(no subject)
Title: Betty and the Bat (Ficlet #4)
Fandom: Batman Begins/Ugly Betty
Characters/Pairing: Betty Suarez and Christina McKinney
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,450
Summary: Betty describes her night's adventures to an old friend.
Notes: This is the fourth 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.
• Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
It was Christina who had suggested the dark, hipster bar for their get together that evening, and even though it wasn't really her type of place Betty had agreed. She was tired of the strange looks and Wilhelmina's glares when she went to meet her friend at Mode and neither of them wanted to suggest their own homes. "Too messy," they'd both said in unison when the thought crossed their minds. Of course, by too messy Betty had meant 'too filled with nosy family members'. She just assumed that Christina had actually meant messy. Either way, the two ended up in a booth in DTUT on second and eighty-fourth one Friday night eager to unwind and talk.
Betty did her best to keep in touch with Christina. She'd left Mode nearly a month ago and had seen her friend only four times since then; just once a week. Fridays at different restaurants and bars around the city, it had become their thing and she was increasingly thankful for it. It wasn't that she was unhappy working for Bruce Wayne. No, quite the contrary, she was well paid for almost the same job she'd been doing for Daniel and everyone was nice to her. Betty didn't consider herself a superficial person by any means and she'd deeply valued Christina's friendship at Mode, but it was nice to have some respect for a change.
Even if that respect is only for eight to ten hours a day, she thought to herself, sighing softly as the girl in the coat check window gave her tattered hooded poncho a startled and slightly horrified look. Betty had given it the same horrified look earlier that evening, though for a different reason. She'd been staring at the brand new knife slashes in the fabric.
"I was mugged!" Betty said to Christina, sliding into the booth the older woman had saved. "I got mugged on the way home."
A shot of something brown and alcoholic was inches from Christina's lips, but Betty found it underneath her nose almost as soon as she'd spoken. "Here." Christina nudged the glass with her knuckle. "Sounds like you need it more than I do. What happened?"
"I'm from New York. I've never been mugged. Then I get mugged in Gotham? How is that fair?" Betty took the glass from Christina and downed it in an uncharacteristically quick fashion. Her face twisted almost immediately. "What was that?"
"Best that you don't know. Are you alright?"
"I think I've lost my sense of taste. And smell." She coughed and licked her lips, trying to get the taste out of her mouth.
Christina shook her head. "That's not what I meant. That stuff won't kill you, a mugger might try to."
"Oh right." Betty watched as Christina signaled for two more of the brown drinks, taking the pause to figure out how she was supposed to explain this one. It wasn't that the mugging itself had been anything spectacular - or at least she didn't think it had been, granted she didn't have any other muggings to compare it to - it was how she'd gotten out of it that held any interest whatsoever.
She was just worried that that part of the story was going to make her sound as insane as the people in the Enquirer, the Examiner, and the Whisper. Given the amount of time she and Christina had put into laughing at the stories in those 'papers', Betty wasn't exactly eager to share her own Enquirer-like experience. "Well… you know that, um - that bat-guy? I think he saved my life. Well, not exactly my life. More like my purse, but still, there was saving involved."
"You mean the giant man-bat they keep snapping pictures of for the tabloids?" Christina asked, a wide grin creeping across her lips. Betty could only brace herself for a barrage of teasing. "The one that looked like a homeless man wrapped up in some garbage bags?"
"I think it was a homeless man wrapped up in some garbage bags that one time." Betty remembered that set of pictures and she was still convinced that a photographer had paid the first homeless person he'd found to dress in black garbage bags and look menacing in the dark so that he would have pictures to sell. "But, yeah… I think it was the bat-person. What do they call him again?"
"Batman." Christina passed her another drink. "Are you sure you work in Gotham?" she teased.
"Batman," she repeated, ignoring the jab. "Him. Well, maybe it wasn't the Batman, but it was definitely a guy dressed as a bat. Pointy ears, cape, crazy karate skills, everything. Believe me, I thought I was seeing things at first and it was dark, but it all fits." Christina still looked skeptical as she tossed back another shot. Betty sipped at hers even though she knew one wasn't supposed to sip at a shot.
She was relatively sure of what she'd seen and she considered it a good sign that not even her friend's doubts were changing what she remembered. It had all happened very quickly, she'd easily admit that, and she never was very much on her guard when she left Wayne Enterprises at the same time each evening. Betty was sure to take the same route to the MTA station ever day. Three blocks up and two over from Wayne Enterprises in Gotham. She took the seven forty-five back to New York City everyday and then switched to take the subway home to Queens. It wasn't a horribly interesting commute and maybe that was why she'd let her guard drop after awhile.
Betty hadn't noticed how empty the train platform had been that evening and with her nose in her book she hadn't heard the automated announcement alerting MTA passengers that the train to New York was operating on the track five over from where she'd been sitting. They'd been mistakes on her part and for those mistakes she'd almost lost her purse and most certainly had ruined her favourite poncho. She'd never been mugged before, but she, like all New Yorkers, knew the cardinal rule: hand over your things. Betty had done that, hands shaking, when the two men with knives had demanded it and she'd been prepared to be without a metrocard for the rest of the night.
But just as she'd been wondering whether or not she could convince a cab to take her all the way from Gotham to New York he had fallen from the sky.
"It could have been the shock, you know," Christina was saying, the words pulling Betty back into reality. "Maybe you were just seeing things because you were scared."
"Well it definitely wasn't me who knocked out two really big men, left them bleeding on the ground, and got my purse back," Betty said. She set her shot glass down on the table. "Come on, Christina. You believe in the guy in Metropolis who flies around saving people in his underwear. What's so different?"
"They've got pictures of the 'guy in Metropolis who flies around in his underwear'. And interviews. And video that doesn't look like it was put together in some Myspace kid's basement," Christina answered with a shrug. "His name is Superman, by the way, and he's very handsome."
"You just want to redesign his costume," Betty accused, and she knew it was true. She'd seen the design sketches in the back of her friend's pad. They'd not been as well hidden as the other woman had thought. "And I'm being serious. I know what I saw. I just didn't get a great look - it was all really fast."
"Of course it was." When Betty scowled Christina sighed and reached across to wrap her arm around Betty's shoulder. The scowl fell from her lips when her friend gave her a tight squeeze. "I'm glad you're alright, Betty, Manbat, Batman, your imagination, or however it happened."
Batman, Betty almost corrected, but she stopped herself as the words were on her lips. "Thanks. Me too, obviously. Whatever it was, it saved my life -"
"Your purse," Christina interjected with a grin.
"My purse," Betty laughed. "He saved my purse and me a two hundred dollar cab ride back from Gotham."
Christina lifted her shot glass. "Cheers to that." She waited for Betty to do the same and once she had, clinked their glasses together before downing the rest of the brown liquid. "Now, come on, tell me all about Bruce Wayne…"
It was possible, a slightly tipsy Betty would realize later on the subway back to Queens, that out of everyone at Mode - Daniel included - it was Christina she missed the most.
A Post-Fic Note: Because I'm going back to school on Sunday and I'm not sure how long it will take me to write the next part (finally, I'm digging my teeth into the 'big reveal'), I present this tiny snippet of something that may or may not ever happen:
Justin watched while the older boy completed an impressive series of black flips and cartwheels across the polished wooden floor in Wayne Manor. "That's cool, I guess," he said with a shrug, gesturing over to the television where the fashion network was profiling a Betsey Johnson show. Models strutted down the runway in colourful satin and lace creations, one of which Justin pointed to knowingly. "But can you tell me who designed that?"
Dick Grayson's blank look was answer enough and Justin smiled smugly, turning his attentions back to the television. "Didn't think so."
Fandom: Batman Begins/Ugly Betty
Characters/Pairing: Betty Suarez and Christina McKinney
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,450
Summary: Betty describes her night's adventures to an old friend.
Notes: This is the fourth 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.
• Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
It was Christina who had suggested the dark, hipster bar for their get together that evening, and even though it wasn't really her type of place Betty had agreed. She was tired of the strange looks and Wilhelmina's glares when she went to meet her friend at Mode and neither of them wanted to suggest their own homes. "Too messy," they'd both said in unison when the thought crossed their minds. Of course, by too messy Betty had meant 'too filled with nosy family members'. She just assumed that Christina had actually meant messy. Either way, the two ended up in a booth in DTUT on second and eighty-fourth one Friday night eager to unwind and talk.
Betty did her best to keep in touch with Christina. She'd left Mode nearly a month ago and had seen her friend only four times since then; just once a week. Fridays at different restaurants and bars around the city, it had become their thing and she was increasingly thankful for it. It wasn't that she was unhappy working for Bruce Wayne. No, quite the contrary, she was well paid for almost the same job she'd been doing for Daniel and everyone was nice to her. Betty didn't consider herself a superficial person by any means and she'd deeply valued Christina's friendship at Mode, but it was nice to have some respect for a change.
Even if that respect is only for eight to ten hours a day, she thought to herself, sighing softly as the girl in the coat check window gave her tattered hooded poncho a startled and slightly horrified look. Betty had given it the same horrified look earlier that evening, though for a different reason. She'd been staring at the brand new knife slashes in the fabric.
"I was mugged!" Betty said to Christina, sliding into the booth the older woman had saved. "I got mugged on the way home."
A shot of something brown and alcoholic was inches from Christina's lips, but Betty found it underneath her nose almost as soon as she'd spoken. "Here." Christina nudged the glass with her knuckle. "Sounds like you need it more than I do. What happened?"
"I'm from New York. I've never been mugged. Then I get mugged in Gotham? How is that fair?" Betty took the glass from Christina and downed it in an uncharacteristically quick fashion. Her face twisted almost immediately. "What was that?"
"Best that you don't know. Are you alright?"
"I think I've lost my sense of taste. And smell." She coughed and licked her lips, trying to get the taste out of her mouth.
Christina shook her head. "That's not what I meant. That stuff won't kill you, a mugger might try to."
"Oh right." Betty watched as Christina signaled for two more of the brown drinks, taking the pause to figure out how she was supposed to explain this one. It wasn't that the mugging itself had been anything spectacular - or at least she didn't think it had been, granted she didn't have any other muggings to compare it to - it was how she'd gotten out of it that held any interest whatsoever.
She was just worried that that part of the story was going to make her sound as insane as the people in the Enquirer, the Examiner, and the Whisper. Given the amount of time she and Christina had put into laughing at the stories in those 'papers', Betty wasn't exactly eager to share her own Enquirer-like experience. "Well… you know that, um - that bat-guy? I think he saved my life. Well, not exactly my life. More like my purse, but still, there was saving involved."
"You mean the giant man-bat they keep snapping pictures of for the tabloids?" Christina asked, a wide grin creeping across her lips. Betty could only brace herself for a barrage of teasing. "The one that looked like a homeless man wrapped up in some garbage bags?"
"I think it was a homeless man wrapped up in some garbage bags that one time." Betty remembered that set of pictures and she was still convinced that a photographer had paid the first homeless person he'd found to dress in black garbage bags and look menacing in the dark so that he would have pictures to sell. "But, yeah… I think it was the bat-person. What do they call him again?"
"Batman." Christina passed her another drink. "Are you sure you work in Gotham?" she teased.
"Batman," she repeated, ignoring the jab. "Him. Well, maybe it wasn't the Batman, but it was definitely a guy dressed as a bat. Pointy ears, cape, crazy karate skills, everything. Believe me, I thought I was seeing things at first and it was dark, but it all fits." Christina still looked skeptical as she tossed back another shot. Betty sipped at hers even though she knew one wasn't supposed to sip at a shot.
She was relatively sure of what she'd seen and she considered it a good sign that not even her friend's doubts were changing what she remembered. It had all happened very quickly, she'd easily admit that, and she never was very much on her guard when she left Wayne Enterprises at the same time each evening. Betty was sure to take the same route to the MTA station ever day. Three blocks up and two over from Wayne Enterprises in Gotham. She took the seven forty-five back to New York City everyday and then switched to take the subway home to Queens. It wasn't a horribly interesting commute and maybe that was why she'd let her guard drop after awhile.
Betty hadn't noticed how empty the train platform had been that evening and with her nose in her book she hadn't heard the automated announcement alerting MTA passengers that the train to New York was operating on the track five over from where she'd been sitting. They'd been mistakes on her part and for those mistakes she'd almost lost her purse and most certainly had ruined her favourite poncho. She'd never been mugged before, but she, like all New Yorkers, knew the cardinal rule: hand over your things. Betty had done that, hands shaking, when the two men with knives had demanded it and she'd been prepared to be without a metrocard for the rest of the night.
But just as she'd been wondering whether or not she could convince a cab to take her all the way from Gotham to New York he had fallen from the sky.
"It could have been the shock, you know," Christina was saying, the words pulling Betty back into reality. "Maybe you were just seeing things because you were scared."
"Well it definitely wasn't me who knocked out two really big men, left them bleeding on the ground, and got my purse back," Betty said. She set her shot glass down on the table. "Come on, Christina. You believe in the guy in Metropolis who flies around saving people in his underwear. What's so different?"
"They've got pictures of the 'guy in Metropolis who flies around in his underwear'. And interviews. And video that doesn't look like it was put together in some Myspace kid's basement," Christina answered with a shrug. "His name is Superman, by the way, and he's very handsome."
"You just want to redesign his costume," Betty accused, and she knew it was true. She'd seen the design sketches in the back of her friend's pad. They'd not been as well hidden as the other woman had thought. "And I'm being serious. I know what I saw. I just didn't get a great look - it was all really fast."
"Of course it was." When Betty scowled Christina sighed and reached across to wrap her arm around Betty's shoulder. The scowl fell from her lips when her friend gave her a tight squeeze. "I'm glad you're alright, Betty, Manbat, Batman, your imagination, or however it happened."
Batman, Betty almost corrected, but she stopped herself as the words were on her lips. "Thanks. Me too, obviously. Whatever it was, it saved my life -"
"Your purse," Christina interjected with a grin.
"My purse," Betty laughed. "He saved my purse and me a two hundred dollar cab ride back from Gotham."
Christina lifted her shot glass. "Cheers to that." She waited for Betty to do the same and once she had, clinked their glasses together before downing the rest of the brown liquid. "Now, come on, tell me all about Bruce Wayne…"
It was possible, a slightly tipsy Betty would realize later on the subway back to Queens, that out of everyone at Mode - Daniel included - it was Christina she missed the most.
A Post-Fic Note: Because I'm going back to school on Sunday and I'm not sure how long it will take me to write the next part (finally, I'm digging my teeth into the 'big reveal'), I present this tiny snippet of something that may or may not ever happen:
Justin watched while the older boy completed an impressive series of black flips and cartwheels across the polished wooden floor in Wayne Manor. "That's cool, I guess," he said with a shrug, gesturing over to the television where the fashion network was profiling a Betsey Johnson show. Models strutted down the runway in colourful satin and lace creations, one of which Justin pointed to knowingly. "But can you tell me who designed that?"
Dick Grayson's blank look was answer enough and Justin smiled smugly, turning his attentions back to the television. "Didn't think so."