#tdwk9

“Aspen.” The Batman says, standing over her. She had forgotten Gotham had a Batman. He reaches out, and she doesn’t flinch as he cups her face, dark gloves wiping at tears and blood. “You’re safe now. I’m gonna get you out of here.” He says, but even as he does he turns her head to look at her injuries. He runs his thumb over the cut on her face - under his touch, she can feel the edges of it. So that’s what happened when the knife slipped. He doesn’t touch her ear, thankfully, but that’s how she knows it’s bad.

She should thank him. He saved her life, she should thank him. “I didn’t think anyone was gonna find me.” She said instead, finding his eyes through the mask.

He breaks her gaze almost immediately. “I’m gonna get you out of this chair.” The Batman says, and he lets go of her and moves behind her. He does something with the chains - something that sparks, she can feel it on the backs of her legs and her arms each time before she hears metal hit the floor and feels a little freer. When her wrists are freed last she stands up, even though she stumbles immediately as blood flows back through her. “Careful,” the Batman says, sounding vaguely annoyed, and he reaches out to steady her at the waist. “Come on. We’re going back out the window.”

“What?”

He’s walking her, rushing now, half-carrying her to his unconventional entrance every time she stumbles. “You’re not going to fall, but if you do, I’ll catch you.”

“I’m - wait, wait -” Aspen says, trying to touch her face to assess the damage.

The Batman doesn’t stop. “I’m not waiting until Falcone and his gang come to. Hold on to me. Ready?”

Aspen’s not looking at him. She’s looking back into the half-built room, where she can count three bodies on the floor. Limp bodies. What exactly had happened? The Batman’s got no patience for that; he’s grabbing her arms, throwing them around his neck until she grabs her own wrist with a cold hand for purchase. One of his arms wraps tight around her waist, where she can feel the hard edges of body armor jut into her back. With the other arm, the Batman reaches out into the space above the city and shoots out some kind of line. She can feel his body jerk with it as it connects to something out in the darkness. His grip on her tightens. “Don’t look down, okay?”

She doesn’t have a second to react as the Batman steps out over the edge and pulls her with him, falling through the air for a stomach-churning second before whatever he’s using kicks in and starts to haul them up in a parabola towards another skyscraper. She can’t look. Aspen’s not afraid of heights, she’s been rock climbing before. But now she knows she is distinctly untethered, and she clings a little harder to the man who saved her life. His armour digs into her skin, but at least this way she knows she’s still safe.

She almost died this way five minutes ago. It’s a chillingly clear thought, even as her stomach turns from vertigo.

She tries not to scream as they stop moving, suddenly. It takes her a whole second to realize that they’re stopped on a rooftop. The little bats have come with them, she notices once she unburries her head from the Batman’s chest. They seem almost friendly now, and they routinely swoop in near her, like they’re curious.

“Alright?” The Batman says. She tries to meet his eyes, but it’s dark and windy and he’s got this stupid pointy mask on. She just nods, and digs her fingers into the ridges of his armour. “Good.” He says. “I’m going to take you to a police officer, he’ll get you to a hospital. It’s just a little further.”

Aspen swallowed hard. Hearing that didn’t help her catch her breath. “And this is the only way to get there?”

“You’re bleeding.” He says. “Hold tight.”

There is apparently no room for argument on that rooftop.

The trip to safety feels so long, jerking from building to building and sometimes going into free fall in midair as the Batman grapples her home. She doesn’t open her eyes again. The wind whistling past her ear was starting to sting - she could feel the blood trickling down towards the back of her neck, tangling with her hair because of the wind. She’d been shaking with adrenaline for so long, her body was finally starting to realize it was hurt. She couldn’t open her eyes from the wind, couldn’t hear over the wind, so she had to just cling in free-fall and feel it all. The arm around her waist wasn’t enough to soothe all this.

After one long, long drop that almost makes her bite through her lip, they drop to the cold cement of the sidewalk and the grappling gun retracted for the last time. One of the bats hovers in her face, chirping at her mechanically when she opens her eyes. She smiles despite herself. She’s totally distracted until she feels the Batman’s voice vibrating through his chest, even through the body armour. “Put your weapons down.”

When Aspen looks up and squints through the flashlights pointed at them, she sees the hollows of a gun and for a second she clings even tighter. “Wait,” she says, hearing Falcone in her head, I am the police. If these are dirty cops, she’ll be back in that chair in a few minutes. She can’t take that a second time. She’ll break and then she’ll die.

“Engage offensive mode.” She’s close enough to hear the Batman say, and in an instant the storm of bats surrounding them centres in on the officers in front of them and goes sharp, feels like a cyclone. She hears a few startled cries in the darkness, and the guns must be put down because he says “Stand down” to the bats, and he turns so less of his body is shielding her.

“Alright, let’s get you out of here - shit.” One of the two cops reaches for her - and the second she flinched, the bat in front of her darted at his outstretched hand and she heard electricity. The Batman chuckles beside her as the officer rubs his hand, swearing almost under his breath. “Jesus.”

“You’re gonna be alright.” The caped crusader says, turning to her. His arm didn’t leave her waist.

“Falcone said -”

“I have it on good authority that these men are clean. Trust me.” And another night Aspen might have protested, but he had just grappling-hooked her over the chasms between buildings. Compared to that, a ride in a squad car could be bearable, right? She nodded hesitantly, and she could have sworn the corner of the Batman’s mouth twitched up. “Good. Stay out of trouble in the future.”

Oh. They were saying goodbye. Aspen blinks. Somehow, it feels too soon. “Thank you.” She says. She has to search for the words - she thanks the barista for Calum’s coffee every morning, and the Batman just saved her life. There’s gotta be something else she can say.

“It’s my job.” He replies, and after a long, long moment he steps back and she hears the grapple gun go off - it’s surprisingly quiet when she’s not in his arms - and then he’s gone. She catches a glimpse of him against the night sky, just one last look; him and the mobile cloud of bats around him.

Wait.

“Autonomous swarm.”

“What?” The cop says. He hasn’t tried to grab her, not this time.

Autonomous swarm. “Nothing.” She says, closing her eyes for a second to try and keep the image of him - the Batman - on her eyelids. Even that’s disappeared after a second.

But she knows what she saw. She knows that mouth, those lips, better than she should. She’s heard that voice - or a voice a lot like that one - from gruff-sounding mornings where she had assumed he was hungover. She knows that tech, goddamn it, if nothing else. She feels dizzy, and this time it’s not just the blood loss. It’s shock, medical or not.

Looking back, she doesn’t know why she doesn’t say something stupid in front of the cop. Maybe it’s just that it’s been a night full of keeping her mouth shut. Holding her tongue for safekeeping. She needs to get it together. Just for a little while. She’s never been an actress, but she’s already been forced into the role the innocent victim. She can play that a little longer. “I’m sorry. I have to go to the hospital.” She says, turning to the officer. “I’m losing blood.” Maybe he’ll take it as an excuse for her hesitance.

The officer’s face softens. Fuck, she must really look bad. “I have gauze for you in my car. We’re four minutes away from Gotham General. Don’t worry,” he says, giving her a smile before he opens the car door.

“First time seeing the bat?” His partner asks under the sirens on the drive there.

Aspen almost laughs. In the red and blue, she can see fingerprints of blood on her arm, glistening there. With the hand that’s not soaking up blood, she lays a finger on the mark. It’s big, bigger than hers. “I think so.” She says, after a moment.

“Get used to it. He’s been busier than ever, these past few weeks.” He smiles at her in the rearview. She grins to herself in the back, and tries not to feel the edges of her wounds through the cloth.

She’s quiet for the rest of the ride. He had known her goddamn name back there, and she hadn’t blinked, wouldn’t have noticed if not for - if she hadn’t noticed those bats - and then he just left her there, with the cops - and she had thought that he could be mixed up in the other side of it, killing men off - god, no wonder he was so stressed all the time. Jesus.

The emergency room is fine. She’s been there before. The wound at her ear is shallow enough to be stitched up, no surgery required, thank god. It’s hard to get the needle through the cartilage there - the doctor says the knife must have been sharp. “It was.” Aspen says, and she hears it detached, almost cool. She’s trying to think, but it’s hard when she’s so numb, and not just from lidocaine.

Her mind’s not on her fucked up ear. The second they told her it would heal and she’d keep her hearing, the second the freezing injection kicked in, she forgot about it. It’s not her face, either. Another surgeon takes a quick look at it, but that sharp knife saved her this time. The edges are clean. Maybe that makes her lucky.

But anyway, that’s nothing. They stitch her up there too, sutures running under the skin like a secret, closing the slash that runs along her cheekbone until just under the outside corner of her eye until it almost looks like a pursed little mouth. But anyway, her mind’s not on that. It’s on the Batman, and autonomous swarms, and suits, and cars, and nicks from shaving, and everything else she’s seen over these few weeks. It’s on Calum Hood.

She allows herself the luxury of thinking it, letting the full phrase form in her mind.

Calum Hood is the Batman.

She can barely think it with a straight face. Like, seriously, what the fuck?

The officers from the ride over are nice to her, when they come back in to take her statement. Of course, she doesn’t tell them everything she knows. Just about Don Falcone, Liam, the questions they asked, and the man who almost butterflied her cheek. When she said Angelo, they exchanged looks. “You’re very lucky, you know that? They only use his real name when they think the vic - uh, the victim won’t be leaving.” It’s not reassuring. She’s a girl who knows too many names now. True names. Like in old fairy stories. They’re supposed to give you power.

Ha.

She uses her new traction as a frail and injured witness to get herself a cup of coffee before the cops leave her again. She can’t afford to get delirious tonight.

The officer she spoke to on the phone that morning - that morning? Jesus - comes to see her personally, and that Officer Gordon asks her a few more questions in a soft voice while another officer swabs under her nails in case she brought any bits of Liam with her after their fight in the parking garage. The analyst is going to put it to the front of the queue, he tells her, it’s what they do in all the Bat’s cases. She just nods, playing shell-shocked. Well. Playing might not be the best word. Does he know? Does Officer Gordon call Calum Hood, or does he call the Batman? Which did she connect that morning?

“Wait, did you find my phone? Can I - I should call my mom, oh my god.” She almost died back there, she’s sure of it, and she had been meaning to call her mom like three days before the gala and then she forgot - she almost didn’t get to talk to her mom again in her life. Oh my god.

“Hang on. Deep breaths, you’re alright.” Officer Gordon has such a good voice for calming people down. “We found your phone. Unfortunately, it is currently being processed for evidence, but you can use mine to call your mother if you know her number off by heart.”

Aspen forces herself to take a deep breath, like he said. “That would be amazing. Thank you so much.”

Gordon gives her a smile and his cell phone, and steps outside the curtain around the bed so she has a little privacy.

Telling this whole thing again - again - Aspen knows she’s going to break down. Might as well get it over with. She plugs in the number and brings the phone to her good ear. It’s probably way too late for her mom to pick up - yeah, she gets answering machine. “Hi mom.” She has to pause to catch her breath. “Um, I have some news for you. And it’s kind of bad. But I’m fine now, so don’t freak out when you hear it, okay? My cell’s in evidence, it might be hard for me to get in contact with you after this. That sounds bad. I’m sorry. But I promise I’m okay. Um. I got a little kidnapped?”

She’s lucky the cut on her cheekbone isn’t longer. If she had cried directly on it she’s sure it would increase the risk of infection.

It’s the wee hours of the morning when she gets home. None of her roommates are up - fuck, she has to write a big announcement email, doesn’t she? Tell the folks back home about all her brand new scars. Aspen stays awake just long enough to bang out a few paragraphs about what happened, saving the details about organized crime, and she hesitates if she should be even talking about, you know... so in the end she holds back. She sends the email, collapses into bed, and for once is thankful that her phone is gone - no calls, no alarms.

Her roommates each wake her up, when they get up and hear the news. Mel cries and offers to stay home from work with her. Paige is in a rush that morning, but she gives her a hug and promises to bring dinner for them so they can relax as a house tonight. When she hears the front door close for the last time, Aspen gets up and slips a chair under her doorknob. She’s seen it work on TV, and her bedroom door doesn’t have a lock, so maybe it’s the next best thing. It helps her fall back asleep, at least.

It’s around two in the afternoon when she wakes up again, and she answers concerned emails in between bites of leftovers at the kitchen table. Calum sent her an email on her personal telling her not to worry about coming into work until she’s ready, which she appreciates.

She’ll be ready, alright.

If there’s one thing she knows how to do, it’s research, and there’s plenty out there for her if she’s willing to dig a little. She’s certain about the Bat’s identity, of course, she knows enough for that, but that’s different from evidence. So she finds evidence. The timeline, for one, is dead simple - the Batman makes his first confirmed appearance within the same week Hood Enterprises announced the prototype for a new material for body armour. The morning Calum had come in “hungover” with pissy, dark circles under his eyes (she wrote the date in her own daybook, a doodle of him angry in the margins, but now she’s glad she did) was just after a major fight by the wharf with some weapons smuggler that the Batman had tidily ended. And, even though it’s anecdotal, it’s true she’s only seen him “cut himself shaving” on the parts of his face a cowl wouldn’t cover.

It keeps blowing her mind, all of this, every time she hits on a new detail. Oh my god. Oh my god. She tries not to think about the kiss while she’s doing her reading, it’ll fuck with her scientific objectivity, but it feels almost as surreal as those electric bats. He pressed her up against a desk and kissed her and held her body like it hurt to let her go, and then he walked away, and then he must have heard later about what someone had caught on a security monitor, or called her cell, and it rang on the floor of the parking garage and no one picked up, and then he saved her and left bloody fingerprints on her and called it a night. How could he just - okay, okay, she’s getting worked up again.

She’s on edge the rest of the night, even though later her and her roommates eat pizza and watch Legally Blonde. She’s going to work Monday, she’s decided that. She’s going to be a good little PA and have Calum’s coffee ready at eight fucking thirty and she’s gonna pencil herself into a spot for a meeting with him and then they’ll see. They’ll just fucking see. He might have body armour but under her soft skin she’s fucking made of kevlar.

She’s feeling a little mad at him, she realizes. She’s pissed that he’s been hiding this from her the whole time, and then the audacity to kiss her and rescue her all in the same night - she was so close to the dark knight of Gotham this whole time and he yelled at her for being late for a meeting once. A meeting! And he was under gunfire every night! God. He was lucky she was so resilient.

She’s not sure if she has the right to be betrayed, but the one thing she does know is that she can help. She wants in. She doesn’t want to wear a bulky suit and fly around like that every night, but she’s smart, and she’s loyal as a dog, apparently, and he needs her. She can help him, if he’ll let her. And once she’s prepared her statement, he’ll let her.

She’s gonna make him regret every second he wasted her talents.