rheumy eyes darkened for a moment. "Concentrate on his readings for now. Oh, and free Sayid. We must return to our own true hideaway for the time being. And quickly," he ordered him as he watched his aide rise sheepishly from the net that had so easily incapacitated his otherwise powerful body. "We do not wish to anger the detective," he told the doctor smugly.

"You aren't going to believe this," Barbara told her recent lover and longtime comrade as he held her firmly to his chest as they stood atop a penthouse near the heart of the city looking out over the view. She simply wriggled the toes on both feet when he looked down at her.

"I saw you kick those men. An impressive display of skills you should have long since lost. Apparently, the sensory net I devised is functioning on a level I had not anticipated. You did not even show any signs of muscular atrophy when you moved."

"That's one way to understate it," she giggled as she rested in his arms, content to be held. "I had been feeling increased sensations in my legs all week. But they never once twitched. Not so much as a toe. Then when that assassin approached me with that syringe I just….reacted."

"Can you still move them," he asked, looking down at her bare limbs exposed by her slit gown.

She grinned, and instead of moving her toes, she kicked both feet playfully.

"I suggest you not reveal this miracle to the world at large just yet," he warned her.

She sobered instantly, knowing his concerns. Many of them mirrored her own. "I know. Mayor Gordon might attract a little too much attention from the wrong kind of people if she simply jumped up, and started walking around."

"To say the least. We should advise J'onn and Dick of this new development, though. It could have a bearing on the new line of prosthetics they're adapting for commercial use through Wayne-Tech."

"So, when are you going to go after him?"

Both of them knew who she meant. "When I'm ready. I've learned over the years that sometimes jumping first, and asking questions later does not always work. Especially with this madman. He's up to something. Something that's had him pretending to be someone else for over ten years. Something that has had him ignoring the spotlight we both know he enjoys.

"I have to be more than ready this time. I will not let him endanger one more person because of my lapse, or an indifferent judicial system. This is likely going to be our endgame," he told her grimly.

"You do sound dismal, Batman. Only….are you really going to….?"

He cut her off, asking curtly, "Can you kill a dead man," in so cold a voice she would have expected frost to hang off his tone. "If that is what it takes, I'm finished playing games with that clown. No more. Now, I'd better get you home, and let Commissioner Bullock know you're alive, and well."

"Harvey does worry," she grinned. "He takes my responsibility seriously after dad….. Well, you know."

"I heard."

"I just want to know one thing," Barbara asked as he fired a grapple out over the city.

"What is that," he asked as his muscles coiled, and she tightened her grip around his shoulders.

"Was that really you kissing Ivy in the part earlier this week," she demanded.

Her only reply was the soft grunt he gave as he launched them out over the city at the end of his line. She should have known. He never gave the answers you wanted. Only the ones he was ready for you to have, when he felt you were ready to have them.

"Again," Dr. Jones asked as Dick flexed his arm, pulling a cable that was attached to a two-hundred pound weight.

"It's unreal, John," he called the disguised Martian who had joined Wayne-Tech to apply some of his knowledge to projects that could benefit mankind, leaving the more strenuous heroics to the younger generation. Not that he still couldn't go toe-to-toe with most threats the rejuvenated League faced, since Martians did have rather long life spans. He simply got tired of being a thug, even if he was on the right side of the law, for that was how he had come to view many of his missions over the years.

Show up, pound the menace into the ground, and take your accolades. In the end, what did you truly accomplish? Very little. The courts let the villain of the day, week, or whatever right back out, and it began all over again.

It was time to use his brain, which ranked very highly compared to some of even his super-intelligent companions.

"Describe this unreality."

"I mean, look at this. I'm pulling two hundred pounds here like I'm tugging on empty boxes, and I told you how fast I was when…..you know."

"Indeed," the scientist nodded. "That was a surprisingly development. Yet aside from some increased speed and strength in your basic autonomic reflexes, I've found nothing that could be considered a detriment from pushing this technology into full development.

"We've stalled this as long as we can without being forced to pull all development on the project," he reminded him. "And we have not found one reason to do so. Not one."

"How about this one," he told him. "Last night….ah, our benefactor told me that the sensory-web had exceeded his design parameters.

"She can walk again."

"Interesting," Dr. Jones remarked blandly, barely showing any reaction.

"Let me guess," he grumbled. "He's already told you….?"

"About her abduction, and her miraculous recovery in time to defend herself? Of course. He is a conscientious individual, even if he does hold many things close to his vest, as you would say."

"That's the understatement of the century. So, any clues on this new development," he asked.

"I believe, as I told….him, that it was only logical that a system integrated into the primary nervous system to return sensory awareness might also manage to extend its program to repair the neurological damage to a damaged spine, and thus, return full mobility to its host."

"Maybe, but….without any detrimental affect from atrophy, or disuse. I saw her a few days ago, and she's looking….well, better than ever."

"As are you. I believe the neural links are expanding into your organic systems, and refining them as well."

"What," he frowned.

"How else do you explain the fact you've been lifting three hundred pounds with both hands?" He looked at the weight John had changed on him without his noticing. He pulled the cables again, and gaped as the weights rose effortlessly. Just the faintest degree of resistance marked their mass as he realized he was already doing more than he had ever managed at his prime.

"John, this is starting to scare me."

"It shouldn't. It's quite similar to a Martian surgical technique for repairing damaged limbs. The only real concern I have at this point is finding a method to turn down the strength and agility on future implants, or prosthetics so we don't end up with a world full of Olympic gymnasts."

"Or super-villains?" "Exactly," the balding, bespectacled mask the aging J'onn J'onzz wore just then.

"Well, let's figure it out, because if this lets us market a viable prosthetic without that worry, we're going to making a lot of people's dreams come true."

"That, I believe, is our reason for being here," the Martian drawled blandly as his grayish eyes radiated a faint green as he allowed a smug expression to cover his aging face.

"So, all these tests, and endurance trials actually have a purpose, do they," Dick moaned.

"Naturally."

"But you aren't going to tell me what that is, are you?" "I shall have a report on your desk, Mr. Grayson, as soon as I've correlated, and confirmed my theory."

"You do that," he muttered, and rose to wipe his brow, finding only a light sheen of sweat had spread over him. Once, he would have been winded, and dripping after a workout half as strenuous as what John had put him through in the sealed lab.

Now, he felt as if he had just had a light jog down a hill. Easy, but hardly strenuous.

"Just tell me we have a chance."

"Of course we do," Dr. Jones drawled as he shut off the recording devices monitoring everything in the lab, which was why they had guarded their speech. "Why else insist upon rechecking my earlier test results."

"Because you're a closet masochist," Dick asked as he headed for the door to the private showers.

John only smiled briefly, then turned back to his console where he was already running new programs to confirm his test results, and plot a means of controlling the prosthetics before they overwhelmed any potential new hosts.

"Heard you….was back," Rupert Thorne rasped behind his oxygen mask, a spindly shell of the stocky giant he had been years ago.

White hair stuck out from his balding head in unruly clumps, and the pale, pink scalp was too glossy to be healthy. Rupert was sick. Really sick. He was obviously dying.

The shadow that moved around his bed drew close, and the opaque eyes narrowed as they glanced at the medical chart on the wall before looking down at him. "We have a mutual enemy, I believe, Thorne," the grating voice filled his ears as it had that first time they met so many years ago.

"Damn," he rasped again. "It is you. No one else….could sound….. How?"

"Never mind. Let's discuss your nephew. Or the madman pretending to be him."

"Doesn't matter," Rupert said, his frail body shuddering briefly. "I…I know nothing that can help….you. He hid Tommy….from….me. My entire…org….or….outfit couldn't find him. The clown….hid him good. If I do…anything. Say….anything…..he's dead."

"Or maybe he's already dead."

"No. No, he calls….once a month. To keep me….quiet. Though," Rupert gave a grimacing smile, "That won't….be necessary….much longer."

"Do you know anything that will explain his masquerade?" "Not a clue. Don't…have a clue. I…I tried to figure him….out. Hell, you know….you must remember….how it is with….him? He took over….everything. He plays….straight, but….my gut says…..says….." "So does mine," the dark shadow murmured as he moved slightly away from the bed.

"They said….you were….dead," Rupert spat out after a brief silence.

"They were wrong," the longtime thorn in Thorne's side replied.

"They…always were….when it came…to you. Listen….Bats. T-Tommy is…..he's straight. Never….got into…..our biz-ness. If you….."

"I'll find him."

"Never thought….I'd say….thanks to….."

The machine next him started to wail. Even as the nurse came stumbling into the room, wiping sleep from her eyes, the shadow near the bed moved, and vanished in the same instant. She looked around the room as she went to the patient, and confirmed he was in full arrest.

Shrugging off waking dreams of shadows that moved on their own, she called for the doctor as she went through the motions of trying to ensure the patient was truly dead before she recorded it for the doctor, who likely wouldn't be showing up anytime soon. The old man was better off dead, anyway. Or so she had felt when he had been brought her to die.

Considering who he was, what he had been, she doubted anyone would even care.

"Wondered when you were going to be getting around to me," the graying brunette muttered as she eyed the swaying curtains that moved without obvious reason as she sat looking out the window of the small apartment that had the smell of ammonia emanating from every surface that could be cleaned. "Kind of insulting you picked me last."

"Hardly last, Quinn," he drawled, eyeing the woman who was much pudgier than the last time he had seen the psychotic shrink who had joined her own patient in a criminal rampage for a time. "And you were never that much of a threat. I'm here for information. Nothing more."

The woman sighed. "And here I thought I might finally have a chance at getting a peek under that mask," the weathered features smirked. "I heard about that business with Pammy. I knew it had to be you. No one else would be that daring. Or stupid."

The Batman stood silent by the curtains, his head cocked as if waiting for her to finish her venting.

"So, let me guess. You miss the old days, and you came by to swap stories?" "No. I came to ask you if you knew anything of the Joker's intentions."

The woman stiffened. "That's cold, even for you. We both know Mr. J got fried over ten years ago."

"Did he?" "Wait, wait, wait one damn minute," the woman flushed, tapping her cane she only then reached for angrily against the floor. "Are you telling me that pale-skinned, two-timing, fruitcake is still alive?" "And kicking," Batman drawled, his expression never changing. "I take it you were not part of his new entourage after all."

"Does it look like it," she grumbled, sitting back heavily in her chair. "Jeez. All this time I was feeling sorry for him, and beating myself up….. I coulda been beating him up."

"I take it you had a falling out before his alleged execution?"

"You can take whatever you like. Doesn't mean you know nothing about nothing," the still obviously unstable woman grumbled as the light in those dark eyes gleamed with the manic energy of the woman from her youth.

"Educate me, Dr. Quinn, if you would. Why did you split up?" "He had a thing for a certain blonde. He didn't even know her name. Just saw her in a bank we robbed, and decided right then he had to have her. Never mind the cops were after us, and your sidekicks were tripping all over themselves to get at us, he had to stop right in the middle of the robbery to ask her out. Just because she had a stupid Queen of Hearts tee on he claimed was a sign from God."

She snorted. "He didn't even believe in God."

"I take it you were replaced?" She snorted again. "You're half right. I got the boot after I helped the silly bimbo escape from the hideout where Mr. J dragged her after we barely got away from the cops, and all your Bat-buddies. He found out, and had me gang-banged by his boys before he dropped me in the river. I survived, but ended up preggers, with a bad leg. The glory days were definitely over," she sighed as she glanced at her cane. "I heard the bimbo ended up in Arkham herself, though," she sniggered. "A week with Mr. J can do that to you."

She grinned as she looked over at the curtain as she mocked that intruder on her role, and found the space empty. "Figures," she muttered, wishing the cable were still on so she could at least watch Mad TV. Kids weren't cheap, though. "Some things just never change."

"Mom," her fourteen year old son asked as he came into the living room wiping sleep from his eyes. "Did you call me?"

She sighed, and looked back at the sandy-haired kid whose father she still wasn't sure about after all this time. Thugs were hardly the type to take paternity tests, and she had cut her ties but good after she crawled out of the river, and right into a jail cell before she made a real show of going straight that last time. Only her son made it worth the drudgery. Though just barely sometimes. Not that she had much of a life either way now. Not with a bad leg, and fifty pounds overweight. She couldn't even get a date during happy hour these days.

She shook her head, "I was just talking to myself, Billy-boy. You go on to bed, and I'll try to keep it down," she told him.

The boy yawned, muttered an unintelligible reply, and headed back to his bedroom. She was looking back out the window, her only source of entertainment until she made enough to get the cable back on again. Batsy hadn't even told her how the Joker had managed his big fade, or what he was up to, but if he were here looking for answers, then he might not know either.

Then it occurred to her that old Batsy didn't look that old. Not that she had gotten a good look at him, but he was lean, fit, and looked ready to die for, she admitted. Pamela had always had a secret crush on the big jerk, but now she wondered if there wasn't more going on under than cape than she had realized. Ah, well, it wasn't like that jerk would like her any better than he had in the old days.

Still, a girl could dream.

Thomas Thorne smiled a little macabre as he looked over the news reports that morning in the highest office in Thorne, Ltd. "Almost time," the lean, good-looking man with shaggy dark hair, and bright blue eyes remarked with a grin as he looked over at his secretary. "The city's really been heating up lately since this new Batman showed up flashing his new tights, and making a real mess of things."

Sally Nolan sighed, used to her bosses weird quirks by now.

It had not always been that way. Not at the start. Thomas Thorne had come out of college bright, eager, and actually quite friendly. It was later that he started to change. Acting impulsively, almost atypically for what she had grown used to from him. Still, she needed the job, so she swallowed her pride, and her tongue, and just did the job she was told to do.

Even if it meant working late into the night for no more reason than he wanted her there in case he wanted……

"Go, and make coffee, old girl," he smiled her way, "And be sure to make enough for two. I'm expecting company."

Sally smiled wanly, and turned to the door of the executive office, asking, "Is that you want, Mr. Thorne?" "Yes, that's all," he told her with a grin as he gave her that look that had her feeling almost as if she were back in Arkham where she had spent two years after her breakdown. "For now," he added as she closed the door behind her.

The man known as Thomas Thorne grinned as he tossed the newspaper aside, and considered his place in life. Life certainly was full of surprises, the green-eyed man grinned as he turned himself around and around in his office chair behind his desk. "And I do love surprises," he smiled to himself as he stopped to stare out at panorama of the city before him.

Even at night, with only half it's dark expanse lit up, it was a breathtaking sight.

A soft breeze blew to his right, and Thomas Thorne spun around to stare unblinkingly at the tall, dark silhouette that did not belong in his well-lit office. "Well, Batsy, long time, no see. I hear the odds are seventy-thirty against you being the real Bat-boy."

"I wouldn't know."

"Right on time," Thomas drawled as Sally returned just then, carrying two cups of steaming coffee on a serving tray.

"Oh," Sally exclaimed almost dropping the tray as she gaped at the darkly clad hero of legend standing right in front of her. "Uh, uh, cream, or….or sugar, Mr. Batman," she asked.

"Nothing, thank you," he drawled as he looked down at her with cold, empty slits for eyes that seemed to bore right into her.

"We need to talk, Thorne. Alone."

"Naturally, Batman. Naturally. That will be all, Ms. Nolan. Toddle off, and do try to relax. Remember, a smile can make a wonderful umbrella. Unless, of course, it's raining pianos," he chuckled.

Sally smiled wanly, and set the tray down on Mr. Thorne's desk, and all but fled the office. Whatever had brought the infamous vigilante to her job, she didn't want to know about it. Not when so far, every appearance of the long missing hero was followed by bad news, and broken bodies. She didn't even look back as she fled the office, and even considered the stairs when the elevator didn't seem to come fast enough.

"Well, I suppose now that she's gone, you want to swap passwords, secret handshakes, and all that kind of thing," Thomas asked with a wide grin.

"You may have changed your face, clown, but you haven't changed what matters," the hero growled.

"Hold on, Batsy. Don't I get to even hear your story first before you start bashing heads? No," Thomas chortled inanely. "Well, would you like to hear mine?" "Make it good," Batman drawled, though he didn't so much as relax a single coiled muscle.

"Okay," he grinned, lifting one of the coffee cups. "Sure you wouldn't like a cup. Sally does make a mean….." "Here, or at police headquarters, clown. Your choice."

"Jeez, you have to be the real McCoy. You're both such sticks-in-the-proverbial mud. No comment? Okay, I'll give you the abridged version, since you don't look ready for an opus," Thomas grinned, putting his cup aside to clap his hands together. "By the way, I'm pretty sure you're the real thing. Young, trim, and strangely timeless with that dreadful sense of fashion you always had, but….yes, I'm betting you are the real thing. Which is almost a pity. Twenty years, and you still couldn't get on with your life? Right, right, I'm getting to it. Setting the mood, so to speak," Thomas said as he held up his hands again when the caped hero took a warning step forward, his glover hands clenching ever tighter into hard fists. "Well, the short version is this," Thomas said as he spun his chair around again. "I fell in love," he grinned. "Really, it's true. Got bit by the old love bug. Hard, too. I just didn't realize it until that little busybody Harley tried to get rid of my beloved."

"That's not the story I heard."

"Ah-ha, been sneaking around behind my back, have you," he shook a well-manicured finger at Batman. "Oh, wait," he chortled again, slapping a palm to his forehead. "That's what you do. Isn't it? Anyway, old Harle was a lot of laughs, but lets face it, she didn't have a lot going for her upstairs. Sure, she could fill out the spandex, and she was a great cook, and not bad in the sheets, but other than that….? Yawn-city. Just nothing upstairs to commend her at all," he sighed in false regret.

"Not after you got finished with her," Batman growled again.

"Yeah, well, those were different times. Yada, yada, yada. I'm a changed man. Can't you see it? I've become a respectful business man, pillar of the community, and I'm doing it all to win my fair love's heart."

"I don't buy it. You say you changed? How about kidnapping, blackmail, and a little question of your ties to the Black Mask gang?"

"Those losers? Please. I can tell you quite honestly, Bat-boy, that I kidnapped no one, and as to blackmail, well….it's part of the whole business thing, don't you know? And I don't have anything to do with the Black Masks. They have a new leader now."

"Enlighten me," he demanded.

"That's….kind of tricky. You see, I'm persona incognito because he agreed to groom me to fit the role of dashing, young heir to the Thorne dynasty only if I never told anyone who he……

"Thorne," Thomas barked as he was suddenly dangling from the vigilante's left hand, his hard right cocked back to smash his teeth in. "Thomas Thorne. The, ah, real one."

"You're telling me that Rupert's nephew is letting you play him, so he can run a gang of murderous rogues."

"That's about it," Thomas grinned.

"Now what, caped crusader of justice," Thomas risked a faint smile as he dangled from Batman's fist like a forgotten toy as his opaque eyes narrowed in thought, and the grim visage seemed to turn all the darker.

"I'll be watching you, 'Thorne,'" Batman told him as he dropped him back into his chair. "This is most definitely not over."

"I told you, Bats," Thomas assured him. "I'm a changed man."

"Tell that to the woman you all but drove mad, and now have working for you without knowing who you really are," he spat just before he leapt from the open window, and vanished into the night beyond.

"Damn," Thomas whistled as he saw the dark wings spread against the lights of the city, gliding out into the darker parts of the city. "I didn't know he could fly!"

He went back to desk, smiling to himself, and pressed a button on the bottom of his desk. A secret channel opened, and a gruff voice curtly demanded. "Yeah? What now?"

"Thought you'd like to know, TT, a certain vigilante in wonderfully fitting tights just dropped by. He seems to know almost everything."

"Not everything, or he'd have dropped you on your damned head from the top of Thorne Tower," the voice spat.

"Details, details," Thomas drawled. "The point is, I can uncategorically state that my longtime nemesis is the one, true, all-original pain-in-the-ass rodent of the night."

"Suggestions?" "I was hoping you had some," Thomas smirked at the intercom.

"Your body may have been revamped, but that brain of yours is close to senility, isn't it," the man on the other side demanded.

"Well, I did manage to pin the Black Mask thing on young Thorne. The real one."

"Smart move. Maybe we should consider getting rid of him before he trips us up. With Batman involved, I don't want to take any chances before we've got everything up, and operating."

"Trust me. If there's one thing I know how to do, it's push Bat-dummy's buttons. I'll have him chasing shadows for days before he even realizes what we're doing."

"Just don't slip up. We're close. Real close."

"As if I don't know it."

"I take it the secretary is now playing ball."

"She makes up an entire team," Thomas chortled. "I'm heading over to see her later this evening after I wrap up a few more things. Gotta make it look like I'm still the boy wonder of business. Say," he quipped in the same breath. "Do you think the little bird will be back, too, since we've got a bat out there again?" "I don't care. Just make sure everything goes off on schedule. I've got bidders lining up with ready cash already. I'm not going to blow the sweetest deal in years because you start reminiscing about your glory days."

"Nag, nag, nag," Thomas huffed. "And we're not even married!"

"Idiot," the voice spat, and closed the connection.

"And I thought Batsy was a stick-in-the-mud," Thomas grumbled as he leaned back in his chair, and spun around in circles again several times before he stopped to eye his coffee. Shrugging, he emptied the cup, then the other, and then headed out of the office.

To hell with business, he thought. I want to have fun!

Batman stared grimly as he studied the last of the readings from Talia's most recent tests. He had no choice but to rely on his first plan on treating her. It would be difficult, it would be dangerous, but it was now apparent that in spite of the cryo-sleep tube, the tumor was still advancing. At its current rate of growth, hampered by stasis as it was, she would be dead within two weeks.

He went to the lab, rechecked his stocks, and planned what was needed to the last detail. He then called Dr. Jones, or rather J'onn J'onnzz. He was going to need the Martian for what he had planned. No one else had the skill, or knowledge necessary to help him operate as was necessary to give Talia a chance. It would be risky in itself, as was the surgery itself. Still, he had to try. To do nothing at this point only let her slip one step closer to her grave.

He recalled the first time he met her, or her father, the seemingly immortal head of the League of Assassins. Ra's had kidnapped Dick, pierced their secret identities, and challenged him to a deadly game of proving his detective's skills before his young protégé met an untimely end. All to ascertain whether he was a fit match for his daughter.

Talia Head had been in and out of his life more times than he could count since. He wasn't sure if he loved her, or not, but he was fond of her. He would not leave anyone to her fate, though. It was why he had tried so hard to help Victor's wife at the time. Unfortunately, even he could not save everyone he wished. He supposed that must be how Clark felt at times.

"I'm ready, Batman," a subdued voice rolled in her ears from behind him.

"Thank you for coming, J'onn," he nodded at the Martian now in his more familiar League guise. There were few people in the world that had seen J'onn as he truly was, and he was one of them. Still, he realized J'onn was sensitive to alarming others, and being a telepath he knew just when he did, which was why he had adopted his current façade as his primary guise.

"Considering the urgency of your summons, I could do no less. You do realize there is still less than a forty-two percent chance of success even employing my powers, and your new technology."

"I know. But it is her only chance. Her condition is still degrading in spite of the stasis. The tumor is proving….remarkably resilient."

"I understand," the Martian nodded as he followed Batman from the transporter to the medical clinic where an operating theater was set up next the stasis tube. Once Talia was out of the tube, they would only have minutes to perform the surgery, and try to save her life before the reinvigorated tumor virtually exploded with new growth once thawed.

"I've had the tube cycling on a slow thaw for the past hour since my return. She'll be ready for surgery as soon as the stasis field collapses, and we can safely remove her."

"And if she wakes?" "I've been slowly introducing the appropriate anesthetics into her recycled blood plasma, to keep her unconscious even when she is thawed," Batman told him. "As I said, the moment we get her out, we must start the operation."

"I am ready," J'onn told him.

"I wish I were," Batman told him grimly.

"Well, you'll be glad to know we've been able to isolate certain command codes that let us dampen the meta-response in your….prosthetic limbs. If all goes well with the next round of testing, we can present a viable product to the market within four months if the FDA accepts our data."

"Good. There are a lot of people out there that deserve a second chance."

"I'm not doing quite so well with the topical applications, though," he admitted. "Artificial skins are more sensory net than prosthetic, and there isn't a physical code you can dampen in their construction. I'm still too concerned about unintended affects to let it go to further testing as yet."

"You mean like Barb's sudden ability to walk again?" "That's just a prime indicator. Somehow, that simple sensory net you implanted was able to integrate with her entire nervous system, repairing systemic damage, and even compensate for atrophied bone, and muscle mass. We cannot risk using it on anyone else until we are certain there are no other inadvertent consequences to its use."

"For what it's worth, I agree," he told J'onn as they reviewed the stasis-tube's counter. It wouldn't be long. Everything was ready. All they needed was Talia, and then they would soon know if she were going to live, or die. It was only a matter of time now.

"By the way, Wally asked me to discuss how soon you might be able to….."

"Couldn't keep his mouth shut, could he?" "I accidentally picked up on it during a routine scan to try to help him filter some subliminals out of his head that one of the younger members planted in a file to play a joke on him. It had him unable to say a word for almost three days before he figured out what happened, and came to me for help.

"That must have galled him," he drawled as he nodded at J'onn's explanation. "Tell him I should be ready for him within another two days. I'm rechecking the construction matrixes myself to ensure nothing goes wrong since we'll be dealing with an active metagene that is still relatively uncharted."

"A wise decision. I will tell him."

"You should also consider telling the younger members that like to play pranks with something as invaluable as the League's computers about how much damage they can unwittingly cause. It wouldn't be the first time someone exploited a careless mistake to take control of our systems."

"Don't remind me," J'onn grimaced, then saw the green light on the stasis-tube start to flicker.

"Ready," Batman nodded grimly, and joined the Martian in pulling Talia's limp, still chilled body from the insulated cylinder that had apparently been her bed for some years judging by the data he had been studying.

It didn't surprise him that she still looked barely twenty-five, and lean, fit, and wiry. She was still a member of the League of Assassins. Her father's daughter, though she tried to go her own way often enough, usually to no avail. He didn't spare a moment's thought on the old villain himself as he set up the IV, the oxygen, and secondary support systems as J'onn cut away part of her hair to get it out of the way.

"Now," Batman murmured as they pulled their surgical masks up. "Let's try to make another miracle," he told his longtime colleague solemnly.

J'onn did not reply. He was now starting the first incision. Even as blood welled, both men went to work. They knew what they had to do, and they were willing to do it if it meant that a life would be saved. It was, after all, the heart of what they did.

To Be Continued……