Her windows would have needed cleaning.
Sophie wasn't sure if it was the exhaust fumes or if the rain in this city was somehow dirtier than rain was supposed to be, but if she had cared for something as mundane as a hundred percent clear view to the outside world, she would have needed to clean her windows every two weeks.
Despite the almost grey film that stuck to the other side of the glass, Sophie found the view in front of her sublime.
With her forehead pressed against the cold glass, she stared into the darkness and realized that she had never seen the city this quiet. The filter of dirt did not obstruct her view on the outside world and the contrast the bright orange flames build to the blackness of the night. It was as if time had stopped, there was no movement on the streets, no sound of running engines or honking drivers. For once, the city that never slept had come to a halt.
The calm before the storm would only last for a couple of heart beats.
In less than a minute, the chaos broke out and spread like cancer.
There were cars burning only a block away, accompanied by the nasty noise of alarms blazing, and she could distinctly hear people shouting in the distance.
It was the sound of screaming that ripped Sophie out of her trance and made her come back to her senses. The man on TV had told the people of Gotham to break the law, to attack and kill each other.
And apparently, Gotham had listened.
With too much force, she hastily closed the curtains, almost tearing them down, hurried to her door, locked it twice from the inside and put up the door chain.
Although the power wasn't working, she still flicked every light switch off, so that in case the electricity went back on, there would be no light in her apartment to attract uninvited guests.
In the darkness, she sat back on the sofa and pulled her blanket tightly around her trembling frame. Was it her or had the temperature dropped?
The bedroom wasn't an option. She would have to sit this out in her living room where she would hear if anyone was trying to get through the front door.
Besides, Sophie doubted that she would be able to sleep tonight. She was scared.
Sitting in the dark did not really help with that sentiment, so she decided that it wouldn't hurt to light a candle to at least cast the shadowy thoughts in her mind away.
On the kitchen counter, her pancakes were slowly getting cold. But she had lost her appetite anyway.
Sophie had intended to stay awake for the whole night or at least until the energy went back on and everything was over. But apparently, the long day at work and the rush of adrenaline had taken its toll on her body so that she, despite all efforts, hadn't been able to keep her eyes open.
When she came to her senses, her body was once again flooded by a new wave of adrenaline.
The candle must have gone out hours ago and the drawn curtains kept most of the light that the chaos and the moon outside created out of her apartment, so she had to wait for her eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness.
Despite still being dizzy, she felt that something was wrong, and of course her heart rate hurried to express her anxiety. Sophie had a feeling that she wasn't alone.
Her eyes darted through the room, frantically searching for someone that wasn't supposed to be there. She intently listened for any form of movement, but Sophie couldn't hear anything but her own heartbeat. I'm probably just paranoid, I'm probably just paranoid, I'm probably just -
But once she warily sat up, she was greeted by a mocking voice behind her.
"Hiho."
At some point, this man would give her a heart attack.
"Fucking hell."
With a mixture of supressed rage and shock, Sophie slowly turned around to look at Victor Zsasz who had apparently entered her flat without making a sound and was now nonchalantly standing in her kitchen.
And eating her pancakes.
"Victor." She breathed out exasperatedly, trying to mask her shock.
"Hm?" he asked innocently.
"What are you doing here?"
"Oh. I was just in the neighbourhood. Passing by."
It had been a while since she had seen him as his usual smug self. She didn't bother answering and focused on calming down instead.
He gestured towards the pancakes "I hope you don't mind."
"Help yourself" she replied dryly.
He looked content while eating her food and, of course, unfazed by the fact that hell had broken loose in the city. Sophie could imagine too well how he would walk through the streets, through the chaos of people killing each other, feeling invincible. Being invincible.
Once her heartrate normalised, she actually felt glad to have a murderer in her apartment. If anyone else decided to break into her home, there was already an intruder here who would be likely much worse.
"So, a blackout must be a major inconvenience for an assassin?" she asked, trying to engage into some absurd version of small talk.
The way he frowned and bit his lower lip while contemplating his answer looked somewhat childish to her.
"It helps with doing things undetected. But not if you want to get a message across." The way he said undetected somehow sent a shiver down her spine. This was better than normal small talk anyway.
"Ah. So you're taking the night off?" Sophie was slightly proud at how laid-back she sounded.
"Uh-huh. Traffic's a bit tough, so I thought I might crash here."
He is such a blunt liar, Sophie thought and inwardly rolled her eyes. Admittedly, they were both beating around the bush. She with trying to give the impression of having nerves made of steel and him with… whatever he was trying to pull off. It wasn't unlikely that she would never be able to read this man and unravel his intentions.
While this irritated her to no ends, she still could not imagine a parallel universe in which he would give her a serious answer if she asked him why he came. So instead of arguing, she let it go and allowed him to stay.
Of course, Victor Zsasz would never seriously ask if anyone was alright with whatever he proposed to them. Yet, Sophie did not feel annoyed for too long. With the intimidating figure in her apartment, felt safe.
No one else, neither her friends nor the adults, appeared to see the changes. If they had looked closer, they might have noticed that the colour of Joice's eyes had become a few shades darker and her skin a couple of degrees colder. They could have noticed how the neighbour's puppy that had once jumped with joy whenever Joice was close, did no longer allow her to pet it. They could have noticed that she did not enjoy playing as much as she used to before. Some days, she would look in the mirror and not recognize herself. But to everyone else, Joice still seemed to look herself.
She should have just offered him a blanket, a pillow – and her couch, of course – before retreating into her bedroom and getting some well-deserved rest. But instead, Sophie decided that she should take advantage of this encounter and perhaps exert some information out of the bald man who was still leaning against her kitchen counter.
Moreover, the assassin was looking at her intently while eating the treat she had made for herself, most certainly to make her nervous. She did not want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her uncomfortable, so talking seemed to be a good way to dissolve the awkwardness.
"You know, during the mayor's party at The Sirens, I couldn't help but realize that Butch Gilzean has a nasty scar on his forehead…" she began.
"Hmm." He hummed with a mean grin, supposedly affirmatively.
"Did you ever realize that his scar looks like a 'V'?" Sophie asked innocently. She had a feeling that the two men must have had some kind of history.
"Oh? What a coincidence." His voice was dripping sarcasm and the grin on his face widened noticeably.
"Do you happen to have anything to do with that?" She wasn't sure why, but she wanted to hear him say it. Maybe hearing him confess to doing anything would be something she could interpret as trust. Maybe there would be a shadow of regret traceable in his voice. Or maybe she just wanted to add more pieces to a puzzle that seemed to have an infinite number of parts.
"Why do you want to know that?" he retorted, the grin, along with all other expression, suddenly gone from his face
"I have some theories." She said, once again trying to sound cool and detached, "about what you do, for whom, and why."
She decided to leave it at that. He didn't need to know that he was an enigma to her and that she had no idea what was going on in the darker parts of Gotham which were supposedly his working environment.
While she was certain that the mayor's influence wasn't restricted to Gotham's 'respected' citizens and he still played a major role in the city's criminal realms, Sophie had no idea why Victor Zsasz was ordered to do the things he did. Maybe she was in the wrong by assuming that he only committed crimes when ordered to, who knew what he enjoyed doing in his spare time?
And of course, she only witnessed a fraction of the hitman's deeds. So, with only knowing fragments of the 'what' and only one of potentially numerous employers, there was really no way for her to really come up with a profound theory.
"You seem to be good with theories." He purred. Sophie managed not to scoff.
So he was responsible for the scar on the barkeeper's forehead. She nodded thoughtfully, ignoring the way he was still staring at her.
"And why would you set poor Butch up like this after having already engraved half of your initials on his face?" Sophie almost flinched when she realized how mean the words had sounded. She wasn't heartless. She really felt bad for the bartender.
The coldness of her words was rewarded by a low chuckle. Yet he did not answer her question.
Sophie rolled her eyes at him and shifted into a more comfortable position on her couch, finally looking away from Victor Zsasz and rubbing her neck.
It didn't take long for the man to finish the rest of her food and get comfortable on the chair opposite to her. Sophie told herself that she was glad that he had not tried to sit next to her and remembered how close she had sat next to him the last time she saw him – and how it had messed with her ability to focus.
Staying sharp seemed important when engaging into conversation with him when he was supposedly in his top form.
"I take it we're not talking about Butch's set-up then?" she crooked her head as well as one eye-brow while maintaining eye contact with him.
"Maybe another time." He didn't even sound evasive, just bored.
"Alright." She paused for a couple of seconds before asking "How is James Gordon doing?"
As she was sure that the policeman was still alive, Sophie had sort of anticipated that bringing up the topic and thus confronting him with a failed hit would have ruined the mood. So when Victor Zsasz's face expressed something that could only be insufficiently described as childish joy, Sophie had trouble hiding her bewilderment.
Is he dead?
"He's fine." He explained, extending the vocal in such a way that Sophie wasn't certain if he spoke the truth, "the hit got called off."
Huh. Sophie felt relieved, she really would have been shaken if the policeman who had seemed so righteous and tried to keep her and her colleagues out of harm's way was dead. This probably also meant that Gordon would not kill Victor anytime soon.
"Oh, good. I'm glad to hear that." She answered lamely.
He looked at her questioningly with narrowed eyes.
"I mean, you said you liked him. Would have been a shame." If you had killed him.
He just gave her a shrug and a crooked eyebrow.
Yeah, good talk. Sophie thought sarcastically. She wondered if Victor Zsasz had anyone whose death would upset him.
Her musings were interrupted by a loud crash and several voices screaming through the dark.
She had to hand it to Victor Zsasz; a conversation with him could distract her from the hell that had broken loose outside of her apartment.
For a split second, the room was illuminated by an orange light. Apparently, another car had exploded right on her street.
Suddenly the screaming had subsided- along with Sophie's ability to keep cool. The assassin must have noticed her trembling before she did.
"Relax", he muttered before moving towards the window and opening the curtains to take in the scenery in front of him. Whatever he saw must have amused him. Sophie could have sworn to hear him mumble 'amateurs'.
When he turned around to scrutinize her again, she gave him a faint smile. If he is even half as skilled as he is arrogant, I am the safest person in Gotham right now.
To further distract herself from the death and destruction outside, she decided to pick up a new conversation topic.
"What do you think about all this?" she asked him while vaguely gesturing towards the window behind him.
"It seems fun." He said with his eyes still fixed on whatever was happening outside. "But only temporarily."
"You don't like the prospect of everyone killing other people?" She cursed herself for not being able to keep her mouth shut.
As always, he appeared to be unfazed by her words. Perhaps even as much as he was by the violence that had erupted outside. Maybe she didn't need to worry about going too far with the things she said. It seemed only fair that she shouldn't need to be walking on eggshells around someone whose demeanour was usually insensitive or plain rude.
After a moment of contemplation, he turned to look at her to answer.
"I enjoy what I do, and I am good at my work. The job includes rules, a structure. This – ", he shrugged his shoulders dismissively, "- is chaos."
Sophie could not think of any sensible way to answer this. Society's basic rules like 'not killing people' seemed like something well-structured and reasonable to her. They were what enabled people to live together peacefully.
In a binary system, everything outside of the common order would be considered chaos. She had assumed that there would some kind of unpredictable madness hidden behind Victor Zsasz's unreadable facial expression and weird social etiquette. Imagining that he had simply abandoned society's order and chosen a new set of rules for himself made the whole case more complex. She would have loved to learn about his codex, to find out if there was any kind of morale in this man.
"I assume you are not a fan of the red-haired gentleman to whom we owe the blackout, then?"
"I don't care about him. He's just a clown."
It wasn't long until the intervals between her yawns had become so short that it could be considered rude. Yet, Sophie forced herself to stay awake a bit longer and waited until the bald man displayed his first sign of tiredness.
She had once read that yawning could be used as a test to determine if someone likes you, given that they yawn shortly after you do. If this was accurate, she wondered if it counted that he had started yawning one hour after her.
Stop being pathetic. Be mature, she instructed herself, before finally getting up to get him a pillow and a blanket.
"Thanks" he said almost enthusiastically as she placed the folded quilt on the armrest and attempted to put the pillow down in a way that looked either pretty or professional- or at least not clumsy.
It was the first time he had ever said Thanks to her. And that not even in a sarcastic manner. Sophie chose to cherish that. With a smile on her face, she said goodnight and closed the door of her bedroom behind her.
After she had slept soundly until it was almost noon, the first thing she realized was that the light on her nightstand could be flicked back on. The energy was working again.
Feeling excited, she stepped into the living room to share the good news- only to find it deserted. The folded blanket and the pillow were still where she had placed them last night - unmoved and apparently untouched.
Author's Note: Phew, this took ages to write, but hey, it's the longest chapter so far. I hope you liked it.