"I don't dress for success; failure is way more my style." -Unknown

•••

"That's the last one." Erin said as she watched Bird sign the last set of pages in the stack that she'd had drawn up at the District Attorney's office.

Bird didn't miss the nervous stammer that accompanied her lawyers words.

Dropping the pen to the table next to the papers, Bird popped her knuckles on her right hand and then shook it out to the side and looked up to where her lawyer was standing before she questioned, "So I'm in the clear?"

"Well..." Erin blew out a heavy breath, "While you spent a month and half vacationing out of the country in Switzerland -some of us were here working tirelessly to ensure that your return from the dead wouldn't land you in Blackgate."

Nodding in response to the earlier question, Erin added, "Yes, you're in the clear now. The DA's office has dropped all pending charges against you and though Captain Barnes' remains convinced that you were the masked figure at Galavan's penthouse -he can't prove it. And from what I understand, Detective Gordon is maintaining that Cobblepot knocked him out moments after Barnes' arrived and played no part in Galavan's demise. Meaning he can't very well I.D you at the scene without incriminating himself."

Bird's eyes fell to where Erin's always perfectly manicured nails had been chewed down to the quick.
It was perfectly clear just how nervous the lawyer who she'd considered to be a close friend had been ever since Bird had returned from the dead.

"Thank you." Bird curtly nodded as she stood up and started for the door of the room before turning and asking, "Are you free tonight? There are some things I think we need to discuss... maybe over dinner?"

"Yeah. Sure." Erin answered, trying not to appear too rattled, "Anything in particular on the agenda?"

"Nothing that can't wait until later." Bird coyly answered.

Once she was out of the room, Erin barely made it to the chair before her wobbly legs fully gave way.

With trembling fingers she started to gather up all of the signed legal documents and sort them into three separate stacks.

It was sure to be a very long day until dinner finally arrived -yet somehow not long enough.

Bird was nearly out the front doors of the courthouse when she heard a familiar voice call out to her.

"Starling."

"Harvey." She turned and greeted her ex, "Hey."

He came to a stop just in front of her and looked her over with his mouth hung slightly open at a loss for words.

"You look..." His voice trailed off and Bird guessed, "Exhausted? Jet lagged?"

"Alive." The corner of his mouth twitched up into a smile, "You have no idea how happy I am to see you. I mean, seeing that you're alive on paper is one thing, but being able to see you my own two eyes is the only way it even remotely feels real."

Without giving her a chance to respond he added, "I am sorry. For not believing you when it came to Galavan. There is no excuse for how I acted or treated you -but I guess, I so badly wanted to believe he was the real deal. That someone who had the power and influence to actually make a difference in this city was holding a position of power to allow them to do so and-"

"It was easier to believe in that dream than in your crazy ex-fiance?" Bird guessed and even though her words could be taken as bitter, there wasn't any trace of it in her tone.

"I'm sorry." He empathetically repeated.

"Water under the bridge." Bird offered with a small smile.

"How are you? I mean after everything you've gone through..." He finished with a shrug, unable to think of a way to finish the sentence that she wouldn't take offense too.

"Stronger." Bird answered, tucking her hair behind her ears with her the hand she wasn't holding her sunglasses in, "It's not like it was easy, but I guess it's true that sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can start to build yourself back up. Don't get me wrong, there is a million other ways I'd rather have had this year go... but having nearly everyone either turning on me or just not believing me forced me to keep believing in myself and that was something I'd been struggling with for a long time."

"They say everything happens for a reason." He quietly replied while still wearing the same broken expression that used to have her bending over backwards to assure him things were alright.

"That they do." Bird chuckled, before saying, "It was great seeing you Harvey, but I should get going. Alfred's waiting out in the car."

Glancing out through the glass doors, Harvey gave a brief nod, "I'm still here, you know. If you need anything or just someone to talk to."

Bird pulled her dark sunglasses on and smiled at him before pulling the doors open and walking out into the early afternoon sunlight.

It was a nice offer and after everything they'd gone through, she was thankful they could remain civil and not have everything that was good between them swallowed up in a bitter blame game of why they couldn't make it work; but she doubted she'd need to take him up on the offer, she'd learned to rely on herself and that meant more than his words ever could.

•••

Bird and Alfred could hear the heavy hits of Bruce's fists against the punching bag long before they entered the room in which he was near frantically hitting the bag hanging down from a chain.

Aware of his no longer being alone, but also not even fully turning to acknowledge them, Bruce complained, "We had a training session."

Bird's eyebrows raised and she had to physically bite down on the side of her tongue to keep from snapping back at him.

Their time away from Gotham had felt like anything but a vacation. Instead of days spent relaxing away from the fast paced city, Bruce had wanted to continue to his training.

His temperamental moods seemed to suck the life out of the air around him and he hadn't just been angry -he'd been nearly flying into rages when things didn't go his way.

It didn't feel like all that long ago, that Bird herself was dealing with the internal and external turmoil that comes along with being a teenager who'd suffered through far more than anyone their age should have to, so she was doing her very best to be understanding.

"Yeah, well, we got held up in the city, didn't we?" Alfred replied with much more restraint in his voice than Bird would have been able to pull off.

With a frustrated noise, Bruce hit the bag one last time before abruptly spinning around and jerking a glass of water off the table behind him up.

"Yes, you did." Bruce gruffly said before demanding to know, "Held up doing what exactly?"

"You knew today was when I had to meet with lawyers and sign a mountain of paperwork." Bird remind him.

"Yes." He nodded, before turning around and eyeing both his sister and butler as he admitted, "Harvey Dent said you left the courthouse over an hour ago."

"You were checking up on me?" Bird snapped, no longer able to keep calm.

Mirroring her anger, Bruce loudly repeated, "We were supposed to have a training session!"

"Was I this angsty when I was his age?" Bird questioned as she looked back to where Alfred was standing.

"Oh, Lady Wayne..." Alfred chuckled, "You were much, much worse."

"Go ahead." Bruce's jaw tensed and nearly locked in anger, "Keep making jokes at my expense, but don't forget that I'm the one got the name of the man who murdered my parents. Then you made us leave Gotham, of course I'm agitated."

"We've lost more than a month that we could have spent searching for M. Malone-" Bruce continued to complain, but both Alfred and Bird were fed up with his constant reminding them of how much he'd accomplished on his own.

"We left the city because you were at the end of your emotional and your physical rope... and quite frankly, you're incapable of catching a common cold, let alone a killer..." Alfred's sentence ended in a sigh when Bruce turned back and channeled his frustrations on the punching bag once again.

"Will you stop?" His voice raised, but Bruce payed him no mind.

"Alfred's right." Bird agreed with their butler, "We have to be smart about this. This isn't the type of situation you charge into half-cocked. It's not just about the man who pulled the trigger it's also a matter of finding out who ordered the hit."

When her little brother either didn't hear her or didn't care enough about what she had to say to put a pin in his self-led training session, Bird loudly complained, "Really, Bruce?"

"Master Bruce!" Alfred yelled.

Spinning around, Bird kicked the bag her brother was hitting and sent it coming at him so hard that it knocked him to the floor.

Sputtering and kicking backwards, Bruce looked up at her in shock from where he'd landed on the floor.

"Are we in this together?" Bird asked as she stepped closer and extended a hand to him.

"What?" He spat with his gaze going back to the training bag he'd been knocked down with.

"It's a very serious question, Master Bruce." Alfred agreed, "Are we in this together? Tracking down the man who shot your mum and dad?"

"Yes." Bruce answered as he, for the first time, payed enough attention to read the expressions on their faces, "We're in this together."

He let his older sister pull him to his feet before he got to work unwrapping his knuckles and watched them expectantly.

"Before we left the country, I asked Don Falcone to have someone look into M. Malone." Bird admitted, "After the courthouse earlier today, Alfred and I met with one of his sources and we got something."

"What?" Bruce asked, his eyes filled with emotion as he walked closer to where Bird had went to stand next to Alfred's side.

"Patrick Malone." Bird answered, "Apparently he burned a man alive once-"

"Matches Malone." Alfred repeated, before displaying the folder he'd been holding onto behind his back, "Delightful chap, really. Committed his first murder when he was fifteen. Suspected of half a dozen since. Now, I need to ask you, if you were in charge, what next?"

Avoiding the question he'd been asked, Bruce replied with one of his own as he stared down the Gotham City Police file in his hands, "You could have gotten this information from Detective Gordon, why didn't you contact him?"

"Well, that's not exactly how your sister handles things, now is it?" Alfred chimed in.

Side-eyeing him, Bird explained to them both, "Jim would just try and stop us from going after Malone on our own. I barely avoided facing down the criminal charges GCPD slapped on me before I died. I'm not giving them any reason to start digging around in my life again."

"Say we find this man. What do you plan to do?" Alfred questioned.

Bruce dropped the file he'd been looking through onto the table and took a drink from his glass of water, avoiding both sets of eyes on him, "See him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

"Liar." Bird accused, her head cocked to the side when caught the gleam of darkness in his eyes, "You asked me to be entirely honest with you... so I think I'm due the same courtesy."

"When we find him-" Bruce hastily chugged down the remaining water in the glass, "I intend to kill him."

"No." Both Bird and Alfred snapped at him.

Turning back to face them, he argued, "You can't stop me."

"I bloody can and I will." Alfred bellowed before composing himself and explaining, "You're too young to have a death on your conscience, Master Bruce. I know how your parents deserve justice. I know you're not gonna stop till you find it. But when we find this Malone, I will kill him and not you."

"Or it's going to be me who kills him; but not you, little brother." Bird quickly said.

"This isn't right-" Bruce tried to argue, but Bird didn't let him, "You'll regret it. Probably not for a while -maybe not even for years, but at some point that moment... the moment you decided to take another life is going to bubble back to the surface and not let you rest. It will haunt you and I'm not going to let that happen."

"Then what about your conscience?" He tested.

"There are some people who can live with having killed others -people like me. But that's not who you are." Bird simply answered.

"Seems we have our terms then." Alfred cleared his throat, "Do you accept?"

"Yes."

"Say it." Alfred instructed him.

"We find him, we make him talk... and then one of you kills him." Bruce said.

"Alright." Alfred accepted, "I'll get started on lunch then."

Once he was up the stairs and out of sight, Bird turned back to her little brother and softly said, "I know you want revenge. I know how that feels like an all consuming fire, burning you up from the inside out. But Alfred and I are trying to protect you from doing something you will regret."

"You weren't there, Starling." Bruce said, his voice just as low and calm as hers now, "I saw our parents be killed right in front of my eyes. Dad died quickly, but mom? She laid there on the ground choking on her own blood. I can't see myself ever regretting putting a stop to the man responsible for that."

"You're right. I wasn't there." She conceded, "But I have spent plenty of time in the company of death to know the mark it leaves in it's wake and I want more than that for you, okay? I promise you we're going to find Matches Malone and once we do, I'll put him down. For us both -for what he did to our parents."

•••

"Miss Windsor." The man at the door greeted with a curt nod before he pulled open the door to the restaurant for the lawyer and ushered her in, "She's expecting you."

Erin couldn't even a force a smile on her lips when she crossed over the the threshold and into the old world Italian restaurant.

The place was usually a popular dining choice among Gothamites in the evenings, but tonight the place was entirely empty.

She was far too self aware of the sound of her breathing and the way her heart was rapidly thudding against the rib composed cage inside of her chest.

Every click her heels made against the floor sounded like the second hand on a clock and time was running out.

"Right this way." The host greeted with a smile as he nodded for Erin to follow him and led her up the stairs to the second floor of the restaurant where there was usually a few tables with a balcony view over the rest of the place.

Only today, there was a single table on the interior balcony with just two chairs -one of them already occupied by Bird.

Erin's breath caught in her throat at the sight in front of her and she thought to herself that if it hadn't been for Bird's worn jeans and her choice of an old faded rock band logo t-shirt, then the entire scene could easily pass for a meeting with a mobster.

It was in this very restaurant that Carmine Falcone had held many dinners with the ones who worked closest under him.

Of course she'd never been called to a dinner there alone with him -she doubted anyone who had ever lived to tell the tale.

Yet, now here she stood. Hesitating to take her seat at the table opposite The Roman's daughter.

Even with her poor fashion choices and donning the Wayne name, there was no denying how much she was made in the likeness of her biological father.

She was every bit as dangerous and deadly as the man who ruled the city for years on end -sometimes from that very seat.

"Erin." Bird greeted with a stone expression upon seeing her lawyers hesitation to join her at the table, "Have a seat."

"Bird." She cringed at the sound of her own trembling voice.

She knew exactly what this was.
This was a last dinner and she was the guest of honor.

Once she'd sat down in the only other chair at the opposite end of the table from Bird, Erin cleared her throat and looked to the waiter, "A Cardinale." Pausing for barely a second after ordering her drink, she held up her hand and changed, "Two, please."

With a nod the lawyer, he turned to Bird who was still slowly nursing her Americano cocktail. Bird shook her head, declining another drink and with that he made his way over to the fully stocked bar.

"What are you having?" Bird questioned as she eyed the menu in front of her with a thoughtful expression.

"You said we needed to discuss something-" Erin tried to cut the chase, but Bird ignored her and interrupted, "You up to splitting an order of polenta fries? I've always been a sucker for them when their prepared right with truffle oil."

Silently, the waiter set her two matching drink glasses down in front of her and Erin took a large drink from the first one before trying again, "You wanted to discuss something?"

"Dinner first." She gruffly said before her dark painted lips curved up in a smile and she reasoned, "Business can wait until after desert, right?"

Wordlessly Erin nodded with a helpless expression and couldn't bring herself to even answer when Bird ordered, "I think we'll start off with an order of truffle polenta fries. You want the spicy garlic sauce with them or the lemon-truffle mayonnaise?"

When her dinner guest wouldn't answer, Bird looked back to the waiter and said, "You know what -we'll take both."

"Of course, ma'am." The waiter politely replied before turning to go to the kitchen.

Erin downed another large swallow of her cocktail and tried to keep her burning questions at bay, knowing it wouldn't serve her in the slightest to keep bombarding Bird with questions.

It was clear the young woman was taking a page from Falcone's handbook.
Dinner first.
Business after.

It was an effective tool for sure. Could even be considered a form of torture.
After all, when waiting to find out if you're about to be killed -the last thing on your mind or nerve-ridden stomach is food.
But it would be considered rude and disrespectful to not eat when invited to a dinner.

"I've dined here a lot in my life..." Bird thought out loud with a chuckle, "Every single time I end up reading the menu cover-to-cover and still end up getting the brickoven pizza."

When the waiter returned with their truffle fries, Bird ordered her usual favorite pizza and Erin ordered one of the first things her eyes landed on on the menu, chicken calabrese.

"I saw on the news that Oswald is being transferred to Arkham." Bird brought up, her eyebrows making their way up her forehead as she stared Erin down.

"Yes, he-" Erin started to say, but Bird cut in, "Which confuses me a little because I remember telling you I wanted a team of the best defense attorneys out there entirely devoted to his case."

"I did exactly as you asked." Erin was fast to say, but she let out sigh at knowing her next words wouldn't make Bird too happy, "He's refused the offer."

"He what?" Bird nearly choked on her bite of food.

"He rejected the defense offer and has instead chose to plead insanity -earning himself a one way ticket to Arkham." Erin's brows furrowed when she added, "Arkham has a new chief of psychiatry now too -a Dr. Hugo Strange."

Bird looked down to her plate with a new feeling of sickness rising in her stomach.

Why wouldn't Oswald let her help him?
He was taking both the credit and accepting the consequences for a crime, for a murder that he didn't commit.

Maybe in some ways he felt he deserved the punishment; for not being able to save his mother, along with a laundry list of other regrets.

"No matter." She cleared her throat and shook her head before taking a sip of her americano and reasoning, "He'll come to his senses sooner or later. Not like he can begin to build his empire back up from inside a place like Arkham."

The pair made small talk and Erin filled Bird in on various news headlines from the city she'd missed while she was out of the country.

And it wasn't until after they'd each had a desert of tiramisu and their table had been cleared, that Bird finally seemed willing to be candid about why she'd extended an invitation for dinner.

"You seem nervous, Erin." Bird observed, watching her lawyer and someone she'd considered a friend through her coyly narrowed eyes, "You've been on edge since the moment you walked through the doors."

"How long have you known?" Erin questioned.

When she saw Bird was still unwilling to reveal her hand, Erin breathed, "Look, Bird, I know I'm a lawyer and playing games is practically what I'm payed to do. But I don't want to do that with you. You are someone I've grown to consider a friend. So if you're going to kill me then-"

"Friend?" Bird repeated back, "Is it common for you to go about dosing your friends with hallucinogenic drugs these days?"

Erin's eyes raised from the spot she'd fixated her gaze on at the table to Bird's face.

There was no point in denying her guilt. It was obvious that Bird knew the truth and she'd grown to respect the young woman nearly as much as she'd respected Falcone in all her years of being on his payroll.

"I know it doesn't matter that much; but for what its worth... I am sorry." Erin blinked rapidly to keep the tears from spilling down her face, before staring up into the light above the table and continuing, "I've been in the game long enough to know how his works and I know my words won't change anything, but Bird you should know that if I could take it all back -I would."

"I trusted you." Bird admitted to her with a painful rawness, "And that isn't something I easily do. I'm distrustful by nature. You were one of the last people I'd have pegged as the one who'd been drugging me."

Erin's eyes went to the thick, off-white cloth napkin lying off to Bird's right side on the table.
It had been laying there since she walked in and she was more than sure that there was gun hidden under it.

"I know you brought me here to kill me." Erin boldly said.
She wanted to explain herself. Get Bird to understand why she'd betrayed that trust, but she knew in these situations that it never mattered.

She'd been sure since Bird extended the dinner invitation to her earlier that day that she'd had her mind up exactly on how the day would end; with another body weighted down in the river

"It's crossed my mind." Bird openly admitted as she finally pulled the napkin off of the gun and leaned back in her seat some, "Give me a reason not too."

"It's doesn't matter what I have to say." Erin argued with misty eyes, "Like I said, I've been in the game long enough to know how situations like this -like me, are handled."

"No." Bird shook her head, "You know how other people, like Don Falcone, would have handled this situation. Not me. I don't want to kill you, Erin, I want to know why you did what you did and I'm willing to hear you out... so don't be so quick to turn your nose up at that kindness"

Erin's eyes locked with Birds and for the first time since she'd learned Bird was still very much alive, she'd been able to take a deep breath.

"Back when you'd been framed for murder -a couple months after I took your case, my girlfriend, Julia, flew to her homeland of Brazil to visit her parents." Running her tongue over her unusually chapped lips, she continued, "When she flew back the states, she got held up in customs. They're saying she smuggled drugs into the country -I don't know how Galavan did it, but they managed to frame her for it... she was deported and is currently being held in a prison out of the country."

"I got too close to the truth too early." Erin continued, "Connected the right dots at the wrong time and I was about to blow the lid open on Galavan having been the one who framed you -and then next thing I know, Julia is gone and I've got the man I was investigating telling me that I either do everything he tells me too -or I'll never see her again."

Picking up her cloth napkin, Erin blotted at her sweat peppered face and somehow found it in her to keep explaining what had happened.

She'd never considered herself easy to be manipulated -but knowing that Julia's life was hanging in the balance had left her in a state of fear and desperation she'd never experienced before.

"I didn't want to go along with it, but Galavan forced my hand. I respect you and I like you -as I said before Carmine was always good to me. The last thing I wanted to do was see you fall any further, but..." Her jaw tensed while she tried to fight back her emotions, "The love of my life is sitting in some dirty prison cell somewhere, terrified and confused and I thought the only chance I stood at bringing her back home was to do what Galavan said."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Bird stammered out with her entire face contorted with emotion, "If you had just come to me back when all of this happened -if you'd told me..."

"Galavan would have found out and Julia would have payed the price." Erin finished for her, "You're a Wayne and a Falcone and he still got to you. Your best friend was the biggest crime lord in Gotham at the time and it didn't matter. Galavan still got to him and killed his mother."

"I was just trying to protect my Julia." Erin added one last sentiment still not knowing if her honesty would do her situation any good at all, "I'm the one who bends the law until it breaks. I pay off judges and have made my career out of helping criminals walk free. I'm a criminal myself and I guess I always knew it would catch up with me. I just thought it would be a price that I'd pay alone -not her."

"You should have come to me." Bird shook her head; and though there was a tinge of emotion in her tone, her face was stone, "Galavan got to us all. He took something from each and every one of us... but I probably could have taken him down a lot sooner if I wasn't being drugged and hallucinating the entire time we were fighting him."

"I know." She nodded.
She'd already given her apology and it wouldn't matter how many times she said she was sorry. She was once told that no matter what one needed to apologize for -if the words and thought behind them were sincere, then you only needed to apologize once.

After that it was up to the other person.

Erin watched with terror ridden eyes and her breath painfully caught in her throat when she saw Bird up the gun and stare down to the weapon for seconds that seemed to take as long as the changing of the seasons.

"Thank you for the honesty." Bird glanced across the table at her lawyer before she picked up her purse from the floor and dropped the weapon inside.

"You..." Erin chocked on her own air, "You're letting me live?"

Standing to her feet, Bird quietly said, "Have a good night, Erin."

"Why?" Erin questioned, also getting to her own feet and stopping Bird before she could walk off, "Carmine, well, anyone else in this position would have killed me."

"I'm not him." Bird simply answered.
Making eye contact she continued, "It's different for us, you know? Being a woman in Gotham. We have to fight twice as hard to gain the power that men have handed to them and we're still not taken seriously. I know exactly how hard you've worked to get to where you are and so I know just how much you're hating yourself for letting someone play off your emotions to weaken you into submission."

Readjusting her stance, Bird pointed back towards the table they'd shared a meal at and said with an arched brow, "The fact that you had the balls to come here and admit what you've done all while thinking your punishment would be certain death. That takes courage, Erin. And aside from doing Galavan's bidding... you did everything you could to help me. I have no idea what comes next, but I do know that you're smart and capable and if I need a lawyer and an ally that you're the one I'd want in my corner."

Nodding and showing more emotion on her perfectly made-up face than Bird had ever seen before, Erin gratefully and eagerly nodded, "Thank you."

"I think it goes without saying that if you ever cross me again -you will pay in blood." Bird said as she turned and started for the stairs.

Swallowing hard and knowing that she now owed Bird her life and wouldn't do anything to jeopardize the second chance she'd gotten, Erin called after her, "It should have been you running Gotham; not Penguin. This city needs someone exactly like you in charge."

•••days later•••

"Butch!" Victor Zsasz greeted with a wide smile, "Long time no see."

Butch's breath rushed in and out of his lungs with a near violent speed as his eyes darted all around the room and took in the carnage that was left of his guards.

Every person who'd stayed from Penguin's crew to work for him when he took over the throne of the crime world was dead.

The only ones left alive was himself and Tabitha; who'd been beaten rather severely right in front of him and was now tied to a chair with her mouth gagged.

Tabitha was still fighting against her restraints, yelling angrily against the thick cloth she'd been gagged with and silenced by.
Finally slowing her movements to take a breath, she looked over to Butch with a thick trail of blood running down the side of her face as her neck let her head hang weakly to the side.

Butch's gaze then traveled around the room to all of the armed men and women who'd just blown through the mansion like a bullet filled tornado and then back to Zsasz as he silently wondered who he was working for now that Penguin was locked away in Arkham.

"This city's really going to hell." Bird sighed as she entered from the hallway and took care to step over the body of man who'd had half of skull blown to bits, "Have you seen the news lately? There is a man running around the city, like literally turning people into ice-"

"Mr. Freeze." Victor chimed in with the name that the newspapers had donned the freeze ray gun criminal with.

"That's right." Bird nodded before turning her attention back to Butch and adding, "And then you're running the crime world now? No wonder the city's continuing a descent into chaos."

"Bird?" Butch stammered.
He'd heard the rumors that she was still alive. Several news outlets had even reported on the matter, but it was one of those things you needed to see to believe.

And here she stood right in front of him.

"What's the matter, Butch?" Victor loudly teased when he saw the still shocked expression on his face, "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Bird gave a small laugh before clearing her throat and nodding to crew who'd cleared the way for her entrance; everyone except Zsasz filed out of the room.

"What is this, huh?" Butch questioned eyeing her, "Penguins gone and now you want to take over?"

"He's not gone." Bird's voice strained through her tensed jaw, "Just temporarily indisposed."

She'd been trying since the day Oswald had been transferred to Arkham to get in contact with him. But the new head of psychiatry, Hugo Strange, hadn't cleared her friend for any visitors -or even phone calls yet.

"And... nah... you can keep this place. I don't care." She shrugged looking around the mansion that she'd once lived in with Oswald when she, herself, had gotten out of Arkham.

"Then what is this?" Butch pushed, growing more uncomfortable by the second.

"I've been tying up loose ends since I've been back." Bird shrugged, "And Victor's been bored."

With his smile growing, Victor walked across the room and pointed his gun at the back of Tabitha's head.
She started struggling against her restraints all over again and Butch started for her, but Bird aimed a gun of her own at him and said, "I wouldn't do that."

"Don't!" He pleaded with sweat beading across his reddened face, "Don't hurt her!"

"Wow..." Bird breathed, motioning between Tabitha and Butch with her gun she looked to Victor and commented, "That happened fast, right?"

"It did." Victor agreed.

"Besides... why would I hurt her?" Bird hummed as she drummed a finger against her chin, "Oh, that's right; maybe because she shot and nearly killed me or would it because she stabbed Gertrud Kapelput in the back. Ooh, it might be on the count of how she hurt Alfred and was ready to watch my brother be sacrificed by some freaky warrior monks. Really, Butch, the list of reasons she deserves to die just goes on and on."

"So you just came here to kill us then, is that it?" He asked.

"I thought about it." She openly admitted, "In fact you were one of the first loose ends I wanted tied up."

Butch silently looked her over, thinking of how much she reminded him of Fish in the way in which she carried herself.
She'd made one hell of an entrance and if there was anything Fish Mooney wasn't fond of -it was loose ends."

"You remind me so much of her, you know." His tongue finally found it's ability to form words in the life or death situation he was facing down.

He didn't even have to say Fish's name for Bird to know who he was talking about.

"No." Bird shook her head, "Fish let herself become entirely consumed in coming after Oswald, her thirst for revenge is what killed her. I got her out of Gotham, did you know that? The night Zsasz captured you and Fish escaped. I gave her shelter and money and then called on someone she trusted to get her out of the city. She could have lived if she'd just stayed away. But she couldn't -that's just not who she was. She couldn't let anything go and that was her downfall."

"I'm not going to kill you Butch." She finally said as she brazenly walked up to him where he could have easily gotten her with the rotating drill bit attachment he now wore where his hand used to be, "It didn't work out so well the last time I tried -and anyways, we have all lost something or someone important to us."

Pausing for a brief moment, Bird nodded in Tabitha's direction and added, "Even Tabby over there."

"I'm going to let you live." She continued, "I'll even let you keep your little psycho girlfriend-"

"Bird!" Zsasz complained.

"Don't be cross, Victor." Bird shushed him.

"Yeah and whats the catch?" Butch pushed.

"Nothing much." She shrugged, "You can keep playing the king -but we both know it isn't for you. You'll always be a sidekick, but sure, have your fun playing number one for now and I need a favor from Tabitha."

Butch's eyebrows lowered.
Was this was nothing more than a show of force and to remind him of his place?

"Victor." Bird nodded to him and he roughly jerked on the gag and pulled it from Tabitha's mouth on command.

"What-" Licking her dry lips and fighting for air Tabitha asked, "What do you want from me?"

Walking over to where she was tied up, Bird explained, "A while back your brother... or you, maybe both of you - I'm not sure, but someone had Julia Silva framed for smuggling drugs and she's currently wasting away in a prison somewhere outside of the states."

"Uh-huh." Tabitha nodded.

"I want her released and brought back home safely with any and all charges dropped so she can pick back up where her life left off so many months ago." Bird explained.

"How am I supposed-"

"I don't know and I don't care." Bird cut her off, "But lets hope it's something you can figure out and fast because those are my conditions for letting you live. Julia's safe return. Do we have a deal?"

Tabitha glanced over to where Butch was still standing, staring at her and waiting on her to agree to the terms.

The moment she'd seen Bird enter the room, she thought for sure she was a goner.
This was far more kindness than she'd expected to have been shown after all she'd done; far more than she thought she'd be capable of if the tables were turned.

"Deal." Tabitha finally spat out through her gritted teeth.

••• the next week •••

"Erin?" Bird asked surprised when she entered the sitting room where Alfred had just told her she had a visitor waiting.

Turning to face her, Erin eyed her workout clothing and watched as Bird got to work on removing the boxing tape from her hands as she commented, "You just don't know how to take it easy, do you?"

With a small chuckle Bird admitted, "Oh, no... I'm fine with taking it easy, my brother however thinks we can't call it a day until I've completely exhausted myself training him."

"Training him for what?" Erin asked.
She knew Bird had been teaching him to fight when she was worried about Galavan coming after him, but that threat was gone now. Galavan was dead.

With a shrug, Bird didn't offer up any more information and instead turned the line of questioning around on her, "What are you doing here?"

"Get cleaned up." Erin stated, "I'm taking you shopping."

"Shopping?" Bird nearly choked on the breath of air she'd been pulling in. With her face twisting up in confusion she pushed, "Shopping for what?"

"Clothes." Her lawyer said, quickly holding up a hand to silence the protest she was sure was going to follow and said, "Julia's been back for a few days. I'm not sure what you did, but whatever it was -it worked and I'm forever in your debt. Thank you."

Erin's gaze fell to the floor for a moment while she composed herself.
As much of a relief as it was to have her girlfriend back safe and sound, she wasn't sure if their relationship was going to survive.

The woman who returned to Gotham was a far cry from the person she'd known and loved.
Maybe all it would take was some time. After all, she had no idea what Julia had been through and she'd been less than willing to open up about her time away in a foreign prison.

Either way, she was home now and for the first time in what felt like years, Erin had been able to sleep through the night.

"You're welcome." Bird simply replied, her eyebrows furrowing when she caught the sadness in her eyes.

"My point is that you helped me -when you didn't have to and it's not exactly like I deserved it. I owe you and so I'm here to start paying it forward-"

"By taking me shopping?" Bird interrupted.

"Bird..." Erin sighed with a shake of her head, "Do you have any idea how many offers we've gotten from new stations and papers wanting to do interviews? The public loves a comeback story and you came back from the dead. You've got a new lease on life and I don't know what you tend to do with your second chance -but I do know that if you want to be taken seriously you need to dress the part."

"But-" Bird started to cut her off with an argument about how she didn't much care what everyone thought of her.
These were the same people that had been so fast to turn on her when she'd been framed for murder months back.

"You are a twenty-something socialite from Gotham's wealthiest family and while this whole-" Motioning to Bird as she added, "Street look might have been cute when you were a teenager, you're an adult now. Time to grow up. Time to dress the part."

Bird's mouth hung open as her mind flooded with thoughts, all of which were competing to be spoken first but no argument came out.

Erin had a point, despite her fondness of privacy, Bird had been repeatedly thrust into the spotlight and that didn't appear to be changing anytime soon.

"I don't think you realize what a golden opportunity this is." Erin pushed her to understand, "Up until recently your name has been painted in a negative light when it came to the news and opinion of the city, but now after everything Galavan did came to light and everyone thought you died..."

"Funny isn't it?" Bird jumped in, "How when someone dies all of the bad is magically forgotten."

"You don't understand." Erin sighed, "Just two years ago your parents were gunned down in an ally. You've been wrongfully imprisoned for crimes you didn't commit. Add onto that everything you suffered at the hands of Galavan and then everyone thinking that you died... your story is one of survival. One of hope. You've been given the opportunity to completely bend the public's opinion in your favor. You're Gotham's sweetheart."

Bird might not have realized how big of a chance this was yet, but Erin knew this was huge.
The Wayne name already made her a public figure and now with her recent struggles and how she'd overcome so much, this was truly her chance to start building something for herself.

Now being seen in such a positive light and even being a symbol of hope to some, Bird could make a real difference in the city.

Taking a step closer to her and lowering her voice, Erin reminded her, "It wasn't so long ago that you were talking to me about how outraged you were that there wasn't many options or much help available to the women who'd been rescued from the auction houses, remember that?"

When Bird slowly nodded, Erin pointed out, "You have the means to effect real change and create of beacon of light in this shadowed city. I'm talking change on the same level that your parents were responsible for. Even if you don't feel up to that right now -don't squander this chance, okay?"

"Okay." Bird agreed with a heavy sigh.

"Good." Erin smiled, "So, first things first; get you an all new wardrobe and get something done to that hair of yours and then we're going to start vetting news stations for the best option for you to give your first interview to."

•••