A/N Ha, I made it! Happy end of the year everybody!
Disclaimer See Chapter 1.
Acknowledgement To Jane Austen's Emma, and to the movie version starring Gwyneth Paltrow (which, I must admit, I like better than the book).
Chapter 13
And I've contrived some sort of a plan to help my fellow man
Let's get emotional girls to all wear mood rings
So we'll be tipped off to when they're ticked off
Cause we'll know just what they're thinking...
Relient K
Saõ Paulo, Brazil – 5 years previously
It was a sweltering night. The thin material of his t-shirt stuck to his back like a second skin; a droplet of sweat formed on his temple and trembled downwards, gathering speed as it slipped along his cheek.
He shifted against the cracked wall of the alley, trying to find a position in which the stucco didn't dig into his back. He could hear the rats burrowing in a nearby trash pile and the bass throb of the club down the street. At last settling into the nighttime pulse of the city, he slumped in uneasy slumber.
He stood in the marble foyer of a hotel, rattling his room card against the keys in his pocket, watching the door anxiously. What if she doesn't come? She said that she would. But she has a busy life now, a life apart from… And then she appeared, her hair tousled by the wind, a crisp professional bearing that he didn't remember, a half inquisitive and half confident look that he did.
She saw him and smiled, hurried toward him. His heart skipped, then thundered on like a joyous tympani. "Bruce! Bruce, you're home!"
He grinned and caught her extended hands in his. They were warm and soft but determined; he felt the rise of an archaic, chivalric impulse and longed to press them against his lips. Must be the influence of that European boarding school.
"But why on earth are you staying in a hotel?"
He shrugged. "I'll only be here a couple of weeks. No point in opening up the mausoleum." The truth was that he couldn't bear to face the ghosts that flitted down those ornate hallways and haunted him sleeping and waking. "Rachel…" He stopped, still holding her hands, words inadequate to his purpose.
""Yes?" she demanded, laughing.
Unable to bend language to his will, or unable to find the courage to do so, he fell back on the same inanity he used every time he saw her again. "Wow, it is…really good to see you."
A window shattered.
Bruce opened his eyes, heard a woman screaming as a brawl erupted out of the club doors.
The dream was over.
- - - - - -
Throughout the long and lonely years of his exile, he had dreamed of Rachel more times than he could begin to count. The memories were, like all those of things he valued, as painful as they were comforting. He adored her, and she had dismissed him with contempt. He had puzzled for a long time over why he had destroyed her vestige of respect for him, but at last the answer came: You couldn't be Rachel's friend, really her friend, and live a lie. She was like a clear light, cutting the darkness and holding no shadows itself.
When he had returned, after seven years of wandering, he couldn't deny that he had thought of her, had hoped that on his newfound path he could win back what he had lost that final, bitter night in Gotham.
He hadn't expected her to wait for him. He had known that she was hardly the type to lock herself in mourning, and the truth of that had been borne in upon him as, the day after his return, he watched her drop a kiss on Carl Finch's cheek.
But what he hadn't understood, until he ran into her on that parody of a night at the hotel, was that she didn't know that he had changed, and he couldn't tell her.
You couldn't, he told himself firmly, expect someone to believe in you, believe that you were "more," when they had not the slightest shred of evidence in your favor to cling to, and every reason to believe the contrary. A person who believed like that would have to be mad. Utterly mad. Worthy of Arkham's maximum security wing. And Rachel was sane, gloriously, completely sane, unswerving from her arrow-straight, crystalline path in the pursuit of Justice.
Still, the quiet mockery in her eyes and the disbelief in her voice had hurt more than he had thought possible.
And so that night, as the Narrows crumbled around them; when she said, "You could die," and he knew it was truer than she could guess; because he could not bear to die and leave her thinking ill of him; he abandoned his vow of silence.
And now? He had no idea.
- - - - - -
"Penny for your thoughts?"
The teasing question jerked Bruce out of his reverie. "A mere penny? I'm insulted."
They were sitting in front of the TV, catching the late night news in companionable silence, Dick and Rachel Jr. duly tucked into their respective beds. (It had been a bit of a struggle to convince Dick that the gerbil would not like to sleep with him.)
Now Rachel stood, stretching and yawning. "I've got to get home. The Yelnats case preliminary hearing is tomorrow."
Bruce stood and followed her down the stairs. Alfred was waiting by the door, holding her coat. "Thanks, Alfred," she said, smiling as she slipped her arms into the sleeves. "Dinner was superb. As usual."
Alfred beamed, then pulled the door open. A gust of icy wind swirled around them. "Nasty night," Bruce commented.
Rachel turned to him, her eyes suddenly dark. "Bruce, be careful."
He smiled slightly but didn't answer. Rachel smiled back, then ran down the steps to her waiting car.
- - - - - -
There were ice pellets on the wind now, and Batman could feel the cold seeping through his layers of insulation. Usually, becoming chilled wasn't a problem. The extreme physical demands of his chosen occupation guaranteed that he ended each night drenched in sweat. But he had been crouched against the side of the building for nearly half an hour, struggling to hear the voices in the room on the other side of the wall, despite the screaming wind that practically pinned him to the concrete.
He readjusted the dial on the listening device yet again and replaced it against the wall, only to have his ear drum nearly blasted out as the wind abruptly dropped.
"So, you make the arrangements?"
"It'll do. I had to call in my last favor. If he damages the place, I can never set foot south of sixty-third again."
Batman could hear other voices talking raucously in the background. Apparently, these two had settled right next to the wall.
"You're already finished in this city, man. Cops got your face. You shoulda split soon as she got away."
"Run from him you mean? I'll take my chances with the cops."
The other man laughed uneasily. "What's he want the place for?"
"I don't know, and I want to keep it that way. He wanted a lot of space for Sunday night. Somewhere the neighbors wouldn't ask questions if there were…unusual noises."
"Hey, you two in this hand or not?" a voice from across the room shouted.
"We're in, we're in." The two men moved toward the center of the room just as the wind picked back up. Batman pulled away from the wall. This place was too open, and he had been here too long. Confident that no one would hear him over the storm, he shot the grappling gun and hoisted himself to the rooftops.
Ready to call it a night, he headed in the general direction of the Batmobile, mind busy over the fragment of conversation he'd heard. On a routine round by the waterfront, he'd caught a glimpse of a face, pale and pinched but nevertheless recognizable from the police posters drawn at Somerville's direction. Whoever "he" is, who wants space for Sunday night, they're plenty scared of him.
He was nearly back to the car when he heard a scream. At first, he thought it was only a trick of the wind, but it came again, and turning toward the harbor, he could just see two figures struggling on the high wall that ran along the water.
He launched himself off the higher rooftop, but the wind blew him off course. He just caught the rail guarding the wall top walkway to keep himself from being blown out to sea. Hauling himself back to firm concrete, he raced toward the fighting figures. He could see now that it was a man and a woman, the girl clawing at her attacker's face as she strove to break free.
Batman felt himself tense with anger, more than ready to interfere, but as he closed the gap, the girl rammed her knee into the attacker's groin. He groaned and slumped, and in a moment, she had climbed the rail and hurled herself toward the inky water.
Batman stopped short. I definitely misjudged that one.
The girl's companion stumbled to the rail and seemed about to dive after the girl until an iron hand jerked him back. "Somone will have to drive to the hospital," Batman rasped. Hooking the grappling iron over the rail and hitting the release on the gun, he jumped.
The numbing cold sliced through his armor, and he clung to the gun, grimly aware that, dressed in full gear, he wouldn't be able to drag both himself and the girl to safety if he had to swim. Where is she?
He kicked against the waves, scanning the water around him, then went under, but it was too murky to see anything. He popped up, eyes burning with salt and pollution, and glimpsed a white hand struggling feebly above the waves only a short distance away. He lunged, his glove gripped something soft, and he hit the trigger. For a split second, he feared the freezing water had fouled the mechanism, and then they were jerked up and up to collide with the rail.
Her friend's eager hands reached down to heave her over, and Batman followed. He now had time to notice that the man wore an expensive coat open over a tux and that the streaming dress of the choking girl had probably not cost under five hundred dollars.
"Give her your coat," the Bat rasped as the erstwhile jumper gagged up a final mouthful of water. The man obediently tore off his coat and wrapped it around the girl's shaking shoulders. "You have a car?"
"Yeah." He pointed.
Batman picked up the girl and jogged in the direction indicated, the other man scrambling to keep up. They arrived at sleek vehicle, and Batman set the girl down. "Get her to a doctor. Drive safely."
The young man was fumbling for his keys. "What about…" He turned and found that they were alone.
- - - - - -
The suit was generally waterproof but not made to withstand total immersion. By the end of the drive, he was trembling so badly he could hardly steer. Turning off the engine, he popped the top, then sat shivering gratefully in the relative warmth of the cave.
Alfred had insisted on installing a sensor that alerted him when anyone entered the cavern from the outside ("After all, sir, you could bleed to death before I started wondering where you were."), and a moment later, Bruce heard footsteps. "Master Wayne?" the butler called, and then, alarmed, "Master Wayne!"
Bruce lifted his head and grinned around chattering teeth. "Ch-chose the w-wrong n-n-night f-for a s-swim."
Alfred hauled him out of the car and began unstrapping the armor. "Forgive me, sir, but what on earth possessed you?"
"G-girl j-jumped into the h-harbor." He lifted an ungloved hand to his still burning eyes.
"Filthy place. It'll be a wonder if you don't both end up poisoned." Alfred tossed a towel at him, and Bruce began rubbing his chest. "Better let me tend to those eyes, sir," the butler ordered, opening the first aid kit.
Bruce obediently tilted back his head and let Alfred squirt saline solution into his eyes. The burning intensified. "Oooow."
"Don't be such a baby. Isn't suffering in silence part of the warrior's code?"
Bruce glared at his butler. Or he would have, if his eyes hadn't been tearing so badly.
"Into the shower with you, but heat it up slowly. You could pass out and drown, and what would I ever tell Miss Somerville?"
To Be Continued...
A/N Once again, thanks to all wonderful reviewers for your effort and time! And to all you lurkers…and I KNOW you're there, no way can the reviewers account for all the hits this story gets…shame on you for not contributing a little criticism to improve the general welfare.
The consensus on review responses seems to be that people either don't care or would rather have them posted on a single page. It's also a bit easier for me to do it that way. SO…
Responses to reviews may, as always, be found by going to my bio and clicking on my homepage.