You could tell by the bright yellow caution tape surrounding the blocks nearby that you'd finally arrived. Officers were stationed around the tape with a crowd beginning to form. Masses shuffled out of nearby clubs to see the drama, muttering amongst themselves about what it could be. None of them were correct. Another shooting? A stabbing? A drug bust? You heard murmurs of Where is he? which you could only imagine was about the man of the hour, the Batman.
Snaking your way around the officers would be difficult, but not impossible. The onlookers guaranteed a degree of anonymity, so you slunk between distracted groups of friends and wove through the crowd, ducking under the tape and into the alley. Once there, the darkness was protective. Blaring sirens deafened your ears, causing a shudder on your spine as you trekked through the blackened night. The only thing that gave you any idea of where you were was the brick you kept your palm on as you walked, dust collecting on your fingertips from untouched cement.
It was eerily quiet, which unnerved you. Gotham was never this quiet, always with a constant backdrop of cars, drunks, and blood-curdling screams. As you kept forward, the commotion began to leave your ears. It seemed to fade into the distance rather quickly—either that, or you were walking much faster than you anticipated. When would this alley end?
Almost as if you'd asked for it out loud, you started to hear wet, frantic footsteps splashing through puddles ahead. You squinted your eyes to try and cut through the shroud of darkness, but to no avail. Then, frantic yelling. You pressed your back to the brick as you saw a flashlight appear in front of a tall, stocky figure a few feet down the alley. "Hey," the voice, a man's, shouted at you. He shone the light right at your face and your vision went white, stinging your tired eyes. "What's a lady like you doing back here, huh?" His tone was conniving, setting off your body's alarm system.
You turned and started to run, but he removed the light source as soon as he noticed you were on the move. Not ten steps after, you fell flat on your chest, tripping over a wood block mid-step. Your hands protected your face, your palms taking blunt trauma rather than your nose. You felt the familiar, childhood sting of scraped hands and elbows as you heard his footsteps creep closer. Fuck. This was so stupid, fuck. You started babbling, anxious. "Please, I'm just trying to get home,"
"A girl like you doesn't live over here." You heard him spit somewhere, hopefully not on you. You felt a hard tug on your right shoulder and found yourself yanked over onto your back. He threw the lit flashlight down onto the ground and it made a strong clang. The rain stung your eyes and hands, thundering down and into your jacket and soaking your clothes underneath. You began scooting backward and scrambled to get up on your knees as you were shoved back onto the concrete, further grating your palms. You yelped out in pain as he pinned you face-down on the alley floor with a grunt. "Not my first choice of broad, but you'll have to do." He chuckled and you heard the rummaging of clothes. Oh my god. I'm about to get assaulted.
Your jaw dug into the ground as he palmed your ass over your pants, giving it a slap with the hand that wasn't pressed between your shoulder blades. Suddenly you felt a breeze on your lower back, through the rain hearing a tearing of fabric. You squeezed your eyes shut and let your body go limp as you felt the breeze extend down your ass, to your thigh, and then down to your calf. Hard rain pelted against newly exposed skin. A white noise filled your ears, stifled sobs stuck deep in your chest as he started unzipping. You balled your sore, bloody fists in preparation, begging it to be over quickly.
Except...you didn't feel anything. The man gasped and you heard a thud. Adrenaline rushing through your tired, cold limbs propelled you up and you quickly stood, yanking your jacket off and hastily wrapping it around your hips. More thuds, then an unintelligible shout. You couldn't tell what was happening, and started to hobble back the way you came. You heard another thud and clang, and noticed the alley was illuminated behind you. Nervously, you looked over your shoulder and saw him: Batman, rain-soaked and angry. He was crouched over the man, and moved his gaze up to look at you. Your eyes connected for a moment and you froze.
You again. He didn't know what to make of you. You were difficult to read. You didn't look like the city; you looked too innocent, too kind. Yet you had this persistence that made you do such ridiculous—if not impressively tenacious—things such as wandering around a crime scene in Gotham City in the dead of night. He glanced down and noticed your pants were torn and shredded in a pool around your ankles. His jaw tightened, molars starting to grind together. He'd thought you were just getting mugged, not... this piece of shit... his fists pressed firmer into the perpetrator as the man began to gasp for breath, struggling against him. Who would do that to someone? What made someone think they had ownership over someone else's body like that? To take it at any time? He looked down and stared into the waning eyes of the criminal, rage burning in his throat.
You had never seen someone die before, and you started to panic. The vigilante was staring at the man and pressing harder, harder, harder into their chest until the dude sputtered. "Stop, stop!"
He immediately jumped back, panting. He'd never come that close to killing someone.
He shot a frazzled look at you. His knuckles clenched tight, bent to perfectly cup the criminal's neck to snapping. He tried to hide his shock at having momentarily lost control.
You stared back at him, nervous. He was just... sitting there. Would he hurt you? You had a peculiar, yet strong sense you were safe here, but was that real? No one truly knew much about Batman; what if he was just as bad as the criminals he fought?
Looking at you in the alley triggered something deep within him. His palms began to sweat and he suppressed images of his childhood, the sound of gunshots ringing in his ears rendering him unsteady. You peered at him, nervous, stuttering a few steps back. The criminal, still choking and gasping, struggled up to his knees.
Batman's heart raced and pulse echoed in his ears; he refocused, grabbing the criminal by the shirt and tossing him behind you both. The stranger landed on his knees, scrambling up to bolt down the alley from whence he came. It was now just you and Batman, and he looked... nervous? And his eyes... somehow they shined through the dark night.
"Go home." His voice was gruff, yet somehow still piercing through the thundering rain, echoing thickly off the balmy brick. You instinctually followed his order as if he was some sort of supernatural force, but stopped before exiting his eyeline entirely. The interview.
He was still staring at you, motionless besides some flexing of his fists. "Wait." You gulped down fear, adrenaline still coursing through your veins, staring down the dripping, armored mountain before you. You were surprised the words slipped past your lips. "I want to interview you for GU—"
"Go home." He tried to make his voice menacing as flashbacks caused nightmares in his mind, pelting him with suppressed memories of gunpowder and screams. You didn't move, and his jaw set.
You weren't backing down without a bit of a kick, desperate, hyperaware this was the last time you'd ever have this opportunity. "It's why I came out ton—" He interrupted you with a hissing shout, slipping through your fingers.
"Do I have to tell you again?" You were audacious, he'd give you that. He narrowed his gaze to a glare and straightened his back to help tower over you, even twenty feet away. He didn't have the capacity to monitor his tone, his throat becoming more swollen and constricted as the images and sounds screeched inside.
"Please?" He wasn't having a lick of it, you could tell. His eyes were narrowed, chest heaving, tone bitingly bitter. He had a miserly quality about him, as if he were acting as savior whilst resenting people for it.
"Being here alone is a stupid thing to do. Don't let me catch you out here again." With that, he disappeared up the brick to the roofs of Gotham, barely concealing his panting, rushed breaths as he tried to calm himself off the edge of a panic attack.
・。。・・。。・・。。・・。。・
You managed to get home without a hitch, which was a miracle. The swarms of people on the main road due to the club evacuations allowed you to slip into a nobody, a faceless member of the horde. You showered off the chill and the sting of your scalp left you reeling, a manifestation of your frustration toward the Batman. He'd wanted nothing to do with the affair, and you tried not to brainstorm more topics that night, letting your mind off the hook to simply be thankful he had intervened at all... even if he'd kinda been an ass about it.
The day was much the same, holing yourself up to your apartment. You didn't have any other classes besides journalism, didn't have to work due to your scholarship, and had just enough money left to get you through the next two weeks until you graduated and left Gotham permanently. It was maddening being so close to the end of something yet having no clue how to finish it. A part of you wanted to walk to the corner store just to have some human interaction, but you were more tender to the reality of living downtown now. It wasn't safe here, not even being outside for a moment.
You awoke the next day feeling restless from 36 hours contained to your studio. You vacillated between being tormented by lack of inspiration and doing everything you could to distract and fill the time. Crocheting? Too mindless. Television? The same. That final paper clung to every passing thought like a wet napkin. It nearly sent you spiraling; you were without a single word on the page, with twenty of them to fill.
You'd drawn up a plan the rest of that day, figuring it would take you at least two days to write the paper to your specifications, which gave you just under five days to: find an interviewee, develop a thesis and ensuing questions, and gather the data. You cursed yourself for ever choosing a class as heavy in writing as journalism for your last term. At least a PE credit would have let you blow off steam.
By the time it hit seventy hours in your apartment you nearly threw yourself out the window to feel something other than the crushing weight of the deadline. Phone calls haunted your dreams where you had to admit to your parents you couldn't finish college because you couldn't stop something as simple as writer's block. It consumed you, both day and night, pulling the color out of your face and emphasizing the dark crescent moon under your eyes. With a solid "fuck it", you threw on some sweats and hunkered down to the corner store. Rai would be a pleasant sight. He'd ask about your classes as he always did, and maybe he'd even have some ideas.
The sky stung your eyes after essentially living in a cave for the better part of three days, though it was cloudy and dark as it ever was in the city. The infamous scent of chemical rain stung the lining of your nose, prickling every microscopic hair to annoyance. It beseeched you how difficult this assignment was; nothing, no assignment in all your years of academia, had stirred you as much as this one. It plucked at the edges of your skin with relentless animosity, gleeful as you spiraled deeper into what eerily resembled a depressive episode. The experience of this paper was rattling your bones, and you were close to calling up the school counselor.
Your palm shoved the slick handle of the store door open, the familiar ding and "Welcome in!" forcing you to hide your chagrin. A quick flit of your eyes to the register and you noticed Rai wasn't on shift. Ugh.
You walked toward the register to check out the deli. Rai always had delicious surprises, and offered you the 'student discount', which was really nonexistent—just kindness. Except today, the deli was empty.
You checked your phone with confusion, sure you'd gotten here before even the earliest time he'd closed it. Peering over at a young woman you'd never seen before, you asked if he was okay. Rai was as reliable as the rain in Gotham.
Sheepish, she cleared her throat lightly before perking up. "Actually um, our family was asked to cater at the city hall meeting tonight!" Visibly excited, she rambled on. "Rai is my brother, he's with our mother prepping the dishes."
"Oh, cool!" You drudged up the small amount of enthusiasm still left within you and mustered interest. "That'll be good for business, I'm sure."
The young woman nodded so quickly you feared her head might roll off. Her excitement became palpable and you couldn't help but grin as she prattled on. "Definitely! My mom was so happy when we got the invite, Mr. Wayne sent us a handwritten letter with a BONUS inside!"
And then it hit you like sharp, salty wind, and you bid a quick farewell to scurry back to your apartment. You dialed up Dr. Vry after pulling her number from the syllabus, praying she hadn't left the office early. On the last ring she answered, chewing on something on the other line. "Dr. Janay Vry speaking."
"Dr. Vry, hey! It's Y/N. Would you be able to give me one of the department's press passes for the event at city hall tonight?" The keys were chilled in your hand from the outside air and you put her on speaker as you rushed your clothes off.
"Well hello to you too, Ms. Y/L/N. I'm afraid I was just packing up."
"Please, I found someone to interview." You yanked off your socks and unclipped your bra. You needed to shower and be out the door as quickly as possible.
"And who could be so important as to call me on a Friday evening twenty minutes before I retire home?" She sounded aloof, not quite frustrated yet.
"Bruce Wayne."