Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the Batman universe.
A/N - I was really unsure of this chapter and that's why it took so long. Please share your thoughts on it, good or bad.
Imagined scenarios are burned into my brain as I soar over Gotham's streets, looking for a broken bat. Worry and adrenaline mix as one in my blood, propelling me faster than I have ever flown before. I see the tenement fire and abandon Alfred's hasty directions, making for the blaze.
Side alley, side alley, I think frantically. Crowd of people all mulling about. By side alley. Black shape among the trash. My abnormally sharp eyes pick up the scenes as I fly closer. I land in front of the body and shriek wordlessly at the bystanders. Most scurry away.
Batman's battered body is lying still in the trash heap. In an act of superhuman, adrenaline-charged strength, I lift him behind my head and onto my shoulders, using the upper structures of my wings to support most of his weight and holding onto him by and arm and a leg. I'm not quite sure how I'll handle flying, but the thought doesn't occur to me yet.
A policeman is running at us, "Is he okay?"
I panic at the man's words because they confuse me, and I take off into the night sky. I flap awkwardly at first, and am forced to clutch Batman under his armpits, hanging down away from me, in a way I'm positive isn't good for him. Batman starts to mumble things and they scare me. About halfway to Wayne Manor, the burn creeps into my arms. I ward it off until I arrive on the lawn of Bruce's daytime mansion. Alfred is waiting on the steps for me, as I half-drag, half-carry Batman up the steps.
"What happened?" Alfred presses eagerly.
"I don't know!" I snap, but a feeling of regret washes over me soon after. Together, we carry Bruce inside, strip him of his suit, and lay him on his bed. Lucius arrives in the next few minutes, and stabs a needle into Bruce's elbow. He tells us to keep Bruce cool, for he is running a fever, and to stitch up any wounds.
I take over the job unthinkingly. I have patched him up so many times before this almost feels like coming home. There are a few minor cuts and a head injury; we just can't seem to stay away from those here at Wayne Manor, and possibly a broken rib from the fall he took from the top of the building.
Alfred puts a gentle hand on my shoulder in the middle of my healing frenzy, pulling me away.
"You need your rest too," he says, tapping my head lightly to remind me of my own injuries. Bruce starts muttering then, and I shake off Alfred's hand.
"To hell with that," I sneer. Alfred sighs and lets me finish. But once I'm done, he hounds me again. Bruce's nightmarish mumblings have struck a deep chord of fear in my heart and I refuse bluntly to leave. I do, for a swift bathroom break, and I hear him screaming all the way down the hall. I dash back to his room and glance at Alfred, who shrugs hopelessly at me. Bruce calms again when I take his hand and press it to my face, reduced to more garbling.
"You seem to be calming him," Alfred notes dryly. I glance up at him, and a tiredness I've never seen before creases across the middle of his forehead and sullies his eyes. He looks rather like this mansion, old, yet grand, putting out a brave, beautiful front but rotting slowly from misuse and tragedy on the inside.
"Yeah, I can have that affect on some people," I say, desperate not to sit in silence again, "Something to do with angels."
"Hmm," Alfred sighs wearily. We lapse into silence once more, broken only by Bruce's garble.
Eventually, I find something to say, if only because I'm practically falling asleep here on the edge of this dreary bed, "I didn't know Bruce was fluent in Yiddish." But the joke has no air, and it falls flat at our feet. The next thing I remember after that is waking up in my bedroom, my sheets tangling me in a knot of Gordian proportions and the sun making an effort to shine through my black-out blinds.
I bowl through Bruce's door, making all the noise that I could while trying to be as quiet as inhumanly possible.
Alfred sees my frantic eyes and smiles a little bit, "It's okay, Ms. Breezy, he's sleeping."
"Ugh, I never should have fallen asleep. I feel wretched," I groan, sinking to the cushioned ledge underneath the window. Alfred looks much better. That frightening wrinkle in his forehead and eyes is smoothed again, and he looks more himself.
"Lucius is promising an antidote by the end of this very day," Alfred informs me happily, "And Master Wayne has been sleeping peacefully for at least five hours now."
"Are you sure he's not dead?" I mutter darkly. Alfred chooses not to hear me so I say, "End of the day?"
"Yes," he replies curtly. I must've made him mad with my doom-and-gloom attitude.
"Why not sooner?" I demand. My uneasiness has morphed me into somewhat of a bitch, I think.
"He just got Master Wayne's blood samples last night," Alfred reminds me.
"Well, why didn't he make it off mine?" I insist, "He had that two nights ago. He would have the antidote by now." Dirty thoughts of Lucius creep into my cranium.
"We weren't aware that Master Wayne would be affected like this two nights ago. You didn't suffer half as bad as he has. Some mumbling, and a bit of groaning, and you were fine again." Oh right, my birdbrain. "And furthermore, Lucius most likely wouldn't have been able to make one for Master Wayne from your … special blood."
"I get it Alfred," I cut him off before he drives his point home any further, "I'm just stressed, okay?"
"Aren't we all, Ms. Breezy?" Alfred asks. I look up at him, but there is no reprimand on his face, only a kind, buttery smile. His next question is like a bomb, "Ms. Breezy, I feel compelled to ask you a personal question." And without waiting for an answer, "You love Bruce?"
I snort and stare at him for a few seconds before snorting a couple more times and shaking my head. When his eyes finally press me for a verbal answer, I say, "It doesn't matter anyway."
"Now, how can you say that?" Alfred says disbelievingly.
"Because," I emphasis the word like I'm about to make a giant point, but sigh and say, "He loves Rachel, doesn't he?"
Alfred has that sour look on his face, like that is the one question he was hoping I wouldn't ask, but he answers, "Yes, I think a part of Master Wayne still has affections for Ms. Dawes. They've known each other for a very long time, you know?"
I nod, suddenly anxious to be anywhere but here. My palms are sweating as they rest in Bruce's relaxed hands.
"But you know what else I think?" Alfred says shrewdly, "He loves you too."
I giggle harshly, but he isn't joking, so I grunt, "Don't be ridiculous, Alfred."
"Ms. Breezy, I am never ridiculous," Alfred says haughtily, while maintaining a perfectly straight face, "And most certainly not now."
"Alfred, that's impossible," I state matter-of-factly. No one could love me, or someone is bound to have by now.
"And why is that?" Alfred asks, and, in that way of his, continues with his speech, "Sure, you are not the … usual type of girl Master Wayne would go for, but after spending time with you, it would be difficult to understand how he couldn't love you."
"Really?" I ask meekly.
"Really, really," Alfred smiles genially.
"But than how come he hasn't … or done … even said … hinted," I babble, frantic not to let too much hope past my carefully kept guard. Too much hope will kill a person, because nine times out of ten it is for nothing.
"Maybe he just doesn't realize it yet," Alfred brushes off my worries.
"Well, there you go!" I practically shout, and then lower my voice to inside standards again. Silence descends, and Alfred looks smug, like he had just won an argument or something. It's obvious that I lo… have deep feelings for Bruce, but he didn't have to point it out. It's not like we could have a life together or anything.
"He talks about you all the time, you know," Alfred interrupts my thoughts, "Even when I witnessed whatever you did, he still retells it." He's hinting at me to make a move, I can tell. But he doesn't know the truth. It hits me then, the truth, and I blurt it out.
"I'm not staying, Alfred," I say quietly. I wonder if he'll tell Bruce and hope that he won't. I wanted this to be a clean break, but I'd be the only one hurting anyway. But my statement shuts Alfred up, and after a few unbearably heavy moments he sighs disappointedly and gets up to leave. It makes me angry.
"What do you want me to do?" I ask scathingly. Alfred turns around to look at me. "I don't have anything for him. He can't just throw me in a cocktail dress and take me out for a night on the town. That's what he needs, something normal like that. He doesn't need more weirdness in his life."
"That is where you're mistaken," Alfred tells me, "You have everything Bruce needs. A heart brimming over with love, and a spirit so like his own. I can't make you stay, obviously, but while you're here, give him what you can. He'll need it, if only the thought, in years to come."
"I can't be what you want me to be," I snarl. Alfred pauses on his way out the doorway, and I see the slump of his shoulders. "Don't expect me to."
Of course, after I cooled down, I felt horrible about it, but it was true. High expectations are as bad as hope. Bruce was delivered the antidote, and after a long day of avoiding Alfred and camping out in Bruce's room, I fall asleep on his window ledge seat.
A calloused, familiar hand brushes against my face. I awake with a start and Bruce's eyes, an unreadable black in the night's darkness, are inches away from my own.
"Bruce?" I mumble sleepily. A small blanket is covering me, and with a considerable amount of shame I decide that Alfred must have put it there.
"Yes?" Bruce's husky voice stirs my heart into full wakefulness.
"You're awake!" the full realization hits me suddenly, and in my blind gratitude, I rush into his chest and kiss him for a long second.
He coughs when I pry myself away, my cheeks so on fire that they were probably glowing.
"Good morning to you, too," Bruce says in full playboy-Bruce prose. I just glare mockingly at him; my happiness beyond even the words to point out that it's the middle of the night.
"How do you feel?" I ask, my mind gargling up the first sentence that came to it.
"A little stiff, but okay," Bruce says. My long few days of worry are over, and it leaves me in a gust, a slightly empty feeling inside remaining.
"Thank God," I mutter. I am not the most religious person you'll ever meet, and I cracked up sinfully during Dana Carvey's Church Lady skit on SNL just like everyone else, but right now I am thanking whoever's listening with every cell of my body.
Which is why I don't see the resolution in Bruce's eyes, or the slight tremor of his hand that still rests on my hip before it's too late. He kisses me again, almost curiously, and then pulls away.
"Uh, um," I stutter, my mind still stunned, "Is there, um, anything you need?
Bruce shakes his head and I can sense his inner smile. "Just have to use the bathroom."
"Guess I can't help you with that, huh?" I babble. Bruce cocks his head to the side and without another word goes into the adjoining bathroom. I plop on the bed and smack my palm to my forehead. Anticipation and uncertainty play a cacophonous tune in my brain; this could be a very important night, and I'm ruining it by being an antisocial idiot. Coward that I am, I almost slip out the door before Bruce is finished.
His hand wraps itself around my elbow and anchors me in my spot. "I wasn't done with you," he whispers huskily. The first thought from my neurons is 'Hmm, kinky' but I deny it the right to pass into the world of spoken language.
"Bruce …" I beg, but I don't quite know what I'm begging for. It doesn't for a second halt his advance though. What supreme confidence this man has, I side-note as he sits down next to me on this once-ostentatious, now-glorious bed and kisses me again.
The night fills quickly with gentle touches and sighs of passion.