The Jokerz Who Loved Me

by tforange

Summary:

After a bitter fight with his girlfriend Dana, a dejected Terry McGinnis just wants to be left alone with a chili dog and his thoughts. His solitude is shattered by the recently-escaped Dee Dee twins, or more specifically, by one half of the duo. Delia Dennis sees Terry and experiences a love so profound it rewires her brain, instantly casting herself as his devoted girlfriend.

As Terry tries desperately to escape her advances, Delia's mind concocts the only logical explanation for his constant disappearances and secretive nature: he's a secret agent. Her delusion is so powerful that she's physically incapable of seeing the truth, even when she follows him into the Batcave itself, leading to a comedy of errors that will test the limits of Terry's patience and Bruce's sanity.

Chapter 1: The Static of a Relationship

The argument hadn’t started with a bang, but with a low, crackling static—the kind that builds in the air before a lightning strike. It had been humming between Terry McGinnis and Dana Tan for weeks, a dissonant frequency beneath the melody of their relationship. Tonight, the storm finally broke.

"It’s not just about tonight, Terry!" Dana’s voice, usually a warm and steady thing, was sharp with the edges of broken glass. They stood outside the glittering facade of the "Cyber-Sushi 7" restaurant, the planned location for a date that was now officially deceased. "It’s about last week. And the ‘study session’ you bailed on before that. And my brother’s birthday party! Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to have to keep saying, ‘Oh, Terry’s just… busy’?"

Terry ran a hand through his black hair, the gesture born of pure frustration. He felt a familiar, bitter cocktail of guilt and helplessness churning in his gut. How could he possibly explain? ‘Sorry, Dana, I had to stop a high-tech arms dealer from selling a plasma cannon to a street gang.’ Or ‘My apologies for missing the party, but a man spliced with owl DNA was trying to blow up the maglev station.’ The truth was so far beyond the realm of believability it sounded like a bad joke.

"I know. I know, and I’m sorry." he said, his own voice strained. The words felt hollow, even to him. They were a pre-recorded message he’d played too many times. "Things have just been… complicated. With my mom, with work…"

"Work?" Dana threw her hands up, her expression a painful mix of anger and hurt. "You have a part-time job as a rich old man’s assistant! What, was he having a filing emergency? Did you have to alphabetize his sock drawer? Give me a break, Terry!"

That stung. The "work" was a maelstrom of bruises, exhaustion, and near-death experiences, all distilled down into the deceptively simple title of Bruce Wayne’s gofer. It was a secret that sat on his chest like a tombstone, heavy and suffocating. It isolated him, building a wall between him and the people he loved most—and Dana was at the top of that list.

"It’s more than that and you know it." he muttered, his gaze dropping to the grimy sidewalk. The neon signs of Neo-Gotham bled into the puddles at his feet, a swirl of lurid pinks and electric blues.

"No, I don’t know!" she shot back, taking a step closer. Her eyes, usually so full of affection, were now searching his, desperate for an answer that made sense. "Because you won’t tell me. You disappear. You lie—don’t even try to deny it, I can see it on your face. It’s like you have this whole other life you’re hiding from me. Am I not important enough to be a part of it? Is there… is there someone else?"

The question hung in the air, fragile and devastating.

"No! No, of course not." Terry said, his head snapping up. The very idea was absurd. His life was a chaotic duality—exhausted high school student by day, vigilante in a flying metal suit by night. There wasn’t room for another person; he could barely make room for the one standing in front of him. "Dana, you’re the most important person to me. That’s why this is so hard."

"Then make it easy!" she pleaded, her voice cracking. "Talk to me, Terry. Just… be honest with me. Whatever it is, we can figure it out. But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be with a ghost."

He opened his mouth, a war raging within him. Bruce’s stern voice echoed in his memory— ’The secret protects them, Terry. Not you.’ He looked at Dana’s tear-streaked face, the pain he was causing her laid bare. The secret was supposed to protect her, but it felt like it was destroying them.

He couldn’t tell her. He wouldn’t risk putting a target on her back. Every rogue, every villain he put away, would see her as leverage. The Jokerz, Shriek, Inque… the list was a rolodex of horrors. So he did the only thing he could. He shut down.

"I can’t." he whispered, the words tasting like ash.

Dana’s face crumpled. The last spark of hope in her eyes died out, replaced by a cold, resigned finality. She took a deep breath, pulling herself together with a visible effort, her posture straightening as if bracing for a physical blow.

"Okay." she said, her voice eerily calm. "Okay. I get it." She didn’t get it at all, but Terry knew that look. It was the look of a decision made. "I think… I think we need a break, Terry. A real one. I can’t keep waiting for a guy who’s never really here."

A break. The word hit him harder than any punch he’d ever taken in the suit. It was a clinical, clean term for a messy, painful severing.

"Dana, wait—"

"No." she said, holding up a hand. She wouldn’t look at him anymore. "Don’t call me. Don’t text me. I need space. I need to figure out what I want, and I can’t do that when I’m constantly wondering where you are."

She turned and walked away, her form swallowed by the bustling Neo-Gotham crowd, leaving Terry standing alone under the mocking glow of the Cyber-Sushi sign. The static was gone. In its place was a profound, deafening silence. He stood there for a long time, the weight of the cowl feeling heavier than ever, even when he wasn’t wearing it. He was Batman, the protector of the city. But he had just completely and utterly failed to protect the one thing that made his own life worth living.

The walls of the Neo-Gotham Juvenile Correction Facility were sterile, grey, and profoundly boring. For Delia and Deidre Dennis—better known to the city as the Dee Dee Twins—it was the seventh circle of hell, a place devoid of glitter, chaos, and easy-to-steal credit chits.

"Dee Dee, I’m sooooo bored." Delia whined, her chin propped in her hand as she stared at the blank wall of their shared cell. Her bright orange hair, usually bouncing with manic energy, seemed to droop with the sheer weight of her ennui. "There’s nothing to do. The recreation room has ‘Pong.’ PONG! It’s, like, prehistoric."

Deidre, lying flat on her bunk and staring at the ceiling, didn’t even flinch. She was the stoic, pragmatic half of the duo. While Delia’s emotions were a firework display, Deidre’s were a carefully guarded pilot light. "It’s jail, Dee Dee. It’s not supposed to be a theme park."

"Well, it should be!" Delia huffed, flopping back onto her own bunk. "A little redecorating, maybe some lasers, a snack bar… It would improve morale! But noooo, it’s all beige and quiet. And the food tastes like beige."

"The food tastes like nutrient paste because it is nutrient paste." Deidre said, her voice a monotone drone. "And we’re here because you insisted we try to steal the new line of hover-heels from ‘Step Up’ in the middle of the day. With Batman on patrol."

"It was a crime of passion! They were collector’s items!" Delia protested. "And how was I supposed to know Bat-freak would be so… punctual? He’s such a buzzkill. He ruins everything. Fun, crime, the local economy… everything." Her hatred for Batman was a pure and burning thing, an eternal flame of spite. In her mind, he wasn't a hero; he was a cosmic bully who took pleasure in thwarting the ambitions of hardworking criminals like herself.

Deidre finally turned her head, fixing her identical twin with a flat stare. "We need to get out of here. I’m running out of things to think about."

Delia sat up, her eyes gleaming with a sudden, familiar spark. This was the kind of talk she understood. "Ooh, an escape? A breakout? A grand departure?"

"Just getting out." Deidre clarified. "No grand anything. We just need a plan."

The plan, as it turned out, was remarkably simple, relying on two key factors: the mind-numbing predictability of the guards’ routine and the structural integrity of a century-old laundry chute. Deidre had been observing for weeks, noting that Guard Miller always took exactly seven minutes for his coffee break at 2:00 AM, and that the vent cover to the laundry system was secured with standard-issue bolts that could be loosened with a sturdy spoon handle, painstakingly sharpened over days on the concrete floor.

That night, they put the plan into action. Clad in their drab grey jumpsuits, they moved with a synchronized grace that was almost unnerving. Deidre worked the bolts, her movements economical and precise. Delia served as a lookout, humming a peppy, off-key tune that would have driven anyone else insane, but for them, it was just background noise.

"He’s coming back!" Delia whispered dramatically, peering through the small slit in their cell door.

"He’s not." Deidre grunted, giving the last bolt a final, vicious twist. It came loose with a faint squeak. The vent cover was off. "He has two more minutes. Stop being dramatic."

"I’m not being dramatic, I’m setting the mood!"

They slipped through the vent and into the laundry chute, a dark, vertical tunnel that smelled of industrial soap and despair. It was a bumpy, clattering ride to the bottom, spitting them out into a massive bin of dirty jumpsuits. They burrowed under the soiled fabric, holding their breath as they heard the heavy footsteps of a guard walking his rounds nearby.

The final phase was even less glamorous. They located the discharge hatch where the laundry was loaded onto automated sanitation trucks. Hiding in a large, wheeled hamper, they were unceremoniously dumped into the back of a truck, landing in a heap of unwashed prison linens.

An hour later, the truck rumbled to a stop in an industrial sector on the outskirts of Neo-Gotham. The back hatch hissed open, and the twins tumbled out, gasping in the cool, rain-slicked night air. They were free. They were also broke, wearing stolen maintenance coveralls that smelled faintly of disinfectant, and incredibly hungry.

"Okay." Deidre said, brushing grime off her jumpsuit. "First things first. We need money. And food. Real food, not beige."

Delia stretched, a wide, theatrical gesture of liberation. "And new clothes! These are a fashion disaster. I’m thinking something bright, something… us." Her eyes scanned the neon-lit skyline of the city, a playground of opportunity. "I have a craving for a hot dog." she declared. "One of those greasy, unhealthy ones from a street cart. The kind that makes you feel alive."

Deidre nodded in agreement. A hot dog sounded like a good, solid, achievable goal. "Okay. We find a hot dog stand. We get food. Then we get money."

"In that order?"

"We can’t plan a proper heist on an empty stomach, Delia. Priorities."

With a shared grin, the Dee Dee twins melted into the shadows of the city they considered their personal piggy bank. They were back in business, and their first order of business was dinner.

Chapter 2: The World's Most One-Sided First Date

The hot dog stand was an oasis of greasy salvation in Terry’s desert of despair. It was a classic, pre-cyberpunk model, a stainless-steel cart run by an old man named Sal who looked like he’d been personally pickling the onions since the 21st century began. The air around it was thick with the holy trinity of smells: sizzling mystery meat, frying onions, and the faint tang of industrial-grade mustard.

Terry sat on a nearby bench, the city’s perpetual twilight casting long shadows around him. He’d ordered a chili dog with extra cheese—a decision born entirely of self-pity. It sat in his lap, a monument to his misery. He hadn’t even taken a bite.

He pulled out his communicator, a sleek, wafer-thin device, and opened his messages. His thumb hovered over Max Gibson’s contact icon. Max was his best friend, his tech support, his unofficial partner in the whole Batman gig. She was the only other person besides Bruce who knew his secret.

Terry: Dana broke up with me.

He stared at the words. They looked stark and pathetic on the small screen. He hit send before he could second-guess himself. The reply was almost instantaneous.

Max: What?! McGinnis, what did you do?

Terry: The usual. Bailed on another date. She thinks I’m a flake. Or cheating.

Max: You’re not a flake, you’re Batman. Different skill set. Where are you? Want me to come kick your butt for being a mope?

Terry: Sal’s Hot Dogs. And no. I think I’ve reached my butt-kicking quota for the week.

Max: Fine. Mope. But five minutes, then you eat the sad chili dog. Doctor’s orders.

A small, ghost of a smile touched Terry’s lips. Max always knew what to say. He was about to reply when a new presence registered in his peripheral vision. Two figures, identical down to their jaunty, energetic bounce, were approaching the hot dog stand. They wore ill-fitting maintenance coveralls, but even in the dim light, he recognized the matching orange pigtails and the distinct, manic energy. The Dee Dee twins.

Terry’s entire body tensed. Schway. Of all the hot dog stands in all of Neo-Gotham… He instinctively sank a little lower on the bench, pulling the collar of his jacket up. The last thing he needed tonight was a run-in with a pair of recently-escaped felons. He just wanted to eat his feelings in peace.

The twins, however, weren’t looking for trouble. They were looking at the menu with the laser-focus of starving wolves.

"Ooh, they have the chili cheese ones!" Delia chirped, her eyes wide with delight. "And the jumbo kraut-dog! We should get both!"

"We have no money, Dee Dee." Deidre reminded her in a low, flat tone. She wasn’t looking at the menu; she was scanning the sparse crowd, her eyes lingering on purses and back pockets. "We’re here for reconnaissance. And maybe a free sample."

"But I’m so hungry now ." Delia whined, her stomach letting out a comically loud growl. Her gaze drifted away from the cart, sweeping over the small park area… and then it landed.

It landed on Terry.

He was just sitting there, a dark-haired boy slouched on a bench, bathed in the melancholy glow of a nearby holographic ad. He was staring at his phone, a frown etched on his face. There was a chili dog in his lap, untouched. To anyone else, he was just another sad teenager.

To Delia, it was like the world snapped into focus. The noise of the city faded away. The smell of frying onions was replaced by the scent of… destiny. A chorus of angels, or maybe just a particularly dramatic synth-pop band, swelled in her head. His brooding silence wasn’t sadness; it was profound depth. His slouch wasn’t poor posture; it was the casual repose of a soul weary from being too cool for the world. He was, in a word, perfect.

"Dee Dee." she whispered, her voice breathy with reverence. "Look."

Deidre followed her sister’s gaze. She saw a boy. He had hair. He was wearing a jacket. She shrugged. "He’s a guy. He has a chili dog. I’m more interested in the chili dog."

"No, you don’t get it." Delia insisted, her heart doing a frantic pitter-patter against her ribs. It was love. It had to be. It was exactly like in the hyper-romance vids she watched—instant, overwhelming, and completely irrational. "He’s… magnificent."

Terry, feeling a weird, prickly sensation on the back of his neck, finally looked up from his phone. His eyes met Delia’s. For him, it was a moment of mild alarm. Great, she’s staring at me. For Delia, it was a confirmation from the universe. Their eyes met! It was a sign!

"He looks bored." Deidre commented, unimpressed. She was now trying to subtly snag a napkin from the dispenser without Sal noticing.

"It’s not boredom, it’s mystique!" Delia corrected, already fluffing her pigtails. "He’s a lone wolf. A rebel without a cause. I have to talk to him."

"No, we have to get money." Deidre said, her voice firm. "Stick to the plan."

"This is part of the plan!" Delia improvised, her mind racing. "He could be our ticket! Maybe he’s rich. Or maybe he’ll just give me his hot dog. Either way, it’s a win."

Before Deidre could protest further, Delia straightened her stolen coveralls, took a deep breath, and began to walk toward the bench. Each step felt momentous, a march toward her new, glorious future as the girlfriend of the handsome, brooding stranger.

Terry watched her approach with a growing sense of dread. His life was already a tire fire. He really, really didn’t need a crazy ex-con with a history of property damage pouring gasoline on it.

Delia glided toward the bench not so much walking as floating on a cloud of newfound purpose. She came to a stop in front of Terry, striking a pose she felt was the perfect blend of casual and captivating. She put one hand on her hip, tilted her head, and beamed a smile so bright it could have powered a small appliance.

"Hi there." she said, her voice a syrupy-sweet purr.

Terry blinked. Up close, her manic energy was a palpable force, like standing too close to a faulty generator. "Uh… hi?" he managed, his brain struggling to process the situation. Okay, McGinnis, play it cool. She probably doesn’t recognize you out of the suit. Just be a normal, uninteresting civilian.

"I saw you sitting here all alone, looking so… deep." Delia continued, her eyes doing a dramatic sweep of his face. "And I thought to myself, ‘Dee Dee, you can’t just let a masterpiece of brooding solitude like that go un-talked-to.’"

Terry had been called many things in his life—punk, slacker, hero, menace—but "masterpiece of brooding solitude" was a new one. "I was just… thinking." he said lamely.

"I know!" she chirped, taking his vague statement as profound agreement. She gracefully plopped down on the bench right next to him, much closer than a stranger had any right to be. Her knee brushed against his. Terry instinctively flinched and shuffled an inch away.

Delia didn’t seem to notice. "My name’s Delia." she announced, extending a hand. "And don’t worry, I already know yours."

A jolt of pure panic shot through Terry. She knew his name? How? Had his secret life and his civilian life just collided in the worst possible way? "You… do?"

"Of course!" she said with a knowing wink. "It’s ‘Trouble.’ With a capital T."

Terry stared at her blankly for a second before the relief washed over him. She was just being weird. She didn’t actually know him. "It’s Terry, actually."

"Terry." Delia repeated, tasting the name. "Terry. Terry. Terry. I like it. It sounds dangerous. So, Terry, what’s got a handsome guy like you looking like your hover-car just got repossessed?"

From the corner of his eye, Terry could see the other twin, Deidre, loitering by the condiment station. She had successfully procured a handful of napkins and was now attempting a complex maneuver to get a free squirt of relish into one of them. She looked profoundly uninterested in their conversation, which was the only small comfort Terry could find.

"Just… stuff." he said, gesturing vaguely. "Girlfriend trouble." He hoped mentioning a girlfriend would act as a deterrent.

It did not.

"Oh, her?" Delia said with a dismissive wave of her hand, as if Dana were a fly to be shooed away. "Forget her. She obviously doesn’t appreciate you. A man with your… intensity… needs someone who gets it. Someone who understands the darkness within." She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I get it."

"There’s no darkness." Terry insisted, leaning away again. "It’s just… complicated."

"Life is complicated." Delia agreed sagely, nodding as if he’d just revealed a deep philosophical truth. "Like, why do they call it a hot dog when it’s not a dog? And it’s not always hot? See? Complicated." She then pointed at the untouched chili dog in his lap. "Are you gonna eat that?"

The question was so abrupt it threw him off balance. "I… I was going to."

"You should!" she encouraged him. "You need your strength. For all the… brooding… you have to do."

Suddenly, there was a yelp from the direction of the hot dog stand. "Hey! You! Get away from there!" Sal the owner was brandishing his tongs at Deidre, who had been caught trying to spear a sausage with a plastic fork.

"Dee Dee!" Delia hissed, momentarily breaking character. She turned back to Terry, her megawatt smile instantly snapping back into place. "That’s my sister. She’s a free spirit. And currently very hungry."

Deidre, looking not at all remorseful, scurried over to the bench. "He’s got tongs, Dee Dee. Let’s go."

"Not yet!" Delia said through gritted teeth. She turned back to Terry, her expression softening into one of pure adoration. "It was fate, meeting you tonight, Terry. I feel like my whole life was just the boring part of the movie before the main characters meet."

"I… I really have to go." Terry said, finally seeing an escape route. He stood up, clutching his chili dog like a shield.

"Of course! You’re a busy man. Places to go, shadows to lurk in." Delia said, also standing. She looked him up and down, a strangely appraising look in her eyes. "Don’t worry. This isn’t the end. It’s the beginning."

"Right. Okay. Well, nice meeting you." Terry mumbled, already backing away.

"Oh, you’ll be seeing me again." she called after him, her voice full of cheerful, terrifying promise. "Very, very soon!"

Deidre just rolled her eyes. "You are so weird." she told her sister.

"It’s called romance, Dee Dee. Look it up." Delia watched Terry’s retreating form with a dreamy sigh. He was even more perfect than she’d imagined. Mysterious, emotionally wounded, and he had a chili dog. She hadn’t gotten the hot dog, but she had gotten something much, much better. She had a mission. She had a soulmate.

Terry, meanwhile, was practically jogging, a cold dread creeping up his spine. This was worse than a run-in. This was an… attachment. And something told him it was going to be even harder to shake off than the Jokerz.

Chapter 3: The Siege of Apartment 7B

Terry didn’t just walk away; he executed a tactical retreat. He dumped the now-cold chili dog in the nearest trash receptacle—a small sacrifice for the greater good of his sanity—and began navigating the crowded walkways of Neo-Gotham at a brisk pace. He didn’t dare look back. He could still feel the phantom sensation of Delia’s intense gaze on him, a weird, bubbly energy that clung to him like static.

He took a sharp left, then a right, diving into the flow of pedestrian traffic, hoping to lose himself in the anonymous sea of faces. The city at night was a vibrant, chaotic organism. Holographic koi fish swam through the air above him, advertising a new brand of synth-sushi. The rumble of the maglev train overhead was a constant, low growl. Usually, Terry found a strange comfort in the city’s endless energy. Tonight, it just felt like a maze with a very persistent minotaur on his tail.

"Terry! Wait up!"

His blood ran cold. The voice was unmistakable—high-pitched, cheerful, and closing in fast. He risked a glance over his shoulder. It was her. Delia was weaving through the crowd with an alarming agility, her orange pigtails bouncing like distress beacons. Deidre was trailing behind her, looking significantly less enthusiastic about the chase but keeping up nonetheless.

Are you kidding me? Terry thought, his brisk walk breaking into a full-blown jog. He wasn’t running—not yet. That would be admitting defeat. This was just… power-walking with extreme prejudice.

"Don’t run from your destiny, handsome!" Delia shouted, her voice carrying surprisingly well over the urban din. A few passersby turned to stare, their faces a mixture of amusement and confusion.

Terry’s face burned with embarrassment. He ducked into a side alley, a shortcut he knew that led toward the transit station for his neighborhood. The alley was dimmer, smelling of damp concrete and discarded noodle containers. He pressed himself against the cold brick wall, listening. For a moment, there was only the distant hum of the city. He’d lost her.

"Peeeek-a-booo!"

He flinched so hard he nearly dropped his communicator. Delia was peering around the corner of the alley entrance, her face split by a triumphant grin. Deidre stood behind her, arms crossed, looking thoroughly unimpressed by the game of hide-and-seek.

"Found you!" Delia sang, skipping into the alley. "You’re good at this! All sneaky and mysterious. It’s cute!"

"Look." Terry said, his patience fraying into nonexistence. "I don’t know what you want, but I’m really not interested. I’m having a bad night."

"I know! That’s why I’m here! To turn that frown upside down!" She made a goofy face, pulling the corners of her mouth up with her fingers. It was so jarringly out of place with his own mood that he was momentarily speechless.

"My place is this way." he said, pointing curtly down the alley and striding past her. His only goal now was to get home, lock the door, and pretend this entire evening never happened.

To his horror, she took this as an invitation.

"Ooh, taking me home already?" Delia gushed, falling into step beside him. "You move fast, Terry-bear! I like it."

"Terry-bear?" he repeated, the name tasting like poison. "Don’t call me that. And I’m not taking you home. I’m going home. Alone."

"We can be alone together!" she reasoned, her logic a pretzel of absurdity.

Deidre, who had been silent up to this point, finally spoke. "He doesn’t like you." she stated, her voice flat and devoid of malice. It was a simple observation, like noting the color of the sky.

Delia shot her sister a withering glare. "He’s just shy, Dee Dee. He’s a lone wolf, remember? They don’t know how to accept affection. You have to be patient." She turned her sunny smile back on Terry. "Don’t worry, I’m very patient."

They emerged from the alley and reached the transit station. Terry swiped his pass and moved toward the platform, hoping the closing doors of a train car would serve as a definitive barrier. Delia and Deidre followed right behind him. He wasn’t sure if they had passes or if they just slipped through the turnstiles in the chaos, but it didn’t matter. They were here.

The ride was agonizing. Terry stood, clutching a grab handle, pretending to be intensely interested in the advertisements flickering on the transparent walls of the car. Delia stood next to him, humming loudly and occasionally trying to point out interesting buildings they passed.

"Look, Terry-saurus Rex! That one has spinny things on top!"

"It’s an atmospheric processor." he mumbled, not looking.

"Is that what the kids are calling it these days? ‘Atmospheric processor’? Sounds like a cool band name. We should start a band! You can play the angry guitar, I’ll be the lead singer, and Dee Dee can… I don’t know, look bored in the back. It’s a whole aesthetic!"

Deidre just sighed and leaned her head against the glass.

Finally, mercifully, the train arrived at his stop. Terry bolted from the car the second the doors hissed open. He lived in a massive residential block, one of Neo-Gotham’s vertical cities. The entrance was a large, impersonal lobby with a security desk. His key card was his salvation.

He practically sprinted across the plaza, Delia’s cheerful calls of "Wait for me, soulmate!" echoing behind him. He reached the glass doors of the lobby, fumbled for his card, and swiped it. The lock beeped green. He slipped inside and let the door slide shut, turning to watch as Delia arrived a second later, pressing her face against the glass.

She couldn’t get in without a resident key. He was safe.

He gave her a final, pleading look that he hoped conveyed the message ‘Please, for the love of all that is holy, go away.’

Delia just smiled, gave him a little wave, and then plopped down on the ground, leaning her back against the glass door. Deidre stood beside her for a moment, shook her head in disbelief, and then sat down too, pulling her knees to her chest.

Terry stared in disbelief. They weren’t leaving. She was settling in. He had managed to keep her out of his building, but he had a sinking feeling he hadn’t gotten rid of her at all.

Terry stood in the sterile silence of the lobby, a thick pane of security glass separating him from his new, self-appointed stalker. He could see Delia clearly. She had made herself comfortable on the cold concrete, humming a cheerful tune and occasionally patting the spot next to her, as if inviting Deidre to appreciate the fine quality of the doorstep. Deidre, for her part, looked like she was mentally calculating how many laws they had broken since escaping prison.

Terry’s communicator buzzed in his pocket. It was Max.

Max: You eaten the dog yet? Or are you planning to let it achieve fossilization?

He fumbled to answer the call, keeping his voice low. "Max, new problem."

"What now?" came her voice, tinny through the device’s speaker. "Did Shriek show up to complain about the chili-to-cheese ratio?"

"Worse." Terry whispered, turning his back to the door so Delia couldn’t see him talking. "It’s the Dee Dee twins."

There was a pause. "The-plural? As in, both of them? What are they doing at Sal’s?"

"They’re not at Sal’s anymore, Max. They’re at my front door. Well, the lobby door. One of them—Delia, I think—has decided she’s… in love with me?" The words sounded even more insane when he said them out loud.

He could hear a muffled choking sound on the other end of the line, followed by a wheezing noise that he eventually identified as Max trying to suppress a massive laugh. "She’s what?! McGinnis, you have a magnetic attraction to the criminally insane. It’s a superpower. A really, really inconvenient superpower."

"It’s not funny!" he hissed. "She followed me all the way from downtown. I barely managed to lock her out of the building. She’s just… sitting out there."

"No way. Put me on video." Max demanded, her voice full of glee.

With a sigh of utter defeat, Terry switched to a video call and angled the communicator’s camera toward the front door. Max’s face appeared in a small window in the corner, her eyes wide.

"Oh my god." she breathed, a hand flying to her mouth to stifle another laugh. "She’s… she’s nesting. Terry, she thinks you’re her new favorite person."

"How do I get rid of her?" he pleaded.

"Have you tried telling her you’re Batman?" Max suggested, a mischievous grin spreading across her face.

"Ha ha. No. I’m going up to my apartment. Maybe she’ll get bored and leave."

"Dude, a girl who finds entertainment in a concrete step is not going to get bored easily. This is A-grade stalker material. Keep me on the line. I want to hear this."

Terry grumbled but didn’t hang up. He walked to the elevator, the security guard at the desk giving him a weird look. The ride up to the seventh floor was filled with the sound of Max’s poorly-contained giggles.

He finally reached the sanctuary of his apartment, 7B. He unlocked the door and slipped inside, the familiar chaos of his family home a welcome sight. His younger brother, Matt, was sprawled on the couch, engrossed in a video game that involved loud explosions and robotic screams.

"Hey, stranger." Matt said without looking away from the screen. "Mom’s pissed. You missed dinner."

"I know, I know." Terry sighed, dropping his keys into a bowl by the door. He walked over to the apartment’s intercom—a small screen that showed the lobby entrance. He pressed the button. The feed was live. There they were, two identical orange-pigtail-wearing figures, still camped out by the main door.

Suddenly, a rhythmic thump… thump… thump… started. It took Terry a second to realize what it was. Delia was knocking. On the main entrance door. From the outside.

"She’s knocking." he said into his comm, his voice flat with disbelief.

"This is the best thing that has ever happened." Max cackled. "Is she saying anything?"

Terry strained to listen. The intercom’s audio was faint, but he could just make out a high, sing-song voice.

"Teeerrryyyy! I know you’re in there! Open up your heart! And also the door! Preferably the door first!"

Matt, his interest finally piqued by the weirdness, paused his game. "Who’s that?"

"Nobody." Terry said quickly.

"Sounds like a somebody." Matt countered, getting up and peering at the intercom screen over Terry’s shoulder. His eyes went wide. "Whoa, are those the Dee Dee twins? The felons? Why are they knocking for you?"

"It’s a long story." Terry muttered, rubbing his temples.

"Teeerryyy-beaaar! Don’t make me huff and puff and blow your door down! I’ll do it! I’m surprisingly full of hot air!"

Matt burst out laughing. A loud, obnoxious, younger-brother laugh that echoed through the apartment. "Terry-bear? Oh, this is gold. Mom! You gotta see this! Terry’s got criminal girlfriends!"

"They’re not my girlfriends!" Terry whisper-shouted, trying to shove Matt away from the screen.

The knocking stopped. It was replaced by a new sound. A soft, off-key singing. It was a sappy love song from a popular holovid, but Delia was changing the words.

"My love for you is like a rocket ship, Terry… blasting off into the skyyyy… please let me in before my sister commits a felonyyyy…"

Deidre could be seen in the background, now idly attempting to jimmy the lock on a nearby maintenance panel with a stolen spoon.

Terry just stared, his mind a blank canvas of horror. Max was completely losing it on the other end of the comm, her laughter now loud and unrestrained. Matt was rolling on the floor, clutching his stomach.

"I’m going to my room." Terry announced to no one in particular. He retreated to the relative safety of his bedroom and shut the door, but he couldn’t shut out the sound. He could still faintly hear Matt shouting, "Sing it again, weird lady!" at the intercom.

He flopped onto his bed, face-down. He could see his Batman suit hanging in its concealed compartment in his closet. Sometimes, fighting psychotic villains in a flying armored suit was the easy part of his life. He pulled his pillow over his head, but it did nothing to block out the surreal sounds from the lobby or the sound of Max and his brother laughing at his expense.

Eventually, the knocking and singing subsided. Terry risked another look at the intercom feed. Deidre seemed to have given up on the maintenance panel and was now asleep, her head resting on her knees. And Delia… Delia had curled up right against the glass door, using her own arm as a pillow. She was asleep. On his doorstep.

Terry let out a long, slow sigh of pure, unadulterated defeat. This was his life now.

Chapter 4: A Very Confusing Morning

The first light of the Neo-Gotham morning was a hazy, artificial dawn, filtered through the perpetual smog and the tinted windows of the apartment block. Terry hadn’t slept well. His dreams had been a feverish mash-up of Dana’s disappointed face and Delia singing off-key love ballads while juggling lit sticks of dynamite. He woke up feeling like he’d already fought a full patrol’s worth of villains.

His first, instinctual act was to check the lobby intercom. He padded out of his room, bleary-eyed, and squinted at the small screen. The image was grainy in the low light, but undeniable. She was still there. Delia was curled up in a tight ball against the glass, a faint mist of condensation on the pane from her breath. Deidre was slumped against a nearby decorative planter, her expression in sleep just as unimpressed as it was when she was awake.

A knot of dread tightened in Terry’s stomach. They hadn’t left. They had actually slept there all night.

He heard movement from his mother’s room. Mary McGinnis was an early riser, her job at Astro-Tech demanding punctuality. Terry’s heart hammered against his ribs. He had to intercept her. He couldn’t let her walk into… whatever that was downstairs.

He scrambled into the kitchen just as she was emerging from her room, dressed in her sharp work uniform and trying to tame her hair.

"Morning, honey." she said, giving him a tired but warm smile. "You were quiet coming in last night."

"Yeah, uh, long night." Terry said, trying to act casual. He stood directly in the path to the front door. "Hey, do you want me to make you some coffee? A protein slurry? Anything?"

Mary raised an eyebrow at his uncharacteristic offer. "Since when are you the morning barista? What did you break?"

"Nothing! I just… feel helpful."

"Terry, I’m running late." she said, trying to sidle past him. "I’ll just grab a coffee tube on the way."

"No!" he said, a little too loudly. He blocked her path again. "The… the elevator is making a weird noise! You should wait. For safety!"

Just then, Matt wandered out of his room, yawning. "Morning. Hey, has Terry’s stalker-girlfriend sung her morning love ballad yet?"

Mary’s head snapped from Matt to Terry, her expression shifting from mild suspicion to full-blown confusion. "Stalker-girlfriend? What is he talking about?"

"He’s joking." Terry said through gritted teeth, shooting Matt a look that could melt steel. "You know, little brother humor. It’s… not funny."

"Sounded pretty funny last night." Matt chirped, grabbing a carton of milk from the fridge.

Before Terry could formulate another lie, his mother’s communicator buzzed with a reminder from her work. "I don’t have time for this, you two." she said, her voice firm. She deftly maneuvered around Terry. "I’ll deal with whatever teenage drama this is tonight. Behave."

She was out the door before he could stop her. Terry groaned and buried his face in his hands. This was going to be a disaster. He, Max, and Matt all crowded around the intercom screen like it was the finale of a reality show.

They watched as the elevator doors opened in the lobby and Mary McGinnis strode out, focused on her destination. She was halfway to the main entrance when she finally noticed the two figures camped out by the door. She stopped dead in her tracks, her head tilting in a clear gesture of ‘What in the world…?’

Delia, a light sleeper when it came to potential soulmate interaction, was roused by Mary’s presence. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and yawning before her face split into a wide, sunny grin.

"Good morning!" Delia chirped, scrambling to her feet. Deidre just groaned and didn’t move.

On the intercom, they could see Mary’s bewildered face up close. "I… good morning? Can I help you?"

"Oh, you must be Terry’s mom!" Delia gushed, already in her element. "I can see the resemblance. You have the same determined chin! I’m Dee Dee... I mean, Delia. It’s so nice to finally meet you!" She stuck her hand out, forgetting that a pane of glass separated them. She just tapped it cheerfully instead.

Mary stared at the girl. She looked vaguely familiar, like someone from a news report she’d half-paid attention to. "Terry’s… mom? Yes. I am. And you’re… sleeping on my doorstep?"

"I was just so excited to see him, I guess I couldn’t leave!" Delia said, her logic completely sound in her own mind. "He’s so wonderful, isn’t he? So mysterious and handsome. You must be so proud."

"I’m… proud, yes." Mary said slowly, her brain clearly trying to piece this together. Was this one of Terry’s punk friends? A new girlfriend? A very, very strange new girlfriend? "Did… Terry know you were out here?"

"Of course! We have a special connection." Delia confided, leaning toward the glass. "It’s like our hearts speak the same language. A language of passion and, you know, stuff."

Back in the apartment, Matt was wheezing with laughter, tears streaming down his face. Max, still on the comm, was providing a running commentary. "She’s going for the ‘meet the parents’ speedrun! This is advanced-level crazy, McGinnis. You’ve really found a special one."

Terry just watched in silent horror.

Mary, a woman who had raised two boys and dealt with her fair share of weirdness, was at a complete loss. "Right." she said, her voice strained with politeness. "Well. It was… confusing… to meet you, Delia. I have to get to work."

She gave a tight, bewildered smile, side-stepped the still-slumbering Deidre, and pushed through the doors, practically fleeing into the morning air.

Delia watched her go with a happy sigh. "She likes me! I can tell." She then turned her attention back to the glass door, peering up toward the building as if she could see directly into Apartment 7B. "Okay, Terry-wumpkins! Your mom is gone! Time for our real date to begin!"

She started knocking again.

Terry turned off the intercom screen. He couldn’t watch anymore. He had school. He had to go to school. Which meant he had to somehow get through the lobby and past a girl who had just unofficially introduced herself to his mother as his soulmate. His day was already ruined, and it hadn’t even properly started.

Navigating the minefield of his own lobby was a challenge worthy of Batman. Terry’s plan was simple: speed. He waited until Delia was momentarily distracted—this time by a holographic ad for cat food featuring a dancing tabby—and then bolted from the elevator. He swiped his transit pass and blasted through the station turnstiles without breaking stride, not looking back until he was safely on a train heading toward Hamilton Hill High.

He spent the entire ride in a state of high alert, scanning the crowd in every car that passed, half-expecting Delia to pop out from behind a seat, offering him a terrible, handmade "I Love My Secret Boyfriend" button. But he arrived at school without incident. A small, fragile bubble of hope began to form in his chest. Maybe, just maybe, she had given up. Maybe sleeping on concrete had finally broken her spirit.

The bubble popped the second he walked through the school’s main entrance.

She was there. Standing by his locker. As if she’d been waiting for him her whole life.

She’d somehow changed out of the grimy maintenance coveralls and into a new outfit—a blindingly bright pink top, a short black skirt, and boots that looked vaguely weaponized. Her orange pigtails had been re-tied to achieve maximum perkiness. She was leaning against the locker next to his, trying to look casual, a pose that was completely undermined by the fact that she was vibrating with excited energy. Deidre was with her, leaning against the opposite wall, looking as if she were actively contemplating the sweet release of non-existence.

"There you are, silly!" Delia chirped as he approached, her voice echoing in the crowded hallway. Several students, including a few of Terry’s friends, turned to look. "I was starting to think you’d used your secret escape tunnel to get to class!"

Terry’s face went rigid. He walked to his locker and began working the combination, his back turned to her. "What are you doing here?" he asked in a low, tense voice. "You don’t go to this school."

"Details, details!" she said with a wave of her hand. "A world-class education is happening right here"—she pointed at him—"so this is where I need to be. Plus, the security here is a joke. Dee Dee got us in by telling the front desk we were new exchange students from… uh… where did you say we were from, Dee Dee?"

"Verdeza." Deidre mumbled, not looking up from her phone. "She didn’t ask for proof."

"See? We’re practically students!" Delia beamed. "So, what’s our first class? Chemistry? I bet we’ll have great chemistry. Get it?"

Terry ignored her. He grabbed his datapad for his first-period history class and slammed his locker shut. "I have to go to class. Goodbye."

He started walking, and of course, she fell into step beside him. "Ooh, history! I love history! My favorite historical event is when that guy invented glitter. He was a true visionary."

He saw Max up ahead, leaning against a wall, waiting for him. Her eyes widened as she saw his new entourage. She pushed off the wall and met them, a slow, wicked grin spreading across her face.

"McGinnis." she said, her voice dripping with amusement. "I see you’ve brought… guests."

"Hi, I'm Terry's new girlfriend, Delia!" Delia announced, taking the initiative and shaking Max’s hand with vigorous enthusiasm. "And my sister, Deidre." Deidre gave a slight nod that could have been a greeting or a muscle twitch.

Max’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline. She looked at Terry, who was shaking his head frantically. "Girlfriend, huh? That’s news to me. Terry’s usually not the type to move so fast."

"Oh, when it’s true love, you just know." Delia sighed dreamily. "It’s like… kismet. With a capital K."

"Right…" Max said, drawing the word out. She was clearly enjoying this far too much. "Well, Terry, we have History of the Americas. A class which, I’m guessing, your new ‘exchange students’ are not enrolled in."

"We can audit!" Delia suggested brightly. "I’ll be very quiet. A perfect, supportive girlfriend, sitting in the back, thinking loving thoughts about you."

The bell shrieked, saving Terry from having to respond. "Gotta go." he grunted, grabbing Max’s arm and pulling her toward the classroom.

He managed to get into the room and slide into his seat just as the teacher, Mr. Tanner, was starting his lecture. For a blissful thirty seconds, Terry thought he was free. Then, the classroom door creaked open. Delia poked her head in, gave Terry a big, goofy wink, and then mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key before quietly slipping into an empty desk in the back row. Deidre followed, slumping into the seat next to her with a look of profound resignation.

Mr. Tanner, a man who had long ago given up on questioning the strange occurrences at Hamilton High, simply paused, squinted at them, and then continued his lecture on the Pan-American Conflict of 2032.

Terry spent the entire period feeling Delia’s eyes on him. It was a physical sensation, a laser beam of adoration fixed on the back of his head. He couldn’t concentrate on a single word about historical treaties or border disputes. His own personal border had been breached, and the occupying force was humming happily in the back of his history class.

When the bell rang again, he was out of his seat in a flash. But she was faster. She met him at the door.

"That was amazing!" she gushed. "You were so focused. So studious. I bet you were secretly analyzing the classroom for structural weaknesses and escape routes, weren’t you, you clever spy?"

Terry just stared at her, a new, horrifying thought dawning on him. She wasn’t just going to follow him. She was going to narrate his life, and her version was infinitely weirder than his own.

The rest of the day was a surreal montage of avoidance and ambush. He’d walk out of math class, and she’d be there, holding a nutrient bar she’d sweet-talked out of a freshman. "For your energy levels!" At lunch, she sat down at his table with Max, Nelson, and Blade, introducing herself to everyone as Terry’s one true love. Nelson was confused, Blade was openly contemptuous, and Max was documenting the whole thing on her datapad for future blackmail material.

He was living in a nightmare. A bright, bubbly, clown nightmare. And it showed no signs of ending.

Chapter 5: Genesis of a Spy Theory

The breaking point came during last period, a study hall that Terry usually used to catch up on homework or, more often, to get mission briefings from Bruce via a secured text channel. He had found a relatively quiet corner of the school’s massive library, a towering space filled with the hum of data-servers and the scent of old-fashioned paper books kept in preservation cases. He was hunched over his datapad, trying to look like he was reading about civic law, when in reality he was reading a message from Bruce.

Wayne: Reports of erratic energy signatures in the industrial sector. Possibly related to Stalker’s old tech. Be ready for patrol tonight. Don’t be late.

Terry typed a quick reply. McGinnis: Got it. After I deal with my own stalker problem.

He swiped the message away just as Delia slid into the chair opposite him, startling him so badly he nearly dropped the datapad.

"Whatcha workin’ on, honey-bunch?" she whispered, leaning so far over the table her pigtails were in danger of knocking over his stylus.

"Civics." Terry lied, his heart rate starting to settle. "Really, really boring civics."

"Riiiiight." she said, drawing the word out and giving him a sly, knowing look that he absolutely did not understand. "‘Civics.’ Is that what you call your secret mission briefings now? It’s a good code word. Very unassuming."

Terry frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, don’t worry." she whispered, her eyes darting around the library as if they were surrounded by enemy agents. "Your secret is safe with me. I figured it out."

"Figured what out?" he asked, a sense of deep unease settling over him.

Delia leaned even closer, her voice barely a breath. "I know why you’re so secretive. Why you’re always disappearing. Why you have to lie to that other girl, Dana. It all clicked into place this afternoon."

Terry’s blood went cold. This was it. She knew. By some impossible leap of logic, this cartoon character of a girl had figured out the biggest secret in Neo-Gotham. His mind raced. How? Had she seen him with Bruce? Did she recognize the suit? Was this whole ditzy girlfriend act just a clever front?

"You’re a spy." she declared, her eyes shining with pride and adoration.

Terry’s brain screeched to a halt. Of all the possible conclusions she could have reached, that was not one he had ever considered. "A… what?"

"A secret agent!" she elaborated, her enthusiasm building. "A lone-wolf operative. A shadow in the night. It all makes sense! The brooding, the sudden disappearances, the ‘part-time job’ with the mysterious rich old man—he’s obviously your handler! The constant state of alert! The way you’re always looking over your shoulder! You’re not flaky, Terry. You’re dedicated! You’re protecting the city from the shadows!"

He just stared at her, utterly speechless. His brain was trying to reboot after a catastrophic system error. She hadn’t figured out he was Batman. She had leaped over the most obvious conclusion and landed in a completely different movie genre.

"I saw you sneak out of lunch early." she continued, her voice full of breathless excitement. "You thought you were being so slick, but I saw you. You slipped down that maintenance corridor. You were probably going to a dead drop to pick up intel, or meeting a contact in disguise! And that’s when it hit me. You’re not just a regular high school student. You’re living a double life. It’s so romantic!"

He had, in fact, been sneaking out to take a call from Bruce about a minor issue at the Manor. But in Delia’s mind, it had been transformed into an act of international espionage.

"I’m… not a spy." he said, but his denial was weak, drowned out by the sheer force of her conviction.

"Of course you have to say that!" she nodded sympathetically. "It’s protocol. Plausible deniability. I get it. Don’t worry." She patted his hand. "Your cover is safe with me, Agent T."

Agent T. She had already given him a code name.

"And don’t you worry about that Dana girl." Delia added, her expression turning serious. "I understand now. She’s your civilian cover. The normal girlfriend for your normal life. It must be so hard for you, having to pretend to care about sushi dates when you’re really thinking about deactivating a nanite bomb."

The school bell rang, signaling the end of the day, but Terry didn’t move. He was trapped in the bizarre, alternate reality that Delia had constructed around him. She had taken all the disparate, confusing pieces of his life—the secrecy, the lies, the connection to Bruce Wayne—and assembled them into a picture. It was the wrong picture, a ridiculous, hyper-stylized caricature of the truth, but to her, it was perfect.

"Come on, super-spy." she said, getting up and tugging on his sleeve. "Let’s go home. You must be exhausted from all that… civic-ing."

He let her pull him to his feet, his mind numb. In a strange way, her delusion was a shield. It was crazy, it was absurd, but it was also so much safer than the truth. As long as she thought he was some kind of bargain-bin James Bond, she wouldn’t be looking for a Bat.

As they walked out of the library, Deidre fell into step with them.

"Did you tell him your crazy spy theory?" Deidre asked Delia, her voice flat.

"It’s not a theory, it’s a fact." Delia corrected her loftily. "Our Terry here is one of the good guys, working from the inside. He’s just too humble to admit it."

Deidre looked at Terry, who had the dazed expression of a man who had just been hit in the head with a cartoon anvil. She then looked back at her sister.

"You’re an idiot." she said simply.

"You’re just jealous because my boyfriend has a cool, dangerous job and we don’t." Delia shot back.

Terry didn’t say a word. He just kept walking. He was Terry McGinnis, high school student. He was Batman, protector of Neo-Gotham. And now, apparently, he was Agent T, international man of mystery. His life had officially jumped the shark.

For Deidre, her sister’s newfound obsession was rapidly transitioning from a mild annoyance to a major professional liability. Their funds were non-existent. Their wardrobe consisted of one set of stolen coveralls and one hastily acquired, obnoxiously pink outfit. They were sleeping on the street and eating relish out of napkins. This was not the glamorous life of crime they were accustomed to. They needed a job.

"Okay, focus." Deidre said, her voice sharp. They were huddled in a small, out-of-the-way cafe, having pooled their last few credits for a single cup of soy-caf. Delia wasn’t listening. She was busy meticulously crafting something on a datapad she had "borrowed" from an unattended table.

"Dee Dee. Focus."

"I am focusing!" Delia said, not looking up. "I’m creating a comprehensive support dossier for Terry. It has his likes—mystery, justice, me. His dislikes—villains, injustice, people who hurt me. And a list of potential code names for me, his secret partner. I’m torn between ‘Agent Love-Dove’ and ‘The Crimson Kiss.’"

Deidre snatched the datapad and turned it off. "We are not his secret partners. We are criminals. And criminals need money. Tonight, we are hitting the Neo-Corinthian Museum."

Delia gasped, her project forgotten. "Ooh, the museum! Are we going to see the art?"

"We’re going to steal the art." Deidre corrected her, her patience wearing thin. "Specifically, the ‘Jewel of Antioch,’ a ridiculously oversized diamond they have on display for one more night. It’s got a simple laser grid, a pressure-plate floor, and two guards who spend most of their shift watching old sitcoms. It’s a milk run. We get in, we get the diamond, we get out. We sell it, and then we can afford food and a place to live that isn’t a planter."

A spark of the old Dee Dee fire returned to Delia’s eyes. "A heist! Okay, okay! I can do this. A good, old-fashioned caper will be fun!"

"It’s not just for fun, it’s for survival." Deidre grumbled, sketching a crude layout of the museum floor on a napkin. "Now, here’s the plan. We go in through the skylight…"

Hours later, under the cloak of Neo-Gotham’s perpetual night, the plan was in motion. Dressed in their classic black-and-white bodysuits and jester-style hats, the Dee Dee twins were back in their element. They moved across the museum rooftop with silent, acrobatic grace.

"Okay." Deidre whispered, peering over the edge of the central skylight. "The guards are in their booth. The laser grid is on its standard two-minute rotation. When it deactivates, we have exactly thirty seconds to drop in, bypass the pressure plate, and get to the display case."

"Got it!" Delia whispered back, but her eyes weren’t on the prize. They were looking across the city, in the general direction of Terry’s apartment building. "I hope Terry’s having a good night. Do you think he’s out on a mission? Maybe he’s disabling a satellite or seducing an evil countess for information."

"Dee Dee!" Deidre hissed, yanking her sister’s attention back to the task at hand. "The diamond. Focus."

"Right, right. Diamond." Delia shook her head as if to clear it. "Evil countesses later, shiny rocks now."

The laser grid below them flickered and died. "Go!" Deidre commanded.

They dropped their lines and rappelled down into the cavernous, silent hall. They landed as softly as cats on the polished marble floor. The Jewel of Antioch glittered from its pedestal in the center of the room, a rock the size of a fist, catching the faint moonlight and fracturing it into a thousand tiny rainbows.

Deidre moved with precision, her eyes scanning the floor, tracing the faint outlines of the pressure plates. "Okay, follow my exact steps. Left foot here, right foot there…"

Delia followed, but her mind was clearly elsewhere. "You know." she mused in a loud whisper, "this is kind of like what Terry does. Sneaking into dangerous places, surrounded by high-tech security… we have so much in common."

"Will you be quiet!" Deidre snapped. "You’ll trip an alarm!"

"I’m just saying! It’s like we’re two sides of the same very cool, very sneaky coin. He’s a spy, we’re master thieves… It’s destiny!"

They reached the pedestal. Deidre pulled out a small electronic device designed to loop the security camera feed. As she worked on disabling the case’s alarm, Delia continued her monologue.

"I should make him a scrapbook." she decided. "A scrapbook of his greatest secret missions! I’ll have to guess what they are, of course. ‘Mission: The Berlin File.’ ‘Assignment: The Tokyo Takedown.’ I could draw little pictures!"

"Dee Dee, if you don’t shut up, our next assignment is going to be ‘The Juvenile Hall Reunion Tour,’" Deidre threatened through gritted teeth. The case’s alarm light blinked from red to green. "Okay, it’s open. Grab the jewel. Gently."

Delia reached in, her eyes shining with avarice. But as her fingers brushed against the cold, hard surface of the diamond, another thought struck her.

"Wait." she said, her hand hovering over the jewel. "What if this is a test?"

Deidre stared at her. "A test for what? It’s a rock."

"No, a test from Terry !" Delia elaborated, her eyes wide with her own twisted logic. "What if he knew we were going to be here? What if he orchestrated this whole thing to see if I’m worthy of being his partner? To see if my heart is pure! Maybe I’m not supposed to steal it. Maybe I’m supposed to… protect it!"

Deidre’s face, usually a mask of stoicism, contorted into a rictus of pure, unadulterated disbelief. "Are you out of your mind? We’re here to steal it! It’s what we do!"

"But what if he’s watching?" Delia whispered, her gaze darting into the shadowy corners of the museum. "What if this is my audition? If I steal it, I fail. But if I protect it from… other, lesser thieves… he’ll know I’m the one!"

Before Deidre could process this catastrophic failure of criminal intent, Delia made her decision. She retracted her hand, stood up straight, and folded her arms.

"I’m not taking it." she declared heroically. "I’m standing guard. For Terry."

The alarm on the case, which Deidre had only temporarily disabled, chose that moment to re-engage. A deafening siren blared through the hall. Red lights began to flash.

"You idiot!" Deidre screamed, grabbing her sister’s arm. "We have to go! Now!"

"But the diamond! My test!"

Deidre didn’t argue. She just started running, dragging the suddenly-conflicted Delia behind her. They scrambled back up their ropes just as the guards burst into the hall, weapons drawn.

They escaped back into the night, empty-handed, with alarms blaring across the city behind them. They landed on an adjacent rooftop, breathless and furious—or at least, one of them was.

"What was that?!" Deidre yelled, rounding on her twin. "We had it! It was perfect! And you decided to have a moral crisis because of your imaginary spy boyfriend?"

"He’s not imaginary!" Delia panted, looking genuinely distressed. "And it wasn’t a crisis, it was a moment of clarity! I think I passed the test. By failing the heist, I passed the real test. The test of the heart!"

Deidre just stared at her, speechless. They were still broke. They were still homeless. And now, they had a city full of cops looking for them. All because her sister had fallen in love with some random, sad-looking teenager and decided he was a secret agent. She buried her face in her hands and let out a long, frustrated groan. Her professional life was in shambles.

Chapter 6: The Art of Misinterpretation

The rooftop was cold, the wind sharp, and Deidre Dennis was simmering with a rage so pure it could have powered a small city for a week. They had failed. Not just failed—they had spectacularly, uniquely, and idiotically failed. The Jewel of Antioch, their ticket out of poverty and off the streets, was still sitting in its case, likely being fingerprinted by a dozen Neo-Gotham cops, all because Delia had decided to roleplay as a hero’s conscience.

"I can't believe you." Deidre seethed, pacing the length of the rooftop like a caged animal. Her movements were tight, angry springs of motion. "I cannot, on a molecular level, believe you. A test? A test ? You think your sad little boy-toy with the floppy hair set up a multi-million-credit museum heist as a pop quiz for his imaginary girlfriend?"

Delia, for her part, was not chastened. She was glowing. She hugged herself, a dreamy look in her eyes as she stared out at the glittering expanse of Neo-Gotham. "Wasn't it romantic, Dee Dee? The danger! The tension! My profound moral choice! He was probably watching the whole time, hidden in the vents or disguised as a statue. When I refused to steal the diamond, I bet his heart just swelled with pride."

"The only thing that swelled was the number of cops heading for that museum." Deidre snarled, stopping her pacing to glare at her twin. "We're broke. We're homeless. We're wearing the only decent clothes we own—which, by the way, are our work uniforms! And now the entire GCPD is on high alert for two female criminals in jester hats. Our professional reputation is in shambles!"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic." Delia said with a dismissive wave. "Our reputation is fine. We're not just common thieves anymore. We're... complicated anti-heroes. Terry will appreciate the nuance."

"Terry will appreciate it if we get arrested and he never has to see you again!"

The argument was circular, a snake eating its own idiotic tail, and Deidre knew it was pointless. Arguing with Delia when she was in the grips of an obsession was like trying to teach quantum physics to a toaster. The hardware just wasn't compatible with the data. Deidre let out a long, frustrated sigh, the sound swallowed by the city's hum. Fine. If Delia was going to be useless, Deidre would have to be pragmatic enough for the both of them.

"Okay." she said, her voice flat and devoid of emotion. It was her 'planning' voice. "New plan. We can't do any high-profile jobs for a while. The heat is on. So we need to think small. Low-level stuff. We need a base of operations. Someplace to lie low."

Delia’s eyes lit up. "Ooh! What about Terry's apartment building? We could live in the maintenance corridors! It would be so romantic—like we're the phantoms of his opera! I could leave him little notes and roses by his door."

Deidre stared at her sister for a full ten seconds. "I am going to pretend you did not just say that. For the sake of our continued sisterhood, I am erasing that sentence from my memory." She rubbed her temples, feeling a migraine begin its slow, throbbing crawl up the back of her skull. "No. We need a real place. Which means we need money. Which means we need to get back to basics. Pickpocketing. Purse snatching. The classics."

"But what would Terry think?" Delia fretted, her heroic fantasy already clashing with the grim reality of petty crime. "He's a super-spy for justice. He can't have a girlfriend who's out there lifting credit chits from tourists."

"Then he shouldn't have gotten a girlfriend who's a professional criminal!" Deidre snapped, her patience finally cracking. "He's not your boyfriend, Dee Dee! You met him yesterday! You've appointed yourself his girlfriend! He runs away from you! This is not a relationship; it's a unilateral declaration of weirdness!"

Delia pouted, her lower lip trembling slightly. "You just don't understand our connection. It's subtle. It's unspoken. He runs away because his spy-life is dangerous, and he's trying to protect me. It's his way of saying 'I love you, but stay away from the crossfire.'"

Deidre felt a dam of logic break in her brain. "That's not—" she began, but stopped. It was useless. She took a deep breath. "Fine. Whatever. We still need money. So here's the deal. We go back to his neighborhood. It's a nice, high-end residential block. Rich people are careless with their belongings. We'll work the transit station plaza. But you—" she pointed a finger at Delia, "—are not to go anywhere near his building. You are not to sing to his door. You are not to call him 'Terry-bear' in a voice that can be heard from orbit. You will act like a professional. Can you do that?"

Delia considered this. The terms were harsh, but the logic was, unfortunately, sound. A spy's secret girlfriend should be self-sufficient. She couldn't be a damsel in distress all the time. She had to be a capable partner who could fund her own operations.

"Okay." she agreed, nodding seriously. "I'll do it. For the mission. I'll be the perfect, stealthy, financially-independent secret girlfriend. He'll be so impressed."

Deidre didn't have the energy to argue with the reasoning. She just accepted the conclusion. "Good. Let's go. And try not to describe our pickpocketing spree as a 'test of my dexterity for future espionage work.'"

"Ooh, that's a good one, though." Delia muttered as they slipped away from the rooftop, melting back into the shadows of the city. One was focused on survival, the other on constructing a grand romantic narrative out of thin air. For the Dee Dee twins, business was anything but usual.

Meanwhile, Terry was in the Batcave, getting an earful from Bruce. The old man was not pleased.

"The museum alarms went off less than an hour ago." Bruce said, his voice a low growl that seemed to emanate from the cave's stone walls. He stood before the giant computer, his arms crossed, a monolithic silhouette of disapproval. On the screen was a security feed image—two familiar figures in black and white rappelling away from the scene. "GCPD report says the display case for the Jewel of Antioch was temporarily disabled, but nothing was taken. It fits their M.O.—acrobatic, theatrical, and, in this case, pointless. Any theories, Terry?"

Terry shifted his weight, feeling like a teenager being lectured by his principal, which wasn't far from the truth. "Uh... maybe they got spooked?"

Bruce turned, his gaze fixing on Terry with an unnerving intensity. "Or maybe." he said, his voice laced with pointed meaning, "they've been... distracted lately."

Terry felt his face flush. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't you?" Bruce brought up another file on the screen. It was student data from Hamilton Hill High. And right there, next to a photo of Delia Dennis, was the notation: 'Visitor Pass Issued. Guest of: Terry McGinnis.' Bruce didn't have to say anything. The screen said it all.

"It's not what you think." Terry said quickly, his hands held up in surrender. "She just showed up! They both did! She's got this... crazy idea about me."

"I'm aware." Bruce said dryly. "Max Gibson has been sending me regular updates. She finds your situation 'hilarious.' I, on the other hand, find it to be a security risk of the highest order. This girl, this walking psychological grenade, knows your name, your school, and where you live. She is now operating under the delusion that you are some kind of secret agent. How long before her delusion gets her—or you—killed?"

"I'm trying to get rid of her!" Terry insisted. "But everything I do, she just... twists it to fit her story! If I'm mean to her, I'm 'testing her resolve.' If I run away, I'm 'protecting her from my dangerous life.' It's like arguing with a brick wall!"

"Then find a way to break through it." Bruce ordered, his voice leaving no room for argument. "This isn't a game, Terry. She is unstable. Her sister is a professional criminal. Their presence in your life is a threat to the mission and a direct danger to your family. Fix it. Before I have to."

The unspoken threat hung heavy in the air. Terry knew what Bruce 'fixing it' entailed—probably a one-way ticket to a private psychiatric facility for Delia and a GCPD 'anonymous tip' for Deidre. As much as they were driving him insane, the thought made him uncomfortable.

"I'll handle it." Terry said, his jaw tight.

"See that you do." Bruce said, turning back to the computer, the conversation clearly over. "Now, get ready for patrol. There are actual criminals to worry about."

Terry walked toward the suit, the weight of the cowl feeling heavier than ever. He had to deal with super-villains, high school, his complicated relationship with Dana, and now, a delusional stalker who thought he was a spy. He sighed. Maybe a giant, talking gorilla would attack the city. At least that would be a problem he knew how to punch.

Chapter 7: Surveillance and Sandwiches

The next morning, Terry woke up with a plan. It was a simple, desperate plan, born of sleep deprivation and Bruce Wayne’s thinly veiled threats. The plan was this: be the most boring person alive.

If Delia thought he was a super-spy, he would show her the mundane reality of his life in excruciating detail. He wouldn’t sneak around. He wouldn’t be mysterious. He would be an open book—a very, very dull book. A textbook on tax law, perhaps. He would bore her into leaving him alone.

He started by having a painfully normal breakfast with his mom and Matt. He talked about his homework. He discussed the nutritional content of his cereal. He complained about his sock drawer being disorganized. He could feel Matt staring at him, trying to figure out if he'd been replaced by a robot.

"Are you okay?" Matt asked, poking his cereal with a spoon. "You're talking about socks."

"Socks are an important part of a balanced life, Matt." Terry said with the earnestness of a cult leader. "They provide comfort, protection, and a platform for self-expression."

Matt just shook his head and went back to his comic book.

The real test, however, would be the journey to school. Terry left the apartment, bracing himself. He fully expected to find the Dee Dee twins camped out in the lobby again. But they weren't there. The space by the glass door was empty. A flicker of hope ignited in his chest. Had they finally given up? Had the failed heist and Deidre's subsequent rage finally convinced them to move on?

The hope lasted approximately forty-five seconds.

As he walked toward the transit station, he got that familiar, prickly feeling on the back of his neck. He didn't look back. He just knew. They were there. Following him.

Instead of trying to lose them, he leaned into his plan. He stopped at a public news terminal and spent five full minutes reading an article about municipal zoning regulations. He could practically feel Delia's confusion radiating from across the plaza. He then walked, not jogged, to the transit platform, obeying every single pedestrian traffic light, even the ones that were clearly just suggestions.

On the train, he didn't stand alertly by the door. He took a seat and conspicuously pulled out a paper book—an ancient copy of 'Moby Dick' he'd been forced to read for English class. He didn't read it. He just held it up, his expression one of intense, scholarly focus.

From the corner of his eye, he could see them. They were trying to be subtle, hiding behind other commuters, pretending to be engrossed in advertisements. Deidre looked profoundly bored. Delia, however, looked fascinated.

Terry risked a glance in her direction. She was whispering animatedly to her sister, her eyes wide with excitement. He couldn't hear what she was saying, but he could guess. His boring routine wasn't boring her. It was fueling her fantasy.

In Delia's mind:

"Look, Dee Dee, he's creating a baseline." Delia whispered, grabbing her sister's arm. "It's classic tradecraft! He's establishing a pattern of normalcy. He wants anyone watching him to see him as just another boring student. The zoning regulations? A subtle message to a contact about a pending territory dispute! The book? It's not 'Moby Dick'—it's a one-time pad for decoding secret messages! He’s a genius!"

Deidre just grunted. "He's a teenager reading a book for school. You're a crazy person." She was more focused on a man across the car with a very expensive-looking wallet chain. Priorities.

The day at school was a masterclass in performative tedium. Terry didn't duck out of lunch. He sat with his friends and talked about the school's terrible nutrient paste. He participated in class discussions, offering bland, textbook-approved answers. He walked from class to class at a pace that could only be described as 'shuffling.'

Delia, naturally, was there for all of it. She and Deidre had perfected their 'Latverian exchange student' cover, mostly by being so weird that no one wanted to question them. Delia would find a spot just outside his classrooms, giving him encouraging thumbs-ups. At lunch, she sat at a nearby table, providing what she likely considered 'covert overwatch.'

Terry's friends, however, were not buying the 'boring' act.

"Okay, McGinnis, what's the deal?" Max asked, cornering him by the lockers. Nelson and Blade stood behind her, their expressions ranging from curious to suspicious. "Yesterday, you had a fan club of felonious twins. Today, you're acting like you've had a full-frontal lobotomy. And they're still here." She jerked her head toward the end of the hall, where the Dee Dee twins were trying to blend in next to a large recycling bin.

"It's a long story." Terry sighed, the sentence becoming his personal mantra.

"We've got time." Blade said, her arms crossed. She didn't like mysteries she wasn't at the center of.

"One of them thinks I'm her boyfriend." Terry admitted, the words tasting like ash. "And also a secret agent. I'm trying to bore her into leaving me alone."

There was a beat of silence as they all processed this. Then, Nelson burst out laughing. "A secret agent? Dude, that's awesome! You should totally lean into that!"

"No!" Terry said, horrified. "I am not leaning into it!"

"He's right, Nelson." Max said, though a grin was playing on her lips. "This is a delicate situation requiring tact and subtlety." She turned back to Terry. "So, when are you going to tell her your code name is 'Condor' and you need her to retrieve the microfilm from the Swiss embassy?"

"I hate all of you." Terry muttered, grabbing his books and stalking away.

His plan was failing. Spectacularly. His friends thought it was a joke, and his stalker thought it was brilliant spycraft. He needed to up the ante. He needed a display of mundanity so profound, so soul-crushingly dull, that not even Delia's hyperactive imagination could twist it into something exciting.

After school, he didn't head straight home. He went to his 'job.' His part-time job as Bruce Wayne's assistant. He knew Delia would follow. This was her chance to see the 'handler' in his natural habitat.

He led them on a long, circuitous route to the bus that went out toward Wayne Manor. As he sat on the bus, staring out the window, he saw them in the reflection, sitting a few rows back. Delia was practically vibrating with anticipation.

He got off at the stop near the towering gates of the manor. He walked up to the security panel, ignoring the two figures hiding badly in the manicured bushes across the road. He spoke into the intercom.

"Hey, Bruce. It's me. Here to do that filing you wanted."

The gates swung open. Terry walked through, not looking back. He knew what Delia was seeing: a young agent arriving at the secret headquarters for his briefing.

But Terry had a different plan. He wasn't going to the cave. He was going to the manor's main office. And he was actually going to file.

For the next three hours, Terry McGinnis engaged in the most mind-numbing task known to man. Bruce, who Max had tipped off about Terry's 'boring' plan, had played his part perfectly. He had produced stacks upon stacks of old, irrelevant paperwork from Wayne Enterprises' agricultural division from the 1980s. Invoices for tractor parts. Memos about crop rotation. Soil analysis reports.

Terry sat at a large mahogany desk, the office lights on, the window curtains wide open, providing a perfect view to anyone who might be watching from the grounds. And he filed. He alphabetized. He sorted by date. He put paper into folders and folders into cabinets. He even used a staple remover. It was an epic saga of administrative work.

From her hiding spot in a large, ornate rhododendron bush, Delia watched, her heart soaring.

"See?" she whispered to Deidre, who was trying to calculate the resale value of the garden gnomes. "He's not just filing. He's analyzing old case files! Looking for patterns, for connections to his current mission! Every piece of paper is a clue. It's brilliant! He's hiding in plain sight!"

Deidre just rolled her eyes. "He's earning minimum wage, Dee Dee. And we're getting eaten by mosquitoes."

As the sun began to set, Terry finished his 'work.' He emerged from the manor, stretching theatrically. He carried a small, brown paper bag. He walked back to the bus stop and sat down, waiting.

The twins emerged from their bush, covered in leaves and insect bites. They sat on a bench across the way, watching him.

Terry opened the bag. Inside was a sandwich. Not a high-tech nutrient bar. Not a self-heating meal packet. A sandwich. Turkey and Swiss on wheat bread. Bruce's robot butler, had made it for him. Terry proceeded to eat the sandwich with a look of quiet, mundane satisfaction.

This, he thought, biting into the bread. This is it. The ultimate weapon. There is nothing less 'secret agent' than eating a turkey sandwich while waiting for public transportation.

He glanced up. Delia was staring at him, a single tear rolling down her cheek.

In Delia's mind:

"Oh, Dee Dee." she whispered, her voice choked with emotion. "Look at him. The weight he must carry. Forced to pretend he's just a normal boy, eating a simple sandwich, when really he's just debriefed from a mission that saved the world. He's so brave. He can't show his turmoil. He has to... to eat the sandwich for his cover. It's the loneliest sandwich I've ever seen."

Terry finished the last bite, crumpled the bag, and stood up as the bus arrived. His plan hadn't just failed. It had backfired so completely that it had achieved a new state of quantum failure. He wasn't boring her. He was making her fall for him even harder. He got on the bus, a profound sense of despair settling over him. He was losing this war.

Chapter 8: The Domestic Stakeout

Deidre had reached her limit. Her patience, a notoriously finite resource, had been utterly depleted. They had spent the better part of a day hiding in a bush, acquiring nothing but bug bites and a deep, philosophical understanding of different types of lawn fertilizer. They were still broke, and her sister's sanity was drifting further from shore with every passing moment.

"That's it. I'm done." Deidre announced as they rode the transit back toward Terry's neighborhood. Her voice was dangerously calm, a sign of an impending emotional eruption. "I am done with the spy games. I am done with stakeouts that don't result in financial gain. I am done with analyzing the emotional state of a boy eating a sandwich."

Delia, still misty-eyed from the 'loneliest sandwich' incident, turned to her sister with a wounded expression. "But Dee Dee, we're supporting him! It's our duty as... as patriotic citizens!"

"We are not patriotic citizens! We are wanted criminals!" Deidre hissed, her voice low and sharp. "And our duty is to ourselves. To not starving. Tonight, we are making money. Real money. And you are going to help. No distractions. No theories. No Terry."

"But—"

"No. Terry." Deidre repeated, her eyes narrowed. "If you even say his name, I will leave you in a recycling bin. I swear it."

Delia clamped her mouth shut, pouting. The ultimatum was clear. For now, her life as a spy's secret girlfriend would have to be put on hold for the far less glamorous life of a common thief.

Their target for the evening was the very apartment building where Terry lived. Deidre's logic was cold and simple: it was a place filled with residents who had enough disposable income to afford things worth stealing, and they had already done extensive, albeit unintentional, reconnaissance of the lobby and its surroundings. She wasn't planning on breaking into apartments—not yet. She was focused on the residents themselves. The ones walking to and from the building, distracted by their communicators, their arms full of shopping bags.

"Okay." Deidre laid out the plan as they found a shadowy alcove across the street, a perfect vantage point. "This is a simple snatch-and-run operation. We work as a team. You, Delia, will be the distraction. I will be the extraction."

Delia's eyes lit up. "A distraction! Like, I create a diversion so the agent can complete his objective?"

Deidre pinched the bridge of her nose, counting to ten in her head. "Yes." she said through gritted teeth, deciding to allow this one small concession to Delia's fantasy world. "Exactly like that. I'll point out the mark. You will approach them and do... whatever it is you do. Be weird. Ask for directions to the moon. Sing a song. I don't care. Just get their attention. When they're focused on you, I'll come from behind and relieve them of their purse or wallet. Then we both run, different directions, and meet back at the old hot dog stand in an hour. Understood?"

"Crystal clear, Commander." Delia chirped, giving a mock salute.

Deidre sighed. It was the best she was going to get.

They waited. The evening rush of residents returning home began. Deidre scanned the crowd, her eyes sharp and calculating. She dismissed a man who looked too athletic, a woman who held her purse like a defensive weapon. Then she saw him. The perfect mark. A portly man in an expensive suit, talking loudly on his phone, a briefcase in one hand and a brand-new, top-of-the-line datapad held loosely in the other. He was a walking buffet of opportunity.

"Okay. Him. The loud guy." Deidre whispered, pointing him out. "Target the datapad. It's newer, easier to sell. Go."

Delia took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. She was no longer Delia Dennis, hungry delinquent. She was Agent Crimson Kiss, creating a vital diversion. She stepped out of the shadows and directly into the man's path.

"Excuse me, sir!" she said, her voice full of frantic energy.

The man stopped, annoyed at the interruption. "What is it? I'm in the middle of a very important—"

"Have you seen my dog?" Delia asked, her eyes wide with fake panic.

The man blinked. "Your dog? What does it look like?"

"He's invisible!" Delia wailed. "And his name is Bartholomew! He only answers to whistles in the key of G-sharp! Can you whistle?"

The man's face contorted in a mask of pure confusion. He was so completely baffled by the question that his grip on the datapad loosened. It was the perfect opening. Deidre began to move, silent and swift, ready to make the snatch.

But just as she closed the distance, the main doors of the apartment building slid open, and Terry McGinnis walked out.

He was taking out the trash.

It was the single most mundane, anti-climactic thing he could possibly be doing. He wore a faded t-shirt, sweatpants, and a look of profound teenage ennui. He walked to the large refuse chute on the side of the building, completely oblivious to the small-scale crime about to unfold twenty feet away.

Delia saw him. And her brain, the one that was supposed to be focused on invisible dogs and distracting rich businessmen, short-circuited.

Her target was forgotten. The mission was forgotten. All she saw was Agent T, her beloved super-spy, engaged in what could only be a top-secret dead drop.

"The trash!" she gasped, her voice full of sudden realization.

The businessman, still trying to figure out if he should be whistling, turned to her. "What about the trash?"

"It's a signal!" Delia declared, pointing a triumphant finger at Terry. "He's not throwing away garbage! He's dropping off microfilm! Or maybe a coded message inside a banana peel! It's genius!"

Terry, hearing his name shouted, looked up. He saw Delia. He saw the confused businessman she was accosting. He saw Deidre frozen mid-stride, her face a mask of incandescent fury. The pieces clicked into place with horrifying speed. They were trying to rob someone, and his simple act of taking out the trash had inadvertently ruined it.

The businessman, now thoroughly spooked by the wild-eyed girl screaming about spies and banana peels, clutched his datapad to his chest, backed away slowly, and then scurried into the safety of the lobby. The opportunity was gone.

Deidre didn't say a word. She just turned and looked at her sister. The silence was more terrifying than any scream. It was the silence of shattered hopes and murderous rage.

Delia, however, was beaming. "Did you see that, Dee Dee? His form! His focus! He didn't even break a sweat. He's the best there is." She turned, expecting to see her sister sharing in her excitement. Instead, she saw a look that could curdle milk.

"You..." Deidre began, her voice a low, dangerous growl. "...were supposed to be distracting him ." She pointed a trembling finger at the spot where the businessman had been. "Not getting distracted by him!"

"But it was a crucial piece of intelligence!" Delia insisted. "We now know his dead-drop protocol! This is invaluable information for our partnership!"

"WE HAVE NO PARTNERSHIP!" Deidre finally screamed, all pretense of calm shattering into a million pieces. "AND WE HAVE NO MONEY! BECAUSE YOU CANNOT GO FIVE CONSECUTIVE MINUTES WITHOUT HALLUCINATING A SPY MOVIE PLOT AROUND A TEENAGER DOING CHORES!"

Her shout echoed across the plaza. Terry, who had been frozen by the trash chute, just dropped the bag and slowly started backing away toward the door. He wanted no part of this. This was a level of domestic dispute he wasn't equipped to handle, even as Batman.

"You're just mad because you don't appreciate the subtleties of espionage." Delia huffed, crossing her arms.

"I'm mad because we're going to have to eat ketchup packets for dinner!" Deidre shot back. She threw her hands up in the air in a gesture of complete and utter surrender to the universe's cruelty. "That's it. I'm finding a new partner. One who is not in love. One who is not an idiot. One who knows the difference between a dead drop and taking out the damn trash!"

She turned and stalked off into the night, leaving Delia standing alone on the sidewalk.

Delia watched her go, a flicker of uncertainty finally entering her eyes. She then looked over at Terry, who had successfully made it back inside the lobby and was now peering out at her through the glass, his face a perfect portrait of bewildered horror.

She gave him a tentative little wave. He didn't wave back.

For the first time, a sliver of doubt entered her mind. Not about Terry being a spy—that was an undeniable, core truth of her universe. But maybe... maybe her methods were a bit much. Maybe she was being too obvious. A good spy's partner needed to be subtle. She needed to be a shadow, not a spotlight.

She nodded to herself, a new resolve forming. Her approach had been all wrong. She couldn't be a field agent with him. She had to be his intelligence director. His girl in the chair. Watching from the shadows, supporting from a distance.

Yes. That was it. A new, much stealthier plan was in order. She smiled, her confidence restored. Terry wasn't rejecting her. He was challenging her to be better. And she would not fail this new test.

Chapter 9: The Shadow Partner

The departure of her sister, usually a source of minor annoyance, hit Delia with the force of a physical blow. Deidre was her anchor, her sounding board, the deadpan face of reason that kept her own bubbly chaos from floating away into the stratosphere. Standing alone on the cold plaza, with the silence of her twin’s absence ringing in her ears, Delia felt a pang of genuine loneliness. It was quickly followed by a surge of renewed purpose.

This was another test. Of course it was. Terry’s world was too dangerous for a partner who was sloppy, and Deidre, with her screaming and her fixation on petty theft, was a liability. Terry hadn’t just taken out the trash; he had, in his own subtle way, pruned Delia’s support staff. He was forcing her to evolve, to become the partner he needed. A lone wolf like him required a lone wolf-ess. Or something like that.

Her new philosophy was simple: stealth. The overt approach had failed. The grand romantic gestures, the public declarations, the impromptu serenades—they were too loud, too visible. They compromised his cover. From now on, she would be a ghost. A whisper. His girl in the shadows, his unseen asset. She would support his missions without ever being seen.

Her first act as the newly christened ‘Agent Shadow-Kiss’ (a much better code name than ‘Crimson Kiss,’ which felt a bit flashy now) was to find a new base of operations. Terry's lobby was compromised. Deidre had been right about that. She needed a place to lie low, to observe, to plan.

Her eyes scanned the area. The residential block was a monolith of polished chrome and glass, but even paradise has its service entrances. She circled the building, her movements now imbued with a self-important stealthiness. She found what she was looking for around the back: a series of ventilation shafts for the building’s lower-level commercial spaces. The grate on one was secured with standard bolts, an easy mark for someone with nimble fingers and a lifetime of practice in unscrewing things that weren’t meant to be.

A few minutes of quiet work and she slipped inside, pulling the grate shut behind her. The vent was dark and dusty, but it was a palace compared to a rhododendron bush. It was a network. A secret nervous system running through the building. It was, she realized with a thrill, perfect. This would be her new lair. From here, she could be Terry’s guardian angel, his secret sentinel.

She spent the next few hours exploring the labyrinthine network of ducts. It was a surprisingly complex world. She could hear snippets of conversations from the apartments she passed—arguments about synth-cheese, celebrations over vid-game victories, the low hum of someone practicing the synth-flute. She was an invisible observer of a hundred tiny lives.

Finally, she found the main shaft that ran up past Terry’s floor. By pressing her ear to the metal, she could just make out the sounds from Apartment 7B. The loud explosions of Matt’s game. The murmur of Mary McGinnis’s voice on a comm call. And then, the sound she was waiting for: Terry’s voice. He was talking to someone, his tone low and frustrated.

"…no, Max, I don't know where they went. One of them just screamed and ran off. The other one… just stood there." A pause. "Don't you dare say it's romantic. My life is not a bad rom-com."

Delia’s heart swelled. He was talking about her! He was confiding in his contact, ‘Max,’ about the difficult, emotionally charged events of the evening. His frustration wasn't with her, she reasoned; it was with the difficulty of their situation, the pain of having to keep their love a secret.

Her new mission was clear. She wouldn't just follow him. She would actively support him. But how? She couldn't fight his enemies. She couldn’t decode his messages. But she could provide logistical support. A good agent always needed a well-stocked safe house. And a good partner made sure he had what he needed. What did a super-spy need? Energy. Nutrients. Snacks.

The idea hit her with the force of a divine revelation. She would become his secret quartermaster.

The next morning, Terry McGinnis woke up feeling a strange, unfamiliar sensation: peace. He checked the lobby cam. No sign of the Dee Dee twins. He walked to school without the feeling of being watched. He sat in class without a laser-beam of adoration focused on the back of his head. It was over. He had finally, blessedly, achieved a state of boring normalcy that had driven them away. Deidre's explosion must have been the final straw. He had won.

He walked to his locker, a genuine, unforced smile on his face for the first time in days. He worked the combination and pulled the door open.

A single, perfectly ripe banana fell out and landed on the floor.

Terry stared at it. Taped to the banana was a small, neatly folded note. His hands trembling slightly, he picked it up and unfolded it. It was written in bright pink ink.

‘For your mission. High in potassium. Good for muscle cramps during high-speed chases. Your Secret Partner.’

His blood ran cold. She wasn’t gone. She had just changed tactics. He slammed his locker shut, looking around the crowded hallway. Where was she? Was she watching him right now? He felt a dozen pairs of eyes on him, but he couldn't pick her out. She had gone from a spotlight to a ghost. It was, he had to admit, a thousand times worse.

The day was a parade of stealthy gifts. He returned from gym class to find a high-protein nutrient bar tucked into his shoe. He opened his history datapad to find someone had slipped a high-caffeine energy drink into its carrying case. During lunch, while he was in the bathroom, he returned to find a small, hand-drawn map of the school’s security camera blind spots sitting on his tray, with the helpful note: ‘For clandestine meetings.’

Each discovery sent a fresh jolt of anxiety through him. This was worse than being followed. This was an intimate invasion, a series of small, creepy miracles. She was getting into his locker, his gym bag, his private space. How?

Max, of course, found it hysterical.

"She’s your friendly neighborhood stalker-elf." she said, examining the hand-drawn map with professional appreciation. "You know, this is actually pretty accurate. She’s got skills, I’ll give her that. Creepy, terrifying skills."

"How is she doing it, Max?" Terry pleaded, his voice a desperate whisper. "It's like she can walk through walls."

"She’s a master criminal, McGinnis. They’re good at this stuff." Max reasoned. "Or maybe it's just true love. You know what they say. Love will find a way. Apparently, that way is through your locker vent."

Terry spent the rest of the day in a state of paranoid dread. Every shadow held a potential Delia. Every friendly face could be her in a clever disguise. He was living in the kind of spy thriller she thought he was the star of, only he was the terrified civilian, not the hero. He had tried to bore her into submission. Instead, he had inspired her to become a more effective stalker. His plan hadn't just backfired; it had armed the enemy.

Chapter 10: The Infiltration of a Sister

Deidre Dennis was a professional. Professionalism, in her line of work, meant three things: efficiency, profitability, and emotional detachment. Her sister’s recent… entanglement… had violated all three tenets. After the trash chute incident, Deidre had officially dissolved their partnership. She was a solo act now, free from the dead weight of delusional romance.

Freedom, however, was cold and hungry. After a night spent in the relative luxury of a stolen hover-hammock in a public park, she awoke to the grim reality of her situation. She had no money, no connections without Delia’s manic charm, and a city on the lookout for a girl in a jester hat. She needed a new plan. A quiet plan.

The answer, as it often was, came from observing the rich. She spent the morning near a high-end shopping district, watching the idle wealthy float from one boutique to another. They didn’t carry cash; they carried credit chits. But they also carried something else: pets. Small, yapping, ridiculously pampered dogs, carried in designer bags, their little heads adorned with jeweled collars.

The collars. They were small, easy to conceal, and fencing the gems would be far less risky than fencing a famous diamond. The plan was simple: befriend the dog, snip the collar, and disappear. It was beneath her usual standard of high-concept heists, but survival trumped pride.

Her first target was a fluffy white creature named ‘Princess Fluffy-Bottom,’ whose collar sported a series of small but impressive-looking sapphires. Its owner was a woman so engrossed in a holo-call that she barely noticed when Deidre knelt down, cooing at the dog.

"Oh, what a beautiful little cloud you are." Deidre purred, her voice a syrupy imitation of Delia’s charm. It felt unnatural, like wearing shoes on the wrong feet.

The dog, a creature of pure, unadulterated ego, lapped up the attention. Deidre expertly stroked its neck, her fingers locating the clasp on the collar. This was it. A simple flick of the wrist and she’d be back in business.

"Dee Dee? Is that you?"

Deidre froze. That voice. That chipper, devastatingly familiar voice. She looked up. Standing there, holding a bag from ‘Le Woof,’ a ridiculously expensive pet bakery, was Blade. And next to her, looking equally surprised, was Nelson.

Deidre’s mind raced. Blade and Nelson, two of Terry McGinnis's closest friends. What were they doing here? And more importantly, had they seen her about to commit canine-related larceny?

"Uh." Deidre said, her hand recoiling from the dog's collar as if it were red hot. "No. I’m… Shmeedy."

Blade raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "Shmeedy? Really? You look exactly like Delia’s sister."

"It's a common face." Deidre said lamely, standing up and trying to look as non-criminal as possible.

"What are you doing talking to Muffy?" Nelson asked, pointing at the dog, whose owner had finally ended her call and was now looking at Deidre with suspicion.

"We saw you guys hanging around Terry at school." Blade added, her gaze sharp and analytical. "Delia seems to think she's his girlfriend."

Deidre let out a sigh of pure defeat. Her cover as ‘Shmeedy’ was clearly not holding. "She thinks a lot of things." she muttered. "Look, I was just admiring the… craftsmanship of the collar. I’m something of a… jewelry enthusiast."

"Right." Blade said, her tone dripping with disbelief. Nelson, however, seemed to buy it. Or at least, he was more interested in another topic.

"Is Delia okay?" he asked, a hint of genuine concern in his voice. "We haven't seen her today. Terry seems super freaked out, though. Keeps checking his locker for bananas."

Deidre blinked. Bananas? So that was Delia’s new strategy. Secret snack provider. It was just as insane as her old strategies, but quieter. A marginal improvement.

"She’s… pursuing a solo project." Deidre said carefully.

"Well, if you see her, tell her I think it's cool that she thinks Terry's a spy." Nelson said with a goofy grin. "It gives him a little edge, you know?"

Blade rolled her eyes. "Don't encourage her, Nelson. It's obviously weirding Terry out. He’s more jumpy than usual." She looked Deidre up and down, a calculating expression on her face. "You don't seem to be as… enthusiastic… about the whole 'Terry is a secret agent' thing."

This was an opening. A chance to form an alliance. Deidre saw it instantly. Blade was smart. She saw through the nonsense. She could be a valuable asset in the war against Delia’s delusion.

"‘Enthusiastic’ is not the word I would use." Deidre admitted, her professional mask cracking to reveal a sliver of genuine frustration. "It's a professional liability."

Blade nodded, a small smile touching her lips. She understood. "Tell me about it. He's my partner for the history project, and I can't get a straight answer out of him about the Pan-American Conflict because he's too busy checking for listening devices in the light fixtures."

An idea began to form in Deidre’s mind. A beautiful, terrible, brilliant idea. Delia’s obsession was centered on Terry. If Deidre could get close to Terry's inner circle, she could monitor Delia’s activities. She could run interference. And, more importantly, Terry’s friends were rich kids. They hung out in expensive places. They had access. Proximity to them meant proximity to opportunity.

She could be a double agent. Posing as a reluctant ally to Terry’s friends, all while keeping an eye on her sister and looking for her own scores. It was complex. It was dangerous. It was perfect.

"Look." Deidre said, her tone shifting to one of conspiracy. "My sister is… imaginative. And stubborn. Trying to talk her out of this spy thing is pointless. But maybe we could… manage the situation. For Terry's sake, of course."

Blade’s smile widened. She liked this. It was intriguing. "Manage it how?"

"Information control." Deidre said, the plan solidifying as she spoke. "If we know what she's planning, we can stay one step ahead of her. Prevent her from doing anything too… disruptive. I can try to find out what she's up to. And you can tell me what Terry's schedule is. Where he's going to be. So I can make sure she's not, you know, replacing the coolant in his hover-car with glitter."

It was a brilliant deception. She was framing her own reconnaissance as a favor to them.

Nelson, ever the simple one, was completely on board. "Yeah! We can be like a support team for the spy and his crazy girlfriend! We can call ourselves… the Normalizers!"

Blade winced at the name but seemed to approve of the concept. "Fine. But if I get a banana in my locker, the deal's off." She pulled out her datapad. "Give me your comm number. I’ll add you to a private channel. With me, you, and Nelson. We'll call it… 'Project McGinnis.'"

Deidre gave her the number, a feeling of triumph washing over her. She had failed to steal a dog collar, but she had succeeded at something far more valuable. She had infiltrated the target's inner circle. She had a new source of intel, a new level of access, and a new cover. She was no longer just Deidre Dennis, hungry criminal. She was a key player in 'Project McGinnis.' This was going to be far more profitable than gems.

Chapter 11: The Batman Backfire

The stealth-snack campaign continued for two more days. Terry found an apple in his desk, a bag of synth-jerky in his P.E. shorts, and a thermos of hot soup left on the windowsill of his bedroom, a terrifying feat of infiltration that implied Delia was now scaling the side of his apartment building. Bruce Wayne’s assessment of the situation had gone from ‘security risk’ to ‘imminent threat.’

"She is demonstrating skills in infiltration, surveillance, and circumvention of security measures that are, frankly, impressive." Bruce grumbled, his voice echoing in the Batcave. He was watching security footage from Terry’s school, which Max had helpfully hacked for him. It showed a figure, identifiable as Delia only by her orange hair, shimmying through a ceiling vent like a seasoned commando. "If she weren’t a public menace, I’d consider recruiting her."

"Please don’t." Terry begged. He was pacing in front of the Batcomputer, a half-eaten energy bar clutched in his hand. He’d found it taped to the bottom of the Batmobile’s driver’s seat. "Bruce, this is out of control. I can’t eat anything I haven’t personally unwrapped in a hermetically sealed room. I’m living in constant fear of finding a loving note attached to my food."

"Your ‘boring’ plan was a catastrophic failure." Bruce stated, not unkindly. "You presented her with a challenge, and she escalated. We need a new approach. A more… direct deterrent."

"Like what?" Terry asked, stopping his pacing. "An anonymous tip to the cops? You said you didn’t want to do that."

"No. That’s a blunt instrument. This requires a scalpel." Bruce said, a grim look on his face. He turned his chair away from the console to face Terry directly. "She idolizes your ‘secret agent’ persona. She sees you as a protector, a hero working from the shadows. But she despises Batman. You’ve said so yourself."

Terry’s eyes widened as he understood. "Oh. Oh, no."

"She thinks Batman is a bully." Bruce continued, his logic cold and inescapable. "A buzzkill who ruins everything. If Batman were to personally warn her away from Terry McGinnis… if he were to present himself as a threat not to her, but to you … her narrative would be forced to adapt."

"You want me to… as Batman… threaten myself?" Terry asked, his brain struggling to process the pretzel logic.

"Precisely. She thinks Terry is a lone-wolf spy. What if that spy had a powerful, dangerous enemy? An enemy who knows his civilian identity and is threatening to hurt him by targeting those close to him? Batman becomes the villain of her story. And to protect Terry, her hero, she would have to do the one thing he wants. She would have to stay away."

It was, Terry had to admit, a brilliantly convoluted plan. It was psychological warfare, tailored specifically to Delia’s delusion. It was also completely insane.

"This is going to end badly." Terry said, but he knew he had no other options.

The next evening, they put the plan into motion. Max, via the ‘Project McGinnis’ channel (which she had immediately hacked), got a tip from Deidre that Delia was planning to camp out in her ventilation-shaft-hideout near Terry’s apartment. It was the perfect, private location for an ambush.

Delia was in her ‘lair,’ humming happily to herself. She was sketching out uniform designs for her and Terry’s future spy team on a stolen napkin. She’d decided on a practical but stylish white and red catsuit for herself, with pink accents, of course. She was just debating the strategic value of a glitter bomb pocket when a sudden, cold draft blew through the vent.

The grate at the far end of the shaft was torn from its moorings with a screech of metal. A large, dark figure blotted out the light from the alleyway.

It was him. The Bat-freak. The cosmic bully.

Delia scrambled back, her heart pounding with a mixture of fear and pure, unadulterated hatred. His silhouette was even more imposing up close, the glowing red eyes of his cowl cutting through the darkness like angry lasers.

Batman’s voice, filtered through his modulator, was a low, mechanical growl that vibrated through the metal shaft. "Delia Dennis."

"What do you want, Bat-brain?" she spat, her fear quickly being replaced by defiance. "Come to lecture me about the importance of respecting public property? Go bother a real villain."

"I’m not here about you." Batman growled, taking a slow, deliberate step into the vent. He had to crouch, the space too small for his full height, which only made him look more like a caged predator. "I’m here about him. Terry McGinnis."

Delia froze. He knew Terry’s name. How did this creep know Terry’s name?

"I know you’ve been following him." Batman continued, his voice dripping with menace. "You need to stop. He’s in over his head. And you… you are a loose end. A liability."

Delia’s mind raced, trying to process this new, terrifying data. Batman, the city’s number one fun-hater, was threatening her. But he wasn’t threatening her because she was a criminal. He was threatening her because of Terry.

"You’re meddling in things you don’t understand." Batman said, his voice dropping even lower. "McGinnis is playing a very dangerous game. And I am not going to let a giddy, lovesick amateur get in his way. Or get him hurt."

It was at that moment that Delia’s entire worldview didn’t just shift; it underwent a seismic, tectonic realignment. Every piece of the puzzle, every confusing interaction, suddenly slammed into place.

Batman wasn’t Terry’s enemy. He wasn’t a rival spy. He was… the competition. A government stooge. A clunky, heavy-handed agent from some boring, official agency, trying to muscle in on her Terry’s turf.

Terry was the lone wolf, the independent operative, fighting the good fight on his own terms. And Batman was The Man. The establishment. The bureaucratic bully trying to control him, or worse, eliminate the competition. Terry wasn’t just a spy. He was a rebel spy.

The fear vanished, replaced by a white-hot surge of protective fury.

"You stay away from him." Delia snarled, her voice a low hiss. She got to her feet, her small frame bristling with newfound purpose. In the cramped vent, they were almost eye-to-eye. "You think you can bully him, just because you have a fancy suit and a government budget? Terry is twice the agent you’ll ever be! He’s got heart! He’s got mystique! All you’ve got is bad lighting and a grumpy attitude!"

Batman was, for the first time in his long, storied career, speechless. This was not the reaction the plan had predicted. He was supposed to be the terrifying monster. Instead, he had become the villainous bureaucrat from a bad action movie.

"He doesn’t need your protection." Delia continued, poking a finger at his armored chest plate. It was like poking a rock. "He has me. And I’m not going to let some government goon in a bat costume scare me off. So you can crawl back to whatever soulless agency you work for and tell them that Terry McGinnis is off-limits. He’s under my protection now."

She was standing up to Batman. For Terry. It was the single most heroic, romantic thing she had ever done.

Batman just stared at her. His brilliant, convoluted, psychological warfare plan had backfired so spectacularly that it had looped all the way around and actually reinforced her delusion, making it stronger and more specific than ever before.

"My mistake." he finally managed to say, his voice modulator unable to hide the note of utter defeat. He backed slowly out of the vent and disappeared into the night.

Delia stood there, panting, her body humming with adrenaline. She had faced down Terry’s greatest enemy. She had proven her loyalty. This changed everything. She wasn’t just his secret partner anymore. She was his sworn protector. The rogue agent defending her rogue agent. Her love for him had never been stronger.

Chapter 12: The Wayne Manor Pilgrimage

The Batman incident, which Terry mentally referred to as ‘The Great Backfire,’ had a profound and immediate effect. Delia’s care packages stopped. The stealthy gifts ceased. For a full day, there was silence. Terry dared to hope that, despite the disastrous outcome of the confrontation, it had somehow worked. Perhaps the sheer weirdness of it all had caused her brain to reboot.

The hope was, as always, painfully misplaced. She hadn’t been scared off. She had been inspired. She was no longer content to be a support operative. After facing down his ‘greatest enemy,’ she felt she had earned a promotion. She needed to see the heart of his operation. She needed to meet his handler.

She needed to go to Wayne Manor.

The decision was made with the solemnity of a knight embarking on a holy quest. Deidre, who had returned to the fold after a spectacularly unsuccessful solo career (which had netted her a half-eaten bag of pretzels and a warrant for ‘disturbing the peace’ in a high-end pet salon), was horrified.

"You want to go to the creepy old billionaire’s house?" Deidre asked, her voice flat with disbelief. They were huddled in their ventilation shaft, which Delia had now decorated with her napkin-sketches and a string of stolen fairy lights. It was her ‘Command Center.’

"It’s not a house, Dee Dee. It’s a headquarters." Delia corrected her loftily. "And he’s not a creepy old billionaire. He’s a spymaster. The ‘M’ to Terry’s ‘Bond.’ I need to meet him. I need to show him that I’m a serious asset to the organization. That I’m worthy of Terry."

"You’re worthy of a restraining order." Deidre muttered, but she knew it was pointless to argue. Delia had a look in her eye, a fervent gleam that Deidre had come to recognize. It was the look she got right before she did something incredibly stupid but with unshakeable conviction. Besides, Deidre was morbidly curious. What kind of man was rich enough to employ a teenager as a spy? Maybe there was something worth stealing.

The next afternoon, they put the plan into action. They took the bus out to the affluent suburbs, the air growing cleaner and the houses growing larger with every stop. When the towering, gothic gates of Wayne Manor came into view, Delia let out a breathy sigh.

"It’s perfect." she whispered. "So imposing. So secretive. There are probably laser grids and sharks in that moat."

"That’s a reflecting pool, Delia." Deidre said, pointing to the perfectly calm body of water. "And those are decorative gargoyles, not automated gun turrets."

Delia ignored her sister’s cynical commentary. This was a pilgrimage.

They didn’t try the front gate. That was for amateurs. Delia, empowered by her new self-appointed status as a top-tier operative, led them on a long trek around the property’s perimeter. She was looking for a weak point, a blind spot in the security. She found it in a section of the old stone wall that was crumbling slightly, partially obscured by a thick growth of ancient ivy. It was a clear ‘secret entrance’ for agents in the know.

Deidre just thought it was poor maintenance.

They scaled the wall with practiced ease, dropping silently onto the manicured lawns of the estate. The grounds were vast and eerily quiet, the silence broken only by the cawing of crows and the distant hum of a robotic lawnmower.

"Okay." Delia whispered, her eyes wide with excitement. "The handler—Mr. Wayne—will be in the main control center. We just have to find it."

They crept toward the colossal manor, moving from bush to ornate statue. Deidre was appraising the lead piping on the drain spouts, while Delia was looking for secret keypads and retinal scanners.

As they got closer, they heard voices. Terry’s voice, and the gruff, low rumble of an old man. They were in a small, private garden just off the main house, sitting at a wrought iron table. Bruce Wayne, in the flesh. He looked older and more tired than Delia had imagined, but his eyes were sharp, missing nothing. He was the very picture of a seasoned spymaster, weary from a lifetime of secrets.

"…and then she poked me in the chest." Terry was saying, his voice full of exasperated disbelief. "She poked the Batsuit and told me to leave myself alone. Bruce, my brain still hurts."

"The plan was flawed in its initial premise." Bruce grumbled, taking a sip of tea. "We underestimated the sheer, gravitational force of her delusion. It warps reality around it."

Delia’s heart fluttered. They were talking about her! About her heroic stand against the Bat-freak! Terry was debriefing his handler! She had to make her presence known. This was the moment.

She took a deep breath, stepped out from behind a large, Grecian-style urn, and said, "He was a bully. And you should be proud of him for standing up to him."

Terry froze mid-sentence, his face going pale. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. A ghost in a bright red top and orange hair.

Bruce Wayne didn’t flinch. He simply turned his head slowly, his expression unreadable, and fixed his gaze on the two girls who had just materialized in his private garden. Deidre gave a hesitant little wave, as if to say, ‘Don’t mind us, we’re just here with the crazy one.’

"Terry-bear." Delia said, her voice soft and full of reverence as she approached the table. She completely ignored Terry, her focus entirely on the old man. "I mean… Agent T." She corrected herself quickly. "He didn’t tell me you were having a field meeting. I apologize for the intrusion, sir."

She was talking to Bruce. Calling him ‘sir.’ Terry looked back and forth between the two of them, his mind unable to compute the scene unfolding before him.

"I’m Delia Dennis." she continued, her cheeks flushing slightly. She was actually shy. For the first time since he’d met her, Delia seemed nervous. She was in the presence of her hero’s hero. "Terry’s… partner."

Bruce just stared at her for a long moment. Then he looked at Terry, one eyebrow raised in a silent, scathing question. ‘This is your life now?’

"Mr. Wayne." Delia said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I know everything. About the agency. About the missions. About the constant danger. And I want you to know, I am one hundred percent committed to supporting your top agent. Whatever it takes."

Deidre, meanwhile, had sidled up to the table and was subtly examining the silver teapot, trying to see if there was a maker’s mark on the bottom.

Terry finally found his voice. "What are you doing here? How did you get in?"

"A good agent never reveals her methods of infiltration." Delia said with a wink, before turning her full attention back to Bruce. "Sir, I have so many ideas. About support, logistics, even potential new gadgets. For instance, a grappling hook that also dispenses confetti. For celebratory exits."

Bruce Wayne, the man who had faced down the Joker, who had battled cosmic tyrants, who had stared into the abyss and made it blink, looked at Delia Dennis, the girl who wanted to weaponize confetti, and for a fleeting second, a look of pure, unadulterated bewilderment crossed his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. The Batman was, once again, speechless.

Chapter 13: An Audience with the Spymaster

The silence that followed Delia’s confetti-grappling-hook proposal was thick and profound. Terry sat frozen, a statue carved from pure mortification. Deidre had abandoned her appraisal of the teapot and was now examining the intricate stitching on the patio umbrella, clearly dissociating from the situation entirely. All focus was on Bruce, the elder statesman of espionage, as he processed the information that had just been presented to him.

Delia, mistaking his stunned silence for thoughtful consideration, pressed on. "Or a communications device disguised as a tube of lipstick! I know Terry doesn't wear lipstick, but I could! I could be his communications hub! I’m very good at talking."

Bruce finally found his voice. It was a low, gravelly thing, a voice accustomed to command, but now it was laced with a note of deep weariness. "Miss Dennis." he began, his eyes still locked on her. "Please. Sit." He gestured to the empty chair at the table.

Delia beamed, pulling out the chair and sitting down with a prim posture that was completely at odds with her usual manic energy. She was having a formal meeting with the head of the secret agency. This was a career milestone. Deidre, sensing this was about to take a while, sat on the edge of a nearby fountain, looking bored.

"Terry." Bruce said, his gaze flicking to the boy. "Go inside. Get our… guests… some refreshments." It was an order, not a request. It was a clear dismissal. ‘Let the adults handle this.’

Terry, grateful for any excuse to escape the vortex of awkwardness, practically bolted from his chair and hurried into the manor. He didn't know what Bruce was planning, but anything was better than sitting there while Delia pitched weaponized party favors.

Once Terry was gone, Bruce folded his hands on the table and leaned forward slightly, fixing Delia with an intense, analytical stare. "So." he said, his voice dropping into a more confidential tone. "You believe my associate, Mr. McGinnis, is a secret agent."

"I don’t believe it, sir. I know it." Delia said with utter conviction. "I’ve seen the signs. The secrecy. The disappearances. The way he’s always alert, like he’s scanning for threats. And I saw how he stood up to that awful Batman. He’s a true hero. A rebel. The best you have."

Bruce absorbed this, his expression unchanging. "And what, in your opinion, is the nature of our… agency?"

"Oh, well, it’s obviously a deep-cover, non-official organization." Delia explained, now fully in her element. She was talking shop with the big boss. "You work outside the system. You handle the threats the regular authorities can’t, or won’t. You’re the real protectors of the city. And your cover as a reclusive, eccentric billionaire is, if you don’t mind me saying so, absolutely brilliant. No one would ever suspect."

"No." Bruce said, a hint of dry amusement in his voice. "I suppose they wouldn’t."

He had to admit, the girl had constructed a remarkably cohesive, if completely wrong, fantasy. She had taken the raw data of Terry’s chaotic life and molded it into a narrative that made a strange kind of sense.

"And your role in this?" Bruce asked, his tone that of a therapist gently probing a patient’s delusion.

"I’m his partner." Delia said, her voice softening. A genuine, heartfelt emotion entered her eyes. "Or, I want to be. I know I’ve been a little… overeager. I’m not a trained field agent like him. But I’m loyal. And I’m brave. I stood up to Batman for him! And I want to help. I want to be the person he can count on, the one who watches his back when he’s out there, alone in the dark."

She leaned forward, her hands clasped on the table. "I know he has to have his cover identity, the normal life, the normal girlfriend—Dana, I think her name is. I understand that. It’s part of the job. But I’m not part of the cover. I’m part of the mission. And I think… I think he feels the same way. He just can’t say it. Because of the rules. Because of the danger."

Her voice trembled slightly. For all her manic energy and bizarre logic, the emotion behind it was real. Her belief in this fantasy was absolute, and her affection for the ‘Agent T’ she had invented was profound.

Bruce Wayne looked at this girl, this whirlwind of chaos and misplaced devotion, and he felt something he hadn't felt in a very long time: tired. He was too old for this. He had dealt with mad clowns, women who could turn to ink, and men who could shatter steel with their voices. But a teenage girl with a crush so powerful it had its own gravitational field? This was a new kind of challenge.

He couldn't crush her fantasy. It would be cruel, and likely pointless. Her belief system was too entrenched. But he couldn't let it continue. It was too dangerous for Terry, and for her.

He sighed, a long, slow exhalation of air. He had to try. He had to plant a seed of doubt.

"Miss Dennis." he said, his voice gentle. "The life of an operative… it’s a lonely one. It requires sacrifices. Sometimes, the greatest support you can offer someone in that position isn’t to join them in the field, but to give them a space of normalcy to return to. A life outside the mission."

He was trying to give her an out. A way to gracefully exit the narrative she had created.

Delia’s eyes filled with tears. But they weren’t tears of sadness. They were tears of understanding. "I see." she whispered, nodding slowly. "You’re right. I’ve been too focused on being his partner. I haven’t thought about being his… sanctuary." She looked up at Bruce, her face shining with a new, even more potent revelation. "He needs me to be the reason he comes home. The normal life he’s fighting for. I have to protect his civilian life, not just his secret one. Oh, Mr. Wayne, you’re not just a spymaster. You’re a poet."

Bruce Wayne rested his forehead in his hand. His brilliant, subtle, psychological intervention had once again backfired, adding a new, even more complicated chapter to her delusion. He had tried to douse the fire and had instead handed her a flamethrower.

Terry returned at that moment, carrying a tray with three glasses of lemonade. He saw Bruce’s posture of defeat, and Delia’s face of beatific enlightenment, and he knew, with a sinking feeling in his gut, that whatever had just happened, it had only made things worse.

Chapter 14: The Harley Quinn Gambit

The drive back into the city from Wayne Manor was filled with an unnerving silence. Terry was at the wheel of a nondescript sedan Bruce kept for such occasions, with the Dee Dee twins in the back seat. Delia was quiet, lost in thought, contemplating her new, profound understanding of her role in Terry’s life. Deidre was busy trying to discreetly remove a small, silver statuette of a quail she had lifted from the manor’s library and hidden in her boot.

When they arrived back at Terry’s apartment block, Delia turned to him before getting out of the car.

"Terry." she said, her voice imbued with a new, serious gravity. "Don’t worry. I understand now. Your secret is safe. And so is your heart." She gave him a slow, meaningful wink, then hopped out of the car and disappeared into the night.

Deidre just grunted a "Thanks for the ride." and followed, the quail making a slight bulge in her sock.

Terry drove straight back to the Batcave, his head pounding. He found Bruce staring at the giant computer screen, a map of Neo-Gotham displayed on it, though he didn’t seem to be looking at it.

"She thinks you’re a poet." Terry said, slumping into a chair.

"She thinks I endorsed her delusion with a thin veneer of philosophical nonsense." Bruce corrected him, not turning around. "My attempt at de-escalation was an unmitigated disaster."

"So what now?" Terry asked, his voice laced with desperation. "Do we just accept that my life is now the subject of a one-woman spy movie? She’s not going to stop, Bruce. She’s just going to get weirder and more… subtle."

Bruce was silent for a long moment, the hum of the cave’s machinery filling the void. "When logic fails." he said finally, turning his chair to face Terry, "and when psychological tactics backfire… you are left with one final option."

"Which is?" Terry asked, leaning forward.

"Family." Bruce stated. "This is a generational problem. It requires a generational solution."

Terry frowned, confused. "What are you talking about?"

Bruce pulled up a file on the main screen. It was an old GCPD rap sheet, yellowed and digitized. The mug shot showed a young woman with blonde pigtails, dressed in a jester costume, a manic, love-struck grin on her face. Dr. Harleen Quinzel. Harley Quinn.

"The Dennis twins are her granddaughters." Bruce explained. "From her daughter. She had a life after… him." Bruce never said the Joker’s name if he could help it. "From what I hear, she’s long since retired. Found a measure of peace. But she knows, better than anyone, the destructive nature of this kind of… fixation."

Terry stared at the screen. Harley Quinn. She was a legend, a nightmare from Gotham’s past. He’d read the files. She was a psychopath, the Joker’s number one accomplice.

"You want me to go to Harley Quinn for help?" Terry asked, incredulous. "The old Harley Quinn? Isn’t she… you know… crazy?"

"She’s eighty years old, Terry." Bruce said. "And she’s a survivor. She outlived him, she outlived her obsession. She spent decades trying to undo the damage he did to her, and the damage she did for him. She’s a psychiatrist again, or so the files say. A very good one. She specializes in obsession." The irony was so thick it was almost visible in the air.

"And you think she’ll help?"

"She loves her granddaughters, even if she disapproves of their chosen profession." Bruce said. "And she, of all people, will understand the danger Delia is in. The danger of building your world around a man who is more symbol than reality."

It was a long shot. A wild, desperate, last-ditch effort. But it was the only plan they had left.

Finding the modern-day Harleen Quinzel wasn’t hard for Batman. She lived in a quiet, unassuming townhouse in a sleepy corner of Old Gotham, under her real name. There was no sign of the chaos that had once defined her life, just a neatly tended garden and a small brass plaque by the door that read: ‘Dr. H. Quinzel, PhD. By Appointment Only.’

Terry went as himself, not as Batman. This required a delicate touch. He stood on her doorstep, his heart pounding, and rang the bell.

The woman who answered the door was small and wiry, her hair a stylish shock of white, cut short. She wore sensible clothes and glasses perched on her nose. The only hint of her past were her eyes. They were bright, intelligent, and held a flicker of something wild and unpredictable, like the ghost of a firework.

"Yes?" she said, her voice raspy but firm.

"Dr. Quinzel?" Terry said, his own voice sounding weak. "My name is Terry McGinnis. I… I need to talk to you about your granddaughters."

Harley’s expression hardened slightly. "Are they in trouble? Did they steal something of yours?"

"No. Well, yes, but that’s not why I’m here." Terry stammered. "It’s… it’s complicated. It’s about Delia."

Harley sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to carry the weight of decades. "The boy." she said. It wasn’t a question. "She’s fallen for a boy. I get the frantic comm calls from Dee Dee. She won’t stop talking about him." She looked Terry up and down. "So. You’re the one."

"I think there’s been a misunderstanding." Terry said quickly. "She has this idea that I’m… someone I’m not."

Harley just looked at him, a strange, sad smile on her face. "Oh, honey." she said, her voice softening. "That’s how it always starts." She opened the door wider. "You’d better come in. This sounds like it’s going to take a while. And probably some tea. The strong kind."

Terry stepped inside, feeling like he had just walked into the pages of a history book. He was about to ask the world’s foremost expert on criminal obsession for dating advice. This had to be a new low.

Chapter 15: A Tea Party with a Legend

The inside of Harleen Quinzel’s home was the polar opposite of what Terry might have expected. It was calm, tastefully decorated, and filled with books. There were no oversized mallets, no taxidermied hyenas, no hints of the chaotic persona she had shed decades ago. It was the home of a scholar, a therapist. It was aggressively normal.

She led him to a cozy living room and gestured for him to sit in a comfortable-looking armchair. "Earl Grey or chamomile?" she asked from the small, attached kitchen.

"Uh, whatever you're having." Terry said, feeling completely out of his depth.

"Earl Grey it is." she called back. "A little caffeine helps when discussing the follies of the heart."

She returned a few minutes later with a tray bearing a porcelain teapot and two delicate cups. She poured with a steady hand, her movements precise and practiced. She was the picture of serene old age. Terry found it deeply unsettling.

"So." she said, settling into the chair opposite him and taking a sip of her tea. "Mr. McGinnis. Tell me about this 'misunderstanding.'"

Terry took a deep breath. "Your granddaughter, Delia… she's got this idea in her head. She thinks I'm a secret agent."

Harley paused, the teacup halfway to her lips. She blinked once, then twice. A slow smile spread across her face, a complex expression that was equal parts amusement, sadness, and something else—nostalgia, perhaps.

"A secret agent?" she repeated, her voice laced with a dry, dark humor. "Well, that's a new one. In my day, we just called them 'men with secrets.' A bit more on the nose, I suppose. Go on."

Terry recounted the entire saga. The hot dog stand. The chase through the city. The siege of his apartment. The stealth bananas. The disastrous Batman confrontation. The meeting with Bruce Wayne, the "spymaster." He left out the parts about actually being Batman, of course, framing his "work" for Bruce as the vaguely defined assistant job that Dana had so derided.

Harley listened patiently, her expression a careful mask of professional neutrality. But as he spoke, her sad smile deepened. She nodded along at certain parts, as if she recognized the patterns, the escalating beats of the story.

When he finally finished, sputtering to a halt with the tale of Delia's new role as his "sanctuary." Harley was silent for a long moment. She stared into her teacup as if reading the future in the leaves.

"She's built a fantasy." Harley said softly, more to herself than to him. "A big, beautiful, elaborate fantasy. They do that, my girls. They have my imagination. And my flair for the dramatic." She looked up at Terry, her gaze sharp and penetrating. "And this fantasy, it's a suit of armor. It protects her from the truth."

"What truth?" Terry asked.

"That life is boring." Harley said with a shrug. "That love isn't always a lightning strike. That sometimes, a boy is just a boy, not a cause. She doesn't want a boyfriend, honey. She wants a mission. She wants a story to be in. And you're the star."

It was the most insightful, accurate assessment of the situation Terry had heard. She had dissected Delia's psyche in under a minute.

"So what do I do?" Terry pleaded. "We tried ignoring her. We tried being mean. We tried scaring her. We tried reasoning with her 'handler.' Everything we do just becomes another chapter in her story."

Harley sighed, placing her teacup on its saucer with a faint click. "You can't fight the story. You can't reason with it. It's not about logic. It's about a feeling. She feels like she's part of something grand and secret and romantic. Trying to tell her it's not real is like trying to tell a tidal wave to be less wet. It's a waste of breath."

"So you can't help?" Terry asked, a wave of disappointment washing over him. This was their last, best hope.

"I didn't say that." Harley said, a mischievous glint entering her eye. It was the first, genuine spark of the old Harley Quinn he'd seen. "I can't destroy the fantasy. But I can talk to her. I can try to… add a new character to the story. Myself. The wise, old, retired agent who's seen it all and is here to give some friendly advice."

She leaned forward, her voice dropping conspiratorially. "I'll tell her that the best partners for secret agents are the ones who have their own lives. Their own missions. That clinging too tightly can compromise the entire operation. I'll use her own language. I'll try to nudge her narrative in a less… invasive direction."

It was another plan based on manipulating Delia's delusion. Terry had a very bad track record with those. But this time, the plan was coming from the master.

"And if that doesn't work?" Terry asked.

Harley Quinn leaned back in her chair and a genuine, hearty laugh escaped her lips. It was a surprising, rusty sound, full of life. "If that doesn't work?" she said, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. "Then I'm afraid you're stuck, kid."

She looked at him, her smile softening into something genuine and almost kind. "You know." she mused, "it's almost romantic, in a completely deranged, messed-up way. A girl with a little bit of Joker in her, falling head over heels for a boy with a whole lot of Batman in him."

Terry froze, his blood turning to ice. A boy with a whole lot of Batman in him. What did she mean? Did she know? Had she seen through his story?

He stared at her, his heart hammering in his chest. Harley just winked, a slow, deliberate motion. "Don't worry." she said, her voice a low purr. "I was a psychiatrist long before I was a punchline. I know how to keep a secret. Especially a juicy one."

She stood up, signaling the end of their meeting. "I'll talk to Delia. No promises. But I'll try."

Terry left the townhouse feeling more confused and terrified than when he had arrived. He had come for a solution and had left with a new, terrifying secret. Harley Quinn, the Joker's old flame, knew. She wouldn't tell anyone, he was sure of that. But she knew. And she found it funny. The cosmic joke of Gotham City had just gotten another punchline.

Chapter 16: A Grandmother Gambit

Dr. Harleen Quinzel was true to her word. Two days after her unsettling tea party with Terry, she summoned her granddaughters to her townhouse. It was not a friendly invitation; it was a command performance.

Delia was thrilled. A summons from her grandma, the legendary (in Delia's mind) retired operative of the Suicide Squad, could only mean one thing: she was being officially recognized. This was her induction into the secret world, a formal acknowledgment of her new role.

Deidre was less enthusiastic. A summons from grandma usually meant a lecture, a psychological evaluation, or both. It also meant having to pretend she hadn't been actively trying to pawn grandma's antique silver sugar tongs for the past week.

They arrived to find Harley waiting for them in her study, a room lined with even more books than the living room. It smelled of old paper and Earl Grey tea. She sat behind a large, imposing desk, the very picture of clinical authority.

"Girls." she began, not bothering with pleasantries. "We need to talk about your recent… career choices."

"I know!" Delia chirped, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Isn't it great? I'm working with a top-level independent agent now. We're fighting a shadow war against the corrupt establishment, personified by that big jerk, Batman!"

Harley held up a hand, silencing her. "I'm not talking about him." she said, her gaze fixed on Delia. "I'm talking about you, Delia. I had a visit from your 'agent.' Mr. McGinnis."

Delia gasped, her hands flying to her cheeks. "He came to you? To tell you about my promotion?"

"He came to me." Harley said, her voice firm but gentle, "because he is concerned. He's a boy, Delia. A high school student with a complicated part-time job. He is not a secret agent."

Delia's face fell. This wasn't how she had pictured her induction ceremony. "No. You're wrong." she said, shaking her head. "You don't understand. He's just being modest. It's part of his cover."

Deidre, who had been silently hoping to blend into the wallpaper, decided to seize the opportunity. "She's right, Delia. He's just a kid. A sad kid who you've been terrorizing with fruit."

Delia shot her a look of betrayal. "You're just jealous because my boyfriend has a cool, secret life and we're just common criminals."

"Girls, enough." Harley said, her voice sharp, cutting through their bickering. She leaned forward, adopting the persona she had described to Terry: the wise, retired agent.

"Delia, listen to me." she said, her tone softening. "Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're right. Let's say this boy is exactly who you think he is. A lone wolf. A rogue operative."

Delia nodded eagerly. Her grandmother was finally getting it.

"I was partnered with a man like that once." Harley continued, a shadow passing over her features. "A rogue. A freelancer. Someone who played by his own rules. And I can tell you from experience, the most dangerous thing for a man like that is a partner who can't stand on her own. A partner who defines her whole life by his."

She was using the language of the fantasy, just as she'd planned. She was trying to nudge the narrative.

"A real asset, a real partner." Harley said, her voice persuasive, "has her own missions. Her own skills. Her own life. She doesn't follow her agent around, leaving him snacks. She's out in the world, gathering intel, honing her craft, becoming so capable that he has to come to her. The best way to support a secret agent, honey, is to give him space. To let him operate, knowing he has a competent, independent partner to call on when the time is right."

She leaned back, letting the words sink in. It was a masterful piece of psychological redirection. She hadn't denied the fantasy; she had reframed it. She had given Delia a new way to perform her role, a way that was less invasive and, hopefully, would lead to her eventually losing interest.

Delia was silent for a full minute, her brow furrowed in deep concentration. Deidre held her breath. Even Harley seemed to be waiting with anticipation.

Finally, Delia looked up, her eyes shining with a terrifying, new form of clarity. "You're right." she whispered in awe. "Oh, Grams, you're a genius."

Harley allowed herself a small, hopeful smile. "I'm glad you see—"

"I've been going about this all wrong!" Delia exclaimed, jumping to her feet and beginning to pace the study. "I've been trying to be his partner, but I haven't been earning it! I've been a groupie! A fan! Not a professional!"

Deidre groaned and rested her head in her hands. This was not the intended outcome.

"I need my own operations!" Delia declared, her mind racing with new possibilities. "I need to build my own network! I need to pull off my own heists—not for money, but to prove my skills! I need to become a master thief in my own right, so that when Terry needs a specialist for an impossible job, he'll know exactly who to call! I'm not his partner yet. I'm a candidate! I'm in training!"

The grandmother gambit had failed. It had failed just as spectacularly as every other plan. Harley had tried to gently guide the narrative toward a quiet conclusion, and Delia had interpreted it as a call to arms, a mandate to become a more ambitious and high-profile criminal.

Harley Quinn, the woman who had once tried to psychoanalyze the Joker himself, just stared at her granddaughter, utterly defeated. She had unleashed a new, even more motivated version of Delia upon the world.

"This." Deidre said to no one in particular, "is why I prefer to steal things. They're less complicated."

Delia rushed over and gave her grandmother a fierce hug. "Thank you, Grams! Thank you for showing me the way! I have so much work to do!"

And with that, she grabbed Deidre's arm and dragged her out of the townhouse, her mind already buzzing with plans for her first "audition heist."

Harley was left alone in her study, the silence of the room mocking her. She walked over to her comm unit and pinged the secret number Bruce had given Terry.

Terry answered on the first ring, his voice hopeful. "Did it work?"

Harley took a long, deep breath. "Mr. McGinnis." she said, her voice dripping with the exhaustion of a lifetime of dealing with obsession. "I believe the clinical term for your situation is 'royally screwed.' I have inadvertently motivated her to become a supervillain to impress you. I do hope you have good insurance."

She disconnected the call, sank into her chair, and for the first time in a long time, thought that maybe her Puddin' had the right idea after all. Chaos was so much simpler when you weren't trying to fix it.

Chapter 17: The Audition Heist

Delia was a woman transformed. The talk with her grandmother hadn’t just given her a new purpose; it had given her a professional framework. She was no longer a lovesick girl, but an operative-in-training. Every action now had a goal: to demonstrate her skills and prove her worthiness to her future partner, Agent T.

"Okay." she announced, back in the ventilation-shaft command center. She had tacked up a new, large piece of stolen architectural paper and was sketching with a marker. "Phase one of my candidacy: The Audition Heist."

Deidre, who had been dragged along on this new wave of enthusiasm, lay on her back, staring up at the dusty metal ceiling. "I liked it better when you were just leaving him fruit." she said in a monotone. "It was less ambitious."

"This isn’t about ambition, Dee Dee. It’s about showcasing a specific skillset." Delia explained, her marker squeaking as she drew. "Terry is a master of infiltration and subterfuge. I need to show him I can operate on the same level. So, our target has to be impossible. Impenetrable. A true challenge."

She dramatically circled a building on her crude map of downtown Neo-Gotham. "Kord Omnitech." she declared.

Deidre sat up. "Kord? As in, Ted Kord? The guy who basically invented half the security tech in this city? The building that’s famous for being un-breachable? The one that Batman himself supposedly couldn’t get into?"

"Exactly!" Delia chirped. "If I can get in and out of the most secure building in the city, it will be the perfect entry on my resume. Terry will have to be impressed."

"We’ll be arrested." Deidre stated flatly. "Or vaporized. Or both. I’ve read the specs on their defense system. They use sonic dampeners, laser grids synchronized to an atomic clock, and guard drones modeled after angry hornets. It’s not a heist, Delia. It’s a suicide mission."

"It’s a challenge." Delia countered, her eyes gleaming with manic determination. "And I’ve already done the recon."

She gestured to a series of blurry photos on the wall, likely taken with a stolen datapad. "The key is the sanitation cycle. Every night at 3 AM, an automated sanitation drone enters the building through a rooftop maintenance hatch. It’s the only time the outer defenses are momentarily lowered in that specific sector. The drone is our Trojan horse."

The plan was, Deidre had to admit, not completely insane. It was only ninety-eight percent insane. It was the most thought-out, professional heist Delia had planned in years. The irony that her motivation was to impress an imaginary spy boyfriend was not lost on Deidre. But a good plan was a good plan, and Deidre was, above all, a professional. And she was very, very tired of being broke.

"Fine." Deidre sighed, standing up and stretching. "But we’re not stealing anything symbolic. We’re stealing something valuable. They have a prototype micro-fusion battery in their R&D lab. It’s small, portable, and worth enough to keep us in non-stolen food for a year. That’s the target."

"Perfect!" Delia agreed. "A high-value, cutting-edge piece of technology. It’s exactly the kind of thing Terry would be after. It shows we have similar operational goals!"

That night, they put the plan into action. Dressed in their black-and-white bodysuits, they stood on a rooftop opposite the gleaming, monolithic tower of Kord Omnitech. It was a fortress of glass and steel, projecting an aura of quiet, expensive invincibility.

At 2:59 AM, as predicted, a sleek, disc-shaped sanitation drone lifted off from a nearby depot and flew toward the tower.

"That’s our ride." Delia whispered, her body thrumming with excitement.

As the drone neared their rooftop, they took a running leap, their movements synchronized. They landed silently on its flat upper surface, magnets in their boots locking them into place. The drone didn’t even wobble.

They clung to its surface as it docked with the maintenance hatch. A section of the roof slid open, a localized energy field neutralizing the outer defenses just long enough for the drone to slip inside. They were in.

The inside of Kord Omnitech was sterile, silent, and bathed in a soft blue light. They detached from the sanitation drone as it began its cleaning cycle and melted into the shadows of the maintenance corridor.

"Okay." Deidre whispered, checking a schematic on her wrist-comp. "The R&D lab is three floors down. The primary obstacle is the hornet-drones."

As if on cue, a small, black-and-yellow drone zipped past them, its multi-faceted optical sensors glowing red. It moved with a terrifying, insect-like speed.

"They patrol in randomized patterns." Delia said, her research paying off. "But they have a blind spot. Directly underneath them. We just have to be quiet."

They moved through the corridors like ghosts, pressing themselves into alcoves or dropping flat to the floor whenever a hornet-drone approached. It was a tense, nerve-wracking game of hide-and-seek. Finally, they reached the R&D lab. The door was a solid sheet of titanium.

"My turn." Delia said with a grin. While Deidre was the strategist, Delia had always been the better safecracker. Her fingers were smaller, her touch more delicate. She pulled a set of sophisticated-looking tools from her belt and went to work on the electronic lock.

It was a complex system, but Delia worked with a focused intensity that Deidre hadn’t seen in a long time. This wasn’t just a job; it was a performance. She was imagining Terry watching her, nodding in approval.

The lock clicked open. The lab was a paradise of technology. Holographic blueprints hung in the air, and prototypes of unimaginable gadgets sat on sterile white tables. In the center of the room, encased in a shimmering containment field, was the micro-fusion battery. It glowed with a soft, blue energy.

"There it is." Deidre breathed, her eyes wide with professional avarice. "The payday."

They approached the containment field. This was Deidre’s area of expertise. "It’s a phased energy barrier." she analyzed. "You can’t break it. You have to disrupt its frequency. It’s like tuning a radio."

She attached a device to the field’s projector, her brow furrowed in concentration as she manipulated the dials. The field began to flicker.

Suddenly, a loud, blaring alarm echoed through the facility. Red lights began to flash.

"What happened?" Delia hissed.

"Silent tripwire." Deidre cursed, working faster. "Someone knows we’re here."

"It’s him!" Delia gasped, her eyes shining with terror and excitement. "Batman! He must have followed us! He’s trying to sabotage my audition!"

A heavy metal blast door slammed down over the lab’s entrance, trapping them.

"Forget him! Get the battery!" Deidre yelled. The containment field collapsed with a loud hum. She snatched the glowing blue sphere, tucking it into a lead-lined pouch on her belt. "Now what? We’re trapped!"

Delia scanned the room, her mind racing. Her audition couldn’t end in failure. What would a top-tier agent do? She saw it: a reinforced window overlooking the city, three stories up. It was their only way out.

"This way!" she yelled, running toward it.

"It’s reinforced plexiglass!" Deidre shouted. "We can’t break it!"

"We don’t have to!" Delia yelled back. She pointed to a high-powered industrial laser on a nearby workbench, used for cutting materials. "We make our own door!"

It was a crazy, brilliant idea. Together, they wrestled the heavy laser into position. Delia aimed it at the window, and a beam of pure, white-hot energy shot out, slicing through the plexiglass. In seconds, they had cut a large, circular hole in the window.

The sounds of approaching guards grew louder. Without a moment’s hesitation, Delia took a running leap, flying through the newly created opening and into the night air. Deidre, clutching the battery, was right behind her. They plummeted toward the street below, the wind screaming in their ears. They fired their grappling hooks at an adjacent building, the lines catching and swinging them in a dizzying arc, landing them hard but safe on another rooftop.

They had done it. They had broken into the most secure building in the city, stolen a priceless piece of technology, and escaped.

Delia stood, breathless and triumphant, her heart soaring. "Did you see that?" she panted to her sister. "That was a masterpiece! Terry is going to be so proud!"

Deidre, checking to make sure the battery was secure, just shook her head and allowed herself a small, weary smile. The motivation was insane, but the results were undeniable. Maybe this secret agent boyfriend thing wasn’t so bad for business after all.

Chapter 18: The Batcave Misadventure

The Kord Omnitech heist made waves. The news called it the most audacious theft in a decade. The underworld buzzed with whispers about the Dee Dee twins’ spectacular return to form. And in the Batcave, Bruce Wayne and Terry McGinnis watched the security footage with a sense of grim disbelief.

"She used a high-energy cutting laser to make an unscheduled exit from the third floor." Bruce noted, his voice a flat monotone of weary acceptance. On the giant screen, Delia and Deidre swung across a city street like acrobats in a nightmare circus. "Her capacity for creative problem-solving is escalating at an alarming rate."

"She did it to impress me, Bruce." Terry said, rubbing his temples. He felt a strange mixture of horror and a tiny, shameful flicker of pride. It was an undeniably impressive feat. "Her grandmother’s advice to become a ‘competent, independent partner’ has turned her into a one-woman crime wave. What’s next? Stealing the moon to prove she understands orbital mechanics?"

"The problem." Bruce said, zooming in on the footage of Deidre clutching the stolen battery, "is that she is now a genuine threat. This isn’t about fruit or love notes anymore. Kord’s battery is a powerful and unstable energy source. In the wrong hands, it’s a bomb. We have to retrieve it."

This was it. Terry knew what was coming. His two lives, the one Delia fantasized about and the one he actually lived, were about to collide in a way that made all previous encounters look like a quiet picnic.

Finding the twins wasn’t hard. Deidre was already trying to fence the battery, sending out cautious feelers into the criminal underworld. Batman’s network of informants quickly pinpointed a meeting scheduled for that night at a disused chemical plant on the industrial outskirts of the city.

The plan was simple. Batman would crash the meeting, retrieve the battery, and apprehend the twins and the buyer. It was a standard night’s work.

Terry, as Batman, perched on a rusty gantry overlooking the meeting spot. Below, the Dee Dee twins waited, with Deidre holding a lead-lined briefcase. A hulking figure emerged from the shadows—a low-level arms dealer named Pachy, known more for his size than his intellect.

"You got the goods?" Pachy grunted.

Deidre nodded, placing the briefcase on an old oil drum. "You got the credits?"

As Pachy opened his own case, revealing stacks of credit chits, Batman chose his moment. He dropped from the gantry, landing between them with a heavy thud that echoed through the plant.

Pachy and Deidre froze, their eyes wide with alarm.

Delia, however, lit up like a Christmas tree. "It’s him!" she whispered excitedly to her sister. "He’s here! He must have seen the news reports of my heist! He’s come to shut me down because he sees me as a rival to Terry! This is the ultimate validation!"

Batman ignored her, his focus on the battery. "The merchandise is now property of the GCPD." he growled, his voice modulator making the words sound like grinding metal. "The party’s over."

"Not yet it isn’t!" Delia chirped. And then she did something completely unexpected. She didn’t attack him. She didn't run. She grabbed the briefcase with the battery, winked at Batman, and sprinted away, deeper into the chemical plant.

"The agent always has an escape route planned!" she called back over her shoulder. "Catch me if you can, flat-ears!"

It was a chase. She was leading him on a chase, treating it like a flirtatious game of tag. Batman cursed under his breath and gave pursuit, leaving Deidre and the stunned arms dealer behind.

The plant was a maze of pipes, catwalks, and vats of foul-smelling chemicals. Delia was impossibly agile, laughing as she leaped from one platform to another, always staying just out of his reach.

"You’re slow for a government stooge!" she taunted, balancing on a narrow pipe. "Too much bureaucracy weighing you down?"

Terry realized with a dawning horror what she was doing. She wasn’t running away. She was leading him somewhere. Her path wasn’t random; it was taking them back toward the center of the city. Back toward… his home.

She was trying to lead her "enemy" to her "partner." hoping Terry would see the chase and intervene, proving his spy credentials once and for all.

Terry had to end this, now. He used his thrusters to cut her off, landing directly in her path. He cornered her in a dead-end corridor. He had her.

"Give me the battery, Delia." he ordered, his voice low and dangerous.

Delia just grinned, holding the briefcase behind her back. "Make me." she said, her eyes sparkling.

From an overhead pipe, a third figure dropped down. Deidre. She had circled around while Delia led the chase. She landed behind Batman and swung a heavy wrench at the back of his head.

The suit’s armor absorbed most of the blow, but the impact was still jarring. Terry’s vision swam. He stumbled forward, disoriented.

Deidre didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the briefcase from Delia. "Come on!" she yelled. They scrambled up a nearby ladder and onto the roof.

Terry shook his head to clear it, his systems rebooting. They had outsmarted him. He followed them onto the roof just in time to see them leap off the side of the building and onto the roof of a passing cargo transport on the maglev train line below. The train was heading north. Toward Wayne Manor.

His communicator beeped. It was Bruce. "They’re on the northbound maglev. And they have the battery. I’ve been tracking your suit’s telemetry. A blow to the head? Are you getting sloppy, Terry?"

"It was a coordinated ambush, Bruce." Terry grunted, firing his grappling hook at the retreating train and swinging after it. "And I think I know where they’re going. Delia thinks she’s leading me to you. To the ‘headquarters.’"

"My point exactly." Bruce’s voice was grim. "They are coming here. Intercept them before they reach the estate. This situation has gone from a risk to a full-blown emergency."

Terry landed hard on the roof of the last train car. Ahead, he could see the twins scrambling toward the front. This was no longer a game. They were carrying a potential bomb, and they were heading straight for the one place they should never, ever go. He broke into a dead run, the wind whipping past him. He had to stop them, no matter what. The ultimate collision was coming.

Chapter 19: The Most Confusing Lair in the World

The maglev train sped through the night, a silver serpent winding its way toward the affluent northern sector of Neo-Gotham. On its roof, a frantic chase was unfolding. Terry, as Batman, sprinted across the slick metal surfaces of the cars, gaining on the two figures ahead.

Delia was in her element. This was the climax of the movie in her head. She was on the run from the villain, clutching the valuable McGuffin, heading for the hero’s secret base. She risked a glance back, a triumphant grin on her face. "He’s still following! See, Dee Dee? He’s relentless!"

Deidre, clutching the briefcase containing the unstable battery, was less thrilled. "This is not a romantic chase scene, Delia! This is a tactical retreat with stolen, potentially explosive property from a heavily armored vigilante! There’s a difference!"

As the familiar, gothic spires of Wayne Manor came into view in the distance, Delia’s excitement reached a fever pitch. "We’re almost there! To safety! To headquarters!"

She misjudged a leap between cars, her foot slipping. She stumbled, falling to one knee. In that split second, Batman closed the distance. He tackled her, a clean, non-violent maneuver designed to pin her without causing injury.

"It’s over, Delia." he growled.

"Not yet!" Deidre yelled. She turned and, without hesitation, hurled the heavy briefcase at Batman’s head.

Terry reacted instinctively, catching the case. But the sudden shift in weight and momentum threw him off balance. The three of them, tangled together, tumbled off the side of the speeding train.

It was a long fall. Terry twisted his body, trying to shield Delia from the impact, while simultaneously holding onto the precious briefcase. He fired a grappling hook at a sturdy-looking oak tree on the Wayne property line. The line went taut, swinging them in a wild, bone-jarring arc. They crashed through the dense foliage of the woods surrounding the manor, landing in a heap of tangled limbs, bruised egos, and one very unstable micro-fusion battery.

Terry’s head swam. The second impact, combined with the earlier wrench incident, had his suit’s systems flashing warning signs. He pushed himself up, his vision blurry. The twins were groaning a few feet away, shaken but seemingly unharmed. The briefcase was still in his hand.

He had to get the battery to the cave, to the containment unit. Now.

He half-dragged, half-carried the dazed twins toward the manor. There was no time for subtlety. He took them in through a hidden side entrance he knew, one that led directly to the study. He practically threw them into the room.

"Stay here." he commanded, his voice strained. He looked at the grandfather clock against the wall, the secret entrance to the Batcave. He had no choice. He couldn’t risk the battery destabilizing.

He turned the hands of the clock to 10:47. With a low groan, the clock slid aside, revealing the dark, descending staircase. Terry, as Batman, carrying a high-tech briefcase, disappeared into the secret passage, the clock sliding shut behind him.

Delia and Deidre just stared. They had been captured by their arch-nemesis and thrown into what was clearly a rich person’s study. And then, the villain had walked into a clock.

Delia’s mind, a place of astonishing logical flexibility, immediately processed the new information.

"Oh my god." she whispered, her eyes wide with revelation. "I get it now."

"You get what?" Deidre asked, rubbing a new bruise on her arm. "That we should have taken the bus?"

"No! Don’t you see?" Delia said, grabbing her sister’s shoulders. "The clock. The secret passage. This manor… this isn’t Terry’s headquarters. This is Batman’s! This is the enemy base!"

This, for once, was a conclusion Deidre could almost agree with. It made a certain kind of sense.

"And Batman… he didn’t capture us." Delia continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "He rescued us! He brought us here to protect us from… from whatever he was chasing us for! He’s not a villain! He’s a double agent!"

Deidre just stared at her. "A what?"

"He works for the same agency as Terry!" Delia insisted. "But he plays the bad guy! He’s the intimidating, scary agent they send in to do the dirty work, to maintain the agency’s cover! He’s not trying to hurt us. He’s one of the good guys! A very grumpy, poorly-socialized good guy, but still!"

Before Deidre could even begin to poke holes in this new, structurally unsound theory, the clock slid open again. But it wasn’t Batman who emerged. It was Terry McGinnis.

He looked rumpled and stressed, and he had a small cut on his forehead that he was dabbing with a handkerchief. He must have taken off the suit in the cave and come back up.

He froze when he saw them, his eyes wide with panic. He had completely forgotten he’d left them in the study.

Delia gasped. "Terry! What are you doing here? In the enemy’s headquarters?"

Terry’s brain blue-screened. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Delia’s own brain, however, was working at light speed, connecting the dots in its own, unique way. "Wait a minute…" she said, her eyes darting from Terry to the secret passage and back. "You’re here. In Batman’s base. Unharmed. And he’s not here."

A slow, dazzling smile of pure, unadulterated understanding spread across her face. "You infiltrated his base! You must have followed him here! You probably took him down in that secret tunnel and disguised yourself as him to get us out! Terry, you saved us! You’re even more heroic than I thought!"

She threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. Terry stood there, ramrod straight, his mind a complete blank. He had tried to hide his secret identity, and in doing so, had accidentally convinced his number one stalker that he was capable of single-handedly defeating Batman and taking over his secret lair.

Deidre just looked at the clock, then at Terry, then at her ecstatic sister. "I need to sit down." she said, and promptly plopped into one of Bruce Wayne’s priceless antique armchairs.

From the secret passage below, Bruce Wayne, who had been listening to the entire exchange via the study’s security feed, let out a sigh so profound it seemed to shake the very foundations of the cave. This was no longer a comedy of errors. It was a full-blown Shakespearean tragedy, but with more spandex and confusing plot twists.

Chapter 20: Heart-to-Heart or Bat-to-Clown

"So, this is it." Delia whispered, her voice full of reverence. "The heart of the beast."

Terry, having failed to convince the twins to stay in the study, had resorted to the only option left: a guided tour of the Batcave, reframed through the bewildering lens of Delia’s spy fantasy. He had told them Bruce Wayne had "captured" Batman and was now "interrogating" him in a "secure location." and that Terry was here to "debrief" them and "analyze the enemy’s technology." It was a lie so convoluted he could barely keep it straight himself.

He led them down the long, stone staircase and into the main cavern. Delia’s eyes went wide. She wasn’t seeing the Batcave. She was seeing the ultimate villain’s lair.

The giant computer became "the global surveillance hub of the corrupt agency." The rows of Batsuits in their glass display cases were "the uniforms of defeated rival agents, kept as trophies." The giant penny was "a monument to his ego, probably stolen from some national mint." The animatronic T-Rex was "a gaudy and impractical guard drone."

"It’s so… tacky." Delia commented, wrinkling her nose at the T-Rex. "No subtlety. No class. Not like your operations, Terry-bear."

Deidre, meanwhile, was mentally calculating the scrap value of the giant penny. It had to be worth a fortune.

Terry led them past the main console, toward the vehicle bay. "We, uh, need to stay here. Where it’s safe." He just needed to keep them in one place until Bruce figured out a new, inevitably doomed plan.

He pointed to the Batmobile. "This is his… primary vehicle."

Delia circled it, her expression one of professional critique. "Hmm. Over-armored. Theatrical. Sacrifices speed and stealth for intimidation. A classic rookie mistake." She patted one of the fins. "And what’s with the pointy ears motif? So literal."

Suddenly, a voice echoed from the shadows of the vehicle bay. "I find it to be an effective branding strategy."

Bruce Wayne emerged from behind a row of workbenches, wiping grease from his hands with a rag. He had decided on a new tactic: direct engagement. He would play the part Delia had assigned him.

Delia gasped, instinctively straightening up and smoothing down her clothes. It was the spymaster. "Mr. Wayne! Sir! I didn’t realize you were part of the infiltration team."

"I oversee all major operations." Bruce said, his voice a low grumble. He walked toward them, his gaze lingering for a moment on Deidre, who was trying to pry a small diamond out of a hubcap with her fingernail. He decided to ignore it.

"Mr. McGinnis has been debriefing me on your… unauthorized acquisition of Kord property." Bruce said, his eyes locking onto Delia. "It was reckless. Dangerous. And deeply impressive."

Delia blushed. Praise from the spymaster himself! "I was just… trying to prove my capabilities, sir."

"Your capabilities are not in question, Miss Dennis." Bruce said. He gestured toward a small, quiet corner of the cave, away from the main displays of gadgetry. "Walk with me."

Delia looked at Terry, who gave her a slight nod. She trotted eagerly after Bruce, leaving Terry alone with Deidre.

"So." Deidre said, giving up on the hubcap diamond. "Big, dark, full of expensive junk that’s probably impossible to fence. I can see why a guy like him likes a place like this." She gestured vaguely at the cave. "What’s the deal with you and my sister, anyway? You actually like her?"

Terry was taken aback by the direct question. "She’s… a lot." he admitted.

"That’s not an answer." Deidre countered, her gaze surprisingly sharp. "She’s completely crazy, you know. But she’s not stupid. And she’s my sister. So, I’m officially asking: are you going to hurt her?"

It was the first time Deidre had shown any genuine, protective concern for Delia’s well-being beyond their professional partnership.

"No." Terry said, his voice firm and honest. "Of course not. I just want her to… stop. Before she gets hurt."

Deidre seemed to accept this. "Good." she said. She then pointed at the Batmobile again. "You think he’d notice if one of those tires went missing?"

Meanwhile, Bruce had led Delia to a quiet spot near a massive, subterranean waterfall that fed into the cave’s power generators. The sound of the water provided a low, constant roar, creating a sense of privacy.

"Delia." Bruce began, his voice softer now. "I’m going to be frank with you. Terry’s work… it’s more dangerous than you can imagine. He walks a tightrope every single day."

"I know." Delia whispered, her eyes shining. "He’s so brave."

"He is." Bruce agreed. "But that bravery comes at a cost. It isolates him. He can’t have a normal life. He can’t have normal relationships. The secrets he has to keep build walls between him and the people he cares about."

He was talking about Terry, but he was also talking about himself. The words were heavy with the weight of his own long, lonely life.

"The girl, Dana." Bruce continued. "He cares for her. But he has to push her away to protect her. It’s a constant, painful sacrifice."

Delia nodded, her expression somber. "The curse of the lone wolf."

"Exactly." Bruce said. He looked at her, his expression serious. "He told me what you said. That you wanted to be his sanctuary. His reason to come home. Of all the things you’ve done, all the chaos you’ve caused… that is the one thing that has truly helped him."

It was a lie. A complete fabrication. But it was a masterful one. He was validating the last, best role she had assigned herself.

"Really?" she asked, her voice small.

"The life of an agent is dark." Bruce said, his voice barely a whisper above the roar of the waterfall. "It’s easy to get lost in it. To forget what you’re fighting for. A sanctuary… a light in the darkness… that is the most valuable asset any operative can have. More valuable than any gadget or weapon."

He placed a hand on her shoulder, a rare gesture of physical contact. "You want to help him? Be that for him. Not a partner in the field, not a rival operative. Be the safe harbor. The one place he can be himself, without the secrets and the lies. Let him have his cover life with Dana. It’s a necessary fiction. But you… you can be his truth."

Delia’s eyes filled with tears. This was more than a promotion. This was a sacred duty. The spymaster himself, the legendary Bruce Wayne, was entrusting her with his top agent’s soul.

"I… I will." she stammered, overwhelmed by the gravity of the moment. "I’ll be the best sanctuary a secret agent ever had. I promise."

Bruce gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and then turned to walk back toward the others. His face was a mask of stoicism, but inside, he felt a profound sense of exhaustion. He had just delivered the performance of a lifetime, weaving a web of therapeutic lies designed to contain a force of nature. He had weaponized her own delusion against her, shaping it into something manageable, something less… kinetic.

He just hoped, for all their sakes, that this time the plan would actually stick. The aftermath of the Batcave visit was… quiet. Eerily quiet. Terry spent the next few days in a state of high alert, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He expected a new form of surveillance, a new brand of delusion. Maybe she would try to redecorate his apartment to be more "sanctuary-like." with scented candles and calming ocean sounds.

But there was nothing. No notes, no gifts, no sign of the Dee Dee twins at all. He walked to school un-followed. His locker contained only his books. It was deeply unnerving.

"She’s gone." he told Max at lunch. "Completely ghosted me. Bruce’s weird, reverse-psychology-pep-talk actually worked."

Max raised an eyebrow, skeptical. "Or she’s building a nest in your walls. With this girl, silence is never a good sign. It just means she’s reloading."

"No, I think this is it." Terry insisted, a fragile hope blooming in his chest. "Bruce gave her a new mission: to be my ‘sanctuary’ by leaving me alone. It was brilliant. He used her own crazy logic to neutralize her."

Even Deidre had gone to ground. Her comm number, which she had given to Blade for ‘Project McGinnis,’ was disconnected. The twins had vanished from the face of the earth.

The peace lasted for a full week. A glorious, normal, stress-free week. Terry started to relax. He caught up on his homework. He even called Dana.

The conversation was awkward at first, full of hesitant pauses.

"Hey." he’d said.

"Hey." she’d replied. "I, uh… I haven’t heard from you."

"I know. I’m sorry." Terry said, and for the first time, it felt like a real apology, not just a pre-recorded line. "Things were… insane. But they’re better now. Calmer."

"Yeah?" Dana’s voice held a note of cautious interest.

"Yeah." he said. "And I was wondering… if you’re not busy… if you’d want to try that date again. The one we missed. At Cyber-Sushi 7."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "Okay, Terry." she said finally, her voice soft. "Okay. I’d like that."

It wasn’t a fix. It wasn’t a promise. But it was a start.

That Friday night, Terry stood once again outside the glittering facade of Cyber-Sushi 7. He was nervous, but it was a normal kind of nervous, not the ‘is-my-stalker-hiding-in-that-dumpster’ kind of nervous he’d grown accustomed to.

Dana arrived, looking beautiful. They smiled at each other, a little shyly, and went inside. The date was… nice. They talked. They laughed. He didn’t have to bail. He didn’t have to lie. For two hours, he was just Terry McGinnis, a normal teenager on a date with a girl he really liked. It felt like a miracle.

As they left the restaurant, walking along the busy Neo-Gotham street, Dana slipped her hand into his. "This was good." she said.

"Yeah." Terry agreed, his heart feeling lighter than it had in months. "It was."

It was at that moment that he saw her.

Across the street, half-hidden in the doorway of a closed shop, was Delia.

His entire body tensed. His heart plummeted. He had been so wrong. It wasn’t over.

But she wasn’t looking at him with her usual manic intensity. She wasn’t waving or preparing to sing a song. She was just… watching. And when her eyes met his, she didn’t run toward him. She simply smiled. A small, gentle, understanding smile. She put a finger to her lips, in the universal sign for ‘our secret,’ and then gave him a slow, single nod of approval. ‘Good work, agent. Maintain your cover.’

Then, she turned and melted back into the shadows, disappearing as quickly as she had appeared.

Terry just stood there, stunned.

Dana squeezed his hand. "What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost."

Terry looked down at their joined hands, then back at the empty doorway where Delia had been. Bruce’s plan hadn’t gotten rid of her. It had just… changed the rules of the game. She wasn’t gone. She was just operating on a new protocol. She was the sanctuary. The secret keeper. The silent partner, watching from a distance, protecting his cover by allowing him to live his normal life.

He was still the star of her movie. But now, she was content to be the director, watching from behind the camera.

"It’s nothing." Terry said to Dana, a slow, disbelieving smile spreading across his own face. "Just… thought I saw someone I knew."

He was still being stalked. His life was still inextricably tangled with the city’s most lovelorn criminal. But for now, in this strange new status quo, he could have this. He could have a normal moment.

As he and Dana walked away, hand in hand, Deidre stepped out of the shadows to join her sister.

"You are so weird." Deidre said, shaking her head as she watched the couple disappear into the crowd.

"It’s our duty to protect his cover identity, Dee Dee." Delia said, her voice full of quiet pride. "A happy, normal civilian life keeps the enemy from suspecting his real work. We’re not just watching him; we’re performing counter-surveillance."

Deidre rolled her eyes. But then she held up a sleek, very expensive-looking wallet. "Well, while you were performing counter-surveillance, I lifted this from a guy who was too busy watching the happy couple. So, I guess this new arrangement works out for everyone."

Delia beamed. Her agent was safe. His cover was secure. And their operations were funded. Everything, in her wonderfully twisted, secret-agent-centric world, was exactly as it should be. The mission continued.

Chapter 21: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Problem

The fragile peace of the new status quo held for nearly a month. Terry’s life settled into a semblance of normalcy. His relationship with Dana was slowly rebuilding, one successful, uninterrupted date at a time. Delia, true to her new role as the "Silent Sanctuary." remained a ghost. Terry would occasionally catch a glimpse of her—a flash of orange pigtails in a crowd, a figure watching from a distant rooftop—always followed by that same, knowing smile and a subtle nod before she disappeared. It was still creepy, but it was a manageable, low-grade creepiness he could live with.

The Dee Dee twins, under Delia's new "let's prove our skills" mandate, had also changed their M.O. They’d given up overt, high-profile heists for a string of bafflingly clever, low-impact crimes. A flock of prize-winning robotic pigeons was stolen from a penthouse, only to be replaced by identical-looking decoys. The notoriously bitter CEO of OmniCorp had his bank account hacked, but the only thing the twins did was donate a sizable chunk of his fortune to a kitten orphanage. They were becoming folk heroes in the criminal underworld: the "Annoying Angels." specializing in heists that were more prank than plunder. It was Delia's way of building a "portfolio" to impress Terry, showcasing stealth and subtlety over brute force.

The peace, however, was destined to be shattered. The instrument of its destruction was not a supervillain or a botched heist, but something far more insidious: Parent-Teacher Conference night at Hamilton Hill High.

Terry had forgotten all about it until his mother cornered him at breakfast. "Terry, don't forget, I've got your conference with Mr. Tanner at six tonight." Mary McGinnis said, tapping her datapad. "I had to rearrange my whole shift to make it. Please tell me your history grade doesn't involve another diorama that looks suspiciously like a crime scene."

Terry’s blood ran cold. Mr. Tanner. His history teacher. A nice, but oblivious man. Dana would be there with her parents. Max would be there. And Delia... Delia still technically held a visitor's pass as a "Latverian exchange student." There was no way she would miss an opportunity to assess her secret agent boyfriend's academic cover. This wasn’t a parent-teacher conference. It was a minefield.

That evening, the hallways of Hamilton Hill were swarming with awkward teenagers and their equally awkward parents. Terry stood with his mom outside Mr. Tanner's classroom, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. He saw Dana across the hall, laughing with her mother. He gave her a small, hopeful wave.

Then he saw them.

The Dee Dee twins were trying to blend in near the water fountain. Deidre looked profoundly bored, as usual, but Delia was practically vibrating with purpose. She wasn't dressed in her usual bright pinks; she was wearing a surprisingly conservative, dark blue dress. Her hair was pulled back, but in a severe, professional-looking bun. She held a datapad and was tapping it with a stylus, an expression of intense concentration on her face. She looked like a government agent auditing a school.

"Who is that girl?" Mary asked, following Terry's horrified gaze. "She looks so… severe."

"She's a, uh, new student." Terry mumbled. "Very serious about her studies."

Before he could elaborate on this lie, a new figure appeared, striding down the hall with an air of clinical purpose. It was Dr. Harleen Quinzel. She had apparently decided to attend as the twins' guardian. She spotted Terry and his mother, and her face broke into a warm, grandmotherly smile that didn't quite reach her knowing eyes.

"Mary! How wonderful to see you." Harley chirped, walking over.

Mary McGinnis looked confused. "I'm sorry, have we met?"

"Oh, you must not remember!" Harley said, her voice smooth as silk. "From the charity bake sale last year? I'm Harleen. I'm here for my granddaughters, Delia and Deidre." She gestured toward the twins. Delia gave a curt, professional nod. Deidre just shrugged.

Terry watched, frozen, as his mother and the former paramour of the most notorious killer in Gotham’s history chatted pleasantly about the quality of the school's heating system. His two worlds weren't just colliding; they were merging into a surreal, domestic nightmare.

"McGinnis, Mary and Terry?" Mr. Tanner called from his classroom doorway. "You're next."

They went inside and sat down. The conference began normally. Mr. Tanner droned on about Terry's participation and test scores. But Terry couldn't focus. Through the window in the classroom door, he could see the hallway. He watched as Delia, in her severe spy-auditor persona, marched up to Dana Tan and her parents.

Delia extended a hand to Dana’s father. "Mr. Tan, a pleasure. I'm Delia. I'm an associate of Terry's."

Dana's father, a bit bewildered, shook her hand. "Oh, a friend from school?"

"You could say that." Delia said, her voice low and confidential. "I'm here in an observational capacity. We're all very invested in Terry maintaining a stable and convincing academic profile. It's crucial to his… long-term projects."

Dana just stared at Delia, her mouth slightly agape.

Back in the classroom, Mr. Tanner was saying, "…and while Terry is a good student, he can be a bit… secretive. Distracted."

"He has a lot on his mind." Mary said with a concerned frown.

At that moment, the door opened, and Harley Quinn poked her head in. "So sorry to interrupt." she said to Mr. Tanner. "But my granddaughter seems to think she's a junior agent for an unnamed espionage organization and is currently interrogating another student's father about his daughter's potential as a 'long-term asset.' I was wondering if the school had a protocol for that?"

Mr. Tanner just stared at her, his mind clearly unable to process the sentence he had just heard.

Mary looked from Harley to Terry, her expression a perfect storm of confusion and dawning horror.

Terry just closed his eyes. The landmine had detonated. He was in the center of the blast, and the shrapnel was made of pure, unadulterated chaos. This wasn't just a parent-teacher conference anymore. It was an intervention, a diplomatic incident, and the single most embarrassing moment of his entire life.

The explosion in Mr. Tanner’s classroom sent ripples of confusion down the hallway. Dana’s father was looking at Delia with newfound suspicion, Dana was looking at Terry with her old suspicion rekindled, and Terry’s mother was looking at everyone as if they’d all started speaking a foreign language.

Harley, having successfully thrown her conversational grenade, retracted her head with a pleasant, "Never mind, I’ll handle it!" leaving Mr. Tanner to stare blankly at the McGinnis family.

"As I was saying." Mr. Tanner stammered, clearly trying to regain control of a situation that had gone completely off the rails, "Terry’s… creative."

Terry wanted the floor to swallow him whole.

The conference mercifully ended a few minutes later. As they stepped back into the hallway, they walked directly into the assembled chaos. Harley was now engaged in a quiet but intense conversation with Delia, who looked indignant. Deidre was trying to pick the lock on a nearby vending machine with a paperclip. And Dana was standing with her arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently.

"Terry." Dana said, her voice dangerously calm. "Your ‘associate’ was just explaining to my dad that our relationship is a ‘necessary component of your civilian cover.’ Care to elaborate?"

Before Terry could even attempt to formulate a lie that could possibly contain this level of insanity, his mother stepped forward.

"Okay, that’s it." Mary McGinnis announced, her voice leaving no room for argument. She was in full mom-mode, a force more powerful than any supervillain. "Everyone. My apartment. Now. We are going to sit down and figure out what in the world is going on with my son’s bizarrely complicated social life."

It was not a request.

The procession back to the McGinnis apartment was the most awkward journey of Terry’s life. It consisted of Terry, his mom, Dana, the Dee Dee twins, and, inexplicably, Dr. Harleen Quinzel, who had invited herself along as a "mediator." It was less a gathering of friends and more a hostage situation where everyone was a hostage.

They crowded into the small living room. Matt, seeing the bizarre assembly of people, just widened his eyes, grabbed a bag of chips from the kitchen, and retreated to his room to watch the fireworks from a safe distance.

Mary stood in the center of the room, her hands on her hips. "Alright. Somebody start talking."

Delia, ever eager, spoke first. "Mrs. McGinnis, I understand your concern. But what we have here is a simple matter of operational security. Terry’s position as a deep-cover independent operative requires a complex support network. Dana provides his civilian cover, I provide tactical and emotional sanctuary, Deidre provides… occasional assistance, and Dr. Quinzel is a retired consultant who offers valuable, if sometimes outdated, advice."

Mary just stared at her. "An operative? Terry works for a rich old man and can’t manage to keep his room clean. He’s not an operative."

"That’s what he wants you to think!" Delia insisted.

Dana finally snapped. "Oh my god, will you stop?!" she said, whirling on Delia. "He’s not a spy! He’s just a flake! He’s secretive and he lies and he’s never there when you need him! That doesn’t make him a secret agent, it makes him a bad boyfriend!" The words were full of a month’s worth of pent-up frustration and hurt.

"He’s not a bad boyfriend!" Delia shot back, her loyalty flaring. "He’s a hero, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders! A burden you clearly don’t appreciate!"

"A burden?" Dana laughed, a bitter, humorless sound. "I’m the one who has to make excuses for him! I’m the one who feels like a second choice to his ‘job’! If that’s what being a hero’s girlfriend is like, you can have it!"

The two girls stood glaring at each other, two polar opposite forces fighting over the narrative of Terry’s life. One saw a flawed but lovable boy she wanted to be with; the other saw a flawless, heroic symbol she wanted to worship.

Terry stood between them, speechless. He felt like a rope in a tug-of-war.

Harley, who had been observing with the detached air of a wildlife documentarian, chose this moment to intervene. "Girls, please." she said, her voice calm and therapeutic. "It seems to me you both want what’s best for Terry. You just have very different definitions of what that is."

"What’s best for Terry is for her to get a new hobby." Dana muttered.

"What’s best for Terry is for you to appreciate the sacrifices he makes!" Delia retorted.

As they argued, a news alert flashed on the living room holovid screen. A reporter stood in front of a bank, her face grim. "...the situation is still developing, but sources say the criminal known as Shriek has taken hostages inside the Neo-Gotham Central Bank, demanding…"

Terry’s blood ran cold. Shriek. On a rampage. Downtown. He had to go. He had to leave. Right now. In the middle of this… this intervention about him leaving. The irony was so cruel it was almost funny.

He began to inch toward the door. "You know." he said, trying to sound casual. "I just remembered. Mr. Wayne needs me to… polish his collection of antique spoons. Very urgent. Spoon emergency."

Every single person in the room turned to stare at him. His excuse was so flimsy, so transparently ridiculous, that it sucked all the air out of the room.

Dana just shook her head, a look of profound disappointment on her face. "See?" she said, her voice a quiet, defeated whisper. "This is what I’m talking about. A spoon emergency."

Delia, however, looked at him with eyes full of shining pride and understanding. A "spoon emergency." It was code. A brilliant, absurdly mundane code word for a new mission. Shriek was on the loose, and Agent T was being called into action.

He was proving her right, right in front of everyone.

Terry looked at Dana’s hurt face, at his mother’s confused one, and at Delia’s triumphant one. He was trapped. He had to go save the city, but in doing so, he would destroy the last vestiges of his normal life and concrete-proof the fantasy of his stalker.

"I… I have to go." he said, and bolted out the door, leaving a room full of stunned silence and the lingering, awful phrase, ‘spoon emergency.’

Chapter 22: The Unlikely Alliance

Terry’s escape from the apartment was less a tactical retreat and more a frantic, panicked flight. He sprinted down the hallway, his mind racing. He had just abandoned his own intervention, armed with the worst excuse in human history, leaving behind a living room filled with the four most complicated women in his life.

He didn't have time to dwell on it. He commed Bruce as he ran. "Shriek. Downtown bank. I'm on my way."

"I'm aware, Terry." Bruce's voice crackled back, calm as ever. "I was monitoring the news. And your mother's living room. Your 'spoon emergency' excuse requires some work."

"Not now, Bruce!" Terry grunted, skidding around a corner and heading for the service stairs that led to the roof, the fastest way to get out of sight. "I'll deal with the fallout later. If I survive it."

Back in Apartment 7B, a stunned silence had fallen. Dana stood with her arms crossed, looking hurt and angry. Mary looked bewildered. Delia looked proud. And Harley looked like she was enjoying the show immensely.

It was Deidre, who had been silently observing from a corner, who finally spoke. "Well." she said with a shrug. "The boy is consistent, I'll give him that."

The news report on the holovid continued, showing SWAT teams assembling outside the bank. Shriek's distinctive sonic blasts could be heard, shaking the camera.

Dana stared at the screen, then at the door Terry had just fled through. A strange expression crossed her face. It was a look of dawning, unwilling comprehension. The excuses. The disappearances. The constant, vague emergencies. It never made sense. But it always coincided with… this. With Batman showing up on the news.

She had always dismissed it as coincidence. A city like Neo-Gotham always had some crisis happening. But the timing of the "spoon emergency" was too perfect, too jarring. A piece of a puzzle she didn't know she was solving clicked into place. Not the whole picture, but a corner of it.

Delia, meanwhile, was in her own world. "He's gone to confront Shriek." she whispered, her voice full of awe. "Alone. He's so brave." She then turned to Dana, her expression softening from rivalry to something that looked almost like pity. "I know it's hard for you to understand. But his work is important."

"His work." Dana repeated, her voice flat. She looked from Delia to the TV screen, where Batman had just been spotted on a nearby rooftop. Her eyes narrowed.

And then, an idea sparked. A crazy, reckless, terrible idea. "You think you know him so well?" Dana challenged Delia, her voice sharp. "You think you know what he's doing right now?"

"Of course." Delia said confidently. "He's engaged in a high-stakes confrontation with a dangerous enemy."

"Fine." Dana said, grabbing her jacket. "Let's go watch."

The entire room stared at her. "What?" Mary McGinnis asked, alarmed.

"I want to see." Dana said, a new, determined glint in her eye. "I want to see this 'work' he does that's so important he has to lie about polishing spoons."

Delia's eyes lit up. A field trip! To observe the agent in action! "An excellent idea! Field reconnaissance is crucial for understanding an operative's methods!"

This was, officially, the worst intervention in history. It had turned into a group outing to watch a hostage crisis.

"Oh, for pity's sake." Harley muttered, but she was already getting up. "If you children are going to run off to a crime scene, someone with a semblance of a frontal lobe needs to supervise."

"I'm not missing this." Deidre added, pocketing a salt shaker from the coffee table. You never knew when a small, throwable object might come in handy.

Mary looked around at the assembled group of lunatics about to drag her daughter off to a battle zone. "Absolutely not!" she said.

But it was too late. Dana was already out the door. Delia was right behind her. Deidre and Harley exchanged a look of shared resignation and followed. Mary was left standing in her living room, alone and utterly baffled.

They took the transit downtown, a bizarre and silent group. Dana was focused, Delia was excited, Deidre was scanning for pockets to pick, and Harley looked like a chaperone on the weirdest school trip of all time.

They arrived at the perimeter the police had set up around the bank. It was chaos—police cars, news vans, and a crowd of onlookers held back by barricades.

"We can't see anything from here." Dana said, frustrated.

"Amateurs." Delia scoffed. "A true operative always finds a superior vantage point." She pointed to a fire escape on a nearby building. "That way."

Before anyone could object, Delia was scrambling over the barricade. Dana, driven by her newfound, reckless need for answers, followed her.

"Well." Harley said to Deidre. "It seems we're committed." They followed the girls up the rusty fire escape, climbing until they had a clear, if distant, view of the bank's entrance.

Down below, the battle was raging. Batman was engaged in a fierce fight with Shriek, dodging sonic blasts that shattered windows and buckled pavement. It was a brutal, chaotic dance.

"Look at him." Delia sighed dreamily, her eyes on Batman. "So clumsy. So loud. All brute force. He has none of Terry's grace."

Dana wasn't listening. She was watching Batman's every move. The way he moved. The way he dodged. The set of his shoulders. It was familiar. Not just familiar from the news, but personally familiar. The way he ducked his head after a narrow miss… it was the same way Terry ducked when he was embarrassed. The sarcastic tilt of his head as he taunted Shriek… it was Terry's sarcasm.

The pieces kept clicking. The coincidences piled up until they formed a pattern. The "work for Bruce Wayne." The exhaustion. The unexplained bruises he always tried to hide. The way he always, always disappeared right when Batman appeared.

It was impossible. It was insane. But it was the only thing that made sense.

"Oh my god." Dana whispered, her hand flying to her mouth.

"I know." Delia said, misinterpreting her awe. "He's so much less impressive when you see him up close. Now, Terry, on the other hand..."

But Dana wasn't looking at Batman as a villain anymore. She was looking at him as… Terry. And in that moment, she didn't feel anger or betrayal. She felt a profound, heart-stopping wave of terror. The boy she loved, the boy she called a flake, was down there, fighting for his life.

Down below, Batman took a direct hit from a sonic blast, sending him flying into a wall. He lay still for a moment.

Dana gasped, her heart seizing in her chest.

Delia, however, started cheering. "Yes! He's down! Now's Terry's chance to sneak in and complete the real mission while this brute distracts everyone!"

Dana turned to Delia, her eyes blazing with a fury Delia had never seen before. "Shut up." Dana hissed, her voice trembling. "Just… shut up."

For the first time, Delia was speechless. The look on Dana's face wasn't one of rivalry. It was one of genuine, raw fear. Something had shifted. The dynamic between them had changed forever. They were no longer rivals for a boy's affection. They were two people watching the man they both cared about, in their own vastly different ways, get thrown through a wall. And in that shared moment of horror, a strange, unspoken, and deeply unlikely alliance was born.

The moment stretched, taut and silent, on the fire escape. Below, Batman staggered to his feet, shaking his head to clear it. The collective, unspoken sigh of relief from the women watching was almost audible.

He launched himself back into the fray, and with a final, desperate move, managed to plant a disruptor on Shriek's suit, shorting it out. The villain collapsed in a heap, the sonic assault ending abruptly. The silence that followed was deafening. SWAT teams swarmed in, and just as quickly as he had appeared, Batman vanished into the shadows.

On the fire escape, no one moved.

"He's okay." Dana whispered, her knees feeling weak. The adrenaline drained away, leaving only a hollow, shaky feeling.

Delia, for her part, was confused. The battle was over, but Terry had never shown up to complete his "real mission." Batman had handled the whole thing. Her narrative was starting to fray at the edges. "The plan must have changed." she mumbled, trying to rationalize it.

Harley Quinn, who had watched the entire exchange with a clinical eye, finally spoke. "Alright, kids." she said, her voice gentle but firm. "The show's over. Time to go home before we get arrested for loitering in a crime scene."

The journey back was even more silent and awkward than the one before. When they reached the apartment block, Dana stopped.

"I'm not going back up." she said, her voice quiet but steady. "Not tonight." She looked at Delia, a long, appraising look. "I need to think." She turned and walked away, not looking back.

Delia watched her go, a frown on her face. "Her emotional response is... illogical. She should be relieved the mission was a success."

Harley put a hand on her granddaughter's shoulder. "Delia, honey. Let's go home. My home. You girls are staying with me tonight." For once, Delia didn't argue.

Terry didn't get home until the early hours of the morning. He'd had to give a report to the police, get patched up by Bruce, and endure a lengthy lecture about "not getting hit by wrenches." He crept into the apartment, expecting it to be dark and quiet.

Instead, he found his mother sitting at the kitchen table, a cold cup of tea in her hands. She looked exhausted.

"Mom." he said softly. "I'm sorry about... tonight."

"Terry." she said, her voice weary. "We need to talk. Not about the spoons. About everything. About Dana. About those... unique girls. About why our living room periodically turns into a support group for the bewildered."

So he talked. He didn't tell her everything, of course. The big secret remained a secret. But he told her about Delia's delusion, about his failed attempts to shake her off, about the escalating chaos. He framed it as a case of a lonely, imaginative girl getting a crush and taking it to an extreme, almost dangerous level.

Mary listened patiently. When he was done, she just sighed. "Oh, Terry. You have a talent for attracting complications." She stood up and gave him a hug. "I don't understand it all. But I understand that you're in over your head. And I understand that that girl, Dana, cares about you very much, even if she has a funny way of showing it." She looked at him sternly. "You're going to fix this, Terry. Properly this time."

The next day at school was a ghost town of emotions. Terry saw Dana by her locker. He walked over, his heart pounding.

"Dana, about last night—" he started.

"Don't." she said, holding up a hand. She wouldn't meet his eyes. "I don't want to hear another excuse, Terry. I don't want another lie." She looked up, and her eyes were full of a new, painful understanding. "Just... be careful. Okay?"

She closed her locker and walked away, leaving him standing there. She hadn't broken up with him. She hadn't yelled. She had just told him to be careful. It felt more intimate, and more terrifying, than any argument they'd ever had. She knew. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew.

Later, in the cafeteria, another strange encounter occurred. Delia and Deidre walked in. But instead of making a beeline for Terry or setting up a "covert overwatch" position, Delia led her sister to an empty table on the far side of the room. She sat with her back to him.

Max slid into the seat opposite Terry, a carton of nutrient paste in her hand. "Okay, what did I miss? The Delia-to-Terry gravitational pull seems to have been reversed. And Dana looks at you like she's watching a sad movie she's already seen the ending to."

"It's a long story." Terry sighed, the phrase now feeling like the title of his autobiography.

Across the room, Deidre was poking at her food. "I don't get it." she said to Delia. "You spend a month trying to get his attention, and now you're actively ignoring him. Did you finally come to your senses?"

"It's not about my senses, Dee Dee." Delia said, her voice serious. She was staring at her datapad, which displayed a complex analysis of Gotham's criminal response times. "It's about strategy. After observing the Shriek incident, I've realized my approach has been flawed. My proximity creates an emotional variable that could compromise his missions."

She had misinterpreted Dana's fear and her own confusion as a tactical problem to be solved.

"My new role." she continued, "is not just to be a sanctuary. It is to be an independent intelligence node. I will gather data, analyze enemy tactics, and provide Terry with crucial intel from a safe distance. We will communicate only through secure, anonymous dead drops. Our relationship will now be purely professional."

Deidre blinked. "So... you're going to keep being a crazy stalker, but now you're going to do it with charts?"

"It's called intelligence support." Delia corrected her primly. "And it's vital to the success of his future operations."

An awkward, unspoken truce had settled over Terry's life. Dana knew his secret, but couldn't talk about it. Delia was still obsessed with him, but from a "professional" distance. He was surrounded by people who knew pieces of his story, but no one he could truly talk to, except for Max and Bruce. His life was quieter, but in many ways, more complicated than ever. He had contained the chaos, but the fallout was a strange, lonely peace.

Chapter 23: The Jokerz Who Loved Me

Months passed. The strange new world Terry inhabited became his new normal. Life with Dana was a delicate dance of unspoken truths. They rebuilt their relationship, but it was different now. There was a new depth to it, an undercurrent of shared secrecy. When he had to leave suddenly, she would just squeeze his hand and whisper, "Go be careful." She never asked for details, and he never offered them. It was a love affair conducted around a giant, bat-shaped elephant in the room.

Delia, for her part, threw herself into her new role as an "independent intelligence node" with terrifying zeal. The Dee Dee twins’ criminal activities took a sharp turn into the bizarrely analytical. They didn’t steal money; they stole information. They hacked into GCPD servers to analyze patrol routes. They bugged the Iceberg Lounge to monitor the criminal underworld’s chatter. They weren’t committing crimes for profit anymore; they were building an intelligence network.

Their heists were now "data acquisition missions." Deidre went along with it because, as it turned out, corporate and government data sold for a much higher price on the black market than stolen jewelry, and with much less risk. Delia had inadvertently become one of the most effective information brokers in Neo-Gotham, all in the name of providing "logistical support" for her secret agent boyfriend.

Terry’s life as Batman became strangely easier. Every so often, a datachip would appear for him, left in a place only he would find. On it would be anonymous, untraceable, and impeccably accurate information. A blueprint for a villain's new weapon. The location of a stolen shipment. The secret identity of a new crime boss. It was always signed with a simple, elegant symbol: a stylized crimson kiss.

He never acknowledged the gifts. He never tried to trace them. It was part of the new, silent agreement. She was his ghost, his secret informant, his stalker-turned-quartermaster.

Bruce, of course, knew. "Her intelligence is... remarkably accurate." he admitted one night in the Batcave, after Terry used one of Delia’s tips to thwart a major arms deal. "She’s become a one-woman shadow agency. It’s deeply disturbing and incredibly useful. I feel very conflicted about it."

"Welcome to my life, Bruce." Terry had replied.

The final, perfect crystallization of this new reality came on the one-year anniversary of the hot dog stand incident. Terry and Dana were celebrating their own anniversary—one year of their rebuilt, post-secret relationship. They were having a quiet dinner at a rooftop restaurant, the lights of Neo-Gotham spread out below them like a carpet of fallen stars.

"It’s been a crazy year." Dana said, smiling at him over her glass of synth-wine.

"You have no idea." Terry said, smiling back.

As he looked out at the city, his eyes caught a flicker of movement on an adjacent rooftop. He zoomed in with the subtle optic enhancers in his contact lenses.

It was Delia. She wasn't in her catsuit or a severe dress. She was just in her normal, bright clothes, her orange pigtails blowing in the wind. She wasn't watching him. She was looking out at the city, a pair of high-tech binoculars in her hands. She was on watch. She was doing her job.

Deidre was next to her, eating a bag of popcorn.

As if sensing his gaze, Delia lowered her binoculars and looked across the chasm, directly at him. She didn't smile this time. She just gave him a single, solemn nod. The nod of a professional. A colleague. I’ve got your back. Then she turned and went back to her surveillance.

Dana saw the direction of his gaze. She looked out at the distant rooftop. "Her again?" she asked, her voice free of its old jealousy. It was just a statement of fact now.

"Yeah." Terry said.

Dana was silent for a moment. Then she sighed, a small, weary sound. "You know, in a weird way, I almost feel bad for her. She loves a guy who doesn't really exist. And I love a guy who has to pretend he doesn't exist." She shook her head. "We're a mess, aren't we?"

"Yeah." Terry said, taking her hand. "But we're our mess."

And in that moment, Terry McGinnis finally understood his life. He had two girlfriends. One was the girl whose hand he was holding, the anchor to his real life, the one who knew his secret and loved him anyway. The other was a ghost on a rooftop, a brilliant, crazy, delusional girl who loved a hero he pretended to be, and who helped the hero he actually was.

It was insane. It was unsustainable. It was the most complicated, secret, and strangely functional love triangle in the history of Neo-Gotham. And somehow, for now, it worked. The lone wolf agent had his cover, the Batman had his informant, and the boy just trying to get by had a future. It wasn't the life he would have chosen, but it was his. And as he looked out at the glittering, chaotic city, he wouldn't have had it any other way.