Bruce was in the gym, jumping rope. He used exercise to help him focus his mind while adrenaline was pumping through him. Adrenaline was the ultimate high, but it also came with the price of tunnel vision. Man wasn’t meant to face down multiple foes when he was juiced up. Bruce intended to train himself past it, so he used some of the meditation exercises he’d learned and applied them to his workouts so that he’d be able to retain his awareness of his surroundings when in the middle of a fight.
Bruce knew when Chloe started down the hallway. He knew when she stopped at the door to watch him. His back was to her but he knew she stood still. Why was she watching him?
“Chloe?” He swung the rope to the side and turned to face her in one movement. She looked startled.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Please, come in.” He picked up a towel from a nearby bench and wiped his forehead with it. He wore just a pair of jogging pants and sneakers and his chest was bare. He pretended not to notice Chloe looking at him. He wasn’t ashamed of his body, quite proud of it, in fact. And he hadn’t too many scars yet; which might make suspicious of what he did to get so many injuries. “What can I do for you?”
“I was just taking a walk.” She shrugged, but her eyes kept sneaking peeks at him. “I haven’t been here before.”
“I’m usually alone in here.”
“I can go,” she said, turning around.’
“No, I didn’t mean it like that.” Bruce stepped over to her and took her hand. “Come in.” He squeezed her hand. “As long as you’re here, why don’t you help me a little? ”He grabbed a gray, Gotham University athletics shirt and pulled it over his head.
“What can I do to help?” Before she’d finished the sentence, Bruce had grabbed he shoulders and swept her feet out from under her.
Chloe landed on her back with a grunt. Though there was a tumbling mat on the floor, the landing wasn’t exactly soft.
“You can fight back.” Bruce stood over her calmly. His expression was as stoic as it ever was. She just looked up at him with an expression of acceptance and shrugged.
“Whatever.” She got to her feet and stood, gazing at him warily, but not defensively. She was flat on her back again,, this time her landing had been harder. “What are you doing?”
“Besides wiping the floor with you?” Bruce placed his foot against her stomach and used it to push her along the mat; effectively wiping the floor with her. His face hadn’t changed. “Just waiting.” He turned around and took a few steps away from her while she stood up again, rubbing her behind.
“For what?” She put her hands up when he turned, but he seemed to move with the speed of a demon and the top of his foot connected with her back, tossing her forward onto her face.
“For you.” He hooked his foot in her elbow and flipped her onto her back. Chloe scooted backwards, but Bruce just grabbed her ankle and yanked her back. Her hand struck out wildly, slapping at his hand. “That’s not going to help.” Then she lifted her foot and kicked him in the shoulder. He rolled back and to the balls of his feet. She scrambled up to face him, her heart pumping. This time, she was in a crouch.
“What will help when I have no chance of beating you?” He made a few feints at her with his fists and she started to move quicker, watching his face. He managed an open-palmed slap that landed on her cheek. It didn’t do more than sting, but it made her angry. Then he followed with the back of his fist against her ribs. She left her torso open for attack and he struck her midsection with his knee. Just enough to startle, not enough to hurt.
“Help yourself.” He swept her feet out from under her and she was on her back again. This time, he sat on her stomach while she flailed her fists and hands, accomplishing exactly nothing.
“How?” Chloe was crying with frustration. Bruce fastened his hand around her throat and leaned close.
“Get tired of being beaten.” He got up and offered her his hand. She took it and he pulled her to her feet. “Get stronger. Stop hiding. Heal yourself.” Her expression was still frustrated and angry. “Go take a swim,” he snapped.
“I don’t want to,” she snapped back. He turned to face her and she started to shake but didn’t back down.
“Then you don’t have to.” Bruce turned his back on her and picked up the jump rope. After about a minute, he heard her footsteps coming around to the treadmill where she got on and started walking briskly. He smiled. He thought he had a glimpse of the old Chloe. The one Lex seemed to know.
*
Lex took Chloe out of the Manor when he returned from a week in Metropolis. Chloe had been staying at Bruce’s for almost six weeks. She still had a lot of issues and he still administered the occasional spanking when she requested it. She was, however, getting stronger. Both physically and emotionally. When he brought up the idea of dinner outside the Manor, she got nervous again. Bruce watched his friend with interest. Lex never told him about his plans, but he always had them.
“Where did you want to go?” Chloe asked.
“Where do you want to go?” Lex looked at her with a smile. “Lady’s choice.”
Chloe was at a loss. She hadn’t been outside the gates of Wayne Manor since the night she’d been liberated from the Vashenkos. And while she’d been with them, they had never asked her where she wanted to go. It was sudden, and more than she could handle. She took a few deep breaths.
“I don’t want to go out to dinner.”
“Alright,” Lex said. “But get dressed, because we’re going for a walk.” Chloe got up obediently. “If you want to.” She stopped and looked at him. Then she looked at Bruce. “Don’t look to him for approval, I’m the one who asked, and you have free will. You don’t need permission.” Her forehead wrinkled and she walked out of the Library and to her bedroom where she picked up the phone and dialed Dr. banks’ phone number with shaking fingers. “Hang up the phone.” Guiltily, Chloe dropped it on the floor.
“I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”
“Yes you can.” Lex leaned against her doorway. “Just one step at a time.” He nodded to her closet. “I want to go into the city, and I want your company. Will you get dressed?”
“Is Bruce coming?”
“Nope, he has a late meeting with some business associates.” He didn’t grit his teeth when she asked about his friend, but he wanted to.
Chloe went to her closet and Lex noted that she chose running shoes, jeans, and a sweatshirt. She wanted freedom of movement. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail and stood in front of him.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
As Chloe watched the gates to Wayne Manor get smaller in the Ferrari’s side mirror, she focused on her inner calm like Dr. Banks had taught her. ‘I’m allowed to do this.’ Had become her Mantra. She had to remind herself several hundred times a day that she didn’t need permission to go to the fridge and get a snack, or to call her father. She reminded herself that she didn’t have to hide when she found herself closed in her closet without remembering how she got there.
Chloe remained frustrated with what she saw as her own lack of progress. When the thought of seeing her father filled her with a sense of panic instead of joy. On his last birthday she’d eaten dinner with him in Gotham City and gone to a movie. He’d thought it was a nice evening with just the two of them, but he hadn’t realized that the patrons who surrounded them were guards, and that the audience in the theater had been about twenty percent Vashenko employees.
Having only two keepers gave a feeling of freedom that was frightening. There was a certain security in having no choices. It was one of the hardest things that Chloe had faced. The fact that she had forgotten what it was like to have free will. The simple act of picking a restaurant for herself and Lex had almost sent her into a panic attack. Riding in the small car didn’t feel claustrophobic; just the opposite. Chloe felt exposed and unprotected with just Lex beside her.
Being in close proximity to a crime family had had its dangerous side, and more than once, Chloe had been targeted for elimination as a message. Once she’d been dragged out of the limo and into an alley where two men had started slapping her around. They’d both been shot dead, splattering her with blood . Chloe had been hustled back to the compound where Boris had made one of his rare appearances and actually showed concern for her. She knew that it was messages like these that had her so confused now. She had never doubted her safety from anyone outside her little Ukranian world, as long as she’d been their possession.
Chloe stole a look at Lex. He glanced at her.
“What’s wrong?”
“It just seems strange to be out with just one person.”
“Are you afraid?”
“A little.” More than a little. “Are we going downtown?”
“Yup.” Then he looked at her. “You haven’t asked me about Smallville. Not the whole time I’ve visited you. I do still live there occasionally.”
“I guess I didn’t know what to ask.”
“Everything’s pretty much the same.” He grinned. “I still read the school newspaper, but other than the occasional glimmer of intelligence, it’s not nearly as good as when you ran it.”
“Really?” She smiled back. “I looked it up online a while back, but it didn’t seem too bad to me.”
“No meteor stories.”
“Maybe people have gotten wise and decided to avoid the glowing green rocks.”
“Nah, we still get the occasional freak here and there.” Lex launched into a story about an employee who could breathe fire and went postal when he was fired for embezzling.
“Embezzling?”
“Yeah, he was an accountant.”
“Lex?”
“Yes?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Talking?”
“Helping.”
“If I told you that I was doing it because it’s the right thing to do, or because I wanted to help you, or because I felt like I owed it to myself to do something good, would you believe me?”
“I’d want to.” She reached out and placed her hand over his on the stick shift. “I really would.” There was something almost patronizing in her manner, something like the old Chloe would've done. He frowned and pulled into a parking spot on the street in front of a row of boutiques.
"If you think Bruce isn't hot for you, you're not thinking." Chloe removed her hand from his and tucked it into her lap. "So," he said, changing his tone to one that was light and shallow, "has Bruce been giving it to you lately?" Chloe opened the door to the sports car and got out, walking away as quickly as possible, blinded by the tears that stung her eyes. She heard Lex shouting behind her and started running.
Chloe pushed through the late afternoon crowds, ducking and stumbling until she felt her arm wrenched around. She had her palm ready to slap Lex but it wasn't his face she saw. Raw fear bubbled up in her throat when she recognized Viktor, one of the Vashenko's soldiers. He held her and stared at her face for a moment, as if he, himself couldn't believe his luck.
"I didn't actually think I'd see you here."
Chloe demanded that he release her in Ukranian. He just smiled and started to drag her away. She thrust her knee up into his groin and stomped on his foot. He grunted and doubled over, but as a mafia soldier, it would take more than that to break his grip. Chloe started yelling and clawing and punching any part of him that she could reach. She succeeded in making everyone around her back away instead of coming forward to help. This was Gotham City, not Smallville. Then Viktor's weight fell forward onto her legs, sending her to the sidewalk, landing on her hands and scraping her palms. Then Lex was standing above her, re-holstering his pistol with which he'd clubbed the soldier. His face had a dark expression as he hauled her to her feet and pulled her, crying and stumbling behind him.
Lex all but threw her into the passenger seat of the car and squealed the tires pulling away from the curb. His face was tight with anger and he turned to the basket case in the seat beside him.
"Don't ever run away from me again." Chloe was too upset to answer. Lex took a few turns at breakneck speed and put them onto the highway where he opened up the ferrari's engine. "Damn it! What did you think you were doing?" She just cried in response. "Answer me!"
"Asshole!" She shouted the word as loud as she could, her voice getting shrill. Then she started slapping at him and kicking her feet furiously. Lex held up his arm defensively, slowing his speed and pulling over to the side of the highway. As soon as the vehicle was stopped, Chloe tried to get out again, but this time, Lex was ready. He clamped a hand on her wrist and dragged her, kicking and flailing, over the console and out the driver's side. He wrestled her around the the other side of the car and let her tire herself out. She was beyond reasoning and logic. She wasn't using whole sentences or making any real physical progress in her goal of damaging him. She just swore a lot and slapped and swung, pushing herself off balance and making herself hoarse.
"Stop it." Lex finally cut in and leaned against her, trapping her between himself and the car. He gripped her wrists tightly and looked at her puffy, scratched palms in the dying light. "Why are you pissed at me?"
"D-do you think I was b-born yesterday?" Her voice was hitched with sobs as she tried to get her breath back; her face was red and streaked with tears. "Viktor said he didn't think he'd actually see me there."
"You understand Ukranian?"
"Duh, Motherfucker." She stared at him like he was an idiot. "Lived with them for eight months. Talk about complete emmersion." She tried to pull away but Lex didn't let her. "He was expecting me, waiting for me. You told him I was going to be there."
"I wasn't expecting you to take off like a lunatic and go running into his arms."
"You admit it!"
"I admit that I lured him there, but I wasn't going to let him come within fifty feet of you."
"Why would you bring me to him?" Her face held the same righteous anger that he'd been waiting for. "Why would you put me back in the path of that fucking family."
"I wanted you to be angry, Chloe." He gave her a small shake. "I wanted you pissed at him for making you feel afraid, weak, and mostly I wanted you furious because he makes you beg me for pain just so you can have some peace."
"I'm not weak!"
"Yes you are," he shouted back at her. "You're fragile, and pitiful, and so soft that one little improper implication from me made you abandon safety to go throw a fit."
"I was not throwing a fit, I was trying to get away from you."
"Right, because that wasn't just the biggest hissy fit ever thrown in an Italian sports car."
"Fuck you."
"My pleasure." Lex's lips slammed down on Chloe's with a ferocity that surprised them both. Their teeth knocked together and Lex felt his lip split against one of hers. He didn't relent in his goal, however. He leaned his whole body into the kiss, pressing his chest to hers and his hips to her pelvis. If he could have branded her with his mouth, he would have. To his surprise, she was responding just as ardently to his actions and her tongue was fighting with his for dominance.
Chloe broke the kiss and pushed away. She was out of breath and her hands were clutched in lex's shirt where she held him away from her.
"Take me back to the Manor." She fumbled with the latch before opening the door and sliding into the passenger seat. Lex paced around outside the car for a few minutes before getting behind the wheel. he pulled them back onto the highway and drove for about ten minutes before reaching their exit. As he steered off, he spoke.
"We need to talk about this."
"No we don't."
"You're just the Queen of denial."
"Yeah, well you're the Sultan of Sulk, so don't throw stones at my kingdom."
"Sultan of--What the Hell are you talking about?"
"As soon as we got on the subject of my feelings for Bruce, you got all snotty like a sulky little boy. Then you had to go and act like a dick and got me pissed off so I got out of the car." She turned to him with a raised eyebrow. "The way I see it, this whole fucking thing is your fault."
"You swear a lot."
"I wasn't allowed to for eight months, I guess you broke the dam."
"Lucky me."
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