Entry tags:

batman, crossover, series: betty and the bat, ugly betty

Betty and the Bat
Title: Betty and the Bat (Ficlet #14)
Fandom: Batman Begins/Ugly Betty
Characters/Pairing: Betty Suarez and Daniel Meade
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,485
Summary: Shall we dance?
Notes: This is the 14th part in a rather unusual crossover which takes place after Season one of Ugly Betty and the end of Batman Begins; it's AU from there.

So, some may not have seen this, but long story short: There are two more parts of this arc to be posted and then... well, we'll see what happens. I'll be taking a mini-break from Betty and the Bat for awhile, but the fic is definitely meant to come back. I have way too many scenarios in my head for it not to.

• Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, part 10, Part 11, Part 12, and Part 13

"You look gorgeous."

"Thank you. My braces match."

"They do. That's… they can do that?"

"You never noticed? They're coloured rubber bands."

"I had no clue."

"Well… I'm getting them taken off next week."

"Congratulations."

"I'm pretty excited."

"Do you want to dance?"

"…me?"

"Yeah."

"I… yes."

Her hair flipped in the breeze, swinging from shoulder to shoulder as she was swept onto the crowded dance floor. Their fingers intertwined and his hand felt heavy on her waist. She brushed her fingers across his, just once, before resting her own hand on side and trying her hardest to fall into the quick waltz which would lead them to circle the dance floor many times.

Waltzing was hard enough on its own. It was harder in Choos.

Betty did not know how to waltz. Oh, she knew the basic steps. She knew the count. 1-2-3. 1-2-3. 1-2-3, over and over again in her head. She'd watched The Sound of Music a trillion times with Justin. She'd swung him around the living room to Edelweiss, both of them bumping into things while her father looked on somewhere in between fear for her furniture and plain amusement. Usually Betty was the first to laugh, knowing that they looked ridiculous. Somehow, Justin had come out of their escapades actually knowing how to waltz. But then, Justin could also replicate, in perfection, Moses Supposes from Singin' In the Rain. It was no surprise that he'd figured out how to waltz just from watching a movie. Betty still tripped over both of her own feet.

Or stepped on somebody else's.

"Sorry," she squeaked out, backing away and gingerly avoiding stepping on any more of Daniel Meade's toes.

"It's alright," he said. And suddenly they were whirling around again. "I've missed you. Well, seeing you. Everyday."

"I've missed you too. I– never got a chance to say thank you," she said, smiling up at him. Daniel wasn't as tall as Bruce and his shoulders weren't as broad, but he was still a giant in her eyes. She had to look up.

He canted his head. "Thank you?"

"For the job. Both of them. I mean… I just– I can't believe you did that."

"Can't believe I gave you up, you mean?" Daniel grinned at her in the self-assured, cocky way that she'd grown so used to during her time at Mode. "I'm still wondering why I did."

"I think I remember that being confined to a bed with a metal rod in your leg and seventeen stitches at the base of your skull had something to do with it," Betty offered, returning the grin shyly. She looked up at him through her eyelashes. Amanda would have been proud. "You made me leave. Remember?"

Daniel nodded, maybe having the decency to look slightly sheepish when she pointed that out. "I thought it'd be for the best."

"I would have stayed," she said simply. She stepped on his toes and jumped back again, trying to fall back into step with the dance. 1-2-3. 1-2-3. He steadied her and that was fine. The only way to do it was urge her closer, which Betty found herself allowing.

"Bruce was looking for an assistant. Better than waiting for me to–" He paused. Betty looked up expectantly, though doing so made her lose her line of sight. She couldn't help tripping again.

"I was going to wait," she said.

"I'm not going back to work until January." Daniel pulled her closer as they spun around.

"I would have –"

"What, living on ramen and saltines?" When he grinned she couldn't help but laugh.

Sometimes she forgot how long it had been since the crash. The crash had changed everything. May 15th and she'd been out of a job until Daniel regained consciousness again five days later and sent her to Gotham for the very first time. May until December. Well, it would have been a rather long time to be without a steady paycheck. Daniel wouldn't have needed an assistant for the seven months of physical therapy he'd gone through. He had doctors for that. A sister (brother?). A father. An Amanda.

Seven months without a paycheck would have been, quite simply, hell. Especially in the sprawling metropolis of New York. And, well, she wasn't greedy, but she was making more doing less for Bruce. 'Doing less' was relative, as it was. She was working less, but doing less? She was keeping what was probably one of the most important secrets in the known world.

"I like ramen and saltines," she said softly. "And Bruce. I guess. I just… miss Mode sometimes."

"If you're as good to him as you were to me, I don't think he's going to be willing to let you go," Daniel said. "He says you are."

Well, that, and the fact that she knew he was Batman. That could have something to do with it. They were tied to each other now, she and Bruce. Betty didn't mind it, she liked Bruce. She really did, and she enjoyed working for WayneTech. She liked being trusted– it wasn't that Daniel hadn't trusted her, mind you. There was something about working for Bruce that made her feel like she mattered. She suspected the vigilante thing played into it… the feeling that she was working for something bigger, even if it was only by proxy. She wasn't the one out running around in black rubber, but she was making sure the one who was got enough sleep each night. She helped wrap his bruised ribs, cover his black eyes, and made his coffee in the morning.

Betty felt like she mattered. Maybe it wasn't her dream job. She wasn't writing, but she was doing something that could help others. Wasn't that what counted in life?

"I liked working for you," she said, tilting her head down in guilt. "I'd come back."

"And I'd take you back." His voice was sincere as they pivoted through another step. "But I don't think you should."

"Why?"

For once that evening Daniel took his eyes off of her, but Betty couldn't take her eyes from him and so she saw when his eyes turned towards Bruce. Bruce, who looked –as much as she hated to say it– more handsome and dapper than even Daniel that evening. His dark hair was slicked back neatly drawing attention to his gorgeous, high cheekbones and perfect features. She remembered Alfred asking her which suit choice she preferred and she'd been pleased to see when she'd arrived that night that Bruce was wearing the black Dolche & Gabana and blue Prada tie she'd pointed to. She didn't much care about the shoes… shoes, as had been proven earlier that evening, were not her forte. Still, she snuck a sideways glance at his feet and was unsurprised to find that even those were perfect.

Bruce was just one of those people, she supposed. Betty couldn't even begrudge him to kind smiles he was passing to Amanda every so often. Who could blame him? They looked like a matched pair. Bruce in Dolche and Amanda in Anthony Nak. They looked rich and they were the centers of attention in their little sphere of the room.

Betty sighed slightly as she watched them, almost glad when the flow of the dance swept them towards the other side of the room. "Why?" she asked Daniel again.

"He's not diving into the fountain with Amanda and calling it a pool," he answered. His face lit up with a grin once more, as if it was some sort of joke she was meant to get.

And here she'd thought she knew everything about her boss. "What do you mean?"

"Alexis did that first, actually. Before… you know. There was a party and by the time it was over, he was drunk on martinis and swimming around one of those penny fountains with three models." Daniel outright laughed this time as he spoke. "Bruce, last year, he jumped into a hotel's fountain with three girls. But he did better than Alexis… he bought the hotel when they told him he couldn't swim in the fountain."

This dumb blonde bimbo thing really had to stop. "You're kidding." She shook her head, rolling her eyes. It was a bad move as she stepped on Daniel's feet again. "Sorry."

"I swear, that's what happened." He seemed not to notice when she stepped on his feet. She couldn't even read it in his face, a realization which made her smile sheepishly and cast her glance downwards. "But none of us are doing that anymore."

Betty let out a small laugh. "What fountain did you jump in?"

"Get drunk in front of the Met on a summer night. You'll understand."

"I think I'll pass." That was safest. "But you didn't answer my question."

"Oh." Daniel paused for a moment, spinning her out so that he was holding her by only one hand before pulling her back towards him. Somehow she managed to execute the movement without killing herself, Daniel, or the other dancers around them. "You're good for spoiled rich kids."

"Betty Suarez, Nanny Extraordinaire?" Her smile was lopsided but apparent.

"I mean there's something about you that makes us stop jumping into fountains with models,.. and, every other stupid thing," he said. "I kind of liked that."

"Are you going to start jumping into fountains again because I'm not there?" she asked him.

"No." He shook his head. How he could do that while dancing was beyond her. "The effect you have is permanent."

1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, breathe.

He probably hadn't meant it the way she'd heard it. Low, affectionate, maybe with a touch of…1-2-3, 1-2-3… "Well, I-I'm glad I helped. I mean… Bruce isn't you, but… he must have changed. By himself. I mean… I can't take all the credit for this one. Believe me." No, there were a whole host of villains sitting in Arkham cells that could take a lot more credit for Bruce's transformation than she could. She was perfectly happy to acknowledge that, knowing that she did have her place in Bruce's life.

"I'm never going to find another assistant like you, you know," Daniel said after a long moment. They continued to move across the floor, though the music was finally winding down, creeping slowly away from it's last swelling crescendo.

"You don't have to say that." She could feel her cheeks flush with colour.

"I mean it, Betty." And the warmth of her cheeks was heightened when his lips pressed lightly against her right cheek. "Thank you."

There was no use repeating the count in her mind at that point. A dance count served no purpose when one's feet simply stopped moving and were absolutely stuck to the ground, as if her lower half had suddenly transformed to lead. A dancing couple nearly slammed into her back, missing by only an inch and still sending a dirty glare her way as they moved on. Daniel had already straightened, but even then she could still feel the place where his lips had touched her cheek.

"Swooning," she heard herself mutter. "Not professional."

"What?"

Her eyes flew up towards Daniel. "N-nothing," she said hastily. "Nothing. Just… thank you and, I-I… " She had nothing. It was one of those moments in which she found herself wondering if she was really cut out to be a writer. Words. She was supposed to have words for every situation. Words to describe how she felt at times like this. She should have been able to spit something out. Something besides, "You really never noticed the colours on my braces?"

Genius, Betty. Genius.

"Never," Daniel admitted, looking sheepish himself and turning red to match Betty. "Not until tonight."

"Maybe they just didn't match well enough," she suggested, still mentally kicking herself. Why did she say these things?

"Maybe," he said, looking down at her. "There were a lot of things I didn't notice."

Like what, she wanted to ask. What hadn't he noticed? Braces, obviously. But, Hair? Shoes? Her shining personality? Her hidden, ugly-ducking beauty which would only be revealed when she was kissed by her true love who, coincidentally, turned out to be the handsome prince? Handsome multi-millionaire, editor of Mode Magazine, and heir to the Meade fortune? Same thing, right? Was he looking at her any differently now? He had just kissed her after all. Had he just realized that—

Well. To be fair, he had only kissed her cheek. You needed lips to make that true love connection. That was it.

She glanced back at Daniel. "Like wh—"

There was a crash that interrupted her words, and maybe it would be for the best in the end. Best for her, not for the fifty or so people showered with sharp pieces from the formally gorgeous shattered stained glass. The entire ballroom was done up in a sort of modern gothic style. Gargoyles lined the outside corners of the building, giving away the stone exterior's age easily. The inside had been renovated for events just like this, but the old world influence was still apparent in the marble floors and gilded molding around the ceiling. The stained glass had depicted the crucifixion of Christ, though at this point it was more like a beheading. Betty could see His head in what little glass had managed to stay in the frame while the rest rained down on the ballroom floor.

It took a moment for Betty to realize that there were screams and a general sense of panic engaging the room. She stood stock still on the dance floor as she had been before the crashing of glass, not turning her head until there a particularly piercing shriek rang out. Amanda's voice was recogniseable anywhere.

Specifics would escape her later that evening as a detective questioned both she and Daniel as they stood together, his arm around her because she'd not yet stopped shaking. The questions weren't out of the ordinary. What did he wear? What did he look like? Did he say anything to you? How much was the necklace he took worth? Did he have any weapons? How many were with him? Could you see their faces?

They were normal questions for this sort of thing, but there was only one that Betty would be able to answer only a short hour later.

"Why so serious?" he asked her softly, stitched red lips parting in a terrifying smile as his gloved hand reached up to her neck, snatching away the small gold cross that rested on her throat.

And then, for a split moment, Betty wondered if she and Daniel would ever truly work. For though it was he who she grabbed onto as soon as her neck was bare, it was, in the end, Bruce's dark eyes she found across the room.

Something had to be done.