When he woke the next morning, she was gone.

After throwing on some fresh clothes, Blake stormed out of his apartment, where Nelya must have dropped him after whatever happened last night, and headed straight to her place. He slammed his car door closed and started the ignition, flooring the accelerator and heading off. The pain had stopped completely and, surprisingly, he noticed how energised he was; enough to run a marathon ten times over.

But he wasn't happy with it. It would be a lie to say that he was annoyed with her for not being there when he woke up. What he was angry about was her telling whoever it was last night that she didn't want him to know what she was going to do. They were in this together, right? Hadn't the kiss meant anything to her? He prepared himself for the worst as he parked a street off and hurried up the stairs.

He knocked four times and waited but when there was no answer he tried the doorknob. Strangely, it opened and he entered slowly, "Nel?" He called.

"Didn't you see the note?" Came an exasperated reply.

She sat at her kitchen table, a mug of hot chocolate sitting in front of her, accompanied by a set of blueprints, not at all bothering to look up from them.

"You left a note?" He took the seat opposite her.

"On your bedside table."

The corner of his mouth kicked up, "Yeah, I saw it. 'Meet me at the cave'? Good one."

A lift of her small shoulder, "Worth a try."

"I heard everything from yesterday."

"He said you might." She finally met his eyes. As expected, she was unreadable.

"You really didn't think you would go without me? Not even a little bit?" He gestured 'little' with his fore-finger and thumb.

She let out a dejected laugh and sat forward in her chair, mug in hand, pressing it against her forehead and sighed, "The moment you were shot, the guy, who the Joker happened to owe a favour to, thought he could get to me to do his dirty work."

Blake blinked, "Wait. So this man staged a fake kidnapping, blew up the top of a building, hired the Joker and had that girl follow you so that you could kill someone for him?"

"If you think that's dramatic, you should have seen the clothes he was wearing."

"Has he ever heard of a phone book?" He incredulously asked.

"Apparently, he didn't actually know I was or how to reach me. The only lead he had was through you."

"But the Joker? Why break him out of Arkham for just that?"

"They're both mysteries." She finally concluded.

There was a moment of quiet before Blake decided to pipe up, "So, where are we going?"

"You realise he's sending me there to kill someone, right?" Emphasising her point, she gestured between them with her mug, "And you, Mr 'I'm-going-to-take-over-Batman's-mantle-or-die-trying', want to come with me? I sense a confliction of morality."

"Says the girl who vowed to never kill a soul but still ended up doing it."

"Touché." She conceded.

"And I ask again, where are we going?"

A full minute passed as she studied him, jutting her lip out when she concluded that there was no convincing him to do otherwise. Clearly, this was one person she couldn't have her way with all the time; but some part of her realised that she liked it.

Turning the map over, she pointed directly at where the target was, "Russia, ."

"At least it's extra cold this time of year." He commented, looking over the snowy caps in, essentially, the middle if nowhere. Then a thought came to him, "You're not really going to kill him, are you?"

"Of course not. I'm going to threaten whoever he is into playing dead which gives me enough time to put my 'employer' away for good." She stated matter-of-factly.

Blake scratched his chin, "And you still don't know who this 'employer' is?"

"I think I'm happy with him not knowing who I am than me knowing who he is. Anyway, a little investigation won't hurt anyone."

"Seems like you have everything worked out, when do we leave?"

The weapons producer had already brought up the money to fund for only her private flight to Moscow and subsequent travel to the Russian Sakhalin Island but after much deliberation, with Vera acting as messenger, he coughed up the funds for Blake too.

A large part of the deal was for Nelya to remain anonymous throughout. As for her partner, though the criminals knew his face, after Blake quit from his role as detective his public record was declared private and even with the resources the group had, they would never be able to find his identity.

But while she was packing, she began to think. Despite her being a thinker born and bred these particular thoughts had almost steered her away from carrying this whole scheme out. She was well into her three month Christmas break at university and wondered if she's be back in time. Her job was at the same place too.

Blake had recently set up a private investigating business with special 'techniques' that may happen to include some bat-like characteristics but how long could he go for until things started to get a bit tight? She pursed her lips and looked down at her mask. No, she would have to go through with it. They wouldn't have had to make the deal if Blake hadn't needed the transfusion but the thing was that he did need it. And if that meant going halfway across the world to make sure they wouldn't go after them then so be it.

They had to meet early the next morning at the group's aircraft facility not too far from the west end of Gotham, Nelya in her mask and Blake with sunglasses and a wide scarf covering most of his face. They were led onto a jet that would drop them in Moscow on more than a ten hour flight. After that, they had to travel by the Trans-Siberian Railway across East Russia and then take a ferry to the island.

Simple.