I don't own anything to do with Batman. I do own Eleanor Black, her parents, her background, her dog, her friends Adam and Shauna, the NanoShift technology, Ashlynn Chiang, her henchmen, background and this plot. This fic doesn't go along with the movie, which is why Rachel doesn't know that Bruce is Batman, and this fic has NOTHING to do with my other Batman fics. It's rated T for violence, blood, language and drinking. Maybe some mild sexual content. Oh, and some REAL bitchy-ness on the part of Eleanor. I hope you enjoy this fic.
Reflection of His Enemy
Chapter Nine / The Eleanor Phase
So far, the party was going a lot better, and Eleanor was having a lot more fun than she had thought she would. Over the last week, Bruce and Eleanor had had dinner together three times, all of them at Wayne Manor, and once they had spent all evening watching movies on the large home-theatre system, which Eleanor thought was fantastic. She and Bruce were much closer than they had been before she'd kissed him, and she was enjoying the looks on the faces of the young socialites at the Christmas party as she clung to Bruce's arm and whispered in his ear.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Bruce asked, leaning down to whisper in her ear.
"Of course," she replied brightly. "Your such-and-such is so whatever." Eleanor laughed throatily, making it seem they were having some sort of deep, personal conversation, and leaned a little closer to him. She laughed again at the scandalized looks on the nearest group of girls looking to join the list of Bruce Wayne's dates.
"You are such a little minx."
"Oh, you like it."
Bruce laughed, and Eleanor could tell that it was a genuine laugh, the kind not normally exposed at parties, in public. Eleanor smiled at this and hugged him quickly before she excused herself and made her way to the long table where pounds and pounds of food had been set out in elegant and complicated displays and promptly began to fill up a plate. She smiled again, to herself, as she watched Bruce move amongst his fan club and selected one of them – a tall skinny blonde with legs that went on for days, obviously a model – to dance. Rolling her eyes, Eleanor shoved some small black, truffle-flavoured tart thing into her mouth whole and chased it with a hefty gulp of red wine. She knew very well she could have been one of those fan club members, that she could have been one of the girls who had nothing better to do than doll herself up and go to every party, hoping in vain that Bruce Wayne would be there and that she would get to dance with him; she knew she would have been, if she had not been adopted by the Blacks, if she had not ended up in a family close to the Waynes, if she had not got the job at Wayne Enterprises and if she had not become Bruce's friend. As it was, she was his friend and she was hoping, desperately, for something more, but she wasn't letting herself become too hopeful. There was something keeping Bruce distracted, keeping his distant; from getting too close to anyone. Even to Rachel, who had been his best friend for a long time and who it had always been assumed he'd end up with.
Just as Eleanor's mind drifted to thoughts of Rachel, the chestnut-haired one approached along the table, her hair pulled back tightly, once again giving her the bird-like appearance, although the soft ringlets hovering around her neck did manage to take the edge off. "Enjoying yourself, Eleanor?" Her voice wasn't as harsh as it would have been once, but it was obvious she still disliked Eleanor greatly.
And Eleanor returned the feelings. "You know I am," she said after swallowing her truffle-flavoured tart thing. "What about you?"
"Not quite as much as you."
Eleanor smiled a smile full of faux-regret.
"You'd better watch yourself – here comes one of Bruce's fan club. She looks pissed." Rachel smoothly turned away, but didn't move far enough so as to put herself out of earshot.
"Can I help you?" Eleanor asked, taking another sip of her wine.
The girl was a little shorter than Eleanor with wavy reddish hair and bright brown eyes. Her nose and cheeks were covered with an attractive spattering of freckles she had inexpertly tried to cover with makeup. She was wearing the same dress as Eleanor, except it clashed horridly with her hair where it brought a lushness to Eleanor's. She didn't look any older than sixteen, and the way she had scrunched up her face in anger was only serving to make her look younger. The only way she could have been invited to the party was if she was part of a rich, famous or well-connected Gotham family. There was no way she could have gotten in on her own. She shoved her face into Eleanor's and huffed angrily.
"What is your problem?"
By the smell of things, she had been sneaking alcohol, and she was quite drunk. Eleanor rolled her eyes. "I don't have a problem, actually, but I doubt you are really concerned with me. I'm going to assume you have a problem with something I'm doing, so you're going to have to be a little more specific to get the answer you're after."
The girl blinked rapidly for a minute as she tried to get through the alcohol hazed and puzzle out what Eleanor had said. She shook her head. "You're hogging Bruce!"
Eleanor actually, literally snorted into her wine. "Hogging Bruce?"
She huffed again, her perfectly placed red waves bouncing and becoming slightly disheveled. "You're not letting any of us other girls get near him! Is it so much to want to have one dance with him?"
"Apparently it's a pretty big deal."
A rapid and hard slap hit Eleanor across the cheek, tossing her head to one side and making her eyes water. The burning and stinging crept across her face quickly, and Eleanor had to blink to keep tears from running down her cheeks. The redhead was blabbering again, her face turning almost the same shade as her hair, but Eleanor didn't care what she was saying. Anger was rising with the stinging now, and Eleanor had also had several glasses of wine, which tended to impair her emotions and her judgment. So she lashed out and smacked the younger girl back, significantly harder than she had been smacked.
What happened next… it happened fast.
A big man spotted the exchange and stalked over, his face screwed up into an expression of rage and his hands balled into white-knuckled fists. Eleanor could only assume this was her brother.
How could things have gone so bad when they had been so good?
"Why'd you hit my sister?" he growled, towering over Eleanor.
The only defense she could come up with was 'she hit me first', but that was lame and Eleanor didn't think it would do any good, so she just stared at the guy, rubbing her cheek. He took a step closer to her and flexed his fists threateningly. Eleanor knew she was about to get hit again.
"I said, why'd you hit my sister?"
"I heard you the first time."
He hit her then. Well, it was more of a punch, and it broke her nose, but because of where they were standing – at the end of the table, rather in the corner of the large room – no on else seemed to notice. Eleanor managed to throw a napkin over her nose and pinch it painfully underneath it to stop the now-flowing blood; she also managed to keep the blood off of her dress, although the deep purple colour would have hid most of it anyway. Deciding not to get any farther involved than she already was, Eleanor turned and headed upstairs to the bathroom, unaware of Rachel following her, and of what was transpiring behind her.
The seemingly young red-headed girl smirked and rubbed her own cheek as Eleanor vanished upstairs. "That girl can hit," she said, still looking forward. She walked off to the bathroom on the same floor as the ballroom, and closed the door behind her, her brother taking up his post outside the door. Facing the mirror over the sink, she closed her eyes and concentrated on Eleanor's face, picturing every detail as she had done several times before. She grimaced as her skin began to bubble and shift and her fingers clutched the edges of the sink much as they had done back in the small apartment a week or so ago.
Thankful for her brother's discretion and his smarts not to ask if she was OK, Ashlynn let a small scream escape her lips. The transformation had become much, much more painful than it had been when she'd first injected the NanoShift technology into her body. It was almost enough to make her want to quit.
But she pressed through the pain. She had to.
Several long, excruciating minutes later, Ashlynn looked up into the cobalt eyes of Eleanor.
Eloise Griffin was fifty-seven, and extremely happy with her life. She was in the best shape of her life, been married to her perfect man for thirty-five years, had four wonderful children and three beautiful grandchildren with another one on the way. Her and her husband weren't fabulously wealthy or anything, but they had a great deal of money as her husband owned a good sized piece of land where luxury apartments had been built. It was almost tradition now, that her, her husband and her children and their spouses all came to Bruce Wayne's Christmas party, and this year was no exception. Usually, Eloise had a great time.
This year however, things had turned sour.
Eloise had been enjoying another glass of wine with a group of friends when someone had grabbed her wrist and roughly yanked her backwards, the glass of wine slopping all down her front and a small scream or surprise escaping her lips. Something cold touched her neck, and a second later, a sharp, hot pain spread across her neck in a thin line, like a razor touching the skin…
She looked down, and there, in the hand of whoever was holding her, was a knife, poised to slit her throat at any moment.
Tears began to fall down her cheeks, her lip began to tremble and she whimpered.
"Stop your simpering," her attacker hissed, dragging her across the room, the knife's edge digging painfully into Eloise's skin.
People were starting to watch. The music had stopped, and a quiet whisper of voices was rippling through the crowd, fear heavily identifiable. Eloise bit her lip, trying not to make anymore noise so she wouldn't die, but there was a hard knot in her stomach saying that she was going to die anyways. Her attacker had brought her into the middle of the massive ballroom, and everyone was watching now, an eerie silence settling. Eloise was starting to feel dizzy, and her knees buckled slightly, but whoever was holding her, the woman who was holding her, was strong enough to keep her upright. Across the room, Eloise noticed Bruce Wayne re-entering the ballroom, a look of shock, pain and disbelief on his face. He would stop this…
Bruce couldn't believe what he was seeing – he wouldn't believe it. Eleanor was standing in the middle of the room, holding an older woman – he was sure it was Eloise Griffin – and pressing a knife against her throat. Eleanor's face, which had previously been light with laughter and happiness, was contorted in a smile of grim satisfaction, and her cobalt eyes, glowing with a devious light he'd never seen on her face before. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. There was no way Eleanor would attack someone, no way she'd hold a knife to someone's throat and stand there, grinning evilly at him. For she was looking at him.
"Now that everyone's here," she hissed.
Something was holding Bruce's feet in place. He wanted to move, run forward and stop her, but he couldn't move. Never before had he not been able to stop something when he needed to, when he wanted to. When he was running around the city as Batman…
A thought struck him suddenly. It wasn't Eleanor standing across from him. It was whoever had the NanoShift technology. It had to be. Now he understood what the threat Eleanor had received was about. But this didn't explain Rachel's threat… There was time to puzzle that out later. With that realization, Bruce could move again, and he was across the room in a matter of seconds, but it wasn't fast enough. The Eleanor that wasn't Eleanor dragged the knife across Mrs. Griffin's throat in one swift, professional motion, and as the woman crumpled in front of her, Not-Eleanor bounded out of the room and up the stairs. Bruce ran after her, his fingers momentarily closing around her wrist, but she twisted and continued up the stairs and then down the hallway, towards an open window; behind him, people were rushing to Mrs. Griffin's side, and he knew she'd be taken care of, and he could already hear someone yelling for 911. As Not-Eleanor leapt out the window, Bruce stopped in his tracks, his thoughts on what he was going to do next, and just stared at the window.
Beside him, a door opened and the real Eleanor stepped out, holding a cloth to her nose, which was turning a little purple across the bridge. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the empty bedroom across the hall.
"You need to leave."
"What? Why?" The words came out a little muffled because of the injury and the cloth.
"The woman with the NanoShift was here. She attacked a woman. She was disguised as you."
"Me? Did it have anything to do with the threat?"
Bruce didn't answer her question. "You need to go, and you need to follow my lead."
Without giving time for Eleanor to respond, he gripped her wrist hard and dragged her rather roughly through the hall and back down the stairs. Ignoring her noises of protest, he led her through the ballroom, passed all the astonished guests. Someone ran up them, grabbed Bruce's arm to tell him the police had been phoned. Grimacing, he nodded his thanks and shoved Eleanor out the front door, onto the porch where a light snow was falling onto the already white ground. Eleanor immediately began shivering and Bruce would have given anything to get that look off her face, but he knew that he had to pretend he was furious with her, that he wanted her in the custody of the police and put in jail for attacking a woman. You couldn't just let a woman everyone thought had nearly murdered someone off free, no matter how much you wanted to.
They stood there, on the step, staring at each other until the sirens could be heard wailing on their way up the long drive. As the first lights flickered across his vision, Eleanor spoke.
"What the hell are you doing!? You know I didn't attack that woman!"
"Well, I can't very well tell them why, now can I?" Bruce sighed, pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Eleanor, I can't act like nothing happened! Everyone thinks it was you who attacked that woman!"
Still holding the cloth to her nose, Eleanor scowled. The gesture would have been comical at any other time, but right then… it was unsettling and kind of terrifying. "I could do without you throwing me around," she snapped bitterly, glaring over the cloth.
Bruce opened his mouth to apologize, but the cop cars and the ambulance had reached the house now, and a familiar trench coat was walking towards them. Eleanor visibly sighed with relief, her eyes closing slightly and her shoulders sinking, as Commissioner Gordon approached them, alone. There was a small, sardonic smirk on his face. He knew what had happened, and there was no doubt he had pieced it together right away.
"I guess the extra security was well worth it, wasn't it?" he observed sarcastically.
Eleanor scoffed. "Oh yeah. Well worth it."
"What's going to happen to Eleanor?" Bruce asked suddenly.
Gordon looked from Eleanor to Bruce and back to Eleanor. "Well… I'll have to take you to the station," he said slowly, "so it looks like we're going to put you in jail, but it shouldn't be too difficult to get you cleared of the charges and get them pinned on whoever the other woman is. You'll probably have to put under house arrest though." Gordon sighed tiredly, and rubbed his forehead vigorously. "We'll get your nose looked at before we head to the station though. Come on, Eleanor." Gordon placed a hand gently on her arm and turned her towards the waiting police car.
Bruce watched her get into the car, and watched as the car headed back to Gotham. After another minute, he headed back into the house, through the party guests and the pool of blood on the marble floor, only one thought on his mind. Ignoring all the questions, he ascended the stairs, went into the study and down the secret elevator into the cave. Across the cave at the large computer desk, he picked up the small black phone and dialed the number for the phone's twin in Gordon's pocket.
"What is it?"
Gordon's voice was slightly distorted by the sound of rushing wind no doubt coming from a slightly opened window in the car. "She escaped the manor and headed south, towards the Narrows."
"There's not much hope of catching her now."
"I am going to try."
"Well good luck."
Batman hung up the phone and quickly changed into his outfit, roaring out from behind the waterfall and south along the hidden road less than fifteen minutes later.
Ashlynn laughed jubilantly. She had changed back to herself as soon as she had reached a thick enough stand of trees and then she head taken a hidden car back to her apartment – stopping, of course, to pick Sam up on the way – where she proceeded to enthusiastically leap around the room and actually jump on the couch. The laugh coming from her mouth was almost animalistic in nature, and there was a wild look in her eyes.
"I take it you're happy with the results, then?"
"Of course I am!" Ashlynn stepped off the couch and placed her hands on her hips. "It worked! Part One of the Eleanor phase is complete and successful. She'll be locked away either in prison or her house, where she can wait for me to take her out of the picture for good. "
"What are you going to do about that other chick?"
"I'm going to-"
But Ashlynn didn't get to finish. She froze, hands raised slightly, fingers clenching. Her mouth twisted into an expression of pain and she started to shake, a thin wail escaping her lips as she collapsed onto the floor. It looked like she was having a seizure, and Sam didn't know what to do. He fell to his knees beside her, and turned her on her side like he had heard was the right thing to do, one hand gently stroking her cheek as he begged her to clam down, to stop, to breathe. Ashlynn stopped shaking a moment later, and her body relaxed everywhere except her left hand. Her left hand remained locked in a rigid state.
"Ash?" Sam whispered.
"My hand. I can't move it. I can't move my hand." Her eyes widened, tears of panic blossoming. Sam could see by the look on her face that she was scared – and she didn't get scared often. "My hand. Sam, what's happening to me?"
"I don't know, Ash…"
And then she actually started to cry and Sam really became scared. Ashlynn hadn't cried since they were little, and Sam had never been able to calm her down then. The only one who'd ever been able to do that was their mother. Ashlynn reached out with her good hand, her fingers flexing, looking for something to cling on to, and Sam obligingly gave his hand and winced as he saw her draw her damaged hand close to her chest. He knew this had something to do with the NanoShift technology. Ever since she'd injected herself, there had been violent mood swings, and the transformations had become painful for her. She thought no one except Sam knew that, but all of the men who had been near her when she'd transformed heard her scream, and they weren't so incredibly stupid not to realize her screams got worse every time and that the transformations took a little bit longer. No one, not even Sam said anything though, because Ashlynn's wrath was not something anyone wanted to deal with.
"Sam… Sam, help me…"
"I don't know what to do, Ash…"
"I need help… It hurts…" She sobbed loudly, and Sam had the overwhelming urge to hug her like he had after the factory had exploded, but he didn't. The fear of enduring her anger later was keeping him back. But that look… "Sam…" She was pleading now.
Ignoring his better judgment, he pulled her close to his chest in a tight embrace. Sam hushed her, and she cried, her right fist entwined his shirt, clingy furiously. He hadn't seen her like this in so long… Unwanted, tears started to blur Sam's vision, tears for his sister's rare moment of weakness, and he pressed his face into the top of her head.
"Sam, why is this happening?"
"I don't know, Ash, I really don't. I wish I did, but I don't."
Ashlynn sobbed again, louder and her body began to shake with her tears.
Commissioner Gordon's office was fairly large and in the shape of an exact square. The desk was also large and covered in piles of folders and loose pages and large, glossy photos. The computer hummed quietly from one corner, while a photo of a woman Eleanor assumed to be Gordon's wife smiled at her from the other side. All the blinds were open, letting in the orange glow of the street lights, and exposing a view of the falling snow; it was falling heavier and thicker than it had been at Bruce's. Eleanor was sitting in Gordon's comfy desk chair, her nose purple but bandaged and a warm blanket wrapped around her bare shoulders. Regardless of the cover, she was shivering, but it was mostly from anger at what had just happened to her and at Bruce for the way he had acted. Even though she knew his actions made sense, she was still furious with him for making her out to be the villain.
She sighed and leaned backwards in the chair, closing her eyes against the angry tears welling again. The tears kept coming. Eleanor couldn't seem to stop them from coming. Every few minutes her eyes would start to burn, her nose would start to hurt from the pressure in her sinuses and every time she sniffed, her nose would cry out in protest. Gordon was currently somewhere arguing with somebody to try and get her house arrest instead of jail time. She really hoped he was successful, because Eleanor did not want to spend time in jail, not even for a couple hours.
"Eleanor," Gordon's voice called from the doorway. When she looked up, he obviously spotted the puffiness in her eyes, for his face took on a concerned look. "Are you OK?"
"Not really, honestly." She wiped her cheeks with her fingers, took a deep breath and looked up at Gordon. "What's the verdict?"
Gordon's weathered face broke into half a grin. "I managed to get you house arrest. No one around here – except those who know about the technology – likes the idea much or understands why I want that. You'll have to wear an ankle monitor and you'll be confined until we find out who is really doing this, though. It will be a real house arrest." The look on his face was apologetic, and he sighed as he sat down on the chair across the desk usually reserved for visitors. "Are you going to be OK?"
Eleanor sighed and shrugged. "I'll live. It could be a lot worse than house arrest. I'll get my mom and dad to keep my dog at their house… If I'm going to be confined to one space for God knows how long, I'd rather it be my own space. The only problem is the whole being alone thing. I'm not really sure I'm comfortable with staying alone after this."
"Well, you could stay at your parent's house still."
"Oh… Right. I hadn't thought about thought. When you said 'house', I just assumed my house…"
"If I could offer my opinion?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't think you'll be attacked again, Eleanor. This seems to be what the woman with the technology was talking about, and now that she's succeeded—"
"You think she'll go after Rachel next?"
"That's exactly what I think."
"Then I think I'd rather be at home. My home."
Author's Note… So I hope the reason Bruce reacted the way he did was clear. I know it seems a little extreme, but I thought that would be the way he'd react around all those people, especially when only a small group knows about the NanoShift technology. So yeah, I hope that makes sense. I've also been trying to work more descriptions into my writing, and I hope those came across clear and that they fit into the flow of the chapter.
As for Eleanor's decision to stay at home… Well, it makes more sense to want to stay at your own home—trust me, I can relate to wanting to be at home. I hate being alone in my new apartment. It doesn't feel like home. But that doesn't have anything to do with this fic, now does it? The other reason Eleanor chose to stay at home is so things later in the fic make sense and can be a little more dramatic. Let's face it, who would want their parents around when they're dealing with Batman and trying to save your life, the life of someone you don't like very much and when you are disobeying the law on several accounts. But more on that as the fic progresses. You'll just have to trust me.
Anyways, I'm generally happy with the way this fic is going, and I hope you all are too.
Next Chapter: Going Crazy. Lots of fun stuff. Crazy is always fun to write.
