All recognizable characters belong to their respective owners (Cartoon Network). For a prompt on the YJ_Anon_Meme.
the city never weeps (she can't afford the tears)
The obsession is unhealthy, probably, and he knows, but he doesn't much care.
She's just so beautiful. So she's a little run down in some areas, a little beaten down and a whole lot broken, but she's still there, still strong, and that's a type of glamour that doesn't come cheap. Her jewels are the fires of burning hopes, and she decks herself in the broken dreams of those within her.
He came here an orphan, not a Gothamite by birth, and she was cruel, so cruel to him. She took away his life, because she liked him. She liked him, and what she likes, she drags in and claims and keeps for her own.
He wears her mark, now, and she couldn't be happier.
Superman once said she was corrupt, a deadly disease. That's as may be, but he's infected, then, and he doesn't care. He needs the dark and the rush and the excitement and the adrenaline and the life that she has to offer. There are bars to balance on and roofs to jump and gaps to swing, as he crosses the major roads and keeps a weather eye on her arteries. They lead right to her corrupt heart, he knows, carrying people deep in the shadows, where everyone wants what they shouldn't, and you can sell your soul, or someone else's, to get it.
Everything's for sale in Gotham, even the city herself. So he travels the airways, learning every crook, every cranny, and taking them into himself, embedding her map on his mind. And she helps, you know, she helps him remember, and pushes him towards the places where he's needed, where the pus of the underworld is pushing against the thin skin of society.
She's not beautiful, and she never claimed to be. She's got scars miles wide, and her design is shattered in a million shiny pieces now, but she's grown up. She's gorgeous with her gutter glitter, see, and it falls into your eyes and stings until you cry it out.
That's why, when the dawn is breaking and he's exhausted and unable to sleep, she'll wrap a little extra darkness around him and keep him safe from all the nightmares just a little longer.
It's the least she can do for him. For them.
Because Bruce loves her more than Dick ever could. Bruce has that deep, burning passion that can only come from being bred and born and raised and living as a native can. Dick loves her with a desperation that smacks of don't-leave-me and so-alone. So she takes them both into her bosom, and when they need it the most, mortar crumbles and falls, or an alleyway is slick under someone's feet, or a streetlight goes out at just the right time.
And Robin, oh, her little acrobat lost, he throws himself over edges and off building and at her, and she catches him, always, because someone needs to. And when he bleeds in her back corners, she licks it up greedily, tying him to her more firmly with every drop. She knows that when he dies, he'll die here, bleeding out and broken and forgotten in one of her back alleys, here in the city of his life, in the city of his death, in the city of all the dreams, even the bad ones.
Some nights, the two swing in tandem, and she watches them, through the eyes of the windows and the pipes and the sockets and the cats. They fit so well together, fit into the puzzle that is her. But she likes it best when they separate, and she's alone with both of them together. One perches high above, another gargoyle for her necklace. And Dick, he plays with her shadows and pays homage to her light and flirts with her heights and ruffles her hair, and she delights in the his motion and his loss and his destiny, giggling and waiting until the day he's only hers, forever.
And some nights, if he's been a very good boy, then sometimes, she'll make sure that the rail will be just under his foot and his grapple will grip sure, and the wind as fresh as starshine will tug him up, and she'll let him kiss her sky.