It took Bats more than an hour to track her down. She knew this for sure because she timed him and how quickly he would make his appearance at her workplace.
Thankfully, she wasn't working at the bar tonight.
In her opinion, that would have been disastrous for her. Especially if Batman went to check up on her at the bar since it was run by one of his criminal buddies, the Penguin.
However, she was working at the library since Gothem had at least one of them that stayed open from eight thirty am through eleven at night.
And tonight, she had the late shift.
Getting ready to go to the library to do her job was a simple task. But one that she had found that she enjoyed more and more the longer that she worked there. Unlike the tedious task of getting ready for her bar job- she didn't have any special dress code or uniform that she had to wear. Nor did she have to wear any makeup.
She just wore a simple shirt and jeans and went as she was. No muss, no fuss.
It was great!
And since she usually knew what to expect from her library job, she also didn't have much to worry about. It was rare for fights of any kind to occur there. Crimes were rare there too.
But the few that did happen while she was on the clock got taken care of really quickly.
Once she was finished getting ready for work, she took a moment to make a half sandwich for dinner and then left. She had about thirty minutes before she was sure that Bats was going to pop up and she intended to make the most of it by walking to work.
She had barely managed to walk half a block before Bats finally appeared.
The man dropped down to the sidewalk from the roof of a building to her right startling her and a bunch of the people around her just trying to go about their business, to an absolute stop. The fact that his piercing stare was the thing of many people's nightmares wasn't lost to her.
Especially when he glared at every person close to her and caused them to quickly skedaddle out of his way. The ones who didn't, were either too shocked to move or too stupid to realize the danger that he represented to their person. Or maybe they did know and just didn't care? Either way, he was menace personified and made certain that those around them would be cutting them a wide berth.
His antics elicited a groan of frustration from her as he walked up to her and easily slipped into step next to her as she started walking again and took a second to observe her as she started to eat her sandwich in an effort not to say anything scathing to him about his nasty habit of stalking.
"Is that a snack?" He finally asked. Apparently not going to bother commenting on the fact that he'd caught up to her easily enough. Though it was on the tip of her tongue to comment about his information network.
It must have been pretty good for him to manage to find her while she was on the move like this. His timing was damned impressive too.
She swallowed what was in her mouth and muttered, "Nope. It's my dinner."
He made a face at her and she almost choked on the next bite she took of her sandwich because she couldn't help the amused laugh that bubbled up. He looked like he was constipated.
It was hilarious!
"I bought you all those groceries and you couldn't even make yourself a decent dinner." He tsked at her. "I may have to have Alfred fatten you up for me."
She scowled at him as she chewed the last bite of her food and then swallowed just so that she could say, "Don't you dare sic him on me."
He merely smirked at her and then upon realizing that they were being watched by a lot of random people, quickly blanked his face. And went back to looking nightmare-ingly menacing so that no one would bother to try and approach them.
Not that anyone would have anyways. He was incredibly intimidating. Honestly if she hadn't seen so many hellish sights while growing up in Karakura- she may have been intimidated by him too. But as it was now, she wasn't.
He simply didn't scare her like he did other people.
Licking some of the peanut butter from her sandwich from her fingers, she ignored the many open stares around her and then stuffed her hands into her pockets and tilted her head a little bit so that she was looking at Bat's face a little bit more fully.
"Are you planning to walk me the whole way to work out in the open? Cause there are people staring."
"Only if you don't mind taking the backstreets and alleys." He replied as he glared at a few kids with their phones out, snapping pictures.
Sighing softly because she knew that removing them both from the open would be more than a good idea right then, especially since she saw several cell phones out too. Recording and photographing them for media posts and the news, no doubt. She nodded her head curtly and felt one of his hands latch onto her wrist and he quickly led her away from the crowd before more damage could be done.
Thankfully, they didn't take any back alleys. There were simply too many people that lurked there. Drug addicts and pushers, drunks, punk kids, pimps doing business, the homeless and downtrodden. And if they came into contact with the wrong person/people then an incident would occur.
Bats knew that as well as she did. Which was why the second that they were both out of sight, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close to him and then pulled out a gun of some sort and shot a hook up into the air. And mere seconds later, they were both airborne.
He carried her weight easily, making her wonder just how strong he was for a simple human.
After all, she may not be heavy in the conventional sense- but her bones were thicker, and denser than the average person's. Her muscles weren't that light either despite how deceptively small or delicate her body appeared to be.
They simply had to be stronger due to how effortlessly she wielded her zanpakuto and took physical blows. So much pressure from certain attacks could easily shatter a normal human's body into pieces.
She also knew for a fact that she carried more than a little bit of extra weight on her frame because of those things. Though she constantly had to lie about her weight to keep normal people from figuring that out.
Just like she also knew that her spirit energy tripled her usual weight and physical strength when she flooded her body with it.
But Bats didn't need to know those things. At least not yet anyways.
He landed on the roof of the building deftly, using his own body to absorb the impact of both of their bodies before slowly releasing her from his grasp.
"Thanks." She muttered as she moved away from him a little bit so that she could peer down at the street. She had a sneaky suspicion that her quiet little life had just been turned upside down by him. And she wasn't sure if she liked that.
Sure enough, down where they had just disappeared from- she could see the streets suddenly awash with the hum of activity that hadn't been there before.
There were entire groups of people that tore off in different directions while others would grab someone and demand to know if they had saw the same thing too. While others excitedly talked about seeing Batman out on the street during the waning daylight hours. And with a woman no less.
The second that she heard someone mention her even in passing she had to quickly squash the overwhelming urge to kick Bats in the shin like an angry kid.
Sensing him behind her, peering over her shoulder at the teeming mass of civilians going ape shit, she turned her head to glare at him.
"Walking with me out in the open like that was a terrible idea."
"Maybe." He said, looking more bored than upset about it.
"If I wind up with reporters outside of my home because of this..." She said warningly only for him to cut off any threat that she may have voiced by simply stating,
"If you do, you can move into the mansion with me, Alfred, and the boys."
She sputtered in response and then gave in her urge to kick him. He grunted at the feel of her shoe making contact with his leg, but otherwise didn't react any to what she had just done aside from smirking at her. Which elicited a loud growl from her before she moved away from him so that she didn't give in to any other urges to do him more violence.