#batman!ew

There were places in the world where the air was not the same. Laden with dust that refused to fade, underscored by a metallic scent tinged with dampness. There were streets on Earth steeped in violence and beatings, echoing the souls who had taken their last breath there. There were cities that knew only a single kind of weather all year long, etched by God’s hand into the roots of a tree that had witnessed the first buildings rise from the soil.

Gotham was a place of dust, dampness, and danger. Rain fell six days out of seven, the seventh never allowing the sun to pierce through the heavy gray clouds. Summers turned tropical, winters froze the roads. Flowers had found a way to mutate naturally to endure the lack of sunlight, trading bright colors for softer hues. Most of its people bore little resemblance to the typical American tan, and they knew fear more intimately than anyone else. There were cities unfit for living, and Gotham was one of them.

You lived there, inside that dark world. You had ended up in it for the same reason as half its citizens: a problem. By problem you meant something rooted in you, a divergent way of seeing life. Black was just black to everyone else—until the day you fell into it, and drowning there, discovered all its shades. Gotham drew in people like you, the divergent ones. Some preferred to call them sick, disturbed, strange. Others chose words like different, out of place, complex. Each one saw whatever they wanted in the anomaly that made their heart beat; not everyone was ready to face the truth.

You were capable of smiling, laughing, and being happy. The anomaly did not take that away—it ran far too deep to bother with such trivial things. It was so small, such a tiny stain, that no one had ever noticed it in you. It lived like a parasite, and you imagined it painting your brain with electrical sparks. You pictured it winding around your nerves, dyeing them black.

When you were eleven, a politician’s death was announced on TV—murdered in a brutal way, with a screwdriver. “How many blows?” you had asked your father, staring at the blurred images on the screen. You just wanted to know. That was where it lay, this difference, this problem. You hadn’t asked out of curiosity, nor out of any macabre desire. The thought had come as naturally as any other. “Did they catch the murderer?” would have been the question of another child. “Did he have a family?” might have passed through an eleven-year-old’s mind. But that was not what passed through yours.

You weren’t a psychopath, nor a sociopath—or at least, you didn’t think so. Never had you wanted to kill anyone. You didn’t seek blood on your hands. But your brain worked as if with an extra part, unlocked at birth by pure chance. Your existence was the bullet splitting a man’s skull in Russian roulette. One chance in six of darkening a soul.

“Still black, no sugar?”

Geoffrey threw you a friendly glance over his shoulder. He worked as a barista at the coffee shop where you’d become a regular.

“Yes, please.”

You leaned against the polished counter, waiting for your order with the impatience of a man both thirsty and hungry. It was dark outside, night had begun to fall over the city, and if you listened closely you could probably catch the wail of a police siren. They always accompanied the arrival of the Moon.

This place was comforting in your eyes. A scent of leather and old fabric lingered in the air, stirred by the waitress rushing as always between the round tables where customers lingered. You had discovered it on your very first night in Gotham, lost at the corner of a street five minutes from your apartment. Geoffrey had offered to help carry your moving boxes back then, and since that day you came here several times a week to enjoy their coffee and takeout meals.

The barista’s tall frame returned to you, your coffee in one hand and the bag holding your dinner in the other. You thanked him, trading a few casual words with someone you could almost call a friend. He asked how your raise request at work was going, you asked about his mother’s health.

Geoffrey was not a very complicated man. He had family issues because of his homosexuality, a narcissistic ex, and a mother suffering from Alzheimer’s. He looked like any stranger in this city, inhabited by that anomaly. No one spoke of it, it was abstract and unconscious. Yet deep down, whenever a gunshot tore through the silence of the night, you all knew it was the origin.

“A friend of mine managed to get an appointment for my mom,” Geoffrey went on, leaving the drink-making aside for a few minutes, “you remember, I told you her treatment had stopped working on her crises?”

You straightened slightly, nodding while taking a sip of your coffee.

“I had to call so many doctors and hospitals before anyone finally explained what was happening. Apparently they’re studying the case right now, I didn’t really get it all, but the old drug combinations she took created long-term side effects.”

Your brows knit together in empathy.

“So I pushed, and finally I got an appointment with a guy from Wayne Enterprises, thanks to Sophie, the friend I mentioned. I’m going tomorrow.”

Geoffrey let his head rest in his folded arms with a long sigh, before straightening again. You laid a friendly hand on his tense shoulder, murmuring a few reassuring words that made him smile. Your conversation ended naturally when the waitress came back with an empty tray and a weary face, asking the barista for help. He apologized, and with a polite smile, disappeared into the back.

You collected your order, still warm enough to be savored, and left the coffee shop. The glass door slammed shut behind you, pushed by a gust of cold wind rushing down the street. Your coat shielded you from the worst the night wind had to offer, and before long you reached your apartment.

Wayne Medical was the company Geoffrey had told you about. Wayne Medical, one of the dozens of businesses owned by the Wayne family. The Wayne family, cornerstone upon which all of Gotham rested.

You had woken up with questions echoing in your head, as though they had been whispered into your dreams.

Who is this Sophie, to get an appointment with a Wayne Medical specialist? you’d asked yourself while stepping into the shower that morning. Why would they handle a case as banal as that of an old woman with Alzheimer’s? you’d wondered while finishing the leftovers of yesterday’s meal.

“— Hey! Sorry to bother you on your day off but I need your help,” came Geoffrey’s message at three in the afternoon. In the ones that followed he explained his appointment had gone well, the doctor had prescribed special medication. And that was where you came in: the treatment was scheduled to arrive at four, the building closed to the public at six, and Geoffrey’s shift ended at eight.

“— I called the secretary and they can’t keep the meds for me until tomorrow, security issue.” That was the message that made you give in.

You found yourself at the foot of the massive building at five fifteen. Your eyes climbed all the way up its floors until you felt dizzy. Even the decorative arch was far too tall for its purpose. It sheltered several entrances but most importantly the main one in glass — bulletproof, most likely — which alone had four doors, as though it was used to handling raging crowds. You walked toward the one directly in front of you, trying not to look too long at the stone above your head, certainly dating back at least six decades.

Once inside, you entered a vast lobby where several clients were already waiting. You almost moved toward the seats, but a sign caught your attention just in time:

“Please refer to the dedicated receptions depending on your request: ° W. Technology → 10th–15th floors ° W. Electronics → 15th–20th floors ° W. Medical → 20th–23rd floors …”

You stopped reading at the department you needed, Medical. Turning slightly, you followed the green arrows until you reached the twenty-second floor, where Geoffrey had supposedly had his appointment. The elevator doors opened onto a reception area, much smaller than the first, where a secretary sat.

“Hello, do you have an appointment?”

For half a second your eyes lingered on the mascara faintly smudged under the young woman’s eyelids. In a calm voice, you explained the situation, earning a bleached-white smile from your interlocutor.

“Oh yes, the young man emailed me to let me know you’d be coming,” she began, searching her inbox, “I’ll just need to see your ID or any official document to confirm your identity.”

You silently thanked yourself for having officially changed the F to M on your ID years ago; you preferred to avoid any discomfort or awkwardness.

The secretary nodded politely as she took your card, quickly comparing it with the information Geoffrey must have provided. Then her smile returned and she asked you to wait while she went to fetch the medication.

“This may take a little while, the stockroom’s all the way across,” she explained before disappearing behind the “staff only” door.

You gave a polite nod before moving toward the waiting area across from her desk. The black leather chairs beckoned, but the view drew you in even more.

Only the buildings bearing the W logo offered such a view over Gotham. From the twenty-second floor, the city was blurred by the blend of fog and fine rain ruling the sky. Yet the glass wall in front of you was so wide and tall you could almost believe you saw the western shores stretching to the neighboring cities.

You loved this city, flaws and all. Everyone could agree that Gotham pulsed like a living being within you, it lived and suffered alongside its citizens. You often found yourself wondering why. Why was so much violence concentrated here? Why, despite its reputation, did it always draw people in? And above all, why did it act like a magnet for people like you? Was there some terrible tragedy buried at the very foundation of its construction?

When you walked its streets, you couldn’t help but smile imagining the ground beneath your feet crawling with corpses. Metaphorical or not, the secrets held in the soil must surely have left their mark on the entire city. Otherwise, what explanation could there be? A curse? You didn’t really believe in myths; they were all forged from the pains of some truth.

Your gaze caught on a black car in the ground-level parking lot. You smiled ironically at its neo-gothic style — as though the city’s inhabitants themselves were unconsciously striving to perpetuate Gotham’s atmosphere.

“Sir?”

You turned back to see the secretary’s kind face behind her desk again. The car you had just noticed went no further in your thoughts, though with a bit of reflection you might have guessed the owner of that automobile.

“Here’s the prescription,” she said. You thanked her with a nod as you took it. “I’ve already passed along the instructions for its use to your friend.”

And that was how your encounter ended. You thought the most significant part of your day ended with it as well. You took the elevator down alongside a man in a suit, your footsteps echoing once more in the long corridor leading to the main lobby, your eyes fixed on the exit doors as you approached.

But Gotham still had plenty of surprises in store for you, and the greatest had just stepped into the building. His skeletal hand gripped the metal bar of the glass door, and he slipped inside as though he wanted to pass unnoticed.

Bruce should have been at home right now, sitting in the middle of unfinished files. He should have spent his evening in the dark of the manor’s living room, but here he was instead, inside one of the buildings proudly bearing his family name.

He wasn’t there out of interest, nor to spy on anyone, nor even to use his popularity to get information. No, he was there because the person in charge needed him to sign some papers in person. In the end, not even Alfred had been able to fully shield him from his professional duties.

His footsteps echoed louder than he would have liked on the fake marble floor of the lobby. He didn’t want to linger on the surroundings, even less to lock eyes with the wrong person, so he hurried on until he reached the imposing desk where two secretaries were working. His hand brushed a strand of his neatly combed hair back into place — “with how rare your appearances are, every single one must at least be to your advantage,” Alfred had nearly ordered before he left. So Bruce had rid himself of the disheveled mop he secretly liked, and slipped into one of his tailored suits. He had tried not to run into Pennyworth again, but had failed, and so had earned himself a compliment that left him terribly uneasy.

“Mr. Wayne!” exclaimed the first secretary, pulling the second one into her excitement.

Bruce tried to mask his discomfort, feigning a slight smile while daring to glance around, hoping he hadn’t drawn too much attention.

You hadn’t felt this in years. This supernatural pull of your eyes toward some random interest. The last time had been when fireworks had accidentally gone off on your ninth birthday. This time, it was for the man standing about ten meters away. Bruce Wayne.

He was pleasant to look at — you had to admit it — his profile had something perfectly sculpted about it, and seen from the front it was almost breathtaking. His hair fell innocently over part of his face, like a metaphorical barrier between those eyes and the rest of the world. Without your control, your body drifted to the right, trying to catch a bit more of the feast your gaze was awkwardly devouring.

Bruce Wayne was famous. The Prince of Gotham, the great heir of a family subtly ruling the country. Wayne factories could be found everywhere, the logo burned into people’s minds. Their reach stretched from pharmaceuticals to research and even to the military. So you had already seen him in newspapers, and of course the one that came back to you now was the announcement of his parents’ deaths. You had still been young then — roughly his age — but you remembered perfectly the uneasy feeling that had twisted in your stomach. “He’s an orphan,” you had told your parents. Not as a question, but as a statement. And now that the object of that tragedy stood before you, you could hear once again your mother’s words:

“Poor child.”

Bruce Wayne had grown up, but in his gray silhouette all you could see was an orphan. And that captivated you.

Your legs carried you forward without your consent, one foot after the other on a floor polished almost to a mirror’s edge. The soles of your shoes should have echoed against such a surface, but no sound accompanied your distinct steps — as if you were unconsciously holding back any noise from escaping you, as if you were approaching prey that mustn’t notice you. But you had no malicious intent, you didn’t want to devour Bruce Wayne, only to see him more closely. You felt a thread stretched unbearably tight between your stomach and his, pulling you forward. And you had no desire to resist.

He had been noticed — of course he had. Bruce had known it the moment he set foot inside: he would inevitably be noticed. It was the curse of fame, sordid and unbearable as it was, something he had to endure daily. Perhaps if he gave more interviews, if he attended galas, his popularity might be less intense. But no, he created fascination in spite of himself. The great Bruce Wayne, the mysterious and solitary heir, abandoning his family duty. Yet deep down, a small voice told him that even had he done things differently, the obsession would not have waned.

People loved money and tragedy. He embodied both, with a physical bonus that only worsened his case. He was attractive — he knew it, and hated it. All those eyes on him, seeking the outline of muscle beneath his shirt or across his shoulders, made him sick.

Physical attraction was one thing, but desire from strangers was another. If — by mistake — he ever imagined himself with someone, the idea of being looked at with desire wasn’t revolting. A little unsettling for a mind inexperienced in social matters, but not nauseating.

His body mostly served to fight, not to be cared for. Yet the newspapers idealized it.

People love money and tragedy, he repeated to himself inwardly as he turned back to the secretary.

“Mr. Jones is expecting me,” he said, his deep voice resonating.

The secretary understood immediately and hurried to tap away at her keyboard.

Bruce bit the inside of his cheek, daring once more to inspect his surroundings. He saw a couple, an old man, a group of women. All of them watching, dissecting him, scanning him from head to toe. They stared at his body like a bottle of wine freshly pulled from its slumber, ready to be savored. The body, the power, he told himself once more, that’s what they want to see.

His fingers ran quickly through his slicked-back hair — an invisible sign of nerves. He hated the light; he preferred the shadows, and yet he lived with a spotlight on him. That thin lock always falling over his right eye slipped back into place, reflexively drawing his gaze toward it. And that’s when he saw another man, stepping out from the hallway. Looking at him.

Bruce wanted to turn away, to flee the contact. But he didn’t.

You were looking at him, but not like the others. You weren’t analyzing parts of his body. You were staring, right into his eyes, and he felt as though a needle had been driven into them. You pierced through his eyeballs straight to the back of his skull. You cut through every layer of flesh and liquid until you reached the most intimate part of him: his mind.

He felt completely disarmed, which was nothing short of a miracle. And he loved it.

“Third floor, room number one,the secretary interrupted.  “Mr. Wayne?”

Everything shattered. Bruce quickly turned to the woman, stammering a “thank you.” And when he tried to find your eyes again, you were already gone.

It was just a coincidence, an accident. He hadn’t meant to hold your gaze — he must have been lost in thought.

You frowned, quickening your pace as the sudden rain began to pound Gotham.

Perhaps he had done it consciously, perhaps he had really meant to look back at you.

You started to run, blinking against the downpour soaking you to the bone.

Ten minutes later, you made it home. A call to Geoffrey to let him know you’d bring the treatment after his shift, your wet clothes hung up to dry in the bathroom, a towel around your cold shoulders. But your mind kept circling back to your exchange with Bruce Wayne. Because it had been an exchange. A mutual communication, even if hard to believe. You had seen a piece of him, and he had seen what your eyes did to him.

As you set water to boil, you replayed what had happened, in more detail. How your body had slipped out of fusion with your brain, how it had taken over, forced you to lose control. You never thought such a thing could happen so suddenly, in everyday life. You were aware of that damn singularity gnawing at the cells of your body, as abstract as it was tangible, but it still unsettled you that it could take over at times. Usually, it only lived through your eyes, casting a dark glow at the bottom of your pupils.

Usually, it showed itself in the shivers curling in your stomach when you saw blood mixing with rain on the sidewalks of Gotham’s roughest streets. Normally, it pounded in your temples at the slightest accident mentioned on television.

But you weren’t seeking violence. However strange your situation and reactions were, you weren’t evil. You were empathetic, loving, joyful. Not sadistic, bitter, or mad. It was simply stronger than you.

You loved the dark, in all its shades — even those that bled into scarlet.

Bruce Wayne was a palette on which someone had tried to erase the darkest hues, never realizing they would end up spread in such perfection to your eyes.

What you didn’t know was that this exchanged gaze hadn’t only carved itself into your memory. Bruce remembered it too, replayed it at every passing moment. He was used to keeping a selective memory, trained to prioritize his investigations. But you had wormed your way in completely, like a broken cog blocking the gears of his twisted mind with nothing but your presence.

He didn’t particularly like it — this sense of blockage — because it wasn’t his to control, nor was he its source. Ironically, the lifeless eyes he encountered on his missions didn’t mark him nearly as much as yours. A corpse left an impression, haunted dreams, reshaped a future. But not in this city. Not in Gotham.

Here, it was black pupils that left their mark. Black had a depth beyond compare. Green eyes or sky-blue ones paled next to the infinity of coal.

It was the residue of a fire, the beginning of a nightmare, the metaphor of death or desire. It was a thousand things at once, all understood by the entire universe. No language stumbled upon it, no translation or explanation was needed. Black was fascination itself — likely the origin of the world, and its end.

How could anyone resist it?

pictures : Pinterest