Bruce Wayne entered the Iceberg Lounge with a far
less certain gait than usual. It was only three in the afternoon, but the
fact that the notorious underworld watering hole was empty did nothing to make
the experience of going there, out of costume but not with Selina, any less
bizarre. He couldn’t have said with certainty why he had
gone. When Sly, the only bartender Penguin managed to keep longer than
three weeks or three brawls, had called asking him to drop in if he had a free
half-hour, Bruce only said he’d try in order to be polite. He had no conscious intention of doing so.
And yet he scheduled that lunch with Rodgers and Gonzales at a downtown
restaurant that was quite nearby. While he didn’t rush the meeting,
neither had he lingered over coffee or hurried back to the office afterwards. Both
Bruce Wayne and Batman knew the nature of Sly’s problem already, for the
Gotham rumor mill was a force unto itself. But Bruce let the boy tell it
anyway: After a year of waiting, watching, and wanting, Sly had finally
psyched himself up and asked Roxy Rocket for a date. He was thinking dinner
and a movie, but her tastes ran more towards daredevil sex -
on her rocket - balanced precariously on the summit of the Amusement Mile
rollercoaster—trying to shake it into an uncontrolled fall. Sly related this in spurts, for as he spoke,
Oswald Cobblepot kept passing by, eying both men with disapproval. Oswald
was not only Penguin, the owner of the Iceberg and therefore Sly's boss, but he
was rumored to have had a one night stand with Roxy that she wished to forget
and he didn’t. “I wouldn’t put too much stock in anything he has to say,” Oswald called over bitterly, “not after what he did to Harvey.” “You
see how it is, Mr. Wayne,” Sly whispered apologetically, “there’s nobody
else I can talk to about this. I’m
just an ordinary guy that happened to fall for one of these luscious honeys.
Supposed to be ‘a dream come true,’ right?
So the rest of these guys, they’re not exactly sympathetic. I hear them snickering ‘We should all have such problems.’
I know your advice to Mr. Dent was a disaster and all, but at least, going
out with Miss Catwoman, you won’t roll your eyes at my saying I have a real
problem here. Mr. Wayne, she
wants to go out again! What am I going to do?
She still thinks my objection was ‘not on a first date.’ I
couldn’t make her understand I meant ‘not on the railroad tracks!’”
Bruce was at a loss and said nothing, but a comment was made: Not by Oswald who had disappeared into his office. Not by Sly, now preparing a pitcher of bloody mary mix. But from a dark corner booth. “HIC-eugh. I would like another
Jacaniels, tenbarter. I mean, ohmystomach. I would like another
Jabberwocktail, bartender….Nooo. JabberJack. Jack!
I would like another Jack Daniels, please, bartender. HICmyhead!” Bruce and Sly turned together to see Jervis Tetch rise unsteadily from the floor beneath the booth, focus on a patch of air between them, then walk towards it. As he got closer, he looked from one to the other, his confusion and the thumping in his head intensifying with each turn of the head. Then he said, “There are two of you. Thought I was seeing double.” Then he
turned to Sly and repeated, “A Jack Daniels, if you please, said the
Jabberwock to the guy behind the bar that pours the drinks.” “I’m
sorry, Mr. Tetch,” Sly apologized in that politely inflexible tone they
all knew meant no deal if you begged, bellowed or pulled a M-16. “We’re
not open for another hour. And you exhausted your credit last night.” “Can you blame me?” Jervis wailed, looking from
Sly to Bruce then back to Sly. “After what happened to me? After
what I was subjected to! Was just
having a nice little talk was all.” “What did happen, Mr. Tetch?” Sly asked, pouring the hungover Hatter a cup of coffee. “I never did work it out.” Jervis Tetch ignored the question, sipped the coffee, then appeared to have a better thought. He rummaged in his jacket for a small electronic wedge and eased it between his hat and his temple. Then he took out a small device like a pocket calculator, hit a few buttons, and sighed. “Best hangover remedy in existence. Now, Sly, if you would,
take this revolting concoction away and bring me another Jack Daniels.” Sly
looked about to protest, when Penguin called over,
“Pour him the drink. As long as he tells what happened.”
“Well,” a now lucid Jervis fell easily into the
role of gossip, “We were simply sitting around discussing what might become of
Poison Ivy now that Two-Face is out of the picture. Nigma pointed
out that she seems to be working her way through the alphabet:
Harley, Harvey, so next in rotation should be…” “Hugo Strange,” Penguin put in, too quickly, as
if he’d perhaps thought this through already. “Quite. Now you all know how Hugo perks
up at the mention of his name,” Jervis continued, “so no sooner does he overhear
‘Hugo Strange is next,’ and he comes up to the table, strutting. ‘Next for what? Next to
bring Gotham to its knees? Next to
unseat Joker as Batman’s greatest foe?’
No, he finds out, next to plant petunias in Ivy’s garden!” Jervis paused, like an experienced
gossipmonger, for everyone to get their snickers out of the way before he
continued. “So now Hugo’s pissy. Victor Frieze
speculated that, with all those internal poisons, when she got to Joker, she
might give him a rash or turn his hair back to its original color. But then
Hugo piped up, real sarcastic, ‘Of course, according to your puerile
little theories, Jonathan Crane would be next after that. Whatever
will he do, I wonder, when his number is called,’ snicker snicker.” “What did he mean by that?” Sly asked—which was
lucky because Oswald and Bruce both wanted to know as well. “You
know Hugo,” Jervis said, “when he gets his nose out of joint, he analyzes:
Nobody’s ever seen Crane with a girl, why no henchwench? ‘Scarecrow
doesn’t lend itself to it,’ Jonathan said. ‘What about The Wizard of Oz,’
Hugo asks, and he’s on a roll now: Scarecrow could have a Dorothy. Hey
yeah, and who played Dorothy—Judy Garland!
Snicker-snicker. Jonathan
had enough at this point and he said something—he said something I’d
rather not repeat, cause this is a visual that sticks with you for a while, and
I’m drinking to try and blot out. Okay?” Bruce
was pretty sure he knew what that visual was. Hugo Strange might have deduced
that Bruce Wayne was Batman, but Batman knew something far more disturbing about
Hugo: Hugo Strange had a mannequin fetish. Never ’til his dying day, Bruce reflected, would he forget bursting into
Hugo’s lair and finding him, dressed in a Halloween-store knockoff of his own
Batman costume minus the cowl, with the cowl resting on an otherwise naked
plastic woman. In a
rare moment of empathy, Bruce slid $20 to Sly with a nod. Sly understood
this to mean it was to reduce Jervis’s tab. The visual did indeed stick
with you for a while… Jack Daniels wasn’t going to do it.
“Alfred,
you wouldn’t have believed it.” Bruce was in the kitchen, feverishly
rearranging lunchmeat, bread, cutting board, mustard and other sandwich-making
necessities. “This is the most wanted list—dangerous, deadly criminals -
and they’re sitting around gossiping like old ladies, drinking like it’s keg
night at Sigma Alpha Phi, and hitting on women like… like it’s keg night at
Sigma Alpha Phi!” “I’m
not certain I understand, si—Would you possibly like me to prepare that
sandwich for you, sir?” In answer, Bruce merely slammed the breadknife
against the cutting board, and Alfred winced for his kitchen. “And the worst of it is, Batman still has to
fight these guys. One of these days, I’m going to be in some alley, staring down Scarecrow,
and I’m going to flash on him speculating if Poison Ivy and Ventriloquist get
together, what will they do with the Scarface dummy!” Alfred made no comment, but deftly removed the cutting board and handed Bruce two slices of bread. Then he offered a parallel. “It occurs to me, sir, that the challenge Batman might face in that instance
is not unlike that in my profession, when one is obliged to see one’s employer
in any number of… informal circumstances… and yet one is still obliged, when
waiting on them later at table, to maintain a dignity in keeping with one’s
position.” Bruce rolled his eyes. This was hardly
the response he wanted.
“Selina, this really isn’t the response I was
hoping for,” Bruce complained. Selina put her hand to her side, then her
chest, then her mouth. With effort, she managed to contain her laughter. “Scarface sitting on the bedpost, making
color commentary, while Ventriloquist and Ivy get it on ‘cause she’s working
her way through the alphabet’… Baby, what kind of response were you
expecting?” “I
don’t need to be hearing this kind of thing.”
Selina shrugged, amused. “So don’t listen. Why’d you go to the Iceberg in the middle of the day
anyway?” “Sly asked me. The thing with Roxy that
Black Canary mentioned.” “You mean that I told you. Unless there’s
something new; is there something new?” Selina asked eagerly. “Oh,
that’s right. See, Nathan told Nightwing, Dick told you and he also told Barbara.
Barbara told Dinah, you told me-Bruce, Dinah told me-Batman.” “And
the ROGUES are such gossips, you say?” Bruce
rolled his eyes. This just wasn’t the response he wanted.
“Batman, I’m telling you like I heard it,” Robin managed through a mouth full of pizza. Batman glowered when his sidekick arrived at the rooftop check in munching a cheese slice from Gino’s, but he couldn’t afford to do more. Tim’s cooperation was too important right now, the only lifeline he had to Dick. “I didn’t hear anything about a date, I didn’t
hear anything about Sly,” Robin was saying. “I don’t even know who Sly is.
I heard Roxy was making a play for Joker ‘cause of how he slaps Harley around. Being Joker’s girlfriend
is a dangerous gig, and, you know, she likes the thrill of almost-dying.” “Then you heard wrong,” Batman cut him off just
as he would any other faulty report where he had superior information. “Roxy
has not made a play for the Joker. But she might if she realized the danger
factor, so do not repeat that story.” “Fine. Whatever. Who would I tell
anyway? Steph’s away for the
summer.” “You talk to Dick,” Batman noted quietly. Robin sighed. “Yeah, I do,” he admitted, “but he won’t go on
talking to me if he thinks I’ll turn around and tell you what’s said. So
don’t ask me.”
“Bro,
I didn’t tell him ANYTHING, I swear,” “That
he wasn’t prepared to admit his behavior in the past was that of a dictatorial
control freak. That I saw it that way, and someone who felt that earlier
behavior was inappropriate and unsupportive should be able to see how this
episode was completely different. How
do you figure that is
‘damn near an apology “For
Bruce!” “Bullshit ‘for Bruce “Now I’m sorry I told you,” Tim moped.
“So why did you tell him?” Selina asked. Tim held his hands to his forehead as he wailed, “I don’t know! Because… Because I’m stuck in the middle of the Batman-Nightwing rematch and the paranoia is contagious! I had a short conversation with Bruce, I was juggling a pizza slice and a grappling hook, and afterwards… well, I wasn’t completely sure I had muted the OraCom. So on the off chance that Barbara might have overheard…” “You
covered your tail,” Selina nodded appreciatively. “You went to Dick and said
‘in the interests of full-disclosure,’ I had this talk with B… A preemptive
strike, nice move, Short Stuff.” “Well,
it backfired! All it did was bring
out Dick’s inner Bruce: ‘I’m not the one being unreasonable, he’s being a
stubborn fathead.’ Selina,
they’re driving me nuts! Last night, I needed to hit something so bad, I
followed Riddler for six hours. But he wouldn’t do anything criminal! You know where he
went?” “All night
coffee shop at a Barnes & Noble in Chelsea.” Tim’s mouth dropped open. “It’s a long story,” Selina laughed. “As
long as it’s a long story in which no one, at any point, will utter the phrase
‘my city’ or ‘be my own man,’ I got time!” Laughing harder, Selina gave a summary report: “Eddie has a new girl. She works at the Barnes & Noble in Chelsea.” “She
works? Y’mean, like a job?” Selina nodded, sadly. “I know; it will never work. ‘People like us’ and ‘normals.’ But you can’t tell Eddie
that. Certainly I can’t tell him that while I’m seeing Bruce Wayne,
now can I?
Besides, as far as Eddie’s concerned, she’s no ordinary girl. She does the Times crossword in ink.” Tim leaned forward to hear more, his Dick-Bruce
frustrations forgotten.
“So
that’s how they met,” Robin now repeated the story Tim heard earlier,
“She’s behind the counter, doing this crossword, in ink—he does them
upside down, by the way.” “UPSIDE
DOWN!” Black Canary exclaimed, “What kind of freak of nature, oh never mind!” “Anyway,
so she’s stuck,” Robin continued without a pause. “Six-letter word for
preserved arachnid. Riddler looks down
and says ‘scarab.’ Strike up the violins.” Black Canary laughed merrily.
..:: Dinah, that’s too funny, ::.. Barbara laughed into the OraCom. ::Oh, but wait, there’s more. Seems the lady has no interest in being a Query or an Echo or whatever else he calls ‘em.:: ..:: E-gad, she won’t wear a question mark? She won’t be a henchwench!::.. ::Can you believe it! And it’s killing him because he’s so impressive in the field.::
..:: He is????? ::Work with me, Barb,:: Dinah said testily, :: I’m just telling it how Tim says Selina told it. :: ..:: So Puzzleboy thinks he’s impressive in the field and he’s whining cause the new girl won’t see him there?::..
::You got it. ..:: That’s too weird.::..
::Not to change the subject, but
how’s Dick doing? Tim said he was
awfully…
“…narrow-minded,
inflexible and obsessively stubborn.” Selina and Jim Gordon stared in awed fascination as Bruce went on, oblivious to the irony. “And moody. He’s gotten so
moody.” Selina rose and excused herself from the table.
In the hallway, she ran into Alfred. “Moody!
He says DICK is narrow-minded, inflexible, obsessively stubborn and
moody! I need a drink; I need it now.” “Master
Bruce is most acutely disappointed, Miss,” Alfred demurred. “He had hoped inviting the former
commissioner to ‘family dinner’ might persuade Master Dick and his wife to
attend.” “Believe me, Alfred, I know. I know he’s going through stuff, and that is the only
reason I am standing out here right now instead of in there, reprising the act-one
monologue from Cat-Tales.” Meanwhile in the dining room, a trapped Jim Gordon was wracking his brain for a new topic of conversation. “Renee Montoya was approached to run for that open spot on the City Council,” He meant well. He really did. It was a change of subject, a little gossip. Renee Montoya. How could he know the spot on the council was only vacated because Brian Everwood was a puppet of Ra’s Al Ghul, forced to resign when Batman brought down the operation that caused this rift with Dick in the first place. Bruce’s growling dropped an octave, which Jim
had never seen happen outside the cowl. It was interesting—but not
conducive to the digestion. “Gordon left?” she asked. “Some excuse about getting up early to clean
out his basement. Your fault, Kitten. You made
him uncomfortable.” “What
with my being so obsessively moody?”
“And
she scores!” Dick cheered. “Two points, Selina!” Selina gave an ‘oh please’ scowl. “Then,
let me guess,” “He is what he is, Dick; you can’t take it to
heart so much. He wants to be disapproving and judgmental for a while. It’s just one
of those things. You gotta let it roll off your back.” Dick gave a hostile stare, growled, harrumphed. “You
know what his latest beef with me is?” Selina continued. “He made a log
entry last week: ‘Currently at large: Ivy,
Scarecrow, Hatter, Harvey and Eddie.’
He writes Harvey instead of Two-Face, and Eddie instead of Riddler, and
this is my fault cause they’re my ‘pets’ among the rogues.” “See,
that’s what I mean, that’s just SO TYPICAL!
What he does is your fault. Somebody
else is always to blame, somebody else is always the problem.”
“C’mon,
Kiddo, one of you has to be the bigger man here, and history tells us it’s not
going to be him.” Dick growled again, harrumphed again, and left
the room. Selina turned to Barbara, who was at her workstation, too
immersed in the flickering monitors to listen to the conversation. Selina
finished her tea in a swallow and gathered her things to leave when, after a
moment, Nightwing emerged from the bedroom and headed for the window.
“Going out” was his only comment. Almost
as soon as he’d left, the there was a static buzz from the desktop speaker and
Batman’s voice rang out clearly: Selina shook her head sadly while she watched
Barbara reposition her headset mic. “Come again, Boss?” she said calmly. ::Oracle?:: the deep voice dripped with
uncharacteristic sarcasm ::Impossible. When Barbara and Dick failed to show up for family dinner, I naturally
assumed there was some sort of dire emergency keeping you away.:: “Oh, for pity sake,” Selina muttered to no one
in particular. There was a long silence, then Barbara said,
“There’s some static on the channel, Boss. I didn’t quite get that.”
“No, no, no,” Selina erupted, “Don’t let him
off the hook like that. This is fucking ridiculous. He’s out there
watching, he waited for ‘Wing to leave, and now he pulls this shit. Barbara, I mean it, don’t let him get away with that.” Barbara stared at Selina like she was speaking
in Swedish. “Boss, there’s a 9-14 on 12th
street. This early in the night it’s probably a false alarm, but it is
electronics store and since Mad Hatter is at large…”
::Check. Batman out.:: “Damnit,
Barbara, what did I just say!” “Selina,
what do you expect me to do? It’s
between the two of them.” “Is
this what everybody did last time? Just
stand by and watch while the pair of them self-destruct?” “Selina,
why is this bothering you so much? I mean, I’m not exactly happy about it.
I love ’em both and they’re hurting. But, look, it has happened before. This
is actually the norm for those two. The
couple months of peace we’ve had was the anomaly.” “I
can’t accept that.” “I can see that. What I’m saying is:
Why not?” Selina thought about that for a long moment, then she rummaged in her handbag and scribbled on a notepad. “Give
me half an hour,” she said, “then tell ‘Wing to investigate a break-in at
this address.”
Nightwing approached the South Mall expecting to find the supposed break-in was either rats in the outdated alarm system, or the work of the stupidest smalltimer to ever force a deadbolt with a credit card. From the day it was built, the South Mall was a
white elephant. In a city like Gotham, the idea of clustering chain stores
under one roof was ludicrous. Adding a food court, an arcade, and a
multiplex didn’t help in a city where food and amusements are everywhere. Still,
Dick did recall fondly one particular night when the mall was new. An alarm had
sounded, like now. Batman and Robin responded. And they encountered
Catwoman. He
didn’t understand then why the confrontation seemed different from those with
other criminals. Batman always challenged the perps, and they always denied doing anything
criminal. But Catwoman—Catwoman was insulted! The
sort of merchandise in a shopping mall, a SHOPPING MALL!
It was beneath her! Oh, she didn’t deny being a thief. But
she was a world class thief, and this was a measly shopping mall! “Then what are you doing here,” Batman had
graveled. “Maybe I followed you,” she purred. And
then Batman sent him to “find some evidence.”
Yeah, in an empty parking lot at three in the morning, Robin set out to “find some evidence.” Instead, he found Batgirl. Robin and
Batgirl had such an adventure that night. By dawn, they had apprehended the real burglars and commemorated the event with a
silly reel of photos from one of those booths. More importantly, they laid
the foundations for a partnership and a friendship that… that lasted through…
everything. All the turmoil of growing up. Revealing identities.
Falling in love. Even getting married. Dick couldn’t help but
realize as his thoughts returned to the present: the partnership forged that
night turned out to be more resilient than the one between Batman and Robin. The revelation would have hurt had its impact
not been undercut by blind shock. For as Nightwing reached the roof, he
was met with the sight of Catwoman, stretched out, legs crossed, one knee
bobbing playfully over the other. On the bouncing leg, just at the ankle,
hung a diamond necklace, wrapped twice and fastened, like an anklet. “C’mon, Selina, what gives?” Nightwing blurted,
not realizing until he heard himself how young he sounded. She said nothing. Just raised an eyebrow,
and bounced the foot at him. “This place was beneath you years ago when it
was new,” he complained. “True,” she conceded. “And thank you for
noticing. That little observation
eluded him, as I recall.” “Yes. It did.” “See, there are one or two areas where you’re
just naturally better than him, without even trying,” she purred. “But
don’t tell him I said so.” Then she winked. “For example, you don’t piss me off 1/10th as much as he
does.” “Is that why we’re here,” Nightwing asked.
Then he knelt, grabbing hold of the bouncing leg and undoing the clasp on the
necklace. “So you can massage
my poor shattered ego? Selina, I get that at home!
Barbara’s being so sweet and supportive it’s killing me!
If she’d at least tease me, it might not feel like—like I FUCKED UP so bad. Dinah baked me brownies;
did you hear about that? And now I
get a pep talk from Catwoman!” He
started playing with the necklace as he continued. “Instead
of being so nice, why don’t you come out and say it: Richard, you were
played like a fiddle by Ra’s al Ghul. I cannot believe you were so stupid as
to be made a fool of by the flyweight hairdo.” “Oh
shit,” Catwoman said softly, “’Wing, you can’t possibly think that’s
how I look at this, can you?” “I don’t know why not. That’s how I see
it. Selina, I—I’ve said
it myself a hundred times: what kind of self-deluded imbecile do you have
to be to let that demon crowd string you along? Now it turns out, I’m a bigger fool than Bruce ever was and
I—” “Okay,
remember when I said you don’t piss me off 1/10th as much as he
does? I take it back.” Her comment was playful, but Nightwing looked at her seriously. “You ain’t heard nothing yet. Look,
Selina, I don’t know how much you heard about what was said that day, when Bruce
told me about Nathan and Brian Everwood. One minute, I’m sitting there the master of my own fate, having built
something that’s going to be important in the fight for Gotham. And the
next, Bruce waltzes in and says Grayson Associates is just a tool Ra’s al Ghul
manipulated me into creating for his own purposes.” “And
you were—understandably—very upset.” “Yes. Yes, I was ‘upset.’ Especially with
it coming from Bruce that way. And I said “Alright. Now I definitely take it back that you don’t piss me off as much as he
does. But Richard, so what? You
piss me off, you think I’m going to spend the next ten years nursing a grudge over
it?” “No.” “Seems
like you’re more than a little mad at yourself too. Are YOU going to spend
the next ten years feeding this into some massive inferiority complex, or are you
going to cut yourself a break and move on?” “Well,” he stopped and laughed, “when you put
it that way, no. I’ll move on. Eventually.” “Okay, then. I’m going to forgive you.
You’re going to forgive you. What do you think the chances are that Bruce
can manage the same thing. I mean, he does have that annoying tendency to be better at just about everything.” “You gonna put this thing back or am I?”
Nightwing asked flatly, holding the necklace. “’Wing!” “Selina,
just leave it be okay? Me and Bruce. It is what it is. We’ve all behaved ridiculously, and I’ve had enough of
it. I’m moving on.”
It was with a marked feeling of déjà vu that
Batman landed on the roof of the Sterling National Bank. There was a time
this roof was a regular base, for it afforded the best view of Cartier’s roof,
next door and three floors down, and Cartier’s was Selina’s favorite. Batman
quickly surveyed Cartier’s roof now and the alley behind, as he always would
before responding to an alarm. Something wasn’t right. It wasn’t the
déjà vu. Something was simply not right. “Oracle. What time did the alarm
sound?” There
was no answer, but a bit of static on the line sounded like a whispered ::shit::. “Oracle. Come
in,” he repeated.
“I’m at the observation point now. There’s no alarm, silent or otherwise.
There’s no activity from site security. No police. And the response
time in this neighborhood is under two minutes. Can you confirm the alarm or…
Oracle, respond. What’s going on?”
“I’d
say you’ve got a burglar that knows how to get in and out without setting off
the old Phoenix 8000.” The voice was hypnotically soft, faintly amused, deliciously seductive, and oh, so familiar. Batman turned towards it, and the scientist in
him kicked in with cool detachment. Learned responses: the physical body
reacting to a sensory stimulus as it always had. It made no difference if
his mind knew things had changed. It made no difference that she hadn’t
taken anything, that they weren’t going to fight. His body knew this roof,
knew that voice, and it reacted as it always had and always would: he was
aroused yet on edge. Muscles quivered, tensing as they anticipated an
embrace at the same time they tried to relax to absorb an attack. “Catwoman, what are you doing here?” Batman
heard himself ask, as surprised by the form of address as the question itself.
It would’ve made more sense to ask why Oracle reported an alarm if Selina had
circumvented the system. “You wanted me that night,” she said simply,
“and every night afterwards. You knew it. I knew it. Everybody
knew.” Now, as then, he said nothing. “We
wasted a lot of years.” He said nothing. “You love him like a son. He loves you
like a father. You were partners forever. Just how much time are you
both going to waste on this?”
To be continued…
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