❄️Frosted Heart❄️

"Sir!" Officer Veronica Weston ran into Commissioner Jim Gordon's office, looking panicked. "Sir, we've just gotten a report that an Arkham inmate has escaped."

"Was it Fries?" Jim asked calmly, sipping his coffee. He suppressed the urge to scowl at the cup -- he really needed to buy the department a new coffee maker.

"Yes, sir." Officer Weston nodded. "How did you know?"

"The same way I know that Wayne Enterprises just finished evacuating one of their floors." Jim answered. "It's that time of year."

"Sir?" Weston looked confused. "Should I dispatch a team to Wayne Enterprises?"

"No. Fries will turn himself in tomorrow." Jim shook his head. "Then he'll be a model prisoner until his next escape, so long as he gets to keep his research notes."

"Sir, with all due respect, you aren't seriously just going to let Fries take over a floor of Wayne Enterprises?" Weston asked, incredulous. "How do you know he'll turn himself in? What if he hurts someone?"

"Weston, you're new here, right?" Jim waited for her nod. "Then let me explain. Every year, around mid December, Fries escapes. Mr Wayne clears a floor of his building. No one is harmed. In the morning, Fries peacefully leaves with an armful of research papers and lets himself be escorted back to Arkham."

"Why?"

"I've never asked." Jim lied. "But trying to stop him causes more trouble than just letting him. Keep an eye on the building, if you want, but do not enter. Got it?"

"Yes sir." Weston nodded, reluctantly leaving.

Jim sighed, picking up the phone. He quickly dialed a number, waiting.

Bruce picked up the phone, listening to the voice on the other end. "Yes, he's here already. Okay. I'll be fine, Jim. Yeah, I'll tell him."

He hung up, wrapped his winter coat tighter around himself, and entered the snow-covered lab. "Jim says happy anniversary."

"The Commissioner is much too tolerant." Fries muttered, looking through a microscope. "Have you tried the neo-cellular formula I created yet?"

"Yes. We managed to wake up four patients, but they were all unstable and had to be refrozen." Bruce picked up a piece of paper, looking at the equations scribbled all over it. "Still, it's a breakthrough. One of many. It'll only be a few more years, at this rate."

"That is what you said last year, Mr Wayne. And the year before that. And the year before that." Fries glanced at him, then switched his gaze to the female body hovering in a frozen tube in the middle of the lab. "I thank you, for letting me do this every year. Nora would appreciate it."

"She will appreciate it, once we get her out of there." Bruce assured, almost putting a consoling hand on the man's shoulder before remembering how insanely dangerous that was. "Only a few more years."

"Hopefully you are not being your usual overly optimistic self, Mr Wayne." Fries turned back to his work. It was quiet in the lab, peaceful as snow.