Notes: The character who makes his appearance toward the end of the chapter, I modeled after David Tennant, former The Doctor from Doctor Who. I thought he would just be perfect for the role. Just thought you would like to know.
Chapter Six: Woes of One Kind or Another
Buffy was more than a little embarrassed when they pulled up in front of the hotel she was staying at. Sensible or not, he was still a really rich guy. It wasn't so much she was embarrassed for herself: she just didn't like the thought of him being seen in a part of town that was not his usual circle.
"This is not a safe part of town," he commented, looking around the area from inside the car. She noticed the look on his face and it was not the look of a rich man viewing a poor neighborhood: it was Batman looking at a crime ridden area.
An even more dangerous thought crossed her mind right at that moment: it was one that told her she could really love this man. Both of them. Equal and completely.
"You should be here at night," she teased, for once opening the door for herself. "A bag of Doritos and a soft drink and it is like Diner Theater, only urban warfare style." She got out of the car and he followed suit, still vigilant.
"Will you consider moving to a better part of the city?"
She laughed. "Will the hotels in the better part of the city let me make a down payment on a room?"
"I'll take care of it."
"Bruce," she said, turning to him. "I am not going to let you pay my way, just because you can."
"It would make me feel better. Help me sleep at night."
She almost blurted out "Like you sleep at night," but she zipped her mouth shut to those words. "Really. I'll be fine. I've stayed in worse, trust me."
He also started to say something, but it was apparently his turn to hold his tongue. He walked around the car to her. "If you need anything, call me." He reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out her cell phone. Then, he reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out his. After a few seconds of fiddling with both, he dialed his cell, and hers rang. "There. Now you have my number. Promise me, Sofia, you will call me if you need to."
She took the phone, shut it off, and replaced it in her pocket. She hated that he wasn't calling her by her real name. She hated lying to him. "I will. Promise. Cross my heart and all that."
He nodded, and then he bent down and kissed her very lightly on the side of her mouth. "You can also call me if you just want to."
"Thanks," she whispered, wanting so desperately to move just a little, turn her head just a little, and find his lips with hers. It was almost too much to fight. The scent of his cologne, the scent of him, the warmth of his body. Oh, how she wanted to feel him against her, his arms around her, the strength of him, and the weight of him. Instead she stepped back, feeling a little light headed. "I should . . . I really should go and see about getting my key." Her heel caught in a crack on the sidewalk and she stumbled, but righted herself quickly. "Thanks and I will see you tomorrow." She smiled at him, seeing the look in his eyes – Oh my God; he is thinking the same thing I am! – she shook her head and retreated as quickly as she could without being Slayer-ey into the hotel.
Bruce had stood there until he could no longer see her which had been when she had entered the office of the hotel to get her key, and then he had stood there a little longer to watch her and the manager go to the elevator.
What was it about this girl that fascinated him so? Yes, like he had admitted to Alfred, she was a beautiful woman, but that was not all there was to it.
He got into his car, and merged with traffic again. The top was open, but he could still smell the perfume she had worn. The constant reminder of her as he drove was not helping him to clear his head.
He had not meant to take her to the boat dock or onto his yacht, and he had certainly had no intention that morning when he woke up of asking her to join him on said yacht to watch the fireworks. Hadn't he just met her? But he had taken her there and had asked her, and she had said yes.
That thought alone made his stomach quiver with gladness.
He sensed a confidence about her that was almost as attractive as her beauty, but then she could be awkward and a little clumsy at times, as if not used to the attention, or was used to the wrong kind of attention. All of this only added fuel to the fire.
He had watched her during lunch as she had glanced around uncomfortably. Why would a woman like her not be used to attention? And then the conversation that they had had in the car before she got out. He had admitted being attracted to her, and she then had admitted that the attraction was mutual. That had been no lie: he was definitely engrossed, apparently so much so that his common sense took a back seat to it whenever he was around her.
To top it all off, he had kissed her. Yes, it had been on the side of the mouth, but that had not been his objective at the moment. That had been a last minute infusion of his senses returning. No, he had very much intended to kiss her fully and completely right there on the street. He had wanted nothing more than to pull her body against his and make out with her.
He wasn't used to be effected like this and so easily. As he sped through downtown Gotham, he knew he had to figure out why.
Buffy pulled the phone away from her ear and held it out at arm's length as Willow let out a squeal of delight.
"Oh my God, Buffy!" She squealed again. "I can't believe it. Okay, so tell me: is he as hot as he is in the pictures in the Gotham Herald?"
"Hotter. Way hotter. Total hottage." Buffy admitted, happy for the first time in a long time.
And also very much Wiggins.
The nice clerk had quickly got her room opened, but it had been quick enough for her. Once inside her room, she had waited another five minutes before going to the window. Bruce was gone. She had been happy, but sad at the same time. In the short amount of time that they had been apart, she missed him. She had wanted to be near him again already. She had wanted to look him his eyes, to feel his body close to hers, his arms around her, to feel his lips again only this time on her lips or her jaw or collarbone or on her. . .
She had forced that thought from her mind quickly, closing the drape, and flinging herself on her bed. Pillow over face so no one could hear her scream, and her feet kicking in the air. It had taken a really long and very cold shower to get her Slayer libido in check, and that had only done so much for so long.
So, she had called Willow and now here they were talking about the one person she didn't want to talk about but couldn't help talking about.
"So. Yacht. Night. Fireworks." Willow was teasing.
"Yeah. Just the two of us out on the water, at night, on his yacht." She sighed again, for the millionth time it seemed. "The man is was out of my league."
"That's stupid, Buffy." Good ol' Willow. No holding back. "He doesn't think so, obviously, so you shouldn't either. Besides, you deserve to have some fun. Some real fun. Some nice fun."
"Stop it!" Buffy practically screamed, even though she had been thinking the same thing since he had kissed her. Okay, she had been thinking it since the museum balcony pretty much. Desperate for a change of subject: "Anything about the 'Insurrection'?"
"No. Nothing. And Giles has been asking around a bunch, and no one has heard anything. Maybe it does have to do with that dagger. Is it well hidden?"
"In my purse." Buffy knew this wasn't the best place to keep it. Obviously the dagger would have been safer in the vault at the museum where she had put it, but something had made her go and retrieve it. For good or bad, she would deal with it when she had to. "I thought it best to keep it with me."
"Good idea," Will commented and Buffy could just visualize her friend nodding sagely. "Well, we will keep looking."
A knock at the door startled Buffy. She sat up staring at the wooden portal like it was about to come alive and attack her.
"Will, I got to go. There is someone at the door."
"Maybe it's your boyfriend." Willow giggled.
"Yeah, right. Later." She waited just long enough for her friend to say goodbye and then she sat the phone aside. There was a small part of her that was afraid to open the door. But a large part of her wanted to run to it and open it wide. That part of her was also hoping that it was Bruce. Maybe he wanted to take her to dinner or try to talk her out of staying here again. Maybe anything. Whatever it was, she would let. Boy, would she let him,
Just as she stood, just as she was preparing to walk around the bed, the door opened by its self, except it was off its hinges and across the room, crashing against the wall there. Buffy immediately went into defensive mode, crouching down, preparing to fight.
The man who stepped in through the shattered door frame was not what she was expecting. Nor was he anything but human.
He wore a dark green suit, with black question marks stitched into it. His tie was black with more question marks, except these were bright green. He wore a black bolo hat on top of his short brown hair with a green silk band around it, and he carried a cane in his hand, the handle shaped like another question mark. He wore dark glasses and shoes, and he walked in and looked around with a goofy smile on his face.
"I must say, I expected the Slayer to have better accommodations. " A slight British accent. Or maybe it was Scottish. "The way they talk about you, you are part boogie man and part Jason Voorhees to them." He looked over at her. "Not even close. Hard to believe a pretty thing like you scares them so much."
"Who are you?" Buffy asked. Still crouched. Still ready to fight.
"Oh, I'm just a man on a mission," he stated, swinging his cane back and forth. "But if you have to call me something, just call me The Riddler."
That explained all the question marks, sort of. Him being a complete and utter nutcase took care of the rest.
"You could have just knocked," she stated nonchalantly. He was human. She wasn't afraid of him, but she felt the existence of something that she should at least be worried about not too far behind him.
"Subtle, but not my thing." He skipped and jumped. Yep, definitely wacko. "You have something that they want and that I need."
The dagger! Buffy edged around the bed, closer to her purse. The dagger was in there, just sitting there. How stupid. Getting closer to where her purse was also put her closer to the window. It was only three stories down. She could handle that.
"You aren't going to make this easy, are you?" He shook his head, a sad look on his thin face. "They thought that you wouldn't, but I held out hope. Oh well. Mort. Get in here!"
She thought of penguins and lemurs, but the thing that came through the door did not remind her of either of those things. Far from it.
It was huge. Even bending down, its hunkered shoulders took out what was left of the door frame above him and then some. Its width was too great, but made room by demolishing the wall around the door. Even fully inside the room, it couldn't stand up completely straight. It's skin was a dark green mottled color, the face skeletal, but the rest of it was bulgy with muscles. The arms were longer than its legs and its steps seemed to shake the whole building.
"What in the Hell is that?" Buffy asked, having never seen anything like it, and that was saying a lot.
"Oh! Mort!" The Riddler motioned to the thing vaguely, bouncing on his heels. "He is just something I cooked up special for you. I regret it though, but can't be helped." He shrugged, swirling his cane and then turning to leave. "Get the dagger, Mort. Take care of her."
Mort roared and quicker than she could have imagined it could move threw her bed across the room and charged her. Buffy dodged, making a grab for her purse, and without thinking, jumped through the window.
She landed on the street below. Not her best effort, but nothing was broken, so that was a plus. She quickly took off as fast as she could, the sound of Mort breaking through the wall where the window to her room had been coming from behind her. His bulk landed on the street below and she didn't have to look to see that the concrete had cracked beneath his feet.
Buffy could hear people scream from around her on the street, but she kept going. Mort was a good puppy: he had been told to hunt her and hunt her he would. She dashed around a corner; her purse gripped tight in her hand, and wondered what she was going to do.
That was when she was grabbed around her waist and hauled into the air. She began to scream, but took control immediately. The arm around her was covered in black armor, the cape billowing in the wind. And, just for an added effect, the very light scent of a familiar cologne. . . .
Up and up they went, then over the roof. Buffy was sat on her feet. Below she heard Mort bellow.
"Better luck next time, pal," she mumbled before turning to her rescuer.
"It is after something you have?" Batman asked, peering over the side of the building they stood on top of.
"Captain Obvious much," Buffy said, drawing the dagger from her purse. "It's this. Sacrifice, blood, blah, blah, blah, Hell on Earth or big bad demon to run amuck. Not sure which, but I am sure it is one of those."
He looked at the dagger in her hand and then looked at her. Those eyes. Still full of that deep emotion she had seen on the sidewalk earlier, but veiled. The man was a professional.
And gorgeous no matter the attire.
"Who was the man? The one in the green suit?"
"Oh! He called himself the Riddler." Buffy peered down to the street. Mort was gone. That was either a good thing or a bad thing. "Wait." She gazed up at him, her hands on her hips. "How did you know about him?" She waited for an answer, but it was obvious that one was not forthcoming, because he turned his back on her and began to walk away. "Were you keeping an eye on me?" He kept walking, silent in every way. A girl could only take so much of this kind of treatment. She decided to play the only card she had left worth playing. "Bruce!"