After a few hours, I fall asleep, but when I wake up, my wrists are splitting with pain from the metal digging into my wrists. Just as well they're getting numb. But I'm also hungry, and thirsty, and have a headache as a side effect of the knockout gas they used.

There's a guard by the door, but he's bored to the point of blowing specks of dust around for entertainment. He's noticed that I'm awake, but doesn't seem to particularly care. He only looks at me when I speak. "Can I get some water?"

Seeming happy to finally have a distraction, he shoves the door open. "The prisoner wants water."

Sal Maroni's voice answers from the other side of the door. "He doesn't need water."

Disgruntled once more, the guard shuts the door and goes back to watching dust floating through the light of the lamp by the door. After a few minutes, though, a fist smashes against the metal porthole, voice on the other side snapping, "Open the door." Upon seeing who it is, the guard's face drains of blood and he quickly unlatches the door again and yanks it open. Tana steps through, coming up to me. For a moment, we stare at each other wordlessly, until she pulls a canteen off of her belt and unscrews the top. "Drink."

When I'm done drinking, I try to talk to her, but she's gone in a flash.

By the time ten o'clock rolls around, I can't feel my arms, and my shoulders are cramping up something awful. Last night's call went out around midnight, and I can see the guard getting more and more nervous as time goes on. Maroni enters the room with five of his goons around eleven, and at fifteen minutes to go, he huffs with impatience. "I want you to search the kid's belt, see if you can find some other kind of communication device."

It offends me that those guys are even touching my utility belt, but one of the men goes over to it and starts sifting through the gadgets. Finally, he holds up my secondary radio. "Here, sir."

Maroni takes it, but can only get static. He thrusts the radio at me. "How do you work this thing?"

I look at it, then return his question with a silent smirk. He takes it in with a look of forced calm. "Cocky, huh?" He then moves remarkably fast for a man of his stature, hitting me across the face with the radio. I feel the hard plastic strike my skin, and the corner of my mouth begins to bleed. He doesn't ask for any more help, instead playing around with the radio until he finds the button to open the wave to Batman's communicator. "It's getting late, Batsy. You better show up soon if you want your sidekick coming out in one piece."

Bruce's voice comes buzzing out of the speakers. "I warned you not to touch him again, Maroni."

"But I don't seem to be getting any result, do I? Need more incentive?"

I know what's coming, but can't move to stop it. Maroni hits me, once on one cheek and again on the other, and my vision starts to swim with stars. I didn't make any noise, but the thud of knuckles on flesh would be unmistakable on Bruce's end. Maroni then slams his fist into my gut and I can't help the noise that escapes my lips.

He's winding back for another punch when he's surprised by the radio being knocked from his hand and clattering to the floor. Omen is standing there behind him, unclenching her fist. "Stop, Maroni. Either Batman is coming, or he isn't." She leans down and scoops up the radio, shutting it off before she continues, "You aren't getting him here any faster."

Maroni's face is reddening by the second. "You're telling me how to run my house? Might I remind you that—" His head suddenly swivels like an owl's and he looks at me. "Wait a second…you feel bad for him, don't you?" He laughs. "What happened to you up there in the tower? Did your brains melt along with your resolve? Well I'll tell you something! The only reason you're still alive is because you came back to finish this job for me. You intimidate my men, and when this is over, you can do as you like. But right now, if I hear another peep outta you, you're going to—"

A muffled explosion rocks the building, sending Maroni careening to the floor. Omen stumbles, along with the rest of the men in the room, and Maroni picks his face off the tile, screaming. "It's the Batman! Everyone to your positions! Do not let him leave this building!"

In a thunder of boots, they all exit. I know that if it is Bruce, he'll have set off the explosion as a decoy and entered the building by another route. No one will notice the alarm breach in the rest of the confusion. The only question is, which—

Then I feel a finger tapping me on the shoulder, and I look over to have him standing behind me. The window in the top corner has an acid hole in it, and I grin, whispering, "Took you long enough." He returns the smile, and uses a batarang to cut the ropes connecting to the ceiling, catching me as I fall and lowering me onto the floor. I try to rub some of the feelings back into my arms, but Batman pauses me as he takes me by the shoulders.

"Are you hurt?"

"Not really. Now are we going to take this sucker down?"

"That can wait, Robin. We should get you home—"

"No, I want to go out there. If not to get Maroni, to talk to Tana."

I can see Bruce's eyebrows narrowing beneath his mask. "You do realize that she was—"

"Spying on us, yeah. But I think I might be able to talk to her, Batman. I have an idea, and I need you to let me try it." Bruce listens carefully as I explain, and his response is immediate.

"No."

"Batman, please let me—"

"Not after what she's done to you. There's a reason that I didn't make that an option in the first place, Robin. She's dangerous."

"She's dangerous so long as we're her enemies. Let me try, just this once."

Batman's chewing the inside of his cheek as he contemplates the idea, before giving in, perhaps remembering how he was the one to convince me that Tana deserved a second chance. "Try to make it a last resort—I can tell you now that it's not a good idea. And it's going to be dangerous out there in the main room, Robin. Turns out Maroni likes to hoard oil. Some of it may have caught fire when I set off the first bomb. Accidentally, of course." As if on cue, there's a second explosion, this one closer, right outside the door. "Oops."

"I'm going out there to find her," I say. "Make sure I've got a ride home!"

When I exit the room, I find myself on a metal catwalk, overlooking a huge room. It's filled with guns, stolen goods, press machines—but it's in flames. I see barrels of oil placed around the room, and many of them have to be only half full, because they're blowing up with enough force to displace a herd of elephants. I can see the smoking hole in the side of the building where the original explosion took place, and Maroni's men swarming away from it, finally realizing that they've been duped, while trying to avoid the flaming oil and wreckage. As I overlook the carnage, I see Maroni, suit smeared with soot, stumbling towards the front exit, shielding his face from the heat and smoke. And as I survey him, he looks up and sees me. "Omen, get him! Get him now!"

My eyes finally find Tana, sitting calmly on the catwalk at the other end of the room, flames reflecting out of her eyes. Her mask dangles loosely from her hand, seemingly made difficult to use because of the flames and smoke. She clearly suspected that the first explosion had been a trick, and was watching to see where Batman actually was. Or maybe she didn't really care. She'd done what she needed to, and was back in Maroni's good books. Back on the side of Gotham where she belonged; where she could live her old life without the fear of being murdered by a vengeance-seeking crime lord. Now, she looks from Maroni to me, and grimaces, getting to her feet, and casting the mask onto the catwalk beside her.

"Omen," I say as she approaches, feet picking up speed on the hot metal grating. I realize that the flames are too loud for anyone to hear us anyway, and use her real name. "Tana!" But she doesn't stop.

The fight is tough from the very start. She hasn't trained with the best, like me, but she's been fighting all her life to stay alive. I duck the first kick but nearly duck right into a countermove and am forced to leap backwards. I can see by the way she moves that she also isn't one for acrobatics. But a good firm stance can be just as effective. And I realize that I'm at a bit of a disadvantage when she lands a direct hit on my chest and I'm sent flying backwards, much farther than I should have been. As I'm getting back up, I realize that it's her gloves. They aren't just for stealing.

From then on, I'm careful about where she's aiming. When she cuts from the side, the hits don't seem as powerful. I try to grab them and redirect them, but she's fast. Almost as fast as me. At one point I manage to pin her arm and twist it down. "Why don't you think that the police can protect you?"

"Maroni's got guys in the GCPD. They'll know if I get myself an identity of my own, they'll know where I go." Her other elbow finds my nose and I stagger backwards, barely managing to avoid her oncoming kick. "Whoever I could go to to get a new life, he'd still know."

"If you could get out of Gotham—" I'm forced to flip away from her punch and land on the catwalk spanning the center of the room.

"I'd do what, exactly?" she snarls, as we simultaneously attack and dodge each other, her dropping into a leg sweep and me grabbing an overhead pipe and lifting both feet in a kick at her head. "This is all I know, Grayson. It's better than sitting in a shop my whole life, wishing I'd done something more exciting."

The next kick lands directly on my jaw, but I dodge again and speak through a mouthful of blood. "And is this life really so much better? You'll die, Tana, eventually. You'll wind up dead in a gutter and no one will even notice that you're gone."

I'm tensing to dodge the next hit, but it doesn't come. Tana's panting heavily, leaning on the rails of the catwalk, looking into the flames below. "I don't know what else to do."

"If you really need it, we could get you into witness protection in another state. Another country. You could try to let someone else help you climb out of the pit you've put yourself in. Try to trust."

She gives a humorless snort. "A try is a difference between life and death, Grayson. And it's not a matter of can you, can't you, it's a matter of time. How long before my past catches up with me. The only way I'm safe is by teaming up with the people who otherwise would—"

"For the love of God, Omen!" We both look to see Maroni still standing there. The room is completely empty, and in flames, but he's lingering by the door to make sure that Omen carries out his work. "If you can't defeat him, kill him!"

She attacks again, but with a feeling of indecision and desperation. Her attacks are sloppy and wearied, and I knock them aside driving her backwards. I want to tell her more, want to make her my offer that Bruce discouraged, and I can see that she wants to talk to me, vent her frustration at what Gotham's become and spill to me how truly afraid and confused she is, but we both don't know how. And then I realize that we've reached the edge of the catwalk, and that the parrying blow I've just dealt her is going to drive her over the edge. There's a split second—a fragment of time that hangs frozen in front of me for a matter of seconds—where she's teetering off balance, and she's looking almost longingly into the roaring, searing flames below, the promise of a permanent exit from a painful world.

And as she falls, she makes no attempt to save herself.

I lunge to the edge of the catwalk and grab her arm before she disappears. I get a response that's hard for me to process.

"Let go of me!"

"No way. I'm not leaving here without you." She tries to get me off with a zap from her gloves, but even as my body spasms, I continue to hang on.

"I still don't see why you care!"

"Because when I look at you, Tana, I see someone that I might have been friends with! In another time, in another place, we could have gotten along. We could have played video games and visited Sky Garden together, and the reason that I care is that I don't think that reality has been lost yet. I'm getting you out of here."

"What about my side, Grayson? You think you're helping me, but in truth, you have nothing. What you think will help me will only seal my death warrant." She tries to jerk her hand out of my grip, but I refuse to let go.

"You don't know th—"

"I've known it since I first walked into a crime lord's front door! Grayson, all I want is to decide how and when I die! What could you possibly have to offer me better than that?"

Last resort. Bruce said. "Home, Tana."

When she looks at me, her eyes have lost a bit of their desperation, and she's stopped struggling. I continue. "You don't have to leave Wayne Tower. You don't have to take a boring shop job, but you don't have to be afraid, either. You can have a place to stay, everything you need, and even something of a family, if you want. You won't have to deal with anybody anymore. Please, come with me."

I can see that she's giving in. Because I'm offering her something she's never had, but something that she secretly, desperately wants. "You would…do that? After what I've done to you?"

"I believe in second chances."

We stare at each other, and suddenly, Tana snaps out of her moment of emotion. "Is your cape fireproof?"

"What?" I say, utterly bemused. "Yes, it is, but—"

"Give it to me. Wait, no, just undo it and let it fall towards me. Now, Grayson."

I don't know what she's doing, but I comply anyway, undoing my cape's fastening with one hand. "What are you doing?"

She swings her other hand up to the catwalk, but only to grab the cloak. She then looks me in the eyes and smirks, the first time I've seen anything even remotely close to a smile. "Dying. See you on the other side." The next shock pulse to come out of her glove is huge, and I'm forced to let go. I stare in horror as Tana falls away into the flames, my cloak falling with her and tangling around her. I don't even have the breath to call out.

The next thing I hear is a loud snort, and I look to see Maroni at the door, spitting into the fire as he finally ducks out.

But the smoke is becoming thicker, and I realize that there's nothing left for me to do. I run down the catwalk, jumping over the side and sliding down one of the metal supports until I reach the hole in the wall left by Batman's first attack. As I'm leaping out, my ears detect the Batmobile approaching, and I finally climb over the last bits of rubble to see the car parked and Batman coming towards me. "Robin! Where's Omen?"

"I—" I look back into the burning building, still trying to process what I've seen. "I don't know, I—"

"Right here, loser." I'm spinning around when my cape catches me full in the face. I claw it down to see Tana limping away from the open window she's just climbed out of. "I did have to return your cape at some point."

Batman hadn't seemed particularly happy when I revealed my plan to him, and now looks at Tana with neutrality. "Omen."

"Batman." She returns his blank stare. "Robin tells me that you're willing to give me a place to stay. Indefinitely."

"You have to make an effort to keep it. And not sell out your caretakers to crime lords."

I think that Bruce missed it, but for one second—one tiny, split second—I see a glimmer of hope flash through the silver discs that are Tana's eyes. "I think I can do that."