A/N: Hi all, this one is defiantly gonna make up for the last short chapter. Enjoy! And please review!!

Chapter Seven

She clambered out of the Tumbler, somewhat ungracefully. Her shoes hit the cement with a clip. She turned back and looked at Batman.

"Thank you for the ride, I really do appreciate it." She watched his emotionless face carefully. "Well anyway I am gonna go inside now. Thanks again."

She turned and walked across the underground parking lot to the elevator that led up stairs. She turned back to look over her shoulder at the Tumbler and saw that Batman had already sunk back in. The engine roared back to life making Adriana jump. With a eardrum bursting squeal of the tires, he pulled out of the garage and left her behind.

"Hmm," The doors of the elevator opened slowly and Adriana stepped in. "Oh," Adriana looked down to her hand and realised with some shock that she was still clutching her silver grey clutch purse in her right hand. She let out a deep breath. Snapping open the clasp she grabbed her keys, put one in the lock on the button panel of the elevator and pressed the penthouse button.

The elevator jolted into motion and Adriana leaned back against the back wall of the elevator.

Taking a deep breath she put a shaking hand to her forehead. Soon she would be getting a call from the police asking her if it was indeed her car, fried and abandoned in the middle of 42nd street.

Suddenly the elevator was filled with the blaring ring-tone of ABBA's Dancing Queen. "GAAHH!" She nearly jumped out of her skin.

She picked up the phone and looked at the call display. It was Bruce. She quickly answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Hi Adriana, it's Bruce."

"Hi, you're not very clear... are you in a car?" She squinted as if that would help her hear him.

"Ya, I am just heading to the penthouse from Wayne Towers."

"Sounds like a powerful engine."

"Mmm, I'm in the Lamborgini,"

"Oh," She nodded.

They fell into silence. "Adriana are you okay? I got worried when I didn't hear from you." Bruce sounded concerned. "What happened at Gossip?"

"Oh nothing really, Stuart nattered away for a bit,"

"About what?"

"Oh nothing of any importance." Adriana's hand went to her hair and she started to play with a strand of hair around her fingers. "Um, is the problem at Wayne Tower solved?"

"Ya, it was a problem with an automotive specialist, he- You don't really care."

"No, no no, I'm interested."

"I'm sure, so you can feed your brother all my information."

"Ha, ya like Tony would listen to my business advice." Adriana chuckled.

"So are you just getting in? You must have had a great time with Stuart's nattering." Bruce even sounded a little jealous.

"Um no actually," Adriana took a deep breath, she may as well tell him, it would get out sooner then later, and from past relationships she knew she couldn't lie her way past it. "Actually I was car jacked."

She could hear the tires screech through the phone. "WHAT!? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Are the police there?" Bruce's concern was defiantly reassuring.

"I am fine, not hurt, and no the police aren't here, well I'm at the apartment actually." The doors of the elevator opened and Adriana stepped into the entrance hallway of her penthouse.

"What? Why?" Bruce sounded panicked. She raised her eyebrows.

Adriana walked up to the key pad beside the double doors with no door knobs and keyed in the code. Upon telling Tony that she was moving to Gotham, he flew out with a squad of his guys and rigged up her Penthouse with the most intense, foolproof security system in the Northern Hemisphere. The pad beeped and door's swung open.

She strode into the apartment. "Voice verification please," The cool female voice filled the foyer.

"Adriana Sophia Stark,"

"Thank you Miss Stark, have a pleasant Evening. Your brother called and said he would try again later."

"Thank you Lauren." Adriana replied.

"Addie, what's going on? Who's Lauren?" Adriana noticed that Bruce had called her 'Addie', no one had ever given her a nickname before. Sure when they were little Tony used to call her 'Sophie' or 'Sofa' when he was feeling very irritating but other than that it had always been just Adriana.

"Oh it's the security system in my place, my brother set it up. It stands for Logistical Automated... Automated.... oh I dunno, something very impressive though." She threw down her purse and walked through to her living room. Her apartment was done in a very feng shui style, a blend of art deco, Japanese imperialist and modern motif all blended into one. Virginia Potts had set her up with some interior decorator who genuinely knew what Adriana liked. Adriana wondered where Virginia found these people.

"I'm fine Bruce, actually the Batman saved me." Silence.

"Batman?"

"I know! Will you be jealous when our picture covers all the sleazy publications instead of ours?"

"Huh, I think I will be." Bruce made a whistling noise. "What was he like?"

"Meh," Adriana searched her brain for a good descriptive word. "He was a little stand-offish actually. Mind you me must not have many friends. So I suppose ultimately it's understandable. Not being able to be yourself, or have connections at all. Must really be awful."

There was silence on the other end of the phone. "Bruce? You okay?"

"Ya... uh...I just went through a tunnel."

"Oh, huh, remind me tomorrow to get you a better cell phone carrier."

He laughed. "All right." He cleared his throat. "Okay, I'm coming over, I'll be there in twenty, oh shit we just hit traffic."

"You don't have to come over Bruce."

"Miss Stark there is a call for you on your home phone line."

"Shoot, I have to get that Bruce, I'm sorry I can't talk. You don't need to come over, I am fine." She could hear him start to say something but she hung up the phone and dived for her land line.

*****

Bruce over aggressively pushed the hang up button in the Tumbler then wrenched the mask off his face taking a few deep breathes. He had had no idea that Adriana was in the car that was the being targeted. He saw her run out of the parkade, with a limp, her hair dishevelled and dress all pulled and worn and he felt his heart jump into his throat.

He had left her in that club alone, she had said she could drive herself. He had wanted to tell her to get a service to pick her up when Alfred had said that there was a planned car jacking that the Batman was supposed to try and stop, but he didn't. It would have been odd for him to demand that from her without a good reason, and what were the chances she was the target. Evidently very good.

He had noticed she had been shaking rather violently after the incident and hadn't minded giving her a ride back to her apartment, especially when she seemed so terrified at the very thought of police. That was odd. Bruce ran a hand through his hair.

He had gone over her background before he had asked to go to dinner but nothing suspicious had come up. There had been a year of her life that had been expunged though. That would have been odd to anyone outside of Bruce's circle but in his group that was quite usual. He had assumed she had done something foolish and her father or her brother had had it removed from her past. Maybe a drug problem or a bad boyfriend. When you were as rich as the Wayne's or the Stark's you could have parts of your life just deleted from the system.

But... with her age he figured she would have been about twenty-one when it happened... so if she had stayed on the usual track and gotten her Bachelor of Science at seventeen... she would have just been finishing her first year of internship. An odd time to disappear.

Bruce hit the control panel and dialled Alfred.

"Alfred?"

"Yes Master Bruce?"

"Are my clothes I was wearing earlier still in the bunker?"

"Yes, I was just about to take them back to the Penthouse."

"Listen, could you leave them there please? And get me the Lamborgini?"

"Isn't it a little late to be out Master Bruce? You have a tennis match in the morning."

"No, that target of the car jacking was Adriana."

"Oh bloody hell, is she all right?"

"Yes, I just want to go check on her."

"Didn't you just do that sir,"

"Yes, but I would like to stop by in person. Also I was grazed by a bullet, I'm gonna need you to bandage it up for me, I can't have her finding out I'm hurt in case she puts together the pieces."

"All right Master Bruce, everything will be ready and waiting for you when you arrive."

*****

"Adriana?" The sweet of Virginia 'Pepper' Potts was on the other end of her phone.

"Hi Virginia," Adrian sank into one of her nice arm chairs and kicked off her shoes picking up the one with the broken heel. She hadn't remember to grab the fallen piece and wondered if it could be replaced. Maybe the police had collected it as evidence. And they were brand new too.

"Oh thank god Tony has been worried sick, you haven't called him once."

"Well, last time we talked we didn't get on so well."

"Yes, he only offered to set up a brand new state of the art hospital for you to finish your internship in. Who wouldn't be outraged."

"It isn't up to him to do that for me Virginia." Adriana snapped. "You, of all people, know I am not sure if I even want to finish my internship. That's why I came out here, to get my head on straight."

"OH?! OH! I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT YOU WANTED TO PLAY MOTHER TERESA AND FIX THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM OF A COLD CORRUPT CITY WITH NO MORALS NEARLY GIVING YOUR LOVING BROTHER A HEART ATTACK FEARING FOR YOUR SAFETY!!!"

Adriana frowned and held her phone away from her ear. After the yelling stopped she spoke, "Virginia please don't tell me I am on speaker phone because I swear I just heard my brother's dulcet tones."

"No, you know I wouldn't do that. Someone was just listening in the other room on a spare line." Pepper sounded terse.

"Hmmm,"

"WHATEVER! IT DOESN'T MATTER! CLEARLY SHE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT MY MENTAL STABILITY AT ALL!"

"Virginia!" Adriana moaned into the phone.

"Just a minute." The phone got put down and she could hear Tony and Pepper bickering. It ended with Tony yelling, "FINE! WHATEVER!" "I'm back,"

"And he isn't listening."

"Nope."

"Good," Adriana sighed, "Anyway I have something to tell you, and I don't want my brother to overhear."

"What's that?" Pepper sounded intrigued.

"I met a guy!" Adriana couldn't help but let her voice go up a couple of octaves and as a giddy feeling flooded her body.

"No way!" She felt good to hear Pepper sound as giddy as she felt. Pepper had been the only real female friend Adriana had ever really had. When you were in the Stark's tax bracket you weren't really sure who your friends were but Virginia Potts had stood by her and her brother through hard times and to Adriana's great confusion never given up on either of them. "Who is he?"

"Oh ya, like I am gonna tell you." Adriana scoffed.

"What? Why not?" Pepper sounded offended.

"Because Virginia intentionally or not you'll tell Tony and he will have the guy out there as fast as you could dial my phone number to warn me. No thanks."

"Mmm, true enough." Pepper giggled. "So what is he like?"

Adriana lay back on the soft cushions of the chair draping her legs over one of the arm rests. "He is amazing." Adriana said each word like a sentence.

"More importantly is he good for you?" Pepper sounded apprehensive.

"Actually he is." Adriana looked at her tiled ceiling. "He is perfect, he doesn't really drink, doesn't smoke, he is completely dedicated to bettering the city.... he is amazing."

"You sound swept off your feet." the sound of happiness in Pepper's voice made Adriana really notice how happy she herself felt.

"I think I was."

There was a hard knocking at the door and Adriana sat up. She figured it was the police. She wished vaguely they had just called. "Hold on a minute Virginia I have to see who's at the door."

*****

'Not being able to be yourself, or have connections at all. Must really be awful.' As the door swung open and Bruce saw Adriana standing, it staring at him with her mouth slightly open, barefoot, phone at her ear, hair all messed up at the back like she had just been lying down, her make up all messed up, her mascara giving her a bit of a racoon look, her words ran through his head.

'Look, I just started going out with this really great guy, I mean amazing, not like the usual guys I go out with, he is actually a GOOD guy, and believe me as far as I go, that doesn't come around much...' Her words had been directed to Batman but had been about Bruce and they seemed to rattle around his very soul. She genuinely liked Bruce Wayne. Now that didn't come around much.

Bruce found that keeping the vainer of socialite 'Bruce Wayne' very hard to keep up around her. It was like she could see the real him and it was no point pretending he was someone else. She didn't demand anything from him, just accepted him the way he was, flawed and imperfect.

He hadn't felt like someone, anyone saw the real Bruce Wayne since he returned to Gotham from being trained.

"Bruce," The way she said his name, the way her lips moved around it. Bruce suddenly felt like he was being possessed, like he was loosing control of everything he worked so hard to keep in place. 'I'm not most people.' For the third time in only seconds her voice rang out in his head.

"I'm sorry Virginia I have to go, I'll call you back." She spoke into the phone but didn't take her eyes from his. She hung up the phone with out waiting for a response. "Bruce, what are you doing here? I told you I was fine."

She didn't seem angry just surprised. "Adriana," Her name came out of him on a breath. He stepped over the door way to stand in front of her, so close her pedicured toes were between his ridiculously expensive leather shoes. When they breathed their chests brushed against the others. Her eyes got bigger with surprise but she didn't shy away from his closeness, didn't take a step back.

"Miss Stark, you have a visitor, is this an authorised visit?" The cool female voice rang through Bruce's ears like it was coming from far away. When Adriana spoke she sounded breathless, like it was taking a lot to get the sentence out: "No it's fine, he fine, he's allowed in."

It happened so fast. He grabbed the back of her neck, she grabbed his waist under his jacket, he wrapped an arm tightly around her tiny figure and the crashed together like the titan's of society that they were. His lips fell on hers, soft, tasting like vanilla, and he felt carried away. Like he was finally safe. A feeling that was comforting and disarming at the same time.

She didn't back down from the intensity of their embrace. Holding him tightly she slipped her arms around his waist and held onto his back like she was the only thing holding him to this earth. In some ways she was.

He held her tightly with his one arm and picked her up carrying her into the apartment, her feet dangling from the floor. The doors swung shut behind them. He carried her over to the sofa and lay her down gently, lying down on top of her, not letting the kiss end.

Her hands moved quickly from his back to the collar of his jacket and pulled it down over his arms. Bruce had to hold back from wincing as the hard material rubbed over the hasty bandage job Alfred had given his arm. His hand that was on the back of her neck moved to her hair. It was thick and soft and somewhat tangled.

He found himself lost in her. Lost to his plan. The plan that kept him safe and secure. The only person he could get truly close to was Alfred, even Rachel had said she wasn't willing to be with him as long as he was Batman, but here he was disregarding all of his better instincts when it came to Adriana. He would only hurt her and he knew it. All he was aware of, however, was how soft she was, how she talked about and to him, and it seemed to consume him.

Their hands were all over each other, like they couldn't get enough of each other. She helped him pull off his shirt and her hand fell on the tensor bandage that was wrapped around his upper arm. It had been Alfred's idea to cover the gauze one with a tensor to make it look less serious.

She pulled back from him and looked at his arm before looking back into his eyes. He was struck by just how worried she looked. "Bruce? What happened to your arm?"

"Nothing, nothing," He pulled his hand out of her hair and ran it down the side of her face. "Just a polo accident. Pulled muscle." She looked sceptical. He pulled her up to him though and he could see her eyes fall out of focus and struggle to look at him. "Don't worry,"

His lips brushed hers and this time it was Adriana who made the kiss deeper. She pulled him down on top of her.

"Miss Stark there is a call for you from The Gotham Police Department." The cool female voice made Adriana freeze.

She pulled back from Bruce and let her forehead rest on his shoulder. "Thank you Lauren," She said her voice muffled by his body.

"Do you want me to leave?" Bruce rolled slightly to be on the edge of the couch but Adriana held on to him so he couldn't go far.

"No, please stay, please don't go," She sounded... scared.

He thought of how she didn't like police but of course Bruce didn't know that. "What's wrong?"

"I can't believe I am saying this for the second time tonight, but I really don't like police." She sighed and looked up at Bruce with a pleading look. "And I worried they will ask to come over and ask to talk to me and I don't want to be on my own."

Bruce watched her for a few seconds and nodded. "I'll stay,"

"Thank you." Was all she said before reaching for the phone.