Chapter 1: Saved by a Bat
I don't normally do this, but before we begin, I would like to inform you all that there exists as playlist for this particular fan fiction. If you are curious, you can find it on Spotify. My account name is MistierShades, and the playlist is called "My Darling, Grayson." I will be updating it with every chapter of this novel I release. The first chapter's music only goes as far as "Piano Man" covered by Christopher Philips. But please note that if you listen to this playlist while reading, you may need to pause, replay, or skip songs depending on how fast you read. Alternatively, you are free to listen to the music in any order you feel in appropriate, or take it as inspiration to create your own playlist; your unique choices included.
I would also like to mention, as in the description, this fiction can be read as a Grayson X reader fic. Please feel free to modify or edit some of the dialogue and/or personality choices to better suit yourself, if you feel so moved.
Thank you for your time, and happy reading!
I don't know where I am… I don't know what happened, either… the whole last eight hours have been probably the scariest of my life.
What do I remember?
I remember driving with my family… we'd just come from a nice dinner out together… everyone was there, even my brother who doesn't live with us anymore, on account of his marriage to his amazing wife, my favourite and only sister-in-law.
It had been raining. I remember watching the car lights get all distorted through the water dripping down my window. I remember the sound of tires splashing in puddles on the road… and of screeching brakes.
Every time I think back to that moment, my brain feels numb. There's no picture, just this deafening noise, a bright light, and a feeling of pure, unfiltered terror. My brain, of course, wants to jump to the most obvious—and quite frankly, the worst—possible conclusion, but… I don't want to believe that just yet. I… I want to believe that maybe… maybe, somehow… everything… isn't as bad as it seems. Well, for them, at least. For me? Things are legitimately pretty bad.
I woke up and it was the middle of the night. I was a short distance away from this highway, no shoes, no cellphone, and there was this big old hole in my shirt under my jacket. I figured that I took a tumble at some point, but otherwise, I was fine. No cuts, barely any bruises, and no major injuries that I could tell. My main concern was the fact that my family was nowhere to be seen and I wasn't in the mountains anymore, I was right next to this humongous city. I mean, this place was just massive. In some ways it kind of reminded me of San Fransisco, but I've only ever been there once, so, I don't know if I can aptly compare the two.
There was also no wreckage along the highway. No debris on the road, no police cars or ambulances, just a lot of traffic.
Naturally, if I'd had a phone I'd start dialling 911 as fast as humanly possible, but at that moment, I was just terrified that some creep might see me walking all alone by the side of the road and snatch me up, so I kept my distance from the cars and started walking, barefoot, toward the city. Looking back, I wonder if maybe that was really a stupid thing to do. You know, what if one of those cars happened to have a really nice person or family in it that would have offered to help me? Guess I'll never know.
The city was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. The sheer amount of light it gave off, to the point that you can't even see the stars, the garbage in the streets, and the graffiti, literally. Everywhere. Like… it's ridiculous how much of it there is. The smell—let me put it this way: you can tell that every inch of this place has, at some point, been used as a public bathroom. That was the moment I missed my shoes the most.
The worst part, though, was the people. I had no idea who I could trust. They were all strangers, and pretty trashy-looking strangers at that. Even the other women looked… sketchy. To the point that I just tried to be as invisible as possible while I looked for a public phone or a mini mart or a police station (preferably) just… something. But the further I walked, the more apparent it became that I was just getting more and more lost. Maybe I was in an apartment district or something, I don't know, I grew up in a small suburban town, this place might as well be the Land of Oz to me. The point is, I wasn't getting any closer to finding a warm, safe place where I could call somebody, and I was just so tired and cold and frightened and it was getting harder and harder to pretend like the strangers on the street weren't staring at me. So I found a relatively quiet-looking building and I climbed up the fire escape all the way to the roof. I had never done anything like that before, but looking back, I am so glad I did.
The roof was nice. It was quiet, at least. Or, as quiet as any place could be in a city where peel outs and very loud arguments were as common as dandelions. At least, sitting there, curled up, looking down at the streets and the lights, I felt a little safer. Distant from all the scary things beneath me. Like I was finally getting a handle on my situation. More or less.
I don't know why he appeared. Maybe he'd seen me from a distance and came to check on me? Maybe he was running by and suddenly spotted the girl sitting all alone by the edge of the rooftop and got worried? Maybe he'd been there the whole time and I'd just been too distraught to notice? I have no idea. But after maybe and hour or two of being alone, suddenly, he was just there, behind me.
"Hello," he said in a very deep voice.
Now, my first reaction was, "Oh my gosh, there's a chainsaw murderer up here and I'm about to die." Boy, was I not expecting to turn around and see The Caped Crusader himself standing there, watching me.
"B-Batman?" I stuttered, all at once wondering what he was doing here—he worked in Gotham, on the East Coast—and then I wondered if maybe I was the one who was truly out of place. Was I… in Gotham City? Of course, most of these thoughts were gurgling in the background of my head. At the forefront, I was still just trying not to do or say something totally idiotic in front of THE Batman. Just my luck, the one and only celebrity meeting of my life and I'm barefoot and freaking out. I probably looked like trash, too, I'd been periodically crying throughout the night, the wind messed up my hair, my clothes were all wrinkly and they smelled like feet… yeah, it just wasn't the best first impression, I'm sure. "What…" I tried to ask, thinking really hard about what specifically I was trying to say. "What are you doing here?"
"Just passing through," he said evenly. "Enjoying the view?"
I remember this impossibly heavy feeling come over me when he asked that. "Yeah… just enjoying the view…" I said, though inwardly I felt as though enjoying anything at all right now would be physically impossible.
Now, if I had any common sense, the very next thing I should have said was something like this, "I'm lost, do you have a phone?" But this is me, we're talking about, I don't exactly have a reputation for thinking clearly even in the best situations, and in that moment, the general thought process in my head was: Batman fights criminals and beats up bad guys, I hope I don't get on his bad side, because that would suck. Literally, that was the extent of all of my thoughts related to this superhero who just fell out of the sky during my hour of need. This is yet another reason why I still live with my parents.
So, as I answered the Bat's question, I turned around and went right on ahead staring out into oblivion, wondering how I was going to find a phone or a police station. Then he asked, "Do you live in this building?"
That was when the heaviness started to morph into something a bit more tangible. Like rainclouds getting so heavy that they start to turn into water, it began pouring inside of me. And outside. I was just so overwhelmed, and I'd been trying to keep it together as much as I could throughout the night, that I guess I had turned into something of a time bomb. I pathetically sucked in a rapid breath and answered, "N-no," in-between sobs. That's when he came a little closer and gently laid a hand on my shoulder.
"Do you need help?"
And so, I began to relay my sad, confusing story to him (not in very great detail, I might add. And the plot was a tangential mess and the main character was hardly very likeable.) In the end it boiled down to, "I'm lost, and I don't know what to do."
We were sitting together now, our backs to the rooftop railing, my head in my arms and my arms on my knees, still heaving heavy gasps and sniffing uncontrollably.
"It's going to be okay," he said firmly, although I had a very hard time believing him. "I can take you to a shelter, if you'd like?"
It was the first kind thing that'd happened to me all night. I was so grateful that even more tears started coming out of my already ugly face and I grabbed onto him and just hugged him for a little bit. What can I say? I'm a sensitive, dramatic… lonely… kinda gal. And in that moment I really, really needed a friend. I'd never felt more grateful or more safe than in that moment when I gripped his torso and buried my wet eyes into the fabric and kevlar of his suit. It felt nice, feeling another person's warmth.
So after ridding myself of whatever water I had left through my tear ducts, Batman helped me down the fire escape and led me down the eerie Gotham alley ways. I stayed close to his side, almost wanting to hold his hand like I used to do with my dad, but I held myself back. I'd already embarrassed myself enough in front of him, I didn't need to make it worse. Plus, I'm an adult for pity's sake. No adult holds someone's hand 'cause they're afraid… right?
Well, lucky for me that fear was about to turn into excitement. Around the next corner, to my utter amazement, was parked the one, the only, Batmobile. My eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. I mean, this was the car that I had only ever seen on the news and as cheap little toys and cartoons, and now it was sitting right in front of me, giant bat emblem on the hood and everything. I think I might have acted more starstruck meeting it than Batman, honestly. When I started leaning forward slightly he gave me a pat on the back and said to himself,
"Everyone loves the Batmobile."
I think I felt a bit like I was floating as I walked over to the passenger door and opened it. One thing was for sure, this was no ordinary car. I'd thought that maybe, since it was obviously custom, the inside would be kinda bare bones or a little hodgepodge, like how cosplays can be good, but still not quite "professional" level, you know? But this, nonononono, this was the real deal. The seats were leather and they had all the fancy features, including heaters, and there was ample ac/heat, the radio looked expensive, there were a million buttons, all of which took immense self-control on my part not to press, and the windshield extended much further up the roof than it looked like from the outside, allowing way more visibility of the city lights as they passed by. I strapped myself in, feeling the rubber floor cover beneath my feet, and I just clung to the seatbelt, wondering how I ended up riding shotgun in the Batmobile?!
I turned on the heated seat thing and melted. It had been a long and very cold night for me, and all of my stress was starting to just fall away. Oh, I'd never felt happier to be warm and safe in all my life. And despite being this big, tall, intimidating wall of bullet-proof drapes, Batman himself didn't seem all that… scary. I've been around people that gave off "red flag vibes" before, and this was not one of those times. In that moment, the only thing I felt was safe. I guess that's why I nodded off.
Hey, like I said, I was very tired and all my stress was finally lessening, and I'm actually very used to sleeping in cars on the go. It's practically hardwired into me, as a matter of fact. So no, it doesn't really surprise me that I fell asleep, but it does make me wonder about some things, because… well, I do have a tiny history of, periodically, talking in my sleep… and saying some really stupid stuff… so…
Now, there may have been a moment when the car stopped for longer than just a red light, but I was so out of it that it very well might also have been a dream, so I don't know. What I do know is that a short while later I was being nudged awake and the light outside of the car was not giving off that "streetlamp" feeling. As I put my seat back the way I'd found it and rubbed my eyes a little, I scanned the windows and saw a very strange place outside. It almost looked like we were underground.
"Where are we?" I asked, frowning.
As he opened his door, Batman paused. "I thought… maybe, you'd prefer someplace… a little safer for the night," he said. "The shelters in Gotham can be a bit rough."
Curiously, I stepped out into the chilly cave and when the word "cave" finally ran through my mind, it all kinda clicked. I tried to keep my shock and enthusiasm to myself as I looked around at everything, all the vehicles and the giant T-Rex and the giant penny and the giant computer—why was everything supersized in there?—but boy, was it hard. I felt completely out of place, standing there amidst these larger-than-life relics, and just followed at Batman's heels, trying not to touch anything.
"I've still got some work to do," he said, sitting down at the computer. "My butler will be down shortly to see you to your room."
'He has a butler?' I mentally asked as my mouth began to gape. "Bat-butler..?" I whispered, looking around again. Was there anything that this pointy-eared superhero didn't have?
With nothing else to do (I didn't want to watch Batman at the computer—didn't want to pry or be nosy or anything) so I looked around the cave and I listened to the sound of tiny bats flying around in the darkness overhead. I'd always liked bats—brown bats, anyway. They're like these tiny balls of flying fluff! And they eat mosquitos, which makes them heroes in my book. At that moment, though, I was specifically thinking about the way the sound of their tiny flapping wings bounced around the echoey cave. That's when I had an idea.
"Hey, um… do you mind if I sing a little?" I asked sheepishly. When he turned back to look at me, I added, "It's just—you don't bump into acoustics like this everyday, and… heh. I'm kind of a choir nerd."
"Go ahead," he said, turning back to his work.
I smiled and started walking away a bit (I didn't want to be belting right in his ear.) There was this little flight of steps I walked down and then I was standing right at the railing of this one platform, looking out into the dark. I thought about what I wanted to sing for a little while. It had to be something special, something that meant something to me. I didn't want to waste this time on something corny or poppy. This kind of big space required a big song, and I knew just the one.
I'd recently watched this movie—it may or may not be an anime—but it was really good, and the music was amazing, and… yeah.
I drew in a breath.
Light glimmers in a flower,
Like jewels in a dream,
The sky breathes life, love to everything…
I let that last note hang in the air as I listened to it reverberate all around me. This had been so worth it. Music, to me, feels kind of like magic. When everything hits just right… it's like there's sparks igniting inside of me.
At times I've thought, 'I'm not enough,'
The chains that tie my heart,
But there's still a path that lies ahead for you and I…
I wished I had a backing track—the instrumentation for this piece is just lovely—but I made do with the memory of it playing in my head.
Memories fade away…
Clouds of yesterday…
With no one to love…
I felt my throat get a little tight as I came to the chorus, suddenly realising how close to home the lyrics of this song actually hit. But I still tried to sing it with my whole heart, gripping the railing for support.
Is this life worth liiiiving?
…
Come back to me, and stay by my side,
I feel my heart shake, come ease this ache,
I'm standing over here, reaching for you,
A million miles away… come back and stay,
No matter how far, the memories may be,
When I close my eyes, you're all that I see,
Coooome back to meeeee…
A million miles away… come back and staaaaaay…
I could still hear both my voice and the music fading far away. Oh, how I felt those lyrics right then. I'd have given anything to know where my family was, to see them, reach out to them, but… I had no idea where they were. Although I… had my suspicions.
No. I wasn't going to dwell on that just then. I couldn't.
Well, anyway, I figured that I shouldn't do an encore performance (I'd learned from past experiences that people don't always want to hear you singing 24/7) and I went to turn around, to go back up the stairs and see if this "Bat-butler" had come yet, but when I did, I saw someone standing on the higher up platform watching me. Instant butterflies. How long had he been standing there? Did he think I was weird? And so many more uncomfortable thoughts shot through my mental cortex.
The guy himself looked like he was a vigilante too, judging by his skintight spandex, but I had no idea which one (come on, there's like a billion of them these days, can you blame me?) He wore mostly black with a bright blue "v" symbol displayed along his collar bone and shoulders. He had a blue mask covering basically just his eyes and his cheekbones, and speaking of his facial structure… As I slowly came back up the stairs, eyeing him shyly, I got an even clearer picture of probably the most perfectly sculpted jaw and lips I had ever seen in my entire life. Top that off with dark, swoopy hair and just a little bit of "beach boy" playfulness, and my stomach felt like it had a whole butterfly sanctuary inside of it.
"Hi," he said, catching me a bit off guard. I was on the same platform as him now, and Batman was just a short distance away, still at the computer.
"H-Hi," I said, nervously chuckling and begging myself to try and act somewhat cool or even just collected. At the moment, though, frazzled and sheepish seemed to be all I could muster.
He smiled reassuringly (his smile looked amazing too, by the way) and asked, "You're gonna be staying the night, huh? Batman filled me in."
"Oh, uh, yeah," I said, hugging my arms rather than just letting them dangle with nothing to do. "Yeah, it was really nice of him." That's right about the moment when I remembered that I still looked like a fraggle from Fraggle Rock and I tried to discreetly comb my hair a little bit (even though it probably didn't help at all.) "I don't suppose you're the butler?" I finished slowly, thinking that there was no way it was him.
He laughed (his laugh was also amazing! The feelings inside my chest—!) and said, "No, I'm afraid not. My name's Nightwing." He held out his hand and as I looked at it, for one horrifying moment I began to wonder if I still remembered how to shake hands like a normal person.
Thankfully, I reached out to greet him and swallowed as his hand softly met mine. "Just Nightwing, huh?" I knew that he'd never tell me his real name, but in that moment, I didn't really care about the odds. That was when he surprised me.
He smiled again and looked away for a second, thinking. "Well… my friends call me Dick."
Batman shifted. I squinted. Was that some sort of nickname? A little odd, but two could play at that game. "My dad sometimes calls me Pinky," I said, shrugging one shoulder.
His smile broadened as he chuckled again. "Cute. The nickname, of course, not—" He suddenly coughed and I—completely oblivious—just stood there wondering what he was about to say and why he didn't finish. "Anyway, I hope Bats didn't scare you or anything."
"No, he didn't," I said fondly. "He… he's actually really nice to hang around." I meant it.
"You have a great voice, by the way."
I turned back to him, panicked. "O-ohh, you heard that," I chuckled. (Is 'chuckled' the right word? It doesn't feel like it's the right word. It was more like I was slightly dying on the inside, and I was just releasing that death in a horrifying squawk of agony.)
"Were you formally trained?"
I may have almost snorted my next laugh. "Not unless you count two semesters of high school choir as 'formal training.'" Oh, that tropical smile of his was sweet enough to pour on pancakes…
That was the moment a grey-haired, kind-faced man in a tailored suit came walking in and he extended a hand to me. "I take it you are tonight's guest," he said with a British accent. "Traditionally, I would introduce myself, but as you can imagine, not many people are invited into the Cave, and fewer still know its residents by their first names."
"I understand," I said somewhat awkwardly.
"If you would follow me, please?"
I bounced a bit on my feet as he started moving and I turned to look at Dick before I got too far away. "So… see you later?" I said, feeling as though that probably wasn't going to happen. But I hoped it would.
"See you," he smiled back, waving. "Oh, uh, before you go—real quick—how old are you?"
"Twenty-one," I said, the butler having politely stopped as he waited for us to finish.
"Twenty-five," he replied, gesturing toward himself.
I smiled again, not one hundred percent sure why he felt like asking. "It was nice to meet you, Dick."
"You too, Pinky."
And with that, I was led up some stairs, further and further away from probably the most handsome man I had ever had the privilege of bumping into. I tried not to think about how little of a chance I had with him, though. That was just too depressing a thought at the moment.
Then, my mind became preoccupied with what I saw on the second floor. Not merely an attic or a house, no no… this was a mansion. Like, chandeliers, velvet curtains, genuine paintings and vases lining the halls—MANSION. I was speechless. Just…
Did you know that Batman owns Vincent van Gogh's "Irises?" Because he does. I don't know how, but he just does. Not to mention his Ming Dynasty Vase and his Persian rug and his hand-carved French furniture and the million other utterly expensive things that I didn't have time to see. I thought my jaw was going to dislocate from how much gasping and wheezing I was doing.
"Would it be bold of me to assume that you are an art lover?" The Bat-butler asked, somewhat amused as I pried myself away from a recreation of Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
"Oh, I don't know about—yes," I said, practically drooling over the intricate mouldings in the walls and the marble columns and… literally everything about this absurdly beautiful place that somehow existed above Batman's Batcave. I'm sighing just thinking about it. Do you have any idea how long it takes to make all of this stuff? How much effort goes into making things look beautiful? And let me tell you, that effort is WELL WORTH IT. If I could live in a place as beautiful as this, I think my heart would explode from overexposure to pure magnificence.
Eventually, the butler stopped at a lovely wooden door and showed me inside. It was about as gorgeous as the hallways, and the bed was bigger than anything I've ever slept on before. Like, it had to be a queen, at least. There was a fireplace in one corner, some windows in another, everything decorated very tastefully, although with a distinct modern design woven into it, which isn't really my thing. I prefer the old styles, like Victorian, with all the little details and carvings and stuff.
"There is a change of clothes on the bed, a bathroom just down the hall, to your right, and in the morning, we shall get you sorted and sent on your way," the butler explained. "Let me know if you need anything."
"Thank you very much," I said, peeling my eyes from the room to look at him properly. "This is… so generous of you."
"Think nothing of it," he smiled politely. "Rest well. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," I called as he shut the door.
And so there I was. Or, I should say, here I am. I still have no idea where exactly I am, other than "above the Batcave," wherever that is, and I still don't know exactly what happened to me, but… at least I'm not out on the street anymore. At least my feet are warm. At least I'm safe. For now.
Tomorrow… tomorrow would mean making phone calls and trying to get back home… if there was even a home for me to go back to… but again, I tried not to think about it. Not just now, anyway. That would be tomorrow's problem, and at the moment, I have enough on my mind. Like the person staring back at me in the mirror.
There's this tall mirror standing in one of the corners in the room and while I was undressing I noticed something very weird about my reflection. There, on my side, right where the hole in my shirt had been, the skin looks… pale. No, not pale, white. Like, pure white. It doesn't feel any different than normal skin—when I poke it and close my eyes, it's like it's not even there—but it sure doesn't look normal. It doesn't itch, it isn't swollen, it's not numb, it's just… there. If this is some sort of radiation poisoning or something then… But maybe it'll be gone by tomorrow? Well, it's not like there's anything I can do about it right now.
Okay, I have to talk about the pyjamas. Pretty sure these are the softest clothes I have ever worn in my entire life. I took a quick shower, just to get the city gunk off me, found some moisturiser, and now these silk pjs? Absolute heaven. And to top it all off—the bed? Oh my goodness—talk about feeling like you're sleeping on a cloud! The sheets are all clean and smell nice, and the comforter is like being hugged by giant rose petals! I think I'm gonna call it a night and just….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
