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Chapter Text

The air in Neo-Gotham’s Hamilton Hill Plaza tasted of ozone, recycled oxygen, and the cloyingly sweet scent of impending chaos. Flying vehicles, sleek as polished river stones, zipped between chrome-and-glass skyscrapers that speared a perpetually bruised twilight sky. Down below, the pedestrian thoroughfare was a river of humanity, a vibrant, noisy current of fashion-forward citizens and weary corporate drones. It was, in short, a perfect canvas. And the Dee Dee twins, along with their lanky associate, were about to paint it puce.

"You know." Ghoul began, his voice a reedy, hesitant thing that seemed to be perpetually searching for its next word, "these... these pies. They have a certain... je ne sais quoi." He held up the device in his hands. It looked like a cross between a leaf blower and a bazooka, with a wide canister on top filled with a bubbling, viscous purple substance. A long, comically oversized pastry bag was affixed to the nozzle. "A real... panache."

"It's just goop, Ghoul." Deirdre Dennis said, her voice flat and bored. She leaned against a holographic newsstand, idly buffing her nails. Her twin, Delia, stood beside her, bouncing on the balls of her feet, vibrating with suppressed energy. Their faces, painted in the stark white of a mime with exaggerated red circles on their cheeks and black-lined eyes, were masks of contrasting emotions. Deirdre’s was a study in adolescent apathy; Delia’s was a canvas of pure, unadulterated glee.

"It's not just goop." Delia chirped, her voice a whole octave higher than her sister’s. "It's super-stain, insta-set, lilac-scented goop! We spent all morning on the scent profile!"

"Yeah... the lilac." Ghoul intoned, sniffing the air near the nozzle. "It's... subtle. Yet... insistent. Like a... a ghost... who sells potpourri."

Deirdre rolled her gray eyes so hard it was a wonder they didn't pop out of her skull. "Can we just get this over with? My soles are getting scuffed." She pointed a white-booted toe at the pristine plasteel sidewalk.

"Patience, Dee Dee." Ghoul said, adjusting his goggles over his thin, Scarecrow-like face. "Art... it requires... a moment. The right moment."

The right moment, it turned out, was when a trio of impeccably dressed executives from Wayne-Powers exited the gleaming obsidian tower across the plaza. They walked with the unearned confidence of men who measured their worth in corporate takeovers and market share percentages.

"Showtime." Delia whispered, her grin stretching her painted face into a caricature of joy.

Ghoul hefted the "Pie-per" cannon, as he'd christened it. He took a deep breath. "Say... hello... to my... little... friend."

SPLAT!

A perfect glob of glistening purple goo sailed across the plaza and impacted squarely on the chest of the lead executive. His pristine white suit was instantly violated by a starburst of lilac-scented villainy. He stopped, looking down at his chest with an expression of pure, uncomprehending horror, as if a pterodactyl had just relieved itself on him.

Before his companions could react, two more shots rang out. SPLAT! SPLAT! Now all three were adorned with the Jokerz' latest creation.

The plaza, which had been a symphony of urban hustle, fell silent for a beat. Then, a few scattered giggles erupted, quickly swelling into a wave of laughter from the onlookers. The executives’ faces turned from shock to crimson fury.

"Who did this?!" one of them bellowed, his voice echoing off the surrounding glass.

"That's our cue!" Delia sang.

The twins sprang into action. They were poetry in motion, a whirlwind of white and red. They launched themselves from the newsstand, executing a series of flawless, synchronized handsprings and cartwheels that carried them across the plaza with impossible speed and grace. They landed in perfect unison in front of the sputtering executives, striking a pose with their hands on their hips, heads cocked to one side.

"We did!" they announced together, their voices a strange harmony of boredom and excitement.

Ghoul trotted up behind them, the Pie-per resting on his shoulder. "It's a... a statement. About... corporate culture. And... you know... stickiness."

One of the executives, recovering his composure, jabbed a finger at them. "You're those Jokerz punks! Security!"

As if on cue, two burly security guards in gray uniforms began to push their way through the now-thick crowd of gawkers, many of whom were filming the spectacle on their wrist-coms.

"Uh oh, the fun police." Delia pouted.

"Let's dance." Deirdre said, a flicker of interest finally lighting her eyes.

What followed was less a fight and more a ballet of humiliation. The guards were big and strong, but the twins were quicksilver. They moved around the guards’ clumsy lunges, a blur of motion. Delia giggled as she slid between one guard's legs, popping up behind him to give him a playful shove into his partner. Deirdre, with cold efficiency, used a guard’s own momentum to flip him onto his back, where he landed with a heavy oof.

While they danced, Ghoul provided artillery support. SPLAT! A pie hit a security camera, blinding it. SPLAT! Another splattered across the windshield of an arriving GCPD cruiser, causing it to swerve harmlessly into a row of public recycling bins.

"I think." Delia said, effortlessly dodging a clumsy swing, "this is our best one yet, Dee Dee!"

"It's not completely lame." Deirdre admitted, sidestepping and tripping the second guard as he charged her.

From the sidelines, Ghoul surveyed their work. "It's... a masterpiece. A... sticky, purple... masterpiece. The people... they love it. We're giving them... a show."

He was right. The crowd was eating it up. This wasn't the terrifying, city-threatening crime of the old days. This was street theater, a splash of vibrant, harmless anarchy in the rigidly structured world of Neo-Gotham. It was fun. It was silly.

And it was about to be over.

A shadow fell over the plaza, so swift and sudden that it seemed to swallow the light. It was a fleeting darkness, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it eclipse that drew every eye upward. A collective gasp rippled through the crowd.

High above, silhouetted against the bruised purple of the sky, was a figure. Angular, dark, with pointed ears and glowing eyes.

Delia stopped mid-cartwheel, her eyes wide. Deirdre froze, her hand halfway to delivering a flick to a guard’s nose. Ghoul lowered the Pie-per cannon, his jaw agape.

"Wow." Ghoul breathed. "The... the big guy. He... he actually showed up... for... pie."

Delia’s painted smile didn't falter. It widened. "Ooh! A party crasher!"

Chapter Text

The descent was terrifyingly silent. Unlike the lumbering hover-vehicles of the GCPD, Batman didn't announce his arrival with sirens or flashing lights. He simply fell. He landed on the plasteel with a whisper of sound, a dark specter amidst the chaos of color and laughter. The crowd, which had been a boisterous audience, instinctively drew back, a wave of fear and awe washing over their previous amusement.

"Party's over." Batman's voice growled, filtered through his mask to be a low, synthetic rasp that cut through the plaza's ambient noise.

"Aw, but we just got started!" Delia whined, striking a mock-pouty pose.

Deirdre, however, was all business. Her bored demeanor vanished, replaced by a focused intensity. "Ghoul. The goo." she commanded.

Ghoul, snapping out of his stupor, aimed the Pie-per. "Right. The... the goo. For the... bat."

He fired. A large, lilac-scented projectile shot toward the dark figure. But Batman didn't even flinch. With a fluid motion that seemed too fast for the human eye to track, he sidestepped the purple missile. It sailed past him and splattered harmlessly against the obsidian wall of the Wayne-Powers tower.

"Okay." Ghoul said, his confidence wavering. "Plan... B."

Batman closed the distance in three long strides. He moved with a purpose that was chilling. Ghoul, panicking, swung the heavy Pie-per cannon like a club. It was a clumsy, desperate move. Batman ducked under the swing, his arm shooting out to strike a nerve cluster at Ghoul’s elbow. The lanky Jokerz’s arm went numb, and the Pie-per clattered to the ground. A second, precise strike to the back of Ghoul’s neck, and the tech geek folded like a cheap suit, his eyes rolling back in his head as he collapsed in a heap.

"Well." Delia said, blinking. "That was fast."

"He's all yours." Deirdre said, her own body tensing. "I'll take the left."

They didn't wait for a reply. They launched themselves at Batman simultaneously, a perfectly synchronized attack from two different angles. This was their true strength. Not the pies, not the gags, but their flawless coordination. They were two halves of a single, chaotic fighting machine.

Delia went high, a spinning kick aimed at Batman's head. Deirdre went low, a sweeping kick designed to take out his legs. It was a classic pincer movement, one that had befuddled opponents far more experienced than a couple of security guards.

But Batman wasn't a security guard.

He dropped. Both kicks whistled through the air where his body had been a nanosecond before. As the twins passed over him, he sprang back up, a Batarang already in his hand. He didn't throw it to injure; he threw it at the ground between them. It exploded with a sharp crack and a burst of thick, white smoke.

The twins coughed, their perfect synergy broken by the sudden disorientation. They couldn't see each other, couldn't anticipate the other's moves.

"Hey! No fair!" Delia yelled from within the cloud.

Batman moved through the smoke like a shark through water. He grabbed Delia's arm, using her momentum to spin her around and send her stumbling out of the smoke cloud, dizzy and off-balance. He then turned his attention to Deirdre. She was more composed, already trying to fight her way out of the smoke. She lashed out with a blind kick. Batman caught her foot in his hand, his grip like iron. He twisted, and Deirdre, skilled as she was, was forced into an awkward, uncontrolled backflip, landing hard on the plasteel.

The fight had lasted less than thirty seconds.

From the edge of the plaza, sirens grew louder. The GCPD was finally getting its act together.

Deirdre pushed herself up, rubbing her shoulder. She shot Batman a look of pure, venomous frustration. She knew they were beaten. The element of surprise was gone, Ghoul was down, and the cops were closing in. It was time to cut their losses.

"Come on!" she snapped at her sister. "Let's bounce!"

But Delia wasn't listening. She looked at Batman, not with fear or anger, but with a strange, competitive fire in her eyes. The game wasn't over for her. This was the final boss, and she was going to get one last hit in.

"Not yet!" she yelled. With a burst of reckless energy, she charged Batman, leaping into the air for a flying, two-footed kick.

It was a stupid, telegraphed move. Batman sidestepped it with ease. And in that moment, Delia’s recklessness caught up with her. Her momentum carried her past Batman, past the edge of the plaza's main level, and over the railing.

For a moment, she just hung there in the air, a surprised 'oops' expression on her painted face. Below her was a fifty-foot drop to the lower transit level, where a sleek, silent Maglev train was approaching the station at high speed, its electromagnetic field humming with deadly power.

Deirdre screamed her sister’s name, her voice cracking with genuine terror. "DELIA!"

Delia's eyes went wide as gravity took hold. She began to fall. The wind rushed past her ears, whipping her orange pigtails. The world became a blur of motion, the only clear thing the rapidly approaching train below. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. This was it. This was how it ended. A stupid, pointless mistake. A splat of a different kind.

A black shape blotted out the sky.

Batman dropped over the edge, plunging into the abyss after her. He fell faster than she did, a controlled dive. He wrapped a gauntleted arm around her waist, the armor hard and cold against her side.

His rocket boots fired with a soft whoosh, arresting their fall just feet above the speeding train. The heat from its passage washed over them. They hovered there for a second, suspended between the sky and the rails, Delia held tight in a grip of unyielding steel.

Then, with another burst from his boots, he soared back up, landing them both safely on the upper level just as Commissioner Barbara Gordon and two GCPD officers arrived, their weapons drawn.

The plaza was silent again, the onlookers holding their collective breath. Deirdre stood frozen, her face a mask of shock and relief.

But Delia wasn't looking at her sister. She wasn't looking at the police. She wasn't even aware of the danger she had just been in. She was looking up at the dark, armored figure who still held her firmly against his side.

Chapter Text

The world snapped back into focus for Delia Dennis, but it was a world that had been fundamentally altered. The cacophony of the plaza, the approaching sirens, the worried cry of her sister—it all faded into a dull, distant hum. The only things that felt real were the hard plates of the armor pressed against her and the strong, unyielding arm wrapped around her waist.

She tilted her head back, her orange wig brushing against his cape. She looked up past the red bat symbol, past the sculpted chest plate, to the cowl. The glowing lenses of his mask seemed to burn with an intensity that went straight through her, and below them, the grim, unyielding line of his mouth and the sharp angle of his jaw were the most exquisitely carved things she had ever seen.

He had saved her.

Not like a cop making a bust. Not like a hero stopping a crime. He had plunged into the void after her without hesitation. He had held her as a train, a metallic beast of speed and death, had roared beneath them. In that moment, suspended in the air, she hadn't felt fear. She had felt... secure. Protected. It was a feeling as alien and as intoxicating as the lilac scent in Ghoul’s goo.

Her heart, which had been hammering with adrenaline and then terror, now began to beat with a completely different rhythm. It was a frantic, fluttery, chaotic drum solo dedicated entirely to the man holding her. A slow, goofy, utterly sincere smile spread across her painted face, a stark contrast to the grim tableau around them.

Batman, sensing the immediate danger was over, loosened his grip, preparing to hand her over to the authorities. "It's over." he grunted, his voice a low vibration she felt in her bones.

But Delia had other ideas. Before he could fully release her, she reacted with the same impulsive, thoughtless energy that had sent her over the railing. She threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in the space between his shoulder and his cowl. She hugged him. Tightly.

"Wow." she breathed, her voice muffled against his suit. Her own lithe, acrobatic body was pressed against his armored form. It was like hugging a statue, but a warm one. A statue that had just swooped down from the heavens to pluck her from certain doom. "You're so strong."

Batman froze. Of all the reactions he'd anticipated—fear, defiance, anger, resignation—this was not on the list. He was completely rigid, his body unused to this kind of physical contact outside of combat. He felt her wig tickling his chin. It was a deeply, profoundly weird sensation.

"Let... go." he managed to say, his voice strained.

"No way!" she chirped, squeezing tighter. "You saved me! You were like... whoosh! And I was like... aaah! And the train was like... vrooom! And you were like... nope! Gotcha! It was the most romantic thing that has ever happened to me!"

Commissioner Barbara Gordon, her grey hair a fiery banner in the twilight, strode forward, her expression a masterwork of professional weariness. She'd seen it all in her years, from the original Joker's mayhem to Blight's radioactive rampages. But a teenage Jokerz groupie clinging to Batman like a limpet was a new one, even for her.

"Alright, Dennis, that's enough." Barbara said, her voice firm but with an undercurrent of exhaustion. She and her officers holstered their weapons. The show was clearly over. "Let the man breathe."

Deirdre had rushed over, her face pale under her makeup. "Delia! Are you okay?"

Delia didn't even look at her sister. Her entire universe had shrunk to the six-foot-plus frame of the Dark Knight. "I'm better than okay, Dee Dee! I'm in love!" she declared, her voice loud enough for half the plaza to hear.

A ripple of murmurs went through the remaining crowd. Phones were raised again. This was even better than the pie fight.

Batman placed his hands on Delia's shoulders, trying to gently but firmly pry her off. It was like trying to remove a barnacle with tweezers. "You're not in love." he growled, his embarrassment manifesting as increased gruffness. "You're disoriented."

"Nuh-uh!" she insisted, finally pulling back just enough to look up at his face again, her own eyes sparkling with a manic, adoring light. "I'm totally oriented! I've never been more oriented! I can see everything clearly now! Your eyes... well, your eye-slits... are so mysterious! And your jawline! You could cut glass with that jawline! You're so handsome!"

Barbara finally reached them and took Delia by the arm. "Okay, Juliet, show's over. You have a right to remain silent. I strongly suggest you use it."

As Barbara and another officer began to lead her away, Delia craned her neck, still trying to keep her eyes on Batman. "Don't worry!" she called out to him. "I'll wait for you! We're meant to be! It's destiny!"

Batman just stood there, motionless, as she was escorted toward a waiting police cruiser. He watched as Deirdre was cuffed and led away, her head hung low in familial shame, and as two other officers scraped Ghoul's unconscious form off the pavement.

He had faced down assassins, monsters, and madmen. He had stared death in the face more times than he could count. But as he stood there in the middle of Hamilton Hill Plaza, the scent of lilac and cheap perfume lingering in the air, Terry McGinnis had never felt more profoundly, utterly defeated. He raised a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, right over the armored plating of his mask. It didn't help.

The last thing he heard before activating his rocket boots and vanishing into the deepening gloom was Delia's voice, faint but clear, echoing from the cruiser.

"I love you, Batman!"

Chapter Text

The processing center at GCPD headquarters was a symphony of sterile beeps, harsh fluorescent lights, and the pervasive scent of industrial-strength cleaner. It was a place designed to strip away all the color and chaos of the outside world, leaving only the drab reality of consequence. For Deirdre Dennis, it was merely tedious. For her twin, it was a palace of daydreams.

They sat side-by-side on a cold, hard bench in a holding cell, their vibrant orange tunics looking absurdly out of place against the muted gray walls. Their face paint was starting to smudge, giving them a slightly tragic, clownish appearance. Ghoul was in the cell across from them, slumped in a corner, muttering to himself about... patents... and... wrongful termination... of his... creative process.

Deirdre stared straight ahead, her arms crossed over her chest. The thrill of the caper was gone. The shock of Delia’s near-death experience had subsided, replaced by a simmering cauldron of irritation. They had been sloppy. Delia had been reckless. And now they were here. Again. It was an exercise in diminishing returns.

"I can't believe you." Deirdre said, her voice a low, dangerous monotone. "You almost got yourself smeared across the front of a Maglev."

Delia, who had been humming a tuneless, happy little song, turned to her sister, her eyes glazed over with blissful remembrance. "I know, right? And then he just... swooped!" She made a swooping motion with her hand. "He was so graceful. Like a big, dark, handsome bird. A Bat-bird!"

Deirdre’s eye twitched. "He's the one who put us in here."

"Details, details." Delia waved a dismissive hand. "He was just doing his job. A job he's very, very good at. Did you feel his arms, Dee Dee? So firm. It was like being hugged by a really safe, really strong building." She sighed, a dreamy, contented sound. "I think I could get used to that."

"Get used to it?" Deirdre hissed, finally turning to face her twin. "He's Batman! He's our enemy! He fights us, he catches us, he throws us in jail where the food tastes like recycled cardboard. What part of that are you not getting?"

"The enemy part, I guess." Delia said, completely unfazed. "I don't think he's our enemy anymore. Not really. I think there was a spark. Did you see the way he looked at me?"

"He has glowing eyes!" Deirdre exclaimed, her voice rising in sheer disbelief. "He could have been looking at a spot on the wall behind you!"

"Nuh-uh." Delia insisted, shaking her head so her pigtails flopped. "It was a deep, meaningful look. A look that said, 'Wow, this girl is different. She's not like the other criminals I fight. She has spirit. And she smells faintly of lilac.' It was a connection, Dee Dee. A soul connection."

Deirdre buried her face in her hands, her fingers digging into her scalp. "We are the granddaughters of Harleen Quinzel." she said, her voice muffled. "Our grandmother, the original Harley Quinn. We are supposed to be smarter than this!"

"But the Joker was a bad guy." Delia countered reasonably. "A really, really bad guy. Batman is a good guy! He saves people! He has great posture! It's a total upgrade, if you think about it. Grandma would be proud. I'm choosing a much healthier partner."

"He's not your partner! You've met him once! For five minutes! While he was arresting you!" Deirdre was on the verge of screaming. It was like arguing with a cartoon character.

Across the way, Ghoul stirred. "You know... love." he mused to the wall. "It's a... a chemical reaction. An... unstable element. Very... volatile. Needs... a proper containment field. Or... you know... it gets... messy."

"See? Even Ghoul gets it!" Delia said triumphantly.

"Ghoul is talking to a stain on the wall!" Deirdre shot back.

Delia’s face softened again, her thoughts drifting back to the plaza. "He was so gentle when he grabbed me. But strong, you know? A gentle strength. That's so rare. And his jaw... I'm serious, Dee Dee, you could've sharpened a knife on that thing. It's perfect. He's perfect. I wonder what his name is."

"Batman!"

"No, silly, his real name." Delia giggled. "I bet it's something heroic. Like Lance. Or Drake. Or... Bruce." She paused, tasting the name. "Yeah... Bruce sounds right. Strong. Dependable. Bruce and Delia. It has a nice ring to it."

Deirdre fell silent. She just stared at her sister, at the absolute, unshakeable conviction in her smudged, painted face. The rational part of Deirdre's brain, the part that planned their capers and plotted their escape routes, was screaming in agony. It was trying to compute a variable it had never encountered before: Delia's utter, complete, and terrifyingly sincere infatuation.

This was worse than sloppy. This was worse than reckless. This was a whole new category of disaster. Their partnership, the perfect twin-engine of their criminal enterprise, had just had one of its engines replaced with a wind-up music box that only played love songs.

"When we get out of here." Deirdre said, her voice dropping back to its cold, flat baseline, "we are laying low. And you are going to forget all about this."

Delia just smiled her dreamy smile. "I can't forget, Dee Dee." she whispered, as if sharing a sacred secret. "It's destiny."

Deirdre leaned her head back against the cold cinderblock wall and closed her eyes. It was going to be a very, very long night.

Chapter Text

The Batcave was an abyss of cool, silent shadows, a stark contrast to the neon-drenched chaos of the city above. The only sounds were the gentle drip of water from unseen stalactites and the low, powerful hum of the Batcomputer. On its massive central screen, footage from the Hamilton Hill Plaza incident was playing on a loop.

Terry McGinnis, now out of the Batsuit and in a plain grey t-shirt and jeans, leaned against the console, a half-eaten sandwich in his hand. "I'm telling you, Bruce, it was weird. Weirder than usual."

Bruce Wayne, a silhouette in the command chair, didn't turn. His eyes were fixed on the screen, his posture as rigid and unyielding as the rock formations around them. He replayed the moment: Batman saving Delia, her impulsive hug, her shouted confessions of love. He zoomed in, enhancing the audio.

"I'm in love!"

"I'll wait for you! We're meant to be! It's destiny!"

Bruce let out a soft, dry sound that might have been a sigh. "It's not weird, Terry." he said, his voice the gravelly rumble of age and experience. "It's predictable. And it's dangerous."

Terry took another bite of his sandwich. "Dangerous? Come on. She's a kid. A ditzy kid with bad makeup who fell for the guy who saved her life. It's a schoolgirl crush." He gestured at the screen with the sandwich. "It's kind of funny, actually."

"Nothing about this is funny." Bruce said, finally swiveling his chair to face Terry. The harsh light from the monitors carved deep lines into his face, highlighting the grim set of his mouth. "Do you have any idea who her grandmother is?"

"Yeah, Harley Quinn, I know. The Joker's sidekick. So what? This isn't her."

"Genetics and environment are a potent combination." Bruce stated, his voice taking on the tone of a lecture. "Harleen Quinzel was a brilliant psychiatrist who fell into a delusional obsession with a psychopath. That particular brand of instability, that willingness to throw away everything for a fixation on a costumed figure... it's not something you should take lightly. Especially when it's directed at you."

Terry shrugged, a gesture of youthful nonchalance that always seemed to set Bruce's teeth on edge. "So she's got a crush. She'll be in juvie for a few weeks, she'll forget all about it. What's the worst that could happen? She sends me a fan letter?"

Bruce’s gaze was sharp, cutting. "The worst." he began, his voice low and deliberate, "is that she gets out. The worst is that this 'crush' doesn't fade. It festers. It becomes an obsession. And an obsessive with the physical skills of an Olympic gymnast and a complete disregard for the law is not a fan. She's a threat."

He turned back to the computer, pulling up a different set of files. Images of Terry's family appeared on the screen: his mom, Mary, and his younger brother, Matt. Then a picture of Dana Tan, smiling.

"She saw your face, Terry." Bruce said, gesturing to the footage of the save. "Not your real face, but the part of it that's exposed. Your mouth, your chin. She has a target. What happens when she decides her 'love' isn't being reciprocated? What happens when she decides the only thing standing between her and her fantasy is your real life?"

Terry stopped chewing. The sandwich suddenly tasted like ash. He hadn't thought of that. To him, Batman and Terry McGinnis were two separate lives, a carefully maintained wall between them. The idea that someone from one life could so easily bleed into the other, especially in this way, was unsettling.

"She doesn't know who I am." Terry said, a little less confidently this time.

"She knows you're a person under the mask." Bruce countered. "And she's already demonstrated a complete lack of boundaries. People like this, they don't give up. They escalate. They'll try to 'help' you. They'll try to get your attention. And when that fails, they'll try to eliminate what they perceive as obstacles." He tapped the picture of Dana on the screen. "Your girlfriend, for example."

Terry’s jaw tightened. The humor of the situation had completely evaporated, replaced by a cold knot of anxiety in his stomach. He saw it now, the potential trajectory Bruce was laying out. It wasn't funny. It was a nightmare.

"So what do I do?" Terry asked, his voice losing its earlier flippancy.

"For now, nothing." Bruce said. "She's in custody. But you need to be aware. You need to treat her not as a joke, but as a problem. A problem you cannot afford to underestimate. The moment she's out, you need to be vigilant. Any attempt at contact, any sign that she's trying to find you, you report it to me immediately. No exceptions."

Terry nodded slowly, his eyes on the frozen image of Delia's adoring, painted face on the monitor. The goofy smile didn't look so harmless anymore. It looked unhinged.

"And Terry." Bruce added, his voice dropping even lower. "Be careful. Harley's obsession with the Joker led her down a path of violence and self-destruction. This girl is her granddaughter. Don't make the mistake of thinking she's just a silly girl with a crush. There's a darkness there. A potential for real chaos. You need to be ready for it."

The weight of the cowl suddenly felt a lot heavier. Terry put the rest of his sandwich down. He had lost his appetite.

Chapter Text

As Terry silently processed the unsettling implications of his newfound "admirer." Bruce swiped a hand across the control panel. Delia Dennis's smiling, smudged face vanished from the main screen, replaced by a much starker, more chilling image: a grainy, long-distance security feed from the Port of Neo-Gotham.

The image depicted a figure, little more than a silhouette, perched atop a cargo crane. The figure was slender, almost unnaturally so, clad in dark, flowing fabrics. Even in the low-resolution image, the glint of moonlight off the long, curved scimitar held in one hand was unmistakable.

"While you've been dealing with lovesick teenagers." Bruce said, his tone shifting from cautionary to commanding, "a more immediate problem has surfaced."

Terry tore his gaze away from his own troubled thoughts and focused on the screen. He recognized the silhouette instantly. The white veil, the flowing sash, the deadly blade. He'd only encountered her once before, but she wasn't someone you forgot.

"Curaré." Terry breathed, the name itself feeling sharp in his mouth.

"The very same." Bruce confirmed. "She was spotted by port security two nights ago. By the time the GCPD responded, she was gone. But not before leaving a message."

He brought up another image. It was a close-up of a steel shipping container. Scratched into the metal with razor-sharp precision was a single, stylized symbol—the mark of the Society of Assassins. Beside it, another symbol was carved: a target.

"Intel from my old contacts suggests the Society has a new target in Neo-Gotham." Bruce continued, his fingers flying across the keyboard, pulling up schematics, satellite maps, and encrypted data streams. "They're being uncharacteristically quiet about who. But they don't send Curaré for just anyone. Whoever it is, they're important. And very, very well-protected."

Terry stared at the image of the silent assassin. This was a different kind of threat. The Dee Dees were chaos, a disorganized, giggling mess of trouble. Curaré was the opposite. She was silence. She was precision. She was death distilled into a single, graceful form. There were no exploding pies, no witty banter. Just a mission, a target, and a blade that never seemed to miss. And she was completely, utterly mute, which somehow made her even more terrifying. Her intentions were conveyed only through her actions, and her actions were always lethal.

"What's her story again?" Terry asked, trying to recall the limited information they had on her. "Best killer in the League of Assassins, blue skin, never speaks."

"Society of Assassins." Bruce corrected automatically. "And that's the gist of it. She's more of a force of nature than a person. Genetically engineered for speed, agility, and the killer instinct. Her sword is monomolecular, capable of cutting through almost any substance. She is, for all intents and purposes, the perfect assassin. Single-minded, relentless, and completely without mercy or distraction."

The word "distraction" hung in the air, an unspoken contrast to the conversation they had just finished. Terry understood. Bruce was redirecting him. The Delia problem was a potential future headache; Curaré was a clear and present danger. This was the real fight.

"Any idea who she's after?" Terry asked, slipping back into mission mode.

"I'm running diagnostics now." Bruce said, his eyes scanning the cascading lines of code on the screen. "Cross-referencing high-profile visitors, corporate rivals, political figures... anyone who might have earned the Society's ire. The problem is, that's a very long list."

Terry looked from the image of the silent, deadly Curaré back to the now-blank space where Delia's face had been. A lovestruck teenager and a world-class assassin. It felt like his life was becoming a bizarre circus of dangerous women. One wanted to hug him; the other wanted to slice through him to get to her target. He wasn't sure which was worse.

"So, the plan is to find her before she finds her target." Terry stated.

"The plan." Bruce said, his voice dropping into the familiar cadence of command, "is for you to patrol her last known whereabouts. The industrial sector and the port. Look for her sign. Look for any unusual activity. Do not engage her directly unless you have to. She's not a Jokerz punk, Terry. You make one mistake, and she'll cut you in half. Your suit can handle a lot, but a monomolecular blade is not something I want to test."

Terry nodded, his own expression hardening. This was familiar territory. A real threat. A real mission. It was a relief, in a way. Dealing with a silent killer felt much more straightforward than navigating the minefield of a delusional teenage crush.

"I'm on it." he said, turning and heading back toward the sleek, dark form of the Batsuit, which stood waiting in its glass enclosure like a sentinel.

As he walked away, Bruce kept his eyes on the screen, his fingers never ceasing their dance across the keyboard. "Terry." he called out, his voice stopping Terry in his tracks.

Terry looked back.

"Don't underestimate either of them." Bruce warned, his gaze unwavering. "The blade you see coming is often less dangerous than the one you don't."

The message was clear. Curaré was the mission. But Delia Dennis was still the problem, lurking in the shadows of his mind, a different kind of threat entirely. Terry gave a curt nod, the weight of both warnings settling upon his shoulders, and disappeared into the alcove to suit up. The night was young, and it was already far too complicated.

Chapter Text

The kitchen of the McGinnis residence was an island of comforting normalcy in Terry's increasingly strange life. The light was warm, the refrigerator hummed a familiar tune, and the smell of his mom's late-night synth-lasagna still lingered in the air. Terry was leaning against the counter, a glass of water in his hand, his wrist-com cradled in the other. On the tiny holographic screen, Max Gibson's face was projected, her expression a mixture of amusement and disbelief.

"...and then she hugged me." Terry finished, taking a long sip of water. "Like, a full-on, 'you're my hero' hug. And told me she was in love with me. In front of everyone."

Max was silent for a moment, her brow furrowed as if she was processing a complex algorithm. Then, her face broke into a wide, unrestrained grin. "No. Way."

"Way." Terry deadpanned. "Commissioner Gordon had to practically peel her off me."

Max threw her head back and laughed, a genuine, loud laugh that made the tiny hologram of her shimmer. "Oh, that is classic! Terry McGinnis, the Bat-Femme-Fatale! First Ten from the Royal Flush Gang, now a Dee Dee twin? You've got a type, and it's 'criminally unstable.'"

"It's not funny, Max." Terry grumbled, though a reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Hearing Max laugh about it somehow took the edge off the weirdness. "Bruce thinks she's going to be a major problem. He gave me the whole 'obsessive stalker' lecture. Thinks she's going to come after Dana."

"Ooh, a love triangle!" Max's eyes sparkled with mischievous delight. "The dark, brooding hero, the sweet, unsuspecting girlfriend, and the crazy, wig-wearing psycho! It's like something out of a bad daytime holo-drama. So, who are you giving the final rose to?"

"I'm hanging up." Terry threatened, but he didn't move.

"No, no, wait!" Max said, trying to stifle her giggles. "Okay, okay, serious face." She composed her features into an exaggeratedly solemn expression. "Bruce is right, you know. He's always right, which is super annoying. A girl who's that impulsive and has that kind of physical skill set? And a direct lineage from Harley Quinn? That's not a crush, that's a ticking time bomb with hearts drawn on it."

"That's what he said. More or less." Terry admitted. He swirled the water in his glass, watching the condensation trail down the side. "He also told me Curaré is back in town."

Max's humor vanished instantly. Her face went from mischievous to dead serious in a heartbeat. "Okay, not funny anymore. Curaré is end-level-boss territory. What's she here for?"

"An assassination. We don't know who. I've got to patrol the ports tonight, look for her."

"Right." Max said, her mind clearly shifting gears, the tech-whiz taking over. "Okay, I can run a background search, see if I can find any chatter on the shadow-nets about the Society. Look for any high-value contracts originating in the Narrows. Maybe cross-reference it with flight manifests, see who's come into the city that's important enough to warrant a personal visit from her."

"Bruce is already on it, but a second set of eyes couldn't hurt." Terry said, grateful for her immediate shift into partner mode. This was why he told Max things. She was the only other person in his life who could understand both sides of the coin—the absurd, embarrassing pitfalls and the life-or-death stakes.

"So you've got a silent, blue-skinned ninja trying to kill someone, and a giggling, orange-clad gymnast trying to kiss you." Max summarized, a hint of the humor returning to her voice. "Your life is never boring, is it?"

"Tell me about it." Terry sighed. He looked around the quiet kitchen, a sanctuary of his normal life. He thought about Dana, about his mom and Matt. Bruce's warning about Delia being a threat to them echoed in his mind, and the knot of anxiety returned. "I just... I don't want this stuff bleeding into my life, you know? My real life."

"I get it." Max said, her voice softening. "But hey, look on the bright side."

"What possible bright side is there?"

"At least with Curaré, you know exactly what she wants." Max said. "She wants to kill someone. Simple, straightforward. With Delia? Who knows! She might want to redecorate the Batcave in pink and glitter. It's the chaotic ones you've really got to watch out for."

Terry couldn't help but let out a short laugh. "Thanks, Max. That's... incredibly helpful."

"Anytime, Bats." she grinned. "Now go on, get your brooding done. I'll see what I can dig up on the Society. And Terry?"

"Yeah?"

"If you do end up in a catfight between a ninja and a clown, please, please make sure it's on camera."

Terry rolled his eyes and ended the call, the tiny hologram of Max winking out of existence. He was still smiling. The situation was still a mess, a tangled knot of professional duty and personal absurdity. But talking to Max had been like letting a little pressure out of the valve. It was still a powder keg of a situation, but at least now he could see the humor in it again. For a moment, anyway. He finished his water, placed the glass in the sink, and headed for the door. It was time to go to work. The ports were waiting, and somewhere in their shadows, a silent blade was being sharpened.

Chapter Text

The walls of the juvenile detention center were a carefully curated shade of institutional beige, a color designed to be calming, inoffensive, and soul-crushingly dull. For Deirdre Dennis, it was a physical manifestation of her own internal state: boredom bordering on agony. For Delia, however, the beige was a blank canvas. And on that canvas, she was painting vibrant, heroic fantasies in her mind's eye.

"He's probably thinking about me right now." Delia whispered from the top bunk. It was late. The only light in their small room came from a thin sliver of moon filtering through the high, barred window.

Deirdre, lying stiffly on the bottom bunk, didn't open her eyes. "He's probably thinking about how to reinforce the security at Arkham. Go to sleep."

"I can't sleep." Delia said, her voice filled with a restless, bubbly energy that defied the tranquilizing effect of their surroundings. "My heart is doing the thing again. The fluttery thing. It's like a flock of cyber-robins are having a party in my chest. Do you think he likes orange? I feel like he might. It's a strong color. A confident color."

"He wears all black." Deirdre deadpanned. "I doubt he's a big fan of citrus tones."

"Maybe he just needs someone to bring a little color into his life!" Delia sat up, the bunk creaking in protest. "That's what I can do! I can be his rainbow in the dark! His... his splash of sunshine in the grim, gritty night!"

Deirdre finally sat up, swinging her legs over the side of her bunk. She looked up at her twin, a silhouette in the gloom. "The only thing you're going to be is Inmate #7754B if you don't shut up and let me think."

"What's there to think about?" Delia asked, flopping back down. "We do our time, we get out, I find my Bat-love, we fight crime together, and live happily ever after."

"That's your plan?" Deirdre asked, her voice dangerously quiet. "That's your grand strategy? 'Happily ever after'?"

"It's a good plan!"

"It's a fairy tale!" Deirdre stood up, pacing the tiny confines of their room. Four steps one way, four steps back. "Listen to me, Delia. This isn't a game. This infatuation... it's made you stupid. You got sloppy. You almost got killed. And now we're stuck in here, waiting for a court date, while our reputation on the street turns to sludge. The Jokerz are a joke again, and not the funny kind."

Delia was quiet for a moment. "He saved me, Dee Dee."

"He did his job!" Deirdre whirled on her. "And now we're in a cage. This isn't productive. This isn't profitable. This is a waste of our time and talents. We have to get out of here. Now."

A flicker of the old Delia returned. The one who loved a good caper. "An escape?" she whispered, a thrill in her voice. "But... what about my trial? I was going to wear that nice dress and tell the judge how I've changed."

"You haven't changed! You've just swapped one obsession for another!" Deirdre stopped pacing and looked up at the high window. The bars were thick, the glass reinforced. But the frame... the frame was set into older brickwork. She ran her fingers along the wall beneath it. The mortar was old.

"Our grandmother raised us." Deirdre said, more to herself than to Delia. "She taught us gymnastics. She taught us how to be nimble, how to be quick. She taught us how to see the weaknesses in things." She tapped a section of the wall. "She didn't raise us to sit in a box and wait."

The manic, lovelorn energy in Delia's eyes was suddenly replaced by a focused spark. This was familiar. This was their rhythm. Deirdre's brain, Delia's body. The plan and the execution. "What's the plan?" she asked, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.

"The frame of the window is the weak point." Deirdre explained, her mind working at high speed. "The mortar is old. If we can apply enough consistent, percussive force to the right spots, we can loosen it. Not enough to make a sound, just enough to compromise the integrity."

"And how do we do that?"

Deirdre glanced at the simple metal chairs in the corner of the room. "We need leverage and a fulcrum. And we need to be quiet."

For the next two hours, the twins worked in near-perfect silence. It was their dance, their unique brand of coordinated effort. Deirdre, the strategist, identified the stress points around the window frame. Delia, the more agile and acrobatic of the two, was the tool.

They wedged the back of one chair under the edge of the window frame. Then, with Deirdre guiding her, Delia used her incredible body control to perform a series of slow, controlled handstands on the chair's seat, using her heels to apply precise, repeated pressure to the weak points in the mortar that Deirdre pointed out. It was a painstaking, silent process. A tiny shimmy here, a controlled push there. Dust, fine as powdered sugar, began to trickle down the wall.

Finally, Deirdre held up a hand. "Enough."

She climbed onto the bunk, then onto Delia's shoulders, a familiar tower of twin power. She placed her hands on the window frame and pushed. There was a soft grating sound, a groan of stressed metal and crumbling brick. The entire frame shifted, just a few millimeters.

It was enough.

"Now." Deirdre whispered.

With a shared look of grim determination, they both pushed. The frame gave way with a low schhhk of sliding metal and a shower of dust, and popped out of the wall, bars and all. It was heavy, but between the two of them, they managed to lower it quietly to the floor.

A wave of cool, damp night air washed into the stale room. Freedom.

Delia poked her head through the opening. They were three stories up. A dizzying drop to the pavement below. "It's a long way down." she whispered.

"Not for us." Deirdre said. She was already tearing their thin bedsheets into strips, her fingers working with practiced speed, knotting them together into a makeshift rope.

Delia looked out at the sprawling, glittering expanse of Neo-Gotham. Somewhere out there, he was flying through the night. Her heart gave a little flutter.

This wasn't just an escape. It was the first step. The first step to finding him. To proving to him they were meant to be.

Deirdre finished the rope and secured it to the leg of a bunk, testing the knot with a sharp tug. She looked at her sister's face, illuminated by the city lights. She saw the familiar thrill of the escape, but underneath it, she saw the new, terrifying gleam of obsession.

"Let's go." Deirdre said, her voice grim. She was breaking them out to get back to business. But she had a sinking feeling she had just unleashed her sister on a completely different, far more chaotic mission.

Chapter Text

Their new hideout was a forgotten relic of an older Gotham, a derelict automat diner tucked away in a grimy alley in the industrial district. The chrome was pitted, the round glass doors were clouded with age, and the faint smell of stale coffee and desperation seemed to be baked into the very walls. To Deirdre, it was perfect: off the grid, easily defensible, and utterly forgettable. A place to regroup, re-arm, and plan their next real score.

Deirdre was taking inventory. She had laid out their meager collection of salvaged gear on a dusty countertop: a few smoke pellets, a half-charged stun baton, and a spool of high-tensile wire. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

"Okay." she said, tapping the stun baton. "The power cell on this is almost drained. Ghoul could probably rig a bypass charger if we can find a decent power source. There's a sub-station three blocks from here. We could hit it tonight, grab a few converters, and maybe lift some comm-jammers while we're there. A quiet, simple, profitable run."

She looked over at her sister for confirmation. Delia was sitting at one of the round diner tables, but she wasn't listening. She had a piece of charcoal she’d found in the old kitchen and was sketching furiously on the back of a stained paper placemat.

Deirdre sighed, a sound of pure exasperation. "Delia. Are you even listening to me?"

"Uh-huh." Delia said, not looking up. "Sub-station. Comm-jammers. Profit. Got it." Her hand continued to move, sketching a swooping cape, pointed ears, and a broad, muscular chest. She drew a little heart next to the chest. Then another one. Then she filled in the entire background with hearts of varying sizes.

Deirdre walked over and snatched the placemat off the table. Delia’s drawing was... disturbingly detailed. She’d captured the angular lines of the Batsuit with surprising accuracy, though she’d taken some artistic liberties, adding little speed-lines and sparkles around the figure. The words "BATSY-WATSY" were written in big, bubbly letters at the top.

"This." Deirdre said, holding up the drawing with two fingers as if it were contaminated, "is not a plan. This is a cry for help."

"It's a motivational poster!" Delia protested, reaching for it. "He's my muse!"

"He's a cop in a cape!" Deirdre shot back, crumpling the placemat into a tight ball and tossing it into a corner. "And we are criminals. Or at least, we were, before you decided to trade your ambition for a high-school crush!"

"It's not a crush!" Delia stood up, her fists planted on her hips. Her face, free of its usual paint, was earnest and intense. "And I'm not a criminal anymore. I've decided."

Deirdre stared at her. "You've... decided? Just like that? You're hanging up your little orange tunic and retiring to a life of... what? Good deeds and civic duty?"

"Exactly!" Delia's eyes lit up, as if Deirdre finally understood. "I can't be with him if I'm one of the bad guys. It just wouldn't work. The press would have a field day. 'Batman's Beau a Baddie?' I can see the headlines now. It would be terrible for his image."

Deirdre felt a headache beginning to form behind her eyes. "You think he cares about his 'image'? He's a creature of the night who beats people up for a living!"

"Of course he cares!" Delia insisted. "He has a brand to maintain. That's why I have to change. I have to show him that I'm not the girl he arrested. I'm a new woman. A good woman! Or, you know, a good-ish woman."

Deirdre started pacing again, her footsteps echoing in the empty diner. "Okay. Okay. Let's follow this... this trail of absolute insanity for a second. You're 'good' now. So what's your plan? You're going to knit him a sweater? Bake him a cake? How are you going to get the attention of a man who actively avoids you and is, I repeat, trying to put you in jail?"

Delia's face broke into a radiant, triumphant smile. It was the smile of someone who had just solved the mysteries of the universe.

"I'm not going to get his attention by being a civilian." she said, her voice filled with newfound purpose. "I'm going to get his attention by being his partner."

Deirdre stopped pacing. "His... partner."

"Yes! He fights crime, I'll fight crime! I'll be his... I don't know, his Starling! We'll be a team! He'll see how skilled I am, how brave I am, how dedicated I am to justice and... and to him! He'll see me not as a project, but as a peer. An equal. He won't be able to resist!"

The sheer, unadulterated lunacy of the plan was almost breathtaking. Deirdre felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. Her sister, Delia "exploding pie" Dennis, was going to become a vigilante. A crime-fighter. All to impress a man who probably thought her name was Inmate #7754B.

"You are going to get yourself killed." Deirdre said, her voice flat and devoid of emotion. "Or arrested. Or both."

"No, I won't." Delia said with unwavering confidence. "Because I'll have him watching my back. And I'll be watching his. It's perfect!"

Deirdre looked around the grimy, forgotten diner. She looked at the crumpled-up drawing of Batman in the corner. She looked at her twin sister, whose eyes were shining with a terrifying, passionate fire she had never seen before. This was no longer about a silly crush. This was a mission. Delia had found a new calling, a new purpose.

And Deirdre knew, with a certainty that chilled her to the bone, that there was nothing she could say or do to stop it. She had let the canary out of the cage, and now it was determined to fly directly into the path of a bat. All she could do was watch, and wait for the inevitable collision.

"You're an idiot." Deirdre said, slumping down into one of the diner booths.

"I'm in love." Delia corrected, her gaze turned towards the grimy window, as if she could see her future unfolding in the neon-lit sky of Neo-Gotham. "It's way better."

Chapter Text

The rain fell in sheets, not the gentle pitter-patter of a natural storm, but the hard, synthetic downpour of Neo-Gotham's atmospheric regulators trying to scrub the perpetual smog from the air. It slicked the rooftops of the financial district, turning them into treacherous mirrors that reflected the garish neon signs below. For Batman, the rain was a cloak, another layer of shadow to mask his movements.

He was perched on the head of a gargoyle, a relic of the old city that had been incorporated into the facade of a new skyscraper. He was a statue of darkness, motionless and patient, his glowing red lenses scanning the building across the street. This was the target: Kazuya Nakahara, a high-level executive for Shaka-Futura Bio-Tech, a direct rival to the Society of Assassins' front companies. Nakahara was corrupt, ruthless, and, according to Bruce's intel, the reason Curaré was in town.

Inside the penthouse apartment opposite, Nakahara was hosting a party, oblivious to the silent death sentence hanging over his head. Batman's sensors were focused on the building, watching for any sign of infiltration. A flicker of movement on the roof, an anomalous heat signature, a security laser tripped and then mysteriously reset. Curaré was a ghost, but even ghosts left traces.

There.

A shadow detached itself from another shadow on the far side of the rooftop. It was her. She moved with a liquid grace that was both beautiful and terrifying, her dark robes barely stirring in the wind and rain. She crept toward a skylight, her monomolecular scimitar held at her side, the blade seeming to drink the dim light. She was preparing to make her move.

Batman tensed, his own muscles coiling like springs. This was the moment. He had to intercept her before she reached the skylight, before she brought her silent brand of death down on the unsuspecting party-goers inside. He pushed off from the gargoyle, his cape snapping open as he glided silently across the rain-swept chasm between the buildings.

He landed on the rooftop behind her, his boots making only the softest of thuds on the wet plasteel. She froze. She hadn't heard him, but she had sensed him. A subtle shift in the air pressure, the faint hum of his suit's electronics. She turned slowly, her face obscured by the shadows of her turban, only the eerie blue tint of her skin visible. She raised her scimitar, the blade humming with a faint, deadly energy.

There were no words. There never were with her. There was only the language of combat.

She lunged, a blur of motion. Her blade sliced through the air, aimed directly at his neck. Batman met the attack, his armored gauntlet deflecting the blow with a shower of sparks. The force of the impact was immense; it was like being hit by a freight train. He countered with a kick, but she was already gone, flowing backward like water, her blade now coming around in a low, sweeping arc aimed at his legs.

He leaped over the slice, firing a grappling line at a nearby air conditioning unit to swing himself into a better position. This was their dance: a deadly ballet of attack and counter, of technology and ancient skill. He was stronger, his suit more durable. But she was faster, more fluid, and her blade could find any chink in his armor.

The fight was a whirlwind of black and blue, of sparks and rain. He managed to disarm her once, sending the scimitar skittering across the rooftop. But she was just as deadly with her hands and feet, a flurry of kicks and strikes that forced him onto the defensive until she could gracefully flip and retrieve her weapon.

He had her cornered, pressing his advantage near the edge of the roof, when a new sound cut through the drone of the rain and the clash of their battle.

"Yoo-hoo! Batsy-watsy!"

Batman froze mid-punch. Curaré paused mid-parry. Both of them turned their heads toward the source of the voice.

On the roof of the adjacent, slightly lower building, stood a figure. An orange-and-black figure, to be precise. Her face was painted in its familiar clownish circles, and she was waving at them with an enthusiastic, two-handed wave that was wildly out of place.

It was Delia.

"Don't you worry your handsome, pointy-eared little head!" she yelled, her voice barely carrying over the storm. "I'm here to help!"

Before Batman could even process the full horror of the situation, before he could form the words "No, don't." she took a running start. With a yell that was more enthusiastic than graceful, she leaped across the gap between the buildings.

She didn't quite make it.

Her fingers scrabbled at the ledge of the roof, her feet kicking uselessly against the slick wall. For a terrifying second, it looked like she was going to fall again. But with a surge of gymnastic strength, she managed to haul herself up, flopping onto the rooftop like a fish, drenched and sputtering.

She scrambled to her feet, striking a pose that was probably meant to be heroic but just looked awkward.

"Ta-da!" she announced, beaming at Batman. "The cavalry has arrived!"

Batman stared at her, his mind struggling to compute this new, chaotic variable. Curaré, a being of pure, lethal focus, simply tilted her head, her unseen eyes regarding Delia with what could only be described as silent, murderous confusion. The perfect, deadly equation of their duel had just been interrupted by a gibbering, orange-clad idiot.

"I'll handle this!" Delia declared, and with a surprisingly fierce, if technically unsound, battle cry, she charged straight at the most dangerous assassin on the planet.

Chapter Text

The rooftop, already a treacherous battleground of rain and steel, instantly devolved into a theater of the absurd. Delia, fueled by a potent cocktail of adrenaline and misguided love, launched herself at Curaré with all the grace of a runaway shopping cart.

"Hi-ya!" she shrieked, attempting a flying kick that was more ambitious than aerodynamic.

Curaré, who had been poised to re-engage Batman, simply took one elegant step to the side. Delia sailed past her, her kick meeting only empty, rain-filled air. She landed in an uncoordinated heap, sliding on the slick surface and crashing into a ventilation duct with a loud clang.

"Oof." she grunted, shaking her head to clear it. "Slippery."

Batman pinched the bridge of his nose, a gesture of pure, unfiltered exasperation. "Get out of here!" he yelled at Delia. "You don't know who you're dealing with!"

"I'm helping!" Delia insisted, scrambling back to her feet. She pointed a finger at the silent assassin. "You! Blue lady! Leave my boyfriend alone!"

The term "boyfriend" seemed to hang in the air, even more bizarre than the situation itself. Curaré, for her part, showed no sign of understanding the word, but she clearly understood the intent. The strange, noisy creature was attacking her. It was an obstacle. Obstacles were to be removed.

She turned her attention from Batman to Delia. Her movements, which had been economical and deadly against the Dark Knight, became almost contemptuously dismissive. She advanced on Delia, her scimitar held in a low, ready guard.

Delia, to her credit, did not back down. She fell into a gymnast's ready stance, a far cry from a martial artist's form, but her eyes were narrowed with determination. "You want a piece of me? Come and get it!"

Curaré lunged. It wasn't the all-out assault she had used on Batman, but a quick, testing strike. Delia, relying on pure acrobatic instinct, bent over backwards in a gravity-defying backbend, the monomolecular blade hissing through the air a mere inch above her painted face. The wind from its passage ruffled her orange pigtails.

"Whoa!" she yelped, flipping back to her feet. "Sharp!"

This was Batman's worst-case scenario. He now had to fight a world-class assassin while simultaneously trying to keep a suicidal fangirl from getting bisected.

"Stay back!" he ordered Delia as he moved to intercept Curaré.

The duel for two became a chaotic three-way mess. Batman would engage Curaré, trying to force her back, only for Delia to try and "help" by, for instance, attempting to throw a loose piece of conduit at the assassin's head. The projectile missed by a mile, clattering off a wall and forcing Batman to dodge it.

"I almost had her!" Delia shouted encouragingly.

Curaré, clearly annoyed by the constant, clumsy interruptions, decided to neutralize the nuisance first. She disengaged from Batman with a fluidic leap and closed the distance to Delia in a heartbeat. She feinted high with her sword, and as Delia flinched back, Curaré swept her legs out from under her. Delia hit the wet rooftop with a surprised squeak.

Before Curaré could deliver a finishing—or at least, incapacitating—blow, Batman was there. He slammed into the assassin with a flying body check, sending her stumbling backward. The move lacked finesse, but it was effective. It put him between the killer and the liability.

"I told you to leave!" he snarled at Delia, who was now sitting up, rubbing the back of her head.

"But we're a team!" she protested, a look of genuine hurt on her face. "Partners have to stick together!"

The sheer disconnect from reality was staggering. As Batman was trying to formulate a response that wouldn't involve simply putting Delia in a headlock and dragging her away, Curaré regrouped. She looked from the heavily armored Batman to the drenched, ridiculous-looking girl on the ground, and then back to Batman. This was not a clean kill. It was messy. It was noisy. It was compromised.

The Society of Assassins did not prize messy.

With a final, lingering glare that seemed to promise a future, more private meeting, Curaré did something unexpected. She turned, ran to the edge of the roof, and simply leaped off. She didn't use a grappling line or a glider. She just fell into the abyss of the city, vanishing into the rain and darkness below, presumably using some unseen handholds or environmental features to break her fall. She was gone.

The rooftop was suddenly silent, save for the drumming of the rain. The penthouse party across the way continued, its occupants blissfully unaware of the deadly ballet that had just played out above their heads.

Batman stood panting, not from exertion, but from sheer stress. He slowly turned to face Delia, who was now getting to her feet, brushing herself off with a proud smile.

"We did it!" she cheered, clapping her hands together. "We scared her off! See? We make a great team! Bat and Starling! No, wait, that's lame. How about... Night-Knight and his Day-Dream?"

Terry wanted to scream. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until her ridiculous pigtails fell off. He had just been in a life-or-death battle with one of the most dangerous people on the planet, a fight that required his absolute, undivided focus, and she had turned it into a circus. She hadn't helped. She had been a walking, talking, screaming weak point, a vulnerability he was forced to protect.

He took a deep, steadying breath, the suit's regulators filtering the damp air. He stalked over to her, his shadow falling over her. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and adoring, expecting praise, or maybe even another hug.

"Stay away from me." he growled, his voice a low, threatening rumble of pure fury. "Don't 'help' me. Don't even think about me. If I see you again, I'm not saving you. I'm arresting you. Understood?"

The adoring look on Delia's face faltered, replaced by a wave of confusion and hurt. Her smile trembled. "But... I thought..."

"You thought wrong." he cut her off. Without another word, he turned his back on her, fired his grappling line into the sky, and launched himself off the roof, leaving her alone in the rain.

He flew through the night, the cold wind a welcome balm on his frayed nerves. He had survived Curaré. He had survived Delia. But the chilling thought that lingered in his mind was that this was only the beginning. Delia wasn't just a crush. She was a force of chaos, and she had just decided he was the center of her storm.

Chapter Text

Delia stood on the rooftop, soaked to the bone, rain plastering her orange pigtails to her head and making her face paint run in sad, gray streaks. The spot where Batman had stood moments before was empty, the air still seeming to vibrate with the force of his anger. His words echoed in her ears, each one a tiny, sharp icicle to the heart.

Stay away from me.

I'm not saving you. I'm arresting you.

You thought wrong.

She had failed. Her grand gesture, her heroic debut, had been a complete and utter disaster. He wasn't proud of her. He was angry. He didn't see her as a partner. He saw her as a nuisance. A tear, hot and real, traced a path through the smudged paint on her cheek, mingling with the cold rain.

The journey back to the abandoned automat was a blur of misery. She slunk through the alleys of Neo-Gotham, a defeated, waterlogged clown, her earlier ebullience completely extinguished.

When she finally pushed through the creaking door of the diner, Deirdre was waiting. Her sister was sitting in a booth, cleaning the contacts on the stun baton with a rag. She looked up, took in Delia's pathetic state—the dripping hair, the running makeup, the soul-crushing despair in her eyes—and didn't even have to ask.

"So." Deirdre said, her voice dry and devoid of pity. "How did 'Operation: Win His Love by Being an Idiot' go?"

Delia just sniffled, slumping down into the opposite side of the booth. "He hates me." she whispered, her voice cracking. "He was fighting the scary blue lady, and I tried to help, but I just got in the way. He told me to stay away from him."

"Shocking." Deirdre said, not missing a beat in her work. "Who could have predicted that interfering in a fight between Batman and a world-class assassin would be a bad idea? Oh, wait. I did."

"This isn't helping!" Delia wailed, burying her face in her hands. "What am I going to do, Dee Dee? He'll never love me now! I'm just a silly girl in a silly costume who almost got sliced in half!"

Deirdre finally put the baton down and gave her sister her full attention. "Good." she said.

Delia looked up, her eyes red-rimmed and confused. "Good?"

"Yes, good." Deirdre affirmed. "You've got it out of your system. You tried your little fantasy, it blew up in your face, and now you see reality. Batman is the guy who puts us in jail. Curaré is the kind of person who kills people like us for fun. We are out of their league. So now, we can finally get back to what we're good at: small-time, profitable crime. We'll lay low, let the heat die down, and then we'll plan a real score. Something smart. Something simple."

For a moment, Delia just stared at her sister, the logic of her words washing over her. Deirdre was right, of course. She was always right. This whole idea was stupid. A dangerous fantasy. She should just give up, go back to being a Jokerz hench-wench. It was easier. It was what she knew.

But then, the image of Batman's face—his jawline, his grim mouth—flashed in her mind. And his words... You thought wrong.

He thought she was just a silly girl in a silly costume. He thought she was just a criminal, a nuisance. He was wrong about her. He didn't see the real her. He couldn't.

A new fire began to burn in Delia's chest, consuming the misery and despair. It wasn't the giddy flame of a crush anymore. It was the hot, determined fire of indignation. He had misjudged her. He had dismissed her. And she was going to prove him wrong.

She sat up straight, a slow, deliberate smile spreading across her face. It was not her usual goofy grin. This smile was cunning.

"You're right, Dee Dee." she said, her voice eerily calm.

Deirdre eyed her suspiciously. "I am?"

"You are." Delia confirmed. "I went about this all wrong. The problem wasn't the plan. It was the packaging."

"The... packaging?"

"Yes! I showed up as me. Delia Dennis. Dee Dee. A known criminal. Of course he was angry. Of course he told me to stay away. He has to maintain appearances." Delia started tapping a finger on the table, her mind racing. "If I want him to see me as a partner, I can't be me. I have to be someone else. Someone new."

Deirdre’s face fell. "Oh, no. Not this again."

"No, listen!" Delia leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with a manic brilliance. "He's Batman. He has a secret identity, right? So he can have a normal life. I need one, too! A hero identity! A whole new persona! Not a Jokerz girl, not a hench-wench. A real, honest-to-goodness hero!"

She jumped out of the booth and started pacing, her earlier despair forgotten, replaced by a hurricane of creative energy. "I need a new name. Something... heroic. And romantic! Something that says 'I fight for justice, and also for your heart.' Like... Lady Justice? No, too stuffy. The Cupid Crusader? Too cheesy."

She stopped, her eyes going wide with inspiration. "I've got it. Something that will make his heart... and the hearts of criminals... stop." Her voice dropped to a dramatic whisper. "The Heart Stopper."

Deirdre let out a long, pained groan and let her head fall onto the table with a soft thud.

"And I need a new costume!" Delia continued, completely ignoring her sister's existential pain. "Something that says 'I'm a hero,' but is still, you know, me. It needs to be sleek. And practical! But also cute. Maybe with a heart motif? Yes! A big heart right on the chest! And a mask! Not face paint. A real mask, to protect my secret identity!"

She grabbed the charcoal and the crumpled placemat from the corner, smoothing it out on the table. She began to sketch again, this time with a feverish, focused intensity. A new figure took shape on the paper: a masked hero with a sleek bodysuit, a flowing capelet, and a giant, stylized heart emblazoned on the chest.

Deirdre lifted her head from the table, a look of profound resignation on her face. She had thought the fire was out. She had been wrong. She had only thrown gasoline on it. Her sister hadn't been deterred; she had been inspired. She wasn't giving up; she was doubling down.

"The Heart Stopper." Deirdre muttered to herself, the name tasting like poison.

Delia held up her new design, her face alight with triumphant glee. "What do you think?"

Deirdre just stared at the ridiculous drawing. "I think." she said slowly, "that I need to find a much stronger stun baton."

Chapter Text

The target was an industrial spy named Silas Vorn, and Curaré had him cornered. She had tracked him to a maglev train yard, a labyrinth of elevated tracks and silent, sleeping metal beasts. Vorn, a portly man with fear-sweat beading on his bald head, was flattened against the side of a cargo train, his escape routes cut off. Curaré advanced on him, her scimitar a sliver of deadly moonlight, her movements as silent and inexorable as the tide.

This was a clean kill. No witnesses, no interruptions. Just her, the target, and the mission.

Batman dropped onto the roof of the train car behind her. "That's enough, Curaré."

She turned, her posture radiating annoyance. Him. Again. She had failed to eliminate Nakahara because of his interference and that... noisy orange creature. She would not fail again. She lunged, and the familiar, deadly dance began anew, their battle a silent explosion of motion atop the stationary train.

Sparks flew as Batman's gauntlet met her blade. He was ready for her this time, his movements more precise, his defenses calculated. He knew her style, her speed. He was pressing her, forcing her back along the length of the train car.

He was so focused on the fight, so immersed in the high-stakes chess match of their combat, that he didn't notice the new arrival until it was too late.

"Stop right there, you blue meanie!"

A magenta-and-pink blur swung into the train yard, not with a grappling line, but on a rope. A regular, thick, hemp rope, tied to a lamppost on the street above. Her swing was wild and uncontrolled. She didn't so much land as she did collide with the side of a different train car with a resounding BONG.

It was Heart Stopper.

"I'm okay!" she yelled, peeling herself off the metal and shaking her head.

Batman’s heart sank. "Not again." he muttered under his breath.

Curaré paused, her head tilting. The noisy creature was back. But different. The orange was gone, replaced by a garish pink. The intent, however, seemed the same.

"Fear not, my dark knight!" Heart Stopper declared, clambering onto the train where Vorn was still cowering. "I shall assist you!"

Before Batman could stop her, she charged Curaré again. This time, however, something was different. Perhaps it was the clean kill she'd been denied before. Perhaps it was the sheer, grating annoyance of this recurring interruption. Curaré didn't just sidestep Delia's clumsy attack. She met it.

She parried Delia's wild haymaker with the flat of her blade, the impact jarring Delia’s arm. Then, with fluid efficiency, she disarmed a charging Batman with a twist of her wrist that sent a Batarang flying, and then spun to deliver a sharp kick to Delia's chest, sending her stumbling back into the terrified Silas Vorn.

The dynamic of the fight shifted. Curaré was no longer just fighting Batman. She was managing two opponents, one skilled and one chaotic. And in her cold, calculating mind, a new thought began to form.

This pink creature... it was always here. Always near the Bat. Always "helping." It vied for his attention.

Batman moved to put himself between Curaré and Delia again. "I told you to stay out of this!"

"But we're partners!" Delia insisted, rubbing her chest.

Curaré watched the exchange. She saw Batman's protective posture. She saw the pink creature's desperate bid for his approval. In the silent, lethal world of the Society of Assassins, there was no room for partnership. There was only dominance. There was only the mission. But this... this felt like something else. This felt like a contest.

A strange, alien concept began to bubble up in Curaré's genetically engineered mind: rivalry.

She was the ultimate challenge for the Bat. Their duels were a testament to their skills. She was his equal, his opposite. This... pink annoyance... was a distraction. An unworthy one.

Her focus changed. It was no longer just about the target, Vorn. It was no longer just about defeating Batman. It was now about outperforming the Heart Stopper. It was about proving who the superior... associate... truly was.

With a sudden burst of speed, she ignored Delia completely and re-engaged Batman. But her fighting style had changed. It was showier. She disarmed a panicking Silas Vorn, who had pulled a tiny laser pistol, with a flourish of her scimitar that was completely unnecessary, sending the pistol spinning into the air before she neatly sliced it in two as it fell. She then kicked Vorn's legs out from under him, but instead of moving to kill him, she pointedly shoved him toward Batman with her foot, as if presenting him as a gift. Here is your criminal. I caught him for you. Effortlessly.

Batman, confused by her sudden change in tactics, quickly slapped a pair of magnetic cuffs on Vorn.

"Hey!" Heart Stopper yelled, feeling left out. She tried to join the fray again, throwing a punch at Curaré.

Curaré didn't even look at her. She ducked under the punch without breaking her focus on Batman, her movement conveying utter contempt. She then launched a new, dazzlingly fast series of attacks at Batman, forcing him back, their battle a blur of motion. She was showing off. For him. She was demonstrating her superiority over the clumsy, magenta-clad interloper.

The air crackled with a new kind of tension. It was no longer just a fight. It was an audition. A deadly, silent competition for the attention of the one man they both, for their own very different reasons, wanted to impress.

Delia watched, her jaw agape. The blue lady wasn't just fighting him. She was... flirting with him? With a sword? A wave of pure, undiluted jealousy washed over her.

"Oh, it is ON, sister!" Delia muttered. She pulled two handfuls of glitter from a pouch on her belt (a new addition to the costume) and threw them at Curaré. "Taste the rainbow of justice!"

The glitter swirled in the air, sticking to Curaré's damp robes. The assassin stopped, looking down at the sparkling pink specks now adorning her assassination gear. She looked up, and even through the shadows of her turban, Batman could feel a wave of pure, unadulterated fury directed not at him, but at Heart Stopper.

The rivalry had officially begun.

Chapter Text

Two nights later, in a less-than-reputable corner of Neo-Gotham, a young couple was having a very bad evening. Two low-level thugs, members of a forgettable street gang called the Data-Spikes, had them cornered in an alley. One of them, a hulking brute with chrome cybernetic arms, was holding the young man by the collar of his jacket. The other, a wiry man with glowing optic implants, was menacing the young woman with a laser cutter.

"The cred-stick. Now." the wiry thug rasped, the laser cutter humming ominously.

From a rooftop high above, Batman watched, poised to intervene. It was a routine mugging, the kind of street-level grime he cleaned up a dozen times a night. He was about to drop down and end it quickly and efficiently.

But then, a new voice echoed through the alley. A voice that was trying very hard to be deep and intimidating, but kept cracking with breathless excitement.

"Hold it right there, you... you miscreants!"

Everyone—the thugs, the victims, and Batman—looked toward the mouth of the alley. Standing there, silhouetted against the lurid glow of a noodle-bar sign, was a figure.

The costume was... a choice.

It was a sleek, form-fitting bodysuit of black and a startlingly bright magenta. On the chest was a giant, stylized pink heart. A short, similarly pink capelet was attached at the shoulders, fluttering slightly in the alley's updraft. The face was covered not by paint, but by a pink domino mask that was slightly askew. The orange hair, however, were unmistakable.

The figure struck a pose, one hand on her hip, the other pointing dramatically at the thugs. "Your nefarious deeds are at an end! For you now face the righteous fury of... The Heart Stopper!"

There was a moment of profound, confused silence in the alley. The wiry thug looked at his large companion. The large companion looked back at him. The young couple being mugged just looked bewildered.

On the rooftop, Batman closed his eyes. "Oh, no." he whispered to the uncaring night.

The wiry thug was the first to break the silence. He let out a cackle. "The what stopper? What are you supposed to be, sweetheart? A valentine that got lost?"

Heart Stopper, aka Delia, did not let the mockery faze her. "I am the valentine of vengeance! The cupid of comeuppance! And you, sirs, are on my naughty list!"

This declaration was met with another round of laughter from the thugs. The big one dropped the young man he was holding, who scrambled back next to his girlfriend.

"Alright, little valentine." the brute growled, cracking his metallic knuckles. "You want to play hero? Let's play."

He charged. Delia, seeing the massive figure lumbering toward her, took a deep breath. Okay, Delia, you can do this, she thought. Be heroic. Be graceful. Be awesome.

She tried to meet his charge with a graceful, spinning cartwheel kick. The "graceful" part of the plan immediately went out the window. She misjudged the spin and her kick, instead of connecting with the thug's head, connected squarely with a nearby dumpster.

CLANG!

"Ow, ow, ow." she muttered, hopping on one foot and shaking her leg out.

The brute laughed, grabbing for her. Delia, her heroic entrance thoroughly ruined, reverted to what she knew best: pure, chaotic acrobatics. She ducked under his grab, slid between his legs, and popped up behind him. While he was turning his slow, lumbering body, she ran a few steps up the alley wall, flipped off it, and landed on his shoulders.

"Yee-haw!" she yelled, wrapping her legs around his neck.

The thug roared, staggering around and trying to grab her, his big chrome arms flailing. "Get off me!"

Meanwhile, the wiry thug decided to get involved. "Hold still, you idiot!" he yelled at his partner, taking aim with his laser cutter.

"Don't you dare!" the young woman being mugged suddenly yelled. She grabbed a half-full trash can and hurled it at the wiry thug. It hit him in the back of the head, causing his shot to go wide. A beam of red light shot out, slicing a perfect line across a fire escape on the opposite wall, which then collapsed with a deafening crash.

Up on the rooftop, Batman sighed. This had gone from a routine mugging to a three-ring circus in under a minute. He should intervene. He had to intervene. But a small, dark, weary part of him was morbidly curious to see how this would play out.

Delia, still perched on the big thug's shoulders, saw her opportunity. While he was distracted by the crashing fire escape, she reached down and, with surprising precision, began to fiddle with the control panel on his cybernetic arm. Sparks flew.

"Hey! What are you doing?" he bellowed.

"Just a little rewiring!" she chirped. With a final flick of her fingers, the chrome arm went haywire. It shot out, completely out of its owner's control, and smacked the thug squarely in his own face.

BONK.

The big man's eyes went wide with surprise, then rolled back in his head. He crumpled to the ground, unconscious, with Delia neatly backflipping off his shoulders to land on her feet.

The wiry thug stared in disbelief at his fallen comrade, then at Delia. He aimed the laser cutter at her again. "You're gonna pay for that!"

"I don't think so!" Delia said. She grabbed the lid of the dumpster she had kicked earlier and held it up like a shield. "Ready for your close-up?"

He fired. The laser beam hit the polished metal of the dumpster lid. Delia, with a yelp of surprise at the heat, angled it just right. The beam reflected, ricocheting off the lid and hitting the thug's own glowing optic implants.

"GYAAAH!" he screamed, dropping the laser cutter and clutching at his face. "My eyes! I can't see! Everything is... sparkly!" He stumbled around blindly for a few seconds before tripping over his unconscious partner and falling in a heap.

The alley fell silent again. The young couple stared, mouths agape. Delia, panting, stood amidst the chaos. She had done it. Clumsily, absurdly, and with a healthy dose of dumb luck, but she had done it. She had won.

She turned to the couple, putting her hands on her hips and puffing out her chest, the giant pink heart seeming to gleam with pride.

"Never fear, citizens!" she announced, her voice booming with newfound confidence. "The Heart Stopper is here to protect you!"

The young man just blinked. "Uh... thanks?"

It was at that moment that Batman chose to make his appearance. He dropped from the rooftop, landing silently behind her.

Delia heard the sound and whirled around, her face breaking into a radiant smile when she saw him. "Batman! Did you see? Did you see me? I stopped them! I was a hero!"

Batman looked at the two thugs tangled up on the ground. He looked at the collapsed fire escape. He looked at the terrified but unharmed couple. Then he looked at Delia, in her ridiculous, home-made costume, beaming at him as if she'd just won the lottery.

He was horrified. He was exasperated. He was, against his better judgment, infinitesimally impressed.

"We need to talk." he growled.

Chapter Text

The "Holo-Burger." a retro-themed diner that served fizzing sodas and burgers projected out of light, was Terry and Dana's spot. It was their slice of normalcy, a place where the biggest problem was usually deciding whether to get chili-cheese fries or onion rings. Tonight, however, the outside world was insisting on intruding.

Terry was trying, with limited success, to explain why he'd had to cancel their last three dates. "It's just... work has been crazy." he said, poking at a holographic pickle with his fork. "Mr. Wayne has me running all over the city. Inventory, deliveries... it's been a real grind."

Dana Tan, her dark hair perfectly styled, her expression a carefully balanced mixture of sympathy and skepticism, took a sip of her soda. "A grind that involves you coming home with mysterious bruises and a permanent look of exhaustion?" she asked, her voice gentle but pointed. "You know you can tell me anything, Terry. If you're in some kind of trouble..."

"No, no trouble!" Terry said, a little too quickly. "It's all good. Just... you know. Demanding boss."

He hated lying to her. Every flimsy excuse felt like a small betrayal, another brick in the wall between his two lives. But what was the alternative? "Sorry I missed dinner, honey, I was busy fighting a silent blue ninja and my lovesick stalker in a train yard."

As if on cue, a news report flashed onto the big holographic screen that dominated one wall of the diner. It was Dana's favorite gossip and news program, "Neo-Gotham Now."

"And in our top story." the holographic anchorwoman said, her voice dripping with manufactured drama, "the city is buzzing about its newest, and most colorful, vigilante: the Heart Stopper!"

Terry choked on his soda.

On the screen, grainy cell phone footage from the alley fight played. It showed Heart Stopper clumsily but effectively taking down the two Data-Spike thugs. Then, it cut to an interview with the couple she had saved.

"She was so brave!" the young woman gushed. "And her catchphrase is so cute!"

The anchorwoman reappeared. "While the GCPD has issued a statement condemning all unsanctioned vigilante activity, public opinion seems to be on the side of this mysterious magenta maiden. But the bigger question on everyone's mind is her relationship with Neo-Gotham's original protector, Batman."

New footage filled the screen, this time from the train yard incident. It was blurry, shot from a distance, but it clearly showed Batman, Curaré, and Heart Stopper in their chaotic three-way battle. The report highlighted the moment Heart Stopper threw glitter at the assassin.

"Experts are speculating that the Heart Stopper may be Batman's new partner, a sidekick he is currently training." the anchorwoman continued, "while others, citing her overly familiar behavior and heart-themed costume, suggest a more romantic connection."

Terry felt his entire body tense. He wanted to crawl under the table and cease to exist.

Dana watched the screen, a strange expression on her face. "The Heart Stopper." she said, testing the name. "Wow. That's... a lot." She looked at the footage of Delia in her absurd costume, clinging to Batman's side in one shot, then throwing glitter in another. "She seems... intense. And kind of clingy. Doesn't really seem like Batman's type, does she?"

"Definitely not." Terry croaked, his voice strained. He took a long, desperate gulp of soda.

"It's just weird." Dana mused, her eyes narrowing slightly as she studied the screen. "You know, she kind of reminds me of someone. That Jokerz girl, from the pie incident a few weeks ago? The one who was yelling about being in love with Batman when they arrested her?"

Terry's blood ran cold. "Nah." he said, trying to sound casual. "I don't see it. This one's... taller." It was a pathetically weak denial.

"Is she?" Dana leaned closer to the screen. "The build is similar. And the pigtails... it's a bit of a coincidence, don't you think?" She turned from the screen to look at Terry, her gaze sharp and analytical. "And it's funny, you seem really tense all of a sudden. Everything okay, Terry?"

He was caught. Not definitively, but the seeds of suspicion were planted. He could see it in her eyes. His awkwardness, his flimsy excuses, the sudden appearance of a Batman-obsessed vigilante who bore a striking resemblance to a girl he'd recently encountered—it was all starting to add up in Dana's intelligent mind.

"I'm fine." he said, forcing a smile that felt like it was made of plastic. "It's just... you know. The whole vigilante thing is weird. Who decides to just put on a costume and fight crime? It's crazy." He was babbling.

Dana didn't look convinced. She kept her eyes on him for a long moment, a silent question hanging in the air between them. Then, she sighed and turned her attention back to her holographic burger.

"Yeah." she said, her voice carefully neutral. "Crazy."

The rest of the date was strained. The easy comfort between them was gone, replaced by a tense, unspoken awareness. Terry felt like he was walking on eggshells. He had spent so long trying to keep his two worlds separate, and now, thanks to Delia and her insane "Heart Stopper" persona, the wall was beginning to crack. And Dana, the most important person in his "normal" life, was the first one to see the fissure. The holographic food had never tasted so fake.

Chapter Text

Dinner at the McGinnis house was usually a controlled chaos. Mary McGinnis would try to get a coherent story out of her sons about their day, while Matt, Terry's younger brother, would vibrate with enough energy to power a small city block, usually chattering about video games or some new piece of tech he wanted. Tonight, the topic of conversation was decidedly different.

"She is so cool!" Matt announced, shoveling a forkful of synth-steak into his mouth. "Way cooler than Batman!"

Terry, who had been trying to discreetly check his wrist-com for updates from Bruce under the table, looked up. "What are you talking about?"

"The Heart Stopper, duh!" Matt said, his eyes wide with hero-worship. "Did you see the latest feed? She stopped a robbery at a jewel-net depot! The security guards said she took out three guys by, like, bouncing off their heads and tying them up with their own belts! And she has glitter bombs!"

Mary McGinnis, wiping the corner of her mouth with a napkin, chimed in. "I saw her on 'Neo-Gotham Now.' The costume is... a little much, don't you think? All that pink. And the name, 'Heart Stopper.' It's a bit melodramatic."

"No way, Mom, it's awesome!" Matt insisted. "It's like, she'll stop your heart with fear if you're a bad guy, but she'll stop your heart with love if you're a good guy! It's poetic!"

Terry felt a migraine beginning to form behind his temples. His ten-year-old brother was now the president of the Delia Dennis fan club. This was a new level of personal hell.

"I don't know." Mary said, looking thoughtfully at Terry. "She seems a little... unstable. In the interview, she kept talking about her 'destined partner in justice.' It felt a little obsessive. What do you think, Terry? You're usually up on all the city happenings."

Three pairs of eyes turned to him. His mom's, curious and slightly concerned. His brother's, bright and expectant. He felt like a bug under a microscope.

"I, uh..." he started, trying to choose his words carefully. "I think your mom's right, Matt. Vigilantes are dangerous. It's not a game."

Matt's face fell. "But she's a hero! She helps people!"

"She's an untrained civilian getting into incredibly dangerous situations." Terry said, his voice taking on a slightly harder edge than he intended. He was echoing Bruce, and he knew it. "She's going to get herself, or someone else, seriously hurt."

"You sound just like the police commissioner." Matt grumbled, stabbing at his food. "You're just old and boring. You don't get it."

"Terry has a point, Matt." Mary said gently. "It's a dangerous world out there. We should leave crime-fighting to the professionals. Like Batman."

"Batman is boring!" Matt declared, throwing his hands up in frustration. "He's all dark and grumpy. Heart Stopper is fun! She laughs! And she left a note for the bad guys written in lipstick on a mirror! It was a heart! That's style!"

Terry felt his stomach clench. A lipstick note. He hadn't heard about that one. Delia was escalating her theatrics.

"I just find it strange." Mary mused, looking off into the distance. "This young woman appears out of nowhere, completely obsessed with Batman... it's almost like she's trying to get his attention. It feels more personal than just wanting to fight crime."

"Maybe they know each other!" Matt gasped, his eyes lighting up with a new theory. "Maybe she's his secret ex-girlfriend, and she's trying to win him back by proving she can be a hero too!"

Terry almost spit out his water. The conversation was becoming a twisted, fun-house mirror reflection of his actual life. His own family was unwittingly workshopping the very soap opera he was trapped in.

"I highly doubt that, Matt." Terry said through gritted teeth.

"Why not?" Matt challenged. "You don't know! Maybe Batman has a secret life! Maybe he's a regular guy, just like us!"

Terry just stared at his brother, his fork frozen halfway to his mouth. The irony was so thick he could have cut it with a knife. He felt a desperate urge to just stand up and yell, "I am Batman, and she is a crazy person who is ruining my life!" But he couldn't. He just had to sit there and take it.

"I think." Terry said, pushing his chair back, his appetite completely gone, "that I have a lot of homework to do. For Mr. Wayne." He grabbed his plate and stood up. "It's a big project. Very demanding."

He fled to the kitchen, the sounds of his family's continued debate about his alter-ego's love life following him. Matt was now arguing that Heart Stopper's wig was more aerodynamic than Batman's armor. Mary was wondering if pink was really a practical color for sneaking around in the dark.

Terry leaned against the sink, his head in his hands. It was official. The Heart Stopper wasn't just a problem for Batman anymore. She was an invasive species, and she had just taken root at his own family's dinner table.

Chapter Text

The Batcave was Terry’s sanctuary, the one place he could speak freely. Tonight, it was a war room, and the enemy was magenta-colored.

"She left a lipstick note." Terry fumed, pacing in front of the Batcomputer. Max's face was on the main screen, live from her bedroom, while Bruce sat stoically in his command chair. "A heart, signed 'XOXO, HS.' On the mirror of a bank vault. The GCPD forensics team is having a field day. My little brother thinks she's the coolest thing since zero-G hockey."

Max, bless her soul, was failing to contain her amusement. A grin was plastered across her face. "Lipstick notes? Oh, she is a classic. This is straight out of the 'Stalker's Handbook, 1st Edition.' What's next? Is she going to leave a giant valentine on the roof of GCPD headquarters?"

"Don't give her any ideas." Terry groaned.

Bruce, who had been silently observing, finally spoke, his voice a low rumble. "This has gone beyond a simple annoyance. Her public profile is growing. She's becoming a media phenomenon. And that makes her a liability."

"A liability? Bruce, she's a walking, talking embarrassment!" Terry gestured wildly at the screen, where Bruce had compiled a montage of Heart Stopper's "heroics." There was the jewel-net depot, where she'd defeated the robbers by tangling them in strings of synthetic pearls. There was a car chase, where she'd stopped the getaway vehicle by dumping a vat of super-sticky bubblegum solution (stolen from Ghoul's old hideout, no doubt) in its path. Her methods were absurd, chaotic, but undeniably effective in a low-level sort of way.

"She's unpredictable." Bruce stated, his gaze fixed on the screen. He analyzed Delia's movements, not as a joke, but as a tactical problem. "Her fighting style is a bizarre fusion of Olympic-level gymnastics and sheer, dumb luck. She has no formal training, which makes her impossible to anticipate. She's a chaos agent."

"A chaos agent who thinks she's my partner." Terry corrected. "And who is starting to make Dana suspicious. And who is now the hero of my family."

"Okay, okay, Operation: Annoyance Removal is officially a go." Max said, her expression finally turning serious. "So, what's the plan? We can't just arrest her. The public loves her. It would be a PR nightmare for Batman. He'd look like a bully, crushing the spirit of the spunky new hero."

"Max is right." Bruce conceded. "Direct confrontation is counterproductive. It would only feed her narrative that she's being tested, or that Batman is playing hard-to-get."

"So what do we do?" Terry asked, throwing his hands up in desperation. "Do we just let her keep doing this until she gets herself killed or accidentally reveals my identity to the entire city?"

"We need to discourage her." Bruce said. "We need to make 'being a hero' as unappealing as possible. We need to take the fun out of it."

"How do we do that?" Terry asked.

Max's eyes lit up. "Ooh! I have an idea! Psychological warfare!"

"I'm listening." Bruce said, a flicker of interest in his eyes.

"Okay, so what does she want?" Max began, thinking out loud. "She wants Batman's attention. She wants his approval. She wants to be his partner. So, you have to give her the opposite. You have to be the worst partner imaginable."

Terry frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you have to be a total jerk to her." Max explained, warming to her subject. "Not angry-jerk, because that's passionate and she'll eat it up. You have to be a boring, pedantic, critical jerk. Every time she shows up to 'help,' you critique her form. You tell her her landing was sloppy. You point out that her glitter-bomb deployment has a 7-degree trajectory error. You give her... homework."

Terry stared at Max's hologram. "Homework."

"Yes! Tell her if she wants to be your partner, she has to study. Give her ridiculously dense reading assignments. 'Read the complete GCPD regulations on evidence handling by Tuesday.' 'Write a ten-thousand-word essay on the socio-economic impact of petty crime in the lower sectors.' You don't fight her, you don't yell at her. You bore her into submission. You turn her romantic fantasy into a tedious after-school job."

A slow smile spread across Terry's face. "Max... you're a genius."

Bruce considered the plan for a long moment. He brought up a file on Delia's psychological profile, what little they had. Impulsive. Seeks validation. Short attention span for anything that isn't immediately stimulating.

"The strategy has merit." Bruce concluded. "It attacks the core of her motivation: the romantic fantasy. If the reality of being a hero is paperwork and criticism instead of adventure and adoration, her enthusiasm may wane."

"It's perfect!" Terry said, a renewed sense of hope surging through him. "Next time she shows up, I won't get mad. I'll get... professorial."

"Just be careful." Bruce warned. "She's still a chaos agent. This could backfire. She might actually do the homework."

Max snorted. "A ten-thousand-word essay? From a girl who uses glitter as a weapon? I'll take that bet."

Terry grinned. He finally had a plan. A real, workable strategy. Operation: Annoyance Removal was in effect. The Heart Stopper wanted to be his partner? Fine. She was about to find out that being Batman's partner was the most boring, tedious, and unromantic job in all of Neo-Gotham.

Chapter Text

While Terry, Bruce, and Max were plotting their campaign of heroic tedium, Delia was busy launching a campaign of her own: a one-woman PR blitz to win Batman's heart through grand, public, and increasingly cringe-worthy gestures. Her logic was simple: if he was angry with her in private, maybe a public declaration of her usefulness and affection would change his mind.

Her first move was a "gift." One morning, Commissioner Barbara Gordon arrived at GCPD headquarters to find a massive object leaning against the front steps. It was a cookie. A cookie the size of a manhole cover, shaped like a Batarang, and frosted with lurid pink icing. In shaky black frosting, it read: "FOR B.M. - YOU'RE SWEET! XOXO, H.S."

The media had a field day. "HEART STOPPER'S SWEET SURPRISE FOR THE DARK KNIGHT!" blared the headlines on the holo-nets. GCPD's bomb squad spent three hours carefully analyzing the cookie for explosives or toxins before declaring it "dangerously high in sugar, but otherwise harmless." Barbara Gordon, when asked for a comment, simply sighed and said, "We are impounding the cookie as evidence of... something."

Terry saw the report while at school, and he had to physically duck behind a holographic textbook to hide his face, which had gone crimson.

But Delia was just getting started.

A few nights later, Batman was responding to a silent alarm at the Neo-Gotham Museum of Art. He arrived to find three would-be cat burglars already webbed to a wall in a sticky, pink substance. There was no sign of Heart Stopper, but her handiwork was obvious. And on the floor in front of the incapacitated burglars, she had laid out a message, carefully spelled out in individual, glittering letters: "I'm watching over your city for you."

It was almost... sweet. Until Batman looked up.

She had "improved" the Bat-Signal.

Someone—and there was no doubt who—had climbed to the roof of GCPD headquarters and placed a massive, heart-shaped cutout over the signal's lens. When the police activated it later that night to call him about a breakout at a tech firm, the sky was not filled with the stark, iconic symbol of the Bat. Instead, a gigantic, pulsating pink heart was projected onto the clouds.

Batman, perched on a gargoyle, just stared at it. For a full minute, he didn't move. He just watched the enormous, embarrassing symbol of his stalker's affection throb in the sky. When Bruce's voice crackled in his ear—"Terry, what is that? Is the signal malfunctioning?"—Terry couldn't even form a response. He just disconnected the comm link.

The "Heart-Signal." as the press gleefully dubbed it, was the talk of the city for days. It was a joke in the late-night holo-shows. It was a meme on the school networks. Matt McGinnis even bought a t-shirt with the symbol on it, which Terry promptly "accidentally" shrunk in the laundry.

Delia, however, interpreted the city-wide buzz as a resounding success. He had to have seen it! He had to know how much she cared! She needed to up the ante.

Her next project was even more ambitious. She decided Batman needed a theme song. Not the dark, moody, atmospheric music people associated with him. He needed something upbeat! Something with a beat you could dance to!

She somehow got Ghoul—now out on parole and trying to lay low—to help her with the technical side of things. One night, as Batman was chasing a group of Jokerz on hoverbikes through the canyons of downtown, every public address system, every advertising holo-screen, every car radio in a ten-block radius suddenly switched over.

A loud, synthesized pop beat erupted through the city. And then, a high-pitched, auto-tuned voice—Delia's voice—began to sing.

"He's the hero in the night."

"Fills my heart with pure delight!"

"Pointy ears and a jaw so fine."

"Oh, Batman, won't you be mine?"

The chorus was a simple, maddeningly catchy repetition of "Go, Bats, Go! My heart says so!"

The Jokerz he was chasing were so stunned by the sudden, absurd musical accompaniment that they crashed their bikes into a fountain. Batman apprehended them in a daze, the ridiculously upbeat song still blaring from every direction. He could feel the eyes of the city on him, listening to this... this monstrosity. This ode to his jawline.

He returned to the Batcave that night in a state of shell-shock.

"She gave me a theme song." he said to Bruce, his voice hollow. "A pop song."

Bruce, who had been monitoring the broadcast, had the decency to look vaguely sympathetic. "The lyrical composition is... rudimentary." he offered.

Max, however, was in tears. She was laughing so hard her hologram was glitching. "Oh my god! 'A jaw so fine!' I am dead! This is the greatest thing in the history of things! Bruce, you have to archive this! This is going in the Bat-records forever!"

Terry collapsed into a chair. He was living in a nightmare made of pink frosting, glitter, and bad synth-pop. His plan to bore Delia into submission felt like a distant, foolish dream. She wasn't just a chaos agent anymore. She was a multimedia content creator, and he was her unwilling star. The cringe had reached critical mass.

Chapter Text

The "Heart-Signal" and the theme song did more than just mortify Terry. They had an unintended side effect: they annoyed Curaré.

The assassin operated in a world of shadows, silence, and lethal precision. Her duels with Batman were the same—a pure, focused contest of skill. This new, noisy, glitter-encrusted circus that had sprung up around him was an insult to her craft. The Heart Stopper wasn't a worthy rival; she was a buffoon. And worse, she was getting all the attention.

Curaré’s tactics began to change. Her primary mission—the assassination of anyone on the Society’s list—remained. But a secondary, more personal mission had taken root in her cold heart: to reclaim Batman’s focus, to remind him what a real, worthy adversary looked like. Her new goal was to be more impressive, more efficient, and more stylishly deadly than the magenta buffoon.

A group of high-tech arms dealers were meeting on a private yacht in the Neo-Gotham harbor. They were on Curaré's list. Batman, alerted by Bruce's intel, was on his way to intercept. He expected to find Curaré trying to sneak aboard.

Instead, he arrived to find the deal already broken up. The five arms dealers were hanging upside down from the yacht's mast, tied together by their own expensive belts. Their high-tech weapons were in a neat, disarmed pile on the deck. On the pile was Curaré's calling card, her scimitar, stabbed dramatically into the center. She was nowhere to be seen. She had not only completed his mission for him, she had done it with a flourish, as if to say, See? No glitter, no theme song. Just clean, silent results.

A few nights later, the target was a renegade data courier hiding out in a heavily fortified penthouse. As Batman prepared to breach the building's formidable security, the entire system suddenly went dead. The lasers, the pressure plates, the robotic guards—all offline. He slipped inside to find the courier unconscious, bound in what looked like repurposed fiber-optic cables. This time, Curaré was there, waiting for him.

She stood by the window, moonlight glinting off her blue skin. When she saw Batman, she didn't attack. She simply pointed a slender finger at the unconscious courier, then pointed at herself. She then made a slicing motion across her throat, the universal sign for a kill. But instead of finishing the job, she gave a slight, almost imperceptible shrug, as if to say, I could have. But I'm leaving him for you. Then, she pointedly looked out the window in the direction of downtown, where the "Heart-Signal" was once again polluting the night sky, and tilted her head with an air of disdain.

The message was clear: I am a professional. I deal in death. That is a child's toy. Before Batman could react, she melted back into the shadows and was gone.

The most bizarre incident occurred during a chase. Batman was pursuing members of the T's, a gang of street racers, who had stolen a prototype energy core. The chase was frantic, a high-speed dance through the multi-level traffic of the city. He was about to disable the lead vehicle when a dark shape dropped onto its roof from an overpass.

It was Curaré.

She moved along the speeding vehicle, her balance perfect. Instead of attacking the driver, she deftly opened the engine compartment, disabled the stolen energy core with a few precise cuts of her scimitar, and then, holding the now-inert device, she leaped from the out-of-control vehicle onto the roof of a passing bus.

She stood there, holding the prize, waiting for Batman to catch up. For a moment, they were flying on parallel paths, the assassin and the hero. She held up the core, showing it to him. And then she did something completely unprecedented. She fought with him. As the other T's cars swerved to attack Batman, she used her position on the bus to become an unlikely guardian angel. She threw a discarded hubcap with unerring accuracy, shattering the windshield of one car. She used her scimitar to sever the steering column of another, sending it spinning harmlessly into a wall.

It was a stunning display of lethal grace, all in service of... helping him.

When the last of the T's were apprehended, she stood on the bus, looking at him. She held out the energy core. It was an offering. A trophy. Proof of her superior skill.

But before Batman could approach her, a familiar pink-and-magenta shape swung into view, landing clumsily on a nearby rooftop.

"Batman! I'm here!" Heart Stopper yelled, striking a pose. "Did I miss the party?"

Curaré's posture stiffened. The moment was broken. The shared victory was tainted by the arrival of the buffoon. She looked at Heart Stopper with pure contempt. Then she looked at Batman, holding up the core one last time. She tossed it to him, a perfect underhand throw across fifty feet of open air. He caught it.

Then, she turned her back on them both and vanished over the side of the bus. Her actions spoke louder than any words ever could. She was not just fighting him anymore. She was courting him, in the only way she knew how: through a demonstration of superior violence. The competition for the Bat's attention had become a silent, deadly, and deeply weird courtship dance. And Curaré was determined to win.