He just didn't care anymore.

And so he went out. He grabbed the keys to a less heroic car, drove out of the batcave, and resolved to park, when he returned to Wayne Manor, in the driveway out front.

The night was dark, as it always is, and Bruce couldn't help but feel a bit naked without the reinforced rubber costume that was as much shield as it was identity. It had been ages since he'd been out of the house in the dark and not in that damned costume. It was tough, fighting crime all night, working on the Wayne fortune all day. He rarely slept. Well, that was going to change. Tonight thieves might break into Gotham Museum, attempting to steal some ancient Egyptian artifact that some nefarious criminal mastermind needed to make some evil doomsday machine. Let 'em. The only reason a city like Gotham could afford such exotic and unique artifacts was because the museum was heavily subsidized by the Wayne foundation. Bruce was tired of driving that two-way street, too.

He pulled into a dirty parking lot, festooned with cars not long for the junk heap, or the strip shop. Why did they always steal the crappy ones? he wondered. Was it just because they lacked car alarms? Or was it because for every nice car that was reported stolen, timid ladies and outraged men in coats and ties standing with arms crossed in front of indifferent police officers "who's salary my taxes pay for, by God!" there were at least ten other that went unreported, their owners more afraid of what the police might find out about themselves, nevermind the car.

They prey on their own. And Bruce had always protected the rich ones, when the poor ones weren't enough for the criminals. And the occasional kidnapped child. And the convent held hostage. Well, children died everyday, all over the world, why should Gotham be any different, just because it was the home of a rich bored single man with a bad Jesus-complex and too much testosterone in his muscles for his own good?

He got out of his car, looked towards the door where men in shirts that were worn more often than washed piled in dragging women wearing last decades latest hairstyle. Bruce looked at his own hand-stitched trousers, his jacket that could have been down payment on a dive like this. He took off his watch, considered throwing it in the trash, then decided someone would find it and be accused of thievery, smashed it instead. He walked over to a group of three kids, all too young to go into the bar, drinking beer and leaning on their car.

"Here's the deal," Bruce said. "You're a pussy, and you're a pussy, and you, you're not a pussy because pussy's got more hair on their face than that..." he spat at their feet, "...little boy."

They waded in and Bruce let them, letting them think they were kicking his ass without really feeling any pain. He wasn't into the martyrdom thing tonight. He just wanted the appropriate attire. It was an old trick, like sharking pool, which he'd learned to do when he went undercover on the Two-Face caper, or one of them.

Suddenly, without causing them too much pain, Bruce was winning, and had them on the run. He tripped up the slowest one. "New deal. Swap me clothes."

"No fucking way."

"Do it. Or I take 'em anyway and ream your ass and you're a fag for life."

They exchanged clothes. Pain, blood, violence to one's mother: nothing was scarier than a rep as a homo.

The clothes were too small for him, so he ripped them in strategic places. His hair was oily, there was dirt under fingernails, bruises rising on his face. He walked into the bar. No one gave him a second glance.

"Beer."

"What kind, pal."

Bruce had to bite his tongue. He wanted to say "What kinda pussy bar serves kinds. Just gimme a goddamn beer." But he wasn't playing a role, not anymore, wasn't trying to convince anyone of anything. He just wanted a beer. "Bud."

"Michelob or Coors."

"Coors." If you're gonna drink piss, drink piss that tastes like piss. No sense fooling yourself.

It came in a bottle, luke warm thanks to good business and an overworked generator. Damn my eyes, Bruce thoughts. Always detecting. Always looking at clues.

"You're a cute one, aincha."

She was ugly, had crooked teeth, floppy breasts, and a bruise on her cheek that had been there a hundred times before. Bar floozy. Buy her a drink, get a blow job, and if it's not too late in the evening she won't fall alseep in the middle of it, and you won't have to hit her awake.

But Bruce was horny. "Go away, bitch."

Worked like a charm "Aw. C'mon. Buy me a drink."

Bruce handed her his bottle. "Have some of mine."

It's thier eyes, a woman could have the IQ of a brain damaged rhino and she's still be able to read a man's eyes. Here's a smelly rat of a man, to cheap to buy the bar flooze a two dollar beer, but not tough enough to yell at her and make her go away. Broke wimp. But she saw something in his eyes, Bruce knew. he decided to get her drunk and scare the crap out of her. And not for her own good. He was through with that.

"Thanks. What's your name."

"Bruce Wayne."

"Really? You got the same name as that guy."

"Who, Batman?" Bruce smiled despite himself, took the bottle back, let it spill as he finished it off, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Tried to belch. maybe next time.

"Uh, no, stupid. The rich guy. You know, Wayne Manor, the Wayne Foundation. Fuck, half the assholes in here work for him, one way or another." She took the bottle, looked at it, frowned, slapped the bar. "Larson. Michelob. No more piss."

In any bar on a hundred and twenty first, anywhere between Lincoln and Alistar, such talk from a woman would have intrigued the man she sat next to. Because nice women don't talk like that. And nice men like women who aren't so gosh darned nice all the time. Bruce was feeling more comfortable because here, it just bored him.

"Tell you what. I'll bet that ass of yours, in them jeans that I'll have to peel off and burn when I get through, that I can prove I ain't got the same name as that guy, Bruce Wayne."

She blinked, lipping the bottle and looking at him as she took a long tug. "You some kinda weirdo?"

"Nope. You gotta car?"

They drove to her place, because he really didn't need to deal with Albert. Because Albert wouldn't understand. Albert would be perfect. He'd either treat the lady with utmost respect, never for a second questioning Mr. Wayne's attire, the cheap beer on his breath, or the way years of cigarettes had made the skin on her face sag, or, he'd play the part, pretend Bruce was some vagabond, call the police, raise a ruckus, playing right along with Bruce's little game. But what he wanted was to stumble into the house, receive some disapproving looks, and then pass out in the bathroom floor while she went through his closets looking for cash. But it wouldn't happen like that, so fuck it, they went to her place.

As he drove, one hand moving between the bottle nestled between his legs, the steering wheel, and her enormous thigh, he wondered: trailer park, or the surprise, the nice house that's humble but neat, well kept and simple? Was she real trash, or a princess in disguise.

"Turn here. Second one on the left."

Bruce sighed. Even the directions sounded cliche.

"Okay, so here's the deal." Bruce rolled his eyes. "My parents might be asleep, maybe not, but they don't care, as long as we're quiet. My room's in the basement. We can go in through the back door."

They got out, and suddenly Bruce got a vision of the two of them, on the hood of the car, her bent forward so she couldn't see he was neither flabby nor pale, him concentrating on the pimples on her back so he wouldn't be too hard, lest she think he was into it too much, like she was more than just a piece of ass. Besides, he needed her passed out, and she wasn't quite there yet. Five shots of cheap liquor, twice as many beers, and one slow dance (Motley Crue's Home Sweet Home) and she still wasn't passed out. Jesus Christ.

But she was drunk. They stumbled as they went in the back door, Bruce searching for a light switch, finding her tit instead, wishing he'd found the switch. She seemed eager, ready to go for it right here in the kitchen. He pulled her hair.

"I gotta piss."

"There's one in the basement."

Bruce closed his eyes as they went down the stairs. I will not look for bloodstains. I will not deduce how often she's fallen down these stairs, drunk. I will not count the gouges in the wood and figure out how long ago she stopped wearing high heels.

She pointed out the bathroom, went into the bedroom. Bruce stood, pissing in the dark, for a long time. Ahh, beer. Even the worst horse bile in the world comes out sweet. Now there's something you couldn't talk to the boys at the Sarkanight Club, even when they were all drunk on $500 brandy, shoes off, trading tales of tails from highschool, prep school, college. Couldn't talk about how sweet a long beer piss could be.

He stopped, zipped, neglected to wash, found her in the bedroom. She was brushing her hair.

"How's this work again?"

"I'm betting you that ass that I ain't got the same name as Bruce Wayne."

She shrugged. "Okay, so what's your name."

He shook his head. "No, first we do it."

"But you ain't won yet!"

"So, you were gonna do it anyway. This way, when I win, you can't get all uppity and say you "aren't in the mood."

Which is what terrified Bruce the most, because he was almost sure she preferred it with a struggle, made her feel like a comfortable victim, less like a slut. And he could rape her, if had to, he could deep down inside himself and find what it would take, if he needed to. But he didn't need to. And most of all, didn't want to.

"Whatever." She began to unbuckle his pants.

They sex was awful.

Bruce woke up first, of course. The note to Albert had been brief, and in the light of the morning Bruce wasn't so disappointed that it had to be. The light of day made things better, usually. But he still wasn't going to put that costume on.

He wondered if he should put in a robe, some bat-salve on his bruises to make them go away, comb his hair, brush his teeth, shower, shave, play the part. She'd recognize him, too. The eyes. But fuck it. He decided not to.

Finally she woke up, rolled over, tried to go back to sleep. He could have just about mapped the synapses in her head, the ones working desperately around the waning alcohol and the waxing hangover, trying to figure out why the light coming in from her basement window was so bright, why the cotton sheets on the bed were so smooth, smelled like lavender, why her arms flopped to both sides were still on the bed at all, not hanging off both sides.

She rolled over again, simply, sat up calmly, and blinked for a while. Once, she might have become beautiful. She never had been, it had been stomped out of her by cigarettes and minimum wage jobs and a lack of outrageous joy coupled with a commiserate lack of outrageous tragedy. She'd had nothing to shoot for, and nothing to overcome. She was a plant, a hardy but ugly little plant, grown fat on what dirt she had in her little pot, and she's be dead of cancer or lung disease or some other dull, common cause within months of the statistical average. In terms of religion she was a house for a soul, and that was all, one of a million souls in a long chain leading from the chaos of creation towards the annihilation of inevitability. She deserved no rewards, and earned no pain. She simply was.

Bruce really liked that alot. And wanted it.

"Where are we?" her voice was husky, soft. She coughed, and blinked around the room looking for a cigarette."

"Told ya. Told ya I didn't have the same name as Bruce Wayne."

"Huh? Did you get us a room at the Trifalgar or something?" She looked around. "You setting me up for some of your buddies, is that it?"

Bruce smirked. "Look out the window."

She got out of the bed, scratched her ass. With a gym membership, a healthy diet, more self esteem, she might have become different kind of average, nearly but not quite attractive.

"Oh my god."

"Yup. I don't have the same name as him because I am him."

She turned to look at him again. At his eyes. Maybe they didn't even know what they saw when they looked in a man's eyes. But they knew there was something to look for, always something there, even if it was nothingness. "So, now what?"

"I got something to give you." They went down to the bat cave.