The iceberg lounge, the only place in the city he could think of that wouldn't require them to RSVP at this hour, was half-empty when they arrived. Karen looked moderately stunning in a blue dress and filmy wrap, which she proudly and repeatedly proclaimed to be an Hermé's bought at a vastly reduced price.

"I found it at that place on Fifth and J street, it was buried under like a million jogging suits." She bragged as the maître d' slid out her chair. He nodded and tried to look fascinated, inwardly wondering why on earth she would think he cared. He was in a forest green pinstripe, bowler discreetly tucked under one arm. He still carried his question mark cane, because a man had to have something.

After they were seated and the smiling maître d' was tipped to go away they sat silently together, tea lights throwing flickering shadows on their faces. He drummed his fingers on the table. She gazed off at an imaginary point on the horizon. Bread was brought to the table and buttered.

Finally the Riddler decided a conversation wasn't the worst thing that could happen.

"So, is it, ahem, exciting, your work?"

She gave him an empty stare and he immediately decided if it wasn't the worst thing, conversation was still pretty awful.

"Well, it's no picnic but I get along all right. In fact, last Tuesday we implemented a new payroll measure and everyone was forced to switch over to direct deposit, and that meant a few people up in sales got audited because…"

As astoundingly uninteresting and tiresome as the following anecdote was, he couldn't help following along in the tale of minimum wage and office intrigue with enthusiasm, even asking a question every once in a while. It helped that his last actual conversation had been with the Mad Hatter, Killer Croc, and Rhino.

It had lasted three hours and consisted of the same three sentences over and over again.

But the way Karen told the story, lending a bit of character to each name, illustrating with her pretty little fingers was just fascinating. He had spent far too much time around people who made bank robbery and arson sound as tedious as going on a shopping trip for linoleum. Just the fact that she never once used the words "kill the Bat" made him fall a little more in love with her.

"…And so now she's going on vacation while Terry takes her spot, and that's why I'm working in the corner office now." She paused and looked at him. "Have I talked too much?"

"No," He told her sincerely. "No, it's… nice. You talk about normal life, not…not crime and death and horrific psychological problems."

"Oh," She flushed charmingly, "but I bet you have a much more exciting life…even though you're not the Killer Croc."

He smiled wryly. "No, that may not be, but I do have a quite exciting life. Trust me, I've had so much excitement I just might explode from joy all over this restaurant."

"That's not funny."

"Good. My life is not funny. Being me is not funny or fun or any other of those cute little adjectives adorable people use to describe themselves. You have an office pool on who's going to snag a villain, we have a pool on who's going to die next. I've got money riding on the Killer Moth."

"That's dumb!"

"No, it's a pretty fair bet. The man smokes like a chimney and eats three fried eggs every morning."

"No I mean…you have all these things that happen. In my office there's absolutely zero privacy and half the office is in the other half's business all the time! It's like living in a gopher burrow! But you, you…" She struggled to find the words. He found them instead.

"I live on the edge, the kind of life you wish you'd chosen, isn't that it?" She was silent. "Yes, you, much like your office coworkers, have chosen security over adventure, and regret every minute of it. So you cope with it by focusing on the insignificant and flirting moderately with danger. Diane's dating a henchman? That's as far as any of them will get. If one of them actually made the effort, actually went out and got a villain, they'd be ostracized. Normal people don't want interesting lives, they want to live free of the obligation to do anything but still have a taste of the abnormal. To inwardly conform yet masquerade as different. It's exactly like high school!" His fist thumped on the table.

He hadn't known until he'd stopped that he'd been shouting, and now all around them heads turned. Karen was a statue, lips set into a straight line. He sat down, flicking open the menu and pretending to study it.

"Well," he choked out, "what looks good to you?"

Silence from the other end of the table.

"I think the duck a l'orange looks divine, or maybe the steak tartar–"

"You're right."

He stopped, and swallowed. Hope sprang anew in his breast.

"I'm what?" He peeked over the menu.

"You're right." She regarded him coolly over her water glass. She sipped and set it down, no lipstick marked the rim. That impressed him, in some strange way.

"It's exactly how my high school was. I moved to the city to try and get away from that kind of mentality, but I guess it's universal. People cope with life in the big scary city by compartmentalizing their lives and selective vision. If you can't see it, it can't hurt you, see?"

He lowered the menu all the way. She was looking at him, really looking, and her hand on the table was trembling. It was enchanting.

"I got double eight hundreds on my SAT's," He blinked, and realized he was talking. "I was reading at a college level by the time I was ten, by the time I was twelve I could solve complex logic problems without any paper. I was picked on, ridiculed, and beaten at every opportunity. I was considerably more intelligent than anyone else and I was so unhappy that I felt like killing myself. There were days where I would have given anything, everything to be one of the blissfully ignorant."

"And nothing's changed?"

"No." There was a lump in his throat. "Nothing ever has."

Conversation died a horrible death, and silence came to nest in its bones. The maître d' came over for another tip to go away, and they were given pointed looks because they'd had yet to order.

Finally, he slid out of his funk long enough to snag a passing waiter and order Cajun chicken for himself, and crab bisque for the lady. It wasn't their waiter but he'd pass the message along.

Karen fidgeted, mouth half-forming words but never making a sound, shredding her generic dinner roll into the butter.

"I guess I can relate…a little, I mean." She said finally. He gave her a listless look, already counting this date stillborn.

"I was a little above average, but I hid it because I was so afraid of becoming unpopular. I acted dumb, did a damn fine job of it too. I used to get really scared that the face I put on for other people was the real Karen and I only dreamed that I was anything more. I was so desperate after school ended not to end up married by eighteen, or worse. So I took the first opportunity I could to get away, and I came to the big city to do exactly what I'd been doing all along. I had a chance to start over and I squandered it. Royally."

He stared at his cane.

"C'mon. laugh." He let out a strangled croak. "Laugh. It's funny. Not a 'ha-ha' kind of funny, but funny in the way Jonathan Swift is funny. 'A Modest Proposal' funny. Cosmic irony funny."

"Ha-ha." He intoned. She smiled slightly and he melted inside.

Author's note: hello childrens, how goes it? I've been in sort of a writerly funk lately, so I took a lot of time off to relax and refresh. I decided to continue this story because I think it's cute, and because it's pretty different than anything else I've written. There will be future chapters, I've already got the next done, so look for it!