Haunted
Ugly_Girl (mickerella@yahoo.com)
Disclaimers: Don't own 'em, don't make money off 'em. The only real crime I'm committing is the overuse of adverbs, and ending far too many sentences with prepositions.
A/N: This story was inspired by a challenge given on the JL Animated RPG message boards (like Artemis's "Sick Day" short). The first paragraph was given to us…the rest was up to the author.
HAUNTED
Part LXIX
Bruce woke to the unfamiliar sensation of a soft female form draped over his body. He breathed deeply, caught a familiar scent.
Diana.
He could feel her skin against his, warm and smooth. She lay against his side, her right leg thrown over both of his, her hand resting on his chest, her head cradled on his shoulder. A few of her hairs tickled his nose, and a smile rose unbidden to his lips when he realized that she was snoring lightly.
His mind catalogued their positions, their state of undress, and he considered and discarded several intriguing possibilities before remembering the sight of his parents, the crowding apparitions, the bitter cold. Diana's words echoed through his mind – you're freezing to death – and the situation suddenly became clear.
One of the most effective ways to safely warm a person suffering from hypothermia was to hold them close, skin to skin.
And he could feel far, far too much of her skin.
He tried to gently slide her arm from his chest, move out from under but she woke, looked up at him, and blinked.
"What do you think you are doing?" Of course, Bruce thought, she wouldn't have morning breath. Damn perfect woman.
"Leaving." He tried his best Batgrowl, but was intensely aware that its effectiveness was somewhat limited without the Batsuit. And even more limited than that, considering that he was unclothed except for his underwear.
She moved so quickly that one second she was lying next to him, the next she was straddling his abdomen, and he wasn't certain if he had blinked or if she had just been that fast. She wore only a tiny scrap of silk over her hips. "Not until I ascertain that you are recovered," she said, her face resolute.
He reminded himself to focus on her face. "I'm fine." He grated the words out, jaw clenched. His teeth ground together as she reached forward, her bottom lifting from his stomach, her torso inches from his face. She sat back down, a thermometer in hand, shifted until she was comfortable.
"Stop moving," he bit out.
She frowned at him. "Why? I'm not heavy enough to hurt you…or were you injured last night?"
"No," he said quickly. "Just don't move." And don't look behind you, or scoot backwards at all, he added internally. He could just try to imagine explaining it to her: Diana, since you grew up on an island full of women, you may not be aware of the involuntary process that men experience almost every morning. And your perfect, gravity defying…anyway, your appearance isn't helping matters any. She would probably burst with curiosity, and turn around and give 'the involuntary process' a minute examination. "Just don't move," he repeated.
She gave him a strange look, then shoved the thermometer between his lips. "Be quiet; you can't talk or get up until it beeps. And stop clenching your teeth, so that I can put this under your tongue."
He obeyed, and fixed his gaze on a spot on the ceiling. She continued sitting on him, her arms crossed over her chest while she waited.
Beep! He thought desperately.
She uncrossed her arms and used one hand to push a few strands of hair out of her face.
Beep! He was…almost…ready to pray.
She sighed as the silence extended, lifted her arms and stretched, her back arching, a tiny moan escaping her lips.
BEEP! Who would he have to bribe, beat, maim, kill to get this thing to beep?
It beeped, and he used his tongue to thrust it out of his mouth as quickly as possible. "I'm fine. Let me up."
She didn't let him up, just casually picked up the instrument, read the digital readout. "Ninety-nine point eight." She frowned. "I think you may be getting a fever."
"I'm not."
She shook her head. "I'm not sure. These things aren't always accurate. I'm going to take your temp once more to be certain—"
Her sentence ended on a tiny squeak as he flipped her around, his arms holding her wrists down, using his body weight to press her into the bed. He leaned in close to her face, counting on the surprise and his usual intimidation to keep her from simply tossing him aside like a rag doll. "I'm. Fine."
She wiggled under him, and he immediately regretted shifting their positions. He'd been careful where his body touched hers, but if she wiggled much more…
She froze. Her eyes snapped to his, her breathing quickened. She bit her bottom lip. And wiggled again.
He choked, jumped back off her, pulling the blanket with him, holding it to his chest. Trying to retain some semblance of dignity and the Bat, he said in his most gravelly voice, "I'm going to take a shower. We'll talk about last night when I get out." He backed into the bathroom, and seconds later she could hear the shower spray.
On the bed, Diana turned her face into a pillow and tried to muffle her giggles.
***********
Shayera muttered to herself as she walked down the corridor, two steaming mugs of mocha in her hands. Diana had been supposed to meet her for their morning coffee and workout, but obviously the excitement of the last night had caused her to sleep in. "Fraternizing with the rich and mighty of Gotham – Bruce Wayne of all people," she grouched.
She balanced the coffee carefully as she opened the door to Diana's room, not bothering to knock.
"Hey, sleepy head," she called, "just because you are a princess doesn't mean you don't…have…to…"
Shayera was a detective, but it didn't take her professional skills to come to a conclusion about the silk dress pooled on the floor, the pieces of Batsuit strewn over the carpet, the sound of the shower running and Diana lying nude, except for a tiny pair of panties, in her mussed bed. Diana's shoulders were shaking – was she crying?
What had that jerk done?
"I'll kill him," Shayera cried, wishing she had her mace instead of two wimpy cups of coffee. Diana lifted her head from the pillow, and Shayera saw that she'd been laughing, not crying.
"It's not a good sign that you're laughing your head off, either." Shayera smirked. If Batman ever thought he'd intimidate her again, she'd just have to remind him that Diana had laughed after a night with him.
Diana sat up, laughing harder. "You don't understand," she managed to say between bouts of hilarity, "he was cold last night."
Shayera's eyes widened. "You fell for that line? He said he was cold and 'hey, baby, can you warm me up'?" She set the two mugs down on the nightstand, stood with her hands on her hips, shaking her head. "Diana, I should never have let you out on your own last night…"
Diana doubled over, clutching her sides. Slowly, she was able to control herself enough to say, "No, he had hypothermia." Another giggle escaped her. "So I brought him back here."
Shayera raised an eyebrow doubtfully. "To your room? What was wrong with the medical lab? They have temperature baths for that kind of thing."
Diana stopped laughing. "They do?" A blush started creeping up her neck. "At home, we just had…well…the solution was to get unclothed and share body warmth."
The shower stopped, and Diana looked at the bathroom door. "You've got to go," she said. "He doesn't have his mask on."
Shayera gave the door an interested glance. "Just what does he have on?"
"Underwear." Diana stood, grabbed Shayera's arm, ushered her to the door.
Shayera looked back over her shoulder at the bathroom. "Boxers or briefs?"
"I'm not sure which is which," Diana said, shoving her out into the hall, "but they have a Bat symbol on them." She slammed the door, locked it.
"Hey!" Shayera pounded her fist on the door, grinning. "You still have my coffee!"
"I'll give it to Batman," Diana's muffled voice came through the barrier. "Thanks!"
Shayera's grin widened. She sauntered off down the hall, whistling, wondering how much the Flash would pay for information on this little scene.
******************
Diana quickly gathered Bruce's suit from the floor, knocked on the bathroom door and then pushed it open a couple of inches, thrusting her arm through with the suit. Steam rushed out, and she tried not to imagine him dripping, wet, only feet away. She had been extremely wicked to tease him as she did, but she always found Man's World's ideas of modesty so funny that she hadn't been able to resist.
It had backfired, though, when he'd flipped her around, and she'd realized that there was perhaps a very good reason to keep things covered, especially if those things were tall, handsome, and possessing a magnificent body. The desire that had swept through her had surprised her.
Inside the bathroom, Bruce took the suit from her, his hands brushing hers, and she shivered. She closed the door, leaned back against it, remembering how he'd felt against her. Even Amazons knew how the male body worked, and she was certain he hadn't been unaffected, either.
She wasn't sure if that thought frightened or excited her – but it did want to make her run away, to keep from facing him.
"And, of course, you could have used the medical lab," she muttered to herself. "He'll know that, too." She pushed away from the door, scooped up her dress, threw it into the closet. "Probably thinks you set it all up," she continued talking to herself as she pulled on her uniform. "Got Superman to use his freeze breath on him from outer space, projected images of dead people all around him, ran into Jason Todd on purpose just to make his life more difficult—"
"I don't think that," he said quietly behind her. She whirled around, her breath catching. He wore just his suit, holding the mask and cape in his hand. His hair was glistening from the shower.
"I know that," she said, sighing in frustration. "I was just calling myself an idiot, and running through reasons why you might think I am, too. After all, I'd have to be an idiot to do those things."
"Yes." He took a step forward. "But you aren't."
"No," she laughed nervously, eyes darting everywhere but at him. "I'm not." She rushed to the nightstand, picked up the coffees, held one out to him as if to ward him off. "Here. Drink this while we talk about last night."
He stared at her for a moment, and she thought he was going to say something; then he seemed to change his mind, took the cup from her. "All right." He sat down in an armchair. "I didn't realize you'd talked to Jason."
Diana eased herself down into the matching chair, took a sip. "You couldn't have. I met him after I left the ballroom last night. He took me on a tour of the Manor. And I didn't get the chance to give you a briefing about the encounter, because you were freezing when I found you."
He gave a sharp nod. "What did he tell you?"
"He told me that he first saw you after he was called by an old woman who was telling you that you were going to be haunted until you lost someone you loved. That the first time he appeared to you, he didn't know how to alter his appearance, so that he looked as he did when he died. He said that he had followed you on patrols, had seen that there were hundreds of ghosts that were appearing to you." She paused, then added, "And he said that he'd spoken with your parents, and that all three of them weren't like the others, that they just wanted you to be happy instead of tormented by their appearances."
His eyes were hooded, his face blank, and Diana couldn't read his expression – but she could imagine what he was thinking. Thomas and Martha hadn't spoken to him the night before; she couldn't think of anything more tormenting than that. She wondered if the old woman knew how truly well she had cursed him.
"Bruce," she said, marveling a little at how right the name sounded on her lips, how easy it was to say the name when his mask was off. "What happened that night, with the older woman? Tell me. Perhaps you are too close to it, can't analyze it well enough."
His lips twitched slightly at the suggestion he might have missed something, might not have thought the scene through enough times, considered enough options – but then again, perhaps she was right. He hadn't been able to fix this on his own…yet.
He stood, set the untouched coffee down, walked over to the large window where he could see the Earth circling slowly, far below. In a couple of hours, Gotham would be visible from the Watchtower – or at least the city lights.
He said, "I was on patrol when a call came over the police radio that a robbery was taking place in Crime Alley..."
Part X
"I was on patrol when a call came over the police radio that a robbery was taking place in Crime Alley...".
"Batman, alarm sounding two blocks from you, the Qwik Mart on the corner of 5th and Nemar," Oracle said.
"I've got it," Batman replied, and shot a jumpline into the next building, swinging over the alley and then running atop roofs until he was above the convenience store. Two men waited in a late model sedan near the curb. He could hear the shouts from inside, and he flipped down the backside of the building, entering through the loading doors.
The door separating the storeroom from the front had a small window in, from which he could clearly see the robbery taking place. He frowned as he recognized the criminal; he was one of Rat Muskev's henchmen. Muskev was a two-bit mobster, mostly an arms runner – and currently in hiding from the police, suspected of murder.
The henchman had his gun trained on the cashier, but was backing toward the door, then turning and running toward the car. Sure that no one in the store had been injured, Batman slipped out the back at a run, shooting a jumpline to the top of the building and sprinting to the other side of the roof. He heard the squeal of tires and shot an electronic tag toward the car – the device would track the car's route. He called for the Batmobile, swung down into it, then began following the sedan through Gotham's streets.
He could have apprehended them at any time, but the car would, he thought, lead him to Muskev. Once he ascertained the mobster's position, he would call in an anonymous lead to the Gotham police. They could handle his arrest from that point, and there would be no technicalities for defense attorneys to argue – as they would if the Batman was involved.
Tidy, he thought.
He trailed them into a run down neighborhood, where they stopped, exited the car and went into an apartment building. Tracking them to a specific apartment with heat sensors, he used his long-range microphone to listen in: within seconds, he heard Muskev's voice. "What took you so long? We need that dough."
He sent the message to Oracle. Anon tip to GCPD. Rat Muskev and three men at 5145 NW Glisan. #24. Armed. Responsible for robbery at 5th & Nemar.
Batman waited atop the building, considering whether he should try to disarm the four men prior to the arrival of the police. He didn't think they'd give much trouble – according to the building's blueprints he'd been able to pull up on his computer, they had no means of escape except the rickety fire ladder.
There might be a shootout, though, and with that in mind, he began preparing to enter the apartment through a darkened bedroom window, intending to disable and disarm them before the police showed.
He stopped when his microphone picked up Muskev's voice again, risen in anger. "Seventy-eight dollars? You idiots only managed to get seventy-eight dollars?"
Another man's whiny response. "Boss, them places don't keep much cash after dark. We couldn't—" His sentence was cut off with the sound of flesh meeting flesh.
"How are we supposed to pay off the Big Boss with seventy-eight dollars?" Muskev shouted. Another punch, and this time Batman could hear something snap.
One of the men howled in pain, and there was the distinct sound of a pistol cocking. Silence.
Muskev again, his voice cold. "Don't you point that at me. I'll rip your guts out and use them for—"
Batman swung down, landing on the fire escape. Through the bedroom window, he could see the two men, staring at each other, Muskev eyeing the gun carefully. Unexpectedly, the mobster sprang forward, wrestling the gun over the man's head. Batman grabbed a batarang from his belt…
And the gun went off.
The wake of the blast was filled with a surprised silence, and then thuds as Batman crashed through the window, smashing the lights and quickly hit each man, knocking them unconscious. He stood in the center of the room, breathing hard – and he heard it.
Wailing from upstairs.
"No." He exited through the door again, climbed the fire escape to the next landing. Through the window, he could see an old woman, bent over a slight form on the bed. "Oracle, ambulance to 5415 NW Glisan #34. NOW."
He slid open the window, entered the bedroom. The old woman looked up at him, unafraid, her eyes glassy, her wrinkled face wet with tears.
Batman could see immediately what had happened: the bullet had traveled through the ceiling, the bed, and the chest of the teenage girl. The woman hugged the girl's body to her bosom, blood soaking their clothing, the old woman's shawl, the beads around the her neck.
"She's gone," the old woman said, her voice surprisingly strong.
He felt the ache in his chest, welcomed it. He could have stopped the car, and the men inside, before they'd ever reached the apartment building. He could have decided to disarm them sooner. He could have done a million things differently. But he hadn't. "I'm sorry," he said.
"She was the only one left," the old woman continued, staring at a point past Batman's shoulder. "Now I'm here alone."
His throat tightened. Outside, he could hear the wail of the ambulance. "I can—"
"What?" The old woman looked at him fiercely. "Bring her back? Protect us?" She laughed bitterly. "You were supposed to protect us. That's what all of the people say, on the street. You were supposed to be here for us." She wrapped her arms more tightly about the girl. "But you weren't. And now I'm alone, the last one that I loved is gone."
Every word hit him like a blow, worse than any beating he'd ever taken. "I'm sorry," he repeated. He could hear the running tread of the EMT's in the hall, and he began backing toward the window.
He turned, and heard the whispering of the old woman in a language he didn't recognize. Her voice was filled with anger, with hate.
He looked back, and she pointed at him, her finger shaking, rattling the metal bracelets around her arm. "Haunted. Until you lose one of your own loves – haunted."
Batman firmed his lips, nodding acceptance. The old woman didn't know how close she was to the truth – but she didn't realize that he'd been haunted for years, by his parents, by every one he'd been unable to save.
He didn't realize how much worse it would get, exactly what she'd meant, until he'd seen Jason, his Robin suit torn, body bloodied and broken, sitting in the Batmobile, waiting for him.
************************************
Diana placed her hand on his shoulder. His muscles were tense under her fingers. "It wasn't your fault, Bruce."
A bitter laugh escaped him. "No? I could have stopped it at any point. But I made the wrong decisions, was too slow." He pulled away from her, slipped on his mask and cape.
Diana shook her head. "You can't really believe that," she said, but she knew that he did. She'd seen how many ghosts had crowded around him on that roof. Hundreds. Hera knew how many more there were that hadn't appeared. Maybe thousands. "And you aren't responsible for all of those that I saw – you couldn't be."
"It's my city, Diana. I've sworn to protect it. Each one of those died because I failed. They *are* my responsibility."
"You didn't kill them," she said, her voice urgent.
He walked toward the door, but she was faster, pressing her back to it, not letting him leave. He sighed. "I didn't save them, either."
"Do you hold the rest of us to this standard?" She wondered. "The Justice League is supposed to protect Earth. Am I, is Superman and everyone else to blame for those deaths we can't prevent?"
"No."
"Then why do you do this to yourself?"
He didn't answer for a moment, then finally said, "Move, Diana."
She stared at him a moment, realizing that she wouldn't be able to convince him of his innocence, not here – not now. But she still said as she stepped aside, "You aren't responsible, Batman. You are a good man, and you do what you can. That is all anyone can do."
"It's not enough," he replied, but she could see the surprise on his face at her words. She hoped he would take them to heart.
Then it was her turn to be surprised as he leaned down, quickly kissed her lips. "Thank you, Diana. For being there last night." He left, his cape sweeping past her ankles. She watched him walk down the corridor, and touched her hand to her mouth.
That man… she thought, but then couldn't think of the right words, enough words, to finish the sentence.
