#it's done!!!!!

Before Wayne Manor, you dreamed of that night. The terror in the voices of your would-be attackers ringing in your ears as you woke.

Even in the horror of your dreams, you found comfort. Something horrible watching over you is better than nothing at all, you’d managed to content yourself with thinking. You needed something better—evidence that you saw what you did. You looked for Batman in the people who claimed they saw him, in the morbid visitors making a pit stop at Wayne Manor on their way to look for Gotham's vampire.

Maybe that’s how you ended up in your car. You woke from your dream with your start, mind fixed to Batman’s gloves dripping with blood. You tried to remember as the city shrank in your rear view mirror, but it was a blur.

You should run away, quit your job and content yourself to never step foot in Wayne Manor again.

You should.

Instead, you wander through the musty hall into the closed-off west wing—it’s always been closed off, hasn’t it? you think to yourself—fingertips collecting dust along the wainscoting. Maybe you’d fallen asleep again after all. Maybe this was another dream. You figure you must be once you find yourself in a room you recognize.

Books with spines too dusty to read stretch up the length of the wall. Furniture draped in white, dust piled heavy on the sheet. A large desk at the top of the room. The sort of room you would imagine an earnest man pacing up and down. Wide windows with shattered glass glittering beneath—you suspect the willow stretching up to the room to be the culprit. Cobwebs in the great fireplace obscure where warm fires once roared. Above the mantle, a portrait you recognize.

Martha stares down at you. Her gentle smile feels too aware. You came into her home outside your usual terms. Stepped through the veil that kept you separate all this time. You’ve broken your rules, and who’s to say what would happen now that you share a secret with her.

The painting is the one pristine thing in the room you realize with another quick pass about the room. That, and your incriminating footprints in the dust are the only signs of life. Every other ornate frame and marble bust are obscured by grime tucked into each curve. The Wayne Family portrait remains so well-maintained you can see the brushstrokes in the moonlight.

Your gaze falls to the boy. He looks exactly as he had in your dream, so far from stern the stern Bruce Wayne portraits on your tour route. The eyes preserved in oil paint had yet to see his parents’ death.

“I hated that tie.” A voice cuts through the wind rustling through cracked panes of glass. “My father had to remind me not to fuss with it.”

Every piece of furniture was covered with a sheet when you walked in—of that you are certain. Yet now a long camelback sofa has been revealed in front of you, a beautiful carved wooden arch on the back. And on the couch sits a man a near mirror of the late Bruce Wayne.

His eyes are are such a pale blue, they nearly look silver. The sort that look as though they can see everything. Save for the thick, dark hair combed neatly on his head, he's ghostly. His skin is white as a sheet as if he hadn’t seen the sun in weeks; from the dark circles beneath your eyes, you would guess it had been as long since he slept. Even then, he's beautiful. His crooked nose, cleft chin, and sharp cheekbones, he looked as if he could be a dazzling movie star. His long, thin lips tug into a smirk that sets you on edge. Like Martha on the wall, you share a secret with this man, and you’re not sure you want to.

One wide leg crosses over the other as he leans into the arm of the couch. His thick fingers rest beneath his jaw as he regards you. Motes of dust catch in the moonlight before him—thick from the disrupted cover—and make him look magic.

His gaze is ice driven through your skin. Puncturing, burrowing, spreading. He watches you as a member of an audience would watch an actor as the curtain rises.

You don’t move, so he does.

He’s tall, and looks even bigger standing than he did as he sat. Broad shoulders, sturdy arms covered by a worn but well-made sweater. Thick wool fibers knitted into cables, though the collar was frayed, ladders of stitches beginning to loosen.

How had he managed to sneak into the room without you noticing? Wouldn’t you have seen someone in the room as you looked around?

He takes a single step toward you. Two sheeted chairs and a large covered coffee table stand between you. They offer you no comfort.

“My name is Bruce Wayne,” he says as if this were a normal introduction. As if he’s not claiming to be a long dead scion.

You don’t introduce yourself. Fright freezes your body, glues your tongue to the roof of your mouth. He doesn’t wait for you to catch up. “We had only just gotten the portrait and hung it up when they were killed. Alfred hung it up while my mother held me at a distance so I wouldn’t get in the way.”

Alfred Pennyworth. You know the name through work. Even without a portrait of him hanging on the wall in the gallery you show guests, you try to imagine him perched atop a ladder to place the painting on the wall. You imagine a young boy eager with the excitement of something happening, eventually growing disinterested as his parents remarked on composition and lighting.

You shouldn’t believe him, but you do. You’re not sure why. It feels almost out of your control. What other choice is there than to believe this man is Bruce Wayne?

“You were so afraid the first night I saw you. It reminded me…” He trails off. Despite your curiosity, you’re still immobilized by your shock. You still hadn’t gained the ability to utter a word.

“I’ve grown...attached. Even unconsciously, I’ve been reaching out to you,” he says, finally noticing your silence. You’re not sure if it’s your surprise or his words, but you don’t understand. “You see what I want you to see. Or what I’m thinking of. You’re here because I wanted you to be.”

You blink, trying to remind yourself you have a body and vocal chords. “No,” finally you say. “I’ve been having dreams.”

“You saw the entrance to the cave,” he says.

The will to feign ignorance evades you. You’re not even sure if you’re talking about the same cave, but there is no question in his voice. Obediently, you nod. “Yes.”

Does Bruce Wayne know Batman is in his basement?

“You saw my mother the night she was murdered.”

This time, you hesitate, not because you want to withhold, but because you aren’t sure. You saw Martha tonight—seemingly in pain—but you weren’t be sure she was dying. Only that she needed help. You tried to help her.

Swallowing hard, you nod again.

“You’ve been having these dreams for close to three years now, haven’t you? Since the night you ran into that alley.”

All that’s left to do in your reticence is nod again, the rest of your body feeling utterly useless. The pacing of your heart continues to grow. He recognizes you, but apart from the paintings you’ve seen, you don’t recognize him. He can’t be one of the men from that night.

You think of the cave somewhere below your feet. Think of the blood in the stone. Think of the masked man who had appeared so suddenly behind you—whose face you still saw as you woke—filling you with dread in the place that warped comfort once resided.

Bruce notices your spiral. His long legs take him too close for comfort. You stumble away, but he carries on gracefully past you. You wonder if you should make a run for it. Would you be able to outrun him? Would he even try to stop you, or would he allow you to go freely?

A loud scraping noise overtakes your thoughts. You nearly jump out of your skin as the ground rumbles beneath you. Bruce observes the stone fireplace as it falls further into the wall. A dark passage emerges in its place.

You’ve seen the entrance to the cave. Yes, this you’ve seen, though you’d hoped such a thing only existed in the fancifulness of dreams. Now you’re one step closer to seeing what lurks beneath the manor. Despite your admiration for the Batman, you’ve never envied the fact you hadn’t seen him up close that evening. Only the swoop of his cape. The points of his cowl.

“Follow me,” he says, voice cool as the breeze.

Your feet move of their own accord, following Bruce into the dark stairwell until he pauses at a familiar elevator. The iron gate screeches as he pulls it open.

He waits for you to walk in first. You don’t want to but find yourself moving regardless.

The elevator rocks down the shaft, metal sparking now and again on the way. In the pockets of your coat, you dig your fingernails into your hands. Each shriek rattles in your skull. Breath catches in your lungs as if the act of breathing could send the whole thing crashing. As you wait to plummet to your death, you hardly have time to worry about the strange man next to you.

The cart stills. You breathe yet again. Through the crosses in the gate, you strain your eyes in search of blood puddles. You make out nothing but candlelight flickering across stone floors and cavern walls.

Bruce doesn’t move after he pulls the gate open. A moment passes before you realize he’s waiting for you to step out first. As you do, you can take in the whole of the cave, this time in reality. No blood. No Batman.

You flinch as something moves above you. Bruce’s low chuckle rumbles as he walks past. Bat wings flap over you in a great retreat from the noise.

“The city is getting unsafe. I want you here,” he says, pulling your attention.

Without hesitation, you begin to shake your head. The absurdity of your situation suddenly dawns on you. This man has lured you into an expansive cave. He claims to be a man who drank himself to death almost a century ago. He wants you to stay in the ruins of a manor he claims as his own.

You would be running to the elevator if your legs didn’t still feel like jelly from the ride.

Without a response, he gives an unimpressed grunt. He doesn’t check if you’re following him. Only once a seemingly safe distance stands between the two of you do you begin to trail behind. The light of candelabras highlights rows of bookshelves, the same as in the study. Unlike the study, however, you realize these are notebooks, dates penned carefully along the spines.

The rugged tables around are littered with papers. Books stacked high, microscopes and vials. You try to imagine how long this must have taken to put together. The collection of materials you see alone had to have taken decades.

“You say you’re Bruce Wayne, but Bruce Wayne died 95 years ago,” you say. You don’t feel bold enough to make an accusation out loud; every possibility crossing your mind sounds impossible even by Gotham City’s standards.

Bruce continues ahead in silence.

“Are you supposed to be some kind of...ghost?” You want to flinch from your diffidence.

A wry smirk grows on Bruce’s handsome face. “Not quite,” he replies. “What do you remember of that night?”

There’s no need to question what night he means. You remember your part. And though you mean to keep it to yourself, the words slip out as you recall.

Racing from your pursuers in the dark of the alley. Cold wind whipping past your face. The icy ground below your feet—icy like the eyes of the man in front of you. Laughter dying as the light of the moon disappeared.

“Did you know it was me?”

An oppressive grip seems to take hold of you. Something cold and suffocating. The same feeling you’d gotten as you stepped into the elevator.

“Yes,” you respond, the line between Bruce Wayne and Batman becoming clearer in your mind.

“I believe my...concerns for you are what caused you to have these dreams,” he says, choosing each word carefully.

You make a poor attempt at a laugh. The fear lingering in your chest chokes it out, turns it to a pitiful wheeze.

Nothing seems to break you from him. You used to dream of coming here—to understand Batman; to bind you to Gotham as you seemed to drift further away. Now you realize your mistake. You would content yourself to facing the city alone if it meant you’d live to see the sun again.

He makes one last glacial pass over you before he continues to walk again. You hold yourself tightly, feeling yourself walking into a trap but not having the will to step out. You can’t help but think of him as a predator. Agile. Decided. You haven’t seen him truly falter this entire counter. Hesitation, yes, but intent to withhold. He proffers information only after his story has been carefully edited.

You peer at him from the corner of a bookcase and catch the glare of glass. Only once you step closer do you realize what you’re both looking at. Batman’s suit is encased in a glass stand before you. You notice the cape first and remember the way the material moved as he did. As it hangs motionless, it looks far heavier than you would have guessed.

Batman, you begin to realize, is far from the average citizen helping out the city as you thought he might have been.

“I saw them before I saw you,” he says, eyes fixed on the suit in front of him. “I tracked them from a robbery a few blocks away, only thinking of my hunger. I could feel their excitement, and I assumed it was for a job well done. Then I saw you.”

The silence that follows is unnerving. Forces your mind to the dreams. Alone. About to be swallowed by Gotham’s never ending appetite.

You were so afraid the first night I saw you. It reminded me…

Now you wish he hadn’t cut himself off so soon.

At last, he turns to you, hands tucked casually into the pockets of his slacks. “When you’ve been alive as long as I have, you grow familiar with the dangers of the world. But I’ve forgotten how easy it is for a mortal to be injured. One small slip up, and your life is over in an instant. More likely, one major mistake from someone else, and you’d be taken from me forever.”

Being so suddenly claimed by a stranger has you speechless. It wasn’t enough you’d followed him to his cave; you’ve already become something that could be taken.

“There are things far worse than me in this city,” he says, his cool breath brushing over you as he steps closer. “I’m what stands between you and them.”

Danger is a native tongue to Gotham; that is a fact no one in the city can escape. Your home is paramount to others in its oddities and cruelties. A place that raised a unique kind of person. Gotham is a hungry city; its citizens inherit its voracity.

Bruce ambles past shelves. The soles of his expensive shoes barely make a sound. You’re so busy taking in as much as you can, you almost run into him as he stops suddenly.

He pulls out a journal, the dust in that spot already disrupted. Practiced fingers leaf through worn, yellowed pages until he lands on the page he searches for. He doesn’t pass the notebook like you thought he might.

“After my mother and father were taken from me, I was fixated on their undead murderer. I looked for answers. I found him at the cost of my mortality.”

You don’t want to believe it, but acceptance creeps up on you. The casual disregard as he speaks of mortality. The way he spoke of his hunger within the same breath as the men in the alley.

Passively, he scans the page. Is he threatening you, or is he giving you answers you so badly are looking for? The line seems so thin with him.

“Gotham was my parents’ legacy,” he continues. “I found myself in a unique position to protect it. So I did. I could atone for becoming the same kind of monster that took them from me.”

You’re relieved he suggests fresh air, traveling closely behind him through the manor. Your head spins with the wealth of new information, trying to occupy your thoughts instead with the moon shimmering in Gotham Bay, watching waves crest before crashing into the jagged cliff edge.

He stops you a mildly overcautious distance from the edge and studies you. “I mean it when I say I’ll do everything I possibly can to keep you safe.” Somehow, his smooth, low voice carries over the sound of the tide below. You believe him. You can’t be sure the feeling is your own, but it doesn’t come with an invisible hand squeezing at your chest. Even if some part of you still wants to run, the larger part wants to stay.

Now more than ever, you feel now as if you’re in a dream. You sneak your hand up the sleeve of your coat to pinch at your arm. Bruce smirks next to you. You don’t want to dwell on how small and foolish you must seem to him.

The neon emerald of the Ace Chemicals sign glimmers in inky waters. His legacy is just as much there as the ruins of the home behind you.

He hasn’t said as much, but something inside of you grasps Gotham is no longer the same as he once saw it. The city’s many problems troubled him in different ways when he was mortal. Now, the people there—you and everyone else with a beating heart—are nothing but ants. Little things to be squashed unless protected.

Doubt gnaws at you. Anyone could have run into that alley. Anyone could have been as scared as you. That night, it just happened to be you.

Your first date starts at the Gotham Museum of Fine Arts.

You refused to move into the manor when he asked, insisting you would only consider his offer if you got to know him better. You’d felt so childish choking out the word—dating—bracing yourself for Bruce to laugh at you, but he never did. Instead, he agreed. But he didn’t think spending all your time inside Wayne Manor counted.

You wander through the portraits of famous Gothamites unable to relax. You wait for someone to see the large painting of Bruce Wayne hung on the wall across the room; you wait for someone to stop you both and say, “that portrait looks exactly like you!” Worry someone might make a connection that your date has more than a passing to the late Wayne.

Bruce notices. His cool fingers thread through yours—a habit of his, you’ve begun to notice. “They won’t see,” he assures.

“How do you know?” you whisper, leaning in close so no one overhears.

He chuckles as he gives your hand a gentle, affirming squeeze. His breath brushes over the shell of your ear as follows suit. “Practice.”

You travel through time together, drifting from period to period, taking comfort in the presence of his hand. Eventually, you relax. The gravity of him pulls you in, nudging at your mind to remind you what drew you in to begin with. With each moment you spend with him, you find it harder to pull away. His presence calls to you, fills you with such self-consciousness and relief at the same time. And if there’s relief, isn’t it worth it not to fight against the physics of it?

No one pays you any mind. You and Bruce are tucked inside a private world. Yet, watchful eyes scan the room, searching for threats. He wants to protect you; he’d said so from the start. Whatever danger in Gotham could hurt you, Bruce would be your guard. You feel giddy with the freedom, but too hesitant in front of him to show it.

“When was your last date?” you ask. That’s what you do on first dates, isn’t it? Get to know each other? But the task feels so threatening with Bruce. You’re unsure of what will count as a mark against you. Each topic feels like a potential hazard, and the last thing you want to do is give him cause to get angry.

He hums. “As a human, a few months before I was turned. A woman I met at some party or another. We went to the theatre. I can’t remember what it was we saw. I remember I had to leave early.” A darkened look crosses his face. “Other obligations came up.”

You let out a hesitant ‘oh,’ that brings Bruce attention to you again. “There was another after I'd turned. Like me. It was...complicated.”

This time you don’t respond. What was he hoping to find in you after another vampire?

How long Bruce has been alone? Those empty halls of the manor seem so vast. How many years of silence had he been inside its walls? You’ve felt the desperation he had to keep you nearby. You feel the loss he doesn’t speak of. The weight of everything taken from him.

“What about your last date?” he asks.

“Oh.” You weren’t expecting him to ask in return, didn’t have anything prepared. You worry there’s nothing you could say that would sound impressive to him. “I don’t know. A few months ago. We went out for dinner, but it was nothing special. We didn’t keep in touch.”

Bruce doesn’t respond to your silence. You wonder, somehow, if you’d made a silly admission. You try to recover from whatever faux pas you made, pushing conversation again.

“When did you become Batman?” you ask, glancing around carefully. Testing how true his assurances no one could hear you were.

There are no shocked looks thrown your way. Only Bruce’s face softening at the sound of your voice. The gentle look on his face makes him look so different. Buried beneath Bruce’s endless seriousness, a resemblance of the boy he once was still remains.

“I was 36. Single-minded about finding a way to get rid of the creatures that took my mother and father from me. But people were dying from my idleness. I couldn’t only rely on research and a medical school dropout’s education. I needed a more direct approach. So I became the Batman.”

“But why Batman?” You glance around anxiously again, waiting to be found out. But the moment passes.

He doesn’t answer your question. The chill of his hand slips from you as he tucks his hands into the pockets of his trousers. For a moment, you think you’ve asked a forbidden question, but his voice comes out low and smooth. “What are you afraid of?” he asks.

The unusual chill grips your chest again—the one that hints that Bruce isn’t playing fair.

“Being alone here,” you admit. Your face burns with shame, wishing you hadn’t said it out loud. Bruce doesn’t respond, which only makes it worse. You stare at the ground, still trailing along behind.

“I don’t intend to leave you alone here,” he says.

Your unoccupied fingers curl into your palm. “You don’t need to make me tell you things.” It’s a quiet fight, but one you put up nonetheless.

He regards you. You wonder if he’s trying to get you to back down. If he is, you refuse to give him the satisfaction.

“I was still mortal when I became Batman,” he says finally. “I needed my opponent to think I was one of them.”

You feel the urge to ask what opponent he means, but you don’t want to feel silly in front of him again. And your irritation still lingers. You’re not sure how you would fare his self-important stare again.

“Are there others...like you?” you ask, gazing at the deep, vivid colors of the baroque pieces you pass.

“There are,” he says. “None in Gotham, however. They understand this is my territory.”

He guides you to the impressionist wing. You pause in front of a Monet. The arc of the bridge and the water lilies in the water are familiar. You peer into the reflection of the water as if you were in front of the pond yourself.

“This was my mother’s favorite,” Bruce tells you. “She grew up near a pond with water lilies. She said it reminded her of then.”

You think of the Martha from your dreams. Her childhood feels so impossibly long ago, lifetimes away from you. Even without ever meeting her, you mourn her. You wonder how true to life your version of her is.

Bruce shows no signs of the same wear you feel as you wander the galleries. His feet don’t tire; his mind doesn’t go groggy with the quiet.

After thoroughly exploring the museum, you’re relieved he suggests dinner. The relief, however, is short-lived. You’d only thought of your hunger; you hadn’t considered if Bruce would eat, nor where he would bring you.

Warm candlelight flits over Bruce’s face. Shadows flickering beneath the hollows of his eyes makes it hard to focus on your food. You wish he would have ordered something for your sake. You cut into your food, trying to give yourself something to do other than meet his gaze. Yet again, you’re a spectacle for him. Something to be observed. A zoo animal.

The marble pillars around you, the quartet playing in the corner across your small table, the vampire who doesn’t eat. All of it feels designed to make you feel inadequate. Why would he bring you here, to a place he wouldn’t participate?

Bruce had suggested dinner here. You had never heard of the restaurant. He’d explained the place was one of the oldest in Gotham. But unlike Wayne Manor, this place had no oppressive presence, only the oppressive rules of society that seem so natural to Bruce even now but so illusive to you.

You haven’t tasted a bite of your meal; you’ve felt too ungraceful beneath Bruce’s unwavering gaze. The guilt dawns on you as he finally breaks the lingering silence.

“Are you enjoying your food?” He leans close. His voice rolls over you like gentle thunder.

With your mouth full, you can only reply with a nod. You force your bite down glancing at the tables around you. Couples laughing softly only a few feet away, their lavishness apparent to you even in the low light.

You don’t want to be alone. Even if you can’t understand his attention, don’t know if you’re anything other than a pet to him, you don’t want to direct him anywhere else. As cold as his safety is, you will take it. You will find whatever shelter in it you can.

His eyes are on you as your head tips back to drink the last of your wine. You can feel the weight of his gaze. The waiter comes by with the check, and you’re thankful for the distraction. You set your glass on the table as if you’d been caught in the middle of committing a crime.

Out the window, you watch large flakes of snow dance from the sky. The first snowfall of the season come early.

Bruce guides you outside. His broad hand rests on the small of your back. You expect for him to guide you towards the valet parking. You step that way, alarmed as Bruce ushers you toward a side street, away from prying eyes.

“You’re upset,” he notes.

With your rigid spine and tense silence, you can’t be surprised he noticed, but part of you wishes he hadn’t. You need more time to wrap your head around your situation—around him.

“Why did you bring me there?” you ask, your arms crossed over your chest in defense of the cold your worn coat seems to be unable to keep up with.

“It’s a wonderful restaurant,” he replies simply.

You’re not sure if he’s missing your point deliberately or not. “You don’t eat. Just stared at me.”

“So the first date didn’t go well?” Bruce asks, quirking a thick brow up at you. “Alright then, what would you like to do?”

Flakes of fall on his hair. White stands out stark against the deep black. The cold seems to mean little to him even as you shiver.

“I want to get to know you!” you say. “I’m at a disadvantage here because you seem to know plenty about me, but just about everything I know about you I learned in a history book.”

His stare feels inescapable. Too consuming. You’re plagued by mystery. “If there was something worth knowing, I would tell you.”

You scoff. “That’s not how this works,” you hiss. “If you want me in your house, I need to know who you are. How else am I supposed to know I’m any safer with you than I am at my apartment?”

The air grows colder as he crowds you. You barely feel the chill of his hand as it cups your cheek. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“No, you’d withhold information instead.”

His hand falls as you turn from him, instead watching the snow as it melts on the ground. Flakes dropping to the concrete. There in a moment, gone an instant later.

“Come with me,” he says, hand outstretched toward you. Against all sense, you take it.

At the manor, you drift hand-in-hand through the snow-dusted rose garden. Damp gravel rustles beneath your feet. Bruce barely makes a sound.

The garden was kept maintained for tours. On nice days, you bring the visitors out here, talk about the staff the Waynes would have kept, mentioning now a team of gardeners is employed through the estate.

In a month or so, the blooms will die. Their petals will wilt and dry, withering with time. The glistening roses in the darkness puts you on edge for a reason you can’t place. Maybe because you’re so used to the sunshine shining on them, drawing out their splendor.

Bruce snaps a deep red rose from its bush. You bite back the urge to reprimand him as you would a guest. He pinches the stem between his fingers, turns it over carefully. “My mother kept roses in the house,” he says. “As a boy, I would turn my nose up and complain of the sweet smell.”

He raises the flower to his nose. His lips turn up so slightly, you’re not even sure if you can call the look on his face a smile. But nonetheless, he lowers the rose, holding it out for you to take.

Soft petals brush against your nose as you smell.

This evening, you retrace your steps to the dining room. Amid the dizziness of your thoughts—nights before, you and Bruce danced across the room after he’d cleared the tables away himself—you’d forgotten to lock the door on your way out.

The empty room fills your thoughts with fantasy. You imagine your life if you’d met Bruce earlier. Would he have brought you to the grand galas hosted in this room? Would you have felt more at ease in the lavish clothes he would get for you?

You imagine a time his hand would have been warm in yours. His hand on your waist would only cause you to shiver from the thrill of contact.

How long could the two of you dance before your feet hurt? Would he carry you off to the bedroom after your guests had gone home after listening to you complain about your shoes?

The days are longer now, and you have more time to kill before Bruce comes up to see you; you struggle against the bitterness of getting less time with him than you had in the cold months of winter. So much of your day now is a hazard to Bruce. You would never see his rare and dazzling smile in the light of day. Never feel his skin warmed from the sun.

Warmth from Bruce seems so unnatural. You’ve never experienced anything other than a chill beneath your fingertips as you brush over his skin.

With your extra time, you’ve taken to learning the layout of the manor better. You’ve grown used to dusting cobwebs off your clothes, imagining the two of you laughing and dancing through these halls as you cleaned as you had to the study a few nights prior.

You poke your head into the unlocked rooms, trying to place yourself on the map of great Wayne Manor. Behind each door is another dusty room, furniture draped just as you’d found the study that night those months ago. Finding a perfectly clean room freezes you in your tracks.

Heavy curtains block out the light. You make out a large four-post bed against the wall. All but the shapes of vanities and dressers are obscured. Thomas and Martha’s bedroom, preserved almost exactly as they had left over a century ago, save for the drapes over the mirrors.

You look up and down the hall the way a trespasser would before taking a single step inside. For a moment, you imagine Martha stepping out of the shadows, ready to link arms and show you about the same way she had in your dreams. But it’s you alone in her musty room. Even if it’s been cleaned, you wonder how long since fresh air had passed over the expensive sheets.

On one of the shapes in the room—a dresser, you think, by the brass handles you can make out as your eyes adjust—you see an ornate circular frame and what you can only jut make out as three faces.

Yet again, you check for standers-by before you pick up the frame, crossing deeper into the room to carefully pull the heavy velvet curtain away from the window. The last rays of the setting sun streaks across the photograph.

Martha is younger than you’ve ever seen her. The softness in her eyes is familiar, but the longer you stare, the harder it grows to place. Beside her is Thomas, his shoulders broad, face stoic. And on Martha’s lap is a very young boy, dark hair atop his head neatly combed back.

This picture feels as though it was taken such an impossibly long time ago. Bruce couldn’t be any older than two-years-old here. You stare at him wishing there was anything you could do to warn him of the tragedy that would become of his life. Wish there was some wisdom you could impart that would somehow make the grief he’d have to hold later in life easier.

So long ago, Bruce had been a child running in these halls. No amount of time passing would take that away as long as Wayne Manor still stood as it did. Before that, he’d learned to walk. And you wonder if maybe Bruce’s idea of himself had been skewed by the calamity of his life. Maybe the bad he saw in himself wasn’t really there. Maybe you could prove that to him.

The curtain falls closed as you pull your hand away. Guilt sneaks up on you again, like Thomas and Martha will burst through the door, laughing in their comfort with each other, and catch you in the act of rifling through their belongings.

Your thoughts wander as you slip into the hall again. Tiny footsteps echo in your ears, racing along the carpeted corridor. A small laugh that resonates through the routine quiet in the manor, still boisterous, yet to be subdued to the soft chuckle you’ve grown accustomed to. You imagine Bruce darting from room to room, waiting in silence for his mother to find him hiding in an armoire or a cupboard.

Ghostly laughter subsides, and you realize you’d been stuck in your daydreams for several minutes. You continue on your way, glancing over untouched console tables and the little bits the Waynes had left to furnish your home.

You find another staircase. The landing looks familiar—you’d be able to follow it and head to the study, wait for Bruce there until he comes up for the night to collect you. You’ll read the books on the shelves, blow dust away from the covers and not take in a single word on the pages as long as you look occupied.

You make your careful descent, taking each step slowly, learning from countless past mistakes how easy it is to slip on dust.

The pattern on the thick carpet down the steps is hard to make out between the grime and the darkness. Fibers fray at the ends. Boards creak beneath so loudly you worry one of them might snap off.

You worry as you stay on your path, eager to see Bruce as a lovesick teenager would be. In the dim of the landing, you aren’t able to catch the split in the carpet, threads stretching up like fingers.

In the dip, your foot catches. There’s no time to recover. A dreadful second passes as you flail, trying against gravity to stay upright. You lose the battle, and Wayne Manor pulls you down. Awkwardly, you turn, your shoulder hitting the ground first before you continue to tumble.

At the landing, your elbow burns. No doubt carpet burn to accompany the dust covering your clothes. Limbs ache and throb, but nothing feels severe. You wince as you sit up, glancing over for any other damage, freezing up as a drop of blood beads from the scrape across your palm.

Your body goes cold at the sight. Before you can rise to your feet, Bruce is at your side. His jaw clenches. His eyes zero in on the blood. The strong muscles of his body go taut.

“Bruce—”

He bends down and takes you into his arms with such ease, you’re not sure it’s happening until you fall against his cold chest.

You try not to wait for the moment he can no longer control himself, but you still find yourself holding your breath as you wait for the other shoe to drop. The pain is secondary to the worry squeezing at you.

“Stay here,” he demands after he sets you on the old camelback sofa. You don’t get a word in before he slips from study. Moments later, he returns with first aid supplies in hand.

Bruce works in silence. Once you move beyond the stinging as Bruce cleans, you’re jarred by the focus in his eyes. Unlike what you’d imagined, there is no ravenous blood lust. If you didn’t know what you did, you wouldn’t have doubted he was anything other than a man tending an injury. He holds your scraped hand tenderly, tending to you with great care. Only once everything is bandaged and Bruce is satisfied you don’t have any other injuries that need tending, does he look up at you.

You only manage to mutter out a feeble thanks.

“The carpet will need to be replaced,” he says in place of a reply to your gratitude.

The reply stings worse than the alcohol on your wound, aches more than the bruises that will develop as you sleep tonight. But what could you expect? Your injuries must seem trivial to him now. He wouldn’t think to ask if you were okay.

You nod.

He has your hand in that same firm but cautious grip. He raises your palm up to his lips and presses a gentle kiss to the bandage, a demonstration of his control. Even handling your blood, you still have yet to see the monster he so feared he is.

“I think you might be misjudging yourself,” you say, your voice gentle. Your mind returns to the picture of the young family, a baby sitting upon his mother’s lap.

You hear leaves rustling in the breeze from outside the open windows. Fresh air now slips through replaced panes of glass, the chirps of crickets filling the silence that settles between the two of you in place of the crackling fires Bruce would light for you in the winter.

The ice of his eyes falls back onto you. His face grows severe, brow twitching up as he regards you. “In what way?” There’s a hesitance in his reply that you somehow feel is reserved only for you.

“I trust you a lot more than you seem to trust yourself. I don’t think you’re the threat to me you insist you are.”

He tenses before he stands up from the couch, turning his back to you. “Thinking that way could cost you your life one day.” The words are clipped. He gathers up his supplies—supplies only now are you wondering why he had to begin with—and swiftly moves from the study.

You stay where you are, aching and stunned, wondering if you should follow after. Part of you wonders if he only needs time, but you think of his bouts of quiet. Giving him time to settle likely wouldn’t do much in your favor.

When you finally will yourself to your feet, you find no trace of him in the hall.

Darkness surrounds you, and you are perfectly aware what lurks within it.

“Bruce?” you call, squinting into the gloom for movement. Your voice doesn’t carry in the dead air. Only you and the whistling wind. Somewhere down another hall, a door slams shut. Your best guess sends you left.

Your body grasps what your mind isn’t willing to accept. You’re being hunted. Your muscles are stiffened, ready to run. But your heart. Your heart wants you to find Bruce, to understand what you’d done to cause him to storm out.

“Bruce?”

The manor still feels so labyrinthine even after weeks of visiting and roaming this side of things. Larger than life, much like the legend living inside it. Uncanny, at times, the way you find yourself surrounded by the stage of your dreams.

You look for Bruce’s expensive footprints in the dust, only to find they disappear not far from the door you’d seen him walk out of.

Something rustles behind you. You gasp. Spin. Nothing is there.

“Bruce, this isn’t funny,” you insist, turning over your shoulder expecting to see him. You’re still alone.

You stomp down the hall, floorboards gnashing with every step. A softer creak comes from the opposite of where you came. You turn, something rushing before your eyes, vanished in an instant.

Your heartbeat has found a home in your throat. You wait for him to move again. For any sign of him anywhere. You feel breath on your neck, but you are alone at every turn, out in the open until Bruce decides he no longer wants to play with you.

It’s horrible, your wait for the end. Part of you understands this is his way of proving a point, but still you brace for something worse. The real lesson, perhaps, where Bruce proves once and for all just how much harm he can do.

You’re yanked back by a force that nearly knocks the wind out of you. A scream rips out from your throat as you try to fight away.The hands that hold you are too firm to be broken from. You’re alert enough to know you’re being held, at least. This is far from the worst outcome, but your heart flips and race anyway.

His strong fingertips dig into the meat of your hips. “Never let your guard down. I am an animal acting on instincts. You may not always find me with such a level head,” he hisses into your ear.

You hold as still as you can, hoping somehow it will deter him from doing whatever he could possibly do with you. One of his hands comes up, wraps around your throat. His fingers are soft as they find your pulse, lingering as if he’d found something luxurious. He does not squeeze.

“I will do everything I can to protect you. There will always be some things I can protect you from better than others.” His thumb swipes over your pulse point again with a tenderness so stark against his words.

Later, as he holds you against him on the camelback, you’re still stuck on his words.

“Would you take it back if you could?” you ask.

Bruce does you the service of pretending he’s too deep in thought to hear your naive question.

It feels childish, your desperate plea to be needed. But of course Bruce would go back. It’s no question you need answered. He’d give everything up, you included, if he could have what he used to. You feel foolish for thinking you could worm yourself into Bruce’s life.

You don’t look at the portrait above the fireplace. You can’t stand to see the ghostly youth on Bruce’s face. It reminds you of the photograph you found on the dresser in Thomas and Martha’s bedroom. Makes you think of the moment this afternoon when you’d been so certain you understood Bruce. But you might be after something impossible.

The idea of him as a child playing hide and seek no longer fills you with the same delight as it had while the sun was still shining.

“I’m not sure what to do about how badly I need you.” You feel Bruce’s gaze before you look up to meet it.

“What do you mean?” you ask.

He’s silent for a moment. You think he’s going to pretend he didn’t hear you again. Instead, he squeezes you closer to him. Following his lead, you curl against his chest. “There’s a darkness that festers inside of me. There always has been. This...disease draws it out.” Another long pause. His grip on you doesn’t waver. “But you remind me of the good out there. You remind me of my humanity.”

In that moment, you think once again of the screams of the men as you ran from the alley. You’d stopped only once, as a great shadow swept in front of you, blocking the path. Milky, glowing eyes stared at you in the darkness before sliding past, hulking towards the group.

You ran. Whatever you had encountered that night hadn’t wanted you, so you saw no reason to stay. What would have happened if you had? Tonight was the closest you’ve ever come to seeing what Bruce does out on the streets of Gotham.

If you knew then what you knew now, would you stay? You wonder if it would have made a difference before you loved him.

You swallow roughly. Wishing you could tell him you need him too feels so pitiful, so predictable.

After Bruce’s insistence at being dangerous, you don’t want to tell him now that he offers a safety you’ve never known.

The chill of his fingertips creeps across your skin. In this moment, you’re grateful silence is a language Bruce is fluent in. You slip your arm from where it curls around his sturdy torso, and crawl up onto his lap. He pulls your chest flush against his. You sink into his grip, arms tossed over his broad shoulders.

His fingertips drag up and down your vertebra with leisure. No doubt, in an hour, Bruce will sweep away into the cave to attend to his nighttime activities. You soak up the moment while you have it.

Your forehead dips into his neck, hands raking through the ends of his dark hair. Being this close to Bruce feels forbidden. Something too special to be real. You feel yourself falling into him every time; everything else gets swept away and only the two of you remain.

Bruce’s lips press into the side of your head.

Jealousy twinges in your chest at the idea of him disappearing off for the city. It’s a silly feeling, envy over Gotham. But Bruce stalks the streets nearly every night, leaving hungry, coming home fed. Well-fed, probably not, but enough to keep his hunger level in front of you.

That’s when the idea first sneaks into your head. You imagine, instead of Bruce kissing your bandaged palm earlier, if he’d lapped up the blood slipping through your scrapped skin. What if Bruce didn’t need to feed from the Gothamites he dedicated his immortality to instilling fear into? What if he had everything he needed right here?

Perched on his lap, you imagine taking hold of the hair your fingers run through, pulling him into your neck and keeping him there until the scent left him no choice but to bite. Imagine the strength of his fingers as his hunger has him pinning you in place. You’d trust him. He says you shouldn’t, yet you do. You can allow yourself to be foolish for him. Allow yourself to imagine his cool lips dragging across your skin. Coming from him, a bite could be a reward.

Your mind twists with the desire of it, the itch to satisfy him, but your tongue is too clumsy to form the suggestion. You swallow it whole.

You move into Wayne Manor like an invasive species. A cheap imitation of people who knew how to live in grand places such as this. Bruce, however, got to the point of insisting.

Bruce brushes off complaints of your very sudden unemployment brought on by an email from the tour company; you’re no longer needed while the manor undergoes renovations. Of course, this is his doing, because he’s been the one pulling the strings from the start. A long-term ploy to get you into the manor; anything that lessened the time you spent alone out in the city.

The contractors wandered in and out of the manor, minds fixed on their work. Bruce wanted you away from them. You complied, save for the times you cut through the foyer. Their focus never wavered, yet their eyes seemed glazed over. Later, when you asked Bruce about it, he only nodded, said the workers would have no memory of being in Wayne Manor. Their generous paycheck they’d receive for their efforts would keep them plenty satisfied.

So construction continued, disrupting the spell that had fallen over you and your time spent within Bruce’s childhood home.

Your days were primarily occupied by Bruce now. A taste of life as you had lived months earlier made reality seem so harsh. Brought up worries you’d managed to put off in lieu of the dreaminess of your life with him.

You keep waiting for him to change his mind. To grow tired of you, your humanity nothing other than a passing infatuation. Yet, the smooth ride of the elevator as you go to the cave makes you wonder if Bruce really does mean for you to stay.

Bruce has told you he prefers not to be distracted while he works. You often combat by reminding him he’s always working.

Candlelight spills over scattered papers on a scarred, sturdy table. Bruce makes no indication he’s aware of your presence, but you know better than to assume otherwise. He’s been here for the better part of two days, save for when he hasn’t been out in the city. The distance is becoming harder for you to tolerate.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” you say as you approach.

Bruce gives a hum to acknowledge you spoke. He straightens up slightly, but his eyes don’t leave the page. When you try to peek, he picks them up. The movement is controlled, seemingly a coincidence, but a certainty he’s keeping information from you.

“Something came up,” Bruce says,

You nod in hopes he’ll continue. Sometimes he does, speaking out loud as he puzzles through his current deliberation.

“Why don’t you take a break? You’ve been at this for days. Maybe tonight we could go out walking in the garden,” you propose, forcing a hopefulness into your voice than you feel.

Bruce shakes his head before you’ve finished your suggestion. “This can’t wait.”

You don’t want to be hurt by his words. Bruce is focused; you’ve always known this. His unwavering dedication to his cause will always come before you, because you are not what he’s pledged his eternity to. Still, you miss him. The knowledge he’s a few floors away isn’t enough to comfort you as you try to sleep in an empty bed. Even before he leaves, there are excuses. Preparation for a case he’s cracked as he worked the day. Training a body that almost nothing in Gotham could harm. Needing to feed from veins that aren’t your own because you still grow too skittish whenever you think of speaking your desires out loud.

Doubt puts you on edge, especially as you ease into the certain comforts of your new life. No work leaves plenty of leisure time, but your mind tends to utilize most of it worrying about what happens after Bruce finally gives up on you. By now, you imagine your affordable little apartment has been snatched up. If Bruce puts you where he found you, you won’t even have your not-even-cushy income to protect you.

Without prompt, Bruce moves across the cave to a microscope, sitting to examine the cell.

You linger a moment longer, feeling humiliated as you wait for him to recognize you’re still here. When he doesn’t, you trudge towards the elevator, hating the echoes of your footsteps. Hating the way your face gets hot.

From outside the study windows, you watch the sun set, understanding soon Bruce will leave you as he does every night. He’ll come home with even tempers, at ease from sated hunger or satisfaction of his job. He won’t share the scraps of his good humor with you; in your sleep, you’ll miss it all.

The sky turns inky. Luminescent lunar threads weave through the grass. You can’t see the city from here, only the stormy waters off in the distance. You imagine Bruce there anyway, wondering what it is he fights against, what battles he wages you’re unaware of.

Once you’re certain he’s is gone, you walk with heavy heart towards your bedroom. The same bedroom that had once been his as a child. You think of Thomas and Martha’s room down the hall, the family photograph sitting on the dresser. With the history residing within the walls of the manor, you wonder if your presence will ever feel natural.

Part of you wants to check and see if the room is still spotless. Had Bruce been up there to clean, so close to you, never bothering to visit?

You decide you don’t want an answer.

You lay in your bed imagining how things would be with him beside you as you slept. Your body curled around his broad chest. You think of a time where you could sleep beside Bruce the whole night, no fear of the rising sun encroaching on your time together.

Sometime later, your bed dips, and you realize you must have fallen asleep. Your hazy mind wills you back towards slumber. You manage barely to grip onto wakefulness long enough for your eyes to flutter open.

Bruce sits beside you, back bowed as his elbows lean into his knees. The sheets rustle as you move. He doesn’t turn toward you, but lifts his head as if the weight of the world is on his shoulders. He’d never tell you if it were; he insists his burdens are his alone.

“Go back to sleep,” he urges.

“What are you doing up here?” you ask, voice rough.

“Checking in.” The words hang heavy in the air. Checking in because something is weighing on his mind. Seeking assurances that you’re still safely tucked into the bed he’d made for you. Calming his racing thoughts.

You prop yourself up for a better look at him. “Rough night?”

You shouldn’t ask. You know better than to expect an answer, but a youthful optimism twists at your heart. Bruce makes you feel so naive in comparison. Everything feels so fresh to you, but everything bewildering comes so naturally to him.

Bruce turns to you. His fingertips trail down your skin as he gives his standard procedure response: “Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Would you tell me if it was?”

He says yes. You don’t believe him.

Wind rattles at the windowpanes. You’re thankful Bruce replaced them before the weather started to get cold. It’s the subtle sort of sign you cling to in hopes it means he’ll keep you at least through another winter. He envisions you being around long enough you’ll have to stay warm in this room.

“Do you come up here every night?” you ask. Your hand stretches out, questing for his in the dark of the room.

“Not every night,” he murmurs, obliging your search as his fingers curl around yours. “But it makes the hours before you come down to the cave more bearable.”

“You didn’t seem very interested in me earlier.”

He seems relaxed in a way he hadn’t been earlier. Eyes clearer, posture more relaxed. He’s fed recently.

“I was working.”

Never ending secrets. Ones that ate away in the spaces where you wanted to trust Bruce. To surrender to the acceptance that he wants you here. If he wants you around, why is it these days he only comes to find you as you sleep?

Bruce suddenly kicks off his shoes. You watch, mind sluggish with sleep, as he slides into your bed still in his slacks and turtleneck sweater. He pulls himself to your chest, his head resting against your beating heart.

“What happened tonight?” you whisper.

Bruce doesn’t move. Without breath, he’s as still as a statue, moonlight illuminating the sallow of his skin. Try as you might to outrun it, Bruce is undead. In his eyes, a monster. He’s never been shy of reminding you of this; even as he’s told you to flee, you’ve never been sure he’d ever actually let you go. Yes, you could live outside the walls of Wayne Manor, but would that mean Bruce’s eyes wold never seek you out? Even if he outgrew you, would he accept anyone else having you?

“A group is moving towards Gotham,” he finally says. “Scouts have been casing the city. They need to be reminded whose territory this is.”

You tense. Bruce so rarely spoke of other vampires. Really, just that day in the museum when he’d so firmly told you he’d scared the others away.

Without a response, Bruce shakes his head. “This isn’t good bedtime conversation,” he says.

Your hand trails his spine lightly. You don’t want to admit you agree. The thick yarn of his sweater obscures the muscles of his back. You wish you could feel all of him, but that too is a luxury you’re allowed with such trepidation.

He holds so still, you might have guessed he’d gone to sleep. The cool weight of his head against your chest start to lull you again. Thoughts of impending danger slip away from you, and with Bruce at your side, you fall asleep.

“No.”

Bruce had come home from patrol minutes earlier when you first broached the subject. By then, you’d managed to pick up on his tells. He wouldn’t look at you, paced in place of his usual unnerving pause, snapped instead of grunted when you say something that displeased him. You could tell the city had been quiet that night. Bruce hadn’t fed as much as he needed to.

Bruce turned you into someone who hoped for danger upon the city so he wouldn’t return to you irritated. The hope made you slightly sick with internal conflict.

What if I gave you some of my blood? The question that appalled Bruce so.

“But you’ve said so yourself,” you replied. “You’re always careful. And I trust you.”

He shook his head. “You should know better than that by now,” he scolded, turning away from you. His hand closed into a fist, knuckles rested onto the surface next to the shuffle of papers.

“Bruce—”

“I will not,” he snapped, “resort you to a meal.” Before you could rebuttal, he cut you off. “No. We are not having this conversation.”

You flinched from the sharpness of his voice.

In hindsight, you should have guessed your question wouldn’t be well-received if he was already irritable. But the predictability hadn’t done much about the sting. The ability to see it coming did nothing for the ache of your desire.

Tonight, he comes home well-fed and finds you in the darkness of your bedroom. You press against his firm chest, fingertips brushing over the arm tossed across your torso.

He stays in bed longer now. When he needs you to help pull him back to himself, he wakes you with kisses peppered along your neck. You always afford him these moments. Bruce has given you almost everything but all of himself. In his eyes, the monster and the man you love are supposed to be two different beings. You wanted to prove to him your love wasn’t conditional; there was nothing he needed to hide from you.

“Have you given more thought to my offer?” you ask, your skin still tingling from his lips.

He goes rigid behind you. “There’s nothing left to think about.” You feel the beginnings of a lecture in his voice.

You turn to him in an attempt to pacify his argument. “What if I want to do it?”

“You have no idea what you’re asking for.”

“Maybe I do,” you grumble. You could be the one who sustains him. Who keeps him full with your commitment. Maybe it would be enough for him to understand the way you see him, if you were willing to do that.

Giving food to a scared beast could be the thing to gain its trust.

Bruce has said himself, you’ve got a way about you that he can’t resist. Even though his every other word to you seems to be ‘no,’ he still claims he finds it hard to deny you anything.

He gives you a stern stare. “If you did, I would be concerned for your well-being.”

“You aren’t already?” you joke, curling toward him. “I mean it. You take care of me. I want to take care of you too.”

The whole home he’d contented himself to lay to waste had been renovated for your sake. You could help keep food on the table.

“You do,” he assures, his hand wrapping around the nape of your neck. Bruce is always so sure, always aware of the next steps in whatever greater plan he plays at. All that seems to go out the window when it comes to you. Even the idea you’d be willing to give him your blood seems impossible.

“Let me help you. Maybe I like the idea of you saving Gotham running off my blood.” Maybe you like the idea of being needed more. But it’s a way to show Bruce how much you care when the words you say don’t seem to get the point across enough for him to believe it.

It is enough.

Days later, Bruce whisks you off to the cave to run countless tests, each one dedicated to find precisely how much of your blood he could take without harm. There could be no margin of error for this. Not with you, he’d insisted. Your safety was paramount to his hunger.

You’re in your bedroom when he finally gives you what you ask. Silk grazes your skin as you lay down at his request. The brawn of Bruce’s arm cage you in. His head dips to your neck. Your eyes wince shut, bracing for a bite that doesn’t come. His lips instead tingle your skin as they travel the length of your neck.

You let out a breathy laugh. “Gentler than I thought it would be,” you tease.

“I’m tenderizing the flesh,” he murmurs dryly.

Another cluster of slow kisses. You squirm beneath him, anticipation flipping your stomach. You want this without question. Unfortunately, your desire does nothing to dull instinct screaming in your head.

He pulls away. The air grows heavier as Bruce prepares himself. “Tell me if you feel dizzy or nauseated,” he orders. The intensity in his voice mounts. An urge he’s always kept behind iron gates is beginning to slip loose. That, too, makes your stomach flip. His voice grows rough with thirst, his chest rumbling against you as he growled his command.

You nod, your mouth too dry for speech.

Bruce nods back. The vigor lit in his eyes matches the enthusiasm of his head ducking again. His nose drags down your neck, savoring you as he breathes you in. You shutter against him.

His cool hand smooths over the raised skin on your arm, a silent comfort to you, before busying his expert fingers with the buttons on the fancy pajamas he’d gotten you. Kisses grow impatient—you’re surprised to find Bruce is capable of such a thing—the lower he trails.

At your heart, he stills. Forehead presses on your pulsing chest as if he were attempting to absorb its frantic beat. Your eyes slip shut, surrendering yourself for what will follow. The bridge of his long nose drags across your skin as he pulls away, every movement so deliberate. He’s drawing you into him, making it impossible to escape from his pull.

Like an intoxicating perfume, Bruce breathes you in. Your stomach flips, anticipation driving you mad until you feel the damp of his tongue over your skin. His breath is cool across the mark from his pleasured sigh.

Bruce’s fangs finally take purchase, so sharp they puncture the skin immediately. Your eyes shoot open, not catching the gasp in time to stop it. Your body jolts, managed easily by his weight on top of you. His eyes are black as night staring at the blood rolling lazily from the bite. He’s fixated as he tests his own power of will.

Desperation is the only word you have for the way he dives to lap up your blood. Between hungry mouthfuls he whines, too aware of how much he loves your taste.

Your limbs are heavy, tension sapped from your body when it could no longer expend the effort. Your mind’s spinning give way to a high-pitched ringing in your ears. A show of love. A demonstration of how willing you are to trust him. You’ll give yourself to him in whatever ways he’s deemed monstrous if it means he’ll let you in. If it’s enough to have access to his heart, you’ll let him do whatever he wants to yours.

You’re falling again the way you had down the stairs those months ago. Tumbling without direction, but this time, Bruce is here with you. Someone to fall into.

His body rocks as he devours you. This isn’t the grizzly bloodbath you’d seen from your dream. Bruce collects you carefully between his lips. Satisfied hums buzz against your skin. This isn’t how he feeds out in the city. You feel a sliver of his guilt absolved with the eagerness of something given freely.

Your breath fills the room along with springtime rain on the windows. The swipe of Bruce’s thumb against your exposed collarbone keeps you tied to your body. With the most reluctance you’ve ever seen from him, he pulls away. His lips flush with your blood. “Do you need me to stop?” he asks.

“No,” you breathe, giving a dazed shake of your head. “You’re still hungry.”

He kneels between your legs. “That doesn’t matter.” His voice lacks its usual firmness, softened with desire.

“It does,” you whisper, arm lazily flying to meet his. You tug his hand weakly and pull him back. You’re heavy and floating at once. A hazy smile grows on your face. “Take more. Dessert.”

You feel drunk off the sight of your blood staining his lips. The taste of you lingers on his tongue. He’s always consumed you; the fact that he should more literally only seems right.

He satisfies your wish, sucking at the mark he made, bruising your skin with his enthusiasm. You’ll have a mark for days to come and look at it with pride.

Finally sated, he drops to his elbow. Your blood is metallic on his lips as he kisses you. You drag your tongue against him, fingers loosely tangle in the hair at his nape again. You give a gentle tug. He allows you to guide him toward your chest. Presses kisses to the puncture wounds. The flat of his tongue gathers up the very last of your taste.

By the time you realize you’re cold, Bruce is already pulling your blanket around you. The time passes lazily as you hold each other. He murmurs against you he worries he may have taken too much, but you promise him you’re fine. You’re content. Safe.

You’re not sure how long it’s been when Bruce presses a kiss to the crown of your head.

“I’m going to draw you a bath,” he whisper. The weight of his arm disappears. From the other room, you hear the rush of the tub. You think of the sounds of running water in the cave. Grown fond to listen to it in the lulls of your conversations with Bruce.

Moments later, you’re in his arms. He carries you off to the clawfoot tub in your bathroom.

You sigh as the warm water envelopes you and melt into the bath. You manage to open the heavy lids of your eyes and give him a spent smile. His hand is gentle as he cups your jaw, fingers soft as he swipes away the blood smeared over your lips.

“You taste divine, by the way,” he murmurs to you as he gathers a handful of water and pours it down your chest.

Your weak smile grows. “Do I?” Your heart does a back flip within you.

“You do. Rich. Like Chianti and dark chocolate. From what I remember, at least.”

He cleans the blood off of you, handling you as he would glass. You’re pliant at his fingertips, allowing him to put your limbs wherever they need to be. Once you’re clean, he dresses your wound with steady fingers, and when he’s done, you’ve returned to bed beside him.

He holds you gently, an unspoken thank you for the luxury of feeding without a fight.

You tilt your chin, nipping at his neck. “I wonder how you taste.”

Somehow, these are the words to break the post-feeding bliss.

Bruce pulls away. Your hand falls onto the mattress in the growing space between the two of you. “Like rot. Let’s hope you’ll never have to find out.”

If you weren’t missing approximately a quarter of your blood, you would have thought the question over enough to grasp you’d be better off leaving it unasked. Current circumstances doesn’t allow you the same tact.

“Why not?” you hedge.

“It doesn’t matter.”

You know it would. Saying so wouldn’t get you anywhere, though. If you press him any more, he’ll get up. Leave you for the city, because even fed, he still is committed to Gotham more than he is to you. You don’t want to be alone in this bed. Don’t want the afterglow to succumb to something darker so late at night. You drop the subject.

Cold sweat drips down your spine as you lurch up, but the dream that left you so shaken is fleeting by the time you’re upright. You’re only left with the smell of rain-dampened concrete and blood.

Rattled by an unknown fear, you find yourself scurrying to the cave.

A week has passed since Bruce has uttered more than a word to you. Something plagues his thoughts. He hasn’t been feeding; not from you or anyone else. You can tell from the way he stalks through the cave. Whatever he’s after has been keeping him too busy. Your attempts to relax him are always a lost cause. You no longer try. Seldom does he hear you over the sound of his own mind.

Night after night, you wake from horrible nightmares hoping to find him at your bedside. Night after night, you are alone. Lonelier than you have since you moved into the manor. Martha even evades you in your sleep. You have your safety, but it’s left you secluded.

Funny. Another nightmare brought you here long ago. At least, you wish you could find your circumstances funny. Instead, you’re one-track-minded on finding Bruce, eager for his presence to console you.

In the cave, you find nothing but the bats.

Bruce’s name echoes against the cave walls after you call it out. It goes on and on, reminding you exactly how massive the structure beneath the manor is.

Thomas and Martha’s musty bedroom comes to mind. You are yet again a trespasser sneaking someplace you aren’t supposed to be.

Any other night, you wouldn’t think of a single reason you’d want to be here without him—you’ve always found the place unnerving. Now it feels safer than anywhere else. It’s foolish, you’re aware; the manor is secure, even more so since you’ve moved in. Your fear feels too abstract, though, lost in the frays of wakefulness. In its stead, you fear everything.

If you tried to go back to bed, you know you wouldn’t find sleep. You stay.

Bruce could return in five minutes or in five hours. You peer into the darkness between candles looking for a clock. Passing the wall of shelves, you spot the journal Bruce had pulled out the night he first brought you down. The one he’d reached for more than any other.

Even the thought of looking at the notebook makes you feel dirty, but for once, you could actually understand Bruce’s life. The temptation to understand a little more of Bruce’s forbidden world feels too good an opportunity to pass up.

With an unsteady hand—presumably written after a rough, late night in the city—Bruce writes about a young boy hiding in shadow as a creature holds his father and drinks his blood. His mother robbed of her own will and forced to watch as she waited her turn.

After the creature had left—too occupied with its thirst to notice Bruce hiding nearby—all he could do was stare at his mother. Wait for her to blink. Wait for her to react to the voices that eventually came to find him and drive him off to the police station to ask endless questions.

It wasn’t just that Bruce couldn’t speak—though he didn’t for two days—but who would believe him? Even his young imagination struggled to comprehend what happened.

Bruce doesn’t talk to you about that night. How could he? How does one talk of final memories when they’re open wounds? Even reading the account Bruce held at such a great distance makes you set the book down until your stomach stops turning.

A long time ago, Bruce was an eight-year-old boy alone in an alley. The ground had been pulled out from beneath him. Horrors beyond his young years were confirmed. At the top of the list, he now lived in a world without his parents.

And through the haze broke Alfred Pennyworth, the man now responsible for Bruce in his parents’ absence.

Alfred Pennyworth is dead, Bruce’s trembling hand reports. Alfred, who had been an accomplice as Bruce took up the Batman mantle. Alfred, who stayed by his side even after the transformation. Alfred, whose body Bruce found in the cave on a night he’d been out in the city fighting an ambush by more like him. Opportunists had found his safe haven.

Bruce gives a clinical account of the body. By the next entry, he gives thorough accounts of the status of crime in the city. He logs the blood he took from criminals he stopped on the street; more than he had before Alfred’s death. Another death he never spoke of, another he’d never dealt with. Had you been there at his side, he would have assured you he was perfectly fine.

Your palms itch as you gaze at the rows of dusty leather spines. You feel greedy with the answers to all the questions you’ve been asking yourself right in front of you. Bruce holds so much of himself at a distance. He kept himself locked away, even now, you’re still left without a key.

What would happen if you picked the lock?

You go to the beginning, leafing through pages of what you eventually put together as Bruce’s early research. He speaks of vampires as something entirely unfamiliar. His human days. Your fingertips brush over the delicate page, imagining the warmth of his palm as it ran across. His face younger than the one he’ll wear for the rest of eternity, the dip between his brow not as deepened. The dark of his hair not yet dusted with wisps of gray at the temples. Breath in his broad chest. Heart pumping fresh blood in his veins.

He’s restless through medical school, writes of drifting directionless as he tries to make sense of what to do with his life. But life after medical school led him to his calling.

A body. One that pulled up years of what he’d buried. For most of his life, he’d dismissed what he’d seen that night. He was a man of logic, and logic said his memories were those of a scared child who’d lost his parents. Something dreamed up to lessen the blow. But the body was evidence the night terrors he had more nights than not were more accurate than he believed.

He vowed to protect what remained of his family’s legacy, the one last remaining part of their love.

Your mind is gripped by the horror of it. Not fear of Bruce—especially not for what you had expected to find in these journals—but the atrocities he’d faced and commented on with such casualness.

Is your name etched into a page in one of Bruce’s journals? How much longer do you have before it disappears, buried beneath the hazards in Gotham? Will he lament for the taste of your blood that would never again slip through his lips?

“What are you doing?”

The voice is sharp and comes from out of nowhere. You snap the book shut and see Bruce looming behind you. Never have you seen him so furious. Hands curled into fists. He looks larger than you’ve ever seen him. Something more, even, than the way he’d stalked you through the halls. Worse.

“Bruce.”

He steps toward you. “What are you doing here?” His voice strikes you, sharp as lightning. A burning in his throat replaces the usual coldness of his presence.

“I...I had a dream...I came to find you…” The look on his face stops you from continuing. You cling to the journal as if it could do anything to help you now.

“Go back upstairs.”

“Bruce—” You flinch as he snatches the book from your hand.

“Now,” he growls.

Pushing against him feels unsafe, but your feet stay glued to the cave floor. “No. I want to know—”

“If there was anything you needed to know, I would tell you.”

“You wouldn’t!” you yell. “You don’t! I’ve spent a year telling you I want to know you, and you only give me slivers. How many times do I have to tell you I love you until you finally accept that means you don't have to hide from me?”

“Go upstairs. You can’t be trusted down here, so I will no longer allow you to visit.” He lectures you like a child. Your pleas do nothing to change it.

Frustration gives way to anger simmering up your chest. “What am I doing here, Bruce?” you cry, throwing your arms out in exasperation. “You only want me around half the time you’re home, so it’s not my company. You never tell me anything about yourself, so it’s not to be understood. You’re not after my blood—that was my idea. So why am I here?”

Silence is his intimidation tactic, but you don’t care, not even as his cold eyes stare you down. The wall between the two of you feels insurmountable, and you’re past the point of tolerating it. You deserve to know the man whose roof you live under. The man you love.

“I’ve told you, the city is dangerous—”

“That’s not enough!” you yell. Bat wings rush overhead as you try to even your racing breath. “I love you, and it hurts. You would think after a hundred years you might have learned how to treat someone. I’m not sure how you’d know I’m around most of the time. I can't keep waiting for you to care that I’m here.”

“Then leave!”

No noise competes with Bruce’s roar once the bats have left. His anger echoes, berating you again and again.

Tears sting your eyes as you fulfill his wish. Without another word, you run up to the sunlight where he can’t catch you.

In a daze, you find yourself in the city, back at the fine arts museum. In the impressionism wing, you stare at a Monet. This time, you stare at strokes of warm red, orange, and yellow, a faint arc made up in lines of deep rust and blue—so different from the soft blues and greens Bruce had told you Martha adored. But the fire of the hues appeals to your sinking heart. Instead of thinking of the vampire you’d abandoned within his manor, you stare where the colors blend together, get lost in the blur of pigment.

Without Bruce, you feel exposed. Your safety net is gone. What first starts as an unsettling feeling twisting in your cut slowly bleeds through to the luxury of freedom. You’re thankful it comes on gently, otherwise the relief would catch you so off-guard you’d run to Bruce in the cave you’re no longer welcome in.

You picture him sitting in his gloom, hunched over papers, as he stews over your betrayal. At first, you wonder if he’ll ever forgive you; the thought gives way to wondering if you want him to.

Rare Gotham sun shines as you sit on one of the benches in the hall. Despite the frigid air outside, the sunlight kisses your skin. The warmth blooms from within as you remember the light is not something you can be limited by. There’s nothing lethal as you bask in it, watching your fellow Gothamites walk in front of you. Friends complaining about work. Couples with fingers intertwined whose relationships weren’t shrouded in secrecy. Families unaware of the atrocities that threaten them, nor the shadow who protects them.

Once, your life was the same. You gave tours in a historic home because you had rent to make. You believed Batman was real but never believed the rumors of vampires could be true.

Golden sunset spills across the floor. You can’t outrun Bruce for much longer. You wonder if he’d try to find you, to check up on you at the very least, though you’re not sure why you want him to.

You content yourself not to search him out. If he finds you, he finds you, but you will occupy yourself with your life however you chose until he does.

Bruce is relieved to find your belongings still in your bedroom. A book on your nightstand. Expensive gifts from him atop your dresser, things you’d told him you didn’t need, never understanding that he wanted to give you everything he could. What could ever be enough for you? A light in his never ending darkness?

He wanted you safe inside these walls, made a fortress where you could be happy. Hired teams so you could never so much as trip over a loose floorboard. After every patrol, he stole to your bedroom to watch the rise and fall of your chest to be sure nothing had crept into your room while he was away.

When vampires closed in on Gotham, he decided it was best if he didn’t tell you. The threat was his to take care of, not something for you to worry over.

Perhaps he’d reacted too strongly after he found you in the cave on your own. But your curiosity concerns him; what lengths would you go in search of answers? He called you here, but you still answered the call. If you wanted information about the others like him, would you go to them if you found they were here?

He thought showing you the other side of him—the side he’s told you repeatedly to be cautious of—you might see things the way he did. He thought maybe it would be enough to show you his world was not one to play around in. It only seemed to make you more ravenous for secrets as if they were treats.

In the city, he attended his duties, but his mind lingered on thoughts of you. You hadn’t returned to the manor before dark, which meant you were still out there somewhere.

You can’t imagine what Bruce felt finding you in that alley.

Past and present flashed before him all at once. Over a century’s worth of memories. Far too many for one being to hold. So much death. So much agony.

Your blood is too fragrant in the wind. He can taste it on his tongue from smell alone. Chianti and dark chocolate.

He needs to focus, but he tastes you as he fights.

His enemy has an edge—your blood. All the more reason for Bruce to win.

His anger burns so bright inside of him, he swears his heart is beating again. He feels a fury he hasn’t felt in decades.

A very small part of him is relieved you’re too dazed to have see him lose his composure the way he does. The important thing is the vampire that attacked you is no longer a concern. Bruce ripped him to ribbons. The beast will have eternity to put himself together again. The same as any other fool who steps into his city, he’ll have to crawl to whatever hole he came from.

Blood is sticky on your neck. He can’t tell how much of the puddle beneath you is melted snow and how much is blood.

He falls to his knees. Doesn’t hear the sound of his suit hitting the ground.

Blood soaks into the wool of the coat he'd gotten you last year. Snowflakes are stark on the black fibers. He wishes it would do more to preserve the last of your warmth.

If it weren’t for the rapid rise and fall of your chest, you would look—

Bruce understands what he has to do even if he detests it. He wants to give you the world, and now he robs you of it. You may never forgive him, but you can hate him forever as long as you’re still here. He can no longer fathom a Gotham without you in it.

He wants you safe. That’s all he’s ever wanted.

His fingers curl around the cool metal of a batarang. Alabaster skin surfaces from beneath his heavy glove, tinted sickly yellow in the dim light. You barely meet his eyes as he pulls you effortlessly against him. He doesn’t know if you can see him.

His face is stone as the knifed edge of the batarang slices through his palm. Nothing else here is worth his attention more than you. The strain of your breath is overpowered by metal clanging to the ground. The tips of his fingers curl into the meat of your cheek until your lips pucker.

You make a noise. He ignores it. There’s no time for anything else. He will not lose you. His fingernails dig into his palm as he curls his fist.

“I’ll take care of you,” he whispers, though he knows you won’t remember this. “Forgive me.”

His blood drips onto your lips. In his unbeating heart, he knows this is a betrayal, but he refuses to walk through Gotham alone. Maybe you can still guide him. And maybe if you lose your way, he’ll help you remember yours.

Another slurred murmur slips through your bloodied lips. You turn your head weakly, trying to get you away. He told you his blood wouldn’t taste good. He keeps you in place. “Just a little more,” he mutters. “You’ll be safe.”

He brings you to the safety of the cave. He saves you, but you have to die anyway.

That damn transformation.

The hours pass slowly at your bedside. Your feverish mumbling come and go until the cease entirely.

He doesn’t like it. You deserve better than the cave. You should be upstairs in bed, blankets pulled up to your chin. Maybe out in the yard, dewy grass tickling your ankles as you gaze at the sunrise sparkling in Gotham Harbor.

He doesn’t know how long it will take, but he scribbles everything furiously the moment they happen and compares them with his notes from his own transformation, as mostly illegible as they are; he’d done his best to cling to whatever lucidity he could before the fever took him.

Every moment passes as a reminder to Bruce; he’s failed you. He swore to keep you safe. Now, you’re damned by his own selfishness.

When you open your eyes, Bruce is standing over a journal.

Something is wrong. You feel so cold. Too alert for what you remember going through. Someone drinking your blood. Had Bruce taken too much…?

Bruce notices you’re awake as you assess the emptiness inside of you. More than emptiness. A gnawing from deep within you. A need you don’t understand.

“Bruce…” you say. Your voice feels cold.

He snaps the journal shut and hurries over to you. “You’re safe now,” he urges.

Your heart stops. No, it doesn’t. No, the coldness comes from within you. Your heart doesn’t stop because it isn’t beating to begin with. “Bruce…?” Fear pitches your voice. You look up at him with dread.

Sunlight is still so fresh in your mind. You remember it. Bruce assures you he’ll help with your transformation, but you don’t hear him. You cling to the memory of sitting in the sunshine. Even then, you treasured it, but not nearly enough.

Come nightfall, you walk beside Bruce. You have a new life to make sense of. With the loss of your mortality, you gain the information you’d sought. Bruce withholds little now, explaining the ways of your kind as waves crash against the bay.

White caps break on the cliff side. Above you is a moonless sky. The glow of the city blocks out the stars even from here.

Across the bay is Gotham City. A stomach more than a city, you feel now more than ever. You’d always known it would take you. The only question was when.

A/N: thank you so much for reading! this fic was an eight month long process, and i hope you enjoyed reading it as much as i did writing it 💛

current ongoings

nightwing (2016-): issue #3, #10, #15, #44-47, #50-51, #54, #57-58, #68, #72-75, #77-; annual #1, annual #2, annual 2021, annual 2022, annual 2024

detective comics (2016-): issue #1047-1051, #1053-1058

batman (2016-): issue #99, #127-129, #136-138, #145-146, #148

batman: the brave and the bold (2023-): issue #4, #13

titans (2023-): issue #1-2, #6-7

catwoman (2018-): issue #45

former ongoings

batgirl (2016-2020): issue #7, #9, #14-17, #25, #27-28, #39, #44, #50

batgirls (2021-2022): issue #2-3, #7-8, #19, #12

batman: urban legends (2021-2023): issue #2, #6, #9, #22-23

the flash (2016-2023): issue #787

superman: son of kal-el (2021-2022): issue #10

limited series

dc vs vampires (2021-2022): issue #2-8, #10, #12

dark crisis on infinite earths (2022): issue #3

titans: beast world: issue #1-6

the boy wonder (2024): issue #1

event tie-ins

dc vs vampires: hunters: issue #1

titans: beast world tour - gotham: issue #1

knight terrors: nightwing: issue #1-2

anthology issues

dark nights: death metal - the last stories of the dc universe: issue #1