SpyVsTailor: For the Crane/Nygma tongue question: I'm gonna go with the standard 'everyone experiments in college' excuse, and leave it at that. :-p

Chapter 12

Batman had finally arrived at the old Barn outside of town where Edward and Jonathan had hidden Eloise the elephant. He had finally given up on 'Harley.' Eventually, she had just outmaneuvered him, and he'd lost her.

He tried again on the Bat-communicator. "Robin? Batgirl? Do you copy?"

He had been trying to reach them for an hour.

He scanned the barn for life forms. He found two: One very large elephant, and one human in a sitting position.

Batman pushed open the barn doors. He found Robin unconscious, gagged, and bound to a chair.

He scuttled to his protégé's side, and began untying him. "Robin! Wake up!" he hissed, tapping him lightly on the cheek. Robin grudgingly began to rouse, opening one eye and mumbling something through his gag.

Batman pulled it out. "Where's Batgirl?"

"The Scarecrow took her."

Similarly, Batgirl awoke as well, gagged and bound to a chair. She didn't recognize the surroundings, but she was clearly in an abandoned warehouse of some sort. She strained to hear voices coming from an office. Two men and a woman were arguing.

The door opened and Catwoman, the Riddler, and the Scarecrow entered the room. Catwoman pulled up a chair and sat backwards with her arms folded on the backrest. She was still wearing her catsuit, but had removed the cowl and goggles, letting her long dark curls fall down around her shoulders.

"Hello, Batgirl." Jonathan grinned and waved, before Edward gave him a long sideways glance and made a slashing motion across his throat with his hand.

"Nobody's going to hurt you." Selina stated firmly.

Batgirl quirked an eyebrow at this.

"We just need help."

"Some of us need more than others." Muttered Edward, as Jonathan tried to tame his unruly hair, and grinned coyly at the slender redhead.

"I can't take these two to Batman, he'd arrest them both. He'd probably arrest me too. I broke Eddie out of the Batmobile three nights ago."

"Edward!" he muttered exasperatedly

The quirked eyebrow climbed higher.

"I wanted you here because I know how compassionate you are."

"And beautiful and smart and funny, and- " Edward cut Jonathan off with a sharp elbow jab in his bony ribs.

"Batman has lost some of that compassion. We're all just criminals to him now. Even me." Selina looked a little sad at this. She and Bruce had had such a convoluted past. It was hard to believe it could really all be over.

Batgirl stared impassively at Selina for a moment. Then she gave a quick nod of her head.

Selina tugged down the gag.

"You realize you're going to be arrested anyway for kidnapping, right?"

"It's a risk I'm willing to take."

"For the two of them? Really?"

"I'm not doing this for them."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because the Joker is a sick, sick man."

"He's back in town? Our reports indicated he's pulled three consecutive stunts in Metropolis over the last week."

"Metropolis?" the trio repeated in shock.

"But I pulled a heist with Harley Quinn three nights ago! She didn't say anything about him being out of town!"

"I, for one, would not be surprised if Harley couldn't tell that he wasn't the real Joker." Edward spoke up.

Batgirl continued. "We have all kinds of theories that something big is on the rise. Someone's been impersonating Joker. Poorly. With Cobblepot being forced out of the Iceberg Lounge, and the disappearance of Victor Fries, we can only guess that there's someone new in town."

"Or someone old with some new tricks." Edward surmised.

Batgirl looked at him interestedly. "You have an idea who it might be?"

"Possibly, my dear." He replied. "First, tell me what you know about Michael Winters."

Batgirl sighed. She couldn't believe she was really doing this. "Other than his buyout of the Iceberg, there's no record of him. He might as well have not existed before last week. The name's gotta be an alias."

"It is. And I think I know whose." Edward stated, stroking his chin in deep thought.

*I'd like to say that I believe that Gotham and Metropolis are really far apart, At least for the purposes of this story.