Batman (Nolan-verse) fanfiction.
Summary: Crime is universal. Alex leaves one hellhole for another and hopes that a change of address is enough to hold them off. No particular timeframe but closer to BB than TDK. (Batman/OFC)
A/N: May contain traces of references to other movies. But there will be no crossovers.
GHOST TOWN
Chapter 14
Despite her morning routine being the same as it always was, everything felt unreal. She gets off the metro at Wayne Tower station, takes the lift to the top floor and settles into the office while her colleagues mill around as though nothing has changed, but Alex -- she's sitting on the biggest secret in Gotham City and she's afraid she might accidentally let something slip.
Batman is Bruce Wayne.
Batman is Bruce Wayne.
Batman is Bruce Wayne, her boss.
Things could not get any stranger.
She barely got any shut-eye last night and couldn't stop thinking about all the clues she should have picked up on. In hindsight, of course, it all made perfect sense. Bruce banked on the fact that he was the last person anyone would suspect as being the masked vigilante. He'd set up the ultimate disguise. And he'd entrusted her with it... that had to count for something in their relationship, right?
When he comes to work, sauntering leisurely through the building with a bigger shit-eating grin than usual, Alex double-takes and has to remind herself that what she's seeing is an illusion. She plays along, behaving just as she normally would, when he comes up by her desk to enter his office and throws her a wink. "Hi, Alex."
He keeps his voice low, sounding almost like Batman, and hearing it sends a thrill up her spine. But in a blink, he's ducked past the door before she can even respond. Instead, the phone rings.
"Mr Wayne's office," she says.
"Ah, Ms Reilly, isn't it?" A deep, rich voice enquires.
She frowns slightly in confusion. "Yes, Mr Fox? How may I help you?" She isn't aware of how the CEO of Wayne Enterprises came to know her name personally. Jessica might have passed it on, most likely --
"Would you be so kind as to inform Mr Wayne that his collapsable charge-firing rifle as arrived, as requested, and that he should meet me in half an hour at the Applied Sciences lab."
She's about to jot this down when she hears charge-firing rifle and pauses, stunned. No way...
"Oh, and you're very welcome to join us. Alfred has told me the good news."
A smile comes to her unwittingly, and she suppresses the itch to let it spread and make herself look even more like a grinning idiot. "Um, thank you, Mr Fox. I'll be sure to let Mr Wayne know."
"Let me know what?"
Alex starts and almost bumps into him when his voice is suddenly behind her ear. The man sneaked up on people far too easily. Still, he's wearing a toothy, mischievous grin while he's bent down to be at eye-level with her and she can't help but smile back. Oh no. A pair of grinning idiots.
She puts the phone down and turns to him. "You're meeting him in half an hour at Applied Sciences. Something's arrived."
"Ah. Rather discuss inside?" He jerks his head slightly.
She gets up and follows him into the office. He looks at her attentively, waiting to hear whatever she has to say, and she's amazed at how different he looks as Bruce Wayne with something real behind his eyes, instead of a smokescreen. So much more like Batman. "Uh, Mr Fox just wanted to see you about your new charge-firing rifle. But, can I ask..."
Bruce nods, prompting.
"How many people know about this? I mean, needless to say, Mr Fox now knows that I know. So, will there be any more surprises in store for me?"
"No, no more surprises. I don't like keeping anything from you." He takes her hand, staring down at it as it lies dwarfed in his palm. "The only other person who knows is Rachel."
"Rachel?"
"Yes." His eyes flicker back up to her face. "She's my oldest friend," he adds.
"What about Lieutenant Gordon? Doesn't he know?"
"No... but I think he suspects."
"Oh." She turns the information over in her head. "Pretty well kept secret."
His voice softens. "You're OK with it?"
She curls her fingers up in his hand and graces him with a sweet curve of the lips. "Yes. Absolutely." She was always going to accept him, whoever he was, as Batman. It didn't matter to her if he were a street sweeper, a librarian, a soldier, an artist, or an industrialist, as it turned out. At the heart of things, even though she didn't know his face, she already knew the kind of person he was.
Her conviction seems to reassure him, and he draws her in to plant a chaste kiss on her mouth. She can recognise the scent of aftershave on him that she's always caught faintly before, usually mixed in with the smell of rubber, smoke and sweat when he was fighting crime, and she angles her face up to him welcomingly. The tip of her tongue peeks out to brush against his lips, teasingly, inciting a low growl from the back of his throat that heats up her skin. Her arms rise to wrap around his neck; the sensation is different yet familiar -- suit lapels instead of armour, short strands of hair at his nape instead of a smooth cowl -- but his lips... those lips are unmistakable.
At the moment, they're expertly moving over hers, while one of his hands rests at her hip, and somehow he's gotten her back pressing to the wall. Alex is struggling to hold onto the ability to think (aside from a delirious string of oh my god) and a tiny voice reminds her that she's at work, and what is she thinking? but it's conveniently drowned out when his mouth leaves a hot trail to the side of her throat and latches onto a sensitive spot. Oh god. Her hands run over his shoulders, his chest, feeling the contour of hard muscle under the fabric, getting hotter and more breathless with each second. And then Bruce lets up with a little gasp and her eyes snap open.
Oh shit. "I'm sorry!" She retracts her hand from his arm -- his injured arm -- and looks up at him apologetically (stupid, stupid, stupid) but he just smiles and leans his forehead against hers.
"It's OK," he chuckles. "We can continue this later."
She bites her lip, all of a sudden coquettish. "Will we? I'm holding you to that."
"It's a promise." He whispers. His blue-grey eyes don't lie as they stare at her intensely, so close. She can hardly wait. Bruce flicks up his wrist to check the time. "When did you say Lucius wanted to meet?"
"Half an hour." She glances at the watch; it's been twenty minutes.
He takes her about the waist and pulls her from the wall. "Come on. Let's go. I can be early for once."
Alex tries to avoid the stares when she walks out of the room with Bruce Wayne, but still manages to catch half of them -- surprised faces, I-knew-it faces, disbelieving faces, even horror. She and Bruce are not displaying any overt signs of romance, but everyone seems to know. They're walking closer, perhaps. They make it to the lifts and take Bruce's personal express carriage, and she's relieved to get away from those prying eyes.
"Free for lunch today?" He asks as the lift plummets down. "I've already booked, so you can't say no."
She smiles with a quirked brow. "And what if I say no?"
He isn't fazed, toying with a lock of her hair that curls under the jaw. "Well then, I'd be forced to take some other pretty girl with me, and that'd be such a waste." She rolls her eyes, then his expression turns worried. "You aren't really saying no, are you?"
"Of course I'm not," she laughs lightly and leans up for a quick kiss. "Besides, it's not as though I have any work to do."
The doors open at Applied Sciences, from thirtieth floor to basement, and Bruce leads her out. The place is packed with all manner of advanced gadgetry, but devoid of people. Their steps echo loudly in the hall, especially her heels, and Bruce soon spots the new delivery sitting in a sleek black case by the computer workstation.
"What is it?" She queries. It doesn't look like any rifle she's ever seen, nor did she expect it to. Experimentally, Bruce manoeuvres it to unfold into something more resembling a gun and then taps the controls which set a digital reading on the side.
An elevator ping goes off behind them, and Alex turns around to see Mr Fox arrive. He smiles amiably at her as he walks towards them, then turns his attention to Bruce who is still studying the machine.
"Mr Wayne, how many times have I told you to read the instructions before using any of the devices down here?"
Bruce glances back with a sheepish grin. "You know me, I'm like a kid in a toy shop."
As Fox proceeds to introduce him to the new weapon and demonstrate its usage, Alex marvels at watching this side of Bruce when he isn't out fighting anything. It's evident he has a huge amount of respect for his mentors, Alfred and Lucius, and it puts Bruce in a different light when he isn't working on his own. She's still getting used to the idea of re-learning Bruce Wayne, and still incredulous at how wrong she'd been about him when they first met.
--+--
From his balcony, Gotham City lights up in the night like a jewelled crown, where the corporate skyscrapers cluster tall and bright in the middle, Wayne Tower amongst them, and the peripheries scoop down in lesser spires. He has Alex in his arms, the back of her head tucked in under his chin as they gaze out at the skyline, and he couldn't be more content.
He'd whisked her out to lunch as planned, and then coaxed her into having dinner with him at the Manor, where they'd be out of the public eye. He sensed she had some reservations about that -- being seen cosy with her boss -- so he'd suggested something more accommodating, although for him, it was so liberating to not have to hide anymore. Batman couldn't have a girlfriend, couldn't have a weakness... but Bruce Wayne could parade around his female company as much as he wanted without anyone caring.
Overlooking the immaculate gardens and greenery that surround Wayne Manor, they stand in peaceful silence. The sky is clear, no bat signal in sight.
"It's beautiful." Alex says. He agrees. He agrees with her that it's beautiful, even though he's seen how ugly the city is up close. "Do you stay up here often?"
"Not really." He hasn't the time.
"I guess it'd lose its appeal if you saw it all the time."
He smirks against her hair and trails his fingers lightly over her arm. "Some things don't."
She turns on the spot to face him, her eyes wide and glittering with an emotion he doesn't dare name, and he doesn't stop himself from taking her mouth into a bruising kiss.
When he lifts his head to breathe, he realises Alex has brought her hands up to his shirt collar. "Think we can get back to where we left off?" She whispers, and pops the first button.
A slow smile creeps up on him. "I told you, I don't make promises I can't keep."
A/N: Well, I hope that wasn't too cheesy. I have to confess, part of my delays with writing this (just part) is having gotten a new obsession: Rorschach. Horrible of me, I know. I do plan on winding up Ghost Town soon though, get closure and everything, before starting something new.
Oh, and while this isn't the first time I've mentioned it, Bruce has blue eyes because that's his traditional eye colour from the comics/cartoons (although Mr Bale has very fine hazel eyes). If you were wondering, the charge-firing rifle is the one Batman uses in TDK, which shoots a sticky wad of explosive goo that has a time-trigger (eg used in blowing open the window when extracting Lau from Hong Kong).
And MG, you are a dear ^_^ hope you have fun with this chapter since you sped up its completion!