#mirqueen

"Grandfather clock and corresponding stairwell back through this corridor," Bruce began, pointing out the same path they took to arrive in the current space. "And actually, there is an exit right here in this room. The waterfall entrance is directly opposite this embankment. From the outside, the entry doors have been made to look like the stone facing of the cave."

Splashing through puddles behind Bruce's easy gait, Meara gasped out loud as lights flashed on all across the cavern around them, bursting to life like the sun had risen in the cave. The one vehicle Meara had actually ridden in, but never knew where it disappeared to, sat off to the right on its own cliff.

"Impressive, of course," the brunette laughed like a little kid at the grand flying machine parts sprawled around the space in both full bodies and spare pieces. "Not that I like riding in that thing… but… impressive."

Exhaling in awe at the sight of a familiar black structure rising from the water as it had in The Dark Knight Rises, the most recent innovation of the batmobile sitting on its platform, Meara accepted that her wildest, grandest visions of the bat cave had just been thoroughly trounced by the real thing.

Chuckling genuinely at her reaction, Bruce offered a hand to steady Meara'a uneven steps on the stone beneath their feet and helped her onto the main walkway lifting to connect the platform to the rest of the cavern. There were two shorter bridgeways connecting the central platform to either side of the spacious cavern. On the right, the batwing sat surrounded by parts, frames, and tools all in neatly organized placeholders.

"This is amazing!" Meara breathed excitedly. "It's like walking into your own dreams. All the things I always loved coming to life here."

Turning to look back at Bruce, energy and thrill brimming in her dark ocean eyes, Meara added excitably, "You have no idea how much I've always wanted to see a live version of the bat cave!"

Snorting, Bruce nodded understandingly. "It was a fantastical world you could lose yourself in. To imagine was only a pale imitation of physically investigating such an environment."

"Do you have old versions of your vehicles still?" Meara asked, a bounce in her voice and step.

"Follow me," the vigilante offered secretively, waving an arm towards the left side of the black platform.

Across the left bridgeway, the two of them walked straight to multiple levels of cliff-like protrusions rising far above their heads. Judging by the reflections bouncing off of some kind of barrier at various points, Meara assumed a vehicle sat behind each one.

"Be careful through here," Bruce warned her seriously. "I'll watch for you, but you need to be aware of the ledges and condensation on the way up."

Making note of the precarious edges and surfaces all around her, Meara paid a good deal of attention to her feet as they moved slowly across the protrusions, stopping at each clear barrier to view a different vehicle. Bruce's steadying hand against her back felt infinitely more reassuring than her own questionable ability to balance in the unexpected environment.

"Ooh, that one is retro," Meara murmured in amusement at the first vehicle they saw; it had a certain nineteen-eighties flare about it.

Snorting again at her humor, Bruce shook his head. "It didn't last long. Too much weight on the hood."

The next batmobile incarnation wasn't even a full vehicle, but half a black hull with a definite scorching along the rough edges.

"I can guess what happened to that one," Meara remarked with a funny expression that scrunched her nose and mouth.

"Bomb," Bruce explained anyway. "The hood was too weak to last through the explosion, so I tried the heavy hood we just viewed."

Nodding in understanding, Meara allowed him to lead her up to the next level. "So, as far as when the vehicles were made, we're going backwards in time, right?"

"Exactly," the vigilante confirmed.

"Do any of the intact vehicles still work?" was her next intrigued question.

"Only eight of twelve," Bruce responded, a bit disappointedly if Meara was any judge. "I've been working to try and fix that, but it's not working as well as I'd hoped."

They stopped at every vehicle in turn, each becoming bulkier in total shape and size until finally their steps carried them to Meara's personal favorite. Exhaling a heavy breath in geeky excitement, Meara put her hands flat against the transparent barrier between them and the original incarnation of Bruce's batmobile.

"The tumbler," Bruce announced with knowing humor. "I believe this is the one you mentioned."

"Oo-oo-oh," Meara actually squealed in delight. She couldn't believe the sound came from her own throat. "This is so cool! Favorite, right here, yes. Yes, yes. Total favorite of mine."

Bruce laughed quietly in his chest at her amazement and enthusiasm, leaving Meara grinning even after she forced herself to calm down a little.

"I love this car," Meara couldn't help saying, leaning her head back excitedly to look Bruce in the eye. "Tank… Whatever… I just love it."

An exasperated, long-suffering expression overtook Bruce's face at the continued commentary, but he didn't say anything about it.

"It did have a built-in bike pod," the billionaire confirmed instead, without the young woman even asking the question.

Breathing in with disbelief, Meara pulled away from the glass and leaned forward towards Bruce to ask with greatly repressed energy, "Do you still have it?"

Smirking deeply at the brunette for her childlike fascination, Bruce silently offered a hand to help her back down. Only they didn't go back across the platform. Instead, they followed the top cliff all the way across towards the waterfall and a piece of the rock facing began to grumble and shift, finally slipping open onto a small, well-lit tunnel. Inside the cavern at the end, Meara realized her question had been answered – more than answered, really.

A whole fleet of bikes and smaller land gear flooded the area. Most were not covered like the batmobiles, yet none were coated in dust. At the far left side, Meara caught sight of the very bike she had been looking for.

"I swear, this is the most glorious bike I have ever seen!" Meara told her host, the excitement building back up again as she traveled the smooth floors so different from the cave path. "Did you make a new one of this, too?"

"Yes, it's over there," Bruce waved at the wall to Meara's right. "The far right motorcycle is the newest version. All of them are functional, though. It's one of the quickest methods of travel for us, so Dick and I keep them up in case of emergency."

"Which is basically every other week," Meara commented as though it were a normal discussion. "But those newer bikes are nowhere near as awesome as this one. You do know that, right?"

Bruce just shook his head at her.

"We haven't even seen anything to do with medical or training or costumes…" Meara stated amazedly, glancing back at him impressed. "I mean, just how many parts are there to this place?"

"A few," was Bruce's understated answer, another smirk playing about his lips.

Rolling stormy eyes at the billionaire, Meara moved forward to look at each bike incarnation with great interest, and then led her own investigation of the motorcycles still in the midst of fixing.

"Wow," the young woman uttered, shaking her head in never-ending wonderment of Batman's broad range of talents, skills, and resources.

"You haven't seen anything yet," Bruce retorted amusedly, a grin almost escaping him before he reined it in.

Suitably energized and provoked for their next stop on the tour, Meara followed Bruce's gesturing fingers towards the entry corridor and back through to the waterfall cave again.

"We'll go past the stairs," Bruce insisted, waving an arm at the corridor between the waterfall cavern and the entrance beneath the grandfather clock. The longer tunnel curved a bit, then widened out to reveal ten times as much computer and technical equipment as they had seen in the first cavern.

"Ohhhh my God," Meara breathed, stepping back in surprise over the sheer expanse of the cave as it sprawled out before her and stretched eons above their heads. From where the young woman stood, she could see three tunnels leading elsewhere, in addition to what she now realized was actually the true center of the bat cave.

Multiple different cave walls featured long metal work surfaces with any number of advanced technologies and computers sitting on top. At roughly the center of the room, two large tables with computers took up most of a raised circular platform.

Far and wide across the area, Meara could see an extensive training area that didn't stop at merely ten or twenty feet above them. Training apparatuses ran as far as the bottom of stalactites in some places. Some even utilized stalactites in the apparatus itself. Interwoven with all the equipment was a variety or workout gear, half of which Meara would have to ask about to even know what they were.

"This is… beyond anything…"

There were not enough words in any language under the sun to describe how awestruck Meara felt.

Bruce sounded very pleased with himself when he commented, "Would you like to see the rest of the caverns?"

"Wow," Meara repeated herself, coming back to reality very slowly to retort, "You have to ask?"

Chuckling, Bruce led her through the main area and on across the training floor, Meara's head on a swivel as she tried to take in every amazing sight on the way.

Eventually, the two of them moved into a smaller space filled with storage chests and trunks, shelving and tables, hooks and hangers. Every inch of space beheld some tool, gear, or resource that Batman's team used out in the field.

"Armory," Meara noted with a new thrill in her veins, her awe tempered only by her intense curiosity.

"I don't think there's enough time in one night for you to adequately explore this area," Bruce dryly concluded, turning back.

"I don't think there's enough time in one year for me to adequately explore this area," Meara countered, reluctantly following the billionaire through to the center of the cave again.

"Over here," Bruce started describing the cave again, pointing to a tunnel across from the clock stairs, "is an elevator that leads through a bookcase, opened—"

"—by a piano," Meara and Bruce completed the sentence in complete synchrony, the billionaire turning in surprise to stare at his new charge.

"Films?" he hypothesized.

"Exactly," Meara nodded, face exuding a humble joy. "I have to say, it's kind of neat, and fun, to already know some things."

Given his foreknowledge of Meara's fascination with superheroes and all that came with that title, Bruce didn't bother to feel annoyed by her small feelings of pride.

"Each exit route leads in a different direction, then?" asked Meara.

"Roughly, anyway," Bruce added informatively. "I would consider the clock entrance southeast. The waterfall is east, the lake northeast, and the piano northwest."

Moving on, the dark-haired vigilante led Meara into a tunnel further to the left of the elevator entrance and past a long wall of computers.

"This is our medical bay," Bruce explained, allowing Meara to walk ahead of him into a very different looking space. Rather than the rock walls of the cave, this area had been treated to and overlay of solid, clean, neutral walls and gleaming floors. Amidst med tables, rolling chairs, and more computer systems, there were carts already full of what Meara deduced to be standard treatments after an average night of patrol. An x-ray machine sat against a far wall, along with numerous other machines Meara didn't have a name for yet.

On an off glance above, Meara saw a frosted ceiling of some kind. Arching her neck to peer up at the near-transparent barrier, Meara frowned in curious thought.

"What is that made of?" she wondered.

Looking up as well, Bruce quickly replied, "Those are transparent ceramic panels made of a substance called 'celucent.' Far superior to glass in durability, holding up in weather conditions, chemical resistance, and withstanding bullets. Plus, it can be insulated against extreme temperatures."

"Why don't people use it instead of glass, then?" Meara considered confusedly.

"Too expensive, for one thing," Bruce answered with a shrug. "And the one downfall is its lack of clarity. People don't want a cloudy window impeding their view."

"But down here, for what you need, it works," Meara guessed.

"Yes, it does," Bruce nodded leading the way back towards the central cave. On their way out, Bruce pointed to a doorway just to the right of the med bay entrance. "Bathroom and shower area."

Coming back into the central space, Meara needed no guide to notice a display across the way – one she had been looking forward to almost as much as the vehicles.

"Wait," Meara stopped abruptly at the thought of the batmobiles, Bruce coming to a sudden halt behind her. "If you ever had to use one of the old batmobiles, how would you even get it out? They're up on cliffs!"

"Wouldn't want it to be too easy, now would I?" was the only response Bruce gave, leaving Meara frowning with frustration.

"Go on and examine the uniforms," Bruce prodded with a smirk.

Wordlessly, but giving her host the stink eye all the while, Meara headed into the more open space housing the various costumes for Batman's team. Each piece was wonderfully kept, not a scratch on the housed outfits in their gleaming glass cases.

All except one.

Eyes glued to the last Robin costume on display, far at the other end of the cases, Meara knew without asking whose it had been and why it failed to match the other pristine uniforms that came before it.

Quietude stifled the space in which they stood. Meara knew that Bruce understood her hesitation and silence, but she didn't dare ask on this one point. Too much dark, rusted red tainted the tattered edges of that costume.

"Any questions?" Bruce eventually asked, voice the softest Meara had ever heard it, but it was a genuine inquiry.

He would answer.

If only she asked.

Turning away from the costumes with a decidedly blank expression, Meara answered surely, "No."

Meara did not catch Bruce's eyes and he said no words in response when she made to leave. Their trip up the staircase was all too quiet for several moments.

"I'd like to start you on some reading material tomorrow," Bruce brought up after a moment, waking Meara from her empty feelings with a jolt; she hadn't precisely expected him to bounce back in a matter of seconds. "I've created a booklet about Wayne Enterprises for you to study before you start work. It's about the company's origins, the various ways it functions… You'll need to know every department and what it does. The overall process in which those various departments interact, who answers to whom, prominent external contacts, and a hundred other items."

"You made it?" Meara wondered with slight incredulousness.

"I started working on it after our discussion in the library you're first morning here," the billionaire explained easily. "I knew you'd need a good jumpstart to ease your transition at first. After learning more about you every day the past two weeks, however, I began to realize you wouldn't need it for very long. But I'd rather be safe and give you every piece of information I can."

"I guess I'll get started on that tomorrow," Meara agreed with a tired sigh.

Exploring the bat cave didn't seem like such a daunting or tiring task in the long run, but by the time Bruce and Meara made it through the grandfather clock, the young woman had in fact become quite sleepy.

Taking her rest one more time in the Caligo Room, for the sake of simplicity if nothing else, Meara awoke much better rested and ready to take on her wardrobe move to the Aerius. Pulling on a casual working outfit of a light blue button-down, black leggings, and black flats, Meara quickly headed down to find something to eat for her afternoon of work.

Meara didn't expect to find Barbara Gordon in a gray sweater, blue jeans, white converse, and a high ponytail, leaning on the kitchen counter and eating oatmeal with blueberries.

"Hi!" Barbara called to Meara with a smile. "How did you sleep?"

"A lot better," Meara answered, walking over with a slightly bewildered expression. Admittedly, in the wake of touring the cave and realizing the source of her insomnia, Meara forgot that she and Bruce had left three people behind in the kitchen. "I'm just glad I know where the insomnia stems from now."

"Oh, you do?" the redhead looked up in surprise.

"I guess Bruce didn't say anything," Meara deduced interestedly. "I've been woken up by the cave entrances opening and closing."

"The end of patrol," Barbara realized, hazel eyes shooting heavenward for a moment. "That makes sense! No wonder Bruce looked so sharp when we were discussing it."

"At least when I move totally into the Aerius room, that might not happen," Meara commented with relief. "Unless Bruce does decide to remove the soundproofing, at which point I'm going to be in trouble as far as getting proper rest is concerned."

"I doubt he will," the other young woman shook her head. "He won't want you to miss out on sleep. Anyway, it's gone soundproofed this long without a problem."

"Good point," Meara shrugged, gauging the saucepan still half full with oatmeal. "Mind if I…?"

"Go ahead," Barbara gestured at the pan gladly. "There are bowls up in that cupboard, spoons in this drawer over here, and there's fresh fruit on the plate by the stove."

Grabbing a bowl and spoon in the indicated locations, Meara filled up on oatmeal and mixed in sugar and raspberries.

"I thought Alfred and the guys already moved all your things to the Aerius?" Barbara queried confusedly after a few minutes as they stood eating. "Dick told me when I asked what they were doing this weekend."

"Everything except my clothes and accessories," Meara explained. "Alfred wanted me to be able to do so myself. I'm very independent usually."

"So am I," admitted Barbara. "I have to say, though, it can be hard to argue with Alfred's skills."

"Especially with food," Meara added knowingly.

"Especially then," Barbara laughed. "I can't cook much beyond oatmeal and boxed potatoes. So for me, it really makes sense. Alfred said you can cook pretty well, though, so I imagine that might get frustrating eventually."

"Not really," Meara decided truthfully. "When it comes to good food, I won't argue."

Finished with her oatmeal, Meara pushed off from the counter's edge and set her bowl and spoon in the sink alongside Barbara's. "I better get working before I lose the energy to move my clothes. It's a pretty hefty pile thanks to Alfred and Bruce."

"Would you like some help?" Barbara offered. "I'm mostly just hanging out today."

"I can't imagine saying no," Meara half-laughed. "Thank you."

"No problem," the redhead smiled again, following the brunette up to the Caligo Room with curiosity in her gaze.

With a rather dramatic swoosh, Meara flipped the closet doors wide open.

"Oh, wow," the redhead said incredulously upon seeing the full closet awaiting them. "I mean, you're not the first woman in our little world with this kind of wardrobe and I understand the need in your position… but wow."

"That is a lot of clothes," Meara agreed, only now truly seeing the wide range of items in her new wardrobe. "And that doesn't include whatever is in the dresser and the chest of drawers."

"Well," Barbara rubbed her hands together. "Looks like we better get started. Lead the way, Meara."

"Let's just carry it all over to the new room first," the brunette in question suggested. "Then I'll sort it out once we're done."

It took four trips between rooms, both their arms full of clothing that seemed heavier every subsequent time, before Meara thought of a very practical idea that might speed up the process.

Barbara later confessed wryly, "I'm glad you thought of using this cart. It took a load off the work, I must say."

"I just figured if I wasn't using it in the ballroom right now, we may as well use it up here."

"The ballroom is starting to look so much nicer, by the way," Barbara informed Meara as she helped fold the last of the brunette's jeans.

"Thanks," Meara replied gratefully, folding up casual tops for the dresser. "I hate seeing a lovely room wasted like that. To think Bruce almost refused me on those efforts…"

"How hard was it, living with four bullheaded guys for almost two weeks?" Barbara asked her ruefully, to which Meara realized only now how little she'd bothered about being only with male company.

"You know, in the moment," Meara replied thoughtfully, "I didn't even think about it. I'm pretty used to living with male company. But now… I guess it was pretty ridiculous and dramatic on occasion."

Laughing at the descriptor, the redhead agreed, "Yeah, that sounds like them."

Shaking her head, Meara laughed as well.

"I just realized we wear about the same size," Barbara remarked out of the blue.

"You're a little bit taller, though," Meara detracted. "I'm five foot six and your old workout clothes were a little baggy on me."

"I'm only a half-inch taller than that, actually," Barbara explained with a wave of her hand. "But they're bound to be baggy on you because I've lost weight. Those were made when I first joined the guys. Bruce made them for me, but I didn't like them much. I'm not a fan of white and black stripes. Reminds me of jail. Granted, stripes aren't actually jail gear anymore, but you know what I mean."

Snorting, Meara just shook her head at the idea. "Good to know."

With Barbara's help, the process of moving clothing into the proper places in the Aerius worked much more quickly and Meara thanked her profusely for speeding up the process.

"Now I have plenty of time to go work in the ballroom during the daytime," the brunette told her companion gladly. "And tonight I can sleep in a soundproofed room without worrying over insomnia."

"I'm glad to help," Barbara responded to the emulsion of thanks. "But I have to wonder… is the ballroom so desperately in need of attention today? I mean, why don't you just take some time and get used to the city?"

"That sounds helpful," Meara hesitated as they strolled back down to the main level.

"You don't sound so sure," the redhead remarked with a small laugh.

"I'm not sure why I think so much about working…" confessed Meara, "Habit, I guess. And… well, I can't make a solo trip at this point in time."

"I was thinking more along the lines of a girls' day out," was Barbara's mutedly excitable suggestion, the redhead tilting her head over to look at Meara with encouragement in her luminous eyes.

"You're really starved for girl company right now, aren't you?" Meara gathered with good humor.

Throwing her gaze off to the side with casual carelessness, Barbara shrugged and tried to reply offhandedly, "That might have a little something to do with it."

Losing her composure with a small snort at the obvious act, Meara decided her course for the day much less stringently than usual. "All right, Miss Gordon… You're on."

"Deal, Miss Nolan," Barbara retorted with a repressed grin, smacking a pair of jeans on the covers with decisive, enthusiastic force.

Rather unsurprisingly, Meara and Barbara ended up spending time at the library first. The redhead was all too enthusiastic to show off her workspace, wherein she acted as assistant to the main librarian.

"I love the smell of books," Barbara sighed pleasantly in the middle of the historical section. "Old paper, fading ink, worn leather… it's comforting."

"I love books, too," Meara allowed a little laugh to escape her in the quiet atmosphere. "Maybe not that much, but that's okay."

Laughing a little as well, Barbara shrugged carelessly and turned to exit the aisle with a smile.

"So, where were you at the last week or so?" Meara wondered inquisitively, following behind the readhead.

"I went with my mom and my brother to visit her family in Ohio," Barbara explained. "Dad was in the middle of a case and couldn't leave, so just the three of us went. Not as much fun as you might think."

"You don't like your relatives?" Meara wondered with a frown.

"They don't really understand me," Barbara explained with a shrug. "I think fast and dream big. I want more than they do. Gotham is my home; to them, it's just a diseased city that can't really be saved. To them, my dad is fighting a useless battle. To me… he's always been my hero."

A warm smile lit Meara's face at the admission, tempered by an unhappily dark emotion she buried deep from her companion's gaze. "I don't see anything wrong with that."

"Neither do I," Barbara half-laughed, a smile adorning her own nostalgic features. "So, what kinds of books do you like, Meara? Well, I hope we have some of the same books and authors between worlds."

"Tolkien and Shakespeare are two of my favorite authors," Meara answered thoughtfully.

"Those we have," Barbara laughed quietly.

"I love Grimm's Fairy Tales, Sleepy Hollow, and Canterbury Tales, too," Meara continued, glad for some similarities. And… well, when I was younger I loved Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. Mostly I like fiction, but I do love reading about art, music, and architecture as well. What about you?"

"I'm big into nonfiction, actually," Barbara admitted with a small laugh. "Sciences, technology, biographies, engineering… Otherwise, I only really like science-fiction – Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Orson Scott Card, Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells… "

"While I know those names, I don't particularly care for their stories," Meara shrugged. "Except for Mary Shelley. Frankenstein was a really great read."

"I totally agree with you," Barbara nodded interestedly. "Matter of fact, I think I'll check that out and read it again."

In the ensuing silence, their feet traveled most of the library, crossing the carpet calmly and patiently while the hour passed by in steady minutes. Conversation failed as they each became in engrossed in perusing books along the way, hazel and blue orbs equally absorbed in mismatched subjects ranging from geography to music to biology to art.

Meara and Barbara left with a stack of books each, contrary to Meara's original expectations when entering the library in the first place. Barbara was persuasive, though, convincing Meara to obtain a library card in short order. For classes, at least, it would be useful.

Giggling at their own overzealousness as they pushed out of the front doors with their shoulders in lieu of free hands, both young women accepted the situation with good humor and moved on to the multitude of bookstores Barbara planned to visit, dropping their books in the Maserati along the way.

The last of their visits stood head and shoulders above the rest of the shops, not only in actual physical stature, but in the quality and quantity of books lining the dark wooden shelves throughout the store. Meara practically goggled through the broad-paned glass windows, making Barbara laugh.

"This is the biggest and brightest bookstore in Gotham," the redhead informed Meara as they passed through the revolving glass doors and into a coffee lounge lining the front wall of the business.

"I guess modern bookstores don't change much," Meara commented with a puff of laughter, lowering her voice to add, "Even between universes."

Snorting, Barbara decline to respond to that remark, leading Meara further into the store. Just as with the library, they both became absorbed within moments, roaming shelf after shelf of tomes to explore. Brand new flimsy paperbacks, leather volumes meant to appear as old as some of those at the library, hardbacks in colorful shining covers, it was all there in the store. Meara needed little nudging to buy more than she really needed at the moment.

"I suppose I'll need most of these anyway, when I start at Wayne Enterprises," Meara wryly remarked upon the architectural and business-themed volumes she purchased.

"Not that Bruce Wayne couldn't buy them for his new protégé," Barbara teased as the headed back to the car.

"Protégé!" a cheerful, overly-energetic voice sounded almost directly beside the two young women, each jumping at the startlingly loud sound. "Bruce Wayne personally took on someone new at the company?"

"You're ears are a little big, don't you think?" Barbara commented with a sharp decline between her brows as they turned to face their interloper.

Dressed well in a sharp red skirt suit, the red-lipped woman behind them stood on the shorter side, even in tall black pumps, but she exuded a bold confidence and fearlessness that made up the difference. Black hair hung in a styled wave and exotic, almond-shaped violet eyes sat hooded by thin, dark eyebrows marshalling a very small point at the top.

"Lois?" Barbara asked incredulously, a tinge of concern in her voiced Meara almost missed in her shock at meeting another infamous member of the Justice League's adventures.

"Barbara, I didn't realize it was you!" Lois Lane laughed with the same assuredness that oozed from her wide, white smile and straight posture, offering a casual handshake. "How are you?"

"I'm doing all right," the redhead responded, accepting and shaking the other woman's hand. "What brings you to Gotham?"

"Oh, just a celebrity farce," the raven-haired woman rolled her eyes widely. "Mayor Keendale attended a New York state water safety campaign in Bludhaven. They're the epicenter for the campaign after their recent water crisis. When the mayor didn't show up for his planned appearance this morning, Perry shipped me over for a scoop. Turns out Keendale spent the time with his mistress here in Gotham. Not that big of a story after what happened with Senator Henley last week, but it's something to keep me going. Unless Bruce's protégé is up for an interview?"

Fast-talking and keen of vision, Lois Lane stunned Meara into speechlessness as the words washed over her and the woman's piercing gaze pinned the brunette to the ground on which she stood.

"Um, well, Meara's not up for—" Barbara tried to explain.

"Meara? That's your name?" Lois cut in instantly, jumping on the clue and training her eyes back on the young woman in question. "What's Bruce hiring you for?"

"It's just Urban Planning," Barbara tried to brush off the position when Meara failed to reply, sending Meara a lifted brow as prompting.

"If Bruce is doing the hiring, it's not 'just' anything," Lois remarked, then drilled again, "Is it an internship?"

"No, nothing special like that," Barbara tried again, her attempts at playing off the new job failing pretty rapidly.

Once again, Lois rammed the door of the conversation, "Then which position is it? An assistant? It couldn't be much more. She's obviously too young to have any more experience than that."

Proving her career choice as reporter took just as much importance as Meara had always read about or watched, Lois already had a pad and pen in hand, jotting down notes at astronomical speed.

"I'm sure you can get all this information from Clark Kent," Barbara finally threw the comment from left field, leaving Meara to stare at her instead of Lois Lane.

Lois' head snapped up at a nauseating pace and her eyes narrowed, pen frozen above the notepad. "Clark knew about this?"

"He did visit the manor two weeks ago," the redhead shrugged, visibly feeling more confident. Meara just felt resigned. Pitting Clark's reporting career against Lois' career was never a good idea.

"Just like him to keep this from me," Lois scowled, then exchanged her anger for cold certainty, "Oh well. He's not going to get the exclusive interview. He clearly didn't get it when he came here, otherwise Bruce Wayne personally hiring a new employee would be all over the front page by now. My victory, his loss."

"I am not doing an interview!" Meara finally freed her tongue from its captivity, aghast at the very idea of slamming her inexplicably close relationship with handsome, single, billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne out into the public view. How much harder would her job become if everyone thought she was having an affair with her boss? Meara didn't like to imagine the possibilities.

"Don't be ridiculous," Lois waved her off unconcernedly. "Everyone can accept a leg up and some recognition to move further in life."

"I don't need any of that," Meara immediately retorted, losing her temper already and pulling out the basic black cell phone she carried now. "I'm calling Bruce. He'll explain everything."

"You have him on speed dial?" Lois wondered with slow curiosity, both eyebrows rising with surprise as Meara held the button to call Bruce.

Rolling her eyes as broadly as Lois had moments earlier, Meara ignored the remark and waited out three rings before Bruce picked up.

"What's wrong?" the billionaire's smooth voice had taken on traces of Batman, although not yet reaching the gravel of the cowl.

"Lois Lane. Please talk to her," Meara did not hesitate to respond, rushing her last words to him before Lois practically ripped the phone away from her with an impatient hand.

"Bruce, come on," the reporter snapped into the phone. "It can't hurt the girl to get an interview."

A brief pause stole over the conversation, until Meara heard Bruce's voice pick up again. She couldn't hear his words, but his tone didn't seem overwhelmingly upset, which made the brunette feel marginally better.

"Everyone has troubles, Bruce," Lois snapped again, exhaling irritably.

Another pause, longer than the first, took over the discussion while Bruce spoke again, but this time Lois' eyes narrowed with concern as the talk wound down.

"All right, I can do that," the dark-haired woman eventually agreed cautiously, leaving Meara incredibly curious what she was agreeing to. Rather than answer the inquiring expressions tossed her way, Lois wordlessly turned the phone back to Meara.

"Bruce?" the young woman questioned, voice repressed with doubt.

"Come back to the manor with Lois," Bruce informed her without his usual mysticism. "We have to tell her."

"Are you sure?" Meara wondered, biting her lip doubtfully.

"If we don't, I know exactly how that article is going to be run," Bruce sighed heavily. "I can do the talking. You don't have to worry about it."

"Fine," Meara sighed as well, ending the call with further resignation.

Ringing startled the three women before they could discuss their new plans, Barbara digging out her phone in a hurry to look at the screen.

"I have to take this," the redhead informed them apologetically, answering rapidly, "This is Barbara."

In a matter of seconds, Barbara's face turned grim. "I'll be there. Thank you."

"Dad's in the hospital with a concussion," Barbara exhaled nervously as she put her phone away. "Car chase went wrong. Mom's at the hospital now."

"Do they think he's going to be okay?" Meara asked, brows dipping low on her forehead.

"It's the waiting stage right now," Barbara answered, eyes drawn tight. "I'm sorry, I need to go."

"No, don't apologize," Lois assured the younger woman, "We can find our way to the manor just fine."

"We'll drop you off," Meara insisted firmly. "I can take your books to the manor, if you want."

"That would be wonderful," Barbara smiled in spite of her worry. "Thank you."

"Let's go," Lois nodded for them to leave.

After dropping Barbara at the hospital entrance, eerily similar to the one in The Dark Knight Rises, Lois gave Meara surprisingly patient instructions to get back to the manor. Lois Lane knew her way around Gotham pretty well for a Metropolis resident. Driving up to the Wayne home, Meara questioned just how long Bruce had dated the reporter once upon a time.

Alfred opened the door with a congenial smile at their guest, easily taking both ladies' coats as they stepped inside.

"Welcome back to Gotham, Miss Lane," the butler greeted, offering Meara an encouraging nod.

"Thank you, Alfred," Lois smiled gladly at the older man, keeping her bag, notepad, and pen in hand.

"Lois," Bruce called, his steps drawing both women to look over at him as he crossed the floor in black slacks and a light blue dress shirt. From the wry expression drawing in his features, the billionaire expected a bit of a challenge in facing off with the intrepid reporter.

"Bruce," Lois met his wry nature with long-suffering expectation, arms crossed and one foot jutted to the side.

"Come into the lounge," the vigilante knocked his head towards the room he came from. "We'll talk."

With a pot of tea and a pot of coffee now hot and ready on the coffee table, Lois eased into the sofa casually and much more comfortably than Meara ever expected, sipping on a cup of coffee. The woman seemed to have no doubts about her intentions or her ability to make them a reality.

"All right, Bruce, time to start talking," Lois began the conversation with brute force.

"Meara isn't from our world," Bruce cut straight to the chase, leaving Lois blinking a moment. Meara had to wonder just how few times her host had been so bald-faced in his explanations. "She came from an alternate version of Earth where you and I are merely characters from the pages of a book. Aliens, metahumans, cyborgs, and demigods don't exist there. Our lives – or enough details to cause trouble, at least – are put out for public consumption in comics, films, television, and other sources. I don't think I need to explain to you how dangerous it would be if that information or Meara's true origins came to light."

Lois remained silent for a long while contemplating Bruce's direct answer, perfectly manicured red nails tapping on her notepad with intense concentration. As Meara grew ever more impatient and discomfited by the tap-tap-tap of the reporter's fingertips, Bruce simply sat back in the same patience he always garnered when waiting out a problem he knew the solution to.

With her usual shoot-from-the-hip method of persuasion, Lois recovered at last from her thoughts and set forward into Meara's new normal with a punch of brazen certainty Meara wished she could harness for herself.

"All right, here's my proposition," Lois offered, lips pursed in thoughtful focus. Meara felt equal parts disbelief and lack of surprise that the relentless woman still wanted an interview. "You give me your story. Your… version of events, so to speak. We meet somewhere public and obvious for an interview, but kept away from the public gaze. Standard procedure interviews for me end up in restaurants these days. People tend to feel better divulging on a full stomach for some reason. Regardless, you meet me as an up-and-coming designer waiting to spread her wings in the urban planning field. When I heard about Bruce Wayne suggesting his… what are you calling her, anyway?"

Those sharp violet eyes caught onto Bruce, who calmly replied, "Renovator."

"Renovator, right," Lois rolled her eyes slightly at the very uninteresting term. "When I heard my old friend Bruce Wayne was hiring his… inspirational… renovator for the beginnings of her urban career, I just had to tell the world about her humble beginnings and her chance meeting with the man who has helped so many people on the same revolutionary road to success… Blah, blah, blah. We'll figure out the rest at the restaurant."

Having been so drawn in by the poetic words, even leaning forward unconsciously in her engrossment, Meara snapped back to reality by the startlingly anticlimactic ending.

"We're… actually doing this?" Meara heard herself speaking without understanding her own voice. Her stormy eyes traveled to Bruce's unsurprised icy orbs with shock. "Really, Bruce? You can't tell me there isn't a hoard of things wrong with this scenario."

Bruce sighed in his chest, burdened by hard choices Meara had not yet realized she would be involved in. Even still, the reality of her new life, new world – her new universe, for God's sake – hadn't settled in fully for Meara. This whole situation had begun to move far beyond merely starting an assistant job and settling into the city.

"The more we put out there, the less curiosity you'll be subjected to on a more… personal level," was all Bruce appeared to be willing to say.

"What he means," Lois added blatantly, crossing one leg over the other as she leaned forward in interest, "is the more details we give about your personal life, the less likely people will think you're sleeping with your billionaire boss in return for a promising career."

"If it gets out there that Bruce personally hired me," Meara cut in as if talking to a very slow first-grader, "the gossip is going to lead right back to me being an easy A."

"People are a lot more gullible than you think," Lois waved the concerns away like a fly. "If we can lend enough drama and tragedy to your origins, people will be too sympathetic to feel as much suspicion about your relationship to your handsome employer. They'll just see him as the beneficent benefactor."

Bruce smirked at the backhanded compliment, something Lois neatly ignored in favor of her story-of-the-week.

Observing the clear acceptance and agreement of her host paired with the boundless persistence of her interviewer, Meara could see no way out. "I still don't like the idea. You know that, right?"

"When is a good time to come to Metropolis?" Lois asked as though Meara had not even spoken.

"Why Metropolis?" Meara questioned, thankfully at least gaining an answer this time.

"Less likely to draw attention to you," Lois told her simply. "People there won't have seen you yet or learned anything about you."

"If Meara has to start work, she'll be working before lunchtime," Bruce offered.

"My classes are all after lunch Wednesday through Friday," Meara added resignedly. "The latest ends at four-thirty."

"Well, it doesn't do much good if you haven't even started work yet," Lois frowned, returning to tapping her notepad in thought. "I need to get your impression of being on the job. You'll have to let me know when you start working. Then I'll figure out a place to meet for the interview."

A phone began to ring shrilly and incessantly, prompting Lois the rip the device out of her bag and frown at the display.

"Kent," Lois answered sharply, inciting Meara to prevent laughter by biting the inside of her cheek. Bruce offered the young woman an eye roll for the gesture. "What do you want?"

"Oh, you wanted to make sure I got my big story of the week?" Lois suddenly spoke sweetly, forcing instant suspicion in Meara. "Well, I guess you should have thought of that when you met Bruce Wayne's latest hire two weeks ago!"

The abrupt about-face in tone nearly undid Meara's composure, Bruce's humorous smirk only adding fuel to the fire.

"Yes, I'm in Gotham still," The reporter went on in answer to an unheard question. "Yes, I'm with her and Bruce Wayne right now."

Accompanying the words was a roll of the eyes that rivaled all that had come before it, Lois appearing to be standing on her last leg of patience with her fellow reporter.

"You really want to go down the alley of ex-boyfriends?" Lois retorted as a final send-off. "I can do my job perfectly well without reverting to type, thank you, Clark."

Bruce sighed agitatedly at the blue boy scout's audacity in even bringing up the former relationship between billionaire and reporter, but Meara couldn't help trembling with silent laughter at the obvious worry on Clark's side. Lois eyed the young woman with fearsome eyes that did nothing to dampen Meara's amusement.

"You're right," Lois finally ended the call, "It isn't any of your business."

If the phone had been an old style landline, Meara could only have imagined the brute force with which Lois Lane would have slammed the receiver back down onto the cradle. All the same, the black-haired woman put her cell phone away in her black bag rather violently, taking a deep breath to cool off – however minutely.

"Let me know when you start work," Lois practically commanded, chin tipping up with her selfsame assuredness returned in spades. "At that point, I'll determine the specifics of your interview."

"We'll contact you," Bruce promised in Meara's stead. The brunette remained locked in a valiant effort not to laugh out loud at Superman's worry that Bruce would steal some future chance with Lois away from him.

"Something wrong, Meara?" Lois questioned with the same false sweetness, irritation in her gaze.

Letting go at last, Meara allowed her laughter to shoot forth in a breathy gasp of humor. "Sorry. Oh my Lord, I am so sorry. But Clark worried about you and Bruce getting back together is hilarious!"

Giving in to the funny bone her soon-to-be interviewee couldn't repress, Lois concluded in acquiescence, "We're not even dating, but he still gets worried sometimes when I see Bruce for any reason."

"Oh, and even when that's never going to be a possibility," Meara added with a shake of her head, still smiling.

"Yes, the um… other side of the coin just didn't work for me," Lois confessed, eyes directed with mild apology towards an undisturbed Bruce.

The vigilante only shrugged in reply, "I understood your reasons."

"And, of course, Clark doesn't realize the opposite applies to—" Meara began, but stopped abruptly as she realized just what she was about to reveal. Just because Lois knew about Bruce didn't mean she knew about Clark…

"Oh, don't make me laugh, hon," Lois erupted into a short burst of laughter along with Bruce's chuckle, calming enough to add dryly, "I know who Clark really is."

Relaxing infinitesimally in the wake of that information, Meara leaned back more comfortably in her seat. Laughing again, Lois stood with Bruce and reached out an arm to him. Although the blue-eyed businessman exuded a long-suffering air, he did allow the reporter he once dated to bestow on him a one-armed hug with bruising force. In return, the billionaire dropped a brief kiss onto Lois' cheek.

"If only Clark were outside with those x-ray peepers," Lois teased, a catlike grin espousing her wicked violet gaze.

Bruce snorted at the same time Meara laughed delightedly. In a matter of minutes, Lois Lane had gone from one of Meara Nolan's most annoying acquaintances to a source of excitable good cheer she hoped to meet again.

"Thanks for finally giving in," Lois winked at the younger woman jokingly.

Rolling her eyes for umpteenth time that day, Meara just shook her head, "Whatever you say, General Lane."

"Ugh, please don't call me that," Lois made a disgusted twist of her features. "There is no reality out in the great wide universe where I would want to be my father. Being his daughter is enough of a disaster, thank you very much."

"So I guess he does hate aliens and metahumans?" Meara presumed disappointedly.

"To the letter," Lois sighed, but perked up again. "Enough about Sam Lane. I have a great interview coming soon, a mildly important article to write up, and I just told Clark off – again. It's a pretty good day. I better get going now. Perry won't be happy if I don't get this story in before the morning edition."

"Thanks for taking enough time to listen," Meara offered reasonably.

"You're welcome," Lois responded with a little smile, letting Bruce walk her back out to the foyer.

Meara's soon-to-come interview was one of the most important topics of discussion at dinner that night, topped only by Dick and Tim's amusement over Clark's jealousy, and Jim Gordon waking from a mild concussion. Barbara's phone call interrupted Bruce preparing to discuss Meara's travel plans to Metropolis whenever her interview occurred.

"Keep us updated," Bruce informed Barbara at the end of their conversation, putting the phone back in his pocket.

"I always liked him," Meara commented. "I'm glad he's okay."

"A lot of people like Jim Gordon," Dick added, nodding his understanding. "He's a good guy."

"That he is," Bruce concurred simply. "Now, Meara, depending on when your interview is, I may not be able to go with you. It may even be better that way. Best not to pander to the social gossip machine any more than we already will."

"I could probably go," Dick suggested. "My classes are all earlier than Meara's, so I'll be done by the time she's ready to leave for Metropolis."

"That will work," Bruce nodded in agreement. "You'll be home in time to get some sleep before any of your early classes, as well. Lois isn't going to dawdle around with this."

"I'll have traveled more in a month than I have my whole life," Meara wondered at her new world for the thousandth time. "I can't believe I get to see Metropolis."

"It's a glistening city," Bruce told her. "But you need to be careful. Superman has as many enemies waiting to pounce in Metropolis as Batman does in Gotham."

"Do you always refer to yourself in the third person?" Meara couldn't help asking with a disbelieving air.

Merely staring at her for the remark while Dick and Time laughed over their plates, Bruce eventually just turned back to his meal with a shake of his head. Resigned to not having an answer, Meara shrugged and sighed as she returned focus to her own dinner.

Rising with the sun that easy Sunday morning, Meara felt relaxed as she had not felt for days. Years, if she were honest with herself. Luxuriating in the feeling occupied far more time than the brunette imagined it would. Even so, she wished the feeling could last all day. Nevertheless, she rose with a sense of importance she didn't quite understand. Shrugging it off, the young woman rose and readied herself for the day at last, casual in blue jeans, a red striped top, and white running shoes.

Barbara remained at her dad's side in the hospital, so Meara wouldn't be able to talk with her as they had the previous day. Jim was going to be just fine, but the redhead wasn't about to leave unless she absolutely had to. Meara supposed she would spend her time in the ballroom.

Heading down to what she realized was a rather late breakfast, Meara scolded herself for getting caught up in the sunrise so easily. When she began work at Wayne Enterprises, that would be completely unacceptable to indulge.

"Good morning, Miss Meara," Alfred greeted her as she sat down to the right of Bruce. Dick was absent, but Tim sat on his father's left.

"Good morning," Meara offered in return, smiling at all three males in the room. "Where's Dick gone to?"

"He's with Barbara," Bruce answered distractedly, looking over papers of some kind while his breakfast sat getting cold.

"Moral support, he said," Alfred remarked, winking at Meara conspiratorially. Tim rolled his eyes, bringing a snort of laughter from the young woman.

The meal passed with little other conversation, leaving Meara more energetic than she needed. Tim looked exhausted and Bruce remained absorbed in his paperwork. Alfred returned to the kitchen to do the dishes once they had all 'eaten their fill' – which essentially stood as code for Bruce's half-empty plate. No one seemed surprised, least of all Alfred.

"I'm going to swim," Tim informed them, still tired and dragging his feet as he rose and moved to the doorway.

"Be careful," Meara found herself saying, bringing Tim's surprised gaze around to her. Shrugging awkwardly, the brunette only said, "You seem overly tired."

"Okay," was Tim's easy reply, a little smile passing over his face.

Once the teen Robin's footsteps faded from hearing, Bruce's attention on his paperwork instantly ceased. Startled, Meara blinked emptily until the billionaire sighed.

"Christina Fenwick went into labor last night," Bruce explained without any superficial chit-chat. "She gave birth to a healthy baby girl this morning."

Meara could have sworn she misheard Bruce's words; she was certain she didn't have to start her job so soon. The job she wasn't nearly ready for, the interview that came along lock, stock, and barrel with the new career. She hadn't even started Bruce's reading material on Wayne Enterprises…

But Bruce wasn't smirking – this was no joke.

"When?" was Meara's simple question, leaving Bruce to sigh again far more deeply.

"As much as I would like to give you more time," the billionaire began apologetically, "The board would start to wonder what I was doing if I waited weeks for a specific person who had no formal prior training in the position. We need the job filled as soon as possible."

"How soon is soon?" Meara repeated her basic question.

"This week," Bruce explained, straight to the point.

If she hadn't been sitting in chair already, Meara might very well have landed on the floor for her shock.

"I know it's close, I know it's not going to be easy," Bruce asserted understandingly, leaning forward as he assured her, "but you can do this. You have the booklet to look through and you have all of us as resources, even Lucius. Besides, believe me, if you can handle Lois Lane hell-bent on an interview, you can handle pretty much anything that comes your way."

Burdened by stress before she even started the work she agreed to so many days before, Meara couldn't laugh at the subtle joke.

"I hope you're right," she responded quietly to her host, slumping into the chair disheartened. The sense of importance she had risen with now made all too much sense.

Meara just wished it didn't.

"I'll call Lois," Bruce informed the young woman, exhaling wearily at the situation and pulling out his cell phone.

Given her promised interview, the bold reporter didn't appear to waste any time answering the phone call. Her loud, excited voice came across even to Meara's ears beside Bruce.

"When does she start the job?"

Rolling his ice blue eyes at the woman's overly enthusiastic response, Bruce told her the simple details, "She starts shadowing this week."

"Great! I'll plan for Wednesday, then." The amount of cheer in the woman's voice should be illegal, Meara decided.

Bruce looked to Meara for approval, but the young woman merely shrugged. Everything would happen at once, whether she wanted it to or not.

Concerned by the careless gesture, Bruce nevertheless answered Lois, "That will be fine. Meara's class ends as three-thirty. Plan for dinner."

"Got it! Thanks!" Lois hung up without any form of farewell, leaving Bruce rolling his eyes for the tenth time since being approached about the interview in the first place.

"I suppose I need to call Lucius now," Bruce spoke again, searching for the number while Meara continued to sit in melancholy. "Why don't you go sit poolside? Tim would appreciate the company and it might calm you."

"Sure," Meara responded blankly, not entirely certain why that would help, but willing to try anything to ease her nerves now that they had been shoved into overdrive.

As Meara left the dining room, she could feel those sharp blue eyes riveted to her back even when Bruce greeted his Chairman.

"Lucius. Christina had the baby."

Before Meara passed out of earshot on her way down the hall, she just barely heard as Bruce quietly finished his explanation.

"Meara's starting on Tuesday."

Notes:

I decided to retcon Meara's height. Originally, in Chapter 1, I had her standing at five feet, four inches. She is now five feet, six inches tall. Seems like I write a lot of really short people, so I decided to make a change.

Much of the bat cave's design is totally from my own head, minus those few parts taken from the animated series, Justice League, and The Dark Knight trilogy.

DC Comics had a superhero named Enigma. However, the “mysterious entity known only as 'Enigma’…” (from my summary) is NOT related in any way to the 8-issue Vertigo/DC Miniseries of the same name.

Chapter 16 coming soon!

"We just ate not that long ago!" she exclaimed in disbelief, staring at him in surprise.

"I told you I was always hungry," Tim shrugged, undisturbed.

"Almost always, I believe you said," the young woman corrected with a lifted brow.

Tim just shrugged again, nonplussed.

"Wow," Meara muttered, shaking her head with a growing sense of amusement. "Thanks, but I'm still quite good from the bistro."

It was only once she heard the teen's steps recede that Meara snorted humorously, moving on with her reorganization, which lasted well until dinnertime. Rather than Alfred reminding her of the time, it was Tim who did so.

"Alfred says dinner is ready… And yes, I'm hungry again," Tim teased, leaving Meara laughing as they headed downstairs together.

Seated at another meal with the Wayne men, Meara found the new quiet enjoyable rather than stifling. Her experiences in Detroit had a strange effect on her perceptions of the past, giving her a bit of slack with which to move a little forward.

"Meara, do you want me to come with you tomorrow?" Dick asked, breaking the easy quiet of the dining table.

Brought from her reverie in confusion, Meara furrowed her brow. "What do you mean?"

"First class?" Dick prompted with an amused smile, inciting Tim's bright laughter at Meara's expense.

"Oh!" Meara remembered the event as though she had just run into a brick wall. "If you don't mind, it might be nice to have a guide at first."

"No problem," Dick pleasantly confirmed. "You can drive, so you get used to it."

"Thanks," she nodded, equally pleased by the help she was given and terrified at the prospect of her first really public appearance as Meara Nolan in society.

"You're going to be fine, Miss Meara," Alfred assured her on his way back from the kitchen.

"Did J'onn drop in on us?" Meara joked half-heartedly, but it certainly got a good laugh out of Bruce's sons.

"Alfred is right," Bruce concurred with the elder man. "You're intelligent, adaptive, and quick-to-learn. Everything else will fall in."

"I hope you're right," Meara sighed, new anxiety in the pit of her stomach that lasted well into the late hours after she slipped under the covers.

Sleep came with difficulty in the first place that night, but when Meara woke from the usual insomnia, her anxious feelings made it seem far worse than it probably was. In contrast to her typical behavior, Meara's first reaction was a small slew of tears that forced her into the bathroom for tissues. Nerves in overdrive, the young woman dried her tears and snatched a few extra tissues on her way out of the room, robe already in place as she made the trip downstairs.

Light shone from the kitchen, a blessing Meara had almost discredited before coming down to check. Alfred stood alone at the counter, prepping greens, carrots, and cucumbers for some ungodly reason.

"Sleepless night?" Alfred greeted her sympathetically as she took the chair nearest his workstation with a slight thump.

"Yes," Meara verified quietly. "I can't seem to get my nerves under control, either."

"When I said you were going to be fine," the butler began, setting aside his paring knife to lean against the counter's ledge, "I meant it. Not because I'm trying to comfort you, but because I know it and believe it. Watching the way you've grown and integrated in our lives so far, how couldn't I know it?"

The firm words were the first thing to bring calm over Meara's mind since Dick brought up the subject of classes the night before.

"Thanks, Alfred," the brunette said far more sincerely than at dinner, smiling warmly at the apron-clad gentleman.

"You're quite welcome, Miss," he replied, a smile flashing over his features. Returning to his chopping, Alfred added, "Would you like anything? Tea? A snack?"

"No, thank you," Meara shook her head negatively.

"Are you positive?" Alfred pressed, only partly teasing in his words. "Warm chamomile does wonders for an anxious soul…"

Laughing on an exhale, Meara tilted her head in thought. "Well, if it really helps, why deny it?"

"That's the spirit," the elder man agreed jovially, setting his knife down again to put the kettle on.

Yawning overtook Meara while she waited for that telltale whistle to blow.

"How did your organization work out?" Alfred spoke up again, making casual conversation in the silence.

"Oh, it's all great," Meara answered. "I actually have room to spare now. I have no doubt I'll end up filling it a lot quicker than I think, especially once I move all the clothing from the Caligo Room, but for now there's extra room for maneuvering."

"I'm glad to hear it," Alfred smiled slightly. "I do agree, though. I believe once all of the technology and furniture is fully placed, there will be much less extra space."

Nodding, Meara went silent again, leaving Alfred to either wait out the quietude or fill the silence again.

With a slight inhale, the butler made his choice, turning back to Meara with an understanding expression.

"Are you quite sure you're willing to try swimming?" the elder man asked, concern filtering into his tone.

Inhaling more slowly and broadly than her companion, Meara had to ask herself the same thing.

"I don't know," she admitted quietly, "but it can't be safe or healthy to not know how."

"That's true," Alfred nodded once, "but is the timing right for you? Learn it, by all means, but please make sure you're not overwhelming yourself with too much fear and anxiety. I don't want you to drive yourself over the edge."

"I don't think I'm quite that bad yet, Alfred," Meara half-laughed, conversely encouraged and emboldened by the Englishman's worry. Confused, but drawn by this newfound confidence, the young woman actually felt her shoulders ease down from their tense posture.

"As you say, Miss," Alfred acquiesced respectfully, gray eyes slowly losing their stormy concern.

The kettle whistled then, and Alfred turned to take it off the burner and turn off the stovetop. Alfred poured out two cups of hot water into a pair of ivory and yellow china tea cups Meara nervously expected were priceless family articles.

Chuckling with quick knowledge of his charge's fears, Alfred spoke soothingly, "These cups are everyday tea china, Miss Meara. Meant for daily wear and use. Please don't worry over the possibility of dropping them. They are easily replaced."

"If you say so, Alfred," Meara allowed, still picking up her tea cup rather gingerly.

"I do, Miss, I do," the butler chuckled still, doling out tea bags to each of them and taking a spoon to the honey jar. Careful servings of honey joined the rapidly brewing tea in their china cups and completed the warm, cozy beverage Meara and Alfred shared.

"Thank you," Meara smiled at the butler gratefully and settled into sipping the warm, lightly sweetened tea with a sigh of contentment she had not been feeling moments prior.

Alfred joined her relaxed posture, the first time Meara had seen him without his shoulders ramrod straight since her arrival.

"Do you really have to stand so stiff and straight all the time, Alfred?" Meara inquired, tilting her head at the man in his shirt sleeves. "I'm sure Bruce and the boys don't care if you loosen up around the house sometimes, like you're doing now."

"Hmm," Alfred hummed amusedly, a tiny smile on his lips. "Well, Miss Meara, I find that loosening up much of the day tends to loosen the mind as well. Eventually, one comes to view themselves as entitled to a measure of that ease all of the time. Even when they might not be. So I take my leisure very rarely."

Considering that for a moment, Meara finally shrugged. "I suppose it makes sense. If you make a habit of it, of course."

"That's how I feel about it, at any rate," Alfred agreed, taking another sip of his tea. "Besides, the more infrequently you do something, the more enjoyable it is to do when you get the rare chance."

Smiling, Meara responded simply, "I like that."

Alfred chuckled at her again and together they remained comfortably settled to finish their chamomile tea in the kitchen of Wayne Manor, tendrils of pale violet dawn peeking through the windows.

When Meara woke from sleep later in the morning, the clock read an annoyingly early ten-thirty, leaving the brunette with far less sleep than she needed or wanted. The time was also annoyingly late for an entirely different reason – her first class at Gotham University began in three hours.

Wiping the sleep from her eyes, Meara pushed herself out of bed and began to prepare for her day. Given the stress she expected to feel, the young woman opted for simplicity and ease of movement in a pink pullover and dark blue wide leg pants, matched by oxfords in cognac and dark blue. Adding a cognac weave tote and throwing a dark blue coat over her shoulder, Meara hurried to put a slew of new class supplies in the tote. The young woman slipped everything from her other purse into the new cognac creation as well and deemed herself ready.

"Hey, Meara," Dick greeted the young woman with a smile as she entered the kitchen. "Alfred left lunch ready for us. Just takes a little reheating."

"Hi, Dick," Meara greeted him in return, laying coat and purse on a chair. "Never thought my new normal would include a butler in any way."

"You're never really going to get over that, are you?" Dick eyed her speculatively, amusement fairly bursting in his blue eyes.

"Probably not," Meara chuckled, moving automatically towards the containers of pork loin, potatoes, and vegetables on the counter. "I'll reheat everything."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Don't worry about it. I think I can handle a few pots, pans, and knobs," Meara teased, nose wrinkled in good humor.

"Sorry I'm not so good in the kitchen," Dick lifted one shoulder in embarrassed acknowledgment.

"Oh, I'm used to it," Meara waved away the apology carelessly. "I'm fine working like this. It's just a part of me now."

The brunette reached for the cookware Alfred had graciously left out for their use, clanging and chiming overriding the silence for a few minutes until she settled everything.

"Besides," Meara continued after the last pot sat on the burner, its contents slowly heating. "I actually enjoy working in the kitchen. That might not seem very feminist to some, but I think the freedom to choose what I enjoy – without judgment from men or women – is a measure of feminism."

"I hate the shaming in both sexes," Dick responded with a frown. "A lot of men expect other men to only be macho idiots who leer at women. If they're not like that, then they aren't a 'real' man."

"A lot of women expect other women to be perfect femme fatales, otherwise they aren't 'real' women," Meara added with a nod. "I agree with you, it's frustrating the way men and women debilitate their own equality. It's just as terrible as shaming from the opposite sex. Worse, perhaps, because they are defeating themselves with infighting before they ever reach a real battle."

"If you can't demonstrate for your cause, no one else will, either," Dick interposed.

"Exactly," Meara assented, leaning back on the counter with her arms folded across her chest. Changing tack in the following quiet, she asked, "What car are we taking to the university?"

"Doesn't matter," Dick shrugged. "Bruce just wanted me to watch out for you, regardless what vehicle we take. Might as well get used to your new ride."

"I guess so," Meara sighed slightly, then turned a side-eye to Dick as she added, "Flashy though it may be."

Laughing, Dick just comfortably waved off her sly comment.

Driving to the University with Dick guiding the way eased Meara's nerves a fraction and left her watching her surroundings far more closely than she might have done with a full blown panic under her belt.

"Go ahead and park over there," Dick pointed to a parking lot they approached, across the campus from where they had begun their tour a week earlier.

Pulling into a spot somewhere in the middle of the lot, so as to avoid intense attentions, Meara put the car in park and sat for very long moment, breathing deep.

"You're going to be fine," Dick laughed a little at her attempts at calm. "Come on."

Taking another deep breath for good measure, Meara grabbed her tote and her new keys before standing from the car as Dick did. As he had seven days before, Dick gained stares that slid away without acknowledgement. Passing people gave even less acknowledgment to Meara, leaving her to release a sigh of relief as they came to her classroom twenty minutes before it began.

"I'll be waiting here when you get out, okay?" Dick assured calmly and quietly, making sure no one truly heard him. "If you get out early, just call me. I'm not leaving campus."

"All right," Meara nodded, offering a little smile before heading into her first class of the week – Economics For Planners.

Susan Stein had little to say to her partially captive audience, sticking to the basics of rules, project completion, and grading before leaving them to read her course objective pamphlet. The thick packet covered twenty-three pages of precise theory and project details that no one would understand – no one without extensive architectural experience, at least.

In the two hours her class spent going over the premise of the course and the professor's outlined plans for the semester, Meara had to wonder why she was so anxious in the first place. Familiar and comforting, the classroom setting similar to her old life made everything feel normal, a precious thing of which Meara had obtained very little since arriving in a world of superheroes.

Dick stood waiting as promised when Meara exited the classroom, hands in his pockets with casual ease.

"How was it?" Dick inquired, muted in his expectation.

"Completely untroubled," Meara sighed, humor gracing her tone. "Everyone was right, of course. I didn't need to worry so much."

"From the way Bruce tells it, you know it all anyway," Dick threw in cheekily.

"I probably know a lot of it, actually," Meara confessed ruefully, toe scuffing the ground lightly as they walked to her car. "Mostly I need more information on commercial and professional work, specifically. I have a lot of designing under my belt, whether residential or commercial. But I really need to know the business side of things to make the best go of it."

"What kind of courses did you take before?"

"Well, I was in pre-architecture, if that gives you any ideas," Meara shrugged haplessly. "Mostly I designed interiors and structures using paper, pencil, and CAD. That's where I gained most of my designing experience."

"So you've gained all your experience backwards," Dick remarked with a little laugh.

"That's about what happened," Meara laughed herself. "Still, I'm rather excited to be in a design studio again. I love to sketch and design."

"I can tell," Dick remarked teasingly.

Meara waved him off amusedly and slipped in the driver's side of the Maserati with a shake of her head.

Between arriving back at the manor and walking into the dining room later that evening, Meara worked solely in the ballroom. Her host took keen notice of the new spring in the young woman's step at dinner.

"You look pleased about something," Bruce remarked interestedly, one eyebrow lifted.

"I finally cleared an entire wall space," Meara smiled contentedly, taking a bite of turkey before she continued, "thanks to Alfred bringing me that ladder… Granted, it was one of the shorter walls, but I still feel a pretty good sense of accomplishment."

"Glad to hear it," the billionaire added, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. "How did your class go?"

"Fine," Meara shook her head at her own fears the past two days. "I can't believe how much I worried over it all."

"Maybe what really worries you is working at the company?" Bruce suggested more quietly.

Sighing a bit awkwardly, Meara tipped her head in acknowledgement. "I suppose that's probably it. Still, I'll be glad to go to classes tomorrow without having a panic session."

"What classes do you have left this week?" Tim asked interestedly.

"I have two tomorrow… Planning Theory and Methods with Everett Gibson," Meara recited the class schedule from memory, "then Historical Preservation Theory with Gregory Nelson. And on Friday, I have Planning Law with Isaac Tanner."

"Sounds like a mass of information you already have in queue," remarked Bruce.

"Well, I did take some slightly similar courses in Pre-Architecture," Meara confessed, her earlier conversation with Dick coming to mind. "But I'm sure there's plenty I haven't learned. Besides, everything has different earmarks in this world. Can't be too careful about learning everything significant in building and designing."

"There will be some differences," Bruce concluded thoughtfully. "With some of the technology we have – things your world probably lacked – there will doubtless be some changes and upgrades you need to know."

"Hopefully the rest of my professors are more interesting than Susan Stein," Meara commented in distaste, leaving the Wayne men to chuckle at her wrinkled nose.

In the wake of her concern on the teaching style of her professors that semester, Meara didn't think too much on the possibility of insomnia again. Yet, at three-forty in the morning, the young brunette made the same dash downstairs for a source of light and company. Alfred's presence in the kitchen seemed suspect at such an hour, but his preparations for breakfast appeared legitimate. Regardless, Meara appreciated his presence and the warm chamomile tea they once again shared into the dawn.

Given a few more hours sleep between sunrise and lunchtime, Meara felt a little better than her insomniac night might have otherwise portended. Classes once more overtook her thoughts and left her wondering on the mannerisms her instructors could possess right up until Dick walked her to her first class Thursday afternoon.

While Gregory Nelson taught Historical Preservation Theory as though their time was endless and their minds infinitely sponged to make up for his dry lectures, Meara's other course that day more than made up the balance.

Meara's planning theory instructor, Everett Gibson, exuded a casual friendliness that welcomed every one of his students into the classroom before he even spoke. When he did speak, his voice echoed the sensation of congenial warmth to a tee. Two hours never passed so quickly in the classroom before.

The moment Meara arrived back at the manor, Bruce pulled her into the lounge and looked over the finger she sliced open, removing the bandages and giving the injury a thorough once-over.

"Good to go," Bruce declared Meara's finger healthy. "The stitches are dissolved and your finger is healed and ready for normal use – or even extreme physical duress, if need be."

Relieved by the freedom of no longer being bundled in a bandage, Meara wiggled her fingers experimentally and sighed in relief, "I'm so glad to get rid of that bandage."

Snorting at her remark, Bruce put away his flashlight. "Let's just not repeat it ever again."

"I'm good with that," Meara half-laughed at the exasperated acknowledgment of her host. "Class will be so much easier. And thank God I don't need to wear a bandage when I start work."

"You would be worried about that," Bruce retorted, long-suffering as he headed to the kitchen to throw the bandage in the trash bin.

In the wee hours of that Friday, Meara once again faced insomnia, a trip to the kitchen, and a night of sharing tea with a suspiciously awake and active Alfred Pennyworth. With another half-bout of sleep under her belt, Meara faced her last class with dread of a dull, nitpicking professor stuck at the back of her mind.

But Isaac Tanner had a penchant for humor that boosted interest in even the rather dull subject of legalities. Thankfully the course would only last half a semester. More than that in the way of law would sap Meara's energy worse than the lectures from Professors Stein and Nelson, even with as much as she liked Tanner's teaching methods.

Heaving a great exhale of relief as she and Dick drove back to the manor, Meara relished her completion of the first week of college in Gotham City.

"Feeling all right?" Dick inquired concernedly over the sound his companion exuded. The brunette smiled at him in comfortable acknowledgment.

"I'm good, actually," Meara informed him truthfully. "I'm just… finding it strange to be attending college in this world. It's so odd, in some ways."

"I can understand that," Dick agreed with a tilt of his head. "Some things are just too unreal until you've lived through them like this."

Meara nodded pleasantly in comprehension, happy to finally gain a measure of acceptance and ease in her new environment beyond Bruce Wayne's safe, private, comfortable home life.

Despite Meara's personal comfort with the new experiences she faced, Tim and Alfred took to a nuisance of bickering over a mixture of daily chores and the homework Tim was soon to engage in once school started for him on Tuesday. Meara half-wondered if Alfred allowed it merely to ease the tension with Bruce over Tim's patrol hours getting cut virtually in half.

Regardless, all throughout dinner that night, Tim and Alfred fenced words over the combination of homework and chores, one of which Meara already knew Tim actually loved to do.

"Tim, that's enough," Bruce finally cut firmly but amusedly into one of Tim's remarks about doing laundry on heavy homework nights, leaving the teenager acquiescently quiet as the meal ended.

Everyone went their separate ways, the three Wayne men to the cave to prepare for patrols, Alfred to partake of dish-washing duty before beginning his other duty as communications central, and Meara to work further in the ballroom.

In lieu of dropping off to sleep on the hard floor in her less-than-fluid outfit, Meara gathered herself and her personal supplies to head up to bed, hopefully for a restful, insomnia-free night – also hopefully her last in the Caligo Room. She could only hope. The covers cocooned Meara in warmth and softness, a welcome respite from kneeling and bending to clean the ballroom walls of their years of dust collection.

Darkness in the inky room Meara had returned to, sprung eternal and frustrating from the depths of heavy sleep, leaving the young woman to exhale slowly, attempting patience. Perhaps for once she had slept straight through…

Glancing at the clock, Meara sighed heavily.

Four-thirty.

Great.

Another night of sleep lost. Meara groaned internally and knew she would be heading to the kitchen as per usual. At least she might find Alfred waiting downstairs, puttering in the kitchen with deliberate intention as he had taken to doing the past three nights.

Groaning out loud this time, Meara dragged herself out of bed and threw on her favorite gray robe to head downstairs.

Finally reaching the kitchen at her now slightly slower pace, Meara walked into a room decidedly full of people – four people, to be exact.

Stopping in surprise, Meara wondered briefly where Alfred was, her stormy blue eyes fixed on the lone head of fiery red hair at the dining table, seated between Dick and Tim.

"Barbara Gordon," Tim cocked his head in the redhead's direction, not even looking up at Meara but focused on his food with interest. "Batgirl. Whichever."

"Thanks, Tim," Barbara rolled luminous hazel eyes, turning her attention to Meara rather than the slightly belligerent 13-year-old Robin. "Bruce had just started to explain about a very knowledgeable guest living here. I'm guessing that's you."

The redheaded crimefighter gave Meara a scrutinizing once-over, and the brunette understood the other young woman probably hadn't learned much before Meara entered the room. Accepting her critical gaze as normal with a strange invader, Meara finally answered, "That would be correct. My name is Meara Nolan."

"Maybe you should keep explaining, Bruce?" Barbara suggested a little awkwardly. "All I know is she's new, she knows, and you're okay with that."

Meara bristled only slightly at the indirect discussion when she was standing right there, reminding herself again that Barbara had been smacked in the face with a stranger invading their normal routine and all the secrecy Bruce had enforced all this time.

"Meara, would you prefer to explain?" Bruce asked her directly, rerouting Barbara's uncomfortable exclusion with subtle tact. Clear blue eyes spoke volumes of the billionaire's understanding.

"Not really," the young woman denied in discomfort, still standing in the doorway with her arms crossed rather defensively.

"Come over and sit down," Bruce offered with a tiny smile at the corner of his mouth, offering up a hand towards Meara. "I'll explain it all."

Drawn inexplicably towards the welcoming hand of her host and the encouraging gazes of Dick and Tim, Meara stepped forward, taking Bruce's proffered hand once close enough to let him guide her into the seat beside his.

"I was about to explain to Barbara about your arrival," Bruce began again, gently setting Meara's fingers – one of which had just been freed of bandages and stitches after being sliced open only ten days earlier – on the arm of her chair as he turned to the redhead across from them. "No one has any actual idea how Meara ended up here, least of all Meara herself. In the middle of a fight with Devil Ray in downtown Detroit, Meara just… appeared… and Devil Ray grabbed her as a hostage. To put it in the simplest possible terms, Meara is from a completely separate universe."

Barbara blinked a moment over this sudden, strange explanation, then opened her mouth to speak, but Bruce cut her off not unkindly, "Not a parallel universe, like the Justice Lords, but totally separate and distinct. There are no ties or connections between the identities in our world and Meara's world. She doesn't appear in any of the databases, nor do her family. I trust her because of the pieces of identification Meara had on her person when she arrived here. And J'onn searched memories of her family and the situation with Devil Ray, and found them all to be real and genuine."

"There's something else that convinced you, though," Barbara shrewdly deduced. "Isn't there?"

Bruce sighed and chuckled simultaneously before Barbara even finished her sentence, dragging a hand over his face a little tiredly. "I should have known you better. Yes, there was something else… Zatanna looked into her crystal and saw various places in Meara's life. Not all-inclusive, but enough to understand the general flow of her life and ascertain her honesty. Meara came from a world without superheroes or supervillains, no metahumans or aliens. The memories J'onn saw, as well as the corresponding images from Zatanna, all matched Meara's story."

"If there were no superheroes or metahumas or what-have-you," Barbara frowned, "then how could you know about us?"

Glad to at least be addressed directly this time, Meara took a breath before responding, "All of you were fictional characters in my world. In TV shows, movies, comics books, animated media… but not real live people."

The redhead's jaw actually dropped at that, however slightly, but after a minute or two the idea seemed to settle more smoothly and Barbara relaxed into her seat. "Well, I guess we've seen stranger things. Once or twice… I think."

Half-laughing at the amazement in the other young woman's hazel eyes, Meara shrugged. "You probably have."

"So… Bruce brought you here for safety, then," Barbara concluded reasonably.

"Precisely," Bruce concurred, seeming to relax minutely as the last member of the Bat clan accepted their newest resident.

"Sorry I was hostile at first," Barbara remarked with a wry smile, the shock finally dying away. "I like to have facts and data behind me."

"It must have been awkward finding some strange new person here, right in the middle of your team," Meara added understandingly.

"Yeah, it was a little odd," Barbara half-laughed herself, and the subject seemed to draw to its own close.

In the amiable silence that followed, it was Bruce who eventually spoke first, "I suppose you had another bout of insomnia tonight?"

"What else?" Meara sighed irritably. "I'm so annoyed by this. If it was once in a while, that would be fine, but every single night…"

"You have trouble sleeping?" Barbara joined the conversation curiously.

"Almost every night since coming here," Meara admitted hesitantly. "I fall asleep and then wake up in the middle of the night for no reason. No real nightmares or dreams, just waking up all of a sudden. I still can't figure it out."

"Did you have this kind of problem before coming here?" Barbara asked, immediately backtracking when she saw Meara's vaguely suspicious face. Holding up her hands in acquiescence, the redhead explained, "I only thought it might be the new atmosphere, or a new home, or simply the whole situation here."

"I don't know," Meara shook her head. "I just know every night I've woken up randomly."

"No insomnia at the penthouse last week, though, right?" Dick wondered with furrowed brows. "You seemed really well-rested the next day."

"That's true," Meara nodded with a frown. "And I didn't have it the first night here at the manor. Or when Bruce took me to Detroit... Or that afternoon we returned, either… That's funny."

"I don't know what to tell you," Bruce commented a bit concernedly. "I can't think of any connections between all these nights at the moment."

"Did you wake up at the same time every night?" Barbara questioned, lips pursed in thought.

"No," Meara shook her head again. "It's always a different time. Although… well, I guess now that I think about it… it was always between certain hours, even if the time wasn't exactly the same."

"What hours, if you don't mind me asking?" the redhead asked.

"About… oh… three to five in the morning," Meara answered with furrowed brows. "Last night it was actually six-thirty, but that's unusual."

"We spent a lot longer out on patrol last night, too," Tim remarked with a sigh. "Maybe it's just a thing right now."

"As a matter of fact, we came back about six-thirty, too," Dick mentioned with a shake of his head. "Maybe Tim's right."

"When do you usually get back?" Meara inquired interestedly, leaning forward in her seat. She still hadn't heard a great deal about their nightly patrols, even after almost two weeks living in Wayne Manor.

"Depends on the night," Barbara answered with a shrug. "Sometimes the bad guys have an extra flair for evasion."

Meara might have replied to that, but Bruce's eyes had taken a sharp, keen turn and she wondered what he was thinking.

"Bruce?" she wondered concernedly.

"How long does it generally take you to get downstairs after waking up?" he asked abruptly.

Taken aback, it took a moment for Meara to reply, "Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. Giving myself time to wake up. I also walk a little slower now that I've adjusted to the darkness in the manor a little more."

"Did you write down the time you woke up each night?" the billionaire asked sharply, now keener in his questioning.

"Yes I did," Meara told him, ever more curious. "Why? What are you thinking?"

"Can you show me?" Bruce requested a touch gentler than before, seeming to realize his approach had grown intense.

"Of course," Meara agreed without question, rising and heading out of the kitchen, Bruce quick on her heels. As they absconded the main staircase, Meara explained, "I always keep it in the bedside table, if you ever need it."

"I'm not going to go digging through your things, Meara," Bruce exhaled exasperatedly.

"It's your house and your room," Meara denied adamantly, adding as an afterthought, "The things in there are yours, too, if you really think about it."

"Regardless," Bruce interceded more calmly, "I deem that space your room, and I refuse to dig through it like a thief."

Stepping off the staircase, Meara sighed and shook her head, "Whatever you say, Bruce."

It took a mere minute to open the drawer of the bedside table and pull out the sheet of paper Meara had been jotting down dates and times on. Bruce accepted the page from her hand, glancing over it with an interested gaze.

Finally looking up at Meara with a discerning expression, the billionaire asked another question, "Are you planning to try and sleep again, or will you be awake for a while?"

"Definitely awake," Meara replied instantly.

"Do you feel comfortable coming down to the cave?" Bruce queried with genuine concern.

Thinking about it for a few minutes, Meara weighed her feelings about the darkness and her need to understand what Bruce was going on about. Her driven curiosity won out by a large margin, and she nodded decidedly. "I'm okay with it."

Giving her one last perceptive glance, Bruce nodded also, "Then change into something warmer and more rugged. I'll wait in the hall."

Taking his advice to heart, Meara rummaged through her clothing and pulled out a pair of blue jeans and a multicolor flannel button-up, also grabbing a comfortable bordeaux jacket and a pair of brown ankle boots with flexible side cuts. The boots boasted a three-inch heel, but the grips on the bottom of the boot matched perfectly with Bruce's rugged suggestion and made Meara feel better about her balance on any wet spaces in the cave.

Waiting out in the hall as promised, Bruce still glanced at the sheet Meara had given him. Not speaking, Bruce guided Meara to the grandfather clock, hands hesitating over the clock hands until the billionaire seemed to decide something.

"Watch," the crimefighter murmured quietly, carefully showing Meara the way the hands aligned to open the secret entrance. Breathing in with deep surprise, Meara wondered over this sudden decision, but Bruce had already closed the clock again and gestured for her to reopen it. With a couple hiccups and Bruce's help, Meara opened the entrance at last and the billionaire gestured for her to go through.

They traveled into the depths of the manor's foundations, the curling staircase seeming far longer than exiting had felt two weeks earlier. Emerging into the cave at last, Bruce further guided Meara, walking over to the computer system and settling into the waiting chair. The hero's fingers flew over the keys, stopping only once Bruce had pulled up some kind of chart.

"These are the times we entered the cave's outer entrances and then secured the perimeter for the night," Bruce explained, his voice unerringly quiet over the whirring and chirping of computers, the distant rush of flowing water, and the bats softly squeaking and flapping far above their heads.

Shaking the errant observations away, Meara focused on the chart described to her, her comprehension slow to come. "I don't understand what you're trying to say."

Wordlessly, Bruce held Meara's sheet of dates and times up beside the figures on the monitor, his strong hand steady as the young woman examined the two pieces of data with a more careful eye.

Realization dawning, Meara slowly turned away after some long minutes of study to stare at the master of the house.

"I wake up every time you come back from patrol!" Meara exclaimed with excitement, amazed at such a simple explanation. "It makes so much sense now."

"When we exit any of the cave's entrances," Bruce explained further, a smile blooming at the corner of his mouth, "the generated energy kicks on, creating a lot of noise. After thirty minutes, the system finishes its checks and processes, then goes quiet again. The same thing happens when we return in the early hours. Tim heard it in his room before, when Alfred tested the system, but it didn't faze him so I didn't bother with it. No doubt you've been hearing that sound in your room every night you've woken up."

"What about my first night, though?" Meara wondered doubtfully, even with the charts aligned so nicely in front of her. One night could break the whole explanation.

"In the first place," Bruce offered in concentration, "You'd been through an ordeal that whole day. You're body needed a lot of recuperation, so you slept straight through until Tim woke you up. Secondly, patrol was already finished that night. Third – and I wish I'd told you this sooner now, even if it doesn't specifically apply here – my mother's four special rooms were soundproofed for serenity. I could never bring myself to remove it, even for security's sake... It would have damaged her beloved retreat."

The thought obviously bothered the billionaire now, his brows furrowed into sharp divots against his tired face.

"Well, I think…" Meara tried to begin, heart winched with sympathy, but felt entirely out of her depth attempting to comfort a man who had never truly moved on from his parents' murders so many years earlier. But… he had been good to her. Understanding in a way she had temporarily thought lost. Surely he couldn't begrudge her the thought to help him? She hoped not.

Steeling herself with a deep breath, Meara pulled her hands out of her pockets and reassuringly laid one across Bruce's shoulder and the other over his bicep through the black t-shirt he wore.

"I didn't know your mother," Meara haltingly began again, watching as Bruce's head dipped fractionally in attentiveness, "but I guarantee she would have wanted you safe much more than she would want her rooms to be kept perfectly in tact. You were your parents' world, after all."

"And they were mine," Bruce murmured almost too quietly for Meara to comprehend, but somehow she did. It hurt just to hear the pain in his voice. Knowing how he felt, the brunette simply squeezed the hero's shoulder understandingly; there was no real comfort for that loss.

Meara allowed Bruce time to reflect without interruption, gazing around at her surroundings to give the man his time.

A cacophony of steel, stone, Kevlar, and leather took up the small embankment they were on. An underground pool of water sloshed slightly against the rocky surface, but it was difficult to see it. In fact, given the selective lighting of the area, it was difficult to see anything beyond the stone on which they stood, only the computers and chairs shining slightly in the moody overhead lights.

On a metal work surface just outside the half-ring of computers and monitors, Meara's eyes caught on something the made her take a second look.

The same light device Catwoman had given her more than a week earlier stood out light a beacon.

Gasping in remembrance, Meara gripped Bruce's shoulder with what – to most people – would normally be bruising force.

"Bruce!"

Looking up with a start, the vigilante asked, "What is it?"

"The chip Selina made for you! I forgot all about it that night!"

Bruce stared momentarily before inquiring further, "When did you meet Selina?"

"Last Thursday, the same day I met Zatanna," Meara clarified, mind running over that night with intense focus. "But where did I put that chip…?"

"She came to the manor?" Bruce sighed heavily.

"Yes," Meara confirmed, still deep in thought until the situation played out in her mind. "Oh, I put it in my pocket! I have to go find that."

"I'll walk up with you," Bruce offered, standing and guiding the young woman back upstairs to the Caligo Room. It took a minute to find her outfit from a week earlier, but thankfully Alfred had not yet taken it to the laundry. With all the commotion of Meara's arrival and the trip to Detroit, she wasn't surprised.

"Here we go," Meara commented to no one in particular, pulling up the pair of dark fitted pants from the previous Thursday and digging through the pockets to find the little chip Selina Kyle had claimed to make rather than steal.

"This is it," the young woman told Bruce once back in the hallway, handing over the data chip to his nimble fingers. "She said to tell you to replace the light device she gave me. As repayment for skipping out on her."

A loud snort escaped Bruce over the last condition. "All right, then."

"The one she gave me is still on the cart in the ballroom," Meara explained.

"You can keep it," Bruce shook his head, adding wryly, "Sometimes I wonder if Selina is just a very grown up girl playing games."

"There is always that possibility," Meara casually shrugged her agreement.

Smirking, Bruce led the way back to the grandfather clock. "Coming with me?"

"Does this mean my questions of what and why will get answered now?" Meara wondered with a slight smile.

"If you want," the billionaire offered.

Another few minutes and the two of them had settled back behind the computer screen in the batcave, Bruce pulling up an extra chair for Meara to occupy.

"I don't really need to know," the young woman admitted, a wry smile gracing her features. "I could just look around…"

"I'd rather not have you exploring without one of us," Bruce confessed with equal levity, "The cave is a bit more intense than a gauntlet mechanism, quite frankly."

"Oh, very well," Meara sighed and took a seat beside him. "What data did you need Selina to gather?"

"Ever since Harley spread Ellipse around Gotham, there's been a theft ring operating out of Selina's neighborhood," the dark-haired vigilante began to tell Meara, catching sight of her expression all too easily, "…Yes, I know. The irony is not lost on me, either."

Meara repressed a grin admirably as her host explained further, "But Selina hasn't set about murdering seemingly random victims for a thrill."

"That would certainly raise the bar," Meara concurred more seriously.

"She's been watching the area and gathering a variety of possible clues," Bruce went on. "Odd arrivals and departures, new residents, new daily and nightly rituals, contacts between residents, etcetera. I had her practice surveillance for a week."

"But it's been several days since that ended," Meara's brows furrowed. "I'm so sorry. If I'd given this to you sooner, you could have been dealing with this and possibly stopped it."

"There haven't been any fresh incidents," Bruce disagreed. "Besides, Selina shouldn't have left it with you. While I trust you, she had no idea what you might be dealing with that could prevent you giving this to me. Regardless, I have it now."

So saying, the vigilante held the chip up for emphasis and placed it inside a container the held several other data chips very similar in design.

"I'm guessing you gave her a chip to use?" Meara hypothesized with a lifted brow.

"I did," was all Bruce told her, rising from the seat.

"Wait, aren't you going to get working on that?" Meara inquired wonderingly.

"Not yet," Bruce remarked, an amused glint in his blue eyes. "We'll all look over it tomorrow night and head out to track down any leads we find. Now, I believe you wanted to look around?"

"I wouldn't argue the idea," Meara hedged lightly.

"Then come on," Bruce nodded towards the space around them; a space that somehow, outside the shell of technology and stone beneath their feet, was filled with old costumes, rugged vehicles, and shiny new tech.

Notes:

As promised to a lovely reader, here’s a link to my actor inspirations board on Pinterest: TLW Character Inspired. All characters are listed in order of appearance (most recent at the top). As certain characters appear for the first time in a chapter, I will add the actor/character on the board.

DC Comics had a superhero named Enigma. However, the “mysterious entity known only as 'Enigma’…” (from my summary) is NOT related in any way to the 8-issue Vertigo/DC Miniseries of the same name.

Chapter 15 up next!

"It's already secured, even without signing-in somehow?" Meara wondered curiously, pulling her hair up into ponytail.

"It's not like connecting to password-encrypted wifi," Bruce added distractedly. "The secure connection is pre-installed – the IP address is written into the program. Security is maintained on the server itself, back in Gotham. If any unauthorized user or IP address tries to connect to this program or the server, everything freezes and the server becomes inaccessible. Any program running through that server will show a blank screen while it saves any current data."

"Kind of like invisible ink," Meara compared the system to something she knew.

"A fair analogy," Bruce commented, offering her a quick glance.

"What if someone isn't trying to access the server digitally?" the young woman inquired with a thoughtful frown. "I mean, for the sake of argument, say you left the laptop open while you went out as Batman… What if someone broke into this house, then just pulled up the program and started using it?"

"Good question," Bruce praised her query with a smirk, then proceeded to explain, "When this program is open, the screen becomes a retinal scanner. Any unauthorized retinal scan will prevent the program from opening. An error displays, claiming a technical issue that doesn't actually exist."

"Then how am I looking at it?" Meara asked incredulously.

"I added your retinal identity when I first opened the program," Bruce responded with deeply-buried humor over her awe. "That was the string of code I first entered… Every retinal scan is assigned an identity number. The number must be verified by my specific retinal identity in order to pass the system."

"Just when I thought technology couldn't be all that strange here," Meara muttered to herself.

"I did say it was far more sophisticated than your world," Bruce shrugged slightly, returning to his program. "Ah, there he is… Standing in the middle of Perkins' office, if I'm not mistaken."

"I won't be allowed anywhere near that building, let alone inside it," Meara remarked pensively, restless as she tried to find a way around the difficulty.

"You won't have to be," Bruce replied confidently. "I'll send out a police call to Lantern about the press conference, asking if he'll run the facts through one more time with the police commissioner. He'll reluctantly agree and leave the building. When he sees you out front, he'll be suspicious enough to talk to you and find out why you're there. Then you can ask him to let me help. Doubtless Lantern will argue with you as long as he can, but he'll want to keep his word about the conference, so he'll argue only long enough that he'll barely make the press conference. On such short time, he'll apologize for not getting there sooner, but the commissioner won't think he means it as anything more than courtesy. The matter will be at an end, the press conference will bring up new questions and troubles to consume both men, and Lantern will never realize the police call was a fake until it's all over – if ever."

Staring in subtle awe at the man's logic and the depth of thought in so short a time, Meara just shook her head amazedly. "Okay. Far be it from me to argue with you on this."

Snorting, Bruce stood from the laptop and gestured for Meara to walk ahead of him to the door. "We'd better go."

Standing outside the chaos that was the district attorney's office, caught up in whirlwind of hundreds of people – some jostling to see the place where a public official was murdered, some trying to escape the madness to continue on with their day, and those who were involved in the investigation and crime scene – Meara felt that overwhelming sensation the same as she had when looking at houses similar to her anguished history. It wasn't pleasant to keep fighting for her place on the sidewalk when people grazed rudely past or backed into her while trying to sneak a peak over the heads of the crowd. Plus Bruce had decided it might be a bad idea having an earpiece so near to the one Lantern would have on him.

Taking a deep breath as another mindless zealot shoved roughly past to get their greedy glimpse of murder, Meara let the stress just exist and did her best to wait as patiently as she had to. Back in the Audi two blocks down, Bruce waited for her return after making the false police call to Green Lantern.

After another long fifteen minutes being hassled in her place against a brick-walled flower shop, Meara finally saw her quarry exiting the front door of the district attorney's office, the glowing green and black outfit far less intimidating than it had been up on the Watchtower. It was crisp and ironically dark, but nevertheless a certain humor filled Meara when she looked the costume over with new eyes.

As sure as Bruce had said, Green Lantern looked over the wild, untamed mass of people along the street and, of course, his eyes found Meara's with sudden suspicion. Tamed by a sense of sympathy, perhaps, but still filled with suspicious doubt.

Meara realized with sudden awkwardness that she was facing off with a superhero. This wasn't merely John Stewart in a trench coat and shades, but the Green Lantern in full costume. Meeting with him on that very public street would paint a big target on her back as being somehow connected to Lantern's murder investigation, not to mention the superhero world in general.

Lantern seemed to realize this, too, giving Meara a distinct look she wasn't sure how to interpret, but it seemed important to him that she understand his unspoken message, so she just nodded and decided to keep waiting.

Whatever he meant, Lantern clearly accepted her nod as the right answer and walked down to the sub shop three buildings from the district attorney's office. Expecting to find John Stewart himself walking back out of the door, shortly thereafter Meara had no trouble recognizing the dark-skinned man in a black trench coat, gray slacks, and black dress shoes as he exited the restaurant with a sizeable bag of food in his hand. No one disturbed his steps or looked askance at his appearance; while Green Lantern didn't hide his identity in general, he still comfortably evaded widespread attention in his own skin as John Stewart.

Wordlessly, the subtle hero made his way across the street through the melee and reached Meara in record time.

"There's a park on the next block," the man offered, firm yet a tiny bit softer than he had been the first two times they met.

Meara nodded in response and followed John Stewart down to the park in question, all the while wondering why her similarity to Bruce Wayne inspired the slight change in attitude. Perhaps the sympathy card, she guessed helplessly.

The hero stopped at an empty bench in an area that appeared to be devoid of visitors, Meara following his lead.

"We meet again," the lantern started conversation blandly, temporarily setting aside his purchased meal. "Don't tell me Bruce Wayne is buying another piece of real estate?"

"Not that it would be such a strange idea," Meara retorted with mild sarcasm, "but no. I'm here for my other keeper."

"Funny how he's never here when you are," Stewart commented sharply. "I felt pretty certain we all had a deal going about that."

"Funny how you reneged about your end of that deal," Meara returned just as sharply, thinking of the personal belongings and mementos he had effectively stolen from her – not out of awareness, but out of spite for Batman's precautions.

Narrowing brown eyes at her, the lantern ignored her retort for the time being. "I suppose you told your other keeper about what's been happening here in Detroit on your visit."

"The power goes out for no apparent reason," Meara told him, holding in her temper at his condescending tone, "and then a district attorney is murdered. Coincidental, no?"

"Coincidence or not, how is that any of your business?" Stewart cut in irritably.

"From the way the news stories are telling it right now," the young woman interceded, "they haven't found anything to really work with. Sounds like a call for help, if you ask me."

"I don't need anyone cutting in on this investigation," the man informed her with deeper agitation. "If we're through playing social worker, you might want to explain why you're alone and not with Wayne."

"Mr. Wayne is a very busy man," Meara breathed deeply, attempting to calm herself. "And if you think the two of us are going to be glued at the hip…"

"And why shouldn't you be?" the lantern grated.

"I have to work, for one thing," Meara bit out. "But so does he… He has a life and a job that aren't going to include me hanging off of his arm to satisfy your unfounded doubts."

"Unfounded?" the hero gawked at her, but Meara cut in before he could spout more theories as to her sudden appearance in their world, or her otherworldly knowledge of them and their lives.

"Look, I understand my arrival here was completely unexpected," she told him, and truly she did understand. "My knowledge is a source of worry and a point of contention. You don't know me, you can't find me on any database you have access to in this world, you can't physically or digitally find my relatives to confirm I am who I say I am. There are a billion and one things you want to know about me and my end goals that you will never find out in this universe… I'm sorry none of that is possible, but I can't do anything about it."

Holding up a hand to forestall one more comment from the lantern, Meara spoke as low as she could while still being audible to the man, "And I would think the fact that Batman, of all the people in the world, took such genuine interest in my welfare, would alleviate the concerns you have. You know him. You know how he operates. Do you honestly think he would let me into his world without having absolute trust that I won't betray him? Without absolutely damning evidence that I'm not going to hurt anyone? Based on previous experience with Batman, do you seriously believe that if I posed any threat to any of you or anyone else in this world, that the Batman wouldn't have locked me up in the Watchtower like you wanted to?"

Green Lantern looked briefly uncomfortable, even embarrassed, until he firmed up his features and finally found his opening to speak, "All right. I get that. When you put it that way, I get why everyone's upset with what I did and the way I've reacted. But frankly, looking into a crystal ball isn't my idea of absolutely damning evidence."

"That's not all he has," Meara sighed, at least pleased to reach some level of common ground with suspicious John Stewart. "He had my license, birth certificate, social security card—"

"All of which could have been faked," the lantern interrupted, albeit a bit apologetically. Meara felt a measure of relief for his growing sense of reason, even if it was severely dampened by his continued mistrust.

"Why do you trust J'onn?" Meara wondered abruptly.

Startled by the subject change, Stewart stared at her for a moment before replying slowly, "He proved he was trustworthy. By the way he helped us defeat the invaders. And later, when he gave up Morgan Le Fey's bargain. There are any number of reasons why… None of which you have under your belt, Miss Nolan."

"But you gave him a chance," Meara argued. "Before you knew any of that, you gave him a chance to prove his trustworthiness. As you just told me, he did prove it. And that same person you named as trustworthy… he said I was telling the truth about my family."

"That may be true," the man allowed, but shook his head as he continued, "but there are any number of ways you could tell the truth and still live a lie."

Exhaling in frustrated huff, Meara ran a hand over her ponytail, which has loosed a number of strands in the jostling crowd several moments earlier.

"So what," she finally burst, pulling the first argument she could imagine, "you think I'm going to purposefully and willingly face death to get into your good graces? That toxin hurt like every kind of hell imaginable – something that is statistically and clinically proven, by the way. And you know I nearly died from it."

"That's a better cue than anything else," Stewart sighed tiredly. "Look, I'm sorry for what you might have lived through, but I won't trust you based on pity."

Angry by the subtle play on the history lantern assumed her to have, Meara turned cold.

"Batman is waiting for your answer," she changed the subject with ice in her voice. "Tell him yourself."

Standing suddenly, the young woman turned away sharply and stalked back the way they had come.

"Wait!" the lantern called after her, and it took every ounce of Meara's willpower to actually stop and hear him out.

"I don't know why," the man pressed, exhaling exasperatedly, "but I'll work with him on this. You can tell him yes. Have him contact me when he's ready."

Struck by the strange, almost amused, tone in his voice, Meara turned to stare at the hero over her shoulder.

"If nothing else," lantern continued, deep voice definitely amused now, "I can ask him more about why he trusts you."

Staring at his clean-shaven face and glinting brown eyes, Meara wondered what had changed in the space of a few minutes. Certainly the man still failed to trust her, but…. Was this his way of subtly saying he would give her a chance? Confusion notched higher, Meara didn't quite know how to interpret the lantern's actions and moods.

"You're not quite what I expected, John Stewart," Meara remarked, confusion audibly gracing her gentle voice.

"You're not exactly a bowl of peaches, yourself, Nolan," he snorted, pulling his bag of food out for inspection.

His choice of title was odd, to say the least. Half-smiling with lingering bewilderment, Meara continued to wonder exactly how they had gone from 'I'll never trust you' to 'Maybe I'll give you a chance' in the space of a few minutes.

Temporarily giving up on analyzing men who were infinitely more complex than she had time to deal with at the present moment, Meara finally decided on a simple nod as she fared the Green Lantern well, "Stewart."

"Nolan," he repeated, turning to his sandwich as a couple jogged past them, heavy electronic music blaring from their earbuds and intruding on Meara's convolutions.

Walking away with the conclusion she would only drive herself insane trying to figure out the machinations behind John Stewart's complicated persona, Meara made her way quickly back to the Audi three blocks away.

"How did it go?" Bruce inquired curiously upon her return to the vehicle.

"You'll be interested to know," Meara remarked dryly as she pulled on her belt, "we're on a non-titled last name basis now."

Bruce stared for a moment, then snorted. "All right, then. I take it he said yes?"

"He did," Meara nodded, "although I don't really know why. I had just started to walk away offended when he stopped me and said he would work with you. Contact him when you're ready."

"Let's not bother too much with his reasons," Bruce told her. "For right now, at least. I have to plan a few things before tonight. The realtor called me while you met with lantern. My offer was accepted."

"I thought we were only looking?" Meara returned, surprised. "I didn't know you were actually going to keep it."

"I think it's better if you actually have a place here," Bruce replied casually. "Besides, you can have it remade into the same image as the old house. It would verify your descriptions and experiences if anyone ever checked into it."

"I suppose so," Meara fidgeted at the idea of doing the same design as her old home. The memories, as always, were a matter of controversy.

"You don't have to do exactly the same," Bruce commented, catching sight of her expression. "Just enough that your descriptions will be on cue. Wall colors or general furniture colors and styles… That sort of thing."

Exhaling quietly in relief, Meara agreed more easily, "Okay, I can do that."

In the midst of a quick sandwich and salad lunch, Bruce received another call from the realtor. Judging by the little amount of talking Bruce did, Meara guessed the realtor was jawing the billionaire's ear off. She was only proved correct when the call lasted well past lunch and ended merely because Bruce explained his urgency to get to a business appointment.

Ending the call, the vigilante sighed exasperatedly, rolling his eyes at the antics of the realtor and bringing a half-laugh out of his companion. "Thankfully, I can now start working on tonight's meeting. Is there anything you have in mind to do, Meara? I'll be intensively involved in making plans, so I doubt I'll be any company."

"I can sketch," the young woman offered with a slight smile of understanding. "I'll be upstairs. Let me know if you need my help for anything."

"That I'll do," Bruce agreed as she stood from the table. "Maybe you can create a sketch for your phone case."

"That's a good idea," Meara nodded. "Thank you."

Time passed quietly in the row house while both occupants enacted their separate passions in life; Meara sketching endless ideas for her phone and Bruce investigating a crime from all angles.

Meara didn't have many ideas how to outfit her cell phone to be totally unique without giving away important information about herself or her circumstances. Instead, she attempted working in subtle symbols without directly copying a familiar icon. It didn't work very well, but it gave her a lot to think about and work on until Bruce left to investigate with Green Lantern.

The time arrived rapidly, by Meara's estimation, Bruce stopping in her doorway at seven-thirty to offer plans and precautions.

"Have your earpiece nearby," Bruce informed her, offering up the item Meara had thought herself done with for the time being. "Most likely I won't contact you, but if I need to for any reason, it will emit a series of three pitches, each successively higher than the last. It will do this four times or until you answer. If I haven't returned by five o'clock, contact Alfred and he'll explain how to get to the jet. Then pack whatever you're able, even my belongings. By the time you're done, you'll probably only have a couple of hours before the plane is slated to leave… I've already packed up the lower level, save food items, safety tools, contact information, and important paperwork I placed in this duffle."

So saying, the billionaire dropped a black duffle bag on the floor just inside Meara's doorway before continuing, "In the event of emergency evacuation of any kind, abandon anything you don't absolutely need. Take the laptop if you can – I've put in my room for now. If you can't take it, let Alfred know; there are ways to destroy it before anything is found. The main thing I want you to do in that circumstance is keep yourself safe and protect the secrets we all share. Is everything clear?"

The overwhelming feeling crept over Meara again as she nodded her grim understanding, but after dealing with so many emotional memories the past few days, somehow the notion of panic had left her on the numb side.

"Take care," Bruce nodded at her, then disappeared from her door – presumably to become the knight of Gotham City.

Left behind with such dim, depressing possibilities hanging over her, Meara instantly abandoned her sketches. There was nothing short of unconsciousness that could cloud her worry at that point. Accepting her lack of activity, Meara stood from the bed and moved to pack up everything except her clothes for the trip back to Gotham, going so far as to add her sketchbook and pencils to the half-full duffle Bruce packed.

Anxiety crawled under her skin when she heard Bruce's true parting shot – the window sliding shut in his room with intentional noise. Finishing her packing some twenty minutes later, the young woman took a seat on the bed to try and wait out Bruce's return and her own nerves.

Standing again a mere three minutes later, Meara found herself doing some she normally didn't – pacing.

Five minutes into her useless vigil, the young woman scoffed at herself and stopped dead in her tracks. Bruce was Batman, for crying out loud. He could handle himself. Green Lantern would be by his side as well. What good was Meara doing stalking the hardwood? No good at all, the brunette told herself firmly. Yet without a direct link to whatever Batman was involved in, Meara didn't understand how she could do any good even when she wasn't pacing.

Exhaling irritably, the future administrative assistant allowed her feet to begin traveling again, somehow ending up looking into Bruce's ever Spartan space. The open door invited Meara inside with a strange sense of safety she remembered feeling in the City Bunker after her nerve-induced blackout.

Bruce had even left his open suitcase on the bed, in case his emergency precautions became necessary. Inhaling sharply at the reminder that something could go wrong, regardless how unlikely it appeared, Meara took hard strides to the side of the bed, roughly zipped the luggage closed again, and yanked the case mercilessly onto the floor and out of her direct line of vision from the door.

Turning her back on such a ridiculous effort, Meara's eyes caught on the laptop Bruce left in her care. The same odd program he'd used to track John Stewart that morning remained open, the screen blinking as though waiting for something to do.

Feeling an inspiration, the young woman's steps led her slowly up to the equipment on the new white dressing chair Meara had chosen. If she could just look into the case Bruce was working, just to feel connected to the situation somehow and keep her worries at bay…

Bruce hadn't specifically told her not to do what she wanted to, but he also never said she specifically could, either. Yet he had added her identity to the program so she could use it, so that was a kind of permission… Caught in a dilemma, Meara realized she would end up frazzled if she kept worrying so much. Surely Bruce wouldn't be upset if she was keeping herself sane?

Telling herself it was worth the effort of finding out, Meara took a leap of faith in her protector and carried the laptop over to the bed, setting it up in a rather precarious position on the six-inch ledge of the footboard while she settled into the white Louis chair before it.

The program didn't make any fuss or warning when Meara began typing into its parameters as Bruce had done, so she supposed it was all go for her. Encouraged, it didn't take long for the young woman to build up a base of information and begin taking notes as she encountered pertinent information.

From the situation with Devil Ray on the day she arrived in the world of the Justice League, right down to Green Lantern's investigations at the District Attorney's office, Meara researched everything that could possibly be related to the case on Ronald Perkins' murder. Time seemed inconsequential as she became engrossed in her task, not even bothering to check the time in her bubble of analysis.

A click at the window had Meara jumping almost out of her seat with fright and surprise. Turning rapidly to face the glass barrier behind her back, a familiar black gauntlet put her at immediate ease.

With a wry expression as she moved to open the window, Meara realized Bruce was trying not to startle her. The idea was fairly ridiculous, all things considered.

"You nearly gave me a heart attack," she reproached the vigilante as he slipped into the room like a well-oiled machine, standing tall and imposing a mere five feet away in all his black glory. She hadn't seen the alter ego of her keeper in a week; really it should have been even more of a shock than it was, but she gave up trying to determine why it failed to be so.

"What did you find?" was all Batman asked in reply, the rough, gravely voice a startling change to the smooth, sarcastic billionaire Meara spoke with before he left.

Looking remarkably sheepish at his expectant knowledge, Meara nevertheless turned with as much dignity as she could and walked back to the computer screen she technically should not have touched without permission.

Throwing an arm out to the side in resignation, she finally answered, "Not much of interest."

Taking a breath, the brunette tonelessly sped through the data she'd found, "Ronald Perkins was born in Detroit at Grace-Mercy Hospital, father a plumber, mother a housekeeper. Youngest of five – two brothers, two sisters. Went to Detroit public schools, graduated with honors, attended Bronwen Public Law and graduated cum laude. Mother died of breast cancer ten years ago, father died peacefully in his sleep three years ago, older sister never married and moved to Oregon for a secretarial job, oldest sister became a retail manager and moved to North Carolina with her husband, one brother became a stock broker and was poisoned by his gold-digging girlfriend five years ago, the other brother wasted himself on alcohol and his failing liver killed him two years ago… Broad political support range for Perkins during his campaign. Always chose to support the underdog, regardless of political affiliation. No major cases in his career, no high-profile victims or defendants, no abuse of power… Never married, no known children or girlfriends, no scandals, no psychiatric record, no criminal record, nothing. Not even a parking ticket."

Meara emphasized the last phrase with sarcastic disbelief. "The guy is totally clean. Reading his history is like watching a dry documentary. Either he topped himself out of boredom, which I highly doubt, or the more likely scenario – he found something big on someone and planned to prosecute, so he was killed. Considering the situation, it really makes a lot of sense. Perkins was in his office at very unusual hours – for him, at least – and there was no support staff in the building until his assistant found him in the morning. He must have planned to meet with someone to talk about what he found. Maybe Perkins even planned to meet with the person he was accusing, to try and negotiate a deal. Whatever he was doing, the person or people he was going to reveal must have murdered him before he could tell what he knew."

"I've been considering the possibility," Batman answered with a nod.

"So you have positive proof he was murdered now," Meara assumed darkly.

"Definitely," Batman replied even more darkly, holding out his gauntleted hand for her inspection. Inside the black-covered palm sat several bullets, all apparently used if the slight, dried red stains were any indication.

Swallowing uncomfortably, Meara tried not to feel sick. "I'm guessing he could never have done that himself, then?"

"The first bullet went through his brain. He died immediately. The others were for show."

"A show of what?" Meara asked disgustedly.

"Hiding the modus operandi," Batman explained. "The first bullet was laced."

"With what?" Meara inquired, dread creeping into her voice.

Grimly, Batman's gruff voice answered, "Curare."

Struck by the very obvious conclusions to be drawn from the simple word, Meara swallowed hard.

"Deadshot," she concluded knowingly, but her brow furrowed soon after. "That doesn't make sense, though… Why would a man who cultivated the same method of operation his entire criminal career suddenly try to hide it? He's never been shy about it before."

"That's the rub," Batman agreed, a hint of intrigue in his deep tone. "Lawton doesn't just drop a body without taking credit. It must have been a requirement from whoever employed him, an attempt to limit investigations into the cause of the murder."

"Sounds like we have another paranoid psycho on our hands," Meara commented, strains of resigned frustration in her voice.

"I can't disagree," Batman remarked. "Did you look up anything else?"

"No, I was too annoyed by how little I found on Perkins," Meara admitted a bit sheepishly. "I kept trying different searches – I guess I was thinking stubbornness would get me more information somehow. Are you going to meet with Green Lantern again tonight?"

"There's little more I can do here," Batman explained. "It's already three-thirty. We'll head back in several hours as planned."

Nodding her understanding, Meara walked to the door, leaving the room so the man could change out his costume and examine her search results himself, but paused in the doorway.

Looking up at the intimidating vigilante, barely able to see his ice blue eyes in the small eye openings, Meara found herself rapidly blurting out, "Um, I'm… sorry. About… the program. I didn't have permission. It wasn't mine… I came up with excuses, of course, you know, mainly telling myself I'd go absolutely insane if I wasn't somehow connected to it all… Yeah… sorry."

Awkwardly, Meara turned away and continued her trek back to her own room, having taken four steps down the hall when she heard fabric roughly pulled away from something.

"Meara," Bruce called her back, rather than Batman's gruff tone, a bit of long-suffering resignation in his now-smooth voice.

Turning just barely to face the unmasked man now standing in the hall, anticipation buried in rich oceanic eyes, Meara awaited the billionaire's reproach.

"I admit, the first few seconds I realized what you did, I was a bit angry…" Bruce sighed amusedly, adding more wryly, "But seeing you so engrossed, seeing the proof of how quickly you caught onto something you never used before… I actually felt pride."

Struck speechless by his easy acceptance, Meara didn't quite know how to react.

"Go ahead and pack up," Bruce told her, amusement buried in his handsome features. "We'll have an early breakfast afterward and make sure the house is in order before we leave it."

Without another word, the billionaire walked back into his room and shut the door. Meara slowly made her way back to her room in awe, eventually shaking herself out of it to begin carrying all of the luggage that had been meant for her room down to the main level piece by piece. With that completed, the brunette returned to the bedroom to obtain her clothes and toiletries and headed down the hall to the bathroom.

Freshly clean and dressed in a simple taupe turtleneck, black jeans, and black ankle boots, Meara carried her same tribal print cardigan over one arm. Reaching for Bruce's black duffle bag, shouldering her brown tote, and grasping the black floral suitcase, Meara took the stairs slowly to avoid tripping on the way down.

Their collection of suitcases waited in the hall between the living area and entryway, and the smells of eggs, toast, and ham hurtled to Meara's nose with delightful warmth.

"Mm, that smells good," she admitted to Bruce as she passed the kitchen doorway and into the heart of the room itself. "Gosh, I'm hungrier than I thought."

"The eggs and ham are done," the billionaire told her with a slight smirk. Dressed in a rich camel polo and black slacks, he looked casual and yet sharp while buttering the toast. "Go ahead. There's fruit and yogurt already on the table."

Not having to be told twice, Meara picked up one of the plates laid out on the table and plucked some ham and eggs from the hot plate.

"How in the world did you get ready so fast?" the young woman wondered, a little stunned. "I didn't even spend two full hours packing and getting ready."

"I spent one hour," Bruce remarked, smirking more broadly. "I'm used to fast-paced costume changes and packing. It's half my work – on both ends of the spectrum."

"If you say so," Meara shook her head amusedly, taking a seat and adding fruit and yogurt to her plate before digging right in to the eggs.

Polishing off half her plate in record time, Meara slowed down once Bruce joined her, offering toast to her collection of food. Accepting two pieces, the brunette spoke again, "I have to confess, despite your seemingly endless list of skills and talents, I never thought of Bruce Wayne cooking."

"Probably because I have Alfred," he said in response, eyeing her wryly.

"And a healthy bank account for dining out," Meara commented dryly, leading Bruce to snort and continue wordlessly with his meal.

An hour or so later, waiting for the plane to begin taxiing, Meara felt a lack of sleep catching back up to her. While touching up the last look of the row house for its future sale, her energy had gone high and wide, but now as she sat ensconced in the comfort of the jet with nothing to occupy herself, Meara grew drowsy in complacency. The next thing she knew, Bruce woke her from sleep just as the seatbelt light went out.

Gotham remained dreary, gray, and rainy, as it had been when they left it Friday. Sitting once again in the passenger seat of the nondescript car Bruce had originally driven to the airport, Meara watched through the falling sprigs of water as Gotham passed by in a blur of stone and glass. An unusual sense of familiarity swept over Meara as they pulled into the drive of Wayne Manor at long last.

"I guess Gotham is already starting to feel like home," she stated quietly, eyes trained on the droplets of rain that fell and slid incessantly down her window.

"One thing in our favor, then," Bruce remarked ruefully, water splashing up from the puddles on the side drive to the carriage house.

Allowing a tiny smile to cross her lips even as she shook her head, Meara deigned not to respond as they finally pulled in door six to a waiting Alfred.

"Always on time," Bruce commented in the quiet, setting the brake and turning off the motor.

"Welcome back, Master Wayne, Miss Meara," the butler greeted them with a slight smile when they walked towards him, baggage in tow. "I do hope your trip was satisfactory?"

"It served its purpose," Bruce offered for both of them, "but we're both glad to be back in Gotham."

"Excellent, sir," Alfred smiled more widely. "Miss Meara, your possessions have been returned to their place in the Aerius room – all except your clothing. Please feel free to rearrange anything your heart desires, and I will gladly help you with moving your wardrobe if you should need it."

"Thank you, Alfred," Meara replied, gratitude seeping into her weary voice. "But I think, right now, I just want to sleep."

"An idea I can stand behind," the elder man chuckled and reached for Meara's bags. "Allow me to take that duffle for you, Miss Meara."

Too tired to argue, Meara handed off the black duffle bag with ease, keeping her brown tote and floral suitcase and heading to the Caligo room with trudging steps. Bruce and Alfred's quiet conversation about the real estate purchases in Detroit followed her up the stairs. Once safely encapsulated in the small, dark room, the young woman took only enough time to set her luggage down near the chair beside the perfectly-made bed, change into the pajamas from her suitcase, and remove her half-ponytail before climbing under the covers and dropping almost immediately into comfortable sleep.

When Meara next awoke in the early afternoon, it was with a peaceful, rested feeling she hadn't felt in ages. Being back in the safety of Bruce's home and the comfort of luxurious surroundings gave the young woman quite a heavy measure of contentment. Rising similarly to how she had her first morning in the Aerius room, Meara stifled a snort at the memory of Tim's atypically childish behavior. Knowing the thirteen-year-old as she had come to this past week, both through experience and through the eyes of his family, Meara had a distinct feeling Tim had simply been enthusiastic about someone new. Changing into her outfit from that morning with fresh energy and cheer, Meara appreciated the pleasant memory.

"Hey, Meara!" Dick and Tim greeted her cheerfully in synchrony as the young woman took a seat in the dining room.

"Hi, Dick, Tim," Meara echoed their sentiments with a smile.

"How was Detroit?" Tim asked first.

"It was useful," Meara commented simply, smiling in thanks when Alfred set sandwich, soup, and ice tea before her. "Thank you, Alfred."

Nodding warmly, the butler returned to the kitchen to drop his tray.

"Certainly eventful," Bruce elaborated with a quiet snort.

"Well, with a D.A. getting murdered, I'd say so," Dick agreed a bit incredulously.

"The D.A. was murdered?" Tim reiterated in surprise, then turned a narrow gaze on his brother. "How did you hear that before I did?"

"Maybe because I got up before you did," Dick accused, rolling his eyes.

"Let's just say it's already more trouble than we bargained for," Bruce ended the conversation before Tim could make another retort.

"I guess I better go," Dick asserted resignedly, glancing at his watch. "Don't want to be late my first day."

"Oh my God, I forgot classes begin Wednesday for me," Meara sighed with new anxiety.

"They're all after lunch, though," Dick pointed out reasonably. "That's probably a weight off your mind."

"Yes, but when I begin work, it won't make much difference anyway."

Shrugging in acquiescence, the nineteen-year-old didn't have a reply to that as he stood and left for class.

"I have no doubt you'll do fine," Bruce interceded before Meara could work herself into a fit of nerves. "Tim, shouldn't you get a move on, too? It's already twenty minutes after one."

"Yeah, I probably should," Tim sighed a little, taking one last drink of his water before making his way through the kitchen door, calling out, "Hey, Alfred, I'm ready!"

"All right, Master Tim," Alfred's distant voice reached their ears from somewhere in the kitchen just before the door closed.

"Would it be all right if I work on the ballroom after lunch?" Meara inquired of Bruce, idly rubbing the pads of her fingers together.

"Of course," he agreed, slightly surprised. "You don't have to ask, Meara."

"I feel odd not asking in your own home," the young woman explained awkwardly.

"You'll get over it," was the billionaire's smart response. Meara narrowed stormy eyes at him and Bruce chuckled at her expression, leaving the rest of their lunch silent.

Meara worked right up until dinner, whereupon Alfred called her to join the Wayne men for a meal, then afterward the brunette went right back to her work. It took dozing where she sat working at the base of a ballroom wall for Meara to finally make her way up to bed. Having neglected to move her wardrobe earlier that day, the young woman returned to the Caligo room – hopefully for the last day – to take her rest.

After so comfortable a rest as she had enjoyed earlier the previous day, the young woman had not entertained a single thought of insomnia as she lay down to sleep. It should have come as no surprise, then, that the abysmal condition attacked her when she was least expecting it to. Waking to a dark room, as always, Meara drew a deep breath and hurriedly went for her robe to leave the room. There was little to keep her attention on the way downstairs outside of the darkness, and after her fit in Detroit, it wasn't any easier to handle.

Trekking down the staircase in a familiar path, Meara found her way to the typically dark entryway with the front lights shining in from the outside. Shivering, Meara saw with desolation there was no light in the kitchen or the lounge. All stood black as midnight.

The young woman stood there trembling with discomfort and fears from the past choking her mind, wishing for the willpower to move, to walk back to the Aerius room or to make it just a number of feet to one of the light switches, but her feet froze.

Breathing awkwardly for far longer a time than she cared to admit to herself, Meara jumped a mile when a voice eventually called out through the darkness.

"You okay, Meara?"

Youthful and kind, Tim's teenage voice broke the smog in Meara's brain with the strength of a bustling rain shower bursting through the clouds.

"Tim," The young woman spoke his name aloud, the power of speech finally freeing her to turn and glimpse the barest sight of the boy Robin near the foot of the stairs. "Um… I think I am. It… It's…"

After an indecisive moment, Meara's voice failed her.

"Is it that dark?" Tim guessed accurately, and Meara sighed.

"Yes," she confessed plainly, shoulders sinking with the admission.

"I'm headed to one of the brightest rooms in the house," Tim told her more cheerily, but mixed tactfully with understanding. "Want to join?"

Hesitating only a second to judge his true desire for her to come with him, Meara nodded. "Yes."

"Come on," the boy smiled and stretched his hand out toward the brunette. Meara's unusual night vision surprised her yet again.

Accepting the helping hand, Meara allowed the boy far more adept at moving in the darkness to guide her on their way. They traveled a path Meara only vaguely recognized from Bruce's tour; she certainly didn't remember precisely where the winding hallway led.

The presence of Bruce's younger son stilled the nerves in Meara's heart on their trip through the main floor, although not nearly as strongly as if Bruce himself stood with her. Still, it was nice to feel more safe than panicked.

As the crisply efficient smell of chlorine broke through the young woman's concentrated remembrance, Meara recalled the enormous pool buried in the south wing at the broad-windowed back of the manor, overlooking the patio and the small copse of trees and bushes nearest the back of the house.

"Sometimes I come down here when I want to wind down after patrol," Tim explained as they walked through the wide, elaborately carved marble doorway to the vast expanse of clear blue water and light-colored granite, the brilliant illumination all around them rushing Mear's fears away into the ether.

"Want to swim? It might take your mind off the dark."

Startled by the offer, Meara looked at the water and then back to Tim with a half-shrug. "I don't have anything to swim in."

"Oh, that's true," Tim frowned slightly, sticking a hand in the pocket of his black swim trunks. "Well, I guess you could try and borrow something from Barbara's stash. She keeps some stuff in that white cabinet on the left wall."

Glancing in the indicated direction only to know what the elegantly gilded white cabinet looked like, Meara returned her interest to Tim. "I don't really want to take Barbara's things. Maybe I can go shopping for swimwear sometime."

The thirteen-year-old gauged Meara somewhat in the manner of his adoptive father, albeit with gentler blue eyes, and finally nodded acquiescently. "Okay. Maybe some time soon."

Smiling vaguely at the partial promise, Meara let Tim go on his merry way around the pool, his bright blue t-shirt discarded as he went along.

Exuding a far more genuine smile at the excited shout the boy gave as he flipped off the diving board and into the deep end of the pool, Meara crossed her arms comfortably and took a seat on a nearby garden chair. Watching Tim play and goof off became practically cathartic as the time passed by, his boyish enthusiasm a wonderful change to the grim life he probably led sometimes.

After what felt like hours of acting as an audience to Tim's wind-down – which really looked more like a full blown workout – brief movement from the corner of Meara's eye drew her attention to the doorway, finding Bruce in a navy t-shirt standing there with easy grace, hands in his sweatpants pockets while he observed his son's antics in the pool.

Moving to her side without interrupting Tim's playful exercise, Bruce settled quietly into the chair beside Meara and reclined more casually than the young woman expected.

"All right?" the billionaire inquired, leaving his gaze on Tim rather than on Meara.

"I woke up without a reason again," Meara addressed the issue directly for a change. Inhaling slowly and then exhaling on a sigh moments later, she continued, "And I won't get back to sleep now. I never do."

In Meara's peripheral vision, she glimpsed Bruce nod comprehendingly.

"I'd hoped it was mostly due to settling in," the vigilante informed her, snorting a moment later. "Should I have known better?"

"Maybe around this place," Meara commented less than humorously.

Silence reigned over the expansive pool area, but for Tim's splashing and spitting as he dove and rose to the surface of the water.

"Is everyone awake?" Meara wondered randomly.

"Alfred went to bed after he prepped tomorrow's breakfast," Bruce detailed, "and Dick was sleeping like the dead when I checked in on him."

Half-laughing at the description, Meara leaned her head back against the chair.

"Don't like swimming?" Bruce wondered after a beat.

"Never learned," Meara admitted, her hands suddenly very interesting.

Bruce looked at the young woman for the first time since sitting down, proposing tentatively, "Would you like to learn?"

Throwing a startled glance at the billionaire, Meara blinked a long moment. Heaving a sigh at last, she confessed bluntly, "I'm afraid of the water."

"Ah," Bruce murmured with fresh understanding. "Was this related to the basement situation or to something when you were a child?"

"Childhood," said Meara uncomfortably, but the truth came easier after having expelled so much of it to this man during their recent trip. "I was with my dad again and he left me on my own–"

"Again," Bruce interrupted, repeating her line sarcastically, already having an idea of where the story might lead.

"Yes," Meara exhaled sharply. "He took me to a park, probably hoping I'd go run around and stop bugging him to play with me. As usual, he wasn't watching me and I went exploring. I started climbing things, just what most kids do, but I slipped and fell. Never learned to swim, so I started falling under the water. Another parent there pulled me out. First and only time I ever heard anyone really yell at my dad for his neglect, other than my mom."

"And you've been afraid of it ever since," Bruce concluded the story for her. Meara could only shrug.

While Tim pulled himself out of the pool and began toweling off, Bruce rephrased his earlier question, "Would you like me to teach you?"

Meara's eyes found his with extreme reluctance filling the stormy depths, leading Bruce to another question, "Do you trust me?"

Meara didn't hesitate this time, but firmly accepted, "You know I do."

"Then I'll teach you," Bruce replied simply.

By this time, Tim had approached them both, the towel still around his neck and his eyes full of intrigue.

"Bruce is going to teach me to swim," Meara recounted for him, not fully clear why she felt the need.

"That's great," Tim smiled, genuinely pleased. "As soon as you're good to go, we'll have a race."

"Uh… I think I'll pass on a certified loss," the brunette shook her head at the boy.

Bruce and Tim both chuckled at her attitude on the subject.

"I need to buy some swimsuits, now, I guess," the young woman asserted rather than continue thoughts of racing an insanely healthy, physically-fit vigilante of any age, in any manner.

"Tomorrow is as good a day as any," Bruce encouraged her. "Your last day before classes start."

"Don't remind me," Meara groaned.

"I won't be able to take you, I'm stuck running between meetings all day. That means Alfred is out for the count as well," Bruce frowned thoughtfully, putting his chin on one palm. After a few pensive minutes, he decided, "You'll probably have to wait for Dick to get out of his class tomorrow, so he can take you."

"Meara has a car now," remarked Tim in surprise. "Why would she have to wait for anyone?"

"I don't know my way around town well enough yet," Meara answered for Bruce. "I need a guide, if not someone to watch out for me."

"I can go with you for that," Tim scoffed incredulously, throwing his towel aside. "I know Gotham like the back of my hand now. You said so yourself, Bruce."

"Yes, that's true," the dark-haired vigilante agreed, obviously giving the situation a great deal of thought as he rubbed his chin. "Hm… Meara, I think that solves our problems. Is it all right with you?"

"Sure," Meara consented pleasantly. "Tim would be great company, too."

"Then we'll do that," Bruce put the matter to rest, leaving Tim pleased by the faith placed in his skills as he headed to the shower.

Shortly before the two of them were to leave a few hours later, Bruce pulled Meara to the side before she could pull a cardigan over her loose white button-down and black pants. Her black boots and tribal print cardigan remained the same from the previous day.

"I'm giving you a communicator," the billionaire explained without further ado, handing over a slightly different-looking earpiece to her slender hands.

Looking over the oddly familiar item, Meara debated, "But you already gave me an earpiece – the one Dick trained me how to use several days ago."

Smiling with the barest touch of patient condescension, the vigilante returned her debate with an unexpected reply, "That was merely an ear fob with two-way radio communication. This piece is a far better grade of communicator, such as the ones we utilize when out on patrol. It retains two-way radio communication, of course, but it also can become a multi-line conference connection and it has audio recording capabilities. You can alert emergency services in your location, send and receive audio messages, and contact specific frequencies with the proper signal codes."

"So this is the Bluetooth upgrade, so to speak?" Meara compared the variance in technology as best she knew how.

"That's close enough," Bruce allowed the analogy with a tiny smirk. "Don't ever turn the communicator on unless you hear a double-triple pitch pattern from it. Does that make sense?"

"Two beeps, then three beeps?" Meara ventured pensively, rolling the piece between her fingers with interest.

"Correct," Bruce confirmed, "It will signal three times in succession. Again, that is the only time I want you to answer it for the present time."

"Why would you need to call me as Batman?" Meara couldn't help wondering bewilderingly, pulling on her cardigan at last.

"You never know what might happen out there," was Bruce's cryptic answer.

Tilting her head to the side in ironic exasperation, Meara refused to accept that as his only explanation.

Sighing slightly in agitation, Bruce clarified reluctantly, "Here is a signal list. These are the patterns you would need to enter in order to contact the individual listed. If you receive the signal I just told you about, then answer the contact as soon as you're in a secure location."

Tim hurried down the main staircase on the tails of Bruce's explanation, putting his arms through the sleeves of a gray jacket as he went.

"I'm ready," the teenager explained, coming to a stop beside them, eyeing the communicator in Meara's hand with easy keenness that caused Meara to raise an eyebrow. "Finally gave her one of the good ones?"

"I didn't have time to finish it until now," Bruce explained, rolling his eyes at his youngest. "You two take care of yourselves. Tim, you're on duty right now. Clear?"

"Clear," Tim repeated much more seriously.

Nodding, Bruce wished them well, "Good luck."

"We won't be that long," Meara voiced her plan as she stepped through the foyer. "I'm not out to buy a trunk worth."

"You really should buy more casual clothes for here at the manor," Bruce contributed reasonably before the door could close. "Alfred purchased some, but not enough for working around the ballroom or lounging, I'm sure. He focused mostly on your role for the public, not your private relaxation or hobbies."

"I'll give it a glance," Meara partly promised and let Bruce shut the door behind she and Tim.

The two of them slid into the same nondescript gray car Bruce had taken to and from the airport. While disappointed they weren't taking Meara's flashy Maserati, the teen understood her motivations well.

"I just want to stay as low profile as I'm able, for as long as I can make it last," Meara had explained to him when Alfred had gone out to pull the gray car around to the front of the manor.

"Well, I suppose I can handle it for now," Tim had sighed with exaggerated sadness, making Meara laugh.

For all his youth, Tim definitely knew Gotham as he had said. His directions to the best shops for casual clothing were impeccable and straightforward; guiding them right to the heart of the city's shopping without actually venturing through it.

"Remind me to always take you along," Meara joked with the thirteen-year-old as they stood from the car and ventured into the first shop.

Clothing wasn't all that hard to procure for her simple, casual needs, which meant Meara had a good stretch of time afterward to really search for swimwear she felt comfortable in. All the shops seemed to boast only bikinis and strapless suits, however, leading Tim to suggest a specialty beach store in the higher end of town called Sandy Ray's Sun Shop. While reluctant to approach a single-purpose store, Meara didn't have much choice if she really wanted the style of swimsuit she'd been searching for.

And want it, she did. If she was going to learn to swim with four men around her, she absolutely would not allow for the potential of a wardrobe malfunction. Bruce alone would have been enough reason for caution, Meara argued to herself; at the present time, very few things seemed as terrible as losing a bikini string or a shoulder strap in front of Batman himself.

With a broad selection of the preferred style and Tim's fun-loving teases and encouragement, teamed with consistent reminders that pools, parties, and charity often went hand in hand with the wealthy elite, Meara eventually – with incredible reluctance, it may be said – allowed the staff at Sandy Ray's to load her up with nineteen one-piece swimsuits in varying colors and some patterns, all with long sleeves.

"It looks like we have a lot of time to spare," Meara realized on their way to the car. "Are you hungry?"

"I'm almost always hungry," Tim laughed and got in the car. "I could murder some sushi right now."

"Then let's grab lunch," Meara laughed with him, backing out of her parking spot and preparing for heavy traffic. "Lead the way, Ninja Master."

Notes:

DC Comics had a superhero named Enigma. However, the "mysterious entity known only as 'Enigma'…" (from my summary) is NOT related in any way to the 8-issue Vertigo/DC Miniseries of the same name.

Chapter 14 up next!

"Compared to the cartoon show?" Bruce attempted to clarify with rare confusion. "I thought we did that earlier?"

"I don't mean the Justice League cartoon," Meara corrected him patiently. "I mean the Batman animated series."

"Are they vastly different?" Bruce wondered with a raised brow.

"Well, since it's focused specifically on Batman and Gotham," Meara continued to explain, "it has a whole slew of villains who aren't in the Justice League cartoon."

"Reel them off," the dark-haired man offered with a nod of interest.

"How about Penguin?"

"Yes, he exists," Bruce nodded. "He's not as invested or as powerful as he used to be, but he still works the underworld occasionally."

"As he used to be?" Meara asked in confusion.

"Oswald Cobblepot was once a psychopathic king pin in the underworld of Gotham," Bruce explained pensively. "When I was a teenager, he was at his prime. When I became Batman, he was more of a reclusive hiring post for other criminal fraternities. He was so well connected by then, you see, that he could get anyone the kind of person they wanted for a big job."

"Does he have a limp?" Meara inquired with suspicious eyes and a tilt of her head.

"How did you know that?" was Bruce's curious yet knowing question.

"There was another TV show I'm not sure you knew about," said Meara in continued vexation and awe. "It was called – ironically enough – Gotham. It described another version of your history and the origins of the insane criminals who later populated Gotham in the comics. Penguin, or Oswald Cobblepot, was a weak coward who became a king pin, as you said. His leg was damaged and he walked with a limp. They called him Penguin because of it. Later he took it on as his pseudonym so he could claim power over their bullying."

"Sounds like the same man," Bruce confessed dryly.

"Is he small or big?" Meara asked.

"He used to be very thin," the billionaire described. "But after his last stint in prison ended in early parole for good behavior, his career dwindled and he sat in his mansion virtually all the time. Weight gain was mostly inevitable."

"Anyone named Fish Mooney ever exist?" Meara questioned with dislike, the subject leading directly to that particular identity.

"Not that I've heard or read of," Bruce negated, shaking his head.

"Let's see, we've already discussed Sacrecrow, Joker, Two-Face… Um, how about Harley Quinn?"

"Definitely," Bruce sighed in annoyance. "She spread Ellipse around Gotham last week. Made a complete wreck of half of the city's homeless population and a good chunk of the rest of the city, as well."

"How did she become one of the insane?"

"She was the psychiatrist assigned to the Joker in Arkham," Bruce sighed even more darkly. "He charmed and seduced her, somehow, tortured her into insanity during a breakout, and convinced her to leap into a vat of acid in his name. He saved her, apparently, and they've been devoted ever since."

Shuddering in disgust, Meara moved on, "Poison Ivy?"

"Locked away in Arkham,' Bruce verified gladly. "Barbara helped me track her, actually. They were friends for a brief time when Ivy was still researching. After she changed for the worse, Barbara couldn't let her go on like that. So she came to me to stop her."

"I can't remember if that's more like the cartoon or one of the movies," Meara frowned thoughtfully. "Oh well… What about Mr. Freeze?"

"Dr. Victor Fries," Bruce cleared up. "His wife Nora had a fatal degenerative disease and he tried to use cryogenics to freeze her and then revive her, having killed the diseased cells in cryo-sleep. But the police and I caught onto him, and when he was caught in a trap, Nora Fries switched out his final cryogenic formula for an older version that didn't work. Once he tried to revive her, she didn't warm, but cracked like glass. Victor then froze himself without hope of return."

Shivering at the similarity, Meara shook herself. "Another one like the Gotham show. Although in Gotham, you were a pre-teen when this happened."

"Well I definitely wasn't in this world," Bruce confirmed.

"Clayface?"

"He exists, although he is confined to Arkham for now. Not that I think that will hold him forever."

Shivering at the idea of a man could shift and reform to such an extreme, Meara moved forward again, trying to put the thought out of mind. "Riddler? Mr. Edward Nygma himself?"

"Never heard of him," Bruce admitted, stunning Meara.

"Well, that's unusual," she commented. "Still… hm… Bane?"

"No," Bruce shook his head. Meara tried to divine any secrecy on that count, considering how much seemed similar to the films, but Bruce looked very genuine.

"Huh," Meara paused, thinking. "How about Hush, Thomas Elliot Jr?"

"No one that I know of."

"Killer Croc, Mad Hatter, Victor Zsasz?"

"Zsasz is an assassin with an affinity for knives," Bruce finally agreed on a villain. "He carves a count of his victims onto his own skin."

"That's the one," Meara confirmed with a wince. "How about Hugo Strange?"

"He was killed some years ago," said Bruce simply.

"Let's hope he stays that way," Meara couldn't help remarking.

Snorting, Bruce nodded her onward.

"I already know about Falcone and Maroni… What about Phantasm or Firefly?"

"Firefly, yes," Bruce agreed. "No Phantasm, though."

"Um… Red Claw? She was interesting."

"Not that I know of."

"Hmm… I don't have many left offhand," Meara pursed her lips. "Oh, Court of Owls?"

Lifting a single eyebrow in disbelief, Bruce gave his answer without actually saying anything.

"That's all I can think of for now," Meara shrugged. "Intriguing changes, I have to say."

"I wouldn't know," Bruce snorted again. "And on that note, I think we should get some sleep. We still need to search for a similar house tomorrow and stage the house."

"I'll go for that," Meara smiled awkwardly, not looking forward to the house hunt at all.

The feeling did not go away when the young woman woke from her comfortable sleep the next morning. A night without insomnia? It was very strange, she admitted to herself, dressing in a pair of violet capris, a white top with an orange and violet floral graphic, orange flats, and a neutral cardigan. Regardless, even a comfortable night of reset could not detract from her negative mindset.

For all Meara's worry, however, Bruce eased her mind and her heart by immediately changing plans over the last bits of breakfast.

"I don't think you need to come with me, Meara," the billionaire offered calmly, polishing off the last bite of egg on his plate. "You can work on decorating and staging the rowhouse while I use your sketches to find a suitable house. How does that sound?"

Barely withholding a relieved sigh, Meara eventually replied, "I think that sounds excellent."

"Call me if you need anything," Bruce stressed firmly, rising top drop his dishes in the sink. "I will pick up no matter what."

"Okay," Meara nodded her understanding, finishing her toast while her companion moved to grab the folder of sketches from the coffee table and headed into the entryway.

"And if there's anything too heavy or awkward for you to maneuver," Bruce turned one last time, the sounds of him pulling on his black leather jacket as he spoke, "don't try to move it. Hm?"

Lips pursed in restrained amusement, Meara just nodded her agreement.

"I'll see you at lunch," Bruce nodded once and turned to go.

"What sounds good?" Meara called before the billionaire could step outside.

"You choose," the dark-haired man returned, closing the door behind him before Meara could reply.

Shaking her head, the young woman rose and headed to the sink to wash the dishes and decide what lunch would consist of later that day. After prepping chicken, cutting up a selection of vegetables with expert precision in spite of her still-bandaged finger, and setting potatoes on a low bake to last out the morning, Meara finally set herself to the task she had been asked to do.

While it was fairly simple to place things where she had already envisioned them the day before, Meara took her time and put good effort into making the row house look its best and most livable. It had to appear comfortable and inviting while still remaining clean and functional.

When it came time to move the nightstands up to the second and third floors, Meara realized with resignation she had been outclassed in a ratio of strength versus weight. They were the only pieces she had yet to place; from curtain rods and dressing chairs down to bath rugs and lamps, everything else had been placed. She had even replaced those ugly slipcovers and pillows with a better beige color.

Looking over the design she had made, not including the nightstands still wrapped in plastic, Meara felt decently satisfied with her work by the time Bruce walked in the door at lunchtime.

"How did it go?" Meara dared to ask despite her misgivings on the subject, leading Bruce to sigh as he removed his coat and walked over to where the young woman stood with hands on her hips.

"Not well," the billionaire told her frankly, taking a seat on the sofa and offering up the folder of sketches for emphasis. "I couldn't find anything like this design. Not through any of the realtors, at least. I just don't have time to go searching street by street, either. Our window of time is limited."

"Oh," Meara muttered, discomfited, and moved over to a necessary seat in the new desk chair, one hand slipping into a fist.

"Isn't there any more information you can give me, Meara?" Bruce wondered, ignoring tact in favor of function. This was a necessary part of Meara's story, after all. "I really do need to know now. Details can't wait anymore. How did you come to have the house? Where was it located? Which parts did you redesign?"

Shifting highly uncomfortably at the rapid-fire questions her host threw at her, Meara stood abruptly from her seat and moved to the front windows, crossing her arms as she did so.

"Meara?" Bruce promoted more quietly. "…Please?"

"It was an overhaul. We reworked t—" Meara started abruptly, then stopped immediately, realizing her mistake all too quickly. She had become much too complacent spilling her guts to Bruce Wayne the past two days.

Raising both brows in a decidedly compassionate expression of surprise, Bruce repeated softly, "We?"

Closing her eyes, Meara breathed deep in her chest for a very quiet moment. There was nothing to be done, she supposed. What had she thought the previous day? Never say never? The young woman almost snorted sarcastically at herself. There in that very same room they had sat when she blurted almost her entire life story to her keeper. And yet 'never' had resounded in her mind before then, however distant the insinuation had been.

Opening her eyes to the world again, the brunette could see just how long Bruce was willing to wait her out. Not angrily, but with the same understanding and patience he rarely seemed to show.

In a murmur, Meara found herself offering one more truth she had not wanted to speak, fist curling against her thigh as she did so, "After… After I was rescued – from the apartment complex… I met someone."

"I wouldn't have pegged you as being ready for that," Bruce murmured in return. "Mentally and emotionally, I mean. Besides, you were still so young."

"I wasn't ready, really," the young woman listlessly shrugged the shoulder of her loose hand. "He was a police officer. When he saw me after the rescue… and the way they largely ignored my problems, Ansel's guilt, Gilroy's…. death…. He held me up when I was at one of my lowest points."

"You've been speaking in the past tense," was Bruce's soft comment.

Meara looked down at her clenched fist with a deep, pained furrow dividing her brow; she tried to open her mouth for further speech several times, throat working but no sound escaping. Bruce waited with enduring patience until the young woman found her voice.

"He disappeared… looking for Ansel," Meara choked up, clamping her eyes shut again. "He must have found him... but… there was no way he survived the encounter… Not after the evidence they found. And it was all—"

"Not your fault," Bruce interceded fiercely, but Meara just shook her head firmly. "He was a police officer, Meara. And by the sounds of it, he was a good one. He saw the department's mistreatment of your situation, the way you were abused, the loss you just lived through, and he felt for you. Not as a matter of business, but as a human being. And he wanted to find justice for you by finding the man who mistreated you and led your brother to his death. He made a choice, one you could never have made for him."

"It doesn't matter what choices he made," Meara whispered painfully, using a familiar phrase for which Bruce could find no argument, "I'll always feel responsible for him."

Meara turned and moved swiftly towards the kitchen, unable to meet Bruce's eyes as she passed the sofa. The clangs and tings of pots, pans, and dishes flooded the billionaire's ears in the silence of the room. With no words to ease the pains left behind, Bruce sighed quietly and joined his charge in her work.

The kitchen remained clouded in the same vigilant, hyperaware silence as lunch progressed from final prepwork to making a real meal with the foundation Meara earlier laid out. Bruce took the selection of cut vegetables and built a simple sauté to enhance the vibrant, sweet yet tangy citrus marinade Meara created.

Dinging from the oven later broke Meara from her efforts at chopping fresh fruit with a tiny start, leaving Bruce a remarkable opening to ease their atmosphere.

"Don't cut your finger," Bruce remarked in the quiet as he tossed the salad, eyeing the young woman slyly before she could turn to the oven.

"Don't shout in my ear," Meara retorted instantly, staring at his smug face from the corner of her stormy eye.

After a momentary stand-off, both allowed a tiny smile to flash across their faces, and returned to their work.

Meara's choice of baked potatoes stood the test of any chef Bruce could imagine, topped with fresh parsley and scallions, diced tomatoes, shredded cheddar, and sour cream.

"As you must have noticed," Meara commented with much sarcasm as they set the table, adding a plate of citrus-marinated chicken as she finished her comment, "my fingers are still perfectly in tact."

"Then you must also have noticed I spoke very softly," Bruce added in the exact voice he described, setting down the bowl of sautéed vegetables with a smirk.

Placing the salad bowl rather harder than necessary on the table, Meara forced back a small laugh and sat down with her equally sarcastic companion, who added the small bowl of fruit in the center of the dining table and began a quiet lunch.

Given a new state of calm after their joint, therapeutic efforts at making a meal, Meara decided rather uncomfortably she couldn't hold back anymore. If Bruce was to help her succeed at keeping the most important secrets they had, she would have to help him in return. Finding a house to call 'her own' in a technical sense was the first step.

"I'll have to come with you for the house hunt," the brunette announced without fanfare, bringing Bruce to gaze at her while he took a helping of chicken and vegetables.

"Are you sure?" Bruce wondered calmly.

"I can tell the realtor what kind of house the original was," Meara answered, looking down at her plate awkwardly. "I don't remember it well enough anymore to draw it, but I can tell them the historical details."

"If you're positive, then that's we'll do," the dark-haired vigilante nodded, leaving the suggestion open-ended.

"I'm positive," Meara repeated, far more confident in demeanor than a moment prior as she finally looked up at her host again.

As he often seemed to do, Bruce stared into those oceanic eyes for a long while, attempting to divine something even he appeared to feel confused by. Eventually, he nodded almost imperceptibly, leaving Meara with the distinct impression Bruce Wayne reached yet another unspoken conclusion of her past and her character.

Shaking off the unusual feeling, Meara returned to her meal in the hopes of enjoying it before nerves and anxiety settled too deeply over her.

Lunch passed by all too quickly for the young woman, leaving her taking deep breaths to ease into the discomfort somehow before she left with Bruce. Not that it worked, but at least she tried.

"Ready to go?" Bruce asked her, pulling on his jacket again.

Slipping into her own jacket, Meara shrugged, discomfited. "As I'll ever be."

"Fair enough," the billionaire shrugged as well, leading the way out into the fall weather once more.

Three realtors ended up working with the two of them over their house search, but at the end of a very long and trying two hours, they still hadn't actually found a three bed, two bath, two-story house built in the nineteen-twenties. The realtors assured them both that there were houses like it in Detroit, and that they would surely find one available in the current housing market. Regardless, Meara still felt she had expended so much energy and emotion, only to come back empty-handed.

"How did you ever afford such a large home, Meara?" Bruce found himself asking. His tactless questioning had returned full force, it seemed.

"It was a very cheap foreclosure," the young woman answered quietly. "He bought it for us after my roommate bailed."

"How much did you redesign?" Bruce continued curiously.

"Pretty much everything," Meara explained simply.

"Well, they'll find the closest thing to it," Bruce promised to no one in particular. "And soon. The money I put into their pockets will make sure of that."

Hoping for a quick end to the process, and her unhappy memories, Meara failed to respond.

"Why don't we get back to the row house?" Bruce suggested, finally ending his questioning with a gaze in Meara's direction. "I'm sure we can find something to do. If nothing else, I can place the nightstands."

Nodding, Meara once again failed to speak, mindlessly fingering the strap of her purse.

Giving up on conversation, Bruce continued their trip exactly as he said he would; by the time both of them had settled back in the house and Bruce had put out the nightstands in every bedroom, Meara sat on the sofa and found her notebook to start doodling.

Bruce's soft, easy footsteps barely penetrated the brunette's ears as the man himself entered the living area with a laptop under his arm.

"Meara, I have a suggestion," the billionaire spoke, regretting the slightly raised volume of his words in the silence of the house when Meara started.

"Sorry… What suggestion?" the young woman questioned, voice toneless.

Tapping the computer in his grasp, Bruce explained, "Start learning about computers."

By the way Meara's young face lit up with comprehension and clarity, Bruce knew he'd made the right choice before coming downstairs.

Bruce took the lead only for so long, displaying the basic foundations of his laptop system, which was far more advanced than most anything Meara would use at Gotham University or Wayne Enterprises, leaving her well-prepared for any lesser operating systems, even in the event her training was incomplete by the time she attended to either work or classes.

Gotham's fairest, wealthiest bachelor sat back in comfortable acceptance as his charge finally breezed her way through all manner of personalization, updates, and system settings on the laptop under her fingertips. There were few things the young woman could ruin by accident that Bruce couldn't repair with ease, so the idea of letting Meara run free for her exercises wasn't difficult by any means.

Not that the brunette did any damage by the time their realtors called in with five matches for their house hunt. Judging by the expression of buried dread in Meara's stormy eyes, Bruce suspected engrossment in her task had been the reason for the lack of accidents on the computer.

Regardless Meara's reticence, the two of them shut down their computer training session and bundled back up in jackets and shoes to attend the first showing on Randolph Street.

Meara's wrinkled nose and pursed lips made a clear indication of disapproval, even from the sidewalk. The rich red home, built in 1930, did seem much too modern even compared to Meara's renovated designs in her old world.

"I don't think we need to see this one," Bruce commented to the realtor before they walked up to the front porch. "Sorry about the extra trip."

"That's perfectly all right!" the realtor reassured his clients pleasantly, eyes sincerely congenial. "Some people just know when a house isn't right for them. Let's go on to James Street. It's actually just around the block, built in nineteen-twenty-one."

The second home, while vaguely similar to what Meara had described of her original house, still put a dissatisfied look on her features. Bruce turned to the realtor with another apologetic expression and they turned away from the white structure without a word.

When they parked in the driveway of a light blue home on Fordham Court, Bruce watched as interest and dread pooled equally in Meara's eyes. Biting her lip, the young woman stepped out of the car and joined them in walking up to the royal blue front door.

"This home was built in 1924," their graying guide explained as they walked into a badly deteriorated living room. "I do think this one is closest to your description, although it's quite a bit further from the college area than you wanted. But the neighborhood is what you were looking for – lower crime rates, nearby bakery, and a decent-sized yard. A lot of the interior was gutted, but the bones are there. Lots of room and the basement was waterproofed back in May."

Bruce didn't know quite how he should play the situation yet, seeing as Meara still gazed around at the details of the interior, so he did his best. "Why gut the place? It seems like it's in fairly good condition overall."

"Ah, I believe there was a rental dispute," the realtor offered a bit uncomfortably. "The renter was very unhappy with the way the courts decided, so they say. But that's conjecture; I have no real proof."

Nodding with false interest, Bruce merely followed the other man through the house, listening to details that would most likely be renovated by his young companion the moment it was placed in their possession – if it was the right one, at least.

It was while heading down into the basement that Bruce felt concern flare up for Meara. The dark space was not completely blacked out, but what little light could shine through the dirtied windows didn't do much to brighten their surroundings.

Yet the brunette remained mostly calm, albeit caught gazing a bit too long at the small, clouded windows above their heads.

"This is good," Meara remarked, her first words since leaving the row house a couple of hours before. Still eyeing the high basement windows, Meara seemed quite invested in the space despite her continuing discomfort.

"Do you want to see the other properties still?" asked the realtor, thankfully leading the way back upstairs.

"No, this is the one," Meara answered confidently, to which Bruce felt relief.

"We're ready to make the deal, then," the billionaire concluded.

Handling all of the little details of the transaction took up Bruce and Meara's time well past dinner, and left both worn from the excursion when they returned to the row house that night.

"You look exhausted," Bruce remarked offhandedly.

"It was a trying day," was all Meara offered, hanging her jacket across an armchair.

"I'll make dinner," Bruce decided after a moment. "You should take some more time with the laptop. Try the typing practice I set for you."

Not bothering to reply, Meara just made her way over to the indicated object and turned it on. Heading into the kitchen to begin a simple pasta, Bruce smiled but barely at the sounds of the laptop keys already tapping away.

After another quiet meal, Meara spent a few silent hours working on her typing speed and skill, a very quick endeavor by Bruce's estimate. But when the billionaire noticed the young woman's head bob three times in quick succession, he knew her lessons had to be put on temporary hold.

Pushing Meara upstairs, Bruce waited until she had stepped out of sight on the second floor, then returned to the laptop to begin his own work.

Some time during his typical late-night investigations, Bruce noticed with concern and suspicion when his laptop went straight to battery and the lights flickered out, leaving the room in blackness. Saving what work he had done so far, Bruce stood from his chair in vigilant attention. There was nothing to be sensed within the house.

A look outside let him know the world around them stood just as dark and powerless as the inside of the row house. Nothing appeared out of place, even to his extensive perception, but then why the power loss?

Screaming startled Bruce out of inspecting the possible answers, pushing the vigilante to sprint up to Meara's room on the second floor as fast as if he were out on patrol in Gotham's streets.

Through the darkness of the hallway and the bedroom, Bruce caught sight of Meara's huddled form against the headboard, the barest glimpse of terrified eyes visible from beneath the covers. Frowning with sudden understanding, Bruce debated entering the room versus leaving the independent young woman to handle herself, but those wide eyes kept him rooted to the floor.

Instead of leaving, the dark-haired man pushed the door fully open and walked over to his new ally with an outstretched hand.

Shaking still from her terror, Meara shrunk back at the advance, breathing noisy and erratic.

"Meara, it's all right," Bruce tentatively told her, never retracting his hand.

A sliver of recognition entered the brunette's gaze, leaving Bruce relieved when she took his hand like an anchor. Sitting beside her, the billionaire waited out the panic until his young friend could breathe and speak more normally.

"What happened?" Meara asked shakily, plainly not referring to her panic so much as the lights.

"The power's out completely," Bruce cleared up, squeezing her smaller hand reassuringly. "I don't know why yet; there wasn't a storm. All the surrounding structures are blacked out as well. Perhaps some kind of electrical fire or a blown transformer. That does happen occasionally."

"What are the real chances of an occasional situation while we, of all people, are here?" Meara asked, voice still trembling yet regaining some of its strength.

Snorting at the logic presented, Bruce tilted his head with mild acquiescence. "I won't argue the likelihood of such a coincidence. But we don't know for certain what's going on, so let's see what we can find out."

Nodding a little jerkily, Meara allowed the billionaire to pull her to her feet and back down to the main level. Settling Meara in the desk chair, Bruce hurried to grab flashlights, candles, and matches. No doubt a little illumination would help Meara feel even calmer. The struck match granted them light and a little warmth, Bruce setting the candle on the ceramic plate Alfred had packed for it.

"Go ahead and pull up a search," Bruce offered easily. "You may as well learn while you can."

Nodding her understanding, Meara turned back to the screen, searching for any news on the situation. A brief blip of a warning had already been posted, stating an unexpected blackout for reasons unknown – police and emergency crews already set out to investigate the circumstances.

"How could they know so quickly? Meara wondered confusedly, a frown marring her young features.

"Smartphones," Bruce informed her simply, a pensive frown also on his face. "It looks like power is out all across the city."

"Why do you say that?" asked Meara, turning to look up at him where he stood beside her.

"Look at the website that posted the headline," Bruce instructed, pointed to the webpage name beneath the search result.

"S-M-E-S-D-E-P-T," Meara read off the title letters in lingering confusion. "What does that stand for?"

"State of Michigan Emergency Services Department," Bruce clarified. "This is a state posting, not a local one."

"I'm not sure I understand the significance," was the young woman's hesitant response.

"If it was a local occurrence, as I suggested a few moments ago," Bruce explained thoughtfully, "then at least one of the local news stations would still have power on. They could access the internet to post updates. But this was a state posting. That means not only that the local news stations are all without power, but that it was on a large enough scale to warrant notification of state officials and an immediate investigation."

"That still doesn't explain how they could know so quickly, though," Meara pressed, frowning more severely. "Just because the power went out city-wide doesn't mean it's a criminal situation, does it? I know I said as much earlier, but it was borne of panic, not reasonable intuition."

"The entire grid for the city must be knocked out," Bruce replied, still remarkably patient, "That's the only real reason I can imagine such an instantaneous response."

"So it must be pretty difficult to get into the grid power system and disable it," Meara deduced with new understanding.

"Incredibly difficult," Bruce confirmed. "Hopefully Lantern is still here. I don't think it would benefit my secret for Batman to investigate just yet."

"Too timely?" Meara wondered.

"Yes," Bruce nodded. "I doubt John Stewart would fail to put two and two together."

"Would the news report his involvement?" was Meara's next question, fingers ready to type.

"Not likely right now," the billionaire shook his head. "Especially if it's still a regional investigation. If it goes to the federal level, then it might come out that he's helping."

"So we just… wait?" Meara decided on, a bit disappointed and a lot worried.

Smirking at the former emotion, Bruce verified, "We wait."

Sighing at the idea of waiting out a potentially threatening situation, Meara settled in for a long night and an even longer morning. Dozing intermittently on the sofa while Bruce continued searching the situation out didn't help Meara any, and by four o'clock in the morning, the young woman felt more like a zombie than a living person.

"You should have tried to sleep," Bruce reproached her from the desk, his endurance amazing Meara even as it frustrated her.

"Yeah, sleep in a blacked out room," Meara snorted sarcastically. "I can really see that happening."

Sighing, Bruce accepted that with silence and moved to light another candle. After several hours, the first one had melted to almost nothing, leaving barely enough of a ring to contain the liquefied wax.

"Green Lantern has now officially joined the investigation," the billionaire announced with sudden interest, eyeing the webpage carefully as he blew out a match.

"Which means he's probably already been working on it, unofficially," Meara concluded drearily. "I wonder how it's going…"

Bruce remained silent, leading Meara to decide he already knew that, since he obviously had more deductive skills than most anyone.

"Meara," Bruce spoke thoughtfully, turning from the computer with an intrigued expression, leaning his chin onto one hand thoughtfully.

Catching the intensity of that expression, matched by the inquisitive look the vigilante threw at Green Lantern's blurry photograph on the internet article, Meara had a horrible feeling of a sudden.

"Oh no," Meara replied, long-suffering, shaking her head exasperatedly. "No, no, no – I am not talking to Green Lantern so you can investigate as Batman."

"Just a few hours ago you were disappointed by simply waiting," Bruce reminded her, one dark brow lifted high above his clear blue eye.

"At that time, I wasn't even remotely thinking of talking to the very man who distrusts me so much!" Meara exclaimed, now very much awake as she sat up. "It's not like I can just walk up to him and say, Hey, Johnny, why don't you let Bats join your mystery? Come on, Bruce, be realistic!"

"I am being realistic," Bruce returned, sitting up straight.

"Not realistic enough, then," Meara retorted, turning away.

Before a reply could leave Bruce's lips, the entire house lit up like Christmas, brightness flashing in their eyes countering the darkness and dim flame they had previously been embroiled in. Startled, both of them stared up at the ceiling lights for a long moment.

Finally, Bruce spoke again, "It appears the situation has been resolved."

"It seems so," Meara responded quietly, something disquieted in her tone that Bruce couldn't pinpoint.

"Try and sleep now," the billionaire spoke again, letting the moment go. They were both edgy after the power situation and Meara had already faced a night terror; further arguing would get them both in trouble with each other.

Nodding her only reply, Meara made her way back upstairs at a trudging pace, leaving Bruce to continue his investigations once more, an odd unease settling into his bones over the entire blackout affair and its rapid conclusion.

None of it made any sense, really. From the sudden power outage, to the city-wide range of effects, to the state investigation, even down to Green Lantern's 'official' involvement.

Officially involving a well-known superhero mere hours after the incident occurred seemed far and beyond a normal investigation technique. There was more to the power outage than met the eye, Bruce was willing to bet good money on it.

Sighing in frustration, the dark-haired vigilante rubbed his face irritably and returned to his search. Eventually something would turn up. And if it didn't, like it or not, Meara would simply have to step in and help him meet with Green Lantern. Without her, there was too much questionability involved in his alter ego stepping up to help a situation outside of Gotham City so rapidly.

For more than one reason, Bruce hoped it wouldn't come to that.

Three hours after having dragged herself up to bed, Meara started awake to something she didn't fully comprehend at first through her limited cognizance.

But the sound of Bruce's slightly insistent voice calling her name cleared up the cause of her wakefulness, if not the reason behind being woken by her host. Turning onto her other side to face the billionaire, Meara rubbed as much of the sleep from her eyes as she could manage before speaking groggily, "What is it, Bruce?"

"I regret I had to wake you," the dark-haired man apologized subtly, "but we have a situation. You'd better get up and dressed."

Surprised into a broader level of comprehension and concern, Meara sat up a little too quickly as she inquired, "Why? What's going on?"

"Wake yourself up first," Bruce insisted. "We'll talk downstairs. Breakfast will be ready by the time you are."

"Okay," Meara reluctantly agreed, wishing to know but understanding Bruce was going to be close-lipped until she did as he asked.

At last changed out of her simple gray pajama set and into coral pants, a short-sleeved navy top, cognac ankle boots and matching belt, and a thick, multicolor tribal print sweater, the young woman headed down to whatever crisis awaited with Bruce Wayne. Breakfast didn't occupy much of Meara's mind as she waited for Bruce to drop the proverbial bombshell.

Seeing Meara's obvious disinterest as she powered through the meal he'd set out for her, Bruce decided it was time to expound on the circumstances.

Forgoing words, the billionaire dropped a newspaper in front of Meara without preamble.

As she comprehended the paper before her, Meara's breath caught in her throat.

On the front page of Detroit Reporter, a bold-type article took up the entire cover, accompanied by the photo of a smiling, dark-skinned man with rectangular glasses and a sharp tweed suit.

CITY'S DISTRICT ATTORNEY FOUND DEAD OFFICIAL'S DEATH SHOCKS COMMUNITY

Ronald Perkins, age 42, was found dead in his office early Sunday morning. Perkins served Detroit as District Attorney for nearly 13 years, having been reelected far and wide for a fourth term last November. The sudden death of a public official has authorities on alert for potential foul play. No accusations have been instigated as yet, but the circumstances seem to indicate it is only a matter of time.

After helping restore power to the city grid in the wee hours of the morning, Green Lantern was later seen on hand at the District Attorney's Office, scouring the landscape for clues. Mayor Harold Conley has announced the well-known superhero's agreement to aide the investigation, which leaves many wondering exactly what findings would incite the involvement of a member of the Justice League.

The article went on in greater detail of the attorney's quiet career as a prosecutor and speculation about his mysterious death, but Meara's eyes kept returning to one sentence out of them all.

After restoring power to the city grid in the wee hours of the morning, Green Lantern was seen on hand at the District Attorney's Office, scouring the landscape for clues.

"This is why the power went out," the young woman concluded, still and horrified as her eyes roamed that sentence over and over. "Isn't it?"

"It has to be," Bruce determined gravely. "For Lantern to be so quickly involved in both investigations… Even in such a serious matter, that's highly unusual. The official channels usually work out what they can before they approach any kind of vigilante hero for help."

Still staring at the pleasantly smiling face of a man who had probably been murdered, Meara shivered lightly and at last responded to her host.

"What do you need me to do?

Notes:

Harley Quinn (Harleen Quinzel) has a history inspired by the Suicide Squad movie. While I don't like much from the Snyder DC films, I do appreciate what they did with Harley and Joker. 

DC Comics had a superhero named Enigma. However, the "mysterious entity known only as 'Enigma'…" (from my summary) is NOT related in any way to the 8-issue Vertigo/DC Miniseries of the same name.

Chapter 13 up next!

But then Batman shouldn't be in Detroit at the same time as Bruce Wayne unless he had no other choice – particularly with a clever-minded green lantern there to figure out his secret. Thus, Meara realized with mounting frustration that she was left to pick up the pieces until her overseer could arrive. Seeing as Bruce was still being 'sold to' by the realtor without any foreseeable end in sight, the young woman came to understand that might be a while.

Before Meara could answer the rather rude – and rather unintelligently loud – question about her purpose in Detroit, the lantern disguised beneath a gray trench coat stalked up to the driver's side window heedless of any passing traffic.

Faced with the undercover hero's glare, which was made painfully clear even from behind his dark sunglasses, Meara took a deep breath, rolled down her window, and responded truthfully, "My keeper, if you will, is ensconced in a real estate purchase across the street."

"I doubt Batman is making a property grab in the middle of Detroit in broad daylight," was the dark-skinned man's sarcastic response, louder than Meara felt comfortable with.

"Could you be any more obvious? Keep your voice down!" the young woman hissed quietly at the foolish hero, bringing a well-disguised snort from the other end of her communicator that she neatly ignored. "I thought you knew better than to talk about that so publicly!"

The lantern practically jumped back at her unexpected scolding, but he did seem slightly abashed at his hot-headed remarks. If only slightly.

"I still want to know what you're doing here," he pressed firmly anyway, albeit more quietly, not replying to the accusation in the face of his suspicions.

"I just told you," Meara sighed irritably. "The man I was placed with… He is inside that condominium complex across the street. Probably buying it, if I'm not mistaken. Anything else you need to know?"

Glaring anew at her smart-alecky retort, John Stewart pulled off his sunglasses and retorted, "Yes, as a matter of fact. Who's the keeper you've been placed with? Why aren't you in there with him? And why did he even bring you out of Gotham in the first place?"

Unable to tell what Bruce would want her to say, seeing as he was still talking with the realtor, Meara decided (not for the first time) to play carefully with her knowledge.

"Unless he gives me permission to say those things," Meara answered cautiously, "I'm going to have to decline to answer."

"Are you trying to play me off?" the man bit back, suspicious clearly rising to new heights.

"No, of course not," Meara sighed more blatantly, this time allowing her full exasperation to show in the sound and in her face. "I'm trying to tell you to wait – patiently – until the man ends his deal and exits the condo. So please, lean against the car, glare at me a little more if you like, and wait there."

Struck vaguely speechless in the face of the young woman's newly determined and unafraid persona when compared to her mildly mousy presence in the Watchtower almost a week prior, John Stewart failed to respond before Meara rolled the window back up and waited out Bruce's sales deal.

Now listening very closely to Bruce's conversation as he tried to hurry the high-strung realtor along, Meara studiously avoided the man who had obviously taken her words about glaring straight to heart while he sat against the hood of the car with his arms crossed.

Thankfully, Bruce's sudden impatience threw the realtor off, if Meara judged his tone correctly, but the money offered for the slow-to-sell complex kept his suspicions down and he made the deal anyway.

Bruce walked out with the man, shaking hands as they parted ways at the front door. Slowing enough to get the realtor out of sight and earshot, Bruce slowly headed down the sidewalk as though engrossed in his phone. The realtor hurried to cross the road and slipped inside his car, leaving soon after. No doubt he was ecstatic to finalize the sale on the property as quickly as possible.

Having taken notice of the tan car disappearing around the corner, Bruce now made a beeline for the Audi, subtly tapping his earpiece off. Meara sighed in relief as she did the same, glad to have the man on her side now. Whatever he said, she would follow.

Through the closed window, Meara heard Bruce's charismatic and prosperous tone as he pulled some mixture of businessman and socialite on the Green Lantern.

"Can we help you with something?" the billionaire enthused, a chipper smile full of well-hidden agitation gracing his handsome face when he looked over at the man leaning against his car.

While the militaristic lantern may or may not have liked people such as Bruce Wayne with their elite, self-interested lifestyles, he at least had enough decency to give a man the time of day.

"Meara and I have… met before. I was just checking to see how her new living arrangements were coming along," Stewart replied a tad less than truthfully, but Meara supposed it was meant more in diplomacy than secrecy as she reluctantly rolled the window down again.

Bruce's clear, strong voice filled his younger companion with calm as he laughed with a practiced disregard. "Oh, you mean my new renovator? Meara's been marvelous with the manor. She certainly has a way with restoration and design. That was why I hired her in the first place."

"Oh, well… Of course she—" the suspicious hero replied haltingly, until he seemed to catch onto something Bruce said. "Ah… I'm sorry, did you say manor?"

A tendril of predatory amusement flitted across Bruce's face when he smiled this time. "I did, in fact. I was talking about my home… Wayne Manor. It's in Gotham City. Not sure if you've heard of it…?"

Meara bit the inside of her lip just shy of slicing it open so as not to laugh at the hefty vat of sarcasm Bruce had dumped over his unknowing teammate.

The lantern had obvious difficulty continuing on, but he eventually responded with a voice gone dry, "Yeah, I've heard of it. So... you must be… Bruce Wayne?"

The knowledge made the soldier swallow despite himself, his slight emphasis on the first name something Meara once again resisting laughing at.

"I certainly am," Bruce smiled with a charming kind of sharpness, offering his hand and his gleaming white teeth. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr…?"

"Stewart," the lantern answered with only a little hesitation, accepting the handshake and sending an odd, revelatory glance in Meara's direction. "John Stewart. Nice to meet you, Mr. Wayne."

"So, where and when did you meet Meara?" Bruce inquired with apparent confusion and placid curiosity. Meara wondered what he was trying to do, but didn't find an answer before the lantern found his voice.

"The last time she was in Detroit," the other man answered more confidently and easily than his previous responses. "There was a little mix-up in a jewelry store. Our orders got confused. Me and a friend helped Meara out of the situation."

Suitably impressed by his renewed ability to keep secrets, Meara accepted that story as part of her own alibi if ever she was asked about knowing John Stewart.

"Ah, that was good of you," Bruce replied with that billionaire smile, also seeming pleased by the lie.

"Glad to help her out," the lantern ducked his head slightly. "Well, I better not take up any more of your time, Mr. Wayne. Meara, it was… nice to see you again. I'm glad to hear things are working out for you."

"Thank you," was all Meara could think to say, uncertain exactly where they stood now. Gauging the former soldier's face, it seemed he was still confused; about what, Meara couldn't say.

"Again, it was a pleasure, Mr. Stewart," Bruce concluded the 'interview' with another handshake. Nodding, John Stewart walked back the way he had originally come, occasionally taking a glance back at Bruce and Meara with a strange look on his face.

In the wake of the man disappearing around the corner at the end of the street, Meara let out a breath of relief and rolled her window back up while Bruce made his way around to the passenger door and slipped inside the car.

"Well, that went better than expected," the billionaire decided with pursed lips.

"Something about Bruce Wayne being my guardian has him stumped," Meara announced with certainty. "Or… well, maybe concerned is the better term. Not for how you'll treat me or anything, but… something else."

"Why do you say that?" Bruce wondered, intrigued, and Meara had the feeling he knew what she meant.

"After he realized who you were," the young woman explained thoughtfully, "this look came over his face. As though something finally clicked; something finally made sense to him."

"Excellent observations," Bruce nodded in acknowledgment. "I believe your right. I actually think John Stewart finally has an inkling of what made your past so tragic, as I told him it was on the Watchtower."

"What could he determine about my past based on you being my guardian of sorts…?" Meara asked with a frown, thinking over the unclear connection with confusion for several minutes.

Bruce gave the young woman time to think out her own conclusions, never interrupting the thought process she was going through. Looking over that the man who inspired whatever conclusions John Stewart had made about Meara's 'tragic' history, it didn't take nearly as long as she thought to make the connection.

Eyes widening slightly in the face of her understanding, Meara murmured rather quietly, "My family died in front of me."

Nodding solemnly at the parallel Green Lantern now realized, Bruce took Meara's hand for a brief squeeze and nodded at the front window. "Why don't you drive us back to the grocery shop? I'll help you with directions."

Still a little caught off guard by the lantern's perceptiveness and so much of her past coming up in less than a day, Meara took a moment more before starting the car and setting off the way they had come.

A couple of hours later with a car full of groceries for the next two-and-a-half days, Bruce and Meara returned to the row house both ignoring their empty stomachs in order to actually make an early dinner.

"I can't believe we skipped lunch," Meara commented as she hung up her coat on the rack, switching her hold on four grocery bags to do so. Bruce had finagled the other ten, leaving the man still in his coat as he began putting away the goods they'd purchased.

Humming noncommittally, the billionaire finished his organization of the refrigerator and turned to the dry goods on the counter. Following his lead, Meara entered the kitchen and placed her bags on the counter as well. Bruce started to reach for the cold items, but with a scoff, Meara smacked his hand lightly and began the process herself.

Pursing his lips to avoid smirking, the dark-haired man nonetheless snuck the dry goods from Meara's grocery bags and put them up when she ducked into the refrigerator.

Rising from her bent position, Meara noticed the bags moved into a different position than they had been moments before. Narrowing stormy eyes at Bruce, the brunette kept on grasping cold items and tactfully ignored her host's grabby tendency.

Dinner was a simple affair – the duo resorting to turkey wraps, salad, and a fruit mix.

Sipping tea and working through apple pieces from the fruit medley, Meara watched as Bruce looked over the information on his new condominium complex. The idea made the young woman laugh inside, even as she tried not to think of the reason behind the real estate purchase. Shaking herself, the brunette pushed the thought away and refocused on eating.

At last, Bruce exhaled, closing the folder on his property. "It seems even without your situation to back it up, this property is going to be worth the long-term investment."

Meara just nodded, wishing the conversation hadn't led back to this topic.

"A lot of interested renters or buyers have had trouble with the disrepair of the houses," Bruce went on, not seeming to notice Meara's growing difficulty. "That, of course, is something I can afford to have corrected, unlike the previous complex owner. A lot of families could use a better structure for a lower price."

Nodding again without a word, Meara tried to focus on the importance of making better-quality housing for low-income families in the area, but it didn't happen with the ease she needed it to. All she could really see was the building in which her grandmother had died.

"Hopefully there are no infestations hidden in the walls," Bruce remarked with a slight frown, glancing back at his reports with a calculated eye. "None were listed, but of course they could easily have lied to get—"

"Can we please stop talking about this?" Meara finally cut in more sharply than intended, in spite of her attempts at calm, cutting off the remainder of Bruce's sentence.

Starting just barely at the interruption, Bruce took a much closer look at his companion. "Meara?"

"Those condos look just like the one my grandmother died in," the young woman fairly burst with, unable to keep in the reminder any more. "There was a fire and she… she couldn't make it out."

Eyes filling with realization, Bruce dipped his head slightly, softly closing the folder on the condo. "I'll put this away."

Eyes riveted to the table beneath her plate, Meara nodded jerkily.

There was a tense pause, almost tangible, while the young woman attempted to calm herself, but her efforts made little change on the whole. Biting the inside of his cheek, Bruce decided to do what he seemed to do best where his new charge was concerned – talk.

"You know, Meara," the billionaire began to speak, not entirely sure where he was headed in the slow, meandering tone he employed, "there's really still a lot of information you probably need to compare and contrast between our actual reality and what you've known from comic books, films, and television shows. The cartoon show you saw, in particular, seems to be the most heavily related to the lives we're all leading here. Why don't we outline the differences, so you'll be better informed?"

By the time the dark-haired man's words wound down to the question mark, Meara's shoulders reached a state of relaxation matched by the far less wild and crackling expression in her ocean eyes.

"I think I'd like that," the brunette replied calmly, smiling a little at Bruce for his efforts.

"Why don't you go get a notebook and write down any notes you can think of?" the vigilante smiled slightly in return. "I'll finish my meal and we can head into the living area for our discussion."

"All right," Meara nodded and took her empty plate to the sink before heading peaceably upstairs.

The delivery truck arrived in the middle of Meara's efforts in describing the Justice League cartoon, the commotion of the deliverymen stirring the brunette's awareness. Gauging her current activity versus the likelihood of her help being necessary, Meara decided Bruce would come and get her if she were needed.

It seemed in a blink of an eye they both settled on the sofa surrounded by plastic-covered furniture, Meara toeing off her boots in the process and tucking both legs beneath herself before pulling the heavily-scrawled notebook onto her lap, pen at the ready. Bruce, too, had pulled out a notebook and pen, something that surprised Meara.

"I may have a photographic memory, but that doesn't mean I don't like to take notes," Bruce commented on her expression with some amusement.

Shrugging it off as one of the man's more obsessively compulsive behaviors, Meara took up the conversation, "Well, I didn't just write down notes. I wrote down a… plot outline, I guess you could call it… for each episode of the series. Based on the apparent point in time we're at, I only wrote down the first two seasons."

"Reasonable," Bruce nodded his understanding. "Where does that end?"

"After the invasion," Meara admitted unhappily, but pressed forward, "What was the last big event the league faced? I mean… well, I didn't think about this originally, but it was kind of silly for me to reference so much from the show when I was describing Wonder Woman. I had no idea if you'd even experienced any of that yet."

"We had," Bruce offered with a shrug.

Meara frowned in concentration as she gazed over her chronology of the animated series. "Look, why don't I just read the summaries one at a time? You can tell me what events you haven't experienced."

Bruce nodded his consent, gesturing with his hand for Meara to move forward.

"First episode was the situation with the Alien Invaders," Meara started, reading from her writings as she spoke. "The ones J'onn encountered on Mars. Senator taken over by an invader, you being a sacrificial lamb as per usual, the Imperium burned to a nasty sniveling crisp…"

"Definitely did that," Bruce confirmed, a smirk crossing his face at the young woman's interesting commentary.

"Green Lantern surrendering himself to those creeps the Manhunters," Meara added a new episode. "The Oa leaders being secretive and letting Lantern take the frame-up, Flash the questionable but loyal defense attorney, the near-death experience that scared me as a kid, and of course In brightest day, In blackest night, No evil shall escape my sight… yada, yada. Say the whole thing and it sounds cheesy. Very heroic, but still very cheesy."

"Did that, too," Bruce smirked far more deeply at her second episode description. "Well, not personally. Diana and I were absent for that trip."

"Same as the episode," Meara remarked interestedly before moving on, "Situation between Aquaman and his brother, Lord Orm… Orm wanted to destroy or overtake – or both? – the world above. Wanted his brother's throne and power, going so far as to send Deadshot after the king and later leaving Aquaman and his son to a terrible molten death… To which the king showed his heart underneath it all when saving his baby boy – unfortunately by removing his own hand. Still, bravo to the family man."

"Also done," Bruce nodded. "Without the assistance of Wally or Shayera."

Humming her continued interest at the similarities, Meara replied, "Okay, how about Lex facing terminal kryptonite exposure, the Injustice Gang following Lex for his money, Copperhead getting in a fang at you, you getting 'captured' however briefly… Featuring Batman the psychoanalyst and a gorilla with a sudden budget for opera…"

Snorting out loud for the first time since arriving in Detroit, Bruce shook his head, "I realize I'm forced to do strange things in the effort of solving and stopping crimes, but you make it sound far more lunatic than it seemed at the time."

Repressing a smile, Meara shook her head and pressed on, "Um… oh, Wonder Woman's exile. Felix Faust the creep and Hades the even bigger creep… Hades wanted freedom from Tartarus and Faust wanted ultimate knowledge… Amazons turned to stone, Wonder Woman the property vandal, intervention from the boys, zombie skeletons kicking your butts – never thought I'd say that as a real thing – and of course Wonder Woman being a wonder and saving her mother and the world. The end."

"All true," Bruce confirmed, adding lightly, "No Shayera or John that time."

"War World," Meara said with a wrinkled nose, "wherein Superman ripped Mongul's world apart, could have kicked his tail but didn't, gave someone a new vision in life... J'onn was severely weakened on the planet and pretty much turned into a cheerleader for Superman. Granted, he was turning the tide of public opinion, but I still get a laugh out of the way he started yelling 'Superman, Superman' in that throaty voice of his. No offense to J'onn, of course."

Bruce rolled his eyes, but nonetheless agreed, "Yes, that happened. No Wally, Diana, or myself."

"Same," Meara nodded again. "Ooh, onto another creep – Grodd… I always want to say that in a really deep voice and draw it out… Groooodd…"

Glancing up for only a millisecond, Meara glimpsed Bruce's expression with flaming embarrassment already bursting into her head.

"Hm… you didn't need to know that," she commented almost blankly, voice dying away to nothing as she buried her face in the notebook for her own security.

"So Gr… ah, the… villainous gorilla…" Meara quickly changed tack, but the damage was already done.

Coming down with an unusually severe cough, Bruce failed to respond, something Meara didn't find very fortuitous considering she knew he was only coughing to suppress laughter.

Meara allowed herself to glance up above the notebook in trepidation, not entirely sure why she felt it necessary.

Sharing her long-suffering gaze for no more than ten seconds, Bruce snorted and then abruptly burst into hard laughter, bending forward as he did so.

Sighing in resignation, Meara let the man's strong, rich laughter fill her ears. It wasn't often Bruce Wayne genuinely laughed and she couldn't get upset at him for it – he needed it too much.

Winding down after a minute or two, Bruce reduced himself to chuckling, giving the young woman a vaguely apologetic look, albeit heavily downplayed by the amusement still shining in those icy blue eyes. "Would saying I'm sorry make you feel any better?"

"Don't bother," Meara answered ruefully. "I don't think you'd really meant it, anyway. Do you?"

Lips pursed thoughtfully, the billionaire didn't reply immediately; his mischievous eyes said all Meara needed to know.

"Nevermind," she remarked with another sigh, much more resigned the second time around, and simply decided to move on. "Grodd used technology from Gorilla City to take control of Wally's hometown – Central City. People were enslaved with min contr— What?"

Finally seeing the confusion on Bruce's face, Meara frowned. "What is it? What's different?"

"Wally is from Keystone City, first of all," Bruce answered. "And second of all, that's the city Grodd took control of."

"Oh," Meara frowned more deeply. "But… Grodd controlled people to gather nuclear materials..."

Bruce already began shaking his head. "They're something of a little sister to Central City, particularly in the way of scientific progress."

"That's a strange difference…" Meara decided, "but I suppose it doesn't really matter in the long run. The overall events still happened, right?"

Nodding, Bruce clarified, "Solivar chased down Grodd, Wally and John helped Solivar follow Grodd's movements, Grodd controlled Keystone, eventually launched the missiles, and the rest of us stopped the missiles in Gorilla City. Clark wasn't involved."

Shaking away the odd feeling this change of location inspired, Meara moved to the next episode. "All right… Aresia and her man-killing philosophy is next up. Second Injustice Gang, Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl have to stop Aresia without you guys, since you're men and obviously you got sick. Hippolyta used as blackmail for Wonder Woman, the queen never told Aresia a man saved her life as a child, and Aresia decided it didn't matter, proceeding to try and bomb the world with her disease concoction for men."

"Done, as you know," Bruce referenced Meara's comment about Aresia on her first day at Wayne Manor.

"Flash, J'onn, Hawkgirl, and Lantern ended up in an alternate universe," Meara explained, the irony not lost on either she or her host as they shared a look, "in which the Justice Guild of America actually exists, but in your world, they were just comic characters that Lantern loved to read about. Totally cheesy episode, by the way… At least until the ending, which was incredibly creepy. Anyhow, Ray Thompson was manipulating the world with his radioactive powers. None of those people in Seaboard City could move forward because he held them at a standstill."

"This situation certainly has parallels for your experience, Meara," Bruce commented dryly. "Minus the… unique mind powers. You're not holding us all ransom are you, Meara?"

Rolling her eyes, the brunette responded tartly, "Are you aging? Yes? Obviously. So the answer is no."

The billionaire neglected further response, leaving Meara to pick up the thread of conversation again. "Ahh, Jason Blood – facing off his once-lover Morgan Le Fey, who was actually a demon using him for power and who cursed him to become the grating demon called Etrigan. Centuries later, she tries to find the Philosopher's Stone, killed a few folks to get at it, and Mordred was the worst nuisance in the history of the world. J'onn was heavily tempted by Le Fey, using his dead family as bait… Flash, Wonder Woman, and yourself also joined the mission. Actually, you started out the episode talking with Jason Blood in a book shop about it all. J'onn almost quit because of his weakness, but Blood convinced him to stay."

"Accurate," Bruce agreed. "Quite the combination, Jason and Etrigan."

"You can say that again," Meara couldn't help saying. "Let's see… everyone except Wonder Woman handled Rex Mason. Lantern and Rex were old friends, Rex and fiancé Sapphire couldn't get daddy Simon's approval, Daddy arranged Rex's accident and he became Matamorpho… Rex believed Lantern did it out of jealousy for Sapphire, Stagg later became this green blob of stuff and Rex became a hero to stop him."

Catching the agreement on Bruce's face, Meara continued to another description, "Vandal Savage changed history by supplanting Hitler and introducing modern technology to the past. Lantern had to return to military training in lieu of his ring malfunctioning, Hawkgirl and Flash disagreed about priorities, Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor romanced a little and rescued a spy, Lantern eventually battled Savage and everyone destroyed the fleet. And you were never actually there. Not like you are here, at least, although your resistance leader counterpart wasn't nearly as different as one would think…"

"So I've heard," the billionaire offered with a wry smirk.

"Gotta love that Superman hug, though," Meara found herself truly grinning at the scene in her mind. "That was actually really, really cute. And funny. Please tell me that happened?"

Giving the young woman something equivocating the stink eye, Bruce offered no answers. Taking it as confirmation nonetheless, Meara smiled and went on, "That's the end of the first season, actually. Season two starts with the mess of Darkseid and Brainiac tricking Superman and the League into defending Apokolips. You and Wonder Woman took a skip, hop, and a jump up to the New Gods, Darkseid and High Father's son switch was just weird, Superman is more of a hot head than people pretend, you made me laugh with your continual sarcasm, and Darkseid is seen as dying."

"Clark was an idiot," was Bruce's snorted comment. "But I won't bore you with the details."

Meara bit her lip to stop a laugh escaping. "Amazo and Lex are the next event. J'onn struggled with humanity, Anthony Ivo died and left Luthor to work on his own survival suit, humanity proved it wasn't all as terrible as it seemed, and Lex ended up defeated by his own scheme. I hope Amazo never returns, by the way. That would be awful."

"We're in agreement on that point," the vigilante nodded seriously.

"Oh, here's another one who better not return to life, so to speak," Meara announced, grimacing as she explained, "John Dee… what a psycho! I can't stand him, and compared to most of the freak shows the team battles, that's saying something. His dream controlling is the creepiest thing I've ever seen. And how his wife died… what she saw because of him… I can't even imagine. Ugh… Love the way the team came together, though, helping each other out like that. The best thing, however, was that humming… so fantastic. It's my favorite part of that episode – the way your stubbornness and determination outweighed his."

"It wasn't easy by any means," Bruce negated with a shake of his head. "But there was no other choice."

"Still incredibly cool," Meara backed off slightly. "Okay, now we have Kasnia, Princess Audrey and Wonder Woman being all buddy-buddy, that little dance in Paris, Savage's return, General Vox being a royal pain, the poor King getting poisoned, Audrey being a stubborn mule, you and Wonder Woman battling the army to the tune of the wedding march, pretty much. Flash, J'onn, and Lantern killed it on that space station and I love the way you and Wonder Woman took Savage and his groupies out… And you still—"

"Don't even think about it," Bruce cut across her sharply, but amusement glittered in his eyes nonetheless.

"After Kasnia," Meara continued as suggested, glancing back down at her summaries for a moment to compose her humor, "the next major event revolved around Despero. He used the Flame of Py'tar to gain followers from amongst the people on his planet– which I still can't remember the name of – and the plot furthered the relationship of Lantern and Hawkgirl, as well as revealing Lantern's previous relationship with Katma Tui."

"Kalanor," Bruce spoke up at seeming random. To Meara's curious expression, the billionaire clarified, "That's the name of the planet."

"Oh, well, thank you for that!" Meara exclaimed pleasantly. "That does sound familiar, now."

"What happened next?" prompted Bruce.

"Justice Lords," was all Meara said, recalling her reference to it with Dick and Tim in the dining room. "You ended up convincing yourself to change ways."

"All true, I'm sure," Bruce nodded her onward.

"Oh, the stupid episode," Meara sighed slightly as she glanced back to her notes. "I mean, it was great, but it was unbelievably cheesy. Almost as much as the Justice Guild situation. At any rate, the Black Heart Crystal ends up controlling whoever possesses it, Flash does commercials and Glorious Gordon ridicules the entire League, questioning their influence. It doesn't help that Flash is quick to anger and slow to be anonymous…"

In an off glance, Meara noted the strange expression on the billionaire's face and rapidly deduced something was quite different about this tale. "What's on your mind, Bruce?"

"Well, in the first place…" Bruce hesitated, "Wally never participated in any form of commercial that I know of."

"He… What?" Meara shook herself visibly. "So this episode is moot?"

"Oh, no," Bruce denied, shaking his head. "Glorious Gordon still questioned the League's influence and the crystal still controlled all of the League, minus myself and Wally… But there were never any commercials involved."

"So then, Flash never went on the show?"

"No, never," Bruce confirmed with a single nod.

"I swear, this just doesn't get any clearer," Meara shook her head like a wet dog. "All right, I guess that somewhat helps public opinion, at least… Next episode is a more spiritual escapade. I think only Superman, Wonder Woman, and Hawkgirl were involved this time. Solomon Grundy gets used by Dr. Fate and Aquaman to stop Icthultu from overtaking the world, essentially. The only reason he's helping them is so he can get his soul back. Grundy dies in the effort of fighting Icthultu, who used to rule over the Thanagarians. Hawkgirl's atheism takes a hit when she sees Grundy's faith, even in death."

"That happened six weeks ago," Bruce frowned slightly. "I remember the reports and… well, Hawkgirl was deeply shaken by the experience as you just implied."

"Based on how recent this is," Meara pursed her lips thoughtfully, "that looks like that end of the episodes. Nothing else really major has happened since then?"

"Nothing. No life-threatening battles or the like," the billionaire concluded confidently.

"Then that's all I have," Meara shrugged.

"I have a few questions, then," Bruce decided, settling more onto his side, arm up on the back of the sofa.

"Shoot," Meara gestured him on.

"First off… and this has really been bothering me…" the vigilante started with a host of confusion in his eyes, "How did you know to call Wally 'The Flash' all this time?"

Blinking rather owlishly for some moments, Meara had to shake herself for the third time, letting the notebook drop with a tiny 'thwap' sound.

"I'm sorry, did I miss something along the way?" the young woman finally said, frowning deeply "…Isn't that Wally's codename?"

"Not precisely," Bruce answered calmly, lifting an eyebrow. "So the cartoon show calls him 'The Flash' from the beginning?"

"Pretty much everything calls him 'The Flash' from the beginning," Meara emphasized in disbelief. "Or at least shortly thereafter… Hasn't he been in the public eye for a while?"

"About two years," Bruce shrugged.

"What have people been calling him all this time?" Meara exclaimed, stunned by the turn of events.

"The Streak," was the dark-haired man's easy answer, exhibiting a casual shrug, "…or The Red Streak."

"How could a member," Meara pointed out slowly, thinking out each word and holding a hand to her temple to hopefully press an oncoming headache out of existence, "of a team of very public superheroes – the rest of which all get called by their chosen codenames – just… not get called by his chosen codename? It doesn't make any sense, Bruce!"

"We have a…" Bruce tried to begin, sighing slightly as he thought out the proper words, "…a penchant, if you will… for saving people in times of disaster and chaos."

Meara scoffed at that terminology, bringing a tiny smile out of her host as he continued, "Most of the time, in the aftermath of those chaotic and dangerous situations, we try to leave as quickly as possible. If we need spokespeople to address what choices we made or how long it took or the number of casualities, Superman and Wonder Woman often step forward. Neither of them are afraid of the attention or the pressure; Clark is simply used to it after all this time, and Diana is a royal trained for public duty and speech since birth. Lantern isn't averse if needs call for his services, but he prefers to just fight the good fight, so to speak. Wally, Shayera, and J'onn certainly aren't going to step up willingly. And I definitely don't put the mask out in public in such a manner. Not considering the controversial nature of Batman and the crusade I've forged, it's completely against my security standards."

"But that still leaves the issue of Wally being the only hero whose actual codename isn't used," Meara argued.

"Not exactly," Bruce debated in return. "Remember J'onn isn't even called by any codename. And Diana hasn't actually chosen her codename. I'm fairly certain she never planned to use one and still doesn't. She just doesn't concern herself with what the public calls her. As far as Wally is concerned, his powers leave many different impressions on the people who witness it. Moving in a 'flash' is only one of many variations on the idea of speed, energy, and movement. Without a direct inference by the hero himself, Wally's codename will be whatever first hit the public's mind when they experienced his speedy heroics."

"Wait a minute… but when you first asked me… 'how did you know'?" the brunette wondered, frowning again. "That sounds like he has been called 'The Flash' before."

"Shortly after starting the League," Bruce expanded informatively, "Wally noticed some of the media about 'The Red Streak' being one of the other heroes helping Superman with the Alien Invaders. He was irritated by the moniker and planned to seek out a media outlet to correct it with his personal preference – 'The Flash' – but between Superman and myself, we convinced him it was unneeded press attention that might come back to bite him if he kept flaunting himself in front of cameras. It's always a possibility. So he chose to allow the title. Personally, however, he asked if the team would refer to him as Flash. That's how we view him and think of him, even if it never seems to go public."

"But he got right in front of the cameras and gave his opinion on Superman disarming warheads!" Meara tried to reconcile what she was hearing. "While the Invaders were in control of the Senator and convinced the UN to agree to the disarmament plan?"

"Wally never gave his opinion," Bruce disagreed. "Particularly on the news."

"You might have missed that news report," Meara pointed out futilely, already realizing the near-impossibility of Batman missing details like that.

"I keep track of endless media and news sources every minute of every day, without ceasing," Bruce remarked more seriously. "My search and tracking parameters include some of the vaguest terms and phrases regarding the League's or my own activities. On that point, I'm as obsessive and as much of a drill sergeant as anyone can possibly manage. With Superman's incredibly public presence all on its own, I have to be. Otherwise, we'd end up with people publishing very educated hypotheses on Superman's identity every other week. Before the League formed, it wasn't as difficult for him to keep the secret."

"Really?" Meara wondered a little doubtfully. "Saving people so publicly, with all those amazing powers, the seeming unstoppable force he can be?"

"In spite of his notoriety," Bruce detailed with deep concentration, "at the time, Superman was still very much on his own; it didn't seem quite as terribly militaristic for him to zip around the world saving people. With an entire team full of super-powered individuals, it looks more like marshal force and less like saving grace, which always leads to ten times the media attention. Because there are then more clues to be had, that, in turn, results in more people making all-too-well-informed guesses."

"It does still amaze me that Clark gets away with his identity switch at all," Meara shook her head, exasperation crossing her face. "I mean, the guy looks just the same under those glasses."

"It's not his glasses," Bruce explained, "but his bumbling, wayward, human persona that creates the illusion of Clark Kent. Although, admittedly, the man Clark – rather than the mask of Superman – is generally the more real of the two personas. Unlike myself."

"That's not really true," Meara disagreed with him. "Both sides of you affect – and are a part of – your innermost nature. The same with Clark. You just spend more time cultivating the Batman side and he spends more time cultivating the Clark side. Being Bruce Wayne is easier than being Batman and being Superman is easier than being Clark Kent – mainly because both Bruce Wayne and Superman are so straightforward."

"What do you mean by that?" Bruce inquired, the interest in his gaze prodding Meara forward with more energy.

"Consider, for a moment," Meara began again, "what Bruce Wayne and Superman are known for… On the one hand, the image of Bruce Wayne is a splurging businessman who drinks too much and romances too many women. On the other hand, Superman's image is that of a seeming goody-two-shoes boy scout who always defends justice. There are gray areas for both personas, but overall they do the same things every day. That's why they're known for something; it's almost the only thing people see – or hear about – them doing in their life."

Bruce looked ready to interrupt, but Meara held up a hand begging his patience and the man's mouth closed a little reluctantly.

"Now, look to Batman and Clark Kent," Meara continued. "Both personalities have so many facets it's like looking into the center of a diamond and trying to pick the most significant angle. They're not recognized upfront as being a particular way. With these two personas, people get to see many sides of them rather than just a select few. There isn't an easy definition of who these personas are, quite unlike their opposing identity. Whenever the so-called mask – Bruce Wayne or Superman – becomes too stiff and restricted to handle what the whole of the man's nature is experiencing, the less controlled persona emerges to enable the man's inner nature to handle what's happening."

"Then you admit one persona does, essentially, control and outweigh the other," Bruce assumed.

"It's not a single persona ruling over another," Meara disagreed again. "As I said, it's all one, single nature, just that the two major personas of that nature are different enough to seem totally disparate. Ultimately, whatever side is less controlled and more relevant to the person's mindset will come more naturally and freely to the nature as a whole. Really, it's more… choosing your battles, I suppose. Most of the time, the more upfront persona can handle whatever general situation is occurring, but when it comes down to the nitty-gritty private details and the very personal struggles, the deeper persona – not the only part of the whole nature, mind you, just the freest and most natural part – has to be accessed in order to fully process whatever is occurring."

The thoughts turned around and around in Bruce Wayne's head like a well-oiled machine, the heavily-concentrated mind working visibly in the billionaire's cool blue gaze while he stared at nothing and contemplated everything.

"My point," Meara considered with focus, "is that no matter which persona of a man's nature you examine, neither is pure darkness nor pure light. No one is, not even you and Clark. You appear diametrically opposite, but both of you –and both sides of both of you – have varying levels of light and dark; what makes you so different is your outlook. Superman seems to be pure light because Clark Kent's outlook is more optimistic. Batman seems to be pure darkness because Bruce Wayne's outlook is more pessimistic. That's where you're in diametric opposition – outlook, not nature."

"One's outlook, it might be argued," Bruce responded, clearly preparing for a debate once more, "is a product of one's nature. Or a part of that nature, in and of itself. The chicken and the egg debate, you might call it."

"I have come to accept a certain philosophy about the mental and spiritual makeup of a person," Meara changed tack as thoughts rushed through her mind, "so let me explain that first off… A person has an overall nature. That nature is composed of different personas. Most people have a dichotomous nature, so generally there are two major personas in one person. In a typical case, one persona is lighter in tone and the other persona is darker in tone. Notice I didn't call one dark and one light… I say that because a person's entire nature might be darker or lighter in the first place, leading to their two personas having two different levels of darkness or two different levels of lightness, rather than a strictly light level and a strictly dark level."

Bruce waited in a strangely patient fashion for Meara to expound upon her ideas, looking very comfortably reclined.

"So, a person having one nature, made up of two personas, then has an outlook," Meara went on more enthusiastically. "The term outlook, as I see it, has a complicated definition. One part of an outlook is the way we see the world around us. Another part of an outlook is how we view ourselves. Again, this is a dichotomy... Now, a person's outlook – that combination of our views of self and of the world – determines which persona we identify more strongly with, as well as how we utilize our overall nature in our lives."

"That sounds more like nature versus nurture," Bruce determined pensively. "In that case, it boils down to what defines a person's nature. Which is, of course, an entirely different debate."

"But nevertheless a relative one," Meara commented immediately. "My brother and I were both raised in the same households by the same people and we both endured the same lifestyle, so our natures might be very similar. Yet we nonetheless held very different outlooks on life and what was important therein, leading us to make different choices."

"You didn't have the same experiences, though," Bruce interceded. "Gilroy didn't travel with your father to California, or face those children in the rich district, or end up stuck waiting for your father to show up… Ansel treated Gilroy as though he was special, but by contrast, Ansel bullied and belittled you. Gilroy was hooked on drugs, you weren't, etc. So, yes, you would obviously have taken away two separate outlooks on the way life treated you. Based on your philosophy, however, I would venture to say you both had very different overall natures, as well."

Stuck by that truth, Meara sat back a moment to think out her counter-argument. The brunette quickly realized an intensely personal connection that would certainly illustrate her point. It just wasn't an analogy she felt particularly comfortable using on Bruce.

"What is it, Meara?" Bruce queried knowingly.

"There's an argument I feel would make my point to you very clearly," the young woman in question started with heavy reluctance tempered just barely by a deep need to know, "but there's something I would need to verify first… If it's true, I can almost guarantee it's not something you would want to talk about."

"You may as well say it," the vigilante tipped his head to the side as if to say 'oh well' and offered Meara an expectant look.

"Well, it's about… the Joker…"

Bruce's jaw stiffened so quickly Meara thought he nearly cracked a tooth in the process.

"…Or …not," the young woman retracted almost beneath a whisper, shrinking somewhat into the sofa beside him and trying to babble into a random (hopefully better) topic off the cuff. "Okay, so I was wondering about the vehicles. Do you have one like a tank? I mean a tumbler? I mean, that would be cool. And this one idea that a really neat bike is part of the tumbler and can come totally separate. That's neat, too. Except that the tumbler can't run without two of its wheels, of c—"

As the young woman laughed, the sound a thorough conglomeration of nerves and discomfort, a hand descended abruptly atop Meara's own and she jumped. Looking up from her skittishly down-turned face, the young woman found Bruce now gazing at her in measured patience and buried understanding.

"Ask."

Startled, Meara fought with herself over the questions buried in her mind for a long moment, until she realized it would only be more difficult the more she became an integral part of this new world.

"Did he destroy Harvey Dent?" she murmured the question anxiously.

Breathing in deeply, Bruce closed his eyes and fought within himself as long as Meara had when divulging her past. At last, the billionaire opened his eyes and piercing blue filled with wretched pain stared back at her.

"Yes."

"Did Harvey become…?"

"Two-Face," Bruce whispered, guilt licking at his hard expression.

"Bruce…" Meara bit her lip, fearing this question more than any other, but knowing she needed to make sense of things. After a painful, awkward pause, Meara finally asked, "What about… Rachel?"

That name undid every part of Bruce Wayne's hitherto untapped composure, and his forehead crumpled with lines of loss.

"She did exist," Meara whispered sadly, almost bitterly for this twist of knowledge. She had never thought Rachel Dawes would exist in the same world as Dick Grayson and Tim Drake and the Justice League. Yet she had. And clearly, she had been lost.

"Two-hundred-and-fifty, fifty-second street…" Bruce forced out, "was where her existence ended. Because of me. Batman brought this on her."

"No, the Joker brought this on her," Meara spoke up determinedly, "Organized crime brought it on her. People unwilling to change the system did. But not Batman. Not you."

"She was going to be with me," Bruce said through gritted teeth, "If Batman could end, if he could stop existing. But I failed to stop what needed to be stopped. And she paid the price."

Horrified that Bruce Wayne was just as guilt-ridden and self-loathing as she'd feared, that he still believed in Rachel's promise to be with him once Batman ended, Meara turned her hand upwards into the larger one still laying over it, squeezing Bruce's fingers tightly.

"Rachel didn't understand what Batman is," Meara gently told him. "She didn't understand that Batman is a knight. A knight battles evil all his life. It's the knight's lifelong mission to see evil brought to justice. Just because evil doesn't wear a mask or face paint or a cape, doesn't mean it isn't just as dangerous and crazy. If Batman had never existed, Gotham would have been destroyed by the League of Shadows, wouldn't it?"

Hesitating, Bruce finally had to agree, "Yes, it would have."

"And if Batman had never existed," Meara continued, "the Joker would have ripped this city apart from the inside out. Wouldn't he have?"

Bruce struggled mightily with himself, frowning so severely his brows nearly disappeared into the sharp lines on his forehead. At last, Bruce's voice quavered just a little as he answered, "Yes."

"Then Rachel's death can't possibly be your fault," Meara murmured, hard-pressed to tell if her word made any true mark on the vigilante's thoughts.

Rather than debate further, Bruce leaned against the back of the sofa in sheer exhaustion over the past and despondently pulled an arm over his eyes.

"I will always feel responsible for her."

Hesitating several minutes with the words floating in her mind, Meara finally got up the courage to make her point and hope it would pull Bruce out of his depression for a time.

"As much as I hate to do this while you're hurting," the brunette began in a soft murmur, a deep sigh soon after escaping her while she picked and chose her words to avoid further pain where it could be avoided, "this is why I wanted to verify what really happened… You and Harvey Dent faced the same loss. Rachel was the end of your futures, as you both saw them at the time. Based on my theory, you and Harvey both seemed to have the same situation of two darker sides of the same coin."

Wincing at the unforgiving pun, Meara added, "I'm sorry for the unintended irony… But what I'm trying to say is the two of you seemed to respond most strongly to the same persona in your dichotomy – the darker one. Even before he fell, Harvey had a fairly pronounced darker side. Wasn't his initial response to Rachel being targeted rather dramatically dark?"

"Tormenting the Arkham inmate in the ambulance," Bruce sighed deeply, agreement ringing in his tone, though his arm never left his eyes.

Meara fought to finish her comparison without wincing again, "You had a different outlook from each other. Remember, outlook shares views of self and views of the world… So while sharing the same affiliation for your darker persona, the two of you had very different outlooks. Diametrically opposite, in fact. You thought lower of yourself and higher of the world, so you gave the world a second chance and put aside your own pain to help the world on that path. Harvey, on the other hand, thought higher of himself and lower of the world, so he refused to give the world a second chance and decided his pain was the most important. Both of you lost Rachel and reacted in anger to that loss at first, but when it counted most, your outlook proved you were very different from Harvey Dent."

At long last, Bruce removed the arm from his eyes and turned those pain-filled orbs of icy blue onto the young woman at his side.

"I'm not saying I fully agree with your theories about me or about Harvey Dent," the billionaire confessed, not beating around the bush. "Yet the fact you've put so much thought and analysis into the topic makes me want to examine it further. You're not just spouting loyal fanaticism; this is a real philosophy you've cultivated and believed in. That gives it a credence most such ideas wouldn't inspire in me."

Realizing that was as close to a thank you as Bruce Wayne could arrive without overstepping some personal boundary he had long ago arranged for himself, Meara nodded in acknowledgment of his sentiments and allowed the subject to drop.

"We've come a long way from discussing a cartoon show," the young woman said idly, watching the vigilante's profile as he laughed quietly through his nose.

"I never thought I'd be discussing spiritualism and philosophy with a twenty-one-year-old from another world," Bruce remarked, the dry humor in his voice reassuring Meara she had not gone so far in her convolutions that he could not return to himself.

"I'm not exactly a typical twenty-one-year-old," Meara commented ruefully.

Snorting far more humorously than he had seemed capable of moments before, Bruce replied, "You're not a typical anything, Meara Nolan."

Notes:

DC Comics had a superhero named Enigma. However, the "mysterious entity known only as 'Enigma'…" (from my summary) is NOT related in any way to the 8-issue Vertigo/DC Miniseries of the same name.

Chapter 12 up next!

Reaching for the large suitcase meant for the kitchen, Meara followed her companion's trail to the back of the house. While two of Bruce's chosen cases lay open across the floor in front of the back door, Meara opened hers right in the middle of the kitchen floor. There wasn't an enormous amount to stow away, thankfully, since they were only there for three days, but it was enough that Meara had to think out what places to use or leave alone in the spacious white cupboards.

Bruce still had one case open by the time Meara had put away silverware, serving utensils, plates, cups, bowls, pots and pans, accompanying lids, and food storage containers in the cupboards nearest the sink. In the left drawer beside the sink, she next offloaded foil, plastic wrap, wax paper, and storage bags; in the right drawer she placed toothpicks, hot pads, scrubbing brushes, dish rags, and dish towels. Dish soap and the drain plug sat on the sink corner and trivets laid out on the counter for easy use. Finishing her rounds by laying out a hand towel and a dish towel on the cupboard handles either side of the kitchen sink, Meara grabbed the placemats and napkins from the suitcase to set on the dining table and carried the empty luggage back to the living area.

"Does it matter precisely where these things go?" the young woman wondered loud enough for her companion to hear as she dug through the case full of every office material known to mankind, as well as the organizational containers to house them in. They had even packed a dry-erase board and four different types of glue.

"Just as long as they're in a practical, useful vicinity," Bruce called back to her, voice muffled.

Nodding even though he couldn't see her, Meara set about arranging the contemporary three-drawer writing desk; from pens and graph paper to a pencil sharpener and binders, Meara made sure everything was organized and tidy. The display stood tall and wide, but Meara felt confident it wasn't cluttered. Even the desk drawers held a very neat and clean array of writing utensils, erasers, a ruler, and various other items.

Finished with her second luggage case, the brunette moved onto the household case. Quite a mêlée of objects had been packed into the suitcase, more odds and ends than strictly household, but Meara began to unload it with the same care as she had the kitchen. After placing green-tinted beige slipcovers over the furniture, it was quite a pain to add matching blankets and pillows. The neutrality was understandable, of course, but on such a thorough green foundation, it now became quite mismatched to the wall color. It didn't help to add brown coasters with a yellow foundation in them, although at least the black clock came off well.

Pursing her lips unhappily at the overall appearance, Meara eventually shrugged and moved on to the rest of the case. Rather quickly, the young woman realized she didn't know where to put anything else in the suitcase. Frowning thoughtfully, Meara called loudly to her companion again, "Bruce, what do I do with all—?"

Looking up as she spoke, Meara stopped instantly when she realized Bruce was already there in the entryway, preparing to take out the empty luggage. "Oh! Sorry for shouting."

"That's all right," Bruce negated her worry, waving it off. "What were you wondering?"

"These odds and ends," Meara explained, gesturing at the open case in front of her, full of batteries, emergency candles, light bulbs, matches, a sewing kit, and two umbrellas. "Where would you want them to be stored while we're here?"

Walking over to look into the open luggage, Bruce glanced everything over with a keen eye. "Alfred must have run out of space in the other cases… Well, the umbrellas can hang on the coat rack, but the rest we'll just place in one of the kitchen drawers."

"All right," Meara agreed, glad there was a simple decision to be had as she carefully arranged the stockpile in her arms. "I'll put them in the one at the end, near the door. It's the most accessible if you're just walking through."

"Let me carry part of them," Bruce insisted fairly, reaching out. "You'll drop the light bulbs with that much in your hands."

Seeing his point, the young woman let him take the umbrellas, batteries, and candles. With his hands being rather larger than hers, Meara sighed and allowed Bruce's weightier load to pass. Leaving everything in the intended drawer, Meara moved back to the living room while Bruce deposited the umbrellas on the coat rack.

"There's that done," Meara announced gladly, staring around at the mismatched living space, only now realizing there were no curtains, but contemporary white rolling shades. "I don't like these slipcovers… Or the pillows and blankets."

Snorting, Bruce remarked, "Forgive us for not being design aficionados."

"Sorry," Meara shrugged.

"How would you design it?" the billionaire asked with some small amount of interest, taking a seat on the white sofa, one arm up on the back of it and his legs crossed casually at the ankle.

Meara would have sworn up and down Bruce was secretly modeling his long-sleeve black t-shirt for a magazine advertisement, but denied herself the possibility of saying so out loud. Humiliated would not even cover half her feelings if she had done so.

Thinking over the matter for a moment, Meara answered pensively, "I like all of the furniture, except the dining chairs. The table is quite nice, but the chairs don't feel modern enough to match it or the rest of the house. I'm not entirely sure on my exact color scheme, but the color of those slipcovers and that odd brown shade would not be included."

"The walls are painted pretty much the same color as the slipcovers," Bruce commented with a raised brow. "You seemed to like that well enough."

"Not this shade," Meara disagreed, coming over to pat the slipcover in emphasis. "This is beige with a very heavy green tone to it. The beige on the walls is based in more of a red foundation."

"All right," Bruce eventually replied, glancing between the walls and the sofa a few times to gauge what his companion spoke of. "It's the same trouble with these brown coasters, isn't it?"

Pleased with his acceptance, Meara nodded, "Yes. There's far too much green foundation in these two colors. For my taste, anyway."

"So you would use the more red-based beige to fill out the theme," Bruce deduced. "But doesn't the black upset your scheme?"

"Not at all," Meara refuted quickly. "Black has a way of contrasting other colors so that they feel larger by comparison. Plus black accents create a lot of visual interest."

"All right, that makes sense," Bruce nodded thoughtfully.

Meara took a seat on the chair across from the billionaire as he thought his way through an itch he couldn't seem to scratch.

Finally he turned to her again, "How would you like to stage this place for sale?"

Startled, Meara blinked a few times before wondering, "Me? You want me to stage this house so you can sell it?"

"You think things out that I would never consider," Bruce shrugged. "Alfred, either. For all that he's lived with interior decorators and party designers these years; he's still a man with limited decorating expertise beyond quality solid wood furniture. Besides, it would boost your resume before you begin work."

Laughing under her breath, Meara didn't argue with him. "If you want me to, I guess it would be fun to do."

"It might take the edge off of home-hunting," the billionaire added more conservatively.

Fidgeting only slightly at the implication, Meara nodded once. "It just might do that."

Having made their decision, the two decided what items to purchase and measured out various dimensions of the house. They soon found themselves driving down the nearest major shopping street, thanks to Bruce's pre-trip internet search on the area. In his black shades, hat, and leather jacket, Bruce pulled them parallel to a small grocery distributor.

Bruce spoke up before he turned the car off, "Avoiding public eyes means we need to cook at the house, which means grocery shopping."

"But of course we don't want cold or fresh items going bad while we're inside other stores," Meara concluded the rest of his thoughts. "You're parking here because it's our last stop."

"Exactly," Bruce agreed, looking pleased with her comprehension.

Pursing her lips in consideration, Meara paused before wondering aloud, "How long do you think it will be before you stop being surprised when I show common sense?"

Vaguely startled, Bruce turned to stare at his companion's attempted poker face for a long minute. Finally he turned away with a glimpse of a smirk. At least Meara certainly thought it was a smirk; it was the perfect kind of moment for a Bruce Wayne smirk.

"Let's get going," Gotham's hero decided without ever offering up an answer, rapidly rising from the driver's side. Meara had no time to respond as tartly as she wanted to over the rush of cars speeding past.

Sighing in annoyance, Meara hurried to get out before Bruce made it around to her side of the vehicle. Still irritated, the brunette shut the passenger door with an unnecessarily loud thump. It wasn't a slam, but judging the billionaire's tightly pressed lips when Meara turned to face him, it was darn close.

"Touchy, are we?" he remarked quietly, and the young woman heard his amusement sharp as nails in that smooth voice.

Refraining from a response to that comment, Meara stepped up onto the sidewalk beside the billionaire and sniffed. "Lead on."

Forcing back what appeared to be another smirk, Bruce led them two shops down the street. Meara had almost reached the door pull when Bruce opened the door and held it open for her to pass beneath his arm. Ducking only slightly, Meara accepted the gentlemanly assistance and walked right into a mixed bag of design. The entire store was a collection of little design areas with differing styles, but somehow all cluttered into the same major area to look like one solid floor space.

If ever the young woman wanted the pick of the produce, this was the spot to find it. Her first ten feet past the door proved that well enough, as she rapidly found a set of contemporary patterned curtains for the main floor.

"Bold choice, don't you think?" Bruce commented, picking up a package of the grass green and linen-colored curtains for closer inspection.

"A good burst of color will add some life to the house," Meara argued calmly, picking up six pairs of the curtains in the length she wanted. "This specific shade of green and the modern pattern are a nice middle ground; not too feminine, but not ultra macho either. The curtains are not completely opaque and it's only in the living and dining areas, so it won't overpower the whole place."

Nodding with a lift of his eyebrows, Bruce left the subject at that, instead searching out a shopping cart for them to use. Meara gladly dropped the new curtains in the metal cart and continued looking. Not a second later, around the other side of the curtain display case, the brunette found rugs in the exact same shade of green as the curtains.

Using the checklist she put together at the house, Meara checked off the rug sizes they needed as Bruce put them in the cart for her.

Once finished, Meara turned to Bruce with a thoughtful frown, pointing at her sheet, "They don't have these two sizes. Do we absolutely have to have them?"

Looking it over, Bruce pursed his lips in thought before replying, "I think we can manage with the sizes we already found. The floors have been treated and finished excellently, so I'm not particularly worried about damage."

Nodding her understanding, Meara crossed out the additional rugs on her list. "This might be faster if we split our efforts. Why don't you look for… dining sets and… side tables?"

"What exactly do you want?"

"Both white, of course," Meara explained, biting her lip as she considered what she now leaned towards. "The side tables are for the bedrooms; something to match the modern simplicity of the dressers, with at least one drawer. I think square in shape, but it depends on the table. As far as the dining set, I figured all white, but that might be a bit too much. Yet the only colors I would think to use are beige, green, or black."

"I'll give it a shot," Bruce tilted his head in agreement. "Keep your phone close to you."

"I will," Meara agreed, patting her pocket. "I do."

Amused, Bruce turned and headed towards the back of the store, where most of the furniture seemed to be located.

Meanwhile, Meara roamed the miscellaneous décor nearer to the front. There she found two more curtain sets – a muted butter yellow sheer for the second floor and a minty aqua sheer for the third floor. As much as she liked a printed green and aqua shower curtain for the bathrooms, Meara decided against it. Too much of her own tastes and the house would begin to feel far too personalized.

Instead, the young woman focused her attentions on curtain rods for the house's surprising amount of windows. Most were too metallic or too dark for her needs at the present, so it wasn't hard to choose a very simple white rod with deeply embossed lines from one end to the other and ball finials.

In the middle of picking up a multitude of simple modern white lamps with pale beige shades, Meara's phone rang gently in her sweater pocket. Pulling out the device to read Bruce's name scrawled across the screen, the brunette hurriedly picked up the phone.

"Yes?"

"If you come towards the back, I have some options for you," the billionaire explained. Turning away from the wall display of sconce lights, Meara took immediate notice of Bruce in his leather jacket beside an unfinished pine table.

"I'm coming back," she answered simply.

Once beside her companion, Meara offered an inquiring expression, to which Bruce nodded right in front of them. Following his direction, the young woman instantly noticed a small white nightstand with square cutout drawer pulls.

"That's perfect," Meara smiled happily.

"Nevermind the others, then," Bruce said in amused surprise.

"I wouldn't want anything else," the young woman informed him, more pleased than she hoped she would be.

"Let's move on to dining sets," the billionaire prompted, gesturing Meara ahead of him towards a small selection of white dining tables. "I found a beige cushioned set, but the style is fairly traditional – especially the table."

Examining the set in question, Meara couldn't help agreeing. "It is pretty traditional. I like the beige, but the style doesn't work."

"Cross that one out," Bruce nodded once, now pointing at another table. "This one doesn't have cushions, but I saw a set of green tie cushions that would match the curtains you chose."

"I don't think I want to put that much green into it," Meara wrinkled her nose disinterestedly.

"Then my last idea is this one," he finished, laying a hand on the last set, "All white, except for the black upholstered seat and back. I found it ironic."

"That looks nice," Meara decided in pleasant surprise. "It does echo the staircase design really well… Yes, I like that one a lot."

"There's one last thing," Bruce added, pulling Meara away from the dining furniture and over to a general furniture section. "I know you were looking for a dressing chair in the bedrooms, and this seems to fit what you would want."

So saying, the dark-haired hero pointed out a Louis chair in pure, clean white with cushioned seat, back, and arms. Meara fell in love with the piece immediately.

"Definitely want that," she almost grinned at the find, running her palm along the soft arm cushion. "Thank you for catching the last piece on the list."

"You're welcome," Bruce murmured, already reaching for the cart full of curtains, rods, and lighting. "They have ten in stock, so there's more than enough available."

"They have enough nightstands, too?" Meara verified, causing Bruce to nod affirmatively. "Great!"

Chuckling at her excitement, Bruce told her in no nonsense terms, "Stay by those side tables. I want to find you there when I come back."

Sighing at his unnecessary caution, Meara nodded tiredly. "Yes, of course."

Rolling his eyes, Bruce headed to an associate who stood restocking a display of candles and diffusers. "Excuse me, miss."

Detecting quite a bit of smarmy charm in the businessman's tone, even twenty feet away, Meara snorted to herself and tuned out the resulting conversation to further examine the nightstand.

"We're set," Bruce announced shortly thereafter, startling Meara into looking up at him. "They'll deliver everything at five-thirty."

"Oh," Meara shook herself, recalling too late that she and Bruce could not possibly transport six nightstands, six armchairs, a dining table, and four dining chairs to the house in their tiny rental. If it was a rental, Meara found herself wondering, but shook the thought off. "We're ready to go, then?"

"Yes," Bruce confirmed. "Now we can get the groceries and then head back."

Stepping out of the shop in front of Bruce, Meara checked the skyline to see the time of day, surprised to find the sun still shining at a two o'clock angle through frequent cloud cover. Staring at the bright but gray sky, Meara appreciated its subtle, unexpected beauty for the first time in a long while. Allowing Bruce to lead the way down to the grocery by way of a hand on her elbow, Meara let her eyes roam the buildings in all their multi-level glory far ahead.

Focused so closely on the buildings, Meara began to realize she appreciated it so easily because she had seen it before. Slowing her walk and losing the gentle smile that had covered her face moments before, Meara came to a stop mere feet from the grocery store.

"Meara?" Bruce queried with concern, analyzing the young woman's face for any sign of illness or fear. None showed, leaving the billionaire in a quandary as people walked past them.

Understanding her own trouble at last, Meara inhaled sharply and swallowed against sudden anxiety. She had been so preoccupied with Bruce's sarcasm and the prospect of looking around the decor shop that the surroundings had passed out of her mind completely. Now they slapped her in the face with sharp clarity.

"That skyline reminds me of my old street," Meara muttered uncomfortably.

"You lived in an area like this?" Bruce asked, more involved now that he knew what her problem might be.

"No," Meara shook her head. "Not like the area we're in… Like the buildings ahead of us. That mix of skyscrapers and low complexes… I used to see it from the hotel where I worked. Whenever I looked at it, I always knew home was close by."

"Much as I hate to say it," Bruce remarked with a sigh, "we need to drive through there."

"I know," Meara muttered unhappily.

"Come on," Bruce encouraged her quietly, guiding her to the car instead of the shop six feet away.

Driving through those high-low buildings left a terrible feeling in Meara as they passed by. The further they drove, the worse the neighborhoods and streets became. Occasional boarded windows, while not horrific in nature, left an unkempt sensation in Meara's soul.

It was the condominiums they passed twenty minutes into their drive that stopped Meara cold.

"Stop!" she called out suddenly, voice hardening with painful recognition of the building colors and styles; even the location of the windows and the railings hit the brunette's memories as powerfully as a freight train.

Bruce slammed the brakes, but quickly eased up his driving as he acknowledged the obvious reason behind Meara's unexpectedly loud voice.

As the dark-haired vigilante pulled to a stop at the side of the road, he wondered quietly, "Are you all right?"

"Not really," Meara answered in a growing monotone, gazing at the confoundedly familiar types of homes around them in deeply-buried despair.

"You lived in a place like this?"

The question really bore no asking, considering the chaotic sentiment playing in Meara's oceanic eyes. Receiving no answer, Bruce decided perhaps explaining what he had seen from Zatanna's efforts would now help this young woman move forward somehow.

"I didn't learn all that much about you, really, Meara," the billionaire spoke after a few long moments, keeping her young, traumatized face in his line of vision as he slowly expounded on what he saw. "I saw you as a little girl, checking expiration dates on canned goods in the kitchen and writing down what groceries your family needed. It was in the middle of winter and you were bundled up in layers of clothing just to keep warm. You were very small then…"

Bruce couldn't help chuckling at the memory of the tiny girl with a pop of curly brown hair – bundled up in a furry blanket tied up with a scarf and scurrying around the kitchen to check dates on the food stored in the cupboards. The latter thought ruined Bruce's amusement; those cupboards had been nearly empty…

"Even then, you were hardworking and determined," Bruce commented quietly, eyes never leaving Meara. "You couldn't have been any older than five at the time. Already independent before you even started school."

Meara looked down at her hands as the thought passed Bruce's lips, the utter sadness in her face striking a chord the vigilante hadn't been aware of possessing.

"My mom felt stress and fear every moment of every day," the young woman pronounced just as quietly, fingers intertwining mindlessly as she released any possible wish of secrecy from this man. "Her dad died in a car accident the year I was born, so when her mom was diagnosed with cancer a year later, she left New York and came to live near us. Mom took care of her all the time, as well as me, and then top that off with getting pregnant again... Her job just wasn't enough, no matter how many hours she worked. If she ever saved any money, something broke or someone got sick or our clothes needing replacing and then the money was gone in a puff of smoke. My father would disappear to California for weeks at a time, and Mom cried when she thought I couldn't see or hear her."

Frowning, Bruce tried to reconcile what he had already learned and some of the assumptions he had made about Meara's past, comparing and cataloging it all over again with the factual version of history he now listened to.

"When I was still very small, he used to take me with him a lot," Meara murmured, a watery quality to her voice. Bruce's frown deepened. "I don't know why he did, but I do know my parents argued about the constant upheaval whenever we came home. Those arguments were terrible… loud, mean… I hated to listen. So I hid. Disappearing – usually with a comic book – to the best hiding spot I could find in whatever house or apartment we lived in at the time. It's one of the reasons I love secret entrances; they were always… sort of an escape."

One of the moments Bruce had seen in the crystal came to mind, something his wondering mind had latched onto with strange vigor afterwards. Truthfully, he shouldn't have held onto the recollection so strongly, but something simply didn't match up.

"You never went outside to escape?" Bruce inquired carefully. "Climbing trees or…"

Barely casting her deep eyes to him a moment, Meara's expression said everything the billionaire needed to know as the brunette went on.

"My father always changed jobs," the young woman responded more darkly than before, casting eyes back to her hands. "He never had enough – if anything at all. We never had money and other children were hardly accepting. On one of those trips to California, my father was at work – or so he said – and I was left all alone with free reign of the apartment and full freedom to go wherever I wanted."

"How old were you?" asked Bruce gravely.

"Four years old," Meara frowned at the knowledge, something Bruce suspected the young woman had done many times since. "I was so young still, but not much scared me then. So I left the apartment and went exploring. To this day, I can't believe no one questioned what a little child was doing wandering the streets, but no one ever stopped or questioned me. Somewhere along the way – I don't even know how far – I tried to play with some kids a little older than I was. This particular group of friends was obviously wealthy and fairly spoiled, but I didn't bother to pay attention. They seemed nice at the outset… I learned the hard way not to accept people at face value."

"What did they do to you?" Bruce nearly growled.

"They told me we were going to play tag," Meara muttered even quieter, leading Bruce to lean in so he could hear her words. "I was ecstatic to finally make friends… But when the game began, they just kept saying 'tag' over and over, hitting me with something every time they said it."

"And no one noticed any of this?" the dark-haired man at Meara's side demanded, still somehow disgusted, even after all this time, by the casual cruelty he witnessed of everyday citizens.

Shrugging more casually than Bruce was comfortable with, Meara replied dully, "They chased me out of the neighborhood, throwing things as I ran and laughing at me for crying. I didn't stop running until I climbed into a tree to hide, but they were long gone by then."

"How did you get home?"

"The owner found me hiding up there completely by accident," Meara explained. "She tried to help me down, offered to get a ladder, but I was still naïve and terrified enough to want Daddy."

The full range of sarcasm and venom evident in that single term caused a wince that Bruce barely restrained as Meara continued more forcefully, "I remembered the apartment phone number like clockwork. She called him and told me my daddy would be there soon… It took forever, and it started to get dark, but my father never showed up. The woman ended up calling the police. The officer who helped me down said his name was Nick and he told me stories about when he was a kid."

"And you're father never faced any repercussions?" Bruce asked, although he could already guess.

"He blamed me – said I did a bad thing running away from him," Meara answered bitterly. "We went back to Detroit the next day and he had to guts to ground me for leaving the apartment. My mom never accepted that, of course. And she refused to let him take me on any trips ever again."

A full, tense pause overtook the two of them for a long moment, until Meara ended the tale morosely.

"Not that he ever came back."

Struck mute by the deadened phrase, Bruce concluded in surprise, "He abandoned you?"

"Yes," Meara whispered coldly, but the chill of her anger gave its crumbling way to deep pain that distorted the young woman's face with grief. "A few months later, he packed up everything he owned and left my mom standing on the doorstep, crying. They didn't say goodbye, didn't even argue; he just… walked away."

Meara swallowed hard and turned her face to the window, sniffling the extent of the emotion she allowed to show.

Lost as to how he could possibly move forward in this endeavor with so much pain teetering on his charge's heart, Bruce nevertheless asked questions – it was all he could do in such a dark moment.

"Is this when you started to help your mother?" he wondered lowly, not nearly as curious as he had been before.

Drawing in a breath for calm, Meara forced herself to reply in a rough voice, "Not exactly. Every time they argued, it would end with him planning another trip, which meant more money gone. He would leave the house, so he didn't have to deal with us. And she would sit there trying to lose her upset in figuring bills or figuring out how to buy food for that week, not to mention the month or two he would be gone. God knows that didn't help. So I tried to help her the only way I could understand at the time. I still don't how she did it."

"She had no choice," was Bruce's explanation, a sigh escaping him. "It was do or die. Literally, I'm afraid to say."

Nodding her understanding, Meara went silent once more as the sun glared over the city so similar to her childhood.

Another frown creased Bruce's face as he thought of how much more must have occurred to bring Meara and her brother into the situation they later found themselves caught up in.

"How did you end up with your foster father?" Bruce couldn't help questioning anew. "If your father never died…"

"Maybe he did and I just don't know it," Meara shrugged, another careless maneuver Bruce nearly cringed at while he still saw tears glistening on his companion's face. "Regardless… a year after my father left, Mom took Gilroy and me to visit my grandmother while she got chemotherapy. While we were there, we met Grandma Isla's new neighbor – Joss Sullivan. She was really nice, a very gentle person. Whenever we visited grandma at her condo, I always ran over to talk with Joss next door."

"I think it made it easier on my mom," the brunette smiled sadly, "that I wasn't there all the time. She could cry or complain or get angry without having to hide it from me. Seemed like I was always there at a bad time. Or maybe she just never stopped feeling bad… It was another reason I tried so hard to help her out, even so young. And I suppose… I suppose I thought if I worked harder, tried harder, then my father might…"

Pressing her lips tight against the emotions hitting her, Meara forced it all back down so she could talk further. Now that she had started – now that someone she trusted was listening so intently and giving her freedom to say anything she needed – it appeared the words couldn't really be stopped.

"My mom and grandma died the same year," Meara spit out, hands clenched into fists as he remembered those young days in her life. "Mom's car caught fire. Something in the engine went bad and she didn't know it… I was five, nearly six, and Gil was only four. Grandma took us in for a little while after Mom died, but she followed a couple months later."

"I saw the graves," Bruce admitted softly. "Cameron O'Neill's old headstone and your grandmother's much-newer one side-by-side. How did you get to New York?"

"She wanted to be buried by her husband," Meara commented, voice turning watery all over again. "I didn't get to see the funeral. We were stuck in foster care until our guardianship was finalized. But I wanted to see the graves. It was actually… my birthday wish… that year."

Seeing the emotions finally swell beyond what Meara could rightfully handle, Bruce reached out, as he seemed to be in the habit of doing, and took her smaller hand in his when the tears overflowed. His knuckles turned white, mottled by the force of the young woman's grip, but he let her grieve however she needed to.

An age passed before Meara found herself again, breathing past the memories and clearing her throat to speak.

"Grandma had arranged for Joss to take us in," Meara spoke low and clear at last. "She knew Joss loved us more than anything. She couldn't have known the other side of the coin would destroy us."

"Joss was married to Ansel," Bruce concluded in a black tone. "That's how you came into his care."

"It never made any sense," the brunette shook her head slowly. "He was insane – I could see it, even at such a young age. Everything he did was entirely erratic, angry, and overwhelmed by drugs of some kind. I suppose he wasn't always that way. In their wedding pictures, he seemed normal – happy, even… I don't know if Joss deliberately ignored the changes in her husband, but then she was terribly sick more often than not. Perhaps she didn't even have the ability or the energy to really notice much beyond that."

"Joss was frequently ill?" Bruce frowned deeply, unable to stop his mind running into darker territory. "Are you sure Ansel didn't…?"

Shaking her head, Meara contradicted the idea, "Joss had cancer, too. Grandma Isla was the one who convinced her to try chemotherapy. That's why we met Joss that day at the cancer center. They started to take treatments at the same time."

"I'm glad it wasn't what I feared," Bruce exhaled softly in relief.

"He…" Meara struggled with herself for a moment, but eventually said, "Ansel seemed to love Joss, at times, but…"

"But overall, he was more concerned with himself," the billionaire finished for the brunette, to which she nodded unhappily.

"That's about what it was," she agreed. "When the cancer took her, too, he—"

"Joss died as well?" Bruce couldn't stop himself from interrupting, something settling deep in his blue eyes that Meara could not name.

"Three years after they took us in," Meara whispered, a fresh pain slicing through her. "Ansel was God-knows-where one day and Joss took ill. It seemed like one of her normal bouts of sickness, so I took care of her like I always did, but this time it wouldn't go away. I finally called an ambulance despite her protests, and they had to take Gil and me with them."

Meara didn't appear to have proper words whatever she wanted to say next, but her words finally spilled over with more anger than Bruce had ever heard in her young voice, "Ansel never showed. After four days, Joss died crying. I was… I was furious and terrified, and I hated Ansel for leaving her to die that way."

"You clung to her," Bruce detailed with repressed emotions Meara couldn't even label, confessing another moment he had seen with Zatanna. "I thought it was Shannon Nolan in the hospital, but now I understand… You wouldn't let them carry you away from Joss."

A tear slipped down Meara's cheek at the memory. "I barely remembered what my real mom's voice sounded like anymore… Joss was the only mom I had left and I couldn't bear to leave her all alone, even after she was gone…"

More tears followed the first, leaving Meara in another mess of feelings she had to fight.

"We had nowhere to go," the young woman pressed on, eyes closed tightly, "stuck at the hospital where she died. Until finally Ansel showed up twelve hours later, looking like he'd been beaten. And no one questioned him, heaping all of their pity on him, thinking he'd been delayed because of some mugger."

"You don't believe it," the billionaire assumed knowingly.

"I think he was on a drug high, like always," Meara's voice cut the air. "And when he realized he'd left his wife to die alone, he was afraid of what would happen, so he planned a fight or paid someone to rough him up and make it look good. He was crazy enough for that."

"I don't find the other moments I saw all that strange, now," Bruce decided darkly.

"What other moments?" Meara asked wearily.

"There was an argument of some kind between you and Ansel," Bruce responded, attempting to calm himself without much success. "Something about him manipulating everything… You told him to keep away from your brother, and he pulled the father card. You called him out as a foster father in name only – and a terrible one at that. This was the argument that made me think you may have fought him physically at some point."

"I remember that conversation like it was yesterday," Meara grit her teeth. "I'd just found out about Gil using drugs. I spent so much time working – trying to pay the rent and buy food, since Ansel couldn't be bothered. I barely saw Gil then. And he was still using very lightly at the time, so it wasn't surprising I missed it. Still, two years is a long time."

"The first thing I did was confront Ansel," she went on more darkly. "Everything became so clear for me in that moment – the way he'd manipulated Gil into addiction, the way he virtually abandoned Joss at the end of her life, his growing hatred for me, leaving us to practically starve while he enabled himself… I couldn't stand it anymore! I just exploded, shouting and screaming at him all of the things he'd done wrong since I'd known him. But he was still enough in his right mind to use all the psychological understanding he had against me. He encouraged me to hit him, to fight him… but all the while he played me into thinking Gil would hate me for it. And maybe he would have."

"Gil was too messed up to fully understand everything," Bruce told her as gently as he could. "He wasn't even a teenager when he started using, was he?"

"Eleven," Meara offered, throat tight. "At least, I think that was the first time. He said he started smoking weed then, but with Ansel, who really knows?"

"Getting hooked so young would have stunted a lot of his mental and emotional development," Bruce explained further, hating the idea of a young boy going through that. Someone roughly the same age as Dick or Tim when Bruce had first taken them in. Or even… Bruce shut away his thoughts before they carried him to a place he couldn't return from.

"I knew that, even then," Meara confessed, voice shaking slightly. "It was just hard to understand at fifteen. When I finally found someone willing to let me split rent with them, I wanted Gil to leave with me, but he was only two when our real dad left. Ansel was the only father he ever knew. And Ansel helped fuel his addictions, so of course he didn't know how to leave that behind."

"You moved out and split an apartment at fifteen?" Bruce tried to comprehend what he was hearing. Surprise after surprise came from Meara's history. Really, it shouldn't have shocked him as much as Gilroy's drug use, but somehow it did. Or perhaps it was only because it was Meara.

"One of the least unsavory of our neighbors had a nephew living nearby for college," said Meara, unfazed by her own past actions, it seemed. "He was desperate to pay rent and looking to split, so they settled for my four-hundred dollars a month. It was already furnished and I moved into the loft before Gil's birthday could come around on the fifteenth of January."

"This was… two-thousand-eight?" Bruce verified.

Nodding in reply, Meara breathed through an influx of nerves and grief as the next logical event in her life clouded her mind.

"And you lived under the shadow of Ansel's toxic behavior for eight years," the vigilante stated, rather than asked, his voice awash with a deep-seated anger Meara was happy to see directed out of the window rather than in her general vicinity. "Only one of which was spent in a place devoid of his presence."

"I was never really free of him," Meara shook her head, lips tightening against another of countless tears. "I couldn't just abandon my brother, so I always felt Ansel's presence lording over everything that last year. Even if I met Gil at a park or some other, unrelated place, that man's influence continued to wreak havoc between us. It wasn't until his last moments that my brother broke free of Ansel Sullivan."

Left with only tear tracks in the aftermath of her life's revelations, Meara finally ran out of words.

Now they had come full circle, it seemed. All Meara could feel was the same drained exhaustion as she had the night before, but she knew there was little to be done about it. They couldn't give up their trip now that they had started.

"Can you still do this today?" Bruce wanted to know. "You've pushed yourself beyond all limits with our talk, and I would understand if you need more time."

"I don't even have a response to that," Meara informed her companion, leaning back against the headrest tiredly. "Do we even have time to wait my emotions out? If my feelings had a say, I would never be doing this in the first place. Yet here I am."

Sighing heavily at the defeated slump of the young woman's shoulders, Bruce thought out his words with great care. "Ultimately, Meara, your life is at risk if you can't lie well enough to cover your unusual origins and wealth of knowledge. I don't like it any more than you do, but it's the simple truth. Whether or not you could successfully lie about the kind of homes you grew up in or the surrounding areas or your supposed neighbors… that's something only you know. If you truly can do that, then we don't have do this anymore."

As her mind whirled over the idea the same as it had in the preceding days, Meara knew she didn't have any options. "I can't do that."

Nodding once at her honesty, Bruce pulled out his cell phone. "Then I'll call the realtor."

Bruce's words and mannerisms, back to the playacted businessman of prosperous repute, allowed Meara to simply stare out the window at the gray skies and even grayer buildings around them without truly taking in a word the billionaire said.

It was only the clip of Bruce setting his cell phone on the dash that woke Meara from her oppressive emotional climate to turn towards the man.

"A realtor will be here in thirty minutes," Bruce informed the young woman promptly. "While I go inside, I want you to take the driver's seat for safety's sake. I also want you to wear an earpiece to stay connected with me. That way I can hear if anything goes wrong out here. After what happened on your first day, I can safely say it's possible. "

Meara just nodded her understanding, accepting the offered earpiece.

Unable to help himself when faced with her deadened features, Bruce reached out and took her hand again, squeezing slightly in reassurance he wasn't entirely certain he actually felt. It looked to give the young woman some measure of hope, however, no matter how small it might have seemed.

Not another word passed between the two, and before they knew it the realtor had parked and walked inside the condominium, his pressed gray suit matched by his neatly combed auburn hair. Taking that as his cue, Bruce finally released Meara's hand and tapped his earpiece. Meara waited only until the tall man stood from the car to turn her own earpiece on.

Even with a touch of curiosity about what Bruce intended to do about the condo – buy, rent, lease, who knew? – Meara mostly tuned out the entire conversation and left her eyes trained emptily on the space in front of the car. Unfocused as her stormy eyes became, it took the brunette a few blank minutes to recognize that someone had stopped not too far beyond the hood of the Audi with a surprised expression.

Catching the stunned gaze of the familiar individual as his face turned awkwardly suspicious, Meara actually groaned aloud.

It was easy to catch Bruce's unhappy attention from inside the condo when Meara released a brief string of exasperated muttering, "Oh, not now. Not him…"

"Please not John Stewart."

Notes:

DC Comics had a superhero named Enigma. However, the "mysterious entity known only as 'Enigma'…" (from my summary) is NOT related in any way to the 8-issue Vertigo/DC Miniseries of the same name.

Chapter 11 up next!

"I think I need to do this, Bruce," she responded, unfocused on the world around her.

"It's your choice, Meara," he rebutted easily. "I only suggested it because I thought using half-truths as a subterfuge would be easier for you than outright lying."

"It would be," the brunette agreed, tilting her head to look up at the man steadily. "I have to do this."

Staring into her stormy eyes long enough to gauge whatever he needed to see, Bruce nodded and stepped back. "Try to get a bit more sleep, then. Go rest in the Aerius."

"But the Justice League," Meara argued half-heartedly.

"I don't care," was Bruce's quick, confident answer. Meara didn't doubt him. "Go and rest. We'll wake you in time to get ready to leave. I'll be packing just down the hall anyway. And you can eat something en route. Alfred will happily pack something up."

"All right," Meara agreed simply. Bruce Wayne planned his every move, every day and night. He knew what he was doing far better than the young woman did.

"Call out if you need anything," the billionaire nodded once, releasing Meara's hand. "I'll hear you."

"Thank you," Meara sighed in relief, nodding her thanks as they passed through the doorway of the lounge and into the entrance hall. Casting a glance to the side, the twenty-one-year-old caught sight of Dick standing out on the front steps, not even wearing a hood as rain breathed softly atop his head.

Unable to move another step, Meara couldn't help but stare. The pose of a dying man could not be more saddening to look on. Head downcast, hands crossed over his chest, shoulders loose and low, Dick Grayson seemed a force of silent grief.

"I'll be upstairs packing," Bruce muttered just loud enough to be heard, his easy steps falling away to nothing but a pat upon soft plush carpet.

Distracted and absorbed as she was, Meara only half heard the offering, heading mindlessly over to the front doors and slipping through to the outermost barrier. Through the lightly fogged glass, Dick stood ever more depressingly against now-mottled gray skies and deepening rain clouds. Opening the furthest door, Meara didn't quite know what to say, standing in the open doorway with a half-open mouth and a heart full of empty words. Her soul had been expelled for the day, her quota of sentiment and emotion completely spent.

What did one say when their spirit was so drained?

Meara closed her mouth self-consciously. She had no words to speak.

But Dick Grayson could not be said to wait for the world to come to him. In motionless poise, the young man began to speak at last, his voice as gentle and quiet as the still landscape outside the manor, "I can still see my parents… I can see it just as vividly as I did at the age of eleven. They fell from the highest bars… fell dozens of feet until their bodies finally hit the hard ground. I could hear their bones break…"

Meara's tears, somehow as yet unfinished with her, stretched to cover what Dick had suffered in his life, and for what Bruce and Tim had endured in theirs. The similarity, the connection between father and son, their unknowingly mutual recounting… it left Meara shivering with a strange understanding of soul-bound families; a kind of bonding she had never truly found in her own life.

"It never gets easier," Dick murmured understandingly, head turning to glance over his shoulder. "You never get over it. Not really. That was why I trusted a stranger to take me in. I could see in his eyes… he knew. He knew how I felt and that it never goes away."

Wordless and hurting still, Meara stepped into the breath of rain with Dick and let her heart settle into sad, stained mourning as they shared the gray view before them.

Meara could honestly say she never noticed how drenched she and Dick became in the misty rain. At some point, the acrobatic young man had reached out and taken her hand reassuringly. As usual, Dick took the initiative.

Meara couldn't have been more appreciative; her mind fell away from rational thought as the deep, unyielding emotions took precedence.

"Meara?" Bruce ventured quietly from behind them, to which Dick finally turned, Meara's hand still clasped in his.

"You should go change," the younger man commented concernedly, glancing over her wet clothing in worry. "You're soaked to the bone."

"So are you," Meara remarked emotionlessly, but finally turned to face him with blank eyes. "But I suppose you're used to that."

"Yeah, pretty much," Dick half-smiled and tugged on her hand, no real joy in his eyes. "Go on. If it makes a difference to you, I'll go put on something dry as well."

"I'll accept that," Meara murmured, a very tiny, drudging smile teasing at the corner of her lips. It wasn't a happy expression, but the attempt clearly meant more to her hosts than the result did.

"Good," Dick commented simply, turning them both by the weight of their joined hands.

"I'll wait down here," Bruce added, still so very quiet, "Dick, why don't you walk back down with Meara?"

"Sure," the first Robin agreed easily, nodding in acquiescence. Meara allowed him to lead her out of the rain and into the foyer behind Bruce, who made a line to the dining room, presumably to speak with Alfred.

While it was difficult to think much past the emotions still clouding her brain, Meara forced herself to think enough to put together something resembling a matching outfit that she would want to walk around town in. With little interest in her chosen activity at present, the young woman finally grit her teeth and chose a loose orange top and blue-jeans. Still slightly chilled and expecting the weather to be a little cool in Detroit, Meara added a taupe cardigan with an orange, yellow, and brown pattern on the borders. The brunette took little care in roughly matching the cardigan with a plain pair of flat-heeled, tan suede boots and a brown leather tote. The last piece to her wardrobe was the same taupe leather jacket she had worn her first day out with Bruce.

Shrugging at her reflection once she had pulled her still-damp hair into a low ponytail, the young woman grabbed the tote purse she had switched to and walked out of the Caligo room to find Dick waiting for her in a completely dry gray pullover, jeans, and his blue field jacket.

"You ready for this?" he asked in genuine concern, eyes half-squinting at her with concentration.

"I'll be fine," Meara responded, monotone but putting a definite end to the subject.

Dick rolled his eyes slightly, but left it alone and joined Meara in walking downstairs to where Bruce and Alfred stood waiting.

"I've packed you a meal for the trip, Miss Meara," Alfred pointed out in a gentle voice, patting a matching luggage piece that sat atop the rest of the luggage she and Bruce would be taking with them to Detroit, in addition to her black floral suitcase. "Please do eat something."

"Thank you, Alfred," Meara quirked her lips in an imitation of a smile. "I'll try to do that."

Sighing resignedly as though he knew that was unlikely, the butler just nodded once and stepped back.

Bruce took his place just as Meara considered how exactly they were going to be traveling to Detroit.

"Not a road trip," she almost groaned, giving Bruce a world-weary expression he couldn't seem to help smiling over. "I'll get carsick. I promise you that much."

"No, not a road trip," the billionaire actually chuckled at her, grasping her shoulder reassuringly. "We're taking a private jet."

"What about the media?" Meara immediately questioned, frowning. "Seeing me with you on a private jet before I've even started my job at Wayne Enterprises doesn't sound very wise."

"They won't see you," Bruce told her without any doubt. "We board the jet in a completely private section near the tarmac."

"What about when we're in the car?" she pushed more relentlessly. "They'll see us then."

"Not with blackout tinting," Bruce countered instantly, almost smirking. "I do consider these things beforehand, Meara."

Gauging his expression a moment longer, Meara at last sighed tiredly, accepting her fate. "At least it doesn't get knocked around like the Batwing."

Snorting in unison, both Dick and Bruce reached down to grab all but Meara's brown leather tote and black floral case.

Rolling her eyes, Meara lifted her finger to eye level and announced dryly, "This cut didn't suddenly make me an invalid, gentlemen."

"Really? Are you sure it didn't?" Dick gave her a playacted look of confusion, tilting his head awkwardly. "Because… Even if you're sure it didn't, I'm pretty sure it did. Aren't you sure of that, Bruce? Because I'm definitely sure of it."

"I'm sure of it, too," Bruce agreed more simply, but nonetheless playing into his eldest son's humorous speech.

Closing her eyes and rolling her lips inward at this lighthearted approach, Meara finally couldn't hold in her smile. Small, but real, the expression contrasted vastly with a look of exasperated fondness she gave both men.

"Go along, Miss Meara," Alfred chuckled at their sides, reaching out to pat her shoulder and push her towards the doors. "Pull up your hood and let these proud creatures carry the baggage."

Bruce and Dick weren't waiting for permission, which made Alfred's words just the slightest bit patronizing, but Meara just nodded and grabbed her floral suitcase as she did what he suggested.

Settled in the passenger side of the remarkably drab charcoal car Bruce had commandeered to drive to the airport, Meara remained silent throughout their trip, but her mind never ceased to be wildly active. All manner of possibilities for this trip – most of them ending in terrible emotional upheaval she was not prepared for – invaded her mind like wildfire.

"Stop it," Bruce's commanding voice traveled immediately to Meara's eardrums. Looking over in a fraction of a second at the billionaire, Meara swallowed against her fears. "You're just hurting yourself again. Alfred would have my head if I didn't try to put an end to that kind of thought process."

"It's not like I want to think it," Meara countered bitterly.

"I know that," Bruce sighed heavily, glancing over at her again with an understanding expression. "Believe me, I do."

Nodding towards the dark-haired man in acquiescence, Meara decided against further speech on the topic at hand. The world passed by her window in a blur of dreary, gray color that matched her mood on this unhappy sojourn.

When the airport came into view, the young woman had to breathe deeply against a sudden influx of nerves.

"No one will see you," Bruce insisted firmly, accurately reading the newest source of Meara's discomfort.

Sighing against her own anxiety, Meara just nodded and tried to sit less awkwardly in her seat. Judging by the set of her shoulders, it wasn't working all that well, but she had at least tired. Bruce sighed more quietly beside her, clearly having judged the same conclusion.

Meara had to admit, however, that the drive through the airport was the easiest drive she had taken in a long while. No other cars passed except airport loading vehicles and two security guards. Bruce stopped only a minute to scan some kind of card at a moving gate before they drove through to a private section of the airport. The area was, indeed, private, the same lack of other vehicles putting Meara further at her ease. Bruce drove into the side of a large gray warehouse building with a rust-colored door. The wide door slid into two separate sides on cue, then moved back to close in the middle as soon as the car made it past the threshold.

"Sensors?" Meara wondered aloud, the first word spoken between them since first catching sight of the airport.

"Yes," Bruce nodded in agreement, finally putting the car in park. "They're not standard issue, of course, but when you pay for the hangar to be built, you have some room for creativity. We'll board the jet just inside that doorway on the opposite wall. It's a fully enclosed space large enough to allow the stairs room to extend up and down from the doorway. As I said, no one will see you."

Turning back around to face the interior of the brightly lit warehouse to see what he was talking about, Meara noted the doorway in question and realized the whole structure was far larger than it had seemed from outside. Three enormous windows on either side, far and away at the top of the walls structured with black steel, had been shaded with a frosty white glass. To the far right, most of the wall housed a similar set of doors to the one they had just entered – only much, much larger and divided into six distinct pieces rather than two.

"That's the main hangar doors," Bruce explained matter-of-factly. "It's really only used when the jet comes out of – or goes into – storage here. The doors have three settings, each successively wider. It has the same sensors, as well as a manual switch on this device."

Looking to the billionaire's uplifted hand, Meara took note of the small rectangular fob with four square buttons surrounding a raised, circular center. "What are those buttons for?"

"Open, close, emergency stop, alarm," Bruce offered simply, pointing to each surrounding button as he named it.

"And that piece?" the brunette inquired more cautiously, filled with a sneaking suspicion the unnecessarily raised center of the fob had a purpose deeper than structure.

Smirking but barely at the hesitant knowledge in his charge's eyes, Bruce named the last button more darkly, "Self-destruct."

"How do you avoid accidental destruction?" the young woman queried with a raised brow. "It seems a little too easy to hit that center section. Just pressing one of the other buttons could set it off, couldn't it?"

"I deal in shadow and reflection, not sunlight," Bruce remarked cryptically with mild dry humor. Seeing Meara's expectantly raised brow, Bruce sighed and elaborated more plainly, "Do you know about the frequency device on the suit?"

"Last I knew, it was in the heel of your boot."

"It still is," Bruce confirmed. "This central piece is similar to that. When I set off a certain frequency, it links to a device in this hangar. When that frequency resounds in the hangar, it sets off a timed validation. The validation is also set into motion when the alarm goes off. If the code is entered within thirty minutes, the self-destruct is reset. If not…"

"I don't think I need any more explanation," Meara decided rather stoically.

Nodding slowly at her understanding, Bruce finally ticked his head to the side. Taking the sign for what it was, Meara opened her door and stood from the car. Suspecting Bruce would not allow her to carry any more baggage than she had upon leaving the manor, Meara hoisted her brown tote on one shoulder and picked up her floral luggage case in her other hand. Then, quite intentionally, the brunette grasped two luggage pieces she knew were on the lighter side before Bruce could reach them.

"Chafing much?" Bruce commented with well-hidden amusement.

Deigning not to respond to that retort, Meara lifted her brow again and waited for the man to guide her in the right direction. Chuckling slightly, the billionaire hefted one more bag in addition to the four he already carried, shaking his head as he led the brunette to the other side of the hangar.

"Wait here," Bruce instructed, leaving the baggage he carried and walking back to the car across the way. Returning with the rest of their luggage, the dark-haired man set those down next to the other pieces and opened the rust-red door to the boarding area. True to his word, the brightly lit space was fully enclosed in gray stone, the smooth expanse slightly intimidating – while feeling very open at the same time. Shaking off the feeling, Meara followed Bruce's gesturing hand and walked through the door. Thirty feet ahead, the end of the steps sat against the hard concrete ground, leading up into the bright cream interior of the jet.

"Go ahead and pick your seat," Bruce told her, a hint of impatience in his tone despite his still form.

"I'm going, I'm going," Meara reminded him, rolling her eyes at the billionaire's attempted patience, but nonetheless did as Bruce said; he wanted to get going and have their trip done with, which was fine with her.

The jet looked no less bright and creamy once inside the well-lit space; Meara appreciated the lack of darkness for this particular trip. Glancing around at the configuration, Meara chose a seat similar to what Alfred occupied when Bruce returned to Gotham after his seven-year journey in the world. If Bruce needed to say anything to her, or discuss plans about the trip, she wanted to be directly available.

Uncertain where Bruce would place her luggage, Meara set it beside her seat and kept her tote bag in her lap. For a number of moments the jet was mostly quiet, the only sounds those of Bruce bringing their luggage aboard and packing where he decided was best, including the two bags and floral case Meara had carried on. Chancing a few peeks at the process, Meara saw various places to store and strap down the luggage without having to stow it in cargo below.

At last the luggage had been completely stored and Bruce brought over only two bags when he joined Meara, taking the seat across from her.

"We should be ready to go soon," he informed her more calmly and patiently than he had been before boarding the plane, strapping his two luggage pieces along a wall section Meara hadn't noticed until then. "So you're informed, we'll be making an extended turn south and coming back up towards TCIA. It's a fake out maneuver I always use. Even as sure as I am we won't be noticed, I like to keep in the habit of caution."

"What's TCIA?" Meara wondered confusedly, brow furrowing slightly.

"Tri-County International Airport in Detroit," Bruce told her easily, buckling his seat belt and gesturing for Meara to do the same. "What do they call it in your world?"

"Detroit Metropolitan Airport," the young woman shrugged, following Bruce's directive as she talked. "I guess if I thought things like that wouldn't change, I was expecting too much."

"I doubt you were expecting too much," Bruce disagreed. "Perhaps simply not thinking about it."

"I suppose that's it," Meara agreed vaguely. "Although tri-county is the same… are the counties Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne?"

"Clover, Beorn, and Thwaite, actually," the billionaire corrected her patiently.

"What about the major New York area airports?"

"Aside from Gotham Urban Airport, we have Metropolis Network Airport," Bruce mentioned first. "I doubt you have those."

"No, we definitely don't have those," Meara remarked wryly.

"Then there's JFK and LaGuardia," Bruce added. "That's all."

"So there's no Newark or Teterboro," the brunette sighed. "I have so much to study around here."

Bruce smirked a bit. "I think your nose will be stuck behind the computer more than you might have expected."

"Oh well, that means I get more practice with it at least."

"Haven't you used them at college?" Bruce asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Mostly for CAD, with the computer already on and the program already up," Meara shrugged vaguely. "Sometimes I used office programs, but those were probably very different from technology here."

"It did seem to be less advanced than our technology," admitted Bruce casually, "but not so far removed that you wouldn't be able to learn it in short order. You'll be well adjusted by the time you start using technology at work and in classes."

"Could you think up some learning exercises to help me?" Meara suggested thoughtfully. "You know, have me pull up the internet, look up something – like tropical flowers or some such – and then… um… favorite the page and… save a picture from the page? Could that work?"

"I can certainly do that," Bruce promised easily. "I'll have Tim and Dick think of some lesson ideas as well. As a matter of fact, I'll have them focus on the internet and basic applications. I'll look more at the technical and programming aspects. Would you be offended if we start at the very basics, such as changing the desktop background or the system theme?"

"Not at all," Meara shook her head. "I'd much prefer to build from the ground up, rather than finding out I've missed something vital when I'm already halfway there."

"I agree with that mindset," Bruce nodded seriously. "I find that works with most things in life."

"That's true," the young woman agreed just as a white light flashed on the wall near Bruce's seat, accompanied by a dinging sound.

Bruce reached over to press the white button on the wall and replied in a much more billionaire-infused voice, "We're all buttoned up back here."

"All right, Mr. Wayne," a light but masculine voice sounded over the speaker. "We'll be moving to the runway in a few minutes."

"Thanks, Kelly," Bruce responded briefly and turned off the speaker.

Meara couldn't help wondering, "Do you have different pilots each time you fly or are they the same ones?"

"I have a few familiar sets of pilots," Bruce answered with a thoughtful frown. "Occasionally they're unavailable for holidays, vacation time, or family circumstances, so I sometimes have to work outside my venue, but typically I don't have a problem with replacements. I pay them well. And most of the time I put enough… well… leering in the explanation… to prevent too many questions on problematic situations. But the pay usually negates any questions from the start."

"But you don't generally use this jet to do anything outside the typical Wayne lifestyle, do you?"

"No, not anything outside the ordinary for me," said Bruce shrugged, sitting back into his seat. "I have other transportation for that. It's just that I like a fair amount of caution no matter what I'm using this aircraft for."

Nodding her understanding, Meara leaned backing her seat as well. "I really should have known that, but I wanted to make sure."

"Don't hesitate to clarify something with me," Bruce pressed coaxingly, leaning forward again to look Meara in the eye. "Even if something seems as though it should be commonplace, that doesn't mean that it is. Ask. I won't think you're a fool for that."

"Thank you, then," nodded Meara, offering a small smile. "That makes me feel better."

Nodding, Bruce allowed the conversation to lull when the plane began to move.

Waiting out the process of taxiing the runway and taking off only ramped up Meara's nerves infinitesimally. She may not have gotten vertigo in a plane that size, but it didn't mean she wasn't nervous as anything. The young woman didn't dare look out of the window right by her seat, actively pulling down the nearest window shade to protect the minuscule contents of her stomach from possible expulsion. Bruce snorted quietly at her action, but said nothing. Glaring just slightly at the daring – or perhaps insane was more fitting – man across from her, Meara didn't reply.

Only once the plane had leveled out above the clouds did the brunette dare to let her eyes drift towards the window. The sight of white fluff didn't precisely improve her nerves, but at least there were no buildings or lakes rushing by to emphasize the speed and strength of their aircraft as it went on through the pale gray sky.

"Feel free to move around and turn on your devices," the pilot named Kelly said over the speaker, "ETA is eleven-hundred hours."

"Are you hungry yet?" Bruce inquired curiously as the speaker clicked off, "If you are, the meal Alfred packed is right here."

"I suppose I am," Meara answered uncertainly. "At least, I probably need it by now."

Sporting a raised brow at the phrasing, Bruce reached over to unhook the container from its cubby space. With his other hand the billionaire pressed a button on the wall between their seats, a table surface drawing down from the wall to stand between their feet. Bruce waited until the table feet had fully extended before he started to place items from the container on it.

To Meara's surprise, the items were containers of the very same Chinese takeout she and Dick had purchased in such unthinkingly large quantities two days earlier.

"Alfred thought we shouldn't waste it," Bruce explained upon seeing her startled expression.

"I'm not complaining," Meara smiled slightly, "but it's not even warm."

Bruce gave her a particular look, and the brunette found herself embarrassed by the obvious answer to her suggestion. Alfred.

"Ignoring the fact that Alfred warmed everything and stored it in an insulated container just before we left," Bruce said amusedly, "…this is a luxury jet."

"Here I thought you wouldn't see me as a fool," Meara remarked, unfazed by the seeming obviousness of her curiosity.

"That doesn't mean you aren't amusing sometimes," Bruce retorted just as quickly, to which Meara had no words.

Silently, unable or perhaps unwilling to catch his gaze, Meara set about reaching for a plate and choosing the foods she wanted from their selection. Bruce joined her, surprisingly, albeit picking only spring rolls and fried rice. Dick's description of Bruce's healthy eating habits came to mind suddenly, and Meara had to purse her lips to keep from smiling.

Once the food on both plates had dwindled and the table once more placed in its secret slot, Bruce brought them both back to the imminent subject. Meara nearly cringed at the near-apologetic look on her host's face.

"Meara," the dark-haired man began quietly, looking her directly in the eye as he spoke, "Straight to the point… I need you to describe the place where you lived."

Catching a breath, the young woman knew she had no right to be upset over the topic choice. Bruce had to know this so that Meara's story would ring true. …Not that it made the situation any easier to handle.

"It was a house that I—" she started to say, but caught herself before the words could fully leave her lips. "It was a house with a plugged up sink, broken dishwasher, bad air conditioning…"

Bruce noted the abrupt change of phrasing with ease, frowning just slightly. Perfunctory explanations, that was all she had given him. He could break a dishwasher, ruin the plumbing for the sink, tamper with the air conditioner's proper functioning… But as far as the area and atmosphere of the house, he had nothing to truly work with. Nothing to build a life with.

A minute or two passed without anything else having been spoken, until the billionaire finally intervened with a quiet voice, "What can you really tell me about it?"

Closing stormy eyes against the pain pulling her under, Meara forced herself to speak the real meat of her memory, the things that sincerely gave her old home – her old life, for that matter – an honest descriptor.

Pausing to keep herself steady, Meara tried to soldier on, but her voice became no more than a murmur when she finally spoke, "I'm sorry… I don't know why this is so hard. It's just a building on a street. I lived there. I should be able to do this."

Meara swallowed against the challenge of speaking further, shaking her head and looking down at her hands.

Silence filled the jet while Bruce tried to think of some way to help the young woman in his care give the details they needed. Otherwise, their trip was fairly useless. They certainly didn't have time to just walk the streets of Detroit and let Meara house-gaze until she found a worthwhile comparable.

"You can't talk about it, and I understand that," Bruce spoke after a pause, a unique thought hitting him in an unexpected burst of inspiration, "But could you sketch it?"

Looking up in surprise, Meara frowned thoughtfully. "I… Well, I think I could…"

Tumbling in the young woman's brain, the idea gained an ever-increasing significance. There was so much she could never bring herself to say aloud. Not right now. Perhaps never.

As she thought it, Meara reproached herself. Bruce had pulled her brother's fate out of her with shocking ease the previous night.

Even thinking of her little brother had been a terrible pain in her chest every day since he had been ripped away. Saying his name gnawed at her heart, no matter how happy the memory she associated with it. In the space of half a day, thinking that name was no longer such a heavy burden. 'Gilroy' didn't hurt quite as much as it did the day before.

Who knew what the future might hold, if Bruce Wayne could draw her out in such a way? The brunette decided not to test fate any further. Never say never, as they said.

"I'll try."

Bruce simply nodded, "Good."

To the young woman's surprise, Bruce reached into the other bag he'd placed by his seat and pulled out a sketch pad, pencils, and a small pack of other drawing tools. Smiling ever so slightly at his thoughtfulness, Meara took the items with gratitude and settled more comfortably into her seat to begin sketching the house she remembered so vividly.

From across the still-extended table, Bruce watched in fascination as his companion hesitated approximately two-point-five minutes before definitively setting pencil to paper beginning in the bottom left corner, spanning across the page slowly but surely to build the foundations up to the roof of a decent-sized house that must have been built in the nineteen-twenties or thereabouts. The young brunette drew some of the straightest lines Bruce had ever seen without a ruler, a force of instinct and habit she must have cultivated over years of artistic practice. As the drawing grew more in-depth and detailed, Meara drew the pad closer to her, taking her art away from Bruce's sight.

Still he watched her, the heavily concentrated frown on her face, the focused furrow between her brows, and the steady muscle of her arm where she held the pad up to discerning stormy eyes. The process continued on through multiple sheets of paper, Meara seeming unable to stop drawing once she started. It looked cathartic and intuitive for her, this particular set of sketches. Gotham's hero made a safe assumption the aspiring drafter had personally redesigned her last living space in Detroit, hence her excellent memory of its layers and angles. Judging by Meara's rapid, clockwork motions, the billionaire also assumed she remembered her designs with photographic intensity.

It seemed a mere blink of time Meara had been sketching when a notifying ding came over the speaker, actually startling Bruce somewhat. Scolding himself for losing focus, Bruce paid attention to the crew's message along with a freshly surprised Meara, pencil stilled and brow cleared.

"We'll begin landing procedures in approximately twenty minutes," the pilot informed them. "Please secure all belongings and prepare to fasten your seatbelts."

Once the PA cleared, Bruce told Meara calmly, "How far along with the drawings are you?"

"Almost done," she responded, clearly unsurprised by her progress. "One more sketch of the yard and I should be finished."

Unlike Meara, Bruce was taken a bit aback by the actuality of the speed he noticed in her movements. Not allowing the depth of his surprise show, Bruce nodded. "Buckle up and then try to finish before we begin landing. If you run into our descent timing, I'll put away your tools for you. I'm not terribly worried about landing without my safety belt, as you can probably imagine."

Allowing a small smile to surface at his sarcasm, Meara nodded. "All right."

There was still a gleam of involvement in the young woman's rich eyes, and Bruce was pleased her zeal had not abated from the surprise interruption.

Given another fifteen minutes, Meara had completed her sketch with the same proficient methods and tucked it between the pages of the drawing pad with her previous works.

"Good timing," Bruce commented as the belt placard lit up on the wall, taking the tools from Meara to place them inside the bag he'd brought them in.

"We'll begin landing procedures now," Kelly said over the speaker, "Please make sure your belongings are secure and your safety belts are fastened."

Connecting the last secure strap over the bag in his hand, Bruce settled back to strap into his safety belt. Having already done so, Meara reached over to pull down the window shade again. This time Bruce made no comment.

Having faced the feelings when taxiing and rising off the ground did not make it any easier to feel the plane now riding through pockets of mild resistance as it lowered through the clouds section by small section. Only once the jet jolted onto the ground and began to slow as they taxied through the airport did Meara breathe with any comfort. Bruce did chuckle at her then, but Meara rolled her eyes at the gesture this time.

As they made their way around to another private hangar, Bruce watched out of his window with keen eyes until the aircraft had been completely stopped and the stairs finally could be heard opening into the boarding space.

"Welcome to Detroit, Mr. Wayne," the co-pilot came onto the speaker, voice cheerful.

Reaching over to press the white button on the wall, Bruce replied in his 'billionaire' voice, "Thank you, Hollis. You, too, Kelly."

"Enjoy your weekend, sir," Kelly pitched in more calmly than his co-pilot.

Bruce was already out of his seat and releasing luggage from its confines before the speaker cut off, settling every piece by the doorway while Meara far more slowly released her belt and picked up her tote bag. Once again, Bruce only let her carry the tote and floral suitcase. Everything else, starting with the light pieces, he took down the stairs before Meara could even consider reaching for them. Sighing amusedly and irritably at the same time, Meara made her way past the heavy pieces she knew she couldn't handle and then down the stairs to exit the cream-upholstered jet – only to stop in reluctance.

A shining gray Audi seemed at least partially less ostentatious than a Rolls Royce or a Bugatti, but it certainly didn't look unhealthy in the attention department either. Relegating herself back to the billionaire socialite world, Meara started walking again, setting her tote bag in the back seat amongst the other luggage Bruce had placed there. When climbing into the gray leather passenger seat, the brunette took notice of a black jacket on the storage between the front seats.

Bruce made two more trips up to the plane before he joined Meara in the Audi, now slipping a baseball cap on his head and sunglasses over his crystalline eyes. "I arranged for a house under the pseudonym Michael Black. That way we don't have to deal with inquiring staff while we're here."

"I'm glad of that," Meara confirmed, pleased by the ease of not having to deal with a fake relationship – family or otherwise – to cover up whom she and Bruce really were to hotel employees.

"That makes two of us," Bruce remarked dryly, starting the car and turning to head out of the hangar.

The drive was silent as they traveled through the airport and eventually out into heavy traffic. Looking around in interested observation on the trip to the row house, Meara realized the Justice League's Detroit didn't look wholly different from the Detroit Meara grew up in. A few more skyscrapers, a little more modern architecture here and there, but essentially a very similar-looking city.

Bruce finally pulled through a far more expensive neighborhood than Meara had ever lived in, parallel-parking in front of twelve three-story row houses situated nearer to the end of the street. The brown brick facings, red brick side walls, gray stone trim, and second level bay window all espoused a very comfortable charm Meara could appreciate. How Bruce had finagled a row house at the end without essentially 'tipping' the owner confused the brunette, until she recalled his words about the living space.

"Arranged for a house…" she said aloud, catching Bruce's gaze before he could move to open the door. Confused, the billionaire lifted a single black eyebrow in question. Exasperated to an extent, Meara clarified, "You bought a row house? For a single weekend?"

Snorting suddenly at the reason behind Meara's reaction, Bruce shook his head. "Of course. It's more privacy that way. I'll put it back on the market when we're done. At a much more realistic price, too, I assure you."

Scoffing at the dark-haired man, Meara settled for exiting the vehicle and getting her tote, floral case, and two lighter bags from the back seat. Bruce had a smirk on his face while he also pulled luggage from the Audi, his expression only dying off because Meara eyed him like a pest about to be swatted.

Forcing the look from his face, Bruce wordlessly walked up to the front door and unlocked it, somehow not losing the six bags in his grip.

"Utterly ridiculous," Meara found herself grumbling as she walked in ahead of her companion, once again eyeing him like an insect that kept successfully avoiding the flyswatter. Clear blue eyes glittered at her in sharp humor without a shred of remorse. Scowling, the young woman hurried to place her bags down in the entryway, only to stop just inside the black-trimmed doorway and stare at the beautiful work of art that was the interior of the corner row house.

"What's wrong?" Bruce asked her in mild confusion, stopping on a dime behind her still form.

"Nothing," she confessed, just glimpsing the fairly expansive living room and catching the slightest blink of the dining entryway and kitchen doorway nearer to the back of the main hallway. "It's just so lovely. The honey-colored floors, black and white staircase, white board and batten… It all has a very simple charm to it."

"Yes, thank you, Frank Lloyd Wright," Bruce sighed a little exasperatedly. "Now would you please step forward so I can close the door?"

"Oh, sorry!" Meara started, walking further into the house to allow Bruce to pull the black door shut behind him.

"Now you may look around in awe," Bruce offered with quiet instruction, moving a small section of bags towards the staircase, where he turned abruptly back to his companion. "Actually, I just lied. Come upstairs and choose your room first."

"Oh, fine," Meara sighed resignedly, leaving the two bags she'd reached for and carrying only her tote and black suitcase up the black stair treads behind the billionaire.

"Since it's a corner lot, it's more expansive than the other houses," Bruce explained as they stepped off the stairs. The hallway stood empty and spacious, fresh and creamy beige walls opening up the already-wide space even more. "There are three bedrooms and a bathroom on this level, and the same on the third level. The bathroom is at the back, on the left."

"I'll take the front corner," Meara responded almost instantly. "The one with the bay window."

Bruce looked well-humored on her reason for the choice, but made no comment. "All right, I'll take the one at the rear of the house. Truthfully, it makes for a much easier escape if I have to make a sudden costume change. You'll understand if a world crisis hits, won't you, Meara?"

"I believe I'll manage," the young woman remarked wryly, turning to her chosen room when a question popped into her head. "What would you have done if I chose the back bedroom?"

"Taken the third floor," Bruce replied immediately, no hesitation in his voice as he turned to the room of his preference with a natural swagger that Meara couldn't help rolling her eyes at.

Giving up on the billionaire's innate blazing confidence momentarily, Meara walked into her room. The space has been only sparsely furnished; there was a queen-size bed with a white arched frame, a modern white dresser without handles, and white roll shades over the windows. Despite its spartan effect, it was very bright, clean, and livable. Releasing a comfortable sigh at the atmosphere of the home, Meara began unpacking the basic clothes and necessities she would need each day of their trip – dividing the outfits and relative undergarments into separate drawers of the dresser for easy prep in the mornings.

That work completed a short thirty minutes later, Meara turned with a start as something thudded on the floor. Bruce vaguely smiled at her surprise, setting down a second luggage case with purposefully softer thud.

"Sorry I startled you," the dark-haired man said quite genuinely, gesturing at the larger of the two cases he'd brought. "Alfred insisted we bring clean linens and pillows. These are yours."

"And the second case?" Meara wondered, one golden-brown eyebrow lifted in curiosity.

"Art supplies and bath towels," Bruce shrugged. "The towels are one thing I didn't ask the decorators to install."

"I thought you brought sketching supplies in that small case you brought on the plane?"

"Those were actually for me," the hero confessed with a helpless tilt of his head.

"Oh, I see," said Meara understandingly. "Should I put all of that in the dresser as well, or leave it in the case?"

"Unpack it. We're staying three nights, so we may as well be prepared for mishaps. Whether it's an art spill or a scraped knee, we'd want to change the linens."

"That's true," the brunette agreed, reaching out for the larger case to place it on the bed and unzip the top. Flipping it back, she noted the crisp white sheets and pillow cases folded tidily beneath two large, fluffed pillows. "Is there anything else I'll need in here?"

"The rest is mostly for the bathroom or downstairs," Bruce informed the young woman. "Kitchen supplies, utensils, cleaning supplies, general tools, and the like. Anything left after that is for me."

"I'll help unpack for the main level," Meara suggested with ease, "I'll be looking around by then anyway, so we can just meet up in the living room."

"Then I'll get to my unpacking," Bruce decided, leaving her to the towels, linens, and art supplies she began to put away in the second row of the dresser. Art supplies furthest, linens in the middle, and towels at the end nearest the door.

Meara prepared to put off making the bed until she was ready to sleep that night, folding the last set of sheets neatly into the assigned drawer. Upon thinking of what they were to embark on that day, the young woman's fingers slowed to a mindless pace. Planning ahead as she always had, Meara stopped the motions of her hands only to remove that last set of linens with purpose, making the bed with speed and efficiency.

"For a minute, I thought you were going to leave it until later," Bruce's voice quietly broke the concentrated moment as Meara slid one of the pillows into a case.

Glancing up at the cross-armed man where he leaned on the doorjamb, Meara hesitantly responded, "I was going to… but if this goes the way I'm afraid it will, I won't feel any kind of mental or emotional energy to make the bed tonight."

"It might not be that hard, Meara," the billionaire allowed a sigh to escape him. "Since it's not actually the same places, it's highly possible that you'll feel completely different."

"Better to be practical ahead of time than to resent the responsibility later," the young woman murmured pensively.

Unable to argue such logic, Bruce simply nodded his understanding and moved out of the doorway, quietly leaving Meara to the last task she had set for herself.

Notes:

DC Comics had a superhero named Enigma. However, the "mysterious entity known only as 'Enigma'…" (from my summary) is NOT related in any way to the 8-issue Vertigo/DC Miniseries of the same name.

Chapter 10 up next!