A Year With You

Chapter 3: August -- Anniversary

"Goodnight, Simon." Bruce said, shutting the door.

"Night, Bruce." Simon muttered, rolling over and snuggling under his blankets. It was a calm, peaceful sort of night.

So of course it had to be disturbed by something repeatedly hitting his window. He groaned, wishing he could just ignore it, but he knew better by now.

He pulled his glasses on his face, opening the window and barely avoiding a small pebble that had been thrown. "You're gonna break something, HQ. What do you need?"

"I need ta talk with ya, Kooks." The blonde girl stage whispered from her perch on the tree outside his window. She easily somersaulted into his third-story window. "Somethin's wrong with Uncle Vic."

"His wife's dying." Simon said dryly.

"Where's Carddeck an' Lil Q?" Harley asked, looking at the empty red and green beds.

"Sleepover." Simon was much too tired for this. He yawned, sitting down on his blue bed.

"Ya' didn' go?" She asked, sitting crossed-legged on one of the other beds.

"No, I have a science project in the morning." He shook his head. "Much too important- what?"

Harley was staring at him. "You're homeschooled, how can you have a project due?"

"... It's a personal project." Simon answered, perhaps a tad too defensively.

"Puh-leeeeze tell me you aren't reverse engineerin' Uncle Jon's toxin again!" Harley playfully groaned, throwing herself backwards to lay down.

"Speaking of uncles, what's up with Dr Fries?" Simon asked, partly avoiding the topic and partially actually curious.

"I don' know, he's just..." Harley sat up, moving her hands in front of her as she looked for the word. "...different."

"Different how? Has he stopped or started a particular hobby? Changed his eating or sleeping habits? Gone quieter or started speaking more?" Simon had been friends with Harleen Quinzel for years, and knew that she often took some prompting to properly explain her thoughts. "Grown gills?"

"He just..." Harley shook her head. "He won' talk as much as he used to. And he won' play chess with me. And he keeps looking at the calendar and sighin'."

"...what month is it?" Simon asked, a horrible suspicion forming in his gut. He opened his dresser drawer, grabbing his phone. "Harley, it's August 17th."

"So?"

"Haven't you ever read Dr Fries' Arkham profile?" Simon quickly hacked into the database, showing her. "Miss Nora and his anniversary is in two days."

"Poor Uncle Victor." Harley took the phone, thinking. "Hey, Kooks? Think ya could find information 'bout Nora? Like her hobbies an' interests an' stuff?"

"Uh, maybe, if any of it's online or in a computer." Simon took his phone back, beginning the search. "Why?"

"I got an idea on how ta make thing's a lil' bettah for Uncle Vic." Harley grinned. "But I'll need ya to help me."

*August 19th. Wayne Labs, secret Subzero Department*...

Dr Victor Fries wandered along the corridor, towards the Cryogenic Room where his dear Nora was being kept safe by the generous Mr Wayne. He didn't know what Bruce Wayne got out of keeping her alive, but the billionaire always let him in to do his research, and never reported his breakout until August 21st. A day to celebrate and a day to mourn, though he usually just did the latter on each.

It was selfish, he knew, to take time away from his research for such a frivolous thing as an anniversary she wouldn't even be able to celebrate. But he couldn't bring himself to spend the day any other way then sitting in front of her tank, eating takeout and telling her how he was doing. Lately, he'd even started informing his unconscious wife about his... Associates, their families, even their kids. But every year, this day was more or less exactly the same.

Except this time, when the door to the Cryogenic Room was ajar, allowing frantically whispered voices to be heard from the usually-soundproof area. Victor growled, an usually intense display of emotion for him, and barged in. He wasn't allowed to carry his Freeze Gun on Wayne property, but he was more than willing to defend Nora with his bear hands if he had to.

Instead of attackers, he found Miss Quinzel and the blue Robin (he went by something ridiculous like Kookaburra, but Victor preferred to think of him as The Blue Robin). They were nervously standing in front of Nora's tank, surround by-

Victor froze. They were surrounded by some of Nora's favorite foods and books, including some he'd completely forgotten she liked. There was a small folding table with a candlelight dinner hastily but beautifully set up. Quinzel held out a photo album marked 'Through The Years'.

Victor mutely took it, flipping through a few pages. Inside were photos of both himself and Nora, separately and together, from their college days onwards.

"We know this day's hard for you." Robin told him. "There's no way for us to really change that, but we wanted to make it a little less hard."

"We wanted to do somethin' special for ya an' Nora." Quinzel added. "Do ya like it, Uncle Vic?"

"...Yes." Victor gave them a very small but real smile. He looked to Nora. "I think we like it very much."