Quick, update, I know. But this is the last one for a while, I'm going to be in California getting my brains pecked out by relitives and seagulls. Savitri, SHUT UP! IT'S THE SECOND FRIGGIN' CHAPTER, IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE EXCITING! I'm sorry that K.C. isn't Miss Gotham material, but cool characters aren't supposed to be flawless, expecially SUPPORTING cool characters. I've already given her a bigger part than I planned, but if you don't stop sounding like an English teacher I'll kill her off. Don't think I won't!

Anyway, to the rest of you, thank you for your many hits, even though you don't review (grr) and keep reading. Oh, conversation dominates this chapter, but I hope maybe that it'll get better. Pray to my Muse, Jack the Sexy Beast and perhaps action shall rule once more.

Finding out more about you

Carm's cell phone began singing. "Hello?"

"Guess who."

"Bruce, I have caller ID. What'd you need?"

"Just wondering what you're doing tonight. I have tickets to-"

"Sorry, work's been hell. I've got another meeting."

"A meeting at night? Again? Who do you work for?" This was the third time in a month that she'd turned him down for "work."

"I'll tell you later. I've got to go."

"Carm, hold –" There was a click and the line went dead.

Carm actually did have work. How do you think she got so filthy rich? She'd been in her line of work for as long as she'd been on her own, and that was actually how she'd met K.C. They actually hadn't met at a funeral; they'd met at a job.

"'Ello?" A gruff voice crackled over the intercom.

"Heya, Marco. It's Carm."

"I know no such Carm."

Carm sighed. Marco was always a stickler for rules. "Carmine Lordly."

"What's yer business?"

"More gardening supplies."

A pause on the other end and then the great iron doors swung open.

Valintino's house was mostly underground, which made it so hard to find. And you couldn't get in unless he knew you personally, otherwise you and whoever let you got shot. That's way the game was played down here, lower than even the reaches of Batman.

A guard appeared and promptly frisked Carm. He, from experience, knew not to get too frisky when he checked for anything that shouldn't be there, but men are men and Carm slugged him just for thinking nasty.

"I'm gunna guess he deserved that." A thick Italian accent wafted down the hall, carried on tobacco smoke and a drunk hooker's giggles.

Carm hated this man more than any word or any combination of words could express. Still she plastered on a fake smile and threw her arms open. "Gerodi!"

He allowed her to step closer, and she got just close enough that they could talk comfortably but she couldn't touch him. No one touched Gerodi Valintino, at least no one that had a legal record and had ever stepped foot in a police station. Carm didn't qualify, but K.C. did. Carm's illegitimate endeavors had gifted her with several court hearings. However, due to her extremely valuable nature, someone always bribed the judge. It wasn't fun, being on both sides of the law, and sometimes she'd been stretched too thin.

"I brought what you asked for. Your garden is gunna look so nice when you're done!" Both knew that the perkiness and garden talk was just a cover for what she'd really brought.

Valintino smiled and nodded. Wrapping his arm around the apparently drunk hooker, he said, "Perfect. Carmine, meet my new gardener, Felecia." You didn't use last names in this house.

The hooker hiccupped. "Follow meh," she slurred and led Carm to the usual room. Steel with a video camera, two chairs and a table, and a bare light bulb. Carm had always hated this room, but she supposed that could mostly be accounted for by the bloodstains no one bothered to clean up. The bloodstains were mostly from bad informants and "gardeners," all of which Valintino went through very quickly. Except for Carm, she'd lasted a while because she could find things that everyone else swore were under lock and key, all without bribing and threatening. She had her ways, most of which she'd learned in Somalia.

Both acts dropped, the two women sat down opposite each other. Carm pulled a CD from her pocket and slid it across the table. "Melvin McCober, age 42, weight 175 pounds, cover occupation dentist. Considered a threat mostly because he's too nosy and he moonlights as a private eye. A very good private eye, but not good enough. He'd be very easy to threaten, he doesn't take bribes, and he's having an affair with his hygienist."

The Gardener nodded and pulled out a check book. "How much were you promised?"

"Two grand. But I want three."

"Two grand it is then." Carm snatched the pen from the Gardener's hand and stuck it about in inch into her forearm.

"Good thing you're left handed." Carm sat back and waited for her check.

The woman grimaced, trying not to cry out. "Three grand, then. How did you know I was left handed?" She signed the check and slipped it to Carm.

Carm answered as she left. "The same way I know your middle name is Genevieve and your father owns a bakery. A very flammable bakery."

Carm shut the door on the flabbergasted Gardener and almost ran into Valintino. "You need to stop terrorizing my employees."

She grinned, all benevolence gone. "As soon as you teach them to cooperate, Gerodi."

"Don't you want your next assignment?"

She slipped around him. "Nah, I'm taking a vacation. But you know where to reach me."

She nodded to the currently-being-frisked-and-not-liking-it-one-bit K.C. as she walked out, knowing that she could trust her best friend to keep tabs on Valintino.

Bruce was woke up that morning, or rather early afternoon, by a pillow. Not an ordinary pillow, a pillow that was moving. A pillow that was very rapidly moving up and down, only stopping when it hit his head.

"Gah, nockiroof," he muttered into his mattress, which only brought him a further beating. He snatched the pillow away and tossed it away, too tired to wonder why Alfred was beating him with a pillow.

"Get up, or I'll find something harder than a pillow to beat you with." Alfred's voice was sounding very feminine this morning. Uh-oh, that wasn't Alfred. That was Carm. Suddenly aware of his boxers-only state he snatched the sheets above his head.

Carm stuck several fingers in his ribs, making the new discovery that Bruce was ticklish. Cackling evilly, she jabbed him in the ribs again, making him lose his grip on the sheet which she promptly pulled back. More rib proddings followed until Bruce was forced to secure Carm's feet up several meters the bedpost with a sheet, making her look very much like a prized fish just off the hook.

"Let me down or I'll beat you again!" Carm struggled to pull herself up. She could have very easily done it, but if she did it too easily Bruce was smart enough to get suspicious.

"Not till I get dressed and you tell me what you're doing in my bedroom at eleven in the morning."

"What were you doing in your bedroom at eleven in the afternoon?" She gave up the "struggle" for a moment.

"Sleeping. What's your excuse?" Bruce pulled some pants on, painfully aware of Carm's dressed state.

"I felt bad enough for blowing you off last night that I figured we could spend the day together." She tried for an innocent face, but it failed remarkably well.

"Doing what?" Bruce pulled on a shirt as well, to Carm's disappointment.

"My parents just moved out of the city and the house they bought needs painting." Bruce groaned and flopped back onto his bed. "You're going to have to meet them eventually."

"Why over manual labor? I was thinking a dinner might be nice, perhaps go see a play-"

"Bruce, don't try to tell me that when you asked me for a second date you weren't planning on seeing me a lot more than just on 'dates.' If you want this to last even just a little bit longer we're going to have to learn a lot more about each other, starting with our families." Bruce bent down to where her head was swinging and kissed her.

"Fine, we'll go paint their house. But you can't meet my parents." He walked into his closet and tried to find slightly grungy clothes and settled for his least favorite shirt when he couldn't find any.

"Why not!" He gave her a quizzical look.

"Because they're dead."

Carm was silent for a moment. "Sorry, I didn't know."

"You're the only person in Gotham." He walked to the bathroom, tugging the knot that held out Carm as he passed.

Righting herself from the reflexive handstand she fell into, she explained, "We moved to Gotham when I was fourteen, a little bit after the Waynes fell out of the spotlight for a while. I do remember hearing something about …" She paused, not thinking of how to put it lightly.

"My parents' murder?"

"Yeah. I remember hearing a little about it when that man who apparently murdered someone important was shot outside the courthouse a couple years back."

"I remember that day," Bruce paused in his shaving. "I brought a gun to the hearing because I wanted to kill him." He expected a rebuke, a smack in the face, something.

Instead Carm hugged him and whispered, "We all feel like we want to kill somebody at one point in our lives. Criminals are the weak ones who can't resist."

He dropped his razor, returning the embrace and glad she understood. "I couldn't resist, I was beaten to it."

"He got what he deserved and you resisted long enough to prove you're not a criminal. You've got a good heart, Bruce, made all the better by your strength."

"I'm glad you think so," he whispered into her hair. He had never been much of a believer in God, but at that moment he wondered if there was a God to bless him with such an earthly angel.

I dare you all to guess what K.C. was doing with Valintino. (get your mind out of the gutter, sickos) Now, I'm trying to decide whether I should postpone Carm's "discovery" because i'm rapidly running out of things to fill space with until I get to the real plot. REVIEW OR FACE THE WRATH OF THE BALL-POINT PEN! kudos to anyone who can guess what movie I stole that from : )