A/N Woot! Having officially completed my first year in the PhD program (I even got an A+ this semester. It kind of cracks me up that they still give A+es in grad school), I have been laboring like Hercules to bring you this very special, start-of-summer-mega-double-chapter event! And not only am I posting two, yes, 2 chapters at the same time, but all readers who review both chapters will receive a special bonus: A just for fun AU rewrite of the end of the last chapter. (You know, the part where Darla bursts in with news of the murder just as Barbara's about to kiss Rick?) Have fun!

Disclaimer Um … I know there's something that's supposed to go here, but I can't think what it might be …

Chapter 17

A joke, even if it be a lame one, is nowhere so keenly relished or quickly applauded as in a murder trial. – Mark Twain

Gordon sat at his desk with his head in his hands, staring bleakly at the array of photos before him. He'd stared at the Riddler's crime scenes so many times that he could see them just as well with his eyes shut, but he kept looking, hoping that he'd see that one vital clue that would tell them how to find this guy.

Sarah slipped into the office and sat down across from him. "Again?" she asked softly.

"We have to be missing something. It's impossible that we have this many crime scenes and not know more than we do."

Sarah shook her head, not fooled by the line. "Jim, are you sleeping at all?"

"Since Barbara's wedding ring turned up on Commissioner Loeb's body? No, not really. If she'd just let me put the damn tail back on!"

"You can't blame her for getting tired of being followed all the time. She's smart and she knows he might be coming for her. She'll be ok."

He only groaned and slumped lower in his chair. "And I used to think her boyfriend was a major problem."

Sarah smiled slightly and pulled a folder full of pictures toward her. "You know, there's one aspect of these crime scenes that we haven't really discussed."

"What's that?"

"Escalation. He is escalating as far as his message is concerned. His victims are definitely becoming more high profile. But what about the level of violence?"

Gordon leaned back in his chair and stared thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "First victim was tortured extensively before he was killed. Next three were executed with a single shot, and so was Loeb. No torture. So what does that tell us?"

"Obviously, that he doesn't have to torture them. And maybe …" She paused, frowning. "Maybe that he doesn't have to kill them, either. If he has a need to kill, then there's no way he would deescalate like this. But if this is solely about sending a message …"

Gordon nodded slowly. "So why torture only the first victim? Why torture him at all? It wasn't a necessary part of illustrating the riddle."

"Could be there was something different about him. Maybe in addition to this crusade he's on, it was also personal. We should go over all of Osmond's connections again. See if anyone at all suspicious turns up."

"That could be it. Or maybe …" Gordon chewed furiously on the end of his mustache. "Maybe he originally envisioned torture as part of the message, but dropped it after the first time out. Could be he decided the message was more effective without it. Or that he simply couldn't afford to spend so much time at the next crime scenes. But whatever the reason, he decided it wasn't necessary for the message. Whatever that is."

Sarah met his eyes evenly. "I think we both have a pretty good idea of what that message might be."

Gordon's mouth tightened, but before he could reply, O'Hara burst through the door. "Commissioner, we've got a body."

"With a riddle?" Gordon snapped, sweeping the files together and standing hastily.

"We're not sure yet, but we just got several 911 calls. It's …"

O'Hara hesitated and Gordon glanced at him sharply. "What is it?"

"Sir, it's at Bailey."

For the briefest fraction of a second the world blacked out. Gordon stumbled and caught himself on the corner of the desk. "Who?" Barbara! Oh dear God, not again.

O'Hara looked miserable. "All we know is that we just got calls from a dozen hysterical kids saying there's a body in the gym."

"I'll drive," Sarah said grimly, coming around the desk to take his arm. "Jim?"

At her touch his paralysis evaporated, and he found that he could not only walk but run. Sarah's wheels skidded as she pulled out of the precinct parking lot, lights and siren blazing. Gordon fumbled with his cell phone, screwing up the speed dial twice before he managed to get his daughter's number blinking on the screen. It rang once and cut to voicemail. He ended the call and dialed again. And again. Turn on your phone, honey, please turn on your phone. He didn't realize he was saying it out loud until Sarah suddenly reached it over and plucked the phone from his hand.

"She might have turned it off for any of a dozen reasons," she said evenly. "Calling it when it's off isn't going to do any good. We need you to focus."

"He had her mother's wedding ring and it's Valentine's Day!" Gordon shouted. "Don't you tell me to focus!" He buried his face in his hands, shaking.

"There's been a murder!" Darla sobbed.

For an instant, Rick's mind blanked in shock. Then training kicked in and he automatically scanned the crowd, registering reactions. Most of the students appeared completely stunned. Johnny's jaw actually dropped as he gaped at his hostess. Barbara was white-faced and wide-eyed, Trevor unexpectedly grim, with a clenched jaw.

"It fell from the ceiling," Darla was wailing. "The blood spattered everywhere."

Everyone stared at the crimson streak on her dress, and then Tracy started screaming, her hands covering her eyes. Rick grabbed his remaining possessions off the table and stuffed them into his pockets, ready to join the sudden stampede toward the door. But the rush of the crowd pushed the shaken Darla off her feet, and she staggered forward, running into him. He caught her automatically and knew immediately that this wasn't a cheap ploy like her earlier tripping on the stairs. She was shaking uncontrollably and didn't really seem to recognize him as he helped her into a chair. His hand brushed against the slick red stain on her shoulder, and he grimaced as he looked at his wet palm, then frowned. Bringing his hand to his nose, he sniffed. It was acrid and chemical and definitely not blood.

Abandoning Darla to a knot of girls who had chosen to stay behind with the hysterical Tracy, he ran out of the room and up the stairs. Long before he reached the door behind the bleachers, he could hear screams and shouts, and when he finally made it to the gym, everybody seemed half hysterical with panic. He could hear a couple of teachers yelling for everybody to calm down, but another chaperone was cowering behind the refreshments table. There was blood, or paint, everywhere, marking grisly spatter patterns across the pink decorations.

It was wasn't difficult to spot the body. It dangled from the roof, swaying well above head level, a splash of scarlet soaking its white shirt front. Stabbed and then hung? Rick wondered, his eyes following the rope up to its invisible origin. A crawl space for lighting maintenance? As he worked his toward that end of the gym, he scanned the crowd, watching again for anyone whose reaction seemed slightly out of place. A lot of girls, and a few of the boys, were crying. Everyone was frightened, excited. Except … His eyes fell on Johnny, who was standing close beneath the swaying body, regardless of the occasional drip that sailed out from its gentle arc, his expression one of pure fury.

Rick observed him for a few seconds, then allowed his gaze to travel on. More tears, more terror, more hysterical excitement. He found Barbara standing with Trevor on the sidelines, and with a slight shock realized that they were doing the same thing he was—watching. Barbara started to turn, and Rick hurriedly turned away so that she wouldn't catch him observing her. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cell phone and called the house.

Bruce answered. "Hello?"

"It's me. Hey, um, there's kind of a body in the gym."

"What?!"

"Don't worry, I mean, it's a fake. I think somebody's pulling a major prank. But lots of people are panicking, and I didn't want you to worry or anything if you heard about it."

"I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Ok."

Rick started to drop his cell phone back in his pocket, then thought better of it and started snapping pictures of the crowd, unobtrusively sweeping the whole room, as he made his way toward Mr. Davis. The Life Skills teacher was bellowing ineffectively at the panicky crowd, doing his part to make things worse.

"Excuse me, Mr. Davis?"

The teacher spun, and snapped, "What is it Grayson? Can't you see we have an emergency here?"

"The blood is fake."

Mr. Davis stared at him uncomprehendingly. "What?"

"The blood dripping out of the body," Rick patiently elaborated. "It's fake." He offered his palm with the now dried red smear.

Mr. Davis looked at it, then knelt and stuck his finger in a red drop. He sniffed, and then his eyes widened. "You're right." Throwing his arms in the air he bellowed again, "Everybody calm down! The body is a fake!"

This time, people listened. A startled hush spread across the gym as everyone turned to look at the horrible thing dangling from the ceiling. Nearby, a teacher who had been sobbing hysterically into her hands suddenly regained her self-possession and started herding students into some semblance of order along the bleachers.

Rick, with the help of some subtle maneuvering, managed to place himself next to Johnny, who was still staring at the ceiling with undisguised loathing. "You ok, man? You look pretty upset."

"Upset?" Johnny snapped. "Of course I'm upset." He finally tore his gaze away from the dangling corpse and glared at Rick. "Don't you realize that whoever pulled this off is the greatest prankster in the history of Bailey? Next to this, spaghetti is nothing. It's … it's worse than nothing. Gah!" he ended, in a strangled cry of frustration.

So that was it. Johnny's bid to become school prankster had been a miserable failure, and now someone else had seized the title, probably for good. "How'd you know it was a prank?" Rick asked curiously.

"Hello? Fake blood? I would have thought even these morons would have figured it out."

"I guess they just panicked."

Rick went back to watching the teachers restoring some kind of order in the gym, and by the time the police burst in two minutes later (just ahead of the first wave of hysterical parents), everybody was more or less calm and quiet.

To be more accurate, the cops were the first wave of hysterical parents. Commissioner Gordon was the first one into the gym, and his wild, anxious gaze tore through the gym until it found the form of his daughter. The aging cop actually ran across the wooden court.

Rick, who was close enough to overhear the conversation, heard him gasp out, "Barbara, honey, why didn't you answer your phone?"

Barbara, staring in horror at her father's white face, stammered, "I didn't even think, I turned it off. I should have … Daddy, I'm so sorry!" She threw her arms around his neck, and he held her tightly, burying his face for a moment against her shining hair.

"I thought I'd lost you like I'd lost your mother," he said softly as he released her.

"Oh Dad …"

"She's been right with me, sir, the whole time," Trevor offered.

Gordon reached out and grasped his shoulder. "Thank you," he said simply. Then, dropping his hand, he added, "I got to get to work. You two keep together."

"We will," Barbara promised.

"So that's disturbing," someone commented casually, and Rick turned to find Bruce gawking up at the fake corpse, looking half fascinated and half repulsed.

"Yeah, it made quite a splash."

"Literally," his guardian commented, looking at a long splatter of red that was not part of the Valentines decorations on a nearby table.

"You got here fast."

Bruce shrugged modestly. "Well, it's not every day I get to speed to the scene of a murder, even if it's only a fake one. Besides, I wanted to beat—"

"Brian!" someone screamed. "Brian! Where's my son? Brian, Brian, I know he's dead, I know he's—"

"I'm right here, Mom," an embarrassed voice called out, and the nerdy freshman Rick had spotted earlier with Amanda hurried forward.

Fortunately for him, the embarrassing spectacle of his mother throwing her arms around him and sobbing hysterically was soon swallowed up in a wave of parents, some hysterical, some angry, and all very determined to find their kids now.

"Them," Bruce finished belatedly. "Although I guess I missed my chance for a big entrance." Throwing his arms wide, he exclaimed dramatically, "Richard, Richard, I can't believe you're safe!"

He tried to pull his ward into a hug, but Rick ducked away, looking embarrassed. "Knock it off, will you? This is serious, the cops are here."

"What, you're too cool to be hugged in front of all your friends?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am."

"Oh Rick, isn't it horrible? Who would think this was funny?" Amanda rushed up to them, her blond curls escaping out of her elaborate hairdo and giving her a frazzled look.

Bruce looked at her thoughtfully. "You must be Amanda."

She turned to him, wide-eyed, as though she'd had no idea he was there. "Oh, hello Mr. Wayne. How do you know my name?"

"Richard's mentioned you a time or two."

"Oh!" Amanda looked both flustered and pleased.

Rick looked daggers at his guardian, but before he could think of a way to either get even with Bruce or discourage Amanda, Darla and Tracy appeared, both still sniffling, their arms wrapped supportively around each other.

"Here, Rick, you forgot this," Darla said, offering a wavering smile and holding out his bow tie.

Bruce's eyebrows moved fractionally upward, but before he could become inquisitive, Rick said quickly, "Hey, thanks."

He reached to take the tie, but she pulled it back at the last second. "Let me tie it for you, I do it for my dad all the time."

"Thanks," he muttered, not feeling entirely grateful as she buttoned the top button on his shirt and threaded the tie around his neck.

"Does that look even, Trace?" she asked, and the other cheerleader stepped close to offer her advice. At this range, Rick noticed that they had both found time to repair their makeup after their hysterics.

Amanda was glaring helplessly and Bruce was grinning as he said, "While you're, uh, busy, I think I'll go get a closer look at the body.

Rick enviously watched him saunter away, as Darla and Tracy began arguing over whether the loops of the bow were exactly the same.

Gordon slumped over his desk, staring woefully at his phone. Any minute the mayor was going to call, and Gordon didn't have any answers for him.

The incident at Bailey the night before had born all the marks of a prank, yes, but there had also been a riddle pinned to the chest of the dummy.

A one branch tree,
With nary a leaf,
Grows profusely
A crop of grief.

The riddles were a piece of evidence that had never been released to the media, that no one but a select group of the police force should have known about. It was possible the real Riddler had arranged the whole scenario, which might fit in with Sarah's puzzling observation about the de-escalation of his crimes. It would be nice if it were true. It might mean that the guy was through killing real people.

But there was also the distinct possibility that they had a leak, that the prankster at Bailey was only a copycat, and Gordon's gut feeling was promising him that this was the case. In the first place, the body hadn't fit the riddle. Oh sure, it had been hung, and the riddle's answer, as O'Hara informed him, was a gallows. But there had been all that fake blood, projected through a slit in the chest by a small pump, activated by the force of the dummy hitting the end of his rope. The purpose of the blood had been simply to cause the crowd to panic. That was very unlike the other crime scenes, where details added by the killer had always been for the purpose of illustrating the riddle. And in the second place, the "victim" had no relationship to the wedding ring clue left at the scene of the last crime. In fact, the dummy apparently represented no specific person, and certainly not an enemy of Batman.

The rest of the evidence was inconclusive. The riddle had been printed from a school machine, but not the same one as the others. And the crime had happened on a holiday, but it was coincidence that it had been a Friday so that the dance had been held on the exact date. Was the date or the dance more important?

If it was true that it was only a copycat, it meant not only that he had a leak in his most trusted team of investigators, but that Barbara was still in danger. It was also true he had no suspects for the role of incredibly sophisticated prankster. There was one kid the school authorities had immediately suspected – John Zorello, currently on suspension for another practical joke and who had been on the premises last night. But an interview had led his detectives to believe the kid was innocent (although he wished he wasn't). There were also three dozen witnesses who could put him elsewhere at the time the dummy came swinging down from the ceiling, although he might have had an accomplice.

Which brought Gordon to the other kid the principal had told him might have been involved in Zorello's first prank: Richard Grayson. Although as commissioner he really shouldn't be handling field work anymore, Gordon was sorely tempted to undertake that interview himself.

His wife had often accused him of undue partiality where Bruce Wayne was concerned, and Gordon admitted to himself that it was still true, would probably always be true. No matter what stupid exploit the rest of the city was shaking its collective head over, Gordon could only see the small boy shivering in the dark. When they had come into the light of the police station, the kid had seen the blood on his hands, and had gone half ballistic trying to wipe it off. Gordon still dreamt about it once in a while, only sometimes the kid in his dream was Bruce Wayne, and sometimes it was one of his own. Either way, he woke up in a cold sweat and always had trouble going back to sleep.

Apparently, though, he was the only one who still suffered from dreams. Last night, Wayne had seemed unaffected by the red spattered gym, climbing up to the top of the bleachers so he could get a better look at the gory dummy. But still … there was something about the man that always seemed off, hollow, to Gordon. Like something in him had been crushed that night Thomas and Martha Wayne were shot, forever stunting his growth.

Sentimental and blind, he told himself crossly, and was startled out of his reflections as the phone finally rang.

Ten painful minutes later, Gordon heard the mayor hang up and gratefully set his own phone back in its cradle. The mayor was understandably upset, especially given his own wife's involvement, and nothing Gordon had to tell him made him any happier.

There was a soft knock on the door, and through the glass wall Gordon could see the bulky form of O'Hara. "Come in," he called.

The police chief entered, but stood back from the desk hesitatingly, a folder clutched in his beefy hands.

"What is it?" Gordon demanded impatiently.

"Well, sir, the media releases on the prank last night."

"Bad?"

"About what we expected. But there was one thing I, uh, I thought maybe you should see." O'Hara dropped the folder on the desk as though it were hot and hurried back toward the door. "I'm just going to go back down to the crime lab and see what progress they've made on the dummy."

Wondering what could have made the usually stolid O'Hara so nervous, Gordon flipped open the folder and found himself looking at a special edition of Gotham Gossip. "Killer Prankster Strikes Prep School" was the headliner on the cover, and beneath it was a Photoshop enhanced pictured of the hanging dummy. A series of sub-headlines read: "Terror in the gym!" "One Mother's Story: 'I thought I'd never see my son again!'" "The cool kids partied elsewhere – could they be responsible?" "Shocking showdown over the Police Commissioner's daughter!"

Gordon snapped upright in his chair, gaping at the last line in disbelief. What the … If Trevor has anything to do with this, I'll wring his … He flipped open to the yellow post-it marker and stared in disbelief at the array of pictures of his daughter, her boyfriend, and Richard Grayson in a pair of ducky boxers.

"Master Wayne!"

Alfred voice drifted dimly through Bruce's unconscious haze, but he decided to ignore it.

"Commissioner Gordon is here to see Richard."

"What?" The billionaire's eyes flew open and he sat up. "About last night?"

"He said so, but I suspect there's something else in the wind as well. The Commissioner seemed extraordinarily tense."

Bruce rubbed his bleary eyes and tried to think. "Something happened last night Richard didn't tell us?"

"I think it's possible."

"Barbara Gordon," Bruce said in resignation. "Of all the girls in that school, why did it have to be her?"

"Don't be too hard on him. If I were fifty years younger, I'd probably be in love with her myself."

Bruce sighed and rolled out of bed. "I'll be down in five minutes."

True to his word, five minutes later Bruce met Richard in front of the library door. Examining his ward's stoic face, he asked carefully, "Is there anything you want to tell me before we go in there?"

"No," the teenager said briefly, and opened the door.

Bruce grimaced and followed him in. Their cover-up banter last night in the gym hadn't done anything to defrost the icy atmosphere that had lingered between them since the fight in the batcave, and whatever was about to happen with the Commissioner probably wouldn't help the situation.

What did you do, kid? Bruce wondered as he took in Gordon's sharp glare, the one he usually reserved for interrogating really ugly suspects. And he didn't offer anything more than a cursory nod in greeting before waving them into chairs, as though this were his station and not Bruce's house. Out of the corner of his eye, Bruce saw Alfred slip into the room and take an unobtrusive seat near the door.

The interview started out innocuously enough. At Gordon's request, Richard briefly related the events of the evening before. He had been at a secondary party in the basement, playing poker, when Darla Carson had run in screaming about murder. He'd realized the blood on her dress was fake, and when he got upstairs, he'd told a teacher.

"Did you see anything suspicious during the evening? Anything that would suggest who did this?"

"No."

"Do you know John Zorello?"

"Yeah. Johnny and I are … kind of friends."

"Do you think he had anything to do with the prank?"

"Johnny likes pranks, but … he was standing right across from me when Darla ran in, and he looked really, like, shocked. I think he was really surprised."

"Have you ever been involved in any of Johnny's pranks?"

"Just as a victim."

"Did you have anything to do with the body in the gym?"

"No, sir."

Bruce frowned. Did the police have evidence they thought connected Richard to the crime? Don't tell me I'll have to sort out that bungle on top of everything else!

Gordon pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and held it up. "This yours?"

"Looks like it. I gave it to the police last night when they asked for all the phones and cameras."

Gordon opened it and clicked to the photos file. "You took quite a few pictures last night, Richard. The funny thing is, you took them all right after the body fell out of the ceiling, and you didn't take pictures of anything else all night. You want to tell me about that?"

Bruce waited in sudden tension for the answer, but he shouldn't have worried. Still perfectly calm, Richard shrugged and said, "I took those for the police. In those crime shows on TV the cops always want to take a lot of pictures right after a crime's been committed in case the criminal stuck around to watch. So I thought I could do the same thing. Did they help?"

Gordon hesitated, then nodded. "I'm sure they will. You can have your phone back." He tossed it the small distance between the chairs, and Rick caught it neatly.

"Are we done?" Bruce asked hopefully.

"Not quite yet, Mr. Wayne. I'd like to ask just a few more questions about that party in the basement. That is, if Richard doesn't mind."

The last statement was heavy with sarcasm, but Richard responded anyway. "Sure. I mean, it was supposed to be this big secret tradition, but I think that's kind of blown now."

"You could say that." Gordon settled back in his chair, and although he seemed more relaxed, Bruce was reminded of a cat waiting silently by a mouse hole. "This party happens every year?"

"That's what Johnny said. This was my first year."

"How did you find out about it?"

"Darla was playing the hostess, and she came up and found me in the gym and took me downstairs."

"Did you take a date with you?"

"No sir. She … got sick at the last minute."

There was a fraction of hesitation in the sentence, and Bruce's jaw clenched in sudden anger. Alfred had relayed his conversation with Matthew Fredricks.

Gordon had also noticed the hesitation, and he examined the boy with narrowed eyes before proceeding to his next question. "What was going on at the party?"

"Johnny had it set up like a mini-casino. You could play blackjack, craps, or poker."

"Who was there?"

"A lot of people. I'm pretty sure they were all students."

"Was there alcohol?"

"Yes."

"Were you drinking?"

"No, sir."

Gordon drew the next silence out, and Bruce fervently wished he would just get to the point. Watching Richard being interrogated was more stressful than he had anticipated.

"And which did you play, Richard? Blackjack? Craps? Or Poker?"

"All three."

"I hear you had a pretty lucky night. Broke the blackjack bank, didn't you?"

"It was a good night," Richard admitted.

Wait a minute. Bruce frowned, trying to remember. Didn't he and Alex have an agreement about gambling?

"And you finished up with poker."

"Yes."

"Who did you play poker with, Richard?"

"Uh …" Richard frowned, as if trying to remember. "Erik Homkes, Jacob Hill, Scott Brabon, Melissa Norris, and Trevor Wren."

"Did my daughter play at any point?"

"Not while I was at the table."

Here it comes, thought Bruce.

"Then would you mind telling me how you ended up betting against her in your underwear?"

"You did what?" Bruce burst out.

Richard jerked around toward him. "Man, don't even start with me."

For a dangerous moment, their private feud bubbled dangerously close to the surface, and then Gordon helpfully offered a magazine. "It's all over the tabloids this morning."

Bruce examined the pictures and suddenly laughed. "Duckies? Really?"

Neither Richard nor Gordon looked amused, so he resumed a properly sober expression, but inwardly he was relieved. If this was only a matter of a media blowup, it would soon die away, as he well knew from personal experience. And from the looks of the photos, this was exactly the kind of thing Bruce himself might have pulled.

"I'm waiting for an explanation," Gordon reminded them, his expression beginning to look dangerous, and Bruce realized that he had switched fully out of cop mode into the more dangerous protective father mode.

For the first time since the questions had begun, Richard looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Uh, sir, it might be better if you talked to Barbara instead of me."

"Oh I will talk to her. But right now, I'd really like to hear your side of the story."

Richard drew a deep breath and began to talk too quickly. "So we're playing poker, right, and everyone else drops out except me and the Tren … I mean Trevor. And I've kind of won his last chip, and then Barbara says she'll put up a kiss for Trevor's bet, and Johnny said it was legit, but he made me decide how much it was worth, and so like, I just put everything I had into the pot, right, because it felt weird trying to like, put a price on a girl like that. And that's what happened." He fell silent and stared sulkily down at the floor.

Bruce's glance flickered from his embarrassed ward to the inscrutable face of the Commissioner as the silence stretched out. He was about to intervene when Gordon demanded, "Who won?"

"I did," Rick muttered.

There was a beat of silence and then the Commissioner rose to his feet. "Good for you, kid." Rick looked up in surprise, but before he could say anything, Gordon continued, "Those are all the questions I have for now. My people may be in touch again later. Thanks for your time, Mr. Wayne, Richard." He strode toward the library door that Alfred held open.

Bruce watched the door shut behind his unknowing ally and turned to find Richard glaring at him. "Now what did I do?" he exclaimed in exasperation.

"Aren't you going to yell at me or something?"

"For what? You handled that well. Heck, I may start hiring you to do my PR work."

"Oh." Rick's hostile look faded. "You're not mad?"

"About the strip poker? The card counting? The publicity?"

"Yeah."

Bruce shrugged. "No." After a moment he asked carefully, "Is that really what happened with Barbara?"

"Pretty much." Rick grimaced. "It was really awkward. The only thing I could think of to do was turn it into a joke."

"The Commissioner seemed to like your explanation."

"I don't think he likes Trevor," Rick replied slowly.

It was the longest conversation they'd had in days, and Bruce felt suddenly hopeful that they had somehow negotiated a ceasefire, but he carefully didn't comment on it or even look at his ward, instead flipping through the magazine Gordon had left behind. "I wonder what their source is. The police collected all the cameras, didn't they?"

"Somebody probably emailed out the pictures before their camera got confiscated."

"It could be useful to know who."

"I could hack into their system," Rick offered.

Bruce nodded. "Do it. I doubt it's hard. I'll join you as soon as I've had some breakfast."

Alfred reentered the library. "I thought you and Alex had reached an agreement about gambling," he said, pinning Rick with a stern gaze.

Rick shifted in his chair, looking slightly guilty. "Alfred, this wasn't a real casino. And it's not like I even got to keep anything I won."

"Your classmates played with you in good faith. How will they feel if they learn the truth?"

"Alfred, considering everything that happened last night, I don't think they're really going to care who won the poker game, especially since gambling is illegal on school property and the money will all be redistributed anyway," Bruce interjected, sending a pleading look at his butler. For the first time in almost a week he's actually talking to me. Please, don't screw that up.

"I'm going to get started on that project," Rick said hurriedly and ducked out of the room before Alfred could continue his lecture.

Bruce looked at the older man accusingly. "I thought you said not to be too hard on him."

"That was before I knew what he'd done."

"So what? I've done far worse, and at your instigation, I might add. You were the one who said, 'Drive fast cars, date movie stars.' The pictures really aren't that bad."

"I didn't say, use your talents to dupe innocent children out of their money, and it's not the pictures I'm worried about."

"I don't think it was about the money. Trevor is dating Barbara Gordon."

"Yes. And Richard was unscrupulously selfish. That is what concerns me," Alfred said sharply, and left.

Sunday night, Rick lay flat on his back, moodily staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom, brooding over the Valentines dance. Although outwardly he was trying to remain as collected and casual as always, inwardly he was a conflicted tangle. From Mr. Fredricks' unfair judgment, to his own behavior at the casino party, to Barbara's manipulative wager, to Alfred's disappointment and Bruce's easy acceptance of the card counting, he couldn't decide what he felt or thought about anything. Usually he could cope with a little confusion, taking things as they came, but this was just too much. And never before had he felt so unable to talk to either Alfred or Bruce.

His phone rang and he picked it up immediately, relieved by the distraction. The lighted screen read Niko and he answered eagerly, hoping for an invitation that would take him out of the house. "Hey," he said easily as he pressed Talk, but it was a girl's voice who demanded, "Hi, can you come over?"

"Ariadne?" he asked cautiously.

"I am the only girl who lives with Niko, excluding my mother, who has no reason to call you," she said cheerfully. "So can you come?"

"Right now?"

"In an hour. I need some help with a project, and Niko's out, even though he was supposed to stay home with me."

Rick rolled his eyes, but asked anyway, "What kind of project? For school?"

"Why would I call you about schoolwork? It's a project like Mrs. Purcell."

"Another flea collar?"

"Something better. Please?"

"Fine," he sighed. "I suppose I have nothing better to do. I'll see you in about an hour."

"Great," she enthused and hung up.

When he arrived at the Pappas apartment, there was a faint smell of chocolate in the air. It took Ari a minute to open the door after his knock, and despite the splashing that filled the interval, she still had streaks of icing on her arms, her face, and her hair.

"Come in!" she beamed, throwing the wide the door.

"Aren't you even going to ask who I am?" he asked, hurrying in so that too much heat wouldn't escape into the freezing stairwell. "I could be a burglar or something."

"Don't be silly, obviously I know it's you. I smelled you."

"Oh. Sorry about that." Rick lifted his arm and sniffed speculatively, trying to remember if he had showered that morning.

"I didn't mean you smell. I meant you have a smell. Everybody does, only most people don't notice."

"Oh," Rick was distracted from the ramifications of this information by the sight of the kitchen table. In the center rested a lopsided, double layer chocolate cake. He knew it was chocolate because the icing was spread patchily, and he thought there might be more of it on Ariadne than on the cake.

"How does it look?" she asked anxiously. "It's only my second cake, and mama helped with the first one."

"It's, uh, fine. I mean, maybe the icing needs to be smoothed out a little."

She sighed. "I know. I don't have trouble with the baking, but I never get the icing right, because I can't feel to see where it's already gone. I mean I could, but then there would be fingerprints all over the cake, which some people object to. Like Stinko Niko."

"Where is he, anyway?"

"Skatz's club, and he wouldn't take me."

"Well, you had this project to do, right?" Rick offered diplomatically.

"Yes. And it's important," she said firmly. "Can you fix the icing?"

"I'll try. I've never actually done this before," he admitted, picking up a sticky knife and trying to push the top layer of the cake so that it rested evenly on its base. "You have chocolate all over your face, by the way."

Muttering under her breath, she trotted off to the bathroom, while Rick awkwardly smoothed the icing over the cake's bald patches. By the time Ari returned, damp but clean, the cake looked less like something the cat had dragged in and more like something you would want to eat.

"Is it finished?" she asked eagerly.

"Yeah, I think it's pretty good," he announced, setting down the knife and feeling pleased with himself.

"Good. Here's a box. Try not to get the icing on the sides."

Rick carefully maneuvered the cake on its paper plate into the box. "Now what?"

"Now you have to write a note."

"Why don't you write it? It's your cake."

"Oh sure, I'll just type it up in Braille, because that wouldn't be a dead giveaway."

"Right. What do you want it to say?" he asked, accepting the notebook and pen she thrust at him.

"Good luck, Mr. Rivera. And sign it—"

"A friend of Batman, I know."

"Mr. Rivera's been going to night school so he can be a CPA, and his big test is tomorrow."

"Does he live in your building?"

"No. He's a friend of Hector's. We'll have to take the train to get there."

"The train!" Rick protested. "It's dark and freezing out there."

"You're not scared, are you?"

"I'm just smart enough to know it's not a good idea to take little girls for walks in Gotham late at night."

"Just because I'm short, it doesn't mean I'm a little girl."

Rick ignored her. "Where's your mom?"

"She is at a wake with my father and won't be back until very late."

"What about Demetrios?" he asked desperately. "You shouldn't leave him here alone."

"He's at a friend's house for the night. Come on, Rick, it's just a little train ride."

"Yeah, the last time I went somewhere with you, we ended up cornered by a gang."

"Don't worry, it's a big night at the club. All Skatz's guys will be there."

"There are other gangs," he pointed out, irritated by her persistence.

"We're not going to a bad section of town," she pleaded, "and Mr. Rivera takes his test tomorrow. We have to deliver it tonight."

He gave up. "All right, but I'll go by myself. You're staying here."

Fifteen minutes later, Ari tightened her grip on his arm and sniffed the air. "It's nice out tonight, isn't it? No wind."

Rick stared at her bitterly and didn't answer. He still wasn't sure exactly how she had gotten her way, except that she could argue longer and harder than anyone else he knew. "Are you sure you know where we're going?"

"Yes, I went there once with Hector."

Rick remained dubious, but she did know exactly what train to get on and which stop was theirs. She remained silent for most of the train ride, something he considered a minor miracle, but as they left the stop and headed down the street, she asked, "Did you have a nice Valentine's Day?"

"Not really," he muttered.

"Did your girlfriend dump you?"

"Kind of," Rick said briefly.

"She's stupid then. You're nice. You're the only person I know who would actually be out here with me tonight."

Rick scowled. "Stop trying to flatter me and don't get used to it. I just didn't have anything better to do."

That silenced her until they reached the duplex where the Riveras lived.

"Are there lights on?" Ari asked eagerly, straining her face toward the house. "Does it look like they're home?"

"Yeah, a couple of windows are lit."

"Ok, put the cake on the porch, knock on the door and run away."

Rick rolled his eyes, but did as she ordered. They crouched behind a garbage can and Rick watched as a woman came out and picked up the box. "She's gone," he announced finally, standing up.

"That went perfectly," she enthused as they walked back toward the train stop. "Usually I don't mind being blind, but sometimes it's really a pain. You make good eyes, though."

"Thanks. I think."

"You're welcome," Ari chimed, swinging around a corner and pulling him down a new street.

Rick tried to slow her down, grabbing her arm. "Hold on, this isn't the way back to the train."

"I know. But Skatz's club is only five blocks away, so I thought we could pick up Niko on the way back."

Rick stopped dead in the middle of the icy sidewalk. "No."

"Oh come on, it's super close. Niko shouldn't stay out this late anyway."

"No," Rick repeated.

"Fine, I'll go by myself." She pulled her collapsible cane out of her coat pocket and unsnapped it. "Thanks for your help. Goodbye."

He grabbed both her arms before she had taken two steps. "If I let you go to that club, Niko is going to kill me." He tugged on her arm, but she obstinately planted her feet.

"I'll tell him it was all my idea."

"Yeah, considering I led you out here, I don't think your taking the blame will affect how hard he hits me. Come on!"

"No."

"Fine," Rick snapped, heaved her over his shoulder, and started hiking back toward the train stop.

"Put me down!" she shrieked, and he winced as she delivered a sharp blow with her cane across his legs.

Reaching back around, he yanked it out of her hand. "Stop yelling."

"If you don't put me down, I'm going to scream out that I'm being kidnapped!"

"If you do that, they'll call the police, and they will call your mother."

Ari immediately stopped wiggling, and then she said in an angry voice, "Put me down at least. I'll go back to the stupid train."

She was as good as her word, but maintained a frosty silence until they were climbing the stairs to the apartment. She stopped abruptly between the second and third floors and declared, "I'm sorry. You were really nice to help me, and I shouldn't have tried to force you to go to the club."

"No," he agreed.

"But you didn't give in just because I'm blind and short."

Rick snorted. "Can we go upstairs? I'm freezing my butt off."

She resumed climbing but kept talking. "It's really weird. Half of the people I meet won't let me do anything because they're afraid I'll hurt myself, and the other half give me whatever I want because they feel sorry for me. It's seriously annoying."

"As annoying as being blind?"

"Way more," she promised, slipping her key into the lock and opening the door. "Do you want to come in?"

"I should go home. It's pretty late."

She nodded. "Thanks again."

"You're welcome," he replied, his anger seeping away.

"Will you help me next time?"

"Depends on whether I have anything better to do."

Ari grinned. "That means yes."

"It does not!"

"Yes it does!" she sang, and shut the door in his face.

Rick stared at it, shaking his head, and then started down the stairs. Ariadne was the strangest girl he had ever met. She was often as aggravating as heck, but she could also be surprisingly good company. And her ideas—they were weird, but nice too. Who else would take a train across a dark and dangerous city to deliver a good luck message to a near stranger? He suddenly found himself wondering whether Barbara ever would, and then pushed the question aside as irrelevant.

Rick had been rather dreading the return to school on Monday, but Bruce had been right in thinking the prank would be far more important than the poker game. A few students quacked as he walked past, and some others congratulated him on demolishing Trevor and his girlfriend. (These congratulations made him feel slightly guilty, especially when they came from someone he'd won money from, but the guilt was easy to squash, especially since the school had given everyone their money back and he, along with all of Johnny's other party guests, would be serving heavy detention.) But most of the gossip flying around the hallways was about the bloody dummy in the gym.

Amanda was very cool to him in history, which was just fine with Rick, and Darla and Tracy invited him to sit at their table for lunch, confirming he had reached a new level of popularity. In fact, the only really awkward moment happened in math. He slipped into his seat just before the bell, ready with a friendly smile to assure Carmen it didn't matter that her grandfather was coming over all medieval. But she had apparently reverted to her former self and refused to look at him, using her hair to shield her face.

"So how was your weekend?" he asked, as soon as Ms. Simpkins was done with her lecture, and they were supposed to be doing individual work.

"Not as much fun as yours," she snapped, pushing back her hair so that he could see her face.

With a shock, Rick saw that she was actually angry. "Yeah, it was ok," he said slowly. "Sorry you couldn't come to the dance."

Carmen slammed her pencil against the desk with a loud snap. "You know, I thought my grandpa was being really unfair that night. And me and Grandma both stuck up for you. We said that just because you were Mr. Wayne's ward, it didn't mean you were anything like him. I told him you were smart and polite and kind. I guess I looked pretty stupid the next morning."

Rick looked down at the textbook, trying to think of what to say. It hadn't occurred to him that anyone outside of the immediate circle of the party would be affected by what he had done, and remembering how upset he had been by Mr. Fredrick's actions, he momentarily felt ashamed. But still, he was a student at Bailey now, and he was supposed to be acting like one. Price of the game, he decided, and so all he said was, "Do you still want to study?"

"I gotta get out of this class," she muttered, and slammed open her book.

One disadvantage of his new popularity was that it made it harder to fade unnoticed into the background. Rick had to double back down hallways several times before he could slip unseen down into the basement.

It had occurred to him that Johnny must have had alternate routes into the school for all of his casino supplies, some of which he might not have discovered yet, but it would be useful to know about them. Deciding to start in the party room itself, he navigated the confusing underground space until he was found the right door. It proved to be locked, and he was about to try picking the lock, when he sensed eyes and found David Stern watching him.

"Lose something?" the other boy asked coolly.

"Yeah, actually. I left my lucky pen in there on Friday. The cops probably took it for evidence or something, though."

David continued to watch him, his face hard to read in the dim light. Still, it was the friendliest conversation Rick had ever had with him, so he asked, "Were you there? At the dance?"

"No."

"You missed some pretty big excitement."

"I guess."

Rick stepped closer and was surprised by how thin and white David's face appeared and by the blackness of the circles under his eyes. Wondering if the guy had started taking something the doctor hadn't prescribed, he asked, "Are you ok? Because you don't look so good."

"What is it with you? You want to be a nurse when you grow up?"

"No. I just … Look, my mom was murdered too, ok? I know what it feels like."

"No you don't."

Rick was suddenly angry. "Maybe it was a long time ago, but I remember exactly what it feels like."

For once, David was not angry in return. "Yeah. But you didn't kill your mom yourself, did you?"

"What are you talking about?"

David drew in a breath, about to respond. Then he clamped his lips shut and shook his head. "Nothing."

Rick blew out a frustrated breath. "Look, I know this sounds cheesy, but if you ever want to talk to someone, well, you know where I go to school."

"Sure," David said softly, then turned and walked away.

Wednesday morning, Amanda stood in front of her locker, scowling at a wrapped package. She had bought a birthday present for Rick two weeks ago, but now she wasn't sure she wanted to give it to him. But what else was she going to do with a vintage Beach Boys album signed by all three Wilsons? It had cost her a ridiculous amount of money on Ebay, a large chunk of her savings account, and she'd lost three other auctions before she'd managed to get this.

It was just never enough, she reflected bitterly, tears welling up in her eyes. She'd tried so hard, all the tricks she read about in Seventeen and that her mom recommended, making sure to always take extra care with her hair and makeup and wear the right clothes and use her body language to show she was interested. She'd found out everything about him that she could so that she could relate to him, reading every article in every magazine and even getting April to steal Hal's Facebook password so that she could look at Rick's profile, which was how she knew he liked the Beach Boys' old stuff. But for all her hard work, Rick would barely talk to her. He probably hadn't even noticed that she'd been ignoring him for two days.

He'd gone to that party that Amanda wasn't cool enough or rich enough to be invited to and won a kiss from Barbara Gordon who was a total ice queen even if she was gorgeous, and now he was practically dating Darla. Or maybe Tracy. But whichever one it was they probably didn't even know anything about him, but just because they were cheerleaders they could catch Rick's attention when Amanda could not because she wasn't a cheerleader, and because …

Face it, Amanda, she told herself. You're too fat. She examined her face critically in the mirror, pushing at the curves of her cheeks and chin. Fat, fat, fat. But I can change that. Squaring her shoulders in determination, she picked up the wrapped record and her sack lunch. The lunch went into the trash on the way to Rick's locker.

To her relief, he was standing there alone, sorting through his books. "Happy Birthday!" she burst out, pasting on her best smile.

He turned with that strained look of politeness she recognized all too well. "Uh, thanks."

"Here." She thrust the present toward him.

"Thanks," he said again, still smiling, but she could sense his reluctance.

Although she'd been imagining for days the look of happy surprise he would wear when he opened the package, she suddenly knew that it had only been a daydream, that even if he did open it, he'd just give her that cool thanks again, and it would horrible. "So are you taking your driving test today?" she asked hurriedly, to keep him from ripping off the paper.

"Yeah. I have an appointment later this morning."

"You get to get out of school? That's cool."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Well, good luck. I'll see you later," she blurted before hurrying away down the hallway.

He wasn't in history, so she guessed that he'd already left for his driving test. She drifted through the rest of the morning in an unhappy haze, going over and over in her mind things she should have done differently. She should have smiled more brightly and tried flipping her hair and paid more attention to sucking in her stomach. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought during lunch as she sat next to April pretending she wasn't hungry. Really stupid.

The silent litany continued all through the next period and followed her down the hall to Life Skills. Rick still wasn't there, but Barbara Gordon was, sitting in her desk with the same cool, arrogant expression she always wore.

If she's so much better than the rest of us why does she even come to school? Amanda thought furiously, throwing herself into her own desk. Who would even want to be kissed by such a snob? I hate her!

Mr. Davis's lecture was as boring as it always was, and Amanda didn't even try to pay attention. Her gaze drifted to the window, and she watched a couple of birds fly away as someone approached from the parking lot. It was a guy, wearing a dark leather jacket, and after a moment she recognized Rick. He was walking jauntily, so she guessed that he had passed his test. Making a mental note to give him a big congratulations as soon as she could, she watched him until he was out of sight, and slowly returned her gaze to the front of the room.

"Never underestimate the importance of good budgeting," Mr. Davis was saying, as pointed emphatically at a colored pie chart taped to the board. "Even if you make a lot of money, it's easy to overspend if you don't know where it's—"

The classroom door slammed open, drowning out the last word. David Stern stood in the doorway, a rifle gripped in his hands and pointed right at Amanda. The room sat in stunned and terrified silence as his wild gaze swept over the desks. "Where is he?" he shouted.

To Be Continued

A/N Aren't you all glad I posted two chapters? I couldn't, in good conscience give you all yet another cliffhanger after leaving you with such an evil one for two and a half months. I hope the chapter wasn't too rambling—it's an absolute beast (22 pages, eek!) but this story needs to get a move on! So drop a quick review toward your bonus scene and proceed to Chapter 18!