Back at the apartment, Jason's bone mask slowly flowed away, revealing a face full of doubt.
He casually tossed his mud-stained pistol onto the couch and looked at Shane, who was leaning leisurely against a corner wall. Both his voice and his eyes betrayed his suspicion.
"Will this really work? If Wilson slips up, won't all of this have been a complete waste of time?"
Shane uncrossed his arms. Instead of answering directly, he raised a finger and wagged it.
"Why are you so nervous? I want that mastermind dead even more than you do."
"But seriously, Wilson gave me quite a surprise. Where did he get that acting talent?"
Jason spat, raised an arm, and sniffed it. The rainy night and mud had left him smelling foul, so he simply activated a little of the strange assortment of superpowers he had stored earlier.
Heat billowed, his suit rippled, and the dirt and odor vanished instantly.
"How would I know he was that good? Riddler never had any formal training before he started out, either, and he's a master performer. Gotham people... who can say?"
As though answering Shane's earlier claim that everyone in Gotham was dangerous, Jason, a local himself, even finished with a rare bit of self-deprecation.
Shane chuckled.
"I was originally going to have Rachel find some soul that was good at acting and let it possess him."
Who could have guessed that this balding, overweight Dry Cleaners owner would confidently thump his chest in front of Shane and Jason and insist there was no need, claiming he could play a victim without any trouble?
Remembering Wilson's chest-thumping assurances, Shane couldn't help snickering.
Then he had briefly discussed a script with Wilson and chosen their stage: among the enemy's decoys scanned before Jason's second modification to the