Disclaimer: I wish I owed this stuff, but I don't.
She's scared senseless, so what convinced her to break into my house? Bruce thought as he sat contemplating the young woman in front of him.
"You've told me you're not going to do, so the question remains: what are you going to do with me?" Danny asked, breaking into Bruce's thoughts.
"Danny, what I do depends on you."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, for starters, I need you to stop freaking out. I have no intentions of hurting you. All I want to do is talk. You already know who I am. So, naturally, I want to know about you."
"What do you want to know?"
"What were you doing that night in the Narrows?"
"I live there." She wasn't about to admit who she had lived with.
"By yourself?" Bruce asked.
How the hell is he reading my mind? Danny thought. She shook her head. "No, I lived with my two children."
Bruce was shocked. She had kids. "So you're married?"
Married? What a joke. She had never been married. Legally, yeah she had been married, but she had been nothing more than a punching bag to the man. "No, I'm not married, not anymore."
"What happened?"
"He died."
"How?"
"My brother shot him." Danny said quietly.
Secretly, Bruce was glad that she wasn't married. But that still left the issue of her children. "How old are your kids?"
Danny struggled to hold back tears. "Cillian would have been five last week. Madison would have been four in a month."
"Would have been?"
"They died. I was almost home when the toxin was released. The baby sitter found the gun I kept for protection. She went on a deranged shooting spree. She mistook my kids for monsters." Danny said softly. Tears were streaming down her face.
"Why did you wait for a year?" Bruce asked hating himself for what he was putting her through.
Danny looked at the floor. "Everyone else thought I was a freak because I didn't turn into a psycho after the toxin. I figured you would think so too. I lost everything that night my children, my home. I didn't want to risk dying."
Bruce was in unfamiliar territory. Sitting in front of him was a woman he had barely met, and all he wanted to do was scoop her up and hide her away where she would be safe. "So why did you risk it?"
She shrugged. "It seemed like a good plan. I need money. If I had gotten away with tonight, I would have left another note soon asking for money in exchange for not ratting you out."
"I would have figured out who you were."
"Not if I picked up the money during the day. Batman only comes out at night."
The grin returned to Bruce's face. He was impressed; she had really thought this through. "What will you do now?"
"I don't know. I guess I'll hitchhike until I find a job."
No way! Bruce wasn't about to let that happen. "I've got an idea. You need a job and I need a personal assistant. You keep my identity a secret, and I'll keep you from having to live on the streets. What do you say?"
"Mr. Wayne, that's a generous offer, but all I own are the clothes on my back. I sleep in a burned out townhouse…"
"…doesn't matter. Alfred or I will take you shopping tomorrow. You can sleep here. There are plenty of spare rooms in this house." Bruce interrupted. Any objection she raised, he planned to quell.
Danny sighed. She could see his resolve. "Very well, Mr. Wayne, I'll accept your offer."