Saturday, February 12, 2000; 11:50am – Ala Moana Park; Honolulu, Hawaii

Irritated was putting it lightly. Furious was more like it.

He wanted to leave, return to his own brooding back at Princeton. Ana was sunshine compared to him, and she didn't need any clouds spoiling her. And he had told Alfred just that.

But he was glad to see her again.

It didn't really help matters when Alfred dropped them off at Ala Moana Park, informing them that he'd be back to retrieve them within the hour without much of an explanation.

Ana immediately started through the park, leaving Bruce to either stand there, waiting like an idiot, or to follow her like some lost puppy. Neither image was particularly appealing. But, of course, he resorted to the latter, shoving his hands deep in his pockets as he reluctantly dragged his feet after her. As glad as he was to see her, and as much as he was prepared not to see her again, the least he could do was keep an eye on her.

"You can drop the moody act, Bruce. I know you're glad to see me," she finally boldly stated, half slowing in her stride so she could be next to him.

He struggled to hide his change in expression, from indifference to annoyed. She wasn't supposed to be able to read him like a book. "And you think you know me now?" he so boldly repeated, glancing to her daringly.

She hesitated, recognizing the question with a lingering smile. "Yeah, I think I do."

His eyebrows rose, silently asking her to elaborate, and she easily noticed the familiar expression. Slipping her fingers into the front pockets of her jeans, she lengthened her stride in order to walk at a slower, more lounging pace. "You're like me. In a way. You put on an act for everyone, pretending you don't want people to see right through it." She playfully bumped into him, altering her stride to be clumsier in recovery, "Too bad for you I can see right through your little act."

He stopped suddenly, causing her to stop a couple of strides later. Cocking his head, it was almost like he was looking at her for the first time. She surprised him, genuinely. She knew him as well as Alfred did after only a week. And that one small statement she finally confessed wasn't the only clue to that conclusion. As much as he didn't like it, she had gotten to know him well enough to read and understand his every quirk and expression. And as much as he didn't like it, he knew they were more alike than he wanted them to be.

Why couldn't she be more like Rachel? More bold and sure of herself, and much less observant and contemplative about life's questions.

"What?" she questioned innocently.

He could read her too. When he had first met her, she was a complete mystery to him, one that needed solving. But with her expression and that genuine hesitance for him, he understood that she was waiting for him. Entirely. She knew what was wrong, but she couldn't fathom why it was bothering him so much to express himself as such. Why, when he was quite content and capable of sorting it out mentally no matter what he was physically doing.

"You already know what," he muttered, trying to keep his annoyance to himself while continuing his stride.

She easily fell back in step with him, grinning from ear to ear. "You're learning."

When they crossed the park so that the sandy beach was in sight, she spoke up again. "So what is the plan today? Alfred was rather mum on the subject."

He shrugged, not even acknowledging her attempt at humor via word choice. "My guess is that today is yours. Whatever you want to do."

"What if I said I just wanted to sit on the beach all day?"

He was half tempted to chuckle, but his sour mood made him swallow the urge. "I think we could hide from Alfred long enough. And whenever you get hungry, we can sneak to the Hard Rock across the street—"

"Hard Rock?" she interrupted, unbelievingly, stopping for emphasis. "As in The Hard Rock Café? They have one here?"

At this, his mood halted, his gaze finally meeting hers again. "What? You've never been?"

She innocently shook her head, her bright blue eyes wide with excitement. "Can we go now?"

He finally laughed.

Saturday, February 12, 2000; 12:04pm – The Hard Rock Cafe; Honolulu, Hawaii

Clearly, she'd never been to a Hard Rock, as proven further by her sudden distraction once they entered the restaurant. She darted off towards once of the hanging, signed guitar cases almost immediately, leaving Bruce to follow her, amused. He followed her as she moved from memorabilia to memorabilia, admiring each one silently. It wasn't until they got to the waves of guitars that extended across the restaurant via the ceiling that she realized exactly what she was doing.

"I'm sorry. We can get a table. I was just looking."

He chuckled, still trying to accept the fact that she could make his bad moods disappear. "Take your time. You haven't even gotten to Elvis's frame yet."

She flashed him one of her adorable, bright smiles before moving to the next frame, excitement radiating from her. "They have stuff from the Beatles here. The Beatles! And did you see one of Steven Tyler's scarves back there? Do all of the Hard Rocks have all of this stuff?"

"It varies from city to city, but generally, yes," he replied as he followed her. "Gotham's Hard Rock has something from nearly every genre."

She spun around, her bright eyes twinkling. "No way. How did they get all of this stuff?"

He shrugged as he watched her fascinated form dart for the previously mentioned Elvis jacket that was neatly framed. "Private donations, owner purchases, even the artists themselves donating or selling their stuff in the interest of the general public."

"This is amazing, really. I'd kill to meet some of these guys one day. Steven Tyler, especially. I grew up on Aerosmith," she said, and Bruce wasn't sure if she was still talking to him or just talking in general. Either way, he was sure this sudden and uncharacteristic explosion of excitement would happen at some point, whether by his doing or her own.

Or maybe it was all a ploy to get him smiling and talking to her again. He wouldn't put it past her.

They soon found themselves in the small shop attached to the restaurant, the memorabilia trail ending abruptly at the start of the merchandise. She lingered for a moment at the end of the history trail, hues gazing at the collection of sweatshirts and Tees with the Hard Rock logo.

"You can look around. We have all day," he stated from behind her, startling from her observant state.

She glanced up at him from over her shoulder, her blue eyes gazing upwards at him from under long lashes. "We don't have to, we should eat—"

"Go, Ana. Otherwise I'll buy you a handful of things right now."

"Okay, okay! Sheesh," she muttered, immediately stepping forward towards the racks of stuff. Smirking, half amused, half thoughtful, Bruce followed.

She flipped through a couple of the hoodie racks, moving from one thing to another at a much quicker pace than Bruce had seen any girl shop at. But what she lingered at most was the rack of jewelry, her slender fingers examining one of the dozens of bracelets. Funny, he wouldn't have pegged her for a jewelry person.

"It'd look good on you," he said again, over her shoulder.

She smiled as she released the bracelet. "Thanks. But I don't wear jewelry. It gets lost too easily." His expression made her continue, "I have a rough lifestyle, remember? Pretty things don't last long."

You've lasted this long. He bit his tongue to refrain from refuting. She was already acting out of character enough for the both of them.

"Well, are you ready to eat? You're the one who's lingering now," she commented, already moving back towards the restaurant.

He gave her a level look, which made her beam as she turned her back to him.

Saturday, February 12, 2000; 3:41pm – Ala Moana Park; Honolulu, Hawaii

He realized exactly what Alfred was up to halfway through the day, when they were back on the beach, strolling through the sand barefoot. It wasn't just trying to get Bruce to act normal for once and spend a day entertaining a beautiful girl, though she was successfully entertaining both him and herself much better than he would have.

The Wayne Foundation was holding a charity event for the recent tsunami victims of some parts of the islands. With Earle running everything Wayne these days, he must've figured it was time for a vacation—hence the charity event.

Bruce remembered it suddenly, Ana's talk of surfing and tsunamis abruptly stirring the memory into consciousness. Alfred had mentioned it in passing while they were in Sydney, a possible stop on their return trip. Bruce had, of course, blatantly objected and put the topic out of his mind. He hated Earle and had too little patience to be dealing with him any time soon. If he was more focused, maybe he'd finally get around to firing Earle and taking back his father's vast company.

But he wasn't worthy enough for that responsibility. Not yet.

Ana continued talking while Bruce remained silent next to her, partly enjoying the sound of her voice and partly trying to figure out how to get out of their impending doom. He certainly didn't want to attend any gala in the near future, and Ana had expressed her feelings about staying on the beach and not moving until it was time to leave.

It wasn't like Alfred could drag them to it.

He glanced around. Speaking of Alfred, he was surprised the butler hadn't returned to drag them anywhere yet. That had to mean that he was watching them, too content with what he thought they were accomplishing now to interrupt. Or maybe he had returned to retrieve them, found them enjoying themselves on their own, and disappeared to have a day of vacation to himself.

Alfred take any time for a vacation? The idea was laughable.

But in his search for the aging butler or a sleek, parked town car, Bruce spotted something else. Something worse.

A camera was pointed at him from through the windshield of a parked car. A second one was aimed from beside a van, just over the passenger side mirror.

His stunts in Hilo had been able to evade the paparazzi enough for him to enjoy the little town. Movement of the Wayne Enterprises jet, however, was bound to stir up some overeager photographers.

He was used to ignoring them. But how was Ana going to react? Every time he was with her in Hilo, he wasn't being followed by the photo mongrels. What would she do when she found her picture on the cover of a magazine while she was waiting in line at the store?

Though if Alfred managed to get them to the gala tonight, it would be a lot worse than distant, unrecognizable shots on a beach.

"Ana," Bruce interrupted, earning her curiosity.

"Hm?"

"You do want to stay here for the rest of the day, right? On the beach, I mean."

She rose her slender eyebrows with her cute smile—he was beginning to realize that everything she did was cute. "Of course. Unless you have something else you want to do."

"Ana," he repeated in a sterner tone. "Today has nothing to do with me."

"Yeah, I know. You wanted to be back in Gotham already. Sorry I ruined your plans."

He glanced at her, surprised. That was the first she'd mentioned on that subject. He didn't even know that she entirely realized that she had interrupted his plans to get away from her. But he had to mentally reprimand himself. He needed to stop underestimating her. "I didn't—"

"Before you hurt yourself, tell me what's really on your mind," she said, stopping suddenly and sitting randomly in the sand. "What did you remember?"

How in the world? She was better than Alfred. And that was saying something. He followed suit, sitting cross legged next to her while she stretched out her long legs, letting her toes sift through the sand. "There's a charity ball tonight. Here. Alfred's probably going to try and make us go."

She cocked her head to the side, resting it on one shoulder as she gazed out at the ocean in front of them. "Like the dances you see in movies?" she questioned innocently, apparently trying to picture it in her mind.

He couldn't help but smile. This had to be part of the reason why he liked her so much—she wasn't from his world. "Kind of. Only a lot longer and a lot more boring."

She turned her head to the side, eyeing him carefully with those brilliantly bright blue eyes, emphasized by the afternoon sun. "I think we should go," she said after a moment. "What else have we got to do?"

He tried to keep the annoyance out of his expression. "We have the sunset to watch."

She snorted. "I've seen plenty, and you have the ability to see plenty, too. So that's no excuse for missing your own party."

"It's not my party," he replied quickly with. He didn't hold parties. No need to endure more events like this than necessary.

"Your name's all over it, Bruce. Literally." She gave him a smug smile, adding, "This is a Wayne Foundation event. You should be there."

He had run out of moments to be surprised, and instead just deadpanned to the ocean.

She seemed to sense his confusion and explained her mysterious knowledge. "They had pamphlets in Hard Rock for it, Bruce," she chuckled, leaning forward to pat one of her sandy hands on his shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm not some kind of psychic."

"You could entertain yourself. Why am I here?" he replied over his shoulder with, being entirely truthful.

She grinned, sitting forward like him, her legs crossed beneath her. "Because I enjoy your company. And I know that you enjoy mine."

"Would you like to be Bruce Wayne?" he countered with suddenly. "You seem to know me better than I know myself."

"You're better at it." Satisfied with her reply, she leaned back again, propping herself up on her elbows this time and crossing her legs at the ankles. "How about you start enjoying a nice, quality, normal vacation though? Lay back, get a tan. Your skin could use some color."

"You know, I think I like you better when you're quieter and less sure of yourself," he commented.

She smiled, disbelieving. "I think I like you better when you're not lying."

Giving up, he leaned back—all the way back, not caring about the sand that was getting in his hair. He could still see her grin and he focused on that and not the premonitions he was having of that evening.

A/N: Firstly, thank you all for reading and sticking with this. I'm sorry I don't update very often. My muses often come and go—more often than not they come when I have no time for them. But fear not, I just have to stumble through these last chapters, and not only is the last chapter of this part already written, but so is like half of the next part. Like I said, my muses work in mysterious ways. So don't you worry, you'll soon have a lot of reading to do. :)

I finally got around to watching Laurel Canyon. Interesting movie, to put it mildly. What made it entertaining for me was remembering all the I'm Too Sexy video scenes from the movie as well as the random GIFs circulating on the internet—i.e. "That sucked!" or the one where Kermit and Christian have a stare down, lol. But the point is that it's this version of Christian Bale that I'm channeling as Bruce Wayne during these couple of chapters. He's finally getting comfortable and opening up—but he is still Bruce after all.

And I apparently go through phases. Sometimes my writing is fantastic, and I myself love it. And sometimes it's so-so, like how I feel it's been in the past couple of chapters. I don't quite know how to fix it, but I feel like reading other fanfics with fantastic writing helps a little. So maybe some parts of this chapter sound better. Maybe.

Anddd a huge shoutout to NMBC-Sally for helping me out with the second part. It's thanks to her that nearly half of it is already written. I'll be putting up another help-me-out post sometime in part two's chapters for part three, so stay tuned! If you cooperate, it's almost like picking your own adventure! And who doesn't love doing that?