The Universe's Mixer

The ceremony was small. Private. Perfect.

Wayne Manor was picturesque, just the venue anyone with purpose could ever dream of with its rolling, manicured landscape. It would have been ideal to host any party or function where many were expected to attend. And, at first, that had been the idea. But after mulling it over, and after some good advice, Selina decided against a public ceremony. What she did in her private time was hers alone to know, and Bruce was always in the spotlight for something. He deserved some measure of privacy as well.

So with Alfred as thier witness, Selina stated her vows, said her 'I do's' and bound herself fully to the only man that could ever satisfy her in all of the ways she needed.

They didn't need large crowds, they didn't need cameras or fancy things to declare their love to each other. The simplicity was what made it so wonderful. It was a refreshing start towards forever, or at least until one of them was gunned down in the street. Whichever came first. Each had a slew of enemies, here and back in Gotham, but both understood that in spite of anything against them they would always have each other. With that, Selina could finally say she was happy.

After the exchange and the bonding, the couple returned to their home for a quiet "stay-cation" style honeymoon. The house itself provided ample things to keep them occupied, and because of the inability to truly travel to a destination they made the best of what they had, which simply was each other.

Contrary to what she might have thought, Bruce Wayne hadn't gone to work that day. Instead, he'd spent the entire day quietly organizing for the evening. There was much to do, and it had to be done in secrecy -- a feat not easily accomplished with an accomplished mistress of stealth in the manor.

But by 6 p.m., the northwest corner of the roof was set up to his specifications. He'd already moved an intimate dining table up, along with a bedroom suite, some days ago when Selina had been out. The final touches - the important things - were complete. Rose petals. He toed at the thick carpet of them, then glanced to the high walls around the roof. The wind would take some of them, but Alfred knew to replace them just before he and Selina brought up dinner.

He checked his pocket a third time for his grandmother's ring, then headed downstairs. He was supposed to be driving back in from the City at this time, and his decoy driver had just made it to the garage. With a nod, he snatched the keys from the air as they were tossed, pulled on the suit jacket he'd left to change into, and headed back in to find Selina.

Thanks to Alfred, breakfast at Wayne manor was usually served hot, on a tray, with a glass of juice. But sometimes Bruce Wayne didn't want anything for breakfast but cereal and milk. There was only one breakfast cereal that he would eat: Cheerios. There was only one type of milk that should be used with Cheerios: pasture-fed, organic whole milk. It reminded Bruce of his mother. He didn't remember why, but there was some connection between that simple breakfast staple and his mother. And lately, Bruce Wayne had been thinking a lot about family.

As he chewed whole grain oats pressed into O-shapes, he looked sidelong at the woman sitting next to him. "You know," he said, a little sheepishly. "You don't have to have Cheerios if you don't want it. I'm sure Alfred could make you an egg white omelet or pancakes, if you wanted it."

She really deserved better than who she was with, but he was glad she settled for him. He didn't think she needed to settle on breakfast, however.

"Is there something that you're waiting on, Master Bruce?"

Bruce turned from the plastic covered armoire and the jewelry box within it. His butler - his surrogate father, and his dear friend - stood in the doorway of the master bedroom that so often remained sealed up, a polite smile on his face. Bruce looked back to the jewelry box, then to the smaller velvet box in his hand, and realized he'd been standing here for at least a quarter of an hour.

"I don't know," Bruce said, obviously at a loss.

The butler walked into the room as if it weren't sacred, as if it were only just a room. "The world is full of things that don't matter," Alfred said, coming to a stop beside Bruce and looking into the armoire as if he were checking for what suits needed pressing. "And it's easy to get caught up in them. But there's one thing that I've found, in all my years, that is always worthwhile." The old butler stopped, and stared blandly at the hinge of the armoire.

"What's that, Alfred?" Bruce prompted.

"Why, love, of course. I suspect it might be the only thing that matters at all, when all is said and done." The rheumy old eyes turned toward the velvet box and Alfred nodded toward it. The ring inside that box was well known by both men in the room. "Your grandmother was a very lovely woman. She had a fire in her. I think she would have liked Ms. Kyle very much."

Bruce tucked the box into his pocket. "Thanks, Alfred."

"I'll lock up here, sir."

Bruce let him, and stepped out into the hallway, leaving the door half-ajar as he did. Pulling on a suit jacket, he grabbed the keys to the Porche and headed for the lunch date he was only slightly late for. He made the time up on the drive there, tossed his keys to the valet, and hurried in to the table where Selina was waiting.

"Sorry I'm late," Bruce said, pausing briefly to kiss her cheek before taking a seat across from her.

The easiest thing in the world for Alex Price to do was to settle into a research environment. Preferably one where he had steady access to weird animals, with reptiles and cryptid reptiles a plus.

Being appointed the keeper of the City Zoo's brand new dinosaur exhibit was therefore right up his alley, and he ignored that it was mostly done since he was really the only one with the relevant experience. Not the most experience with the dinosaurs of the people who had come over from the weird island filled with dinosaurs, but the most in terms of sitting around with a notebook observing their habits and dissecting the carcasses instead of eating them. And he was fine with that. In the end, it still meant that he got to continue his research and tweak their habitats to make sure that they were healthy and mentally active and give the occasional necessary lecture to visitors about the representatives of the various species that now lived here among them.

He was glad that he rarely had to give the lectures. Public speaking wasn't his thing and he'd been told that he lost crowds very easily, what with slipping into academic speech instead of people-speech.

There wasn't much in the way of a crowd today, which Alex was also very thankful for. He was blessedly alone in the Nemicolopterus enclosure. Sort of. You couldn't consider yourself that alone with that much harsh tiny squawking as the little brightly colored pterosaurs did little brightly colored pterosaur things. He watched them the way that some people watched tropical fish, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

Tim absently wondered around Bruce's office, drinking in everything. It was so...different than his office, a reminder that here, Bruce was alive and well and not running around the world forming Batman Inc. He absently traced a frame of an article, thinking to his office, and that right here, in this very frame, was a picture of Dick and Damien.

But here, there was none of that. No signs of his brothers, family.

He fished in his suit pocket, pulling out his wallet and flipping it open, making sure (again) that the picture was there...that his past was real. With their lives one could never be sure and this small picture was a touchstone to reality something very much needed. He sighed, putting the wallet away again, his hands sliding into his pockets as he turned and leaned against the desk, waiting for Bruce to return.

He was just as nervous now, as he had been when he first confronted Bruce, first told him he knew who the man really was. He felt nine again...scared and exposed, going toe to toe with the man who had taken on Joker and Bane. It was honestly amazing how young Bruce could make him feel.

The weather in the City was pretty much always perfect. There were days with rain, but they were still mostly warm. But there were still seasons. In fall the leaves fell (the trees were never bare, though), in winter there might be some snowflakes (never anything like the one great storm where the City had gotten carried away), and summers were warm and sunny and nobody had school.

Still, this year, the City felt like celebrating spring. Not any particular holiday. Just spring in general. There were new people around, there were couples in love, and it wanted to have a great big party for everyone.

Overnight, it set up the great festival. Streets all around the park were closed off so that people could walk around without issue. The park itself was expanded to over twice the normal size. A great clearing was made in the center, stretching from one side to the other. There needed to be lots of room.

Through this clearing the City placed tents, stands, and tables. These were filled with food and wares of all types. There were representatives for all the popular shops, as well as some that nobody had ever seen there before. There were stands for balloons for the kids, too, free of charge. And flowers absolutely everywhere. Woven into the stands themselves, laying on tables, set up in vases, growing in every patch that the City was sure nobody would accidentally step on them. Colorful ribbons, some as large as crepe streamers, also decorated everything. The City wanted as much color as it could possibly get.

At one end of the clearing the City placed a small carnival. Rides, games, everything it could think of. Even a petting zoo, though some of the animals within weren't typical farm animals that usually went in petting zoos. At the other it placed a few stages for performances. Concerts, plays, musicians. The stages were all contained within their own invisible sound barriers, as to not disturb one another, but the noise from all could be heard on the main promenade.

It put signs up all over, put notices in mailboxes, ads on the radio, commercials on television, and even made Candy and Frank talk about it on the morning news.

The celebration would go from sunrise to midnight. At sunset, the City would have a bonfire, complete with a pig roast and s'mores. At that time, it would move the park closer to the water, creating a beach between for the bonfire to settle on.

Enigma may have been correct: Bruce Wayne might need a hobby.

There was The City Industries - the amalgamation of Wayne Technologies, Lex Corp, and others - but the place didn't have the same draw to it as it would have, had the City left Wayne Enterprises alone. There was something to be said about protecting the family's investment, but without Gotham... All of it just seemed like vanity.

It hadn't been too difficult to leave Wayne Manor behind (though it was very difficult to leave Alfred), to change clothes, change hangouts, change everything and fade into the City's background. He'd lived like this for years, now, watching everything from a distance. Batman was doing well. The City, with a few hiccups, was relatively safe. No one needed him.

That was all right. In fact, that was better than all right; it was good. That'd been the trouble with Gotham. The city had needed Batman. And it'd broken him. He'd lost so much, and he kept on going back for more -- because he knew he was strong enough. He knew he could continue to take it. And he knew that there was no one else who could.

The burden wasn't on his shoulders any longer, now. And it left him feeling... empty.

Bruce lounged in a rumpled heather t-shirt and a pair of faded black jeans, booted feet stretched out under the patio table in front of him. Every so often, he picked up the gently sweating whiskey glass from the tabletop and held it for a while. Sometimes he drank. The sun was out, the sky was bright blue, and it was a day just like any other in the City.

And he was just another citizen. Empty, like the rest of the blank faces here.

Oh, she was rather used to the City and it's games, and had even joined in a few a time or two, but there was something wrong at the moment. It wasn't a little thing that she could brush off easily, like a file being out of order or a few hours missing...but there were two very large holes in her life that screamed at "Not Right".

Her father and Bruce were gone.

Just...gone. No signs, no nothing. She had checked the Tower. She had checked the Warehouse...she had even gone to Arkham (and found her step-father moping about which ended her search for her father right there. If Edward was there...Jonathan would know it. Jonathan would never willingly be without Edward.

She sighed, locking the door to her and Logan's cabin, pocketing the key and heading for the Warehouse again to search for clues...for something, anything to explain what the hell was going on. She had missed Logan and Giselle by an hour, not realizing she had a problem waiting for her (such as two strangers now sharing the same space she had thought she shared with her lover), her mind focused, narrowed down to a single point.

Find out what happened.

"This is not funny, by the way," she muttered, kicking at the earth as if she could kick The City itself. Honestly, she would understand if she could just have an answer...

Backdated to Christmas day and before this thread

Dinah kept herself busy on Christmas day. She had presents to deliver after all. She'd dropped in on a few of her friends and dropped off gifts. The peace offering that she'd brought to Beauty had been particularly well-received as the young woman had invited her in for tea. They might not see eye to eye on Eric, but Dinah felt bad for how she'd left their last conversation and she believed that Beauty truly did mean well.

One by one her gifts were delivered until she finally pulled her bike up the driveway to Wayne Manor. She hadn't forgotten the butler who was so much more. Not in the slightest. Alfred had been there for her through two very tough times since her time in the City. More importantly, he had been there for Jake. Dinah could never forget him on a holiday and she just hoped that he was enjoying a quiet Christmas off. After all, she knew that Zoe didn't live in the Manor and so she assumed that it was empty. She also wondered if perhaps the butler missed having people to tend to.

Neatly wrapped box in hand, Dinah rang the doorbell. She wondered if she should have called ahead. She had been wondering that on each of her stops throughout the day but she hadn't wanted to over-schedule Christmas. She had simply prepared herself to drop presents on doorsteps if she had to. Besides, she thought that surprise visits from friends might be a nice thing for this holiday.

The Batman watched this ginger-headed detective for three days and nights, establishing the man's routines and haunts, learning more about the man from his actions than from the facts he and Alfred uncovered about him. The man had been falsely accused, had served years of time for crimes he'd never committed. He'd come out of prison life and re-assimilated himself back into the police force. All these facts buried in the banks of his computer served as an excellent frame of reference -- but to know the man, to know if he could be trusted, to know if he could be used, required far more investigation.

At the end of the third day, when night settled in around the building where Charlie Crews worked, the Batman found himself waiting on the roof for the most of the building to empty, for most of the traffic to die. When it did, he dropped soundlessly onto the fire escape just outside the window closest to the office of the man he'd been surveiling. It took no time to move silently through the hall to the doorway of the office where Charlie Crews worked.

There were no fewer than five places for the Batman to disappear; it's why he chose this particular place to make his first appearance. But now was no time for hiding. Instead, he stepped silently into the office and waited for the man to turn. He was careful to keep his gloved hands open and relaxed at his sides.

Alfred made it clear that the Batman's responsibilities had been assumed by a remarkable woman - a veteran of a war far in the future. She was, from all accounts, a capable warrior and a fine strategist. Bruce's own research into the woman's history and background revealed few details. She was, apparently, a woman who valued her privacy. Bruce could understand that -- and even approve.

The white walls and polished steel of his office building winked at him as he passed under the stairwell door frame and onto the floor to which Alfred directed him. It was very quiet. Naturally, it was.

Resisting the urge to explore what this woman had done with an entire floor of the Wayne Enterprises building, Bruce crossed his arms and waited in front of the stairwell. Night was only 30 minutes away. Did she wear a utility suit similar to his own? Did she wear the hood and cowl? Had she made professional connections with the police force here, and was she aware of the Scarecrow and Riddler and Enigma inside these City walls?

The questions piled like bodies at a crime scene in front of him, slowly oozing importance into sticky puddles around his feet. Patience was a virtue hard won in him. He drew on it slowly, as a schoolboy would take his medicine. And he waited.

After weeks of practice and fine-tuning, the newest performance opened at the City Opera House. Unlike before, the star diva was Enigma, in the title role. Another bright point of the evening came from the inventive interpretation of the classical score from Dr. Hannibal Lecter, on piano.

Again, Opening Night came with its victory gala at the end of the performance. Again, the featured stars invited special guests, and again, the City Opera provided complimentary tickets to one Ms. Lois Lane and the City Mayor (plus 1, naturally). But the performance and gala were also open to all. And as the performance came to a close, the gala sprung to life downstairs in the Grand Foyer.

As Alfred navigated through the midnight Gotham streets, Bruce Wayne tugged his tie free of its collar. He'd left the ladies at the gala to enjoy themselves, after having given instructions to the staff at the hotel to quietly arrange for transportation to... wherever it was that they'd end up going after their revels were ended. There was work ahead of him, and he was eager to begin. Now that his duty as Bruce Wayne was complete, the night unfolded.

He rubbed the back of his neck briefly, but when he dropped his hand and looked up again, he wasn't in his car. Alfred wasn't driving. He was, in fact, at home in Wayne Manor, sitting instead in a chair -- a chair that he promptly overturned in his swiftness to stand. Before it fell, he caught the back and set it back under the table again. What had just happened? Had he been drugged?

He felt no side effects whatsoever. Pressing his back against the wall of his dining room, Bruce edged to the doorway and looked quickly around the corner. Nothing. No one. Cautiously, he slid into the next room and cleared it -- then the next -- then upstairs... his bedroom... his study. Nothing.

At last he called, tentatively, "Alfred?"

The man appeared a moment later, smiling. "Master Bruce? It's good to see you again." And for the next two hours, Alfred patiently explained just where he was.

Bruce expected there to be some kind of argument as he packed his things and signed the papers to hand Wayne Manor and all of his money off to Zoe. He expected to hear some kind of protest as he logged the keywords to change the voice recognition software from his voice to hers. He expected to be asked for last minute assurances as he set his copies of the keys down on his - not his anymore - desk.

But Alfred did none of that. For which Bruce was quite grateful. This was all hard enough as it was. He was walking away from the life that he'd constructed for himself. Walking away from everything that he knew.

He couldn't do it anymore.

Alfred had told him that Zoe had shown up. So at least Bruce didn't have to worry about things being okay with him gone. He was leaving everything in very capable hands. He thought about sticking around long enough to find out how she'd come to her decision, but in the end figured that it might be too painful for her to talk about.

So he left with his singular bag, and the new identity he'd set up for himself. A long hug for Alfred, and a last glance at the property.

Without a single doubt in his mind, Bruce Wayne faded into the City to become somebody else, and try to live a normal life.

Recent events, recent things that he'd read, recent everything that was going on in his life had gotten Bruce to thinking. It hadn't been particularly happy thinking, either. There was a lot of issue with what he wanted to do for this City that was his home now, and what he could do because of circumstances.

Too many people here knew him. Knew his life. His true identity. The people that he loved. Too many of those people were the bad guys. There was too much threat to himself and those he kept company with.

He had, in fact, come to something of a decision. But it didn't come down to a choice he could make. It all rested on the acceptance of another.

Bruce checked his watch and saw that it was about time for the training lesson today. Something that he'd gotten quite used to over the past few weeks. It was good to have somebody under his wing again - so to speak. Somebody to show things to, to teach. She was already pretty good at a lot of things. Bruce didn't agree with her penchant for guns, but he wasn't going to give her lectures about it. She was a grown woman, and he wasn't going to change her at this point. Though, he knew in all honesty that even if she'd been very young he could never have changed anything about her. She was very headstrong and very sure of her ideals and her way of things. He imagined that she always had been.

It was one of the many reasons that he liked her.

He looked up just as Alfred came through the door. "Miss Zoe to see you, sir. Should I ready the training room?"

"Please, Alfred. And send her in."

The streets were dark. A panic had not risen in The City from the Joker's little prank. Despite the fact that Batman had found some households with the threatened goods in them. The Smallpox was, indeed, on the toast in some of the toasters. Not all of them. The Diphtheria, it seemed only a randomized few had that. But it would spread, no doubt, if nothing was done about it. There was also a third seemingly ancient disease roaming through some of the homes, the Mumps, given by specialty wall hangings. Clearly chosen because of the absurdity of the name.

Bruce could envision Jack Napier saying it out loud over and over again to himself, giggling each time. Until his laughter rolled through the hallways of Arkham Asylum, bouncing off of the leaded mesh glass.

Perhaps that knowledge meant he was far too close to the Clown Prince of Crime. Knew too much about him and his ways. Walked too closely to the line of insanity and criminals.

It was surprisingly difficult to get people to part with their toasters. Even more so to get them to give up their loaves of bread. Not a lot of people were excited to find a giant black bat in their homes with scientific equipment, testing their air ducts, bread, toasters and home decor for disease.

Maybe he'd been out of the loop for far too long, or maybe it was just that nobody believed anybody would do something such as break into their homes for the sole purpose of putting smallpox in their toasters.

He was, admittedly, tired of The Joker's pranks.

Carefully, the almost-shadow figure of Batman lifted the window of the next house. His head was already inside, ready for the first part of the roll he would take silently into the kitchen.

Batman stood crouched at the edge of a building. He'd taken up patrolling again some time ago. Today seemed particularly special. In his mailbox at Wayne Manor, he'd gotten a very disturbing note. He knew the handiwork. He knew that he couldn't trust it to just be a prank. He wondered how many other people got the same thing.

Tim was gone. Had vanished again. Bruce was once again alone in the big house.

There'd been some activity in the Tower, but he had yet to check it out. He didn't want to get his hopes up that Barbara had returned just to find out that it was somebody else. He didn't know how anybody else could get in, but this place was strange. Things happened.

He needed to find Zoe. Needed to train her. He couldn't keep an eye on this entire city by himself, unfortunately. There were too many shifting streets, too many characters of ill repute walking around. Not enough police to pick up the slack. As far as he knew, there weren't any other vigilantes out there working, either.

Damn, he needed Barbara.

He'd let himself fall apart the last while. Everything had gone to the wayside. He'd given up the nightly rounds. He'd stopped monitoring the City. Stopped trying to discover who was out there, who he had to watch and who he could trust. He was pretty sure he'd let the last little bit of it slide away after Tim had died. When all the murders happened. The slip had started when he'd lost Max, and Babs. Clark. He'd let that all get to him.

He'd let a lot of things get to him.

Bruce Wayne was not the same man he'd been when he'd gotten here.

Robin had not wanted to let her go out alone, he worried overly much for her. But Marian insisted that she need some air some space. In reality she just needed time away from him. The more time she spent close to him the more she felt...the more she felt inclined to him. She had no idea how or why she was growing more attached to him but it had come to the point that even her dreams were filled with images of him some memories some possible portents of the future he foretold. She did not hate him, not by any means but this was all so overwhelming she needed time to cope with it, time to understand her own feelings and how things could proceed from here.

Robin had not pushed more on her, though his tiny shows of affection were far more effective than they had been upon his return from the Holy Land. Why her heart jumped when he took her hand, or her breath stilled when she turned to find his gaze lingering on her, were beyond her. Even more baffling was the fact that she had all but stopped chiding him about it. She was warming to him, she knew that much, but things were happening very fast and the recent appearance of a version of her home, set up to hold a half dozen people, well that had given her reason enough to need the time to think.

Walking in the fresh air, or as fresh as could be had in this city, had been bracing for her. It made her feel more at ease even if her surroundings were more than alien, walking was soothing and her newly gifted horse, which she needed to stable soon, was rejuvenating. Marian took her time on the ride, a long meandering ride through the park from whence she had originally emerged. Dark was beginning to set in when she hit one of the shadowy paths near the edge of the forest, where some prettily lit eatery sat in the park.

Marian allowed her gaze to leave the path as she looked on at the fancy dining place and the people who were seated nearest the garden path, a handsome man sat surrounded by pretty women in ornate jewels and not much else to speak of. Her low laugh at the pomposity of such a man who entertained such company was cut short by a thorn of some such jabbing into her thigh. She brushed it off and checked her skirt but could find no hole, as if it had dissolved off like mist. She frowned before turning back to the diners, this time her breath catching with a full on look at the man. He was...handsome. He was beautiful. Marian could not stop herself as she edged the horse closer over to the railed patio that housed this man of such noble countance that she felt she had to see him without the distance between them.

After all that had happened in The City in the past month or so, it was any wonder that her mind lingered on the visit that she was about to make. The scar on her face had healed, leaving an angry red scar. He still didn't know what had happened as far as she knew, although there were probably pictures involved. She needed to talk to Bruce. More than anything, she needed a friend.

She arrived at the manor and walked up to the door. Ringing the doorbell she could only hope that he was at home.

Alfred opened the door, and as always, showed no surprise that she was there. Alfred let her know that Bruce was in and showed her to the library. And there she sat, waiting for Mr. Wayne to arrive.