A/N: Oy vey, what a week. I wrote at the speed of light (for me), got in just enough classtime to get (literally) plastered, and then vanished off to sculpt snow! My team's sculpture took second place and Committee's Choice in the amateur division, which was drop-dead amazing. In the state division, a sculpture titled Dark Knight won third, featuring you-know-who sitting on a gargoyle, cape swirling dramatically. Of course, immediately after judging, the sun came out and all the sculptures started falling apart…Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

Forgot to mention earlier…Vicki Vale is stolen from several earlier versions of Batman, including Tim Burton's. She's not an OC, though I'm taking plenty of liberties with her character in this canon.

Enjoy this chapter!

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"The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord."

Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. "Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one."

~ Terry Pratchett

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Contrary to popular belief, Bruce Wayne didn't actually have a sense of romance. There hadn't really been much call for one in the Himalayan Mountains, when you were learning three hundred and ninety-two ways of incapacitating someone with a wooden bowl. As Batman, romance was laughably nonexistent.

As Bruce Wayne though, he was expected to be a lady's man, and to be well versed in every aspect of seduction. His idea of a good date was one where he never had to fight for his life, but the women he was with usually expected a bit more. As such, he had discovered long ago that a combination of candles, soft music, flowers of some sort, and champagne could usually get him through the evening without losing his reputation as Gotham's resident Casanova. A recipe for instant romance. If that didn't cut it, prattle about how her eyes look like the moon or ocean or something. If all else failed, talk about money.

Beatrix, though, seemed oddly resilient to his admittedly halfhearted attempts to sweep her off her feet. She blushed and preened at his compliments, and every joke was met with a throaty chuckle of appreciation, but she was most certainly not starry-eyed and scatter-brained just yet.

For the first time since he'd returned to Gotham, his tried-and-true formula wasn't working. Even his final fallback – start her talking about herself – failed to get the response he wanted. Every time he tried to ask Beatrix to tell him more about her, she'd brush the questions off and ask him instead. What was more disturbing, she actually seemed to be listening to his unenthusiastic answers, as though there was nothing in the world she found more fascinating than hearing about the various business deals Wayne Enterprises had made in the last year. It was really quite extraordinarily disconcerting. He'd never had a date actually listen to him before. He'd have to be careful what he said.

They managed to sit down and order drinks without further incident, though the waiter kept shooting Beatrix cautious looks, as though afraid she would suddenly fly across the table at him. Bruce tried to give him a reassuring smile, though he wasn't sure how effective it was with Beatrix still glaring over his shoulder.

There was a brief lull as the waiter brought out the overly expensive wine that Bruce had no intention of finishing, and took their orders. Before he managed to vanish back to the safety of the kitchens though, Beatrix informed him, in a tone of pure ice, that he had best get this exactly right. He gulped and nodded frantically. Bruce felt bad for him, but there was nothing he could do about it that he thought Beatrix might not take as a personal insult. Instead, he contented himself with taking the opportunity to glance around the restaurant.

He couldn't help but notice that there didn't seem to be any reporters around. Usually they swarmed him every time he went out, and while he certainly never enjoyed their presence, their absence seemed somehow significant. Moreover, he was doing this to get into the papers; it was kind of pointless sitting here and suffering through Beatrix's company if he didn't get noticed for it.

Part of the problem was the table. While they were by no means seated in the most secluded part of the room, they were far enough away so as not to attract attention. He could see the usual flock of favored paparazzi, the ones that had been allowed past the maitre de, following their intended targets around like a flock of birds, peppering them with questions. He was just considering how to attract their attention without being obvious about it when one particular reporter caught his eye: a brunette girl in an attractive, dark-blue skirt and jacket, notepad in hand. She looked oddly familiar, though Bruce couldn't think where he'd seen her. Then she turned around, and he recognized her face immediately.

"Ah, Vicki!" he called enthusiastically, ignoring Beatrix's hushed mewl of protest. "Pull up a chair, come join us!"

She looked around to see who had hailed her, and her oval face lit up at the sight of him. The expression dropped out of sight almost immediately though, to be replaced by sheepish regret.

"Can't, I'm afraid," she called back, apology heavy in her voice. "I'm working."

"A girl like yourself, working on a Saturday night?" Bruce asked, voice dripping with affected incredulousness.

"All work and no play make Vicki a dull girl," she smiled, "but the bills must be paid. I'm afraid that, socially, I'm about as lifeless as your average morgue."

"Surely you can afford to take a break," he told her, almost pleading. He'd gotten along so well with her at the party. Her company would be a welcome addition to Beatrix's, who, he made a point of not noticing, was giving him frantic but subtle gestures, trying to tell him to get rid of her.

"I suppose I could," Vicki decided, stepping lightly over to their table. "I am here looking for you, after all."

"Looking for me specifically?" he asked flirtatiously, pulling out a chair for her. "I'm honored."

"Sorry to bust your bubble," she smiled, "but I'm just here celebrity spotting in general. The interns always get the crap stories to chase."

"Oh, and here I thought you were happy to see me," he shot back. "I'm wounded, I really am."

It was oddly pleasant, bantering with her. He found himself enjoying her company and her easy, informal wit, despite Beatrix's eyes searing into his back.

"Well," Vicki told him, her lips curving into a smile, "if it makes you feel any better, I certainly prefer your company to the seventy-year-old Russian ambassador's!"

Bruce smirked.

"Did you contact Fox yet?" he inquired, waving a waiter over to take her order.

"Yes, he was great," she smiled, seating herself on Bruce's other side, her every move followed by Beatrix's storm-cloud colored eyes. "He told me the prototype camera is due to be finished in a month or so, and he wants me to do a field test, a kind of consultancy thing, to see if I can find any flaws or adjustments that need to be made." She looked delighted.

Bruce was about to voice his very real congratulations, but Beatrix beat him to the punch, determined not to be ignored any longer.

"So you are a photographer?" she asked, her voice as sickly sweet as icing on a poisoned sweetcake. "You take pictures for fashion magazines?" The way her eyes glittered told Bruce that she already knew what the answer would be.

"I'm a photojournalist," Vicki told her, words suddenly edged with frost. The temperature around the table dropped several degrees. "I take pictures for newspapers and real magazines. I don't suppose you've ever read any of them?"

"That depends," Beatrix said composedly, her accented voice sharp with distaste, "on what precisely you mean by real magazines."

Bruce was used to fights with fists and words, but this was a different sort of brawl. Fights where the tone was more important than the words and a single glance could convey more than several speeches and a sonnet were not unknown to him, but he had almost no experience with them. He had certainly never before found himself caught in the middle of one.

Looking at the two girls, he realized that they were almost evenly matched. Vicki had the stubborn, almost defiant look of someone who had realized that they were almost always more intelligent than those around them, but had yet to realize that the most intelligent thing they could do was to not advertise this fact. Beatrix, for all her flounces and hissy fits, had the air of a queen cat who had thoroughly earned her claws, and was ready to use them on anyone muscling in on her turf. Neither had any intention of giving an inch. They would have a worthy enemy in each other.

And, still watching them, he could tell that they had realized this. Already, there was a certain chemistry in the looks they gave each other. The kind of chemistry that had given the world Greek Fire. The kind of chemistry that went 'boom' and left everyone in the area with third-degree burns. In the few seconds they had known each other, they had formed a deep and abiding enmity.

Bruce usually avoided drinking when at all possible. He could rarely afford the dubious luxury of being drunk, and could afford even less to let anything slip. However, the sort of people that dined at the Ocelot were expected to enjoy fine wines, and right now, distancing himself from the other two members of his table was looking like a better and better idea. Just as long as he kept his wits while he went about it.

They were arguing about something else now, tones carefully, hideously polite. Bruce took a moment to reflect that perhaps getting the two of them within ten yards of each might not have been his best idea to date.

After checking that they didn't seem to notice his sudden absence from the conversation, he took a sip of wine and allowed himself to sink into a bubble-brained daze. The heady alcohol softened the razor sharp, paranoid edges of Batman and allowed socialite Bruce Wayne to take over, casting a mild blur over everything. He settled back in his seat, the slow, sweet burn of alcohol slipping gently through his blood.

He was here to make the news. He already owned the restaurant, what else could he do that would attract a lot of attention? Something extravagant, and ridiculous…

He beckoned to the waiter again, who hurried over, glancing warily at Beatrix. She took a moment from the verbal battle to stare down her nose, but didn't say anything.

"I'd like to buy dinner tonight," Bruce told the waiter, one arm draped over the back of his plush chair. "For everyone."

"Certainly, sir," the waiter said courteously, adding a note to his pad. "You've already ordered, I can easily make the bill out in your name…"

Bruce shook his head, wearing a casually, arrogantly amused smile.

"No, you don't understand. Not just for the three of us. For the whole restaurant. Everyone."

That statement took a moment to sink in. Bruce could see the effect it had as it passed through his brain, on its way to being processed and comprehended. The way the kid's eyes suddenly started showing rims of white, the slight sag of the jaw, the way hand holding the notepad began shaking…

"But Mr. Wayne," the poor waiter gasped as the full effect of his announcement made itself known, "the restaurant's full tonight, the cost…"

"I know what I'm doing," said Bruce in his best confident billionaire voice. "Please announce to the restaurant that dinner's on me, and you can add it to my check." He smiled benignly at the waiter's shocked expression, but to the kid's credit, he did a good job of covering it. Within moments, he snapped back into professional mode, nodding stiffly and hurrying off to see to it that the owner's instructions were carried out to the letter.

Bruce watched him go, then turned back to his guests, only to get a rather unpleasant surprise. While his back was turned, the conversation had somehow switched to his alter ego. Batman. Why did these conversations always make their way around to Batman?

Beatrix and Vicki appeared to be in the middle of another argument, or perhaps their previous one had simply jumped the tracks. Either way, Bruce decided not to get involved just yet. He fiddled with his fork and settled back in his chair, eyes flicking from one to the other.

"He's a verminous felon even worse than the criminals he claims to fight," Beatrix hissed, and Bruce was surprised by the hatred he saw blazing in her eyes. "He thinks he is above the law, and he can do whatever he wishes without fear of reprisal, better than us mere mortals. I'm delighted that Gotham has finally seen him for the homicidal freak he is, and if he gets killed, it is what he deserves for beginning this lunacy in the first place!"

That was the final nail in the coffin. Bruce had disliked Beatrix before, but it would be, he felt, better for everyone's future happiness if their first date were also their last. While he had no problem with people who disliked Batman, it usually didn't work when one half of a couple would love to see the other dead.

"I think he's a hero," Vicki told her coldly. "Maybe he killed those mobsters and cops, maybe he didn't and it's a government cover-up." Bruce hurriedly took a sip of wine. "Even if he did," she went on, voice blazing with all the passion of a young reporter absolutely convinced that she is in the right, "I wouldn't hold it against him. The crooks have run this town for long enough, and the cops are just as bad, so if killing a few of them is what it takes to solve the problem, so be it!"

When she finished, her face was oddly flushed. She and Beatrix glared at each other over the table. If expressions had physical force, Bruce thought, eyeing the glowering girls, the power of their glares would probably be equivalent to being run over with the Tumbler several times.

Bruce decided it was time to step in.

"Well," he shrugged with exaggerated carelessness, "I won't pretend to know whether he's a hero or a criminal, but he's almost certainly messed up. Anyone who dresses up as a bat and goes around jumping off buildings clearly has some issues."

"Interesting that you should mention that," Vicki told him, her eyes suddenly gleaming. "We've actually had a psychologist, a Dr. Quinzel, put together a psychological profile of the Batman." Bruce felt a needle of ice trace its way down his spine, burning through the slight haze left by the strong wine. "Her analysis was much the same as yours."

Find a way to deal with this. Now.

"Let me guess," Bruce chuckled, "white male, early to mid thirties, possibly a traumatic childhood, has trouble keeping a stable job, residence, or relationship, and antisocial to boot." Sound like anyone I know?

He threw back his head and forced a laugh, only to find Miss Vale staring at him, awestruck.

"You missed a few points, but that's almost exactly right," she told him, looking thoroughly impressed.

Oh shit.

"Really," Bruce asked, with affected disinterest. Inside, he was cringing. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Might as well give her all the records and a guided tour of the Batcave while you're at it.

"I mean, it's pretty textbook," she went on, "but still, how did you know?"

Bruce opened his mouth with no idea how he could possibly answer that. Vicki was still goggling at him, dying to hear what the billionaire bachelor knew about what might be the biggest story of her admittedly short career. She liked Bruce, she really did, but she had only known him for three days, and she smelled a story in the making. If it was big enough, it might go some way towards paying last month's rent. Journalism internships didn't have quite the same salary afforded the owner of the city's most successful company, and she needed all the money she could get.

Said company owner's phone buzzed lightly in his pocket, diverting him from the awkward question. Perfect timing. He pulled it out with a quick 'excuse me' and flipped it open to find a text from Alfred.

While he was distracted, Beatrix took the opportunity to level another cold glare at Vicki, a look she returned with added interest. Both were adept at nursing grudges and landing subtle blows, and the hostility born here tonight was not one that would fade any time in the conceivable future. Vicki's eyes narrowed, already planning her article for tomorrow's paper.

They were distracted by Bruce's sudden, sharp intake of breath.

"I'm sorry, ladies," he muttered, jumping up as though he had noticed a scorpion or something similar sharing the chair with him. "Something's come up, I have to leave."

He hurriedly threw a few hundred-dollar bills on the table as a tip, told the waiter to send him the bill, and seized his jacket from the chair next to him. Vicki was about to ask him what was going on when her phone rang as well.

"Hello?" she asked cautiously, putting the cell phone to her ear. A moment later, Bruce heard her gasp.

"I've got to go too," she muttered, flipping the phone shut and frantically stuffing her things back into her handbag. "There's some sort of… gang war, I guess, at the docks, involving what's left of the Falcones and the Russians, and my boss wants me to cover it."

"There's what?" Beatrix asked, looking aghast. Snatching up her coat, Vicki repeated the message on her way out, only to get bowled over as Beatrix suddenly dashed past her.

Later, Bruce would reflect that he had never seen anyone move that fast while wearing stiletto heels. At the moment though, his mind was bent on the task at hand, which was getting out the door and into his car as fast as humanly possible. Faster, if he could manage it. Beatrix and Vicki seemed to have the same idea. All three got out of the restaurant as fast as they could without actually running, racing each other to the exit and to their respective cars and not even pretending to have time for the courtesy of goodbyes.

Bruce pushed the speed limits as far as he could, praying he wouldn't run into any cops and calculating how long it would take him to get his equipment together and get down to the docks. Things had been running too smoothly lately; he should've known something like this would happen. He just hoped he could keep it under control.

He felt a slight ache begin to pound in his left temple, and cursed himself for ordering alcohol. He'd only had a few sips, but even trace amounts would slow his reaction time, and he'd need every advantage he could get. He gritted his teeth and pressed the gas harder, eyes narrowed against the late autumn wind. He would just have to be able to deal with it.

A thought occurred to him, one that made him smile grimly in spite of the impending trouble of the situation.

Fastest I've ever gotten out of a date. And this time, it wasn't even completely my fault.

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While Bruce was out, Alfred decided to take the opportunity to clean the bedroom. By now he was used to finding unusual things there, such as stray pieces of various Batsuits, futuristic weapons, and martial arts equipment. It was simply part of sharing a house with Gotham's resident vigilante. Finding the Joker though, sprawled across the carpet and reading, may have to top the list of strangest things so far.

There was a tense moment of silence as both parties froze. They had more or less accepted the other's presence in Bruce's life, but they still avoided each other whenever they could. Face to face encounters were rare, and neither was quite sure how to proceed.

Remembering what Bruce had said, Alfred hid his shock and did his level best to be as polite as possible.

"I'm sorry to barge in," he said, regaining his customary composure. "I hadn't expected to find you here."

"I'm waitin' for Bats," Joker said warily, grip tightening on the bundle of papers he held. Both lapsed back into silence, sizing the other up, wondering what the correct responses would be to the questions that were sure to come.

Once again, it was Alfred who cracked through the layer of silence.

"If you'll forgive me saying so, I'm rather surprised to find you waiting so patiently," he said carefully, waiting to see how the Joker would react. Alfred wouldn't have thought he'd be the sort of person to spend hours just sitting around. Not when there were so many buildings in Gotham left unbombed.

"Well, I crashed his last coupla parties, I figured he could use a night off," Joker shrugged, making as if to go back to reading. "I figured I'd jus' wait for him to finish his date."

"You might be waiting for a while," Alfred told him, voice cautious. "Master Wayne's already come and gone. He's out as Batman now."

That got the Joker's full attention.

"The Bat's out?" he asked incredulously. "Without me?"

Alfred nodded, still keeping an eye on him.

"Yes. There was some mob trouble, so he cancelled his date to sort it out. He got back almost an hour ago, and left soon after."

As the words sank in, the Joker's scarred face suddenly twisted into a snarl. The effect was somewhat warped by the scars that pulled his mouth into a constant grin, which only made it all the more unsettling.

The Bat was out having fun without him? That was utterly and completely intolerable. Unacceptable in every sense of the word. And worse, the mob fools were actually openly disobeying him? He knew times had been tough for what remained of Gotham's organized crime, but were they all that suicidal?

There was only one thing to be done. Obviously this little equation needed its final variable. But how far into the game were they? If they'd started anything fun without him…

Without another glance at the room's other occupant, he hurriedly scrambled out the balcony door, still pulling on his coat. He had vanished within moments. Alfred watched him leave. Once he was sure the Joker was gone, he pulled out his cell phone and began typing. Bruce should probably be made aware that the Joker was out and about.

He finished the text and turned to go, but the sheaf of papers the Joker had left stacked messily on the floor caught his eye. Curiosity got the better of him.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, the top sheet read, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled…

After only a moment's thought, Alfred recognized the text. Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. A darkly satirical essay arguing, in great detail, the benefits of selling year-old children as food. It could be seen as a commentary on desperate social conditions of the time, if you wished to read it that way. Or it could be musings on the savagery of the human race towards its own. He was quite sure he knew which one the Joker would want to view it as.

He shuffled the papers neatly into a pile and put them on the dresser. A Modest Proposal. It didn't surprise him in the slightest.

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Opposition is not necessarily enmity; it is merely misused and made an occasion for enmity.

~ Sigmund Freud

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A/N: If you have never before encountered Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, I would definitely recommend looking it up. If read with the wrong mindset, it is horrifying and disgusting. Read in the right frame of mind, it is darkly witty and quite appallingly sensible. Think of the Joker setting a fire truck on fire, or writing, 'SLaughter is the best Medicine.' Irony at its blood-spattered finest.

Let me know what you think of the new summary?