So a few minutes after I post up chapter one, I see someone posts a review. You know much happy that made me? Very. So, here's chapter two.
From the time I stepped through the door and the maitre d' saw me, he led me to a table at the centre of the restaurant and informed me that Xana would be here shortly. I had time to kill so I just sat there and thought about earlier when I was getting ready.
I looked carefully at my reflection in the mirror, mask over my eyes and messed with my hair a little to get it how I wanted it. I was about to sneak my way out when Alfred appeared out of nowhere.
"You look rather dashing, young master Richard," he said.
"Doesn't he?" Bruce agreed. I spun around to see them with their eyes fixed sternly on me.
"Thanks, Alfred, Bruce," I replied. Alfred left the room and Bruce just continued to stand there and look at me.
"Mind telling me where you're going so dressed up?" he asked, tone very even. He was just slightly peeved.
"I'm going to meet someone at a restaurant."
"Is this someone a girl?" I pulled at my collar. He chuckled. "Just be home before one."
That one took me by surprise.
"Wait, what?"
"I just said be home before one."
"Wait, what?" He chuckled.
"I trust you, Dick. You wouldn't do anything that would get anyone hurt or—"
"Okay, so I'm going out with Xana." His eyebrows shot up.
"Xana? The thief?"
"Er...yeah..."
"Well, be back before one."
"...Seriously?"
"I know what it's like to be young. Besides, you remember Selina Kyle."
"Catwoman? You—"
"Go. You're going to be late."
"We'll talk about this later."
"Alright. If anything goes wrong, keep your communicator on you."
"I will. Thanks, Bruce."
I was still shocked that he let me walk out that door. But Batman knew me. He knew I would always make the right choice when the time came and that I could hold my own. And he knew that, sometimes, your heart had to make some decisions for you.
I was sitting there for fifteen minutes and she hadn't yet come. I was beginning to think that I was the one being stood up. Then, I noticed a girl who just walked through the door with a few raindrops on her skin and her hair. The fall of her straight, black hair, the way the sweetheart neckline of her dress fit, the shade of her skin and the shape of her unmasked face made me marvel with the knowledge of who she was far before she looked at me and smiled. Xana was even more beautiful without her mask. I felt my stomach tighten at the sight of her.
I got up to pull out her chair and she flashed me a brilliant smile as she sat. I retook my place and she had that smirk on her lips. Without the mask, the effect was just as or maybe a little more mind-blowing.
"You look fantastic," she said.
"That's my line." I hadn't missed that the dress fit her figure perfectly and stopped mid-thigh to show off her stunning legs and a pair of painful-looking gold and black high-heel shoes. Her legs were a little more than just fit. They were noticeably muscular. Acrobatic muscular. I had an idea of what looked like.
"Thank you. Sorry about the wait."
"You got caught in the rain. You didn't bring a jacket?" She shrugged.
"It was just a few drops. It's nothing."
A waiter came over and started to hand us menus when she snatched my menu from me and handed them back him.
"We're ready to order. He wants a parmesan oregano steak with linguine and I want grilled shrimp with linguine. For appetisers, just bring the spinach shrimp." The waiter nodded and then returned to where he came from. I could feel the way my eyebrow raised when she just started ordering without glancing at the menu and ordering for me, at that.
"Familiar much with the menu?" I asked.
"I could recite everything on this menu in order with its prices and the sizes."
"This is your family's restaurant." She nodded.
"Very good. You're sharp for a...fifteen year old?"
"I'm thirteen."
"Oh. Wow. Thirteen."
"Well, how are you today?" She laced her fingers together and propped her elbows on the table.
"That's not important."
"Sixteen?" Her face looked surprised for a brief second.
"You're good."
"And yet still you get away from us every time."
"I just know how to run for my life."
"Do your parents know? That you're a thief, I mean."
"Probably. They know everything I do, I think."
"They've never tried to stop you?"
"Not too sure. They're dead."
"Oh...I'm so sorry."
"It's fine. They died in an accident. When I think of them it makes me hesitate a little though."
"I...I also lost my parents."
"Then I know how you feel. I knew there was more than one reason why I was attracted to you."
"Attracted, huh." She looked away for a long moment. "What happened to your usual sass and fight? You're being so timid today."
"You think I'm always femme fatale? At some point I do turn back into a normal human being. Today I got you really mad. It...I just couldn't leave things like that. Hurting you is not something that is ever my intention."
"I really don't get you."
The waiter came back, bringing the plate of appetisers with him. Two kebabs of skewered shrimp with strands of spinach wound around their midsections sat there on the plate with a brownish sauce in two tiny cups. She used her hand to remove one from the skewer and dipped it in the sauce, taking a first bite. I just lifted the skewer to dip the first one then tasted it. The girl knew how to pick food.
"Maybe I'll spell it out for you sometime. It's not half as complex as you think. Do you like it?" She gestured at the shrimp to avoid confusion.
"It's awesome." She nodded. "You live with a guardian now?"
"No. I live by myself but someone is the building is supposed to check on me and make sure I have what I need."
"School?"
"I finished recently."
"Ah, so you're one of those genii."
"No. My parents and I just wanted me to get out of school quickly so they had me on an accelerated program. I think you'd be the genius. I...I can just work really hard if I have a goal in mind."
"Like going out and committing burglaries every night." She cracked a small smile again.
"Exactly. But I have a goal in mind so I work towards it."
"You don't do it just to get the things you want?"
"No, there's more behind it."
"You going to stop being vague any time soon?"
"Later. For now, I want to talk about something lighter. We can get all hot and heavy later." I wonder for a second if I saw the double meaning in her words. I cocked a brow and she mirrored my expression in a sexier manner.
"What do you want to do when you're older?"
"I wanted to be superhero but somehow that plan went awry."
"You could always reform."
"It's not that simple."
"It could be. All you have to do is do your time and give back everything you stole."
"I can't afford to waste time in jail. I'd go nuts."
"You can't go to jail. Juvie maybe, not jail."
"Either way."
We polished off the shrimp and almost as if he'd been watching, the waiter brought our entrees and took the appetiser plate. The steak was even more amazing than the appetiser. She asked me a few questions about my life, seeming to try to sidestep asking anything too personal. It was almost as if she was trying to help me keep my identity a secret. She was helping how much I was in love with her either. She still made a lot of her sassy, witty remarks like she usually did when masked and clad in leather. She wasn't the one who wore a mask to separate personalities. She was the one who wore the mask to avoid being immediately recognised or just because it matched the outfit. She was still always essentially the same person.
We kept talking long after the plates were cleared until the lights started being turned off, the not-so-subtle indicator that they wanted people to go home. She stood and I followed suit.
"Where to now?" I asked.
"Can we go for a walk?"
"Yeah, sure."
"What time do you have to return home?"
"One."
"We've got more than an hour. Come on, let's go to the park."
On the way to the park, she asked me arbitrary questions about myself, things that would seem a bit minor to others. She seemed to be a girl who enjoyed simple things. It only made my heart feel worse. Just as we reached there, we encountered a guy with an ice cream cart. I noticed the way her eyes lit up when she saw the cart so we went over.
"I'll have two chocolate ice cream cones, please," I said to the guy. He smiled as he shovelled out the two scoops onto the cones. I handed him a ten dollar bill, smiled and we walked off. At that hour, he deserved a big tip. There was a tall structure at the centre of the park and she went ahead of me to climb up the part of it that looked like a staircase before she sat. I came to join her not long after.
"It's later so I suppose I owe you some answers," she said. "Amazing how you pinned me for chocolate, though. You're really good at figuring me out. Why can't you figure out why I'm doing this, why I've always doted on you?"
"Well, I had a thought but it probably has no standing."
"You can't say that. I want to hear your guess."
"First, I want to hear why you started stealing."
"After my parents died, I was just numb to everything. One day when I was just walking through the mall, the stray thought came into my mind that perhaps I should just take something. I found afterwards that it gave me a rush. I figured it was better to feel something than nothing, even if the rush came from stealing. After I got over their deaths, I ended up still stealing for the thrill of it."
"And the whole costume thing?"
"I just wanted to make some trouble. It gives me something to do at night."
"So...what you're trying to tell me...is that you're bored?" She laughed a little.
"Essentially. But old habits die hard."
"You going to stop? Things could get really dangerous if the League actually intervenes."
"Yes. Very soon." She sighed. "See, them I know I can't take. You guys...you're not weak, but I guess I have the power of seduction on my side. I'm just a little bit faster than you. Superboy focuses a little too much on smashing things than actually getting the target. But you, you're the one who's most experienced. You're the really dangerous one."
"And you figure you've got me caught up most of all." She smiled a small smile at me.
"Well, I hope so." I took a second to take that in.
"Why?"
"This is the part where you tell me what you're guess is."
Given the tone of the conversation, and what she'd said thus far, it didn't make me feel like so much of an ass to say what I impression I had gotten from her advances those many times.
"You always come back just to talk to me. And you tell me some personal things sometimes. It kind of gives the impression that you're interested in me."
She smiled a rather cute smile, but on her face, it only served to turn on her allure.
"Do you really believe that?"
"My head tells me you're just messing with me because it's fun. Just like beating us up and stealing is." I took the now empty paper cone that was around the ice cream cone from her, rolled it into a ball with mine and threw it at the garbage bin about four yards away. It went in.
"But you're right. I told you you're good at this." It took me about three seconds to process that.
"What?"
"I'm also a victim of a terrible crime, Robin. You, who claim to be such an upstanding instrument of justice, have stolen my heart."
My heart started to beat erratically. She was looking into my eyes, her elbows on her thighs, her hands propping up her head, her hair cascading perfectly over her shoulders. If this was a trap, it was a damn good one.
She slid closer to me, taking my face in her hands very gently with her soft, gentle hands that touched in a way that maddened. Her eyes were liquid and sensuous and I would have been an idiot if I didn't know what was on her mind.
"Is this your first kiss?" she asked softly. She didn't even give me time to answer. "Because it should be." Her face started coming closer to mine and just before her lips touched mine, she whispered, "It's mine."
There was nothing soft and tentative about this kiss. The second her lips touched mine, she started feeding me all the hunger, passion and urgency she had to give. And I gave back.
There was nothing more that I had longed for than a chance to get a glance at the girl behind the mask, under the leather and beyond the thief. I got a whole five hours with her. And now, she was not only letting me spend this time with her, she admitted her interest in me and her lips were speaking romance to me.
It finally hit home. She wasn't kidding. This wasn't a trap. She wasn't toying with me.
She really actually wants me.
And I really want her back.
I don't know when my arms ended up around her back, but they didn't want to let go and she wouldn't stop kissing me and I wouldn't stop kissing back. Her mouth tasted like chocolate ice cream and promises of passion that would drive me insane. How was one kiss doing this? Did mutual attraction have something to do with it?
She pulled back suddenly and it occurred to me after a few seconds that our breathing was ragged and I desperately needed oxygen. That kiss had thrown me into such an abyss that I hadn't even noticed that I was mere seconds from passing out from oxygen deprivation.
She was still in my arms, her hands still holding my face and she brushed her thumb against my cheek. I remembered that I was wearing my mask. I remembered that she had said that she wanted to see how my eyes would look if we ever kissed. I moved a hand from her back and started removing the mask when she stopped me and smoothed it back into place.
"What colour are your eyes?" she asked.
"They're blue." She smiled.
"The most beautiful thing in the world."
"Why did you stop me?"
"Your identity is important to you. Who you are beneath the mask is different from who you are with it and just as important. It's different for me."
"I want to show you. I love you." The smile lifted and then returned.
"But we can't be certain we're alone. I won't risk anyone seeing you without your mask." Her lips returned to mine, softer this time, sweeter, a short kiss. I could see the pure calm joy in her eyes when they opened again.
Her eyes flickered behind me and her smile shrank as she sighed.
"It's midnight. Time to go home," she said.
"Already?"
"My neighbour who watches out for me expects me before half twelve. She'll be a bit angry if I come in late. I'll get screamed at, not that I take her on."
"Can I walk you home?"
"Please."
I got up from sitting and offered her my hand to help her up. I took her into my arms once more, her hands resting on my biceps and leaned in to kiss her. When she opened her eyes, she took my hand and we started heading to her home.
The conclusion to this story awaits. All I need is to know that you would like it.
