The weeks after the gala flew by as I settled into a new routine.
I still went to work every day with Josh and drove home with him at the end of the day, but now Bruce would sometimes be waiting for me at my apartment, if his meetings became too tedious or he just didn't want to attend them.
It was a nice adjustment to my schedule. I would make dinner as Bruce attempted to help but I'd eventually send him back into the living room with orders to amuse himself until I was done. Then we'd eat and laugh as I challenged him to different board games. We enjoyed the light competition of the board games.
The only true game I saw Bruce take seriously was chess. He would sit and analyze the board for what would seem like hours before finally moving his piece. It drove me to distraction but it also gave me pleasure when I realized that even with his intense concentration, I was still beating him half the time.
Bruce had tried to cajole me into letting him take me out but I refused. It would only be fodder for the tabloids and my mother. After realizing I wasn't going to budge, he relented and we began spending evenings between my apartment and the still under construction Wayne Manor.
The builders were making good progress on rebuilding and they had half of the mansion livable so Alfred had moved most of Bruce's things back there. At Alfred's insistence, Bruce sold all his "bolt holes" except his penthouse at Le Grand. Bruce grumbled about it but did it with minimal fuss as he could see the financial sense of only having a couple homes rather than two dozen.
We were relaxing on my roof one evening after a quick game of Scrabble just listening to the sounds of the city below us.
"I still don't think that 'AA' is a word." Bruce's grumble from my other Adirondack chair made me chuckle.
"We looked it up! Just accept that in the literary world, I know more than you." The grin that I threw his way had just enough sass to have him rolling his eyes in exasperation.
"True, I keep forgetting you have a Master's degree in the field."
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Pulling his pager from his belt, he sighed. "I've got to go. Duty calls."
"Batman? Or Bruce?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"Batman. I have a feeling that it's this Riddler character again. He's been silent for the past few weeks and that doesn't usually bode well." He sighed and touched a button on the side of the pager and I heard the tumbler roar to life in the camouflage of my back alley.
He rose and headed for the stairs back into my apartment. I followed close behind.
He was throwing his duffle bag on the couch and beginning to unpack his mobile suit. I stepped up behind him and gave him a quick hug and kiss on the neck.
"Be careful alright?"
Bruce wrapped a hand around my arms encircling him and smiled. "I'll try to remind myself."
He said that every time when I asked him to be careful. It wasn't until the fourth or fifth time that he'd responded like that, that I'd asked him why he said that.
"Because for a long time now I hadn't cared whether I lived or died when I'd go out. It's hard to break that mentality when it's almost become a part of me, but I'm trying."
I untangled myself from him and let him move into the bathroom to suit up. For some reason, he was very self conscious about putting the suit on in front me. Wasn't that way when it came to taking it off though…
When he emerged, he had everything but his cowl on. Moving to the staircase to meet him, I tilted my head up to look at him as he began to ascend.
Stopping, he leaned down and gave me a soft kiss. "I'll see you tomorrow Gia. Sleep well."
I smiled back at him. "Fight well and remember what I said."
A ghost of a smile touched his face before he pulled his cowl on and with a whirl of his cape he was gone.
I had just settled on my couch to catch up on my DVR'd episodes of Bones, when my phone rang.
"Hey Pen. What's up?" I paused the opening scene, not wanting to miss a thing.
"Hey Georgie, I was just wondering if you and Mr. Wonderful wanted to come out and join me and the girls tonight." Her high pitched giggle told me she'd been doing a bit of drinking already.
"Penny… You haven't been telling tales have you? You know that I asked you not to. "My exasperation was evident in my tone.
"Noooooo. But I did tell Trisha that you might come out with us if your new boy toy could spare you." Penny began wheedling. "Please come out with your one and only little sister who loves you so much and want to party it up with her only awesome big sister. Pleeeeeeease?"
I sighed and shut the TV off. "Fine. Where are we going?"
"Yippeee! Trisha! She's coming!" Penny shouted into the phone. "Um, can you meet us at the lobby of Le Grand? We can all go together then!"
I smiled and shook my head. Penny was my eternal weakness. As different as we were, it didn't take hardly any bribing to get me to do what she wanted.
"Alright. I'll be there in thirty." With that, I hung up to go change.
I waited in the lobby of Le Grand for Penny and Trisha to meet me. I saw the approving glances from the bell hops and front desk clerk and smiled inwardly to myself. I had dressed to stand out with tight black leggings and an open-at-the-sides, flowy dark red top with a tight fitting black tank underneath. My hair was swept off my neck and pinned to the back of my head so several tendrils escaped and hung haphazardly. I'd done my make up to match with smoky eyes, dark red lipstick and glittering onyx earrings dangling from my ears.
I was just about to call Penny to see where she was at when I heard the ding of an elevator and raucous female laughter. I knew without looking that it was Penny and her entourage.
An arm was flung around my shoulders as Trisha, Janice, Becky and Penny came up to me and I was tugged along to a waiting stretch limo standing at attention at the curb of the hotel. Letting myself be bustled inside, I took a seat and just let their conversation wash over me.
I snorted internally as the conversation flowed in and around me but never actually at me. Penny's eyes twinkled as she and the girls gossiped about who might or might not show up to the club we were going to. I let my mind wander as I thought about the dancing I would actually be able to indulge in since in such a packed club I would blend right into the crowd instead of standing out.
Something that Trisha said brought me snapping back out of my thoughts and back into the conversation.
"What did you just say?" I looked down the girls to Trisha who was seated in the back seat with Penny.
"I was just telling Janice not to do any hits of anything 'cept what we brought with us 'cos of the last time we were here. She totally tripped out." Trisha's voice was matter of fact and nonchalant.
Brows furrowing together, I looked down the line at Penny who simply shrugged and shook her head at me.
Suddenly my good mood was dampened as thoughts started racing through my mind. What if Penny is going to do drugs with these girls? No, she couldn't or she wouldn't have asked me along. Maybe I'm her excuse to say no. Okay, that better be it because that's the only acceptable answer.
The car came to a stop and the driver opened the door for Trisha. As she exited, flashbulbs began going off and my stomach sank as I realized that paparazzi were waiting for the rest of us to exit so they could photograph us as well. I scooted down the long aisle seat and as Janice exited, I slipped out the opposite door and came around the front of the car.
Photographers were surrounding the immediate vicinity of the open car door and I suppressed a giggle as the driver looked into the car, wondering where the heck I'd gone. I slipped around the photographers and caught up to the others as they were gaining entrance to the club which was apparently called "Hypno".
Walking in, you could the club was aptly named. All the pictures were of optical illusions or circles with swirling lines. Mirrored walls and columns made for a fun house effect of people seeing people, seeing people. At the back of the club, above the DJ booth a large circle of black and white lines rotated slowly.
I saw Becky stop and stare at it for a minute before someone jostled her of the mild trance it had put her in. Growing concerned, I elbowed my way through the crowd to find that Penny, Trisha and Janice had taken up residence in an alcove with couches and pillows sumptuously heaped so that it made a boudoir effect. It wasn't lost on me that the booth was angled towards the DJ booth and the large rotating swirl of color.
I slid onto the couch next to Penny.
"Hey, didn't you say that when you were here last time, you felt like you had to take a hit off of that joint that was being passed around?" I leaned in close to her ear so she could hear me over the din of people and music.
"Yeah! It was so weird, like I didn't want to but like I had to." She was looking at me concerned now.
"Well didn't you think it might have something to do with the potential hypnotizing pictures and whirly-gig up there?" I asked/yelled as I pointed towards the DJ booth.
"Well… No. They wouldn't hypnotize people here! That's like totally illegal, right?" Penny's blank look told me she had no clue what I was getting at.
I gave an internal sigh and motioned for a waitress to come and take our drink order. Her blank expression as she asked for our orders in a monotone voice had alarm bells going off in my head.
I pulled my phone out to text Bruce what was going on, just in case.
"Hey, just wanted to let you know in case something goes down, I'm at this new club, Hypno, with Penny and a bunch of her friends. "
"Hypno? Get your sister and get to the bathroom. Now."
Confused, I looked at my phone and was typing a response when the first explosion sounded in the back of the building.
Most people didn't hear it over the loud bass and music playing but I could feel it shake the building. Remembering the explosions from when the Joker had exploded Gotham General, I grabbed Penny's hand and started shoving my way through the crowd.
"G! Where are we going!? Slow Down! You're hurting my hand!" Penny yelled at me as I pulled her along with an iron grip.
I made it to the front and scanned for the restroom signs. Spotting them in the far right corner, I barreled through several people and past a line of girls waiting into the room.
I shoved Penny in the large handicap stall that was in the farthest corner of the building and whipped my phone back out.
"We're here. What's going on? What do I need to do now?"
"Stay put. I'll get you out."
I felt the next explosion as I read Bruce's text. This time people noticed and there was a sudden rumble in the floor as people stampeded towards the exit doors. The once crowded bathroom was empty in seconds and Penny and I were the only ones left.
Sliding down the wall, I sat next to Penny, gripping her hand tightly as I prayed for Bruce to be alright, for everyone to make it out of the club unscathed and for Penny and me to be alright.
"G-g-georgie?" Penny managed to squeak out and I turned to her.
Tears were running down her face and I realized my sister looked as terrified as I felt.
"Are w-we gonna die?" I grabbed her and hugged her hard.
"No, we are not," I said firmly. "We are going to be just fine. We are in the safest place we could be right now. Trust me, we'll all be alright."
I kissed her head and I looked towards the club where I could hear screams from frightened patrons as they scrambled to escape.
Two more explosions sounded, closer this time and the panicked screams increased in fever and pitch. Too many people in too small a space, I thought.
One more explosion sounded, even closer and I felt and saw the interior bathroom wall come flying towards us. I shoved Penny's head down and I covered her with my body as the debris flew over us and through the exterior wall onto the pavement.
Looking up, the ceiling above us began to sag precariously.
"Penny! We've got to go! Now!" I yanked on her hand to help her up and pull her towards the gaping hole in the wall that stood about waist high and was big enough to fit a large person through.
"What? I can't climb out that! I'm wearing a dress for crying out loud!" Some of my sister's normal vanity began to emerge and I felt a sense of relief that she wasn't completely scared out of her wits yet.
"Oh come on! This place could collapse at any moment! Now give me your foot, I'll give you a boost up." I grasped her right foot as she stepped and heaved her into the hole.
"Okay," she said, turning around to help me. "Now I'll help pull you up."
I had grasped her hand and was almost there when the ceiling gave way. Ceiling tiles, cement, rebar and other debris cascaded down and I lost my grip. I fell to the floor with a jarring thump and looked up just in time to see a large piece of cement fell on top of my legs. Screaming, my last thought was that this was not supposed to happen and then it all went black.
A/N: Thank you all for still reading even after my long hiatus! And yes, I leave you with a cliffhanger! Enjoy my lovelies!
