"They look the same to me," Aymara said as she and her mother, Sidi, looked into Adriana's eyes. "I have to go back and check the food."
"Yeah," Adriana held up Sidi's small mirror on the table. "Now they do, but they were black the other night. I saw my eye doctor and my regular doctor and my psychiatrist..I don't think they believe me."
"I believe you," Sidi said. "Mostly because you don't listen. You drink an entire undiluted elixir, things can happen."
"So..is this bad?" Adriana sighed. "I blacked out...I hit someone and I didn't remember doing it until I tried to afterwards."
"Yes, that is peculiar," Sidi admitted. "How are you're abilities."
"Fine," Adriana answered. "There have been a few times where I have heard thoughts without trying to. And sometimes I hear whispers..mostly at night. It's so weird and quite annoying actually. It was helpful once though. It's not as bad as my gift was before though. At least I can sleep very well now even though the blackout thing was scary."
"Did you hurt anyone?" Sidi asked.
"Well, no not really," Adriana answered. "I hit a friend of mine because we were practicing fighting."
"Did you lose control?" Aymara questioned when she returned, overhearing.
"No..not that I can recall," Adriana thought. "When I examined my memories I just hit him twice and then I stopped..I wasn't trying to really hurt him."
"It doesn't sound like this is anything to worry about," Sidi shrugged. "If you had hurt someone badly or lost control of yourself I might consider trying the elixir again properly this time. Since that is serious. But I don't think you need it yet. You will eventually though..the timeline is unknown."
"Eventually you will have to get rid of my gift for good," Adriana said. "You're sure of that."
"I must say I am fully sure," Sidi said. ''When you are born your gift is complete. You grew up with a completely created gift even though it tormented you, it had a certain balance. Removing only parts of it, as we did since I could not complete treatment on you...it is not a pleasant way to live long term since things would change over time in unpredictable ways. As you are already seeing. It will only become worse if you let it go on forever. You would perish eventually."
"Ma, you are scaring her," Aymara said quickly.
"No..it's okay," Adriana said. "I need the honesty."
"Stormy weather," Sidi said. "It's unavoidable. If I could remove your gift now I would. But as I told you before it is risky. Physically, mentally, and more."
"Yeah," Adriana said and leaned back onto the couch.
"Stay for dinner," Aymara offered and stood up. "I'm making some red beans and rice with andouille sausages."
"Yesssss," Adriana said.
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"Keep going," Bruce said to Adriana as she took a breather from kicking and punching the bag he was holding stable.
"I'm winded," she said.
"We should work on building your stamina," Bruce explained. "To make up for what you lack in strength."
Adriana nodded with her fists pressed against her hips and felt a drop of sweat hit her upper lip. She raised her fists and hit the bad several times and then gave it a kick. She repeated the sequence over and over again until her arms gave out.
"Good job," Bruce offered as she sat on the floor.
"Who knew fighting was so tiring," she smiled.
"Tiring and dangerous," he smiled down at her.
"Dangerous for your opponents," Adriana laughed.
"I've taken several good beatings, a few stabbings, and gunshots against my armor," he explained.
"I know," she nodded, remembering.
"You know everything," he laughed.
"So how are things going with..." Adriana started to ask.
"The Joker," Bruce said and turned to begin hitting the bag, obviously frustrated. "Not great. Fortunately no one's been killed. He's disappeared, for now. No leads."
"I want to help," Adriana said as he swung at the bag.
"Help?" he paused and turned to her. "There's not much you can do."
"I know but," she stood up. "There has to be something."
"I don't think there is," he said. "Unless you want to watch through hours of surveillance footage to see if we missed something or read a bunch of documents on leads-"
"Well, that sounds boring."
"It is," he said. "And we've gone over everything several times."
"I meant, I want to help when you are out... Looking for him," she said. "I know you do, almost every night."
"In the field?" Bruce couldn't help but laugh. "You? Absolutely not-"
"Why?" she asked. "You said I was getting better."
"It's dangerous for starters," Bruce said. "And I don't need help with that. It's not worth the risk."
"But Bruce-" Adriana started to say.
"Absolutely NOT," Bruce said in a much louder and firmer tone. "The answer is no, I'm sorry."
"Okay, fine," Adriana said, unable to hide disappointment.
"Look," Bruce softened his voice a bit. "You can come by my office tomorrow. Come around 10 or 11 a.m. There's a ton of video footage and documents to be gone over, if you truly want to help. Maybe you will notice something we didn't."
"I doubt it," she sighed. "But I'll be there."
"Thank you," Bruce said and gave her a hug. "I can't risk you getting hurt."
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"So I was only like half an hour late," Harri said into her cell phone camera as she spoke to Adriana over Facetime. "And now they want to give me a write up."
"Wow..I'm sorry," Adriana said and walked away from the camera to grab her coffee.
"Woah, Adriana you look great. You've been working out?" Harri complemented.
"Yeah, at the gym and doing some training," she replied. "Thanks."
"Your arms look great," Harri said. "Looks like you could kick someone's ass, but still feminine. Don't lift any heavier."
"I haven't been lifting at all," Adriana said. "Been punching and doing some push ups and other stuff."
"I need your whole fitness routine," Harri said and eyed Adriana's coffee. "Ugh, I better go now..super early so I won't be late."
"Yeah, I guess I should go too," Adriana said.
"Where are you going?"
"Oh...just some work stuff."
"For the cops again? I thought you stopped that."
"I did but this is just...I don't know. There's a pretty serious case that needs all the help it can get."
"Aren't you ever coming here?"
"Of course, that's the plan. I'm still unloading all my stuff and packing and trying to get things squared away."
"Okay, sis," Harri said. "Gotta go now, for real. I need this dumb job."
"Go, go, don't let me keep you," Adriana said. "Love ya."
"Love you too, bye."
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Wayne Enterprises was bustling as Adriana waited to be serviced at the receptionists area. It took several minutes and she didn't mind waiting. After a few more minutes a male receptionist saw her and waved her over.
"Ms. Navarro," he said. "I'll get someone from security to escort you-"
"Everything okay?" Adriana asked after he stopped speaking.
"It seems Mr. Wayne had a clear schedule without meetings for this morning and asked not to be disturbed until after 10 a.m."
"Oh, that's alright I can wait 15 minutes."
"Don't worry about it," Rebecca, the receptionist said next to him, overhearing his words. "She can go up, she's special."
The words came out of Rebecca's mouth in a very snarky and sarcastic way. Adriana was entirely sure that Rebecca hated her for some reason. Adriana couldn't ignore her sly and somewhat evil smile as she called a security guard over to escort her to the elevators. Adriana noticed that the reception area and board room were both empty once she exited the elevator and decided to sit and wait. Maybe Bruce had stepped out? She waited until 10 a.m. and decided to walk around. He must have been there or the receptionists would have mentioned it. Maybe Rebecca knew he wasn't there all along and that explained her attitude.
She walked down the halls to where she remembered Bruce's office was and saw from a few yards away that the door was slightly open. Perhaps he was there after all. Adriana approached the door and pushed it open a bit more to step into the doorway and immediately wished she hadn't.
Bruce's receptionist Claire saw her instantly and pushed Bruce back while simultaneously letting out a high pitched shriek. Adriana shut the door quickly after apologizing breathlessly and practically ran to the elevator.
The clicking sounds of her frantically pushing the elevator button seemed to make her more nervous as she waited, unable to erase what she had accidentally seen from her memory. Claire on Bruce's desk with her bare legs wrapped tightly around his hips, her fingernails digging into his arms..
She continued to press the button even faster.