The Universe's Mixer

Dinah wasn’t at ease in the wake of her discussion with Eric. No, she didn’t like just how casually and easily he had found her. She also wasn’t sure how she felt about the truce, even if she was the one who had proposed it. She did believe that it was the best way to keep people safe. To keep Dean safe, assuming he went along with it. She didn’t plan on dropping the ball on Eric. She wasn’t going to assume that he would keep his word. Though if he did, that would give them the chance to focus on the Joker and Scarecrow. And Enigma, if the girl continued to make trouble.

Dean wasn’t home when she got home, so she decided it was time to wrap presents. She wrapped his first and slipped it under the tree. There were two for him-a ‘naughty’ and a ‘nice’ present. She smiled a little and started humming to herself as she settled into wrapping some of the other presents. She was nervous about the discussion that would be had whenever he got home but for now she would just enjoy the fact that there wasn’t a crisis happening right now. That she could be at home, wrapping presents for the people she cared about.

( Snow's coming down, I'm watching it fall... )

Dinah was pretty sure that Dean wouldn't be home for Christmas. He was working that job and he'd said that he would be back when "all this" was over, whatever that meant. She knew he was angry and needed time to cool off. At least, she hoped that he just needed time to cool off. The prospect of spending Christmas without him hurt, but she wasn't the type to sit around and mope. And she really wasn't just going to wait around for him to decide that he was coming home.

To add insult to injury, she'd found a few surprises waiting for her in her shop. There was a card featuring Eric's vampiric 'family' in ugly Christmas sweaters, a set of police-issue handcuffs from Enigma, and most disturbing of all, a beautifully wrapped box from the Scarecrow containing a dead canary.

Needless to say, she had a lot of frustration to work out. She wasn't exactly glad when the news reported that there was a Christmas party that was currently being held hostage, but she wasn't sorry about the chance to get out there and knock a few heads together.

She headed off for the sky rise building containing the hostage situation. Once there, she began to climb the fire escape as she looked for a route into the top level of the building where the party was located. She hoped she could find a way to just slip in unnoticed. Hostage situations like this went better when stealth was involved after all.

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.

Rufio was more miserable than he could ever remember being.

It was bad enough that he'd been caught by some weird old man who came in every once in a while and gassed him, then asked him what was coming out of the dark to scare him, but even the lulls in between the visits and the effects wearing off the young Pan couldn't get his mind together enough to escape. Couldn't even capture a happy thought to try flying out. The "resting room" he was locked in had no weapons, no secret passages... it was plain and ugly and boring. He didn't know how to work with that.

Thankfully there was at least a window, and that was cracked open, so when he had enough of his senses to do so he went to it, looking out towards the City and letting the cool air try to wake him up so the nightmares didn't hound him as long.

He closed his eyes, resolutely not crying. Crying was for the younger boys, and girls. And pirates when they got hurt badly. The Pan never cried, it was practically a rule.

He did wish, though. He knew if Tinkerbell could find him he'd work something out with her, hatch some escape plot. And then he could leave, tell Enigma that her fathers were the worst parents even he had ever heard of, and then lock himself away in his own little Neverland and plot his revenge.

First, though, he needed his fairy.

Upon his arrival in the City, Sam had found keys to an apartment and a car. He assumed that they had belonged to the previous Sam, but truthfully he didn’t think too much on it either way. He didn’t much care whether or not he had a home but it made things easier to not have to find a new motel every night he supposed. It was just one less thing to worry about.

Dean’s phone call hadn’t garnered much reaction on his end. Though he did toss a few pillows on the bed in his second bedroom. It might be difficult to hide things with his brother around, but he would manage.

Sam had given the address and now he was going over the clues. He’d set up a corkboard in which he’d pinned all of the the things that they knew already. He frowned at it, studying each piece of information and trying to figure out how things fit together, trying to find a pattern that would explain what it was they were hunting.

( A role reversal of sorts? )