Meetings and Other Masquerades

Friday 25 October 2013

Batman was not having a good night. He'd been tracking a massive shipment of a scary new drug, a stimulant called "celerity" that was being manufactured somewhere in the Midwest. He'd found the entry point into Gotham, but seemingly grossly underestimated the money behind the celerity distribution ring— and the men and weapons that money bought.

As he dove behind a pile of crates full of some toy or another that had been shipped in from China, he thought, Gosh, after three whole weeks on the job, you'd think I'd be past mistakes like this.

In his head, his mother's voice made a tsking sound, and Bruce smiled under his mask. His mother would lecture him if she heard him berating himself like this, and he knew it so well that his own mind was ready to supply the lecture.

I'll let Mom do it herself, later, he thought as bullets chewed at the crates he used for shelter. Right now, I need to figure out how to take down two dozen crooks with automatic weapons— before anyone else comes to see what's going on and gets hurt.

"Hey, Bat-breath," called a mocking voice as the fusillade of bullets came to a halt. "Did you really think that we'd bring in a few million bucks worth of celerity and not be prepared for dealing with an interfering vigilante asshole like you?

"Guess again— if you live long enough."

This was following by a series of heavy click and clacks, sounds that weren't familiar to Batman, but that he didn't like at all.

Batman managed to get a view of the men who were attacking him between from two crates— and he saw one of the men, probably the one in charge, raise a shoulder-mounted missile launcher in his direction.

Before Batman could dive away from the pile of crates that he was using as cover, the man leveled his weapon at them— and fired.

Batman hadn't even finished thinking I'm going to die before a streak of midnight blue appeared from one side— and the missile stopped some ten feet from his hiding place, held casually in a wine-red-gloved hand.

"My, what a big gun you have," Diamond said as she watched the rocket sputter and die in her hand, not even detonating, as its impact detonator was on the tip of the nose, and she'd caught it mid-body. "Are you compensating for something? Or are you just that scared of the Batman?"

Batman heard a soft, "Oooooh, shit," then a scattering of boots. Immediately, he went over the crates and into the mass of men as they headed for the personnel door out of the warehouse. He hit them from behind, moved through them like a scythe through wheat, his leftover fear translating to adrenaline as he laid the men out. He finished with the man who still clutched the rocket launcher, said in a very quiet voice, "Nineteen— where did the last four get to?"

"I have them over here, Batman," called Diamond. "These four were bright enough to head for a different exit than the others."

Keeping his voice quiet— the other hero obviously had super-human hearing, since she'd heard him in the first place— Batman said, "Would you mind bringing them over here? I prefer to chain-cuff them, it's more efficient, and often more embarrassing."

Diamond flew over quickly, but not fast enough to create a serious wind, and dropped the four men at Batman's feet. He nodded a brief thank you— and gave her a discreet thumbs up, making sure that none of the criminals could see it.

Lowering his voice yet again, and shutting off the microphone that altered his voice and broadcast it outside the helmet, he said, "If you can hear this, please cough once."

Diamond immediately brought a hand to her mouth and coughed once, said, "Excuse me— gun smoke, ugh."

"Excellent, thank you," Batman said. "Listen, some of these idiots are awake, just not happy about it, and I have… a façade I want to present. Keeping in mind that I am more grateful than I can possibly express for my life, if you don't mind, I'd like to… well, make it seem like I resent your help, like I'm so grim and gritty that I'm incapable of gratitude— it'll make it easier to scare jerks like this in the future. So if it's all right if I pretend to be an absolute ass, would you, umm… stroke your ponytail once?"

"You know," Diamond said, reaching behind herself and stroking her ponytail, "this is the part where you say 'thank you,' or it should be."

Grinning under the full face mask— she was even giving him straight lines— Batman kicked his microphone back on and growled, "I didn't ask for your help, I don't need it, and I don't want it. You super-powered types only get in my way. I've got a job to do, and I don't need interference from super-powered amateurs."

"Ama— listen, Batman, I've saved more lives in the past month than—" Diamond said, managing to hide a grin well enough that Batman was pretty sure only he caught it.

"Then go save some more— in Metropolis." He rounded on her and stabbed a finger at the ground. "This is my town."

"Wow, you're as big an asshole as I'd heard," Diamond marveled. "Fine, I'll go back to Metropolis— and you can try to catch the rocket yourself, next time."

"I have electronic countermeasures in place that would have made it miss wildly," Batman growled, making a mental note to see about adding some. "I don't need super-powered help."

With that, he turned his back on the other hero and continued binding the crooks. As he worked, he killed his external mike and said, "Wow, you're good at this, thanks. Listen, give me a couple of minutes, then meet me up on the roof of the building two blocks north and one east of the warehouse? No camera coverage there."

"If that's how you feel, fine," Diamond said, her voice surly, even petulant. Without another word, she flew to the exit that would put her closest to his proposed meeting spot.

Batman grinned, finished what he was doing, called the cops, discovered that they were already close when he caught the pulse of red and blue lights outside, and left through the building's skylight.

A minute and a half later, he dropped onto the roof he'd directed Diamond to and found her waiting for him

"Was I convincing enough?" she asked immediately, grinning as Batman actually bowed her way.

"More than convincing enough, thank you," Batman assured her. "Listen, I can't possibly thank you enough— I thought I was going to die, and you— thank you, Diamond. Thank you very, very much."

"But… what about your countermeasures?" Diamond asked. "You said—"

"I lied— though I'm damned sure going to see about getting some." Batman shook his head. "I just… I never thought about having crooks come after me with rocket launchers. Stupid, I guess, but it just… never occurred to me."

"Oh— well, you're certainly welcome," Diamond said, smiling. "And a good liar— I believed it, and I'm pretty good at spotting lies. Excellent, if I turn my senses to it, which I hadn't— but good all the time."

"If I fooled you, they'll almost certainly buy it, good," Batman sighed. He shook himself once, then said, "Okay. Thank you again— and I'll shut up about that, now.

"So… what brings you out to Gotham? You haven't operated outside of Metropolis much, so I'm guessing you had a reason to come here."

"I came to ask for a bit of help, actually," Diamond said. "A couple of nights ago, I was… too late to save a life. I was… well, there was a fire, and I had to… I had to ignore some screams for help because there were kids in this place that was on fire, and… a woman died. Was murdered. I couldn't save her, and the police couldn't get to her in time, and—"

Bruce kicked off the filters on his microphone, left the mike on, and said in his natural voice, softly-but-sternly, "Stop it. We can't save everyone, Diamond, even you can't. You saved a bunch of children— I read about it, the Metropolis Hilton was hosting… the Nicholas Pelham High School homecoming dance, that was it. More than four hundred kids were caught in there when the place caught fire, and not one of them died— thanks to you. I know you wanted to help the woman that was killed, too— but you made the right choice, lady. The only choice."

"I… know that, here." Diamond tapped her temple. Then she placed her open hand over her stomach and said, "Here is insisting that if I'd looked harder, thought faster, I'd have found a way."

"Your gut is wrong," Batman said. "It does you credit that you wish you could have saved them all, Diamond, but… you need to let it go."

"I can't, yet," Diamond said, sighing and shaking her head. "That's… why I'm here. The man who killed Mariana Fuentes is named Crispin Farliss, and there's reason to believe that he ran to Gotham after he killed her."

Under his mask, Batman smiled a hard smile. "Tell me what you've got. We'll find him."

Not quite two hours later, Batman watched as Diamond came out of a dormitory on the campus of the Gotham City College of Arts and Sciences dragging Crispin Farliss by one heel. She didn't drag him down the steps, but instead lofted him high enough that his head didn't bounce on the concrete treads. Batman was sure that she wanted to let his head bounce, but the scum was already sobbing and screaming for help— it probably would have been overkill.

There was a GCPD cop car pulling up even as Diamond reached the bottom of the stairs and the sidewalk between stairs and parking lot. As the cops got out, hands on their weapons but not drawing them, she lowered Farliss to the ground in front of the nearest police officer.

"Good evening, Officer Keaton," Diamond said, glancing at the cop's name tag, then moving her eyes back to Farliss. "This man is wanted for murder in Metropolis. Would you mind taking him into custody, then calling Detective Dan Turpin of Metropolis PD's third precinct? He'll arrange for getting him back to Metropolis, I'm sure."

"Uh, well— I mean, sure, but, uh—" Officer Keaton started.

Crispin Farliss came up off the ground and punched Diamond in the jaw all in one smooth, clean motion, screaming "YOU BITCH!" as he swung. Batman had seen it coming— and let it happen. He'd seen film of bullets bouncing off of the woman's head, so he knew she wasn't in danger.

The crunch of breaking bones as every knuckle on every finger of Crispin Farliss's right hand broke on Diamond's jaw made him smile broadly under his mask. The murdering punk's girlish screams only added to the experience.

A few minutes later, Diamond landed on the roof of the Political Science building where Batman waited for her and immediately said, "Thank you, Batman. I feel… much better, now."

"You're more than welcome," he replied, and offered the other hero his hand. "You know, it's funny, but… I felt like I owed it to you to help, like… like this was just repaying a favor, or starting to— still feel like I owe you something, but maybe not as much as before. But I'm pretty sure the debt is… well, older than you saving my life earlier tonight. I've thought… this may sound weird, but I've felt like I know you, or should know you, since I first saw news about you. And… well, what you remind of isn't actually possible, I have no idea what I'm babbling about, ignore me."

Diamond cocked her head and said, her voice light and teasing, " 'Impossible?' You say that word to a woman who flies, bench presses tanks, and can snatch rockets out of the air? Seriously?"

"You remind me, in some way I can't put my finger on," Batman said very slowly, "of the man who saved my life and my parents lives more than seventeen years ago." He smiled, though she couldn't see it, and said, "One thing I'm sure of, Diamond— you're not a man."

"No, I'm not," she agreed, blushing a little. "And seventeen years ago, I was only eight, so… you're right, impossible." She frowned a little, and said, "But you know… now that you've said something… I know what you mean. I feel like… like I should know you, too."

"Weird, isn't it?" Batman said. "But it's not a bad weird. It's… well, almost a relief, if you know what I mean?"

"A relief because… we can be friends?" Diamond asked.

"Pretty sure we already are friends," Batman said. "You saved my life, I helped you catch someone you needed to catch… if we aren't friends now, we're probably a couple of jerks. In fact—one second…."

Batman activated the sensors in his cowl, scanned around, found no cameras, and reached up to touch the temples of the mask with the ring finger and thumb of his left hand, triggering the release of the faceplate. "Hi. I'm Bruce Wayne."

Diamond blinked, stared for a moment, then laughed and said, "My god, that's… you're the last person I'd have suspected of being Batman, Mister—"

"Bruce, please," he said. "At least when the mask is off. Yeah, I worked pretty hard to get the reputation of a jerkass playboy, it's a great cover."

Diamond nodded, smiled, and pulled off her mask. "I'm—"

"Clarissa Kent of the Daily Planet," Bruce finished, his already wide smile broadening. "Lady, the work you did on the Alexander Luther story was phenomenal, and the FBI was right to give you credit for helping them catch that psychopathic bastard."

"Wow," Clarissa said after a moment of staring in amazement. "Batman's a fan of my writing. That's… kind of a day-maker."

"Hey, you're a good detective, too," Bruce said. "That's a big plus in my book.

"Listen, if you've got some civvies with you, you want to grab a bite to eat, or something?"

"I can't," Clarissa said, and she sounded honestly regretful. "My girlfriend is… worried about me, about how hard I took Mariana Fuentes's death. I need to go home, tell her I caught the man who killed her— with a lot of help, thank you— and that I'll… be okay, now.

"But… well, if you're ever in Metropolis, and we can arrange for Bruce and Clarissa to meet casually, I'll buy you dinner, in thanks for your help."

"Deal," Bruce said. He sighed and added, "Involved, huh? Well, that isn't surprising— you're a heck of a lady, you have to be, to do what you do. So I can't be surprised that you've got a girlfriend already."

"Oh, and you're, what, a selfish bastard?" Diamond asked, rolling her eyes as she pulled her mask back on. "If you aren't dating anyone right now, that's probably your choice— or that you haven't let anybody see the real Bruce, for fear of losing your reputational camouflage."

"Okay, your point is made." He grinned and started putting his cowl back on. "I'm going to get back out there, I want to see if I can figure out how that shipment of celerity was supposed to be distributed before I head for home."

"Do you need a lift back to the warehouse district?" Diamond asked.

"No, thanks," Batman said. He grinned under the cowl, activated the voice filters, and said, "I have a ride coming— pulling up behind the building now."

Diamond went to the back of the roof, looked over as the car that his mother had christened "the Batmobile" drifted to a halt in the alley behind the building. "Oh, that's… well, creepy-looking. Appropriate for the Batman, I guess. Remote controlled?"

"Yes," he admitted. "Got an autopilot in it that Google would love to get their hands on, let me tell you."

Diamond laughed, shook Batman's hand, and he watched as she flew away, then leapt off the roof and rappelled down to his car to go back to work.

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Saturday 26 October 2013

Bruce Wayne stepped out of his bedroom at a few minutes before seven to find his father and mother waiting for him. Both let out delighted laughs at the costume he'd chosen to wear to the Halloween Ball they'd sponsored for the benefit of the Gotham City Police Department's Widows and Orphans fund.

"Oh, my, Bruce," his mother said when she stopped laughing. "Really, that's just… perfect."

He wore a tasteful black suit, a deep red tie, a deep red mask over his eyes and nose, a fedora in the same shade of red, and a heavy opera cloak in the same color. A pair of gun belts crossed his hips, and in each holster was a bright red plastic pistol, modeled after Colt Model 1911s.

"The Crimson Avenger," Thomas Wayne chuckled. "The first mystery man of the Golden Age— that's marvelous, Bruce."

"Yeah, well," Bruce said, grinning. "You guys look pretty awesome yourselves, and I love your choices."

Thomas Wayne was dressed as Zorro, and Mary wore a Miss America costume, the patriotic heroine from the All-Star Squadron being a long time hero of hers.

They had offered the use of the ballroom in the east wing of the house for the event, and since it would result in that much more money going to the fund— renting a hall would have been expensive— the police department's volunteer organizers had accepted gratefully. As the Waynes headed for the ballroom on the third floor, Alfred appeared in a costume of his own, and all three of them stopped to laugh. Their longtime butler had on a jester's outfit, and even added a small, dancelike caper to his walk as they moved to the entrance of the ballroom to greet their guests.

Bruce, in an effort to maintain his reputation as an irresponsible jackass, went on into the room and headed straight for the bar. He ordered a glass of wine, sipped at it, and grinned. He had a flask of red grape juice in the pocket of his suit jacket, and would refill the glass from it, giving the appearance that he was drinking.

Bruce kept to the edges of the floor for a while, wandered around and avoided conversation as much as possible. He danced a time or two, allowing himself to do so less than terribly, but not wonderfully, so as not to raise suspicion. After a dance with Silver St. Cloud, whom he'd known since grade school, Bruce sidled off the floor to what looked like an empty balcony. He sighed, stretched, and moved to lean on the railing, all before realizing he wasn't alone on the balcony.

The woman was average height, maybe a little more, about five-seven in the low-heeled boots she wore. He studied her costume, smiled, and decided that he liked the design. Medium gray tights, a darker gray leotard over them, a charcoal colored leather jacket worn open over that, and a wide, black belt buckled loosely over her hips. Black gloves on her hands, black, low-heeled boots came most of the way to her knees, and she had on a tie-on charcoal gray mask that covered all of her lower face and most of her upper face, leaving only her eyes exposed. Wavy, light-brown hair hung in a ponytail to a point a third of the way down her back, and bangs the same shade hung over the top edge of her mask. She had the body to carry it off, slender and toned, but still notably feminine.

Even as he noticed her, she tugged the lower part of the mask down to reveal a slightly pointed chin, a mouth that was smiling slightly, and a nose that fit her face. She produced a pack of cigarettes, stuck one in some sort of plastic filter, and lit it. "I don't know who you are," she said, her voice accented with the casual, precise pronunciation of a newscaster or a Midwesterner, and slightly amused, "but I like the costume. The Crimson Avenger was very cool."

"Thanks," Bruce said. "I'm Bruce Wayne, my parents are throwing the party. I like your costume, though I don't recognize the heroine…?"

"She's fictional," the woman replied. "So I can deduce that you aren't a comic book reader. Marvel Prime is very popular, and Shadowcat from that book is actually more popular than her X-Men version, right now. All I'm missing is the wig she wears with her mask— I couldn't buy one on my salary, and they didn't have any for rent at the costume shop."

"And from that," Bruce said, smiling his thanks as the woman moved downwind of him and leaned on the railing herself, "I can deduce that you're in law enforcement. Most of the socialite types and wannabe socialites wouldn't blink at dropping a hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars on a wig they'd never wear but once."

The woman laughed and nodded. "You know wig prices, too. Shopping for girlfriends?"

"With, not for," Bruce said, glad that the woman had found an excuse for him knowing wig prices without him having to think of one. "Though I'm sure she wouldn't have minded had I bought it for her."

"Probably not," the police woman said. She looked at her cigarette, sighed and said, "You know, starting this damned habit is the one thing I really regret about my military service. It's hell to quit." She tapped the plastic filter. "One Step at a Time filters. This is the fourth one, and I guess it's working, but I'm pretty sure that no one enjoyed being around me for the first three filters."

"I'm glad I managed to avoid that one, myself," Bruce said, and gave her a rather wicked grin. "I have enough bad habits, I suppose.

"So, tell me, were you an MP in the military? Or equivalent, if you were in a service other than the army?"

The woman opened her mouth to answer— and from inside the ballroom came a series of rapid gunshots.

Bruce didn't think, he just moved, swept towards the woman, intending to pull her to the side of the balcony with him, so that no one would see them.

She was already well off to the side, nodding approvingly as he moved to join her. He grinned— the lady knew what she was doing, plainly.

When he flattened himself on the ground, looked into the ballroom from floor level, he heard a small sound of approval from the woman. She bent and managed to catch the corner of the wall well enough to look out herself, from about knee height— still safe. No one would look that low for people peeking in.

There were a dozen men in the room with guns, real ones, a couple moving around among the guests with bags to collect wallets and jewelry.

"Crap," the cop said. "I'm unarmed. Wasn't expecting… hold on, are those the waiters?"

"Yes," Bruce said. "Looks like their uniforms don't really fit, though— probably replaced the actual wait staff." He slid back, moved away from the wall a little, and stood. "This looks bad. Only two of a dozen collecting valuables, the others… they looked like they were looking for someone specific, I think."

"You noticed that?" The lady cop looked at him oddly. "For a playboy punk, you have sharp eyes. Ever think about being a cop?"

Bruce took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and came to a decision. "Not exactly— but I can help here. I have a way to help that… well, if you have to arrest me for it, all I ask is that you wait until after this is over."

The lady cop looked at him sharply, but said, "Okay, that's… interesting. Let me guess, you have an illegal weapon of some sort? A tear gas grenade maybe?"

"Not exactly," Bruce said with a sigh. "Come on— I'll show you."

He went over the balcony railing, landed on a smaller balcony that was an odd distance down from the one outside the ballroom, and not far from it. He rolled neatly to his feet, ready to offer the cop a hand, but she was already following, so he just made room for her to land. They entered the second-floor room together, and she followed Bruce as he moved out into the hall, down a few rooms, and into the study adjoining his room, not asking questions or attempting to leave him.

In the study, he opened the secret passage to the cave, and her eyes widened a little. "A secret passage? Does it go to the ballroom?"

"No," Bruce said, starting down it. "Come on."

She followed him willingly enough, paused a second at the elevator, then shrugged and got in. When it opened on the cave, the first thing her eyes focused on was the car.

"Oh, my god," she breathed. "You… you're the Batman."

There was wonder in her voice, but no disbelief— and no anger, to his relief.

"Yes," he said, heading for the cabinet with the costume. "The locker to the left, there, it has some hand-to-hand weaponry, see if there's anything there that suits you."

She moved that way, looking around a little as she went. "You're not going to ask me to stay behind?"

"No," Bruce said. "In the first place, you wouldn't listen. In the second place, you were in the military, and you're in shape. You move like you can fight. I could use the help, given the number of innocents under threat."

"Okay," the cop said. She opened the locker he'd indicated and let out a low whistle. "You could stock a couple of dojos with the stuff you have here. Got any— ah, there we go."

Bruce had most of his costume on already, but he glanced over his shoulder as the lady police officer stock a pair of telescoping batons— currently collapsed and not much bigger than a fat pill bottle— in the pockets of her jacket, then reached back into the locker and came out with a pair of manriki gusari, three foot lengths of chain with weight about the size of half a roll of quarters on each end.

"I don't suppose you have any guns down here?" she asked as she belted on of the chains around her waist and gripped both weights of the other in one hand.

"Sorry, no," he said. "Never liked them, and… look, tell the truth— if I were out there shooting up the crooks, you folks would be looking for me at least four or five times as hard as you are now, wouldn't you?"

The cop snorted, but actually grinned at him as she said, "More like ten or twelve times as hard, but, yes, good point."

"So, no guns." He lifted the front half of the headpiece, and pressed it into place. "All right. Let's go. We'll go back up to the study we entered through. From there, we split up. You'll go to the ballroom entry, take out any sentries outside, then come in— by then, I should be engaged with the others, I'll come in from the ceiling above them. I know where the passage used to maintain the chandelier is, that's my entry point.

"When it's over… you do what you have to do. Arrest me, whatever. For letting me do this first… thank you."

"Yeah, well, I may not arrest you," she said, quirking a smile at him. "I'm not going to deny that you're doing a metric ton of good out there, and… well, that you're standing there telling me you'll accept the consequences of what you're doing, and thanking me for letting you save lives first?

"When this is over, we'll talk. As it is…." She pulled her mask up, adjusted it carefully, and said, "I wish I had the wig, but as it is… I may not be recognized, which will make it easier to avoid some very awkward questions about how it is I came to be working with a vigilante." At Batman's tilted-head question, she said, "I'm new. Just transferred in from Chicago a week or so ago. Haven't made any friends yet."

"Hmm," he said, looking at her critically. "That being the case…." Batman moved to a free-standing wardrobe, opened it to reveal a fully equipped disguise station, and pulled a wig off of a stand. "This will be a little big, but the mask should help it stay on"

The black wig had fairly straight hair, unlike the one Shadowcat wore in the comics, but still, it was long, and yet more detail to the disguise. The cop took it, and they got it on her quickly, between them.

"All right," Batman said. "Elevator, I'll tell you how to get to the ballroom from the study as we go. I'm going to smoke bomb the room and kill the chandelier— there will still be some lights around the edge of the room, but the gloom and smoke will give us an advantage."

"So will the white jackets those idiots are still wearing," the cop said, shaking her head in a mixture of amusement and irritation. "Seriously, these guys are stupid."

"Yes, but that helps us," Batman said. "So I'll take it as a blessing."

"Good point."

Less than five minutes later, Batman cut the power to the chandelier in the middle of the ballroom, tossed a half a dozen smoke bombs into the room a moment later, then dropped via grapple-gun line into the room as the crooks began panicking.

He took out nine, and his police officer partner got five— there had been two guards outside the ballroom entrance, and she got the three closest to the entrance, as well, disarmed them with the manriki gusari, beat them down with one of the batons she carried.

When it was all over, Batman disappeared back out the balcony he'd originally been on when the mess started, and his backup simply went back out the way she'd come in, and back to the study. No one had actually even looked her way, they'd been too busy trying to see the Batman, so she had no difficulty slipping away unnoticed.

They met in the study, and she went with him to the cave, where she doffed the wig, and he got back into his Crimson Avenger costume. Once that was done, he looked at the lady cop and said, "You made a decision yet? About arresting me?"

"I'm not arresting you, Bruce," she said, shaking her head a little. "I saw the way you worked up there— you put yourself at risk several times, in order to protect people. That's… I like that. I respect that."

"Thank you," he said, sighing visibly. "That's… a huge weight off of my chest… crap. I never got your name, officer…?"

"Detective, actually," she said as they headed for the elevator. "Detective Gordon. Jane Gordon— you can call me Jane."

"Jane, thank you," Bruce said. He shook his head and said, "Okay. We shouldn't go back in together, or people will… ah, make assumptions. Due to my reputation, you understand, not because of anything you've done."

"Screw them," Jane Gordon said easily, and took his hand. "Bruce, I'd like to hear… how this started, why you became the Batman, and… well, I was kind of hoping you'd buy me a drink while you told me."

"Ah," Bruce said, and smiled a little. "Well… considering that you're not arresting me, that you risked your life to help me, and that I'm not sure that I could take you if you had a baton and a manriki… Jane, can I buy you a drink?"

"You may," she said, and they walked on up to the ballroom, entered, and looked around as though puzzled by the chaos— and the number of crooks being handcuffed by figures that ranged from Sherlock Holmes— the older version, complete with deerstalker hat— to Captain America, to Laurel and Hardy.

"Bruce," Thomas Wayne called. "Thank god, you're all right."

Thomas and Martha came over, made a fuss over their son as though they weren't aware of where he'd been and what he'd been doing. Several cops came over, asked where he'd been, and Jane Gordon took that one.

"Bruce was showing me the rock gardens out in the back yard," she said. He'd told her about those on the way back up here. "Or… well, we were headed that way when we heard the gunshots. I made him wait with me until we were sure it was safe."

Thomas Wayne, who had very clearly seen the Batman at work, looked at Jane and smiled broadly. "Ah, thank you, miss…?"

"This is Detective Jane Gordon," Bruce put in, causing his father to look at him a bit sharply. "Jane, these are my parents, Doctor Thomas Wayne and Congresswoman Mary Wayne."

They all shook hands, and Mary, who could read her son like a book, smiled broadly at Jane Gordon. "Thank you very much for watching out for Bruce, Detective."

"Call me Jane, please," she said, smiling a little. "You're welcome, of course. Besides… well, I couldn't exactly get to know him properly if I let him get hurt."

"Let alone getting to know me improperly," Bruce said with a wicked grin. He grunted as Jane elbowed him in the ribs and said, "Ah, I mean, 'more intimately,' of c—oof. Woman, you have a violent streak."

"I channel it into my job," Jane said primly. "Mostly. However… behave, Bruce."

"Yes, ma'am," Bruce said, mock-meekly.

"Bruce Wayne," his father said, smiling at the way Bruce took Jane Gordon's hand easily and with a smile, "I like her. Considering that the last time I said that about someone you were dating, you were a freshman in high school? Hang on to her, son."

"Leave them be, Thomas," Mary said. She looked around, smiled a little, and stepped forward. "Ladies and gentlemen, weren't we having a party? You, DJ— music. After all… well, Batman may have helped, but the police have plainly proven tonight that they're worth our efforts— and then some."

That started some applause, and soon, the party was back in full swing, minus a few police officers who had to go off and take the crooks who'd assaulted the party to jail.

"They were looking for Julie Madison, the actress— you went to school with her Bruce." Mary Wayne shook her head. "She has a fortune of her own, and her parents are filthy rich— they were going to kidnap her and ransom her, and rob the party guests as a sort of bonus. When they found out that Julie had to cancel due to some reshoots on her latest movie, they were… not happy. I hesitate to think what would have happened if Batman and his… helper hadn't showed up."

"His helper?" Thomas asked, looking confused.

"There was a woman helping him," Mary said, smiling a small, approving smile at Jane Gordon. "All I saw of her was a spinning chain-weapon-thing and long black hair, but she took out three or more of the gang, over near the ballroom entrance, Thomas. I'm very glad she was here— even Batman needs help, sometimes.

"Now, you two— go dance, or something."

Thomas Wayne looked at Jane Gordon, saw her blush a little, but smile, and grinned himself. "Yes. You two go dance, or take that walk, or… whatever.

"Mary, may I have this dance?"

Thomas and Mary Wayne took to the dance floor, and Bruce and Jane followed them.

After one dance, Bruce and Jane did take that walk, did explore the Japanese rock gardens that Bruce had put in when he was in his teens, and he did tell her the whole story of how and why he became the Batman.

Jane Gordon asked a few questions, mostly about his methods, then offered to help him, if she could, though she said she'd have to be careful. "I can get you information, sometimes, but if I ever say no, you'll have to accept that, Bruce."

"I will," Bruce said, nodding and smiling at her. "I promise."

"Okay," she said, and yawned. She glanced at her watch, shook her head and said, "It's after two in the morning. I don't have to work tomorrow, but I have been up a long time. I should go. Walk me to my car?"

"Of course," Bruce said, and did so.

At Jane Gordon's car— an old, even antique, but well-maintained Chevy Nova— she stopped, turned to Bruce and said, "You know, given that your asshole-playboy-punk façade is just that, and that you've been a complete gentleman all the time we've been talking, I'm going to make sure there's no confusion here— and ask you to kiss me goodnight."

"Oh," Bruce said, looking pleasantly surprised. "I… thank you, yes."

He did kiss her goodnight, and he wasn't a jerk about it— but he very plainly enjoyed it, as did Jane.

"Uh, Jane… you said you're off tomorrow," Bruce said once they'd parted. "Would you like to go to dinner with me? Maybe a movie? I'd kind of like to see Escape Plan, if you're interested."

"Okay," Jane said, smiling a little. "So long as you can deal with me drooling whenever Jim Caviezel is on screen."

"I'll manage, I'm sure," Bruce said. "Six o'clock for dinner? Casual clothes, that way maybe no one will recognize me."

"Ah, there's a good reason to be the fashion plate you pretend to be," Jane said. "Six is good. See you then."

With that, she bounced up on her toes and kissed him lightly again, then got in her car and drove off.

"Wow," Bruce said as he watched her taillights recede down the long driveway. "That's one hell of a lady."

With that, he went inside and down to the cave. Batman would see what trouble he could put an end to before dawn, and tomorrow night… well, maybe he'd take the night off.