Anna's Beginning

For the next couple weeks Anna kept track of very move the batman made, determined to find out more about him. The news about her being Bruce Wayne’s daughter spread around the school faster than rabbits multiply. Her friends avoided her and the people that had always given Anna crap about being middle class now sucked up to her. Things had changed so fast for her she was about to go crazy. She wanted to keep blaming everything on Bruce, but knew it was partially her fault as well. She shouldn’t have tried to be someone she wasn’t. Even the few teachers that hadn’t liked her, like her chemistry teacher, were now afraid to get on her bad side.

Some teenagers might have found this cool, but it only annoyed Anna. Seeing that Anna had started to look less and less forward to going to school, Alfred offered to homeschool her again, but that wasn’t what she wanted, she wanted people to forget about her being a billion heir. But that wasn’t likely to happen. Bruce joked around and offered to bribe the whole school into acting as if they didn’t know, but that only irritated Anna. At lunch time she’d begun to sit by herself, looking over at her past friends having a blast at their table. She didn’t have the courage to go over there and sit with them, for fear that they might get up and leave her there by herself.

Bruce noticed that she’d become very depressed and came up with an idea. One day he came up to her and asked her if she wouldn’t mind going out to dinner with him and some friends.

“Are you sure your friends wouldn’t mind having me along,” Anna asked, knowing that some of his friends despised children. And also, knowing him, going out meant getting some other “special” friends to go along.

“Hey, I'm sure they wouldn’t mind you being there, your more mature for your age than I ever was,” Bruce encouraged her, and Anna could easily believe that, “besides, these friends are the ones that are always asking me about you, I think you’ll like it. Something to get you out of the house.” He gave her his famous crooked smile.

“Alright,” Anna said, “So, do I need to pick out a dress, and I promise I won’t run off after dinner like last time.”

Bruce just nodded his head and left her in her room. Being it was only ten in the morning she didn’t need to get ready for a while. Instead she got on the internet and goofed off until lunch time. After eating she decided to go on a jog around the mansion, exercise was one of her favorite things, but she had decided not to join any sports teams this year, for fear that Bruce would bribe the other schools to lose and her coach to let her play. By the time she was done, she had just enough time to take a quick shower, do her hair, and her make up. Walking into the main entrance after getting ready, she was welcomed by Bruce’s two “special” friends.

“Why hello there, you look like you’re ready for a fun time,” the blonde haired one said. The brunette giggled, obviously they thought that she was another one of Bruce’s “friends”.

“Umm, yeah, I'm Diana Wayne, Bruce's daughter. You two are?” Anna said before they could get any other thoughts in their minds.

“Oh,” the blonde one said in surprise, “I'm Mary, and this is Bianca. I didn’t know that Bruce had a daughter.”

“I think he sometimes forgets too,” Anna said as Bruce pulled up in his black convertible Lamborghini. The car had only two seats, there was no way everyone could fit into that car. “Umm, how are we all going to fit in that or are you planning on having Alfred drive me?”

Bruce jumped out of the car, looked over the two women, then back at the car.

“I'm sure we can all fit, Mary, you sit on my lap and Bianca, you can share the passenger seat with Anna,” he said as if it were natural. Anna’s jaw dropped as the two girls just did as he said, the blonde on his lap and the brunette sat down in the passenger seat. Bianca looked back at Anna and patted her leg, offering for Anna to sit on it.

“Come on, I don’t bit, usually,” she said looking over at Bruce, whose cheeks turned red. Oh my God, Anna thought scarred.

“Oh come on Diana, it’s not going to be fun without you,” Mary chiperly said. Anna took in a deep breath and sat on Bianca’s lap. It was so awkward Anna didn’t even want to think about it. Bianca wrapped her arms around Anna’s waist, even though they already had their seatbelt buckled.

“Don’t want you to go anywhere now do we,” Bianca said in what sounded like a slightly seductive voice. Anna wanted to reach back and whack her in the head, but decided that she’d better not start a fight with one of her dad’s playmates. Oh God, please let this be a very, VERY, short ride. After driving through what seemed like all of Gotham, they finally arrived at the restaurant. Anna jumped out of the car before it could even come to a stop.

“Wow, nice car,” a worker at the restaurant/ hotel said taking the keys from Bruce.

“You should see my other one,” Bruce said under his breath, which Anna happened to catch. Anna didn’t think anything of it, because there were so many other cars in the garage that she was sure there must be an even more expensive car hidden somewhere.

Anna was grateful when Bianca walked up to Bruce and grabbed his arm, leaving her to walk in by herself. The grandeur of the restaurant would have taken her breath away if she hadn’t just been sitting on the lap of Bianca. A chill went down her spin just thinking about it. Not doing that again, I think I’ll just call Alfred when I'm ready to go.

Anna ignored most of the conversations, unless someone asked for her input, but she wasn’t much into politics. She was thinking about leaving when she heard the mention of Batman.

“I think he’s a nut,” a man to her right said, “Bruce help me here.”

“Well, when you dress up like a bat, I mean he’s got some mental issues,” he laughed, Anna glared at him. How could he talk about Batman like that, after all he’d done in the past, bringing Falcony to justice.

“How could you say something like that,” Anna protested, “he put Falcony behind bars. He’s done a lot for this city just in doing that. He even saved me from a group of rapists. I don’t see any of you out there trying to do anything to help this city. All any of you care about is being rich and getting whatever you want.” After this outburst the table went quiet. Bruce looked at her slightly hurt, but there was something else in his face that she couldn’t make out, it looked something like pride, but that couldn’t be it. It took her a couple seconds to realize what all she had just said, she hadn’t ever told Bruce about the alley incident.

“When did that happen?” a lady said in horror a couple seats down from her. Instead of answering Anna got out of her chair.

“I'm going home, I’ll get a ride from Alfred,” and she left everyone sitting there in silence. A tear of anger escaped one of her eyes as Alfred pulled up.

“Are you alright mistress?” he said holding the door open for her to get in.

“I just want to go home,” she said as calmly as she could, still enraged from what all those hypocrites had been saying about her hero. Alfred got into the driver seat and pulled out of the hotel entrance. Just after they got out of the city Anna was finally calmed down. “Alfred, what do you think about this Batman character?”

“Well miss, I think he might be just what Gotham needs, why do you ask,” he answered her.

“Back at the restaurant, the subject was brought up. Bruce thinks he’s a mental case,” she said bitterly.

“What do you think?” he said.

“I think he’s a hero that should be respected. I never told you or Bruce, but that night I ran off from the café, a group of men tried to rap me, and Batman saved me,” she confessed to Alfred.

Alfred didn’t say anything after this, and let her get out of the car at the entrance to the manor, then took the car around to the garage. Anna just went up to her room.

An hour later Bruce came into her room, he looked as if he’d gotten in a fight with a sprinkler and lost.

“Anna, I just wanted to say I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings early, if I’d known about what had happened to you, I never would have said those things,” he started.

“You mean you never would have said those things in front of me,” she said glaring at him. Bruce just stood there, his hair dripping wet.

“Well, I saw Rachel when I left, she told me to say hi to you,” he said leaving her room. Anna just lay on her bed staring up at the ceiling.