The Match Maker

Part I

By Brenna "Snakelady" Dawkins

A Batman Adventures Fanfic

Disclaimer: Batman and all subsequent characters are owned by DC Comics. I own nothing. Nothing I tell you! No money was made from this fic.

Rating: R

Summary: Detectives Bullock and Montoya are about to have a Valentine's Day they'll never forget thanks to the Joker. Sexual situations and language.

(Author's Note: Originally thought to make this one long chapter, but then thought it'd be easier to read if I broke it up into two parts. I thought it was about time there was a fic dedicated to my two fave GC:PD's Bullock and Montoya. M y Valentine's Day offering to the fanfic Gods! Enjoy!)

-

"This is bullshit, Jim!" Detective Bullock was never one who treaded lightly, even in the face of the one man who was probably his best friend. "That's what friggen underlings are for! Send one of them!"

Long used to his friend's gruff mannerisms, Commissioner Gordon shrugged off his detective's words without batting an eye. "It's election year, Bullock. The DA needs me on this inquest. I can't trust anyone else to not screw up fourteen months work."

"Com'on, Commish, you can't seriously be worried about that jerk outta Jersey takin' your bid?"

Gordon sighed, "I'm getting old, Bullock. The people might be in the vein for some new blood. Cohen has an impressive record and graduated from Quantico and doesn't remember the Nixon administration."

"You know that if you leave, half of our guys on the force will leave with you. Including me!" Bullock replied.

The Commissioner smiled and knew how loyal many of his people were to him. It heartened him during a time where he wondered about his own self worth. "Can't have that on my conscious."

"How long you going to be out?" Bullock knew he wouldn't be able to talk Jim out of going to Washington DC. They'd just wrapped up the last of a joint operation with the FEDS on a drug ring that spanned several states and unfortunately seemed to be initially run out of Gotham.

But they were interrupted as the door to the Commissioners office was opened and a very familiar feminine figure strolled inside.

"Daddy, I can't believe you've forgotten!" She breezed past Bullock and stood in front of the Commissioner.

"Barbara, what are you going on about?"

"The Valentines Day Charity Dinner. Hello. Two hundred dollars a plate. You bought four plates." Miss Gordon had her hands on her hips as she faced down her father. "And now I hear you're going out of town for a week?"

Gordon had the grace to look embarrassed at forgetting something that had been so obviously important to his only daughter. "I'm sorry, Barbara, but I can't back out of this."

Barbara let out a disheartened sigh, knowing just how hard her father worked, "Well, at least you never got around to asking someone out if only to forget about the whole ordeal."

"I'm really sorry, Honey. I'll make it up to you when I get back."

"Now Dick and I will be at the table all by ourselves."

"I have an idea, Bullock. How about you take my place?" Gordon turned back to his detective. "Might as well not let four hundred dollars go to waste, and anyway, I'm not so sure I want young Dick Grayson to be alone with my little girl."

"Daddy!" She snorted at her father's implication.

"Me, Commish?" Bullock was taken aback. "Wait, this is a Valentine's thing, right? Um, who's the fourth plate?"

Gordon shrugged, "Your date."

Bullock was positively scowling. "I'm supposed to find a date in three days? Get real, Jim!"

Barbara wasn't so sure she wanted her family's old friend as a dinner guest. She'd seen him eat and wanted to enjoy her own meal without having to witness him enjoying his. "Um, daddy, it's okay, I mean, it's not THAT big a deal."

"Now, Barbara, you've been looking forward to this for along time. I insist you go. Bullock, look after my daughter while I'm gone."

Harvey wasn't happy, but opted not to argue further. Both he and the younger Gordon were dismissed.

"You don't have to go if you don't want to Bullock." Barbara said as she walked side by side with the large man down the hall.

"I owe it to your dad to look after you if he asks me to. So I'm gonna do it." But he shook his head, "I just don't know how I'm going to find someone in three days."

Barbara patted his arm, "Come on, I'm sure there are plenty of pretty rookies you can ask whom you haven't rubbed the wrong way yet."

She grinned up at him and he sourly wondered if she was teasing him or not. He just grumbled to himself and pulled ahead of her.

He made his way to his unkempt desk after parting ways with the commissioner's daughter and his black mood darkened when he saw fellow Detective Montoya waiting for him there. "What?"

"Ever the charmer." She said frowning herself and tossed a file down on top of the trash-strewn desk.

"What's this?" Bullock didn't bother to pick the discarded file up.

"Thought you might like to see the end result that I'm turning in on our last little venture." She told him.

He wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. "I'm writing that report."

"I'm sure IA wouldn't mind hearing MY version of what happened. Why do I have a feeling I'm not in your report at all?" Montoya asked icily.

"You're in there." He sat heavily in his chair, ignoring her report that waited on his desk. "You just don't see the bigger picture, is all. That always was your trouble."

"And your imaginative view of the way things really are are what keeps you minus any sort of partner."

"I work better alone." He told her.

"Then that's the way you'll always be!" Montoya stormed away.

Bullock stared at her file as it sat there on his desk, then picked it up and tossed it in the overflowing trash bucket beside his desk. He didn't need someone to screw up his op. He was in charge of that particular sting, if the wrong people got the wrong ideas about how he'd gotten certain information, then the whole thing would go to hell.

He fished through the filth on his desk for the typewriter and began to circumnavigate through the final report.

-

The Joker sat in his latest hideout and was not smiling.

"What's wrong, Puddin?" Quinn asked as she traced a finger lazily up his purple coat sleeve.

"Valentine's Day." He replied monotonously.

Quinn squealed in excitement. How could she have forgotten one of her favorite days?

"So many people will be happy on that day. I need to find someone who deserves a prank so hysterical that they'll die from humiliation!"

"Not Batman?" Quinn wondered that he would have left out the most obvious choice.

"Nah. He's getting so predictable. No fun at all." The Joker harrumphed as he flopped down into his cushioned chair. "We need someone fresh and fun. Someone we haven't quite broken in yet."

Quinn disappeared and then returned with a huge file that was so full it was literally leaking its contents out onto the floor.

"Here's your latest list of human hobbies!" Quinn dumped the heavy pile of the pathetic humans the Joker kept tabs on as toys into his lap.

"Been there, done that, Harley." The Joker sighed. "We need something closer to home, you know what I mean?" He tossed the gluttonous folder away and it rained paper for a few quiet minutes as he sat and thought.

"So- who, Boss?" Quinn wondered.

-

Bullock groaned. "You gotta be kidding."

Montoya had to agree. "This is ridiculous. Why would I agree to doing this?"

"Because you're doing a favor for a friend." Barbara said all smiles. "Shouldn't that be enough? Besides, if Daddy checks up on me, don't you want to be able to truthfully say that you were there keeping an eye on me, Bullock?"

Bullock eyed Montoya. "This doesn't go beyond us, okay?"

"I know I won't ever speak of it anywhere else." Montoya eyed him back.

"Great, it's a date! See both of you tonight at six!" Barbara beamed at them and departed.

"You'd better be cleaned up by then." Montoya pierced the detective with her gaze then turned on her heel and stalked away.

Christ! A friggen date with Montoya. He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his unruly hair. It wasn't as if he hadn't tried to find someone- don't let anyone tell him he hadn't tried- there just had been no takers was all. None. Zippo. So before he knew what was going on, Miss Gordon had stepped up and taken care of that problem for him. That was embarrassing enough. But why did it have to be Montoya, of all people? The Commish had tried to put them together as partners before and it hadn't worked out. He had a feeling someone was going to end up bloodied before the end of the night and he had a nasty feeling it would most likely be him.

Montoya put her earrings on and took one last long look in the mirror. Since it was Valentine's Day, she wore a vibrant red dress that was nearly floor length and slit up the sides to make walking sort of possible. Her hair was pinned up and she wore natural looking make up. She wasn't dressing up for Bullock, she was dressing up because she liked to and because it was a formal dinner. She leaned against the counter and heard the doorbell ring. Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself she was doing a friend a favor and went to answer the door.

"Let's just get this over with, okay, Montoya?" Bullock was there, hair slicked back close to his head and was wearing what she suspected to be a rented tux. She followed the detective to his car.

She scowled at his lack of comment on how she looked, so she refrained from complimenting him. Childish, she knew, but at the moment, she didn't care. Bullock hesitated at the door, then went ahead and opened the passenger door for her, much to her surprise. She slid into her seat, after wiping some stray crumbs and empty wrappers onto the floor. He shut the door and went around to his side.

The entire drive over was spent in uncomfortable silence. Montoya unhappily stared out the window and knew that dinner was going to be a very painful experience. Barbara was going to owe her big time for this guaranteed fiasco.

The food was good. For two hundred dollars a plate, it had better, Bullock had thought. The company was a bit strained. Conversation was stilted and often halted all together. There was dancing. Barbara and Dick had gone to the floor to dance. Bullock didn't dance. And anyway, he doubted Montoya would have wanted to dance with him even if he knew how.

So they sat there, Montoya fidgeted with her silverware, bored and already looking forward to relaxing at home with a good book and a glass of wine- alone. Luckily, things were looking like they were winding down. People were starting to leave. They eventually walked Barbara and Dick to the kids car and saw them off. Bullock led the way to his car in silence and opened the door for her again.

When he clicked on his seat belt, he barely looked in her direction when he said, "You looked real nice tonight, Montoya."

She smiled. "Thanks, Bullock. Thanks for behaving yourself."

He grunted in response and pulled the car out of the lot. It had begun to rain. The roads were already slicking up, looking shiny and new under the headlights. There was a long stretch of nothing where he picked up speed. The ride back was just as silent as the ride over, but not quite as uncomfortable.

A car passed them and cut them off, nearly catching their front fender in the process.

"SHIT!" Bullock swore and swerved to give the aggressive car some extra room. He tried to correct, but the roads were too wet and his tires too worn. The car spun out, going from the right side of the road clear to the shoulder on the opposite side. The guard rails bent against the weight of the car and sparks shot out in a loud, screeching rain. They eventually came to a shuddering halt, the drivers side was crumpled in from the impact. "Goddammit! What the hell is the matter with that driver?" He looked over to Montoya, "You all right?"

A little shaken, Montoya took a moment to collect herself. "I'm okay. You?"

Bullock nodded and glared out of the window. "Jerk never stopped. Christ, if only I had gotten his license number, I'd be all over his ass tomorrow!"

"You are insured, right?" Montoya could see that his door was jammed up and would probably not open without assistance from the Jaws of Life.

"Of course." He grumbled and then tried to start the car. After nearly ten tries he leaned back in his seat and sighed. "Well that's just great."

"Someone's pulled over." Montoya said with relief as she watched the vehicle slide up to a stop on her side of the car. Probably a responsible citizen who saw the accident, she thought gladly. Why did Bullock always want to think the worst of people when she knew there were always those who would surprise them? She rolled her window down ignoring the rain that drizzled in her face. "Hey there."

The passenger door opened on the other car behind the driver's side. A man surpassing Bullock in size stepped out and approached Montoya. He leaned in and before Montoya could react, had a hold of her wrist in an iron grip and a gun in her very surprised face.

The man noticed Bullock make a move and sneered.

"Don't." There was an audible click as the man pulled the hammer back on his gun. It was still in Montoya's face and never wavered.

Bullock froze.

"Very good. You follow orders, cop. Now, why don't you and your lady friend step into our car?" The man sounded oh so reasonable.

It wasn't as if they could refuse. The man opened Montoya's door for her. He had to release her but still kept the gun trained on her head. She obediently stepped out and with his urging, got into the backseat of the other vehicle.

"Now you, fat boy." The gun was now zeroed in on Bullock's temple.

Bullock gave the man looks that could kill but managed to scoot over to the passenger side and exited the car, eyes never leaving the threat to his head.

"Don't you wanna check to see if I gotta gun?" Bullock queried the man, trying to stall. Everything would be over if both of them were stuck in that car.

The big bad man grinned and it wasn't a pleasant look. "That ain't my job. Yo, Bosco."

Bosco, Bullock grimaced. Of course. If that was the man's real birth name, poor schmuck didn't have much of a chance at any other kind of work then bodyguard or henchman. Big Bad's seeming twin stepped out of the passenger side of the front seat. Of course he had a gun. Didn't all good henchmen? Both guns were aimed at Bullock's head. So much for options, the detective thought morosely to himself and he had to allow Bosco to frisk him. The small nine-millimeter was found tucked in the back of his pants. Well, so much for wrestling Big Bad and surprising him with his gun.

Bullock was shoved into the car and nearly fell on top of Montoya. Big Bad scooted in next to Bullock who was sandwiched in between their new friend and Montoya. Bosco sat up front next to the nameless driver. The car pulled out and sped down the road.

Bullock had to wonder- what the hell did these people want?

To Be continued-