Author's Note: Thank you so much to those who left reviews. Hopefully a few more of you will let me know if you're out there. Or maybe you're not. Really, I'm not sure how big the market is for the stories I like to write. But even if a few people like it, I'm happy.
This is a pretty Bruce-centric chapter. Well, you'll see.
...Chapter Two...
With each morning, the temperature gained a degree, while the days had grown increasingly long. The sun was still parallel to his eyes when Bruce Wayne arrived home in the early evening; although the penthouse where he had been living in since the demolition of Wayne Manner still did not feel like anything remotely resembling a home.
More like some kind of glorified hotel.
A place for killing time, while he took a vacation from himself.
The Joker was in Arkham and nearly a year had passed since the last time he had seen him, dangling from rafters that seemed to hold the very sky together, swinging from side-to-side and spinning like pendulum. No, not spinning -- twisting. Twisting and screeching like a howler monkey.
Bruce's eyes shifted from the left to the right and back again... back again... back again...
It was also a drawing upon a year since the death of Harvey Dent...
Rachel Dawes.
And still the sun refused to set.
"Master Bruce?"
Bruce stood no more than an inch from the glass wall on the westward-staring face of his penthouse. Beside him was a small metallic cocktail bar. In his right hand was a highball glass of scotch and soda. Not a sip had been taken. The ice had melted, and a few drops of water rolled over the rim and mingled with the condensation collecting like a small puddle in his palm. The room behind him was fully lit, despite the incessant brightness of the sun, with members of his staff buzzing softly from station to station. A florist had just arrived with centerpieces for three round tables which had not been on the opposite end of the room when Bruce had left for work in the morning. In the center of it all stood Alfred Pennyworth: long-standing butler to the Waynes, Bruce's former legal guardian and quite possibly the only friend he had left. Certainly the only one he trusted, though implicitly so.
"Master Bruce?"
His eyelids fluttered. He rubbed the inside corner of his eye with the tip of his index finger. Turning, Bruce raised a quizzical eyebrow to his friend.
"Ms. Potter requires your approval for the flowers." He gestured to a plump young woman hugging a plastic container filled with loose yellow rose petals edged with gold. Unconsciously holding his breath, Bruce strolled across the room and nodded after barely three seconds of examination. Alfred, who had only been waiting for this cue, directed the lady towards the tables, where a pair of women were busy tightening the circumferences on a trio of decadent plum-colored tablecloths.
"Let the countdown begin," Bruce remarked with mock drollness, releasing two lung-fulls of leaden air.
"Party starts at ten," Alfred fed, in a tone equally dry and a little sarcastic. "I'm not sure why people continue to come after what your kicking them out of the Manor."
Bruce lifted his glass a few inches, as though he were finally about to take his first taste, but adjusted his shoulder instead. "I have somewhere to go first."
"Oh? And where is that?"
"A show at the Arcadia Gallery. Don't worry, I intend to be back in time."
"I wasn't worried at all, sir," Alfred replied, although he did not mean it. Every minute of every day for the last eleven months had given him a reason to worry. The time they spent together had seemed to decrease exponentially. When Bruce was making face time at Wayne Tower, he was rarely able to spend a full six hours at home. Even more disconcerting was the dust collecting in the Batcave; but where his young master spent his time, Alfred dared not pry, despite how hard his patience was tried. Even as a boy, he had been prone to spells of withdrawal, no doubt the result of being forced to grow up too quickly for his bones to keep with the pace. Now, fully an adult, his anti-social tendencies had given way to a melancholy that bordered on Shakespearean, but Alfred was no longer sure this was a turn for the better.
He narrowed his eyes on the glass in Bruce's hand and was somewhat reassured to see that it still full. "What's at Arcadia?"
"You'll see soon enough. I bought half the show." Once again, he lifted his drink, but only to take a whiff with his nose. Momentarily, his eyes brightened, and a somber smile curled the corner of his lips.
"You yourself, sir?"
Bruce stepped into the kitchen and poured the diluted contents of his glass down the sink. He nodded. "This morning."
"Has Bradley been fired? Should I be typing my resume, as well?"
Bruce chuckled. Alfred decided to take this as a good omen.
"Happy birthday, sir."
.......................................
The clinks of glasses and cicada-esque chatter had no room to echo between the hundred or so patrons of the Arcadia Gallery, and so what little noise that was not absorbed in the folds of finely tailored suits and delicate spring frocks had nowhere to go but rush to the door whenever it opened, and so it went almost unnoticed when Bruce Wayne entered the main exhibition hall just shy of eight-thirty that evening.
Almost.
"May I check your coat, Mr. Wayne?" asked a stout, middle-aged man dressed in white suit -- the not quite so finely tailored, but still sharp employee uniform that had been selected for the event. Bruce waved him away politely.
"No thanks, I'll keep it with me. I won't be staying long."
In less than sixty seconds, every head in the room had glanced in his direction, some briefly, while others continued to stare. Bruce granted them a general, close-lipped smile, careful not to look directly into any individual pair of eyes, and allowing his own to absorb the colors that seemed to swirl around him, or the absence thereof. Everywhere he looked, something white commanded his attention: soft uncovered lights directed at the ceiling, white uniforms on the employees, white details on the patrons. The only shred of white on his own person were the microscopic pinstripes running down his black dress shirt, beneath his black leather jacket, which he decided to unzip. The air conditioner cooed faintly overhead, but the hall was sultry with body heat and musky with perfume.
Unbuttoning his collar for good measure, Bruce approached the first spotlighted painting, which hung on the narrow plane of a blocky, portable wall. The canvas was only a foot wide, but at least six feet in height. A fat, knotted branch curved up from the bottom and across the middle, cutting the painting in half and vanishing from sight. The top was a cascade of golden leaves, that seemed not only to flicker as he blinked, but to sway in the breeze of some kind of alternate universe.
It was beautiful, absolutely breathtaking. In all the places he had been, and all the people he had met, and all the things he had seen, Bruce stood in stunned silence that he had never seen anything like this before. Truthfully, he had been impulsive in his purchase. Bruce had become aware of that almost immediately. All day he had felt queasy over the idea that when he returned to the gallery he would be sorely disappointed on his own judgement, as if his brain had only been at the right place at the right time, and by nightfall the spell would break.
He was glad to discover he was wrong. He was quite nearly happy.
Nearly.
But close enough to realize there was a concrete difference between numbness and lucidity.
"Champagne, Mr. Wayne?"
A petite cocktail waitress had appeared at his side, offering a tray of tall silver-tinted flutes. Once again, Bruce shook his head graciously.
He circled the wall to his left, minding his broad shoulders as he weaved around the patrons. A large canvas came into view, depicting a white ceiling with a neat square hole cut out. The sky above was tinged with gold, while the room below was smudged and filthy, like a coal cellar; but as Bruce stared, his eyes shifted into focus, and it became apparent that the room did not have walls at all, but was in fact an endless, surreal city street. The streaks of charcoal became buildings caving in under their own weight, abandoned while their former occupants -- unearthly shades of green and red -- wandered off into oblivion.
Gotham.
But his attention kept traveling upward without his permission; Bruce forced it down to the street, again and again, but it refused to remain. The golden clouds kept beckoning him closer, and it seemed as though he had no choice but to obey. Look here... look here... And only a few seconds passed before Bruce realized he was not looking at a cloud at all, but at a pair of golden eyeballs.
"A little too early too be fashionably late, aren't we, Mr. Wayne?"
His heart skipped and sent a jolt down to the tips of his fingers.
"Easy there, Mad Max."
The voice did not belong to another employee -- one that would have certainly gotten herself fired within the week -- but a young woman in a strapless white dress, one which might have been suitable for a woman with a less ample chest, but on her it was borderline pornographic. She was a bombshell, an absolute goddess, with perfectly straight fire-colored hair, emerald eyes, and a mouth that Bruce was sure could maintain its pout through any natural disaster or nuclear catastrophe.
They found them. They always managed to find him.
"I'm sorry," he began, trying his best to be cordial. "Do I know you?" ...but failing miserably. Her timing had been impeccable.
"Bonnie Boyd," she declared, extending her hand and ignoring the question just as he had expected. Bruce offered her what he thought of as his business handshake, which seemed to throw her off, if only for a second. Her bosom wobbledlike poorly refrigerated gelatin. "I didn't expect to see you out and about tonight. Don't you have better places to be on your birthday?"
Bruce shook his head rather frankly. "Oh, no, I live for art," he replied, knowing himself that it was not true. The words left a unfamiliar aftertaste on his tongue.
"You know, men have told me I have a body perfect for modeling." As if she needed extra emphasis, the girl ran her hands over her hips, bringing them in to rest just above each knee.
Bruce cocked his head to the side, now trying to suppress the mischievous grin stretching his lips. He leaned forward, as though he was hard of hearing. "I'm sorry, did you say your name was Bunny?"
The girl copied his stance, her pout losing a touch of its luster. He assumed it was the closest thing she could manage to a frown. Her eyes seemed to retreat into her skull. He had damaged her ego, possibly for the first time. She was young, barely out of her teens, and perhaps it was his duty to teach her a lesson, but Bruce was not interested in sending waves through the crowd. And maybe, just maybe, he felt the slightest bit ashamed of himself.
"Look, Bonnie," he began with a sigh and lowered his voice, "You're a very pretty girl, but--"
Before Bruce could finish, the girl turned on her stiletto heal and disappeared into the throng of patrons. "Your loss."
An outright refusal would have been too much for her to handle. This way, she had remained in control and could brag with a clear conscience in whatever circles she traveled; and brag she would, he was certain. It definitely took guts to proposition Bruce Wayne... Gotham's Prince, or whatever they called him now; Gotham's (Perpetual) Most Eligible Bachelor. How many years would have to pass before he would quality as eccentric? He wondered if he had been wearing the Batsuit if she might have attempted the same thing.
Bruce straightened his shoulders and watched the top of Bonnie's red hair as she cut a path for herself. She turned a number of heads before vanishing behind another portable wall. The chatter in the room seemed to grow louder. An elderly man released a hacking laugh a few feet away, followed by his wife's birdlike twitter. In the distance, Bruce could pick phrases out of a conversation, "...you must come to dinner, soon..." and "...once we get back from Amsterdam... ...work forces us to travel... ...how is the family business, anyway?"
"...profits are booming overseas..."
"...don't you have people to go to Amsterdam for you?"
No one was looking at the paintings.
They noted them with vacant eyes. They acknowledged their existence, but they did not look. They did not see. They did not care.
Bruce's skin began to crawl. His stomach became clammy and as he breathed it started to cling to the threads of his black shirt. He had known he would be entering enemy territory the moment he decided to come: brain dead sycophants, bimbos looking for a wealthy John, small-time mobsters who had only gotten into the business to fill their homes with imported furniture...
He turned back to the canvas. They had no idea what they had come to see. They could not see.
Bruce paused. He mouth went dry.
So, why could he?
And for that Bruce Wayne still had no answer. The aftertaste of confusion lingered in his mouth, while a pair of golden eyes continued to stare at him.
