James wondered if this was what being an addict felt like.

He knew, objectively, that it was a terrible idea, that he really should leave Lily Evans alone, and that, if nothing else, he should stop showing up to her job to talk to her.

But the pull was too great, it was like he couldn't stop himself. He knew he should limit his interactions with her, he knew he was running the risk of her getting suspicious of him if she hung out with both sides of him for too long. She was too clever, she would put it together if he gave her the pieces. And yet, he found himself contriving ways to see her again that weren't completely and totally inappropriate.

Checking her work schedule felt like a step too far, which was a bit ironic considering his alter ego had run a full background check on her before they had even met. But this was James, not the Batman, and James would've never made it this far if he didn't learn how to compartmentalize the hell out of his two identities.

So he showed up on a Saturday, three hours before his meeting was scheduled, just on the off chance that she was there. He didn't exactly feel good about it, but he didn't put a lot of effort into stopping himself either. He also didn't have a very good excuse for being there beyond "I mixed up the time," which felt a little risky, but ce la vie.

He knew his gamble had paid off the second he rounded the hallway towards the nurses station, he could spot her red hair a mile away. She noticed him quickly too, and didn't even try to make a run for it this time, which James considered a resounding success.

"You know, if you actually worked here I would report you to HR." Lily said, as James approached the station.

"Good thing we established I don't work here." He said cheerfully. She had never failed to greet him abrasively, but James could've sworn she was trying to hide a smile this time. Or maybe she was grimacing. But it was probably a smile. Probably.

"Good for you, maybe. I have to deal with a stalker."

"I'm not stalking you." James said indignantly. He didn't add that he had specifically made a point not to, as that probably would not help his case.

"Oh yeah?" Lily said, setting her pen down on the desk and leaning her chin on her folded hands.

"Scouts honor." James said, crossing his fingers over his heart, "I'm a little early for my meeting and I thought I would say hi."

"How early are you?" Lily asked.

"Oh you know. Early."

Unexpectedly, Lily gave a small laugh.

"Should've known you'd be a terrible liar." she said, and James laughed along at this too, though probably for a different reason. If only she knew how good a liar he really was.

"Okay, so I showed up 3 hours early, hoping you'd be here." James admitted, "But I didn't stalk you. I just hoped you'd be scheduled."

"That's commitment, I'm almost impressed." Lily said. She didn't look mad, maybe a bit baffled, but not upset.

"I'm not trying to be weird—" he started.

"Oh don't worry, you're being extremely weird." she assured him.

"Right. Well, it's not intentional. I just enjoy our conversations."

"You know, when most people find someone they like hanging out with, they ask to hang out outside their place of work. They don't show up at odd hours hoping they'll be there." Lily said, with the same tone someone would use to explain a simple math concept to a second grader.

"They must have skipped over that at Cotillion." James said.

"Sure." Lily said, though she sounded amused.

"I can leave you alone if you're busy." James said, desperately hoping she would say no, but fully expecting a yes.

"Nah." Lily said, leaning back in her chair, "I'm almost done, and I've been at it for hours anyways."

James blinked in surprise.

"Wow. That's like the first time you haven't told me to go away."

"Don't get too cocky, you're only a step above paperwork." Lily said.

"I'll be sure to remember my place."

"Hey, where'd you get that scar?" She asked suddenly, sitting upright in her chair. She was staring pointedly at his face, which James found incredibly distracting.

"Huh?"

"That one under your eye." Lily said, touching the spot she was talking about on her own face.

James' hand flew upward automatically, touching the same spot. He knew what it was from; in the earlier days of being the bat, before he had fully figured out the helmet schematics, he'd gotten clocked and the eyepiece had shattered. It lodged a bit of glass in the soft skin underneath his eye, leaving a small, but perceptible scar. Most people either didn't notice it, or ignored it altogether. But James knew very well at this point that Lily was not most people.

"Sorry, that was kind of personal." Lily said, seeming to note his hesitation.

"No, it's alright." James said, although she had caught him so off guard he did not have a suitable lie prepared, "It's from, uh, a fistfight. Long time ago."

"Were they wearing a ring or something?" Lily asked. She was leaning forward in her chair slightly, curious, though she was trying not to show it.

"Or something." James agreed. It was probably better to keep the details of this fight mysterious, primarily because it had never actually occurred, and secondarily, though not unimportantly, because Lily seemed intrigued.

"That bad-boy mystique usually works, doesn't it." Lily said, grinning. He knew she was making fun of him, and that she was right for it, but her smile sent butterflies to his stomach nonetheless.

"Usually." James said, leaning against the counter and trying to look cool. Lily looked as though she were trying to hold back a laugh.

"Yeah, I can tell."

"You're being really nice to me today." James noted. Lily raised an eyebrow.

"What, would you rather I be mean? I can go back to doing that, if you like."

"No, I like this. I mean— I liked it when you were mean to me too, but it's nice to spice things up a bit every once in a while."

Lily's eyebrow inched ever-higher.

"You liked it when I was mean to you?"

"Not many people have the guts to be mean to me." James admitted, "It's refreshing, I guess."

Lily laughed, properly now, a warm full sound. James never wanted it to stop.

"Is that why you won't leave me alone?" she asked, still laughing.

"Sort of." James said, knowing the truth was much more complicated.

"That's a bit ironic." Lily said, looking amused.

"Why's that ironic?"

"I only decided to be nice to you because everything else in my life is such a mess, I figured if you weren't going to stop bugging me I might as well make it more pleasant." Lily said, quite matter-of-factly. It was a bit of an alarming statement at face value, but Lily didn't seem bothered at all.

"I really will go away if you want me to." James reiterated.

"You can't, I'm hooked now." Lily said, maintaining a serious expression except for the edge of her lip, which was twitching with a smile, "I'm like those girls who get that disease where they fall for their kidnappers."

"Stockholm syndrome?" James suggested, unable to hide his grin.

"That's the one." Lily said, letting a bit more of her smile leak through her serious facade.

"Glad to know I'm causing you psychological distress."

"Oh, no more than usual." Lily said, a little too casually. She seemed to recognize her error though, because before James could say anything else, she spoke again.

"Although, I don't appreciate you lying to me."

"Lying to you?" James said, quickly back-scanning the conversation for any glaringly obvious mistruths.

"Yeah, I'm not the only person ballsy enough to be mean to you. The papers have never had a nice thing to say about you." Lily said, seemingly not noticing James' initial panic.

"Oh, that." James said, trying not to sound too relieved, "That doesn't count. They wouldn't be mean to my face."

"So them printing story after story about you being a raging asshole doesn't bother you?" Lily asked. She was looking at him strangely, like she was trying to gauge a reaction.

"Not really." James said, impassively.

He wasn't sure exactly where this was heading, but he wasn't entirely sure he liked the direction. People in his life occasionally questioned his press strategy, which was both very deliberate, and on a surface level, very dumb. But nobody ever managed to take the next step and figure out exactly why he was doing what he was doing. In fairness, it was pretty contrived, and probably only made sense to James, but the less people connected him to anything his alter ego was involved in, the more secure he felt that his secret identity would stay secret. So he fed them stories about parties and models and other nonsensical bullshit nobody really cared about, and the idea that James might be a socially responsible human being never crossed anyone's minds.

"You really don't care?" Lily asked, oblivious to James' mental musings.

"Nope." he said, popping the p.

"Doesn't your company care?"

"Well..." James said, stalling. This was trickier. His personal media strategy had nearly caused the Potter Industries PR manager to cry on more than one occasion.

"Is that why they don't have you on their website?" Lily asked, jumping on his hesitation.

"Wait a minute—" James said, at once delighted by his realization, and the fact that he could derail this conversation before it got into dangerous territory, "Did you google me?"

Lily's cheeks and nose immediately went red, and James knew immediately that he was correct.

"No." She said, though it was obviously a lie.

"Oh my god, you totally did. Who's the stalker now?" James said. He could not hide the grin on his face. She had bothered to look him up.

"Still you." Lily said, blushing furiously, "And I didn't google you, my roommate did."

"Same difference." James said, waving his hand dismissively.

"It's very different."

"If you say so."

"Very, very different."

"Either way, you were talking about me."

"You know how you keep offering to leave? I'd like to cash that in now. You can go away."

"And just when we were having fun, too." James said, still grinning like a madman.

"You're having fun. I'm having a terrible time." Lily said. Her face was still quite red, but she looked less like she would like to melt into the floor.

"I'll go ahead and end your suffering." James said. He really probably should go, he wasn't sure how long they had been talking, but it was probably enough to get her in trouble if anyone asked.

"Good." Lily said. James may have been making it up, but he was fairly sure that he detected a note of disappointment in the word.

"One last thing though." James said, "Can I borrow a pen?"

At this Lily looked confused, though she handed him one from the little bucket on the desk.

James pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, something unimportant, and flipped it over. He scribbled on the back for a second, and then handed it to her. She took it dubiously, frowning.

"What's this?"

"My number. So you can call me, and I can stop hanging out at your place of work like a stalker." James said. The tip of Lily's nose went pink, but she gave no other indication of being amused.

"What makes you think I'll use this?" Lily asked skeptically, though she was studying his writing.

"I have every confidence that you will." James said, "You've got the kidnapping disease, after all."

Lily cracked a small smile at that comment.

"Stockholm syndrome."

"That's it. And I really will leave you alone, unless you call me."

"Really?"

"I've bothered you enough. It's only fair that the ball's in your court, now." James said.

"How do you know I won't post this online?" Lily said. She was grinning impishly.

"I don't think you hate me that much." James said, "At least, I hope you don't."

"I guess you'll just have to wait and find out." Lily said, folding the paper carefully, and tucking it into her shirt pocket.

"I guess I will."

Lily walked up the stairs to her apartment two at a time, her mind reeling. Her conversation with James had taken place hours ago, but she'd been able to focus on nothing else since. She couldn't believe that their plan had worked— at least, it had until she was stupid enough to mention the company website. That had quite possibly been one of the most humiliating moments of her life, and she had a lot to choose from.

"I'm an idiot!" She announced, throwing the door to the apartment open, where Marlene was waiting on the couch, pretending to read a book. She threw it aside immediately.

"So he didn't show?" Marlene asked, looking deeply disappointed.

"No, he showed up." Lily reassured her. Marlene's planning had been faultless, as it often was. She had predicted James would come back the same time he had seen Lily last, since it was the only time he knew that she worked. Lily had scheduled herself accordingly.

"I knew it!" Marlene crowed.

"But I completely blew it, I made a stupid comment about the website and he saw through it all." Lily moaned, throwing herself dramatically down on the couch next to her friend.

"Rookie mistake, Evans!" Marlene said, lobbing a throw pillow at Lily, which she deftly dodged.

"I know, I know. It was going really well too."

"Were you nice to him?" Marlene asked suspiciously. This too had been part of Marlene's meticulous planning. The flirting had been Lily's own addition. She had convinced herself that it would get him to open up to her, and it had. Lily hadn't smiled so much in a long while, though now hours later she was having trouble discerning what had been natural and what had not.

"Yeah. Though he actually told me he liked me originally because I was mean to him." Lily admitted.

"Mommy issues." Marlene said smartly.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."

"Whatever, did you find out anything?"

"Well, whatever he's doing, it's on purpose, he basically admitted the company hates it." Lily said.

"God, I am absolutely dying to know what this man is hiding." Marlene groaned.

"Well, I might have more opportunities to find out."

Marlene gave her a strange look.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He kind of, uh..." Lily began, immediately realizing she probably should have led with this information, "He sort of gave me his number."

Marlene sat straight up like someone had shocked her with electricity.

"He did WHAT?"

"You heard what I said!"

"Like his phone number? His real actual phone number?" Marlene demanded.

"I mean, I guess?" Lily said.

"Christ Evans, you're fucking impossible." Marlene moaned, putting her head in her hands.

"Sorry." Lily said, half-heartedly.

"You're going to call him right? I swear to god if you don't—"

"I guess so. I mean, I really do want to figure this thing out—" Lily started, but Marlene interrupted her.

"Oh, who cares about the press thing anymore!"

"You did, like 30 seconds ago." Lily said, a bit confused.

"That was before." Marlene said, "This is way bigger. Besides, if you start dating him you'll probably figure it out anyways."

Lily recoiled, alarmed.

"Who said anything about dating?"

"Nobody, if you're sensitive about it." Marlene said, rolling her eyes, "Although come on, he's clearly into you."

Lily could not exactly argue with that, though as she broke down the rest of the conversation in great detail she tried her best to tone down the flirtation. Hers had been something of an act anyways, so really it didn't count.

That was what she told herself, anyways.