DC – I am Batman

"Mr. Wayne. What a coincidence."

Vicki Vale was standing in the Wayne Enterprises lobby with a press badge and a smile that had an agenda behind it. Red hair, green eyes, a blazer over a blouse that was professional enough for a corporate lobby and fitted enough that the security guard at the desk had already looked twice. She had a notebook in one hand and a phone in the other and the phone was recording. He could see the red dot.

"Miss Vale."

"Vicki. We met at the Gotham Press Club dinner. You told me Wayne Enterprises was 'exploring new directions in urban infrastructure.' I've been thinking about that."

"Most people forget my talking points."

"I'm not most people. Do you have ten minutes? I'm doing a piece on the Batman and I'd love a Wayne Enterprises perspective."

She said "the Batman" with the article. The Gazette had been printing it that way. He'd been operating for three weeks. Three weeks of rooftops and broken knuckles and the suit's neck seal chafing until Alfred modified it with goatskin leather. Three weeks and the press had given him a name and Vicki Vale had started pulling threads.

"I don't know much about Batman."

"Nobody does. That's what makes him interesting." She tilted her head. "Coffee?"

The café was four blocks from Wayne Enterprises, her choice, exposed brick and good lighting and coffee that cost six dollars and came with a lecture about where the beans were from. She sat across from him with the notebook open and the phone on the table, still recording.

"So," she said. "Batman."

"What about him?"

"He appeared in Gotham approximately two weeks after you returned from your travels abroad." She looked at her notebook. "Which is a coincidence I'm sure you've already noticed."

"I hadn't, actually. I've been busy."

"Busy doing what?"

"Wayne things. Foundation meetings. Charity galas. Thomas wants me on the board. I want to sleep past nine."

She wrote in her notebook. The pen moved fast.

"The Batman operates primarily in the East End and the Narrows," she said. "His patrol routes overlap with Wayne Enterprises shipping corridors. Not perfectly. But more than random would account for."

"Wayne Enterprises ships a lot of things through a lot of corridors."

"It does." She leaned across the table and held out her phone. A photo: a bootprint in mud, sharp-edged, deep tread. "This was taken at a drug bust last week. The Batman left this print near a fire escape on Barrett Street. The tread pattern is a Wayne Enterprises R&D prototype. The compound sole was developed by your Applied Sciences division for military applications. It's not commercially available."

He looked at the photo with mild interest. The way Bruce Wayne would.

"That's a boot print."

"It's YOUR company's boot print."

"Wayne Enterprises makes a lot of things. I don't personally track the sole patterns of our R&D prototypes. I don't personally track anything in Applied Sciences. I have people for that." The playboy smile. The one that said he was thinking about lunch. "Have you talked to Lucius Fox? He runs Applied Sciences."

"I have a meeting with Mr. Fox on Thursday."

"He'll be much more helpful than me."

"I doubt that." The notebook was forgotten. The pen was still. Her eyes were green and sharp. "You're very comfortable for someone whose company's technology just showed up at a vigilante crime scene."

"I'm comfortable because I don't know anything about it." He picked up his coffee. Drank. "Have you considered that someone might have stolen the prototypes? Wayne Enterprises is a large organization. Things go missing."

"Things go missing." She wrote it down.

She leaned across the table again. Another photo. The blouse gapped at the collar. He kept his eyes on the phone.

She noticed.

"Most men would have looked," she said.

"I'm looking at the evidence."

"My neckline is not evidence."

"You and Detective Montoya would get along."

She laughed. Short, sharp, surprised. "You know Montoya?"

"Gotham's small."

"For a Wayne, it's enormous. Why do you know a beat cop?"

"My father is on the city council. He knows half the department. I met Montoya at a fundraiser."

"Which fundraiser?"

"I don't remember. There are a lot of fundraisers. We Waynes fundraise like it's cardiovascular."

She looked at him. He smiled at her. Too pretty, too rich, too vapid.

"I'll follow up," she said. "On the boot print."

"You should. That's good journalism."

"You're very charming, Mr. Wayne."

"Bruce."

"You're very charming, Bruce." She closed the notebook. "And you're very good at not answering questions."

"I answered every question."

"You answered around every question. There's a difference." She stood. Picked up her phone. The recording dot went dark. "I'll be in touch."

She left. Her heels were loud on the hardwood. The barista watched her go and then looked at him and shrugged.

Zatanna was sitting on the hood of his car.

Jeans and boots and a jacket, her black hair loose, eating an apple and reading a paperback propped against her knee. The apple was half gone. The book was a romance novel with a shirtless man and a horse on the cover. She looked up when he crossed the parking garage.

"Hey."

"Zee. How did you find my car?"

"I'm a magician, Bruce." She took a bite of the apple. "Also Alfred told me where you parked. He's very helpful when you're not around."

"He's very helpful regardless."

"True." She slid off the hood. The book went into her jacket pocket, the apple into a trash can ten feet away. Perfect throw. "Who was the redhead?"

"Reporter."

"She's pretty."

"She's investigating me."

"The you you, or the other you?"

He looked at her. She raised her eyebrows and stepped closer and she smelled like vanilla, the ozone barely there.

"I knew before the suit, Bruce. I've known you since you were seven. You don't build a cave under your house and install six monitors for a hobby." She was in his space now, looking up at him, brown eyes dark in the garage's bad lighting. "Also the news showed a clip of the Batman doing a spinning elbow and I've seen you do that exact move on Alfred's heavy bag. Your left hip drops."

"My left hip does not drop."

"It does." She poked his chest. "And I'm the only person in the world who would notice because I've been watching you since third grade."

Her finger was still on his chest.

The garage was empty. Late afternoon, most of the office gone. His car was in the corner under a concrete pillar and the lighting was dim and Zee was standing in front of him with her finger on his chest and her eyes were dark and her mouth was pulled into the half-smile she used right before she said what she actually meant.

She kissed him instead.

Her mouth was warm and she tasted like apple and she kissed him committed and slightly rushed, her hands on his jaw pulling him down to her height. The kiss deepened and her tongue found his and she made a sound into his mouth, quiet and surprised.

He pulled back. Her pupils were blown and her mouth was wet and her hands were still on his jaw.

"Car," he said.

"Car," she agreed.

He opened the back door. She climbed in, he followed, and the back seat of a sedan was not designed for what they were about to do and neither of them cared. She pulled him on top of her and her back was against the door and her legs were bent and he was between them and the space was tight and warm and her mouth found his again.

The radio came on when his elbow hit the console. Jazz. Saxophone. Slow and smoky.

"'Kloc,'" she whispered against his mouth. The car doors locked. All four, simultaneous. His mouth twitched against hers.

"Backward spells for car doors."

"Shut up and kiss me."

His hand under her shirt. Her stomach warm and soft. She arched into his palm and her breath caught. He pushed her shirt up and her bra was blue with small white stars and her hand was already on his belt and she was fast and her fingers had the same dexterity as the coin tricks and his pants were open and her hand was on his cock and she gripped and his breath went out of him.

"'Nn-" She was breathing hard. He pulled the bra down and her breast filled his hand and her nipple was hard against his palm and he rolled it and she gasped and her hand tightened on him. "'Ah- that's-"

Her jeans were a problem in the back seat. She lifted her hips and he pulled them down to her thighs and her underwear with them and the windows were already fogging and her pussy was wet when his fingers found her. She jolted.

"Bruce-"

Two fingers, slow, and she was slick and clenching and her hips rolled against his hand. Her head pressed back against the car door, eyes shut, lip between her teeth, and her hand was still on his cock, stroking, the rhythm falling apart as his fingers worked inside her.

"Just- I need- come on-"

Condom from his wallet. She took it, rolled it on, her hands shaking. He pushed her legs wider, the jeans bunched at her knees, and pressed into her and she was tight and wet and hot and the sound she made was his name broken in half.

"'Bru-"

Small space. His weight over her, one hand braced on the window, the other on her hip. The car rocked with every thrust and the windows were opaque and the saxophone was playing and her sounds came out without permission, breathy and high and rhythmic. "Right there, right- don't change- 'ah- Bruce I can't-"

He kept the angle. His cock deep on every push, her pussy gripping him, her legs wrapped around him as much as the jeans allowed and her hands on his back under his shirt, nails digging in. The trumpet solo came in on the radio. The car was rocking.

A spark jumped between her fingers and his skin. Small, bright. Magic leaking. Her eyes were shut and her mouth was open and another spark jumped and the interior light flickered.

"'M close- don't stop- don't-"

Her body clenched. Thighs, stomach, her pussy in hard rhythmic pulls. She came loud, his name and a sound that might have been a backward word, her back arching off the seat, and every light in the car flickered and the radio went to static for two seconds and then the jazz came back.

He followed. His face against her neck, vanilla and ozone strong, her pulse fast under his lips. The car settled on its suspension.

The saxophone played. The windows were opaque. Her breathing was ragged against his ear and her fingers were in his hair.

"So," she said. Still breathing hard. "The spring roll thing was foreplay."

He laughed against her neck and she shivered.

"The noodle in my hair," she said. "That was you making a move."

"That was me removing a noodle."

"It was a MOVE, Bruce. I've been thinking about that noodle for two weeks."

He lifted his head and looked at her. Her hair was wrecked and her cheeks were flushed and the blue bra with the stars was still pulled down.

"Two weeks," he said.

"Shut up." She pulled his head back to her neck. "The spring rolls were really good though."

The jazz played. The windows fogged. A car alarm went off three levels up and ran through its cycle and stopped.

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