POV switches between Elle and Nightwing. I separate them with a line, so it should be easy enough to follow.
WARNING: Language . . .
Elle walked out to her car, unlocked it, and climbed in. She was tugging off her coat, pausing to wave to Morris as he pulled out of the parking lot. Elle hated driving wearing something bulky. It felt like she couldn't move as fast while weighted down by all that heavy material. The car would warm up soon enough, so she shouldn't need it until she got home.
It felt good to be back at Chez Donovan's. She had missed it. She and Dick agreed that she would go on performing, albeit only two nights a week now. They would proceed cautiously to see if her fans became as obsessed as those of her mother and grandmother. It went without saying that Elle would not seek out fame. Even singing in a nightclub made Dick nervous since discovering the extent of her vocal 'talents'.
She put her key into the ignition and turned it . . . And nothing happened! Her mouth dropped open and she glared at the steering wheel as if it were somehow at fault. She had just picked the car up this afternoon from the mechanic's! How could it not start now?
She tried it again, and then once more before flopping back against her seat in frustration and a hint of despair. Stupid car! Stupid her! She should have known better, but she thought she was making a good choice. Dick was right. She should have bought new, or at least a not-so-old used. Obviously the vehicle was on its last wheels.
Elle fumbled with her bag and located her cell phone. She nearly cried when she saw that it was almost out of battery. Grabbing the charger, she plugged it in and set her phone to recharging . . . except it wasn't. She felt especially stupid now. Of course it wouldn't charge if the car battery was dead. Unplugging the phone, she wondered if she had enough charge to place a quick call. Dick would want her to call him, but he was working tonight and Bludhaven being what it was, she hated to interrupt him in the middle of something important for something stupid like this. She could try AAA first.
The call rang several times before she was put in a queue. Apparently, there were a lot of vehicle breakdowns tonight. After a couple of minutes, her phone was flashing a low battery warning. Elle hung up. Perhaps she should dial 911? It wasn't exactly an emergency, though. No one was threatening her and she wasn't bleeding. She didn't want to waste resources for something silly when there might be real emergencies out there depending on a quick response.
She blew out her breath and glanced around the deserted parking lot. Funny, how all that pavement between where she had parked and the restaurant hadn't seemed that great a distance earlier in the evening. Now, it was like the incredible journey to get back. She could just go back inside and call a tow truck or maybe she should just get a cab to take her home. She could take care of the car tomorrow . . . Have it towed to the junkyard or something.
"Aw, damn it," she muttered, disgusted.
She tugged her keys from the ignition and searched out the restaurant key. She grabbed her coat and bag, but didn't bother to put it on; rather she tossed it over one arm. Slamming and locking her door, although why she bothered she didn't know, Elle headed back toward the restaurant.
She was nearly there when a man stepped out of the shadows across the street. Elle stumbled, hesitating. Should she still try to get into the restaurant? Could she get the door unlocked and get inside before he could get to her? She gauged the distance and considered her high heels. She was still closer to the car than the man was to the restaurant. Decision made, Elle turned on her heel and started back to the relative safety of the car as quickly as she could go.
Halfway back, movement caught her eye and she turned her head to watch a second man climbing the fence surrounding the back of the parking lot. Okay, not good; but she was still reasonably close to the car. She could beat them both. She ran.
Elle reached the car and tried to force the key into the lock. It wouldn't go! Why wouldn't it go? Then she realized that she still had the restaurant key in her hand. She fumbled for the car key, and promptly dropped them on the pavement between her feet.
"Shit!"
The sound of her own voice startled her. What was she doing? She should have started screaming several minutes ago! She reached for her keys, groaning at the fact that she would have to search out the correct key again before she could get into the car. A set of sneakers stepped into view. Elle clutched the keys in her hand as she raised back up slowly, taking in as she did a pair of dark denim and a wool jacket zipped up tight. Elle stared into the amused face of a third man.
The other two men were nearly upon them. Their expressions were similar enough that Elle realized that they knew each other. This was something they did on a regular basis, she thought. They weren't nervous or scared; they were confident and apparently entertained by her panic. They moved in to surround her.
Nightwing flew through the air silently. Tonight there were no flips between releasing one line and shooting out the next. He was late.
He had promised himself that he wouldn't leave Elle to go home alone. If he couldn't escort her home as Dick Grayson, then he would do it from the rooftops as Nightwing. He had originally made that promise when he had heard of the man attacking her outside of her club. The guy had left gouges in her skin that had scarred, but only for a time. Already they were faded to nothing but faint pink lines along her forearms. Soon there would be nothing left to remind either of them of the incident.
Then he had left for three weeks while he struggled over the knowledge that her voice had power and worried that she had somehow manipulated him into loving her. Near the end of those three weeks, she had interrupted a mugging and almost lost her life for her good deed. Dick had renewed the vow to always watch her home, and tonight, he had taken too long in resolving a hostage situation and taking out the bad guy. Now he was late.
His mind kept saying that Elle was probably already home, tucked up into a blanket with a steaming mug of hot chocolate in her hand. Unfortunately, his gut was telling him to hurry. His mind said this was a waste of time; she was home safe, get back to patrol. His gut still insisted that he hurry.
He flew, but there was no joy in it tonight. He had to hurry!
Elle tried to remember what Dick had taught her. He dragged her down to the gym three nights a week and forced her to get out of different holds; to fight him from every angle and from every disadvantage, and through it all, he would pound it into her skull that she was to scream and, at the first opportunity, run!
This was going to be hard, she thought, fighting down her panic first so that she could fight her assailants effectively. There had only been one mugger, and look how that turned out. She had nearly died from blood loss. Now she was facing down three men.
"I don't have much money," she announced.
Two of the men smiled, but not one of the three even glanced in the direction of her bag. A fine tremor started then in her chest and deep in her belly. They weren't after her money. And she knew without thinking they weren't after her piece of shit car. There was only one thing left that she had of any value, but she'd be damned if she let them have that!
The car blocked one path, and with the other two closing in on her, she would soon lose any chance to run. Sliding one of her keys between her fingers, Elle did a one-eighty and ran. She darted around the car only to discover that the fence covered that way and the wall of a building blocked the rest.
As one of the men ran up to her, Elle slashed at his face; making him dodge and stumble to avoid damage. She ran around him and went straight for the street. Strong arms nabbed her around the waist from behind. Elle screamed for all that she was worth. Her assailant flinched but didn't let her go. She ripped through his skin of his arm with her keys, and he yelled. She swung her elbow up and behind her three times in rapid succession; hitting the guy in the face hard enough to loosen his grip. She spun around; stabbing him in the face with those handy keys.
The third man didn't give her a chance to slash at him as he plowed into her; knocking her to the hard pavement. He grabbed her hand and slammed it into the asphalt repeatedly until she cried out and she dropped the keys. His attention was on the key hand, so with her left hand, Elle flung her bag at him. With a couple of water bottles in there, it had a bit of weight. The bag hit him in the head, and shoved him enough offsides that Elle could scramble out from underneath him.
Her right hand throbbed and blood dripped from her abraded knuckles, so Elle scooped up the keys with her left. They were her best weapon and her only source of escape. The first guy was almost upon her as she tried to run again. She hadn't taken two steps before she heard a harsh thump of a solid impact behind her.
Dick's breath caught in his lungs at the sound of the scream. The fear that stabbed him was so great he nearly fell from his line. He knew in that second, without even consciously recognizing the voice, that the scream came from Elle. The fear in his gut told him. It was her fear, and now it mingled with his.
He didn't even have time to question why she was still out there in the parking lot. She should have been home already, but his brain had frozen when he had heard her scream. By the time he had landed on the building that lined the parking lot, Elle was fighting for all she was worth. One man was down, one was struggling with her, and another was trotting over in her direction. Three attackers? Why hadn't he shown her how to deal with multiple attackers yet?
Anger coursed through his system numbing his fear. Elle climbed out from under the guy she had just stunned with whatever had been in her bag and turned to run again. He shot a new grapple line. Seconds later he hit the man closing in on her, lifting him with his feet and dropping him several yards away from nearly a three story height. The crack that sounded when the guy landed announced that he wouldn't be getting up again without a walking cast and some extensive therapy.
He flipped; somersaulting several times in midair to slow his momentum enough to land safely. The other two men were climbing to their feet; one dripping blood from a gash on his face and arm. Elle, he saw in his periphery, had stopped and turned around to watch.
"Run," he yelled at her. "Get to the restaurant!"
She backed away, but didn't leave, damn it!
Both men rushed him. Nightwing didn't waste time. He didn't tease or taunt the men as was his usual method of operation. They had been after his girlfriend, and the only fatality of the night would be his mercy.
He threw two birdarangs simultaneously; hitting the men in the face and knocking them off of their feet. When the first one climbed back to his feet, Nightwing ran at him and went into a front handspring, catching the guy around the neck with his lower legs. Nightwing swung his body around his opponent while forcefully pulling the man around after him. The guy was flipped over and slammed into the pavement onto his back; knocking his breath out of him. Nightwing landed over him, straddling his body, and landed three, brutal punches to the man's face. The third punch caught his temple and the guy was out.
The last man standing was a bloody mess. He swayed precariously, holding his hands over his damaged nose; broken by the birdarang. His eyes finally focused on the scene before him. His two friends were down and out, and Nightwing was growling at him through clenched teeth. He wanted no part of this. He made the mistake of glancing at the woman, and the masked vigilante was immediately in front of him.
"You don't get to look at her," Nightwing snarled.
Grabbing him by his jacket, Nightwing shoved him backwards until he slammed the man into the chain-linked fence behind him. A flurry of punches and one flying roundhouse kick later, the guy knew no more.
Nightwing cuffed him to the fence, and then made short work dragging his buddies over to join him. It wasn't until all three were secured and unconscious that he turned to their victim.
Elle was standing, staring at him; looking stunned. He did a quick visual inspection. Her clothing was dirty and her slacks were torn. He could see even from this distance that her knee was scraped and bleeding. There was blood dripping from one hand, but he couldn't see where it was coming from. Where was her coat? Why was she alone in the parking lot? Where was Igor or Brian or Morris, damn it?
"Thank you. Those guys seemed to come out of nowhere."
Nightwing looked over his shoulder at the men. He wanted to wake them up and beat them unconscious all over again.
"Call 911," he told her. "Get in your car and wait for the police."
"I . . . Um, I can't," she said breathlessly. "My cell phone died."
Nightwing frowned. "So charge it in your car."
She seemed to flinch. "My car won't start. I already tried to charge it. That was why I was trying to get back to the restaurant; so I could call a cab."
"What?" Her words made him see red. "How could your car not start?"
He had dropped her off just that afternoon to pick it up at the garage! That bastard had taken her money and let her drive away when the car wasn't fixed? Nightwing growled. He stomped over to that piece of shit Elle insisted on driving.
"Get in and pop your hood," he demanded, waving her to the driver's side door as he moved to stand in front of it.
Elle stopped gaping and ran to obey the obviously irritated hero. He seemed much more pleasant during the convenient store robbery she had witnessed months ago. It seemed a little strange that he should take her car problems so personally, however.
Her hands were shaking from the adrenaline crash now that the danger was over. It took her a couple of minutes to get the key into the lock, and slide behind the wheel. She pulled the latch that popped the hood and watched as (holy shit!) the freaking, bloody Nightwing put her hood up and started fiddling with her engine. Ever since she had seen him in action that one time, Elle read everything she could find about the vigilante. She never admitted to Dick just how much of a fangirl she was over the hero.
She bit her lip as she recounted every second of the fight. He was amazingly fit. That uniform he wore did nothing to hide his . . . ahem, assets. She felt a tiny bit of guilt as her mind helplessly noted and compared the sexy hero with her own super-sexy boyfriend. They looked to be the same height and even similar build. Same color hair, she thought, and even his jawline resembled Dick's. Dick would probably laugh if she pointed out to him the similarities . . . Or then again, maybe not!
Elle frowned, wondering if Dick would be jealous to know that she noticed all these things about another man. It would be ridiculous, though, because she thought that Dick could easily compare favorably to the vigilante should they stand side by side. Dick's eyes alone would place him several points ahead in the drop-dead gorgeous category.
"What the . . . God damn it! I am going to strangle that bastard when I get my hands on him!"
The familiarity of the voice that filtered from the other side of the hood startled her.
Dick? What was he doing here? How could he have even known she was still stranded in the parking lot?
"Try starting the car now," Dick told her.
"O-okay," she stammered, sliding the key into the ignition and turning it. The car made an aborted attempt to start. It sounded terrible, but was better than the simple clicking noise that had mocked her earlier attempts.
When had he arrived? Why had he not spoken to her yet? She bent her head down to peek through that little opening where the hood was hinged, and blinked. She saw only one figure, and he was in black.
"Try it again, now," Dick's voice floated to her.
Elle's mouth dropped open.
She slid out of the car and stood up slowly; peering carefully around the hood. Nightwing was leaning over the engine twisting something or another. No one else was with him.
"Elle, start the car . . ."
Oh my God . . .
REACTIONS? OPINIONS? COMMENTS? C'mon, don't make me beg . . .