I own nothing of Batman and will never make money off anything I write here.


Hours after Bruce's arrival home Molly was just checking her voicemail in the few minutes she had between the end of classes and the start of after school programs. She was the co-sponsor for a few different clubs- language and arts related, most often- so she wouldn't get home to listen to her messages until closer to nine, sometimes even ten or eleven, at night. Especially with the way play rehearsals had been going lately.

She went through several offers from television stations for interviews, deleting all of them, but stopped her obsessive motions when she heard Bruce's voice.

There was the customary beep followed by, "Hi, Molly, I hope this finds you well. I'm calling to set up a meeting so we can discuss the future of this foundation. I know you want to be involved and have plenty of ideas, so please don't turn me down. We can really use someone like you." There was a pause and then the voice returned, still smooth, but a little more hesitant. "Also, I'm sorry I haven't called to apologize sooner about the media frenzy. I was out of town for a few days and had no idea they would misconstrue my comments this way. I hope you're not too upset by everything that's going on and can accept my apology. Please don't let this keep you from coming on board. We really do need you. Feel free to call me anytime."

There was a click and then her answering machine started talking to her again. Instead of deleting the message, she closed the phone slowly and stared at it for a moment. She screwed up her mouth and worried the inside of her cheek for a moment. One of her hands ran through her hair absentmindedly. The clock on her classroom wall continued to tick loudly into the silence.

What was she doing? She should just delete it and ignore him. Nothing good could come of her meeting with him. Look at what one innocent dance had done! It was ridiculous that he even needed to meet with her in person when he could just as easily teleconference or have his secretaries or butler contact her…

Then again, she really did want to be involved. This project had been a dream of hers for years now, not that she wanted the credit for it. She just knew, having grown up with the system and now working for it, that her expertise could be invaluable. Not to mention he had sounded serious- not like the smug play-boy two steps closer to bedding her that she'd been imagining for the last three days. But he was supposed to sound that way- that confident tone was why he made so much money to play with to begin with! She sighed and ran her hand over her hair several times, thoroughly mussing it.

"Augh!" she exclaimed at no one. Then she opened the phone back up and dialed her voicemail again.


"We're still receiving disturbing reports, Batman. The shipping logs, the passenger manifests-"

"I took care of it," came Batman's deep, gravelly voice.

"I know, and we're grateful- I'm grateful. Hell, you know we couldn't keep a hold of half the dirty things that go on in this city without you. But whatever you did, it wasn't enough. Things aren't adding up. We think they're maybe in deeper in Gotham than we thought they were. We thought it was just feelers at first, but the reports are indicating that it's possible there was already a branch here. What I'm worried about is if you got the Russians to cut off their contacts with the alleged Gotham branch then what will they do once that group realizes they're on their own?"

"What do you want me to do?"

Commissioner Gordon grimaced and glanced out over the cityscape. "For now, nothing. We're still collecting information. And if there is a group here already they're staying quiet." He shrugged. "The usual, I guess."

"Keep an eye on things, in other words."

Gordon looked back at him apologetically. "I'm sorry I can't be more specific. At least we've got nothing but good cops investigating it this time."

"It's no trouble. I'll be in touch. You know how to find me."

He let Gordon watch him leap from the building this time, but as always, when Gordon couldn't resist running to the edge and peering over, he saw nothing. The sky was as cloudy and overcast as it had been three mornings ago.


The clock was just nearing nine-thirty when Molly asked the kids to start clearing the set of props. Her co-sponsor of the Drama Club, Robert, gave her a weary thumbs up from across the stage. They were doing Oedipus Rex this quarter, a fact that had raised eyebrows at the board meetings but had resulted in their largest turn out of students in the club yet. Molly suspected the interest had something to do with the incest, murder and mayhem in the play. There was nothing like the Greeks to draw out the nasty, voyeuristic side of teenagers. And although most of the students weren't older than fifteen, they had dug their teeth into the material. Perhaps if Molly had been a teacher in a small town she would have been a little appalled at her own choice of play, but living and teaching in Gotham City, she believed it was important to expose the children to themes they might experience in their own lives in a more constructive, classical manner. For many of them it was a form of therapy.

A few of the boys approached her to ask about the next rehearsal and she answered their questions gladly. One of them looked at her strangely and she gave him a pointed look.

"What is it, Tony?"

"Well…my mom, she uh, was talking to my sister and they said you and Bruce Wayne were dating or something and I just wanted to know if, uh-"

Molly resisted the urge to stamp her foot and interrupted him as gently as possible. Tony was sweet kid who came from a single parent family. His dad had died in a prison fight last year and he hadn't been quite the same since- like his spark for living had vanished. He'd even started to hang out with a different group of friends and it wouldn't have surprised Molly to know that he'd made a few drug runs since the new year. But he'd been showing up for Drama Club somewhat regularly and that meant she still had some influence on him. He wasn't beyond saving…yet.

"I'm not dating him, Tony. You know how we talking Social Studies last week about tabloids? And I know Mr. Williams covered muck-raking in U.S. History this month."

"So they're making up stories," the boy filled in.

"Right."

"But you were at that ball," Selena, another student, said. "There are pictures of you dancing and him kissing your hand."

"We were just being introduced, Selena," Molly repeated, suddenly weary of these games.

One of the older students who'd been held back scoffed and made a crude gesture. "Yeah, right, Miss Weil, we know lust when we see it. PIGSALE, all the way, mother-"

"That's enough, Duwayne!" Molly exclaimed sharply. She put on her tough guy face and stared him down. "As impressed as I am that you managed to pass your quiz on the early Church yesterday, say one more word and that's the last time you'll be speaking through your mouth."

The other kids Ooooed and Duwayne shrugged and grinned, but didn't say anything else. He turned away and continued to help put things away. Molly relaxed a little and focused on Tony again. It was nice to know the rumors hadn't damaged her reputation too much.

Selena looked at her again, still grinning suggestively. "Well, if you were dating him that would be pretty chill."

Molly raised an eyebrow and shook her head. "And why is that?"

"He's super rich- I bet you could get him to give us even more money."

"And then we could finally put on a real show!"

"Yeah, with special effects-"

Molly interrupted them again with a smile. "He's giving us money anyway, guys. And he's getting a lot of his friends to donate too. He doesn't have to be dating me to do that. Quick, what's the word for that?"

Rather than respond, the kids groaned and started putting stuff away again. Tony gave a sad sort of smile and placed his costume on the pile before half waving at Molly and moving towards the stairs.

"Well, thanks, Miss Weil. See you later, I guess."

"Hey, wait a minute, Tony. Are you really going to be at the next rehearsal? I noticed you missed a couple of times last week. We had a hard time without our spotlight guy."

Tony flushed at the faint praise, but mumbled some kind of excuse about his mom and a new job and before she could speak to him any further, he'd fled the sad auditorium that was their school theatre.

Selena shook her head and looked up at Molly. "His momma ain't got a new job. He does."

Molly eyed the girl and helped her fold one of the sheets they were using for a chiton. "He does? Did you finally convince him to help you baby-sit?"

"No- I don't know what he's doing. There are some exchange students at one of the high schools he's hanging with. They're recruiting."

Molly wasn't surprised at the subtle reference to gangs. They were a part of everyday life in the public schools and on the streets and their activities were hardly a secret. But she hadn't heard about exchange students being involved in anything. Selena took the finished cloth and went to stack it with the others before she waved her good-bye and took off after some of her girl friends. Molly watched the rest of the kids swiftly follow and walked across the stage to Robert.

"Did you hear that?" she asked.

"About the recruiting? It's nothing new."

"Yeah, but exchange students?"

Robert looked up from unplugging some of the equipment and shrugged. "Maybe she meant like, a transfer student or something. I don't know, Molly. We've got three major gangs operating out of Gotham already. I don't keep track anymore. We're lucky if we don't lose half of our own students to the violence every year."

Molly mused on the implications of this information and helped wind up some power cords. She began packing them into the lock box and Robert glanced up at her again as he got to his feet.

"Say, that stuff about Wayne…you're not just trying to put the kids off, are you?"

Molly sighed and looked back at him before locking the door of the cabinet and turning to face him. "Really, Robert? You too?"

"Okay, okay. Just asking. But did you really think that your name wouldn't get splashed around, even a little?"

"No. I wasn't aware that one dance or being tapped to help fundraise would automatically put me in-"

"As hip as you are, as tough as you get with the kids and the administration, you're so naïve sometimes."

Molly felt her ire rise again and stalked across the stage and down the steps to the seats where she'd left her things. She snatched up her sweater and shrugged it on. Robert let her go only to follow her as soon as he'd turned off the stage lights. He jogged down the steps and joined her.

"Did I mention you're being way too sensitive about this?"

She snatched up her satchel and spun about to glare at him. "Is it naïve of me to hold everyone else to the same standards of honesty and integrity that I have for myself? Is it naïve to believe that people can be respected for what they do and not who they do? If I'm being sensitive, it's for all the right reasons. Stop giving me crap, Rob."

"I'm just saying, what did you expect? He kissed your hand, for Christ's sake. No man does shit like that and then spends half the evening of his own event making the dreams of the woman he's done it to a reality if he's not interested in her. Wise up."

Molly threw a hand up in frustration and walked away from him. "Don't forget to lock the auditorium doors on your way out," she called over her shoulder.

"Molly, come on-" Robert tried to continue, but she ignored him and was out the double doors and making her way towards an exit before he could follow.

She seethed as she walked. How dare her coworkers- people she'd worked with for over five years, now- disrespect her in this manner? They knew her well enough to judge whether she'd really sleep with a billionaire just to have her way and the answer to that was easily no. She would never prostitute herself for any ideal, no matter how bad she wanted it. She might give her life for her kids, but sleep with someone? She paused her inner monologue long enough to pull out her keys and spike them through her fingers and secure a canister of pepper spray in her other hand. She'd never needed to use them yet, but it was better to be safe than sorry- although she wasn't sure either object would do much good in a hard place. Then she went directly back to the previous line of thought.

It wasn't even that people assumed there was something untoward going on or that he might- maybe- be interested in her. It was that everyone was making such a big deal of it. It was that it was her photo being splashed on tabloids instead of the faces of her students. It was that they weren't respecting her privacy or the value of her work. It overshadowed the good that Wayne was trying to do. Sure, she knew he'd said he was sorry for the confusion, but what did she know about him? Nothing. She knew he was rich, his parents had died when he was young- all the basics. But nothing about the real him. She had no idea what his motives for his philanthropy were, or what his company actually produced. There were other things in her world that she needed to worry about and Bruce Wayne should have been the last thing on her mind, ever.

A car backfired in an alley nearby, but she didn't flinch. She was used to the sounds of the city- she walked or took the metro everywhere. The last time she'd owned a car was in college and that had lasted only a few months before she'd traded it in for textbook money. She counted herself lucky that she lived only six blocks from the school. Her walk-up wasn't really nice, or even very safe, but it was all she needed and it kept her close to the school. She hadn't even had to change neighborhoods when she'd moved out of her gran's home, another fact she was grateful for, though the increased gang violence in the last few years had made her nervous for her younger sister. She was happy, really, that the girl had finally agreed to go to college and was now settled safely out of state for the next four years.

A car backfired again and Molly paused this time. She suddenly had a feeling that she wasn't hearing a car at all. Worried, she put her keys back in her bag and pulled out her cell phone instead, keeping her head up and eyes alert to her surroundings. If something was going on she wasn't going to be taken unawares.


Batman was about to head back to where he'd hidden his cycle when he realized he was near one of the middle school branches- the one where Molly worked. He made a snap decision and swung by the building. He'd already made a brief round of some suspect areas of the city and decided he had some time to check out the place where she worked. He slowed as he approached it. The structure wasn't as tall as some of the surrounding skyscrapers, but it was large and looked as deplorable as the reporter had made it sound. There were bars over all the windows and the sign on the street side of the building was faded, the paint chipping off the dirty bricks. A miserable, six foot high chain link fence surrounded the building. The only lights came from those in the stairwells of the building and the meager streetlamps outside.

A car backfired in the distance. He leaned off the office complex he was perched on a little farther and activated his amplifier. He knew this neighborhood, though he'd never been to the school before. A nasty street gang was centralized in the surrounding area. Mostly small time thugs and petty thieves, but occasionally someone wound up dead or running drugs- if he was being honest, it was happening more and more. Since the mob had begun to collapse in Gotham, gangs had become the next era of organized crime.

Something filtered through the receiver and he listened closely. It sounded like a fight- maybe gunshots- was happening about two blocks down. Then he picked up another sound…a cell phone dialing. He waited as the 911 operator picked up and asked for information.

"Corner of Sixty-ninth and Lewis," came the broken response. "There's a shooting going on." The voice, though not calm, was steady and the caller spoke clearly.

Suddenly Batman realized he knew the voice. He'd heard it only a few days ago and it propelled him into action. Normally he would wait- she was calling for help, Gordon's men would arrive on the scene quickly- there was probably already a patrol nearby, anyway. But he couldn't help himself and he was soaring away from the building and the middle school without a second thought.


Molly had edged closer to the area she thought the noises were coming from in order to figure out what was going on. If it was a shooting, she had to call, but it might just be a junky car- and she wouldn't call until she knew. She held the cell phone to her ear, the number already punched in, her thumb on the dial button and peered around the corner. There was another loud pop and she hit send.

She knew the sound of gunshots when she heard them up close. It was unmistakable. And she could smell the tangy smoke in the air, too. The operator picked up after what felt like ages and she continued to move quietly away from the scene in order to avoid detection. She didn't know how many people were there, or how many weapons they had, but she wasn't about to take those chances.

She repeated the information twice in a soft tone before the operator confirmed her request and promised to send help. She lowered the phone in relief and was about to slink even farther away when she heard something- were those running footsteps?

"Molly! Hey, you left so fast, I thought I'd never catch up- what are you still doing so far from home?"

There was another pop and Molly turned to face Robert's running figure. He lived only a block away from her and they had often walked home together after Drama Club, but tonight she'd wanted privacy and space to think. She began cursing him in her head. Why did he have to run after her, making all that noise? The idiot!

"Molly?" It was so quiet along the street that his voice rang out loud and clear in the night air. She glared at him.

"Keep it down! Rob, you really should just head home, now-"

"No, I wanted to apologize- you're right, we're all being weird about this-"

"Rob!" she hissed as another pop filled the silence. It sounded closer this time and brought Robert to attention.

"What was that?"

Molly cursed aloud this time and grabbed his hand, dragging him away from the scene and back towards the school. They were closer to it at this point and it would probably be safer than their own apartments. She sometimes forgot that for all his posturing, Rob was a newer resident of the city- more idealistic than she was, in some ways. To think that he'd been teaching here half a year and still hadn't heard the sound of a gunshot- she shuddered and yanked harder on his arm. There was no time for emotions. She had to get them away from there.

His jaw dropped open and he pulled his arm back, out of her grasp. "Hey! That hurt! What's going on?"

"Rob, you have to be quiet-"

They were standing in the middle of the sidewalk, underneath a dim light post, in plain sight of anyone and Molly darted to the side, out of the circle of yellow light as she saw figures begin to round the corner down the block. They were coming from the direction of the shooting and their tall, hulking figures were suddenly very frightening.

Robert noticed her looking away, open-mouthed and turned around. Molly reached an arm forward and snatched at his blazer, but was too late. Another shot rang out…and another. She snatched her arm back into the shadows and watched, helpless as Rob's body fell to the ground. Things were happening so quickly- they felt unstoppable. She couldn't even make a sound of horror, for fear they would notice her, too. She shrunk back against the building's side and her eyes darted between the gang and Rob's body. She watched his chest continue to rise and fall, despite the spreading spots of red in his white button down shirt.

The gang seemed to be deliberating about something- had they heard him calling to her? Did they know someone else was there? She couldn't see anything about them, they stuck as close to the shadows as she did, but she heard them speaking in low tones. Guttural sounds. It made her flesh crawl and she itched to go to Rob, to dial for help again, to do something! His chest was rising more slowly now…and then it stopped. Her vision blurred as tears fell down her cheeks and she grit her teeth. No time for crying. She had to stay calm- stay sane. And then, finally, the gang seemed to reach a decision. She heard some loud clanging noises and realized they must have been throwing away their weapons. Then they began to shuffle in the opposite direction from where she was hiding. She waited as long as she could and then threw herself forward into the light and felt frantically at Rob's throat for a pulse. She didn't find one and immediately threw her satchel down, tearing out its contents for anything to stop the bleeding. She tore off her sweater and packed it against his wounds, then positioned herself and began to pump his chest up and down, up and down.

No sooner had she started CPR than she heard sirens in the distance. She looked up and began to scream for help, no longer caring who heard her.

"Over here!" she shouted, even as she pumped her hands against Rob's dead chest. Up and down. Up…and down. "Over here! Someone help!"

A shadow flew across their figures and she paused in her ministrations.

"Who's there?" She didn't see the ambulance, or the police lights, though she could hear them, still. She wished someone knew where she was. She should've told the operator she would be leaving the scene- maybe if she had- if she had…

She looked back down at Rob's body and suddenly knew it was no use. She shouted aloud with anger and frustration and felt the tears starting again.

"Damn it! Damn it, damn it! You green idiot! You should've stayed in Kentucky, you fool!"

And then there was someone there, pulling her away from the body and telling her the police would be there soon. She tore herself from his grasp and spun around, surprised to find that her legs weren't shaky at all and she could stand on her own two feet. She was even more surprised to see the Batman standing before her and her anger suddenly found a point. So this was the man criminals feared? This was the man who'd cleaned up Gotham at the cost of so many lives? And he dared appear to her after her hour of need?

"Who the hell do you think you are?" she yelled at the masked figure. "What good are you if you're only here to tell me when the real help is arriving?"

If her words bothered him, he didn't let it show. Batman didn't flinch from her gaze. He was quiet and let her rant, even though he wished he could be his other self for her then- be a man she could relate to and let comfort her. She was in shock and covered in the blood of a coworker- it would be unfair of him to ask anything of her other than what she was feeling. And surely, of anyone, he understood that feeling.

"You did everything you could."

"I didn't! I hid and let him be shot and then I watched him die while I continued to hide- I watched him die- I…" her voice trailed off and she looked for a moment as if she might be ill, but she leaned over and braced her hands on her knees, taking deep breaths.

"I'm going now," Batman said. "Gordon's men will help you."

Molly looked up at him, remarkably unchanged from the night he met her, despite the mascara stains and the street clothes. She wasn't some model with no brain or even a socialite with a cause- she was herself and intensely proud of it. The same aura of strength he'd noticed was in full force at that moment and he thought she was beautiful. Every inch of her frame declared that she didn't care who he was- if he didn't clean up the city for Gotham's youth, all his efforts would mean nothing.

"Then go," she choked out. "And catch these bastards. It's bad enough they're killing our children. Now they're killing the only people who can save the children from them."


AN: PIGSALE is an anacronym for the seven deadly sins: Pride, Ire, Gluttony, Sloth, Avarice, Lust, and Envy. And what do you think of my first Batman action? Sorry if it's a bit abrupt, it's early in the morning and I promise we will find out more about what Bruce is feeling about the encounter next chapter. Also, I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I think referring to him as Batman when he's Batman and Bruce when he's not in the cape and cowl makes sense, doesn't it?