Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the Batman universe.

They are going to assign me to someone new. I run my free hand through my short, dirty blonde hair as I take one more look at the crumpled paper in my other hand, reading the name, which followed mine, of their new torture toy and a number, most likely a time.

Bree - Wayne

19:00

I thought my brief stint as nursemaid to the lost souls that wander through this place had ended a few months ago, when my last subject died. Apparently, Ducard has different plans.

It is almost time to meet this Wayne. Already, my previous feelings of hate for this duty that I thought I had escaped some months ago bubble up in me. This is worse than anything that I have suffered through here. It is excruciatingly painful for me. I have seen so many men die here, throwing their lives away for reasons I cannot see that a little part of me dies inside every time.

I consider wearing my jacket, but he's going to find out what I am sooner or later, so I leave it and leave my room, starting toward the front room, paper clutched in my hand. Thoughts bombard my mind once again.

How I wish I could leave this mountain. Feel the wind styling my hair again, feel the rush of freedom. But the tattoo in between my shoulder blades weighs me down, now more than ever because I'm thinking about it, and I know that I can't leave. They have people in every corner of the world, and they would dispatch me if I ran.

This whole nurse business is ridiculous too. None of them trust me enough to let me fix them up. They're scared of me. A room full of hostile ninjas? No problem. But one little genetic mutant and they run like pansies. It's not my fault that I was born a freak. I probably could have been a nice person, with a nice family and a nice husband in a nice neighborhood.

I arrive in Ra's al Ghul's presence with my hands unconsciously clenched at my sides. I bow to avoid looking him in the eye, as is custom, but like always, it rips me to my core.

"Ah, Bree," Ducard says warmly, almost fatherly, as he steps from the shadows, "We have a proposition for you." I eye him warily when he says this, wondering what in the world they want to do to me now.

Ducard pauses for a moment, so the Ra's man himself says, "You are no longer worthy to us. Your usefulness has expired."

"I've heard this speech before," I say after a second's silence, growling to hide my fear. My eyes are already running to the escape routes, looking to see how many people guard each.

"We would as soon destroy a Monet painting as a masterpiece like yourself," Ducard says gently, trying to sooth me. It seems as if they've saved me again, like always.

"Ra's al Ghul has been gracious enough to agree to let you go free on one condition," Ducard continues smoothly, "We have a new recruit on his way. If he succeeds in the League of Shadows, with you as his guardian, then you will be released."

Why have they thrown me this bone of hope? There has to be some strings attached.

"What's the cache?" I ask carelessly, knowing that I will never flee this place except for maybe in death, but I don't want it to come to that.

"The only cache is that Mr. Wayne doesn't die," Ducard says. He seems sincere enough, so I foolishly grab the bone and run wild with it.

"Okay," I nod, unsure of my own actions. Is getting out of here more important than living? Maybe. "And if he … I" I correct myself when Ducard stops me with his stare, "If I fail?"

"Then we will have to take the necessary measures." They'll kill me. Or try to.

I agree silently by fading to Ducard's side. My new subject will be arriving soon, Ducard tells Ra's. We will wait. After about ten minutes of absolute stillness, the doors are thrown open, the wind howling through the room in an instant, and an entirely clothed figure falls inside. Ducard moves to greet him and the man holds out a tiny blue flower, the kind that Ducard likes for some reason unknown to me.

The man, it must be Wayne, looks around the room but fails to notice me in the shadows of Ra's al Ghul's chair. Oh boy, my work is cut out for me.

I analyze him silently from my position. He is tall and handsome, quite the looker in fact. He carries himself well, shoulders straight and chin high. He would look more suited to a business room, standing in front of executives of things I can't spell, than this dingy, dark room full of perils and death, if not for the pain slashed through his dark brown eyes that hardened them from coffee to stone.

Ducard smiles and puts a genial hand on the man's shoulder, before punching him in the gut. Wayne looks at Ducard in disbelief and betrayal as Ducard yells at him before counter-attacking. He is tired from his hike, and easily beaten.

Ducard waves me over with his hand. I come, like a pathetic dog.

"This is Bruce Wayne. You will watch over him," Ducard tells me.

I lean over Wayne and look into his fading brown eyes. There is still some life in there, for he reaches up and touches my face, confused by the presence of a woman, before moving his hand to stroke the feather-covered structures sprouting from my back.

"What is an angel doing among the shadows?" he whispers cryptically, and I am almost certain he is unaware that he just said that out loud, and then he slips under the warm blankets of unconsciousness.

I sigh once more, this hell will break me before too long, before picking up his prone body and struggling all the way back to my room, almost dropping him many times, but finally laying him on my mattress and sitting back, waiting for him to wake.