There was the warm quiet and gentleness of someone caressing her face. Her eyes were heavy and something was stuck down her throat forcing air into her lungs. Mar'i for a moment forgot what happened; she heard the heart monitor spike. The warm hand caressing her face pulled away and instead moved to her forearm smoothly running up and down her skin. Leo was here, he had to be. She wanted to see him.

     It took quite a lot of effort but finally, she was able to open her eyes. Everything was blurry and bright but she could see someone was on her right side. They hadn't noticed her awake and breathing on her own yet. When her sight finally focused she noticed that it was Damian at her side. Out in the hallway, she saw Leonardo pacing back and forth on the phone, he looked angry. Damian had his head down, most of his face concealed by the shadows of the lightly dim room.

     The tube down her throat was irritating and she no longer needed it. The young man next to her was alarmed when she began ripping the medical equipment off and out of her. She was restless and needed to move. Her eyes flickered down to the IV in her arm which she ripped out and threw to the side. The monitor went static, a straight line moving across the screen. Leonardo raced into the room without a beat to miss and was gripping the foot of the bed staring at her.

     Mar'i was miserable and erratic she had no idea what was going on. She wasn't in her right mind, everything was all jumbled in her brain and it hurt. "Where am I?" she asked while pulling at her long knotted hair.

"You're in Gotham City General Hospital." Damian answered, his head still down.

"Why – why are you here?" she asked.

     Her head was pounding, she felt as if she had been hit over the head with a large pipe repeatedly. A lot of last night was a blur if that even was last night. She could've been in here for hours or even days for all she knew. "You were ill at the Gala, I went to get you some water and when I came back you were unconscious."

"I'm fine now, I just have a bloody awful headache." She muttered.

"You stopped breathing Mar'i." he hissed.

     Damian whipped his head to the side and glared at her. With the dim glow of the lamp in the corner of the room now lighting up his face she could see the dark bruise surrounding his right eye. She sat up and reached out, her fingers barely grazing his skin when he flinched and turned away from her. "It's going to take a little more than that to kill me. Now, what happened to your face?" she asked softly.

     Just then someone cleared their throat; she looked up to see Leonardo standing at the foot of his bed. He slipped his phone into his back pocket and glanced towards Damian. "I see that you're well now. It's late and I have work in the morning, I'm glad you're alright." Damian said rather quickly and without sparing another glance at her he stood up and left. Mar'i was baffled seeing him get up and leave so quickly. Leonardo swept over to her and sat down on the edge of her bed. "You gave us quite the scare love. I'm grateful that you're somewhat healthy again." He smiled and gently grabbed her hand, pressing his lips to the soft skin.

     The young woman blushed and looked down at her lap. The machines were still blaring, flat-lining. A doctor and a few nurses waltzed inside and jumped seeing the young woman awake and speaking. "Ms. Grayson you're awake." The doctor approached her cautiously and placed the clipboard down to the side. Leonardo moved out of the way and stood to the side as the nurses swarmed his fiancée and reattached all of the machines to her. "For a while it was grim. There were signs that your system was shutting down." The doctor said, flashing a small light into her patient's peculiar eyes.

     That seemed to make her headache even worse. The pain was awful and her heart was pounding in her ears. A nurse stuck the IV back into her arm while the other began to put the equipment away that helped her breathe. "I feel fine now. There's just this massive headache I have right now," she hissed feeling the nurse jostle her arm, "- feels like my brain is being used as a ball for footie." She continued.

     The doctor did a few more things as a routine checkup. "We're going to keep you here for a few days to monitor your vitals." The doctor said while picking up her clipboard she had placed down to the side earlier. Mar'i frowned and nodded, head hanging down towards her lap. Hospitals were never the place you wanted to be in, ever. The doctor gave the dark-haired woman a hopeful smile before turning and exiting the room.

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     A few days later she was taking a walk around the block with her boyfriend. Whatever happened to her made her weak; everything from that night was still a tad foggy in her mind as well. Whenever she tried to think back to that night, the Gala, there would be a low throbbing pain in the back of her mind. In her dreams, she would have small glimpses as to what happened there however it was blurry and peoples voices were muffled and echoing around the walls of her skull.

     She was holding onto Leonardo's left arm, leaning half of her weight on him to help her walk. The doctor suggested walks around the block to help her regain her strength. Mar'i didn't understand at first how hitting her head would result in weakness but Leo began saying that she took a pretty hard fall and the next thing she knew he was speaking all technical with her. The air was chilly, like walking through a refrigerator.

     They walked slowly, Leo chatting away about the business he was very soon inheriting. "...father and I will be meeting at the end of the month where he'll be signing over the company to me. After that, I say we go to a luxurious restaurant, my treat." He smiled, flashing his pearly white teeth at her. The young woman gave him a small smile. At the moment she was more focused on walking and getting healthy again than going to restaurants.

     The two of them rounded the corner; in the distance, she could see their building. All she wished to do at the moment was to lie down and take a long nap. He kept on talking after that, she ignored his words and simply nodded and hummed when she needed to. They approached the steps to get into the building when someone called her name. She looked up to see her father racing down the sidewalk towards the two of them.

     Leonardo was pushed out of the way by the sheer force of the worried father jumping at his daughter. The model stumbled slightly, grabbing onto her father's dark jacket to steady herself. He kissed the top of her head a dozen times and squeezed her body into a bone-crushing embrace. Dick was still angry with her decision choosing her boyfriend, well fiancé, over her family but now that wasn't important. "Your mother told me what happened, are you okay?" he asked looking her up and down.

     He was treating her as if she was a child. So what, she took a fall and hit her head. Asking if she was okay wasn't going to turn back time and prevent the injury from happening. "Dad I'm fine, I just hit my head." She explained while trying to wriggle from his serpent-like hug. Finally, he let her go and turned to her boyfriend. The man's gaze hardened when he faced Leonardo. Dick held out his hand to the young man and gave him a curt nod. "I heard that you found her and took her to the hospital, thank you."

     The brunet reached out and took a hold of his soon-to-be father-in-law's hand giving it a firm shake. Leo looked over at the fatigued woman and gave her a warm smile. "Why wouldn't I help her? After all, she's the love of my life and I wish no harm upon that pretty face of hers." Leonardo retracted his hand and stepped over to Mar'i, putting his arm around her shoulders loosely. "Why are you here Dad?" she asked while situating herself to lean more against Leo.

"Mar'i you were sick, I came as soon as I could." He explained.

She shook her head. "Dad just head home. You said it yourself before - you told me that if I walked out that door I am to never come back and I didn't." the words seemed to roll off her tongue with ease.

"Sunshine you know –"

"- no I don't know, just leave okay? I don't want you here!" she yelled.

     A few people passing by them on the sidewalk jumped and looked over at the explosive anger coming from the woman. It hurt when her father told her to never come back – it hurt so badly. Mar'i was calm, hurt but calm after her father told her that. Now having him standing here worrying over her when he basically threw her out of the family because of a decision she made had her furious. It felt like a fire had lit inside of her. "Mar'i I-" her father reached out towards her, she slapped his hand away.

"GO!" she screamed.

     By this point, her eyes had hardened and her voice felt as if it were dripping venom. Her father's face was screwed tightly, nose wrinkled, and stance rigid. Mar'i was never an angry person; she disagreed with using her rage and anger against other people. Maybe Leonardo Huxley did rub off on her after all. Her father opened his mouth to say something but within a split second, he changed his mind, instead pursing his lips. Leonardo was rubbing her back with his hand in smooth circles as a way of comfort.

     The conversation was left opened, unfinished. Mar'i left her father standing outside on the sidewalk alone and speechless. Her fiancé followed close behind and the two took the elevator to their floor. She was still far too weak to be able to walk up all of those stairs. The door creaked as she pushed it open and slowly stepped into the apartment. It was still so plain and lifeless. There was no colour to the walls, not many decorations, and the furniture was comfy yet basic.

     Mar'i always loved colours and texture – she was a design freak. This place seemed cold and stiff. Mar'i figured that they weren't going to be in Gotham for much longer so there was no point in planning out a design layout for every room. Her body fell effortlessly onto the couch sinking into the soft throw blanket and pillows. She yawned and stretched her arms out before turning onto her right side.

     The sky was blue, clouds white and fluffy, and the city was busy as ever. From the window behind the television, she could see the buildings and the sky. It was so blue, reminded her of the ocean actually. A sigh escaped her lips as she fluffed her pillow and stared straight ahead out the window. Leonardo was walking around behind the couch she was currently stretched out on, doing what, she didn't know.

     Dark shadows began to eat away at the corners of her vision as her eyes drooped. All of that walking seemed to suck the life out of her. Mar'i was a fit young woman, feeling this fatigued was awful. In a few moments, her eyes stayed closed and her body relaxed as she fell into a comfortable slumber. Leonardo peeked over the couch and stared down at her, checking to see if she was truly asleep.

     After a few seconds of her lying still, breaths slow and even, he stepped back. The brunet made his way over to his laptop sitting on the kitchen table in a few long strides. He slipped his hand into the front right pocket of his navy dress coat and pulled out a flash drive. His fiancée would likely be asleep for a few hours, he had time. Leonardo held it in front of his face examining it before the corner of his mouth turned up into a sly smirk.

     He was a curious individual, a gene passed down from his mother. They always said curiosity killed the cat – well, he was a lion. The flash drive wasn't so hard to find, he felt it when he first picked her up and took her to bed. Mar'i was asleep and he had work to attend to, stumbling upon it was by mere coincidence. The information on this flash drive was plentiful. Leonardo had no idea how she managed to get her hands on a gold mine like this.

     There was banking information, secret project files, government files, but the best part had to be the individual files on the Wayne's and related family. He looked back at Mar'i; her soft snores could be heard from the couch she slept on. The young man turned back to his computer and inserted the flash drive into one of the ports on the side. The Huxley's were a brilliant and cunning family. Usually, they were the ones to have all the blackmail at their fingertips.

     Now this, Mar'i practically hand-delivered the holy grail of blackmail. Not only was there information on his family's business but mostly everything was top secret and files from Wayne Enterprises. When he first found it the man only took a few hours to crack the encrypted code which prevented him from accessing most of the information on it. It also did not take him long to figure out who's flash drive it was.

     A no-brainer really, only Damian Wayne could have such information kept in one place. Leonardo was impressed, for once, upon first seeing all of the data the youngest Wayne had managed to compile. Now, as he sat there tapping away at his keyboard Leonardo couldn't help but grin. He hated that Wayne; he was a troublemaker and didn't know his place. Everyone had a place and everyone had rules to play by. Damian did no abide by any of those rules.

     Leonardo spent the next few hours copying most important information of shipping sites, business partners, bank info, etcetera, from the Wayne Enterprises files. They were competition after all and what fun he was going to have another one of his talks with the CEO. Not Timothy Drake-Wayne. Naturally, he would speak to the one who was most like him.

Damian Wayne. 

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A/N: Things are just about starting to heat up aren't they? From now until the next few chapters it's going to be nothing but craziness and surprises. 

Skycrystal23 ;)