tea for the midnight fanfic reader? 🍵

You hadn’t meant to follow her this far.

At some point, it had stopped being a decision and turned into stubbornness— an unwillingness to let Grace disappear without explanation into something she could die in and pretend her disappearance wouldn’t bother you. She had a habit of doing that, of closing herself off to ward off questions. Most people would take the hint and remember that it was part of her actual job.

But not you, idiotically.

The Wrenwood Hotel stood at the edge of the block, set back far enough from the street to feel separate from it. Even from a distance, it didn’t look abandoned in the way one would expect. The structure was intact, the windows mostly unbroken, the signage still fixed above the entrance in faded but legible lettering, and the rest of the street busy. It looked… almost maintained, in your opinion.

You’d watched Grace and the officer go into the alley leading to it from across the street, hiding among other pedestrians with the most boring outfit you could put together. You had started chewing your bottom lip, trying to reason with yourself. This wasn’t any of your business. This was so not any of your business that you could get yourself and Grace in huge trouble. But she’s never on the field, she’s just a data analyst….

Swallowing, you threw entirely rational and sane caution to the wind and crossed the street, splashing through the puddles leftover from the earlier rain, and pried open the door a good few minutes after the former.

The air inside hit your face in the way that makes one squint. Not entirely stale, but still in a way that made the sounds of the street feel like they had been cut off the moment you crossed the threshold. You paused just inside the entrance, letting your eyes adjust.

The lobby stretched out ahead of you, dim and unevenly lit. A few overhead lights still worked, flickering faintly or humming in a way that made it hard to tell how long they’d last. The rest hung dead above you, leaving patches of shadow that broke up the space. The front desk stood off to one side, its surface cluttered with scattered papers and debris and whatever else had been left behind disturbed. One of the drawers hung open slightly, crooked in its track. Behind it, shelves were half-empty; whatever had been there either taken or knocked loose.

The seating area looked worse. Chairs had been shifted out of place, tipped or broken, fabric worn thin or torn open at the seams. A table sat on its side nearby, one leg snapped clean through. Dust had settled over everything in a thin, undisturbed layer, clinging to the surfaces and dulling what little light reached them, though in a few places it had been disturbed just enough to stand out. Faint smudges broke through the settled dust, subtle but regular. Footsteps.

You pulled out your phone, turning the flashlight on and slowly making your way across the lobby, listening. You didn’t want to just catch up to them, or risk it, more like. For one thing, that was a sure-fire way of getting Grace in trouble immediately, but it wouldn’t hurt to just… follow, right? Hearing faint movement, you silently left the main hall, approximating where the soft sounds were coming from.

The hallway narrowed quickly, swallowing up what little light the lobby had offered. Your flashlight beam floated ahead of you in a thin, foggy line, catching on peeling wallpaper and uneven flooring and dust, the edges of the corridor fading into shadow just beyond it. Doors lined either side, most of them shut, a few left slightly open as if someone had passed through without bothering to close them.

You moved slowly, placing each step with as much control as you could muster. Even then, the faint crunch of debris under your shoes made you cringe. Biting your lip and pausing, you listened hard. The sounds ahead were faint, but they didn’t change. Whew. You reached out to the wall to lean on it very lightly, not trusting your balance in the dimness as you continued your slow trek.

You weren’t an agent of any kind in any capacity of the word, and you knew being here was a stupid, horrible idea, but Grace wasn’t a field agent. That’s what went through your mind when she went quiet on you again, and that was what was running through your head now. Why on earth was a desk bound analyst sent out here with, apparently, nothing more than a local policeman? You were loyal to a fault and sometimes reckless, but not entirely stupid. From the bits and pieces you’d got from her the last few months, you knew something was up, and moreover that you might not get your friend back if you just let her disappear.

You turned a corner, trying to hold in your coughs from the dust floating around, you were shaken from your thoughts by… silence. It was silent. You froze, the muscles around your ears tangibly shifting to grasp anything. The whispers of life you had been following had simply… vanished. No gradual fade, no clear direction— just gone, leaving the hallway feeling suddenly wider and emptier than it had a second before. Your grip tightened slightly around your phone, and you swallowed thickly.

“Grace?” you croaked, much softer than you intended, the sound sinking into the walls. Your words didn’t travel, the slightly damp, peeling wallpaper absorbing them meaninglessly.

The answer came too fast. A crash— violent, piercing, and way too close— followed by the unmistakable sound of something being thrown or shoved hard into furniture. You flinched so sharply your shoulder hit the wall behind you, phone flying out of your hand and clattering to the floor, light uselessly pointed at the ceiling. Another impact followed, a loud growl, a scream—

You didn’t move. You couldn’t. Your body locked where you stood, breath caught somewhere too high in your chest as the sounds only worsened, loud and overlapping into something chaotic and violent. Scraping, stumbling, yelling, slamming into walls and floor that made your hands fly to cover your ears. Something broke with a sharp crack. You squeezed your eyes shut, caving into yourself like that might block it out, like it would make it stop. The struggle dragged on for what felt like far too long, each sound ringing louder than the last, until— it stopped.

Shaking violently, you blinked, slowly turning your head to gaze up the passageway ahead of you. The hallway stretched out the same as it had before, dim and uneven, the beam of your flashlight highlighting the fog of dust silently. No footsteps. No voices. No sign that anything had just happened at all. Your ears were ringing, fear still locking you coldly to the spot. Your heart felt separate from your body, beating loud in your ears and accompanied by your trembling breath. You should turn back, go home. You shouldn’t have come in the first place, at least Grace is somewhat trained—

Grace.

You shook your head physically to yourself. No, you had to see if she was okay. If she was, you couldn’t leave her here alone! If she wasn’t… well, at least you could get out and tell someone right away. You forced your breathing to come back slowly, sharp when your lungs complained. You lowered your hands from your ears, fingers still shaking, and swallowed hard against the tightness in your throat. Crouching and grabbing your phone, you set off with more hurried strides, panic for your friend overriding the instinct to stay quiet.

Your footsteps slipped unevenly over debris as you pushed further down the hall. The beam of your flashlight shook with your movement, bouncing off the walls and catching on doorframes and broken fixtures in quick, disorienting flashes. Every shadow felt like it shifted when you weren’t looking directly at it, stretching just a little too far before snapping back into place when you looked back hurriedly. The hallway was feeling like it just kept going, each step taking you further from the safety of the entrance, further into something you didn’t understand and were woefully unqualified for. The silence pressed harder, heavier after the noise, like the building was waiting for something else to happen.

You finally reached a portion that widened slightly. A staircase came into view at the end of the hall, half-shadowed and worn, the railing coated in dust. And… you heard something. A sound, faint and distant, threading its way through the quiet in a way that made you falter mid-step.

Music.

You faltered, your light dipping slightly as you tried to place it. It was soft, warped by distance and whatever it was playing through, but steady. It was completely out of place with everything else you had heard so far, didn’t match the chaos from before. A deeper cold settled in your chest, gripping your heart.

“Grace?” you called again, your voice as tight as your throat felt. The music didn’t stop. No answer came back.

You swallowed, your grip tightening around your phone as you turned toward the steps, aiming the beam up. The sound grew clearer the further you toed towards them, and you tilted your head. It was coming from above. You looked at the stairs again. There were the same places of disturbed dust from the rest of the hall. Footsteps.

“Grace?” you whispered, lip trembling.

You stood there for a moment longer, staring up at the staircase, before forcing yourself to move. Your foot found the first step carefully, testing it before you shifted your weight. It creaked faintly under you, and you froze immediately, your breath catching as your eyes lifted toward the top. Nothing.

You swallowed and continued, placing each step with as much care as you could manage, barely able to feel your feet at all. The stairs turned slightly to the left as you climbed, and your chest felt so tight, your breathing shallow. You followed the curve of the stairs, your light shifting ahead of you, the upper level coming into view. There was a door at the top that stood partially open, the gentle, so completely off-putting music drifting slowly through it. The music was coming from inside.

You slowed as you reached the last step, your movements hesitant the closer you got. The beam of your flashlight slipped across the floor just beyond the doorway, catching the disturbed dust, the faint marks that led in the same direction everything else had. And a shoe. Your eyes widened hopefully.

“Grace?” you said for the fourth time, clearing the final step quickly. Your voice felt unnaturally loud the moment it left you. Though she didn’t respond, you were sure it was her now, recognizing the shoes and pants as you walked more confidently towards the door, shouldering it further open. She was standing just out of the clearance, fixed towards the wall with the blazing fireplace.

The words died in your throat when you registered what you were seeing, freezing in your tracks. A fireplace—lit, crackling softly like nothing in the rest of the building existed. A side table with a phonograph, the source of that quiet, warped music. An armchair to the left of it.

And slightly beyond them, standing unnaturally tall, a man.

A cliffhanger!! Hope this was alright, I'm trying to be immersive! Thank you so much for reading and like if you want me to continue!

He had already decided what to do about you.

Journalists were not a gray area to him, especially not under the current circumstances. Gotham was locked down, the streets controlled through fear and precision, and anything that threatened that structure had to be handled before it became a problem. People like you did not simply observe. You asked questions, followed threads, and filled in gaps with speculation that tended to land too close to the truth.

You had published three articles in the past week, each one circling the same subject: the Arkham Knight. You had not crossed a line yet, but you were approaching one, and that alone was enough to justify intervention.

That was why he was here, lying close to a chimney, M24 in hand.

The position across from your apartment provided a clear view through your window, unobstructed but easy to disguise. He had chosen it quickly after scouting the area, analyzing the building’s layout. Entry points, sightlines, timing, everything had been accounted for.

The plan had been simple: take the shot and leave without a trace.

Through the scope, your apartment appeared exactly as it had been for the last few days. Small, functional, and dimly lit except for the glow of your laptop. Papers were scattered across your desk in uneven stacks, some partially folded, others marked with notes he could not read from this distance. It was late enough that most of the building had gone dark, but you were still awake.

You leaned forward slightly, your attention fixed on the screen, fingers moving in short bursts before pausing. He watched the sequence repeat as you deleted something, rewrote it, and paused again: a predictable rhythm.

Shifting his weapon, his focus shifted briefly to the edge of your desk, where a printed page lay partially beneath your laptop. He recognized it immediately, even without a clear view of the text. He had already reviewed that article in full, breaking it down line by line to identify where you had gone wrong and where you had come too close to something you should not have been able to see.

Most of it had been completely inaccurate, but not all of it. That was enough. That was the problem.

You didn’t know what you were looking at, but you weren’t as oblivious as everyone else in this damn city.

His grip remained steady, his finger resting along the frame of the rifle as he recalculated the distance without needing to consciously think through it. The shot would be simple. There were no external variables to account for, no movement patterns that would complicate the timing. You were stationary, focused, and unaware.

It should have been over already.

He should have already pulled the damn trigger.

He had more important things to be doing. The Cloudburst wasn’t going to complete itself, and Batman wasn’t going to break on his own.

Instead, he watched as you reached for the mug at your desk, lifting it slightly before pausing. Even from this distance, the hesitation was clear. You glanced into it briefly, then set it back down without drinking, your attention shifting back to your work.

There was something about the motion—small, absent, unguarded—that didn’t fit with what he’d come to expect from this hellhole. It was… disarming. No, it was irrelevant.

His jaw tightened, a faint pressure building as he pressed his tongue briefly against the inside of his cheek.

This wasn’t part of the plan. You weren’t supposed to take this much time.

You resumed typing more deliberately like you were onto something. But your shoulders tensed slightly as you stopped again, staring at the screen with apparent frustration as though waiting for something to resolve itself. After a few seconds, you leaned back in your chair, pressing your hands over your eyes for a long moment before exhaling and returning to the keyboard.

He adjusted his grip along the rifle’s frame, trying to get a hold on his thoughts. The weight was steady, unchanged, and exactly as it should be. Unlike this.

A shift in your posture drew his attention again as you pushed your chair back and stood, stretching briefly before pacing a few steps across the room. His gaze tracked you without effort. His shoulders pulled just slightly tighter beneath the armor when you suddenly approached the window.

His fingers stilled completely against the rifle, every movement narrowing as he held his position. The angle was perfect. The darkness concealed him fully. There was no risk of being seen. There wasn’t a reason for the tension that settled through him. He should shoot. Now.

You stood there for a moment, looking out into the street below that was silent and dark, besides the few streetlights that were dimly flickering. There was no indication that you sensed anything unusual; nothing but innocent frustration in those pretty eyes, slightly lit by the street below. After a few seconds, you turned away and returned to your desk, your focus settling back onto the screen.

He relaxed and exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled, as he reset his grip with deliberate precision.

The moment passed without consequence, but he still had not taken the shot.

The path was clear, the conditions optimal, and the outcome guaranteed. There was no justification for delay, no strategic advantage to continued observation. Every additional minute spent here increased the risk of unnecessary complication.

The delay was unnecessary: a distraction. He didn’t have time for distractions. And yet, he wasn’t pulling the trigger. Not last night, and not tonight. He grit his teeth in frustration.

You were still a risk, and that had not changed. Risks were handled in the militia. Immediately.

His attention shifted again, this time to the window itself. The latch remained undone, the frame slightly raised to allow fresh air in. It was a small detail, not originally important. He had noted it the first night and confirmed it the second.

But now it wasn’t just an observation. It was an option. And a more tempting one the longer he stayed here.

His gaze returned to you as you continued working, letting out a puff of air at how you were so unaware of the danger you were in. You moved through your routine without hesitation, without any indication that you understood the position you were in or the attention you had drawn.

A shot would end it: clean, efficient, final. But… it would also leave questions unanswered. How much you actually knew. How close you were to his true plans. Whether this was just blind guessing, or something that needed to be handled differently. Yeah, he needed more information.

He pushed himself up, taking the weapon off of his target and putting it over his shoulder. The mission came first, but… you were part of it now. Yeah. Your window was still unlocked, and he could get answers.

He smirked under the helmet. His plan had just changed.

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