Friday, August 7, 2009 – 10:38pm – East End Free Clinic; Gotham City, New Jersey

"Anastasia, I appreciate all of your help, I do, but you should really go get some rest," Leslie offered after watching the younger woman unpackage another box of sterile, wrapped syringes. "You've been here all day. I'm not sure what you're running from, but you still need sleep."

Ana paused in her task, her eyes shooting up to meet Leslie's quickly. "I'm not running from anything. Just trying to keep busy during the down time. I mean," she shrugged, returning to the box in front of her, "what else do I have to do?"

Leslie eyed her for a long moment, slightly worried. Something was off, but she couldn't pin point what.

Her cellphone in her pocket rang suddenly, drawing her attention. "Alfred, what is it?"

Ana's breath caught at the familiar name, her hands frozen on the edges of the open box.

"Of course, I'm on my way." The older woman hung up the phone, but hesitated despite the obvious air of urgency surrounding that short phone call. Her eyes met Ana's, and though full of worry, a small sparkle of hope reflected back. "Ana, can you come run an errand with me?"

Ana was full of questions, but the quiet, calm urgency in her tone warned her against asking them right this second. "Of course."

Leslie smiled.

Friday, August 7, 2009 – 10:49pm – Gotham Century Towers; Gotham City, New Jersey

Ana wasn't sure where to start with how strange this night was starting to get. First she heard Alfred's name, which she assumed belonged to Alfred Pennyworth-Bruce's butler. Then Leslie drove like a bat out of hell back downtown, in fact right across the street from the Ritz-Carlton (which, honestly, Ana was far more impressed than terrified by). Then they simply left the car in the valet spot, waltzed right into the lobby with a purpose-Leslie waving off the security guard at the front desk while he struggled between yelling at her and answering the suddenly ringing phone. He chose to answer the phone while still standing, but suddenly his expression relaxed and he sunk down into his seat, letting them pass as if the person on the phone instructed him to. Now they were in a private elevator, accelerating upwards towards the private penthouse of the building, with a large medical bag that Leslie apparently kept in her trunk for "just in case" reasons in Ana's hands.

Getting more and more anxious with every floor, when they finally reached the top, she released a silent, held back sigh and stilled her restlessness. The doors smoothly slid open with a quiet ding, announcing their arrival. Leslie bolted out, Ana hesitated before stepping out more gingerly. The elevator opened into a massive room with white tile floors and floor to ceiling windows-Gotham twinkled through them. Furniture was scarce, but present as if more for decoration than use in the massive space.

Alfred Pennyworth suddenly appeared, and upon seeing her, a smile lit up his face. But she wasn't focused on the smile, she was focused on the rest of him. Instead of the usual sweater that he wore, he wore a plain gray long sleeve that was pushed up to his elbows. And both his hands and the shirt had blood stains splattered on them. "Leslie, thank you for coming so quickly," he directed towards the older woman. "Anastasia, so good to see you again." As if they just had tea last week, not nine years ago. Ana blinked. "This way, both of you." He seemed out of breath, huffing his words like he had just run a marathon. With his appearance, she hardly noticed the fact that he actually used her name.

She eyed him warily, curious and worried at the same time. "Alfred? What happened? Who's hurt?" But as she quickly thought about it, she suddenly realized it was a stupid question. If Alfred was here and Leslie had called her, the only one left to be hurt was Bruce. But they were still here, clearly, and not at a hospital. Did he try to commit suicide? That seemed absurd. It wasn't in Bruce's character. Moody broody, yes, but not suicidal.

"Leslie, two more gunshots in addition to the one last night. He's lost a lot of blood and I'm having difficulty getting his abdominal injury to clot," he began to explain as he led them through the penthouse and towards a spiral staircase. Ana blinked again, letting her feet follow the pair because her brain was too busy trying to wrap her brain around the situation and put all of the pieces together.

When they reached the top of the stairs, they were led down another hallway until a large bedroom opened up in front of them. On the king sized bed was an unconscious, boxer-clad male surrounded by newly reddened sheets and towels.

An unconscious, boxer-clad Bruce Wayne.

Ana's breath caught in her throat, her eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights. What the hell.

"We're going to need blood to do a transfusion, Alfred," Leslie barked as she darted towards the bed.

"I already have someone on the way," he replied without skipping a beat, following her without hesitation.

Ana blinked a third time, staring.

"Anastasia," Leslie barked again. "I need my bag." She held out her hand, her worried blue hues focused calmly on the younger woman.

And just like that, Ana snapped out of it. Adrenaline rushed through her and she suddenly reacted, her limbs responding automatically. She crossed the space and set down the bag on the nightstand next to Leslie, zipping it open to expose its contents. "Alfred, have you given him anything yet?" she breathed, experience talking for her.

"Nothing, I haven't had time."

Ana dug through the bag, retrieving the equipment needed for an IV line to hand to Leslie. Leslie waved her off, her suddenly gloved hands full with gauze as she inspected the two open wounds-the third on his left shoulder was bandaged, dried blood barely visible through the gauze. "Do it, I'm busy."

Polite, well-mannered, rule-following actress Ana would've hesitated at the command, knowing full well she didn't have the certification or experience within the past decade to do such a thing. But she was in emergency mode, and she didn't hesitate or question the command. As if she was in an ambulance yesterday, she grabbed the IV bag and reflexively spiked and flushed the bag. Glancing around, she looked for something to keep the IV bag lifted and spotted one of the two lamps on either side of the bed. Reaching for one, she yanked it closer and hung it on the switch sticking out from the metal post. Satisfied with the quick work, she grabbed the constricting band and wrapped it around his upper arm before smoothing his lower arm over with an alcohol pad. The veins in his arm stood out like a river in a desert, and that was before noticing the deep blue color offset on his pale skin, so she only had to glance to find one to insert the catheter into. As soon as blood entered it, she quickly removed the stylet and attached the IV line. A quick snip of the constricting band and a fast slap of tape over the catheter, she allowed herself to breathe a little easier again as she checked the flow rate. Now they could hydrate him, give him morphine, and as soon as the blood bag arrived, start a transfusion.

Her adrenaline spike slightly subsided and, once the IV therapy was running smoothly, she observed her surroundings—or rather just him. In what little of his pale white skin on his torso that she could see, she spotted scars of various shapes. Short jagged ones, long gnarly ones. And he was bulky muscular, far more muscular than a fit and toned playboy should look. She looked to his face, his peacefully handsome face and noticed smaller details. He had deep circles under his eyes, and his high cheekbones seemed to be little bit more prominent as if from malnutrition. It was obvious he'd been through physical trauma before, clearly. And his condition left her clues as to why they weren't at the hospital right now.

"Ana, can you take a look at his shoulder?" Leslie asked, bringing Ana out of her observational trance. She was wiping her hands with a towel as Alfred moved to set a container on the table. She had gotten a bullet out out of his abdomen.

Nodding, Ana gently removed the towel and peered at the injury. Blood still oozed out with each steady heartbeat and showed no signs of slowing. Pressing the towel back on it, she gently forced his heavy shoulder upward to look at the other side. There was no exit wound. "Bullet's still in here, too," she announced, lowering the shoulder back to the bed. "He's still bleeding profusely, so it has to be deep."

"Of course it is," Leslie sighed as she glanced to Alfred with a dangerous look. "Alright, dear, are you ready to remove it?"

Ana blinked. "Why me? Why can't you-?"

"You have plenty of experience. Now go ahead while I stitch this up and prep him for a blood transfusion."

Biting her lip, Ana glanced back at the covered injury. Yes, she had removed bullets from flesh before, but not from people she knew. This was Bruce. Taking a deep breath, she finally reached for the tools Leslie had been using and comfortably positioned herself so she could have easy access to the shoulder. She worked quickly, automatically, not wanting any more blood to pour out than necessary. How much had he lost so far? When she finally managed to find it and remove it, she held the tiny, blood-covered piece of metal in the tweezers shakily, staring at it like it was from another planet.

"Anastasia," Alfred prodded, holding out the small container where the other bullet had been tossed.

Slowly, reluctantly, she finally dropped it in the tin and he moved to put it back where it was. Both of the bullets were oddly shaped, as if they had been ricocheted off of something before hitting Bruce. They were smashed in. Going back to his shoulder, she gently applied pressure to pause the bleeding so she could clean it up and stitch it much like Leslie was doing on the other injury.

She had a lot of questions, but right now she could just worry about making sure that he was going to wake up again.

A/N: Holy shit, I updated. It's been over a year-and I apologize about that, but I finally had a sudden rush of inspiration. The Dark Knight Rises kinda killed me a little, because I keep wanting to incorporate everything into this story, but I know it'll suck if I do that. Besides, the movie did the story pretty good, so I don't want to impede. Who knows, though. Maybe later I'll do my own interpretation of the movie with Ana around and tack it onto this story. But since it has been so long, I am a little nervous about these chapters flowing well with the rest of the story, but I hope you all find them entertaining at least.

If you were waiting for an update to hit your inbox, or whatever, there might have been some changes made to previous chapters (in part 2 only) over the past year. If you find yourself lost/confused, skim through the old chapters if you have the time.

Let me know your thoughts/opinions, and I'm going to ride out this inspiration as long as possible. The next chapter should be tricky, but from there it should be pretty smooth sailing.

Maybe I'll actually finish this story! Thanks for reading so far!