Written for: litra in Yuletide 2018

Betaed by: karanguni

Here's the thing: this whole PA gig is just what they tell people as an excuse for Terry to hang around Bruce. He doesn't actually act as a personal assistant. Hell, he's not even quite sure what all a PA does. Terry's job is to show up in the evening, get a few lessons on things like how to collect evidence or preserve a crime scene, do a physical training session of some sort (acrobatics, hand-to-hand combat, or just ordinary physical conditioning), and then go out and patrol. He learns all the skills necessary for the modern superhero, and he gets paid a small stipend for it as part of the PA cover.

And usually, it's fine. His friends either know it's a cover for being Batman or don't care about his boring cover job, and his Mom is used to him not really talking about what he's up to. Anybody else he gets introduced to as "Mr. Wayne's PA" only sees him briefly trailing along in Bruce's wake. He's been to the occasional party or board meeting or function that way, and it's always been fine.

This is not the occasional party or board meeting or function.

This is a full week-long management retreat, at which a number of executives from a variety of corporations will be staying at the most exclusive resort in the Bahamas while attending workshops on the most up-to-date modern management techniques and market forecasts, networking, and (mostly) relaxing on the beach and partying on the company dime.

"Nice work if you can get it," Terry had said with a whistle when Bruce showed him the information.

"We're going," Bruce had said. "Someone—or several someones—at that conference is funneling a ton of off-the-books money to illegal medical research, and then selling a sanitized version of the results to a number of corporations that get plausible deniability as to the source of it."

"This has been going on for a while," Terry had said, skimming over the files. "And most of it looks to be either white collar stuff or taking place outside Gotham—outside America, even. Not really our turf."

"Local law enforcement is either out of its depth or corrupt," Bruce had said. "As for other superheroes, we're the only ones who can get in to the retreat with no questions asked. Max can serve as tech support and try to follow the money trail."

Terry had laughed. "Oh, Max will love getting left behind here while we go off to the Bahamas."

"Actually, I thought I'd rent a nearby beach house for her, so she would be available if we need backup." Bruce had said. "Or if Terry and 'Batman' needed to be in two places at once."

"So she can sit on the beach with a computer while we're stuck in boring meetings?" Terry had said. "Come on, Bruce!"

Bruce had smiled his grim little smile. "Oh, you won't be stuck in meetings all day."

And he wasn't. Neither was Bruce, actually; Bruce spent most of his time in the spa, or golfing, or lounging around while Terry fetched him drinks and snacks. Bruce, who didn't enjoy relaxing, had to do nothing but; Terry, who would have loved some beach time, only got snatches of free time here and there. The seminars were short, and informal, and barely more than a fig leaf to cover the rich people vacationing on the company dime.

"I didn't manage to get you booked on the fishing yacht tomorrow, Boss," Terry said quietly as he handed Bruce his sunscreen. Some of the prime suspects were going fishing tomorrow, which Terry had learned from things mentioned by the other PAs. "But I did manage to slip aboard and get the place bugged. And I got remote access dongles attached to the non-networked computers, so Max should be able to hack in."

"Good work, Terry," Bruce said, flipping open the cap and squirting some on his hands, which he began applying to the exposed skin on his arms. "And don't forget the party tonight."

"Don't worry, I've got everything under control," Terry said, taking back the bottle.

It was a party. Bruce was not hosting it. All Bruce had to do (in his civilian persona) was show up in a tux and schmooze … which meant that all Terry had to do as his PA was make sure the tux was ready. And, while Terry didn't know much about tuxes, Bruce was the one who had packed it. All Terry had to do was lay it out for him. How hard could it be?

The first issue was that as Terry took it out of the garment bag and hung up the hanger he realized that maybe he should have done that earlier. It didn't look right? The shirt especially was a little bit … crinklier than it should have been.

After figuring out what search terms he should even use (the magic word was "wrinkled"), the net told him what the problem was. Apparently rich-people clothes were sometimes made of all-natural fibers, which needed special treatment to lie flat without creasing. (And it used to be that all clothing was that way, weird.) And, also, high-end hotels and resorts like this one should have the equipment needed to fix it in the suite somewhere.

Sure enough, at the back of a closet was a steamer and an iron and an ironing board. The iron, according to the how-to article, could scorch or burn the fabric if it was too hot, so Terry figured the steamer must be the safer option. He filled it with water, turned it on, and aimed it at the shirt.

Nothing happened. It clicked a little bit, though, so Terry pressed the button. Still nothing happened.

He shook it and jammed down the button repeatedly.

And then a cloud of water droplets sprayed from the thing, soaking the shirt.

Terry swore up a storm. Now what?

Fortunately, being a high-end resort, the place had laundry facilities where the employees handled things, and not the guests.

Unfortunately, they didn't want to take responsibility for a rush job on a tux shirt an hour before its owner expected to be wearing it.

"Look, just stick it in the dryer for fifteen minutes, it'll be fine," Terry said, hoping they'd do it, because his second option was standing over it with a hairdryer.

"We're busy with things that people have scheduled ahead of time," the laundry attendant said. "It's not like the party is a surprise, if you'd showed up this morning, we'd have had time to work you in."

"Yeah, but I didn't know this morning that the shirt was wrinkled!" Terry said, noting one of the other PAs (Jordan Wirkkala, mid-30s, worked for the CEO of one of the tech companies that probably wasn't part of the scheme they were investigating) coming up behind him.

"Then you should have checked. Poor planning on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on mine," the attendant said. He turned to Jordan. "Ah! Mx. Wirkkala, how nice to see you again. I'll just get your employer's things." He ducked into the back room.

"Terry, right?" Jordan said, looking him up and down. They'd met in passing at a number of get-togethers over the three years Terry had been Batman (and using "Mr. Wayne's PA" as a cover). "Last-minute emergency?"

"Yeah," Terry said, showing him the shirt.

"Oof," Jordan said, wincing. They watched water drip slowly from the bottom hem. "Did you drop it in the sink or something?"

"Steamer malfunction," Terry said.

"I didn't know they could do that," Jordan said.

"Neither did I," Terry said. "And I'm really hoping they can dry and press it for me, because I've gotta get his cufflinks out of the hotel safe, and if I have to stand over this with a hairdryer …"

"Don't you have a spare shirt?" Jordan asked.

"No," Terry said.

"But what if he spilled something on himself? What if some luggage got lost? You've been his PA long enough you should know to plan for emergencies," Jordan said, shaking his head.

"Yeah, well, Bruce doesn't travel often," Terry said. "I don't take care of his clothes normally, he's got a service for that."

"Right," Jordan said. "Mostly a driver-and-errands type, then?"

"Huh?" Terry said. "Oh. Yeah. That's mostly what I do for Mr. Wayne."

"And here it is!" the attendant said cheerily, emerging from the back with a clear plastic bag containing a green dress.

"Thank you!" Jordan said, slipping him a tip. "And I'm sure it can't take that long to dry Mr. Wayne's shirt, can it?"

"Policies exist for a reason," the attendant said stiffly.

"Yeah, but all it needs is a few minutes in the dryer," Jordan said. "And you know that PAs are the ones who do the booking. Do you think Terry will ever book Mr. Wayne here again if you aren't helpful?"

Terry looked at the attendant. The attendant looked at Terry. "Fine," he said, "but you better tip well."

"Thank you," Terry said fervently. "And you bet I will." He handed over the shirt and turned to Jordan. "And thank you," he said.

"Not a problem," Jordan said, turning to leave. "Although, you're lucky Mr. Wayne likes you, if you have problems like this often."

While Bruce was at the party schmoozing, Terry got to suit up and get to his real job. Well, the suiting up was metaphorical this time; they didn't want to risk Batman being seen so far away from Gotham at the same time Terry was. (Bruce had even gone so far as to get someone to fake up a 'Batman' appearance in Gotham while they were gone.)

But even if he didn't get to wear his own suit, he did get to try out a moderately-schway scaled down alternative, as he prowled through the resort poking into places that Terry McGinnis definitely did not have access to.

"I dunno, Max, I'm not finding much," Terry said over his coms.

"I am," Max said. "These guys are pretty good at their computer security, but I'm better. Especially with the remote-access dongles you placed to get me into the isolated computers. Bruce's tip-off was right, there's definitely some shady stuff going on, but I don't think this is the place they get their hands dirty. So there's nobody here for you to rescue or beat up."

"Great," Terry said glumly as he planted a tracker in the suitcase of one of their suspects. "I'm in the Bahamas, but I don't get to relax, I don't get to play on the beach or lounge around the pool, and I don't even get any action out of it."

"You've really been missing out, it is just gorgeous here," Max said, and he could hear the laugh in her voice.

"Yeah, yeah, rub it in," Terry grumbled.

"Seriously, though, Terry, we wrap up the information I'm getting with a nice bow and drop it off with the FBI and Interpol and some local police departments—Gotham included—and we'll blow an evil international medical racket out of the water. A lot of people will be saved. And that's why we do this gig, right? To help people? Beating up bad guys is just a fun side effect."

Terry was still frustrated the next day, as he tried to sort out Bruce's schedule to get him the maximum time in the vicinity of their targets. Not that they thought any of these people were stupid enough to let anything important slip, but you never knew; old rich people often got careless because they'd spent all their lives buying themselves out of trouble. And besides, they thought Bruce was one of them.

"You look intent," came a voice from above him.

Terry glanced up, squinting into the sun. It was Jordan. "Mr. Wayne decided on some last minute changes for the day's schedule. Though it is kinda stupid that he needs a formal schedule for vacation." The sailing thing, sure; boats only had so much space, so you had to have some way to pick who got aboard. But some of these other things, he had no idea why they had participant limits.

Jordan shrugged. "Hey, at least you get to do it sitting outside on a veranda overlooking the ocean, instead of gloomy old Gotham."

"Yeah, yeah," Terry sighed, looking down at his computer. Unfortunately, the guy Bruce was most interested in after last night was only scheduled for things that were already full. And if there was a way to get Bruce in to any of them, Terry couldn't find it.

"I just hope you're better at scheduling than you are at dealing with clothing issues," Jordan said with a little bit of humor.

"I do okay," Terry said evenly, instead of getting defensive like he wanted to.

"You know, a lot of a PA's job is smoothing things over and figuring out where the cracks in the system are so you can use them to your employer's benefit," Jordan said. "Handling people, you know? Like that laundry attendant last night. You might try being more … personable. Making friends with everyone you might need before you need them. That sort of thing."

"Yeah, I know," Terry said. For the first time, he wondered if he should have been infiltrating the other PAs the way Bruce was infiltrating the rich guys. But then again, Bruce actually was a rich asshole, no need to pretend anything, while Terry was no kind of PA, and that was something actual PAs might spot with closer acquaintance.

"If you need help let me know," Jordan said, before heading off across the patio.

"Thanks," Terry said. He looked back down at the screen and made a face, debating whether to call Jordan back. If there were any super-secret Personal Assistant tactics to get someone into a sold-out thing, Terry didn't have them. Or maybe he should just figure out who was running one of these sessions and slip them a bribe to let Bruce in? Terry shook his head. He wasn't much of a PA, but he was an excellent Batman, and maybe it was time to solve this problem the Batman way. He waited until Jordan was out of earshot before calling Max. "Hey, Max, think you can hack the booking system?"