Correctly assuming that Al wouldn't scream like that without a good reason, Caleb raced to the rescue. He turned a corner and saw her lying on the ground with the Scarecrow standing over her, all menacingly.

He didn't stop to think, just swung his cell phone at the Scarecrow's head like a very small club. He went sprawling.

(Bow before the might of Vonage!)

"Are you okay?" he asked Al.

"Caleb!" For a moment, she looked relieved to see him. Then her eyes widened in horror. "Cheesybits! You killed him!"

"Well, I killed my cell phone," he said, letting the broken bits of plastic fall to the ground. "But I don't think…" Just then, Hugh came pounding up behind him.

"What happened? Are you okay? Holy crap, you killed him!"

"I didn't kill him," Caleb insisted. "He's still breathing, you know."

Al grabbed Crane by the ankle and started dragging him toward the door, not noticing or not caring that she was pulling him facefirst over a pile of debris from a collapsing ceiling and a smashed window. The guys stared at her.

"What?" she snapped. "He's heavy. This would go a lot faster if you helped me."

"What's your hurry? We found him. Emergency over."

"You didn't see it?"

"See...what?" asked Hugh.

"There was a...you know what, never mind. Let's just get the hell out of here."

The wind suddenly picked up outside, whistling eerily through the broken window. It didn't take much more than that to persuade Caleb and Hugh to get a move on.

#

He woke to a pounding headache and a serious bad mood.

"Briefs," said a voice from somewhere above him.

"No, boxers. With little skulls on them."

"Shh—he's coming around."

He cracked one eye open, trying not to move anything else.

The bathroom again. Of course, why not? He was lying on the floor, with the light shining directly in his eyes and Al, Larry, and Shemp all looking down at him.

"Hey, Squishykins. How's your head?" Al asked.

"Don't…don't call me Squishykins." She grinned.

"He's all right. Get him, boys." Hugh and Caleb grabbed his arms, pinning him to the ground. "Sorry, squish face, but I'm afraid I don't have time to be polite."

"What are you doing?" he asked as her hands went to the waistband of his pants. "Stop it!" He thrashed, trying to kick her away. She hung on grimly.

"Don't rip my new jeans," Caleb said anxiously.

"I'll buy you another pair!" She held him down long enough to get the pants unbuttoned.

"No!" He managed to kick her in the stomach. She doubled over, and Hugh's grip tightened on his arm as he slipped into the unexpected role of brotherly protector.

"Watch it."

"No—I'm okay," Al said, wheezing a little. She caught his left foot, before he could kick her in the face, and held it still. "Stop—fighting—me!"

"No!" His right foot hit her hip. They had taken his shoes, but he had to be able to do some kind of damage.

It didn't seem to faze her. She clambered over his flailing legs, plopping herself down on his stomach and driving the air out of him in a rush.

"Stop fighting me," she repeated. He went still—suddenly, being able to breathe seemed a lot more important than fighting her off.

She leaned over, the better to glare at him, so he head-butted her. With her two friends holding him down, he couldn't put much force behind it…but it made his point.

It also made his headache that much worse.

And she was undisturbed. She turned around, squashing him painfully with her knee, and calmly worked the pants down past his hips, using his own struggles against him as skillfully as any orderly.

"Briefs," said Hugh. "Pay up, Caleb."

Bastards! the Scarecrow seethed. He bucked Al off, and twisted away when she tried to catch him and hold him still. He pushed up off the ground, arching his back in an attempt to break their grips on his arms. Caleb was holding him (relatively) loosely, as if he didn't want to hurt him. Hugh had no such compunctions.

His feet were jerked out from under him as Al grabbed the ends of the pants legs and pulled. The blue jeans went sliding off as he kicked wildly in the general direction of her knees.

"No! Damn it, no!"

"Bitch, bitch, bitch," Al taunted. She dropped the pants and grabbed his ankles, holding his legs still against her sides. "You want to do this kicking and screaming, chicken legs, that's fine, but let me remind you that you're in a very vulnerable position here."

"What do you want?" he demanded, still doing his level best to kick her head off. She ignored the question.

"Caleb, will you take leg watch?"

"With pleasure."

If he thought this arrangement was going to make things any easier, he was dead wrong. Hugh pulled his hands together above his head and held them still by the simple expedient of dropping a knee on each wrist. Caleb did the same to his legs, while Al moved forward to kneel, straddling his chest.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he yelped as she slowly undid the top button of his shirt. There was no way she could have missed the pure panic warring with anger in his voice, humiliating as it was.

"Oh, poor baby. It's so hard to be you." She continued to unbutton the shirt. "Hey, Squishykins, are you ticklish?"

"No!" he said desperately.

"Oh, that sounded like a yes to me." She finished with the last button and threw open his shirt. "Man, you've got to put some meat on your bones. I can count your ribs." She gently touched his side, walking her fingers up his ribs as she counted, "One…two…three…"

"Stop—stop it—no—please—" Tears sprang to his eyes as he smothered helpless giggles, unable to avoid her incessant tickling. "Just—leave me alone—"

"Are you going to behave?"

"No!" he said honestly.

"Okay." She went back to tickling him. In his struggle to squirm away, he managed to bang his head against the floor with a loud thud that brought a horrified expression to her face. Her hands went still, which was more of a relief than he ever would have admitted. "You okay? That sounded like it hurt." He didn't answer, just lay there, gasping for breath. "Seriously, Squishykins, is your brain going to fall out the back of your head, or what?"

"Leave…me…alone," he said. "And please stop calling me Squishykins!" She smiled.

"I could call you Betty. Would that be better?" He glared at her.

"Why?"

"It's easier to say than Ignatius."

"I hate to break this up," Hugh said, "but didn't you have somewhere you needed to be?"

"Oh, right. Enough fun and games." She moved away, and she and Hugh forced him into a sitting position. "Well, Betty," (he winced) "you and I are coming up on the end of our time together. Aren't you sad? I know I am. Now it's time for you to meet the one I brought you here to see."

"And I have to be naked for this?" he asked nervously.

"Naked? Oh, hell to the no! I want you in your Scarecrow costume." He glowered at her, rage flaring up inside him.

"And you couldn't just let me change clothes myself?" She shrugged.

"I was in a hurry."

"But you had time to poke me!"

"Oh, sweetums, there's always time for poking." She poked him once more, just to prove her point. "Okay, Hugh, let him go." Hugh released his wrists, pulling the shirt off as he stepped away. She smiled down at him, reveling at the sight of the Scarecrow sitting on the floor in his underwear, with a gay man holding onto his legs for dear life. "It's pretty cold in here, so I'm going to give you a choice—you can get dressed and act like a grownup, or you can fight me some more." She tossed his own threadbare brown shirt at him. "What's it going to be?"

He pulled the shirt down over his head. (Only because it was cold, he reminded himself firmly.)

Hugh took his arms again as soon as he had the shirt on, and he and Caleb dragged him to his feet, taking up positions on either side of him once he was standing.

"Pants," Al said, (with an odd giggle, but when was she not giggling about something odd?) as she held his out to him, waiting for him to step into them.

"I can put on my own pants," he snapped.

"Not right now, you can't. Now, obey the noble steed." Reluctantly, he stepped into the pants and let her pull them up, wishing he could kick her until he drew blood. "That's a good Squishykins. Now, where's that belt…"

"I don't need it," he said hastily, since he doubted she would let him do that himself, and he didn't want to give the task to her.

"Suit yourself." She pulled his mask down over his face, and topped it with the hat. He glared at her with narrowed eyes, and this time she actually shuddered. "Did anyone ever tell you that you're scary as hell in that mask?"

"I've heard it a time or two," he said coldly. She laughed nervously and picked up one more item of clothing. His eyes widened. "No!"

"Oh, don't be such a baby. It's just a straitjacket." She held it out to him.

"No," he repeated, struggling against Hugh, who was trying to force his hand into the sleeve.

"You're worse than a toddler!" His feet slid out from under him, and all four of them went crashing to the floor.

"I'm not—you can't—make—me—" They got his arms inside the sleeves and managed to hold him down, in spite of his frantic thrashing, while Al fastened the straps.

"There, now," she said, patting him on the shoulder—and if he could have, he would have twisted around and bitten her hand off. "Let's get him in the trunk." She picked up his hat, which had, unsurprisingly, fallen off in the struggle. Caleb went for his feet, and since he had no other available weapons, he kicked. Al swatted him with the hat. "Stop that. The better you behave, the shorter this will be."

The two young men managed to pick him up and carry him outside, although he didn't make it easy for them.

"If you don't stop wiggling, you're going to get dropped," Hugh warned as Al opened the back of a dark blue SUV that could not have been more different from the car she had driven down from Gotham.

"Hey, hang on. Gotta blindfold him." She tied a strip of cloth over the eyeholes of the mask. The last thing he saw was her smirk.

They tossed him inside and left him, shivering and furious, while they said their goodbyes.

"Are you sure you can handle him by yourself?" Caleb asked.

"Yeah, no problem. He's not so bad." (I'll show you bad. I'll have your guts for garters, little girl.) "I'll see you guys for New Year's."

"Have a good Christmas."

"Yeah, you, too. Take care of yourselves."

Then he heard her get in and start the engine, and they drove off to their final destination.