I bring a new, fresh take on the Batman mythos, combined with more fantasy elements from other cultural mythologies in existence, even inspired by other movies I have loved since I was a kid. I had written this two years ago for the fun of it, but I didn't publish at first because of an idea that came from one of CrowsAce's stories which inspired me to bring to life (more on that later). But now I found it in me to put this out for all to enjoy, and CrowsAce has been looking forward to this based on a few PM conversations. :D
It's been awhile since I wrote for Batman - especially Jonathan Crane, who is one of the main leads, along with an OC of mine who becomes his love interest, as well as Bruce Wayne himself and other characters we know. :D The "Mummy" movies starring Brendan Fraser also come as part of the plot much later on. Each character has an expansion of themselves and a tie to mythological characters; they are so different that they actually work well together.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of this, except my OC.
Chapter One
The bar was packed tonight. Lights flashed wildly as the dancers worked themselves off for the big bad pigs eyeing them like they were hungry for a fresh piece of meat. Drunken old men slurred over the latest game playing on the flatscreen. Hormonal teenagers wasted away on booze and meaningless pleasures.
"Oh, would you look at that? The guys are getting ready to show their tippers what they got."
Every Monday night was "Gay Night" at Adisa's Bar on Blue Grave Avenue. Bigger tips and bills made meant bigger bonuses for both the owner and the employees. Every Monday night, young men - mainly the pretty boys - would don nothing much like what female strippers would; they would instead sport crisp collar shirts and dress pants and eventually strip down to costumes pointing in the direction of BDSM. Male strippers hadn't really been her specialty or interest, but the job and her decent payments on these nights were worth keeping the apartment she shared with her kid.
Four years of abandoning her tragedy-filled former life - including the death of one boyfriend and the self-imposed exile of another - had changed her for bad or worse, being a tie-breaker. After a near-death experience that made everyone believe she was dead - friends and foes alike - she'd decided that it was safe to remain low for now. Well, it's been nearly four years, and here I am, living the mediocre life with my only child off my last boyfriend. Who for all I know hasn't been seen in public since…well, me.
Her best and only friend whom she'd made since offered a job here at Adisa's was none other than Anna Ramirez, a former cop from Major Crimes Unit who quit because she'd worked for the mob and went into hiding following her mother's death, nudged her out of her thoughts. "Eve, did you hear me? The boys are showing." Her face was schooled into an expressionless mask.
The lovely brunette bartender in a plain white t-shirt that read "Life is a Marathon…And You Don't Win by Sitting" - her name tag pinned above her right breast reading "Evelyn Miller" - looked up and paused in polishing an empty glass that had once been filled with a daiquiri without the alcohol. A clue that the drinker was a good kid who only wanted to have an innocent night of fun with no trouble. It's ironic that so many of these youngsters are in for a bad time, she thought.
She watched as the youthful male dancers - masculine and feminine-faced alike - exited from behind the dark blue curtain and marched for their poles. They all were clad in previously mentioned collared shirts and pants with bare feet. The women's aged boss, Al, always called these boys "once promising but down-to-the-ground." Meaning they had so much going on but chose to throw it away for personal reasons.
She snorted. Yeah, I know the case with a certain one right in front of my eyes right now.
Said male dancer's hips were swishing not-so-innocently like his fellows, and he stood out from the others in this sense in that he was not looking forward to this night but for one purpose only: he just wanted the extra payments to keep the apartment he had as he had nothing else to make of himself. Like the others, he wore a white shirt and tight black pants...but beneath was an immense surprise for the customers drooling over him. She rolled her eyes inwardly as she worked on the tray of assorted beverages for the newest orders.
The dancer thrusted his hips against his assigned pole atop a table; his shirt was opened from top to bottom to reveal a lean, pallid chest and stomach underneath a crisscross network of black leather straps. His hips still swaying, his belt was unbuckled before the front of his trousers was next, and upon removal, there was a black leather underpiece that was a thong once he turned around. One leg wrapped around the pole, and his body arched back so his hair appeared to be longer than it actually was, and he briefly locked his gaze - mostly hateful - with her own, while performing for the animalistic eyeing men in the audience on this particular dancer, clearly saying the same thing: they all wanted him for the night, but only one of them had to make the move before they missed the golden opportunity at hand.
As predicted, one of the men in the audience - a stocky, unkempt version of the mountain man - left his seat and marched up to take him up off the table, taking him to one of the back rooms for "bigger tips", the disappointed groans of the other males crystal clear throughout the whole room. Anna clucked her tongue and threw the white rag she'd used to polish the table over her shoulder as she picked up the tray of shots. "Poor boys," she said sarcastically. "They missed their big chance. But we both know they'll be back for that one."
The brunette frowned at her friend but said nothing. It didn't surprise her that Anna didn't like that particular dancer, but the least she could do was at least try to be nice to him like she'd done herself. But whenever she tried to at least be friendly with him over the last two years since he'd arrived, he would reject her with cold hostility the same way he would to everyone else around him. That part of him hadn't changed at all.
~o~
Still wearing his costume, Jonathan Crane flung himself into the restroom and dashed for the nearest toilet there was, flinging the lid open and unleashing the contents of his stomach out into the receptacle. The taste of it and that of the semen of the latest one-night-stander remained no matter how hard he tried to wash it all away afterwards. Two years of being out of Arkham Asylum...how the mighty have fallen, his subconsciousness sneered.
Let's just check off what he had: a humiliating job, minimal money to make - extra on Monday nights like tonight - and nothing to live with other than to give and get THIS treatment back. Counting off numerous tries and fails to get and keep a job after a month, or even a week at most. Stripping and sex were what he'd resorted to because there were no other options left. No matter the fact he was straight as an arrow; sleeping with high-paying customers was the additional bonus allowed in this place.
He sighed, taking off his glasses to rub his tearing eyes. He stood up from the receptacle and walked back to the sink where his clothes were. The cotton shirt was given to him - courtesy of his meddlesome neighbor who happened to be a coworker and an unpleasant reminder of his past, now living as a different person and had a child, which made him ill and jealous of her. She might fare no better than he, but to know she was doing better than he was in that sense made him hate her more than he did back then. Being pleasant to him nowadays changed nothing.
He slipped the collared shirt over a white t-shirt and faded jeans he had to keep up with a belt, scowling at himself because this was not who he really was, but it was all he had. He held his head low and exited the restroom for the bar. He needed a couple drinks before walking home. As he sat down there and asked Anna - who had the nerve to give him snooty comments and then bounce from there to sugary sweet - for a tequila shot, he thought about his life from when his mother died giving birth to him, his father leaving him alone soon after with his vengeful religious grandmother, then the school bullies and finally getting mixed up with the mob and Ra's al Ghul before that...all which got the Batman to toss him in with the wolves that were once his patients.
He choked on his second drink then, wishing it would kill him then and there.
~o~
Ordinary Monday night, all right. This was how her life had turned out ever since graduating from the Art Institute of Gotham with her Masters. When Sinéad Ryan got her scholarship, she'd transferred herself away from her parents so she could live out her independence and escape the terrible memories: one being their mistreatment of her, and the other of the death of her dear grandmother five years before.
Gran Siobhán had died just before she graduated high school. Prior, she'd been the only good presence in her life, protecting her against her abusive parents, Brian and Léan Ryan. They weren't exactly what you'd call the "traumatizing effect", but they ignored her most of the time and didn't give her the love that Gran Siobhán gave her. Nor did they actually acknowledge that she literally left home without their permission on most occasions just to get away from them.
School wasn't a problem for her, but the trouble was that she had difficulties socializing with anyone. She had a few friends, but most of them were off to college as she had gone, or married. Every day then, she was the average girl who had a passion for art. She'd always dressed sensibly and yet feminine at the same time, not wanting to stand out among the popular and prissy crowd. Her long mane of black hair was always in either a ponytail or down to the end of her back. Tonight it was loose and wild like a raven's wing. The only jewelry she ever wore was the necklace around her neck - the beautiful two-toned "wild Irish rose" for any Irish woman wild at heart, capturing the the song itself which spoke of how the flower itself survived anything, even the harshest of winters. She smiled down at it and fingered it. The rose sparkled brillaintly in rose gold and silver with its diamond-accented leaves and Celtic knot stems.
Sinéad entered the bar, Adisa's, with a smile on her face. Earlier that day, she'd gone and submitted to the art studio her latest work: simple yet earthly, the lone woman a spitting image of one of this place's bartenders whom she became good friends with on her first night here; her angelic figure was graced by a long dress of soft blue shimmering realistically like satin, like moonlight dancing across the sea, her long brown hair waving over her shoulders from the effects of an imaginary wind as she stood before a background of forestry and blue skies fading to dark. The inspiration was because there was something about the woman that whispered intrigue...
Back home in Ireland, she had been in the top of her art class in high school, most of her works being styled after mythological characters, winning awards for them enough to get her scholarship. Her most well-known was a portrait of a mermaid before the gates of Atlantis, ready to leave her home and giving one last backward glance - common for anyone who was on the verge of leaving their home - before she experienced the unknown waiting for her. The mermaid had been patterned a little bit after herself, for she did it a couple weeks before leaving Ireland for good. The concept was inspired after Gran Siobhán's passing long before she left her parents for Gotham to attend school in the city, far away from Brian and Léan. There would be no way she would call them mother and father again; her feelings were too hard against them.
Anyways, the mermaid was due to her leaving home long ago. Sinéad loved mermaids; her grandmother would always tell her stories about them and other fantastical creatures of all lores back home long before she passed on. They inspired her for her works even though arts of them had been done before, but her style was different compared to others, based off of life events. She wasn't paid handsomely for her work, but at least she was happy. And as long as she had a roof over her head - which was at the end of the city and just before the slum part across the bridge - she was content.
Living the single life was the call of her soul, but it wasn't the dreamy, perfect life; nothing and nobody was perfect even though everyone strived for it. Money, in addition, had never really been a big deal for her, either.
Adisa's was a haven for the after-work crowd, as well as for stripteases namely on Mondays and Fridays - Monday for the male dancers and Friday for the females - but Sinéad was utterly disgusted by that stuff. Having been raised Catholic, this was the lair of gluttony, except she only would go out on Friday nights during high school for a couple of drinks before taking the bus back home. That habit died hard in college, and now she would stop by a couple times a week - namely because of a certain worker here and part-time male stripper who worked there. She didn't know the guy much, other than the fact that his name was Jonathan, and she didn't even bother to ask one of the female bartenders, Anna, more about him because by the way she spoke of him, she wasn't too fond of him. She would have to ask that other woman, Evelyn, because she was on the lesser side of her coworker. Al, the boss, acted as the father figure of all of them, and had been very much the same way to her he was to every one of his customers and the workers. For some reason, she felt comfortable around him unlike the way she was with Brian.
And there was something about this...Jonathan that she wanted to know more about.
She sat down on one of the barstools at the dark-wood counter, wearing a sandshell-colored gauze peasant blouse, jeans and sneakers. She looked around, taking in the clear, acrylic columns and flashing floors - and the half-naked men dancing around the poles on the tables, making her scoff in disgust and turn her eyes away. Sometimes she didn't know why Monday she would be here, but it was mostly because she found herself liking the mysterious Jonathan.
The woman with the shoulder-length brown hair, Evelyn Miller, gave her a little laugh. "If you don't like these things, I don't know why you come on Mondays and Fridays of all days," she said as she wiped off the counter and gathered the few glasses left by previous customers.
"Because today I'm in a great mood," Sinéad answered. "My latest work was accepted in today. And my boss was just telling me he was considering offering me a chance to paint for greater places. The museum, the upper elite, you name it."
"Sounds terrific." She frowned. Based on the way she said that, it sounded like Evelyn wasn't exactly too happy. Why, she had no idea, but all she could think of was bad experiences in the city that made her leave it all behind and relocate here in the slums. And she'd thought the slums were bad enough.
"Yeah, and your boyfriend must be proud of you," Anna said, appearing out from the back with a tray of shots. Sinéad's good mood fell at the mention of the guy who'd broken up with her just yesterday.
"He dumped me yesterday. On the day he was supposed to take me to the game, watch the guys thrash Rapid City."
~o~
She had been working all night on her painting, putting on the finishing touches that she fell asleep right there at her desk, the second and last project having been pushed away from distance so that she didn't get herself smudged with the whole night's work and ruin it. It wasn't due until Monday for her boss, but she was tired as hell after the long night, and it had been the weekend that she'd finally finished after nearly two weeks of progress. The task had been longer, richer, and more complex than she was used to with another topic of choice that wasn't her favorite.
It was then that she snapped out of it when her alarm went off. Her desk was located before the bed on the opposite wall, so she stumbled out of the chair for her alarm clock she set for in the morning, finding the bed and collapsing onto it and pressing the snooze button. Sinéad managed to raise her sleep-leaded eyes to the time. It read nine-thirty.
She shrieked and bolted upwards. She had an hour and a half to get ready before he got here!
Lucky for her, she was fast in her routine. She yanked off her nightshirt and ran only in her underpants for the bathroom in a flash, given she lived by herself in this average-sized apartment. She washed her hair so that it was soft, shining and weightless, applied sweet-smelling face and body cream, and dressed herself in two-shaded blue jean flares and a light green t-shirt that read "Life is Good" with the trees of the four seasons. After putting on her jewelry, she grabbed her favorite perfume bottle - it was frosted white glass with a silver metal scrolled collar decorated with delicate jeweled flowers. Spraying herself left her enveloped in abundant florals, and since she never wore makeup, she was all set.
Grabbing her ruffled denim jacket that matched her jeans, she dashed out the door and down the stairs to where the dark pickup truck of her boyfriend of two years was waiting for her. "How long have you waited for me?" she teased the moment she was settled inside the coziness of the truck.
Steven smirked as though it were obvious. "Long enough. Did you miss me?"
"Mm-hmm," Sinéad purred, placing a kiss on his lips. It never failed that, after two years, she felt that he was the permanent one in her life after her last three boyfriends - the one before him in college who left her after finding her too preoccupied with her work to consider a full-commitment, the one before him who physically and verbally abused her because he was too insecure and she ended up leaving, and the very first when she was fourteen and he sixteen, her being too young and star-stuck to understand the hardworking of a relationship - and the one who actually gave a damn about her in maturity. She settled back into the seat and waited for him to start the truck. When he didn't, and just sat there staring at the wheel, she looked at him curiously. "Aren't we going, no?"
Steven raised his eyes to her. "Well, what do you wanna do?"
The question took her by surprise, and before she knew it, the string of questions was out her mouth. "I thought we were going to the game. Why, is there something wrong, Steven?"
He looked away from her to stare ahead. "You want to just go some other time, Sinéad?"
She gasped. He didn't…he didn't…he said the same thing that her previous boyfriend said to her when he broke up with her. "Oh, I get it now. You don't want us to be anymore." She sucked in a shaky breath, trying her hardest not to cry.
"No, no…" he tried to reason. "I did not say that. I just think that maybe…maybe we should start seeing other people."
"Why does this always happen to me? Why does this always happen to me?" she whispered aloud in spite of herself.
"Sinéad, don't do that," Steven said with a little agitation, making her snap altogether.
"Why did you pick today of all times? What did I do wrong?"
"It's not you. You didn't do anything wrong. It's me." Of course, the same old thing that men always used to get out of a relationship. They were so pathetic that way, like Gran Siobhán used to say. "I just…I don't know."
"Of course you don't know!" Sinéad erupted, her emotions getting the best of her. She unbuckled and pushed the door open, not long before looking back with the upmost fire.
"You're just as bad as my last boyfriends, and I thought you were different than they ever were. Every time I lose my heart to someone, this happens. Home life was bad enough, and the least I wanted was someone who worshipped me like I was special."
He gave her the look of a wounded puppy. "Sinéad, I really didn't mean to hurt you -"
"Well, you did. Don't bother calling or seeing me again." Just like that, she slammed the door shut and stormed back into her home. She never saw him or spoke to him again after that.
"Model Gift" by Joker'sOnlyFear inspired me a long time ago - if you can call two or three years a long time XD - to do Jonathan's job that he does with his life now, and so did another called "Saving You" by Bleachyaoilover; that one talked about how he was unable to get a stable job, could not do anything pleasant with his life after being released from Arkham. In that story, Rachel Dawes herself made damned sure his life was hell, as part of her revenge for him gassing her.
I get this once in awhile, but I could have sworn that I might have read the "golden opportunity" phrase regarding Jonathan mentioned in a previous Batman fic, but my mind might be playing tricks on me. Like I said, I did this fic personally for myself years ago and didn't decide to put it up until now. You tend to forget things.
My OC, Sinéad, was inspired by and looks like actress Elaine Cassidy, Cillian Murphy's costar from the 2001 movie "Disco Pigs" (one of his best performances as well as one of the most beautifully tragic stories in existence). Sinéad herself is also in the shoes of Marisa Tomei in the movie "Untamed Heart" (and anyone who's seen the movie recognizes the similar scene and dialogue in the flashback, as well as the girl's bad choice in men thus far; I also don't remember if the guy who breaks up with Tomei in the beginning was also named Steven, because it's been awhile since I saw the movie).
In addition, the artwork Sinéad did was inspired by the beautiful "Gates of Atlantis" by LinzArcher on deviantart; the story mentioned there which worked its way into this chapter was so much like the young woman's which was born through this. The mermaid in the picture looks so much like Sinéad, too. :D All of this about her plays a vital role later on in this fic.