Chapter Six: Hitches and Stitches

(AN: Batman is not mine)

His plan had worked flawlessly so far, and now he finally had enough venom to break out of hit tiny cell. It was time.

He smirked evilly, the blue-bird would soon pay for what she had done to him.

"You haven't been out much the past few days," Tim said "Is everything alright?" He and RJ were outside her aviary (the original one), and RJ was currently flying the raven she was training for Nightwing. The large bird was now fully trained and no longer needed the leash or jesses.

"No, everything's fine," RJ assured her friend "I've just been busy, that's all." It had been three days since Blue-Jay had been bitten, and she had been avoiding Batman like the plague ever since he had tried to plant a tracer on her. She had the feeling that he would not be happy once he discovered what she had done with the tracer.

The bites from the hyenas were healing well, and Pierre had told her that they could be removed in a few days. That was something she was happy to hear. Having the stitches had been a hindrance while she was being Blue-Jay and while being RJ, though it was less dangerous while she was RJ.

She had noticed that Tim was looking a little nervous about something and asked "What about you? You look kind of nervous, what's up?" He blushed a tiny bit when she said this then said "There's a Cassidy concert tonight, I was wondering if you wanted to go?" she turned and looked at him "Are you asking me out?" she said and he blushed a little more "I guess I am. So, do you want to go?" she smiled at him and said "Yes, I think that would be fun."

He beamed at her "You really want to go!" he asked, she smirked, replying "Of course I do, who would pass up a date with someone so cute?" he blushed a little hotter at her statement. "Alfred and I'll pick you up around eight tonight, how's that?" He asked "That'll be fine." She replied.

After a few moments, RJ whistled and the raven swooped down to her hand. After putting him back in his cage and returning the cage to its place in the aviary, she and Tim walked back up to the house.

Blue-Jay smiled to herself as she worked on one of her newer projects: a type of recorder, only this one only had to record what the voice sounded like once, and could then simulate it saying other things, it would even allow you to manipulate and change the sound of the voice. If it worked, she would have a lot of fun with it.

But that was not why she was smiling. Blue-Jay was smiling because her date with Tim tonight would provide the perfect opportunity to use the loop she had planted in the library to make it seem that Blue-Jay was in one place and RJ in another. She could have fun and throw Batman off her trail at the same time, it couldn't get sweeter than that. She only hoped that this concert went better than the last one Cassidy had had.

As Blue-Jay recalled, Garfield Lynns, A.K.A. Firefly, had turned the pyrotechnics on full-blast, destroying the stage and nearly killing Cassidy. The fiasco of the whole Firefly issue had caused Cassidy not to have any concerts for the past six months, probably due to the Pyrophobia she had come out of it with. Blue-Jay had hacked into her medical file after the event, and had not been surprised that the singer had gained a fear of fire after nearly being burned to a crisp.

RJ was also going to bring along a little 'backup' plan. RJ had always been one to be prepared, she called it caution, Pierre called it paranoia, but either way it had saved her skin a few times so far. For example: leaving the tracker on the box of bears, plan 'B' incase they had been unable to stop Ra's Al Ghul from releasing the toxin, and letting Batman give her the antibiotic.

When she had returned to the Roost the evening of that particular encounter with Batman, she had realized that she felt more tired than she should have at that time of night.

Hacking into the police database, Blue-Jay had located the files on the two Hyenas that had bitten her. After she had been bitten, Gordon had had both of them given a full examination by a veterinarian and it had turned out that they had both been carrying several bacteria that would be harmful to a human, deadly if left untreated. She guessed she should thank Batman, but she wasn't about to go looking for him.

For the concert, RJ wore a black T-shirt and black jeans with a leather belt. She also wore the red and black combat boots that Bruce had given her, and the red and black trench coat she had received from Barbara and Dick. Pulling back her hair into the usual ponytail, RJ added just a touch of lip gloss to finish the effect.

When Tim came to pick her up, they both had to stop and laugh for a few moments when they saw each others clothes: Tim was wearing a red T-shirt, black jeans with a leather belt and his coat and boots were black. "Matching outfits," she said as they both got into the car "I wonder if we have ESP." Tim laughed with her as Alfred smiled slightly in the front seat.

Three days before…

Batman growled slightly when she managed to slip away from him, but one look at the handheld transmitter he had in his belt told him that the tracker he had slipped into the bandage on her shoulder was working perfectly. Knowing that, he let her leave and turned his attention to the nearby robbery.

There had been two of them, armatures, from the way they had tried to pull off the job. Once he was finished hanging them from a street lamp, Batman started to follow the tracer he had placed on Blue-Jay.

It led him into the much more unsavory parts of town, parts where Blue-Jay had never gone into without Robin. A twinge of unease ran through him when he realized this, and he picked up his pace, wanting to catch up to the girl before she got into anymore trouble. Blue-Jay was a good fighter, but she was still small, injured, and possibly sick.

When he had spotted her running through the park only about an hour before, he had noticed that she had not only been paler than normal, she had also been less aware of her surroundings. If she had been fully alert, she would most likely have seen him. Actually, if she had been completely lucid, she wouldn't ever have gone through the center of the park in the first place.

Batman knew that Blue-Jay was, without doubt, the most intelligent person her age he had ever come across, but she was still human, and could make mistakes, especially when her judgment was impaired. As he was sure it was.

She should have known better than to think that she could get away from him the same way twice in a row, but she had made an error and he had caught her for that.

Batman had been slightly surprised and slightly relived to find that the bites had been properly stitched up, though it only made sense that she would have access to a doctor with all the connections she evidently had. He had had to fight back a smirk when she had stuck out her tongue at him, like Batgirl tended to do when she thought he wasn't looking, and had turned it into a glare when her innocent look made it too hard to keep a straight face.

When he had told her that he wanted some way to contact her, she had immediately gotten a little more on the hostile side then usual. But he hadn't exactly handled the situation in the greatest fashion, and he had to admit that she did have a point in her having the same right as he did to be out on the streets.

Blue-Jay was more diverse than anyone he had had to handle before. She was able to return his glare without so much as flinching, something that grown men had difficulty doing. She was secretive, she was stubborn, she was intelligent, she was independent, she was solitary and she was constantly reminding him of someone, he just couldn't think of whom.

These thoughts buzzed in his head as he neared the place where the tracer had stopped for the time being. It was in a dark, filthy, deserted alley. Batman jumped down to the ground and entered the alleyway to get a closer look.

He dropped into a fighting stance when the dumpster gave a sudden, loud rattle. But the source of the noise turned out to be a stray dog. A stray dog that had his tracer tucked into the fur behind its ear.

Normally, Batman would have been rather surprised that someone could give him the slip like that, but with Blue-Jay, he was more annoyed and frustrated than surprised. She had sent him off, following a stray dog while she got away. It was just the sort of thing that he would do. But it left him no closer to finding out who Blue-Jay really was under the mask.

"Her wounds were stitched up professionally. But she had had no antibiotics given to her." Batman was back in the batcave, thinking out loud to himself. "It sounds like she was treated by a field medic." Alfred said absently, setting Bruce's' dinner down on the nearby table.

That statement made Batman hesitate for a moment, before turning to his butler and asking "You're right, a field medic is trained to treat injuries, not infections and illnesses from bacteria, are they?" "Not when I was trained, no." Alfred replied, then he paused for a moment, thinking. A moment later he spoke again "Master Bruce, could you possibly tell me what the stitches looked like? Was there anything unusual about them?"

Batman raised an eyebrow but said "I noticed that they were a little tighter than what I normally see in hospitals, why?" "Because it sounds like Blue-Jay's medic uses the same method of stitching I use on you and the others. A method that the British military has been using for years but has only just been approved in the international community. Pulling the stitches a slight bit tighter has been proven to reduce scarring and cause the wound to heal a bit faster. It is a method that only a few of the field medics picked up on, as it is more difficult than doing it the normal way."

Batman stared at his old friend for a moment before turning to the computer and beginning to type with shocking speed. "If that's true, than it is more than likely the medic that Blue-Jay went to see was trained in Britain, but they would also have to be in Gotham for her to have reached them fast enough."

He cross-referenced a list of retired field medics from the British military with the lists of Gotham city's citizens. There were only two names that came up: Alfred Pennyworth, and Pierre Farnsworth. "Dear lord!" Alfred gasped, shocked "Pierre lives in Gotham! I wonder why he hasn't contacted me for all these years." Batman looked at him and he explained "Pierre and I were trained together, he was my best friend, but we lost touch after we both left the military. I wonder how the old boy's been doing?"

Batman looked up Pierre and his eyes narrowed "It looks like he's been doing very well," he told Alfred, turning to look at him "He butlers for the Falcon family." Alfred's eyes widened and he said, "Oh dear."

Batman turned back to the batcomputer, deep in thought. He was now almost positive that RJ Falcon was Blue-Jay, there were still a few snags in the theory, but there were too many similarities to be explained away. Either way, he would find out soon. Or so he hoped.

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