THIS CHAPTER WAS UPDATED AND PROOFREAD FOR TYPOS, GRAMMAR, AND PLOT/TIMELINE ISSUES AS OF 7/18/2020
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The five minutes it had taken Batman to get Anslee off of the car with him and to hold her up went by so quickly, it was almost a blur in the teens eyes. She was too focused on the excruciating pain in her shoulder to really register what was happening at that moment in time.
"Authorities have been contacted," the Batman growled in his gruff voice.
Anslee groaned as a sharp pain traveled down her back, "H-how did you know he'd be there?"
"I didn't," Batman responded as the doors to the front of the building where the fundraiser was being held opened violently.
Anslee looked towards the doors to see a frantic Rachel rushing out of the building towards where Batman stood with Anslee leaning against him.
"Oh my god, Anslee," the woman cried out as she made her ways towards her daughter, "I didn't know what happened, god, are you alright?"
Anslee went to open her mouth to speak, but her arm shifted at an uncomfortable angle and she let out another yelp of pain.
"Her shoulder is dislocated, but ambulances and authorities are on their way now," Batman's low voice answered.
Rachel looked into Bruce's eyes, knowing had this been anyone else he wouldn't have been so eager to assure safety for her.
Almost as if on cue, the sound of sirens could be heard just down the road and the city block was now filled with blue and red lights from the ambulance and cop cars that now lined the street outside. Anlsee felt herself getting dizzy from the hysteria going on around her, she barely noticed when Batman had handed her off to an EMT that exited one of the ambulances. She couldn't figure out why he'd always been there to save her. First it was the night that she got mugged, and now it was when Joker decided to throw her out the window of a twenty story building. How had he been able to be her saving grace?
Before she had any chance to say thank you, he was gone with the wind, as if he'd never been there in the first place.
The EMT had led her towards the ambulance where he could evaluate what exactly was wrong with her shoulder with Rachel on his heel to make sure her baby was okay. The man had sat Anslee down in the back of the emergency vehicle and began his evaluation on her. Meanwhile, Rachel stood next to Anslee, holding her daughter's hands in her own.
"Where's dad?" Anslee asked, looking everywhere but at Rachel.
"What were you thinking?" Rachel ignored her daughter's question.
"Where's dad?" Anlsee repeated herself, ignoring Rachel as well.
Rachel had paused, not realizing what Ans had said in the first place. It was more she didn't expect that sentence to come out of her mouth. Bruce. Where had Bruce gone? Obviously he had been the one to save their child under his caped alias, but she had expected him to appear again at some point clad back in his dress suit he'd been wearing at the party.
"I-I don't know," Rachel looked around again.
Anslee's eyes scanned the area around them, seeing people in their terrified states of what had just happened up in the penthouse. She didn't know why she so desperately wanted to see her father considering she loathed Bruce every other day of the week. Maybe it was everything they had built up over the last weekend and she just wanted to make sure he was at least still alive. He had disappeared when Joker showed up. As she looked around more, blocking out the words that the EMT spoke, she finally spotted her father amongst the crowd of people along with Harvey. Harvey looked very troubled and almost...angry. But not Joker Just Crashed My Fundraiser angry. It was more than that.
Rachel had noticed Anslee's gaze and followed it to see Bruce and Harvey as well, a look of relief washed over her again once the two men had approached them.
Harvey rushed to Rachel and muttered something to her, in which she looked back at him with a shocked look on her face. Whatever he'd just told her it wasn't good. But before she could ask what was going on, Bruce stood in front of her and blocked her gaze.
"Hey are you okay?" he asked her in a genuinely concerned tone as he looked his daughter up and down, thoroughly scanning her body for any type of cut or bruise she might have sustained from the fall since he couldn't exactly do so as the Batman.
"I'm...I'm okay," Anslee looked Bruce in the eyes, feeling a sense of peace come over her seeing as Bruce had found her, but her voice still shook as she finally registered what was going on and the pain she was feeling finally got back to her as she snapped back into reality, "I...my shoulder...I dislocated it when I hit the roof."
"And if you don't mind I'd like to put it back into place," the EMT gave both of them an annoyed look considering while Anslee was zoning out, she was a very fidgety person and made it impossible for the man to put her shoulder back into place.
"Oh god," Anslee groaned as she shifted in her seat, making another sharp pain travel itself down her arm.
"Hey hey, it's okay," Bruce assured her, reaching out to place his hands in her own, "Hold onto me, and squeeze my hands when he pops it back into place. You can scream as loud as you want no matter how much it hurts."
Anslee nodded and gripped Bruce's hand as the EMT placed his hands on the correct positions on her back and shoulder to pop it back into place. He looked at Bruce, who gave the EMT a nod to let him know she was ready. In one quick movement, the man pushed her shoulder back into place, earning a loud crack from Anslee's body. From Anslee's mouth came a loud and excruciating yell.
The girl squeezed her father's hands so hard, Bruce was sure his hands would have broken had she squeezed them any harder, He watched as tears gathered in her eyes and wanted to pull her into his arms and let her know he'd never let anything like that happen to her ever again. Bruce completely blamed himself for what happened to Rachel and Anslee tonight, and he felt such an immense guilt about it.
"Oh, Ans," Rachel walked forward and engulfed her daughter carefully in a hug as Anslee let the tears freefall down her cheeks and onto Rachel's shoulder where her head sat.
"Ma'am, we can take your daughter to the hospital if you think she needs it, but everything other than her shoulder checked out," The EMT spoke from behind Anslee.
Rachel looked back up at the man and shook her head, "She's been through enough for one night, I'll take her to the doctor if she gets any worse."
"I want to go home," Anslee muttered as tears continued down her face.
"We'll go home," Rachel rubbed the girl's back softly before looking to Harvey, giving him a look that said 'Go get the car.'
Harvey didn't argue and turned away to go and get the car that was parked in the parking garage across the street.
Rachel pulled away from Anslee and smiled down at her, "I'm glad that you're okay, and I want you to stay home from school tomorrow, okay?"
Anslee nodded at her mother with a tear streaked face, while Bruce studied the features on her face before she glanced back at him, "He got away didn't he?"
Bruce hesitated to answer her, afraid to feed her more disappointment, "He got away," he nodded.
"Bruce," Rachel placed a hand on Bruce's arm, "Judge Surrilo and Commissioner Loeb are dead."
Bruce's eyes widened at the statement, "What?"
"The card that Joker left behind at the last crime, he had three sets of DNA on it that matched with the GCPD's database. Surrilo, Loeb, and-"
"Harvey," Bruce interrupted her before glancing to Anslee and then back to Rachel, "I don't think your apartment will be the best place to stay tonight, Rachel."
"Bruce there isn't another place to stay, we can't stay in the Penthouse, he knows Anslee is important to you and I, he'll use that against us and it'll be one of the first places he'll go to check for Harvey since he'll be with me," Rachel interjected.
"The manor…?" Bruce suggested.
Rachel didn't speak as she thought about staying in the manor. She couldn't remember the last time she'd stayed the night there, it had to have been a number of years by now. Then again, the manor was probably more equipped to keep them safe than the apartment and the penthouse. Not being able to come up with a reason as to why that was a bad idea, she caved.
"We can stay in the manor for the night to make sure things die down for a bit," she agreed before glancing back at her daughter. She pulled Bruce away from where Ans was sitting and was out of earshot, "But you need to stay with Anslee tomorrow. Harvey and I will be up to our necks in work with all of this plus we're still dealing with Laue. It's not that I don't trust Alfred to keep an eye on her, but she needs you right now more than anything."
"I can do that," Bruce nodded, but Rachel raised her eyebrows at him, "and I promise I won't leave her."
Rachel looked back at Anslee again, giving the girl a sympathetic look, "We need to go to the apartment to get things for the night, and then we'll head to the manor."
"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you guys just in case anyone shows up to the apartment?" Bruce asked.
Rachel looked back at him and shook her head, "We'll be okay, but I'll call you as soon as we're close to the manor."
Rachel had collected Anslee and took her to where Harvey pulled the car up while Bruce had gone back upstairs to let Alfred know they'd be heading back to the manor to keep Rachel, Ans, and Harvey safe.
XXX
About an hour later, Bruce had gotten a call from Rachel telling him that they were a few minutes out from the home.
Anslee had passed out in the backseat on the way there, which wasn't surprising considering everything that had happened that night.
It was 12:30 AM when they pulled up to the manor. Harvey turned the car off and popped the trunk so Rachel could get her and his bag out of the back. Anslee used hers for a pillow while she slept in the back seat.
Bruce had always been waiting outside for them to pull up. While Rachel got the bag, Bruce opened the door to the backseat and looked down at the slumbering seventeen year old. A small smile crossed his face before he reached down to gently shake her so she'd wake up.
"Ans, you're home. You need to wake up sweetheart," he cooed to her softly like she was five years old.
Anslee stirred and groaned at the disruption of her slumber. She opened her eyes slightly to see her dad above her and sat up, looking at her surroundings. She automatically remembered she had fallen asleep in the car on their way to their destination.
"Glad you could join us, why don't you head upstairs and I'll take your bag?" he asked softly.
Anslee nodded tiredly and made her way out of the car. Bruce grabbed her bag and slung it over his shoulder. He turned to see the teen was already making her way up the steps to the front door. He could also see the silhouette of Rachel. Harvey, and Alfred in the doorway.
Bruce made his way up the steps and towards the four people who were now standing in the entryway.
"It was really kind of you to let us stay here after everything that happened tonight, Bruce," Harvey looked to the brunette man.
"It's my pleasure," Bruce nodded to him before looking to Anslee again, seeing she was dozing off as she was standing up.
"I think we should all head off to bed, it's been a long night for all of us," Rachel spoke up.
"I agree, why don't I show you and Mr. Dent to your room and we'll be off for the night?" Alfred insisted.
"I'll take Ans up to her room and get her settled," Bruce assured Rachel, who looked to their daughter sympathetically.
"Thank you, Bruce," Rachel smiled softly to the man before Alfred led her and Harvey towards the main staircase.
Bruce looked back to Anslee, "Come on, kiddo, let's head upstairs."
Anslee nodded and began to walk up the stairs followed closely by Bruce. He wanted to be behind her to make sure she didn't black out or if she did he could catch her from falling to the ground and further injuring herself.
"Where were you?" Anslee's tired voice spoke lazily.
Bruce frowned slightly, knowing what Anslee was talking about almost immediately, "I...went to hide Harvey, that's who he came for. You see, Commissioner Loeb and Judge Surrilo were both on a sort of hit list tonight and so was Harvey."
"I kinda figured when he busted in and demanded the friends and family of Harvey," she looked back at him, "I just feel so stupid for putting myself in that position though...I shouldn't have spoken up the way I did...but he had mom," Anslee looked to the ground.
Bruce approached the teen slowly, "Anslee, you did what you thought was right. Even if it was incredibly stupid, you stood up for your mom, and I couldn't ask for more of a headstrong person to be my daughter," he spoke softly as he tilted her chin upwards so she'd look at him, "I'm sorry I couldn't be there to save you from him. You don't deserve to be put through something so traumatic at your age."
Anslee sighed before turning away from Bruce, making her way tiredly towards her room.
Bruce stood and watched her trudge away from him and mentally scolded himself. He was never there in time.
The man then followed his daughter down to her room at the end of the hall. When he entered, the light was still on, but Anslee was already in her bed under the comforter half asleep. Bruce set her bag down next to the door and walked towards the bed.
The man sat down next to his snoozing daughter. He ran a hand through her hair before reaching down to kiss the top of her head.
His aching body stood up and headed for the door again, turning out the light before he walked out of the room. He stopped in the doorway and sighed once more.
"I love you, Ans," he whispered into the darkness.
Bruce turned and headed down the hall towards his room so he himself could catch up on some much needed rest.
"I love you too, dad," a tired voice whispered into the darkness.