I stood in front of my mirror twirling in my dress. I really did love it, no matter what kind of emotions and memories may have been caused from the shopping trip earlier. Those memories didn't matter, they weren't mine anyway. Today was my birthday, and I was going to spend the rest of the evening enjoying it with the only person I'd want to be with tonight; my father.
In my still bare feet, I nearly skipped over to my vanity and seated myself down on the cushioned seat. The lights that lined the mirror on both sides brightened every inch of my skin, causing my eyes to beam a light mocha color, my hair echoing the same. My hair was long, just a hair short of my elbows, and I only had ten minutes to figure out what to do with it all. I wanted to look elegant, but also myself. I looked down to see what sort of items I had to work with to tame my beast of a head, but rather than focus on my bobby pins or headbands or hair ties, I noticed the little box seated there innocently, the same way it sat innocently in front of me earlier when my father offered it to me. My fingers incoherently tiptoed towards it, its velvet soft as anything beneath. I twiddled my thumb in between the top and bottom, and opened it slowly until the entirety of the pearls was revealed. Each individual pearl stole some of the light beaming from my vanity and in took it, as if to shine from within.
These pearls didn't deserve to be around my neck. They should be placed upon someone better, more worthy than just a girl who happened to fall into a wealthy family. I did nothing to deserve this other than be born. It didn't seem fair.
I pulled them out of the box despite my feelings, and felt them slither their way around my neck it seemed, until I hooked it in the back. My eyes focused on the necklace in the mirror, and even my reflection agreed that they didn't look quite right on me.
I looked sophisticated, well-bred, and much older. I looked like a real Wayne, but I didn't feel like it. I often wondered what my father would think if he knew how I felt about our family name, about living up to the unspoken expectation that it lingers over my head, and the fact that I'm drowning myself in the pressures of everything I'm supposed to be. Maybe he would understand. But he couldn't. His father before him built the monorail system which now circuits all through Gotham, as well as in other cities. And my father himself was the Batman; the most noble of heroes this life has ever seen. What do I have going for me? I have a nice personality, I'm pretty smart, but those are all just throwaway traits, and no knowledge or sense of niceness will ever measure up to what I need to be.
My name echoed through the halls of the manor as my father called my name from downstairs. I didn't have time to really worry about my hair, so I just left it down in its natural state, a wavy mess that looked beautiful and smart all at once. I picked myself up from my seat at the vanity and grabbed my shoes that sat at the foot of my bed, slipping them on as quickly as possible. I didn't really like wearing heels, but they made the whole outfit, dress, hair, and pearls come together too nicely to ignore them. I grabbed my coat and jacket, slinging both over my shoulder before taking one last glance in the mirror, and shutting off the light and closing the door.
The clicking of my heels to the tile floor announced that I was coming. From over the railing I could see that my father and Alfred both waited at the foot of the stairs for me. I rounded the bend at the end of the hall and began my descent down to the main floor. My father stood at the bottom leaning against one of the poles that supports the roof. When his eyes looked up and saw me, a smile, small at first, then growing slowly made itself appear on his face. I loved it when my father smiled, only because I felt like he didn't do it enough.
Once near the bottom, he reached out his hand towards me, at to which I placed mine on top of it as he gently escorted me down to the bottom. Our hands fell once we were both on the same elevation.
"You look beautiful Alexandria." I smiled bigger, big enough that my teeth were now exposed to the air. My father liked to use my full name on big or fancy occasions, and it was nice to hear every once in a while. My father looked lovely as well, though in my opinion he always looked nice to some extent. Rather than his regular suit, he was wearing a tux tonight, and if any other wealthy man could pull off a tuxedo like my father could, well we just wouldn't be in Gotham anymore.
"Let's get going." I walked past both my father and Alfred in a start towards the door and began to put my coat on.
"Do you know when you will be home, sir?" Alfred asked my father. I turned to look, even though I could have just listened. My father was fixing his cufflinks.
"I don't know, maybe midnight." He walked past Alfred with a slight head nod and past me to the door and opened it for me. A breeze of cool air glided in; it was getting to be the end of August, and the warm often dies down very quickly around here.
"Very well, sir. Goodbye, Miss Alex. Have a wonderful time." I looked back over my shoulder towards Alfred, he wore a smile that was not quite a smile, but not expressionless. I tossed him a gentle wave, and a sincere smile.
"Bye Alfred. Don't let the party get too out of hand while we're gone." A curve danced to his lips with a mouse's chuckle.
"Yeah, you know the rule. No parties unless I'm invited," my father said to him once I had already walked through the doors. I couldn't see his face, but I could imagine Alfred's smug little grin; the grin he wore when he was happy my father was happy.
The door shut behind me, and I started for the car that Alfred had pulled around to the front. "So I'm sixteen now. Can I drive?" My father's head turned to me, a smile mixed between playfulness and taunt on his face.
"You could be my age, and I still wouldn't let you drive." I rolled my eyes playfully at him before he ducked his head into the car and I mimicked him shortly after.
Real life balls were not as fun as fairytales would like to make people believe. Most of the time, it's just you sitting alone with a drink in your hand and not a care in the world. Or well, that was my father at least. I couldn't drink yet, so I was left to sit at the table alone half the time while my father danced with all the lovely women who would die to tell their friends that they got a dance with Bruce Wayne. And I didn't mind it. I would actually implore my father to go and dance and have fun, it was entertaining for me to watch him, and more so it was even more entertaining to watch these women fawn over my father. There were times I would watch and take count of how many women he danced with, how many of them tried to kiss him, how many of them actually succeeded. I would write it all down on a napkin and hand it to him at the end of the night, and we would have a good laugh over it. It was simplicity at its best. My father's happiness was my happiness.
Though tonight was my birthday, and tonight was different. My father refused to go out and dance with any of these women, he wanted to spend the night with me; but that didn't stop women from trying. They still approached the table and asked and tried to be seductive and sexy, and ultimately my father would always turn them down in a snippy and sarcastic way, and I felt like I was in a sitcom. I eventually began keeping track of how many women came up to him, and I would show him every once in a while and he would laugh with me.
About forty-five minutes into the ball, my father and I were sitting at those small little round tables made for two, and we were maintaining a normal conversation until I noticed his attention on something else, something beyond me, and it baffled me entirely when his lips curved into a smile. I furrowed my brows at him as I laughed slightly at his little game.
"What, what is it?" His head was down, but I could still see the smirk. He reached for his glass and took a short sip, rattling the ice inside around a bit before his eyes peeked back up at mine.
"That boy over there is staring at you." I could feel the blood rush to my cheeks, and I couldn't hide the smile from my lips. I had been leaning on the table with my elbow giving me my support, at to which I gently, and extremely slowly began to turn my head towards where my father had nodded his head at. He was cute, but nothing to fawn over. I brought my head back, my father's eyes now completely on me and a smile that seemed to echo my embarrassment. "Why don't you go talk to him?" My vision flicked automatically to him, his eyes pure blue and his smile genuine. I shook my head lightly.
"No, I couldn't." I had never been the sort of girl that boys just freely walk up to and begin talking to and ask out on dates. No boy wanted to be the boy that broke the heart of Bruce Wayne's daughter, and everyone knew that. Still though, my father found it amusing.
"Why not?" Then as if a distraction sent from the heavens and hells all at once, a huge blast was heard in the south wing of the ballroom. The attention of both my father and my own immediately turned towards the sound, at to which smoke began to rise from where the sound emitted. My father stood up to try and see better, as did I. The people who had been dancing near where the blast came from lay on the ground, uncertain if they were still alive or not, but most of them were motionless. The band that had been playing sweet and beautiful music only seconds before now stood still, nearly statues in fear, as did everyone in the room. My father stood directly in front of me, by no stretch of a coincidence I'm sure.
Faint laughter can be heard but from where is mystery. Shots are then fired and can be heard, but the shooter's whereabouts are unknown as well. Everyone on the dance floor ducks down, and seemingly no one is hit. The laughter gets louder, though it's not a maniacal sort of laughter, nothing ludicrous like The Joker, but laughing none the least. It's then that the shape of three figures can be seen walking through the cloud of smoke that was blown in the wall. Three men appear, each armed with their own assault rifle on hand. The man in the middle, is the one laughing, and is the only one who steps out completely onto the dance floor, where cowering people still huddle into piles of human fright. The other two gunman man the exits of the building; the front door, and now the whole in the side of the wall.
He sets off another round of shots, making his way into a circular fashion around the room. My father pushes down on me and forces me to get lower and take cover; he too now crouches, though in front of me. I'm sure some of those shots hit people; there were a few faint cries of pain.
The central gunman ceases fire, and looks around the room, spinning himself in a slow circle, as if trying to lock eyes with each individual in the room.
"Each one of you listen closely," the gunman says. His voice sounded rough, but there was shakiness to it as well. "If you cooperate, none of you will get hurt. But if you don't, well you better hope I'm a bad shot." He began to walk slowly and slightly out of my vision. I tried to push past my father to see, but he was much stronger than I. "Where is your beloved Commissioner James Gordon? I was told he would be here tonight, and I just want to have a little chat with him. You see, he arrested someone I didn't want to get arrested, and that was just a bad decision on his part. Now I just want to talk it out. So," he did another 360, meeting every face. "Where is he?"
I hadn't seen the commissioner since all night, and I wondered if he was even here at all. From behind my father, I looked at his face; it was stern and firm, and ready to rip the gunman's head off, but I knew he wouldn't, because he wasn't Batman anymore.
The room was quiet, and that just confirmed the fact that Gordon wasn't here. He was no coward, and if someone wanted to speak with him, even someone with a gun, he wouldn't hide. But the gunman didn't know that.
"So, no one is going to talk, huh? You all love your precious commissioner too much, huh?" I saw the gunman's eyes in that moment, and my father had told me of that look. It was the look of desperation; the look given when someone is in so deep, that there is nothing left to pull them out, and they'll do anything. It's the moment when anything is worth everything. "You!" the gunman yells as he points to a man, but not just any man, Anthony Garcia; mayor of Gotham City.
The mayor, who was on the floor crouched beside his wife, sheepishly looked the gunman in the eye, a visible shiver of fear fluttering down his spine. He gets up slowly, his hands raised to the gunman in surrender.
"You're the mayor. You would know better than anyone where Commissioner Gordon would be." With the gun at his side, the mayor can do nothing but tell the truth and hope it saves his life.
"He was supposed to be here, but he's late." His voice is shaken, and he's a mouse instead of a man. But the gunman just laughs at him, the kind of hearty Joker laugh that haunts the nightmares of children. It even caused me to cower behind my father a bit more. Mayor Garcia is trembling, and he can see he's staring death in the face.
Within moments, the gun is to the mayor's head, at which people all over the room gasp and cry and scream, but no shots have been pulled, not yet. His eyes are closed, expecting the worse, nearly hoping for it to be over with.
"If no one tells me where Gordon is within ten seconds, I will blow your mayor's head to bits!" A cry is heard from the mayor though in close competition with his wife's sobbing below at his feet. The gunman begins to countdown aloud, and I realize that the mayor will be killed if something doesn't happen. This is no bluff; when it comes to desperation, bluffs are only but a dream. The countdown continues from his twisted voice, a maniacal twinge in every number. I look at my father, and I see him at me, and I know we're both thinking the same thing; that this scene should have been over a minute ago because Batman would have come and saved the mayor. But Batman wasn't here. And I was.
"Four, three, two—"
"Why would you kill him?" The gunman, as well as every set of eyes in the ballroom turned towards me, now standing up, though I had to battle my father to allow myself to stand up in order myself to be seen and heard. "He's the only one in this entire room that might have a clue were Commissioner Gordon could be, other than here. You think any of us normal people know? You'd be stupid if you killed him." The gunman and I locked eyes, and we both participated in a silent game of Russian roulette, knowing that he could blow my head off at any second. But instead of killing me on the spot, he removed the gun from the mayor's head and started towards me; a sinister smile planted on his face, and the look in his eyes told me he was far beyond rescue at this point. His hole was too deep.
"Okay. I won't kill him. I'll just kill you instead." I should have been afraid, but I couldn't feel the fear through every other emotion that was surging through my veins. I could feel every feeling all at once, except fear.
His gun went up, straight to my face, but I wasn't scared because I was doing the right thing. I was saving the mayor's life.
I almost felt fear as he aimed it at my face, when my father popped back up from where he had been hiding under the table, waiting for the gunman to come close, and as soon as the gun was up, so was my father. He swatted the gun downward at to which the startled gunman dropped his gun, and when he went to go turn towards my father, and have any hope of attacking him, my father punched his straight in the face and quickly took hold of both the man's arms, rendering him useless. My father and I exchanged a glance, but I couldn't for the life of me gather together what he was feeling.
The two gunmen who were blocking the exits began to move in, but before anything else could happen, or any other shots could try to be fired, they froze when a gun was held to both of their backs.
"Freeze!" Before anything could be comprehended, police squads were storming in, and one of the first among them was Gordon himself. The police took the two guard gunmen away to their cars, when Gordon came straight up to my father and me. He looked at my father rather than me, seeing as he was the one with the supposed killer in his hands.
"Sorry I'm a little late. When the explosion went off it triggered a silent alarm at the station. I had to gear up before I came." His eyes hidden behind glasses glanced toward to the crook at my father's feet. "But I see that you have everything under control here Bruce." He tossed me a glance, at to which I began to look away.
"Here, take him and make sure you handcuff him." He handed the man off to Gordon, who I saw eye me slightly, and then begin to walk away with the man.
My father looked at me, a look that I couldn't read, and then he too began to walk away.
