Bruce slapped the envelope and photo down on his desk as Adriana and Alfred watched him, unsure of what to do. He went onto his computer to check the security footage, he wanted to see who had left the envelope at the door. Adriana began to panic..what if he looked at the footage in their private elevator and entrance?
"It's gone," Bruce said, in disbelief.
"What?" Adriana asked and went behind him to look at the screen. Static.
"I'll call downstairs," Alfred offered and left the room to contact the building security.
"Did you see anyone?" Bruce turned around to Adriana, still sitting and held her by her forearms. "Who left it there?"
"No one was there," she said, her mind frantic with worry.
She was worried about what the security footage would show. There were two elevators leading up to the medical facility and penthouse. One accessible through the hotel lobby, that could only access and depart the medical facility floor with a code..which the Joker had to grant himself access to the roof. A few members of the cleaning staff of the hotel had a separate code to use to access the penthouse floor, the elevator always bypassed the medical facility floor in these cases. Most of them didn't even know it was there. It did not have it's own light or button. It required a separate code.
The second elevator beside it led to a private entrance through the parking structure. That was how she and the Joker had returned to the building. She didn't drink the blue solution until she was out..and when she came back, she didn't sense anyone around with bad intentions. She would have seen it. They must have come and gone before she made it back home, and were far away by the time she came to the front door of the penthouse.
On top of that, someone knew her husband's identity...they knew that Bruce Wayne was the Batman..which was much more concerning than video proof of him killing Dent. However, the two pieces combined, meant that Bruce could face prosecution for his death.
"Are you absolutely sure?" Bruce asked. "When did you leave? When did you come back?"
"It was after five..I just got back.." she said and felt a wave of nausea. "Excuse me," she said and left the room quickly and limped to the bathroom. Bruce looked at her with confusion as he left but was distracted with Alfred's quick return.
"There is no footage for the last three hours," Adriana heard Alfred say before the shut the door to the bathroom in Bruce's office.
Her head was over the toilet as Bruce's voice raised in frustration. It look less than three seconds for her body to start involuntarily heaving. The blue solution was purged from her body, and she felt like a dragon casting a forceful line of flames through the air. The burning sensation from the inside out was enough to make her want to scream, but she couldn't, as the fluid came up again. Once it was out she fell onto the floor, and the veins bulging in her forehead began to ache. She pulled herself to her feet in front of the sink and swished the inside of her mouth with cold water before swallowing dozens of gulps to cool her esophagus and stomach.
"Bruce has gone to recover the footage," Alfred told Adriana when she came out of the restroom. "Dear..are you alright?"
"I'm alright," she lied.
"Your foot," Alfred said.
"It's okay, just a little sprain," she said.
.
.
.
"It's gone," Bruce said to Adriana.
It was three in the morning and he had finally returned home. After putting Arsenio to bed, Adriana stayed up, waiting for Bruce to get back. She was sitting on their bed with her ankle elevated on a pillow.
"All of it," Bruce said. "This is impossible."
"The footage," Adriana replied.
"Yes. And not just the footage that hotel security has access too. Footage from the private entrances," Bruce said.
"Do you think..." Adriana asked nervously. "They stole the footage?"
"No," Bruce said. "Team of analysts working in it now. All they can tell me is that everything was accessed remotely, and there was interruption in every last one of the camera's in the building."
"So..they shut down the cameras," Adriana said, trying to hide her relief. No one had seen her bring the Joker back into the building, at least not through camera footage.
"Yes," Bruce replied and sat on the end of the bed, facing away from her as he pulled off his shoes. " Well, they didn't exactly shut down the cameras. But they shut down the recording capabilities."
She looked at his back and wanted to say something but she was at a loss for words. He looked so strong, powerful, but she could tell that he was feeling defeated.
"This is bad Adriana," he finally said, still facing away from her. "I could go to prison."
"No," she said. "That...won't happen. "
"You know my memories Adriana. You know what happened after Harvey Dent died. The entire city of Gotham turned on me and saw me as a threat. A criminal. The only reason they accepted me again and allowed Commissioner Gordon to put the bat signal back into the sky, was because the Joker had escaped again. Fear of the Joker outweighed their hatred for the Batman. But now.."
Bruce turned his head a bit and she could see the clenched muscle in his cheek.
"Gordon did his best, to make it sound like the death of Harvey Dent was unintentional, an accident, but the people of Gotham did not care. They hated me. And I was okay with that, to give them their hero.. Dent. Let them see Harvey Dent as their knight in shining armor. With this footage of me killing Dent they will undoubtedly hate me again. I can live with the police and their dogs after me as I perform my vigilantism. But...Using my identity to threaten me... Whoever these people are... They want to end me. Not just the Batman. But Bruce Wayne."
Bruce stood up and walked over to her kneeling beside the bed.
"I will need your help, " he said .
"Ok," she replied. "What do you need me to do?"
"Your gift," he said. "This is our secret weapon. We can use it."
"Oh..." She said hesitantly.
"We have hundreds of staff on duty. There's no way someone came in with the envelope and made it up to our floor left it.. And got away without someone seeing them. I need you to go through the staff's memories. Every one of them. I need you to find that envelope and who was carrying it. "
"Bruce..." she said. 'Hundreds of people..That could take a couple of weeks."
She knew this because she had done similar work for the police in the past.
"Weeks," he said trying to keep his voice low. "Are you sure you can't make it happen any faster? "
"How fast?"
"As soon as possible," he said. "72 hours would be great."
"I..." Adriana I began to think. Earlier that evening they were supposed to go see Sidi to have her gift removed and now she would have to invest hours and hours each day scanning memories.. It would be exhausting, draining work. She did not know how it would impact her. But she could not let her husband be blackmailed, harassed or prosecuted.
"Please," he pleaded with her. "You may be my only hope."
"Okay," she agreed. Maybe it wouldn't be as difficult and taxing as she was imagining. Bruce being prosecuted was not something she was willing to let happen.
