The Wren and the Robin

To make up the forty hours of community service she needs, Damian, the young master of the Wayne family, is sent to shovel cat litter at an animal shelter beside Crime Alley. There he meets the only girl in all of Gotham who doesn't react to the name Wayne: Raine, a scholarship student who carries a sketchbook everywhere. She's sharp-tongued and cool-headed, and draws every unguarded moment she sees.

He thinks the names she gives the cats have no aesthetic appeal. She thinks he can't even lie without using props. They trade barbs every Wednesday, he gets more and more used to hauling cat food, and the pages devoted to one particular person in her sketchbook keep piling up. Then a rare-animal smuggling case using the shelter as a front brings together two investigations they'd been conducting separately.

The night she returns the evidence, she says, "There's a scar on your left forearm, and you tilt your pen three degrees when you write. I've drawn you forty-seven times, Damian."

A mask can hide a face, but not the way someone draws.

Theme: Love at first sight, or love that grows over time