"Owe you many? How do you figure?" I ask when he opens the door to let me in.

"I've saved you how many times from the clown? Helped you get home, I'm helping you rid your city of Arkham prisoners…" He ticks them each off on his hand. "Shall I go on?"

"Don't bother, I get the idea." I say. "But speaking of ridding my city of Arkham prisoners… Who's next?" Riddler shakes his head and mutters something about my attention span, then leads me into the room with the crazy computer. A few mouse clicks later and he pulls up a map of the city.

"As far as I can tell, this," He circles a street in a bad part of town with his mouse. "Is where Croc calls home. At the end of the street is a main sewer entrance. And here," He indicates a different part of the map. "Is the park Zsasz most commonly finds his victims."

"Okay… Any thoughts on how to, you know, get rid of them?"

"Obviously I'm the brains of this outfit. And if you mean kill them, then yes." He says, looking pleased with himself.

"You know I'm super grateful for all this, don't you?" I say. "I mean, we might have been on opposite sides back in Arkham, but it's different now, right?" Man, this is awkward. If only Hallmark made a 'Even though you're a super-criminal who was my biggest enemy for a while, you're actually an okay guy and I don't hate you anymore, I actually kind of like you' card.

"I'm only doing this for the chance to kill the imbeciles I've been stuck in prisons and asylums with for years." Riddler claims, but I can see a ghost of a smile.

"Come on. You like me too." I say, punching him lightly on the arm. "Just say it."
But he doesn't, he just stares back at me, so I stare back at him. But then it feels too intense, so I look away. After a beat, he does too.

"Hey, have you been watching the news?" I ask, suddenly remembering the article from yesterday morning. He shrugs. "Well, you guys made it in there!"

"Really?" He quirks an eyebrow.

"Yep. All the Batman characters have attracted some attention. Turn on the TV, you might make it on there." He walks past me into the living room and turns on the insanely large plasma. We both drop onto the couch and watch, just in time to catch the end of the sports report.

"That was sports with Mark Renner. Thanks Mark. Just to recap the main story for the night: Crime rates in our fair city are soaring. In the last week alone, there has been a dramatic rise in theft and violent crime. People are being urged to take caution, and to call the police immediately if they see anything suspicious."

Riddler turns off the TV as the report ends, but doesn't say anything.

"This is my fault." I say, more to myself than him. He answers though.

"It's not."

"Okay, maybe not, but it's my responsibility. I'm the only one who knows what's happening. I don't know what I was doing, thinking I could keep going to school and having my normal life, just killing Batman villains in the afternoons after school and on weekends!" I look up at him. "Would you be ready to go after Croc and Zsasz tomorrow?" He nods. "Good. We'll do Croc tomorrow, then find Zsasz tomorrow night in the park."

"Belle, you're not Batman." He says in a gentle tone that sounds kind of strange coming from him. "Nothing is your fault, and it's not your responsibility to save everyone." I calm down a little, enough to see that he's right. I smile and we both stand up.

"Would it be weird if I hugged you? I'm thinking this would be a time normal friends would hug."

"Yes, but would you call either of us normal?"

"Fair point. Well… See you." I say, and awkwardly wave at him. Not gonna lie, I totally would have preferred a hug.

I have a cloth over the speaker on the phone, and I'm trying to sound as grown up as possible.
"No, I'm afraid she's quite sick again. I think it may be something left over from Monday." I say, trying to sound like Mom. I'm on the phone to the school, explaining to them why I won't be there today.

"That's fine Ms Mitchell." The lady from the school office says. "I hope she feels better soon."

"I, uh, she will, I'm sure. Thank you." I hang up and let out a nervous laugh. In less than a week, I've gone from perfect daughter, to one who sneaks out, ditches school and cheats in science. And that's not even counting what I'm doing with Riddler. I run back upstairs to my room, and throw a few clothes and some stuff I'll need tonight in a bag.
See, the plan is this: I'm spending the night at Riddler's. Every time I think about it, I start screaming internally. Which is ridiculous. We'll be spending the night hunting down Zsasz in the park. I finish packing, zip up my bag and carry it downstairs.

Two minutes later, I'm standing outside Riddler's door, so I knock. And knock again a few seconds later. And when he still doesn't answer, I start pounding on the door, yelling at him. What if he was tied up, or knocked out, or dead? What if-
The door swings open and he's standing there, looking annoyed.

"Are you really so impatient that waiting two minutes would have killed you?" I threw up my hands.

"No I'm not so impatient. Damn it Edward, I thought maybe you were dead or something! I thought Joker had come and you were… Did you just get out of the shower?" Sure enough, he's standing there with wet hair, and is shirtless. Who knew there were muscles going on under that wiry frame? And I should totally not be looking. I avert my eyes, looking everywhere but at him.

"I did. Is that a problem?"

"No problem. I'll just… whatever. Go put a shirt on." I say, and settle myself on his couch. He laughs, that sort of crazy laugh, but goes into a room I guess is his bedroom and emerges fully clothed, wearing the Yankees shirt again. I just don't know if I'm happy or disappointed.

Riddler heads straight for his fridge and pulls out an enormous hunk of meat.

"Is that a cow leg?" I ask, walking into the kitchen to join him.

"Yes. And this is a toxin I received from Crane as payment for a favour I did for him." He says, pulling a small vial out from a drawer. There's maybe an inch of light green liquid in it.

"And that's going to be enough to kill Killer Croc?" I ask doubtfully. He sends me one of those totally unhinged smiles.

"Oh it's enough to kill three Crocs. I'm just making sure he's dead." He says, putting the toxin into a syringe and stabbing it into the meat.

"So what's the plan?" I ask, and I get another crazy person smile as an answer. Oh boy, this should be good.


A/N: Trying out some new spacing, by suggestion of one reviewer. :) Any better? Hope you're all still enjoying this!