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Chapter Text

Late, one Tuesday night in Gotham City, the Gotham City Police Department has a call out from a bank's automatic security system...

As alarm bells rang out across Gotham City, they were very promptly joined by the bright flashing lights and the wailing sirens that usually went with an emergency response from the city's finest whenever the alarm was set off at the First National Bank of Gotham.

Officers piled out of their cars as a SWAT van and the car carrying Commissioner James Gordon pulled up to the scene, with the commissioner himself almost falling out of the car as it pulled to a halt.

Detective Renée Montoya handed him his megaphone as everybody moved into positions.

Gordon winced and adjusted his glasses as his megaphone let out a whine of feedback. "Alright, everybody, just as we've done before!"

Many, many times before, that is.

A cordon was erected around the scene as officers led any potential casualities and rubberneckers away, and officers readied their own weapons in case they happened to be needed. But this was the usual standard bank burglary. A normal Wednesday in Gotham City. The kind of thing even the dumbest Gothamite could handle in their sleep.

"GCPD!" called Gordon at the bank's front entrance of faux marble, glass and steel. "Drop your weapons where they are, and come out with your hands—!"

The bank's façade promptly exploded into a ball of flame and a shower of faux marble raining down in a fog of dust and smoke. Simultaneously, something must have broken somewhere as the alarm bell ringing died down to nothing very quickly.

The smoke and the dust began to rapidly form into slowly-emerging silhouttes, and several officers readied their weapons.

Gordon held up a hand: "Wait, dammit! It could be a hostage or anyone!"

The officers lowered their weapons again.

Gordon raised his megaphone again. "GCPD! Come out with your hands up and leave any weapons on the ground!"

The mysterious figures slowly stepped out from behind the cloud of marble dust and smoke.

Gordon counted out loud to nobody in particular: "Four henchmen - dressed in black and white half-and-half outfits, one civilian - a nightguard—" Who already looked as though he'd soiled himself. "—And—"

A silver dollar coin glinted momentarily in the spotlight from a police van before landing down in the scarred palm of Two Face.

Harvey Dent frowned and Two Face raised the remains of an eyebrow and smirked with wicked glee. Very promptly, they produced a pistol and fired it into the kneecap of one of their henchmen, sending the man toppling over.

"You fuckin' idiot! That's for wreckin' the whole joint!" snarled Two Face.

"You were only supposed to blow the doors off," added Harvey Dent, former district attorney, plainly.

Coin came up bad, then.

"Come on, Harvey," said Gordon. "Don't do anything silly, here. If you surrender, the judge might go easy on you. Get you a nice room back at Arkham, where you can get the help you need and—"

Two Face fired another shot at the henchman writhing around on the ground in agony. This time it was the head. He stopped writhing pretty quickly after that.

Harvey, or Two Face - it was harder and harder to tell these days - laughed. "That's pretty unlikely, you dumbass."

They grabbed the now-weeping and pleading nightguard and put the gun to his head, pulling back the hammer, and almost every officer in the GCPD pulled up their service weapon again. The red glowing dots of laser sights converged on Dent's body where they could without putting the night guard at further risk.

"I know, Jim - why don't we toss for it? Perhaps this fellow's luck will come up."

"I say we kill him, you moron," argued Two Face.

"No, we don't decide on these things without the coin, remember?" rebutted Dent, as though arguing with a child.

"That stupid...ugh...fine. Fucking stick-up-the-ass..."

Harvey Dent's signature silver dollar coin flew high into the air above.

As Dent had their finger on the trigger of their pistol, Gordon had his finger on the switch of his megaphone, reluctantly ready to give the order to reciprocate if Dent or one of their goons really was about to go through with it.

A black blur whooshed down from overhead, landing straight into the fray.

Fists thudded hard against flesh, cracking something in one of the henchmen as they flew aside like ragdolls. As one of them tried to line up a shot, they found the gun was quickly taken from their grip and they were thrown into one of the other henchmen who was trying to sneak up from behind with a knife.

After a few seconds, the commotion caught the attention of Dent and Two Face, who released their grip momentarily, just enough to allow their hostage to dive for freedom and out of the path of harm's way.

As they turned around, they met with the gloved fist of the Batman.

Two Face landed flat on their back, the gun falling from their hand before it was promptly kicked away by Gotham's caped crusader.

The silver dollar landed on the ground again, rolling around for a moment before finally settling good side-up.

Dent's working eyelid closed and Two Face's huge yellow eyeball twitched for a moment before rolling back and into their skull.

Gordon exhaled. And breathe out... "Take him in!"

Montoya wiped her brow with her sleeve and holstered her service weapon again. "That could have ended badly."

Batman stepped over to join the comissioner and the detective.

"If you hadn't stepped in when you did, that could have ended in a bloodbath."

Batman responded plainly: "It was fortunate that I was nearby."

"Still," said Montoya. "Seems a little clichéd for Harvey, don't you think? A bank robbery, of all things."

"Well, it is a Tuesday," said Gordon.

"Tuesdays are when this particular branch - located on 22 Doubleday Street, no less - gets its coin delivery from the Federal Mint. The best time to rob the bank if you wanted to take possession of some silver dollars."

"I guess it does make sense," said Montoya.

As paramedics and firefighters moved in past the two police officers and Batman as they tended to both the unconcious and the dead, a patrol car that looked more banged up than the usual variety pulled up to the scene, screeching to a halt just as it took out a strip of police tape and left it to land flat on road.

Gotham's second most famous Harvey - Detective Harvey Bullock - leapt out of his patrol car with a grunt, kicking away an empty drinks cup that had decided to accompany him on his journey and brushing the creases out of his trenchcoat.

"Nice of you to join us, Harvey," quipped Montoya. "I hope we didn't take you away from your Big Mac with extra cheese?"

"Where the hell were you, Bullock?"

"That's the thing, Commish. I was on the other side of the city. I told ya already - my radio's on the fritz since Harley Quinn took a giant mallet to my car last week. I can get messages but not send messages, know what I mean?"

Gordon, Montoya and the Batman didn't seem to react.

Bullock continued: "I was actually escortin' Harley to Arkham and sortin' out the transfer paperwork when I saw Two Face there. When I came out I heard the call go out and knew it didn't make any sense, so I thought I'd better get here as soon as I could."

Gordon and Montoya raised an eyebrow each. Batman still didn't react.

"But...Harvey. Dent's literally right there."

"I'm tellin' you! It was him! Dent asked me how I was and Two Face told me I was turnpike trash and to get lost."

A few voices raised themselves in the distance and Montoya ran over to see what the hubub was about.

Paramedics, police officers and firefighters had gathered around the spot where Dent and their henchmen had been lying in a heap. 

Gordon's glasses nearly dropped off his face in shock, and even Bullock would have bet his last packet of cigarettes on seeing an eyebrow go up from underneath Batman's cowl as he marched on over to examine the scene himself, with Gordon and Bullock having to run to keep up with him.

The scene had been exactly as it had been - except with a little less smoke and dust given that the firefighters had the chance to extinguish the fire and the dust had settled - complete with bags of coins lying on the ground.

Except there was no bodies, no blood, not even a footprint or a hair.

"Well they were definitely here, alright! Nobody see anything? Smoke bombs? Levitation? Heck, them getting up and going off for frosty chocolate milkshakes? Anything at all?"

Every police officer, paramedic, firefighter and even Batman himself stared at Gordon, as if to say "How do you expect us to know if you don't?"

Stranger things had happened in Gotham before, but this was just another one to add to the pile.

Gordon turned again to Bullock, who was already protesting again. "It was him, as true as I'm standing here now! As much as the place has a revolving door, if there was a breakout, they didn't exactly seem to be in a hurry to talk to us about it. Even he was keeping schtum according to one of the guys in my bowling club who works there. Not even Blackgate was busy either."

Jim Gordon took his glasses off and pinched the top of the bridge of his nose. Another day, another migraine. "And here I thought two Dents in one man's body was bad, but two Two Faces? Or is that one Four Face? I dunno and I don't care enough to think about it without some coffee and two Tylenol."

"I'll get a search going," said Batman, who reached into the air, the hook whizzing out of his grappling gun before he himself zipped after it into the darkness.

Chapter Text

Meanwhile, back at Gotham Central...

Detective Giles Johnson took the dollar bill out of the machine again, flapping it around in the air and brushing the creases out of it onto his trousers and sliding it back into the vending machine again.

After a moment's thought, the machine hummed to life and dispensed a cup of coffee that tasted as thick, burnt and tarry as it looked.

Johnson was a tall, well-built man in a dark green suit with red tie. His oily slicked-back haircut made him look like a rejected cast member of Goodfellas. It didn't help that he sounded like one, either.

"Must be a big incident down at the bank, eh?"

"Must be, especially if Gordon and Montoya are going down there with half a SWAT team," said Ethan Dryden, opening and taking a slug from a bottle of room-temperature water and wincing. "Stale. The chiller in the drinks machine must be busted."

Dryden was a tall, thin man with red hair, wearing the standard unifrom of any GCPD officer - police issued button up shirt, dark blue clip on tie, dark grey trousers and black leather shoes that were the supermarket's finest for something in the "reduced to clear" section.

"Correction: The chiller in the drinks machine is busted...again. They spend so much money on fighting crime every year that this place is practically falling apart."

The machine quietly sputtered down again. Johnson hit the side of it a tactically-placed slap and caused it to rattle into life again, dispensing more of the world's worst coffee-adjacent liquid. 

"Ah well, unless Billionaire Bruce Wayne decides to donate a new coffee machine and some decent coffee, I'm staying well away, thank you very much." Dryden looked at his watch. "And I guess I'd better get back to work before the big man gets back."

"Yeah, even though he'll get all the credit for it. Honestly, between Gordon, Bullock and Montoya you'd think there was only three cops in the whole city. I dunno! I guess I'd better get back to writing my reports, too. If you get the lady to give you anything useful, do lemme know. I'll probably stop by again in a bit anyhow."

"Will do."

Dryden's water bottle landed in the waste basket with a thunk as he headed into the interview room in Room 12/66 where his sketchpad, pencils, erasers and charcoals had been waiting for him alongside the witness.

The witness - Carmina Guerrero - looked to be almost the dictionary definition of "little old abuela you see at the checkout in the drug store", with short medium-brown hair, gentle wrinkles around her mouth and small gold earrings in her ears.

"Mrs. Guerrero? My name's Ethan, I'm a police sketch artist. I'm working with Detective Johnson on this case."

"Ah yes, I see this all the time on my telenovelas. You're going to draw the bad man as I describe him, isn't that it?"

"Yes, that's it. Though it's not as exciting as Telemundo Gotham makes it out to be on El Mafioso y El Circo, though. All you need to do is talk away and I'll draw what you describe. You can correct me if you need to, by the way."

"I told el detective all I saw was his head when he was talking to someone from inside of his...¿Cómo se dice...? Limousine! Yes, his limousine."

"That's fine, ma'am. Sometimes the face is the only thing needed for us to identify someone, especially in big cases like these. Do you remember what shape of head he had?"

"It was...it was a big, round head. Mucho gordo." She waved her hands about as if trying to find the scale of an over-inflated beach ball. "And the nose..."

"What about the nose?"

"Very big. Like one of the parsnips I see in the produce in LexMart. Longer than that, pointier than that."

Fifteen minutes later...

Detective Johnson entered the room, emptying the last trickle of coffee-adjacent tar into a potted plant before throwing the cup into the trash can beside it. "How're you folks getting on, then?"

"Mrs. Guerrero has been very helpful, detective. I think you'll be pleased to see what we came up with together."

Mrs. Guerrero smiled.

Dryden carefully pulled along the perforations at the ring-bound edge of his sketchbook and handed the drawing he'd made off to the detective.

The detective held the picture up to the light, and immediately nodded and smiled back at the old woman. "I think I am indeed, Officer Dryden. In fact, I think I know who you're talking about, now. Muchos gracias, señora. I don't think The Penguin is going to know what hit him..."

Chapter Text

"One hot dog, please. Extra ketchup, as ordered," said the vendor, handing it over.

Nightwing inhaled the sweetness of the ketchup. "Thanks. You know, it's not often that there's food around this time of night."

"Yeah, well, with heroes like you and Batman around, business is booming. Who'd I be to sit around like a chump watching repeats of El Mafioso y El Circo when there's good money to be made and good people to feed?"

"Well that's good to hear. I won't keep everyone else queueing, though - keep the change, Frank!"

"Tell the big guy I said hi, Nightwing!"

Nightwing swung off and away from the stall of Frank's Furters before settling on a nearby rooftop to allow himself the chance to enjoy what would be his late evening snack. It was rare that there was a chance for a break on nights like these, and even less that he would actually have the time to eat something.

He licked his lips and prepared to chow down before the communicator beeped in his ear.

"Nightwing, here."

"Are you busy?" asked Batman.

"Nope - all quiet around here tonight. What d'you need?"

"I need you to go meet a detective for me. Detective Johnson from the GCPD's Organised Crime division. Says he has a lead on Penguin."

"Penguin? What's he been up to recently besides insisting on a two drink minimum?"

He swore he could hear Batman's eyes rolling. "Smuggling in and selling weapons to Maroni and Falcone. If we get him, we could stop an all-out gang war between the two before it has the chance to begin. I'd go myself, but I'm busy at the moment."

"Why, what happened at the bank?"

"Two Face and his gang looked to have vanished before any of them could be taken in, right as Bullock said that he apparently never left Arkham. I'll need some time to go over the scene."

"I'll go down to Gotham Central, then."

"There's no rush on it for now, Nightwing, don't worry. Take your time and enjoy your hot dog."

"Sure, I—Holy weenies! How'd you know I—?!"

"Johnson will be waiting on you, whenever you're ready. Batman out."

As a cold night wind blew up through the alleyway, Dryden pulled the collar of his jacet up and around his nose and mouth as a makeshift mask. "Do you really need to smoke that now?"

Johnson took a long drag of his cigarette and blew a smoke ring out, watching as the blue smoke disipated into the void. "Well, if I did it in my office, Gordon'd take a shit-fit. The rules are a little more relaxed when you're meeting up with a cape, anyways."

""Well it'd be interesting to meet one in person, at least. Back home, I never even had the chance to see Superman unless it was a blue blur going across the sky. What's he like anyways?"

"Superman? Dunno, never met the guy."

"No, not Superman. Batman."

"Tall. Don't say much. No capacity for bullshit."

"How should I address him, then? Just 'Batman'? 'The Batman'? 'Mr. Batman'?"

From above, a voice came out of nowhere: "You can just call me 'Nightwing' if you want."

Dryden jumped backwards to the wall, and Johnson very nearly swallowed his cigarette. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!"

"Nope, still just Nightwing."

Johnson turned to Dryden, who was still catching his breath as the black and blue-clad hero jumped down. "I forgot to mention, they have an awful habit of doing that. Catches you off-guard and nearly gives you a heart attack if you're not careful. Worse when they disappear on you mid-sentence."

Johnson brushed some cigarette ash off his coat and turned to Nightwing: "The Bat not available or something?"

"Yeah, busy with the bank incident, so you've got me." Nightwing leaned against a nearby parked patrol car. "New guy, too, Johnson?"

"Yeah, guy's name's Ethan Dryden. Rookie cop outta the academy and sketch artist, working this case with me 'til he learns the ropes."

Nightwing shook the rookie cop's hand loosely. "Nice to meet you, rookie cop and sketch artist Ethan Dryden."

Dryden, starstruck for a guy he just met, managed to squeak out: "N-Nice to meet you, too."

"I hear you guys have something for me to have a look at?"

"Yeah, got a good tip. Some abuela who's way too into El Mafioso y El Circo or whatever called saying she saw suspicious behaviour. Usual exchange where the mob is concerned - some guy meeting some guy in a car and handing over a briefcase of cash - yadda, yadda, yadda - turns out? Sounded like The Penguin. Got Dryden here to draw up the witness's description, and guess what?"

"It was...The Penguin?" said Nightwing, not quite sure what else to expect.

"Got it in one!"

Johnson handed the hero a faded manila folder with the case notes, which included a photocopy of the drawing based on the witness's description. 

Nightwing's eyes widened underneath the mask. "Holy Da Vinci! Looks just like him!"

"Really? Thanks. I'm a Metropolis guy myself, so I'm still reading up on The Penguin, Harley Quinn, Condiment King and what have you..."

"Well, you sure did a good job drawing him for a guy that's not laid eyes on him. It's like a photo."

"Really? I draw a lot in my spare time, too."

Nightwing handed the file back to Johnson. "Well I'd sure like a drawing of me if I ever get the time. Anyways, I'd better go off and see if I can dig anything up around Penguin's place. If you need me, you know how to get me."

Johnson replied: "Will do. And tell the Bat that I said—Ah, son of a bitch!"

Dryden snapped back into reality, looking to where Nightwing - in that surprisingly tight-fitting costume - had been standing just a few moments ago. He'd vanished as quickly and silently as he had initially arrived.

"Every time," grumbled Johnson. "Gets me every fucking time. God I need a cigarette..."

All Ethan Dryden replied was: "...Yeah..."

Chapter Text

Not long after, Nightwing is on a rooftop, keeping an eye out for suspicious activity...

Nightwing, lying flat on his stomach on a nearby rooftop, scanned The Iceberg Lounge carefully through his binoculars.

"The Iceberg Lounge. You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. I must be cautious," he said, quietly, to nobody in particular.

Oswald Cobblepot was as much as a respectable businessman as Blackgate Prison was an all-inclusive resort filled with the friendliest people in the whole city.

The Iceberg Lounge itself was composed of the old, gothic architecture of the old Gotham Customs House which was stuck like a carbuncle on the back of an enormous, blue, iceberg-like structure, as though it was the lone casuality in an attack by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Penguin's car - a modified Rolls Royce Phantom - pulled quietly into the private parking garage located at the back of the club. It had come in useful for Penguin a few times down the years, mainly for entrances and exits that needed to be discreet, in a hurry or both.

The driver of the car - a hulking mass of muscles that had been awkwardly stuffed into a turtle-neck sweater and dark glasses - stepped out and opened the door for The Penguin, who looked short enough to be the man's son at the grand height of five feet and nothing else.

He leaned on his umbrella as he waddled along, puffing at his cigarette and talking to his driver.

Nightwing grabbed what he had managed to raid from one of Batman's nearby caches of audio surveillance equipment - a device that looked like a gun with a satellite dish attached to it with a pair of earbuds - put the earphones in and listened in.

"That, Mr. DeCondor, was one of my best deals yet, even if I do say so myself," Penguin squawked triumphantly. "An absolute steal, I say. By which I mean we literally stole it from underneath that daffy dark knight when he wasn't looking and sold them on to Maroni and Falcone at a price that would make even Billionaire Bruce Wayne's eyes water. Still, it's not like they'd ever find out differently anyway."

And if Falcone or Maroni did find out, Nightwing thought, Penguin would have a worse limp given that he'd be waddling without kneecaps.

Nightwing thought for a moment and took the copy of the drawing out of his belt pocket, carefully holding up so he wouldn't be spotted but he could still compare it to Cobblepot.

"Holy Xerox! It really does look like the real thing. That Dryden guy's pretty good-looking. Good at his job! Good at his job. Keep it together, Grayson."

Maybe he should try and find the time to meet up with him. Shame it'd have to be in costume, though.

Something down at the rear entrance rattled. As Nightwing looked up again, he saw it was a garbage can out the back of the Penguin's club. Penguin and DeCondor were already in fight mode, with Penguin staring down-fight at the garbage can and DeCondor with a pistol drawn and on a hair-trigger.

"Waak! Who goes there?" demanded Penguin. "I suggest you show yourself immediately, before DeCondor and I fill you with more holes than the nest of a particularly hungry woodpecker."

"Holy shoot-off!" said Nightwing, reaching for his escrima sticks. Sure, bringing down Carmine Falcone, Boss Maroni and The Penguin in one night would be good, but not at the cost of someone's life or the risk of an all-out gang war. One of those in your lifetime was more than enough.

The garbage cans rattled again, and a trash bag filled with some broken glass clattered to the ground. "Answer me, waak! I'm warning you...!"

A shadow moved out from behind the garbage can and Oswald Cobblepot's monocle nearly fell away from his eye in shock. Even DeCondor looked as though he was changing colours.

"What the Waak?!"

Enough waiting. It's go time.

Nightwing's grappling hook whizzed on ahead and anchored itself to the top of a nearby streetlight. Nightwing leapt through the air as his escrima stick whized back along the line to meet it, jumping over the top of the streetlight as the line met its end and landing feet-first in front of The Penguin and DeCondor with the precision of an Olympic gymnast.

"Oswald," he said, "didn't anyone ever teach you it's rude to point?"

"Why you boring buffoonish Boy Blunder—" Penguin spat, "—It's all well and good to decide you're happy trespassing onto my private property, but it's another that you're failing to address my doppelgänger."

"Your what?"

Nightwing turned to face the garbage cans. There, stood casually sniffing a banana peel with the long, beak-like nose that earned him his name, was Oswald "The Penguin" Cobblepot.

Nightwing turned back again. And there, surely enough, was Oswald "The Penguin" Cobblepot, aiming a trick umbrella whilst his henchman aimed a pistol, but now looked more unsure of himself more than anything else.

"Holy Clone Wars!"

"Is this some trick of yours that you picked up in Blüdhaven when I wasn't looking, Nightwing? You'll have to try a little harder to try and make this Penguin turn cuckoo." Cobblepot raised his voice, craning his head around. "And if this should happen to be one of those hidden camera internet shows, the prank isn't as funny as you think it to be. Waak."

The counterfeit Cobblepot dropped the banana peel. "Why, I say old bean, that's rum news. Very rum indeed. It was not my intent to offend, but I was simply attracted to the smell of your simply delectable garbage."

"Well whoever he is, boss," snivelled DeCondor, "he sure don't talk like ya. All gentlemanly like."

"Why you...! Are you implying, Mr. DeCondor, that I go rummaging through garbage like some kind of second-rate starving seagull?"

"N-No, boss..."

"Why, sir, your garbage must be some of the finest in all the land! De-lightfully fragrant!" He took a clump of grey-ish goop from a garbage can in his hand and inhaled deeply. "Do I detect the bouquet of day-old tuna salad? Divine! My nose is most sensitive to the foulest of odors, you see."

The real Penguin snarled, snapping his cigarette holder in half in his hand. "Alright, you phoney fowl, I've had it! Waaak!"

As the real Penguin knealt down, it was only then that Nightwing realised what he was doing. "Oswald, no!"

Before he had the chance to leap out, the real Penguin had knealt down and grabbed a pistol from a holster around his ankle, firing a shot through the chest of his doppelgänger.

The incendiary bullet exploded as it pierced the fake Penguin's chest, exploding into a fist-sized hole and an angry splash of blood on the garbage behind him.

The counterfeit Penguin smiled as a fine trickle of blood ran out the side of his mouth, blood streaming from his wound and onto the tattered and slightly charred remains of his tuxedo. "Oh my, my dear fellow. It appears you have murdered me. Why...I shall be the foulest-smelling decaying corpse in all the land! Marvellous...!"

And with that, The Penguin fell back into the garbage, face-down onto a stream of day-old tuna salad.

Nightwing rushed over to the fake Penguin to check for signs of life, but there was no way that anybody would have been able to survive a shot like that.

"Whoever or whatever he is, he's dead now. Waak! There's only room for one Penguin in this town."

Nightwing gritted his teeth. "Well if you gave me the chance to find that out, I might have been able to tell you that!"

Penguin waved a dismissive hand. "That's more of a You-And-The-Bat problem, not mine, former Boy Blunder. In any case, whoever it was sent such a malicious mockery of me will soon pay for it, and so will their families. Nobody messes with Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot and—Hey! Where'd that Pretend Penguin fly off to?! DeCondor...?!"

DeCondor blinked twice, still trying to understand what the hell just happened. "I didn't see nothin' boss! But he was there a minute ago!"

Nightwing looked down at where the fresh corpse of the phony Penguin had been lying in a heap just a few moments ago. He'd vanished into thin air, as though he'd never been there to begin with, along with any viscera and blood traces, by the look of things.

"Holy Houdini! What now?"

"Frankly, Nightwing, I don't know, and I don't give a Waak! And if there's no body and no evidence, you have nothing on me."

"Yeah, if the glove don't fit, you must acquit!" chimed DeCondor.

The Penguin soon used the handle of his umbrela to smack his henchman in the shins and sent him hopping around the parking lot.

"I think it's best for the both of us if you leave, Nightwing. Otherwise I'll have DeCondor call his boys, and they're not known for being very friendly."

"But...!"

"Beat it!" added DeCondor, still hopping from the pain.

Nightwing quickly cast an eye over the would-be murder scene. Besides the faint indent of the fake Penguin's body on the garbage bags, there really was nothing that could be used to make any kind of case against him.

Besides the remnants of Penguin's slug, that is.

He leapt over and quickly prised a few shards of it from the trash can behind the fake Penguin, which luckily seemed to have caught the impact.

"Pe-yew! Holy unholy stench, Oswald! I thought you were meant to wash out old food containers before you dispose of them!"

The Penguin growled as DeCondor made his own leap towards Nightwing. The hero jumped out of the way just in time for DeCondor to land head-first into a putrid mix of day-old tuna and rancid mayonnaise.

Nightwing turned and waved at the angrily-squawking and cursing Penguin before leaping over the streetlight and into the night again. This needed some extra examination.

Chapter Text

Comissioner Gordon wiped his brow with a somewhat-faded handkerchief that had "Happy 40th Birthday Dad!" embroidered into it. It had been a present from Barbara a few years ago, and had come in handy on more than one occasion, but seemed to be getting more usage now than it ever did.

"You guys in Metropolis have it lucky compared to us," said Gordon, taking a sip from what was now his third "Happy Retirement, Jim!" mug.

"Eh," shrugged Inspector Turpin. "It can be bad sometimes. Our problems usually get solved by a guy dressed in primary colours with his boxers on the wrong side of his pants. At least it's a little brighter than watching some guy dressed like a bat beat the stuffing outta some schmuck dressed like a clown, at least."

"Well they get the job done, at least, hard as it may be."

"You can say that again, Jim."

"After you, Dan."

Gordon held the door open for Inspector Dan Turpin as they entered the briefing room at Gotham Central. It was a briefing room only by virtue of the plaque on the door, but had been a war room for almost every major incident in Gotham on down the years.

Detectives were spread out at desks across the room, facing toward the lectern at the front beside the projector screen and the well-worn battle map of Gotham that was marked with hundreds of worn pock-marks and thumbtacks from incidents and crime reports past and present. At the going rate, it was going to need to be replaced some of these years, anyways, before the whole thing fell apart.

The big players were here - Bullock and Montoya, Johnson from Organised Crime and that guy Dryden, Alvarez from Traffic, Corrigan the desk jockey down in Arson, Sullivan from Ad-Vice and her partner Wikinson and sundry beatcops and other detectives.

Gordon took to the lectern at the head of the room with Turpin beside him like the worst comedy double-act ever. "Alright people, it's been a busy night so far, but we need to keep at it—" Easier said than done. "—Bullock, Montoya, any leads on Harvey Dent?"

Bullock sat up straight. "Er, still lookin' into it. Sure, he was on camera, but he didn't leave any trace behind like a fingerprint or nothin'. Well, so says forensics so far, anyways."

"And I went over to Arkham, myself, just in-case Bullock was seeing things. Dent didn't leave the place once, and was in his court-mandated therapy session at the time, actually. His alibi's watertight, unfortunately."

"Well," said Gordon. "Batman's looking into that one for us, maybe he'll turn something up. Johnson - has there been any update in the Cobblepot investigation you said you had?"

"We've got Nightwing looking into that one for us, Commissioner," said Johnson, who was busy combing back his hair. "Given The Bat's pre-occupied. Still waiting on an update after there was a report of a gunshot in the vicinity, but nothing doing so far."

"Well the kid's just as good as Batman - been studying under him a lifetime, so he's bound to turn up something. Now then, Inspector Dan Turpin of the Metropolis PD's Serious Crimes Unit is doing some secondment work with us this week as part of the inter-city police exchange program. I'm sure he can offer us plenty from his knowledge and experience in Metropolis, the same way we can offer plenty of our knowledge and experience from Gotham."

"Like what? The right amount of hair gel to use in your eyebrows?" mumbled Johnson quietly. Dryden bit his lip and Montoya quietly hit Johnson's shoulder a slap.

Turpin took to the lectern. "You guys are alright, I guess. We'll be able to compare notes on cases, I guess. Who knows, as Jim said, maybe we'll learn something and get the criminals to crack—"

Before he had the chance to finish that sentence, an egg flew through the air and splattered itself across Turpin's face, two halves of a shell catching the wall and leaving albumen to drip off of his nose like snot from a sick child. "What the f—?!"

From the back of the room came a triumphant laugh, which came from a man with a large, round head and a white suit. "Why Commissioner, I didn't realise you were so bad for help that you were shelling out to other cities!"

Gotham's finest immediately sprung into action, standing and drawing their guns on the man.

"What the—Egghead?!" exclaimed Bullock.

Gordon, meanwhile, looked like he'd seen a ghost. "But that's—but you're...that's impossible!"

Egghead laughed again. "Nothing is impossible, Commissioner! Egghead's back in town, and that's no yolk!"

Turpin borrowed the commissioner's handkerchief to wipe his face. "Do all your guys make such fakakte puns or did you book him in special just for me?"

"I," continued Egghead, "shall egg every police officer in Gotham until my demands are met: Every single egg in Gotham and one million dollars cash, as well as the heads of Batman and his sidekick The Boy Wonder."

Egghead cackled maniacally as he threw another egg. Johnson ducked in time for it to hit Harvey Bullock and add another stain to the collection on his trenchcoat.

Another egg was thrown, this time at Gordon, who dodged it in time for it to hit the Gotham crime map.

How come it could survive the earthquake and No Man's Land, gang wars, the worst that Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, The Joker and even Harley Quinn had to throw at it, but it didn't last at all in the face of some eggs?

Another egg was thrown and was batted away by Dryden with a sketchbook. "Home run! A grand slam for the Metropolis Meteors!" he cried happily.

The splatter of yolk and albumen caught Johnson instead, who recoiled in horror. "My hair!"

"Quit your yapping! I can't get a clear shot at him with these eggs flying every—" Splat! Bullock was promptly taken out by a yolk to the face as he fired a shot which took out a light instead.

Egghead cackled as he threw another egg. "I'll have all of Gotham City in the palm of my hand - for I am Egghead, the world's smartest—"

It was Renee Montoya who made a run at the villain next, leaping over a desk that had been turned over for an emergency barricade against the villain's eggs.

"Taser! Taser!" she yelled, the two electrodes flying out and latching onto the bald-headed villain's crisp white suit and the wires sparking as they went live.

Egghead dropped to the ground along with his basket of eggs, leaking yolk and occasionally sparking and sizzling onto the floor. He shook and juddered for a moment, his moustache standing on-end.

Montoya released the charges and the two wires popped out of the taser's casing, but Egghead still twitched and steamed ever-so-slightly.

The other detectves slowly emerged from cover in time for Montoya to say: "That's one way to scramble eggs."

"I guess he didn't want to go over-easy," added Dryden, wiping some yolk from the cover of his sketchbook and quickly looking away when Gordon fired him a look of disapproval.

Johnson said nothing as he deployed his comb again to try and start brushing albumen, yolk and eggshell out of his hair, with an annoyed look on his face that could poach an egg at sixty-six yards.

"Well, we have the usual runaway cement mixer or whatever in Metropolis, but we don't have that," said Turpin,

"We also don't normally have people coming back from the dead. Well, not the likes of Egghead, at least."

Bullock poked the eye of the still-twitching Egghead with a pencil. No movement, but at least he was still breathing, despite smelling like an omlette. "What d'you mean by that, Commish?"

"Edgar Heed is dead. Has been for well over ten years, now. He's in an unmarked grave in Blackgate. I was there with Miles O'Hara, back in the day, when they confirmed the death before his retirement to go back to Dublin. Which reminds me, I need to call him..."

Dryden added: "Yeah, I was reading through the autopsy earlier. Kind of ironic that it was coronary heart disease, though."

"In any case, we have him poached," said Bullock, waiting for a laugh that never came. "So now what?"

"You can put that ersatz Egghead into one of the interview rooms for questioning as soon as he regains conciousness. Then Turpin and I might be able to—" Gordon blinked in surprise and looked out from under his glasses, then swore. "Again?! Son of a...!"

Everyone in the room looked where the well-fried Egghead had been lying in the middle of the briefing room in, arguably, one of the most secure buildings in Gotham City. Montoya and Bullock had been ready to move the body of a man who had suddenly disappeared.

Johnson went to pick a bit of eggshell out of his hair like a gorilla picking a flea away, but found nothing. His hair was still a mess, but at least there was no egg to go with it.

Bullock quickly patted his hands over his own face - still greasy as usual, but no eggs to go with it.

Even the crime map - which hadn't survived and was probably well overdue a state funeral - was clean of any egg traces.

"I want this building locked down yesterday," commanded Gordon as he straightened himself up again. "If Egghead, or whatever it is, is staging an escape, we need to stop him before he can. One set of prisoners escaping in one night is bad enough - but two makes us look foolish."

Detectives and police officers immediately began to spread out.

Inspector Turpin straighted himself up as Bullock went over to him. "Hey, Turpin, right? Looks like your eyebrows are still a bit wacky from the egg. Need a hand cleaning up or somethin'?"

Turpin harrumphed. "If I had a dollar for every klutz who had the chutzpah...My eyebrows are just like that normally, detective."

Bullock said quietly: "...Oh..."

Chapter Text

Nightwing quickly stepped in past GCPD officers who didn't quite know what to do. Normally whenever a cape was involved, things were a little more incognito - even though the fact that the GCPD and "The Bat Family", as they were called, working together was common knowledge at this point.

Especially since that incident a few years ago when Nightwing himself got shot in the head.

Most officers would be lucky to see them for five minutes working at the scene of a crime before heading off to do something about it, or the big cape of Batman through the window of Gordon's office whenever he and The Bat were having one of their little "fireside conversations" as some detectives had come to know them. It was that or detectives seeing The Bat and/or company in a back alley somewhere in order to meet and trade off information.

But seeing Nightwing come in through the front door, escrima sticks drawn in the GCPD bullpen and ready to kick butt? That was a whole other can of worms, thought Johnson as Turpin walked up to the hero.

"Kid, if you're looking for some egg-lobbing meshugener to arrest, you're a few minutes too late," scowled Dan Turpin.

"Turpin? What are you doing away from Metropolis? I thought someone pressed the panic alarm?"

"I did that," said Gordon, breaking away from a conversation he was having with some uniformed officers. "Inspector Turpin's here because of an inter-city police exchange program. But I'm afraid you just missed the action."

Nightwing put his escrima sticks back into the holster on his back. "What happened?"

"Edgar Heed happened, that's what."

"Egghead? But he's—"

"—Dead? Yeah, so I've heard. Yet some meshugener that looks an awful lot like him still appeared and started lobbing eggs around the place and asking for the heads of Batman and The Boy Wonder and a million dollars."

"Well, sounds like his information is a little out-of-date for starters," said Nightwing, "and the stakes do seem a little comparitively small, wouldn't you think?"

"You mean almost as if it hasn't been adjusted for inflation?"

"Precisely, Commissioner," said Batman, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

Turpin nearly jumped out of his skin, reaching for his gun for a split second. "Oy gevalt!" He calmed down again as he saw who he was now talking to. "At least I don't have to worry about the blue guy giving me a heart attack, either!"

Batman's eyes narrowed beneath the cowl. Gordon just shrugged. "You'll get used to it, Dan. Anyways, did you find anything?"

"I didn't find a single trace of anything, which is fairly consistent with my investigation back at the bank. It's clear that Two Face - or someone or something pretending to be Two Face - was there, but no trace was left behind in the immediate aftermath. That's the part that's extremely unusual."

"Well we definitely saw Egghead and we had to endure him literally shelling out at us - if you'll excuse the pun—" Nightwing smirked at the corner of his mouth before clearing his throat. Gordon continued: "—but besides a few people having their hair messed up, there's no other trace of him being here."

"Nightwing, maybe you should go over the scene again just to be sure that I haven't missed anything," said Batman. "Just in case I've missed anything."

Not that that was going to be likely, thought Nightwing. "Sure thing, Batman," he said to his face, leaving Batman, Gordon and Turpin to compare their notes.

Inside the meeting room was quiet, although it still looked as though an egg-based hurricane had blown through and then had a normal hurricane come through in order to wash away the egg immaculately.

It looked like even the forensics team had been and gone and - going by the fact there was an evidence marker in the middle of the room and one beside a battered-looking crime map - they hadn't been able to find much, either.

It was Detective Johnson and that officer Dryden had been left on guard duty as everyone else returned to their normal work.

"Hey, Nightwing. How's it goin'?" said Johnson, arms folded and leaning against the one desk that hadn't been turned up as an emergency anti-egg shield.

Dryden was sat at the desk as well, sitting with a folder open on the desk and working away at a sketchbook.

"Doing alright, all things considered. I was literally just about to contact you about the Cobblepot lead before Gordon's distress signal came in, so I figured I might as well check up on everybody."

"Well not much to talk about there. Guy came in and messed up my hair and attacked basically everybody. Nothing more severe than a bit of literal egg on the face, though."

"At least nobody was injured, then."

Nightwing looked over at Dryden, who was still busy working away at his sketchbook. He didn't seem to have noticed him coming in at all.

"Er, Ethan, right?"

Dryden took a pair of airpods out and looked about as Turpin had just a few minutes ago. Were all Metropolitans this jumpy?

"Nightwing! I didn't see you come in there!"

"Yeah, I was just telling Detective Johnson I followed up on the Cobblepot lead. Holy figure drawing - your Cobblepot was nearly like a photograph!"

"R-Really? Thanks." Dryden blushed for a moment before looking away from Nightwing's crooked smile.

"If you two are finished flirting, what's the update on the Cobblepot lead? I'm dying over here!" Johnson had deployed his comb again, and was now looking in the selfie camera of his phone.

Nightwing cleared his throat. "Oh, right. There was another duplicate - or whatever we're gonna call them; Of Cobblepot, this time, actually."

Dryden's pencil lead seemed to snap and Johnson nearly seemed to drop his phone. "Two Cobblepots?"

"Yeah, it was kind of weird. To cut a long story short, the fake penguin seemed to have a thing for garbage but died after the real Cobblepot took a shot at him."

Johnson raised an eyebrow. "And you didn't think to call in code three or anything?"

"Well it was then that all traces of him disappeared. Except for the bullet that shot him, that is." He tossed a plastic bag onto Dryden's desk. "Though if it's anything like in here, you won't find any blood, just day old tuna salad."

Johnson seemed to examine it for a moment before putting the evidence bag into his pocket beside his comb. "I'll keep that in mind, thank you."

"And hey, keep up the work. I'm serious about your drawing - it did come in very handy. And I say that as the guy that's spent many a night trying to chase down The Penguin," said Nightwing with a wink.

Dryden blushed. "Thanks, again."

"Well," said Nightwing to Batman and the gathered detectives, "if there's nothing else to do here, I'll head out on patrol again."

Dryden looked at his watch. "Yeah, it's getting late. I'd better head home, too, before I miss the last train home."

"Yeah, you guys go on ahead, I'll see if I can get the lab to try and rush it through," said Gordon, taking the bag from Johnson. "God knows you've been working hard on this all night - I'll make sure your overtime goes in, too."

If Batman was tired out himself, he sure as hell wasn't showing it. "I'm going to head back on patrol. I want to see if any more cases like this might crop up during the evening. If anything does, I'll let you know."

Gordon nodded. "Keep me posted," was all he said as he took Turpin off in the direction of the crime lab.

Dryden looked up to catch another glimpse of Nightwing, but he and the Batman had already vanished into thin air.

"Told you they do that, kid," said Johnson, running a comb through his hair for a final time before heading off in search of their coats.