Disclaimer: No, I don't own Bruce Wayne. If I did, do you think I'd be writing this? No. I'd been off making out in a broom closet in Wayne Manor.

Author's Note: Okay, I succumbed! I don't know why, but every time I stick Bruce and Audrey together, they end up fighting! There's just something about their personalities that makes them fight; I know many of you believe that Bruce isn't in character, but I think that's because he's always around calm bimbos who don't challenge him or his beliefs like Audrey does. Thus, I'm forced to create responses that I don't have a reference for.

Second Author's Note: Sorry this took a while. Summer's almost over, so you'll have to get used to delayed responses anyway, but I've been totally swamped. I've put attraction to Audrey in Bruce's brain to reward you all for the AMAZING reviews I've been receiving. They'll realize they're in love eventually . . .

Chapter Four: The Morning After

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The morning after Christmas Bruce awoke at six o'clock. He'd been asleep for three hours, but he found himself unable to return to sleep. Alfred would have sent the Lear to Weston Field by now – he had to be out of the house before Audrey woke up.

Audrey.

Audrey, who it turned out, was a lot more fun when she was drunk off her feet.

"You," she'd said, poking him in the chest, while her glass of red wine tilted alarmingly, "have got to lighten up a bit. I don't know what makes you sho up-tight, but you realllllly outta loosen up the shcrews."

"Do I?" he asked, amused, and only slightly tipsy. It was, after all, three o'clock in the morning. This was supposed to be a victory drink in celebration of Audrey whooping her father at Monopoly, before they went to bed.

"Yeshp," she replied, knocking back another sip of her Pinot Noir. Her head tilted back and back and back, and Bruce was forced to latch onto her arm so she didn't topple into the couch.

"You really can't handle your liquor, can you?" inquired Bruce with a wry grin. This was her second glass, and she was already slurring her words. He didn't have Richie and Eve as a reference, seeing as how they and Ronnie had retired to bed twenty minutes before.

"Nope," said Audrey with theatrically-widened eyes. "Never could, never . . . could."

"Sure." Which was the only thing he could think to say.

"I know that I know that I don't like you," continued Audrey, "but what you don't know is that I wanna like you. Maybe if you didn't keep calling me a bitsht, we could work something out."

"When have I called you a bitch?"

"You've thought it," confided Audrey. "I can tell."

"Can you?" asked Bruce.

"Quite the shykic," replied Audrey cryptically. Bruce took the time to notice that he still hadn't let go of her arm. When he did so, she fell onto the couch with a surprised expression on her face. "Why'd you do that?" she demanded, and then pulled on his wrist so he joined her.

Realizing that her glass was empty, Audrey glared at it with narrowed eyes before shrugging and tossing it backwards over her shoulder. Bruce easily caught it, grinning.

"We should tell each other somphing," she declared. "That way we feel closer, so maybe I won't hate you sho much if it turns out you like puppies or somphing."

"We should?"

"Yeshp. I'll go first. I like realllllly old movies. Like 'To Catshp A Thief' and . . . 'Gone with the Wind' . . . and "Breakfasht at Tiphpany'sh'."

Bruce opened his mouth to tell her god knows what, but she had tilted into his shoulder, and was seemingly fast asleep. It was ridiculous . . . but maybe she was onto something. He did like her a little better, now that he could picture her curled up on a sofa with that fat cat Durtymond, watching Cary Grant and Grace Kelly light up a TV screen.

He stood, and debated whether or not to leave her there, before tossing caution (and hate) to the wind, and scooping her up. He'd deposited her in her bedroom, and then go back to have a nice snuggle with Ronnie.

Next to him, the comforter fluttered twice as Ronnie snuggled closer to his side, drawing him out of his memories.

He didn't look forward to having to tell her the truth about his mysterious over-night escapades; as far as she knew, Bruce's injuries came from judo practice three nights a week.

It was now or never.

"Ronnie?"

"Hmm?"

"Wake up, Ronnie. I've got something to tell you."

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"Audrey!"

Still floating through a haze of unconsciousness, Audrey rolled over onto her stomach and threw a bare arm over her head.

"AUDREY!"

Groaning, she snuggled deeper into the cocoon she'd created out of the purple comforter. How late had she been up last night? God, until three at least . . . yet another reason why she and her father rarely played board games together.

Both parties were generally too stubborn to surrender, and the games tended to extend into infinity.

The memory of her eventually beating her father into bankruptcy at the end of a particularly violent game of Monopoly had Audrey half-hearted grinning into her arm before she attempted to return to sleepy-time-land. She'd conveniently forgotten those two glasses of Pinot Noir.

"Audrey Jane McKenzie!"

"Shut up," mumbled Audrey, and barely acknowledged the yank that tugged the comforter off her back. As the cold air hit her bare skin, Audrey groped for the other pillow, and upon finding it, pulled it over her head. She had a pounding headache that seemed to have been sent from the devil himself; more sleep would be nice.

"Go away!" she said through it. "It's too early."

"Audrey, please, please wake up!"

Maybe it was the sobs that clued Audrey in that her sister wasn't playing around. She pulled herself out of the blankets to find Ronnie, green eyes smudged with red and tear tracks, clutching a nauseatingly striped throw pillow to her chest.

"Audrey," she gulped in a watery voice. "You were right! Why do you always have to be right? I wanna be right for once!" With a sob, Ronnie flopped onto the bed and flapped an arm in her sister's direction.

"Right about what?" asked Audrey, still a bit groggy, her brain seemingly have been relocated to her kneecaps.

"Bruce," hissed Ronnie. Her lower lip vibrated. "You were right that there's something wrong with him!"

She burst into a new batch of tears.

"Ronnie, honey?" Audrey reached out and pulled her younger sister into her arms. Blonde curls scratched the underside of her chin, and she ignored them for the moment. "Tell me what he's done, Ronnie."

"Batman," whispered Ronnie.

"What?" Audrey was confused, something that rarely happened. "What's that about Batman?"

"Bruce mmphs Batman," continued Ronnie in a whispered voice.

"What's that about Bruce and Batman?"

"Not 'and'," wailed Ronnie. "Is! Is! Bruce is Batman! That's what he had to tell me! He had to get back to Gotham this morning because they need him. What about me? I need him! I need him more than those stupid police need him as Batman!"

"Wait a second," interrupted Audrey. "Are you telling me that your fiancée, Bruce Wayne, is actually Batman?" Her brain returned to her skull in time to begin pushing emphatically against her browbone.

"Yes!" sobbed Ronnie into Audrey's neck. "And he didn't even bother telling me! He's only told me now so he can get to Weston Field airport without me worrying!"

Abandoning the useless platitudes, Audrey brushed her fingers through her sister's tangled curls as Ronnie cried and wailed and mumbled unintelligible sentences about the monogamy of men and their secret identities.

Audrey, meanwhile, was thinking of creative ways of castrating him. Her baby sister.

"What was the name of that airport again, honey?"

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"Weston Field airport. How can I help you?"

"You could let me through the gates."

"I'm sorry, who is this?"

"Audrey McKenzie. I'm the sister of Bruce Wayne's fiancée."

"Ms. McKenzie, I'm terribly sorry, but no one except authorized personnel and passengers can enter the airport."

"Who says I'm not a passenger?"

"Mr. Wayne's submitted flight plan specifies that he and the pilot are the only people traveling onboard. If he'd made a change in his plans, I can call him and clarify."

"Please! Please, just let me talk to him. I promise I'm not even getting on the plan. He's visiting my sister and my family for Christmas, and there's something he forgot."

"I really can't—"

"Open the goddamn gates!"

"I advice that you don't shake the gates in such a manner, Ms. McKenzie. I'll be forced to notify security."

"Please! Five minutes!"

"I'm afraid that simply is not allowed. If you state your business, I'll try and inform Mr. Wayne . . ."

"Fine. Tell him that I want to see him before he goes gallivanting off to Gotham."

"One moment please."

" . . . . . ."

"Ms. McKenzie?"

"Yes?"

"Mr. Wayne will see you now."

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Bruce looked up from his newspaper to see Audrey stalking across the tarmac towards him. He took a moment to wonder what she was doing here – and still dressed in her pajamas, the pants stuffed into brown boots, and an unzipped jacket flapping around her torso – when she was in front of him. Other than purple lines under her eyes, there was no evidence of the vicious hangover he had predicted for her.

"Audrey?" he asked, setting aside the newspaper. "What are you doing here?"

She didn't look angry, so Bruce was unprepared when she picked up his paper cup of scalding coffee and poured it over his head.

Screaming, Bruce leapt up as the boiling liquid seeped through his hair and down his neck. It wouldn't leave burns, but it sure felt like hell. "What was that for!" he demanded, towering over her. He thought they'd reached some sort of agreement the night before – mind you, drunk as she had been, maybe she couldn't remember it – but it seemed that once again Audrey was trumping the truce.

"For breaking my sister's heart, Batman."

"What did you just say?" He stepped closer, unintentionally threatening, and Bruce could feel the infuriation rising in the pit of his stomach, just as scalding as the cup of coffee that had been recently poured over his head. Dammit, for once could Ronnie keep her mouth shut?

"You heard me." Audrey's mouth was drawn into a thin line. "How could you lie to her! She's in love with you, and now she'd sobbing into throw pillows!" She tried to slap him, but he caught her wrist easily enough, not in the mood for more physical abuse. "Let go of me!" she shrieked, but he kept it in a tight fist.

"Don't hit me," he said in a low voice.

"Don't lie to my sister!" she hissed back, her nose almost touching his. With an inhuman shriek she slammed her heel into his toe, vaguely reminiscent of their dancing two days before. Bruce winced and using his latch on her wrist thrust her backwards. Her head snapped backwards and then forwards on her neck, her golden eyes narrowed to slivers.

"I thought you'd be ecstatic to find another reason to hate me," replied Bruce. "Isn't that what you love to do? Hate me?" Their conversation the night before – or really, earlier that morning – had flown out of his head the moment her foot connected with his.

"I don't hate you!" Audrey clawed at his arm. "I hate what you make me into! I hate that I'm bitter and angry and AHH!" She pummeled her free fist into his chest. He grabbed that wrist as well, and then she was waving her trapped arms about like a windmill, screeching as if she was a trapped animal, hair in all its glory standing on end.

She looked just as wild as Ronnie looked contained, and Bruce found himself wondering what would happen if they would stop yelling at each other and started having normal conversations; they seemed to have a lot in common. Hated mornings. Loved old movies. Alfred would certainly like her.

But then she screamed again.

"Shut up!" roared Bruce, and he knew that he'd scared her, because even though her eyes widened and she huffed angrily, she stopped screaming. "Listen, I love Ronnie, I really do, and the only reason I didn't tell her about me being Batman was because I was worried about her. I didn't know it would break her heart, or make her angry, I just wanted to keep her safe." He sounded plaintive, a voice that never failed at getting him brownie points from females.

This female, however, was immune.

"And you're doing a marvelous job," hissed Audrey. She tried to pull her hands back, but he kept them locked at her sides, and pulled her closer to get better leverage. In order to keep their eyes locked, Audrey was forced to tilt her head up, and her hair tickled his throat.

"I'm going to Gotham to get rid of this creep, and then I'm coming back and spending the rest of Christmas with you and Ronnie and your parents, all right? I'm not running away, I'm not abandoning my broken-hearted fiancée. I'm coming back."

She snorted, struggling to be released. "Yeah, and I'm Father Christmas."

"Why don't you believe me?" he snapped. "And why do you hate me?" This, most of all, confused him. No one else – other than her mother, and the occasional nemesis of Batman – hated him. Because despite her earlier comments to the contrary, Bruce knew that she hated him. He just didn't know why.

"Because you're just going to leave Ronnie!" she yelled, which was more of a wail. "When the next flavor of the month comes, Ronnie's going to be in the garbage and I'll be cleaning up the pieces, just like last time!"

This surprised him. "Last what?"

"Let go," hissed Audrey, and there was a hint of fear in her eyes. He finally relented, because he was stunned to realize that it hurt him to know that she was afraid of him. Probably more that it should have. She yanked her hands, stumbling backwards, gave him a final glare, and whirled around to stalk off the tarmac.

Bruce gazed after her for a moment, wondering what exactly about Audrey McKenzie was making him infuriated, confused . . . and strangely attracted.

The pilot at his shoulder shook him out of his thoughts. "Mr. Wayne, the plane is ready."

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Next Chapter: VILLAIN!

Because a new evil dude is in such high demand, don't worry, we'll introduce him/her next chapter.

Will Ronnie get over Bruce's 'betrayal'? Will Audrey follow Bruce to Gotham to continue their argument? WILL WE FIND OUT WHAT EVERYONE GOT FOR CHRISTMAS?

Tune in next time to find out!

Reviewer (noun): a person or persons whose sole goal in life is to respond to the updates posted by an author(ess), who will in turn respond with more chapters.