For once, it wasn't raining that morning in Gotham.
In the executive lounge on the twelfth floor of the Wayne Royal Hotel, thirty-eight children sat around a long dining table laden with milk, fried eggs, bacon, and a stack of freshly delivered copies of the Gotham Gazette.
The front-page photograph took up a full half-page.
A black cape spread open high above the ground.
Batman held John Grayson in one hand and Mary Grayson in the other, all three suspended in midair. The photograph was a little blurry, with white spots from the flash around its edges, but the headline was enormous.
[Batman appears in Robinson Park, saves the Flying Graysons!]
A subheading ran beneath it.
[Zucco Family ledger exposed; GCPD East End deputy chief and more than ten others taken into custody overnight.]
"Batman..."
Five-year-old Annie leaned over the table, pointing at the black figure in the newspaper with a little finger as she struggled to read.
"Bat... bat..."
She got stuck.
The skinny kid beside her scratched his head, leaned over to study it for a while, and whispered, "I know some of these letters. I think it's... Bat, Bat-something-man?"
"Batman."
Jason sat closest to the window, dark circles still under his eyes from staying up all night. He stared at the paper, his lips moving as he struggled through the headline.
"Batman... appears... saves... the F... Flying... Graysons."
Jason frowned when he reached the end.
He only recognized half the words.
Strung together, they were like a gang of drunks fighting inside his head.
In the article farther down about the Zucco ledger, he only understood words like "police department," "arrest," and "committee member." As for "illicit transfers," "corruption network," and "judicial cooperation," every one seemed deliberately written to bully poor people.
Jessica walked past carrying a