I one hundred percent apologize for keeping everyone waiting so long. I had just completed "Bound to the Vorta", and I had trouble figuring out HOW to continue this story, but now I am back on track. :) I'll be beginning a new Deep Space 9 story soon, but not until I continue this one for a few more chapters to come. The wait might have been worth it.
I thought people should know about the timeline jumps, if anyone is ever confused. I have difficulty explaining this, but when I read "The Boundaries of Friendship", I understood the way it was perfectly that I decided to do the same, as I have done in a couple other fics of mine. If it's confusing to anyone, you all should keep in mind the year is 2016 currently for present events and go back to do the math with mentioned past events like "10 years ago" or "7 years ago" like in the last chapter, and so forth with previous ones. There might not be much more in the future, but in here - we get to see a little expansion of Iris and Ra's. :)
Chapter Eleven
Gray Areas
"Well, now that you know how the lady feels for you, Jon, what's your next move?" Edward asked as he sat down beside him at lunch time, with Harley and Ivy across from them and grinning like schoolgirls.
Jonathan glared first at him and then at the girls. "I don't see how my newfound feelings are your business, either of you."
Pamela scoffed and waved her hand. "It's our business because Iris is our friend, too. I'm a woman myself, so I know how to get her worked up until the next month or two." The blonde looked at her with a slacked jaw and a pout, which the redhead laughed and patted her shoulder. "Don't worry, Harl, you're as much a lady as I am. I never leave you out."
"Aww, shucks, Red!" Harley leaned up and kissed her cheek, making both him and Edward groan, the latter closing his eyes and turning away. "Hey, you boys got girls of your own!"
"Because we're not same-sexed like you two!"
Jonathan felt his cheeks burn as some eyes were on them now. "Damn it, Ed, keep your voice down!" he hissed. "This is Iris and me, not you two -" He glanced at the girls from the corner of his eyes. "- or you and Joan. We're not like either of you, and I respect her too much to just take her on the desk or in the broom closet, or in an empty cell every night."
Pamela looked offended, but she held herself straight. "Fine, hmmph! Jonathan, you need some guidance to get Iris' engine rolling until you're out of Arkham, if not like any of us..."
~o~
"Did you wear that...just for me?"
It had been two weeks since they confessed their feelings and she had been "negotiating" with the board of Arkham and the DA's office the release of Jonathan Crane. So far, things had gone smoothly, but bumpy with Janet Van Dorn sticking her nose where it didn't belong, but she would not win this round. She wanted all of the Rogues in Blackgate, but not if Iris DeLaine had anything to say about it.
She was back in the blue satin blouse from two weeks ago, but this time with her favorite tight black trousers and heeled boots, hair in the chignon. She looked up and raised her eyebrows when Jonathan casually sat down in his chair before her, that look on his face all too familiar. Both eyebrows were raised, mouth in a tight smile devious all the same. "Excuse me?" she asked, raising her left eyebrow. That was not something he would say to her, unless...
"I asked if you decided to wear that for me, given a certain day two weeks ago when we..." Jonathan went on, drawling now, and she held up her hand.
"If you're trying to make fun of me, you're not doing a good job at it," Iris told him coolly, though a smile of her own twitched both corners of her mouth.
"Believe me, my dear, I wasn't."
That leaning back in the chair did not fool her. "Who put you up for this? Eddie?" Of course, her mind answered. He had to get him to say something as naughty as "Did you wear that for me?"
"If I said no," Jonathan purred, her skin itching now, "then I'd be lying." Now he leaned forward, one leg crossing over the other, and his eyes piercing through his glasses. "I know you too well, Iris. That shirt is so...tight, for lack of a better, more scandalous term. Shows more than it needs too even if I don't see everything..."
She coughed behind her hand a few times, though it was only for show. "That's quite enough, thank you."
"Oh, but I haven't even begun," he said wryly, standing up and slowly advancing her away. Iris leaned back in her own chair, arms folded in front of her and her thighs spread in relaxation. If he noticed, then he didn't say anything...yet, or gave no indication as of yet either. "The fact you have no shame, Iris DeLaine, riles me up and I'm so tempted to follow Eddie's example in this office, on this desk between us, after all. If we're going to play this little game until my release date, might as well follow, doctor." His eyes darkened seductively that it made her begin to throb below, but her thighs were too fluid to move.
"You're my patient, so you don't give me orders," she ground out, remaining where she was and looking up still into his eyes. He laughed, low and dark, only it wasn't Scarecrow.
"Right now I do," he returned. "I have two more weeks left to have some fun."
"Not the kind of fun you think. We had an agreement to not go anywhere near Joan and Edward's status, remember?" She uncrossed one arm and waved a finger at him. "We have one hour until your session is up, but what do you want to do in the meantime?" Iris waved behind him, the ache below her waist remaining that she cursed him for it and would not give him the satisfaction of seeing. After this, she had no patients for another hour to see, so she might have time until then - but for now, she was stuck with this bothersome arousal thanks to Jonathan. But thankfully, she had her own private restroom in this office and some personal products to help.
"How about, since we are done with me, we can talk about your next...unfortunate victim," Jonathan said as he sat back down and crossed his legs once more.
Iris felt her mouth twitch, knowing the implication behind his words. "You miss working alongside me. You miss your experiments." Of course he did, but if he got involved, it might risk not only him getting caught again, but the both of them...and fear was his LIFE...
"I wish I could be there to join you, like Ra's al Ghul did so long ago when you took care of your mother. I miss hearing the sound of screaming - although it pleases me to understand a human being even more. Tell me something, and I don't recall ever asking you before: do you regret meeting Ra's?"
~o~
7 years ago...
She had the apartment all for herself for the next few hours. Alice was once again on a date with the lizard, Iris thought to herself with a snort as she tried to think of what to do to pass the time. She'd done reading, cleaned the house after coming back from school, so what else was there to do?
There had been one thing she used to do at night, alone in her room, but it had been a few months since Dr. Crane was fired and she had not pleased herself in bed for a long time. A boy or girl - man or woman - could go insane after a long time, and now that she realized it, her body felt irritated and needed release. She was not a silly schoolgirl, priding herself on it, but she needed to do this before Alice returned with Billy, however long it would be. Snarling, wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and shorts, Iris stalked to her room and yanked open the top drawer of her dresser and pulled out the nearest tube of gel she could find, not bothering to read if it was the cooling version or the heated one. Either one is fine with me as long as I fix this problem.
She found her release, laying on her stomach with her legs alternating between spread or brought together in her self-rapture, relieved and exhausted - and then upon hearing the doorbell ring, she shrieked and nearly jumped out of her skin when she fell out of bed, scrambling to her feet and dashing to the bathroom to wash her hands before straightening her hair out, putting it up in a ponytail before running downstairs for the door.
"Hello, Iris. I hope I didn't catch you at the wrong time," Henri Ducard said as soon as he turned her way, smiling as he looked her over in the doorway.
"Mr. Ducard. I didn't think I would see you again any time soon."
He chuckled. "You haven't forgotten about me."
"How could I?" she returned with a little smile. "Are you here to...begin my training now?" She looked behind him to see if he brought anyone with him. A part of her mind flared with a little worry as she feared Alice would be home so soon and ask questions about the strange man in their home. "My sister might be home soon, so I don't know how long you can be here..."
"She won't be for awhile, I guarantee that," he interrupted, holding his hand up. "I won't take up more than enough of your time, Iris. I have only enough to hold my interest in your...intellects. For example, what you master yourself in."
Iris frowned, stepping aside for him to come inside. By master herself, did he mean whatever gifts and abilities she had that made her strong? All she knew was the psychological mysteries and the effects of drugs on the human mind as Jonathan Crane taught her to do against her enemies. Mina Rosenberg had been arrested for intoxication, in jail since last year, but she was going to be released very soon. Her friends and boyfriend were still around, but they had not bothered her since their "sessions with the mad professor" - she had wanted to finish them off for what they did to both her and Crane, but she might end up caught herself. That was the only reason holding her back.
"Well, all I can tell you - can I get you something?" she asked as soon as she led him into her home she shared with her sister. "Tea? Water?" He answered to the latter, so she grabbed him a bottle from the fridge and one for herself, sitting down at the polished Brazilian island. "I can tell you," she repeated, unscrewing the cap and taking a swig, "that I'm skilled in the psychological aspects of an individual's vulnerable side. The mind is more powerful than the rest of the body. The body might recover, but the mind never does. Fear is the most manipulating emotion that rules every other we possess within."
"The League applies the manipulation of fear every day," he agreed, nodding his head in fascination. "However, I doubt you learned this alone. Someone else...close to you had to have taught you this. Someone more experienced in this matter."
"My old professor. Well, not old exactly," Iris said with a nervous giggle, pushing her hair over her shoulder out of habit. "He had been fascinated with fear more than anything ever since he was young. He...suffered in his youth as I had, and he's still so young that he became the youngest professor of psychology at school. He was a good man, but no one understood him as I did."
Ducard's brows furrowed. "May I ask who this remarkable man is?" he queried. "I believe I might help if I understand more."
"His name is Jonathan Crane."
"Crane...he has been your mentor since the beginning. But tell me, about any others in your life."
Iris shook her head. "There isn't much to tell. I have no family who is there for me. There's my grandmother, but I doubt she would do much of anything physical anymore. Her husband, my grandfather, died before I was born, and their son - my father, one of the wealthiest men in Gotham - passed away from HIV when I was only four."
"Your mother - Maria DeLaine. I don't believe we can rule her on the same page as your sister, the product of an extramarital affair between your late father and another woman, correct? I have had some of my best spies look into Maria DeLaine's background, so I believe I can see who is the cause of the darkness in your being..." A smile split his face. "There is one down, but I also believe she can wait. The way I see it, the one who started it all is always best kept for last; it makes revenge against the pain in your veins that much sweeter, Iris."
"I know what that's like," she said softly, lowering her eyes to the exotic marble before her, thinking about her tormentors who helped take her teacher from her. Ducard noticed this.
"Does whoever you are thinking of now have to do with your former teacher, Dr. Crane?" Iris finally raised her eyes to him and nodded; he returned it with a hum. "Well, then, now that we have come to an understanding, it seems that we have an answer as to who to begin your training with."
~o~
Today
"No, I don't," she confessed, uncrossing her arms and placing them on either armrest of her chair. "Because he helped me return to you, helped me finish what you and I both started together. It was Ra's who finally let me in on who he really was not that long after he started teaching me how to fight physically, although you know how limited I am due to my figure, like you." She winked at him. "He did show me how to be discreet with picking my targets, master the art of the ninja, turn the fear against those who prey on the fearful - and he WAS there to watch me finish off my victims, until he died. He was the one who told me that beneath the black and white surface, it's all areas of gray that no one else wants to be a part of."
"The same night everything was...taken from me." He was now looking away from her and at the window, not looking out of it to the view of Gotham. "I sometimes hate myself for not seeing he had another agenda, and that was destroying the city."
Iris inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her lungs. She hadn't known either, until too late. But the League of Shadows was a crusade against corruption since the times before Christ, attacking a collapsing city financially and physically. Jonathan had thought it was for more money for his research, before towards the end after Falcone was arrested, he had pushed her aside because he wanted to protect her. She had stepped aside without questioning him, but guilt came to haunt her when he was arrested and everything went her way. "I still hate the Batman even more. So do you. But I'll have you beside me again as soon as I get you out of here in a couple more weeks," she promised. "I don't regret anything I did in my life. Nothing. You shouldn't live with this regret anymore; you should put it behind you now for the sake of both of us now." Living with regret wasn't a life at all, either. She loathed everyone around her for blaming them for everything on her and Jonathan, and for that, they paid.
Jonathan's piercing eyes were on her now. "How should I learn to let it go then, Iris?" he asked softly, the lids narrowing to slits in a nonthreatening way.
"Start by heading back to the place all of this began. As soon as I get you out of here, we're going back to Georgia."
Shorter chapter, but it gets better soon. :D I hope you all were satisfied after a long wait. And a Happy New Year.