Sorry for the lateness of my usual hours...
Enjoy!
Chapter Fifty
Dusty surveyed the bruise on her neck; unconsciously pulling faces at herself as she did so. It was a deep, vivid purple, and deep enough that it hurt to do anything but breathe and drink liquids from time to time. She hated being injured. Luckily, this time she could get up and walk around when and if she wanted to. Stepping back from the mirror, pulling her sweater more tightly around her, Dusty surveyed what she saw. On the outside, she looked calm. Inside, she fumed. More at herself than Bruce, but a certain amount was directed at him as well. She knew that it was her fault that he'd snapped, she really did, but that didn't make the pain any less, or the bruise any less purple.
Angrily, she stalked away from the mirror. She hit her iPod deck with little more force than necessary, causing the music to start. Then she groaned when 'When I Look At You' from the Scarlet Pimpernel started to play. She was about to flick it to the next track, when the lyrics started.
As she listened to it, she walked across the room to pick up the picture frame that held Bruce and her wedding picture. Gazing at the picture, she crossed the room again and sank down on the window seat. Studying the picture, she touched his smiling face. She closed her eyes, willing the tears to leave.
Bruce heard the music from her room as he passed. He heard the gentle closing notes, and looked in. Sitting on her window seat, Dusty sat hunched, holding a picture frame in one hand, her forehead resting on the palm of her other, tears rolling down her face, her shoulders shaking.
Now remembering is all that I can do….
Because I miss him so,
When I look at you.
He left her, softly crying into her hand. But, for some reason, he was shaken.
The next two weeks were slow. Bruce remained aloof, but there were no more vicious looks, or anything remotely resentful. If anything, he seemed cautious. Dusty dismissed it, and felt the winds of persecution pass, at least on that front.
On the other front…She just didn't know. Her office at work had been broken into, but nothing seemed to be missing. She was investigating it herself, not wanting to worry (or bother) Bruce, but it was proving increasingly tough, seeing how she couldn't really involve the police, and there was nothing that was stolen, nothing to give her clues of identity or purpose.
She sat on her horse, out on the rolling hills of Wayne Manor's grounds, just thinking. It was a growing habit of hers, now, giving her quiet and exercise all at once. Luckily, Bruce had horses on the grounds - something about polo - and it was only a ten-minute walk to the stables. As she sat there, her eyes focused on the road for some reason, she started to see a plume of dust rising above the hill that it curved around. As she watched, a black and white police car swerved around the corner. Alarmed, she thought they were going to carry on down the road, and so started galloping toward the house, where they would undoubtedly be. Then one of the policemen leaned out of the car.
"Wayne! Stop!" The first instinct that leapt into her mind jolted up her spine. Watson! Because of that, there was no way on this good green earth that she was going to stop. Furiously she jabbed her horse in the sides, making it fly forward. The car kept going, as did she. She reached the house before they did, galloping her palomino American Quarter up to the house and right through to the door. She paused to open the door before spurring her horse inside.
Her own panic aside, the look on Alfred's face was almost comical when he saw the large horse in his front room as she dismounted and directed it back outside the door.
"What do you think you're doing, bringing that overlarge beast in here?" He asked. Dusty ran past him, skidding slightly as she struggled to stop in her slick-bottomed riding boots. Once she managed to slide to a stop she turned toward him, hands out in a pleading gesture.
"There wasn't time to dismount outside, Alfred, the police are almost at the door." Dusty said, glancing toward the front entry.
"The police? But why?" Alfred said, also looking at the door, albeit more suspiciously than Dusty. Dusty shook her head.
"I don't know, I haven't done anything, but the whole thing points directly to Watson." Dusty said. Then her hands went up by her neck unbuckling the small ceramic knife that was positioned at the back of her neck. "Here, take this." He took the small knife unwillingly.
"Mrs. Wayne, would they be here if something has not gone wrong?" Alfred asked. Dusty looked down, and then shook her head.
"I don't… I just," She said, breaking off, then suddenly looking off into the distance, "There's no other explanation. Bruce just called and was complaining how boring it was, and Rick hasn't had anything interesting happen to him since March…" She looked down, "If they are after me…I have no choice but to go now," She said her voice softening into a quiet, nervous tone. "I ran away when they called me, and thus resisted arrest in their eyes. I'll have to go downtown now. Plus, I really need to know what's going on," She said. The doorbell rang. Alfred gave her a grim look.
"I hope you're wrong, Mrs. Wayne," Then he walked toward the door. Alfred opened the door.
"Good afternoon, officer," Alfred greeted the officer politely. Dusty closed her eyes, fear seizing her heart. What happened to that girl, the one who wasn't afraid of anything? Sighing, she closed and closed off all fear. There. It was gone. At least, that was what she desperately believed. Then Alfred let the officers in. They weren't smiling.
"Mrs. Wayne," One of them greeted, "I'm officer David Schultz. You can consider yourself under arrest."
"I, Justine Grayson Wayne, do completely and irrevocably confess to the murders of Dorothy Mendelssohn, Judy Peyton, and Rachel Dawes…"
Gordon smacked the pages down on the desk in front of her. Dusty flinched but otherwise did not move from her stern, hard, uncharacteristic exterior.
"I don't believe it," He said to her, his voice more harsh than when he usually spoke to her. She didn't look up into his face. Dusty reflected that it was probably her own fault that he was talking this way, but there wasn't anything she could do about it.
"I told you, Lieutenant Gordon, I wrote it," She said softly, still staring straight ahead. Try as she might, she couldn't get louder than the horrible voice that had inhabited her. She wanted to shout and scream, rage on him for making it so hard, but all that would come out was the soft, calm voice that seemed to take up residence.
"Just because you wrote it doesn't mean you're guilty. Mrs. Wayne, I have known you since you were eight years old. This isn't you," He said.
"People change, Commissioner," She bit out, tears of desperation filling her voice, all the emotion that was tearing through her barely hidden behind her hard exterior. She needed him to believe her. What was wrong with her? All those years of self-control, the ability of hiding her true emotions was deserting her faster than water in a four thousand degree oven.
"You haven't, Mrs. Wayne. You couldn't have. Even after you came back you were still the girl I knew. You were older, and more world weary than I expected, but you had the drive to do what is right that would never quit," He said, his hands balling into fists, as if he was trying to control his frustration. He was glaring at her, she knew, subconsciously trying to get her to look up. She decided to oblige him. She looked up, all the cold indifference she could muster seeping into her voice.
"But what if that wasn't me?" She asked coolly. The horrible voice was back again. What was happening to her? Lieutenant Gordon looked at her hard. Inwardly, she swallowed. She'd tried to lie to that face before. Back when she had broken the bathroom window out in one of four aggressive outbursts when she was fourteen, she had tried once to lie to that face. It took four seconds for him to get the truth out of her, and another thirty seconds for her to offer to her parents to pay for the broken window out of her allowance.
"I can't believe that," He said quietly. He gave her another hard look, before picking up the papers. "We'll talk tomorrow, Mrs. Wayne. Think about it. I don't know why you're insisting that you did it…" A piercing look drew her eyes up to his, "But I can only hope it's for the right reasons," He said. With that, he shut the door. As soon as he left, she tried desperately not to break down in tears. Watson, Gordon, even Bruce, it was all too much.
The next day dawned bright and early. Almost immediately after she woke up and eaten her breakfast, she was escorted to the interrogation rooms. And there, with Gordon, was Batman. She almost reacted, but caught herself at the last minute and pulled up any and all emotional barriers she had until she barely noticed when the looming dark figure spoke.
"Lieutenant Gordon says that you have been insistent that you are guilty." His low, growling voice felt like nails on a chalkboard when it grated on her mental barriers.
"That is correct." She said, staring straight forward into space, taking a deep breath.
"Why?" The scratchy, menacing voice continued, "There are several people who were there that would testify to the contrary." Dusty's voice turned flippant. She may have known Jim Gordon all her life, but the man in front of her still didn't know exactly what she was capable of.
"Perhaps they weren't in possession of all the facts," She said, loading heaps of sarcasm into her voice.
"Justine!" Gordon's voice was as sharp as any reprimanding father's, and she had to resist shrinking back in her seat. "Why are you so against us finding you innocent?" He said. She put on an incredulous face.
"And what, exactly, makes you think I am innocent?" She asked intensely.
"What proves you're guilty?" The Batman countered, "The Lieutenant was correct yesterday, Mrs. Wayne. It's not in your character or in anything your parents taught you to actually do what you said you've done," The Batman asked. She turned to him, her face suddenly chalky white with unidentifiable emotion. If he'd had to guess, it was a cross between heart wrenching pain and absolute fury.
"Why bring my parents into this?" She said, her voice shaking, "I am a grown adult, and I have been so for some time now."
"Because were to you actually have done these crimes, Mrs. Wayne, you would have been working against everything that your parents had ever lived – and died – for!" Gordon said, his voice as hard as it ever got. Dusty tried to hide the pain and confusion that suddenly had clouded her senses.
"What?" She asked, trying not to sound as lost as she felt.
"Your parents were undercover civilian policemen, trying to find out mob connections. They were the ones that put Falcone away the first time. Once that was done, they covered their tracks by coming out with their new research. How anyone figured out they were even worth murdering beyond the reason of their new-found money – which has been debunked several times in all sorts of scenarios - is still in the unsolved file of Gotham City's mysteries."
Dusty's hard exterior had turned thoughtful, "They never studied anything that could put them in any danger… There was never anything except that…"
Gordon and the Batman exchanged a look. Then Gordon spoke, softly.
"I'll only ask this one more time, Justine. Are you guilty?" He asked. She wouldn't look at him. Her breath hitched…and he suddenly saw a sliver of hurt through her tough exterior, though... not her own pain.
"Oh, Jim…" Her voice was soft and pleading, "I wish I could, but I just can't say no."
She sat in her cell, put there by uncaring policemen, her head hanging in her hands. It was all closing in…
"Justine?" It was Montague. Here in the cellblock. Immediately, things were starting to click. Accused wrongfully of crimes she didn't commit? Check. Jail cell? Check. Montague dressed up in a phony lawyer get-up? Check. He was going to blackmail her. She just knew it. Her head rose slowly as she inwardly tried to check whatever rabid emotion was trying to surface.
"Montague?" She looked up, her voice lazy, "Come to finish the job, or just provoking me into committing what, apparently, I've been locked up for?" The tone of her voice didn't change, but Montague's face paled slightly, knowing that she probably didn't mean it, but still...
"Look, we're sorry about that, but at the moment, you've made it a little difficult for us to maneuver properly. Your goody-two-shoes husband put Watson in the hospital."
A smile broke out over Dusty's face, "He did? Oh. Send my condolences to Watson for surviving," She said, her tone sharp and sarcastic. Then she turned back to the side of the cell. Montague's look darkened briefly.
"At any rate, he's sent me to pull the legal system," Montague said, a sudden smile flashing across his face. "We're going to make sure you hang for murder, Justine. Surprise." Dusty's eyebrows shot up, and she jumped to her feet.
"WHAT?" She shouted, making it over to the bars in less than three steps. Quicker than a flash, she grabbed the front of Montague's jacket with one newly manicured hand - she had been expected at a dinner soon. Then, as soon as she had done so, she realized her mistake. Honestly, she could be charged for that as well, and to clear her name, that was something she couldn't afford. She let go of him through the bars, and stalked back three or four feet. In these bars she felt like a caged animal, only there for someone else's amusement. And, oh, it was rubbing her the wrong way. And yet, it wasn't a surprise at all that he was doing it. In fact, it was kind of an obvious thing. Maybe it was just the fact that he came out and said it that surprised her so much. Then Montague leaned against the bars.
"Let me make this clear. You will do exactly what we say, when we say to do it, or-"
"What? You'll frame me for murder?" She said derisively, turning around one hand on her hip, one hand waving in the air in a sarcastic matter. Montague smirked. That horrible, cutesy little smirk that had charmed women from Altai to Zurich. She wanted to wipe it off with a well placed fist.
"No, but we will tell your most prized secret." He said. Bruce, Dusty immediately thought. What had they'd found out?
What else could she have done, but agree?
She sat in her cell, staring at the wall, just thinking, her thoughts dark and utterly perturbed. How did they find out? Undoubtedly her most valuable secret was about Batman. She knew that certain members of the League of Shadows did know about Bruce, but both he and Dusty had always thought that they had kept it close to the vest, what with the ninja code of honor and all.
But what kind of honor was there in a den of thieves? She sighed and rubbed at her eyes. And where in the world did the revelation about her parents come in all of this?
"Mrs. Wayne?" There was a small, feminine voice from outside the cell. Officer Rogers, a pretty, tall woman (whose police personality was vastly different from the nice expression that she carried outside of her job) stood outside her cell. "You've been summoned to the interrogation room. By Commissioner Gordon," She added. There was an unspoken respect between the women, and wordlessly, Dusty nodded and stood, walking to the door of the cell.
It was daily procedure. She'd been at the jail three days already, and she'd been to the IR twice, and on her way to the third time. Why couldn't they just let her be? She'd nearly gone under yesterday, out of the pain that she felt deceiving people she genuinely loved. And yet she wasn't really deceiving them. Batman she knew was especially keen to the deceptions, but not the reasons. She just couldn't tell him. While on one hand he could tell her to not worry about it, and he'd go and take care of the League, but on the other hand he could reveal his secret, and while she'd be free, he would be incarcerated for who knows how long.
She just couldn't do it. She couldn't do nearly as much good as him, and at least in this case Watson would leave Gotham alone. If she were to dare to take up the cowl in Bruce's place, Gotham would suddenly have an opponent that would be very difficult to defeat. It wasn't that Watson wasn't human, as Bruce had proven; it was just that the old man kept coming back.
They made it to the interrogation room. Something seemed different. She walked into the white glass room. And sat down at the desk, and waited for whoever was going to come in to talk to her. Then the door closed.
"Dusty." Her heart jumped in her chest at the intimately whispered word. She barely caught herself from whispering his true name.
"Batman," She replied, her voice almost cold compared to how he'd whispered her name. She almost turned around until he put his hands on her shoulders.
"Don't turn around," He said. His voice had almost lost its animalistic quality. She somehow knew that at this moment, Bruce was standing behind her, not Batman. "Dusty, what's wrong?" She glanced to the window. She couldn't see anything through the one-way glass, but imagined a crowd of people listening. He somehow saw her imperceptivity small move. "There's no one out there, Dusty, courtesy of Gordon."
"It doesn't matter," She whispered, for some reason, all the emotional stress piling on her at once, stress she hadn't even known she had. Confound Bruce and Batman and their annoying personal baggage they brought with them! "Nothing's wrong." As if to thwart her with her very words, a ragged breath escaped her. His hands lifted off her shoulders and he walked around her, looking down at her.
"You and I both know that's not true, Dusty," He said, still trying to look her in the eye, though she was trying to look away. His beautiful green eyes bored into hers. She tried to keep it all in. She threw up all her mental barriers, letting her face go emotionless, trying to ignore the constant slipping. She was falling apart.
"It doesn't matter, Batman." He seemed to flinch at his pseudonym, but she continued, "Whether or not there is anything wrong with me doesn't matter."
"That's not true, Dusty," he said, his tone too sweet and caring for him to hold in much longer. Her heart started to crumble. She had to tell him. She wanted to tell him! But she couldn't. Get rid of him, her gut instinct ordered, you can't hold yourself together in his presence. He knows you too well. He'll manipulate you to tell him what he wants. Get rid of him! She obeyed, throwing her words out harshly, ignoring the stabbing feelings in her heart as she began.
"It's been true for the past three month,." She hissed, turning away from him violently. She knew how to get rid of him. She was trying to make him angry, knowing that despite what happened earlier, he would now rather stalk away angrily than hurt her, especially in a police station, but more especially because... She held it in. It hurt too much to say it, even in her mind. She froze with his next words.
"No. It always mattered. I just haven't been able to act on that knowledge." She turned away from him even further, pushing herself out her chair viciously to turn her back on him. Then she bit her lip to keep herself from crying, desperately trying to keep him from seeing. "Dusty, believe me. I've been stuck inside myself, your words last month brought me out."
"I can't believe you." She bit out, barely controlling the shakiness of her voice.
"Why not?" His voice was so controlled, she could hardly stand it. She decided to throw down the gauntlet.
"You tried to kill me!" She exclaimed, turning around, her chair almost falling over, her eyes filled with hate. Inside she was dying at the turmoil and pain she was obviously causing him, "You tried to kill me and you're expecting me to believe that you were concerned for my well being? I bet it was you who turned me in! You can believe me when I say that even before Rachel died, notwithstanding whether I'm actually guilty, that I believe you never cared for me. I believe that you have been a selfish coward all your life, and I am disgusted that I ever fell in love with the likes of you," She said, tears sneaking down her face without her knowledge.
Emotion filled his eyes. She wasn't sure what emotion, and she wasn't sure it would mean for her. Then he spoke, his voice more gravelly than usual, "Dusty, believe me, from the moment I first really knew you, I have respected and loved you. I don't believe that you killed Rachel, Dorothy or Judy, and I believe that Watson had something to do with this. But I don't know why you're trying to maintain your guilt." He had walked forward slowly and calmly, and now touched her face with gentle, but gloved fingers. "Why, Dusty?" He whispered. She bowed her head, tears rendering speech impossible. She tried to hold it in, even as it escalated into violent gasps and shudders.
"I can't!" She finally sobbed out. "I can't." Then, Batman – or was this Bruce? – pulled her closer into an embrace, her head resting on his shoulder.
"Please, Dusty." He whispered into her ear. She shook her head, her tears coming harder and faster.
"You'll – you'll -" She tried to force out, but her frustration and distress was mounting. He drew her closer.
"I'll be fine," He whispered in her ear. Inside the thick Kevlar, titanium-dipped shell, Bruce Wayne's heart ached. What was she hiding? What could have held her so closely to her cause? Dusty shook her head, pulling back.
"I can't explain, Br-Batman." She said, "But please, don't make me -" She broke off as Batman pulled her closer a few inches.
"I won't. I promise," He said. Then, looking into her tearstained face, "Believe me, Dusty. I won't make you. But so help me if I don't try to get you out of here," He said, the gruffness in his voice intensifying. Then he looked to the window urgently. "I have to go," He said, his tone softening. " But remember what I said. Everything I said." Batman – no, this time it was Bruce – said. She looked at him for a long moment, trying to see into his mind. But then clarity struck, and she nodded.
"I will," She whispered. Then he smiled, leaned in and kissed her. Dusty closed her eyes and kissed back, her heart fluttering. Their surroundings melted away for a moment, and for a brief second, the world was all right. Then he pulled away and disappeared. Dusty sat down at the desk again, lighthearted but unsmiling, the problems of her life pulling the corners of her mouth down. But still…
It was just a kiss, Dusty realized. A kiss from the man she loved brought her from a trench of despair and confusion to a heaven of bliss in the slums of her emotional state. Oh Dusty, she thought, What have you done to yourself?
Whatever it was, though, she wasn't sure she cared.
Ah, the highs and lows of a story... Goodness, dearie me...
Thanks to taytayfanatical, Lamminator, and suchicken for reviewing.
Also, forgive the unbeta-edness of this chapter. Bryt had a date tonight ;) and I dropped the ball on Thursday. So. My fault. As per norm. Anyway.
Until next week!
~Sabre
