Note: I went back to the previous chapters and added the '***' where the scene changes. In the story on my computer I have this really awesome cross with wings to do that, but it would not transfer over to here.

Chapter Four: Dark Knight

The gala had been over for nearly an hour. Buffy had asked Dr. Livingstone if she could stick around and get a feel of the place. He had told her it would be fine. She had even helped clean up a little bit.

Once the main lights were off, leaving just the auxiliary lights on to dimly light the place, the museum was kinda scary, but nothing that she wasn't used to. She had been in much worse places.

She walked through the exhibits before drifting down to the basement. No vamps had shown up during the party or the unveiling of the new exhibit, which had been a hit. It was a shame Bruce had missed it.

Bruce. Oh, sweet heaven. What had she been doing? And thinking? And just… She wanted to scream. It was all a blur now. A pleasant blur that she revisited again and again as she strolled through the bowels of the museum. She could still see his eyes as if she were looking directly into them. They were a dark green, so bright, so open, yet there was mystery there, and she knew she just had to know what that mystery was. His smile was radiant and amazing. And just everything about him was perfect and astounding and, she felt like she was going mad.

She knew she had to force him from her mind. She had just met him, and barely that, and even though he had told her that he would show her around, she wasn't banking on it or anything. There were many other fish in the sea besides her, and she was sure that he had no trouble reeling in his fair share.

Sighing, taking great effort to focus on what she had to do, she turned her attention to the vampires and the artifacts. Even though it was not allowed, she had snapped a few photos of the display and sent them to Giles and Willow. If they could tell her exactly which one, or ones, the vampires would be after, she could remove them, hopefully without too much suspicion.

Nothing happened that night, and by morning she was out the door and on her way. She felt safe in the knowledge that the artifacts were secure in the daylight hours. After all a human would be seen on the security cameras and there were guards all over the place, even during the day. It was at night, her time that her senses were needed.

Her official first day of work would not start until four that afternoon, so she had some time to kill. She went back to her hotel room, and before she knew it, she had called Willow on the phone and was telling her all about the gala and the man she had met.

"Oh my Gosh!" Willow sounded elated. "Wow! Three nights and you already met someone?"

"I haven't met him met him. You know. It isn't like anything serious or even remotely like I met him as in we are an item or something." Buffy knew her words sounded lame.

"Oh, come on. He followed you out there. That is interest. That is a lot of interest. And here you thought you were frumpy and you got the attention of a billionaire playboy philanthropist."

"A what?"

"That is what it says on this website I am looking at." Willow clicked her tongue. "Guy is popular and rich and, oh wow, you were right! He is something to see."

Buffy sighed, throwing herself down on her bed. Her hair was still wet but she didn't care. "Yeah. I just bet he is popular. Models, actresses, and that entire bunch. Lifestyle of the rich and famous. So out of my league," she stated and then added: "Even if I was interested."

"You so are." Willow in a playful but mock scoldy kind of voice. "Cordelia would be so jealous."

Yes, she would, thought Buffy, if she was still around to be. Cordelia may not have been the nicest girl at Sunnydale High. In fact, she had been known as the Queen of Mean, but when her dad had gotten arrested, leaving her broke, Cordelia had toned down a bit, learned her lesson, or at least some of it.

"Well, I am not going to get my hopes up. He has probably forgotten all about me by now."

"We'll see, Buffy," Willow said in a sagely voice. "We shall see."

Buffy figured that she would work hard, keep an eye on things, and by the time she got off work at eleven, she would be ready to slay around town, and keep tabs on the museum if the need arose. Willow and Giles were still looking up the artifacts, but her ex-Watcher had said that he thought this one particular bronze dagger looked familiar. Just to be on the safe side, she had removed it from the display, replacing it with a piece from the same era, and hidden it safely away in the vault in the basement. They wouldn't get it so easily in there.

She had also told Giles about Bruce Wayne's butler, Alfred (Willow had found out this information online also) and how he had looked at her. Giles has stammered and said "You don't say" a lot before telling her he couldn't understand why he would do that, or how he would know her for any reason, and that he himself did not know the man, even though she had not asked if he had, which was very suspicious in her book. He had hung up before she could get any info out of him. She knew he was not telling her something.

With that on her mind, she left the museum, locking up behind herself under the watchful eye of a guard who was very nice and kind, and grandfatherly. He kind of reminded her of Dick Van Dyke.

She was no more than a block from the museum when her Slayer senses alerted her that there was a vampire nearby. Darting down an alleyway, she drew the stake from her purse, and went on the hunt.

Several streets down, and down another alleyway she felt the presence of the vampire keenly. Keeping her back to the wall, she slowly made her way down the alley, keeping a sharp eye out for the vampire.

The shadows in the alleyway moved up and down the sides of the buildings, hugging trash bens and darting around large crates tossed into a bulky pile. A rat scurried across a glimmering pool of water left by the recent rain that evening, but the downpour had done little to tone down the odor of the collected trash. She moved forward, her hand gripping the stake as she walked down the alley. Her senses tingled as she felt someone watching her from above.

Her prey was a lone vampire and she wasn't about to play coy while walking alone in an alleyway in the middle of Gotham City. Bracing herself for an attack, she quickly glanced upwards and spotted a large black shadow leap from one rooftop to the other. She called out a warning, thinking the vampire either arrogant to expose himself so readily to danger or perhaps foolish for providing her with his exact location. From the roof he gazed down at her from behind a black mask. It was no vampire. From head to toe the masculine figure was covered in a black material that was designed to fit his body snugly, and protect him from any attack that may come his way. He looked like a statue come to life. A black cape hung down his back and his head covering reminded her of a bat.

She knew then that she facing Batman, the legendary crime fighter of Gotham, both loved and hated by the public.

As he jumped off the building, his cape spreading out like bat wings behind him, all she could think was, "Man, I need an outfit like that."

She gave chase, darting around the corner at the other end of the alley from where she had entered, but by the time she got there, even with her Slayer speed, he was nowhere in sight. So busy was she looking around for him, that she almost missed the vampire about to attack her.

Almost.

With a quick spin, she turned, her foot connecting with the vampire's chest and sending it flying backward. Before it could get up, she was on it, plunging the stake into its heart, turning it into a pile of dust. Standing, looking around to make sure no one had seen, she dusted herself off and brushed her hair from her face.

"There. That'll teach you." She whispered, feeling rather proud of herself. But then a sensation went up her spine and she froze. She was being watched.

She spun again, prepared to fight, even though her senses were telling her that there was no danger, at least not from the fangy, blood sucking kind, and there, perched on a ledge ten feet above her head, and about twice that distance down the street from her, was the Batman. He sat there, crouched down, balanced on the ledge, his elbows resting on his knees like he owned the place. In a way, Buffy guessed he did. He was staring at her intently, the shadows keeping his face, what was not covered by the cowl, hidden from her.

"Hey!" She said. Not very original or mature, but that was all that she could come up with at the moment. She could not shake the feeling that for some reason, she felt connected to him in a way, a far, far away…way.

He stared at her in silence. For a moment she didn't think he was going to say anything. That he was just going to sit there and stare at her and make her even more uncomfortable with every passing second. Finally, though, he did speak.

"Why are there vampires in my city?"

No "who are you" or "what are you" or "how did you do that?" None of that. Vampires. He asked about vampires and why they were in his city, which meant he knew what they were, and he didn't really seem all that bothered by them. It was as if they were just another nuisance like rats or mosquitoes.

"Vampires?" She tried to sound dumb, and she had to admit sometimes she was better at it than she should have been. She was at a total loss here. "Um, well, I don't really know. That is what I am trying to find out." Honesty. The best policy.

He sat there in silence some more, and then, moving swiftly, he stood and jumped to the street, landing perfectly and with very little noise. The cape wrapped around him, adding more darkness than before. She still could not see his face, only what her Slayer night vision could make out, which wasn't much.

"I killed three of them the other night. Four more a week before that," he said, his voice all gravely and cool. Pretty cool. Wait!

"You've killed some of them? How?" The question was blurted out before she could stop it.

"Decapitation." Simple answer. And it was obvious he was not going to elaborate.

"How did you know what they were?"

"It wasn't too difficult to figure out." He stood still, as still as a statue, and he was still watching her. It was familiar somehow. "I had seen them before. Years ago. In…another place."

Standing there, looking at him, she could not help but feel a certain sensation that seemed familiar, yet altogether foreign to her. She had felt this before. And not before before. She had felt it recently. Her Slayer senses were telling her something, but that something she had a little trouble believing in spite of the evidence presented to her by who and what she was. It was something more than just an undefined connection.

She wanted to ask him more, but she knew he would not tell her more than he wanted her to know. Fine. Two could play at this game.

"Well, that is good." She turned on her heel and began walking, cool, calm, and collected, down the street. Just as she turned the corner, she felt a breeze ruffle her hair, and as she finished the turn to the next street, she came to a complete stop.

He was standing in front of her.

"I take it from the way you dealt with that vampire, that I do not need to tell you to be careful." A statement and was that a hint of amusement in his voice?

"No. You don't"

Then he stepped out of the shadows into the pale light from the street lamp across the way and she had to fight to keep from gasping and to keep her eyes from going wide in surprise.

"Just the same: I think we both should be on our guard."

And then he was gone. Just like that. Up above the street. She watched him ascend and then disappear over the roof top.

She stood there for several more moments, in a state of shock. She couldn't believe it. She could not believe what she had seen. But now it confirmed what her Slayer senses earlier had told her. She had seen his eyes and the eyes never lie. She knew those eyes. She had seen them before, just last night, on the balcony at the museum.

Those were Bruce Wayne's eyes. Bruce Wayne, the 'billionaire playboy philanthropist' as Willow had called him, was Batman.

"Get out of town!" She said in an excited whisper.

This city just kept getting better and better in her book.