Birds of a Feather (Oswald Cobblepot)

Halloween

  “No way, so this guy created a drug that sent people into dream-comas where they were physically saying whatever anyone in their dream is saying, and you can communicate with the person in their dream by speaking while touching them? That sounds like something from a comic book,” Batwoman chuckles as we sit on a rooftop ledge after a night of crime-fighting. The sun is just starting to rise, and we’re waiting for Barbara’s car to come around from whatever corner it’d hid in.

“Actually, I think I remember reading a villain doing something similar in a Gray Ghost novel,” I mention, dangling my legs over the edge.

She gasps, “The Gray Ghost?! Oh my gosh, I loved him growing up! I got a transistor radio for my fourth birthday, and I’d listen to the serial radio dramas after school. I listened to the Gray Ghost, and also that other guy...oh yeah, the Talon. What about you?”

I shake my head, “No, my family could never afford a radio, I just had those action novellas you’d find at the back of the library. It’s mostly the same storylines as the radio dramas though, since most of the serials are adapted from action novels and comic books.”

“I know,” she gives a knowing smirk, “I have the entire Gray Ghost novel collection in my library.”

I gasp, "You're joking! You have to show me, there were dozens of those things back in the day. It'd be amazing to see them all in their entirety."

She pulls off her mask, and Barbara sighs, "I...I can't exactly, show you. They're at my parents house and...we aren't exactly on the best of terms."

"I see," taking a wild guess, I ask, "old money, old values?"

She chuckles, "You don't even know the half of it."

A brief silence passes by as a few cars drive by below us.

"Are you going to be doing anything for Halloween?” Barbara inquires.

I shake my head, "No, I asked my old friend if he wanted to do anything. Apparently he’s trying to get a woman from work to go trick-or-treating with him.”

Barbara raises an eyebrow, “...trick-or-treating?”

“Yep. You can see why she hasn’t accepted so far. ...it...it use to be our thing,” I confess.

She looks down at the street below, but suddenly her head jerks up, “Hold on...trick-or-treating...Jim told me a story about one of his coworkers, Ed, who asked Kristen, the precinct’s annex records keeper to go trick-or-treating with him. And...and Ed has an old friend from high school, who also works at the precinct. Natalie. ...Natalie?”

I chuckle, removing my mask, “I was wondering when you’d figure it out.”

“Oh my gosh, why didn’t you tell me?!” Barbara laughs before pulling me into a hug.

I shrug, “Same reason you didn’t tell me, I guess.”

“I should totally bring you over and show you my base of operations one day-” she’s suddenly cut off by sirens blaring a few blocks away. Letting go of me, Barbara puts her crimson red mask back on and adjusts her wig, “ready for one last round, partner?”

I nod in approval before securing on my own mask. We simultaneously take out our grappling guns, firing them at a nearby roof, before holding on with both hands, swinging off of the roof, flying into the night.

   Oswald stumbles down the streets of downtown Gotham. So...his plans of rescuing and then murdering Trixie didn’t exactly go as planned. He had the perfect opportunity to end her...and he let her live. In the heat of the moment, when she said those three words he’d been longing to hear, emotions took over. She loves him, she loves him, the thought played endlessly in his head. She’s so close to his grasp, and yet so far.