Author's Note: I want to apologize for many things - namely, the lack of updates and the lack of quality control in this story. I've made several sleepiness-induced mistakes that make me cringe, some of which were pointed out by my oh-so-lovely bevy of reviewers. (Constructive criticism makes me very happy. Without criticism, how does one know what they're doing wrong?) I'll be going back and fixing all those nasty little mistakes when I get a moment. (Not that moments are particularly easy to get - toddlers with unpredictable schedules keep me hopping!) In the meantime, let's press onward!
Jervis Tetch had spent quite a large part of his criminal career developing the art of stealth. His way had always been the way of misdirection and sly manipulation. After all, one could hardly walk up to one's target and politely request that they try on this lovely hat, particularly in this savage age where hats were a rare sight indeed.
His talent for sneakiness had come in handy on numerous occasions. It had helped him ease through Arkham's hallways without being bothered by the guards, it had aided him in easing certain valuable samples of haberdashery out of their museum cases, and it had assisted him mightily in gluing the occasional little 'gift' to the backs of his fellow rogues' necks. (Sadly, it hadn't seemed to help him avoid the following beatings, but such was life.)
At the moment, it was helping him to avoid the thick-necked matron of the halfway house as she argued with a coffee vendor over exactly how much foam should be in her cappuccino. "Surely," she pointed out with a reddening face, "a cup of coffee should be mostly liquid. Surely there should be no more than an inch or two of foam instead of an inch or two of coffee!"
Jervis, hidden uncomfortably in the nearby bushes, tried to pry a twig out from under his kneecap without attracting any attention. Surely she could have picked a better time to buy coffee, his thoughts hissed. Surely she could have come to work at her normal time and saved him the trouble of doing a swan dive into the shrubbery to avoid her.
He leaned backward. The twig under his kneecap stuck stubbornly to his pants while a new group of twigs made friends with the back of his neck. Go away, go away, he thought desperately as the manager of the halfway house bickered stubbornly with the coffee vendor. He's not giving you a refund, he never gives refunds, go away! I don't have time for this!
He was due at the restaurant in...he managed a silent glance at his watch...seven minutes. He could still get there if he left right now. He waited, chewing on his bottom lip, as the argument intensified. Arms flailed in the air as if the combatants were being attacked by invisible bees. Threats were made regarding the safety and hygiene of one another's businesses, coupled by a few cutting remarks about hair and clothing. Finally, with all the grace that she ever showed, the manager flung the cheap paper cup into the street and stalked lividly around the corner. The puddle of offensively foamy coffee dribbled into the sewers.
Jervis exploded out of the bushes, holding his hat firmly onto his head as he pelted down the sidewalk. His other hand beat frantically at his clothing, trying to erase all traces of his little roll in the mud. Four minutes. He could make it. He could make it!
Eleven minutes later, he skidded breathlessly into La Foresta Cafe. A strand of fake ivy promptly whacked him in the face, nearly missing his eye. "Table for one?" the waitress asked, leaning idly on her stand.
"I'm...meeting...someone..." he gasped, straightening his hat.
"Oh." The waitress squinted uselessly at the mounds of foliage that covered every table. "What's he look like?"
"She has brown hair, blue eyes -"
A hand tipped with long red nails shot into the air from a nearby table and beckoned urgently. He nodded stiffly to the waitress and scampered toward the clump of foliage that contained -
"Ms. Dodgson," he beamed, settling himself in the empty chair. "You're looking lovely, as always."
Ms. Dodgson smiled bashfully. "Oh, please, call me Lucy."
"Lucy," he repeated obediently. "And you, of course, must call me Jervis."
"Jervis it is," she said. "Here's your menu...Jervis." She held out a neon-green plastic sheet adorned with a huge plastic flower.
He smiled at her and examined his choices. There was a severe lack of the usual side dishes that accompanied breakfast. There were no potatoes, no tomatoes - ah, but then, there wouldn't be at La Foresta, would there? He had almost forgotten that the place was run by Poison Ivy, which was possibly some sort of early sign of dementia given that the entire place was plastered with plant life.
Oh well. The menu had plenty of animal products. While trying to decide between a ham omelet and steak and eggs, he snuck a casual peek over his menu at his...dared he think it?...his date.
Ms. Dodgson - Lucy - had her eyes fixed firmly on her menu. She was a wonderful woman. It wasn't merely the name, although that had done more to gain his attention than a burning skyscraper full of screaming orphans might have. It wasn't that she had a fabulous body, because she certainly didn't. Plus-size stores and dessert manufacturers would never go out of business while Ms. Dodgson was around.
As depressing as it was to think it, she was probably so interesting because she was the only woman in recent history to ask how he was doing and mean it. She actually cared about him. Why? He wasn't certain. Women didn't tend to cozy up to him unless they wanted something, and given that they were cozying up to him, that something usually tended to be more about mind control than mushy stuff.
But that didn't matter. What mattered was that he was on a date with a woman who was nice to him. As a bonus, she had a beautiful speaking voice. He wondered if she ever cared to read aloud...
Lucy Dodgson examined her would-be beau through the translucent green of her menu. He was sneaking looks at her while pretending to be examining the large red flower atop his menu. It was adorable.
Unlike Jervis, she knew exactly why she enjoyed being in his company. She had gone on dates before, both with men who made disparaging remarks about her weight and men who urged her to eat more in what she could only think of as a hungry fashion. She wasn't quite certain which breed of men made her the most uneasy.
Jervis stood out from these clods like a tulip in a sea of dandelions. He had perfect manners, even when she had first met him as nothing but a nurse who he obviously should have distrusted. He had a British accent, and whether it was real or feigned, she didn't know and didn't care. He was such a sweet, harmless-looking little man...
And yes, he had killed people. Yes, he had taken over the minds of a large section of the Gotham populace. But so what? That was before he began taking his medication. Just because he was mentally ill didn't mean that he was evil. As long as he took his medication, they could be perfectly happy together - and she'd certainly be able to tell if he ever stopped taking it. It would be easy to cajole him back to the land of sanity if he slipped.
He had worked diligently to prove that he was sane, and Lucy was willing to support that with every fiber of her being.
Breakfast arrived surprisingly quickly after they ordered it. It was perhaps a little dry, perhaps a little burned, but neither of them noticed. They toyed with the mildly unappetizing meal as they chatted.
They couldn't discuss many things. The halfway house was not a topic that either of them felt comfortable discussing, given that they were carrying on this conversation in direct defiance of its rules. Jervis' previous place of residence - Arkham - was also out, as well as most of his previous life. His friends (such as they were) his previous job (such as it was) and his life (if one could call it that) were made up almost entirely of things that he didn't care to discuss.
The conversation had drifted to talk of his new job. Breeding lab rats was not particularly exciting, but it had its moments. He'd already suggested one or two changes to the breeding program with regards to the genetic charts in order to make the rats a little less standardized. After all, if labs would pay for normal rats, surely someone out there wanted fat rats, thin rats, and rats that were, say, intelligent enough to drink a doll-sized cup of tea.
Lucy was enthusiastic about his contributions. He obviously cared enough about the job to put some thought into how to improve it, and wasn't that a bold step in the direction of sanity? She took another bite of eggs and nodded happily as Jervis described a particular quirk of rat genetics that he was eager to exploit.
The chat might have gone on all day if it hadn't been for Lucy's pager. When it went off in a flurry of beeping, she glanced at the clock and turned white. "We're late!"
"Let's go," Jervis suggested, rising and offering his hand to help her out of her chair. She beamed and took it, standing up perhaps a touch slower than she could have in order to maintain their contact.
He squeezed her hand softly and released it. "Same time next week?" he said hopefully.
"It's a date," she smiled, scurrying through the piled foliage toward the door.
Jervis picked up the bill and sauntered toward the front door, brushing by a man reading a newspaper with a headline that blared RICHARDSON ELECTED FOR CITY COUNCIL. He paid the waiter, tipped him twice as much as he should have, and headed out to the street with a song in his heart and a smile on his face.
Inside, the man folded his newspaper and quietly tucked it under his arm. Then, without a word, he trailed after the diminutive ex-supervillain.
(to be continued)