fic: I'm not a sucker so I don't need a bodyguard (BTAS/AtS; Cordelia, Bruce; pg)
I'm not a sucker so I don't need a bodyguard
Batman: The Animated Series/Angel the Series; Cordelia Chase, Bruce Wayne; pg; 2,935 words
Cordelia's been in the game long enough that she can spot a secret identity from a mile away.
Thanks to
snacky for handholding and cheerleading.
~*~
I'm not a sucker so I don't need a bodyguard
Cordelia never expected to get a second (or possibly third) chance after she got to say goodbye to Angel, but with the hellmouth opening in Los Angeles and the walls between dimensions coming undone, she finds herself in Gotham. She wonders why the PTB even bothered, because really, it's not much of an improvement over the hell taking over LA. After the endless sunny sprawl of LA, Gotham is old (despite having been rebuilt within the last ten years), cold, gray and claustrophobic. Still, she's alive and there's fantastic shopping. Which she can't afford. The first non-food item she buys with the money she scrounges up working as a waitress in an all night diner is a long knife that is still short enough to require her to get way too close to anything she'd want to stab with it, but she finds it strangely comforting. She straps it to the inside of her boot because when she tried wearing a thigh holster, it kept getting tangled in her skirt.
She talks her way into a temping position at Admin-Temps; she's not sure if it's her cleavage or their desperation for warm bodies that gets her the job, but she doesn't care. She's got an only mostly fake resume, and after two weeks of answering phones and stuffing envelopes at Wayne Enterprises, she's got enough money to move out of the rent-by-the-hour motel that overlooks a gross, garbage-filled alley that may or may not have some kind of slime demons living in it, if the oily stains on the sidewalk that she steps around carefully every night are any indication.
Not her problem, she tells herself, right up until the moment she hears screaming as she's trying to hail a cab.
"Crap," she mutters. Gotham has its own heroes, or that's the word in the secretarial pool, anyway, but she's deliberately avoided those conversations, despite the fact that it sounds like what Gotham has is its own Angel. She's not going down that road again, not this time.
Still, she drops her backpack and grabs her knife. She runs into the alleyway, knife held low and out of sight. It's not slime demons or vampires, though.
"You're just a guy," she says, surprised, when she gets close enough to smell stale cigarette smoke and body odor, to see the nicotine stains on his teeth and his fingertips. He doesn't look intimidated by her, but she figures that's fair, because she's not intimidated by him. "I once faced down the Gorch brothers with nothing but a spatula, buddy. Do you think you scare me?" She looks at the girl, who seems frozen in place, though the guy isn't pressing her up against the side of the building anymore. "Run," Cordy tells her, not taking her eyes off the mugger, and the girl does, without looking back. "You might want to take this opportunity to run, too," she tells him, letting him see the knife in her hand.
His eyes get wide and his mouth drops open and Cordelia feels the smug satisfaction of knowing she scared the crap out of him, and then the sky is blotted out for a few seconds as someone else jumps down into the alley from above, and she realizes that the mugger isn't afraid of her, he's afraid of Mr. Dramatic Entrances.
The mugger's got a glass jaw; he goes down with one punch, and Mr. Cape and Pointy Ears ties him up quickly and mutters something that sounds like the address of the alley. It takes Cordelia a second to realize that he's probably got an earpiece under the cowl. Smart and experienced, she thinks, with tech and backup. Professional. It takes her a second to put it all together, but then, she'd never really believed he existed, not even after she accepted the reality of vampires and werewolves and things that go bump in the night.
"Not much for the witty banter portion of the program, huh?" she says when it looks like he's going to take off without speaking. "That's okay. My old boss wasn't very good at that part either."
He doesn't answer; his breath wreathes the lower half of his face almost as well as the cowl hides the top half. Even with the lenses blanking his eyes, she feels his gaze on her, laser-like in its focus. It makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up, but she's faced worse. She thinks he's human, which is another surprise, but breathing doesn't prove anything. Angel hadn't needed to breathe but sometimes he did anyway. Said it made him blend in better, but she thinks it just made him feel human for a little while. This guy, though, is wearing what looks like an armored suit over a body that practically vibrates with intensity, so he probably is human, or more vulnerable than a vampire, anyway.
"You shouldn't be out here," he finally says in a voice that's lower and deeper than anything she's heard that wasn't a demon or Darth Vader. "It's not safe."
"Duh." She shows him the knife. "I'm not an amateur."
He presses his lips together in an unfriendly line. "You should get home."
She huffs indignantly. "Listen, Batman--oh yeah, I figured out who you are--I grew up in Sunnydale. Gotham doesn't scare me."
"It should."
He's gone with a swirl of his cape before she can answer. She stamps her foot in frustration. She always hated it when Angel did that, too.
She goes back around to the front of the motel, and of course, her backpack is gone.
"I hate this freaking city," she mutters. At least she still has her wallet. And her knife.
*
Cordelia's morning commute sucks--she misses having a car and she's never going to get the hang of the stupid subway--and her supervisor is standing at her desk when she arrives, soaked to the skin and trying not to spill coffee all over everything.
"Cordelia."
Cordy forces herself to smile brightly. She's done more--and better--acting since she got to Gotham than she ever did in LA. "Hi, Moira."
"Mr. Fox has asked you to come up to the Executive Suite."
"Um, okay?" She moves to place her coffee on her desk.
"Bring your stuff," Moira says.
"Okay." Cordy clutches her coffee in one hand and the strap of her faux-Burberry purse in the other. She's pretty sure they wouldn't make her go up to the executive floor just to fire her, but she doesn't think she's done anything worth getting invited up to meet the CEO, either, and she's long past the days of believing that just being her fabulous self would do it. She still knows she's fabulous, but the rest of the world hasn't really caught on.
Moira leads her to a separate elevator bank and inserts her ID card into a slot before she presses the button--there's only one--for the top floor. The doors slide shut and they rise quickly. Cordelia checks her hair and makeup in the polished metal of the elevator walls--her reflection is warped, and her hair looks like she just battled a nor'easter and lost (which would be true), but her lipstick looks great. And, after a surreptitious check, she doesn't have any of it on her teeth.
The elevator dings and the doors slide open soundlessly. There's an Asian woman wearing a headset waiting. "Cordelia? I'm Lauren Zhang, Mr. Fox's chief of staff." She smiles and holds out a hand. Cordy shifts her coffee to her left hand so she can shake Lauren's hand. "Thanks, Moira. I'll take it from here." Moira disappears back into the elevator, and Lauren leads Cordelia through a pair of frosted glass doors behind the big round reception desk in the center of the foyer. The walls are floor-to-ceiling windows, and Cordy can see the storm still raging outside, roiling gray clouds enveloping the city below. The carpeting is the same dark gray color, shot through with swirls of navy and burgundy, and the furniture is all light wood, probably maple, Cordelia thinks, with maroon accents. It's all very tasteful and expensive.
Lauren leads her through another set of doors, into a palatial office where two men are waiting. One is Lucius Fox, whom Cordy recognizes from the inside cover of the Wayne Enterprises Annual Report that she's spent the last two weeks stuffing into envelopes, and the other is tall and broad-shouldered and really good looking in that Don Draper, northeastern, Ivy League way (not that she's managed to sit through more than one episode of Mad Men. It's not very exciting, even though the clothes are to die for). It's hard, but Cordelia forces herself not to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, which is an offer to have his babies, or at least a lot of fun trying.
Lauren says, "Lucius, Bruce, this is Cordelia Chase," and holy crap, she's shaking hands with Bruce Wayne. She and Harmony used to argue over which of them was going to marry him when they were thirteen and heavily invested in gossip mags, and now she's standing in his office, shaking his hand.
"Hi," she says. His hands are large and warm and well-manicured. She can smell the vaguest hint of his cologne, which probably costs more than the building she moved into last night. Her palm is a little sweaty and she hopes he won't hold it against her.
"Cordelia, welcome. Lucius tells me you've been doing great work down in Corporate Communications."
Lucius smiles like he's got no idea what Bruce is talking about but is used to humoring him, and says, "I'm going to get back to work now, Bruce. Remember what we talked about."
"Right," Bruce says, sounding like he's already forgotten. He turns his head and she can see a smudge of foundation on his collar. He's too well put together for that to make sense, but she narrows her eyes and forces herself to look past the fact that he's Bruce Wayne. There's a long line that looks like a fresh cut snaking down the side of his neck, too big to be from shaving, unless he was trying to cut his ear off and missed, and now that she's looking, she can see the shadow of bruising along his jaw. He turns back to her, smiling, and she can almost forget what she saw. "Cordelia Chase," he says, motioning for her to sit on the leather couch instead of one of the chairs across from the desk. He sits in the chair across from her. "I met your father once." His forehead creases in a frown. "He wasn't much of a businessman, I guess."
"Wasn't much of a father," she mutters before she can think better of it, but recovers quickly with, "I promise, I do my taxes every year. Can you imagine what would happen to a girl like me in prison?" She laughs nervously and his frown disappears.
"That would be a terrible tragedy." He sounds like he's amused and she lets herself relax a little, ease the deathgrip on her purse strap. He leans back in the chair, and despite the fact that his suit was definitely tailored to fit him perfectly, it can't hide the breadth of his shoulders or the heavy muscles of his thighs. He doesn't look like the kind of man who spends all his time golfing and chasing starlets. Cordy's seen enough of those to recognize one at twenty paces, and Bruce Wayne, for all that she knows the gossip as well as anyone, doesn't fit.
"So, is there a job or something?" she asks. "Because I have to say, as much as I'm enjoying sitting here looking at you, I still have about a million annual reports to mail out."
"I've been thinking about hiring a personal assistant," he says. "The job would be fairly demanding, requiring flexibility and the willingness to work long and sometimes odd hours."
Cordelia springs up off the couch. "Are you asking me to be your mistress? Because as flattering as that is--and believe me, my thirteen-year-old self would be yelling at me right now to say yes--I'm really not the type."
His mouth flattens into a hard line that looks familiar somehow, and suddenly it all clicks into place--the bruises, the cover up, the muscles and the interview.
"Holy crap, you're Batman."
He doesn't look pleased, which on some level she gets, because, hi, secret identity should remain secret, she learned that sophomore year of high school, but on another level--"You were totally testing me," she says, pointing an accusing finger at him as he gets up and closes the doors to the office with a quiet click.
"What makes you say that?" His voice isn't as deep as Batman's, but he's got that same coiled intensity and laser focus she saw last night in the alley.
Because I've been in the game long enough to spot a secret identity a mile away. "Because there's no way you could be that sloppy with the foundation and not get caught. You did that on purpose."
"Maybe I've just never had to cover anything up before."
"No, because that's a custom blended shade that matches your skin tone perfectly. There's no reason for you to even have that unless you need it regularly." She crosses her arms and huffs disdainfully. "I'm pretty but I'm not stupid." He just watches her, his gaze never leaving her face, which she has to give him credit for, because she knows she's stacked. "So is there really a job, or do you just want to give me the 'no one must know my secret identity' speech? Or maybe the 'it's not safe out there, you should be more careful' speech?"
He gives a soft laugh. "Do you really just say everything that comes into your head?"
"Not everything. I can totally keep a secret. I didn't tell anyone about the vampires or the slayer until they'd seen it themselves."
"Yes. I was in touch with some of your former associates in Cleveland. After our encounter in the alley last night, I must admit, I was intrigued."
Part of her wants to flutter and blush, because Bruce Wayne finds her intriguing, which is only her due, of course, but still. But the other part of her, the one used to the other shoe dropping, usually with an apocalypse attached, isn't placated.
"I'm awesome," she says, raising her chin defiantly.
"I'm beginning to see that," he answers. "There really is a job, Cordelia. It would involve wrangling my business and social obligations, along with my...other activities. I have other people who've been doing it for me, but they have responsibilities elsewhere, and when you showed up on our doorstep, it seemed like an opportunity to bring in someone capable of handling both aspects of my life, someone who didn't have other obligations."
"Okay," she says, sitting back down, the fluttering in her stomach now less about his attractiveness and more about the idea of getting back into the game, doing something meaningful to help people. "I'm listening."
"You must keep my identity secret; I'm not the only one at risk if it gets out," he says, and she can hear Batman in his voice; it makes her sit up straighter. "And yes, it is dangerous out there and you should be more careful. I will try as much as possible to keep you out of the direct line of fire, though I'm afraid there are no guarantees." He looks away, and she can see the shadow of grief on his face. It's a look she's all too familiar with.
"I know," she says.
"We'll do some training, so I can be sure you can actually use that knife you were flashing around last night to defend yourself, but this is not a position that will put you out on the street in any crime-fighting capacity. I want to make that clear at the outset. If you can't accept that, this conversation ends now."
"I've done my share of fighting evil," she says. "And I know there's more than one way to do it. As long as I feel like I'm making a contribution, and that contribution is appreciated, I think we'll be fine." She takes a sip of her now cold and gross coffee. "And of course, by appreciated, I mean well-compensated. This city is stupidly expensive and I can barely afford the extended stay hotel I just moved into, and I think it has rats." She shudders theatrically.
He laughs. It's louder and lighter than she expected, and, as far as she can tell, it's genuine. He looks as surprised as she feels. He must not laugh very often, and the fact that he does now makes her feel warm inside. She's going to have to make sure it happens again, and often.
"I'm sure we can work something out that will be satisfactory," he says. "I'll put you in touch with Alfred--he runs my life at home--and he'll get you situated in an apartment that's vermin-free. And I've had Lauren draw up an offer letter, though of course, that will only cover your official duties as my personal assistant. The rest you'll have to trust me on." He holds out a hand and she takes it.
"Sounds good to me," she says, holding his gaze and keeping her grip firm. She can't help but smile. "When do I start?"
end
~*~
Note: Title from "It Takes Two" by MC Rob Base and DJ Easy Rock.
~*~
Feedback would be adored.
Now I must sleep!
~*~
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Batman: The Animated Series/Angel the Series; Cordelia Chase, Bruce Wayne; pg; 2,935 words
Cordelia's been in the game long enough that she can spot a secret identity from a mile away.
Thanks to
snacky for handholding and cheerleading.
~*~
I'm not a sucker so I don't need a bodyguard
Cordelia never expected to get a second (or possibly third) chance after she got to say goodbye to Angel, but with the hellmouth opening in Los Angeles and the walls between dimensions coming undone, she finds herself in Gotham. She wonders why the PTB even bothered, because really, it's not much of an improvement over the hell taking over LA. After the endless sunny sprawl of LA, Gotham is old (despite having been rebuilt within the last ten years), cold, gray and claustrophobic. Still, she's alive and there's fantastic shopping. Which she can't afford. The first non-food item she buys with the money she scrounges up working as a waitress in an all night diner is a long knife that is still short enough to require her to get way too close to anything she'd want to stab with it, but she finds it strangely comforting. She straps it to the inside of her boot because when she tried wearing a thigh holster, it kept getting tangled in her skirt.
She talks her way into a temping position at Admin-Temps; she's not sure if it's her cleavage or their desperation for warm bodies that gets her the job, but she doesn't care. She's got an only mostly fake resume, and after two weeks of answering phones and stuffing envelopes at Wayne Enterprises, she's got enough money to move out of the rent-by-the-hour motel that overlooks a gross, garbage-filled alley that may or may not have some kind of slime demons living in it, if the oily stains on the sidewalk that she steps around carefully every night are any indication.
Not her problem, she tells herself, right up until the moment she hears screaming as she's trying to hail a cab.
"Crap," she mutters. Gotham has its own heroes, or that's the word in the secretarial pool, anyway, but she's deliberately avoided those conversations, despite the fact that it sounds like what Gotham has is its own Angel. She's not going down that road again, not this time.
Still, she drops her backpack and grabs her knife. She runs into the alleyway, knife held low and out of sight. It's not slime demons or vampires, though.
"You're just a guy," she says, surprised, when she gets close enough to smell stale cigarette smoke and body odor, to see the nicotine stains on his teeth and his fingertips. He doesn't look intimidated by her, but she figures that's fair, because she's not intimidated by him. "I once faced down the Gorch brothers with nothing but a spatula, buddy. Do you think you scare me?" She looks at the girl, who seems frozen in place, though the guy isn't pressing her up against the side of the building anymore. "Run," Cordy tells her, not taking her eyes off the mugger, and the girl does, without looking back. "You might want to take this opportunity to run, too," she tells him, letting him see the knife in her hand.
His eyes get wide and his mouth drops open and Cordelia feels the smug satisfaction of knowing she scared the crap out of him, and then the sky is blotted out for a few seconds as someone else jumps down into the alley from above, and she realizes that the mugger isn't afraid of her, he's afraid of Mr. Dramatic Entrances.
The mugger's got a glass jaw; he goes down with one punch, and Mr. Cape and Pointy Ears ties him up quickly and mutters something that sounds like the address of the alley. It takes Cordelia a second to realize that he's probably got an earpiece under the cowl. Smart and experienced, she thinks, with tech and backup. Professional. It takes her a second to put it all together, but then, she'd never really believed he existed, not even after she accepted the reality of vampires and werewolves and things that go bump in the night.
"Not much for the witty banter portion of the program, huh?" she says when it looks like he's going to take off without speaking. "That's okay. My old boss wasn't very good at that part either."
He doesn't answer; his breath wreathes the lower half of his face almost as well as the cowl hides the top half. Even with the lenses blanking his eyes, she feels his gaze on her, laser-like in its focus. It makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up, but she's faced worse. She thinks he's human, which is another surprise, but breathing doesn't prove anything. Angel hadn't needed to breathe but sometimes he did anyway. Said it made him blend in better, but she thinks it just made him feel human for a little while. This guy, though, is wearing what looks like an armored suit over a body that practically vibrates with intensity, so he probably is human, or more vulnerable than a vampire, anyway.
"You shouldn't be out here," he finally says in a voice that's lower and deeper than anything she's heard that wasn't a demon or Darth Vader. "It's not safe."
"Duh." She shows him the knife. "I'm not an amateur."
He presses his lips together in an unfriendly line. "You should get home."
She huffs indignantly. "Listen, Batman--oh yeah, I figured out who you are--I grew up in Sunnydale. Gotham doesn't scare me."
"It should."
He's gone with a swirl of his cape before she can answer. She stamps her foot in frustration. She always hated it when Angel did that, too.
She goes back around to the front of the motel, and of course, her backpack is gone.
"I hate this freaking city," she mutters. At least she still has her wallet. And her knife.
*
Cordelia's morning commute sucks--she misses having a car and she's never going to get the hang of the stupid subway--and her supervisor is standing at her desk when she arrives, soaked to the skin and trying not to spill coffee all over everything.
"Cordelia."
Cordy forces herself to smile brightly. She's done more--and better--acting since she got to Gotham than she ever did in LA. "Hi, Moira."
"Mr. Fox has asked you to come up to the Executive Suite."
"Um, okay?" She moves to place her coffee on her desk.
"Bring your stuff," Moira says.
"Okay." Cordy clutches her coffee in one hand and the strap of her faux-Burberry purse in the other. She's pretty sure they wouldn't make her go up to the executive floor just to fire her, but she doesn't think she's done anything worth getting invited up to meet the CEO, either, and she's long past the days of believing that just being her fabulous self would do it. She still knows she's fabulous, but the rest of the world hasn't really caught on.
Moira leads her to a separate elevator bank and inserts her ID card into a slot before she presses the button--there's only one--for the top floor. The doors slide shut and they rise quickly. Cordelia checks her hair and makeup in the polished metal of the elevator walls--her reflection is warped, and her hair looks like she just battled a nor'easter and lost (which would be true), but her lipstick looks great. And, after a surreptitious check, she doesn't have any of it on her teeth.
The elevator dings and the doors slide open soundlessly. There's an Asian woman wearing a headset waiting. "Cordelia? I'm Lauren Zhang, Mr. Fox's chief of staff." She smiles and holds out a hand. Cordy shifts her coffee to her left hand so she can shake Lauren's hand. "Thanks, Moira. I'll take it from here." Moira disappears back into the elevator, and Lauren leads Cordelia through a pair of frosted glass doors behind the big round reception desk in the center of the foyer. The walls are floor-to-ceiling windows, and Cordy can see the storm still raging outside, roiling gray clouds enveloping the city below. The carpeting is the same dark gray color, shot through with swirls of navy and burgundy, and the furniture is all light wood, probably maple, Cordelia thinks, with maroon accents. It's all very tasteful and expensive.
Lauren leads her through another set of doors, into a palatial office where two men are waiting. One is Lucius Fox, whom Cordy recognizes from the inside cover of the Wayne Enterprises Annual Report that she's spent the last two weeks stuffing into envelopes, and the other is tall and broad-shouldered and really good looking in that Don Draper, northeastern, Ivy League way (not that she's managed to sit through more than one episode of Mad Men. It's not very exciting, even though the clothes are to die for). It's hard, but Cordelia forces herself not to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, which is an offer to have his babies, or at least a lot of fun trying.
Lauren says, "Lucius, Bruce, this is Cordelia Chase," and holy crap, she's shaking hands with Bruce Wayne. She and Harmony used to argue over which of them was going to marry him when they were thirteen and heavily invested in gossip mags, and now she's standing in his office, shaking his hand.
"Hi," she says. His hands are large and warm and well-manicured. She can smell the vaguest hint of his cologne, which probably costs more than the building she moved into last night. Her palm is a little sweaty and she hopes he won't hold it against her.
"Cordelia, welcome. Lucius tells me you've been doing great work down in Corporate Communications."
Lucius smiles like he's got no idea what Bruce is talking about but is used to humoring him, and says, "I'm going to get back to work now, Bruce. Remember what we talked about."
"Right," Bruce says, sounding like he's already forgotten. He turns his head and she can see a smudge of foundation on his collar. He's too well put together for that to make sense, but she narrows her eyes and forces herself to look past the fact that he's Bruce Wayne. There's a long line that looks like a fresh cut snaking down the side of his neck, too big to be from shaving, unless he was trying to cut his ear off and missed, and now that she's looking, she can see the shadow of bruising along his jaw. He turns back to her, smiling, and she can almost forget what she saw. "Cordelia Chase," he says, motioning for her to sit on the leather couch instead of one of the chairs across from the desk. He sits in the chair across from her. "I met your father once." His forehead creases in a frown. "He wasn't much of a businessman, I guess."
"Wasn't much of a father," she mutters before she can think better of it, but recovers quickly with, "I promise, I do my taxes every year. Can you imagine what would happen to a girl like me in prison?" She laughs nervously and his frown disappears.
"That would be a terrible tragedy." He sounds like he's amused and she lets herself relax a little, ease the deathgrip on her purse strap. He leans back in the chair, and despite the fact that his suit was definitely tailored to fit him perfectly, it can't hide the breadth of his shoulders or the heavy muscles of his thighs. He doesn't look like the kind of man who spends all his time golfing and chasing starlets. Cordy's seen enough of those to recognize one at twenty paces, and Bruce Wayne, for all that she knows the gossip as well as anyone, doesn't fit.
"So, is there a job or something?" she asks. "Because I have to say, as much as I'm enjoying sitting here looking at you, I still have about a million annual reports to mail out."
"I've been thinking about hiring a personal assistant," he says. "The job would be fairly demanding, requiring flexibility and the willingness to work long and sometimes odd hours."
Cordelia springs up off the couch. "Are you asking me to be your mistress? Because as flattering as that is--and believe me, my thirteen-year-old self would be yelling at me right now to say yes--I'm really not the type."
His mouth flattens into a hard line that looks familiar somehow, and suddenly it all clicks into place--the bruises, the cover up, the muscles and the interview.
"Holy crap, you're Batman."
He doesn't look pleased, which on some level she gets, because, hi, secret identity should remain secret, she learned that sophomore year of high school, but on another level--"You were totally testing me," she says, pointing an accusing finger at him as he gets up and closes the doors to the office with a quiet click.
"What makes you say that?" His voice isn't as deep as Batman's, but he's got that same coiled intensity and laser focus she saw last night in the alley.
Because I've been in the game long enough to spot a secret identity a mile away. "Because there's no way you could be that sloppy with the foundation and not get caught. You did that on purpose."
"Maybe I've just never had to cover anything up before."
"No, because that's a custom blended shade that matches your skin tone perfectly. There's no reason for you to even have that unless you need it regularly." She crosses her arms and huffs disdainfully. "I'm pretty but I'm not stupid." He just watches her, his gaze never leaving her face, which she has to give him credit for, because she knows she's stacked. "So is there really a job, or do you just want to give me the 'no one must know my secret identity' speech? Or maybe the 'it's not safe out there, you should be more careful' speech?"
He gives a soft laugh. "Do you really just say everything that comes into your head?"
"Not everything. I can totally keep a secret. I didn't tell anyone about the vampires or the slayer until they'd seen it themselves."
"Yes. I was in touch with some of your former associates in Cleveland. After our encounter in the alley last night, I must admit, I was intrigued."
Part of her wants to flutter and blush, because Bruce Wayne finds her intriguing, which is only her due, of course, but still. But the other part of her, the one used to the other shoe dropping, usually with an apocalypse attached, isn't placated.
"I'm awesome," she says, raising her chin defiantly.
"I'm beginning to see that," he answers. "There really is a job, Cordelia. It would involve wrangling my business and social obligations, along with my...other activities. I have other people who've been doing it for me, but they have responsibilities elsewhere, and when you showed up on our doorstep, it seemed like an opportunity to bring in someone capable of handling both aspects of my life, someone who didn't have other obligations."
"Okay," she says, sitting back down, the fluttering in her stomach now less about his attractiveness and more about the idea of getting back into the game, doing something meaningful to help people. "I'm listening."
"You must keep my identity secret; I'm not the only one at risk if it gets out," he says, and she can hear Batman in his voice; it makes her sit up straighter. "And yes, it is dangerous out there and you should be more careful. I will try as much as possible to keep you out of the direct line of fire, though I'm afraid there are no guarantees." He looks away, and she can see the shadow of grief on his face. It's a look she's all too familiar with.
"I know," she says.
"We'll do some training, so I can be sure you can actually use that knife you were flashing around last night to defend yourself, but this is not a position that will put you out on the street in any crime-fighting capacity. I want to make that clear at the outset. If you can't accept that, this conversation ends now."
"I've done my share of fighting evil," she says. "And I know there's more than one way to do it. As long as I feel like I'm making a contribution, and that contribution is appreciated, I think we'll be fine." She takes a sip of her now cold and gross coffee. "And of course, by appreciated, I mean well-compensated. This city is stupidly expensive and I can barely afford the extended stay hotel I just moved into, and I think it has rats." She shudders theatrically.
He laughs. It's louder and lighter than she expected, and, as far as she can tell, it's genuine. He looks as surprised as she feels. He must not laugh very often, and the fact that he does now makes her feel warm inside. She's going to have to make sure it happens again, and often.
"I'm sure we can work something out that will be satisfactory," he says. "I'll put you in touch with Alfred--he runs my life at home--and he'll get you situated in an apartment that's vermin-free. And I've had Lauren draw up an offer letter, though of course, that will only cover your official duties as my personal assistant. The rest you'll have to trust me on." He holds out a hand and she takes it.
"Sounds good to me," she says, holding his gaze and keeping her grip firm. She can't help but smile. "When do I start?"
end
~*~
Note: Title from "It Takes Two" by MC Rob Base and DJ Easy Rock.
~*~
Feedback would be adored.
Now I must sleep!
~*~
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