Title : Shadows All Around Us
Author : Katiyana
Summary : Stand-alone. She lingers everywhere but she doesn't stay for long. BW/SK
Note : Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed my stories for this pair. More will come when I can complete them.
"Stay," he says softly to the beautiful woman in the skin-tight black cat suit, every sensual curve of her body imprinted in his memory but he drinks in the view in the moonlit darkness anyway.
"You know it doesn't work that way," she replies, staring straight back at him provocatively.
Then she is gone, a rustle of the snowy white curtains in the wind.
# BW # SK # BW # SK #
"Daddy, tell me a story about the Catwoman," pleads the little three-year-old brunette with a cute pout, her large dark eyes looking up at him through her long full lashes. Every adorable feature on the young child is reminiscent of her mother though it was undeniable that there is a hint of his features too ever so often in her expressions mostly. For instance in the way she smiled, or when she was brooding seriously over something.
She was an extremely intense child. Her doting father wished with all his heart that she was less so. He thought that she should always be light-hearted and bright. It was probably because of him that she was so serious a lot of the time. He would try his best to change for her sake. She deserved no less than an idyllic childhood and he was determined to give her one.
# BW # SK # BW # SK #
"You really do spoil her so," came her smooth, silky voice, sneaking up behind him as usual.
He turned and shielded his eyes from the glare of the sunshine. She was dressed in a smart simple dress and she was gorgeous, as always. She smirked at him.
"Daddy's little princess, huh?" she smiled affectionately at him. Her smile drew him in as it had never failed to do. He loved all her expressions. Currently her demeanour was warm and open. It was not often that she let her guard down and he saw her like this.
His heart clenched within him. He tried to speak but he didn't know what to say first. There were so many things that he desperately wanted to voice. They were in broad daylight. There were people all around them. It was a beautiful day at the Enchanted Castle in Disneyland. It was their daughter's sixth birthday.
He watched her watch their daughter play happily with her friends for several long moments. She seemed happy and peaceful at the cheerful sight that he had been enjoying by himself before she showed up. He is still unable to find his voice.
They stood there in the sunshine, silently, for what felt like the longest time. He wanted to reach out and hold her but he knew that he couldn't. Then he noted that Alfred was starting to walk towards them. He started to close his eyes at the inevitable. Before his eyes shut completely, he saw her lean toward him and caress his cheek tenderly. He felt the breath of her kiss, butterfly soft on his lips.
"Master Wayne?" said Alfred, when he came up to him.
He opened his eyes and as he had expected, she was gone.
# BW # SK # BW # SK #
"Uncle Robin!" chirped the little girl happily, flinging herself into his arms as the handsome former police officer stood up to greet her when she came home from school.
"Hello, Puss. How was school today?" said the young man with a grin, fondly hugging his 'niece'.
"Where's Daddy?" she asked quickly and suspiciously after giving him a big hug. Her eyes darted all around the house, searching for the most important person in her life.
Blake groaned inwardly, he had been hoping to avoid that particular question for a few hours yet. The young girl was far too perceptive.
With quiet sigh, Blake settled for, "He'll be back soon."
He tightened his hug as she clung to him.
"How soon?" asked a small voice.
Blake briefly considered giving a made-up answer but he couldn't do that. He was simply too honest.
"I don't know, Puss. But soon," he told her.
"You're staying?" she asked, in a subdued voice.
"Yes, of course. I'll be here until he comes back," said Blake, his heart aching for the young girl whose childhood should not be burdened with episodes like this. He knew firsthand how harsh life could be for a child and he desperately wished that things were different. However he could not do much else but keep her safe until her father came back as he had promised.
"He will be back, sweetheart," he reassured her, correctly reading the terrified look in her eyes.
"He'll always come back, for his darling girl," soothed Blake but he could see that she didn't quite believe him. They were just words.
The wary look in her eyes would not fade until he did come back. She was so afraid that one day, he would not. There was nothing anyone could do to make it better because no one was really ever sure that he would come back.
# BW # SK # BW # SK #
"You're not looking so great," she chided with a frown, running her eyes over his bruised and battered body.
"Hello to you too, sweetheart," he said through gritted teeth. He was in pain.
"You promised that you'd stopped doing this. You're older now, you could get seriously hurt or killed and then what would she do?" scolded the woman in black.
"You said that you'd stay," he chose not to fight with her over that, closing his eyes and falling onto the bed, teetering on the edge of consciousness.
He felt a warm body wrap herself around him. He let himself slip away into a restful slumber.
"You know why I have to go," he heard her whisper as he began to stir from a deep sleep.
He realized that his cheeks were stained with tears. It was time to go home.
# BW # SK # BW # SK #
"Alfred, do you think that I look like her?" asked the young teenager, gazing wistfully at a photograph of her parents together.
It was a candid shot. The couple in the photograph only had eyes for one another as they leaned towards each other contentedly. Her mother wore a beautiful pearl necklace. It seemed to be her favourite necklace for she could be seen to be wearing it in most of the photographs and videos. But it wasn't in the room where the rest of her jewellery was kept. She had never actually seen the pearl necklace except in the photographs. She still loved to look and try on all the beautiful pieces that her mother had owned. She had done so since she was a little girl.
"I think that you are much like her in many ways," answered Alfred carefully.
"But I'm not as beautiful," interpreted the young girl, as her shoulders slumped.
"I never said that, young miss," said Alfred sternly.
"But look at me!" cried the teenager, pointing at a nearby mirror. She saw an unattractive angular face with eyes that were too large, mousy dark brown hair and braces on her teeth.
"Miss Wayne, you are a beautiful young woman, just growing up. You are their child but you are your own person. She was a wonderful woman and she was your mother. You are not her," pointed out Alfred firmly.
"Is that why he leaves sometimes?" she asks softly, still staring at the photograph.
Alfred kept silent. There was simply no safe way to answer that. It was a question only Bruce could answer for his daughter.
# BW # SK # BW # SK #
"You need to tell her why," she says gently, looking at him from the bed.
The sheet barely covered her delicious body, smooth and supple still. Her hair was tousled and he was still incredibly hungry for her. He would never get enough of this woman.
"How?" he protests, gazing moodily out of the window.
"She's all grown up, Bruce. She should know the truth. You can't protect her forever," declared Selina.
"I can't," says Bruce in a hoarse voice flooded with pain. It had never abated, it was still so fresh and so strong after all this time.
"Give her the pearls," advises Selina, kissing his bare shoulder.
He doesn't turn to see her leave.
# BW # SK # BW # SK #
He holds the strand of pearls in his hands as she walks into his study.
He notices that she starts at the sight of them but she quickly relapses into a sullen expression.
"Your mother loved them," he says softly, reverently caressing the smooth, lustrous pearls.
She keeps silent. Lately they have not been able talk much to each other. She has grown into a beautiful woman, so like her mother. Bruce cannot help the flare of pain and guilt every time he looks at her.
"They originally belonged to your grandmother," he continues calmly, not yet making eye contact with his daughter.
Lucius was the one that had traced her location and found her. She was a genius at hacking her way into sensitive information of all kinds. She was smart enough not to do it from home but not quite able to escape detection by the resources from Wayne Tech.
"Your grandmother was wearing this necklace when she and your grandfather were murdered while we were coming home from the opera. I was with them and I was only eight years old then," explained Bruce in an even tone.
His daughter stared at him. He had never been so open with her before.
"Your mother stole it when we first met," he continued with a smile.
"She always looked incredible wearing them," he remembered with a grin.
She frowned as she processed what her father was saying. Why would her mother steal the pearls?
"Do you remember the stories I used to tell you about the Batman and the Catwoman?" asked Bruce, now taking a seat.
His daughter automatically sat down opposite him, her intelligent brain busily working out what he was telling her.
She had been unable to find out much about her parents backgrounds, no matter how hard she had tried. That was why she had started hacking for information. She wanted to find out why, she was obsessed. She did not yet know about a very effective programme called Clean Slate that had been perfected by Wayne Tech years ago, though she probably would be able to find it on her own pretty soon. She was very proficient at hacking by now. It was only a matter of time.
"Yes," she answered almost absently.
"Once upon a time I was the Batman and your mother was the Catwoman," explained Bruce haltingly.
She looked at him intently, then settled herself back to listen.
"I made many enemies in my time as the Batman. But it was worth it because I met your mother. She saved my life. And she gave me you," he continued. His love for her mother was evident in every word.
She listened quietly.
"There was an insane criminal called the Joker. I had helped put him away in Arkham as the Batman but then he escaped somehow. He had planned it meticulously and no one found out or was alerted for a while. It took too long," Bruce's voice became cold and controlled as he narrated his story.
"You were due and for many different reasons but mostly for my sake, your mother had insisted that you were to be born in Gotham. We just couldn't stay away," he stopped, staring into the distance.
The icy feeling of dread that had crept up over her now gripped her heart in a cold, tight fist.
"We played right into his hands. He was evil but he was a genius. He had been planning for such a long time. He had vowed to get revenge. There was nothing I could do to stop him when he shot your mother straight in the head and I was helpless for just a split second too long," he rasped out the tale.
"That was the only time I have ever emptied a machine gun into another human being and I don't regret it for a single second," he said in a flat voice.
"But it was all too late to save your mother," he concluded with a desolate sigh as he shut his eyes against the terrible torrent of memories he could never escape. Time had not made them any more bearable.
She watched him, immobile as horror numbed her entire being at the tragic story.
"They couldn't save her but they did save you. They said that it was a miracle. She always used to say that as well when we were expecting you. She called you her little miracle. So that's how you got your name, Mireille. It means miracle," he told her.
Her eyes brimmed with tears that spilled over as she finally began to understand how and why her father became the man he was. For as long as she could remember he had seemed somehow broken. That was because he was.
"Your mother gave me the will to live again after a long time and she gave me you. If I didn't have you, I probably wouldn't have continued to live anymore. I love her so much," he said looking at her steadily.
Mireille noted that he still spoke in the present tense of his love. Her heart broke for her father and her beautiful mother. The mother she had never met, never had the chance to get to know.
"I know that I haven't been the best father all the time but I have been trying, Miri. I really do love you. You are my miracle," he continued.
Mireille's tears continued to run down her cheeks at her father's words.
He smiled at her sadly.
"I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you all the time but sometimes it got so hard and I was so afraid that I would pull you down with me, so I left for a while. But I made sure that there would be people looking after you. I really am sorry for those times," he hung his head and saw the necklace in his hands.
"She wants me to give these to you," he said, getting up to clasp the beautiful strand of pearls around her neck.
"She was so excited to have a girl to be able to pass them on to. I know that she loves you so very much, Puss," he tells her, using her nickname that he hasn't used for years.
"I'm sorry too. I never understood," she sobs, flinging her arms around her father tightly.
"It's okay, honey. It's all going to be okay," he soothes, rubbing her back gently as she sobs into his chest.
He catches his wife's eye as she watches her husband and daughter. She has a loving smile on her face as she leans against the wall. She also seems to have tears running down her cheeks at the scene.
"Stay," he mouths to her over Mireille's shoulder.