Batman glided to the top of Gotham City's main police station. Jim Gordon was standing there, waiting for him.
"'Bout time you showed up," Gordon said gruffly. He flicked off the switch to the Bat-Signal, shrouding both of them in shadow.
"I... I needed to do some thinking. After Bat-"
"Barbara," Gordon said. He looked away for a moment, trying to regain himself. "Believe me, I know. That bastard Joker. Barbara told me what happened to her. The truth."
Tommy shifted his weight nervously. "She did?"
"Yeah," Gordon replied. "She told me how Joker... how he crippled her. He wanted to show the both of us what it was like to lose someone. He wanted to break us."
"He did," Tommy replied. He guessed that Barbara wasn't in a hurry to tell anyone the truth about her accident.
"But we're not him," Gordon replied. "We're better than that, right?"
"Sure," Tommy lied. He wanted to get off this subject. He was ready to be Batman again but he wasn't ready to relive that night.
"Anyway, I didn't call you up here to cry about our problems," Gordon said. "Someone's been attacking our police officers. Cops. I've had 4 officers go down in the past week to some sort of fear paralysis. They're all in the hospital. One can't be left alone without crying and another can't get off the floor because they're afraid they'll fall. Someone's been dousing them with-"
"Scarecrow," Tommy jumped ahead. He was confused; as far as he knew, Scarecrow had been put in Arkham Asylum 2 years ago by the other Batman.
"That's what I thought," Gordon said. "But there's no toxin in the blood. Whoever is doing this is doing it to them without fear gas."
"Any leads?" Tommy asked. He was eager to get off this roof and track down a criminal. He thought it would be nice to take his mind off his problems by beating the shit out of some hoods.
"Just one," Gordon said, straining his eyes to read the papers in his hand. "All of the cops run the beat on Midtown, near the museum. I think that if you hang around there, before too long you'll-"
Gordon looked up and saw that Batman was gone. He smiled. "Just like old times," He muttered to himself.
***
Tommy crouched on a roof across the street from the Gotham Museum of Art. He had been tracking an officer as he walked his beat for almost an hour and so far Tommy hadn't seen anything suspicious. A couple drunks, sure, but that wasn't out of the ordinary this time of night. Tommy was thinking that maybe this wasn't such a good lead after all.
The cop whistled as he walked, twirling his night stick absent-mindedly. He walked by a side street, paused, and then backtracked. The whistling stopped. Slowly, he walked down the side street.
Tommy couldn't see the cop as he disappeared into the alley. Night Vision was being clicked on right as the shouting began.
"Aaaaahhhh get 'em off me, get 'em off me!" He heard someone shouting.
Tommy quickly grappled over to a building closer to the side street. As he did so, he faintly made out a tall, sweeping figure standing over the cop. The cop was cowering on the ground, his hands fervently trying to brush something off of himself.
"Hey!" Tommy shouted, grabbing the evildoer's attention. The villain ran out of the side street, their long cape trailing behind them. They ran in the direction of the museum.
Tommy didn't immediately follow. First he dropped down to the street and checked on the cop. The man was still rolling around on the ground, trying violently to remove whatever was on him. Tommy couldn't see anything.
"What's wrong?" Tommy asked urgently, trying to mask his voice.
"Spiders! They're everywhere!" The cop shouted. Tommy looked closer but there was nothing there. He wasn't sure what to do; he couldn't help this man but he couldn't exactly leave him like this. He did the first thing he could think of: he cracked the policeman upside the head, knocking him unconscious. Tommy used the officer's radio to call for an ambulance. Then he turned towards the museum and began to run after his suspect.
***
Tommy entered the museum cautiously, dropping in from the roof. He had seen the tail of his suspect's cape flutter through the front door of the museum but he wasn't sure where the fiend was now. He was going to have to be cautious.
Tommy crouched low and worked his way down the halls of the art museum. He was passing by works that numbered in the hundreds of thousands of dollars but he didn't know or particularly care about any of them; there was work to do.
As he worked his way down the high halls of the art museum, Tommy was getting nervous. He was beginning to think that maybe his prey had tricked him somehow and wasn't actually in the museum. He began searching faster, getting more and more agitated, not checking before he turned a corner. He turned one corner without looking and almost literally ran into his suspect. They had been waiting for him.
"Hello Batman," his suspect said with a British accent. Tommy slid to avoid running into the woman standing before him. She was wearing a form-fitting suit that was green with black highlights. It showed off her lithe body and round, firm breasts. Behind her was a cape that touched the floor and then arched high around her head to form a sort of shield around her head. It made her look intimidating. Her costume had a cap attached to it that wrapped around her head, covering her hair. She had dark black lips and high, arching eyebrows.
"I figured that you'd show up eventually and try to spoil my plans," the villain said. She held out her hand and a pink light seemed to emanate from it. "Now let's see what you fear most..."
Tommy's world fell away from him. The walls and floor beneath him seemed to retreat, leaving him in infinite blackness. He saw two figures approaching him; as they neared, he retreated in horror.
