Robin is a face growing out of Catwoman's shoulder. Careful what you eat, kids.

"Tell me something, Selina." The Batman stands in the doorway to her balcony, rain pelting down behind him. "Is he…happy?"

Robin is currently singing a rousing rendition of Caruso. It is as if Pavarotti himself were there, in the form of a young man who is but a face on someone's shoulder.

"I don't know," she answers. "I just don't know."

She has taken off her shirt so the face and its heartfelt singing can be seen and heard. With this action she has inadvertently revealed the Godzilla tattoo on her stomach. If she were to flex, it would seem to be moving.

"I was such a fool, Selina. I threw away my only friend in this whole world. I threw him away."

She looks up into his eyes and breathes shakily. "What about your other kids?"

"I only have eyes for that one," he answers.

"Oh."

They are quiet a while, allowing Robin's magnificent voice to ring through her rich yet lonely apartment. Isis sheds a tear on her perch atop the couch, which is pretty weird for a cat.

"Do you think he will ever forgive me?"

She shivers, hugging herself for warmth. "I'm not sure. You seemed to have gotten over him. Which one helped you catch Hugo last week?"

The Batman steps closer, rain dripping freely from his broad shoulders and running down his heavy cape before pooling on her expensive parquet. He looks deep into her eyes. "I have absolutely no idea."

She turns from him, chuckling weakly. "Sometimes I feel like I could get lost in those eyes."

"I'm a hypnotist, among other things," the Batman replies.

"Oh." She covers Robin's eyes with her hand. "That's okay."

She turns back to him and he runs a gloved hand along her cheek. Soon they are kissing. Robin's singing comes to an end. "Hey, guys, I can actually feel that. I seem to actually feel everything Selina feels."

Batman intensifies the kiss. A full breathless minute passes before they break it up. Robin says nothing. Selina and the Batman smile to one another, the soothing rain still tickling the windows. "I brought a scalpel," he says and pulls it out.

She bites her lip but nods. "It's for the best."

He cuts a chunk out of her shoulder in no time and turns to the rainy sky with Robin's limp face slung over his shoulder. A soft sob behind him stops him in his tracks. He turns around to see that Selina's feet have given out beneath her. She smiles ruefully. "I feel strangely alone now."

He kneels and cups her face in his hand. "I would never leave you," he says. He gives her a peck on the forehead and then turns around and leaves.

Nightwing comes to in incredible bondage. "It was all just a hallucination?"

Killer Croc crosses his legs. "Yep. Totally," his bestial voice roars.

The young hero shivers in contentment or something. "Thank god this has all just been transpiring in my messed up imagination."

It hasn't, I think.

"Don't take his name in vain, my child," growls the grotesque criminal.

Nightwing furrows his brow and smiles, uncomprehending. "What?"

Killer Croc stiffens. Then he puts his hand up against the slit in his head that serves as an ear. "Do you hear that?"

"No."

Despite himself, he strains to hear. There really is something, faint but insistent. It seems to be growing louder. Suddenly it's here, a loud voice right in his ear. "Go home, Ami! Ami, go home!"

It is gone as quickly as it came, but it leaves a fierce ringing in his ears. It is so fierce that he does not notice Killer Croc donning his outfit until the monstrosity towers over his fragile and provocatively displayed body. The scaled beast is wielding an instrument that is both cross and whip while wearing a latex papal hat and the many other accoutrements that make up the naughty-pope ensemble. "You've been a bad, bad boy, my child," he growls.

This will be retconned tomorrow.

A familiar cowl pokes through the window of the Riddler's hideout. "Eddie, I'm dying."

He stops tinkering with explosives to look up in confusion. "What?"

The Batman storms into the room, screams "I'm dying!" and clears the table with an angry sweep of his arms.

The Riddler stares dumbstruck. The Batman breaks the table apart with a barrage of mournful blows from his fists. He is then laid low by sorrow. As he lies there among the splintered wood he arches his back, wriggling this way and that, wailing. "I'm dy-i-hi-hi-hiiing!"

The villain leans down and puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'm so sor-"

The Batman springs to his feet and twists the Riddler's hand. "Don't touch me, you heinous criminal." He clears his throat. "Enough of your theatrics." He lets the Riddler go, then immediately gets all in his face, in a highly emotional way. "After I'm gone…will you be alright?"

"I…I don't know. I never really…oh, god, I never really thought about a life without you."

"I'm sorry I have to leave you." Beep-boop! "That was a message from the Bat-computer. I have now cured cancer."

"How?"

Batman smiles. "I can do anything with prep time."

"What?"

Batman smiles even wider. "I once took down the entire Justice League in three minutes."

"Why?"

Batman nods, smiling, proudly mouthing the words: "Prep time."

"No, I asked why, not how."

The Batman stops smiling. "Oh. Why would you do that?"

Edward picks up a handheld mirror and starts combing his hair and making sure his eyebrows look perfect. They do. "Because I honestly want to know why you would take down the entire Justice League."

"Because I'm Batman."

"Oh."

The Riddler says nothing after that, staring out at the leaves blowing across the street and coming to terms with the realization that his old friend has a serious problem.

Ebony Ivory Cutlass Moon soars through the night sky on her flesh-wings. Besides being mind-numbingly beautiful, they are essential to the plot, believe it or not. There is plenty of romance in this story, you see, and it is not at all obvious who will end up with who. But enough of that. There are faces faintly visible among the folds of her wings. And they are crying. Crying.

Somewhere far below, on a beach chair parked on a balcony in the middle of the night, Ra's blinks coquettishly. "Did I ever tell you about circles?"

He downs the rum and chuckles. "A new one is coming on…right…about…now."

The Batman stands before him then, dark and terrible. "Why do I do what I do?"

Robin shakes his head in disbelief and confusion.

"Why do I say what I say?"

Robin shrugs, backing away from his mentor.

"Why do I do what I do?"

Batman seems to grow ever larger, towering above the young man and implying all sorts of hurtful things. Suddenly he grips his sidekick's cheeks, screaming. "What makes a man?"

Robin bites his lips and narrows his eyes. "Male genitals?"

There is almost no sound, but what little there is seems to be disapproving. The Batman is sadly slurping down a screwdriver. "I hate you, boy," the hero says with complete sincerity, if he is indeed capable of such a thing.

But suddenly the elevator makes that damn pinging noise and Talia steps out and walks briskly over to the caped crusader who immediately shrinks in stature and importance, pouting almost instinctually in the face of this loss of power and purpose. Talia picks him up and huffs angrily before the stunned visage of the boy wonder.

"Uh, you're sort of ruining my creepy relationship with Batman, Talia," he offers bravely.

She pulls out a revolver and empties it in his direction, only his considerable reflexes and exclamation of "Heavens to Betsy!" saving his life. Talia blows the smoke from the barrel and turns away with the baby Batman under one arm.