Disclaimer: I got the DVD for my birthday. Does this count?
Author's Note: Yay! I'm updating! AGAIN!
Thank you all for reviewing!
Mind you, I'd like for everybody who read my story to review.
Moving on! Guess what the injury of the month is? I blistered the base of every finger on my left hand gardening. I'm typing this author's note with my right hand. Very slow going. I'll post as soon as possible.
Chapter Three: Dancing Practice
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So he and Audrey McKenzie had reached an uneasy truce.
At least, that was the impression Bruce woke up with the next morning, eight o'clock sharp.
Ever since meeting Ronnie, he'd been forced to wake up at the same time a normal human being did – because she still had yet to discover his 'secret identity', and honestly Bruce had no idea how to tell her. His expeditions as Batman were now done on a when-Ronnie-was-out-of-town-basis, and this was not the way he liked to work things.
He laid in bed for ten minutes, staring at the white ceiling of the room he and Ronnie had been allotted. It was painted pale blue, with a nauseating amount of throw pillows that Bruce had been tempted to toss out the window. Ronnie, however, had loved them, throwing herself onto the bed and clutching them to her chest, squealing excitedly.
Turning to the left, Bruce rubbed the yellowing bruises on his elevated side, and surveyed the small mountain of ridiculously tasseled throw pillows. With a sigh, he tossed up the covers, and grabbed his robe off the floor.
He stumbled downstairs to find Ronnie, Eve and Richie clustered around the kitchen table, chomping on cereal and yogurt and granola, all sipping orange juice and talking far too loudly and brightly for this early in the morning.
He plopped down in a chair next to Ronnie, poured himself a glass of orange juice, and told himself that this was all for the greater good. He needed to get to know Ronnie's family; this all complete crap, of course. What he needed was three more hours of sleep.
"Morning, Bruce," declared Richie, chuckling.
"Daddy, Bruce doesn't like mornings," said Ronnie, patting Bruce on the forearm. "He thinks I'm just crazy."
God, how could this family function? Bruce had found early on that Ronnie was a morning person, but he figured her to be defective. It seemed that it was instead a genetic thing, because Richie was talking. Talking before ten in the morning.
"Is that right?" asked Eve, a calculating look in her eye as she looked on at her future son-in-law. Bruce saw a hint of Audrey's trademark smirk on her mother's lips as Eve raised her tea cup.
"Has anyone seen Audrey?"
"Oh Daddy," giggled Ronnie as she bit her banana, the only thing on her plate. "You know that Ronnie doesn't get up before nine-thirty."
"And doesn't talk for another half hour," added Richie, laughing jovially at his own pathetic joke. Bruce swilled his orange juice and wished heartily for them all to shut up.
"Who the fuck thought it would be funny to set their alarm?"
The words were garbled and throaty and very, very pissed off. Bruce turned to see a sleep-tousled Audrey, eyes flaming, shuffled into the kitchen. She was wearing a pair of blue cotton pajama pants and an over-large navy sweatshirt that hung off her right shoulder. She threw open a cabinet, grasped a grey box inside and pulled out a tea bag.
"You know your mother and I don't set alarms during the holidays, honey," said Richie, pulling out a chair for her as she shuffled over, strained her tea bag. She plopped down, opened the sugar bowl and deposited three heaping scoops into her mug, before raising hostile eyes to the man seated across from her.
Who was, he suddenly realized, the owner of the alarm clock.
"Guilty," he mumbled, voice lower than usual. "Must've forgotten I packed it."
"I advise," she hissed across her steaming mug, "that you turn it off before it meets a violent death plummeting down three stories into the rose bushes." She took a sip. "Oh, wait, it already has."
Her voice was becoming clearer and clearer with each syllable, and she smirked for a final time before cutting a slice of poppy-seed bread and stuffing it in her mouth.
"Thanks for informing me," replied Bruce, while in his mind he was imagining taking his butter knife and sticking it through her jugular. She mumbled something around the bread in reply, and stole the Life section of The Hartford Courant from her father.
Bruce clenched his jaw and stole an apple, then attacked it like he'd rather be attacking the eldest McKenzie sister. When he'd devoured it, leaving only the seeds and core, he looked up to see Audrey surveying him over the top of the Life section, which she seemed to enjoy lingering over. He shot her a nasty look, which she happily returned before returning to the comics.
" . . . won't that be fun Bruce?"
He'd missed something.
Bruce's neck cracked as he whipped his head around to look at his fiancée, who stared at him with an innocently tilted head. He really didn't want to loose face before Audrey, who was smirking, and surely whatever Ronnie had come up with wasn't that bad.
"Of course," he said, shooting her a high-wattage, high-fake grin.
When he turned to look at Audrey, her smirk had grown to magnanimous proportions. Her mouth opened, revealing small crooked teeth and the hint of a pink tongue, and out came the words that bespelled his doom: "I hope you brought your dancing shoes, Bruce."
Fuck.
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They were back in the red living room; all the leather furniture had been pushed to the outer corners, mostly by Bruce, and the large carpet had been rolled up and moved out of the room altogether, also by Bruce.
Bruce uneasily shifted from his left foot to his right as Audrey watched him from her sprawled position on the leather couch. She'd changed into jeans and a bulky dark green sweater, and her hair had tangled itself into messy curls, which she had wrapped her fingers in and tugged occasionally as she watched her sister's fiancée.
He looked uncomfortable; exactly her intentions.
Of course, wedding dancing practice weren't the full extent of the punishment she had in store for Bruce Wayne, Prince of Gotham. But when Ronnie had mentioned that they had a spring wedding in mind, Audrey was unable to resist.
She tugged her hair again; it was a nasty habit, but she tended to pull it when she was thinking. Right now she was dreaming up more ways to make these two weeks as uncomfortable for Bruce Wayne as possible.
So far, she was succeeding.
"Do you dance much?" He whirled around, looking trapped, and Audrey bit back a laugh even as she allowed herself a smirk. "I'll take that as a no." She swung her legs off the side arms of the couch and pushed herself into a sitting position. "Won't this be fun to watch."
"Watch?" demanded Bruce, looking, if possible, even more miserable. "You won't be joining us."
"Gosh no," grinned Audrey. "It's just you and Ronnie and Mom and Dad. Two generations of McKenzies." Her smile turned malicious. "I wanna take pictures." Bruce looked even more pathetic as she pulled herself off the couch and stalked forward. "Maybe I'll make a scrapbook for the wedding."
"You little bi—"
"Bruce! You ready for some practice?" Ronnie rushed in, clad in a flowery green dress that matched her eyes. It was drowning in white ribbons, and regardless of its status as a Ralph Lauren original, Audrey found it nauseating.
She giggled. Audrey found the combination to be even more nauseating.
"Ready," replied Bruce, his face almost splitting with the obviously fake smile. Eve and Richie appeared, the former dressed in a less be-ribbon-ed version of Robbie's dress. She looked stately and elegant, while Ronnie looked bright and summery. They looked more like mother and daughter now than they had the night before.
The two couples paired off, and Audrey produced a slim digital camera, clicking away even as she moved towards the stereo.
"Smile!" she proclaimed, grinning at the scowl on the face of her least favorite person in the room, and snapping a picture of it for memory.
That's a desktop background in the making.
She clapped her hands, and smirked. "Ready?" Without waiting for a reply she whirled around, camera hanging by its grey strap around her wrist, and enthusiastically pressed the 'Play' button.
Bruce, deciding that the best thing to do would be to stop acting miserable and therefore deny Audrey her malicious pleasure, tugged Ronnie closer, and was rewarded a giggle for his efforts. Eyes sparkling, Ronnie took half a step closer so their bodies were locked together, and grinned seductively; a far cry from her sister's ever-present smirk.
"When marimba rhythms start to play
Dance with me, make me sway
Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore
Hold me close, sway me moooooore . . ."
"Audrey!" Eve stepped back and turned furiously on her daughter at the exact same time Bruce let out a sigh of deep annoyance, and began to dance. "Michael Buble? Audrey! Of all the songs!"
"Come on Mom," she laughed triumphantly. "A little cliché music can't hurt you. Would you prefer to waltz to Grateful Dead?" As Eve acquiesced, and returned to Richie's arms, Bruce, stunned, watched as Audrey turned up the volume.
The woman was amazing.
His earlier question (how can this woman be a lobbyist if she's so damn temperamental?) had just answered itself.
Ronnie didn't have to stand on her toes to put her mouth next to Bruce's ear and whisper, "Just humor Audrey, Bruce."
He smiled for his fiancée's benefit, and was reward when she moved her hand from his shoulder to his neck and fingered the hair that was growing a bit longer than he usually let it.
"Like a flower bending in the breeze
Bend with me, sway with ease
When we dance you have a way with me
Stay with me, sway with me . . ."
Bruce decided that maybe dancing without Ronnie wouldn't be as torturous as he'd originally presumed; he knew from experience that, while she wasn't horrifically bad, Ronnie McKenzie was not built to dance. All the same, her innate grace from years of modeling enabled her to pretend nicely.
He was just about to throw himself into enjoying the experience when someone's cell phone began to tingle madly. Ronnie winced and sadly withdrew herself from Bruce's arms, rushing over to her designer purse on the leather chair. "Hello? Oh! Jamie!" She turned to her family, made a face, and walked upstairs. "Yeah, I'm at my parents' . . ."
Audrey paused the music, still smiling brightly, knowing that she would have plenty of time to take more embarrassing pictures, and said, "What shall we do while we wait?"
"Why wait?" Richie twirled Eve around in a circle, dipped her backwards, and paused to look at his daughter, standing by the leather couch. "Ditch the camera and practice with Bruce, Audrey." Humming to a song only in his head, he launched into a mixture of the samba and the waltz that had Eve laughing delightedly.
Recognizing her own stubbornness in her father, Audrey bit her lip before throwing the camera into the couch and returning to the stereo. It figured that her father would choose to be oblivious on the fact that she and Bruce hated each other.
She started the song over again, and stepped towards the general direction of Bruce. Disgust was evident in her face, and she didn't figure that she had to hide it. It wasn't as if either of them were attempting to get brownie points for charm.
"Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore
Hold me close, sway me moooooore . . ."
Bruce hesitantly put his hand at the side of her waist as if expecting her skin to burn him through the bulky wool of her sweater. Deciding that perhaps there was merit in the situation after all, Audrey rolled her eyes, grabbed his hand, and moved it to the small of her back.
She gripped his other hand hard enough to crack the joints, and took a step forwards, knowing that they were starting off beat. Bruce did the same, seeming unaware of the beat of the song, and they crack knees. Her smirk returned full force. "What's the matter Bruce? Two left feet?"
The next beat, a turn, Bruce tilted his foot upward from the heel and twisted Audrey around it so she tripped. He caught her easily in one hand and swung her back up viciously. "Seems you're not so skilled yourself, Audrey."
Challenge received. Challenge accepted.
A gleam lit up her eye, and with the next note of the bass, she ground her heel into his toe with a harsh stop, taking satisfaction in the wince that grazed his handsome face as she mashed his toes into the wooden floor.
"I can hear the sound of violins
Long before it begins
Make me thrill as only you know how
Sway me smooth, sway me now . . ."
Bruce bided his time until the next turn, when he snapped her away fast enough that something in her wrist began to throb. As she swooped back towards him, her foot shot out and connected with his shin just below the knee.
Her face, coming close to his as the beat ended, was triumphant.
Bruce, however, was finding it hard to retaliate, because turned out that Audrey McKenzie, with five years of ballet under her belt, was a fabulous dancer. And Bruce, what with his society upbringing, wasn't too bad either. As it was, however unconscious they were of the fact, Audrey and Bruce made quite the dashing pair.
"Other dancers may be on the floor
Dear, but my eyes will see only you
Only you have that magic technique
When we sway I go weeeeaaak . . ."
He really was, Audrey learned, a good lead. Nothing like the saps she'd gone to law school with. And although she was no longer floating along feeling superior, it wasn't like she was enjoying herself.
Not at all.
Because dancing with Bruce Wayne, no matter how good a dancer he may have been, was not an exercise Audrey McKenzie enjoyed . . . seeing as how it involved Bruce Wayne, someone she was considering for the position of her official mortal enemy.
And Bruce was just as miserable.
Never mind that Audrey was a far better dancer than her sister, possessing a combination of skill and grace that she lacked elsewhere, if her constant tripping over air was any indication; never mind that she, unlike Ronnie, seemed to know what she was doing when it came to the dance floor.
He absolutely despised Audrey McKenzie on principle. And who wouldn't? She was violent and manipulative and annoying and smirked far too much . . . and had the strangest pair of eyes Bruce had ever seen. They were gold. Who had gold eyes?
Other than Audrey, obviously.
"Make me thrill as only you know how
Sway me smooth, sway me now
You know how
Sway me smooth, sway me nooooooow."
The song ended, and simply – he told himself – for the pleasure of seeing something other than smug satisfaction light the face of his newest nemesis, Bruce tipped her backwards in an extravagant dip. There was a scattering of annoyance and confusion in her strange eyes as he did so, and for once Bruce was the one smirking.
It was then, of course, that his phone had to ring.
Frowning, Bruce hauled Audrey upwards, forgetting for a moment that he was supposed to be Bruce Wayne, mild-manner billionaire and almost tossing her into the air, and excused himself quickly. He'd told Alfred he would be unreachable for the two weeks post-Christmas, and his first day there the butler was ringing him.
Not even on the damn company phone, but the other, smaller model he'd affectionately dubbed 'The Bat Phone' . . . which could only mean one thing.
"Dammit, Alfred," he hissed into the phone he now clutched to his ear. "Batman's taking extended leave while his alter ego spends quality time with a sadistic lobbyist who would be only too happy to out him." He whirled around to make sure said sadistic lobbyist hadn't followed him to the kitchen and was eavesdropping.
"I am sorry sir," replied the butler without a hint of remorse in his tone, "but there seems to be a slightly difficulty arising within Gotham that requires Batman's unique expertise immediately. I'm afraid it's rather urgent."
"How urgent?" hissed Bruce, turning his face towards the window overlooking the backyard where he and Audrey had settled on their supposed truce the previous afternoon.
Hah. That'd lasted long.
"Urgent enough, Master Wayne" – Alfred didn't sound as apologetic as he should have. Realizing this, he added a touch of subtle regret about ruining Bruce's vacation – "that I suggest you return as soon as possible."
"I thought this was a slight difficulty." Bruce ran his fingers angrily through his hair. Ronnie would be furious, but Ronnie had to find out about Batman eventually, if she was going to become Mrs. Bruce Wayne. "Send the jet on Thursday. I want to be there and back as soon as possible."
"Naturally, sir. Thursday to Weston Field, sir."
Bruce snapped the phone shut and tapped his face against the cold glass that protected him from the snowfall occurring over the McKenzie property.
Well, on the bright side he wouldn't have to spend as much time with Audrey.
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I was originally just going to have Batman appear occasionally, but I've decided that perhaps a new villian would liven things up a bit. What do ya'll think?
Do I introduce a new villian, or focus the story on Bruce and Audrey?
PLEASE REVIEW! Even if you hate it! I don't mind flames!
Of course . . . nice reviews are good too. I'll totally go for nice reviews.