An Unlikely Encounter ch.28

CHAPTER 28

"Oh good. You're awake,"

Bruce strolled through the entrance quietly and gracefully. So much so, that he did as if he had been born to perform that one move his entire life.

He was wearing casual loose-fitting dark blue jeans that somehow arranged itself to fit perfectly against his shapely legs, and he was currently in the process of straitening out his crisp, white-button down shirt, giving me the impression that he had recently just put it on. His hair looked a bit scruffy and messed-up, like I assumed it would if he'd just recently woken up, and there might have been the slightest hint of a five o' clock shadow on his face.

In short, he looked like sex on a stick.  

"I woke up almost an hour ago," I responded distractedly, taking in the way his clothing hung on his body.

Bruce's eyes swept around the room quickly, searching for something. He glanced at me for a moment, and then continued his search.

"Are you hungry?" He asked still spinning around looking, "I thought I'd asked Alfred to get you some food, but maybe I--oh." Bruce finally spotted the two trays of food on a small table right behind him, and it might've been my imagination, but I could have sworn that I saw a hint of color flash over his cheeks before it went away.

Bruce ran his fingers through his dark hair, which only served to mess it up further. I had to blink a few times because I became momentarily speechless from the sheer masculinity and sexual prowess that practically oozed from his body.

I looked up at his face only to see that his mouth was moving, and belatedly realized that he was currently in the process of trying to tell me something. I then took a second to get my mind out of the gutter and focus on what he was saying.

"--ink it might be best to get you into a shower. I'm sure you'd like one after your whole ordeal,"

I almost moaned in happiness at the thought of finally getting a chance to take a real shower with warm water, and not one of those--those hoses that I was forced to use when I was with the Joker.

Bruce was looking at me a bit strangely, and in that moment, I prayed to God that I hadn't actually moaned at the thought of a shower. Bruce stood up a bit straighter and cleared his throat before speaking.

"Well, I'm sure you'd like some privacy to change. Shower's down the hall to your left," Bruce gestured vaguely in that direction, "and feel free to help yourself to anything you see in there. I'll just . . ," Bruce trailed off and began to turn away to leave.

My mind finally lifted from a deep haze long enough to allow coherent though to process through it. I had questions for Bruce, and I had to ask them before I forgot.

"Bruce!" I called, perhaps a bit too urgently.

Bruce flipped around, his eyes wild and he searched my body for any injuries. I waved his eyes away and cleared my throat. I was still in great need for water. Bruce saw this, picked up a glass of water from the tray Alfred had set down, and in two long strides, crossed the large room to hand it to me.

I gulped down the contents greedily before thanking him. Bruce waited patiently for me to finish, probably sensing that I had more to say.

Once I finished the water, I took a deep breath, and stared him down summoning what I hoped to be my strongest I-will-not-accept-any-bullshit-from-you face, and steeled myself. Bruce began to look a bit weary, but I ignored his caution and gathered up the questions I had for him.

"How long have I been out?" I asked with dread.

"Almost twenty-four hours,"

All the air in my lungs suddenly whooshed out. A day!? I'd been completely unconscious for an entire day? Immediately, My mind began to spin in about a million different directions, trying to wrap itself around the implications of that. I couldn't even begin to think of all that I could have missed while I was out. The Joker could've been shot down for all I knew, and the police could've caught on to my involvement in his schemes. Hell there could be a warrant out for my arrest and-and-

Bruce was watching me freak the fuck out over this and he quickly came to put a hand on my shoulder comfortingly. Slowly, my heart rate stabilized.

"Alright," I conceded, pausing as i was still getting used to the idea, "but, how exactly did I get here?"

Bruce thought for a moment about how to answer that, before sighing deeply and taking a seat on the edge of the large, circular bed and bending at the waist to put his elbows on his knees.

"How much do you remember from what happened at Wayne Enterprises?" Bruce asked quietly.

"Nothing."

Bruce blinked in surprise at the casual tone of my voice, before quickly recovering.

"Oh." Bruce chuckled lightly and ran his fingers through his hair, "Well then, um, wow. So much to say; where do I begin?"

"How about at the end?" Bruce looked at me, once again surprised. He then tilted his head and raised an eyebrow, asking me a silent question.

"Roxanne," I answered as way of explanation.

The confused look he wore melted from his face when he heard the name, and his lips formed the shape of a little 'o" of recognition. Bruce then shook his head good-naturedly and smiled at me.

"I take it you've met her. . ?" I ask tentatively.

"I have," Bruce confirmed, chuckling a bit. I raised my eyebrow questioningly at him and he continued to shake his head. He then looked away from me as if he were lost in a memory.

"That girl would not allow me in this room longer than ten minutes." Bruce mused, "She kept questioning me about my intentions towards you, and she fretted over your sleeping form like a mother protecting her child," Bruce chuckled deeper.

"Never in my life have I seen someone so fiercely loyal to another like that," Bruce turned and threw a thousand-watt smile my way, "I thought her glare alone would incinerate me on the spot."  

I smiled at that, because only Roxanne would act that way. Not that I wouldn't do the exact same thing for her . . .

"What I don't understand though," Bruce continued slowly, snapping my attention back to our conversation, "is why your friend didn't immediately tell you where you were?"

I smiled sheepishly and cleared my throat.

"Uh, well, I'm not sure if she actually acquired that information or not; she'd been a bit preoccupied by her anger with my irresponsibility and lack of communication while I was . . . away,"

I gave him a meaningful look.

"Ah," Was all he said.

"Anyways, what I meant by 'start at the end', was that she had already filled me in on what happened in Wayne Enterprises after I passed out right up she herself had gone unconscious."

Bruce looked taken back for a moment but quickly recovered himself. "Well," Bruce began, "since I wasn't really around when your friend . . ."

"Roxanne," I supplied.

"When your friend Roxanne passed out, I can't quite continue the story from that point, but," Bruce paused to stare directly into my eyes, "I can tell you what happened to Joker."

The sound of his name alone sped up my heart. Not necessarily for the reason one might expect . . . Well, maybe that too, but it mostly stemmed from anxiety and fear.

I sat up a bit in the bed and tried to inch a bit closer to Bruce, ensuring that nothing he was about to say would be missed, and at the same time keeping my promise to take it easy. Bruce caught this and took it as confirmation to begin.

Bruce gave me a hard stare. "First, I wanna know just how much you've been told."

I took a moment to remember Roxanne's story. "All I know so far is that I was sent out with Roxanne and another goon to be taken to a van that was hidden somewhere outside the building after I destroyed the Detonator." I said, "She told me that they barely had enough time to get away before they heard what they thought to be the police bursting into the room and shooting off multiple rounds."

"Okay good. I'm sure I can provide you with a sufficient amount of information from that point, because that's where things got interesting."

Bruce glanced at me one more time before engaging in the story.

"Well, your friend was right, the police did enter the room. However, they certainly weren't the ones to initiate all that gunfire. That began via the Joker's panicked henchmen, which, in itself wouldn't be too strange under the circumstances, but the Joker apparently wasn't the one to send off that attack. The madman just stood there and observed the entire ordeal. One of the officers said that the Joker looked angry, but that was pretty much it. His mind wasn't attached to the situation at hand, and when the officers finally took him in, he just held out his hands and let them cuff him. Although," Bruce paused to look directly at me when he said this, "that furious expression never left his face; no hysterical laughing, no secretive smiles, just pure, unadulterated rage."

There was a pause.

"And you think I was the source of all his fury." It wasn't a question, and the look on Bruce's handsome face confirmed my suspicions.

Bruce put his head in his hands and then ran his fingers through his hair, sighing deeply. He looked pained when he finally spoke.

"Actually," Bruce said with a sigh, his eyes downcast, "I KNOW that you were the source."

I raised an eyebrow. "How do you know?"

Bruce didn't respond. Instead, he climbed onto the bed, shocking the hell out of me, and reached over to the other side where there was a small table with a lamp and a remote controller that I hadn't noticed. His proximity allowed me a clear view of Bruce's chiseled torso, and I was helpless to do anything but admire his strong physique.

Bruce then pulled away and sat back in his previous spot. He pressed a button on the remote, which served to reveal a large television set that appeared when the wall to my left flipped around, only to reveal what was probably the largest flat screen TV I've seen outside of a movie theatre.

Bruce pressed a few buttons, and then we saw a pretty reporter standing outside of Arkham jail with a short, pudgy man dressed in white robes behind her; what caught me though, was the disturbingly haunted look in the man's eyes.

"--Patient 4055, currently known as the Joker is being held custody over at Arkham; a holding facility in Gotham City for the mentally unstable. Reports came in about the madman, saying that he hasn't uttered one word since the twenty-four hours he's been here. Police seem to say that 'He looks like he might be planning something', but the doctors over at the facility haven't been successful in communicating with him.

"I have here with me Dr. Van Goodman, a psychologist who has been assigned the Joker's case." The reporter turned around to face the man who fidgeted uncomfortably under her gaze.

"Now, Dr. Van Goodman, the public wants to know. Why do you think the Joker is acting this way? Do you think he's plotting something? Was he injured mentally? What's your take on the situation?"

The reporter flung the microphone into the poor man's face and looked to him eagerly. Dr. Van Goodman regarded the reporter nervously and pulled on the collar of his dress shirt.

"Well, patient 4055 is a rather," The doctor paused, searched for the right word, "Delicate . . . case. But, in all the years that we've seen the patient in this hospital, we've never quite encountered him . . . as such,"

"Yes, well do you think caused this change in the Joker's demeanor?" The reporter asked impatiently.

"Well, keep in mind that the joker didn't REALLY change TOO much. For example, he still engages in, um, 'mind games' with the other doctors he's just retains his constant foul behavior." Dr. Van Goodman looked as if he were gathering his wits about something important.

I looked over at Bruce questioningly, but I couldn't catch his eye—he was too focused on what was going on in the news.

"The major change with patient 4055," The man finally said,  "is that apparently he . . . keeps calling out for, uh, his pet cat."

There was a pregnant pause as the realization began to dawn.

The reporter looked a bit angry. "The Joker, the madman, sociopath, serial killer is in Arkham calling out . . . for his pet cat?" The reporter looked to be in pure disbelief over the matter. She'd obviously been expecting something much more revealing; like perhaps a confession, or a name.

The look on the doctor's face though, told me that he knew just how insignificant it sounded, and had a hard time believing it himself.

The reporter frowned and faced back towards the camera. "Well," The reporter sighed, "There you have it folks, the Joker's missing his pet cat. Join us for more on this story right after a word from our sponsors,"

The show went to commercials, and Bruce turned off the T.V. The wall flipped back around and a heavy silence coated us.

I was finding this situation I put myself in to be a bit difficult to swallow. I can't imagine how I could've possibly fucked up so bad to land myself here. I do recall smashing the little detonator back at Wayne Enterprises that night, but in Roxanne's story, she made it seem like the Joker wasn't all that affected by it.

But of course I did something. I always find a way to fuck up. In fact, I'm surprised I didn't get him to want to kill me sooner!

"Hey, look at me," Bruce ordered. I turned to look at him only to see him frowning at me as if he heard my thoughts. "I can see that whatever you were just thinking, it's wrong, and you need to stop."

I only sighed and shook my head slightly.

"Yeah, well, this is unbelievably typical for me to get myself into these types of situations."

"Katherine," Bruce reached over and took my chin in his fingers forced me to look at him, "listen to me. You did nothing wrong. You hear me? Nothing. That--that," Bruce gestured vaguely to the space where the television was, "thing, isn't human, and is often highly irrational. It's obvious that you have no clue as to why he would have reason to be upset with you, so there's absolutely no reason to blame yourself!"

"I obviously did something wrong." I protested stubbornly with my chin still tucked in his fingers.

Bruce gave me a dour look.

"You saw him!"

"Yes I did, but Katherine, he could be angry with you for a number of different reasons. They don't all have to be because you were at fault."

I chose not to respond to his words, because deep down I knew inexplicably that I was I who messed up. If only I could just remember what I did to--

"Regardless of the reasoning behind the Joker's hostile behavior," Bruce continued, "I'm going to do everything in my power to ensure your safety. That is why I decided that you'll be residing in my mansion with me for a while."

My eyes widened to almost comical proportions. I blinked a few times. Clearly I had misunderstood him. Did he just ask me to live here with him?

Bruce flushed a bit upon seeing my reaction to his words, and was quick to correct himself.

"Well, not necessarily with me, in that way, just consider it as us, um, room mating in order to protect you."

My expression didn't change.

"Okay, maybe not quite like that either," Bruce amended quickly, "Just consider it a kind deed from a friend. I'll make sure that living here will be a simple partnership between--By partnership I of course mean friendship. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I wouldn't mind a--not to say that my intention was for you and I to become partners--there wouldn't be anything wrong with that, but uh--you're a very beautiful woman and so of course I, um--"

At that point I couldn't hold back my smile. This was coming from the guy rumored to be the smoothest Casanova type Alpha male in the city.

Bruce's face reddened slightly and that's when I had to cover my mouth with my hand to hide my full-fledged grin. Who knew that such a sexy man could act like this?

'Roxanne would love to see this,' I thought, highly amused.

Bruce looked like he was getting prepared to say something to defend himself again, but before he could get the words out, the door burst open unexpectedly revealing a rather frazzled-looking Roxanne, eyes wild with fear, a phone clutched tightly to her chest.

She couldn't speak for a few moments, but finally she swallowed and told me the worst possible news I could hear at this time.

"The Joker . . . Katherine, the Joker, he--he escaped!"