Chapter Nine: Back-up and a date

"Robin, what did you mean when you said you had information on Blue-Jay?" Batman asked when the teen got back from patrol late that night. "Well," the boy said "When I left today I went to R.J. Falcon's house, hoping to get a pretty girls' company as opposed to yours." The man winced inwardly "And she showed me around the grounds, the sables and the like. But what was really cool was her aviary. She has thousands of birds in there that she trains and breeds as a hobby."

"While she was showing me some of the birds she told me that she had gotten an unusual order for trained birds from a customer using the name Aaron, as she will train birds for those willing to pay a rather hefty price for the job, she's an expert at it." "And?" "The order was for a flock of trained Blue-Jays and a trained raven." "Trained Blue-Jays?" Batman asked "Exactly." Robin replied with a nod. Batman nodded in return and got up, giving the boy a small smirk "I think I will pay Miss. Falcon a visit." "Why, she doesn't know who the buyer is?" "But she can notify me when the said buyer has them picked up and I can then follow them." "Oh."

Though Blue-Jay wanted to get to work on the anti-toxin right away, she knew that she was dead on her feet and would be useless to Gotham this way, so she took the toxin and some of her notes upstairs.

She had shut out the thoughts of what had happened in the old asylum that night in order to concentrate fully on the problems at hand.

She had been sitting in bed working for about an hour and her eyes were getting droopy when she felt a cool breeze dance across her face. "Close the window, will you?" the man in the shadows did so before advancing to her side.

"You train birds?" "Yep, would you like a robin and a raven for you're two boys?" his eyes narrowed, and she shrugged "Just thought I'd ask." "You received an order for trained blue-jays, correct?" "Yes but I don't know from whom, if that's what you came to ask." "Well, when the order is picked up use this to contact me." He handed her a small paging device. "Sure, whatever." She said, putting it on her bedside table before going back to her work.

Batman's eyes narrowed again and he looked at what she was doing, she opened her mouth to protest, but was cut short when the phone rang. Picking up the receiver she said "R.J." she listened, setting the laptop aside "Oh, hello, Tim." Batman looked at her, then turned back to the computer, into which she could see he was sliding a memory card.

R.J. and Tim had become fast friends and she was pleased to hear from him. "Yes, R.J. I don't know if you've heard, but there's another one of Bruce's' parties tomorrow night and I don't want to be there on my own, do you think you could come and keep me company? Please?" she smiled, saying "I would love too." "Excellent, Alfred and I will pick you up at seven, how's that?" "That'll be perfect, it's formal?" "Unfortunately." She laughed "Well, I'll see you tomorrow then." "Thanks R.J., you're a lifesaver." She smiled again as she hung up.

When she looked up, Batman was gone. She looked at her computer and smirked, he'd copied her info on the toxin, now there would be two heads on the antidote and she could also figure out how they were planning to get the crap into the air.

"Well, at least I won't be bored to death at the party tomorrow." Robin said as he came down into the cave. "What makes you say that?" Nightwing asked from his stance on the mats. "He's asked R.J. Falcon to go with him." Batman said as he entered the cave himself and walked over to the Batcomputer.

Nightwing catcalled as Robin blushed, staring at his mentor. "How could you possibly-" "I was there when you called." "Oh." "She seemed very happy to hear from you." Batman said, turning the chair a little so that he could see his sidekick, "Is there something going on between the two of you that you have neglected to mention?" "What-NO!" Robin sputtered "We're just friends, that's all." "Right, we'll talk about that later. Either way, your friend is working with Blue-Jay, even if she's not aware of it." He slipped the memory card from his belt into the computer and pulled up the files. "I got these off of her laptop while the two of you were talking."

As the other three crowded around to look, Batman went through the files. As each one came up on the screen, the air in the cave seemed to get colder and colder. "Dear god." Nightwing whispered "I told you she was onto something big." Batgirl said, the other two teens nodded.

"We need to get into contact with Blue-Jay as soon as possible." Batman said, his hands working furiously on the keyboard as he started breaking down the toxin from where R.J. had left off.

"How?" Robin asked "I'm the only one of us to have come across her, and she knew that I was following her." Batman frowned. "Then we'll have to keep an extra sharp look out for her while we're out on patrols, we must find where she came across this and what she knows about it. If this gas gets released on Gotham, the results would be catastrophic." They seemed to get the point.

"Wait." They looked at Nightwing "How do we know R.J. Falcon isn't Blue-Jay?" "The Falcons didn't return to the U.S. until weeks after Blue-Jay's appearance."

R.J. let her long hair fall down her back in a ponytail as she put on her red lipstick. It matched her ruby-red dress perfectly. It was a flowing halter gown, not too fancy but called attention to her slender, curvy body.

Smiling at herself, she strapped on her bright red heels and went down to meet the waiting car. R.J. was practiced on heels, just in case she had to wear them, though she wouldn't if she could avoid them.

As she came down into the main hall, she couldn't help but think that Tim looked extremely cute in a tux. As soon as he saw her his mouth fell open. "You look gorgeous." He said and she smiled "Thank you, you don't look to bad yourself." He smiled and blushed a little before offering her his arm, which she took.

Bruce looked over at Dick when the teen whistled softly "Looks like Tim did better than we thought." Bruce looked where his older ward was looking and his eyes widened slightly.

Robyn Falcon was wearing a bright-red halter-top dress, bright red heels, ruby lipstick and her hair was held in a ponytail by a red band. "I guess she likes her first name more than she does her middle name." Dick said quietly. Bruce nodded.

The party was, for the most part, uneventful, but neither Tim nor R.J. got board, having each other for company. After a while, they were joined by Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon.

R.J. already knew Barbara; they had met in passing while at the Polo Pitch but had never really spoken. Barbara was a really good polo player, though she didn't have a horse of her own and had to use one of Mr. Wayne's' horses.

"I've seen you play," Barb told her "You're really good!" "Thanks, you're not to shabby yourself. And have you seen Cathy Ducane play?" "Yes, she's also a good player, as is Veronica Vreeland."

As the two girls talked about Polo, the two boys talked about nothing much in particular.

The party went down without a hitch and Tim dropped R.J. off that night with both of them in good spirits.

But, unfortunately, both of them had some major work to do.