"I can't believe you talked me into wearing this abomination," Rosa hissed sideways to the man holding her arm, Jim Gordon. "Or going to this place. Can you even afford this? I didn't know the Gotham Police Department paid their officers so well – if I did, I would have asked for a raise long ago."
"Rosa, can't you just graciously accept anything?" Gordon sighed as they waited in line to speak to the man behind the pedestal who was carefully checking parties against his reservation list.
In fact, Rosa couldn't believe that Gordon had gotten reservations to this place – the newly opened "The Grand Hotel" ("original name," she had murmured sarcastically) was supposed to be famous for its food and service at the restaurant on the ground floor, concurrently named "The Grand Restaurant."
"No, I can't," Rosa replied.
"Apparently you don't believe that I got the reservations for tonight on just my sparkling character and charming manner."
Rosa just looked at him, raising her eyebrows.
Gordon sighed. "Fine. I… helped… the owner out with some zoning problems." Plowing on in spite of Rosa's snort of derision, Gordon continued. "He promised me that I could have a reservation here whenever I wanted. Didn't really think I could use it, but hey, it'll pay for itself tonight, won't it?"
The pair came up on the host, and Gordon tugged at his ill-fitting suit before saying in a semi-confident voice, "Gordon, party of three. Our third member will be arriving separately."
"Oh, how sad. And here was me thinking we were out on our first date," Rosa whispered as they were escorted to a square table set with gleaming silver and plates. Rosa slid into the chair their host proffered, then watched him glide away back to his pedestal with its reservation book.
"So who's coming?" Rosa flicked a fingernail against her crystal water glass. Suddenly struck by a thought, she leant close to the table and whispered conspiratorially, "Did you get 'Batman' to come? Because I really don't think that the dress code means that type of black suit."
"Stop with the wisecracking already. I know that it's hard for you, but please. Act like a lady?"
Rosa flicked her fingernail against her glass again, the contact sending a clear chiming sound throughout the restaurant. A server who had arrived with a clear cylinder of a water pitcher sent her a dirty look as he poured water into the offending glass. Rosa thought about sticking her tongue out at the server as he walked away, but thought better of it, and demurely placed her hands in her lap.
"Rachel's coming. She said she had some big news, and invited you over for cocktails or some such nonsense."
"Rachel invited me over. And we're… here? Thanks for telling me…?"
"She called you, but you weren't at home. I was 'at home.'" Gordon raised an eyebrow. "I didn't really think you'd want me telling her where you were. In fact, I didn't even know where you were. So you couldn't really take the call."
"Oh." Rosa deflated and proceeded to take a sip of her water to counteract the silent awkward moment that followed. Gordon carefully watched her reaction, and nodded.
"'Oh' is right. Rosa, you know you can tell me about it."
"I know. I'm just… not going to." She put one arm on the table and lay her head in her hand and looked back into Jim's face. "You saw the result of it, anyway. You don't need to know how it got that way."
There was the sound of high-pitched giggling laughter from the front of the restaurant, and both Jim and Rosa looked toward a rectangular table running down the middle of the room. There was a tall, dark-haired, well-dressed man speaking to the host.
"I'm sorry, sir, but your reservation is only for twenty-five. I'm afraid that the restaurant is at its full capacity tonight; we won't be able to seat one of your two… friends."
Apparently, the two rail-thin modelesque twenty-something's weren't listening – they sat on a chair together, squeezing together and laughing.
"Well I suppose that that's all right then?" The well-dressed man was saying, watching the two girls sit. "They'll probably only eat for one as well."
The host opened his mouth again, but the man was now sitting at the head of the long table and pulling a billfold out of his dinner jacket with a practiced ease. He plucked a bill out of it and handed it to the host, who stared for a moment and then turned straight around and practically marched back to his reservation pedestal, discreetly transferring the bill to his own jacket pocket.
The long table immediately lurched into conversation and the dark-haired man took a sip out of his water glass, a large ring glinting in the restaurant light from his pinky finger.
Jim and Rosa looked toward the table, completely silent throughout the whole ordeal. As the man set down his glass, they seemed to snap out of a trance as their heads slowly turned toward each other.
"Oh, so he's one of those…" Jim said quietly.
"You know him?" Rosa looked back for a split second to see the man place his hand somewhere under the table. I don't even want to know, she thought, turning back to Jim.
"Well, I don't know him, but I know who he is. That," Jim jerked his head back toward the long table, "is Bruce Wayne."
"Bruce Wa…?" Now Rosa turned her torso back to see the now identified Mr. Wayne, and her mouth dropped open unabashedly. Her mind raced back to the night she had escaped from her home, picturing the younger man with the same dark eyes who had confronted her father, and had met her gaze for that moment before turning and running. "That's disappointing," she said softly. "I really thought he might make something of a difference." Then she thought further back, to a memory that she barely recalled, except for a squat boy sheltering a very young Rachel and sneering over at her. "Alfred, the mean girl is going home now," a taunting voice said clearly in her mind.
"But maybe not so unexpected," she finished. "I thought he had died, traveling somewhere off in the world? Somewhere… expensive?"
"So did I. Apparently not." Gordon was clipped, his eyes focused on the plate in front of him.
"Did he call you names too?" Rosa said, intrigued.
"No. But I was there the night… the night his parents were killed. He certainly didn't seem spoiled or pretentious or… capable of escorting two women simultaneously then. I suppose you wouldn't," Gordon mused, "at seven."
Rosa laughed. "No, I don't think the women thing comes on for about six or seven years."
"Oh, dear… Don't look now, but your favorite seven-year-old is making his way over," Gordon said under his breath, and he quickly pushed back his chair and stood up, sticking out his hand to shake Mr. Bruce Wayne's. Bruce was leaning over the table, his pinky-ringed hand holding back his tie while his other firmly shook Jim's.
"Hello. I'm sorry for interrupting your dinner…"
Rosa, whose eyes had been on the shaking hands in front of her, now snapped to attention. She could feel Gordon tensing as he wondered what might come out of her mouth.
"Please don't trouble yourself," she said, gesturing to a chair. "Would you like to sit down? After all, we only have three people in our party, and there are four chairs here…" she continued, her voice void of irony.
Bruce did a double take, his eyes drawing together. He wasn't quite sure if he had just been insulted, but then Rosa smiled very sincerely and sort of half-laughed.
Gordon looked at Rosa too. Perhaps it was because he had worked and lived at close proximity with her for seven years that he detected a hint of disgust in her eyes. He ran a hand over his mouth, watching the dynamic between the two shift from friendly to somewhat tense.
Then Bruce Wayne did what seemed to Gordon to be the unthinkable. He pulled out the chair next to Rosa's and sat.
"Thank you for the kind invitation," he said smoothly. "I promise I won't stay long. I just came over here because…"
"Wait, before you continue, let's introduce ourselves," Rosa broke in. "I'd love to know just who I'm talking to."
Oh Lord, Gordon thought as he slowly sat back down. Before either one of them could speak again he said, "Yes, lovely. I'm Jim Gordon, and this is Rosa Ducard."
"Jim, don't play yourself down!" Rosa said. "Jim is a sergeant with our local police force," she whispered playfully at Bruce, who didn't seem to hear anything she was saying.
"… and Rosa is one of our officers. We're just out for a celebration dinner. You might have heard, a main case of ours has just recently been quite neatly wrapped up. Carmine Falcone and his drug ring?"
Again, there was no answer from Bruce Wayne, who was still staring at Rosa, his mouth slightly hanging open.
Glancing at his expression, Rosa took up the conversation thread. "That's exactly the same reaction I had when I heard that Carmine Falcone had been tied up at the docks. Wayne Enterprises' docks, I think they were?"
The word "Wayne" seemed to jolt Bruce back into himself, and he smiled politely. "Well, please don't spread that around to the general public," he said jovially, "as I'm Bruce Wayne."
"Well, that's a bit embarrassing, isn't it, Jim? I wonder, Mr. Wayne, how does it feel to have a mob boss tied to a searchlight on your company's property? It would send me positively bonkers."
It was the word "bonkers" that did it. She's snapped, Jim thought with an inward groan. Good God, she's gone and snapped.
"If it had to be somewhere, Ms. Ducard," Bruce said, putting a slight emphasis on her last name, "then I'm glad it was on Wayne property."
Nicely handled, Jim thought. Dodged and parried. His eyes inadvertently went back to Rosa, waiting for her reply in the verbal tennis match.
"How sweet of you," she said, but her facial expression was beginning to contradict her words. "Mr. Wayne, won't you tell us why you've graced us with your presence, you do have a party to get back to." Her veneer was slipping, and Gordon knew that Bruce Wayne had better leave the table soon, or he might get a sharp smack across the cheek.
"Yes," he said. "But please, Mr. Wayne, you were saying?"
"Oh yes. I'm sorry for interrupting your dinner, but I thought I had recognized you. I wanted to come see if I was neglecting a friend. You see, I just returned from seven years' sabbatical and I don't really know what everyone looks like anymore."
"You do have a long memory," Rosa began, but then quit mid-stride as she realized both of her previous encounters with the man sitting next to her had been as Rosalie Falcone. Her mind shut down.
"Very long, Mr. Wayne, you must be… twenty-eight now?" Bruce nodded, and Gordon continued. "It's been fourteen years then. I was one of the officers who were there when you came in after your parents'…" Gordon trailed off, his voice now sympathetic.
Bruce now looked at Gordon, and his own cultivated mask cracked. "Yes, yes I think I remember you. Gordon, was it?"
Thankfully for Rosa, a tall, lean man had just walked up to their table, and was leaning down and softly speaking to Bruce.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne, but your friends are… swimming… and I'm afraid that the pool area is for viewing purposes only…"
Bruce's hand reached into his jacket, and again he pulled out his billfold.
"Mr. Wayne, it's not a question of money," the man began.
"No, I'm sorry. It's just that I'm," Bruce signed his named with a flourish, "buying this hotel." He stood up, nodding to Jim and Rosa, and slipped the check into the manager's front pocket, where it stood out against the dark blue of his folded handkerchief. "And I'm going to be making some new rules about the pool area."
With that, Bruce Wayne smiled genially at the manager, and strode toward the narrow pools of water set into stone next to the glass entryway walls, and promptly got in, bottom first.
At the same moment, Rosa's head met the table and her shoulders began to shake violently.
Gordon put his arm around her, and they sat like that for a couple of minutes. Fortunately, no one was paying attention, as all eyes, both customer and server, were on the trio soaking and laughing in their formal dress.
"What… an arrogant… dickhead," Rosa said to the table.
Gordon couldn't really say anything to disagree with her.