Thank you for all the nice reviews you guys, they're really encouraging and force me to start a new chapter when I don't really feel like it. Special shout out to sugarlove who keeps reviewing and Raging Raven who is pushy and will not allow idleness. J
And I would really appreciate it if somebody who knows about the document thing would explain it to me.
Sorry for the long wait, school is insanely busy. I'll keep posting, but not as frequently as before.
She was stuck in a rut, that was it. As Meara browsed through the produce aisle, she tried to look at the situation dispassionately with clear vision. She was both proud of herself and surprised at how far she had gone with Bruce, her clothes hadn't been ripped off in a frenzy since…well…ever, come to think of it. They had come off with Emil but it had felt more goofy and embarrassing than hot.
Oh well, though. The sex thing would come in time, or it wouldn't. She felt more at peace with the issue than she had in a long time.
She giggled to herself as she inspected nectarines. He had a really good body. And never once had it felt awkward. She had eventually gotten off the bed and they had both re-clothed, her in the adjoining bathroom. When she had come out he was gone and further search of him turned up a note next to a plate of cookies (bless him for having remembered to take them out). He had some business to take care of evidently, the cookies were ridiculously good, and he had signed the note "Bruce" with a heart. She treasured that heart.
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Bruce had strode out of the house feeling slightly guilty for leaving her in the bathroom like that, but the situation was dire. He hadn't gotten a raging erection like that in a while, and he didn't want her to feel it or see it. The instant she disappeared he leapt up and put his clothes back on, trying to calm himself, thinking about work that needed to be done, the mystery of James Grey, the Virgin Mary for chrissake, anything to get the image of her body out of his mind's eye. That body that he had been touching and kissing, the body that was tauntingly underneath him for a few precious moments before he felt it go from flexible and eager to suddenly unyielding. The woman needed a masseuse, there was no way that kind of stiffness was good for her muscles.
He had meant what he said too. The fact that she wasn't willing to round the bases with him even though she was attracted to him was impressive. There was something to be said for a little mystique. But God, that body…
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Bruce's phone rang that night, while he was under the house working on his Batmobile. The bloody piece of machinery has so many pieces something seemed to go wrong every other week.
"Hey! Are you busy? Am I interrupting something involving a lot of money?"
He dropped the wrench, and started to close the hood.
"Not at all."
"OK. Do you think it would be possible for me to meet Batman again?"
The hood fell with an enormous crash, narrowly missing his hand. She had his full attention.
"What was that?! Are you ok?"
"I'm fine, some idiot dropped a box of car parts I'm walking by the Jiffy Lube right now. Why do you want to see him again?" he tried to keep the panic out of his voice.
"Well, I'd like to write about him. Wouldn't that be a particularly interesting society column? Then maybe Stanton would promote me."
"I don't think you need to get Batman for Stanton to promote you. You're doing really well on your own."
She sighed.
"Maybe it was a dumb idea. But you have to admit it would be pretty awesome."
He could hear the grin in her voice and could picture her face perfectly.
"What are doing at exactly this moment?" he asked his voice a little softer.
Meara smiled on the other end.
"I'm sitting in the sun room doing absolutely nothing, it's lovely."
"I'm coming home in about half an hour. I want you to stay for a while longer Meara. I would feel better if you stayed away from that apartment…"
He trailed off embarrassed, hoping that she didn't think he was going to try to lure her back to his bed. Although it was an enticing thought.
"Alright, but I'm not moving in. What would Alfred think?" she said with mock horror.
Bruce didn't say what Alfred would think.
What had happened earlier in the day filled the phone line with unsaid words and silent apologies, but she barreled though it with determination.
She told him she would make dinner, she was in the mood to cook she hadn't done it in a while. He told her that under no circumstances would a guest in his house act like a maid cooking and cleaning.
"I have no intention of cooking or cleaning, I just feel like making barbecue chicken and parmesan potatoes cause I haven't had homemade food in a while and your kitchen is nicer than mine."
"How do you make parmesan potatoes?" he asked with visions of buttery cheesy goodness dancing in his mind.
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Upon Bruce's insistence, Meara stayed a lot longer than she intended. There were no more incidents, both parties had enough self control to stop themselves from doing something stupid. Even when she accidently walked into his exercise room to find him shirtless and sweaty watching CNN on the treadmill. She immediately leapt back and shut the door, but the image of his abdomen and biceps was burned into her brain. And he kept his cool when he encountered her in the hallway upstairs, wearing nothing but a towel and still wet from the shower. His eyes were drawn instantly to a drop of water slowly making it's way down over her collar bone, curve slightly over the top of her breast and disappear under the towel. He did a one-eighty turn and gulped wishing he could evaporate. She practically ran down the hall murmuring something in passing about getting her shirt from the dryer. But he was too busy saying the Hail Mary to hear her.
There was no doubt that sexual tension was running high.
Bruce asked Meara to another ball this time held at a manor outside of town. She agreed quickly, and he asked her with a half-smile if she might wear that red dress again.
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Bruce and Meara were so caught up in thoughts of each other that James Grey hardly entered their heads. If they had stopped to think about it, what happened next might never had occurred.
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They were leaving a little earlier than usual in order to get to the party on time. Meara got ready in a dreamlike state thinking about what might happen tonight. Funny things happened while she was wearing this red dress. She pledged to keep an open mind.
Bruce tied his bow tie absently making adjustments to his tuxedo. He had an odd feeling in his stomach. He never usually wanted to go to these things, but he had been enjoying them lately with Meara. Tonight though, he wanted nothing more than sit on the couch with her with as many blankets as possible, huge mugs of hot chocolate and possibly a little cuddling and kissing. That sounded really good right now. But he had already RSVP'ed. Ah well.
They took a limo out to the mansion, which was actually more like a plantation. Night had fallen by the time they reached the massive white house set right next to a forest.
They were greeted by the hosts, an extremely elderly couple who seemed to think that it was still the 1930's.
Bruce relaxed a little bit when they reached the rest of party and danced with Meara quite a bit. He didn't see James Grey enter the room. The evening went smoothly and Bruce concluded that his fear had been irrational and dumb. He and Meara decided to leave early in order to back before midnight. They made they're way down the ridiculously long entrance hall which was void of people aside from themselves. The sounds of the party had long faded away by the time they reached the door.
"One second." said Meara slipping into the bathroom. Bruce went to find their coats and as he was coming back he saw three figures outside the bathroom. He reacted almost instantly but they were anticipating him. Two grabbed his arms and the other quickly jabbed something into his neck. He stopped struggling at once, sinking to the ground.
"He bit me." one of the thugs complained examining his hand. He looked at Bruce with great dislike and aimed a few kicks that would have killed it's victim had they connected with the head.
Two men moved quickly off back down the hall to make sure nobody came while the remaining man moved the body. This was when Meara came out of the bathroom. She saw the man leaning over Bruce's prone form, and did the first thing that came to mind. She turned around and grabbed the heaviest thing she saw which was the porcelain cover of the toilet tank. She heaved it up and as quietly as possible moved behind the man and swung it with as much force as possible at his head. The thug dropped soundlessly to the floor but the porcelain cover hit the floor with a resounding crack. The two guards came running back down the hall just as Meara, figuring out that Bruce wasn't dead was trying to pull him towards the door. As the thugs came towards her, she fumbled in her handbag ripped out her trusty can of pepper spray and hit the guys right in the eyes. One fell back, tripped on his prone cohort, and cracked his head on the solid floor. He did not get up. The other was bent double with his hands over his face. Meara flung the door open and with strength she didn't know she had, heaved Bruce up and staggered out into the night. The limo was thankfully close and when the driver saw her he leapt out to help get his limp employer back into the car.
Meara got out her cell phone and called Alfred's phone, praying that he pick up. He did.
"Meara? What's wrong?"
She rattled off quickly what had happened.
"I don't know what to do! If it was poison it might have spread--"
"Calm down, do exactly what I tell you to do. Under the seat there's a black plastic box. In it, there is a red transparent tube with a plastic hose attached. You need to place the open part over wherever the injection was and make it a vacuum."
With trembling hands she followed the instructions and then barked "Now what?!"
"Check if he's hurt anywhere else. You need to take his clothes off and see if they stuck a monitor on him or broke anything."
She obediently ripped off the many layers of clothes Bruce wore, running her finger tips over him. His top half seemed bruised and bloody but not broken. She struggled to get his pants off, but once she saw his legs, she gasped. They were definitely broken. Alfred talked her through it.
"Take the trouser legs and wrap them tightly around where you think the break is. Don't move him."
When they got home Alfred was waiting for them and he helped Meara, calm and focused by now, to get the man who was bigger than both of them out of the car and into the house. Alfred, with foresight, had dragged a covered mattress into the front hall so they laid him down and Alfred checked to see if his master would survive, Meara hovering off his shoulder. After checking him thoroughly, Alfred turned to her with a relieved sort of smile and said he would live. His legs were broken but not badly, and his ribs would only be bruised. He looked at her thoughtfully.
"How did you manage to get him to the car miss? We two had a hard time of it, you were by yourself."
She hugged herself, and thought about it.
"I'm not sure Alfred, if I knew I would tell you. I was…freaking out. The only thing I could think of was getting him out of that house. I picked him up and half carried half dragged him out."
Alfred smiled in understanding.
"Sometimes miss, crisis draws untapped strength to the surface. You're adrenaline probably saved your life and his."
After reassuring herself that Bruce would indeed be ok, and kissing his lips quickly and covertly, she stumbled up the stairs to bed.
Before drifting off, she remembered where she had seen one of those men before. At that ball she attended at James Grey's home.
