Chapter Text
The target was Bruce Wayne.
Of course, it was. It almost always was.
Superficially, the billionaire playboy was an ideal victim: always within the public eye, backed by mountains of wealth and resources he would not even notice missing fully, too flippant, too naive, too trusting. The only particular downside was his annoying attitude and grating smile.
The current hired hand of the night had to breathe through a forced grin, as he was consistently reminded of this specific fact. He was simply there to distract Wayne long enough for him to ingest the delivered poison.
He had already managed to catch the mostly-undivided attention — as much focus as that braindead imbecile could muster — of “Brucie”, which was as easy as not-so-slyly unbuttoning his dress shirt a bit and feigning a slight blush when making eye contact with the inebriated fool. He absentmindedly nodded and laughed as Bruce regaled him of some recent conquest or stupid purchase or something like that; it was not like he needed to pay attention to the slurred words that escaped from his mouth.
“How about I go get us some more drinks, Mr. Wayne?” He smiled faintly.
The billionaire playfully slapped him on the shoulder. “I could not have thought of a better idea myself!”
At the drink table, he grabbed himself a glute of champagne and a hefty glass of red wine for his target. The other socialites nor staff did not notice as an orange-tinged liquid was poured into the drink, quickly being consumed and obfuscated by the deep scarlet. He gently swirled the glass, as he turned back to find Wayne in the crowd.
“Specially picked for you, my good sir.” He glibly said to Bruce, as he handed him the hefty glass. The billionaire grinned brightly as their eyes met and gratefully grasped the stem of the glass. He lightly pinched the man’s cheek as a sign of thanks and then immediately turned to excitedly speak to the next object of his affection for the night.
The hired hand’s eyes barely twitched as he managed to produce a tight-lipped grin to hide his disgust. He breathed a sigh of relief when Bruce tipped back his head and drank the bitter wine in one fell swoop.
What an alcoholic idiot. He thought, as he turned heel and quietly fled the party.
Bruce
Bruce had noticed that the man was after something — what though, he was unable to tell. He could easily ascertain the man’s discomfort and displeasure with his airheaded act. He had noticed his heavy gaze, hiding a near-silent vitriol, as soon as he entered the gala. As much as his eyes had darted around, he could not hide those small glances being directly trained on Bruce with a cold precision.
Thus, Bruce, ever the self-imposed victim, knew he had to play right into this man’s palms to understand more of his mission and goals. He had allowed himself to be guided more towards the corner. He had flirted with the man to see how far the disgust went. He had touched him subtly to see if he was wearing any kind of body armor or hiding any weapons in certain places on his person. There really was not much there, so what could the man possibly be plotting?
As soon as he was handed the drink, he could tell something was in it. He swirled around the liquid and noted the slight shimmering quality and nearly imperceptible hints of color gradation that were close to homogenizing. He smirked, something a little more akin to his actual personality opposed to the idiotic billionaire persona and proceeded to down the entirety of it. He was ready to get whatever it was done with; whatever poison he readily accepted from the ruffian would be no issue for him. He did, however, ensure that he left a small amount still clinging to the glass’s bowl so that he could take it back to the Cave for further analysis.
Just like the asshole he pretended to be, Bruce immediately moved his attention elsewhere; both parties had gotten what they needed out of the evening, supposedly. He wrapped his arms around two random members of the surrounding beau monde, entirely negligent to social niceties at this point. Everyone loved Bruce Wayne, and no one dared question him, at least to his annoyingly beautiful face. Oh, the pleasures and loneliness of the conscious elite.
He brought his arms inwards once more, armed with the clinically beaming style he could fabricate. And a careful three taps on his watch followed by a raucous “Man, this party is such a slog, right?!” prompted a quiet click in his ear to follow approximately fifteen seconds later.
“Extraction request accepted. En route. Reasoning for early termination of mission?” quietly questioned the subtle comm piece buried in his ear.
Bruce matched the perpetually judgmental and haughty grins around him. He leaned into the finely dressed woman on his right and gestured to his nearly empty glass, “Do you think they watered these drinks down?”
Upon recognition of the carefully crafted code phrase, the voice in Bruce's ear spoke up once more. “Readying antidote for poison. Medical bay being prepped at the manor. Reaching target location in two minutes.”
Bruce intentionally stumbled forward, faking a catch at the last minute. He reached out and grabbed some poor man’s arm to balance himself. “Oh, man! Maybe, the drinks weren’t watered down.” His laugh was trapped within an echo chamber of socialites. “I've definitely had way too much. I'm gonna get out of here, before I end up on the front page.” He turned, stopped, and sent a wink and sly grin over his shoulder. “ Again .”
He and Nightwing had agreed to meet at a side entrance beyond the main corridor of the hotel, where some of the staff would enter and exit. Pushing through the crowd as if he were about to vomit, Bruce was able to make his way to the west side of the aforementioned hallway, sharp grey eyes still quickly assessing for any more dangers or miscreants.
Ninety seconds left.
The voice of his internal monologue felt…louder. More vibrant. As if it had echoed off the walls of these illustriously high and elaborately gilded ceilings. Only for a hair of a moment, though. Bruce refocused on objective. He collided into the wall, fingers splayed against the velvet decorations. He laughed boisterously to anyone who would listen, as he righted himself to be situated in front of the entrance of a side hallway. “Oops! Silly me! Everything was double for a second!” Easy lies from an easy drunk, and what an easy character Brucie Wayne was to play.
As soon as he was out of the primary public eye, Bruce’s face dropped to frightening sobriety.
He could feel his body warming up at a rapid pace, his immune system beginning to go wild with the foreign intoxicants seeping into his bloodstream. His overtly expensive tuxedo jacket was tossed indiscriminately onto an atrociously trimmed potted plant. His bowtie was similarly displaced, falling loosely on the gaudy fabric of the carpet. Bruce quickly unbuttoned and rolled his sleeves up, ensuring they would not be able to get in the way of anything he had to do. Bruce was a man built on precautions; he sometimes had to assume that everything that could go wrong would go wrong, no matter how small nor mundane the threat seemed.
He finally reached the door, his clammy hand tightly gripping the cold, metal handle of the side entrance. As he pushed the door open with his shoulder, a shiver ran up his spine, and his muscles immediately tensed, readying for action, before the logical side of his brain knew what was coming.
As the cool air of a rainy Gotham autumn gently caressed his face, he pulled the door shut with a satisfying and heavy click. As piercing eyes ran back down the length of the hallway, shots rang out from the main hall. Screams soon followed. The discordant cacophony seemed to take on the form of a revenant, hellbent on sinking its shadowy claws into Bruce’s slow-beating heart. He could hear its wails of terror and misery as it dragged itself desperately across that ugly, awful carpet of the empty corridor. Bruce’s sharp stare bore holes into the creature as it cried against the sterile, fluorescent lights above, blinking, twitching. When it finally reached his chest and tunneled into it, Bruce felt his blood go cold and his heart beat increase, just a fraction, just for a mere second.
There was a slight tremble in his hand when his gaze refocused and the room was the exact same empty hallway as it had been before. For a moment, he had been frozen, paralyzed, as the distant gunshots rocked his mind. What was that he had felt in his heart briefly? Was that hesitation?
Fear?
He shook his head. Psychoanalysis and retroflection were for the Batcave. Now, he had to assess and act.
“Nightwing, change of plans.” Bruce whispered gruffly. “The gala is under attack.”