APPLE

hiromi, who has brought you countless botany books - ranging from the last five years, to the most recent release. whenever you find yourself bored of them, he encourages you to cross-reference the information, out-dated theories, and then come back to him with whatever conclusions you've now wrapped yourself up in.

hiromi, who never thought to learn much about the earth and science outside of what was required up until high school. but now, he swears he could listen to you go on about every aspect of the great green earth that you adore.

hiromi, who often found himself chuckling whenever you gasped and wandered over to the simplest of wildflowers while the two of you took walks. they first started as you insisting he see the sun more; now he's reminding you to get your daily dose of the sun.

"hiromi!" you nearly lost all air in your lungs, waiting for careful bikers to cross the mountain bridge before wobbling over to the side of the trail. "isn't it pretty?" you asked, crouching as you gently ran your fingers along the petals.

he follows after you, crouching with a soft sigh. "it is."

"trivia!" you beamed, presenting the flower to him proudly. "remember what it is?"

"a... tiger lily?" he says, nearly wincing away from the answer.

you give him a look he knows all too well. "the scientific name, hiromi."

giving in, he nods to himself and thinks a little harder. you wait with the patience of a saint until he looks back up at you with an answer he hopes is correct. "lilium... lanci-folium...?" he says, knowing he definitely pronounced it wrong.

to his surprise, you nodded. kissing his forehead, you give him a bright smile. "we'll have to work on your pronunciation, but yes! you have such good memory, hiromi!"

he softens, like butter. "thank you, beloved."

hiromi, who finds your preservation of flowers beautiful. of every bouquet he's brought you, you've successfully preserved it into a book or a glass frame, placing it above the fireplace proudly alongside all the rest.

hiromi, who got used to seeing greenery and bright sunlight around the shared apartment. who eventually learned all of your watering schedules for each of your plants, allowing you to trust them to him whenever you wanted to fly out for work or earth conventions. he learned what plants' leaves needed to be wiped, which needed to be turned, which were dramatic, and often forgot the ones that could simply be ignored.

hiromi, who always found it a little funny when you begin looking through machinery he didn't even know you'd had like a mad scientist. if the scientist was a botanical cutie, and his lover.

hiromi, who would always find himself going through your little 'plant journal' that surprisingly dated all the way back to high school whenever you flew out for work. reading through every word you've etched onto the worn pages. some had little drawings and boredom sketches, others kept pressed plants preserved by the page and tape.

hiromi, who always found it cute when your handwriting would get just a little sloppier when you were clearly getting excited over the topic you were writing about.

hiromi, who made it a point to write smaller summaries of what you wrote when he could tell you got excited about a topic. he made lists, columns, half-done drawings, and tiny notes on margins of random things he remembered you telling him. he picked up on your highlighting habits, unfortunately carrying them with him to the office.

"since when did you begin using such... colorful highlighters, higuruma?" his assistant asked.

hiromi glanced at the olive-green highlighter, alongside the muted yellow and grey atop the table in front of him. in his hand sat a medium-brown he knew you loved.

something in him told him you'd throw a fit if you knew he accidentally packed it in his briefcase. he nearly winced when he remembered it's a thursday - the days you usually revise and write in your little journal.

"i... don't know." he murmured. still, he continued to review the paperwork, outlining all the information relevant to his client. he'll have to make sure he leaves at a decent time tonight, as to not take away from your reading.

whoopsies.

hiromi, who - with enough convincing - finally accompanied you to one of the conventions you adored. sticking by your side, he tried his best to keep up with the vocabulary you used. when it came down to it, he only really remembered the most about carnivorous plants.

hiromi, who made sure you got all of the plants you wanted; albeit expensive as they may be.

hiromi, who's always a little confused on how you'd just randomly wake up and decide to make rehydrating teas and medicinal oils because you decided some kind of plant he definitely forgot he brought you was getting too large.

hiromi, who was similarly confused and felt slightly betrayed when you'd told him to take one of the medicines while he was out of work with a cold literal days before you left for a convention, having felt like his nervous system was imploding. his surprise was imminent when he woke up the next morning fine, enjoying the free day off with you rather than in the bed.

star: my wifi makes me so mad, it took me so long to get this too work oh my gosh (chapter legnths will differ on my patience apparently lol)

copyright @starobsessions all my work is my own! please do NOT plagiarize, put my work through ai, or repost without

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Plip…

…plap…

plip…

The dank, sour smell of the rotting alleyway infests your focus.  The torrential downpour is courtesy of the dark cumulonimbus clouds fixed in the sky. It’s been raining all day; might as well be for the last five years. 

You’re gripping your gun so tight-fistedly that you’re losing sense in your fingers. Yes, you’re technically off-duty, but when you hear young, feminine-sounding screaming, you can’t help but intervene. The commissioner will have your head. But what else do you live for?

You almost can’t believe that buildings in Gotham were built so close together. What feels like miles of beaten concrete looms over you, breathing as you breathe, closing in on you as you press forward. The hair on the back of your neck stands up, the perennial paranoia that you’re being watched beginning to oppress you. As fast as you can while remaining on the balls of your feet, you reach the source of the commotion long-ignored by the rest of the city. 

Banging, clanging, and any other loud, abrasive noise permeates the Narrows. Maybe nobody heard this dire call of distress, but it was far too sharp, far too out of place for even a place as naturally dangerous as the Narrows. The call was far too young-sounding. 

Curtains of rain obscure your vision, but you can still faintly make out the dots of light beyond you that make up the neighborhood. It’s as if you’re looking through a foggy glass, some lights flickering, all of them distorted and spongy. 

Cloth rubs on cloth, hands smack on whatever they can reach, and labored, choppy breaths condense in the merciless Gotham winter. The immediate sound of the struggle brings you back into the alley. Orange light from the crummy streetlamp reflected off the abrasively jagged knife before it was plunged into this poor little girl’s side.

You shoot without thinking. 

Her perpetrator crumples to the ground in a heap of soaked black clothing. Her screams melt into strangled sobs. You rush to her side, making it a point to sheath your weapon in the waistband of your pants rather than the out-of-the-way holster. Yes, her screams were largely ignored by the infinite masses who could have helped her, could have saved her from this bloody fate, but from your experience, those with that barbarian urge to harm will not be so ignorant. 

You gather her up into your free arm, draping her over your lap, cradling her head with your hand. You fumble for your cell phone, fumble to dial 911. You should be better than this, hisses that voice. If she dies now, it’s on you. There is no worse evil than the one that you know, for you know all its intricacies, all its motives. Intimacy brings clarity, and who do you know more intimately than yourself?

“It’s okay, honey, I’m with the police,” you attempt to coo, instead shouting over the deranged cacophony of noise setting fire to the world around you. “You’re safe now. You’re going to be okay.”

You manage to open the emergency-calling on your phone. If only you’d had your radio. “10-72 between the 1500 and 1600 buildings on Alabaster, in the Narrows," you practically shout into your receiver. You can’t hear yourself think over the rain. Over her choked breathing. “Suspect presumed to be dead. I opened fire on scene. The bleeding isn’t so horrible, but every unit you dispatch needs to get its head out of its ass and get here quickly. You phone Carden and tell him that his Captain’s on the line and will shred his ass if he doesn’t get the quick response team moving and on-site on time.”

“Of course, Captain,” the dispatcher says noncommittally. You doubt he heard anything you said. 

“I’m being serious. Does everything have to be this fucking difficult? Aren’t you paid to give a damn about your job?” The line cuts off. The rainwater has settled into your skin, found your bone, and frozen it. You blink through fat droplets, trying to clear your vision. The downpour has intensified to the point where you can’t see a singular foot in front of you. The dark alleyway has morphed into static, all murky grays and muddy blues. “Fuck.”

This isn’t even out of the ordinary for you. You’re out prowling the streets of Gotham more than you are residing in your own home. You have no family, no real friends, and that serves you right. What you do, what you don’t do, it all adds up on your karmic scale. Growing up, you were labelled difficult. Stubborn. You found it incredibly hard to make friends, and after that keep them. Your mother always told you, when you stuck around long enough to be in earshot, that your standards were way too high. Even then, as a child, you refused to compromise on your values, your sense of justice. So what if it rendered you friendless? 

It’s what drove you today. Justice. Justice, if such a word can make any sense. You would think that with the existence of such a word, one denoting an ensured fairness, that you’d see it reflected in society. Alas. Instead, you see vulgarity, cruelty, and evil. And so you work. You know the world isn’t going to go about righting itself. You have to at least try. 

You’ve slapped more cuffs on criminals than the entirety of the Gotham police force combined. Your methods aren’t exactly conventional to the station, or the more seasoned officers, but they work for you. Though it’d embarrass you to admit it, you try and emulate the Batman. Besides, you couldn’t care less if the department approved of you. You’d been hired and you climbed the ranks because you were the only competent officer for miles. You know deep down that the higher-ups want to be rid of you. A person like you in their force of embezzlers and power greedy numpties is a recipe for disaster. Once one person starts using the budget on social welfare, all the lobster and mistress money is gone before you know it!

You don’t care what they think of you. The Commissioner is seeing another woman behind his wife’s back, and his deputy bets on the criminal state of Gotham, neither being the most heinous thing they do. Men in power resent good because it strips them of their iron fists, but more importantly, it strips them of their money. All anyone cares about is money. That’s what matters.

“Please,” she finally manages, whimpering. All of a sudden, you’re unsure what is rainwater and what are tears streaking her darling face. “I don’t want this to be how it ends…”

“Nothing is ending,” you (as soothingly as you can, in this situation) shout back to her. Her hands begin to grope at the knife embedded into her side. “Stop that! Please, no. We can’t take it out yet, that’s a job for the doctors.”

You strain to see or hear anything, anything that could indicate help is truly on the way. Nothing. Just the gray sky and the bloodthirsty fangs of the wind biting into your flesh. 

“Sugar, what’s your name?” You take a good look at her for the first time, trying to de-frazzle your admittedly very frazzled brain. If you’re going to pull off this miracle, because you know for a fact this will need a miracle on account of the sack of shit that is the Gotham City first responders system, you need clarity. Focus. Focus! 

“Jazzie,” you hear her say, her voice cracking, from the trauma or the sheer cold, you’re not sure. Both, probably. 

“It’s very nice to meet you, Jazzie. You seem like a wonderful little girl. When we’re done, you’re gonna need to teach me how to do my hair like that,” you insist, finagling a gentle stroke of her pigtailed hair. Figuring that if any idiot is out in this rain, they won’t be able to see much more than you, you tuck your gun into its actual holster. If someone pops out in front of you from the foreboding mist, they’ll have as much a shitty shot as you. Your phone finds its way back into the pocket sewn into the inside of your coat. Nobody’s calling you back. You highly doubt any unit has been dispatched. You haven’t heard any sirens, seen any flashing lights. You’re on your own. You hook one arm under her bunched-up knees, the other as gently as you can around her neck, and hoist her up. “Tell me about your favorite memory, Jazzie. We got time to kill.”

She starts, rather hesitantly, but she starts. Her trembling voice is so sweet, so soft; it renews your vigor. As she begins on the particulars of her sixth birthday party, the last time her family was all together and happy, you gamble on which direction you think you came from. You don’t understand how the weather can become so miserable so quickly. You don’t think you turned at all after finding Jazzy, so you turn on your heels and let your adrenaline part the sea in front of you.

“My favorite gift I’ve ever gotten was that day. When my mommy was still here. It’s this necklace with a flower charm that’s purple, my favorite color…” The arm that isn’t hooked around your neck reaches for her own throat. She pulls a tarnished little thing from under her shirt. Surely, the rain hasn’t been helpful in preserving it. 

“How pretty,” you murmur to her. “Hold on tight, sugar. What else happened that day?”

You break into as much of a jog as you can, given your passenger and the sodden state of everything under your feet. Your poor sweetie weighs practically nothing for her to hinder you much.

You can’t tell if you’re making progress. You have no idea which way you’re facing nor which way is the side of either building. Every nerve in your body is alive and roaring. You know nothing but adrenaline and cortisol. 

“Captain,” rasps a voice without a body. You jump out of your skin, skidding backwards, clutching Jazzie tighter to you. You urge her to hold on even tighter so you can use a hand to retrieve your gun. 

You think him to be a poltergeist. He materializes out of the deluge; if he hadn’t spoken, you would’ve never known he was there. His face is reminiscent of a tempest. Rather, what you could see of his face.

“I never thought I’d see the day I was happy to see you,” you manage, relief draining through your body as if you were a pipe, “Batman.”

He makes no physical reaction. “Go. I have got you from behind. You should run into the Batmobile.”

Who’re you to argue?

You push on, Jazzie’s brief silence whittling away at your nerves. Her eyes are shut. “Honey, you didn’t finish your story,” you remind her, giving her a brief jostle. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

Her dark lashes flutter, and you cannot relax until you see the honey of her pupils focus on you. “Did I tell you about the cake…?”

“No,” you lie. A singular slice of carrot cake. You just need her talking. 

Just as he said, you bump straight into the Batmobile. It’s so pristine, so high-tech. Very out of place in Gotham. Not waiting for him, you fling the passenger seat and unceremoniously plop yourself down with a squelch. You maneuver Jazzie in your lap, careful to keep her knife-side without pressure. You rub at her back. “Do you like Batman?” you ask quietly during a lull in her speaking. She simply shrugs. 

The air is no longer boiling with static. Instead, the rain pitter-patters off the roof of the car in an aggressive, yet still rather calming manner. The man– the bat man, you should say –slides into the driver's seat. Wordlessly, he stomps on the gas pedal. You feel yourself being held down onto the car seat by the hands of Newton’s third law. 

Any negative feelings you have towards Batman aren’t necessarily strong. Despite the Commissioner and the department’s anti-vigilante drabble, you couldn’t bring yourself to hate the guy, or go out of your way to arrest him or fine him or whatever bullshit some fellow officers daydreamed about. In a world where the police department, alongside the entirety of the government, in fact, was competent, maybe you’d find Batman’s shenanigans to be shenanigans and not something noble. But that’s not the case, is it? If anything, you’re pissed at him for doing it before you. And having the money to do it. 

Yet, he unnerves you. Instead of spending all of this money on fancy gadgets, why not funnel it into social work? Homeless shelters, food banks, a proper revamping of the police department. How the hell does he have all of this time, anyway? How did he know you were in trouble in the first place? He’s shady in the name of justice, but shady nonetheless. He has an outrageous hold on Gotham that you’re unsure what to think of. Influence spent in perhaps not a just manner. Sometimes you think he does it for the love of the game, not puritan justice. 

Every conversation you’d ever had with him was stilted. Well, they weren’t really conversations, but you talking at him. Sometimes you wondered if he was partially deaf, the way he’d sit and brood and stare in lieu of any meaningful response. You suppose you understand the professionalism, but it’s as if he doesn’t have a personality. It’s like talking to a wall, more often than not. Despite all his talk on bringing justice to Gotham, any meaningful conversation you tried to have with him to explore his ethics or his motives was impossible. In theory, you agree with Batman’s philosophy, especially as it’s nuanced to fit the beautiful shithole that is Gotham. However, in practice?

You much rather prefer working by yourself, anyway. 

You eye him from the passenger seat. As much as it pains you to agree with the press, he’s an enigma. An enigma in tights and a leotard. 

“What happened?” he asks you in that icy manner of his. It’s fitting with the weather. “Why were you in the Narrows, Captain? You went off-duty..,” he trails off, looking at the digital clock on the dashboard, “four hours ago.”

You shudder; he’s spot on. “How did you know Jazzie and I were in trouble?” you offer back. “Awful bit of coincidence there.”

Your deflection pings right off of his iron-solid body armor. “I know many things, Captain.” He returns to driving in silence. You hold Jazzie tighter to you. You didn’t think it possible, but he accelerates the vehicle once again. Even if it wasn’t raining cats and dogs, you don’t think you’d be able to discern anything from out the window. “I will not let Jazzie slip away.”

“I should-”

“You stay with her.” Precariously, he throws you a glance, his gaze catching on Jazzie’s little fist knotted up in your shirt. “I can find you later tonight.”

Why on Earth would he need to do that? Batman, skimping out on a nightful of chances to do the work GCPD refuses to? Right. 

At least he’s doing more than you. 

You give your head a violent shake. You didn’t really need to; he slams on the brakes abruptly, a rickety red glow breaking through the gray night, breaking through your window. Ignoring your savior, you hurry out of the vehicle with Jazzie and into the fluorescent hell that is the hospital.

The next hours pass in epileptic manner. It’s as if every time you blink, you’re in an entirely new situation. 

Jazzie is being pried from you. 

Blink…

You’re flashing your badge at the attending on the floor.

Blink…

You’re standing stupidly outside of the trauma room where she is practically being operated on. 

You’re useless. You’ve been useless to Jazzie in this place. If anything had happened that required your interference, you couldn’t get out of Lalaland for long enough to interfere. Fuck. Fuck. 

Only now do you notice that you’re dripping water. Perhaps waterfalling is more apt a description. You can vaguely recall someone mopping up behind you as you travelled through the ER in your stupor. The charge nurse brings you a warm blanket and a cup of coffee to your profuse thanks. Nobody tells you to move, or to leave. You suppose they know how this goes now. The thunderous commotion of the hospital jumps fades into your notice. 

You recognize about half the staff, and they you. You’ve done something like this many a time. The doctor that took charge of the last person you managed to bring in steps up beside you, peering through the clear doors. 

“She’s so young,” is all she tells you. You nod; she sighs. “All our work, so pointless sometimes.”

It’s your turn to sigh. “You’re telling me.” You cozy up further within your blanket, taking a sip of the scaldingly bad coffee in your hand. “I admire you all. You do so much good with the shit resources you have. You make a difference.” Unlike me, you add in your head. If I had been there earlier… If the police department was actually competent… If I had done something to make it competent! 

“Come on, don’t be like that. You saved a little girl’s life today.”

You roll out your neck. If that kumquat in your head spouting bullshit was corporeal, you’d taze it. “Sorry. I know. I’m grateful. All of this shit-” you gesture around you, the shoddy conditions “-takes a toll, you know? Yes, I saved her. She’s alive. But what will she have to go home to? I don’t know. It’s so grim thinking that this may not be the worst thing that happens to her in this goddamn city. And knowing that I can’t really do anything about it.”

She shakes her head. “You’re telling me.” She reaches over, giving your back a rub. “I want to get out of here so bad. I’d get paid so much better in someplace like San Francisco, anyway. But there’s this weird, mystic hold on me…”

“Like you have a moral obligation to stay in Gotham?”

“Something like that.” She pulls away. “Good luck tonight. I’ll be around if you need anything?”

“Likewise.”

She cricks her back as she goes. You think you see her eyes glassing over, but she’s too far now for you to be able to tell. 

“She’ll live.” You deflate with relief at the sudden diversion of your attention. The doctors and nurses who’ve been working tirelessly have filtered out to you. “She’s lucky you were there when you were. Any longer, any more damage…”

They let you inside to sit with her. She seems so peaceful in her unconsciousness. You hope she feels so. One of the nurses very kindly comes back to offer you some paper hospital scrubs. “They aren’t the best quality,” she murmurs, “but you’re kind of a hazard like this.”

You laugh the hardest you have in a while, right alongside her stifled giggles. “Thank you, really.”

After you’ve changed, you think that you’re finally ready to just sit down and relax, but you’re interrupted.

“Captain,” the nurse from before presses lightly, any traces of mirth in her delicately pretty face long gone. “Um, some of your coworkers are here. They don’t seem too happy.”

‿̩͙⊱༒︎༻✦༺༒︎⊰‿̩͙

You’ll be damned if the commissioner considers you a coworker. Your nurse friend nailed one thing, however: he’s fuming. You step out of Jazzie’s room for her own sake. Commissioner John Dane, flanked by some menial, mediocre yes-men considered ‘officers’ of the police department.

“Commissioner Dane,” you mutter bitterly. “I don’t imagine you’re here to help me out?” His entire decrepit face is pinched with rage. You often wonder why he even has the job, on account of the fact he’s so ancient and utterly incompetent, but you always quickly remember that his pockets run deeper than the Marianna Trench. 

“I cannot believe your conduct tonight, Officer,” he splutters, spittle already gathering at the corners of his wrinkled, salmon-colored lips. Captain, you correct silently, you dick. “Officer Carden phoned me, reporting your presence in the Narrows, firing your weapon no less! Disgraceful; you refused to treat the man you shot and murdered with decorum! Left in this weather!”

Your nose crinkles and your mouth curls into a snarl. “Well, Commissioner, I had much larger priorities,” you spit. “I was on site for nearly half-an-hour after I dialled 911. Nobody came. If I hadn’t shot, that little girl in there would have actually been murdered alongside who knows what else! I can’t believe that this is even a conversation!”

“We have to do things in the proper manner, through the proper channels, Officer. We have a system, and when you are inept, you throw it into chaos.”

You roll your eyes. “What’s the real reason you’re upset, Commissioner? Surely you’re pulling my leg. This is absurd.”

Amidst your almost-shouting match, you’d fail to notice the hush that had spread through the ER. It’s eerie, this earsplitting place being reduced to a deafening silence. Very faintly, what you would hazard a guess to be boots click on the linoleum flooring, announcing someone’s approach. You’re rather sure you know who it is. Context clues, ey?

Commissioner Dane puffs his chest and tries to make himself look taller. “You very well know why. You’re colluding with a known enemy of the department,” he says loudly to whoever is behind you. 

“I arrived before anyone from the department did,” the Batman points out coyly. “I am the one who transported the Captain and the dying girl to the hospital. Seems I have a better system.”

He towers over the group clustered in the middle of the ER. His cape falls impossibly straight around him, pooling neatly at his feet. His presence next to you almost makes you feel invincible. For once in your life, you feel like there is somebody by you that truly has your back.

“Officer, expect you’ll be out on your ass by tomorrow,” cries Dane, steam practically pouring from his ears. 

“For what?” 

“Corruption!”

You guffaw. “That’s rich, coming from you! You can’t fire me; the station would collapse. I’m the only officer worth a rat’s ass and you know it. You’re just looking for a reason to fire me, you old bat.” You toss a glance at Batman. No offense. You’re fine.

“You will not fire her,” the Batman repeats after you, seemingly ignorant to your throwaway insult. “You forget where the majority of your funding comes from. I wonder how this incident will make you look to the masses.”

You blink. Bruce Wayne, as in Wayne Enterprises, funds the PD? The news lingers uncomfortably in the periphery of your working memory. You’re sure to tuck it away in a folder somewhere in your mind for later. 

“We don’t need his damn money,” says the Commissioner. “In fact, I never want to see you step foot into the station again. Your badge, officer,” he demands. 

You feel heat rushing straight to your face. Shame, humiliation, guilt; they’re all that is pumping through your arteries, all your cells all over your body are receiving. You feel tears pricking at your eyes. You’re sure you’ll cry. You’re going to argue, scream at him, even, but he snatches it from your belt, turns on his heels, and is out the door. His ducklings follow, murmurs of both astonishment and assent beginning to pachinko among them. 

Batman doesn’t follow them. For the first time, you think you can discern some sort of emotion on his covered face. His teeth are gritted, a muscle in his jaw flexed so tersely it’s feathering. It’s almost like he’s forgotten you’re there entirely. A shudder so imperceptible runs through him. You wouldn’t have seen it if you weren’t staring. 

Nonplussed, he turns to face you. “I am sorry,” he deadpans. “You are the only good one.” The tears finally come. You’re crying in front of the city’s most respected, perhaps feared, anti-hero, who’s abs are carved into his suit and seems to be wearing his underwear on the outside.

They run hot and fat down your cheeks. What now? The little purpose that you had in your life had just been snatched away. And for what? Being upstanding? Being the very thing you swore to be so that you didn’t contribute to the abysmally corrupt system that is the GCPD? When joining the forces originally, you thought you had the power, had the will, to change it from within. You saw no point in complaining without doing anything about it for yourself. 

He watches you, falling into one of his moody silences. “He was looking for a reason to get rid of me, anyway,” you find yourself saying. “Oh, goodness. What am I going to do?”

You devolve deeper into sobs. The doctor who spoke to you outside Jazzie’s room earlier comes running– Cassie, you remember her name to be now. Her arms come around you, her presence inherently soothing. “You should go home,” she murmurs. “It’s late, and Jazzie won’t be up ’till morning. You’ll be better for it, okay?”

But, really, what will you do? As shoddy of a job as you did, it was your entire life. You put all of your waking hours into your work, if not on the field, in the office. Countless hours of research at your desk, countless hours doing poor work of civilian outreach, all down the drain. At least you were trying, then. Now what? Now what can you throw yourself into to forget?

You sniff. “That’s not what I meant…”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“Oh, I don’t even have my car! It’s still somewhere on the Narrows. It won’t survive the night!”

Cassie makes a sour face. “Um… you, mister. I feel like you could help with that..?” She directs her focus to Batman. He nods once. “Okay. See? It’ll be okay. Let me go grab you some sandwiches from the cafeteria before you go.”

She disappears, leaving you once again with him. Neither of you feel inclined to talk. You turn back to look at Jazzie through the doors to her room. Like Cassie said, she’s out cold. You don’t know if you can bear to leave her by herself here…

“I will get her security,” he asserts before lapsing into silence again. “Go home.”

He drifts away from you, what he’s doing or thinking beyond your comprehension; not that you can comprehend much right now. Despite the tears coming now, all you know is that more, heavier crying is to come tomorrow when you realize what’s really happened.  

On Cassie’s return, she puts you into a reputable cab, tucks a plastic bag filled with foodstuffs into your hands, and sends you home. 

‿̩͙⊱༒︎༻✦ ༺༒︎⊰‿̩͙

You wake up swaddled in your blankets and sheets. You nuzzle your cheek into your pillow, hoping for a few more hours of sleep. For the first time in a very long time, you didn’t wake up to an alarm; your head feels clear, you are entirely rested. You smile to yourself, trying to burrow deeper into the crater that you’ve made for yourself. Then you remember what happened last night, and the reason why you didn’t wake up to an alarm. 

You need to haul ass to the hospital. You haphazardly make your bed and lay out something comfortable to wear. If there’s any silver lining in any of this, it’s that you don’t need to be in that stuffy uniform. You root around in your fridge for something you can throw together to make yourself feel better. A thoughtful meal does wonders for the spirit. 

Slicing a stray avocado you found in half, you turn over the previous night in your head. The Batman, ever the mystery to you before, is even more so now. What the hell does he see in you to threaten the Commissioner on your behalf? Probably nothing, you muse. He just wants to get on the PD’s ass. You scrape out the light green avocado guts with a spoon, settling them onto a toasted slice of sourdough. You do your best to smush them into the bread. You almost miss the firm knock on your front door on account of your focus on the avocado bits slipping away from the curve of your spoon. 

You live in the Upper Westside, so you’re not so on edge at home. It’s not Tribeca or Lincoln Park, but it’s also not the slums. You’re content. It’s nice enough for you, and you’re grateful. 

You peek through your peephole, and lo and behold, it’s your new shadow. You open the door, leaving the chain in. “Fancy seeing you here,” you tell Batman, albeit quite awkwardly. 

He doesn’t move, emote, anything. “Your car was destroyed.”

You feel your chest squeeze, and you think from now you have a headache coming. “What? How do you know for sure?”

“Did you leave anything valuable in it?” he asks, ignoring you. You briefly chew on the inside of your cheek before going to respond.

“Um, I don’t think so. I think all I had was a change of clothes and my registration and things…”

“What were you doing in the Narrows?” he continues, echoing his question from last night. You huff, beginning to get frustrated with this weirdo and his proclivity of selfishness in conversation.

“What are you doing at my house? How did you know what my car was?” you shoot back. “How do you know where I live?”

He shrugs, only irking you further. You take a step back from the door, feeling your features droop into a frown. “The police department is keen on suing you.”

You startle, mouth dropping open. “You’re not serious,” you say dumbly. He’s nothing but. “For what? What kind of case can they possibly have?”

“You ask so many questions,” he mutters. He cuts off your interjection of indignation. “They want to serve you sometime this week. Corruption.”

“That’s so fucking stupid,” you cry. “All of this because I left an asshole dead in an alleyway. For the sake of a child, might I add.”

Just my luck. That’s what I get.  You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to will the thoughts away. Trying to will away the pain that’s got you in a stranglehold. No matter how hard you try, you won’t ever be a good person. It’s not in your destiny, for you are horrible. This is your karma, is all that hisses through your mind.

You open your eyes in time to watch him shake his head. Maybe he waited for you. “I never said it was right. I am just telling you.” You cross your arms over your middle, hugging yourself. He stands there as if waiting for you to speak, but you think you really know that he’s lost in thought somewhere in that vast mind of his. He blinks a few times, bringing himself out of his trance. “I came to offer you a ride.”

You look down at your cartoon-character patterned pajama pants. “Um, I might be a bit,” you tell him truthfully. He nods. For a few moments, the two of you stand there staring at each other. You find yourself offering him breakfast. 

He’s a very prim and proper houseguest. He locked the door on coming in behind you and is now sitting stiffly in a stool at your kitchen island. You feel as though you’re hallucinating. What a funny picture, you think to yourself. Batman so out of place in my home. 

You end up giving him the slice you’d prepared just before he’d knocked. As he’d sat, you’d arranged strips of smoked salmon over the avocado, drizzled olive oil over the slice, and peppered everything with everything bagel seasoning. You slide the plate across the island to him, which he delicately accepts.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. He peels off his heavy duty gloves, exposing creamy skin littered in knicks and scars. His hands are rather large, like the rest of him, but their gentleness in handling his toast belies his bodily strength. He takes a crispy bite and chews thoughtfully, his gaze trained on his plate. You don’t think that your houseguest is going to offer you any conversation, so you go back to make up your own slice of avocado and smoked salmon toast. 

You hum quietly to yourself, a song that’s been stuck in your head. Your guest has finished his food by the time you begin eating your own breakfast. “Thank you,” he repeats. “It was lovely.” You raise your own bitten bit of toast in cheers.

You would’ve never thought that you’d be in the mythical Batmobile twice in less than twenty-four hours, yet here you are. You watch Gotham blur in the window, this time clearly. The rain let up overnight, the sun shining over the clusters of buildings and their inhabitants. The hospital doesn’t look as creepy as it did last night. Perhaps that isn’t the sunlight changing your perspective, but your state of mind. 

You thought he was going to drop you off, like last night, but he stalks into the ER behind you. To your surprise, you’re let straight in; you bet it’s on account of the broody, imposing shadow of yours.

Just as Batman promised last night, there are two suits standing outside Jazzie’s room. They nod at you– or him? –and let you inside. Miraculously, she’s awake, and she lights up at the sight of you.

“It’s you! Your outfit is much better today,” she announces, to your amusement. Last night, you so charmingly sported your soaked uniform, and you’d rather go six feet under than wear that thing again. Today, you’ve opted to be casual for your own sake. 

“Hi there,” you greet her, laughing. You go to drag a chair by her bed, then sit. She’s sitting up, and her color is much better than it was last night. Jazzie, as a whole, is brighter and more animated. All signs point to healing. “Thanks, I guess.”

“The nurses have been really nice. They ask lots of questions, but they give me juice and treats and things, so it’s okay.” She stretches out her arms, joyous in ignorance to the world. “But I’ve been soooo bored. Sometimes people start fighting in the hallway, but it’s never that fun to watch…”

You nod as she chatters on, happy to listen. Happy that she’s talking in the first place. Once she runs through all the topics she can think of, you rummage around the room for the remote for the dinky TV mounted on the wall. Jazzie is fascinated by the thing; not one channel leaves her bored. Her favorite, to your delight, is an aquarium livestream, fishes of all different colors and dispositions bubbling around the screen. It absorbs her attention, her sweet little face relaxed with focus. 

A doctor you’re unfamiliar with enters, smiling. You stand to meet her, surprised when she goes to shake your hand. “Captain,” she addresses you, to your chagrin. “I’ve heard so much about you. It’s an honor to meet you, really. My colleagues in social work credit their recent successes to your ideas.”

Your chagrin upticks into an unfamiliar sense of pride. All of your work at the police department had ended up being purely hypothetical. You’d spent countless hours, nay, days drawing up proposals the police department could put into practice to better the lives they touched. So many child welfare projects, structural governmental changes, funding plans, everything you could think of that could possibly change Gotham for the better. No matter how many stacks of paper hit the Commissioner's desk (or remained stationary on the secretary’s desk after you’d dropped them off), nothing took. 

You suppose that what she’s talking about is the expansion of patient resources and their coordination. Granted, that’s not exactly a novel idea, but any government-run system in your city is so backwards if you walked in and said the sky is blue things would change and run better. In some of your various proposals, you’d written about therapeutic training (in a lesser capacity than an actual therapist) for officers to increase their interpersonal skills. You often felt like officers didn’t treat those they came in contact with as humans, and thought de-escalation was archaic. Besides, a police officer is meant to be a trusted adult. If they don’t know how to navigate difficult situations verbally and mentally, especially with children, what is the goddamn point?

“They fought hard to rebudget, and now they’re bringing in people with masters. And they’re sending people from here to school. They’re taking professional growth and training from that program you recommended.” She greets Jazzie and goes to sign into the computer by the bed. “I know it’s not revolutionary stuff, but having it all put together is quite useful. I think the higher-ups, the ones who really care about this place, would love to nab you from the PD. Wasted talent, if you ask me. No offense.”

You shake your head, none taken. Word of last night’s fiasco hadn’t got out, you figure. You’re grateful you’re spared the public humiliation for now. “I’d take you up on that offer, if the hospital’s serious.”

“I think you would be better in a powerful position,” Batman says. You’d forgotten he was here entirely, and the doctor had never seen him in the first place. The two of you jump practically in tandem. “Still with influence over the hospital. More reach.”

You glance back at him. “If you can find someone to offer me that fantastical job,” you counter. What a pipe dream. You could sit cooped up in an office, meticulously designing welfare programs. You could feel the satiety of watching them come to fruition. You could still do field work, albeit without a gun and a badge, running stalls to combat food insecurity or maybe toiletries and other essentials. You have big dreams, you suddenly realize. Ones that were never going to be realized by the police station. 

Maybe you’d keep the gun and make a badge of your own. You need the gun if you’re going to be running around Gotham, and a badge for your pride. 

But dreams are just dreams. You need to come back to reality.

The doctor is asking Jazzie some questions while at her bedside. You gather that she’d had surgery overnight and that they’re going to start her on broad-spectrum antibiotics. The doctor tells her not to play with the IV trailing from the crease of her elbow, because all of her medication is administered that way. 

“You’re not hurting right now because of it, so do your best to just leave it alone,” she says. Jazzie nods, and once released from conversation, goes back to her aquarium on the TV. 

“Shouldn’t her parents be here by now?” you murmur to the doctor as she passes by you to toss her gloves. She shrugs. 

“She told us she lives in her ‘old house’ with her little sister. Whenever we ask, she repeats something about Mommy and Daddy leaving for something important, but that they’re not back yet.” 

“Has someone gone to see the little sister? What if she’s only a baby?” you press. The doctor shrugs again. 

“I said the social workers were taking steps in the right direction, not that they became competent overnight.”

You give her a sour look, turning it over in your head. “I’ll go look,” you decide. You’re immediately met with two sets of protests. You reassure the doctor that it’s in the best interest of Jazzie and her family, then turn to your shadow of the last nearly sixteen hours.

“Since when do you care?”

“I believe it is quite clear that I care.” He’s utterly, disconcertingly still, and has been this entire time. When he speaks, his mouth moves, but the words slide out of him like string pulled from tautly wound yarn. When you think about it, in all of the minutes you’ve observed him, he’s not made a single erratic movement. Every arc of his arms, or his legs, or even of his fingers, is smooth and precise. You yearn deeply to have that much control over yourself. “What will getting shot do for you?”

“I could ask you the same thing. I’m sure that out of anyone in this city you understand that I need to go.” You take a moment before making a tiny concession. “But, you know, if you offered a ride I wouldn’t say no. I’m mourning my car, in case you forgot. I still don’t know what I’m going to do about that.”

His expression, or rather his lack thereof remains the same. “What happened to your car?” the doctor asks. 

“It was scrapped for parts where it sat,” Batman supplies. “It looked like it combusted.”

She has to stop herself from laughing. “Sorry, I know it’s not funny. I get a wicked discount on the subway. I can spot you a pass,” she amends.

“You don’t have to do that, I couldn’t ask that of you…” You wring your hands together. You must fix this yourself. You dug this hole. “Thank you, though. You’re sweet.” She simply smiles and exits the room.

Jazzie pipes up, having torn herself from her aquarium. “You’re going to stay here with me, though, right? Mr. Batguy can go get my sissy?”

You stare at her blankly. “You want me to stay?”

“Yes! I was sad you didn’t stay with me in the night, but it’s okay because I know you were very tired. So stay with me now!” reasons she. “We can play tic-tac-toe if I ask for some paper and a pen.”

You once again find yourself turning to look at the Batman, this time imploringly. “I hate to ask you a favor after all of this…” 

He gives a minute shake of his head. “Like you said, I understand why you need to go. I need to go.” Without further ado, he sweeps out of the room. Hey, he’s a man of his word. 

After delicately climbing onto the bed, you introduce Jazzie to Heads Up. She’s so utterly delighted by the game that you let it consume the two of you for the next three hours. You learn that she makes animal sounds quite well, her moo-ing always interrupted by a fit of giggles as you get it wrong on purpose to get her to laugh. 

Spending time in a hospital, no matter what, is droll and dull. Jazzie eventually gets bored with the aquarium, with the games on your phone, everything. She’s jittering to get up and play as a child should. She’s beginning to squirm, and you’re worried she’s going to get upset. 

“Why don’t I ask if we can go for a walk? We can go get pudding,” you offer. Pudding always makes things better, especially for you. What can’t a good cup of chocolate pudding cure? Your idea placates her; at least for now. You wander to the nurse’s station, feeling exceptionally light. On your way, you note a very pristinely, crisply dressed suit looking quite lost and tremendously out of place. He even spins around in a little circle, completely unsure of his surroundings. You pay him no more mind past a teensy huff of a laugh and move on.

Sure enough, as long as you walk very slowly and guide her IV around, you and Jazzie can take a little field trip. Her little hand curled around yours radiates a wholesome warmth all throughout your body. You can feel her sending you thoughts of unicorns and rainbows and warmth and fuzzies. 

In your other hand, you very carefully steer her IV pull as the two of you make your way to the cafeteria. Reassured by the permission, even encouragement of Jazzie’s nurse and doctor, you’re hopeful that you can keep on using the pudding to bribe her into eating a fulfilling meal. 

You drive her around the little cafeteria, letting her decide whether she wants something from the fridges or the large food heaters. She sniffs around like a miniature bloodhound, following whatever yummy scent makes her tummy shout for sustenance. She becomes entranced by the garlic mashed potatoes, standing precariously on her tippy-toes to try and snag a peek. You get her a box, maneuvering carefully around the IV pull, then go spoon the object of her affection into it. 

“More!” she demands, barely waiting for you to set the serving spoon down. 

You laugh. “You need to eat something like chicken or beef with it. And some veggies. They’re good for you.”

“What!” she exclaims, severely affronted. “No! ‘Tatoes!”

The two of you squabble as you waddle around, serving her whatever catches her eye from the aforementioned categories, hoping they’ll go down without a fight. She may be pouting, but she doesn’t protest as you pay for the food, and more conspicuously, a cup of chocolate pudding.

“Listen. You only get this if you eat everything that I put in this box for you,” you nag her, holding her hand again. “And if you don’t eat anything from the box, I’ll eat the pudding in front of you.” She giggles.

Gleefully, she clambers up onto a plastic chair at one of the cafeteria tables. Her appetite is voracious, and it’s quickly taking a hold of her. You hand her a little plastic spoon, and she goes ham. You gaze around the room, the dullness of the walls and flooring souring your mood a bit. Again, a very out-of-place man in an immaculately tailored suit catches your eye. 

He’s also looking around, but not aimlessly like you. He’s searching for something; when he makes eye contact with you, you can tell he’s found it. Jazzie is so absorbed in gobbling up her food– how long has she gone hungry? –that she doesn’t notice, or care, when he comes to stand by your table. 

Everything about him is shiny, from his slicked back hair to his polished dress shoes. He’s tall, lanky, and reeking with wealth. He’s reaching into the breast pocket of his pressed gray blazer as he approaches you.

“Captain,” he greets, pulling out a slim, cream-colored card. You’re happy not to correct him. “I apologize for being late. I got a little… lost.” He hands you the card, which you inspect. Jared Carlisle, Esq. Carlisle & Associates, Attorneys at Law.

“Late?” you question, looking back up at him. 

“Ah, Mr. Wayne has done it again,” he mutters to himself, slightly exasperated. “I’ve been hired to represent you. Just in time, really, as we’ll need to serve an answer soon. I wanted to give you my card in person, give you my number. Mr. Wayne has offered use of his amenities, and I was hoping to set a date with you to meet.” 

That’s the second time you’ve heard his name in direct relation to you in so many hours. Why the hell does he care? How does he even know? He extends his arm to shake your hand, which you meet awkwardly. You can hardly believe what you’re hearing. You’re half expecting a bill for tens of thousands of dollars in your mailbox from this guy. But, in the end… you feel like you’re really going to need him. “That sounds… appropriate. I mean, yes, I’m sorry. What time works best for you?”

He gestures primly at the card you have pinched between your fingers. “My schedule has been cleared. Please let me know when you’re keen on coming in, and I’ll be there. My number is on my business card.”

You nod. You can feel your thoughts bonking on the shell that is your skull. “Ah, okay. Thank you. If you could tell Mr. Wayne I say thanks?” 

Jared grins, pearly white teeth reflecting light back at you. “Sure, Captain. But it’s us who should be thanking you.” 

‿̩͙⊱༒︎༻✦ ༺༒︎⊰‿̩͙

For the first time in forever, you are dressed in business formal attire. 

Your anxiety surrounding your departure from the police department has grown like colonies of bacteria on an agar plate overnight. You’ve been visiting Jazzie every day to more and more difficulty. Her sister had turned up with Batman, but was so malnourished she went straight to the ED’s nursery. Your anxiety is manifesting in the air around you, condensing it, making it unbreathable. You’re not sure what you were expecting, mouthing off to the Commissioner like that. Of course he was going to slam you with a suffocating lawsuit. This is Gotham, not Candyland. 

That voice has been deafening you lately. The more time that passes, the louder, viler it gets. With the influx of free time you’ve had lately, you’ve been thinking. Turning over those fateful hours. Imagining taking your radio instead of forgetting it, sucking it up while being reamed by the Commissioner. Joining the force in the first place. What are the ethics? None, when it comes to Gotham. You wanted so badly to make a change, but you simply weren’t good enough. Your uselessness is decaying the remaining velvety links of good still in the world. 

You sit in the backseat of a sleek, black sedan, getting closer to the sparkling monolith that is Wayne Enterprises peering down at you. Wherever you go, your beady black-and-white eyes follow. Your luck (really, your lack thereof) had run out, and the PD had seemingly done an entire collaborational editorial with the Gotham Gazette on your “disgraceful departure”, as they put it. You didn’t even realize that they had a headshot of you on hand. Your portrait had never been put up at the station, yet here you are printed on every newspaper in a three-hundred-twenty-eight square mile radius.

The headline is outrageous; something straight out of a TMZ writer’s wettest dreams. Captain Conniving: Gotham Police Department Infiltrated by Villain Sympathizer. Evil is Cosplaying as Your Protector!

How ironic. 

You shudder as you finally enter the building that is your destination, thankful for the respite from your own watchful gaze. The lobby, more aptly called a foyer, you think, is open and cavernous, the skylights directing beams of sunlight down onto the marble flooring. You don’t feel like you’re inside any sort of corporate building. Somehow, the inside is wider and more spacious than the outside. The revolving doors that spit you into the lobby are instead a portal leading to a better place, a better city. 

Like your lawyer, everything here is shiny. The floors, the counters, the elevators, the stairs, they all gleam. The sunlight floating down from the skylights tinges your body with brightness and hope. It has a similar effect on the rest of the place. Employees and clients either bustle by or lounge on one of the many seating features, lively no matter what. Smiling is not scarce here. These peoples’ general joviality belies the state of the city itself. 

You find your way to the elevator bank, the whirring of people travelling up and down permeating the air. You shuffle onto the one that’s summoned when you press the button closest to you, a satisfying tink sounding. 

“What floor?” the lady standing before you asks politely. 

“All the way up.”

She smiles and obliges you, delicately jamming the button for the top floor. The elevator moves quickly, much faster than any other one you’ve ever ridden. Your stomach fizzles and wiggles as you walk out and down the hall. You stare out the ceiling-to-floor windows, taking in the sight of Gotham from above. You can see the river from here, the water sparkling, winking up at you as it flows. 

You tear your gaze away as you approach the conference room. You take a deep breath, steeling yourself for what’s to come. Technically, you’re in the best position you can be in. If this miracle hadn’t fallen into your lap, you doubt you would’ve been able to afford your own lawyer, and the universe knows that the pro-bono attorney assigned to you would’ve been as useful as a loosely knitted condom. 

You double, triple check the plaque on the door before grasping the doorknob in your hand. The only word that comes to mind to describe the group of men and women gathered inside the conference room is expensive. 

One by one, they introduce themselves to you. Even their handshakes scream wealth, firm yet prim but solid. An entire team of lawyers, as you come to know them, has your back. The man who came to you at the hospital the other day is the penultimate to greet you, asking after the driver and the car and the trip here. You reassure him that everything went smoothly, that the driver was polite enough and on time and efficient. 

Waiting patiently behind him is the most expensive-looking man you’ve ever seen. And that really is saying something.

He’s what you imagine a one-hundred dollar bill would look like ironed out and personified. His features are unfairly chiseled; his eyes a piercing, inquisitive blue; his hair perfectly styled, sitting neatly, darkly on his head in stark contrast with the rest of his fairer coloring, with seemingly no product sogging it down. You’re quite jealous on that last point, really. You can smell his cologne from here: something refinedly woody and cleanly musky.

He waits patiently for Jared to finish doting over you, who’s currently offering whatever drink might tickle your fancy. When he breaks away from you to send someone to fetch it, Mr. Hundred-Dollars meets your gaze. He doesn’t step forward to meet you, instead nodding at you from a few feet away. He makes no move to speak. You don’t, either. His admittedly handsome features remain schooled in a neutral expression. You can’t read him at all.

His tie is pinned, his cuffs are linked, maybe even his deep blue suit starched. After expensive, the next word you can come up with is sharp. The lines of his suit, the slopes and angles of his body…

The gathered group has clustered at the conference table, a handful lowering themselves down into their wheely-chairs. The chatter ebbs and flows, ebbing away entirely as you sit down yourself. “Mr. Wayne?” one of the– one of yours, actually –attorneys prods once everyone’s settled.

Mr. Hundred-Dollars nods, seemingly giving Jared whatever permission or encouragement that he was looking for. You have to mentally kick yourself for not recognizing him right away. Despite his ability to dodge the paparazzi, his face was as commonplace online as soft drink ads. The past conglomeration of days has really scrambled your brains if you couldn’t recognize a face more familiar to you than your own. You don’t look into a mirror much, to be fair. 

You’re not quite sure what he’s doing here, or why he was motivated to sit in with you and your legion of lawyers. You’re not quite sure what you’re doing here, either. You just smile and nod, smile and nod. You feel so out of place, and you feel so deep down that maybe you don’t deserve all this effort. You have to wonder, why you? You had no real impact on the police department. You stuck your foot in your mouth and got booted before you could do anything. Even though Jazzie is safe and sound, your excursion to save her blew up in your face, anyway. 

This money and time could be put to something much better.

“I find that it can be helpful for you to give a press conference,” says the woman sitting at your right-hand side. You look up at her, slightly incredulously.

“Me? To what press?” You bite at the inside of your cheek. “We used to be friendly, but that was because we had to be.”

She lifts her broad shoulders in a dainty shrug. “We have our own ways.” Because it sounds so unbelievable, you believe it. “Conference may be too big of a word, anyway. You only have to say a few words; it’s unfair, you’re fighting it. Of course, they’ll see you’re at Wayne Enterprises. They know of Mr. Wayne’s philanthropy and devotion to justice.”

You sigh and give a brief nod. “I’ll do whatever you think is best. I have lots of free time these days.” You gesture around the room. It earns you a round of chuckles, even though you didn’t mean to be funny. You’ll take your wins where you can get them, you suppose. 

“I wish to speak with you on that point,” Bruce intones, smoothing his hands over his seemingly wrinkle-less slacks. The rest of your party seems to get a hint that you didn’t, gathering up their things, murmuring to each other on their way out. Jared comes over to shake your hand again and promises to text you with the meeting notes and their developing plans. 

Bruce had been sitting a few seats over from you, at the end of the table but still on the same side as you. You both angle your chairs to face each other better. 

“I’ve seen some of your work. It’s impressed me,” he states simply, his hands clasped together in his lap, one ankle crossed over his knee. His body is relaxed. 

“What, specifically?” You stare at him, genuinely surprised. Sure, you’ve considered that celebrities knew of your existence, but you thought it would be merely surface level. You’d never imagined someone like Bruce Wayne, let alone Bruce Wayne himself would be intimately acquainted with what you’ve done. You hope that he hasn’t read between many lines and noticed what you haven’t done. 

“I understand they were mostly drafts of required training. But your works on budget distribution, administration, and conceptual plans for homeless shelters, food banks, things of the sort...”

“I didn’t realize people actually read those,” you say half-jokingly. “They were crack-shots, honestly.”

“You wrote them from a police point of view, yes, but they’re still highly applicable elsewhere.” He tips his head inquisitively to the side. “I’d like to develop welfare itself.”

A gush of relief spirals through you. It surprises you, and leaves you unnaturally hopeful. “I didn’t realize you were interested,” you amend. How the hell did he find those? “I figured people like you had other things on their minds.”

He chuckles, the sound velvety and rich, like whiskey poured into a crystal glass. “People like me?” inquires he. 

“Rich people,” you say truthfully. “Men with means.”

“You have no faith, Captain.” A slim smile splits his face. A rich man smile, you think to yourself, but so handsome. He’s beginning to charm the socks off of you. Playboy, something reminds you. That’s what they call him. But then again, they call you traitor. 

“Do you really expect me to?” you laugh.

“It’s vital. So is hope.” 

“What is it you want to know about my free time, exactly?” you ask, changing the subject with a hard pivot. You can’t tolerate being lectured on optimism at the moment. Maybe ever. 

If he’s miffed by your departure from the conversation, he doesn’t show it. He simply follows along. “I’d like to hire you.”

“Me?” you ask stupidly. Yes, you. Do you see anyone else in here? Is he offering a job to the light fixture? “I’m not sure you want my reputation mucking up your beautiful building.” You’d meant it sarcastically, but he frowned. 

“We’re going to court for you. I’m no stranger to scandal.”

“Even before. People didn’t love me.”

“I don’t need them to love you. I like you, and a person whose opinion I value respects you. I have no qualms.” He checks his shining silver watch, perched on the wrist of his left hand. “It’s your decision. Amalah is waiting on you.” The press liaison. She’d probably herded a handful of reporters and journalists like sheep to listen to you talk. 

“I’ll think about it,” you offer him, standing up. He follows, his suit somehow remaining unwrinkled and unmoving as he stands.

“I know you will.” He takes hold of a scrap of paper and leftover pen from the conference table and neatly scrawls out a string of numbers. He hands it to you once he’s done. “Call me if you want to talk it over.”

With that, he strides out of the room. 

You stand there, the only witness to your astonishment the glass windows and fabric-y walls. Your body so desperately wants you to leave the feelings clamoring within you alone. You’re already suppressing them: the gentle jolt of warmth, the deliciously fluttery flusteredness. You refuse to entertain it, because anything resulting from these feelings will only disappoint you. They’ll hurt you, over and over, haunt you at night. Besides, these feelings aren’t for someone like you. 

You find yourself in the bathroom, splashing cold water on your face. You have lots to think over. You figure that you’ll participate in this little media event, if only for the sake of sticking it to the Commissioner. Maybe something will come of it. Already, something had come of this whole ordeal: a job. A very meaningful, impactful job. One that you’d probably be paid very well for, given your employer.

After patting your face dry, you make your way to the bottom floor. Amalah catches you in the lobby. “It’s just a few reporters. No biggie,” she tells you. “They won’t ask anything crazy. Answer honestly, really.”

As you step out of the revolving doors that let you in, you’re met with the bite of the cold and the reporter. 

“Why, instead of working with your own officers, did you willingly collaborate with and encourage a known criminal?” 

You huff, your breath clouding and fizzling away in the air. So much for no crazy questions. Employees of various news stations and publications have been spamming your e-mail since the incident, and you’d ignored all of them. This is your penance. 

“Stop trying to catch me with my pants down and focus on what matters,” you quip. “It’s the Gotham Police that refuses to work with me, not the other way around. The system is inherently corrupt. It’s broken because of people like the Commissioner and Christopher Carden, who were both notified of my predicament and only chose to act after outside help was involved.”

“Well, then, can you condemn the actions of Batman in the same vein?”

You snort. “That’s not the same thing, not at all. In fact, I don’t condemn Batman,” you insist, your eyes catching a blinking red belonging to an activated video camera. You know you should be deterred, but you’re not. You push on, turning to the journalist who asked the question. “I encourage him. He metes punishment to rapists and child predators. As far as I’m concerned, he’s perfectly in the right. What does the station do? Nothing.”

The gathered murmur amongst themselves. “Then what do you have to say about the Commissioner's recent comments? Are you at liberty to respond?”

You turn your gaze fully to the camera. “Commissioner, your teeth and ambitions are bared.”

‿̩͙⊱༒︎༻✦ ༺༒︎⊰‿̩͙

You’re going to dinner with Bruce Wayne.

As he’d asked, you’d called him a few days after you’d initially met. “What exactly would my role be?” you’d inquired. His voice was a little far away when he spoke; you imagined he was at his desk, speaking to a desk telephone on speaker. 

“Call it whatever you like. I want you to build and run social welfare programs for Gotham,” he starts. You imagine the confidant set of his shoulders. “Given your familiarity with GCPD, the law, and the state of social welfare as it is now, you would be quite impactful, especially on my budget.”

“That’s quite the tall task,” you admit. “It would be helpful if you expanded on your vision. I’ve only ever been a field operative, really, and my leadership in the force is irrelevant. We have some authority issues there.” 

He chuckles lightly. “Come out to dinner with me, my treat. Let me convince you.”

You have to bite your lip to keep from smiling, but you can’t help the small breath that escapes you. He’s probably like this with everyone. Get a hold of yourself. “If you’re offering…”

“Of course I am. Have you ever been to Per Se?” 

Your mouth drops open. You’re glad you’re not speaking with him face to face. Of course you haven’t fucking been to Per Se. The restaurant’s minimum was $435– per person. “No,” you tell him. 

“It’s classical French. I hope you’ll enjoy it.” You want to respond, reassure him, but you find that you can’t think of anything to say. Maybe this is just too absurd of a situation. “Are you free tonight?”

You’re almost one-hundred percent sure that he knows for a fact you’re free tonight. What else do you have to do these days? He probably has your attorney's schedules with you, too. “Sure. I get hungry past six,” you joke.

“Then I’ll send the driver at six-thirty. Hopefully I’ll succeed in bribing you to work for me,” he jokes back. This time, you don’t tramp down your smile. “I’ll see you at seven?”

“I’ll see you,” you agree. 

“Good. I’m looking forward to it,” he replies. Then the line goes dead. You set your phone down, staring at nothing. You’re not sure what to make of anything. This feels wrong. Do you deserve this more than any of the other schmucks at the station? You’re not sure. Yes, you say that you’re committed to justice, but you’ve killed. You’ve killed without thinking, like the night you rescued Jazzie. You can argue that it’s for a greater cause, but isn’t that what everyone at the station claims? The same people abusing their power? You shake the thoughts out of your head. You can’t let yourself fall down this rabbit hole. All it’ll get you is a headache and an identity crisis, neither of which you need today… or ever.

It’s only noon, but you trollop to your bedroom closet. You rummage through your dresser drawers and all the clothing hung up inside your small closet. Per Se is a three-Michelin-star restaurant, and the man taking you there is Bruce Wayne. You need to dress the part. 

You kill thirty minutes meticulously planning your outfit. You’ll start getting ready at six, doll yourself up by six-thirty, and hop happily in the car. For once, you’re going to try and force yourself to kick back, relax, and enjoy this gift from a lucky star. 

Since you still have five and a half hours, you decide to go see Jazzie. She’s healing right on track, but your friends at the hospital aren’t keen on letting her go off into who-knows-what all by herself. You still don’t know what you all are going to do. You’ve thought about taking her to your own home, but you question what her quality of life would be. With your court case, you’re gone from home for long stretches of time, too long stretches of time. You wouldn’t be there to protect her, and you most definitely cannot live with yourself if she got harmed in your own home. You think you’ll use your new connection to find someplace good for her.

Jazzie is ever excited to see you. Despite you being such a constant in her life, she finds such exuberant joy within you. You play with her, read her stories, bring her pudding: anything, really, to try and make up for the horrors of her life. You’re glad that she seems to be taking it in stride, not letting it dim her sparkle. 

You’re busy drawing a tic-tac-toe board on an empty page of her new notebook, gifted by the hospital staff, when she announces, “Our bat-guy is here, you know.”

You look up at her, then around the room. “Oh? Where?” you ask, going back to scraping your pencil on paper. 

“He came in and said hi and things and asked if you were here yet.” She gently takes the pencil from you, now staring at the paper and contemplating where to put her first X. “Are you ever going to get good at tic-tac-toe?”

You laugh good-naturedly. You’ve been throwing every game you play with her, doing a good job of being convincing of your hard work. She deserves to be queen of all the games you played together, as a penance for what she’s been through. “Quit beating me while I’m down.”

She finally pencils an X into the top-left corner. She hands the pencil back to you, rolling her head around to stretch out her little neck. “Hey, look, there he is.”

You play your own move, O-ing the bottom-right corner. You pass the pencil back and go to meet him at the door. “Think really hard about your move,” you playfully chide. He already has the door open, and you’re in the awkward position of having to decide whether to step forward and speak with him outside, or step backward and speak with him with Jazzie present. 

Batman’s presence, on the other hand, has been scarce. You haven’t seen him since that second day, when he went off to scout for Jazzie’s sister. You don’t feel as off-put as you did when you saw him before this ordeal, but you’re not exactly elated to see him either. You can only assume with a little fleeting pinprick of clairvoyance that he wants something from you.

“I need to know where the Commissioner might hide a hostage.”

You make a weird face at him. “Hello, I’m good, thanks for asking,” you reply snidely. “Since when am I your informant?”

“Someone important went missing, and there isn’t anything in any of the usual places. It is all empty,” he quietly supplies you, ignoring your chip. You’re both standing in the doorway, not committing to either space. 

“How would I know? You think they trusted me with that stuff?” you lie through your teeth. You stare blankly at each other for a moment. It’s not that you’re a bad liar; your line of work requires it. The two of you know that there’s no way you don’t know stuff like that. Yes, you weren’t exactly in league with the rest of your coworkers, but you did have working eyeballs and deduction skills. Was he trying at your loyalty to him? Does he really expect it from you? 

“Why would you protect him?” he asks icily. You feel a sharp pang of hurt reverberating through your bones. He’s seen through you, the voice screams, he knows what you are now. For the first time in your trysts with him, you can discern emotion in his demeanor. It’s minute, but it’s there: a small wrinkle in his nose, the tightening of his jaw. You didn’t think he could look any more tightly wound, but here you are. 

“It’s not him I want to protect,” you snap back, keeping your tone neutral. In fact, you know exactly where the Commissioner would put a hostage that was ‘important’, especially one he’d want to keep away from Batman. “You’re reckless, sometimes. Single-minded.”

He scoffs. “I’m not a killer,” he hisses, his body taut with rage, “not like you.” 

See! It’s screeching now, deafening you. Silly you, thinking yourself worthy of admiration. You find yourself laughing again, but for a different reason. You can’t afford to break down, not here, not now, so you force yourself to speak. “Not everyone has the luxury of being no-kill. Get that metal rod out of your ass.” 

“Do you have no shame?”

Shame! It’s eating me alive! Shame, shame, shame! FEEL ASHAMED OF YOURSELF! You roll your eyes at him. “I know what I am. I’m a killer. I don’t sleep. I have horrible nightmares,” you tell him truthfully. “But I know that I would never do it differently. I’m a horrible person for it, but so what? I suffer for it. I would much rather my suffering than innocent people’s. Children’s.”

“I do not presume to be the hand of justice.”

“Don’t you? Don’t we all? Out of everyone, I expected… this–” you gesture at him “--from you the least,” you intone bitterly. “That’s the difference between you and me. I’m self aware. I have a conscience. I live with the fact that I’m terrible.”

He opens his mouth to retort, but you can’t help landing one last jab. “Or do you not remember what you caused in this hospital?”

Maybe it’s not a fair barb, but nothing that he’s said to you is fair either. It was an incident that occurred maybe a year and a half ago, now. You still remember responding to it with your unit. It was an accident, that much was obvious; it was still painfully obvious that the Batman’s carelessness is what caused the accident. A too-angry, too-blind pursuit through the orphanage. Someone was knocked into someone, resulting in a small child ending up in the morgue. 

Yes, definitely, it’s not a fair barb. A genuine mistake, the incident you’re referring to was, yet your point still stands. It’s obvious in all of his work everywhere. He has one thing on his mind when he sets out on a personal mission, and nothing gets in his way aside from that; for the worse. You used to be like that. You learned your lesson.

You’re in control, now. It feels good to exercise.

“It was a mistake.”

“It still happened,” you say, your heart scrunching in your chest. Your lack of compassion is physically tolling. “And you have this… pattern of behavior.” You look up at him. All you can pull from his expression, is, again, the anger. Nothing else. “Look, I’ll think about it, okay? I know I’m not being fair. I just need to weigh it over.”

He disappears without another word. You feel icky. You’d left him with a half-truth, really: you don’t need to think it over. You want to snoop to try and find whatever he’s looking for before he does. Make sure that somebody in control– you wince at that, because who really is in more control than him –is making their way through those places. You shake your head. You can cope with being a wishy-washy, bad person later. You have a game of tic-tac-toe game to attend to.

You leave when the doctor next makes their rounds, promising Jazzie you’d be back tomorrow with something fun to do. You promise that the doctor will bring her pudding at least seven different times before she’s satisfied enough to watch you go with a smile and a wave. 

You didn’t realize how much you missed being a normal person until you got back home, turned on a fun playlist, and started getting ready. The motions are soothing, especially after years of being generally grimy and gross and morally bankrupt with the PD. You hum to yourself, finding smiles infecting you the whole hour. Like you promised yourself before: tonight should be fun, so you’re enjoying it best you can. 

A delicate yet sharp knock brings you out of your cloud of music. Thankfully, you’re ready, because on the other side of your front door is yet another man in an immaculately tailored suit. He introduces himself as your chauffeur for the night– fancy! – and you’re off. 

Despite all your reassuring yourself, the moment you set eyes on the restaurant you start feeling the previously dormant seeds of anxiety beginning to bloom deep in your stomach. Will the Gotham elite be able to tell that you’re so out of place here? What if you spill something on yourself? What if you bump into a waiter? What if you spill something on Bruce? 

You walk in to see the hostess, feeling frazzled. You so desperately wish you could be rid of your souring mood, but your anxiety demands attention. You give her your name and she responds with a placating smile. “Just on time. He just sat down.”

The restaurant is dazzling. The ceilings pour crystal chandeliers into the air. They twinkle and sparkle as the bits of crystal catch the light, others refracting little rainbows in the vicinity. The furnishings are opulent and lush. You’re excited to sit in one of those luxurious-looking chairs. You feel a little old thinking that, but it’s funny enough you manage a smile. Blessedly, your pleasant mood is returning.

Gentle clinking of silverware on porcelain rises in the air like steam. Nobody is too loud, the voices of all the gathered blending and morphing together into a light rumble. The hostess doesn’t lead you to a table on the floor, not at all the place you’ve been taking in, but instead guides you to an alcove in the back. You find your way up a little set of stairs to a serene balcony overlooking a courtyard just as ornate yet delicate as the rest of this place. As promised, Bruce is already seated.

He stands to meet you, a small smile playing at his lips. “Captain! You look fantastic,” he says, reaching for your hand. His fingers loosely wrap around your palm, giving your hand a gentle squeeze before letting go. He rounds the elegant table set for two, pulling out the chair meant for you. You haven’t been in his presence for more than ten seconds and he already has your nervous system in a tizzy. You find yourself smiling back at him, and meaning it. He’s truly captivating, you think, especially as he sits back down across from you and you get an eyeful of him. 

“You don’t need to keep calling me that,” you say bashfully. “You look amazing yourself.”

His smile melts into a beam, a genuine one. In all of the media you’ve seen of him, you don’t think you’ve ever seen him smile like that– or look actually happy. “You flatter me.” He gently sets a menu in front of you. “Take a look, get whatever you like. I’m telling you now, don’t think about the bill. It’s my treat, so treat yourself.” 

You feel pleasantly warm in the face as you pick up the menu, grateful for an excuse to avert your gaze. “Thank you. What’s good here?” 

“I’m quite partial to the ribeye. All of their pasta is delicious, too. Everything, really.” He takes a sip from the glass of water at his place setting. “How has your week been? Are the police still giving you trouble?”

You sigh, lowering the menu so you can look him in the eye. “Of course they are, but my week’s been okay. I’ve been visiting her a lot in the hospital,” you admit, “the girl that was stabbed.” 

He hums, his brows lightly pinching together in concern and sympathy. “Your team is exceeding your expectations, I hope?”

“They’re great,” you say truthfully. “I wonder why you so generously organized them for me.”

His expression remains unchanged, as if it was obvious. “I saw what happened online. I’m not a fan of the Commissioner or the entirety of the department myself.”

You chuckle. “I’m grateful you’re petty.” He laughs in response.

“I thought it was the right thing to do,” he intones, his features soft and surprisingly welcoming. “It is the right thing to do.”

“Thank you,” you repeat. “Really, thank you. For everything, all of this.” You gesture at your plate. “It’s all so kind. Tell me what I can do to repay you.”

“Well,” he starts, “you can consider my job offer.” 

Your waiter interrupts you, and Bruce murmurs his drink order, then turns to glance at you encouragingly. You order, too, and now you have to respond to the man sitting across from you. “That’s why we’re here, yeah?”

He’s still smiling. “I know I said that back at the office, but I want this to be a nice night out. I hope this is the start of a long and prosperous relationship whether you decide to work for me or not.” Almost as quickly as you’d ordered them, your drinks are delicately deposited in front of you both. He raises his glass of whiskey in cheers. Happily, you oblige him, the crystal on crystal giving a pleasant ding!

“I have been considering it,” you tell him. “I just need to know, definitively, what it is.”

“Formally, you’d have the title of director. I want to give you control of our Welfare Development Department. Like I said, you’d plan and oversee execution of whatever programs you approve. You have the resources of Wayne Enterprises at your hands… I think you could do a lot of good.”

That does sound amazing, and you tell him as much. “I want to accept this on the spot, but, ah, I don’t have the greatest record.”

He frowns. “What do you mean?” The Batman’s words echo in your head like fumes resulting from the remnants of toxic waste. I’m not a killer. Not like you. 

You chew on your lip. “Oh, you know. All this controversy. Normal, everyday people don’t like me so much,” you say, echoing your last conversation with him. “I don’t know how effective social welfare will be if people can’t stand the face of it.”

“You don’t have to be its mascot,” he reassures you. “You can just do the work. You don’t have to do any publicity or anything. Why, did someone say something to you?”

“Lots of people have said lots of things. I used to read whatever headlines had my name in them,” you admit sheepishly. “Not anymore. It’s just, someone I thought respected me kind of put me down. That’s all.”

“That’s all? That was rude of them. What’d they say?”

If your face was warm before, it’s blazing now. You’re not sure if you can manage the words or whether you want to say them in the first place. “It was something about… my methods,” you manage, staring down into your drink for a sip. “A holier-than-thou kind of thing.”

It’s brief. If you hadn’t looked up at that second, you wouldn’t have caught the fleeting blip of a blanche that purged at his face. He recovers so quickly you think you imagined it. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” he says firmly. 

You shrug. “He was right, really. I’m not proud of what he was throwing in my face, but he’s right. I just wish we weren’t so… petty about it.”

“I thought you loved petty,” he teases, extending an olive branch. You let yourself laugh, let the conversation turn after the waiter takes your food order. He, true to his word, ordered a ribeye, and you got a specialty ravioli that made your mouth water reading the description. 

“Okay. Enough about work,” Bruce insists, sitting up straighter (as if that was possible). “Tell me about yourself.”

You look at him blankly. “Oh, well, there’s not much to tell,” you reply stiffly. 

He takes a moment before responding. “How about your favorite flower?” A question much opposite from invasive. He doesn’t want to prod or make you uncomfortable, you think. It makes you all fluttery again. That’s what decency gets you, these days. 

You tell him, and the weird vibe evaporates. Your conversation is still a tiny bit stilted, the two of you taking occasional sips of your drinks. You feel as though you’re off-kilter, and again, you get the consuming feeling that you don’t belong here. It extends to Wayne Enterprises. It’s a place that’s too good for you. You feel bad for wanting so badly to accept his offer. You struggle to believe that it’s real in the first place. He has a knack for conversation, as he seems to have a knack for everything else. He’s attentive without being overbearing. He’s comforting but not patronizing. He’s soothing, if you can believe it. By the time you get your food, you’ve relaxed completely; to be completely honest, you owe it to him.

“If it makes you feel better, I’m on the Commissioner’s shit list, too.”

You laugh in his face, not unkindly. “I know. He doesn’t shut up about you.”

“Is he as unpleasant in real life as he is online?”

“Thirty times worse, I’d say. He only kind of filters himself when giving press conferences and things. He has no filter otherwise.”

“I heard he has very unconventional methods,” he posits smoothly. “Hiding prisoners and subjects of interest in hospitals and orphanages.”

“He’s in over his head. Selfish and evil.” You stab at your ravioli with your fork. “I was stupid to think that I could change that system. The rot has consumed it.”

Bruce offers you another sympathetic look, a genuine one. The expression on his face is so intense you suspect that what he’s feeling is empathy, not sympathy. “It’s the thought that counts. I promise you.” 

“I guess so.”

“Why don’t we get some dessert? Happier thoughts.”

You laugh. “You’re my kind of guy.” 

He smiles widely at you. You finish the night with two fat slices of cheesecake, indeed speaking of happier things. You trade funny work stories, and you find yourself telling him things you haven’t told people in some time. You’re truly getting to know each other. To your surprise, the typical trepidation associated with people, especially men, especially being vulnerable, was nowhere to be found. You were enjoying being personal, which is only a tiny bit horrifying. Perhaps this is what you need, though, to turn a new leaf. 

You spend hours just talking. You don’t realize that’s what you did until the waiter announces to you that they’ll be closing in half-an-hour. Even Bruce is surprised, which pleasantly delights you. He’s lost in you as much as you are in him. Maybe these fuzzies you’re starting to feel consistently around him are reciprocal. No they’re not. You don’t deserve a romance.

You try not to look at the bill when it hits the table. You’re sure that if you set eyes on the monetary total of your dinner you would die on the spot. You leave the restaurant together from a different place than you entered, surfacing on a quieter street. You can still taste the sweet tanginess of cherries on your tongue, the cheesecake pleasantly haunting your mouth. 

“I hope you had a nice time,” Bruce murmurs to you, the gentle wind pushing back his blazer. You can’t help but smile at him in response.

“I did have a nice time. You make good company, you know.”

He looks away bashfully. You think you catch the pinkening of his cheeks, but you attribute it to the biting cold. “So do you. I’d like it at the firm.” He looks back at you, that defining charm and confidence evident, the foundation of his perfect posture. 

“You can count on it, then.” 

He reaches for your hand one more time, giving it a firm shake. His other palm gently covers the other side of your hand so that he’s effectively cupping your hand in both of his. “You won’t regret it. We’ll be so happy to have you.”

As if on cue, the same car that dropped you off rolls up by the curb not five feet from you both. “Let me know what I can do.”

“Let me know when you’re home safe,” he counters. The blue of his eyes are as clear as a glacial lake, glittering at you in the night. He gently lets go of your hand as you step away. He stays where he is, pocketing his hands. You look at him over your shoulder; he stands so still you only know he’s still breathing because of the puffs of air materializing from his face. It reminds you of something. Someone. You can’t exactly pinpoint who.

You’ve only taken a few steps towards the car, the driver already out and holding the rear passenger door open, when Bruce calls to you. You turn again to find he’s quickly closed the distance between the two of you, an uncharacteristically nervous expression tinging his features.

“Do you want to see each other again?” he asks quickly. He looks like he’s restraining himself, as if he wants to reach out and take your hand or brush his fingers over your shoulder. “Completely aside from work.”

You’re rendered speechless. You stare at him uncomfortably for a little too long. 

Nobody has been interested in you romantically before. Or physically. You accepted a very long time ago, while you were still in your teens, that romance wasn’t in the books for you. You felt lumpy and unattractive your entire life. While your peers were having all of their firsts– hand holding, kissing, sex – you were still sitting by yourself at lunch. That’s just how it’s supposed to be, it hisses, for someone ugly and horrible. 

Nobody has given you a second glance as an adult, either. You were living your truth, living with acceptance. You approached nobody, and certainly nobody approached you. This, what’s happening now, is utterly foreign to you. You have nothing to say because you’re afraid anything you think of will scare him away; force him to change his mind.

“Me?” you manage stupidly. 

He nods. “If you like. I want to see you again,” he clarifies. “I… I like spending time with you.”

You open and close your mouth like a disgruntled salmon swimming upstream. More than anything, you want to scream your acceptance then throw yourself in his arms like the desperate weirdo you are.

“I like spending time with you, too,” you parrot back to him. “Call me and we can set another date.”

His face softens with relief, as if it was the first time in his life ever asking someone out. “I was thinking coffee,” he tells you quietly. 

“Call me,” you repeat, giving him a small smile before disappearing into the car. 

‿̩͙⊱༒︎༻✦ ༺༒︎⊰‿̩͙

The basement of the Gotham Orphanage looks and feels exactly as you thought it would. More aptly, you think, it should be called the dungeon. It’s dank and murky and adequately disgusting. 

You have your gun clipped into its holster at your hip. Might as well keep it since they’re pissed at you anyway. What’re they gonna do? Sue you? 

You gag as you drop down from the sorry joke of a window to the cracked concrete floor. As opposed to the previous tune you’d sung, you’re happy to have free time on your hands to investigate. Especially free time that’s not monitored by the Commissioner. 

You’re only here because of your weird interaction with Batman. Him asking that question in the first place can only mean there’s something worth sticking your nose into here. You’re not exactly sure what you’re hoping to find, or what you’ll do with whatever you find, but you’re happy to have given yourself a little mission.

There’s nothing in the main open area, but obviously nothing worth finding would be there. You pick through a few abandoned, rotting rooms. Your heart twists for the sake of the poor children that’re forced to live here. You note to yourself to make the orphanage a priority in your new line of work. 

The first few rooms are disheartening, to say the least. Nothing but scraps of metal and cloth. The occasional fucked up chair. You’re content with leaving and forgetting all about this nonsense until you enter one final room at the end of the hall. 

Damp smears of blood whirl over the floors and walls. There’s even a dent in the metallic wall. Bits of rope are cluttered around the room, a metal chair knocked over on its side. Whatever Batman was looking for, it was most definitely here. 

You’re thinking of getting word to Batman somehow, reporting your findings, and actually then pointing him into the right direction. You had your petty moment. Now, you’re sure whatever shady business the Commissioner is involved in needs the intervention. Something glints obnoxiously into your retina, wrenching a wince from you. Once you move so that it isn’t catching the light just so, you inspect it closer. 

You’re no expert in novel technology, especially weapons, but you know exactly what it is. Anyone in Gotham could tell you what a Batarang is. He was already here. 

‿̩͙⊱༒︎༻✦ ༺༒︎⊰‿̩͙

You’re beginning to think that Batman is stalking you. 

In the weeks since you’d dropped in on the orphanage, you’d continued investigating what you could. You’re positive that it’s all a part of something bigger, perhaps way over your head, but you’d kick yourself if you didn’t try. 

He’s somehow always ten steps ahead of you. He’s always hitting the places you intend on going before you, he’s finding things you thought only you knew about, he’s stealing your thinking and 

following through. He’s following the paper trail you discovered before you could. You say as much to Bruce. 

You’ve been seeing him for over a month now, and you’re actually really liking him. He’s surprisingly easy to talk to, adamantly nonjudgemental, and a pleasant constant in your new-feeling life. Sure, you can admit it’s questionable that he’s technically your superior at work, a long-removed superior, but if you’re working with technicalities technically you started seeing each other before you were a payrolled employee of Wayne Enterprises. 

You complain to him now as the two of you sit together in the courtyard of a cafe in the nicer part of town. “I know it’s not my job anymore, but if he can, why shouldn’t I?”

He shrugs. “I don’t want you to get hurt. Or die.”

“I’m not gonna die!”

“But you’ll get hurt?”

You lightly swat his arm. “I never get anywhere in time for anything to happen. I’ll be fine because I’m investigating nothing.”

He just smiles at you and listens attentively to your complaining. 

Despite his name being on the building, you don’t see Bruce at work that often. Sometimes you’ll eat lunch together or he’ll leave some coffee on your desk. Aside from that, you’re both separately doing whatever it is that you do.

You never knew work could be so fulfilling. It’s as if you have infinite money, which honestly is quite close to the truth. Financial flexibility alongside a team of real-life decent people has demolished and rebuilt your worldview. You can make a difference. You are making a difference. 

In one of the first meetings you’d had at the firm in an official capacity, you’d brought up Jazzie as a top priority. 

“I don’t mean to be playing favorites or anything. I want her included on the bigger project, is all,” you’d told the gathered. “There are kids like her all over Gotham with no guardians. The orphanage practically has the same reputation as Arkham; it’s no wonder they’d rather live on the streets.”

Your first ever social welfare project. It’s your firstborn child. It also gave you an excuse to raze the dungeon of the orphanage that the Commissioner so loved to hide out in. You’re doing good. You’re happy. You can’t believe any of it is real.

Your spirits have even lifted to the point that you’ve started a little vegetable garden in your yard. You’re currently fighting a battle in a very long war against the birds and squirrels and even a racoon that drops by every so often. While your court case stretched on, your lawyers didn’t require your presence so much; gardening was a happy product of such. 

The rattling creaking of your rickety fence pulls your focus away from your little tomatoes. There he is, man of the hour, perched atop your fence like a bird on a wire. His general stillness, especially here, is unnerving. You’re sure you’ve had that thought thirty-million times. 

“Stop getting all in my shit,” he spits.

“I’m doing great, thanks for asking!” you call back sarcastically. 

“I asked for your help, which you did not give me. Stay out of my business. It does not involve you. It never did.”

You repeat what you asked Bruce earlier. “You’re allowed to gallivant through the city, but I’m not?”

“Not when you get in my way.”

“How the hell am I in your way? I haven’t seen you in ages,” you insist angrily. “What the fuck is up with you? I thought we were… I dunno, friends.”

“You are not a police officer anymore. You nailed your own coffin shut. Stop.” His voice echoes in the little hollow of your yard, further incensing you even when he’s long gone. You pace the stone walkway back and forth, trying to work off the steam boiling your insides. 

You think you were wrong about him. Justice your ass. He can say that he’s doing this in the name of what’s right all he wants; his methods are self-serving. He strokes his ego as much as he hops around Gotham in tights. 

If it's his way or the high way, you question the validity of his motives. You question the safety of Gotham in his hands.

You still don’t know how he found out where you live. 

If there’s any silver lining to today specifically, it’s that Bruce is taking you out. You’ve come to look forward to your dates, and when he’d called you this morning, after your kerfuffle with Batman, he’d made it painfully obvious that tonight was going to be special.

You would’ve categorized every single date you’d been on with him as special, but you don’t care for semantics. That second date, coffee as he’d imagined, was something straight out of a dream. You’d felt like the teenager you’d never got to be, playing twenty questions with him while waiting for your coffees. 

His demeanor was uncharacteristically bright, as if he was experiencing it all for the first time, too. He was so very slightly giddy, you could tell, and for Bruce that’s the equivalent of bouncing off the walls. There are two Bruces that you know: the one at work, and the one alone with you. He’d shed his overt ego, his “playboy-ness”, if you will. He shrunk from the god everyone made him out to be to a regular guy going out with someone he liked. It’d made you feel special. You can tell he’s into you. You enjoy it; you relish its feel, pulling it from your mind every so often to go over with your hands. 

What’s your favorite color? 

“Hm. I’d say black,” he’d said firmly. 

“That’s not a color.” You gave him a pointed look.

“Sure it is.”

“If I said I love how colorful these flowers are, would you think they’re all black?”

“Sure!”

What’s your favorite food?

“Steak. Red meat.”

“Okay, Ron Swanson.”

4. What’s your star sign?

“I’m not sure I know mine,” he’d admitted.

“When’s your birthday?”

“That counts as another question.”

“Whatever! Just answer the question,” you’d laughed. 

“Febuary 19th.”

You’d lit up. “An Aquarius cusp Pisces?” 

“Whatever that means. When’s your birthday?”

……. 20. What’s your love language?

He’d thought long and hard about it. 

“It has to be a little bit of all of them, no?” he’d finally said.

“Well, yeah, but what’s your favorite?”

He took another very long pause.

“Quality time.”

On another date, out of the blue, he’d ask if Jazzie had found a place to stay. During your first dinner, you’d told him all about how they wanted to send her straight to foster care, which horrified you, and thus spurred your first project at Wayne Enterprises. 

“I want her to be one of the first kids in this new place,” you’d told him. “And move all the others that’re in the orphanage. I just don’t know what to do with her in the time in between…”

“I’ll take care of it,” he’d insisted delicately. 

“Oh, you’re amazing. What’ll you do?”

“I know a guy, great with kids. Familiar with foster care.”

Your doorbell rings. You nearly eat shit making your way to the door. You gawk at the absurd grandeur of the bouquet of flowers held in Bruce’s hands. This is the first time he’s picking you up, and it delights you far more than you thought it would. The other few dates you took yourself or he’d sent the driver to you. 

“Those are beautiful,” you exclaim in lieu of greeting.

“They’re colorful,” he points out, a little smile gracing his lips. You think he’s just that much more handsome, smiling. As if he needed the boost. You can’t help but beam at his reference. You leave the door open for him and wander inside to find a vase.

After locking the door behind him, he follows with the bouquet cradled in his arms. “Where are we going?” you ask him, taking a vase down from where it was stored in one of your kitchen cupboards. 

“It’s a surprise,” he says coyly, earning a groan from you. You fill the vase with what you deem to be an adequate amount of tap water before setting in on the island. He begins to gently unwrap the bouquet, telling you without telling you that he’s taking it from here. “I wanted to talk before we went.”

“Of course.”

He doesn’t look up from the flowers, consumed in the busy work of his fingers. “I really like you,” he admits quietly, maybe more to himself than you, “and I was wondering if you wanted to make this…” He pauses, searching for a word. “...official.”

“I do,” you reply, your voice delicate. “You’re going to have to ask me properly.” You smile, trying to ease his nerves with your teasing. He weakly reciprocates the smile, settling the flowers in the vase. They had been wrapped perfectly prepared, you notice. 

“I have something to tell you.” You nod encouragingly. “That was me, earlier.”

You cock your head at him. “On the phone?” Of course that was him. He called you. 

His stare remains devoid of emotion. Still as the air after a storm. “No. In the garden.”

You continue to stare back at him blankly until it clicks. You can feel your expression melting from your previous felicity into borderline contempt. “In the garden?” you probe carefully. “That was… that is you?”

He nods. “That’s me. I… I told you not to follow me anymore. And before that I asked about Dane. Before that, Jazzie’s sister, who passed in critical care-”

 You interrupt him with an involuntary sound, similar to a scoff, escaping your throat. “You trespass on my property to yell at me then try to take me out on a special date?” you ask incredulously. “You’ve been playing in my face for almost two fucking months, you dick!” Despite what you’re chiding him for, your own voice begins to uptick in volume.

He winces. “It’s complicated,” he says quietly.

The connection births synaptic connections in your mind. The more you think, the more you’re able to navigate what you previously thought to be an untangleable web, the more you finally understand. Any flutters, any happiness is eaten alive by the growing, parasitic entity of anxiety materializing in your throat. It’s not long before you feel it in your stomach. More than anything, you feel shame. You feel so damn stupid for thinking that you actually deserved something like this. Like this was meant for you.

“Is that all I was to you?” you almost shout, taking on the past-tense greedily. “An annoying little thing that you buttered up to use?” 

“That’s not how I meant for it to be,” insists he. “I never meant to stay in contact with you as… well, as myself. I lost control. I’m sorry.”

You scoff. “So you fell into lying to me for months all on your own? Poor baby,” you sneer, bitterness beginning to compound on your anxiety and shame. He only chose you because he ‘lost control’, the voice shrieks in your head, its shrillness bouncing off of your skull. That’s what you are. 

“No, that’s not what I mean,” he says. His voice has taken on a frustrated lilt, but one of sadness, not anger. His eyebrows are only slightly upturned. “It was one thing as him. It’s different with me, I swear to you.” He braces his hands on the marble countertop, still gazing over its expanse at you. 

You rack your brain for something biting to say, but you find nothing. All you can do is try to suffocate the torrent of emotion threatening to pull you apart at the seams. 

“What I did was wrong,” he continues in his rough baritone. You would’ve never put it together yourself, but the similarities are evident now that you know. Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it? “I’m sorry for lying. I’m sorry for using you.”

“But you still did it,” is all you can say. 

His expression solidifies. “But I still did it,” he repeats solemnly. “I thought I was just going to keep coming to you as him, but then we had dinner, and you… made me feel a way I never had before. I knew there on the curb that if I didn’t try I’d regret it.”

“Then why did this morning happen?”

“I was too rash. I was stupid,” he says bluntly. “I leant too far into him thinking it would protect you, but then you called me…” He trails off, a pained look overtaking his handsome face. Even like this, he’s handsome. So unfair. “I knew I had to stop it then. I haven’t felt so strongly for anyone. Ever. Knowing I upset you hurt to the point of compelling change. I had to wake up.”

“Who are you, Bruce?”

His lips part slightly, startled. For once, he has no response. 

“You talk like Batman is a separate person. He’s not. That was Bruce. And Bruce is, was the one who wants to be with me romantically,” you blubber, stumbling over your words. “And Bruce is the one who’s been lying and cheating me. I get that you're sorry, I believe you, but how does that make anything better?” Tears well up in your eyes, the pain now blinding you.

“You’re right, it doesn’t. I am sorry. Please remember that.”

The flowers sit in the vase in front of you, mocking. How everything could change in an instant. In two sentences. “I think you should go.”

It’s only a brief blip, but he looks pained. He, yet, doesn’t disregard your demand. Silently, he rounds the kitchen island to gently set a hand on your shoulder and press a kiss onto your scalp. He leaves without looking back. 

Somehow, the front door is locked.

You cry in the shower. You cry once you’ve changed into your pajamas. You cry sitting on the couch surfing streaming services for something menial to watch. You think about him the entire time. How can you not? You were so close. So close to being rid of this wretched voice forever, to feeling normal, to love. You were so close to love, the stuff you were so unlucky to only ever dream about.

You feel stupid for crying, even more so over a man. You thought you were over it; clearly, you are not. Perhaps this is a wound meant to be open on you forever, ’till you were put in the ground and the dirt feasted on its festering puss and maggots. 

The job, the dates. Not because of your magnetism, or charisma, or character, or even your looks. For your information. You were useful to him until you weren’t, and now here you are. Will all you ever be is that GCPD Captain?

Finally, you come across a baking show dull enough while stimulating enough. You find a pint of ice cream in your freezer and the tears ebb. You have a long night of self-soothing ahead of you, and you’re perfectly content to throw yourself into it. 

‿̩͙⊱༒︎༻✦ ༺༒︎⊰‿̩͙

You’re not sure what you were expecting, but you’re slightly surprised that your life is still intact. Even weeks after your visceral moment in the kitchen, you still have your Wayne Enterprises job. In fact, you were thriving in it. Plus, the end of your court case is on the horizon, and Jared insists that you owe them nothing, not a cent. He reassures and reassures you that Mr. Wayne has covered it.

He hasn’t called you, nor spoken to you. Where he used to take interest in your work, he’s entirely absent now. Nobody suspects anything has changed, or even transpired, not when he’s as innately busy as he already is. 

You can’t decide whether you’re grateful for the space he’s giving you or not. Obviously, you’re relieved that he isn’t a pesterer; not that he had ever seemed the type. From start to finish he was strongly respectful, perfectly gentlemanly. As Bruce, anyway. There is, however, a teeny tiny– okay, a huge part of you that wished he would reach out. Wished he would grovel, like in the movies, and prove his love. Well, in this situation, like, but all the same. You want him to win you back, You want to go back to feeling so deliriously happy and connected.

You manage to numb yourself to it after another month. You distract yourself with work, losing yourself in it, but that’s not new. Jazzie is your current best friend, and as your new home for orphaned children is being finished, your biggest fan. Since she was cooped up in the hospital, and then in Bruce’s heavily-vetted foster home, you’d let her sit in on some of your work. You even let her choose the color of paint for the playroom walls. 

Now, she skips around the playroom, giddy with excitement. “I’m gonna have so much fun playing here!” she declares, stopping in front of you. 

“I’m glad. I’m sorry it’s still gonna be a while,” you tell her. The place is only half-built, and the systems have only just begun to be worked out. It’s gonna be a while, indeed. You thought you might as well get this done first to keep little Jazzie afloat with hope, though you’re not sure she needed your help in that department.

You could learn something from her careless joy, her endlessly positive mindset. You think you will, too, with your new healthcare benefits from Wayne Enterprises. It’s really time for a therapist to get involved.

You hold her hand to take her back outside, a car idling, waiting to take her back home. A very pleasant, yet very old , British man comes to open the door for her, taking her little hand to help her into the car. “Why, hello, my lady,” he greets her, smiling. She looks back at you with a fat, gap-toothed grin.

“He’s my butler!” she all but shouts.

“Jazzie! That’s not nice!” you chide during a sudden laugh. 

“It’s quite alright,” he intones. “Now, buckle your seatbelt, madame.” He waits at the door until she manages the buckle on her carseat.  “Captain,” he says genially to you.

“Oh, gosh. Please don’t call me that,” you say, telling him your name is just fine. “Those days are long gone for me.”

“Director,” he amends, still smiling his gentle smile. 

‿̩͙⊱༒︎༻✦ ༺༒︎⊰‿̩͙

You’re walking home very late one night from the corner store. You still don’t have a car what with it disintegrating and all. You’re saving for a new one now, hopefully one that you’ll never leave in the Narrows overnight.

You blink and there are hands at your throat, squeezing with the force of a hydraulic press. 

Immediately, your vision begins to spot. You can’t breathe anymore. Air is entering your nose but not progressing any further. You’d left your gun at home, like an idiot. Like the idiot you are. This is it. This is the end. 

Immediately, that silhouette that has been taunting you for months appears. He strangles the person battering you, hauling them off you by the neck. He throws them down, landing a sickening punch to their face. You hear something crack, but you can’t bring yourself to care. He never looks at you, not once, despite your staring problem.

He disappears into the night as quickly as he appeared. 

‿̩͙⊱༒︎༻✦ ༺༒︎⊰‿̩͙

He is the first to break the silence that has festered between you.

Bruce calls you on your cellphone. You could never bring yourself to block him; you figured you’d need it for work one day, anyway.

You watched your phone ring almost ’till the end. Right before the end, you can’t help yourself and snatch it up to answer the call.

“Hi,” he says, surprised that you answered at all. 

“Hi,” you reply, surprised that you answered at all. 

A tiny silence follows. “I missed you,” he announces bluntly. “I thought I’d call and try to hear your voice.”

For the first time in a month, you feel the flutters. “Oh.”

“I’m glad you picked up,” he continued. “I wanted to tell you myself that you’re doing fantastic work.”

You find yourself smiling despite yourself. “Thank you, Bruce.” You hear a sharply quiet inhale on the other end, his name from your mouth affecting him. Positively, you find yourself thinking. Romantically, sexually. 

After another pause, he once again breaks the silence, this time with a subtle crack in his voice. “Can I see you in person?”

You see all the events of the past few months flash before your face. Batman’s abrasiveness souring Bruce’s stoic sweetness. Batman’s absurdly unpredictable nature compared to Bruce’s comforting steadiness. Bruce’s lies juxtaposed with Bruce’s truths. It’s all scrambled together, and it has been since that day with the flowers. 

“Sure,” you say. At the same time as him, you then say, “Coffee?”

You want clarity. It’s time you went and got it.

You went to the same coffee place you went for your second date. Bruce’s reasoning for choosing it lies within your previous enjoyment with the food and drink. Yours is simply wanting to see how he chooses to go about this– all of it. How he goes about treating you.

By the time you get to the cafe, he’s seated in a bright corner of the shop, gazing out at the scenery. On the table sits an assortment of pastries alongside two cups of coffee. One plain black, the other your favorite. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, greeting you with an awkward hug. “I’m very sorry.”

You both sit down, and you wait for him to say whatever it is he needs to say. 

“I’ve been thinking a lot since we last spoke, and I know what I want now. I have an answer to your question, too.” At your confused look, he continues. “You asked me who I was. I’m Bruce. I’m also Batman, but they’re both me. I’m very fucked up either way, and that skews my decision making a lot of the time– not that that’s an excuse,” he says before you can interrupt. “I know what I want. I want to stop hurting the people I care about, and I want to truly care about people, not pretend like I don’t or cease caring entirely. I want you. I want to court you. I want to be with you.” He lightly taps his folded hands on the table, as if punctuating his sentence. His ears are flushed pink. How cute.

“Thank you for apologizing, and for saying all of that.” You mirror his posture, lacing your fingers together and setting them primly on the table. “I’m very scared.”

You leave it at that, instead raking your eyes over the pastries at the table. A few eclairs, some fruit tarts, miniature pan-au-chocolats, macarons. You feel the salivation begin in excess, belying your current distress. 

“What are you scared of?”

“That I’ll ruin it. Or hurt you. Or you’ll hurt me again. Or that you’ll discover who I really am and leave me.”

“I feel like I know you well,” he says gently. “We can take it slow. I want you to be happy.”

You find yourself telling him everything. All the trauma that made you who you are today. The voice in your head that wants to see you miserable 24/7. Your moral and ethical crises working for the police department. “You already threw it in my face,” you remind him.

He grimaces. “And it wasn’t fair of me. You were right, you know. You’re self aware. All I do is pretend like I’m a normal man.” He leans over and very gently breaks apart your hands. He takes a long time doing it, too, making sure you can push him away if you want to. When you don’t, he takes your hand in his. “I don’t think you’re a bad person.”

When you don’t respond, he persists. “We’re really similar, you know. Blurring the lines between justice and ethics. We’re both really messed up, actually. No offense,” he adds with a smile. “I think that’s what makes us perfect for each other.”

You roll your eyes at him, not unhappy. “You could have any other much better looking person.”

“I think you’re the most gorgeous person I’ve ever laid eyes on.” You must give him a pathetically shocked look, because he says, “I’m serious.” He takes his other hand to give yours a pat. “I won’t make you do anything. I’ve already been an ass as it is.”

“Are you sure?” you ask meekly. “What about Jazzie’s sister? If I was just using my brain, she wouldn’t have–”

“Stop. That wasn’t your fault,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious, evident truth in the world. He says it with the same conviction he proclaimed your beauty. “Please don’t do that to yourself. Not with anything. We can keep each other accountable.”

And that you do. 

The date ends after the two of you happily feasted on the sweets, the mood lightening as you turned to other, meaningless topics. Before you left, he kissed the back of your hand. He calls you to talk about nothing the next morning. 

You take it slow, just as Bruce promised you could. You find a therapist, and you start going regularly. He tells you that he’s done the same. For the first time in your life, you’re dismantling the system that you’ve been oppressing yourself with for the worst. You have done bad things, and that’s okay. You were a child. You were a teenager. You were a lost adult. You have been plagued by guilt and shame, two things that a truly bad person would never feel. You are not a bad person. You are growing. You are you.

You have fun because you are fun. You find beauty everywhere because you are beautiful. You yearn for love, and you love so deeply, because you are love. 

Bruce helps in the way you could only imagine a lover– can you call him that yet? –could. While you no longer base your value off of others’ opinions of you, he makes you feel so treasured and cared for; coming on feeling loved. Like he said, it’s slow, but it’s so evident the extent of his feelings for you. He hasn’t forgotten a single thing you’ve told him. He’s so incredibly cognizant that he’s broken your trust and hurt you to a fault. You feel as though he punishes himself for it still, even though you’ve long forgiven him. 

When it came to forgiving him, you were very confused. On the one hand, he was a lying, manipulative ass. On the other hand, his guilt tormented him. Bad people don’t feel guilt. Bad people don’t punish themselves for their wrongdoings. Maybe some bad people become completely vulnerable after putting up walls of steel, but you don’t think that’s the case now.

He tells you when he patrols. He tells you how he figured out where you lived, how he found you that night you first met. He swears, he promises profusely, that he will never, ever take advantage of you like that again.

“I’d like to still ask for your help,” he’d admitted, almost shyly. He’d also admitted that he’d followed you a few times as Batman. You want to be angry at him, but he did save your life. “I won’t do it anymore. Obviously. Unless you want me to.”

“You can shoot me if I hurt you again,” he said solemnly.

“I won’t be doing that…”

“I’m serious.”

“I don’t think you’ll hurt me, B, okay?”

He’ll never in his life admit it, not now or not twenty years in the future when you’re married and beginning to grey, but his favorite ‘dates’ are the ones where you do help him as Batman. He thought you were a brilliant police officer, and he thinks you’re a brilliant person (because you are). Watching you do the work he’s dedicated his life to is fulfilling to every end. It heals him. You, as a whole, are healing him.

The second time he brings you flowers to your door and wants to take you out goes far better than the first. This bouquet is far wilder and more extravagant than the first, and when you question it he reminds you, “I’m groveling.”

You make it out the door arm in arm. “Do you remember how I wanted to take you on that ‘special’ date?” he asks you in the car. Rather, in the back of his car, as the driver winds through Gotham’s roads. You’d think he didn’t know how to drive if you’d never seen him in the Batmobile.

“How can I forget?” you say, smiling. 

“I hope you don’t mind that I’m reusing that idea tonight.”

“If you’d never told me, I wouldn’t have known,” you tease, nudging his arm. He smiles back at you. By the restaurant, there’s a quaint, scenic pathway overlooking the river. It’s peaceful, fairy lights strung overhead. The street lamps had long since abandoned their jobs. The water babbles soothingly, a pleasing background noise for your little walk.

“Do you want to see each other? Officially?” he asks.

You try to bite away your smile, but you can’t, and it jumps on his face, too. “I do.” He beams now, verily and truly happy. The happiest you’ve seen him. You’ve practically completed a lap, a few yards away from where you started by the door to the restaurant. “You were going to ask the last time?”

He nods. He might’ve been about to say something else, you’re not sure. You rise onto your tippy-toes, tilt your head to the side, and lightly press your lips to his. One of his hands catches the small of your back, pressing you upwards into him. Your kiss is chaste and brief, but when you tip your head back, you find Bruce’s lips chasing yours. His kiss is deeper, gently urging your lips apart. Your hands are braced on the thick plane of his chest, where his other hand comes to rest on top of yours. He’s so eager he’s slightly dipping you backwards.

When you separate, his nervousness is written across his face in permanent marker. “It’s been a while,” he offers quickly, his current demeanor so in opposition to what you see online and at work, but so endearingly true to the Bruce you know in private.

“You don’t have to explain that stuff to me,” you assure him. “I certainly can’t judge.”

“Then we have lots of time to make up for.” He’s grinning his shit-eating grin. “You can compare me to me. Tell me how great I am.”

You swat him gently, laughing. He can’t help himself now, watching your gorgeous face light up. It stirs something in him, your happiness, something he never thought he would have the honor of feeling. He finds solace in your joy, and he knows right then that he will for the rest of his life. He has found peace, for he has found you.

She Just Wants Attention by @/renniev - kyle rayner x batsis!reader

College au part 2

Ramen & Love by @luviery - roy harper x batsis!reader

Both of you are idiots in love who just yearn, instead of confessing.

Slow Morning by @ghxstrobins - garth of shayeris x reader

Night To Remember by @twentytomidnight - john stewart x reader

You get swept off your feet

Guy being jealous by @/twentytomidnight

I like em ugly by @citrine-starz - guy gardner x fem!reader

Guy Gardner is terrible at gift giving, but this years gonna be different.

My father’s hands by @that-dumb-bunny - dad!hal jordan x daughter!reader

Where The Lights Almost Stay by @purplespiritimagines - clark kent x reader

at a fleeting, neon-lit carnival, you and clark wander through sugar-sweet air and quiet moments that feel bigger than the night itself. somewhere between rigged games and a ferris wheel pause above the city, something soft and steady begins—something that might outlast even the disappearing lights.

Stephanie Brown yearning headcanons by @aria-lacrimosa

Unbelievable by @utopeian - dick grayson x fem!reader

Dick Grayson is not just “some guy”, he's your very dramatic boyfriend

I’m With The Band by @starfires-comet - dick grayson x fem!reader

you’re dick grayson’s long-term girlfriend, but when you try to get backstage at one of his shows, the security guards refuse to believe your relationship is real.

This life, I’m afraid (may be built on love, after all) by @thenyoumightaswellwrestleangels - bruce wayne x reader

Sleeping habits headcanons by @cherryvvave - multi character

Includes: Bruce Wayne, Diana of Themyscira, Dick Grayson, Hal Jordan, Kara Zor-El, Roy Harper, Talia Al Ghul, and Zatanna Zatara

Lightning by @sozzoe - kara zor-el x alien!reader

drinking with her on a distant planet.

Barry’s not a fan of horror movies by @froggibus - barry allen x reader

Gas Station Sushi by @fluentmoviequoter - barry allen x fem!reader

Barry is late for yet another date. His idea to make it up to you is a little unconventional. Luckily you love him, not just his speed or his ideas.

Chips by @stcrgazerlily - barry allen x reader

you notice your boyfriend is always hungry, so you start carrying chips around

Damian Wayne and bff!reader text messages by @thesuperiorrobin

Yandere Satoru Gojo and Suguru x Toxic reader

here

Husband Satoru Gojo

here

Yandere Satoru gojo

here

Hiding from Satoru Gojo because you got hit with a truth curse

here

Serial killer Gojo x reader

here

Gold diggers guide to jujutsu sorcerers - JJK men x reader

here

You and Satoru gojo are both handcuffed together - Gojo x reader

here

Baby megumi and husband toji fluff

here

Taming the Yandere - JJK men x reader

here

Comforting and cuddling Satoru gojo

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Witch of the mountain - Sukuna x reader

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♥︎JJK smau♥︎

You cheat on yandere jjk men

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Sukuna “accidentally” likes 6 of your thirst traps from 2018

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Nobara dares you to bag a DILF Toji

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I’m at my ex’s house prank

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Universe shipping you and Gojo - Satoru Gojo x reader (2 parts)

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Sold to the Gojos - Satoru Gojo x reader x Nanami (3 parts)

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You’re hopelessly in love with Satoru gojo but he keeps giving you mixed signals - Satoru Gojo x reader (2 parts)

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⭐︎JJK SMAU SERIES⭐︎

When two red flags meet - Gojo x reader x JJK men (7 parts)

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Divider by : @somebitchprobably-graphicdump 💚

Your eyes flicker from your half-finished plate to the faces across the expanse of stained wood, their expressions joyful as they chatter away about some topic you are not privy too. League business, probably, if the look of partial understanding on Oliver’s face at Roy and your father’s words is anything to go by.

You study their faces; first Roy’s, then your father’s. 

The freckles that’d adorned Roy’s face when you were younger had faded, replaced by a few barely formed wrinkles you assumed he’d gained throughout overcoming his struggles and the joy and stress that came with raising his daughter. (The same daughter who, at present, is trying to hide her peas under a small pile of mashed potatoes.)

Where Roy had wrinkles, your father had none. 

On the contrary, Hal looks young. Far too young. He looks the way he had when you were still a small child; running around without a care in the world, unaware of the horrors to come.

You hadn’t noticed how different he looks at first. You’d been so happy he was alive again; a real, living person and not some form of ghost you still didn’t fully understand. It wasn’t till you were out shopping that you realized just how much he’d changed. It had happened when an elderly woman asked you if Hal was your brother—the two of you had assisted her with reaching some higher up items, after which he’d wandered further down the aisle making you the only one aware of the assumption. 

You had laughed—the sound awkward, almost manic, too high-pitched to be considered normal—and corrected her. “No!” you’d said. “That’s my dad.” 

You’d started looking at him a lot closer after that. Noticing little things that were missing, like the scar on his hand from when he’d helped you build a mock gingerbread house out of cardboard and the knife jumped, nicking the side of his palm. 

It wasn’t just his features that had changed. His words had, too.

He didn’t call you bug anymore.

At first you thought it was because of the whole ‘possessed by an insectoid entity’ thing. (You’d made Kyle explain it all to you several times so you could finally have a semi-understanding of just what it was.) But then you’d heard him talking to Lian; the way the nickname had rolled so easily off his tongue like he’d been waiting to say it again, wanting to say it—just not to you.

There’s a little voice inside your head that tells you to move on, that it’s just a dumb nickname. It argues with another one, saying that your father’s still unsure how to interact with you after so long apart. A third voice, louder than the second, twists it’s words, leaving you wondering if he even wanted to be near you at all, or was just doing so out of some sense of obligation to your younger self.

It was so long ago, after all. And you’d changed, too—though you didn’t feel they were as drastic a change as whatever turned your father into… well, this semi-recognizable version of himself.

You really should let the nickname thing go.

But you still remember when he’d first called you that; how he laughed when you crinkled your nose at the thought of being a bug, and with exceptional patience explained to you about lanterns and lightning bugs and bioluminescence. You’d asked him a question as a joke: “Am I a lightnin’ bug ‘cause I light up your life?”

He’d chuckled, pressed a kiss to the top of your head and tucked you into bed. “You sure make it more interesting,” he’d said. And, as he did every night, regaled you with stories of his space adventures as you drifted off to sleep dreaming of the stars.

You inhale sharply, blinking away the hot tears that threaten to spill down your cheeks. Those memories feel so far away now.

You poke at your food, more for something to do than anything. When you do take a bite you barely take note of the taste, just swallow it down with the lump in your throat.

Once your father finally spots you looking at him, he smiles. But it doesn’t reassure you the way it used to. 

You offer a small smile back anyway.

Glancing around the room, seeing everyone converse and laugh with each other while you feel so out of place twists the proverbial knife in your gut.

Maybe it wasn’t your father that changed.

Maybe you were the problem.

divider by @/omi-resources

The gray one meowed loudly in protest as if to say you absolutely had. You rolled your eyes slightly but scratched behind his ear anyway before prying open the first can using the little piece of bent metal you always carried.

You set the can down and they dove in almost instantly, little bodies pressing together as they ate. You opened the second one and pushed it toward the others. A few new strays had started showing up lately, thin things with wary eyes that kept their distance until they realized there was food involved.

Tonight one of them approached slowly from the far end of the alley. This one was different from the others, its fur was sleek despite living outside, black as the shadows around it with bright green eyes that reflected the streetlight above. It moved confidently, not creeping the way most strays did. You noticed that immediately and tilted your head slightly.

“You’re new” The cat paused only for a moment before stepping closer. Unlike the others it didn’t hesitate, it sat down near the food like it had every right to be there and looked up at you with calm, unbothered eyes. You squinted at it. “You don’t look starving.” Still, you reached into the bag and poured a small pile of kibble onto the pavement near it. The cat lowered its head and started eating, you watched it for a second, arms resting loosely on your knees. Then a voice spoke from somewhere behind you. “They’re already fed.”

The words were calm but carried a certain firmness to them. You froze for half a second before turning your head sharply. A woman was standing near the mouth of the alley, leaning casually against the brick wall like she had been there the whole time. You hadn’t heard her approach, that alone made your eyes narrow slightly. She looked completely out of place and yet somehow perfectly at home in Gotham at the same time. Her dark hair fell smoothly over her shoulders, and the streetlight caught faint hints of green in her eyes. Her clothes were simple, dark jacket, fitted pants, boots, but everything about the way she stood suggested quiet confidence, like someone who was always aware of exactly what was happening around them. The black cat continued eating the kibble without a care in the world. You glanced down at it, then back up at the woman. Your voice came out flat. “Good for them,” The woman’s eyebrow lifted slightly. You gestured toward the cats with a small shrug. “They’re eating again.” Your tone carried its own hint of stubborn authority. She studied you for a moment, eyes flicking briefly to the pile of cats gathered around the food. Something about the scene seemed to amuse her. “You feed strays,” she observed casually.

“Obviously.” The gray cat meowed loudly and climbed halfway into your lap like he wanted attention. You absently scratched behind his ears while still watching the woman. “You’ve been doing this long?” she asked. You shrugged again. “Long enough.” The black cat finished the kibble and licked its paw, looking entirely satisfied with itself. The woman pushed away from the wall and walked closer, her footsteps light but deliberate. You stiffened slightly as she approached. Most people in Gotham didn’t walk into dark alleys just to chat with strangers but she didn’t seem threatening exactly, if anything she looked… curious. She stopped a few feet away and crouched down smoothly, reaching out to scratch the black cat under the chin. The cat immediately leaned into her hand like it knew her. Your eyes narrowed again. “Your cat?” The corner of her mouth curved faintly. “One of them.” You snorted quietly under your breath. “Figures.” She glanced up at you. “Figures?” You gestured lazily at the cat. “Too clean. Too confident. And not starving.” Her smile widened just a little, like she appreciated the observation.

“You noticed.” “Not blind.” The gray cat pawed at your sleeve demanding more attention. You scratched behind his ear again without looking down. The woman watched the motion carefully. “You don’t seem like the type to run a charity,” she said lightly. Your eyes flicked back to hers immediately. The coldness in your expression returned in an instant. “Didn’t realize feeding cats required a personality type.” She laughed softly at that. It wasn’t mocking, more… entertained. “Fair point.” The black cat finished grooming itself and hopped up onto a nearby crate, tail swishing lazily. The woman straightened slightly but didn’t leave. “Still,” she continued, studying you in that quiet assessing way again, “most people in this city steal for themselves.”

You didn’t react right away, you just slowly opened another can and set it down for the smaller cats who were still trying to push their way into the earlier piles. Then you finally looked back at her. Your voice was calm but blunt. “Most people in this city aren’t worth stealing for.” That made her laugh again, this time a little louder. “You’re a blunt one.” You shrugged. “You’re the one standing in an alley criticizing someone for feeding animals.” “Not criticizing.” Her eyes flicked toward the cats again. “Just observing.” You watched her carefully. “You always observe strangers in dark alleys?” Her smile sharpened slightly. “Only the interesting ones.” The word interesting hung in the air for a moment, you didn’t look flattered, if anything you looked slightly more suspicious. The gray cat climbed fully into your lap now, curling up like he owned you. You rested a hand on his back absentmindedly. The woman watched that too, something thoughtful flickering briefly across her face.

“They trust you” she said. “They’re cats,” you replied. “They trust whoever feeds them.” She tilted her head slightly. “Not always.” You didn’t answer that.

For a moment the alley was quiet except for the small sounds of cats eating and the distant noise of Gotham traffic echoing between buildings. The woman finally stood up, brushing her hands lightly against her jacket. “Well,” she said casually, “I suppose I’ll let you continue your… charitable activities.” You gave a small dismissive shrug. “Do what you want.” She started to walk away, then paused after a few steps and glanced back over her shoulder. The amusement was still there in her eyes. “You know,” she added lightly, “if you’re going to steal cat food, you should probably avoid the pet store on Grant Street tomorrow. They’re installing new cameras.” Your head snapped up slightly. She winked. Then she turned and disappeared down the street before you could say anything else.

You lie awake on the overly fancy bed of your overly empty room. How many deaths does this make? 89? 90? 99? You lost track after being torn limb from limb by Harley's freaky ass hyenas for the 33rd time.

Silent tears fall from the corners of your eyes as you watch the ceiling fan spin around and around. Your eyes hold no light and you can't help but feel like a dead corpse living within the suffocating flesh of another person.

You can still remember the first time you woke up like this. You had once been a wide eyed naïve little thing, thinking you could stay away from the plot and live a lavish life! Just like in those silly online comics you read! Surely this wasn't so bad? I mean, yeah your entire family ignored you or tried to stab you but at least you had the comfort of money!

Wrong! After Y/N shows up you get cut off from the funds and taken out of the will so Y/N can have funding for herself! And if you try to complain? Throw a fit? Meekly ask to not be kicked out? Death!

Sometimes you can't help but feel so overwhelmingly sorry for your pitiful past self. Just how could they be so dumb? So stupid? To think anyone would love them, no, not in this place! Not when Y/N is around and basking in the spotlight like it's her natural birthright.

A memory crosses your mind, one where you had accidently ran Y/N over in one life which caused the entire Wayne family and friends to hunt you down, and started to laugh. How silly it was! The way her body went 'crunch' as you tried so desperately to stop the car.

You really didn't mean it. You tried so hard to explain that the brakes weren't working and you tried to swerve out of the way. Oh but did they listen? Ha ha no! They didn't! They left you for dead in Arkham Asylum where you suffered such a terrible ending before ending up right back at the start.

Your ribs start to hurt the longer you continue laughing, yet you can't seem to stop yourself. It's like with every laugh more and more of your fears and sanity simply 'pop' into nothingness. Isn't that silly? Imagine going through life over ninety nine times, each dying from one thing or another, and finally on your one hundredth life you seem to finally lose it mentaly?

How hilarious! It actually took you one hundred deaths to finally start going crazy!!

Someone knocks on your door and you silence yourself immediately. What's this? This is new...no one has ever knocked on your door during the first three hours of your reset.

You don't make an effort to get up, nor to even call out to see who it was. Why would anyone knock on your door? No...you must be hearing things. How silly of you. You smile to yourself as you continue to stare at the ceiling.

You try to think of what to do in this life but after living ninety nine life times what is there to do? You turn over and catch yourself in the mirror. You look insane. Messy hair, tears streaming from your dead and empty looking eyes, a wide toothy smile that you can't shake, and faint almost invisible scars that litter your skin.

Where did these scars come from? They traveled over from your past lives of course! Oh how you wish you could get rid of them, but alas. It stains your skin like ink that you can never wash away.

You sit up with an idea. Perhaps...just maybe...in this life you commit to the bit and finally go crazy? Yes. It wouldn't matter anyway since you'll simply die and start all over! Again, and again, none of it matters! None of it at all!

You break down into manic giggles. This time you do not cry, you just laugh wildly before losing your breath and starting to wheeze as you flop back down onto the bed. Your hands run over the patterned fabric like you were trying to sooth yourself, or commit the pattern to memory. You have exactly two weeks before Y/N shows up and another ten weeks before you have to scramble for both housing and money.

Something in the back of your mind pulls taut before snapping into two but all you can hear is the sound of your own laughter.

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Jason stood outside your room, hand ready to knock once more. He was a little worried considering it sounded like you were either having a manic attack or you were severely hyped up on laughing gas. Once your room goes silent he presses an ear to the door.

Should he step in? Is this normal for you? He wouldn't know considering he hasn't stepped foot near you after his revival. Why should he? You were...normal...a civilian stuck with vigilante for a family. He didn't want to get you caught up in whatever the hell was going on in his night life.

After a moment of pure silence the sound of giggles fill the room and the hair on his neck rises. For the smallest of moments your laugh reminded him of that night with the Joker. He shakes his head as he goes to open the door only for the sound of footsteps walking his way stopped him.

He turns to face Damian, who was standing at the edge of the hallway with his head titled and eyes narrowed in a sort of questioning manner. He doesn't speak, only raising a brow, and Jason lets out a sigh.

Jason lets his hand fall from the doorknob and makes his way towards Damian. He shouldn't interfere with your life. You deserve more than some half broken man with too many problems.

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You listen to the footsteps get further and further away from your door. Guess you really weren't hearing things. You press your lips together to a thin line before your clutching at your stomach and giggling to yourself. You start to hiccup as you kick your feet on the bed all while laughing to yourself.

Did they really just chicken out on trying to talk to you?! Pathetic! Oh the big bad Bats and Birds can't even hold a conversation with their own family?? Oh that's too good!

You wipe away the tears from your eyes and check the time. If you remember correctly you have school today, just like always, and this is the day someone stabs you in the hand. How evil of them! Doing such a thing to a poor, defenseless, teen like you!!

But it's whatever. You have better things to think about. You sit up, smoothing out the blankets, and head to your tiny little closet. Your room wasn't that big, only the size of a small bedroom of a run down apartment. Sure that's more space than what other people have but in a big manson like this one? This might as well be a storage room.

You pull out your school uniform for Gotham Prep and give it a once over before stuffing it back into the closet. Instead you grab the school official cardigan that's normally used for the winter time and decide to wear that one instead. Ever since that one death, where you were turned to ice by Mr. Freeze, you've always been a bit chilly so it wasn't that big of a deal to you.

After shrugging on the cardigan you slip on some pants, making sure to grab two matching socks, before putting on your shiny black shoes that looked heavily worn and torn. You look at yourself in the mirror, looking over the uniform for any imperfections, before doing a small twirl. You look great! The only way to spice this slightly bland look is to add a few accessories.

You turn to your only desk and eye the small amount of jewelry you have. Your eyes land on a small pair of red X's with a black rim, then your eyes land on an aquamarine tear drop ring with a shiny gold band. This one was your favorite because it was also your mothers! You think back to that one life time Y/N tried to claim it as hers, so you swallowed it to keep her from getting her greedy hands on it.

Ohhh they were not happy with you after that. But who cares? The memory brings a smile to your face. Perhaps you'll eat it now just to keep her from seeing it entirely...Nah not right now. You want to wear it today. You grab it from the desk and slip it on, marveling at it for a few seconds before grabbing the flower shaped aquamarine earrings and putting them on. Now you look stunning.

Forget about Martha Wayne's pearls, these aquamarines are a [Last name] delicacy only!

Now you were finally ready to go to school, and to try and avoid getting the tendons in your hand severed forever. You skip down the hallway with a grin on your face and schoolbag in hand. Screw it, who cares what happens to day. You'll make the most of it and do it your way!

As you skipped down the stairs you remained oblivious to the confused look of both Alfred and Bruce. It was clear that they hadn't ever seen you so happy. Which was a shame considering you had such a lovely smile.

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So it seems it was a lot easier to say that than it was to actually do that. Here you were surrounded by a circle of teens who were all praying on your downfall. On the other side of the circle was one of your classmates with a knife, you think it's the guy from math but you aren't certain, and you new there was no way out of this. Nobody would save you, just like they hadn't all those times before.

You tilt your head to the side and shrug off your backpack. Someone from the crowd 'Ooo's and the rest fallow along. The other kid, someone whose name you've long since forgotten, takes offence to that and lunges at you with the knife aimed for your heart. You dodge him of course, only stepping to the side to avoid his attack.

Having faced much more frightening deaths you can't say that some dumb teen with a knife scares you. The knife does graze you, cutting a long line from one side of your left shoulder to the other, but you don't pay it any mind. The only thing you're thinking about is the fact that you're bleeding and it doesn't hurt.

Fascinating. You wonder how it would feel to...inflict such damage in return. An image of the teen lying on the ground in a heap with blood leaking from his head passes through your head and you smile. That seems fun, repaying him for all the times he's managed to cut you.

Just as the teen lunges again you step to the side, griping his arms in a tight grip and twist them to the side. A sickening crack fills the air and the crowd gasps in shock. The teen screams in agony but all you can do is stare down at him with apathetic eyes. Was everyone really into this? It's so...boring.

Perhaps you need to up the pain? You grip him by the hair and slam his face into the brick wall you were backed up against. A giggle breaks free as you see his face contort in pain. He looks so stupid like this! You slam him against the wall again, watching as his face starts to redden with each slam.

The moment his nose starts to bleed your giggles turn into a full on laughter. This was what everyone liked? Bloodshed? Red faces and pained screams? How silly! You could do so much worse.

You grab the knife from the ground as you turn to the crowd. Blood stains your hands like a mirror to the blood on the wall. Your cardigan is stained with blood. However you don't worry too much as you know how to get it out thanks to your many past lives.

The crowd backs up and people start to murmur to each other. "They finally lost it..." One person whispers to another.

"How creepy" Says another.

"Does their dad know they're this mentally gone? Oh right." Another voice snorts and soon the entire crowd is whispering or laughing at you.

Should you laugh too? Something must be funny about all this if they're laughing. You turn your eyes upon them and laugh along. Soon they slowly stop laughing and only stare at you in response. Your eyes are so empty looking and yet you have the audacity to laugh like that?

What a freak.

Someone places a hand on your shoulder and you instinctively aim the knife towards their eyes, stopping just short as you realize who it is. There he stands. Your older brother who abandoned you time, and time, and time again.

How could you ever forget the face of Dick Grayson! His eyes were always so full of either pity or distain. It pissed you off to no end. He instantly removed his hands from your shoulders and raised them up as if to say 'I mean no harm'.

You put the knife down because you know better than to stab one of Bruce's children. Instead of greeting him you shrugged off your cardigan, trying not to look at the damaged white button up that was getting soaked in your own blood, and tied it around your waist. You took the knife and bent down to the unconscious attacker.

You only got to raise the knife in the air before Dick stopped you with a shout, "Stop!" You turn around with narrowed eyes and a face that screamed 'I'm judging you so badly right now'.

He seemed a bit embarrassed when he saw your face but he still continued. "He's already down, you don't have to stab him again."

"...what? I'm not going to stab him. I'm just cutting up his clothes." You responded with an arched brow. Did he really think so little of you to assume that you'd try and stab this guy?

"Huh? No, wait, you don't need to do that either??"

"Uhhh yes I do? Bitch, do I look like I have something to stop this bleeding?" You gesture to yourself as you continue to judge him. "Hell no, I'm taking this assholes fabric to use. He clearly doesn't need it."

You glance back at his face as you begin to cut the cloth into thin strips for you to use and stop. You have to bite your lip to keep yourself from laughing again at how dumb he looks.

He looks like he just got told the moon landing was fake and that the moon was also fake. "Yes??? You are the child of The Bruce Wayne! We have money for you to use?!"

You almost feel bad for the guy. Almost. But with that one comment the silly moment had passed and the dull ache in your heart has returned. You scoff and throw a nearby rock at him, watching as it hits him in the arm.

"Hey! What'd you do that for?" He gives a fake little yelp and you know he's not really in pain. He's clearly suffered from worse, so you aren't too sure why he's acting now.

You don't say anything. What would you even say? All the words you want to say simply burn into ash and melt on your tongue when you even try. And it's not like they'd actually listen to you. They'll just pick up whatever they want to hear and discard all the rest.

When you don't say anything he gives you a once over. Your pants have a few patched holes in them, your shoes are scuffed to hell and back but they still looked somewhat cared for, and from where your clothes were ridding up he could see the outlines of a plenitude of scars. Were you really being neglected in the manor like this?

He thought....he thought that someone was looking out for you. At least Alfred had to be....right? Where the hell did you get all these scars???

The longer he looks at you the more you feel like he was judging you. If he doesn't stop soon then you swear to what ever god has abandoned you, you will bite his ass. Maybe even give him rabies.

Just as you were about to wrap your arm up with the newly acquired fabric someone wraps their arms around your waist and lifts you into the air. You squirm like a feral cat, kicking every which way in hopes that whoever it was would drop you, but to no luck.

Finally after a good minuet of struggling you go limp in their arms. You look up to see the face of your captor and scowl when you notice it's still Dick. A pity, you'd actually prefer to get kidnaped and sold like that one time than having to deal with him.

"The hell do you want now? I've got a bus to catch." You grumble just loud enough for him to hear. It wasn't a lie, but you weren't going back to the manor. You had plans to go house hunting before you were even kicked out.

"The bus? What? No, Alfred will pick us up." He sends you a confused look before doubling back with an even more confused and worried look. "You take the bus?!"

You 'tsk' and refuse to answer him. You turn your eyes down to the ground and watch as he carries you to an empty classroom. Once inside he sets you down on a table and tells you not to go anywhere before looking for a first aide kit.

With no where else to go, and nothing else to really do, you comply with his demand and sit. You roll your eyes the longer it takes him to locate the damn thing. You swing your feet before letting out a groan and pointing to a cabinet on the other side of the room.

"Are you stupid? It's in that one." He sputters out a vague sound before he gives up and just sighs in defeat. That's right, this fucker is clearly lacking braincells so that makes you the smarter one here.

He finally grabs the first aide kit and circles back to the table you were on. With as much gentleness he can he rolls up your sleeve, trying not to wince at the half crusted blood nearly fusing the shirt to your arm, and start dabbing at it with some cleaning alcohol.

When you don't hiss in pain, or cry out, or even flinch at the sting of alcohol, he can't help but try and piece together just what the hell you went through to be so numb to all of it. He's starting to worry about your day to day life. Maybe he should try and take you under his wing, just to keep you from getting hurt again.

As if reading his mind you let out a scoff and tug your arm away from him. He looks up with a raised brow and you only stare at him with your lips curled in disdain. What right does he have to look at you with such eyes of pity?

"Don't look at me like that." You hop off the table, taking your cardigan off the table and tie it around your waist. "Go home Grayson. Damian is waiting for you." You point to the clock on the wall, which read half past four pm and which also meant that Dick was supposed to be picking up Damian half an hour ago.

"Huh? Oh! Oh sh-" You slam the door behind you, cutting off the rest of his words, and make your way outside. The crumbled five dollars in your bag is barley enough to get you a bus ride to the middle of Gotham's poorest district.

As you continue walking the streets you let your eyes wonder, taking in every dull and mundane sight you can see. A kicked over trash can with green liquid spilling from it, a fight between a pretty woman and a raggedy man where the pretty woman is beating the guys ass so hard you almost feel bad for him, and other such sights greet you in return. Oh yeah, this place will do.

Who would ever think that an ex rich kid would willingly move to this place? That's right, nobody! The only thing you need next is roughly twenty thousand dollars to buy yourself both an apartment and furniture for it. Well you don't really need twenty thousand, you would just like to have twenty thousand so you can freely decorate your apartment any way you'd like.

While lost in thought you don't see the lanky figure stalking you from behind. It isn't until you make it all the way to an abandoned corner store did you finally pick up on the sound of echoing footsteps. A weird feeling curls in your chest at the idea of having a stalker. Was it fear? Excitement? Rage?

You pass the abandoned store and stop, listening to see if they were still fallowing you. When your ears pick up on the footsteps behind you, you allow yourself to be fallowed into an alleyway. Of course you aren't stupid so you made extra sure there would be no witnesses for what you were about to do next.

After all, the best way to get money in Gotham is to sell lots and lots of priceless items. And what's more priceless than human organs? Thank goodness for the empty glass jars lying at the end of the alleyway, it seems that the gods are favoring you in this life time after all!!

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The man at the counter looks down at the jars and then back to your smiling face with a raised brow of confusion. You raise your own brow and stare him down, your smile morphing into a frown.

"Are you going to buy it or what? It's fresh, so don't waste my time." You cross your arms and refuse to break eye contact with the man. After staring at you for a few seconds he lets out a sigh of defeat and starts looking at the contents of the jars.

In one jar there's nothing but teeth, another is full of intestines. He places them down on to a cart behind him and looks over the remaining ones. How the hell you managed to fit an entire brain into a jar without damaging it is beyond him, he's a little afraid to even ask how.

After going over all the jars he pulls out a duffle bag of cash and hands it over to you while avoiding your fingers like it's acid. Guess you managed to creep him out? Whatever, it doesn't matter to you!

"If you skimped on the money I'll know, so lets hope you paid me what I'm owed!" You take the bag and start to count it, making eye contact with him every so often so he doesn't get any funny ideas. You were hoping for at least thirty thousand, considering you brought in fresh items that were hard to find, but you'd settle for ten or twenty.

Why the large amount of money? Well it turns out the person stalking you was in pretty good health, nothing broken and perfectly good organs! Do you know how hard that is to find in Gotham? The most toxic wasteland of cities to exist? Of course so you wanted more money, finding this was literally a god send!!

When you finally finished counting you had roughly thirty three thousand in cash and one very creeped out employee. You put the cash back and flash him a warm smile as you thank him for his hard work. He shudders and turns away from you, telling you to "get out of here already."

You do a two finger salute as you skip out the store. Despite the weird middle half of the day it seems that you were really lucky! I mean, thirty three thousand cash? The things you could do with that amount of money! First things first you're buying the apartment, then some furniture, and with the rest? Hmm...

Your ears pick up on the sound of clinking of glass. You lick your lips as you stare at two people, a man in a brown trench coat and a woman with black hair and a magician outfit, cross arms and take a shot of whisky. A drink sounds so good right now. Forget about underage drinking, you were turning 18 soon and holy shit could you use something to pass the time.

Would underage drinking mess up your head even more? Yes, but with your impending doom right around the corner you were going to drink until you dropped! You shake your head and head back to the apartment. You have to buy an apartment first.

You turn around and glance at a flower shop, snapping a quick photo of it before returning back to what you were doing.

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Buying the room wasn't that hard considering this was Gotham, and it was only twelve hundred so it wasn't even that much. The rest of the money would be split into three categories; emergency funds, furniture funds, and down-the-drain funds. You squirrel away the other two fund but pocket the 'down-the-drain' funds and head to the one place you know would serve you despite your age.

It's nothing fancy, just a small hole in the wall pub right smack-dab in the middle between Crime Alley and The Bowery. It called itself "Clubs Castel" and it had a very regal card themed interior. The food was okay, but the drinks were really where it was at. Almost every day of the week they changed drinks, partially because they "wanted to keep things interesting" and the other half was probably because they never wrote any of their mixes down.

But forgetting about all of the unnecessary stuff- this was one of the only places that you knew for a fact would sell anything to anyone as long as they had the right kind of coin. As the age old saying goes "Money makes the world go round" and if you don't have the money, you don't have the life! But you? You just earned yourself all the money you needed. Sure it won't last you very long, and sure you were always one hospital trip away from being back on the streets, but what does it matter?

You'll just die again, and again, and again, for one dumb reason or another, so who cares! Life is meaningless and all things must return to soil! You pick up the red apple themed mixture and down it all in one gulp. You have to blink away the tears as it burns the back of your throat and defiles your taste buds. You can never get used to the taste of it, but you guess that just means you could always pick the sweeter drinks.

One shot goes down, then another. And another, and another, and another! You were downing these cups like they were water. At some point a crowd had gathered around you to cheer you on with their drunken joy.

You basked in their presence like the emotionally starved person you were and even started doing tricks for them. You held your hands behind your back and started drinking shots with just your teeth. If there was a fruit with a stem you'd tie the stem into a bow and present it to the crowd like it was gold.

You had even found a lighter and set another glass on fire before drinking that too. The burns hurt, but you knew they'd heal. And besides, if the crowd liked it- then who cared.

After a few more drinks you noticed that the usual buzz under your skin was missing. You set down the shot glass that you were just about to drink and stand up. The best way to test if you were actually hammered or not was to walk, but some dumb part of your mind said "Let's do a flip instead!" and you had foolishly decided to listen to it.

You stepped away from the bar and to the dance floor. Perhaps if you failed you could trip a few people on your way down and then laugh at them? Ehh....

You swung your arms out and then clapped your hands before doing a back flip. Surprisingly you didn't fall flat on your face! A few people whistled in delight and that was that. Guess you weren't hammered enough, so back to the bar you go!

Or so you thought. Turns out someone had paid the bartenders not to give you any more drinks because someone, you don't know who yet but trust that you will find them, is a bitchless loser who hates to see you happy. But you knew better than to pick a fight with a bartender in their own bar. So you downed your last shot and left. But on the way out you snagged a singular bottle from a table of guys who weren't paying attention to what was in front of them.

The cold air did absolutely nothing to your flushed skin but it did help bring your head back down from the clouds. Not all the way but just enough to notice the towering figure of your supposed older brother standing right outside the bar.

You lock eyes with one very pissed looking Jason Todd as you take a sip of the bland beer. You wince and shudder as the taste touches your tongue but you refrain from spitting it out. He crosses is arms but doesn't say anything.

You offer him a sip, hoping that he'd take the sip and leave you the hell alone. But your hopes are dashed when he downs the entire bottle like a dickwad and picks you up by the scruff of your clothes after tossing the bottle at the wall. Gosh that's like the second time this has happened to you today. Now you wish you had drank a little more.

"Do you have any idea what time it is right now?" Jason's voice sounds heavily pissed but if you were delusional enough you could trick yourself into hearing a faint twinge of concern.

You don't say anything and just let yourself be carried to his car. As much as you wanted to pick a fight you had no confidence in winning against him. Rage bubbles underneath your skin the longer the silence stretches.

So what if he's mad? It's not like he cares anyway. He'll forget all about you once Y/N shows up. And for once in your many lives you can't wait for that bitch to show up.

"Are you even listening to me?" He shakes you a bit as he stuffs you into the backseat but you still hold your tongue. There was no point in anything. Nothing mattered to you anymore. All of it was so...boring.

You turn your head to the window and squish your face against the glass like a sad pathetic dog. You hear him sigh at your silence as he buckles his own seatbelt.

"Where the hell did you even learn all those tricks?" He mumbles under his breath. The rest of the drive home was silent.

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You really don't know what he was expecting to happen when he walked you to your room and nobody even checked in on you. Alfred was probably cleaning the other side of the mansion, Damian was on patrol with literally every other person in this place, and your 'Father' was right there with them.

It took a lot more than biting your lip and looking away to keep yourself from laughing at his dumbfounded expression. Before he had another chance to say anything that could make your day worse you slam the door in his face. You don't move until your hear his footsteps fade away.

The smile falls from your face and the warmth under your skin fades into nothingness. You pull out your phone and open up the photos app. You scroll to the photo you took earlier that day when passing the flower shop, swiping past the photos you took with the crowd of drunken people, and zoom in on the background.

Once you spot the tuff of blond hair you smile ever so slightly and plug your charging cord into the computer and print out the photo. You pin it to the wall with a clear thumbtack and step away. The longer you stare at the face of the girl who will lead you to your death, the longer you start to feel your stomach churn with rage and envy.

You take the pale purple envelope opener that was lying on your desk and throw it at the photo. It lands in the space between her ear and face, which was slightly covered by a boutique of flowers. Your chest burns with such furry that for a small moment you fear you're having a heart attack.

You tear your eyes away from the photo for only a moment to try and catch the reigns to your emotions. You lean on the dull wall closest to you and heave, though nothing comes up. Guess those drinks really were kicking in.

Deep in your heart you know only two things to be true.

The first to be that no one in this world will ever care for you the way you tried so pathetical to care for them. And the second to be that deep in your heart, you hated them.

All of them.

Each and every one of them had gotten you killed. All of them had turned their back on you, leaving you to fend for yourself in the darkest pits of Gotham. Was there no love for poor little old you?

No.

There was no spot left in this worlds play for you to fill. Were you even real? If this time loop was forever, then what did it matter? You would just die and then return, only to die again and start all over.

The more your thoughts spiral the more you lose your grip on reality. Was this body even yours? Who were you? A simple extra who had gained awareness? Did you even have a life before this one?

You bring your hands up to touch your face, to feel all the smoothness it could and all the bumps that came with. This was your face. It had to be. Or else what was it all for?

Did you just die for nothing? Just because you came between this worlds protagonist and her happy ending? But then where the hell was your happy ending?! Do you just not deserve it??

No. No. You do. You deserve all the happiness this world has to offer. That's why...that's why you have to kill her. She is in your way.

You shakily reach your hands out to grab the letter opener and pull it out from the wall. Shit. You already fucked up in this life, didn't you? That fight sure isn't going to gain you any type of pity or empathy...should you just...

You set the opener down and throw yourself onto your bed. Thinking sucked, this entire place sucked. You probably shouldn't have even bought a house and Gotham.

You roll over and look at the ceiling, tears welling in your eyes as you mourn the person you were before all of this. It wasn't fair.

Uhhh yeah and that's all I've got for part one!! Tune in next time to see the rest of Readers spiral into insainity!!