Chapter Text
As brutal as the first swells of fall wind nipping at your cheeks, you tried to erase the memory of the night before. Sleep tugged at your eyes, but you couldn’t trust the darkness anymore, so you pushed the cold metal door open and entered a nearby café.
The night had been lengthy. As daybreak hit, and the ceiling had gone blurry from staring at it so thoroughly, the high-res image of him fuzzed into nothing more than an outline. The shadow of him followed you to the counter, where you ordered the first thing you noticed on the menu, plugged in your card, and waited for your latte in vain.
A girl who couldn’t be more than seventeen walked around the counter with an apologetic smile. “So sorry, but we’re out of oat milk.” She had bright brown eyes that turned down at the corners, and a lopsided grin. You continued to tread water, forcing back memories of your cursed adolescence that had led you here. You nodded at her first suggestion, slinking closer to the wall as you reset your waiting. You wanted to grab her by the shoulders, tell her to get out, to leave. That the city would swallow her up, smother her dreams, break her.
You wished you’d listened when your parents had done that to you.
Wood paneling brought warmth to the small dining area. A speaker nestled between some spider plants wafted lofi music from the far corner. A few friends clustered together with laptops and cheap spiral notebooks on the spindly tables and chairs. Your mind wandered around itself like an echoey ballroom, poking and prodding at each thing out of place. Why had you ever come to Gotham?
Your phone buzzed, but the cinch in your stomach knotted your fingers from grabbing it. It was a hot stove, burning a hole in the pocket of your hoodie so much you could almost smell it smoldering. Prioritizing your attention to the steady tempo of the heartbeat in your ears was the only reason you were still standing.
It buzzed again. Then again, giving you no choice but to stare the horse in the mouth. Mar was responding to the barrage of texts you’d sent her last night to distract; two-player games, memes, entirely too specific questions because you’d hoped she’d free you from the night’s torment. At some point, you’d deliriously tried to telepathically text Walter, so desperate for anything other than the frames of Bruce and you that slammed against your eyelids like hail.
Your thumb slipped and moved you back to your messages menu. The pull you felt toward his name was all too similar to slowing past a car crash, straining your neck against all better judgment to look away. You clicked on it, feeling like you’d fallen back into bed, the sheets coarse against your skin.
You’d taken a shower the second he left, stopping for nothing save locking the door. The water was ice cold, an attempt to shock away the play acting itself out behind every blink. Every movement of your arm across your body felt like a bullet, or a hot knife slicing through the top layers of skin. You fought through body wash like it was his hands gliding over you, wincing as they passed over the gigantic scarlet bruise assaulting your thigh.
You’d been convinced you were losing your mind, and swore not to take weed ever again.
After toweling off, tears stinging your eyes over the endless suffering of that shower, you wanted nothing more than to slip into a state of nonexistence. No thoughts, no hopes, no fears, no consequences. But the phone stared at you, and you stared back, knowing you had to text him.
The barista came out and handed you your coffee, and you startled to the point she apologized again, eyes squinting slightly. You muttered a thank you, and slipped out into the street.
Leaving the café had you feeling like a thief. Like someone was out to get you, breathing down your neck whispering I found you out. I know your secret. Walking past pedestrians felt like they could see right through you. Like you were stripped naked walking through downtown, pining for an alleyway you could slip into for a moment of reprieve.
The main intersection downtown had a notoriously ‘sticky’ walk light—sometimes it would go off too often, creating a horrific hazard for people too trusting, or it would only buzz rarely, leaving you stranded between you and your destination for far too long. After the third light cycle with no signal, you were forced to suffer an indefinite wait, the phone a heavy brick in your hand.
Almondmilk foam caressed your lips as you diverted your attention to the texture and spices in the latte. Still bitterly hot, you relished its sting, fingers tapping anxiously on the inflexible plastic back of your phone case. Burn me. Scald me. You slammed a gulp of it, and for a moment the desire to stare at your screen faded to gray. After a few seconds soothing your tongue against the roof of your mouth, you squinted your eyes open to see if the walk signal was lit. No such luck.
When you thought about rushing into traffic, you made yourself take a deep breath. You needed to get a grip, and tried talking yourself down. So what? You’d been high, had an unprecedented dream, and the thoughts had lingered. The situation didn’t need to be stickier than that. As exposure, you looked through the messages from the night before, the first few of which you’d tossed and turned in bed before sending, suddenly overthinking every syllable you ‘spoke’ to him.
Hey, it’s Y/N. Back yet?
Home safe.
You recalled being shocked he was such a fast texter.
Thanks for following up. Got your number saved.
Does that make two numbers in your phone now?
Three. Running out of storage space at this rate.
1.Alfred
2.Alfred (Cell)
3.Me
How’d you hack my phone?
Lol (laughing out loud)
Thanks. Had no idea.
Now that Bruce Wayne is in the public eye, you gotta know this stuff.
Hope I don’t run into him. Heard he’s a total tool.
That poor journalist he roped into interviewing him.
You know Bruce, desperate to talk.
By this point you’d been grinning in bed, forgetting the turmoil of the past half hour. You’d set your phone on your nightstand, until two minutes later when it lit the room up.
I did have a great time tonight. Sorry if I intruded.
I owe you another bottle. And Skittles.
I liked the company. Wasn’t looking forward to being alone, hence the edible.
I’m sorry for how I acted this morning. If it helps, I’m safe.
It does. Glad you’re feeling better, really.
Appreciate you looking out for me. I’ll try to make it easier.
You’d have been lying if you’d said that didn’t make your stomach flip a little.
You don’t need to feel bad about this morning. It makes sense why you’d feel that way, the pity stuff.
Doesn’t mean you had to be in the crossfire.
How’s your head? Your leg?
Better. I think the weed’s helping somehow.
Good.
If you want to talk about anything, I’m here.
I forget the toll these things take.
By this point it was like a spell had overtaken you, like his kindness was a slippery slope of contagion enveloping you before you’d even realized what you were messing with.
For someone who claims these interactions are so new, you sound pretty normal.
Alfred fills the gaps.
I’m imagining him standing over your shoulder telling you what to say.
I’d sound more British.
In the pause of you laughing to yourself, he sent another text.
Followed up with Gordon before you texted. Miller’s still in custody, no chance of bail. Hope that helps you sleep better tonight.
You distinctly recalled thinking Talking to you is helping me sleep better before promptly throwing your phone across the room on reflex. It thudded into the pink chair of your desk, thankfully unharmed. You laid there, chest heaving, room spinning. Like a petulant, obnoxious visitor looking for any excuse to insert themselves, the mirage came back with a gentle pulse, and you felt his breath on your neck again.
You hadn’t responded the rest of the night, and that was where the text chain ended. By the time you’d gathered your breath enough to walk to your phone, it was too late to respond, made you too self-conscious. You’d hoped he’d leave it at that, and wouldn’t follow up more. You were petrified of the nightmare coming back.
The light turned, and after a triple check to make sure it wasn’t short-circuiting, you pocketed your phone and walked across, flinching at every crunch of a leaf under your shoe. Bruce had certainly been a favorable distraction from the reality of having been held at gunpoint, of being kicked and pummeled into the concrete, but you couldn’t shake the sweat-soaked feeling that clouded every thought about him: whiplash.
゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜
Walking home, the feeling was different than he’d ever felt before; rather than harassing himself about why he’d said this, that, or anything else, he felt… peaceful. A bit sore, but a good sore, like flexing a muscle you hadn’t exercised in a while. Simultaneously, he felt like he’d opened up too much for comfort and comfortably stretched his limits. It was disorienting, the usual word for how he felt around you. Rather than ruminating on words or tone, he looked at the flicker of the streetlights off the broken windows, how the puddles created a dew on the jagged edges of the brick in the alleys he slipped through. More than anything, he felt like he’d been cracked open. Like a sliver of light was getting in; the light of wanting to keep you talking on the couch. The light of getting lost in you.
As he drew closer to Wayne Tower, his legs felt more weighted. Maybe it was the alcohol, no, it was absolutely the alcohol, and he’d likely feel horrible in the morning, but for now, as he walked through the damp streets, his head felt less crowded. A nagging thought at the back of his mind was how the hell he’d fallen asleep so quickly. He was always keenly aware of his energy levels, having mapped them endlessly to accurately gauge how much longer he could stay out and fight. He hadn’t felt tired. It hadn’t even been midnight. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d fallen asleep that early. It was ridiculous.
It’d been about ten minutes into the episode that he’d noticed you were sleeping. As quickly as he could remember after, he’d followed your lead. He’d passed a long-abandoned park a half-mile from his house and a swingset creaked in the wind, mimicking the sound in his chest when you’d come back from the bathroom with a yawn. It’d been devastating to leave, but he hoped he’d played it off well enough.
Even cloaked in alcohol’s gentle embrace, he felt the sober him kicking at his walls. In the morning he’d be scared of this, and he knew it, he knew it as well as his feet knew their way home. He pictured himself in the batcave the next morning swearing off alcohol for the rest of his life, planning a campaign to make Gotham a dry town so he’d never again be tempted to fall into this. Or collect all the beers up in his tower so he could drink, drink, and drink the slope of your smile out of his memory.
Alfred was in the kitchen again when he’d entered; a fragment of him wanted to thank him, tell him he was right, that he’d opened some sort of door into something new. Instead he nodded at the man, striding past him like he wasn’t still coming down, like they hadn’t had the confrontation, and went up to bed.
As soon as he sat, his phone buzzed. Before inputting you as a contact, he read your number with focused repetition to commit it to memory. He sat back against his headboard, feeling its squish against the wall. As he responded to your messages, it dawned on him that he hadn't texted like this in ages, if ever.
That poor journalist he roped into interviewing him.
He didn’t realize he was smiling until his cheeks felt weak from the tension, and by then he didn’t care. After he sent the message about Gordon, he stayed up for the next hour waiting for what you might say back. Sleep interrupted his waiting, and he woke up the next morning with his phone still in his hand. He’d startled upon rousing, usually keeping it tucked into his nightstand or face-down on top of it. A few moments of blinking back to the room, and…
He felt like shit. Every feeling came back to him tenfold, alongside a mind-numbing headache. The gentle hold of last night’s vulnerability had degraded into a blanket of knives, puncturing every inch of his body. He ignored Alfred when he stormed down to get lunch, and ate it in a daze. He stomped up the stairs and threw on a hoodie and jacket, tightening the drawstrings and slapping a scarf over his face. He threw on a pair of sunglasses and called it a day, jogging the back alleys downtown, all deliberation gone on whether to visit or not.
In the hour before sleeping, deliberate he had; he’d ached over whether or not to visit you so soon. He owed you another bottle of wine, and some snacks, but he felt like shit inserting himself again. His feet slammed the pavement as he broke into a sprint, his teeth gnashing together with each thudding step. You’d only allowed him to visit because you’d thought he was in crisis, you probably felt violated having someone over while under the influence; probably thought he was irresponsible and opportunistic; maybe you’d even blocked his number by now.
Bruce had to take a detour from the usual route, having to slip onto the main road for a few blocks. He kept his head firmly down, never being out at this time of day and absolutely hating it. Keep to the right. Keep to the wall.
Someone slammed into his shoulder, falling and spilling the contents of their purse about the sidewalk. His head snapped up, noticing the color of your hair, stooping to collect what had fallen. Some lipstick, gum, keys. Did you recognize him? He moved his hand to his sunglasses to pull them down, a sneaky tell just for you, but when he looked up his stomach sank. The stranger grabbed her stuff from him quickly, hastily pulling the bag over her shoulder before rushing off.
Shit. He hurried and slunk more to the wall, the arm of his jacket skipping against the brick. He pulled against the snags when they caught, clipping along to the beat of his chest. He wanted it to be you so badly. Too badly. He felt nauseous.
Possibly in the worst timing of all, he found himself approaching the worst intersection in the city. Whenever he drew up his budget, he needed to lobby for it to be taken care of. Cars whizzed past, most drivers looking anywhere else but right in front of them. A passing thought: if they hadn’t died that night, they probably would’ve died here. How much blood was caked in the potholes and chunks of dry gravel?
The light came on, another force of hand making him interact with the world around him. Except when he did, his eyes dragged up to you at the other side, staring down at your phone while you sipped a coffee. The tips of his fingers went cold.
You were looking forward, but looked right through him. This was possibly the first time he’d ever been disappointed by invisibility; it was a trap, not freedom.
He’d look suspicious following you, but he couldn’t very well pull you to the side on a busy street corner.
He’d talk. He’d say something as you walked past, and you’d know it was him. You’d know his voice. You knew him.
He drew a breath before you walked past, but hesitated when you did. You’d been so close the ends of your hair had flounced against his jacket, could smell the subtle sweetness of your shampoo. He swallowed hard, his breath faltering. A light airiness bounced around his stomach. You were walking fast, he only had a few seconds…
He started walking toward you, but stopped after a few steps. You wouldn’t believe he hadn’t followed you, it would be too suspicious. He turned around with a snap, checking if the signal was still on, and jogged across the street. His head was a mess. He reassured the pit in his stomach that he’d see you on Tuesday for March’s rally, while also wanting to temper his hope, while also not wanting to have it…
“Hey, sorry, I was just in your shop, and—yes! Y/N. Oh my god, thank you, I’m a block away. So sorry, I’ll be right there.”
Bruce looked over his shoulder to see you running across the street, your jacket flapping in the wind behind you, just like your hair, your phone pressed to your ear. At this point the universe was teasing him. Bruce Wayne can’t have simple run-ins. Certainly not with you.
You walked past fellow pedestrians, no one giving you a second glance, like you were another faceless member of the nebulous ‘public’. You were even allowed to say your name out loud, to use your voice without modulation, bare your face, dress how you’d like, go where you pleased. You disappeared a block down into a small café, and he wanted to follow, but he waited. You came out a few seconds later, finishing the pocketing of your card into your pant pocket.
You walked to the intersection a few feet from him. It felt bizarre watching you, like he was watching a movie happen in real time. A woman walked to the waiting area beside you, pushing a stroller with a very loud child inside. You and the woman exchanged grins, and you waved at the baby. Your hair flew into your face and you tucked it behind your ear, saying something he couldn’t make out. The woman’s voice got louder as she recognized you. “Wait, are you the journalist who did the interview with Bruce Wayne?”
Bruce stepped to the side a few feet, playing with his position against the wind to ensure he could hear.
“Yeah! It was wild, really cool he wanted to work with someone from GU.”
“That’s so fun. Congratulations!”
Even though the conversation was polite, it churned Bruce’s stomach to see your coffee trip be affected by your connection to him. She was only one out of many who had passed by without look or comment, but that ratio, and those interruptions, would only increase the more time you spent together. He felt like a monster, too big to hang out, encroaching on all remaining normalcy in your life.
The light turned, and you walked in tandem with the woman and her stroller. The wind was able to lap across your cheeks, not a camera to be seen; no shouting crowds, clamoring strangers. He turned and walked the rest of the way to his car, pulling the keys from his jacket pocket before standing limply by the driver door. Why couldn’t he walk up to you? Why was he wrapped to anonymous completion, having to obscure every inch of available skin for the crime of walking to his car? The scarf was stifling. His eyes sweat behind the sunglasses. At the beck and call of his dead family’s reputation was an excruciating place to live.
He jammed into his seat and restrained every muscle in his foot that wanted to slam on the gas, only letting himself do so once on the outskirts of town. The pedal hit the floor hard, and the world whizzed by in a blurry haze. He had half a mind to slam on the brakes, sending the car toppling over itself into the gravel ditch.
The image of it is what made him coast to a stop, the world slowing enough for him to catch his bearings. Once he was safely pulled to the side, near one of the city’s many graveyards, he pressed his forehead to the wheel, feeling what bubbled under the surface. Grief.
The drive home was slower and more deliberate. Every time his foot itched to slam into a tree, or ram into an alley wall, he counted his breaths. By the time he got back he was drained, but wouldn’t let himself sit in it. His stomach grumbled, ached with emptiness, his meds rotting an ulcer into his abandoned stomach, but he didn’t care.
Not able to enter Wayne Tower by the front, he didn’t see the police car sitting on the curb; instead, Alfred was already in the cave, standing by the elevator so there could be no faux pas. “Detective’s arrived. Wants a statement for this past Thursday.” His cane echoed coolly on the concrete floor.
Bruce would’ve asked if there was another time, or a way to skip altogether, but that wasn’t an option when it came to helping you. He pulled off his disguise and ran a hand through his matted hair before following Alfred up the elevator. It was difficult not to overthink the first extended interaction Gordon would have with Bruce Wayne. At the mayor’s funeral, he’d turned his nose up at Bruce, going so far as to eye him with criminal suspicion. He hadn’t yet figured out what to do if Gordon were to find out, and he didn’t want to have to think on his feet today.
Gordon was sitting at the table in Bruce’s seat. Martinez stood beside him, his energy expanding to fill the dim room. Alfred flipped on the last of the lights, making everyone wince. “Apologies, thought it best to let the light in.”
“Mr. Wayne.” Gordon cleared his throat, Martinez taking the opportunity to speak with the thinly veiled glee of a child on Christmas morning.
“Sir, we’re here to collect your statement sir, about an incident that occurred on…” He continued to talk, but Bruce tuned it out, wanting them to leave already. He situated himself in your seat, clasping his hands together on the table.
“I was walking to a convenience store after the City Hall meeting. Passing by that alleyway, I noticed the shape of a gun being held to someone’s head. The man saw me, as he was facing back, and slammed on the gas as I approached. I didn’t know what was going on, until the journalist that I spoke to earlier this month fell out of the vehicle before crashing.”
Gordon notated everything, his tone light, but suspicious. He had this tone whenever interrogating someone he didn’t fully believe. “Lucky timing, huh?”
Bruce shrugged. “Glad I could help.”
“Of course.” He flipped a page in his mini spiral. “So, after she ‘fell’ out of the vehicle, what happened?”
He shoved down a brittle laugh. Did they really think he was nefariously involved in this? If only Gordon knew… if only they both knew. Martinez continued to have the same reaction to Batman as his partner was having to Bruce now.
“She told me he held her at gunpoint asking to recant her statement. Apparently they’d been in some sort of altercation the night before.” He wondered if he was speaking too matter-of-fact, if he should dull his adjectives and verbs. “Wanted to use her to get to my lawyers. Get him back in school.” He hesitated before saying the next part, trying to glean off pure body language if Gordon knew you hadn’t come back to your apartment that night.
“I wanted to help, so I brought her here for the night. Talked through things,”
“What things?” His pen sat menacingly above the ruled paper.
“About what happened then, and the night before. Got her situated in a room upstairs, took her home in the morning.”
“She trusted you to do that?” He peered over his glasses. Bruce nodded, and Gordon sighed. “Must’ve formed quite the alliance at the interview.”
Bruce’s eyes narrowed, feeling a shift in the room. What did he mean by that? Him too now? His voice was darker, grim, the rose-colored lens fading to purples and blues. “I don’t know what you mean.” He wanted Gordon to say it with his chest.
He didn’t bite. “Did she ask to come here, Mr. Wayne?”
“I told her it would be safest.”
“Didn’t think to report it?” His left hand fiddled with the curled pages at the bottom of the notebook, as if he were going through the motions, unfazed. Another one of his tactics to get people’s guard down. Maybe he’d even start doodling on the seams. “Slipped your mind?”
He grit his teeth. He knew Gordon was reading into the circles under his eyes and the laxity of his skin, both giving away too much to do on not enough sleep. “My priority was to make sure she was alright. It’s traumatic having a gun pointed at your head.”
Martinez’s eyes flashed just so, his chest puffing. Gordon rustled, closing the notebook with a plop. Bruce never liked employing that night in any form of defense, but this was threatening murky waters, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep a rein on his temper with Gordon’s passively placed, blasé accusations about you.
“Thank you for your time Mr. Wayne. We’ll be in touch.” Alfred saw them out, and Bruce waited to hear the door click behind them before pulling himself out of his seat, returning right back from whence he came.
The elevator was rickety, and it unnerved him, which was unusual. His muscles felt tight, his chest and throat constricted. Rumors about the interview had reached the GCPD, infiltrated Gordon, ooh. He walked to the front of his desk, facing the computer that had been untouched the past week and a half, one of the longest breaks yet. He pressed his palms to the edge of the metal and hung his head, coaxing his temperature down.
Clicking the computer on showed where his mind had been the days before the attempt. A dozen tabs with varying searches for Electrum came to life just as the days swept into him. Before he could jump back in, he forced himself into purgatory, opening a new tab to draw up new contingencies. The blank document titled Emergency Plan: Mental glared back at him. He closed his eyes and typed, holding his breath like a ball in his chest until the last word was released onto the page.
- Come on quickly: easily accessible button to phone Alfred
- Unstable reality when it hits: program unique signal to physical distress
- During periods of stress: increase assessment of stress on patrol
- Some form of tranquilizer/sedative readily available
- Orienting item: figure out
He hadn’t stopped hearing what the nurses, psychiatrists, and social workers said to him in Arkham, he’d just stopped caring. Unfortunately, he’d been wrong, not them, adding an entirely new level of shame to the affair. It took longer than he would’ve liked to manage recall as he waded through the memory.
His phone rattled on the table closest to the exit, next to the pile of the day’s disguise. It was easy to pull him away from the computer screen, the back of his thoughts in a constant search for something to distract from the unraveling of his mind, potentially the upheaval of life as he knew it.
It was you.
The sunglasses were a nice touch.
It was like the air got knocked out of him. Your perceptiveness could’ve made him jealous if he weren’t the current victim. He’d worn a different scarf this time, you’d only seen his jacket under struggling streetlights, a dark kitchen after getting your head pounded into pavement.
Had to get my car. Didn’t want to bother you.
Do you believe that I won’t tell now?
I already have for a while.
He put the phone down and told himself it was to focus back on the work, ignoring the squeeze in his gut, the thread you pulled simply by acknowledging him, making him looser, the seams splitting, letting the contents of him jostle and spill out over your lap.
BZZT.
Now I kinda want to prove you wrong.
BRB, calling the president.
Told him. He’s helicoptering over to Wayne Tower as we speak.
Bruce grinned against his will again.
゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜
Your fingers were clammy from cradling your phone, the remains of your coffee sitting cold next to you at the kitchen counter. The woman from earlier had commented on how it was ‘so late’ to be having a coffee, but that she understood. It had been difficult hearing her with Anonymous Dock Worker Who Was Definitely Not Bruce standing behind you.
Now you can see me hold my side of the bargain.
Waiting at my apartment in armor. I have a big stick, don’t know if that changes things.
My weakness.
Too bad people don’t try that more often.
Got you all figured out.
More than most.
This conversation was equal parts painful and thrilling. In honesty, you’d ignored him when you saw him on the corner, hyperaware of his presence from the moment you walked past him. You’d suspected it was genuinely to get his car, no secret stalking, but you couldn’t put your finger on why you were so convinced so soon.
This was where things went wrong–when you felt like you knew a person more than you did. This was where charisma and power pulled their initial weight, in making their victims swim in a sense of novel electricity. It was the reason you hadn’t spoken to him on the streetcorner, and why it took pacing your apartment for an hour to finally send him a text back. You were circling the drain, avoiding the swirling waters that you knew could pull you under.
You glanced over at the couch, the cushion still ruffled from where he sat. He can be so sweet. The symphony of his smile and his laugh together, planting a glow deep in your chest, padding you from the familiar, harsher realities of your past experiences with him. You didn’t want to ignore them. It would be irresponsible.
You grabbed your laptop and pulled up the schedule of events for the next three months. Bruce was harsh and unyielding.
SEARCH: Lincoln March
He was a recluse, someone whose most regular social contact was his own butler, who he treated pretty shittily.
Lincoln March - The People’s Candidate
Still, he kept showing up for you, slowly increasing in warmth each time.
Campaign Goals:
But only because you’d lied.
Fully-fund Gotham’s K-12 public schools.
He was only being nice out of guilt. You couldn’t read into it further.
Maternity leave has long been a partially-funded social program in Gotham, but if elected, I plan to expand upon…
゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜
He ran another hand through his hair, shutting his computer off. You were only acting this way out of guilt, handling him with gloved hands, every interaction careful and gentle. Impulsive, he crossed the room to don the suit instead of sending you another text. The snap of his armor into place atop his padding was the sound of Bruce Wayne slipping away. Relief washed over him as he dipped his fingers into the tarry paint. He didn’t have anything to do but what Gotham gave him tonight.
He called Gordon once he was on the road. He didn’t answer.
The streets were filled, a typical Saturday night. He slunk round the same alleys, the usual crime spots, even looped around the watchtower in case Gordon was there, messing with a broken bat signal. Nothing. Until he heard some shouting at a nearby subway station. He cut the lights on his car and slipped silently through the corridor, ears ringing with adrenaline.
A small group of men were harassing a young girl with a sparkly pink backpack. She couldn’t be older than thirteen. The men were whistling, one of them tugging on her ponytail. Her face was scrunched up tight with her hands covering her ears. He didn’t even think before jumping in.
His fist connected with the nearest man’s jaw, amplifying a rush of adrenaline through him. Suppressing a grin, he followed it with the other, ducking to dodge a hit from the man behind him. He spun out his right heel, rendering the man unstable, and slammed him against the brick with a jut of his elbow. Every punch he landed was easy, instinctual, bliss. The fighting felt different. He had vastly more energy. While the three men staggered back, he gestured for the girl to run. She mouthed something he couldn’t hear, a hit landing in the plane of his back.
Jaw. Nose. Rib. Kidney. A tooth of the man flew out amid the tunnel of punches, skidding into a puddle. Batman grinned.
“COME ON, MAN!” A hoarse voice, the tallest man of them, shouted out. They ran off, leaving the empty sound of terrified sniffles echoing from the far corner. He studied their clothes, their hair color, and height, giving a quick call on his wrist to the GCPD. The dispatcher confirmed they already sent cars to the area, and he calmed his heaving body before turning around.
The girl was clutching her backpack like a stuffed animal, shoving herself into the metal bars of the subway entrance. He made his voice softer. “They’re gone, you’re safe. Do you know where your parents are?” The only time he wished the suit was less threatening were cases like this. Kids didn’t need to be more scared than they already were.
“LACIE!” The strained shout of a desperate mother arrived at the same time as Gordon’s vehicle. The child raced to their mom, and Gordon sidled up with another notepad for his statement. He gave it, listened while the mother tearfully explained that the kid had gotten off at the wrong stop, and left before anyone could see the blood dripping off the knuckles of his gloves.
゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜
Against your better judgment, you loaded up Scypher, clicking to clear but ignoring everything in the ‘Social’ tab and all notifications. You locked your accounts to ‘private’, upset you’d kept them public this long, but paused. What if that makes me look suspicious? You set them public again, noticing a ping on the ‘Crime’ tab.
GC1 News was reporting on a shooting at a nightclub about three miles north. Only minutes before their reporting, you saw a swarm of posts from right after.
BATMAN JUSR SAVED ME
|
Wtf are you okay????????
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YEA HE TOOK A BULLET FR ME IM HSAKING
You refreshed, frantic. He was fine, right? His suit was meant to take bullets. He was used to taking bullets. He was fine. You could hardly read the screen your hands were shaking so intensely.
Did anyone die?
|
The shooter I think. I was at a bar nearby, so far only one body has been brought out and no one in handcuffs.
You texted him.
Are you okay? I heard about the shooting.
No response. You put your hands over your head and talked yourself down for the second time today. He’s fine. He’s used to this. He knows what he’s doing. He helped someone. He’s just busy.
But two minutes turned into five, which turned into seven, and you could barely breathe.
Text me when you can.
Which turned into ten, then fifteen, with no further mention of his presence online. It was fine. It was fine! You tried to meditate on the image of Batman before you knew his identity. Someone competent, agile, strong, impenetrable. That was still true. That was still him.
Your phone lit up as you were sipping water at the sink, and you nearly tripped rushing over to it. Alfred!
“Miss. Is Bruce with you?”
“No, whe–”
“It says he’s parked about three blocks east of your apartment. I lost the signal to his suit.” You were already out the door.
You didn’t think you’d run that fast before, racing right back to where he’d dropped you off the day prior. Was he bleeding out? Incomprehensible? Unconscious? You ducked through an alley in a shortcut, jumping over piles of trash and dead rats. Your leg was starting to stiffen at the thigh, your knee crunching and grinding as you propelled forward.
You had to clamp your mouth shut after almost shouting "Bruce!” at the masked man standing at his trunk. He spun around, his cape swishing against the bumper of the car with a satisfying crack.
“What are you doing?!” His voice had slipped the octave, going back to Bruce, a slipup that unnerved him on a spiritual level. He surveyed the surrounding area with a paranoid daze, motioning hard for you to get into the passenger seat. The door was heavy, tactical, and the seats the same. The outside of your vision took in all the gadgets, wires making shapes you’d never seen before, but you were centrally focused on the blue of his irises against the backdrop of black.
“Are you okay? Alfred–”
“What did he say?” You were shaking, out of breath, gulping after every word.
“Your suit lost signal and you were parked here, I heard about the shooting online, that you were there,”
It took every available cell in his body to smother an angry rebuttal, his defenses beginning to stack.
“Someone said you got shot,”
He scoffed. “I didn’t get shot,”
“Are you hurt?” You grabbed his wrist and darted your eyes along his chest. His breathing hitched at the contact, even through the layers. His brow furrowed, but you couldn’t see it through the cowl. He felt like you were looking at him, not Batman, even though he was sure you couldn’t see anything but armor right now.
“Are you sure you’re not in shock,” your cheeks were red-hot, inflamed from the sprint and the fear crushing adrenaline through you. All you could see was black, darkness, you couldn’t see anything, you couldn’t get a good look. You fumbled with your phone to find a flashlight, but it fell onto the passenger floor.
“It was a normal patrol,”
A strangled whimper left your panicked, overwhelmed body as you strained to reach the phone. You heard a shick and a button unclasp. “I just need—”
“—To breathe.” A warm, non-gloved hand wrapped around your forearm, applying gentle pressure back towards the seat. Your eyes shot up to his like a deer in headlights, his touch creating a separate raucous within you. He exaggerated the slow movement of his shoulders up and down, opening his mouth on the exhale. You mimicked his breathing, comfortably matching it after a few cycles.
“I’m okay.” He nodded at you as your demeanor settled, his attentive gaze drilling holes in your memory. “I promise.” He let go of your arm and your hand snapped out to grab his. Your breathing hastened the second he broke contact, and only slowed once your fingers interlaced with his. He welcomed your hand with a reassuring squeeze and continued breathing slowly, deeply, guiding you out of the stratosphere. You squeezed back ten times harder, feeling like the barrel was at your temple again.
He let your hands sit together for a few seconds, your eyes trained on his like life support. He nodded again, letting you know he was still here though he was slipping his hand out of yours. Bruce glanced out the windows for onlookers and pulled off his cowl, unclicking the front half of his armor, tossing it to the backseat.
His hair was mussed, sweaty, the paint around his eyes smudged and smeared. He had dirt and faint droplets of red along parts of his jaw, with shadowy stubble underneath. He took your wrist, always with an astounding gentleness, and moved your hand to his chest, gliding your hand across the soft padding. “See?” Your hand moved along the sides of his body, across his stomach, and up to his collarbone. No snags, no wet spots…
Your palm felt like it was on fire, your heart thundering, cranked up to eleven. You slipped your hand past his collarbone, over his shoulder, and glided down his bicep. Still nothing. You shut your eyes, shouting at your brain to believe it, begging your thoughts to stop swirling horrific images, jumping to horrifying conclusions. Including the ego-dystonic impulse that wanted to tug your hand lower, pull him closer.
゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜
Bruce couldn’t hear himself think with your hands skimming his torso. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. He didn’t know how helpful he was being now, his breathing way too shallow to help you regulate, his brain going offline. He studied your face, the only part of you he could see clear enough, scouring it to see if this was bringing you even a crumb of peace. He was jolted back into his body when your finger skimmed his exposed neck as you trailed to the thicker padding over his sternum.
You shut your eyes and pressed your fingertips into the padding, seemingly grounding yourself. Your expression drew increasingly relaxed until your hand pulled away, falling almost limp at your side. When you fell back against the headrest, he finally looked away. He flexed his hand against his knee where it sat now, biting the inside of his cheek until it bled. He hardly registered it as he struggled not to pass out.
It was about a minute until he tossed a glance your way again; a minute of sitting at the bottom of the deep end, rationing held breath. He only exhaled when you did, a loud one, now more calmly leaning to nab your phone. “I’m… thank you. That won’t happen again. Freaking out. It was stupid.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You don’t have to be nice,”
“I’d do the same.”
You rolled your eyes. “You’re used to it.”
“That’s not a good thing.”
Oh. It was like Alfred had entered his psyche. A Freudian slip. You stared at the ground, evidently unaware of how candid an admission that had been. He was gridlocked. You fiddled with your phone until your shoulders sank, popping the door open without warning. “I’d better get home.”
He let your door shut before opening his, using any opportunity to gather himself before stepping out to the night breeze. He leaned his elbow on the roof of the car as you started down the gravel. “Text me when you get back.”
You gave him a thumbs-up.
He noticed a limp in your gait, feeling the smart in your thigh like it was his own. “And put some ice on that tonight.”
You unlocked your phone as you turned the corner. Bruce heard a buzz from the center console, and fished out his phone after settling into the driver’s side.
Will-do. So attentive.
He noted the concerned texts just before your message.
Just returning the favor.