At first, it wasn't so bad. Lunch at Café Epiphany. Al demanded that he share her dessert. The Captain had no chocolate.
A double feature at the drive-in, interrupted by Two-Face, who was clearly running low on ideas. They were recognized, and allowed to stay in their borrowed car. Every couple interrupted mid-coitus was also allowed to stay discreetly hidden away—if the coin agreed. The Captain and her date emerged from their car fully clothed.
(He didn't bother to fight the stab of relief. There were some things he just didn't want to see.)
The next night, the Captain went to her boyfriend's apartment, and they stayed in. Spying on them was suddenly next to impossible.
A few days later, they did it again.
So the Riddler called in a favor, and Firefly torched the building.
"It was glorious!" she cheered when she threw open the door to the lair that night. "Fire! Fire arcing to the heavens, fire dancing in the wind!"
"You're sooty," Techie observed. "Good date?"
"Hmm? Oh, yeah. He wasn't too happy about it. But his movie collection was crap, anyway. He's going to have to live with his family now, poor baby. You should have seen it, Ops! The whole place just went up in flames. It was beautiful!"
"Any idea how it happened?"
"Who cares how it happened? It was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. Dancing all around me—thought we were going to have to go out the window."
"Wait a minute—you were in the apartment when it happened?"
"What? Oh. Yeah. It was so—so—fire is the lurve!" She danced off to her bedroom, very nearly floating.
"So…do we count this as a good thing?" Al asked when she was gone. Techie nodded cautiously.
"Yeah…but we're going to have to have a word with Firefly."
And they would have. They would have had a long, serious talk, possibly involving lead pipes and kneecaps, possibly involving switchblades and jugulars, possibly involving something worse. But they got distracted when they learned where the Captain's next date was going to be.
This was going to be the moment when they discovered just how dedicated the Scarecrow was to this little endeavor.
Techie bet every cent in her wallet that he couldn't be persuaded to come with them.
Al took that bet. She couldn't go alone—well, she could, but she didn't want to. And she'd be damned if she was going to miss this.