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noisylime · 2 months ago

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Form and Figure

3. Critique

parts: previous / next (coming soon)

battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

(eventual smut)

Chapter Summary: After a disorienting first week back at Gotham University, you try to unwind by spending time with a friend.

CW: This chapter covers the topics of parent loss, grief, and mental health.

The city glowed outside your window. You sat up in bed, unable to sleep. The day had exhausted you but your body buzzed, reliving the events of Art 111 on loop.

Getting up to splash water on your face, you looked at your fatigue in the mirror. It was his fault. Professor Wayne had done this to you, made you feel like part of your body hadn’t left the classroom. Feeling so immediately drawn to someone wasn’t you, and especially not a professor. It was childish. You weren’t a high schooler doodling the name of the English teacher in your notebook. You didn’t have anything as frivolous as a crush.

Back in your room, you opened up your laptop and checked the school calendar. The Add/Drop deadlines were confusing, but after a few frustrating minutes you were pretty sure you could drop the class with a full refund before the end of the second week. Your cursor hovered over the “drop class” button but you couldn’t bring yourself to click it.

It was his fault. His fault for looking at you like that, holding your hand like that, running his hands through his hair like that. Didn’t he know what that could do to someone?

You threw yourself back into bed. A train shuddered the building and you slammed a pillow over your head to drown out the noise.

* * *

A week later, you were back on campus for the second week of classes. The morning engineering lecture, an introduction to stoichiometry, had been uneventful. The professor droned on for nearly two hours. You had to squint to make out his slides from the top of the lecture hall, the beginnings of a headache poking at your temples from the eye strain.

After what felt like an eternity, you shuffled out of the auditorium and found yourself on campus with seven hours to kill before Professor Wayne’s class started.

“I saw the amount you requested for the term. It’s a little steep, don’t you think?” You uncle’s voice voice hummed through your earbuds. He had interrupted you while you had been working on a sketch of the university library.

“There were some extra course fees.”

“I see.”

“Look, do you want me to go to school or not?” You drummed the marker against your sketchpad as you studied the gargoyles lining the roof.

“It’s not about what I want, you know that. I’m only following the stipulations your father—”

“Stop, okay, I get it. Don’t remind me.”

Your uncle inhaled sharply. You pictured him pulling the phone away from his head so he could let out a slow breath through pursed lips before continuing. “Your father really wanted this for you. Can’t you just be happy knowing you’d be making him happy? He would love to see you graduate, get a nice job, make a name for yourself.”

The pause conveyed your eye roll inaudibly.

“I know it’s hard,” he said, his tone softening. “I miss him too. I’ll transfer the money but please, try to focus on school a little more. It’s for your own good.”

He hung up as you translated the building to the page, thin lines from the pointy end of the chisel marker following the mortar between bricks. The homework for 111 had been to sit somewhere for one hour and draw everything you saw.

“This assignment is all about careful observation,” Professor Wayne had explained. “Try to have the mentality that anything you can see, you can draw. What you pay attention to in your surroundings will become what’s on your page.”

If that were true, your sketch pad would have been full of dark overcoats and fingers sailing chalk across a green ocean.

You compared your drawing to the building in front of you. The library’s main tower was lopsided and you were drawing in permanent marker. You tried to imagine what Professor Wayne would say. “Mistakes are part of the artistic process,” or some similar platitude. It was unnerving how vividly you could hear his dark voice, his cadence. The warmth of his hand and his breath rushing past your ear…

You shut off your phone’s timer—seven minutes early, but no one needed to know—and packed up your bag. You needed something to get school off your mind.

* * *

Winding your way through the halls of the Gotham City Museum with Titus was a solid attempt at wasting an afternoon. The museum was opening a new exhibit and Titus had snapped up a week-long security gig. Tickets were complimentary.

“Nicole was fine with you working on the side?” you had asked when he first told you about the job.

“As far as she knows, I’m in Philadelphia right now for Great-Aunt Mavis’ wake.”

Now, the two of you examined a dinosaur skeleton named “Haddy Jr.” Thin wires looped down from the atrium ceiling to support the creature’s languorous tail and neck. The display was cordoned off with gold stanchions holding red velvet ropes. A small child grabbed one of them and started swinging on it, their guardian apparently absent.

“Shouldn’t you do something about that, Mr. Security Guard?” you joked to Titus.

“Hey, I don’t clock in until midnight tomorrow. Until then, Haddy Jr. is all I’ve got to worry about.”

“She’s the first complete fossilized Hadrosaurus found in the world, apparently,” you read from the placard. “Wait, since when is there a state fossil?”

“Sometimes I forget you didn’t learn all this in elementary school. Trust me, if you had had Mrs. Brooks you would know. If you didn’t remember the state tree or flower she would lose it.”

The little kid squealed as they pulled against the rope barrier with all their puny weight, making the chain connectors rattle. A middle aged man speed-walked over and scooped the kid up, smiling apologetically at you and Titus as the kid started to cry, hands grasping out towards the dinosaur. You smiled back, trying not to wince at the noise.

“What would Mrs. Brooks think of all that?” You asked once the two were out of sight.

Titus chuckled. “Probably get out the chalk, make them write lines. She hated that she wasn’t allowed to hit us anymore, I think. She’d carry around this big ruler and—,” he slapped his hands together, “—right behind you to make you jump.”

Unbidden, your mind conjured up an image of Professor Wayne, yardstick in hand, ready to dole out punishment. Stop it, you thought. That’s too weird.

“She sounds awful,” you said as you and Titus walked away from the dinosaur. A group of middle schoolers on a class trip walked up to the sign as you left, giggling about something only they understood.

“Yup. Well, she’s up there with Mavis now anyway, so the kiddos of Gotham don’t need to worry.”

“Wait, is great-aunt Mavis real?”

“Nah, I’m just bullshitting. Let’s check out the food court, I’m starving.”

As you walked, passing paintings, historical artifacts, sculptures, and the occasional taxidermied animal in a display, you berated yourself. This was supposed to be taking your mind off of things. You were supposed to be enjoying a break away from the hum drum of dead-father-mandated school. You had thought you needed some escapism to take your mind off the fact that you had no long-term plans, no ambition besides finishing a degree and cashing out your trust fund.

Even when he was dying, your father had hated how much time you’d taken away from school. When he’d first gotten sick, you’d taken academic leave thinking he would get better. When he hadn’t, you’d dropped out completely to help care for him.

“You’re wasting so much time here,” he’d said. “I’m paying these nurses for a reason. Don’t let me hold you back. You can’t let me get in the way of your goals.”

What goals? You’d gone to GU hoping to figure out what you wanted from life, and you’d had it all taken away before you could even acclimate. Goal number one: keep Dad alive, failed.

You’d sat by his bedside, holding his hand while he slept. His hands were thin and waxy, the nailbeds void of pigment. You hadn’t known he was awake until he spoke. “Promise me you’ll go back to school?”

The prior arguments had been about you leaving home, letting the palliative team take over his care while you flew out to Gotham and chipped away at your degree. The way he asked it this time, you knew he meant something different. He was talking about the ever approaching “after.”

Your eyes stung. As much as you wanted to make him happy, you couldn’t muster up a promise you didn’t know if you could keep. Nothing about the “after” felt real. A chasm rushing towards you to swallow you up. You didn’t even know if you would still be you, after.

“There’s nothing for me there,” you said. He was adamant that you would feel differently, regret letting the opportunities slip by.

“There must be at least some part of it you like. Something you’d rather be doing than sitting here with me all day.”

“There’s nothing,” you’d said, ending the conversation.

A month later you’d discovered the clause added to his will only two weeks before his death. His estate, put in a trust fund, with his brother as the trustee, only to be withdrawn from for payment of tuition, housing, food, or fees, conditional on you attending college. The full amount to be available upon graduation. Your father’s idea of a helping hand, your idea of an encumbrance. A welcome gift to the never ending “after.”

Well, I’m doing it. Just like you wanted.

You thought about the three weeks you’d spent in classes so far. Lecture after lecture, a smattering of essays and worksheets. Trying to memorize equations and theories. In between it all, Art 111. Scribbling in charcoal, class critiques with everyone’s homework assignments pinned on the walls for the professor to examine.

You and Titus reached the museum’s food court. As you stood in line, your phone buzzed. Your uncle had wired the money for the term to your bank account. Another chunk of your father’s savings, wasted on his dream for you.

Is there any part of it you like? you imagined him asking now.

You thought of Professor Wayne, dusting his chalky fingers off on his pant legs. How quickly he glanced away when your eyes met.

“No,” you mumbled.

Titus, in front of you in line, turned around. “Huh? What’s up?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” you said, shaking your head. “Got my direct deposit, that’s all.”

After eating a greasy corn dog each, you and Titus continued your self-guided tour of the museum. It was massive, easily the biggest museum you had ever been in. You passed through an archway and were suddenly in a wing with a very different, more modern, architectural style. There was less of a crowd than there had been in the natural history wing, with all its dinosaurs and dioramas of black bears foraging for berries.

You paused in front of a bronze sculpture. It was a human-sized bat. Its wings unfolded in segments, thin bones providing structure for the webbed membranes to stretch between. A blindfold was pulled taut around its bulbous eyes and it gripped a scale between its jaws. The two empty plates bobbed up and down with the movement of the air in the room. There was a small label on the sculpture’s stand, the title was “Justice?”

“Someone thinks they’re really clever,” Titus said as he eyed the sculpture disdainfully.

“It’s giving me the creeps.”

At the end of the modern art hall, you reached an intersection. To the right were more exhibits, while the hallway to the left was blocked off with long black curtains. You could hear muffled talking and sounds of construction from behind the fabric. There was a sign on a stand in front of the curtains. New exhibit coming soon: Inside Arkham Asylum.

Arkham was the city’s oldest psychiatric hospital. It had a reputation for being notoriously cruel, with almost no oversight from the medical board. According to Titus, the Arkham higher-ups had tried to get the exhibit shut down. Since the museum was borrowing the artifacts from a private collection with connections to the Arkham family, the case had fallen through. The owner of the collection was paying handsomely for the extra security.

“Of course, they don’t want us talking about any of that to the patrons. It’s too controversial,” he said conspiratorially as you walked away from the dead end.

“You won’t have anyone trying to fight you to impress their date, at least.”

“Hey, you never know. I’ll throw down.” He pretended to duck and weave, throwing an air punch. “I’m ready to put my life on the line for Gotham City Museum!”

You laughed, then felt your face dip as you felt a sudden wave of sadness. You reached out and wrapped your arm around his. He took the gesture in stride and held your hand. The contact was comfortingly firm, grounding you. You took a deep, shaky breath.

“Sometimes I think you’re the only normal person in Gotham,” you said.

“Try telling that to the guys downtown,” he grumbled. “Lots of fish but no nibbles.”

“No, seriously. I don’t know what I’d be doing here without you.”

Titus paused, pulling you by the hand out of the way of pedestrian traffic in front of a painting. He searched your face, seeing the roil of grief you had been pushing down all day.

“You doing okay? I know it’s a lot, everything with your dad, I–”

“No, it’s nothing. Just so busy, school’s kicking my ass, and…” you trailed off. The painting you had paused in front of was expanding, filling your field of view. You felt vertigo overtake you.

He squeezed your hand. “Want to ditch? Skip the rest?”

You nodded, lips pressed together in a frown, eyes stinging. “I feel bad not seeing everything. I just, I just…”

“Okay, let’s do it. Don’t even worry about it, we saw all the good stuff.” He wrapped an arm around your shoulders and you started walking towards the exit together.

The entrance to the museum was the tallest area, sweeping ceilings making your steps on the marble floors echo into the jumble of crowd talk and kids running. The sensations overwhelmed and disoriented you. If Titus hadn’t been guiding you you might have given up on escaping, hiding and crying in a bathroom stall.

You passed the turnstiles, holding hands and waiting for each other to push through the metal bars that clicked how many people passed through. The setting sun dazzled your eyes as you stepped out into the Gotham evening.

On the way to the bus stop that would take you both to your apartment you passed a small crowd. People wearing ski masks were waving signs with slogans. “Arkham keeps our streets safe.” “Psychos belong behind bars.” “Keep criminals locked up.” You tried to ignore them but a masked woman rushed up and shoved a flier into your hand.

“Gotham City Museum is spreading lies about Arkham Asylum! We won’t stand for it!” she yelled then moved to the people behind you, dispersing more handouts and shouting more slogans.

The suddenness of it shocked you into alertness. Titus herded you towards the bus stop across the street just as you were about to give the protestor a piece of your mind.

“What the fuck was that?” you bristled.

Titus shook his head and rubbed your shoulder. “Like I said, it’s a controversial exhibit. People are pissed off.”

You crumpled the flyer up and shoved it deep into your pocket without bothering to read it.

* * *

At your apartment, you grabbed your portfolio bag and hugged Titus goodbye. He offered to come with you to campus, wait for you during your class. You turned him down. You wanted to be alone, give yourself time to think.

Getting into the building wasn’t a problem, you had finally gotten a current ID card. Professor Wayne and Kanara were in the classroom already by the time you arrived. You avoided glancing in his direction, not wanting to know if he was looking at you. I am not doing this, you told yourself. I am not crushing after my damn professor. You’re here to finish school and get the fuck out of here.

Professor Wayne’s voice cut through the milieu. “Okay, everyone, listen up, we’re starting with a critique of your homework assignments. I’ll explain once the stragglers make their way in, but get started by pinning your homework to the board and taking a seat.”

You listened but didn’t look his way, nose kept in your phone. Sooner or later you would have to stop avoiding him, or else it would become painfully obvious, but you wanted to wait as long as possible.

A wall of the studio was lined with felt panels, meant for displaying art. You stood near the edge of the crowd, waiting for space to clear so you could pin it up. The drawing of the library hung limply in your hand. It took two thumb tacks at the top of the page and an extra one at the bottom to stop it from curling.

Once you took a step back and compared it to everyone else’s work, your stomach sank. You remembered noticing the tower had been lopsided, but you hadn’t realized how bad it had been. Other details too, the gargoyles, bricks, the windows, all wrong. It was like the drawing had gone sour in your portfolio bag, the sketch that you remembered looking accurate to the scene in front of you had become this misshapen blob of lines that was barely recognizable as the Gotham University Library.

Scanning the other drawings, you realized that for several you could pinpoint the exact place the artist had been on campus for the project. The east dorms, the bookstore, the oak tree at the center of campus that had been growing since before Gotham existed as a city, they all matched their real life counterparts so well. When you looked back at your drawing, you felt embarrassed. The only saving grace was the few drawings that matched your lack of skill, but you couldn’t say that any of them were worse than yours.

Professor Wayne walked into your line of sight, his back to you, as he took in the long line of drawings. His white dress shirt was tucked in, a dark leather belt at a slight tilt on his hips. When he turned, the thin fabric pulled taut on his broad shoulders. You gritted your teeth and looked away.

“Here’s how we’re going to do this,” he said once the class had settled. “We’re not just building our drawing skills, we’re building our critique skills too. Just because it’s a ‘critique,’ doesn’t mean it’s fair game to be overly critical. We’re all still learning, me included.” He paced up and down the wall in front of the class, projecting his voice.

“To be fair to everyone, we’re all going to use the same format. I call it the critique sandwich. When you want to chime in about someone’s work, start with something you like about it. After that, give some constructive criticism, then something else you like. Okay? I’ll give an example.” He paused in front of a drawing of a park fountain done in pencil.

“Clayton, I’m picking yours because we talked about it earlier, not to pick on you.” Professor Wayne scanned the class looking for whoever Clayton was. You barely knew anyone’s names.

The kid who had made fun of you in the bookstore raised a hand, and Professor Wayne nodded in recognition when he saw him. What a generational suck up, you thought.

“Let’s see,” Professor Wayne said as he examined the drawing. “Well, Clayton, I love how you’ve used negative space to give the illusion of water spray coming off the fountain. That’s a great trick.” He pointed as he spoke, highlighting different parts of the drawing.

“Overall, I think the image could use some more contrast. Bringing a softer pencil like a 6B to these shadows can push them further, making the light areas pop just a little bit more. That being said, the texture on the fountain itself is lovely, I can tell you had a very steady hand and good eye with these small lines in the stone. Great job.”

Clayton was clearly proud of himself, holding back glee at the compliments. You could barely stop yourself from rolling your eyes. Professor Wayne had been too constructive with not enough critique, but you had to admit the drawing was one of the best on the board. You were certain he wouldn’t find the same redeeming qualities in yours.

The critique started in earnest and Professor Wayne pulled up a chair and joined the audience. Students stepped up one at a time, going down the line in order, and fielded questions and comments about their work. People attempted to follow the critique sandwich formula for the most part, to mixed results.

Your anxiety built as the number of drawings before yours dwindled. The last thing you wanted was to stand in front of the class and Professor Wayne and give excuses for your botched work.

“Thank you Poppy, that turned out really lovely. I think if you incorporate that technique into the next project you might find it works well with your style. Okay, who’s next? I think we can get to everyone before the break at this rate.”

Poppy’s sketch of the view from her dorm window was pinned right next to yours. Time to walk the plank. You begrudgingly stood and stepped up next to your sketch. It felt uncomfortable to be the center of attention, acutely aware that almost no one there knew you. Professor Wayne’s deep blue eyes were a refuge from the blinking horde of the rest of the class, but one that you resented.

“This is the GU library, from one of the benches out front,” you said, your throat painfully dry. “I, uh, used marker.” You paused, trying to think of something else to say about the work. You opened your mouth then quickly shut it, realizing you had nothing else to add. Professor Wayne nodded and wrote something down in a binder. You hadn’t realized he was taking notes.

There was a long beat of silence, then Professor Wayne spoke up.

“Well, does anyone have anything to say about Y/n’s work? Comments, questions? I’ve got a few, unless someone else does.”

“Yeah, actually,” said Clayton, raising his hand. Your heart sank. “First off, I think marker was the perfect choice here, it gives it that raw, unedited feel.”

It didn’t quite sound like an insult but it rang hollow in your chest. The drawing did look unedited, if unedited meant it had multiple glaring mistakes you couldn’t fix because of the permanent ink.

“My issue with this drawing is the perspective, it’s honestly confusing. The library’s tower is about to fall over and the horizon isn’t really flat. The details don’t follow any vanishing point either.”

You wished you could phase through the floor and into the basement. The classroom that had seemed so massive on the first day was now as small as a closet, stifling you and any hope you had of being artistic. You had gone out on a limb, tried something new by taking this class on a whim, and now here you were, being berated by this asshole in front of the whole class.

“Honestly, it’s not a bad drawing despite the perspective. It’s cute, I like it.”

His last comment made your mind up for you. You couldn’t do it. You wanted out. Professor Wayne studied your face and you looked away, at the door in the back of the room.

“I like it too,” Professor Wayne said. “There’s—”

You cut him off. “Actually, you can just go to the next person. This really isn’t working for me, I’m going to drop the class and take something different.”

Professor Wayne’s face fell. He looked like he had something to say but it didn’t come. The class was silent. You walked back to your seat, slung your portfolio over your shoulder and headed for the door, not bothering to take your drawing.

Eyes stinging, you walked down the arched hallway away from Art 111. The door swung closed behind you, then creaked open again a few seconds later. You ignored the urgent footsteps echoing behind you until he said your name.

“Y/n, please.”

You stopped. You gripped the strap of the portfolio bag tighter, trying and failing to hold back the wave of feelings for the second time in the day. You never cried this much.

He had followed you halfway down the hallway, hurried to catch up to you. When you turned around you saw that his shirt was rumpled, hair slightly out of place, a look of concern painted on his features.

“Are you okay?”

“I just want to go home,” you said, dabbing your eyes with your sleeve. “I’m fine.”

He rested his hands on his hips, breathing slightly faster than normal. “If this is about Clayton’s comments, I’m going to talk to him. That was too harsh.”

“No, he was right. It’s a bad drawing.”

“I don’t agree.”

You scoffed. Of course he didn’t agree. He was the professor, the one who had to say something positive about everyone, regardless of how shitty their art skills were. How the man in front of you had chosen willingly to take a job teaching pricks like Clayton was beyond you.

“I’m dropping the class, that’s it. Goodbye.”

You turned around and walked away. He didn’t follow you further. This was one way to kill a crush, at least.

The misty air outside the Crawford building concealed your tears, cooling them on your cheeks until they burned. You sat on a cold wooden picnic table on campus and pulled up your class schedule. When you had pulled up the listing for Art 111, you were confronted with the “drop class” button one last time. You pressed it without hesitation and immediately placed your phone face down on the table, folding your arms to hide your face as you sobbed.

The day had been miserable. The only good part had been seeing Titus, and that had been tainted by the constant reminder of your uncle texting you. He had never texted you before in your life until after the will reading when you learned he was your trustee, your father’s appointed gatekeeper. He hadn’t bothered to visit more than twice in three years, and now he was trying to tell you what your father meant by putting you through this hell.

The classes, the homework, the humiliation of presenting your shitty drawing in front of Professor Wayne, Clayton being around in every class sucking up to Professor Wayne. It was unbearable, and it was only the second week.

Sobs turned to deep, heaving breaths as you ran out of tears. After a few minutes, you breathing stabilized. You sat up and rubbed your eyes, then checked your phone.

Your schedule was still open to Art 111. There was a pop-up notification on the website, covering half the screen.

“Professor approval required to drop course.”

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noisylime · 2 months ago

Text

Form and Figure

2. First Impressions

parts: previous / next

battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

(eventual smut)

Chapter Summary: You attend the first session of Professor Wayne's Drawing 111 class.

You followed the signs through campus to the Crawford building with your portfolio bag tucked under your arm. You admired the architecture as you walked; GU was home to some of the oldest buildings in the city, spires and flying buttresses providing a striking contrast to the glass and steel of the surrounding area.

After a few minutes of wandering you noticed The Crawford building’s ornate facade risen high into the foggy evening, the classroom for Art 111 somewhere inside.

You strode up the long flat steps to the entrance and tugged on the handle. It was locked. You tried the other handle, but no such luck. Earlier in the day you’d gotten inside with no issues—now you noticed a laminated sign taped to the inside of the door’s window. “Open to the public 9 am to 4 pm. ID required for entrance all other times.”

You hadn’t had a chance to make it to the ID center yet, you’d been procrastinating paying the extra fee to have a new picture taken and card printed on top of all your school expenses. Now you regretted it.

At the door was a key-card scanner that looked out of place. You held your ID up. The scanner beeped, then it’s small light flashed red. No luck.

With your hands cupped against the door window, peeking around the taped sign, you could make out a few students further down the hallway. You knocked, trying to get their attention. One student glanced your way and you waved at them, then pointed at the door. They shrugged at you apologetically and turned back to their conversation as your breath fogged up the glass.

Shit.

You surveyed your surroundings for other options. The lawn in front of the Crawford building was sparsely populated, but someone would use the entrance soon, right? The class started after most had ended and the campus was mostly empty, but it wasn’t abandoned. If someone opened the door, maybe you could sneak in on their coattails.

The trick would be standing far enough away from the entrance to look like you weren’t loitering. Your expired ID had caused enough problems already and you didn’t want to find out what a GU security guard might make of it. You hoped Professor Wayne wouldn’t mind if you were a few minutes late.

You waited halfway down the steps. You judged the distance between yourself and the entrance to be not suspicious but still close enough to slide through after an unsuspecting student or professor. The portfolio bag was starting to dig into your shoulder despite its padded strap.

Across the lawn you sighted a pair of students turning towards the building. You pretended to be on your phone, trying and probably failing to seem casual. You thought you looked like the world’s least stealthy pickpocket lying in wait for a score.

“Hey,” you said into you calculator app. “How’s it going at Mora’s?”

Titus would only be an hour into his long shift at the bar, still just barely getting started for the night. He would be checking ID after ID, leaving some people in a predicament similar to yours, stuck waiting outside because of a silly little card. Somewhere in Gotham someone made a killing selling phony driver’s licenses to high schoolers, sending them out to get a stern talking-to by Titus.

“Wow, I can’t even believe they would try that again,” you said as the pair of students, deep in conversation, passed you by without a second glance and scanned themselves into the building. You hitched the bag up on your shoulder and fell into step a comfortable distance behind them.

As you hurried, you realized the door was closing a lot quicker than you expected, swinging shut with a surprising weight. Your portfolio thunked against your body as you took the steps two at a time, reaching out as far as as you could in front of you. You felt your skin graze the cool metal as it just barely slipped through your fingers and slammed shut with finality.

You gave the handle a small, pointless tug. The pair of students were already far down the hallway and you didn’t want to humiliate yourself by knocking again. You were resigned to waiting for another opportunity.

When you turned around your portfolio bag followed suit. It almost swiped into the outstretched arm of a tall, dark haired man wearing a dark grey jacket. He was young, maybe only a few years older than you. His blue eyes felt like being dunked in a tank of ice water. Your breath caught in your chest.

“Allow me,” he said in a low timbre. The man waved a lanyard in front of the scanner in a smooth motion. He ran a hand through his hair, tucking loose strands behind his ear as he held the door open for you.

“Thanks,” you said quickly and stepped past him, careful to not catch your portfolio on the doorway. You hoped he couldn’t tell how flustered you were.

Once inside, the two of you were greeted by a long rib-vaulted hallway with classroom doors at regular intervals on either side. Arched stained-glass windows lined the top of the hallway high above you, transmuting the glare of downtown Gotham into a warm glimmer.

“What do you think?” the man said from behind you as you paused to take in the ambiance. “The restorations over the summer went well, I’d say.”

“Yeah, it’s...it’s lovely.” You started to walk down the main hall, glancing at the numbered signs to find your classroom. The man walked alongside you with a sure stride.

“Are you a new student?” he asked. His deep blue eyes glinted when he looked at you and you had to turn away, pretending to look at the paintings that hung on the walls to avoid staring.

“Returning, actually. I’ve been away for a while. New to this building though, I haven’t taken art class before.”

“That’s exciting. What class?”

“Intro to drawing.” You waggled the portfolio bag hanging on your arm.

“Ah, that’s a shame.” He gave a slight grin. “The professor for that class, he’s not very good.”

You awkwardly laughed, not quite sure if he was serious.

“The classroom for 111 is just down here,” the man said, gesturing at a branch from the main hall. You could see a group of students gathering in front of a classroom door, waiting for the professor to arrive. Among them you could make out the students that you had tried to enter behind, and the one who had refused to open the door for you. Not a very promising group as far as potential friends went.

Was this man a student too? If he was in the same class, maybe you’d have a chance at surviving the term. One of the students in the group down the hall noticed him and waved excitedly, the man waving back. So he had a friend group already then.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he said. You hadn’t noticed until now that he wasn’t carrying a bag or portfolio of any sort. “It’s nice to meet you…”

“Y/n,” you said. He repeated your name. It rolled off his tongue. You said thank you, you too and he left you to fend for yourself with the rest of the students.

You’d worn an outfit that had felt ‘artsy’ enough and you assumed was somewhat on-trend, but everyone in the cluster of students—apparently already forming cliques—was wearing clothes that you never would have expected to work together. Fashion moved quick in Gotham. You wondered what Titus would say about these outfits. He was always more fashionable than you, able to keep up with trends and new designers. You hadn’t had an opportunity to care about anything like that in a long time.

As the time ticked away, the hallway started to feel cramped. Everyone had a massive bag in tow and there wasn’t much room to move without bumping into someone or their stuff. Some of the students walking up were dressed comparably to you which you were grateful for. You wouldn’t stand out like a sore thumb at the very least.

The thought of introducing yourself to someone or trying to make a friend crossed your mind. You glanced around, trying to see if anyone in the class looked remotely familiar. Your earlier class had been “Chemistry for Engineering Majors”—one of the major-specific courses—so you figured there wasn’t much overlap. No one caught your eye as a potential candidate.

You thought about the man you met. When he asked you a question, it felt like he actually wanted to know the answer. It felt like more than vapid small talk. You hadn’t felt that from a stranger in a long time. You realized you’d forgotten to ask what his name was.

Through a brief gap in the crowd you caught a glimpse of the back of someone’s head wearing a flat cap. No fucking way, you thought. That kid from the bookstore? The gap closed before you could get a good look at their face. You hoped you were seeing things, that the stress of a long first day was catching up to you and causing hallucinations.

Exactly five minutes before class was set to begin the door opened. Excited chatter bounced around the hallway’s sculpted marble walls, then died down as a woman dressed in a sweater walked out and waved for everyone to listen.

“Hi everyone, I’m Kanara, Professor Wayne’s TA,” she said, projecting her voice so you could hear her from the back. “He’s asked that before he gets here everyone gets set up for the day. Come in, sign your name on the attendance sheet, then get a chair from the back.”

You reached the door after shuffling in a disorganized line and stepped into the classroom for Art 111: Intro to Drawing. The sign-in sheet was on a small table by the door and you signed next to your name with the provided ballpoint pen.

You were surprised at how empty the classroom was. No desks, not even a podium like your morning lecture hall had had. The far wall featured a long chalkboard while the one to your right was covered in massive gothic windows. They weren’t stained glass like the ones in the hall, but were almost as intricate and had great draping curtains pulled to the side.

The space filled up quickly as students grabbed chairs from stacks in the far corner, unfolding them to stake their ground. You placed your seat near a window and tried to calm your nerves. It had been years since you’d drawn regularly, no one had seen your recent work except Titus. People seeing it, judging it, sounded terrifying.

All your efforts at staying calm went up in smoke when you caught sight of the kid with the flat cap. It had been him. Shit, just my luck.

While you were fuming, the man who had opened the door for you walked into the classroom. You smiled, glad that you’d have at least one friend in the class. You wanted to wave him over, have him pull up a chair next to you. You held off for a moment as you noticed the way people’s heads were turning to look at him.

Kanara walked over and said something to him you couldn’t hear, and he nodded as his gaze swept the room. Seeing the way he took command of the room without even announcing himself, looking so at ease with the whispers and looks, something clicked into place.

That’s him!? Your mental image had been so far from the truth you hadn’t even realized who you’d been talking to.

He stepped up to the chalkboard and clapped his hands, signaling that class had begun.

You couldn’t believe that this was Professor Wayne. You were flabbergasted at how wrong your assumptions of him had been. Your mental picture was nothing like the man standing in front of the class, dark hair gently framing his sculpted face.

You remembered the joke he had made in the hallway. He must have thought you didn’t think his self deprecation was funny. Way to make a good first impression.

“Welcome everyone,” he said as the class settled down. “I’m so glad we were able to open up this extra slot of Art 111 before the term started. This is one of my—,” he briefly glanced your way, “—favorite classes to teach. I am Professor Wayne, as I’m sure some of you might already know.”

He was forced to pause as some of the class clapped. He waved the applause down.

“None of that, please. This class isn’t about me, it’s about you. I’m here for you to learn.” He looked around the room. Some people looked bashful, but some were nodding in agreement. He continued.

“There’s so much to learn about drawing, but we’re going to start at the beginning. Just like any craft, artists start by learning our tools.”

A piece of chalk materialized in Professor Wayne’s hand, procured from somewhere under his jacket. In one short, strong movement he left a perfectly straight line in the middle of the board.

“Can someone tell me what this is?”

Several hands shot up, eager to be the first person Professor Wayne picked. You saw the kid with the flat cap, his hand almost tearing off his body with how hard he was raising it. You narrowly avoided rolling your eyes at the obvious question, and the student’s overeagerness.

“Actually, let’s all just say the answer at once,” Professor Wayne corrected. “Don’t overthink it. What is this?” He tapped the chalk to the board, pointing.

“A line,” everyone said together. You mumbled along, not understanding the point. Did everyone just take this class because he was hot?

He smiled and nodded. “Exactly. This is our first and most simple tool, but surprisingly versatile. Our hammer and nail, if you will. What’s most important to keep in mind about a line, is that it has character. It remembers how you drew it. How would you describe this line? Just throw out some words.”

“Basic,” someone said. Others chimed in. “Flat.” “Sturdy.” “Straight.” “Boring.”

“Right, we can all agree that this one is pretty unremarkable, I think.” In a quick movement he tore the chalk across the board, snapping it halfway and continuing with the stub. You felt the movement in your gut, the surprising force of the arc he had followed.

Underneath the first line was a new one, much different. He turned to face the class “What about this one?”

The second line was choppy, conveying the speed and carelessness it had been drawn with. In the middle was a smattering of dust where the chalk had broken and he had pressed the nub into the green chalkboard, hard.

“Scratchy.” “Scary.” “Violent.” “Quick.”

“Yes, exactly. This one tells a different story about the person who drew it, and how they drew it. This is the most basic level of how we communicate as artists, the quality of our lines. In a bit I’ll bring out some shapes for us to draw. I want you to think about the story you’re telling. Are they happy shapes? Angry? Use your lines and how you’re drawing them to tell us how to feel.”

You followed along as Professor Wayne described the seven basic tools of drawing; line, shape, form, value, texture, space, and color. For each one, he drew a simple demonstration. You had to admit it was intoxicating to watch him work despite the simplicity of the sketches: a three-dimensional cube, a sphere with a shadow and highlight, and a quick gesture drawing of a face. You spent so much time admiring his dextrous fingers that you barely absorbed any of the content. The lecture flew by and before you knew it Professor Wayne was dismissing the class for a five minute break.

As you came back to your surroundings in a daze, you saw a few students walked up to Professor Wayne to ask him questions. At the front of the line was him, the student from the bookstore. He was asking Professor Wayne a complicated question you could only hear part of, while a pair of his cronies stood behind him and nodded along with every word.

To your horror, Professor Wayne was actually listening. Intently. You stared across the studio while he held the kid’s gaze. He only looked down for a moment to brush chalk dust off his fingers. You wished you had jumped up to get in line to talk to him just to cut the kid off. That, and to chat with Professor Wayne now that you knew who he really was. Your first impression might have been a dud, but there was always time for improvement.

Witnessing the atrocity was too much, so you left the room and stretched in the hallway. Other students mulled around, waiting for class to start up again.

You re-entered the room, with less than a minute left in the break, just as the kid was starting to sit back down. You noticed with satisfaction that some of the students who had wanted to talk to the professor were standing in line with sour expressions while the next person in line rushed through their question.

As you made your way to your chair you saw that Kanara had set up a small table in the center of the room. On top was a handful of geometric shapes painted white: a sphere with one side sanded flat so it didn’t roll off, a cube, a pyramid, and a cylinder. She was directing everyone to grab an easel from the back and set up in a circle around the still life.

Professor Wayne directed everyone’s attention to the shapes once everyone was set up. Following his instructions, you sat at an angle to your easel so you could see the still life at the same time. You got your newspaper pad out of your portfolio bag and used binder clips to attach it to the back of the easel.

Professor Wayne explained that the newsprint was used for charcoal sketches because it had a “good amount of tooth,” and was relatively cheap compared to other types of paper.

He had the class start studying the still life by sketching using vine charcoal. These were sticks of dusty charcoal as long as a pencil but twice as thin. You learned how brittle they were when the first one crumbled in your hand while you tried to scribble in a corner of the pad.

“The trick to vine charcoal is to hold it very lightly, and at an angle,” Professor Wayne said a few seconds too late to save your palms from a black dusting.

He stepped away from the center of the room and clicked a switch that dimmed the room’s overhead lights slightly. Another switch turned on spotlights pointed at the still life, throwing the shapes into sharp relief. From the edge of the circle, he announced that the timer was starting.

You started sketching. You honed in on the jumble of shapes and tried to outline where they met, finding the shadows and highlights like he had explained. The first page was a bust and you flipped it up and over the easel, exposing the next blank sheet.

As the class worked, Professor Wayne slowly walked the perimeter of the classroom, commenting on each student’s work in turn. You tried to stay aware of where he was, bracing yourself for critique once he saw your misshapen sketches.

After a handful of quick drawings to warm up, Professor Wayne announced that the class would be working on another, longer drawing. He stepped between the densely packed easels, placing a hand on the frame of yours for a second as he scooted by. He rearranged the blocks, making a new group of shapes to sketch.

Spending more time on the drawing felt more natural than hurrying through the sketches. The vine charcoal was starting to wear down and you found you could use both the flat edge and the sharp tip you created to get different widths of line.

“Hmm.” Someone behind you made a noise and you jumped, almost dropping your charcoal. You’d been so involved in your drawing that you hadn’t noticed Professor Wayne was behind you, watching you as you worked. The thought of him seeing you delicately shaping the shadow you’d been studying made your stomach flutter.

He rubbed his jaw as he studied your drawing. You looked back at it and saw with dismay that part of it had smudged when you’d been startled. Professor Wayne bent down so he was at your level.

“You’re doing amazing. I’ve got one pointer though. May I?”

“Sure, you’re the teacher after all,” you said. He smiled.

“Charcoal dust is looser than a pencil’s graphite,” he said. “It doesn’t stick to the paper as much. This means you can blend it like you did here.” He pointed at the side of the sphere in your drawing where you had used your fingertip to smear the dust into a softer shadow. “Those are lovely gradients. You can also smudge your work very easily, though. Try to hover over the page, only letting the charcoal touch. Does that make sense?”

You tried putting your hand up to the page, not letting anything touch except the tip of the vine charcoal. You’d only drawn in smaller notepads and sketchbooks, and the bigger newsprint sheets were a noticeable adjustment. And, drawing without your hand touching the page? You’d always used your palm to plant your hand on the paper and control your movements. It felt unnatural.

“I see what you mean, I guess I don’t really see how,” you said.

“Here, can I show you?” He pointed at your hand. You nodded.

Professor Wayne cupped your hand in his, your arms overlapping. His jacket sleeve was soft on your skin. He held your hand just above the page, moving your arm in larger arcs.

“When you lift your hand from the easel, the drawing motions come from the whole arm, not just the wrist,” he said. You were acutely aware of how close he was, how good he smelled, how much his hair refused to stay put behind his ear.

“It feels strange at first, but it’ll be second nature before long.” He turned your hand over in his, showing the side of your pinky and palm. It was smeared with charcoal from the paper. “And it’ll help avoid this,” he said.

He let go of your hand and you let it fall to your lap gently. It laid there, tingling, not feeling like a real part of you.

“That makes sense,” you managed to say as he straightened up.

“Keep up the good work,” he said and walked to the next student’s station. You released the breath you hadn’t realized you were holding.

The amount of time left in the day felt impossibly long and you swam through it like molasses, trying to sketch with half your mind preoccupied. Professor Wayne ended class a few minutes early so everyone could pack up. You slid your materials into your portfolio bag and zipped it closed in a daze.

You headed for the exit but glanced back just before leaving. You saw Professor Wayne in conversation with another student who held up their drawing and pointed something out to him. He looked up and locked eyes with you for a brief moment, then tore his gaze away and back to the drawing.

As you walked back to the train stop closest to the Crawford building, rain dripping from your bag and clothes, you wondered if he had felt that same jolt of electricity.

40 notes · View notes

noisylime · 3 months ago

Text

Form and Figure

1. Registration

parts: next

battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

(eventual smut)

Art 111: Intro to Drawing

4 Credits. Lab & Studio

Instructor: Wayne, Bruce [email: [email protected]]

Course Description:

In this class, you will learn the basic elements of artistic composition, including line, shape, form, value, and perspective. Theory learned in lectures will be applied to various still life drawings using charcoal, pencil, and marker. This course is highly interactive, with each class requiring participation in studio time. Professor Wayne teaches a mixed lab and lecture course with availabilities for additional studio time outside of regular class hours. Materials not provided.

Course materials estimated price: $145.

To browse GU Bookstore bundles click here.

The phone alarm blasted through your skull, sounding like one of the commuter trains that rattled over your apartment had derailed and crashed through your ceiling. That actually sounded preferable to waking up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 am. The course calendar for Fall term at Gotham University opened in five minutes and you still hadn’t decided what classes you were going to take. It was your first term back in a long time.

Going to an out-of-state school had seemed like a way to find yourself on your own terms, and Gotham was far enough from home to feel like another planet. Two years of general education classes with a smattering of electives hadn’t quite been the elucidating experience you expected, but it had been fun. That had all gone to shit when you’d had to leave Gotham at the end of your sophomore year, taking an extended break from school to care for your dad. You’d called it taking a ‘gap year’ but it was closer to three.

Well, that was all over. Now you were a super-senior-aged-junior with enough trauma to stop your academic advisor from pushing you too hard to declare a major and almost enough credits to cobble a degree together.

You were currently waffling between majoring in civil engineering and English lit, both of which felt equally uninteresting. Last night you had planned out schedules for each option and decided to literally sleep on it, putting sticky notes with class codes scribbled on them under your pillow.

Rubbing sleep out of your eyes, you cracked open your laptop. You still had a few precious minutes to make a decision. The clarity you had wanted hadn’t miraculously come overnight, both options still sounded unbearable. You reached under your pillow and decided to go with whichever one you grabbed first. Civil Engineering, on a yellow crumpled 3x3 sheet.

Well, at least you were being decisive, which Titus would say was an improvement. Your friend since freshman year at GU and roommate for the past three months, he worked nights as a bouncer at a club, Mora’s.

Typing the codes into the school’s course registration system was a race to see if you could finish before the website crashed. Once you had double checked the numbers you clicked ‘submit’ and held your breath.

“You’re fucking kidding me!” you blurted as the schedule notification popped up. You’d gotten in to three of your four classes. And the fourth… “Waitlist full? It hasn’t even been two minutes!”

You closed the laptop and carried it out to the kitchen, sitting at the counter and pouring yourself a bowl of cereal. Crunching on Honeycomb violently expressed your dissatisfaction at the college experience to anyone who would listen.

“Damn, you’re up early,” Titus said, closing the front door behind him. He was wearing a smart black leather bomber over a white tee shirt, some gold jewelry accenting the outfit. He didn’t dress like your stereotypical idea of a bouncer, choosing to match the glam and glitz of the interior of the club. On the rare occasion a patron got on his bad side, misjudging his strength based on his appearance, they found themselves thrown to the curb in the blink of an eye.

“Hey,” you said.

He stomped off his military boots at the doorway and walked over to you, giving you a side hug which you accepted gratefully despite the glitter that transferred onto your black tee.

“What’s going on?” he asked, detecting your sour mood.

“Trying to sign up for classes. Everything’s full,” you said around a mouthful of cereal. You tapped the spoon on your closed laptop thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s not worth it, you know? College? It seems overrated.”

Titus plonked his backpack on the counter and pulled up onto one of the barstools. When Mora’s had remodeled over the summer he’d grabbed them from the dumpster, polished the stainless steel and conditioned the leather. You’d told him you could buy a set of stools that weren’t so beat up. He had waved your offer away, saying they had ‘character’ which apparently included the metallic squeak from the chair when he swiveled to face you.

“Honestly?” he said. “Yeah, it is. So overrated.” He grabbed a handful of cereal and popped a few of the hexagons in his mouth, crunching loudly. “My marketing degree does come in handy working at Mora’s, though.” He elbowed you playfully when you laughed.

Moving back to Gotham, getting this apartment with Titus, it hadn’t come cheap. You were lucky to not have to work through college for the time being, but it came with a catch. Your inheritance from your dad was locked behind a condition: finish school, get a degree.

“How was work?” you asked, wanting to think about anything other than the upcoming term.

“Broke up a few fights, had some drinks thrown at me, nothing crazy.” Titus pulled a handful of cards out of his pocket and slid them across the counter to you. “Some kids tried to pass these off as legit.” He crossed his arms on the countertop and laid his head down on them, closing his eyes.

You thumbed through the small pile of cards. The IDs were obvious fakes, the lamination had blistering from a defective card printer and the photos looked like they might be from a high school yearbook. “‘Drew Peacock?’ No fucking way. That’s so funny.”

“Yup. Droopy Cock, ha ha,” Titus said dryly, voice muffled from underneath his crossed arms. “And get this, there was a guy at the bar trying to tell everyone he knows the Batman. Like, actually knows him personally.”

He put on a faux sleaze-bag voice, dripping in slime. “’Hey lady, if you come back to my place I can ask him to come too.’ That type of thing.”

The Batman. Gotham’s resident vigilante, the Dark Knight himself. He was practically a myth, taking the law into his own hands.

“Are people into that kind of thing?” you asked.

“You’d be surprised,” Titus chuckled. “People are into all kinds of crazy shit. There’s something about the mask, the mystery. Gets people going.”

“Yeah, well, not me. Someone who gets off on beating the shit out of people in dark alleys? No thanks,” you said. You’d never seen the Batman and you never wanted to, the whole thing creeped you out. You preferred your men nice, bubbly, and vanilla.

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” Titus said. He stood up off the bar stool wearily and stretched, limbs creaking and cracking from a long shift. “Anyway, I’m going to crash. Get a good schedule for me, ok?”

Titus headed to his room, shedding layers of dark leather on the way. You opened your laptop and begrudgingly returned to the registration portal. Clicking through the remaining open classes, you hoped for something to catch your eye. Pottery? Yawn. Statistics? Please.

While you were browsing the course catalog, an email notification popped up in the corner of your screen. An announcement from the school’s Fine Arts department.

“Due to the high demand for Professor Wayne’s Art 111 course he has graciously agreed to open up another slot, available now. Seats are first-come-first serve. The course is open to all students, regardless of pathway.”

You were desperate to be done with registration and had no better ideas, so you took the email as a sign. You copy-pasted the course code into your schedule, clicked ‘submit,’ and waited while the loading icon swam laps around your cursor. Once you got a confirmation email of your Fall schedule change, you let out a sigh of relief.

It was only after you had signed up you started to wonder what you’d just gotten into. You skimmed through the course summary. Taught by Professor Bruce Wayne. That name rang a bell, but you couldn’t quite place it. The only catch was that it was a night class. That would have been nice to know before signing up. Too late now.

“You will learn the basic elements of artistic composition, including form, shadow, value, line…” you mumbled, reading the course description. The class sounded slightly better than abusing Titus’ goodwill to get a job at Mora’s washing dishes, spending the next fifty years paying back your loans while your inheritance sat in a trust fund you couldn’t access.

It hurt, knowing that your dad was making you jump through hoops for support even after he was gone. You’d taken care of him more than almost anyone, wasn’t that enough? Well, Dad, I’m doing it, you thought.

You closed your laptop and checked the time. Still painfully early. Going back to sleep might have been nice, make up for some of the stolen time, but you were too wired after the stress of registration. Instead, you tossed on a jacket and boots and headed out into the soggy Gotham morning in search of a real breakfast. One week left of break, you might as well try to enjoy it.

* * *

Standing in the checkout line at the GU bookstore, you again wished that you had looked at the course description of Art 111 a little more closely. Your arms were wrapped around a stack of art supplies carefully balanced atop two massive pads of paper, one was something called “newsprint,” and the other was “medium weight dry media cold press drawing paper.”

“What’s the difference, paper is paper,” you grumbled to yourself as you moved forward in line. The bookstore had just opened for the term and the line was as slow as you remembered it being back before you left Gotham. Some things never change, and apparently the number of cashiers at the GU bookstore was one of them.

You studied your pile of drawing implements, hoping you had gotten everything Professor Wayne’s syllabus had listed. Charcoal (vine and compressed), a kneaded eraser, a vinyl eraser, a set of sketching pencils in hardnesses 2H, HB, B, 2B, 4B, and 6B, a pencil sharpener (“please make sure your sharpener has a receptacle so we can avoid shavings on the ground”), a ruler, tape, and some other items buried underneath that you couldn’t remember. It was so much stuff that you’d resigned to a second, later trip to the bookstore for your actual textbooks once you had seen the size of the paper pads.

There were a few things you’d added that weren’t required, but you thought you might need. A pencil case, a few colored pencils just for fun, and a portfolio case to fit your supplies in. Wandering around the notoriously rainy campus with a big glob of wet paper sounded awful, so you’d splurged for the portfolio that was specifically labeled as waterproof.

When you finally reached the cashier, they eyed your mess of supplies warily. You plopped them onto the checkout counter, wringing your hands that were sore from holding it all for too long.

The cashier tallied up your total, beeping each item with a handheld scanner. You watched with unease as the price on the screen kept going up. Thanks, Professor Wayne, you thought. Real nice first impression, making me pay two hundred bucks for your class before I even get in the door.

“Student ID?” The cashier asked. She pointed at a sign hanging from the back of the cash register advertising a promotion. “It’s 10% off if you have it with you, this week only.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” you said and dug through your wallet for it. “Here you go.”

They took the card and turned it over, inspecting it. “This is from three years ago.”

Shit. You hadn’t had a chance to get a new one yet since moving back. “I’m getting a new one soon,” you said. “Like, tomorrow. I’m getting back to school after taking a break for a while.”

“Sorry, the discount only applies with current school year ID,” the cashier said.

“What? It doesn’t say that anywhere on this,” you said, pointing at the sign. “It just says ‘with student ID.”

The cashier gave you a look that said “I don’t make the rules.”

“Your total is two hundred and thirteen dollars and forty three cents,” they said flatly.

You scoffed. Typical GU, pinching pennies despite somehow pulling endless tuition out of their students. You didn’t like it on principle. If you were stuck taking classes here, you wanted to do it as cheaply as possible.

Someone behind you cleared their throat. You turned to see a student, probably four years your junior, wearing a flat cap and stiff brown sweater over a button down shirt. A collection of supplies that looked suspiciously similar to your own selections were organized in a shopping basket on the ground in front of him. Since when did they have baskets? He raised an eyebrow then moved his gaze to your scramble of items on the counter disapprovingly.

“What?” you said.

“Are you done?” the kid asked. As if you, and not the lack of cashiers, was the reason the line was stuck at a snail’s pace.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, aren’t you going to check out? There’s a line,” he said, gesturing behind him at the ever-growing retinue of students, some of which were turning away awkwardly to avoid your gaze. He smiled smugly. “Or are you going to keep arguing about the senior discount?”

You just stared for a second, not believing what you’d heard. He waited for you to retort back, then when he realized it wasn’t coming, rolled his eyes and turned away.

Silently, you pulled out your card, paid the full price, and left with your armful of stuff.

* * *

“Seriously, when did people get so rude?” you asked Titus the next day, at Mora’s. You were eating together before his shift started to celebrate your first day of the term. Since you still had Art 111 class later in the evening, you’d brought your massive portfolio bag full of supplies with you to Mora’s, garnering a few looks on the way in from patrons you had almost smacked.

“Tell me about it,” he said, mid-bite into a hot Italian sub slider. “They’re fucking awful. Not us, of course.” A pickled pepperoncini fell off the sandwich onto his plate. You’d gotten a seitan pork roll and a slice of pie. It was your dinner, but for his schedule the meal was closer to brunch.

“I don’t know how you can eat those,” you said, pointing at the stray pepperoncini. “They’re way too vinegar-y.”

“Says the person having a Hot Shot,” he retorted. The drink was a Mora’s staple, half tequila half jalapeño brine. “The most brine-y drink on the planet.”

“Hey, there’s something about it, okay? We all have our vices,” you said, sipping the small glass. It was not a drink necessarily meant for sipping, but you liked to make it last.

A handful of Titus’ rings sat on the booth table from when he’d taken them off to eat. You picked up one of the pieces of jewelry and found that it was surprisingly heavy. It was meant for two fingers, the thick bands tapering to a slight point at the tip of each knuckle.

“Aren’t these illegal?” you said, turning it around in your hand. Titus grinned.

“What do you mean?” he asked coyly.

There was a third loop on the bottom, a wide oval that sat in your palm, giving you some grip. You glanced around to make sure no patrons were within hearing distance, then slipped it on and made a fist, miming a boxing jab. “Brass knuckles? Right? Aren’t these kind of retro?”

“That, my friend, is a gold statement ring.”

“It’s pretty heavy for a ring.”

“Maybe it moonlights as a paperweight.”

You chuckled. “You ever use it? Like actually on someone?”

He leaned back in the dark green velvet seat and sipped his blackberry lemonade. “Do you really want to know? I thought you didn’t like people who beat up bad guys in alleys,” he teased.

“Just wondering if they actually work,” you said, feeling the weight of the ring in your hand. It felt reassuring, the grip in your palm felt like it could do some real damage. “This kid on campus might need a good whack.”

Titus got serious and sat the four legs of his chair back on the ground. He held out a hand and you dutifully slipped the ring off and handed it back.

“Honestly,” he said. “It’s pretty brutal. It doesn’t look like much but it will fuck you up. And not just on the receiving end. You can shatter your wrist holding one wrong. You gotta really straighten out your hand, use your whole arm. It’s more of a threat than anything. If someone thinks I’m gonna pop them in the face with this then they might rethink trying to pick a fight.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll stick with my taser.”

Titus nodded. “Probably a good idea.” He twirled the ring around and held it up, showing you some detail you couldn’t make out.

“What am I looking at?”

“Right on the knuckles here, see that?”

You squinted and bent over your plate, finally seeing a small symbol embossed on each point of the ring.

“Is that, what is that? A ’T’? And a snake?”

“It’s ’T. S.’,” he said. “If I ever do have the misfortune of using these on someone, they won’t forget who did it in a hurry.” He downed the rest of his lemonade. “I’ve really only used them once or twice. It’s more for show, you know, fit the ‘tough bouncer’ look.”

A woman came over to the booth and Titus pocketed the ring in a flash.

“Hi Nicole,” Titus said. “How’s it goin’?”

She flashed you a business-womanly grin. She was dressed fashionably, a look fitting for the club’s manager.

“Hello Titus,” Nicole said. “You’ll be at the door at five, right?”

“Yes, of course. I was just about to head down there in a minute.”

“That’s great, I’m just making sure.” She turned to you and noticed your half-eaten plate of food. “How is everything, darling? Can I get you anything? On the house, of course.”

“Oh, no, everything’s delicious. Thank you! I’m just nervous, can’t eat that much. I’ve got class tonight in a bit, and I haven’t been to school in years, so it’s, you know—”

“Scary,” Titus finished. “School’s hard, always stressful.”

You nodded in agreement.

“Oh, night classes! That’s exciting, what school?” Nicole asked.

“GU.”

“That’s so nice. Well, I hope you have a good first day. And Titus, make it 4:50 if you can, would you please?”

He agreed, and Nicole left the two of you to talk to a table of patrons across the room.

When she was out of earshot, Titus said, “Four fifty? Come on. We aren’t even busy until six.” He shook his head and sighed. Then, after a pause, he picked up his fork and pointed with it at your plate. “Do you want that pie?”

“Go crazy,” you said, and pushed the plate across the booth table. Titus had comped the food, taking it out of his paycheck at the employee discount. As far as you were concerned, it was all his anyway.

“So, what’s this class tonight?”

“It’s this ‘intro to drawing’ course,” you said as you fiddled with your silverware. “I just had to pick something random to fill out my schedule. It’s basic stuff, I think, but it sounded interesting. Professor Wayne something.”

“You know, that actually sounds fun,” he said, then stopped in his tracks. “Wait a minute, did you say ‘Wayne’?”

“Yeah. Why, do you know him?”

“Do I know him?” He let out a quick bark of laughter.

“What? What’s so funny?”

“You really don’t know who he is?”

“No? Should I?” You dug in the recesses of your memory and came up empty-handed.

“Damn, that is so wild.” Titus ran a hand along his close cropped hair. “You’ve been away from Gotham for way too long, girl. The Waynes are old money Gotham, the family’s been around for, like, ever.”

Old money Gotham brought to mind art deco buildings, caviar and expensive wine, limousines with private drivers. Your mind filled with a vague picture of an old man, possibly bald with a beard, wearing an expensive old-fashioned suit and a pocket watch. You couldn’t stand the upper crust types in town, throwing charity galas that only benefitted themselves.

“What, so he’s rich?” you asked.

“Beyond belief. He’s a billionaire, I think.”

You scoffed. “He had me buy all this stuff, like two hundred bucks of supplies on top of tuition. Must be a cheapskate.” You gave the portfolio bag a tap with your foot.

Titus shook his head and downed the rest of his lemonade. “That’s rich types for you.”

“But he teaches at GU? I don’t get it, what would be the point? Some kind of vanity project?”

“No idea.”

“If I had that much money, I wouldn’t do shit. No school, no teaching, just relaxing.”

“You and me both.” Titus checked his phone and saw the time. “Shit, I’ve got to run. Look, tell me how it goes, okay?”

You said goodbye to Titus, lugging your portfolio bag and backpack out the side door of Mora’s. You headed to the nearest subway station and boarded the line headed for Gotham University. Well, you thought, I guess I’ll see what all the hype is about.

Shoutout to @ellesthots for letting me borrow her creation, Mora's. This fic is not related to Fateful but I wanted to include a piece of it since she's inspiring me to write this. Thank you Elle!

Thank you for reading, more coming very soon! Thoughts & comments are welcome and appreciated <3

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