A/N: This is a prequel to a longer story, which would have been my first with a different main villain than Ra’s al Ghul. However, I’m starting to draw for False Dawn, and since fanfiction doesn’t pay bills, the continuation of this story cannot be written at this time. BUT! I couldn’t get this idea from my mind.
This is my last fanfiction story. Thank you for all your support.
Devin Leigh Michaels, June 19, 2010
“Runaways”
The cold,
The fierce Batman treaded into the room and pulled off his cowl, revealing the handsome and blue-blooded Bruce Wayne. “I was held up. Riddler escaped.”
Turning over on the bed, she lay on her propped up elbows, a goddess in front of one of the most powerful men in the world. “Then you must be tense. Come. Let me relax you.”
After he stripped his cape and boots, he fell effortlessly into her arms and granted her a passionate kiss. Beautiful and exotic, Silver was much like the many other women in Bruce’s life, but unlike the usual Barbie dolls, she knew what he did at night. She knew who he was under the cowl and accepted him, and for that, she was breathtaking.
His tunic tossed, his tights off, Bruce was rediscovering parts of her body when his belt vibrated.
Silver threw back her head. “You keep your cell phone in your utility belt?”
Bruce didn’t stop his caresses but freed his cell. “I grabbed it from the car before I came up.”
“It’s from him, isn’t it?” Silver demanded, lifting Bruce’s lips from her skin. “Isn’t it?”
Yes, it was.
“Silver’s the cheapest kind of jewelry. Y don’t u like platinum?” Bruce read over her shoulder.
He immediately disengaged from her immaculate body. “I have to go.”
“Oh, please.” Silver sat up, still a devastating beauty with her hair curling about her radiant cheeks. “He knew you were coming here tonight, didn’t he?”
Bruce gathered his suit. “Good night, Silver.”
“When will
you learn like every other member of
He disappeared into her closet. “Did I leave a set of clothes here once? After we went to that underprivileged children walk?”
“
A tightly pressed, unfathomably handsome Bruce Wayne walked out of the closet wearing black slacks, sweater, and jacket. With a duffle, he scooped up his uniform and leaned to kiss Silver on the lips. She turned her head to side, allowing him to kiss her cheek.
“Good night, Silver.”
Bruce heard her frustrated growl and the shattering of a vase against the door. He laughed to himself as he exited the penthouse and hit on his cell phone. “Car, transform, Spyder.”
As Bruce rounded the bend and entered the alley, the Batmobile finished it change to a Lamborghini Spyder. Bruce tossed the duffle into the back seat and screeched out of the alley.
Once he was on Route One, he spoke, “Alfred, line one. Go discreet.”
Less than a moment later, Alfred’s tired face popped onto the video console. “Master Bruce, I see you are fully clothed this time.”
“Situation?”
“He’s awake
and awaiting for your arrival in the study.
“I’ll be there in two.”
“Very good.”
*^*^*
Darkness draped its presence across his study when Bruce entered, but the moon still cast a glow upon the boy sitting cross-legged in the massive chair behind the desk. He was young, barely a teenager, and built like an athlete, wearing a T-shirt that could not hide his muscles. His snap-up pants held his legs snuggly, and his young face, bright eyes, and dark hair mimicked Bruce.
“You should be in bed,” he began, already feeling lighter. The shadows of the night broke from their embrace upon him, and Bruce Wayne lived once more.
The boy nursed a Batman mug of cocoa in his hands. “Are you going to marry her?”
Bruce took a seat across from the boy. “I don’t know how that is any of your business.”
“She’d be my stepmother. That makes it my business.”
It did. “I don’t know.”
“Why her? She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
The boy shook his head. “Have you
heard her? She wants to send me to
“It’s a good school.”
“It’s a boarding school. Haven’t you ever watched a single Disney movie?”
“I believe I’ve watched every single one with you.”
“Then hello! Wicked stepmother—Exhibit A!”
Bruce didn’t try to hold back his laughter. “Don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic?”
The boy whined. “Why couldn’t you marry Vicki or Selina or Diana? Why do you have to like her?”
Bruce leaned back in his seat, his hands crossed gently. “She accepts me for who I am.”
“Yeah, and so does every bottle blonde with a fake boobs,” the boy snorted.
“That’s enough, Dick,” Bruce admonished. “When you’re older, you’ll understand.”
“I’m fourteen. I already understand,” the boy countered. “What I don’t get is why you dumped Vicki two weeks before your wedding? Or why Selina just stopped coming around? And I bet Diana just don’t you, didn’t she?”
Bruce laughed lively. An easy and natural smile parted his lips. “Why do you only question me about the women you like? Why not about Jasmine or—”
Dick’s face scrunched. “Why do you have to date so many?”
The truthful question deserved a truthful response. “I haven’t found the right one.”
“Not since Mom, huh?” Dick’s antagonistic tone immediately vanished, and he sat back the chair, mimicking Bruce’s pose. “Is that why you dumped Vicki? Because she wasn’t Mom?”
Bruce thought. “Your mother was a very special person, Dick. Vicki and I just weren’t meant to be together.”
“It was because she found out your big secret, didn’t she? She knew about Mom.”
“Dick—”
“Who was she? Why don’t you ever talk about her? Why do you refuse to tell me?”
Bruce sighed. The conversation had been battled since Dick first attended kindergarten and discovered most people have two parents—a mom and a dad. Bruce used to deflect, telling the boy the truth would one day surface. When Dick was six, that argument worked. As he grew, the demands for the past came more frequently and intensely, and the truth became harder and harder to keep buried.
Finally, Bruce put up a hand. “Leave it alone, Dick. When the time is right, I’ll tell you. Until then—”
“Is it someone I know?” Dick continued. “It’s Selina, isn’t it? Summer Gleason once wrote—”
“Ms. Gleason wasn’t there when you were conceived, so do not believe her rumors. For now, let it go.”
“But—”
“The discussion is over,” he said without a hint of anger in his voice. “The sooner you realize that, the less frustrated you will be.”
“Y’know, I get why you didn’t tell
the paparazzi I was born, and everyone knows the story about how Alfred
couldn’t get me to sleep when I was a toddler, and he brought me to one of your
functions and I called you ‘Daddy.’ I practically grew up in the
The helplessness in the boy’s voice always cracked the Dark Knight’s heart, and he rose from his seat to kiss the boy on the head. “Your mother loved you very much, and her decision to leave you in my care was the hardest she ever had to make. For now, please let that be enough.”
Dick stuck his tongue out. “Fine, but one day, I will figure it out, Dad, and when I do—”
Bruce ruffled the boy’s hair. “You’d be a better detective than the Batman.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Dick laughed. He kissed his father on the cheek as he passed before stopping at the door. “Dad?”
“Yes, Dick?”
“You’ll…You’ll tell me before you ask Silver to marry you, right? I mean, you just won’t run to Vegas and do it.”
Bruce crossed the short distance between him and his son and swept the boy in a tight embrace. “No matter who I marry or where it happens, you will always be there, right beside me.”
“I know, but—”
“And no matter who comes into our lives, you will always be the most important person to me. That will never change.”
Dick blushed. “Thanks, Dad.”
Bruce hit the boy on the back. “Now get to sleep. You have school tomorrow.”
A snort. “Please. It’s spring break. I thought playboy Bruce Wayne always knew when that came around.”
Bruce shrugged. “For me, it’s actually a season. Now get to bed.”
“Aye, aye, Captain!” Dick saluted and disappeared down the hall.
As soon as Dick was gone, Bruce’s face darkened, and the shadows of the night once more clung to his being. He retreated to the dark caverns of the Batcave, his body tense in his seat in front of the Crays. An older man joined him a moment later, a cup of tea with lemon and a blueberry scone accompanying him on a tray.
“I thought you might wish for a midnight snack,” Alfred offered, but the food went untouched. “After all, diverting crises makes one quite ravenous.”
“He asked about his mother again,” Bruce divulged.
Alfred nodded. “It is expected, sir. The boy is fourteen going on thirty. No doubt he wonders about other things in life as well. Possibly even where his father disappears from time to time.”
Bruce steepled his fingers. “He doesn’t know yet?”
“He has…wondered, but does he suspect the man who has raised him since birth is running around in tights and a cape at night? No, I believe he is still ignorant.”
“Good.” Bruce whirled toward the computer console. “The less he knows, the better.”
“Yes,” Alfred mocked. “Perhaps it is best that the lad does not know his father is actually an emotionally depraved crimefighter whose best friend is arguably the last known member of a dead alien race and that he does not spend many of his nights even on Earth.”
Bruce swiveled, crossing his arms and glaring at Alfred.
Still, the older man continued, “When I hear the unfaithful news that you have become a causality of one of your many space jaunts, what should I tell him? The lie, that you died while having sex with one the many vagrants you pretend to date, or the truth, that you were actually saving the world? That he never really knew his father. Bruce Wayne was the façade and Batman was the true person?”
Bruce never looked away. “He knows what he needs to know. That is all that is important.”
“And just what is that, Bruce?” Alfred asked calmly. “He doesn’t even the truth about his parentage.”
Bruce turned back toward the screen. He said nothing. He would never say anything to Alfred, for Alfred knew the truth. He had, however, said it to the boy time and time again.
Alfred placed a gentle hand on the lost man’s shoulder. “Perhaps Richard Wayne is the only one to have ever reached Bruce after his parents’ untimely deaths.”
The shadows lifted once more, and Bruce grinned lowly at Alfred. “Dick told me its spring break.”
“I did inform you of that, sir.”
“Call J’onn. Tell him to watch
“I will certainly ask, sir.”
“Then call Meredith and ask her to make the necessary arrangements.”
“Where, sir?”
Less than a moment later, Dick was jostled awake, his father’s elbow using his waist as a prop. “So...it’s spring break, you say.”
Dick rubbed the tiredness from his eyes. “Yeah, it happens once a year.”
“Then I think we should honor it,
not waste it on the boredom of
Dick’s grin widened. “Where’d you have in mind?”
Bruce matched it. “Get dressed. Pack nothing. We’ll buy everything. Meet me downstairs in five minutes.”
“You’re on!”
When Dick found his father four minutes and thirty-two seconds later, Bruce leaned against the doorframe of the foyer, dressed in fresh designer jeans and a jacket. He finished a text and slipped in cell into his pocket.
“I already called James, and he’ll have the plane prepped.” He slapped Dick on the shoulder and led him out the front door. “I was thinking Florida. Is that all right with you?”
Dick shrugged. “
“I was thinking a little higher.”
“What ‘bout you, Alfie?” Dick called, now bubbling. He jumped onto the Spyder’s door. “You coming?”
“I endeavor to be of service to Dr. Thompkins this week, young sirs,” Alfred replied, “but please do send me a postcard.”
Dick once more shared a smile with his father. “Have fun!” He swung into the car.
Bruce winked and entered as well. “Buckle up,” he ordered.
With his feet already crossed on the dashboard, Dick whined but complied. “So, were you texting Silver to meet us?”
Bruce threw the car into drive and stepped on the gas. “No. I’m more of a platinum person.”
Dick grinned and tilted his head back against the rest. “I’ve always got your back, Dad.”
“I know.”
*^*^*
Bleep! Bleep!
Silver rolled over and grabbed her phone off the bed. Hitting open a text, she gasped.
“From DeeDee: I never liked boarding schools. Too constricting. Same with girlfriends. It’s over.”
Her phone broke into a million pieces ten stories below on Madison Avenue.
THE END