"Looking for anything in particular?"
Bruce shook his head.
Alfred set a cup beside him.
Bruce took a sip.
He had never been particularly fond of the drink, but Alfred insisted it was a much healthier alternative to his coffee-based caffeine dependency.
On the monitor screen, Bruce was forwarding footage, searching.
He had been pretty busy the night in question.
He'd archived the footage, however, not for the woman who'd helped him but for the fight that had taken place before.
"Gotcha." he murmured, pausing on a freeze frame of a woman.
"She's quite pretty," Alfred commented.
Bruce grunted in response.
Anya was looking up at the Batman, eyes wide with surprise, mouth agape.
He pressed the "print" button on his keyboard.
"Who is she?" Alfred asked.
"Nobody."
***
Anya hated working evening shifts.
While it guaranteed she could sleep in before work, it meant she would have to walk to the train station, then to her apartment, alone: late at night.
She clutched her pepper spray in one hand, the other holding her tote bag close.
Gotham General was in a nicer part of town, therefore, the walk to the train station was lit with streetlights and wasn't much of a worry.
However, despite being a doctor, Anya still lived in a "rougher" part of town. She was a resident, not an attending, and therefore, her pay was barely above that of a two-parent lower middle-class income in Gotham. She still lived in the apartment she'd had during her broke college student days.
She was at the train station before she knew it.
It was rather empty tonight. She looked at her watch.
3:05 a.m.
The train car was close to empty, with only a group of three men at the back of the train car for company.
Anya made her way to the front of the car, pulling a book from her tote bag.
The train had barely lurched out of the station when she heard it.
"Hey, you."
She didn't look up.
"Hello, nurse."
No response.
"Hey, I'm talkin' to you, lady."
Still, nothing.
"Fucking bitch."
She didn't engage.
She knew if she so much as looked at them, or acknowledged them in any way, they'd never leave her alone.
The half hour train ride could not have felt longer. She had tried to focus on her book, but she was just too aware of the men's whispering.
When the train pulled into the station, she hurried out of the car, then the train station, onto the streets of Gotham.
She had been walking for at least three minutes, when she felt it.
The undeniable feeling of being followed.... of being hunted.
She looked back.
It was the men from the train.
"Hey, sweetheart."
She burst into a sprint.
As did they.
The streets were empty.
Unlike outside Gotham General, the streetlights here were few and far apart. They seemed forever dimmed, as if they needed a bulb change.
"Ah!" She winced as something- no, someone- grabbed ahold of her ponytail, dragging her back and onto the floor.
She landed with a thud, palms out behind her.
Anya looked at her bloody hands then the men above her.
"I have forty dollars in my bag." She whispered, weakly.
She reached into her tote bag.
Quickly, with speed she did not know she possessed, Anya leapt to her feet, pepper spray in hand. She sprayed wildly in the men's direction. They erupted in fits of coughing, and she sprinted away.
Her heart pounded wildly in her chest; she could practically feel the blood rushing in her ears.
Then, she was on the ground once more, the wind knocked out of her lungs.
One of the men had tackled her. She gasped for breath.
"You are one stupid woman, you know that?" He spat, voice seething with venom. "Before, we weren't gonna kill ya. But now?" His lips split into a wide, Cheshire cat grin. His eyes were red and watery, courtesy of the pepper spray. "Now we're gonna hurt ya. Really, really bad."
He stood up. "Get up."
She didn't.
He sighed. "Doing this the hard way," he muttered. He reached down to her, Anya flinched away, and he caught her by her hair. He pulled. "Get the fuck up!" he roared.
She obeyed. He led her to an alleyway where the other two men waited. One was still coughing slightly, but it appeared the pepper spray hadn't been as debilitating as she'd hoped.
She wondered if pepper spray had an expiration date (she'd gotten hers as a first year in med school), or if these men were just inhumanely strong.
Her back hit the grimy alley wall. She groaned, squeezing her eyes shut.
She didn't see the fist connecting with her face, just felt it.
When she opened her eyes again, her vision was spotting.
Another hit, this time to her stomach. She couldn't catch her breath.
One of the men had a knife. A true deja vu moment, she supposed.
Another punch to the face, this time from the left.
She felt blood pooling in her mouth.
"Anything to say?"
Anya looked up at the man with the knife.
She spat, watching the blood stain his white, sleeveless shirt. "Go to hell."
"You fu-"
She closed her eyes, expecting to feel a piercing blade, but instead she heard a swoop then the unmistakable sound of a fist hitting flesh.
She opened her eyes.
He moved with purpose. He had a counter move for every one of theirs.
Anya watched as the Batman took on the trio.
He took down the first two quickly.
His back was turned to the knife wielding man.
"He's got a knife." She spluttered. Blood fell from her mouth to her chin.
The man with the knife charged forward.
He caught his hand. He squeezed. The man with the knife let out a sound of pain as the Batman forced the knife out. It clattered to the floor.
He punched him square in the face. The man fell to the ground, clutching his nose.
He looked down at his hand covered in blood. "You broke my fucking nose!"
The Batman looked down at him.
He turned his attention to Anya. Anya could barely see the man. Her vision was going in and out of focus.
"Are you alright?" He asked.
"I'm..." She fell forward, unconscious.
***
He hadn't been following her. Honestly, he hadn't.
Though his mind had wondered to Anya several times since their meeting at the hospital the week before, Bruce had remained neutral in his interest.
He had been patrolling Gotham, looking in and out of alleyways, when he'd found the scene unfolding.
Anya had fallen into his arms, unconscious the moment the three men had been incapacitated.
Jumping from building to building with an unconscious woman in your arms was much more difficult than he'd anticipated, but he'd managed.
He jammed the window open and quietly entered the apartment. He lowered her onto the couch, then debated where her first aid kit could possibly be. He checked the cabinets in the kitchen, then the drawers, where he successfully recovered the box labeled "First Aid."
He ripped open a package of alcohol wipes and began wiping at the wound on her forehead.
***
Anya woke up, groggy, and with the most painful, mind-splitting headache imaginable.
She moaned. Her eyes fluttered open. She blinked several times.
"Nice of you to join me."
She yelped, sitting up quickly.
Across from her, sitting on a kitchen table seat, was a man dressed as a giant bat.
"I'm...what are you..." It all came back to her. "You really should have taken me to the hospital. I could have internal bleeding. I was sucker punched in the stomach, you know."
"Noted for next time." The Batman stood up. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"I am." Her eyes flickered to his lip. It had healed nicely. The only hint it had been split: a small, white line just below his lip. It was so faint, she doubted anybody could see it. "I guess we can call it even, aye."
He grunted. "Need me to call anyone?"
Anya shook her head. "Nobody to call," she smiled, weakly. "I'll be fine. Just got to avoid sleeping for a little while. Concussion precaution."
He made his way to the window.
"Hey." He turned around. Anya smiled. Her tooth had chipped. "Thanks."
He nodded.
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Author's Note: Not sure I really like the name "Scars & Hearts" for this fanfiction, but I can't think of anything else. :/ If I decide on something else, I'll let you guys know. I know these first few chapters have been a bit uneventful, but I'm just setting everything up. Remember to like this chapter and add it to your library. I think I may wait to upload the next chapter till the end of the week, because I have work to do for my university classes. Hopefully, this story will get a few more reads in that time! Thank you for reading! -C