Angels in the Belfrey
Part 8
House Call
Disclaimer: All characters are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, Inc. or DC Comics and Warner Brothers.
Notes: This installment has been a long time coming. I apologize for that. Hopefully, it won't take eight months for another part.
The house was enormous – though calling it a house would only make the other houses feel inadequate. The mansion was enormous, Buffy corrected in her head.
The cabbie looked over his shoulder at her. "You sure this is the place?" he asked dubiously.
She smiled at him. "Yeah, I'm sure." She handed him a twenty and a ten and got out of the car, smoothing the skirt of her suit as she did so. The taxi drove back down the long driveway, leaving Buffy alone in front of the mansion. Gripping her briefcase, she marched resolutely up the steps and rang the doorbell.
The man who answered was elderly, though still tall and slender, with a thin mustache gracing his upper lip. His voice was even fuller of British-tweed than Giles's.
"Sorry to drop in, but I'm Buffy Summers from the International Watchers Council. Is Bruce Wayne at home?"
She noted how Alfred Pennyworth's eyes sharpened when she said her name, and how he studied her more intensely. He let her inside and showed her to a room that was larger than the old high school library. "I'll tell Master Bruce that you're here," he murmured as he left, closing the door firmly behind him.
Buffy gingerly sat down on a couch and placed her briefcase down by her feet. About a minute later, she shot back up to her feet as the door opened again and pasted a smile onto her face.
Bruce Wayne was definitely not what she was expecting. Handsome, yes, but his well-tailored suit covered a frame that a linebacker would envy. And that vapid smile wasn't fooling her in the slightest. Intelligence lurked behind those baby blues, as well as a hardness that no amount of acting could ever hide completely.
The butler followed, wheeling in a tea service. Buffy waited until he had handed her a cup of tea and exited again before she spoke. "Does anyone actually buy the act you put on?"
Wayne's brows scrunched together in mock confusion, but she saw the quick flash of alarm in his eyes. "What ever do you mean, Miss Summers?" He allowed his eyes to linger on her legs, well showcased in her pantyhose, if she did say so herself.
She refused to be distracted though. Buffy pshed in exasperation. "Please, I perfected the dumb blonde act in high school. Like you can fool me with the stupid playboy routine." She set her cup down on the table and leaned back in the couch, crossing her arms. "I refuse to talk to the Brucie that appears in the tabloids. Where's the Bruce Wayne, head of Wayne Enterprises, who gives millions of dollars to charities and threatened my boss this morning in a very oh-not-so-subtle way?"
The mask held for a few more seconds before it was dropped and Buffy saw the real Bruce Wayne. His smile melted away and he sat up straighter. His eyes became cold and the hardness she had noticed earlier came to the forefront. "You came here to talk. So talk." Even his voice was harsher, with an edge.
She pursed her lips. "You gave my organization a very large sum of money with very little explanation. Sorry to be so cynical and paranoid, but just what are you expecting from us in exchange for your…" she paused slightly, "donation?"
"For you to use that money to rebuild your organization so that it benefits the Watchers, the Slayers, and those they protect. I ask nothing more."
"I find that very hard to believe, Mr. Wayne. People don't just throw around ten million dollars and expect absolutely nothing for themselves."
Wayne's eyes glinted. "I expect to be able to wake up tomorrow morning and find the world still there and the human race still enduring. I think that is a worthwhile use of my money."
Buffy sat back and studied the man sitting opposite her. "You're just full of surprises. Most people wouldn't go to great lengths to hide their true selves, or contribute a large part of their fortune to a little-known group of tweed-wearing book nerds in Britain."
"I'm not most people." No emotion showed on his face and she frowned in annoyance.
"Obviously." The Brucie act was almost better than this stone wall she was talking to – almost. "You saw your parents violently murdered in front of you when you a kid. Years later, you take in a circus boy whose parents were killed in a trapeze accident."
"It wasn't an accident," he cut in sharply.
She sighed. "No, it wasn't. You're obviously more than the face you show to the world, and for some reason, you've decided to adopt a male bimbo act when it's obvious you're more intelligent than that. Now, the question is, why." Buffy frowned as her brain connected the dots. "I pretended to be dumb to get out of research and to lull the baddies into a false sense of security. But I also used it to hide who I really was from the world because who would expect li'l ol' me to be a big bad Slayer? So what, Mr. Wayne, are you hiding from the world that you need to pretend to be someone you're not?"
"You're very perceptive," he said mildly.
"I did get a 1430 on my SATs. I'm more than just a pretty face." She leaned back in her seat and smiled cheerfully at his not-quite scowl.
"Most people know it's not wise to threaten the third richest man in the world," he told her.
"Now who said anything about threatening? I'm just merely making an observation that people who wear masks, like you and me for example, often have something they want to hide." Buffy suppressed a grin at the sour look on his face. No one threatens her Watcher and gets away with it! After watching him smugly for a few seconds, she decided to let him off the hook. "Look. I'm sure we can come to an acceptable agreement. We're two reasonable adults, after all. I won't tell if you won't."
He glared at her, and she could almost hear his back molars grinding together. "I think that's fair," he finally said in a flat voice.
"You understand that this is necessary, right? We just spent a lot of time getting rid of all the corruption in the Council. Granted, a lot of that corruption went boom a few years back…" Buffy pursed her lips in thought. "Anyway, we just want to make sure that nothing upsets all our efforts and all that. And, we are willing to give you a little tit for tat." She pulled a business card out of the inner pocket of her suit jacket and handed it to him. "Here's a number you can call if you find yourself with something on your hands that you can't deal with by yourself. We're willing to provide information, backup, instructions for how to make your own holy water – whatever you need. I doubt you'll need to use it too often. The Batman has enough of a rep that demons pretty much stay clear of Gotham, but just in case."
Wayne glanced down at the card before slipping it into his breast pocket. "I'll keep it in mind. But Gotham is my city and you will do well to remember that, Miss Summers."
She smirked. "Yeah, like we'll ever forget it, what with the giant bat nightlight. You do like putting your mark on things. Batmobile, batarang – do you have a bat sewn into your undies too?"
A corner of his mouth twitched almost imperceptibly. If she hadn't been watching for it, she wouldn't even have known. Instead, he pressed his lips more firmly together. "If you want, you can use some of that money I gave your organization to invest in a Slayer-mobile," he commented mildly.
Buffy resisted the sudden urge to laugh. He jokes! Granted, it was a pretty lame joke but he had a sense of humor. It just took a lot of digging to find it. She leaned forward expectantly. "So tell me something: how do you get the Kevlar to stop chafing? Andrew, in a fit of geekitude, designed the Slayers a battle uniform and Rona made the mistake of putting it on to get him to shut up. She had the worst rash."
He moved closer to her. "You really want to know?" He lowered his voice to just above a whisper. "Talcum powder. I've bought stock in that stuff."
Standing in the hallway outside of Bruce's study in Wayne Manor, Cordelia smirked at the hovering Wesley and Alfred. "Pay up, you two."
Wesley muttered as he dropped a twenty-dollar bill into her outstretched hand. "You'd think I'd learn better than to bet against you."
Alfred's money landed in her palm. "Indeed," he sniffed. He cast a fond eye at the door, through which two voices, one male and the other female, could be heard laughing. His lips curved upward. "Still, that is a very welcome sound. It's been far too long."