Jude and Chuck started chatting in the bar.
"Oh my god—you really are a master craftsman!"
Jude's eyes widened as he watched Chuck work.
The man had taken a napkin from the bar and was folding it with his bare hands. His fingers moved with the precision of a surgeon and the confidence of someone who'd done this ten thousand times.
Within thirty seconds, he'd created an intricate and beautiful paper airplane.
Not one of those simple childhood folds. This was engineering. Art. The wings had subtle curves, the nose was weighted perfectly, the tail had micro-adjustments that suggested Chuck understood exactly how air would flow over every surface.
Then he threw it.
The paper airplane launched smoothly from his hand, caught an updraft from the bar's ventilation system, and proceeded to circle around the entire establishment like it was on rails.
Past the gambling table. Over the dartboard. Through the gap between two arguing drunks who didn't even notice. Around the jukebox. Behind Lyle at the bar.
Then it curved back, adjusting its trajectory mid-flight, and glided directly to the bar counter where Jude and Chuck were sitting.
It landed softly. Perfectly. Like it had a guidance system.
Chuck didn't even have to reach out to grab it.
Jude stared at the paper airplane, then at Chuck, then back at the airplane.
"Holy shit. The farthest my paper airplane has ever flown is maybe twenty meters. And that was with a running start and favorable wind. I even won first place in our class's paper airplane competition."
He picked up the napkin aircraft, examining it with newfound respect.
"This thing just flew like it had autopilot."
"Cool, right?" Chuck chuckled, the sound warmer than anything that had come out of his mouth all night. For a moment, he didn't look like a failed drunk. He looked like someone who genuinely loved what he did.
"That's why I like aerodynamics."
He took another sip of his drink, but his eyes were distant now.
"I studied wind in school," Chuck continued, "It's all about balance, isn't it? Air pressure flows from high to low throughout the world. Constantly moving. Always trying to find equilibrium."
He gestured with the glass, liquid sloshing slightly.
"And in that search for balance, it moves everything. Clouds. Storms. Paper airplanes. Birds. It shapes the world just by trying to even itself out."
Chuck's eyes became a little hazy again.
The alcohol was catching up, or maybe he was thinking about more than just meteorology. He murmured about the wind, but somehow it seemed like he was also talking about his own lack of freedom.
About forces beyond his control pushing him from place to place. About searching for balance and never quite finding it.
The metaphor wasn't subtle.
After a moment, he drained the last bit of tequila from his glass and patted Jude on the shoulder. The gesture was heavy, affectionate, the kind of thing drunk people did when they'd decided you were their friend now.
"Man, I have to go home." Chuck's words came out slightly slurred but sincere. "I'm so happy today. Thank you."
"You're welcome, Chuck." Jude carefully folded the paper airplane and slipped it into his pocket. "I'm keeping this. Going to show it off to kids I know. Make them think I'm some kind of genius."
Chuck smiled at that.
He stood, wobbled slightly, steadied himself on the bar, and staggered toward the door.
Just before he reached the exit, Jude spoke again.
"Chuck."
"Huh?" The aerodynamicist turned, one hand on the doorframe. "What's wrong?"
"If you get into trouble you can find me at the Gotham City Police Department." Jude kept his tone casual, like he was mentioning the weather. "Or you can come back here. Lyle knows me now."
Chuck looked at him for a long moment.
Something passed across his face. Gratitude, maybe.
"Hah. Thank you."
He waved his hand and disappeared through the bar door into Gotham's night.
Jude turned back to his food and methodically ate all the remaining French fries. They'd gone cold and soggy, but waste not, want not.
It's not polite to directly put a bug or tracker on someone, he thought, chewing mechanically. But fortunately, this is the information age. Even without resorting to that method, I still have other means to obtain someone's information.
The GCPD database, for instance.
Charles "Chuck" Brown, aerodynamicist. Currently unemployed. Recently divorced. Address on file with the city.
Easy enough to find if needed.
At that moment, the news on TV transitioned to a new segment. Jude glanced up, half-listening while finishing his fish.
"Here's the latest breaking news." The anchor's voice carried that particular blend of concern and excitement that news anchors used for violent stories. "Ms. Carmen Marie Falcone, who lives alone in Metropolis, was found half an hour ago lying in a pool of blood in an alley in East District. Her teeth had been pulled out and her throat had been slit."
Jude stopped chewing.
The anchor continued: "But miraculously, she survived. Ms. Falcone has been rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment. Another discovery we found is that the elderly woman is suspected to be the adopted mother of Mr. Carmine Falcone, a well-known Gotham entrepreneur."
The screen showed footage of an ambulance, police tape, the usual crime scene imagery.
Jude stared at the TV, his mind racing.
His first thought was relief.
The elderly woman had been rushed to the hospital. Which meant she hadn't died on the spot. That was good. That meant his ability had worked. Carmen Marie Falcone was still alive despite injuries that should have killed her.
His next thought connected to what the Falcone gangsters in the botanical garden had said after waking up from Poison Ivy's poison.
One of them had mentioned that someone had threatened Carmine to hunt down the Riddler. That the boss had given them one hour to produce Edward Nygma's body or else.
But the Riddler had found Poison Ivy instead.
If you followed the timeline based on the TV description, the person who'd tortured Carmen Marie could only be the Joker.
The Battle of Jokes and Riddles.
Jude sat back, processing.
What would become of Gotham City with a war between the Joker and the Riddler? What happened when you added the Falcone crime family into the mix? And Poison Ivy as a wild card?
He couldn't come up with a clear answer to those questions.
But he had a vague, uneasy feeling that something big was about to happen soon. Something catastrophic.
He wiped his hands with a napkin, cleaning grease from his fingers with deliberate care.
Movement caught his eye.
A man at one of the corner tables had just secretly slipped something into a woman's drink. A pill. Something small that dissolved quickly.
The woman didn't notice. Was too busy talking to her friend, laughing at something, completely unaware.
The man waited. Patient. Predatory.
After a few minutes, he made his move. Approached the woman with a smile. Started talking. Offered to walk her somewhere safe since she seemed dizzy.
The woman, suddenly unsteady on her feet, agreed.
They headed for the door together. Probably going to a hotel or cheap inn.
Jude stood up, left cash on the bar to cover his meal, and followed them out.
His hand slipped into his jacket pocket, fingers finding the familiar smoothness of the assassin's blowpipe. The weapon was already loaded. Tranquilizer dart. Non-lethal but extremely effective.
About half an hour later, Chuck Brown finally returned to his home.
It was a modest apartment in a building that had seen better decades.
He walked in, muscle memory guiding him through familiar motions. Turned on the light—the bulb flickered twice before catching, needed replacement. Hung his coat on the hanger at the door. Took off his shoes.
"I'm back," he said to the empty apartment.
No one answered.
Rightfully so. There was nobody there to answer.
Two years ago, he'd divorced his wife. The custody of their child had been awarded to her. The judge had looked at Chuck's employment history, his drinking, his recent arrest as an accomplice to criminal activity, and made what was probably the correct decision.
Chuck now lived alone.
Apart from paying a fixed amount of child support every month he occasionally visited his son. Supervised visits. Short ones. His ex-wife watching like a hawk to make sure he didn't corrupt their child with his presence.
Apart from that, there was no one in his life.
No friends. No colleagues. No drinking buddies except strangers at bars.
Chuck turned on the light in the living room and collapsed onto the sofa. The furniture was old, bought secondhand years ago. One of the cushions had a cigarette burn from a previous owner.
He deliberately avoided looking at the empty corner of the room.
That's where the drafting table used to be. Where he'd spent hours designing kites, calculating wind resistance, sketching prototypes. Before it all went wrong.
Instead, he turned on the TV.
This way, there would always be voices in the room. It helped him escape from loneliness just a little bit. Made the apartment feel less like a tomb.
In fact, living alone wasn't inherently a bad thing.
Before Chuck got married, he'd also lived alone. But he hadn't felt lonely then. He'd had a job at an aerospace engineering firm. Had colleagues who respected his work. Had hobbies that felt meaningful. Had goals for the future.
When he was truly embedded in the world that connection eliminated loneliness.
But now...
Chuck pulled out a cardboard box from under the sofa. It was filled with bottles of various alcohol. Tequila, whiskey, cheap vodka, whatever was on sale.
He opened a bottle of something amber and poured it directly into his mouth. Didn't bother with a glass.
A few months ago, he'd been fired for assisting a criminal.
The Joker, specifically. Had forced Chuck to build something at gunpoint. A car. A death trap on wheels. Chuck had done it because the alternative was getting shot.
But when the police caught him, when Batman dragged him in, his employer hadn't wanted to hear explanations. Hadn't cared about coercion or fear or the gun that had been pointed at Chuck's head.
They'd just fired him. Immediately.
So now he had no family. No job. No colleagues. No goals.
He didn't even read books on aerodynamics anymore. The textbooks sat on a shelf gathering dust. Looking at them hurt too much. Reminded him of what he'd lost. What he'd failed to become.
The blue suit he'd been wearing tonight was nothing more than the inertia of his life over the past years. A habit.
Should I do something?
The thought flashed through his mind for a moment.
Apply for jobs. Call his son. Clean the apartment. Anything productive. Anything that suggested forward momentum.
Then the thought disappeared.
He took another long drink.
There was no point in doing anything. And he didn't want to do anything right now anyway.
Easier to just... exist. Drink. Watch TV. Wait for tomorrow to be as meaningless as today.
At that moment, a hoarse and cold voice sounded in the room.
"Chuck Brown."
The sound was so terrifying that Chuck almost dropped the bottle in his hand.
His head whipped around, eyes searching for the source.
Then he saw it.
A dark shadow standing in the corner of the room—the exact corner he'd been avoiding looking at. A tall, strong figure with two pointed ears rising from its head like a demon's horns.
Batman.
In his apartment.
The voice was flat, emotionless. Impossible to tell whether the speaker was angry or calm or planning violence.
"You were once forced to build a vehicle for the Joker." Not a question. A statement of fact. "You must have a way to contact him. Please find that way."
The word "please" was technically there, but the tone sounded more like a command. The kind of request that wasn't actually optional.
Chuck's mouth went dry.
"Uh, I was just forced to do it." His voice came out higher than intended. Defensive. "I really don't want to have anything to do with him anymore. Ever. That man is insane."
"Chuck Brown." Batman took a step forward, still mostly shadow. "You saw the news, right?"
When Chuck heard the question, he subconsciously looked at the TV screen.
Of course he'd seen it.
Carmen Marie Falcone's miserable condition was still being broadcast. Teeth pulled out. Throat slit. Miraculously alive but barely.
The images were graphic. Gotham news didn't censor violence. Why bother? Everyone here had seen worse in person.
"He attacked a family of five this morning, Chuck."
Batman's voice remained flat, but something underneath it suggested controlled fury.
"The child in that family is about the same age as your son." A pause. "Eight years old. Maybe nine. And if I can't find the Joker, he'll keep killing people. He'll kill the Riddler if he can find him. He'll kill ordinary people when he gets frustrated. The elderly. Children."
Another pause. Heavier.
"Are you indifferent to this?"
Chuck fell silent.
He was very afraid of the Joker. Genuinely, bone-deep terrified. The man had held a gun to his head for three days while Chuck built that cursed vehicle. Had told him jokes while describing how he'd kill Chuck if the work wasn't perfect.
The Joker was a nightmare given flesh.
But the cases Batman was talking about did remind him of his son.
When Chuck looked up at the TV again, he could see Carmen Marie Falcone's brutalized face. Could imagine that happening to anyone.
To his son.
"Just find him." Batman's voice softened fractionally. "No need for you to fight, Chuck. I'm not asking you to be a hero. Just... help me locate him. Give me a way to contact the Joker. That's all."
The silence stretched.
Chuck placed the bottle on the coffee table with a soft thud. His hands were shaking slightly. Fear. Adrenaline. Decision.
"I'll help you," he said finally.
His voice was quiet but steady.
"But I have one condition."
Batman waited.
"You have to keep my son safe." Chuck looked directly at where he thought Batman's eyes were behind that cowl. "Whatever happens. Whatever the Joker does. You make sure my son doesn't get hurt."
"You have my word."
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