Chapter Five: Bites and Bandages

(AN: Batman is not mine)

He had been waiting for just the right moment, for months, and it would soon be here. He had been watching the guards closely, he had been listening closely. He knew their routes, he knew their shifts. He knew that Sergeant Karl Marks wife had just had twins, that would be his way out.

He might not have the reputation he had had before, but he still had outside connections, connections that had been working with him to arrange his 'early release'. He would soon be free.

Marks had been warned that his wife and boys would be killed if he did not cooperate, and Bane had made sure that he knew that the threat was genuine. He had had Marks' brother shot twice in the head as he had left work late one evening. Now Marks would do whatever he was told to do.

The plan was that Marks would allow a supply of Venom through to Bane, a supply that would allow him to break through the wall of his cell and beat down any guards foolish enough to get in his way.

He would get out of the prison and there would be a car waiting for him, and then, it would not be long before revenge would be his.

Blue-Jay squirmed against Batmans' grip on her arm, trying to get free as he dragged her along beside him. Finally, she twisted her entire body under his arm, forcing his wrist to turn too far and his fingers to lose their grip on her. He snatched at her, but he was a fraction of a second too late, and Blue-Jay was off.

"Come back here!" Batman yelled as she ran "You catch me!" she shouted back as she pulled a grapple from her belt and fired it off. It had been a parting shot but, to her dismay, he obliged.

Blue-Jay darted over the rooftops at top speed, determined to lose her pursuer who was, in turn, equally determined not to be lost. Blue-Jay was pushing herself as hard as she could, but while she was smaller and speedier, that still did not make up for the fact that Batman had much longer legs and more power behind them. She had managed to keep away from him so far, but he was closing the gap between them too quickly for her liking.

Pulling a smoke bomb from her belt, she threw it behind her as soon as he was within a yard of her.

Batman coughed and his eyes watered as he slid to a halt. Once he could see again, he was not surprised to find that Blue-Jay was gone. He growled to himself and changed course, backtracking to the bank to pick up Robin and the Batmobile and head for the clinic where Dr. Leslie Tompkins worked.

"Pierre!" Blue-Jay cried as she entered the roost. The man appeared a few moments later. His eyes widened at the sight of her bloody shoulder and arm. Pierre had had training as a medic in the military, so he could easily care for many of Blue-Jays injuries.

After cleaning the bite marks, he proceeded to stitch them up and bandage them. "Thanks' Pierre." She said and he nodded, "Now, go wash up and rest." He said "You need it." She yawned, nodding as she slid off the medical table and headed for the shower.

"No broken bones, but there will be some extensive bruising." Leslie said and Batman nodded as Robin pulled the top half of his costume back on. "Anything else?" she asked and he nodded. "I need antibiotics for infections that might be transferred from a stray dog by a bite." She raised an eyebrow but nodded and gave him a phial of the antibiotic. "Thank you, Leslie." He said, she waved it off "Just take care of yourself, alright." There was no answer, when she turned back she saw why. Both Batman and Robin were gone. Leslie shook her head, muttering "Some things never change."
The next night.

Blue-Jay winced slightly when she moved her arm, she would have to be a little more careful with it until Pierre could remove the stitches, but at least she could still use it. Blue-Jay was ambidextrous, so the injury did not hinder her as much as it would have, thankfully, but it still made it harder to maneuver.

She had been patrolling for the better part of the night but hadn't found much, for which she was grateful. Blue-Jay would never admit it, but her first encounter with the Joker had shaken her a little. While not nearly as much as the old asylum, which was still giving her nightmares, the Joker had sent a shiver of dread through her. She had never liked clowns.

After a few hours, Blue-Jay found herself taking a short-cut through the park, heading for the dockyards, even though she knew neither of her parents were bringing in shipments that night.

She was half-way through the park when she gained some unexpected and unwanted company. Batman.

She was passing the large fountain in the center of the park, when he came out from behind it, stepping directly into her path.

Blue-Jay didn't even have the chance to turn before her good arm was firmly in his grasp. "Let go!" she snapped, squirming and twisting against his grip, but he wasn't about to fall for the same trick twice, and pulled her closer to him, eliminating the space she had to have in order to twist away.

Turning her, he forced her sit down on the wall of the fountain, making it so that she would either have to get soaked or knock him down to escape. With both of his hands now free, Batman pulled back the cloth over her injured shoulder and peeled back the gauze to see the wound. Seemingly satisfied with the stitching on her shoulder, he released her shoulder and pulled out her arm. Rolling up her sleeve, he unwound the bandaging to see the bite mark on it.

Once satisfied that her wounds had been properly seen to, he pulled several things from his belt. She didn't even look at him until her shoulder stung sharply. "Ack! What are you doing?" she yelped, turning to look at him. "Cleaning your shoulder and arm again, now sit still." He ordered. She stuck out her tongue at him and he glared at her as she looked at him innocently before turning his attention back to her shoulder.

Once her shoulder and arm were clean, he re-bandaged them before taking out a syringe gun. At the sight of it Blue-Jay began to protest, but Batman cut her off "I don't know what those hyenas have, but you already look too pale to be normal. This is an antibiotic that will kill any infections they might have given you, and you are not going anywhere until I give it to you." There was a short staring contest before Blue-Jay turned her gaze to the cloudy sky.

She twitched slightly when the needle of the gun punctured her skin but didn't say anything as he gave her the injection. "Can I leave now?" she asked once he was done. He gave her a cold stare, which she returned, unwaveringly. "I want some way to contact you, I've had enough of having to track you down in the middle of the night." Blue-Jay bristled "In other words, you want to keep tabs on me." She snapped.

Batman's eyes narrowed and he placed one hand on either side of her as he put his face within an inch of hers. Blue-Jay didn't flinch, glaring back with equal intensity. "This is my city, I will not let you run around unchecked anymore." He growled. Her temper flared "This is my city too!" She rapped back "And I have just as much right to prowl it as a solitary entity as you do!"

She managed to stand up and he did so as well, now they were almost eye to eye. The wall of the fountain was a foot tall, and Batman was over six-foot in height, Blue-Jay was less than an inch over five-foot, but standing on the fountain wall she was only about three inches shorter than he was. They were both glaring at each other, each refusing to back down in the face of the other.

If someone had walked by at that moment, they might have found the scene amusing. The tall, muscular man standing at his full height, his arms crossed over his broad chest as he glared at the little girl who was glaring right back at him, standing on the fountain wall, her small fists clenched at her sides and her petite body trembling slightly with anger. Two physical opposites locked in a staring contest that neither was going to forfit nor back down from.

The glare-a-thon would have gone on for a while longer, had two beeping noises not broken the silence. Distracted, Batman and Blue-Jay both turned from the other and pulled their communicators from their belts.

Blue-Jay smirked as Batman scowled, there was a break-in at a nearby jewelry store. Batman would handle that on his own, so she used his distraction to escape. Her boots got a little wet as she made her getaway, but she slipped through his fingers none the less.

She knew that he had slipped a tracer into the bandage on her shoulder, so as soon as she was a few blocks away from the store where she knew he would have gone, she stopped and carefully removed it from between the layers of cotton.

After fixing the tracer into the fur of a stray dog, Blue-Jay decided to call it a night and started to work her way to the city limits before going home.

(Review please)