"Why are we here again?"

Antoine shrugs and fishes his cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket.

"Boss is here to see a guy."

"No shit. Got anything better?"

"Nope."

This is not an acceptable answer. Jimmy eyes the laptop in the passenger's seat, weighs his chances, and lunges for it. Antoine chokes on his cigarette, but by now Jimmy's safe in the back, forbidden fruit clutched safely in his arms.

"What are you doing?"

"Seeing why we're here." There's panicked sputtering from the front. Jimmy ignores it-the best way to get Antoine to chill is just to steamroll over him-and opens the laptop. "Come on, you know you're curious."

"Not that curious!" More coughing. "The boss is gonna kill you when he finds out you messed with his computer! And then he'll kill me, for not stopping you."

"I held you at gunpoint, relax. I'm not gonna read his e-mails, I just wanna see why we're here."

"Seriously? What the hell-no. No. This is entirely your fault, I am leaving-"

"C'mon, it'll take me like, five minutes."

"I like this job," Antoine hisses. "It's relaxing. Nothing happens. And more importantly, I haven't gotten the third degree over that verbal mishap in Bahia-"

Jimmy laughs.

"I can't believe you told the guy-"

"Shut up. No. When he kills you, I am not stepping in unless it's to help hide your remains."

Fair.

"Yeah, yeah, I know-here we go!" There, that wasn't so hard! Okay, let's...whoa, Nelly. "Uh. Antoine. Maybe, um. Maybe drive away."

"What?"

"Put the car in gear and gun it and don't look back."

"Why?" He twists around, one hand hanging out the window. "What now?"

"Look."

The guy the Knight's here to see is. Uh. Jimmy's not totally sure he's a man. He's huge, not a hair on his head-not even eyebrows-and there's a gnarly scar under his chin that looks like someone tried to cut his throat. What the hell. Scrolling turns up scary stories involving, among other things, pulling somebody's leg out of its socket for intel. Apparently the guy had talked.

Antoine starts the car and Jimmy puts the laptop back. They've got all the time in the-wait. Antoine started the car.

"Man, I was kidding a little-"

"There's the boss."

Oh. Oh, good-oh, crap.

That's the Knight, all right, but hot on his heels is the big scary guy. Trent something. Jimmy votes they call him Monstro and just go with that.

"Drive. Drive away."

"But-"

"He brought it on himself, you know he ninja'd his way in and pissed this guy off!" His voice didn't crack, he's not a teenager, it just...well… "Drive away!"

Too late. The Knight hops into the passenger seat and then. Then. Then the back door opens and the giant is in the car.

Oh, Jesus. Jimmy likes his legs where they are, please, Lord, have mercyyyyyyyyy. Why does Antoine get to drive? This isn't fair at all.

Monstro doesn't lunge at him and tear him from limb. He just turns, thrusts out a meaty hand, and rumbles, "Trent Ages."

Mother.

"J." He can do this. "Jimmy Rogers." Dear God. The hand is big. The hand could crush his hand like it's made of brown sugar. "Hi."

"Where to, sir?" Antoine is a lucky bastard and Jimmy hates him now. "Back to the hotel?"

"Mm-hm."

The car goes. Monstro-Trent-pops his neck and adjusts his backpack between his knees.

"So we're gonna kill the Batman, huh?"

"That's the idea." Jimmy's still skeptical. Antoine might have faith, but that's his problem. "Um. You got a vendetta or something?"

"Nah." Is that good or bad? "I'm just here to see what happens."

Oh. That's good. Right? Right.

"Me, too."

"What happens is that Batman ends the night dead," the Knight growls. Sure, sure. Antoine just reaches for the radio.

"Let's see what we get." The only thing coming in is some Stone Temple Pilots song, and he leaves it and hangs a hand back. "Antoine Drouot. Nice to meet you."

"Trent Ages." Trent squints at the radio and says nothing about it. "So why are you here? Bat insult your mother or something?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Antoine says dryly, and Jimmy makes a note to tell their new friend that that means, a weirdo broke into my hotel room and I was impressed enough to say HELL YEAH. Antoine hates that explanation, but it's true and he really can't argue about it. He'll live. "How long are we gonna be at the hotel?"

"We're leaving tomorrow night," the Knight says. He's on his laptop again, but Jimmy can't see what he's pulled up. "Headed somewhere rainy."

Great. Rain and glasses don't mix, but hey! He probably won't have to bathe in sunscreen, though, so that's nice.

That, and whoever they're going to find has to be less scary than this guy. Right?

THE END