I sighed as I woke up. I turned to the side, expecting to find Dick lying next to me, in the same position as when we fell asleep back in his room. To my sudden surprise—and annoyance—there was no one. I sat up and saw that I was back in my own room, in the same pants and shirt that I was wearing yesterday; Dick's shirt. I groaned in frustration and flopped back on the bed. I glanced to my bedside table to check the time and saw a piece of paper. I picked it up.

The letter was written in Dick's hand. It read, "Babs. Sorry about this. After you fell asleep, I carried you back to your place, obviously. I didn't want Bette to wake up and you not be there. She would've gotten suspicious. Anyway, have a good Monday. See you tonight. Dick." I shot straight up in my bed, staring at the clock. I had forgotten it was Monday, and I rushed to get ready.

Class was nothing special. Everything went as usual, and after my final seminar got out, I walked quickly back to my dorm. I went into the room and found Dick lying on my bed, reading a book I had just finished. Bette was still in class, or otherwise occupied, so the room was empty. He got up as soon as he heard me enter, smiling. "Finally," he said and grabbed my hand, pulling me back out of the room. "Let's go."

"Wait," I said, trying to get out of his grip. "Where are we going?" Dick just smiled and dragged me to the parking lot and his car. We got in and I looked at him. "Dick, where the hell are we going?" He looked at me cheekily.

"The cave. You have training today." My jaw dropped. I had totally forgotten. "You didn't remember Batman's little message last night, did you?"

My ears burned. "I was a little preoccupied last night with… other things. I wasn't exactly thinking about my seven hour training session today…" I crossed my arms and looked out the window with a huff. Dick just laughed.

"Last night was pretty occupying," he said. I glanced at him and saw his face was a light rose color. I smiled and looked back out the window. "Unfortunately, those types of nights won't get to happen very often anymore. Batman wants you to start training every night. Is that okay?"

I thought. "I guess. Will you be there?" Dick shook his head.

"Not at the beginning. While Batman's training you in the Cave, I have to go out on solo patrol in the city. Rumor is that Riddler escaped this morning; Batman needs someone to be his eyes while he's with you." I was a little crestfallen, but knew I would survive a few nights without my Boy Wonder. "I'll still be able to see you when I drive you to and from the Cave. Oh, and on the weekends, he wants to spend the whole day with you—unless you have mountains of homework. Then, you can bring it and once you finish it you'll begin training. Get ready for some long nights!" he chuckled and I glared at him.

We sat in a contented silence for the rest of the drive. He crashed through the waterfall into the Cave, again smoothly sliding his car to a stop. We got out and walked over to the main floor area, the place with the absolutely massive computer screen. Batman was sitting at the computer, quickly typing and pulling up files. He hurriedly minimized them all, though, as he heard us arrive and stood up. "Barbara, go change," he instructed me. "Dick, you may leave." Dick grudgingly left. I went and changed into my costume and came back out, ready and nervous.

"I don't know what Dick has told you, but this is not going to be easy. I am going to be observing you—your reaction time, your execution, everything. Let's begin." Batman walked over to a long hallway that had multiple dummies, some holding weapons, some marked at civilians, some unmarked. With the flip of a switch, bright lights came on that nearly blinded me. "Get your projectiles out and hit as many dummies as you can that are not marked civilians. You are being timed—but don't let that rush you and cause you to miss. You are being observed on accuracy and speed. Begin." I reached for the projectiles—batarangs?—he had mentioned and walked closer to the mannequins.

I wasn't exactly sure how these would fly, and I had always been lousy at throwing things, so I didn't know what was going to happen when I flung my first batarang at the closest target. I missed that target horribly—but somehow, the batarang had swerved off to the right and had smacked into the gun of another dummy. "What?" I said out loud.

"I'm going to guess you were trying to hit that closest one, right?" he asked. I nodded. "Then you don't get points for accuracy." I sighed and tried again.

After a grueling half an hour, I had managed to either knock the weapon away or bury a batarang into every one of the non-civilian dummies—and even a few of the marked ones. "That wasn't too bad," Batman remarked in a deadpan voice. I didn't know how to take the comment; I felt like he never complimented anyone, let alone someone who had just taken her sweet time doing something he could have accomplished in a few seconds. "Would you like me to show you? We have the exact same projectiles." I nodded. Within five seconds every target had been hit, in the head, save the civilian ones. "Make sure you keep calm. The worst thing you can do is get frustrated and aggravated." I nodded and took a deep breath. I aimed and threw a batarang, managing to hit the target I was aiming for in its side.

"That was better. Let's move on." Batman was already heading away and I ran after him. "We're going to test you agility next—quickness, gymnastics ability. Dick told me that you're an expert gymnast. Is that true?"

"I wouldn't say expert but I'm fairly good." I knew that I wasn't near as agile as Dick was—he grew up in a circus for some of his life.

"Modesty will get you no where with the thugs of Gotham, Barbara," Batman said. "In some cases, it works better to brag rather than be humble. Remember that." I nodded and then gasped when I saw the large gymnastics room we were in. "Show me what you can do," he said. "You have an hour."

At once I walked out onto the floor and stretched for a few minutes. However, wanting to start as soon as possible, I chose to forego some of the easier stretches. I began and did back flips, front flips, back handsprings, the works. I moved to the bars and then balance beam. I finished with vault, and after my final trick Batman called that my time was up.

We went back to the room with the computer and he motioned for me to sit down. He took the seat directly across from me and didn't say anything for a while. Finally, he said, "We will now spend the bulk of your time left developing your detective and deducing skills. I know that with your father being the commissioner you've been around the police and crime scenes for a long time, but I need to see, first hand, how you would construe what happened in a situation and be able to make the connections necessary to find out who did what. Understand?" I nodded.

For the next four hours Batman presented mind game after mind game for me to solve. They ranged from Sudoku to word searches to actual police cases to chess. It was the most mentally taxing time I had ever spent, and to keep me from cracking Batman had Mister Pennyworth occasionally come and bring us snacks or refreshments. When I had finally finished one particularly challenging puzzle in which I had to find out which playing card Batman was holding with only the irregular and unannounced clue from him, Batman said that we were done. However, I was confused; there was still one more hour until ten o'clock. When I told him this, he said the rest of the time was to go over my training experience and for me to see where I needed to improve.

"Let's start with the agility. I don't think I'll have you do any more of that until I take you out into the field. Then, I'll incorporate the different elements you can find on the streets of Gotham and not just give you a clean and bright place to display your skills." He smiled slightly at this. "However," his face immediately fell. "Your marksmen skills are awful. You could barely hit the side of a building from the inside. We will be spending much more time on that—you need to be able to hit an approaching adversary from a distance without even thinking about it. We will definitely work on that tomorrow for a long while." I sunk a little bit in my chair.

"Finally, let's discuss your deduction skills. How well do you think you did?" He sat patiently and folded his hands in his lap.

"Well," I began taking a breath. "I got through quite a few, right? I mean, Sudoku and those number and word puzzles are fairly easy. It's mostly the type of stuff where I have to figure something out from given information. I don't know what to look for. How do you think I did?"

"I think you're giving yourself less credit than you deserve. Dick couldn't have solved some of those. What's most important is that you didn't get mad at yourself. Dick always gets upset if he can't figure out the puzzle within a few minutes; and then he's generally at it for another few hours. It was impressive to see you stay so calm." My jaw, quite literally, dropped. I was expecting him to berate and tell me that we'd be spending a lot of time working on puzzles from here on out. "I anticipated you getting frustrated and taking a lot of time. That's why I left four hours left in your training today for this. I called Dick and he should be here shortly. As soon as he arrives you are free to leave. See you tomorrow." Batman got up and headed for the stairs. However, before stepping up he turned around and faced me. "Bruce Wayne is hosting a Charity Ball in two nights. You are welcome to attend, along with your parents, if you wish. Dick insisted I invite you. Good night." He swiftly went up the stairs to, what I assumed was the Manor.

I went to the changing room and got back into my normal clothes. I was exhausted and my mind could barely function. After I finished changing I went back to the main room and lied down on the table that was there. I promptly fell asleep, not noticing Dick burst into the Cave, pick me up with a chuckle, place me in his car, and drive back to my dorm.