A/N Happy Sunday! Thank you, as always, to all reviewers. Each of your comments was perused with great delight.

Chapter 6
In Which the Batman and Bruce Wayne Get on People's Nerves

Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave.
-Quentin Crisp

Demetrios crouched at the edge of the broken concrete, watching intently as two groups of boys maneuvered a worn soccer ball back and forth. The space was actually a parking lot, but during the day it was mostly empty and Mr. Sims, owner of Sims Drugstore, didn't care if they played there as long as they kept the ball away from the windows.

Niko, taking advantage of his short height, suddenly ducked beneath an opposing player's arm, stole the ball, and shot it neatly past the goalie and between the two trash-filled boxes.

"Goooooal!" screamed Dememtrios, jumping up and punching the air with his fists.

Nico, much too cool to acknowledge an accolade from his little brother, casually accepted his teammates' high fives and slaps on the back.

"That guy's pretty good," an unexpected voice spoke over Demetrios' head.

The little boy threw out his chest. "That's my brother," he said before he even looked up. When he did, he found a strange white kid standing next to him.

"You guys play a lot?"

Demetrios was immediately distracted by his personal grievance. "They do. I'm not allowed because I'm…" he made a sour face, "too little."

"Well, if that kid's your brother, I bet you're pretty good."

"I'm not so bad," Demetrios agreed. "You play?"

The strange guy grinned. "No, not really. Maybe if I lived in a place like this I would, though. You guys got all kinds of awesome stuff going on."

Demetrios' gave his best imitation of Hector's disdainful snort. "You kidding me? This place is a dump. It's so boring, the ants fall asleep in the middle of the sidewalk."

"Well nobody plays soccer in my neighborhood. And isn't that girl who just got rescued by the Batman supposed to live around here somewhere?"

"Yeah." Demetrios stuck his hands in his pockets and tried to look cool. "That's my sister."

"Shut up! Your sister?" The older kid was clearly impressed. "Did she tell you all the details?"

"Most of them. Then Mama kicked us out because Ari's supposed to be resting." His face darkened. "Those …" he used a series of words Athena Pappas would have made him eat soap for, "cut her throat." He glared up at the stranger, suddenly suspicious again.

But the kid looked genuinely worried. "Is she ok?"

Demetrios nodded slowly. "Yeah."

"That's good. Hey," the guy said suddenly. "I'm T."

"Demetrios."

"It's really hot out here. You want to go get a soda or something?" He jerked his head in the direction of the drugstore.

The younger boy shook his head. "No money."

"I'll buy. This is the first time I've met someone whose sister got rescued by Batman."

Demetrios hesitated. He wasn't supposed to take things from strangers, but this guy seemed all right, and besides, if they got it from the store it couldn't have drugs in it or anything. Not like they're paying attention to me anyway, he thought resentfully, looking at the absorbed players. Probably won't even notice I'm gone.

"Ok," he agreed, and followed the kid inside the store.

Sims was an old fashioned kind of drugstore that had a sandwich counter as well as cramped aisles of general necessities. Demetrios and T perched on two of the high stools, and T ordered a couple of cokes.

"Thanks, Mr. Sims," Demetrios said, dutifully remembering his manners as the old man set an ice cold bottle in front of him. T started asking questions then, and before he realized it, Demetrios was talking freely, giving every detail he could remember Ari relating about her adventure with the Batman.

Neither boy noticed the elderly Mr. Sims move casually to the far end of the counter and then exit out the back door. He walked up to the edge of the game and shouted, "Hey, Hector!" It took a moment for his voice to be heard over the scramble of the game, but then the oldest Pappas boy came jogging over. "I thought you might want to know that some guy's in the store talking up your little brother.

Hector's eyes went wide and he glanced at the empty spot where Demetrios had been sitting. The next moment, he was bolting for the store's entrance. Mr. Sims hurried back toward his private door.

Hector burst through the door, setting the bell jangling wildly, and causing the two boys at the counter to look up in surprise. Before T quite realized what was happening, he found himself in a brutal arm lock with his face smashed against the counter top. "You like little boys?" a furious voice was shouting in his ear. "Maybe you think they do a good job working for you? Maybe you…"

"Hey!" Mr. Sims was back behind his counter. "You're going to make trouble, you take it outside!"

Without another word, Hector jerked his prisoner up from the counter and marched him outside. By the time they hit fresh air, some of T's daze had worn off, and he gave a quick, catlike jerk which freed him from Hector's grasp.

"Believe me," he threatened, putting up his fists, "you don't want to fight me."

"I think we can handle you," Hector said softly, and T suddenly realized that they were surrounded by a ring of hostile faces.

"Hey!" Demetrios burst through the door.

"Nicolai," growled Hector, not taking his eyes off his enemy, and the younger boy immediately moved to take a firm grip on Demetrios' arm.

Trevor opened his fists and extended his hands in supplication. "We were just talking, I swear. I just wanted to know about the Batman."

"Oh, and what's he going to know about the Batman?" Hector sneered.

"Well, your sister…"

"So now you know about my sister, too?"

"Not like that!" T took an involuntary step backward, away from the wrath in Hector's face.

"It's true," Demetrios burst out. "He was just asking, like, what did the Batman wear, and what were his weapons, and did that kid have any weapons."

Hector's glance flickered to his brothers and back to T.

"Hey!" Pedro whispered urgently. "Cop car down the street."

Hector stepped closer so that his face was mere inches away from T's. He said quietly, "If you ever come back here again, I will cut you so bad, people are gonna think you fell in a blender." He lifted his hand so that T could just see the gleam of a switchblade between his fingers.

Hector stepped back, grabbed Demetrios' arm from Nico, and started home. The rest of the boys slowly dispersed while T, not quite running, headed for the train station.

Gordon tried not to be grumpy as he sat on the roof of the police station, waiting, again, for the Bat to decide to show. He realized that the mysterious crime fighter was not the exclusive property of the GPD and had every right to an agenda of his own, but the creeping feeling of annoyance was still getting the better of the tired cop. He had, after all, spent hours waiting when he should have been hurrying back home to patch things up with Barbara. Again.

"You called?" a quiet voice said behind him.

"Nice of you to show," Gordon snapped before he could summon the willpower to hold his tongue.

Characteristically, the Bat simply folded his arms and stared, waiting.

Why can he always make me feel like I've just been sent to detention? He should have known better than to try sarcasm. Standing (it made him feel a little less like a miscreant student), Gordon shoved his hands in his pockets and asked, "Heard about the casino robbery?"

"Yes."

"We've got nothing. Absolutely nothing. No leads, no suspects, not even any ideas."

"If they don't get their money back, how badly is this going to hurt them?"

"Pretty bad. They were already in trouble, thanks to that new place on the north side. This will pretty much finish the present owners."

"Anyone looking to buy them out?"

"Not that they mentioned." Gordon tugged at his mustache thoughtfully. "You think that this was more than just robbery?"

The Bat shrugged. "You got any other ideas?"

You know I don't. Aloud, the police chief said, "I'll look into it."

"Where are you on the pawnshop robbery?" the Bat growled.

"You were really there?"

"Yes."

"We got a bizarre story out of the girl. Really bizarre. She says one of the thieves had some sort of religious vision in the middle of the robbery."

"He did."

Gordon shook his head. "They just get nuttier and nuttier. Must be something in the water." There was short pause and then he muttered, "Sorry. That wasn't funny. Anyway, yeah, we got a lot of details out of the girl. Not much from the old lady. She says they knocked her out first thing, and she didn't wake up until it was all over. She didn't even know you were there. She unconscious when you came?"

"No. I saw her shove the girl at the attackers and make a run for it."

Gordon puckered his lips in a startled, silent whistle. "She didn't mention that."

"Do you have any ideas about the identities of the thieves?"

"The girl said there were two men and a woman. The men we might have a lead on – brothers, fairly new to the scene, specialize in small burglaries. The youngest one is supposed to be clairvoyant or something, which would fit. But we haven't heard anything about a woman being with them." Gordon paused to see whether the Bat had a comment to insert. He didn't. Surprise, surprise. "That girl's a pretty sharp kid, despite the fact she can't see anything. If her impressions of people are as good as I think they are, then it seems like the woman just didn't fit with the other two. She sounded…more dangerous, although that brings up the question of why she was taking orders from the brothers."

"Yes," the Bat said unexpectedly. "She was dangerous. Very dangerous."

"And you don't have any idea where they went?"

"No."

Gordon was dying to ask questions. It wasn't often that the Bat let three criminals just walk away. But over the years he had developed a feel for when it was right to push for more information, and at the moment, his instinct was screaming at him to leave it alone.

"Ok," the police chief sighed. "Keep your ear open for this casino thing, will you?"

The Bat nodded once and was gone.

Gordon picked up his coat and briefcase and went downstairs and out to the parking lot. Despite the late (or early) hour, someone else was there, unlocking the door of the car right next to his. As he fumbled for his own keys, he dimly recognized one of the newer detectives in the main precinct.

She smiled at him as she slipped into her car. "Good night, Chief!"

He nodded and lifted a hand in acknowledgment. What was her name? Easle? Essel? Something like that. He thought he remembered O'Hara giving a glowing report of her work previous to her transfer.

Gordon pulled out of the parking lot and headed home. Glancing at the dashboard clock, he repressed a sigh. Earlier than some nights, but later than he'd said he would be. Something's gonna give. Sooner or later, something's gotta give.

Sarah Essen watched the taillights of Gordon's vehicle disappear down the street. He doesn't even remember my name, she thought glumly as she put her car in reverse and pulled out of her parking spot. Ever since she had joined the force five years ago, her admiration for the now chief of police had been growing. She was impressed by his intelligence, his tenacity, and above all by his unswerving integrity, and she had put in a for a transfer to the downtown precinct in the hope that she would get a chance to watch him work up close.

She got her chance – at times it seemed like Gordon lived in the station; nothing major happened that he wasn't immediately on top of. Her hero worship hadn't diminished with the close up view. If anything, it had intensified, and, if she were completely honest with herself, it was beginning to veer toward something less platonic.

Get a grip Essen, she told herself angrily as she swung out into the street. The man's married, after all.

Not very happily, a rebellious voice whispered at the back of her mind.

That's none of your business, she told the voice. Still, it would be nice to see him relax once in a while.

Three days later, Alex Peaceable climbed into the front passenger seat of the Aston Martin. Dick was already in the back, and Alfred started the engine.

"Nervous?" Alex asked, turning to look in the backseat as they drove down the winding drive.

Dick looked confused. "No. Should I be?"

Alex barely refrained from rolling his eyes. They were on their way to the kid's first ever chess competition, and he was displaying absolutely no normal emotions about it. Either he was so sure he would smoke the competition that he was actually bored, or he just plain didn't care what happened. Alex found that he had no idea which possibility was the truth.

"Where's Bruce?" Dick suddenly asked. "I thought he said he was coming."

Alex, listening carefully, thought he caught the faintest tinge of anxiety in the question.

"He had a luncheon engagement," the butler replied calmly. "He is going to meet us at the Sherwood Center."

Alex glanced back again and saw that Dick's placid expression had been replaced with one of worry. The tutor glowered, puzzling again over the adoration with which Dick treated his guardian. Surely he was old and smart enough to begin to perceive what a flake the guy was? Then again, maybe he did, and that was why he was worried.

Alex sighed and settled back into his seat. This whole thing had been his idea. When he had heard of the citywide junior chess competition, he had thought it would be a great opportunity for Dick to get to know some kids his own age with similar interests. Richard Grayson was far too isolated, and if Wayne ruined this experience for him by not showing up, then the spoiled billionaire was going to have Alex Peaceable to deal with.

The large conference room was set up with dozens chessboards, each at its own table. Alfred helped Dick sign in and find his first game, while Alex found their seats. Groupings of chairs had been set up around the perimeter of the room, mostly to be filled by devoted parents, grandparents, and coaches. No one but judges and players was allowed on the floor while the clocks were running. Alex found the three chairs labeled Wayne, which offered a great view of the first table Dick would be playing at.

Alfred sat down in the chair on Alex's right as the mayor's wife delivered a welcome speech. The moderator then announced the rules – the most important being a two minute limit per move – and then the clocks were started.

Dick kept glancing toward the empty chair on Alex's left, and the girl across from was taking full advantage of her opponent's distraction. If he wasn't careful, he could be eliminated in the first round. Get your ass in here, Wayne, Alex thought furiously, just as there was a small commotion at the door.

"I'm sorry, sir, but no one is allowed on the floor while the clocks are running."

"All I want is to just sit down. Look, the rest of my party's right there."

Is that… Alex glanced over at the door. It was.

"I'm sorry, sir, but those are the rules."

Bruce Wayne glared down at the diminutive and increasingly nervous judge. "I just cut a very important engagement to be here, and all I want to do is walk ten steps to that chair right there." His voice rang clearly across the quiet room.

"Bruce, you made it!" The mayor's plump wife hurried up, a little breathless. "Mr. Wayne is one of the event's main sponsors," she told the judge severely. "I think we can bend the rules a little for him." She took Wayne's arm and personally escorted him to the open seat next to Alex.

Dick looked over and grinned when he saw his guardian. Wayne flashed him a double thumbs up, then leaned over to Alex and hissed, "What'd I miss?"

"He opened with a Sicilian Defense, and I think she's working on some variation of a King's Gambit," Alex whispered back.

Wayne looked blank. "Oh."

Alex repressed a sigh and condescended to whisper, "He doesn't seem quite up to his usual game, and his opponent is quite good."

Wayne turned an assessing stare on the chubby, bespectacled girl who sat across from Dick. "Well, she's no Ash Rai," he decided, a little too loudly. "But, hey, who needs beauty when you've got chess skills?"

"Sshhh!" an angry woman behind them hissed.

To Alex's relief, Wayne settled back in his chair and seemed willing to shut up, but then Dick hit his timer and said, "Checkmate."

A judge hurried over and examined the board, then nodded. There was a small scattering of applause, Wayne joining in a little belatedly and much too loudly. Dick's opponent, obviously struggling not to cry, got up and left and was soon replaced by a redheaded boy. Dick finished him off in twelve moves, and yet another kid took the empty seat.

Wayne's eyes had glazed over and he was slumped down in his chair, although he perked up slightly whenever one of the small rounds of applause sounded. At last he pulled out his phone and began texting. This kept him quietly occupied for a few minutes, but before long he gave a quiet chuckle. Alex glanced over to see the billionaire grinning down at his phone. Rolling his eyes, he turned back to the game, doing his best to pretend the person on his left didn't exist. That became rather difficult when, a minute later, Wayne let loose a full bellied guffaw.

"Shhh!" the lady behind them said so fiercely that specks of spit landed on the back of Alex's neck.

Wayne ignored her and nudged Alex in the ribs. "This is good one. These three lawyers walk into a bar…"

"Wayne…"

"…and the first one says to the bartender…"

"Wayne!"

"… 'I'd like a…"

"Wayne, I do not want to hear your stupid joke!" There was a shocked silence, and Alex realized that he had spoken much louder than he had intended. A floor judge, Alfred, and Dick's current opponent were all glaring at him.

"Shhh," Wayne said reprovingly.

For his fourth game, Dick moved to a board on the far side of the room, and Bruce could stop pretending to not pay attention and really zone out. During the past two nights, he had made attempts to track down the criminal trio from the pawnshop. Steady police work on Gordon's part, however, had indicated that the brothers had left the city, putting them out of the Batman's range. Of the woman, neither the police nor the Batman could find anything – not even a rumor on the streets, and that worried Bruce. For the past five years, he had been slowing weeding the remaining agents of the League of Shadows out of the criminal underground of Gotham City, and he had become very familiar with the signs of their presence. One of the most telling was that they worked under so many layers of secrecy, that most of those who worked for them didn't even realize it, and if they were so close that knowledge was unavoidable, they kept their mouths shut.

Bruce suddenly realized that Alex and Alfred had stood and were walking toward the door. He hurried after them and caught up as they met Dick, who was shaking one of the judge's hands. "Better luck next time, young man," the elderly gentleman was saying kindly.

"Thank you, sir," Dick said politely.

Bruce glanced around the room at the other tables. Dick and his partner were the first done. He lost that pretty fast.

"Well, win some, lose some," Peaceable said cheerfully as they left the conference room and headed for the exit. "That last guy must have been pretty tough."

"Yeah," Dick agreed, a little too quickly and brightly. "Like you said, win some, lose some."

Bruce's eyes met Alfred's behind Peaceable's back, and the butler gave a minuscule shrug.

"I told Fox I'd run by the Tower for a few minutes when this was over," Bruce said as they reached the parking lot. "You want to come, chess geek?"

"Yeah!" Dick said happily.

"See you at home, Alfred. 'Bye, Peaceable. I'll have to tell you that joke some other time," Bruce said innocently.

"Goodbye, Mr. Wayne," Alex Peaceable returned, his usual calm once again intact.

Bruce zipped the Saleen S7 out of the parking garage as Dick remarked, "You really got on Alex's nerves today."

Bruce allowed himself a tiny smile. He couldn't deny that he got a deviant enjoyment out of setting the tutor's teeth on edge. Alex Peaceable had had Bruce Wayne condemned, sentenced, and committed before they had even met, and if that prejudice meant that the tutor was particularly open to irritation, well, that wasn't Bruce's fault. He declined to comment, however, and asked instead, "Why did you throw that last game?"

Dick shrugged. "Oh, you know, that guy wanted to win pretty bad and I didn't really care. Besides, I was starting to get tired of it," he confessed. "Those kids weren't very good."

"No, I guess they weren't." Frankly, Bruce thought it had been unfair to send Dick up against normal thirteen-year-olds, but Peaceable had been rather forceful about the proposition.

"Besides, I didn't think it was a good idea for everybody to think that I'm, you know, really smart or anything." Before Bruce could work through the implications of that one, the boy continued, "I thought maybe you weren't going to come."

"I said I would."

"Yeah, but that was before." He didn't have to specify before what.

Bruce frowned into the bright sun as he slipped into a gap between a bus and a Corvette. "Why would that make a difference?"

"I thought you were mad at me. You haven't been talking to me except…in the mornings."

Bruce sighed. "I'm not mad at you. I just…"

"Just what?" Dick insisted.

Abruptly, Bruce made up his mind to be brutally honest. "I wish you didn't want to do this."

Dick was smart enough to realize that the conversation no longer had anything at all to do with chess. "Why not?" he finally asked, sounding stunned.

"Because it turns half your life into hell, and I wanted something better for you."

"I don't believe that."

"Not yet, you don't."

"Are you going to make me stop?" Dick asked, and to his credit there was no pleading in his voice.

"No. But I'm going to try and convince you to stop."

"Ok," Dick said quietly, as the car slid into Bruce's reserved spot at the Tower.

"Are you coming up?"

"I think I'll just wait here, if that's ok."

"Ok," Bruce echoed, and headed for the elevators.

To Be Continued

A/N Yeek! These chapters just get longer and longer! I realize this was another chapter full of character setup, but I think everyone's in position now, so next time we'll see some real action! Although, to be honest, this story is a more contemplative one, so the characters are going to be doing a lot of talking and thinking.

Please review! And like I said, I don't have a lot of action planned for this story, but there's definitely space to work some extra stuff in, so if you have any ideas that you think would work well, let me know!