"No," the Penguin said, with genuine conviction. "That was running away. Anyone would say the same thing."
Jude said nothing. The bicycle's motor buzzed up to a higher pitch as he pushed harder on the pedals, and the sound of it — the spinning gears, the chain, the motor climbing — came through the communicator clearly enough that the Penguin could hear exactly how committed the tactical retrograde currently was.
"Listen. We need you to go back and find Man-Bat. You don't need to down the Batplane — you just need to give Batman or Firefly something to think about. That matters."
"This conflicts with Batman's standing orders. I can't—"
"Enough. Stop."
The Penguin hung up and switched channels to Freeze, the remote control already in his other hand.
"Victor. I need you."
"Give me a moment, I'm somewhat occupied—"
The sounds coming through Freeze's communicator were the sounds of an active engagement. Impacts, the crack of ice forming, the particular rustle of vegetation moving fast and under pressure. Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze had apparently not yet finished with the Mad Hatter's theater.
"You and the Hatter aren't done yet?"
"It was manageable, but—"
"Fries. Pamela. Teach." A new voice on the channel — deep, flat, carrying the specific weight of someone who didn't need to raise it. "All three of you are coming back to the GCPD with me."
The Penguin's legs tried to stand him up involuntarily before his brain finished processing the voice. He settled back into his chair.
"The Mad Hatter's already restrained," Freeze said, through the sounds of ongoing combat. "Batman's knocked his hat off. Right now it's just Pamela and me."
The Penguin looked at the Joker across the room. The Joker's expression had not changed. His mouth had simply drooped further, the theatrical frown deepening by a precise, calibrated degree. This was apparently all the emotional response the situation warranted.
"Alright. Listen to me." The Penguin kept his voice steady. "Use the remote, call Thor in. Langstrom is nearly done — the Batplane's finishing that fight as we speak. We don't know why Batman's apparently in two places, but your situation is the priority. Get Thor there now."
A heavy exhale on the line. "Fine. Tonight has been a disaster. Calling him in."
"Boss." The voice came from immediately beside the Penguin's left ear. "What are the orders?"
He turned his head.
The Bike Stripper was standing in the lobby doorway in his black robe, bicycle in hand, expression flat and obedient — the perfect image of a controlled operative awaiting instruction.
"What." The Penguin looked at him. Looked at his watch. Looked at him again. "Five minutes. It has been five minutes since the communication started. Did you fly?"
"Boss, what are the orders?"
The mechanical calm of the response was, somehow, the worst part. Looking at him — blank eyes, straight posture, not a trace of irony anywhere on his face — you would conclude without hesitation that you were looking at a perfectly obedient piece of cannon fodder. A loyal, unquestioning soldier awaiting deployment.
You would not conclude that you were looking at a man who had, within the last five minutes, encountered an enemy engagement, assessed his options, executed a complete retreat, and navigated back to base at bicycle speed through active Gotham streets — while under nominal mind control.
Across the room, the Joker's hand moved to his waistband. He drew his revolver, looked at it for a moment with the expression of a man genuinely weighing his options, and put it back.
"I nearly shot him," he said. "But this reminds me of Chuck. Both of them are almost funny." He said almost with the particular flavor of a man for whom almost funny was a form of high praise.
"Coppert?" Freeze's voice on the communicator. "What happened?"
"Nothing, Fries. Thor's already back — claims it was Man-Bat's operational call." A pause. "Give him the order."
"Even under control, his survival instinct overrides," Freeze muttered. "That man."
On the other channel, Poison Ivy's voice had taken on the edge of someone who'd been holding a position longer than was comfortable: "Fries. If you don't come, we're finished."
"Hold thirty seconds — Thor, get to the Mad Hatter's theater. Move."
Jude got on the bicycle and was gone.
Outside the theater, the battle had migrated from indoors to the street, and settled into something that neither side was pushing to resolve.
Batman moved through the space between Freeze's beams and Ivy's vines with the economy of a man who has done this kind of thing many times — dodging, deflecting, disrupting the rhythm of their coordination without overcommitting. The Mad Hatter lay trussed on the pavement behind the action, a batarang having clipped his hat off at some point in the theater portion of the fight, and he was contributing to the engagement primarily through emotional commentary.
"Pamela. Take the hallucinogen off my men. Wake them up."
"There's no antidote," Ivy said, blocking a batarang with a vine wall and retaliating with a spray of toxic thorns. "Not even I can undo it on this timeline. It wears off on its own."
"Why didn't Batman get hit?"
"Full-body armor with integrated air filtration," Ivy said, not looking at him. "Obviously."
Freeze said nothing. He swept a freeze beam across Batman's projected position — Batman wasn't there, had already moved three steps left, and the beam hit the pavement and climbed the far wall. The suit's resistance to cold was exceptional. At sustained range, the possibility of actually freezing Batman was approaching theoretical.
"He came prepared," Ivy said.
"He always comes prepared," Freeze replied. "That mask is standard kit."
Batman made no response to this. His attention was primarily on the geometry of the engagement — keeping it outdoors, keeping it away from the hat-wearers still drifting through the area on their hallucinogen-induced patrol routes. Both Ivy and Freeze had noticed, without commenting on it directly, that none of Batman's actions had created civilian casualties. The batarangs found gaps. The redirections pushed the fight toward open pavement.
Freeze fired a beam slightly wide and left a clear opening in his guard.
Batman did not take it.
Freeze noted this and kept talking. "The Bike Stripper is coming. Four against one — we can at least get clear."
"None of you are leaving," Batman said.
Ivy processed this for a moment, then shook her head. "Batman, the odds aren't with you here. The floral compound wears off in half an hour. When it does, you lose the crowd control advantage entirely."
"Half an hour?" The Mad Hatter's head came up from the pavement. "If we hold for half an hour, we're saved?"
The three of them ignored him. The exchange was already complete. The Mad Hatter had been excluded from the actual negotiation without anyone formally announcing it.
"Speaking of which," Ivy said, in the conversational tone she deployed when she was also doing something else with her hands, "the Scarecrow has fear toxin, the Joker has laughing gas. Why doesn't Batman wear a permanent filtration mask? Statistically it would reduce exposure incidents."
"Because it wouldn't help." Freeze fired another beam, spacing it to push Batman left. "Crane's compound and the Joker's gas both penetrate dermally. Any filter is essentially decorative. The mask would protect against dust."
The Mad Hatter, flat on the ground, had been listening to all of this and found something wrong with it. His remaining working faculties assembled the information and produced a question.
"Why haven't you used hostages yet? There are hat-wearers all over this street, you could—"
The tranquilizer dart took him in the shoulder mid-sentence, neat and precise. His head dropped sideways. His eyes closed.
None of the three acknowledged it. The conversation continued.
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