It was a mistake. A huge, monumental, life altering mistake. Yet it was one that he refused to back down from even now, despite his initial embarrassment over it. After all, it wasn't as if he had expected to be caught unawares and captured by one of the villains that ran rampant through Gotham and drugged with god-knows-what before finally managing to escape.
But now that he had he really needed to figure out what he'd been given so that he could figure out what he needed to do to counter act it before it did too much harm.
However the longer that he sat in his hiding spot. He was at least half a block from the warehouse that he'd decided to hit this evening when the first pulse hit him. Nearly making him stagger, once he was on his feet, under the nearly overwhelming need that began to crawl through his body.
He froze up for a moment and felt his body harden and ache. And his eyes widened a fraction in shocked realization a moment before he began to burn.
He might have swore. Then again he might not have.
He sort of had other things on his mind than wasting his breath cursing right then.
It was difficult to tell through with the weird haze that was gradually taking grip of his mind. Everything blurred together and became vague. And he didn't know what was going on to him or around him. All he knew was that his last coherent thought was that he felt himself falling.
Everything after that was a blur to him and difficult to recall.
He didn't know what had happened between the haze muddling his thoughts and the world becoming vague. Truly he didn't. He didn't know how long he had been out. How much time had passed. Where he was. Hell, he couldn't even recall who he fucking was right then.
All he did know was that once the haze lifted...and he opened his eyes, he wasn't alone.
It was a sad fact that wasn't well known by terribly many, but when a drug of some sort was strong enough to make you forget everything between one moment and the next- several things tended to happen.
One, someone almost always got hurt. It was usually the person who was drugged up, but on occasion someone else- an innocent, random bystander- tended to get hurt too.
It mostly depended entirely on the drugged person's state of mind, what exactly the drug did to them, and how well they handled whatever situation they found themselves in.
Two, there was almost always some sort of awkwardness.
Sometimes it was because someone woke up in weird places. Or sometimes it was because someone lost all inhibitions and decided to run butt naked down the street until they were caught.
Reaching up at the mere thought of streaking around the city butt naked, he felt for his mask and was relieved to feel that it was still firmly in place. Oh thank god. He thought wearily as his hand dropped back to his lap for a moment.
He was pretty sure that Alfred would lecture him from now till doomsday if he ever lost his frigging mask and exposed his secret identity. And that was only after the man pistol-whipped him a few times.
After all, he'd be pretty pissed. And he knew from more than a few personal experiences that one should never, ever upset a proper British man like Alfred.
Turning his head to look at the other person, deciding that he should check on them before he made any further moves. He didn't know what he was expecting exactly, especially when it came to the person lying more or less naked beside him. But he wasn't expecting the sudden feeling of utter horror when he turned said person over and finally got a good look at them.
Nor was he expecting to find his companion to be a mere teenager. A girl. No- a child. Someone's little girl, their daughter...
He felt nauseous as he looked at her, yet couldn't stop himself from carefully taking in her features down to the very last detail. After all, if he had assaulted her- and it was starting to look very much as if he might have- then he needed to know the face of the person he needed to redeem himself too. Right?
She was an exotically beautiful, young lady, he noted. Her features were delicate, almost on par with many of the model's and actresses that he tended to have on his arm whenever he dated.
She had soft tan skin, swollen lips, eyes that were hidden underneath a fringe of dark sooty lashes, blue-black hair that was close to mid back length.
He couldn't tell what the style was. All he could really make out was the layers of feathery wisps that curled here and there at the tips.
He was quick to estimate her age to be between fourteen and sixteen. Which did not help with his nausea at all.
Nor did the very noticeable signs of dark bruises, and even some blood around her mouth- from a split lip, thank god- one of her nipples where it looked as if he'd bitten her a bit harder than he should have. The only other noticeable thing that he could see was the dried and flaking blood on the inside of her thighs.
Though it was a little bit hard to tell if it had actually come from her privates or from the deep looking red scratch marks from his fingernails dragging along her skin there.
The only good thing that he could tell about her state, was that she was alive. Her pulse was strong, and her breathing wasn't labored. In fact for all intents and purposes, she seemed to just be asleep.
Which he supposed was also good since he would have absolutely no fucking idea how to handle a hysterical, and traumatized teenage girl.
Groaning as he scrubbed his face with his hands, he could imagine how angry and disappointed Alfred was going to be when he saw him again.
He might even decide to kill him- no scratch that, Alfred had every right to be upset with him, but he didn't have any right to kill him anymore.
His life now belonged to the girl in every sense of the word, he silently vowed as he slowly got to his feet.
He would do whatever was absolutely necessary to see to it that he made up for his terrible blunder. If she wanted him to die, he'd die. If she wanted to unmask him, and hand him over to the authorities- then that was what he would do.
Unquestioningly, unflinchingly- he would do anything that she demanded of him no matter how horrible. It was the least that he could do for her to make up for this.
If he could even make up for this.
Quickly locating his clothing in a pile several feet away, and moved to get it so that he could get dressed. It took him several minutes due to the fact that he was thinking about everything, mulling over different and various details, trying to recall as much as he could so that when Alfred asked him what he'd done- he could answer him honestly.
However he couldn't recall much aside from some small snippets of conversation between himself and the girl. The snippets were few. And didn't really tell him much of anything really. With the exception of one thing that he knew with absolute certainty, her name.
Ichigo Kurosaki.
Curling his fingers into fists, he couldn't help but feel frustrated that he couldn't recall anything else. Though the memory of snippets of conversation between himself and the girl- no, Ichigo- meant that he had at some point been fighting against the drug pumping through his veins.
He wasn't sure if he should feel proud of that fact or not given the grim reality staring him in the face right now. But the fact that he'd talked to her, maybe even tried to explain what was wrong with him, gave him a small measure of comfort. Miniscule though it may be.
Pulling on his gloves, he took a moment to look around for his companion's clothing and paused when he saw a small pile of torn and dirty rags lying around the floor. He cringed at the sight of the torn and dirt covered articles of clothing.
He wouldn't be placing those on Ichigo's body so that he could take her home with him. He especially doubted any of the items would even cover her body modestly anymore given their state.
But he also didn't want to risk her getting some sort of infection either.
Huffing quietly he looked around for something else that he could use to cover her with, but found that the immediate area was rather...bare of anything even remotely useful. It occurred to him after a moment or so that this place- which was so unfamiliar to him- may actually be her home.
He swore. Foully.
So much so that if Alfred had been around to hear him, he would have washed his mouth out with soap. Repeatedly.
Still...after a moment or so of careful deliberation, he finally decided that he'd use his cape to wrap her body in. Fishing into his utility belt, he found the remote device that would bring his Batmobile to him, and pressed the button hoping that it would be there within the time it took for him to collect Ichigo and get the hell out of the...building? Warehouse? Whatever.
He was getting them both the hell out of there, now.