Emily Daggett is a spoiled little brat, to put it kindly. After being raised by one of the wealthiest and most manipulative men in all of Gotham, she's grown accustomed to her luxurious lifestyle. She never expected to get caught up in the utter chaos Bane inspires after his "revolution" breaks through, nor did she ever expect what horrors she would face after ending up in the hands of the honorable Judge Crane.
I do not own Batman or any relating characters.
This story is primarily set during Bane's reign over Gotham. But chapters will be mainly focused on Crane, of course, because I do adore him.
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Her hands shook uncontrollably as she clutched the steering wheel, accelerating forward at a frightening rate. No matter that she didn't have a license, nor a permit - there were no laws or guidelines to follow in Gotham now, anyway. Not since Bane… Or Crane.
She shivered and pressed her foot against the gas pedal.
I need to get out, I need to get out of here. I can go anywhere I please, anywhere but this city…
A fleeting thought suddenly crossed her mind, though it hit her as though she'd just slammed into a brick wall. What about the bomb, the nuclear weapon that Bane had threatened the entire city with? She'd been so occupied with avoiding her fate, avoiding Crane, avoiding the mess of insanity she felt creeping up on her more and more each day, she'd completely disregarded the fucking bomb…
Hot tears bit at her eyes, as much as she fought to hold them back, they rushed down her cheeks at an alarming rate - furious enough to block her vision of the road for a mere few seconds, even. And by the time she had collected herself enough to brush the tears away from her face, she realized she was on a head-way collision with a pole.
A scream burst through her throat as she slammed on the break in a desperate attempt to stop the oncoming accident, but to little avail. She turned the steering wheel recklessly, rumbling over a rather tall curb at the edge of the street, and what with her tires shrieking against the pavement…
Before she knew it, the car was completely upside down, and there were black circles swimming in her vision. She coughed as the engine smoked and glass from both the windows and the windshield rained down on her, layering her entire body in cuts and scrapes. Every fiber in her body screamed at her to run, to make a break for it, to escape, but she could not move. The dashboard of the car had completely collapsed in on her legs, making any form of escape futile. There was little she could do when the car that had been pursuing her pulled up to the accident, and out strolled a mercenary - one of Bane's rugged, ruthless men - and peered into the upside down window where she resided.
"Emily Daggett," said the man calmly, a hint of amusement in his expression that he did not even bother to suppress, "I believe that you're late for your court date."
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SIX MONTHS PREVIOUSLY
"Angela! AN-GEL-AAAAAA!" shrieked Emily across the hallway. A small, thin woman with what would be rather beautiful features, did she not look so exhausted and worn-out, came rushing out of the bathroom almost immediately. She came to a very cross-looking Emily's side, panting slightly.
"My apologies, Miss Daggett, I was scrubbing the bathtub and-" she began in a hurry.
Emily simply held her hand up, silencing her, and tapped her foot impatiently against the hardwood floor. "My dad left you with only one job this weekend - to cater to me. And you expect me to accept your pitiful excuses about "cleaning the bathroom", or whatever you fucking said, when you're not even doing the one job that my father left for you?"
Angela glanced down at the floor pitifully, not daring to meet Emily's scornful gaze. She was a spoiled little bitch, that much was certain, but it was also true that her father, John Daggett - one of Gotham's wealthiest men, mind you - also paid quite well for a less-than-well-educated maid with several children to support. "I'm so sorry, Miss Daggett," she said finally, very softly.
"Unless you want to go back supporting your ten fucking kids through prostitution, or on the fucking Mexican farm or whatever it is you did before this, I suggest that you make me my lunch. Now," said Emily acidly. She shoved Angela in the direction of the kitchen, then pointed down the hall. "You've been here long enough to know what I like to eat."
Angela retreated down the hall like a scorn little puppy dog, and Emily watched her as she went, her lips curled into a smirk. There were certain benefits of being the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Gotham - certain powers, luxurious, and privileges that the "average" Gotham citizen were not allowed. One of the simplest of these being the ability to boss the fucking underpaid maid around who was smart enough to know that any type of remark she made back would eventually make its way back to Daggett, who would replace her without a second thought and risk losing no sleep over the decision as she rotted on the streets with her children.
It was the type of power that the usual Gotham citizen did not possess, and Emily absolutely relished it.
After Angela had disappeared entirely into the kitchen, and Emily could hear the racket of pots and pans rattling as she hurried to cook something up, she went into her room and flopped onto her bed. Her bedroom was large, but it was really nothing special - it had all the usual 18-year-old-girl additions to it, but nothing really stuck out entirely. Emily's tendency toward being creative had never really developed, or was very bland, to say the least, due to the fact that she had never felt the need to be creative or to stick out in any way at all. When everything was handed to you on a silver platter and everyone knew your name by association, of course, everyone noticed you. You were already born an individual, so there was no need to become one.
"M-miss Daggett," came Angela's stammering voice from the doorway. Emily did not even bother to glance up, but instead answered in a harsh tone of voice,
"What, Angela?"
"Miss Tori has arrived. She said that you're expecting her?"
Emily finally looked at the doorway, her expression considerably brighter than it had been only moments ago. "Well, what're you waiting for? Let her in!" Finally, after lazing around this godforsaken house the entire day, there was something to do. Tori had been Emily's friend since the day they'd been born (they shared a birthday, and her father had been present in both waiting rooms at some point) and she was always delighted to see her. In a way, Tori was very opposite of Emily, what with her generally kind and expressive nature… while Emily herself had a tendency to be rather, erm, harsh and demanding... Either way though, they had managed to remain friends throughout the previous eighteen years, despite the occasional argument between them. It was almost as if they complimented each other.
"Em!" said Tori loudly, spreading out on the bed sheet beside her friend. "You've gotta put on the news, now. Didja hear what happened last night? With the Batman?"
The Batman, of course she'd heard. Her father hadn't stop going on about it the entire night.
"Yeah, I did," said Emily flatly, not bothering to turn on the television. She'd been raised her entire life to distrust and ridicule the Batman, so his return did not exactly excite her in the same way that it seemed to excite Tori. If anything, she was displeased with his reappearance. "Eight fucking years, and the freak chooses to come back. I had enough of him when I was ten, and all the kids in our fucking class were drawing bat symbols in bathroom stalls and on their homework. Does his sideshow never end?" she complained.
Tori looked at her friend in confusion, a frown curling along her face. "I thought you'd be happy, y'know? Especially since that whole stock market incident yesterday." She pursed her lips into a judgmental sort of pout. "Your dads money does rely on the stock market, as well."
Emily barked a laugh. As much as she wished she could inform her best friend about her fathers conversing with the masked man that committed the crime, she'd sworn that she wouldn't. All of this had to be kept under wraps, he'd told her, if she wanted him to successfully take control of Wayne Enterprises. Which, of course, she certainly did.
"Don't look at me like that," said Emily distastefully. "It's not like he actually stopped the robbery," she snorted.
"He did stop the Joker, if you don't recall," Tori reminded her.
Emily winced unintentionally, causing Tori to raise her eyebrows slowly in triumph - knowing that she'd reminded her friend of one of Batman's certainly victorious and helpful aids to the city.
After all, Emily had been on the civilian ferry that the Joker had rigged to explode, oh-so-many years ago.
"All right," said Emily with a huff, "I'll give him that, but overall, he's a B-Rated… hero." She said the word "hero" as though it had left an unpleasant taste in her mouth, then continued with a shrug of her shoulders, "But even so, even if he is back for good, someone's going to take care of him eventually. Whether it be the police or whoever it was that organized the stock market incident." There was a pregnant pause. "His time was up eight years ago."
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I know it's just started, but remember to review. :3
