Disclaimer: The usual. DC owns anyone you recognize from the comics. So far, the ones I own include Psion Force, "Julliard," "Bluto," and a one-dimensional newscaster who has currently shown up more in these disclaimers than he has in the story. He probably won't turn up again. On the other hand, sometimes characters take on lives of their own so no promises.

Timeline: Knightfall. For those of you who read my first story, Mayday, this story takes place four years later.

A/N: To view the capoeira moves mentioned in this chapter please, let me put in a plug for It's proved a great reference.

A/N: Tabitha's mention of "Victor" and "Hugo" is meant to be a reference to two of the three gargoyles in Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. I don't mean to infringe on Disney's copyright, either.

A/N: To Will44 on the DC message boards, thanks again for telling me where Dick was during the first arc of Knightfall. (Yep, I'm Dragonbat.)

Sand in the Oyster

Without hats, who can tell the good guys? Sometimes, I guess we all hang labels on the people we whale on each night, in order to convince ourselves that we're better. Mooks. Scum. Riffraff. Clowns. Punks. Losers. They beat up people. We beat up people. They enjoy it. I have to admit, I get—and give—a few kicks myself. Later on, I start rationalizing, and tell myself that the streets are a little bit safer, and maybe fewer of the riffraff-cum-punks will be out there tomorrow. With the courts backlogged as they are, that's a fair assumption--it usually takes at least three days for a bail hearing. Of course, sometimes the labels fit. Take the drunken loser hassling the teenager with the NYU backpack and the Julliard sweatshirt, for example. He's built like that bully in Popeye... what was that name... Bruto? No, Bluto. Julliard looks about eighteen, maybe nineteen—my age, more nervous than angry but trying to hide it. Lady, if I can see it from my vantage point, you'd better believe Bluto can. And by the way, someone ought to tell him he's supposed to drink the Budweiser, not bathe in it. I can smell him from here.

Oohh! Julliard just kicked him in the shins. Nice move, but didn't anyone ever tell her you don't just stand there and watch? Either follow up with another move or get out of there! Oh great, now she let him recover. I inch along the ledge until I'm directly behind Bluto. Julliard looks up, just as I jump off. She sees me hovering in mid-air floating down, and screams. Oh, way to spoil my entrance, lady. Bluto spins around to face me. I solidify eight feet above and do a double summersault to land on my feet. I stagger, and deliberately sit backward, one arm protecting my face in a cocorinha. As the mook moves in for the kill, I roll into a queda de rina, balanced on my arms, kicking out behind me. I hear him grunt as my steeltoe meets his kidney, and smile. Aikido, kung fu, ninjitsu, judo—I know them, but I'll still take Brazilian-style capoeira any day. Maybe it's pride—I'm good at something a lot of people have never even heard of. Maybe it's knowing that, in an arena where unpredictability is not just "nice" but necessary, this is a good skill to have. It could just be the rush and thrill of the fight. Whatever it is, I love it. I'm on my feet before he is, plastic cuffs at the ready. Bluto scrambles backward on his rear trying to get away, waving his arms to ward off any incoming blows. It looks a little like a very clumsy negativo defense posture.

If you were to ask me about my favorite move, I'd have to say it's the parafuso. The best way I can describe it is to say that it's kind of like a spiral kick—one and a half circles. You take a step forward, kick out and spin, raising the kicking leg higher as you go. Around the 360-degree mark, you leap up so both legs are kicking in the air, returning to a standing posture by 180 degrees. I use it now. It's fun. It's exhilarating. And, if you're old Bluto, it's pretty darn painful. That's one of my let's-end- this-quickly-so-I-can-go-do-something-more-important moves. I time it so the side of my boot meets the side of his skull. Bluto lies there, whimpering. I cuff him.

OK, now what am I supposed to do with him? There's no phone booth around to call for the cops. Julliard ran out once the fight started. Can't fault her for that. Dump him in the dumpster? That's so unoriginal. Still, it's here, he's here, I'm here...

"What is Psion Force doing in Manhattan?"

Oh, now he's here? I turn to face Nightwing. This would be the perfect time for me to make some crack about helping to clean up the trash, or keeping the streets safe, or something. But I don't. Maybe because any quip would make a truly awkward segue way into the reason I'm here looking for him. Maybe because usually, he's the one to make the flip remarks. Maybe. I crane my neck to make eye contact.

"It's not Psion Force," I say wearily. "It's just me. Is there someplace we can talk?"

He points skyward. I look down to Bluto. "Don't worry," Nightwing says. "That's taken care of. Nice kick, by the way."

"Thanks." He fires his jumpline. I fire mine. I get there about five seconds before he does. Probably because I weigh less.

Once we're roof-side, he looks at me. "You've been watching my apartment." He says. "Why?"

Now that the moment is here, it's hard to get the words out. So I start off with an answer that really doesn't answer anything. "Looking for you."

"Why?"

"To talk." What's with the monosyllables?

He clenches his hands at his sides. "Let me guess," he says sarcastically. "Batman has been going off the deep end lately. Robin can't get him to slow down, and you're hoping maybe I can?"

I see red. And it's not my braids. Maybe I used the parafuso on the wrong guy. Before I can stop myself, I say, "Right now, getting him to slow down is probably the last thing you need to worry about. Some character named Bane threw Batman off the top of a 10-storey in Robinson Square last Sunday night. When I left he was in critical condition. Stupid me thought maybe you'd want to know."

He doesn't move. He barely blinks. He just stares at me. "No." He says, flatly. "You're lying."

It's not that he doesn't believe—of course I know that--it's that he doesn't want to believe. But calling me a liar is one of the easiest ways to push my buttons. And I don't want to say something I can't take back. So, all I say is "Sure." Then I deliberately turn my back on him, and extend my right forearm in front of my chest, left index finger beginning its descent to depress the stud that will fire off the jumpline.

"Wait."

His voice is quiet. He's using that tone you use when you know you have to hear something but don't want to. Know the one I mean? What you do is, you ask so softly that the other party can pretend to ignore you, and you can shrug your shoulders and say you tried. Been there. It's tempting to give in and leap off. But I've just spent four nights on a two foot ledge with Victor and Hugo waiting for him, and I'm not going to let him off that easily. I turn back.

"I'm sorry." He gestures across the alleyway to the window I've been watching. "Come on in. You'd..." He takes a deep breath. "You'd better tell me everything."

My turn to inhale. "I have to make a really weird request. Could you leave the front door to your apartment open? Just a crack?"

"What? You're claustrophobic?"

The easy thing to do would be to say "yes." But I'm not, and he'll figure that out pretty quickly if he's anything like Batman. "How much do you know about us? Psion Force."

"Batman told me some of the details." What I said before is starting to sink in. "He's really that badly hurt?"

"I don't know," I admit. "I haven't checked in with the rest of the team in four nights. Did he happen to mention that we're Jewish? Orthodox?"

Now he really looks confused. "Yes. So?"

"So I can't be alone in a room with a man who is neither my husband nor a close relative, if the door is closed and it's unlikely that anyone else would come in."

You know, it would probably be easier if I were Amish, or something. If people knew that I drove a horse and buggy, pumped water for washing, didn't have electricity or a telephone, and had never heard of the Internet, it wouldn't throw them off. But faced with a person who listens to the radio, goes to the movies (I'll admit we don't have a TV, but let's leave that for now), attends university, and still won't flick an electric light switch on the Sabbath, it's almost a challenge to their worldview.

I remember explaining to Green that I wouldn't read her e-mails between sunset on Friday nights and three-stars-in-the-sky Saturdays. Her comment was, "Wow. You know, I can't get over this. I mean one minute, it's tech talk, or girl talk, and the next minute, you spring something like this on me, and there's a whole other side to you I never suspected. It's almost like—"

"Having a secret identity?" I replied. She laughed, and the conversation shifted. But she did have a point.

Now, Nightwing looks at me like I have to be kidding. When he sees I'm not, he agrees. Reluctantly. Okay, chas veshalom anyone should ever come to me with a message about Callie like the one I'm giving him about Bruce. If they did, however, I don't think I'd want the door open so anyone could overhear either. But I didn't make the rule. And some rules aren't made to be broken. "Whatever," he says finally.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

He hasn't been home for a while. There's more than a week's worth of dust in here. Granted, in a bachelor's apartment, that isn't necessarily significant. But there are no dishes accumulated in the sink, and the only footprints in the grime on the hardwood floor are the ones we're making now. Nightwing wedges a rubber triangle in between the door and post. He turns to me. "Talk."

So I do. I tell him about how Batman shouted me down when I offered to help him against Black Mask, and how he nabbed the gang but let Sionis escape. I tell him how I've seen Batman falter against the kind of punks I was trouncing within six months of arriving in Gotham.

"And then, there was that explosion at Arkham." I stop when I see his eyes widen. "You didn't hear about that?"

"I've been out of the country for the last six weeks," he says quietly. "Brazil. I got back this afternoon, but when I spotted you outside—"

Under normal circumstances, I'd probably have more empathy. Probably. But if I stop now, I won't finish. And he needs to hear this. "The explosion was in the maximum security wing. It put a hole in the complex, blew out the containment programming, and the nuts came pouring out." Funny, if you speak in a monotone, it's a lot easier. "Joker, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Two-Face..."

His jaw drops. I continue, not sure why I'm putting him through this. "Mr. Zsasz, Scarface and the Ventriloquist, Cornelius Stirk... you know Maxie Zeus ran into a tree, straightjacket and all, and knocked himself out cold." I smile, a little bitterly. "Of course security was too busy trying to collar the really dangerous ones, to even notice. When the dust cleared, he was gone, too. Probably one of his gang picked him up, I don't know. Doesn't matter.

"You've obviously known Batman longer than I have. Is it really necessary to detail how he's been reacting to the breakout?"

Dick slowly shakes his head. "He ran himself into the ground before Bane even laid a hand on him. Didn't he?" He moves over to his answering machine. "If he called for backup and I wasn't here..."

There are seven messages. One is a hang-up call. One is from someone named "Donna" calling to see how he is. Then there's one from "Wally," and from "Roy." A recording from some pizza shop advises that if he orders one large pizza with at least 3 toppings he can get a second one for half price. Then...

"Dick! Bro, it's me. Listen; is there any way you can come in for a few days? Bruce is never going to admit it but we could really use a hand here. Call when you get this." Dick punches a button on the machine, and a recorded voice produces: Sent... Friday at... ten... forty-three... P.M. New message from... an outside caller.

"Seven... days," he says between clenched teeth. "Seven days ago, I would have picked this up, if I'd bothered to check in for my messages. I could have hopped the next flight, been in Gotham by Sunday morning. That would have been plenty of time."

I want to put my hand on his arm. But I can't. So I fall back into stereotypical Jewish-mother mode and check his kitchen for munchies. I pull out a package of Sara Lee cheesecake bites from his freezer, and in the cupboard next to the two coffee canisters, I find a box of Quietly Chamomile. It only takes a minute to put water in the electric kettle and plug it in. He sees, but doesn't acknowledge.

I recognize the final voice on the speaker. "Dick. Call me. There's something you need to know. It's bad. If you already found out... call me anyway." Green. The machine beeps a final long tone to signal the end of the messages. Dick slams his hand down on the side table. He picks up the receiver and hits a speed dial button. After a minute, he bangs the receiver back down down.

"They're not answering," he snaps. "Get your gear together, fast. I want to be out of this city in thirty minutes."

"My civvies aren't far." I give him the name of the hostel. "Eat first." I push the plate of individually-wrapped cheesecakes at him. "I need to use your phone."

He waves the plate away. "I'll eat when I get to Gotham."

Like heck he will. Like father like son. "In other words," I say, "you're not going to eat or sleep until you accomplish what you set out to do. Because you won't be eating or sleeping, you won't be able to give it your best, so your performance is only going to deteriorate from there. You know, this is starting to sound like déjà vu all over again." I thought I was talking about Callie. From Dick's reaction, it looks like she isn't the only person I was describing. He glowers at me, not knowing how useless that response is. It didn't work when Batman tried it on me four years ago, and it won't work now.

"Look at it this way," I say reasonably. "All those guys you put away time after time?" I roll my eyes. "After time, after time, after time?" Some of them are probably spoiling for a rematch. Now, if you pass out from jetlag and lack of food and crash your motorcycle into a tree and go up in a fiery blaze of glory, don't you think it's kind of like cheating them? Do you really want to sink to their level?"

If all else fails, be obnoxious. Bronwen once said I'm an irritant when I want to be. I'm kind of like the sand that gets into the oyster. Sometimes I'll produce a pearl, sometimes just an itchy rash. But nobody's ever going to ignore me. After thinking it over, I decide I can live with that assessment.

Judging from Nightwing's expression, he doesn't know whether to laugh, cry, or stomp off. He settles for ripping open one of the foil wrappers and biting a cheesecake in half. I set the plate down on the counter. It's time to call home.