Batman Begins/Dark Knight Does It Come In Black?

**Does It Come In Black?**

She had been asked to wait and she didn't like that, especially since she suspected he was doing it on purpose. She had come prepared for a difficult encounter, but how was she supposed to face him if he wasn't there? This was going to be one tough fight.

A tall, white haired man with a distinguished demeanor had welcomed her at the door and invited her into a large living room, and she had graciously trotted behind him, her high heels making little noise on the marble floors. "Master Bruce will be with you in a moment. May I offer you something while you wait? A drink perhaps?"

"Soda, thank you." She had given him a pleasant smile and taken a seat on one of the couches. _Not bad for a five star hotel_, she thought. She crossed her legs and rested her hands on her knees, waiting patiently. _He'd better not make me wait long… _or that nice smile was going to turn into a ferocious grin and Mr. Wayne better not face her without wearing his armor in that case.

So now she was waiting in a fancy apartment on the 14th floor of one of the most expensive hotels in the city for her date for the evening, a man who seemed in no hurry to show up. _It's not a date,_ she reminded herself, _it's a business meeting_. One more reason for him not to be late.

In another part of the extended apartment, Bruce Wayne entered through a private entrance and sent his briefcase flying on the waxed floor down the corridor, until it stopped at the feet of his extraordinarily patient butler, who picked it up with a sigh to carry it to his master's office.

"Hello, Alfred. Is dinner ready? I'm starved!"

"Dinner _and _company are waiting, sir."

"Company?" the word made him stop and he frowned. He couldn't remember having any special plans for the evening and he was enjoying the idea of spending it home, in front of the TV for a change. Of course, having inopportune guests was not something unusual for this house but he had hoped… for once… he had really hoped… ahhh!

"Sorry, Sir, no dinner in front of the TV tonight," Alfred said as if he was reading Bruce's mind. "Aside from that, it's bad for you."

"I'm not a kid anymore, Alfred, stop pampering me."

"Yes, I've noticed, Sir. It's time for someone else to do the pampering… like the young lady waiting in the living room."

"Brunette… long wavy hair… dark brown eyes… tinny waist…" Bruce said, narrowing his eyes in remembrance.

"And nice legs." Alfred completed the portrait showing that, even at his old age, he could appreciate beauty in a woman. "Yes, Sir, that's the one. Now, shall you change your clothes _before_ she decides she has better things to do than wait for you? You can't charm her with the Bat suit, after all," he pointed out with the tone he used when he was making fun of his master.

"No, she already…" _knows_. Did she? He stopped to wonder.

"Excuse me, Sir?"

"Nothing." He shook his head as if that could make the bad thoughts go away and went to his private quarters to change.

"Your soda, Miss." The butler returned with a tray carrying her drink, along with a glass of scotch.

"Thank you, Alfred." Bruce came into the room right after him and picked up his glass nonchalantly from the tray on his way to her. "I apologize for making you wait." He nodded at the young woman. "Business…" he gave her a vague excuse.

"Good evening, Mr. Wayne." Her voice sounded calm and relaxed, while her dark eyes blinked slowly, like those of a lazy cat though full of life inside.

"Please call me Bruce." His eyes rested on her face for a long, intense moment, before he turned his attention to his drink. He sat in an armchair facing her and laid back comfortably.

"I hope you are not too hungry, Miss. Dinner will be served momentarily," Alfred said before leaving the room.

"Please excuse him, he's family." Bruce explained with a shrug though there was a warm smile in his eyes.

"You are hiring family to do the house work now?" Her eyebrows rose. "That says a lot about your finances," she smirked. Somehow, she knew he wouldn't find her little joke offending.

"He's a butler _and_ family. It's the best combination," he stated.

"I don't doubt that…" she murmured, using the tone of someone who knew more but couldn't, or wouldn't, talk about it. He had set the rules straight from the beginning, there were things they were never going to talk about, and she could live with it.

"I'm sorry I had to receive you here, but until the Wayne residence is rebuilt, I'm living at the hotel. I figured, since I own it, why not take advantage of it?" The smug grin that showed up on his face belonged to a man who knew he held the power.

"It's a nice hotel. I assume living here has its advantages," she smiled.

"It does," he agreed, though the number of disadvantages was much higher. For example, it was taking him half an hour to get to his car; his _other_ car. "Alfred hates it. He can't wait to get back to his old kitchen." Of course, that old kitchen didn't exist anymore, it had disappeared into the fire, was going to be a brand new one. "The construction and all the decorations should be ready in a couple of weeks." There was a bit of excitement in his voice as he said that. Yes, it was his home, he knew it now.

"And whose fault is that, Sir?" the butler replied appearing in the doorway. Bruce just smirked showing no sign that the remark had bothered him. There were risks in his line of work that he had willingly assumed, complaining about them it would have meant a waste of time. "Dinner is ready," Alfred announced and held the door open for them to pass through then he went ahead on the corridor leading the way.

It wasn't a long walk, but from what she got to see it looked like Mr. Wayne was occupying an entire floor. Given the butler's perfect manners, she wondered if they were going to eat at a twelve seat table, each of them being seated at one end, while Alfred would do his daily exercise routine running from one end to the other to serve them both, but no, when the door opened there was a round, nicely arranged table waiting for them, and no candles, thank God!

"The cook here is awful so I had to bring my own," Bruce told her as Alfred held her chair for her. "Mrs. Humphrey is excellent at her work, you'll find her food quite appealing, I'm sure."

"Another family member?" she grinned.

"A very whiney family member," he commented.

"Life in the city doesn't agree with Mrs. Humphry," Alfred said, serving them appetizers. "She's been robbed twice since moving here, and once by the very flying creature who calls himself Batman."

"You've gotta be kidding me! What could he possibly want from her? Her roller?" she burst into laughter, at which Bruce didn't hold back a grimace.

"He had apparently run out of gas and had to borrow her car. Ever since then, she leaves strawberry muffins on the passenger seat. 'The poor man needs to keep his strength.'" he mimicked a woman's voice and rolled his eyes. "I tell you, he'll need to watch his weight soon."

"Alfred, you've been eating Mrs. Humphry's food for the past thirty years. What could a few poor muffins do?" Bruce laughed.

"For once, he might not fit into the rubber suit. It stretches but not _that_ much, or at least that's what I have heard." He shrugged. "I do watch my diet, Sir, and I am not impulsive, like this Batman creature seems to be. Have you ever seen a Bat with bulimia, Miss? It's not a pretty sight." he shook his head.

"Oh, I can imagine, having to stop at every corner to throw up!" she chuckled.

"Can we stop talking about Batman? He's… he's yesterday's news." Bruce waved his hand vaguely in the air, dismissing Alfred, and picked up the fork and the knife.

"Can we discuss business then?" she replied with a grin.

"Business…" he repeated pensively. There was nothing to discuss. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing that she could say or do to make him change his expansion plans regarding the company she was working for. It had been merely an excuse to see her again, knowing that she would take the bait, but he had no intention to discuss business with her. "What do you want to know?"

"There's one thing I don't understand." She started focusing on cutting a slice of cheese in small pieces. "Wayne Enterprises owns several major players in the computer world. Why would you want our firm?"

"I don't. I want the building. I've already bought the East Tower and now I'm working on buying the West one. I want to move some of the offices there. Your firm occupies an entire floor in the West Tower, but your boss refuses to sell the space and move, so I'm buying the company. And then you _will_ move." he explained.

"My boss will never agree to sell the company," she asserted.

"We'll see about that… his broker ran away with a large amount of his money and one of his nephews has been charged for drug possession, though he claims he's been framed."

"Was that your doing?" Her eyes narrowed at him. It made her wonder how far would he be willing to go to get that stupid building.

"Of course not, but I can help him prove the kid's innocent. Any man can be bought, you just need to find the right buttons to push," Bruce claimed. "The price I'm offering is more than fair, he'll have to accept it sooner or later."

_Not if I have anything to say in this_, she promised herself. People like this, so confident and powerful, got on her nerves.

"Like you said, we'll see about that." She smiled sweetly at him.

"Hmm…" He preferred to keep his opinion to himself. Why ruin her hopes? There was nothing interesting in this particular game for him, since he already knew how it would end, he had played it tons of times before, boring. Now there was an idea, why shouldn't he make it a little interesting? "I won't be persuaded to change my plans, but you are welcome to try to make me," he grinned teasingly.

"Should I feel insulted by this proposition?" her eyebrows rose inquiringly.

"Not at all. I didn't say _how_ to do it." The corners of his mouth twisted up and a little sparkle put a devilish light in his dark eyes. "It's your call."

"I don't play fair," she warned him.

"Me neither," he retorted.

"I know…" The whisper was covered by Alfred's return with the main course.

The trolley was pushed near the table and he changed their plates with new ones loaded with food.

"I don't think I can eat all this." She eyed the mountain of food placed in front of her with regret. It looked good and smelled even better.

"Mrs. Humphrey still believes I'm a growing boy. I guess I'll never be a grown up to her," Bruce chuckled, smiling at the warm food. He'd tried to hold back on the appetizers to show at least some manners and was still hungry.

"Eat your vegetables, Sir. And you, Miss, don't forget to leave room for dessert," Alfred advised before retiring.

"You mean there's more food to come?" She looked over the four, no five, plates displayed in a semicircle in front of her, matching the five others brought for Bruce, and the giant salad bowl. "Is this your strategy? Invite every single enemy and stuff them until they explode?" she joked.

"We're not enemies," he contradicted calmly, preparing to attack a huge steak. "And you asked for a meeting."

"You said dinner," she reminded him.

"I would have agreed with anything…" It slipped and his knifed froze for a moment in the air while he considered his statement. Her eyes had opened wide in surprise but he ignored it and, smiling, he continued with pedantry, "You didn't play your cards right."

"I don't usually go straight for the kill."

"Do you… ever?" He lifted his eyes to stare at her.

"Sometimes," she murmured, hypnotized and finding herself unable to turn her own gaze away from him.

"Good, then I won't have to regret having been too hard on you… or treat you with gloves."

"Do you… ever?" She returned the question.

He had to think before answering. "Not really," he said, with one of those sarcastic expressions that were a trademark of his.

"Good, 'cause I'm a fervent supporter of animal's rights… and I'm allergic to rubber," she smirked.

At this, he nearly choked on the piece of meat he was chewing.

"Is everything alright, Bruce?" she asked innocently, half raising from her seat to pat him on the back.

"It's fine…" he muttered, taking a drink. "So we agreed to not hold back and be merciless. What does this make us?" he wondered.

"Feral?" she suggested.

"Competitors." He gesticulated with his knife. "What are we competing for?" He pretended to have forgotten the main reason of their meeting.

"_My_ floor."

"Oh, right, your floor." He nodded "Well, not for long…"

"Does throwing knives classify as dirty fight?" she deadpanned inspecting the cutlery.

It made him laugh. "This is going to be a fun fight. Too bad there has to be a winner and a loser in the end." He didn't sound like he was really regretting it though.

"Can't we have a truce when we get bored of fighting?" she asked quietly. Was she getting soft? It didn't sound like her at all.

"Chickening out already?" he teased her.

"Never," she smirked, "though this thing scares me. What is it?" she poked cautiously at the odd looking mixture from one of the plates.

"Don't ask." He rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't eat it if I were you."

"You ate yours."

"I'm used to it, but it can put you in the hospital for a week."

Her fork scooped out a tiny piece from the mixture and she slowly inserted it into her mouth. "It's strange," she had to agree, "but not bad." She tried it again.

"Well, I did my best to stop you," he sighed. "If morning finds you in the hospital, send me the bill," he joked.

"OK, OK, I'll stop," she chuckled and put the fork down. "But what am I supposed to do with this?" She pointed at the rest of the food. "I really enjoyed it all, I don't want Mrs. Humphrey to think that I didn't, but it's… too much!"

"The trick is to take out a bit of everything so she won't know for sure how much did you eat," he lectured her and, digging a hole in the middle of the large salad bowl, he hid there small portions of food from all of the plates. "There."

"This is ridiculous!" she chuckled. "She'll find out anyway."

"True. But first she'll be happy thinking we ate and then she will laugh, remembering I used to do it as a kid." He found a decent explanation.

"You had one naughty childhood," she laughed.

"He most certainly did." Alfred sighed demonstratively, once again quietly entering the room to do his job as the perfect butler that he was. "What has he done this time? The salad trick?" He shook his head at her confirmation. "Did you really have to do that, Master Bruce?" He took a long look at the salad bowl.

"I was just entertaining our guest," Bruce smiled cheekily and, for a moment, he looked just like the kid he had once been. Then the mask slipped back in place and he reverted to being the multimillionaire Bruce Wayne. "We'll have the dessert in the library, Alfred," he announced and raised one hand to show her the way.

Again the butler went ahead to open the doors for them and, when they arrived, he asked her, "Would you like a coffee, Miss?"

"No, thank you." She smiled and settled on one of the comfortable couches covered in soft leather.

"We'll have a cognac," Bruce decided for her.

"I'll bring the cake then." Alfred nodded and left.

Walking to the bar hidden in one of the walls, Bruce picked a Napoleon cognac bottle and poured two crystal glasses, one of which he handed one to her.

"Should I worry about the cake too?" she joked and took a small sip from the glass.

"Yes. It's addictive."

"In that case, I might steal your cook."

"Or, I could just keep you here."

"Against my will?"

"Who said anything about that?"

"Mrs. Humphrey apologizes if the cake is too soft, she was busy with the muffins and forgot to pull it out of the sauce in time." Alfred returned with two generous slices of chocolate cake dripping with chocolate sauce.

"Now this I can't possibly refuse, even if I ate too much already," she mused, looking at the content of the plate placed in front of her, practically salivating. "Ummm… this is delicious." Eyes rolled in her head after the first bite.

"I told you it wouldn't be against your will," Bruce teased working on his own dessert.

More attention was paid to the cake than to conversation, until the plates were left clean and they pushed them aside.

"I'm full, I need a crane to pick me up and carry me home," she sighed and then giggled at the bad joke. The cognac was bringing color to her cheeks, it must have been stronger than it appeared to be.

"We don't have any Crane here, would a Batman do?" he replied dryly, not finding it funny at all.

"If he comes with the car…" she grinned and easily jumped off the couch and started walking around the room, looking at the paintings, book covers and the small piano placed near a wall.

His eyes went up and down, admiring her slim figure, all the curves in the right places, the way her dark wavy hair bounced on her back and shoulders, the silk of the bra he could mostly guess through the lace of her blouse, the natural sway of her hips and the skirt ending just above her round knees, which continued with perfectly shaped calves and delicate ankles on top of high heels.

"Always the car, chicks love the car…" he muttered ironically and then stopped to wonder where he had heard those words before.

"OK, now I feel insulted!" she chuckled glancing at him from above her shoulder and smirked, noticing where his eyes were staring. "I am not a chick," she stated, head turning back to look at Degas' gracious ballerinas that were dancing above the piano, while her hands hovered, distracted, over the ivory keys, not making any sound.

"No, you're my worst enemy…" because she was making him fight against himself.

When had he moved so fast? One second he was on the couch, drinking cognac, and the next he was standing right behind her, breathing down her neck. She could physically feel his presence close to her although he wasn't touching her yet, and she drew in a shallow breath, thinking about what might have happened if he had.

Bruce wasn't thinking that much; he settled for inhaling her scent, that perfume of hers that was driving him crazy each time she was near, while another portion of his brain was busy struggling to control the urge to pin her against the wall and ravish her like mad. But no, that was something that maybe the Bat would do, animal instinct coming first, but not him. With regret his hands traced the outline of her body, tracing her shape in the air, still without touching her. Never had two souls been so close in this world than they were in that unique moment frozen in time.

"I don't want to be your enemy…" she whispered breathlessly.

"And yet, we will always be." He murmured the cruel truth in her ear, his warm lips brushing lightly against her earlobe, kissing it a moment later.

Her body arched against him, eyes snapping shut as her head fell to one side to allow more access for his hot lips on her neck. Those lips didn't hesitate to claim ownership over the newly discovered territory and his hands came to life too, first resting on her shoulders only to move around her waist and run up and down her stomach, down to her hips and then back up to cup those firm breasts, a move that made a low moan emerge from somewhere deep inside her chest.

The sweet torture didn't stop there; after fondling her breasts to the point that each touch became painfully arousing, the magic hands traveled down again, along her thighs, over the thin fabric of her skirt, only to move back up this time on the inside of the skirt, pulling the material up with them. Her knees buckled long before they reached their destination and her own hands landed hard on the piano keys in a desperate attempt to support her weight, making a discordant noise that sounded odd in the silence reigning inside the room, disturbed only by their heavy breathing. By the way he was pressing against her she could feel she had a similar effect on him as he had on her.

"Ahem…" a discreet cough broke the spell, waking them back to reality. "Lucius Fox is on the phone for you, Sir," Alfred announced.

Fingers clamped painfully on the inside of her thighs and his head fell on her shoulder with a frustrated groan. Then he drew himself up to full height, straightened his jacket and ran a hand through his hair saying, "I'll be right back," and he went to answer the phone in the other room.

Still feeling the effects of what had just happened, she waited a long second to catch her breath before straightening her own clothes, running both hands through her hair. When she turned around, Alfred was still there, busying himself with gathering the plates and their glasses and thankfully not staring at her. The man was treating Bruce like he was his son, or grandson, and she felt like she had to say something to explain what he had just witnessed. But, how could she explain it to him, when she couldn't explain it to herself.

A thought struck like lightning; maybe this sort of scene was not so out of ordinary in Bruce's home and that was why the butler didn't look shocked. The idea made her pale in horror.

"He's not like that," Alfred said suddenly, as if he was reading her mind, though he kept his eyes down. "He might act like that at times, but he is not."

"If you say so…" she muttered not knowing what to believe anymore.

"I know him better than anyone." This time he raised his eyes. "You'll have to trust me. And yourself. You don't have to trust him though," he added with a little smirk that brought a faint smile on her face.

"Thank you…"

"My pleasure, Miss. It was about time for him to find someone right for him."

The comment made her blush. She wasn't sure she was the right one for him and she seriously doubted he was the right one for her, but one could never tell.

"Alfred, we'll be having a house opening party two weeks from now," Bruce said as he came back into the library. "We're inaugurating the new Wayne residence. Make sure to invite the regulars and don't forget to add to the list the name of our new friend here." He smiled at her.

"Two weeks, Sir? That's not possible. The curtains won't be ready by then," Alfred protested.

"There will be a full moon outside, who needs curtains?" he replied.

"Master Bruce, even you can't have a full moon just like that," he snapped his fingers, "when you want it."

"Alfred… there _will_ be a full moon two weeks from now," she said in a quiet voice.

"Oh? Oh… Will you excuse me, I have a reception to prepare." He left without another word.

"Think he'll manage to get everything ready in two weeks?" She turned to smirk at Bruce.

"I don't doubt it. He's the best butler one can have," he replied confidently. He took a long look at her, but the magic was gone and now only the teasing was left. "I'm sorry we'll have to end the evening so soon. There was a problem at the lab and Lucius is coming over so we can fix it," he explained and this time he sounded sincere. He really regretted that he had to part with her.

"It's alright, I understand. Work always has to come first, right?" There was some degree of sarcasm in her voice as she said that.

"Unfortunately," he sighed. "Let me walk you to the door. The chauffeur will take you home," he told her. "I think it went well, for a first meeting, but the negotiations are far from being over, don't you think?" he said once they got to the entrance hall.

"I couldn't agree more." Her grin was complacent, matching his.

"Good." He nodded lightly. "I'll see you at the party."

"Yes. I already know what to bring you as a house opening gift."

"Oh, really?" His eyes lit at the idea of a present coming from her. "Does it come in black?"

She was still laughing when she walked out of the elevator.

THE END


End file.

Batman Begins/Dark Knight, Drama, Romance