Jim had expected his arrival at City Hall to be met with a hail of bullets, or at the very least a sabre-rattling display of force meant to remind him exactly who holds the power here.
But, for the most part, he is ignored. The building is throng with whey-faced men and women dressed in drab military green uniforms, but they keep their heads bowed as they scurry past Jim, seemingly intent on performing whatever thankless tasks Cobblepot has assigned them to the exclusion of all else.
There are armed guards scattered in and amongst them, posted at doorways and patrolling the corridors, but though their eyes narrow suspiciously when they see Jim, they make no move to challenge him either, even when he climbs the broad staircase which sweeps up from the ground floor to the Mayor's office where, Jim is certain, he will find Cobblepot, playing at being Lord of this little fiefdom he has carved out of their wounded city.
The two guards stationed outside the office are burlier than the rest, and near identical in every particular, from the top of their buzz cuts to the tips of their spit-shined boots. They look like a pair of matched statues, and both stand immobile at rigid attention until Jim is almost toe to toe with them. The one on the right takes an economical step back then, leaving just enough of a gap between his colossal shoulders and those of his partner that Jim can shuffle past them, side-long, and reach the door.
It seems clear now that Jim's visit is expected, if not, perhaps, exactly welcome.
Cobblepot's behaviour seems to confirm that supposition. He is sitting hunched behind a wide desk at the far end of the cavernous room, poring over a stack of papers, and he doesn't so much as glance up from them as Jim approaches him.
Even at a distance, Jim can tell that most of the pages are blank, but Cobblepot pretends absorption for a protracted moment, nonetheless, and the silence between them stretches uncomfortably long. Jim refuses to be unsettled by it as Cobblepot doubtless intends, though. He stands at an easy parade rest and waits quietly until Cobblepot's always scant supply of patience runs out and he feigns noticing him for the first time.
"Captain Gordon!" Cobblepot's smile is expansive, but his eyes are cold: shark-like and predatory. "What an unexpected pleasure." He gestures towards the chairs set on other side of desk. "Please, take a seat."
Jim wants to be able to flee, fight if he has to, if things turn sour. Sitting would only put him at a disadvantage. He shakes his head. "I'd prefer to stand."
Cobblepot's smile doesn't diminish, but it does turn a little brittle around the edges. "As you wish." He restlessly shifts his weight in his own chair, clearly made uneasy by the small power disparity inherent in their respective positions, and then launches himself to his feet in a sudden rush. "What can I do for you?" he asks, circling around the desk to stand in front of Jim.
"Word is, you have a stockpile of ammunition, and…"
And the GCPD is running low, perilously so. All the easily accessible parts of the city have been picked clean long since, and Jim doesn't have enough officers under his command to risk them quite yet branching out into the territories that have gone dark; that might as well be marked on his map as 'Here Be Dragons'. Cobblepot is, at least, a known quantity – a familiar devil – for all that he might also be a last resort. Still, the admission is a damning one, dangerous, and the words stick fast in Jim's throat.
"And you expect me to share it," Cobblepot guesses, when Jim finds himself unable to continue voicing his request. "Out of the goodness of my heart, maybe?" He laughs, jagged and mirthless. "A sense of civic duty."
"Of course not," Jim says.
"Well, then what do you propose to give me in return? I can't imagine you have anything I need" – Cobblepot's gaze skims down the full length of Jim's body, swift and dismissive – "or want."
Harvey had insisted that Jim would just need to bat his eyelashes at Cobblepot in order to persuade him hand over bullets by the fistful, but Jim had known better. They're long past that, he thinks; long past the days when Cobblepot was so puppyishly, pathetically, eager to earn his friendship that a smile or kind word would have him virtually begging to fall on his own sword in return.
"I'll have to owe you a favour," he says, because he hasn't got anything else to offer other than this one last, desperate vestige of those times. There is nothing of any real value left at the precinct beyond a rapidly dwindling supply of canned goods and an archive of police files that are, for the moment, only likely to be useful as kindling.
"Ah, the old quid pro quo. That worked out so well for me in the past, didn't it?" Cobblepot sneers. "What did your favours ever get me? Locked up in Arkham." He begins pacing back and forth, obviously agitated, each uneven, lurching step bringing him closer and closer to Jim. "Stuck on blimp for hours. Abandoned—"
Jim holds up a hand reflexively before they collide, pressed flat and quelling against Cobblepot's chest. Cobblepot stops instantly, his breath leaving him in a hitching gust. Beneath Jim's palm, his heart flutters, beating rapidly like the wings of a bird trapped inside the cage of his ribs.
Experimentally, without clear thought, Jim trails his fingers over the stiff, starched lines of Cobblepot's lapel and shirt collar to the slim, pale column of his neck, and then up to the pulse point under the hinge of his jaw, chasing a weaker echo of that same rhythm.
Something churns in pit of Jim's stomach, hot and acrid. He tells himself it's revulsion, just as he always does.
Cobblepot's eyes are stunned wide and wondering, and his pale skin suffuses with blood; a blush rising from the small point of contact formed by Jim's fingertips to spread across his face, painting his cheeks with blooms of splotchy colour.
"Jim?" he says, and his voice is so soft, so hesitant, that the question is scarcely more than a slight stirring of air.
He must have been lying earlier, there is still something he wants from Jim; an invitation clear in the parting of his lips, and the teasing flicker of his tongue as he wets them.
Jim meets them with his own, acting purely on instinct again. At first, thinks he must have misjudged Cobblepot's interest, because he stands immobile and unresponsive within the circle of Jim's arms for an agonisingly long moment. But then he inhales sharply through his nose, and the breath seemingly stirs him into life once more.
Pressing even closer, and his mouth starts to move, tentative and clumsy, against Jim's. He appears uncertain what he should do with his hands, though, and they graze the front of Jim's jacket, and his waist, before finally settling at his hips. He grabs them roughly, fingers clawing into the thin skin just above the bone, and his grip tightens to the point of pain.
When Jim winces, and pushes at his hands in an effort to loosen them, Cobblepot rears back, his expression flickering uncertainly. At first, he looks stricken, then briefly contrite, and thereafter his face settles into harsh, unhappy lines.
"This is new low for you," he hisses. "Prostituting yourself for GCPD."
"I wasn't," Jim is quick to assure him, shocked by the insinuation.
"Oh, so you were overcome by… by desire, then?" Cobblepot's voice is unnaturally high, and lilting with mockery. Whether it's directed towards himself or Jim is unclear. "And you just couldn't help yourself?"
Jim's actions had so far preceded his thoughts that he cannot even begin to account for them, but as his stomach is still burning, his skin itching with the longing to touch, it seems as though that could be as good an explanation as any. He shrugs. "Maybe."
Cobblepot glares at him for a beat longer, and then turns abruptly on his heel and heads back behind his desk. "I don't believe you," he says, head bowing down over his pile of useless papers again as he rifles through them with brusque flicks of his wrist. "Get out."
"Oswald, I—"
"Get out!"
Cobblepot practically screams the words, and the sound attracts the two hulking guards, who rush into the room, guns raised. Oswald doesn't look up at their entrance, but gives a minute shake of his head. They stand down, but don't retreat, and both watch Jim closely and with an unnerving sort of anticipatory fervour, as though searching for an excuse to shoot him.
Jim leaves before they have chance to find one.
-
-
Jim tries not to dwell upon what happened in Cobblepot's office, but on those rare occasions the memory does creep into his mind unbidden, it's accompanied by the troubling thought that Cobblepot is likely to be embarrassed, his pride bruised, and longing for retaliation.
For two days, nothing comes, but on the third day, he finds a wooden crate left on the steps in front of the precinct. There is a jaunty length of purple ribbon tied around it, upon which is attached a creamy white envelope, addressed to him.
The card within it is unmarked save for a short message, written in a neat, old-fashioned hand.
Given what happened in our meeting, I can only conclude that your circumstances must be exceptionally desperate. I hope this small gift goes some way towards helping. - O.C.C
The crate does not contain the bomb Jim had feared when he first saw it, but several metal ammunition cases full of bullets.