Legend

Alfred materialized, relieving Bruce of his briefcase and offering drinks, returning with a tray of coffee cups. The men found seats. "He got away," Bruce said tensely, and I shook my head.

"That's on me. I should have double-checked, or at least kicked his head a few times," I said apologetically. "I allowed myself to be distracted by J."

"Understandable," Bucky said, nodding at me. "But we'll do some work on priorities and threat assessment. Did you two check out ok?"

"Yeah," I said. "And we have a tissue accelerator with the wand so J can heal faster." I gave him a side eye. "Do you think you have to mention this to Mom and Dad, Uncle Bucky?" Beside me, J tried to give a winning smile. It came off kind of gruesome instead, and I nudged him with my elbow. Tony chortled.

"They're your parents," Bucky temporized.

"We weren't planning on bringing it up," I said bluntly. "There wasn't a commotion in the train station, and the news will probably have a note that the train was stopped and a passenger removed. That in itself isn't terribly newsworthy in this city."

"I have independent insurance, so they won't be getting a bill for the dentist," J chimed in.

"Yeah, I meant to tell you I'll pay for that," I said, turning toward my brother. "You wouldn't need to use it if you hadn't been caught up in my mess." J protested, but I pointed out that anything involving a dentist was expensive and he had to pay tuition for summer session still.

"The city has a fund for civilians hurt by supervillain activity," Tony said. "Hash it out on your own time." I decided not to argue; if J applied to the fund, I'd just donate the amount to the fund. Then Bruce had J and me tell our stories again for the group. They were silent awhile as they turned this information over in their minds.

"Those recordings he had from your previous encounter are locked up in Commissioner Gordon's office," Bruce told me. "There was concern about the nature of the recordings and the fact that almost anybody can be bribed if the bribe is right."

"That's good news. I really don't want the Joker to see that, especially the ending. I suppose it's a bit much to hope that an EMP goes off outside his office," I said morosely.

"Yes," Bruce said firmly.

"You never know what might happen in the next alien invasion," Tony said logically. Bruce scowled at him and Bucky just looked at me. I was suddenly starting to feel better about the next Kree/Skrull invasion attempt.

After that, there wasn't much more to say. I still felt bad that I'd let the Joker get away. Bruce invited Tony and Bucky to dinner, but Tony had a date and Bucky wanted to get home. During dinner, Bruce and Damian took the lead, chatting with J, getting to know him. Since J didn't know about Damian or Bruce's alter egos, they had to invent a story about why Bruce arrived with Bucky and Tony. As usual, the cover story was as thin as possible; he encountered them as they pulled up to the mansion. We chatted in the library after dinner, then Bruce and Damian needed to do some work they'd brought home, so J and I took the dog out for a tour of the immediate environs.

"I can't tell you how sorry I am that you got caught up in my mess," I told J as I threw a stick for Hestia.

"I had no idea visiting you was going to be so exciting," he said lightly. "If there's a next time, though, don't worry about me unless I'm bleeding out. Put that asshole back in a coma." I saluted. After we wandered back in, Alfred handed me the portable accelerator (that he'd brought up from the bat cave) and I used the wand on the stitches in J's cheek; it looked a lot better once I was done.

"That's amazing," he said as I repacked the case after cleaning the wand. "They have a full-sized one at the teaching hospital, but nobody said anything about a portable version. What does it run?"

"About five years worth of my annual salary, so you'll have to buy this one yourself," I commented, and he stuck out his tongue at me. Brothers. After that, we decided to make an early day of it and said good night to Bruce and Damian. Damian would be up later, of course, but I fully planned on being asleep then. It had been quite a day. I took J to his room on the second floor; it was right by the turret so if he just wanted to relax with a cup of coffee, he had an excellent view. The cushions on the window seats had just been replaced, so it would be comfortable. Then I trudged upstairs and got ready for bed. I was so tired I don't even know when Damian came up.

The next morning, J went into work with me and watched as Bucky and I worked out. Then Bucky gave me some threat assessment exercises and told me to start using them in the way I saw the world. If a gun man came into the convenience store, what would I do if it was just me and the clerk? Would anything change if there were other customers? Or other robbers? He drew on his assassination training to tell me how to decide on an order for targets should I need to know. I knew without asking that he'd probably start to giving me pop quizzes. Then our students started coming in, and I got absorbed by that. After training, J went to lunch with Aslyn and me, then I got a day off from the simulator as Bucky let him play around--to start, but Bucky can't resist a learning opportunity and showed him some defensive driving techniques. J would be hanging out with Uncle Bucky for the rest of the day, so I went to the clinic to get that IUD replaced (and felt so much relief when I sat up) and have a session with our accelerator, then to work. Tony took my ring and returned it with the sedative gel reapplied. Otherwise, neither of us referred to the incident. Emma didn't either, when she came down with some macaroons that afternoon.

The week passed too quickly. I took a day off and J and I poked around the city, and Damian took a day and they did a boy's tour of the city. I was glad that they were making an effort to get to know each other and they seemed to get along well. The day after that, there was a change of plans and J went into the city with Bruce and Damian to spend time in their medical research division. Then J spent his final day looking up old classmates in the city and getting reacquainted. Mom and dad showed up the next day to take him home with them. Both J and I just smiled when they asked if we'd had a peaceful week. That made them a little suspicious, but we diverted them quickly with a few stories of things we'd done. Whew.

As nice as it had been to see J again, I was glad to go back to my routine. As I'd expected, Bucky had Avengers ambush me here and there. Sometimes there were hostage situations, sometimes not. Sometimes there were weapons involved, sometimes it was just hand-to-hand. I saw Pietro a lot; Bucky said later that he volunteered a lot. Probably revenge for training.

Detective McIver came by for a visit and he sat me down to tell me how Vanilla tied in. Apparently he'd flirted with the gang lifestyle when he was younger and had owed a debt to a senior member who had saved his life in a drive-by shooting. That debt came due a few years ago, when Vanilla, fresh out of college and new to his job in a Wall Street bank, was contacted and introduced to a man--no name was given--but who turned out to be a henchman for the Joker, one of his chief minions. This turned out to be when the Joker recovered enough to make plans. A guard had been placed there to monitor the Joker; if he recovered, his surprisingly loyal minions wanted to be sure someone was ready to help.

"He's been alert for over two years?" I asked, disbelieving. McIver nodded.

"He's a better actor than anybody knew. This will also weigh heavily against him trying to get another stay in Arkham when he's caught," he said. "So Thomas Jones-Vane started doing petty crimes, assisting with robberies and muggings, taking over couriering drugs to a few Wall Street traders. And, as it turned out, stealing blueprints from the city's housing inspector. He worked there as an intern one summer in college when he thought he might want to study architecture."

"Let me guess. Those were all buildings that were hit by the S'mores killer," I said, feeling sick. McIver sighed.

"Unfortunately, yes. And he said that he'd stolen more blueprints than there have been arsons, so this isn't over yet. He claims he can't remember all the ones he'd taken. He also said that it was done to obscure an insurance scam--the Joker owned a couple of the buildings and they needed money to finance the plans."

"Was our building one of the ones that he'd stolen?" I asked. McIver nodded. I looked at the ceiling for a moment. Poor Margaret. "I don't suppose he knows who the arsonist is."

"Says no, and I tend to believe him. The DA offered him a suspended sentence if he'd give up the arsonist, which would have been a huge incentive for him. But he still says he can't identify the guy, the sketch artist's work shows a thin man, early middle age, utterly forgettable."

"Shit," I said softly, and McIver nodded. I looked over as the door opened. Lewis came in and looked at Madison's desk.

"Sorry, Lewis," I said. "Madison called in sick today." He nodded and tuned.

"Lewis?" McIver said alertly. "Lewis Jones-Vane?" Lewis took off running.

"Friday, seal off this floor," I said, and the AI complied. All doors locked, the elevator wouldn't be able to stop at the floor. McIver ran after Lewis, and I caught up with them in the hall. McIver was putting the kid in handcuffs. "I guess I know how the information on my brother's visit got out," I said sourly. Lewis wouldn't meet my eyes.

I had the AI release the security measures, and McIver took Lewis away, promising to update me later. I trudged up to Tony's office and told him what had happened. He was livid about Lewis, and when I left, he was calling HR to instruct them to cooperate with the police investigation fully, including the release of Lewis's company file.

Those revelations cast a pall over my mood. Madison was questioned by the police about her relationship with Lewis. They'd gone out a couple times and she was genuinely upset to learn that he'd been seeing her just to have some access to my desk and computer. Lewis had confessed that he'd flirted with her to get information to help his brother out. He'd also been able to provide a couple of addresses his brother had taken him to deliver the information or to get new instructions. In exchange for the information, he'd be tried as a juvenile.

When I got home Friday afternoon, Bruce had arranged a surprise to get my mind off things. A landscaping company had come out and made a couple of big flower beds out by the patio. Damian and I would design the plantings, and Dick and Barbara would come out to help us plant everything. "Where are you going to be, Dad?" Damian asked, frowning.

"I'll be supervising the work from the patio," Bruce said calmly. "Sipping a drink. Somebody has to stay fresh to fight crime."

"Father," Damian said in exasperation. Bruce shrugged, unrepentant.

After dinner, Damian and I went outside with our laptops to measure the beds and look at different plants. We pulled up the spreadsheet on the meaning of flowers and planned for an apple tree (good fortune, better things to come), a variety of rosebushes (love, desire, charm, perfect happiness, grace, thankfulness), and a variety of other flowers, such as zinnias (constancy), violets and pansies (faithfulness, remembrance), dwarf sunflowers (adoration), Queen Anne's Lace (haven), poppies (pleasure, imagination), alyssum (worth beyond beauty), carnations (admiration, fascination, pure love), daisies (loyal love), delphinium (flights of fancy), gladiola (strength of character, generosity), petunias (your presence soothes me), iris (faith, valor, friendship, wisdom), lavender (devotion), and lilacs (first emotion of love). We wanted bulbs too, like tulips (love, worthiness), hyacinth (playfulness, loveliness, constancy), crocus (cheerfulness), and daffodils (regard, respect), but those would have to wait til fall. Then we took a walk in the early darkness, well lit by an almost full moon. We fetched up in the gazebo by the lake where we thought to plant some wisteria (welcome) and ended up making love for the first time since my pregnancy scare.

The next day, we coerced Alfred to going to the garden centers with us. Each of us took a car so there'd be room for all the plants. Additionally, we had Alfred pick out the herbs he wanted for his kitchen garden in the conservatory. When we got back home, Bruce helped us haul the flowers around to the flower beds and position them according to the preliminary diagrams we'd made. Then after lunch, Dick came out to the house to help us take out the dwarf palm in the conservatory. He and Bruce said that they could get it done no problem, so I shrugged, smiled, and Damian and I played around with the placement of the flowers, making sure to leave room for the bulbs, amending the diagrams as we went along. An hour and a half later, we were done and Alfred had vacuumed out the bits of soil that the plants had left in the cars, but Bruce and Dick hadn't reappeared. After a refreshing glass of lemonade (I resisted the cookies), we ambled up to the conservatory with the herbs to find Dick and Bruce just finishing up. I suppressed my 'told you so' and took the gardening fork to loosen the compacted soil and mix in new soil and compost as they flopped down in the chairs. It didn't take that long to do and Damian helped me plant the herbs attractively and water them in. At this point Alfred arrived with refreshments and was very complimentary about his new kitchen garden. He hefted the palm and disappeared.

The next day went as planned; Dick (moving a little stiffly) and Barbara came for a delicious brunch , then we went outside to put the plants into the ground. Bruce, true to his word, hung out on the patio, ready for crime, drinking iced coffee and reading the Financial Times. It only took a couple of hours to get everything done and watered in. It was very satisfying to do the gardening and nice to spend time with the whole family. Then Dick thought that we should have a water feature, and Bruce jumped all over that. Alfred floated the idea of a barbecue grill, and the men were enthralled at the idea of playing with fire. Damian proposed a fire pit as well. Barbara and I smiled at each other and she started looking for books on her phone.