#if Batman stopped most of the trucks then redirected

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Everyone wants a Year One Batman movie and then when they get it, they complain it’s too boring. No you wouldn’t have watched a movie with The Riddler setting up traps like it was a PG13 Saw.

Also the movie points out multiple times that this Batman isn’t as experienced at being a detective as his prep time counterparts are. Of course The Riddler almost won, no one actually looked in his hideout. Don’t randomly throw incel to describe The Riddler, it’s not an accurate description just because of his ideology. He wasn’t wrong about Gotham being ultra corrupt, and he’s supposed to represent how Bruce could have turned out without allies like Alfred.

A more accurate rendition of The Long Halloween might work later down the line. But as of yet there are no supervillains, just Batman being a detective in Gotham fighting corrupt police and mafioso.

You know what, you have a point about the incel comment.

But that character wasn’t the riddler.

The riddler is a narcissist that wanted someone intellectual to challenge. Thats his whole point. He wasn’t some “It’s society” problem child. Now is Gotham corrupt? Yes, that’s the point. Gotham is as corrupt, it’s a universal law.

But let’s talk about Batman.

I don’t have a problem with inexperienced Batman. That’s fine, but there is zero difference between Batman and Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne was a party boy billionaire that occasionally did philanthropy. Bruce Wayne is supposed to be charming, even in the origins. That’s the point. Because Bruce is the cover.

Batman here is serviceable, still figuring things out, but my goodness the level of which Batman failed is incredible. And it was all avoidable if they had actually did detective work! Like the first half of the movie makes me think it will have good detective work… and then it doesn’t. Plus Batman doesn’t come off as intimidating, he comes off as creepy.

The main problem is the length though. It just drags on for so long that you’d think that there would have been more done. If this was a two hour movie with everything that occurred, the oversight with the riddler stuff could at least be justified in a time crunch sense. But for this 3 hour movie… no.

[batarella]

The Commander - Part 14 (Arkham Knight x Reader)

Only the epilogue is left! I can’t believe the Commander series gained this much love and support from all of you! And I honestly can’t believe how far this went. You guys are making me live the dream!

WORDS: 5422 WARNINGS: VIOLENCE (AND OTHER STUFF BUT I WON’T SPOIL YOU GUYS HIHI)

Masterlist 

THE COMMANDER - MASTERLIST

------

Was it fear? With the whole world coming after her, everyone she’s come to know wanting her dead. After destroying the whole of Gotham, corrupting it just enough when its citizens have placed a bounty on her head, but not enough to actually succeed and instill the protection she needed?

Was it failure? How the entire Arkham Knight Militia failing at its most important task was almost entirely her fault, how she was thought to be its most prized soldier and would have been the key needed to occupy the city, and instead became the cause for its humiliating defeat?

Was it grief? Over the hundreds of lives she’s taken, or how the loss of her uncle has placed such a scar on her, something no one will be able to overlook, ending her career as the best markswoman?

Or was it hate? Failing at the one thing she was supposed to be best at, the one thing she was at least good at? How she has nothing left to her name, nothing to be proud of, nothing to show for. How she had so little of life left.

It was all of them. At the same time.

But there was also heartbreak.

The bag was still on the floor. 1.5 million dollars. All of which she had no right to at all. Not when she’s lost the militia so much. Not after what she’d costed Jason.

It was definitely heartbreak. At even just the slightest thought of his name, she could feel a part of her chest chip away like glass pieces on the floor.

Heartbreak. Fucking heartbreak. It hurts so much that her other bruises are so easily suppressed. Never will she complain about broken bones ever again. It was nothing compared to this.

She was so sure he loved her back. Maybe he did, and she tore that love away before she was even sure it was there. Jason was kind, gentle to her. And he saw her in an entirely different light than everyone else. And she failed him, knowingly drove a knife down his chest. She was now a part of the cause for his hurt. And Y/N will never forgive herself for that.

Y/N might never find that again with anyone else.

But she had to go.

She left the money bag on the floor. However things go, she’ll come back for it, if she even wants to. Y/N took one last look at her mask, her red gun optics.

She can no longer be Deadshot. Not after everything. Donning the mask would only cause her so much pain. Dropping it on the floor, she left.

And with that, she left the militia, Floyd, and everything else.

Rolling her shoulders, keeping her wounds in check and knowing which places to avoid getting hit. She was going to need more than just her wrist gun to get out of here. Slightly pushing the door, her eyes adjusted to the orange light.

The elevator was across from her, and judging from the view outside the mezzanine, she was two stories above the control room. The main entrance would most probably be blocked, but if she found some explosives, she could get out of the HQ and find a bike nearby. Weapons crates would probably be there as well.

Y/N couldn’t take the elevator, but a chute right beside it went straight down all the way to the bottom, at the center of Killinger’s.

Making sure her gloves were tightly secured, she stepped out of the room and removed the steel grates, prying it open with her bare hands. After pushing her weight against her foot on the wall, she looked down the almost bottomless chute and prayed her injuries wouldn’t come to bite her.

Y/N stepped in, breathed, slowed her heartbeat, then slowly slid down the metal with the fabric of her gloves and her rubber boots maintaining the friction she needed not to fall. Her muscles were killing her, but she could manage this. Slowly and slowly, she descended until she could see the floor. There was light coming from the other end, which meant it was definitely at the center.

She stretched her arms further out to not hit the floor so suddenly, and when she was just inches away, her boots met the ground, where it led her to another way under the floors of the department store. At the darker corners, she wouldn’t be seen. She had to be careful.

Y/N crawled under the tunnels. There was no noise, no voices coming from anywhere. The soldiers must have left, even when all the lights were on.

There should be another chute somewhere. Further down and an elevator should take her to safety. Y/N climbed up the grates. There was a number of bodies on different corners, and those bodies were still breathing. Batman.

“Anyone seen the Knight?”

“No,” she heard a voice. And it wasn’t coming from afar. She hid behind a pillar and peeked out.

A weapons case. Yes. She hurried to it and grabbed every gun she could find. A rifle, a machine gun, and two pistols. It was like she could breathe for the first time.

“He left his visor,” one of them said.

“He couldn’t have gone far. Spread out.”

Five men scattered around, and she’ll have to climb up to get to the elevator in one of the corners. There were medics tending to the bodies. She’ll have to get out of here fast. Y/N hid behind boxes and crates, avoiding any of the soldiers’ line of sight. She climbed up the side of the escalator, grabbing onto the ledge and sprinting out before anyone could see her.

The elevator was still on the farthest side. And one of them stood guard in front of it. Y/N snuck behind a railing, waiting it out at the corner where it turned. Clear.

But just as she got to the lift, the gears turned up. She sprinted to the grates and crawled to the darkest corner she could hide in.

“You son of a bitch. We had a deal!”

“Get a truck ready outside.”

Scarecrow. And Commissioner Gordon, who was tied up and hauled like a pig behind Crane as they made their way out.

There had to be around five men following him. She kept her silence.

“Where the hell are you taking me?”

After that, she could hear his voice being muffled with a cloth tied to his mouth. Y/N froze when a sergeant turned to her direction, eyeing the elevator.

“Deathstroke,” Scarecrow’s voice growled, and she swallowed hard at the rock lodged in her throat. “Send the divisions to Panessa Studios. I believe we have a person of interest in its confines.”

Gordon’s groans followed. Scarecrow spoke into his comms. “I have the commissioner. Send a squad to Arkham Asylum as well. Make sure they will be ready to broadcast live.”

The broadcast. The final phase of Scarecrow’s plan. That’s if Jason hadn’t killed the Batman already. Which, as it seems, didn’t happen at all.

Y/N crawled out from the corner and followed Scarecrow closely behind.

Then something exploded. The gates, the one leading to where she came from. From where she could see, a door fell to the ground and someone holding two guns in his hands busted out, aiming right at Crane.

Every other gun in the room pointed at him. Crane didn’t move, but he wasn’t bothered as well. Gordon was dropped to the floor and the man, wearing a red helmet, or a visor, clicked his guns.

“WHERE THE HELL IS SHE?”

Fuck. Fuck. Jason.

“I thought you’d left.“

“Tell me where she is!”

“I haven’t an idea who you're talking about.”

“The Commander! WHERE DID YOU TAKE HER!?”

Crane managed to laugh under his breath, drawing his syringes at the muzzles of Jason’s guns. “So Commander Y/N is alive. You are weak, Knight. What makes you think I have her?”

Jason dropped the white mask she’d left behind on the floor. The gun optics was looking straight at her direction, hiding under the floor just a yard away from Crane.

“Tell me where she is and you can do whatever the fuck you want with Batman, Crane.”

“You no longer have power here, Knight. These men answer to me and Slade.”

“None of you would be here if it weren’t for me!”

“And your cowardice allowed Batman to escape. If not for Gordon, all this would have been for nothing.”

“Stop wasting my time,” he whispered, placing his gun right at Scarecrow’s forehead. “Tell me where she is.”

“I don’t know.”

No. Fucking no. Jason raised his arm, ready to strike Crane with the bottom of his gun. She could sense a sergeant ready to fire at the suddenness of his movements. Jason was held by two men by the arms, his guns dropping to the floor while another held a gun right at his face.

“Get off me!”

“I told you to kill the Commander if she were alive, or I kill you…” Crane walked to kneel at Jason’s level.

“Fuck you.”

One.

Two.

Three.

From her angle, she couldn’t aim at any of them.

“Kill him. He’s of no use,” Scarecrow backed away and the gun pointed at his head clicked.

But that wall. It was slanted. A good 45 degrees.

“You son of a bitch-“ Jason coughed.

‘Ricochet,’ Floyd’s voice echoed. A critical angle almost the same as the ricochet. It would bounce off the steel and hit the sergeant’s hand at just the right place.

‘Think of a line, coming straight from your gun, to the wall, and know where that line would be redirected.’

‘Move a little to the left, and aim.’

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.

His finger was on the trigger. She had less than a second.

‘Deadshot. Fire.’

Y/N raised her arm, aiming straight at an empty wall, and fired.

“Ah!” She heard a scream, then a drop of a firearm that shot at the cement ground. The sergeant held his bleeding hand and backed away from a still-alive Jason. She did it.

“Someone’s here,” someone said. “SPREAD OUT.”

Jason was still being held down, his head forced to look at the floor while ten armed soldiers roamed the perimeter. He was calm.

He knew Y/N was here.

“Look up! They could be at a sniping position!”

Crane was taken somewhere she couldn’t fire at him. The commander kept moving around in the grates and avoided any of the men’s line of sight.

She couldn’t fire at anyone directly without being noticed. Y/N will have to look at the walls again. The steel ones.

That one. In about five seconds, a sergeant would pass by right in front of that wall. With his armor, she only had such a tiny window at his shoulder blades.

Y/N aimed at the steel, moving slightly to the right, and fired.

The bullet bounced off the wall and hit right where the plates met. One. He fell to the ground, Y/N moved fast.

Two of them, standing right in front of the metal of the elevator. She fired one, which landed right at his neck. Two. The other soldier crouched and moved away.

So she fired at the opposite wall, and it ricocheted twice before landing on the soldier’s groin. Three.

Y/N was home schooled by her aunt, but it was Floyd himself who taught her physics.

She couldn’t get to them any longer. Y/N quietly climbed out the grates, hid behind a store island and waited.

There. She grabbed the man and held him by the neck, snapping it off in one count. Four.

Six more. She could take them now.

Y/N stood up, raising her arm with her wrist gun and a pistol on the other. She fired two bullets at a sniper who was just about to shoot her. Five.

“ HE COMMANDER. GET HER.”

She rolled on the ground, having less time than a bullet reaching her just so she could aim and fire. Six. Seven. Eight. She jumped over boxes, leapt off in the air and kept moving. They never caught her.

Her guns fired off before any of them could lock onto her. She shot the muzzle of a machine gun and it exploded on a soldier’s hands. Then she shot him in the head. Nine.

Last one. He was hiding. Y/N ducked and hid behind the islands. She caught the top of someone’s head. A bullet would easily graze off his hair.

Y/N climbed up and jumped, firing at the wall behind him. It bounced off, and hit him right at the back of his neck.

Ten.

Unscathed. Y/N propped herself up on the floor just below the escalator. She found her white mask and her gun optics, sitting on the floor. She didn’t even need them.

But she heard Floyd’s voice again. At least, for just one night, she’ll don the mask. Slowly, she pulled it over her head.

‘Nice job, Deadshot,’ Floyd said.

Someone moved. Her reflexes kicking in, she aimed her wrist gun behind her.

With his red visor staring blankly at her, Jason ducked and pulled out his own gun before Y/N could fire.

Y/N didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. Jason was going to kill her. He was going to shoot her in the head for what she’d done. She kept her gun pointed at him. She might have loved him, but God Almighty, she wasn’t going to let him kill her.

He told her about this once. The Red Hood. The new persona he planned on taking after being the Arkham Knight.

Robin. The Arkham Knight. The Red Hood. A different name for the same man who was supposed to be her enemy. Someone she should have killed a long time ago.

The fight that was always meant to be.

She couldn’t see the look on his face. And if he was trying to tell her something, she couldn’t hear it. Y/N circled around him, and he followed her movements. If he shoots, she fires back. she kept her gun up and made sure he couldn’t tell her hands were shaking.

She could hear her heart beat. And it wasn’t helping. She could miss. Again. And she’d die. Or worse, she could shoot him in the wrong place and he’d die as well.

Maybe he should. If he was willing to let her die, why shouldn’t she? Y/N gripped on the gun on her hip. Slow the heart. Slow the breaths.

‘Kill when you have to,’ Floyd once told her. ‘Self defense is the one reason you can always justify with.’

If he shoots, and she lives, no longer will she hope for anything normal. Or anything best out of life. No one will be able to hurt her like Jason would.

That way, she can rest assure she’ll be the best markswoman in the world.

“Enough.”

Crane. With twenty more men following behind. She and Jason wouldn’t take their eyes off each other, and their guns, even if there were a hundred in the room.

“You are fooling yourselves. Everyone knows none of you will pull the trigger.”

He said their names so sneeringly. But she kept her gun up, and he didn’t look like he was about to move. “Maybe you're wrong, Crane,” Y/N said.

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell either of you. I know about you two. I never had eyes on Gotham. This woman was willing to fulfill my every whim if it meant getting the Knight what he wanted. And this man was practically on his knees begging me and Deathstroke not to let her on the Cloudburst, never mind how she does the job inherently better than he could. I needed no one following you around to figure that out.”

Her heart sank and Jason’s head craned down, avoiding the look on her eye. He never said it wasn’t about her. Y/N just assumed with what happened.

“Let’s make this interesting,” Crane laughed. “Knight, shoot her, or we will.”

And at the moment five firearms aimed at her, he pulled out his second gun and pointed it at the soldiers. “IF ANY OF YOU FIRE, I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING BRAINS OUT.”

Y/N turned her head at another three men aiming at Jason, so she pulled out her machine gun and pointed it at them.

“Adorable,” Crane said. He raised his hand and filled his syringes with the toxin.

Fifteen guns armed and loaded. Silence. All but the clicking of their guns. Crane walked up closer to them, holding up the needles in the air. Even from so far, she could smell the toxin.

“I’d inject either of you, but I’ll save this dosage for Batman.”

“Crane. I’m at the Panessa Studios. Bring Gordon over here and let’s get this over with.” Slade’s voice, coming from his communicator.

“Perhaps I’ve wasted too much time on you.” He turned around.

Twenty men, all waiting for their next move.

Crane headed for the exit. “Kill them.” His last words, before he left.

At the first strike of a bullet, Jason rolled away from his position and moved quickly behind a pillar. Y/N did the same and leapt behind an island nearby.

The shootout began. She aimed her wrist gun and opened fire at anything she could point at. Jason conjoined his two guns to make a sniper and aimed.

Y/N’s machine gun burned her shoulders with the recoil. She kept firing, and one by one the men hid behind any structure they could find.

“Thought you never wanted to see me again?�� she screamed at Jason.

She heard a wince. “I never said that, kid.”

“So you scream at me for not killing Batman-“ she ducked as a bullet narrowly grazed her shoulder. She gritted her teeth. “Then you do the same exact thing. Intentionally.”

“I’m still fucking mad at you-GRENADE.”

She leapt off the floor and covered her head. It exploded onto the escalators, and the rubble tore through the floor. She hid behind a big block of cement and fired. Two men down.

“You want an apology now?”

Jason fired at a sniper above. “It can wait.” He slid a box of ammo down to her side, and she reloaded her gun.

Five. Six. Seven. Eight down. Y/N dropped her machine gun and fired with the one on her wrist. Heads dropped to the floor. Another was at a sniping position, and there was no way she could hit it from here.

“JASON. THROW ME!”

He nodded, then Y/N ran to him. He caught her legs, flung her into the air. And from above, she fired, hitting two snipers hiding behind the pillars. Y/N rolled to the floor and hid.

Wincing, she ripped a part of her suit and wrapped it around her leg after a bullet had grazed against her skin deep enough to bleed.

“You're hit!” Jason cried.

“Keep firing!”

Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Four bullets ricocheted off the walls and hit four different soldiers, their necks bleeding before they even hit the floor.

She saw Jason aim at a gas tank, the one stationed near a car showroom. Y/N ducked and an entire wall exploded into rubble.

It kept going. The gas tanks blew up one after another and she ran to Jason’s side, pulling him up and shooting at a soldier just about to hit them. The mall started catching on fire. A wall had opened up and there was a clear exit to the streets.

She used the last of her pistol to fire, with Jason guarding her back, as they made their way to the exit. He pulled her to duck at the final explosion, which took the ceiling away and the building started to collapse.

The fire was burning too close to her face. The heat was immense, and her breath was cut short with the ashy debris.

They ran. Y/N threw her pistol away and ran at Jason’s side to the parking space of the mall. Two motorcycles. Parked against each other. “There!”

She took the one at the left and hurried with the ignition. The department store’s fire roared faster than anything they’ve ever seen. Jason started up his bike and Y/N soon followed. Their bikes sped down the street as they finally drove away from Founder’s Island

The heat. It eventually subsided. She didn’t hear anyone follow them. Not even if she’d look back, which she didn’t do.

They reached Perdition Bridge, sped past GCPD without much thought of where to go. They just had to move.

“Slow do- son of a BITCH.”

Police sirens, from two cars and three motorcycles, trailing behind them. They pulled at their ignitions and sped further.

“WE HAVE EYES ON THE ARKHAM KNIGHT AND THE MILITIA COMMANDER. PULL OVER.”

A sharp turn down a corner. They were still behind them.

“SPREAD OUT,” he screamed. Y/N nodded and they took opposite turns down a fork in the road. Two motorcycles and a car followed her, and the others after Jason.

She can't kill them this time, no matter how easy that would be. She’s never killed cops. She wasn’t about to start now. Y/N sat back and opened the throttle so the bike would wheelie up, roaring so loud the noise filled the streets. She turned, catching the front wheel onto an idle car drove right above it. She pointed her wrist at the same car before she drove too far away and fired.

It exploded, and she took another sharp turn, her hand grazing against the ground. It didn’t do much to slow them down, and eventually the cops were tailing behind her again. She turned, left and right, so suddenly they could never see where she’d go next. She went for the quieter streets, sped further and further until eventually she reached Miagani Island.

She saw Jason at the far end, about to meet her at an intersection. She saw him slow down right where the two roads met and she hurriedly did the same.

The two police cars were about to go after them. Jason jerked his head up, and Y/N understood.

At the exact moment they crossed, Jason held his hand out, Y/N took it, and he pulled her whole body to fall against his motorcycle on the seat behind him. Her bike crashed onto a police car, and it drifted too late to avoid it, eventually crashing into the second.

Y/N held onto Jason with her one arm, and her wrist firing at the parked cars with the other. Explosion after explosion, and none of them slowed down the three motorcycles.

“YOU HAVE A PLAN?” he asked.

“DON’T YOU?”

Another sharp turn. The road almost tore the skin on her leg. She stopped firing. “JASON, SLOW DOWN.”

“WHAT?”

“SLOW DOWN. I NEED HIS BIKE.”

With a frustrated huff, Jason slowed the bike just enough for one of the cops to catch up to them. From Jason’s hip, she pulled out his grappling hook. “MEET ME AT MERCY BRIDGE,” Jason said to her.

She shot it at the cop’s leg, flinging him off the bike. It kept speeding beside them. She only had such short a window. Y/N got on her feet, stood straight up with the bike dangerously moving, and jumped to the empty bike.

She pulled at the throttle, and at the next intersection, they spread out once again, one cop following each of them. Sharp turns, close calls, and stunts that shouldn’t have left her alive at all, Y/N sped back to Bleake Island.

The gas tank was running out. She only had so much of a chance. There was a dead end in an alleyway nearby.

Y/N paused, waiting for the cop to catch up to her, then she pulled at the throttle and the engine scowled out into the empty streets. Her head almost hit the ground when she turned, pulling at the throttle one last time and speeding directly into a wall.  

Just before the cop came to a turn, she grappled up to the roof, grabbing onto a fire exit ladder and hiding before any of them could see her.

The motorcycle crashed onto the wall, and she fired the last shot on her wrist gun onto its tank, blowing it up before the cops could get near it.

She hid from the flying debris, ducking behind the railing and keeping so still, her breaths had to be subdued. It lasted longer, and the air around her choked her even more when the explosion almost met her skin.

The policeman backed off, hiding behind the building. Then when the fire had simmered down, he looked around, up at the roof. She was at an angle where he couldn’t see her.

And when he’d left, her chest sank to the ground.

It was done. 

Everything was finished.

Breathe.

Even if it hurts. 

Her blood was rushing so incredibly fast, she couldn’t see anything in front of her. Y/N laid on the ground, and the pain on her leg came back so gradually, that after a few minutes she could no longer hold it up.

Her lips went white. A bullet, hitting her flesh. The thought of it made her want to crawl into a sewers. She pulled herself to sit up, her knee folded up to where she could see. She unwrapped the bandage to have a look, and it was still bleeding. She couldn’t even touch it. Her hand was shaking, and her breaths were so short, she couldn’t do so much as think.

Y/N used the last of her strength to wrap the bandage even tighter around her leg. Then she laid against the wall, feeling her eyes drop down at every heavy breath that was hard to take.

She could sleep. The exhaustion from the whole night, only now did it come to a close. It didn’t feel like it was just from tonight, though. After everything she’d done, accomplished or failed at, for the past several months, only then did the weight fully land and the tiredness overwhelm her.

She was the commander of a militia army of more than five hundred men.

She lost her uncle.

She had her heart broken.

It wasn’t fear, failure, grief, or hate. She was just tired.

And now, if she sleeps, she’d most definitely die.

Y/N looked up, and a helicopter flew past where a serpent drone usually hovered over. She kept her head craned up, and a light trickle of rain droplets fell onto her face. It was so subtle, she didn’t even get wet, even after waiting at the fire exit for so long.

And it was the last, cool push that began to reign over the bursting fire. After everything that happened, the droplets on her face calmed her. She was silent, and she closed her eyes, but only to feel the cold.

She wasn’t going to die here. Not tonight.

She had one more thing to take care of.

Y/N climbed off the ladders, careful not to place any weight on her bad leg. Her feet met the ground, and she looked out of the alley.

No one. It was peaceful, and the rain continued to be subtle. Batman had finished off the command points, because she couldn’t see even one militia soldier on the streets.

Another bike, on the sidewalk near a convenience store. She walked up to it and pulled it to stand up. Still wincing at the pain, Y/N started the ignition.

She took off her mask and her gun optics. Staring at it, she could hear Floyd’s voice. Over and over like she could actually hear them in real life.

‘Bullseye,’ he’d say to her, after every successful training session.

She stuffed it into her pocket and drove, slowly this time, to Mercy Bridge.

The droplets were running across her cheeks, and it was like a hand, running down her back and calming her even further. The further she rode, the more the weight seemed to burn down.

He would have loved this. Floyd. He never had to lead an army, or do whatever she just did. He’d be proud of her. Immensely.

She’d failed as a commander, and the militia failed her. But she was Deadshot.

The greatest markswoman in the world.

At the turn to Mercy Bridge, she saw him waiting at the center, his red visor up so he could look at her, straight into the eye, when she slowly drove closer and closer to Jason.

Y/N turned off the ignition, swung her good leg over the seat and limped over to him. Jason looked at her leg, then at her, then he moved so quickly towards her so she didn’t have to force herself to walk anymore.

His arms were forceful, but they were warm. Jason pulled her into a tight embrace, his face buried into her hair while she did the same. Y/N closed her eyes shut, feeling him so close to her once again.

And there was nothing else in Gotham but them. No thugs. No cops. No stars. Nothing except the moon, which shined so largely that night, it was enough to light up the empty streets.

All the weight had come off. And she felt lighter than the droplets, lighter than a sparrow. She tightened her circling arms around him and never wanted to let go. “I’m sorry…” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry-“

“Shut up.” He shushed her, slightly pulling away so he could look at her face. “For fuck’s sake, shut up.”

His lips. They still had the same warmth. They were right as she’d left them. They pressed tightly against her own, and his hand was holding the back of her head so she wouldn’t move. She grew still, letting herself slowly fall into the madness. His madness. But his lips were so gentle, she kissed him back.

“You can do shit like that ten times over. I’ll get mad. I’ll punch a wall,” Jason whispered. “and I’ll still love you. I love you. So much. I love you.”

She kissed him again, no longer fighting the tears that mixed with the rain water on her face. He held the sides of her head. “I love you,” she said back in between his kisses, and he kissed her harder. Y/N’s hands were on his face and she felt tears down his cheeks as well. She wiped them off, gently, then pulled away so she can kiss them.

Even if the bridge weren’t empty, the water below them wasn’t silently thrashing, and the moon wasn’t so bright, it would all feel the same.

He laid his forehead against hers, and he was so beautiful, even with a new scar right on his eyebrow. He was beautiful. Y/N kissed him again until her lips had the familiar, wonderful sting.

“I found supplies,” he said. And on his bike was a bag. “Food. Clothes. First Aid kit. Everything you need to last three days. Hide in my old apartment and don’t come out. Not until people come back from evacuation. The police will find you. I can't risk being followed. Not after what I’m about to do.”

“Let me help you-“

“No,” his voice stammering. “Y/N, no. This is my fight. You can't save me again. You’ve saved me so many times. For once, let me save you…”

The grip on her face was secure. And she felt like she could never be hurt again. She can't be apart from him. Not for a second more.

“Where will you go?” she cried.

“Arkham Asylum. Crane. Bruce. I have to go after them…”

She could see it. The first signs of his inner peace. He wouldn’t have to go through fighting his demons the way he wanted. “Save him,” she said, kissing him one last time.

“I will. Then when all this blows over, when it’s safe, I’ll come back to you. I’ll never let you out of my sight. I love you.”

It tore through whatever darkness was left in her. She hugged him, and at the pain that came with having to let him go, just for so long to keep them both safe, he pulled away. Jason glanced at her, smiled that beautiful smile that sent her miles into the sky, then closed off his visor and drove off.

Even with the night an empty black, she could feel the stars looking at them in hiding.

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THE COMMANDER - MASTERLIST

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  Taglist: everyartistwas-firstanamateur  @sarcasmismyfirstlove @damned-queen-of-gotham @idkmanicantenglish @wunderstell @birdy-bat-riya @get-loki@everyday-imfangirling @comic-nerd-dc @multifandoms916 @icequeen208@offendedfishnoises @egdolan @xemiefx @arkhamtoddler @elsenthal@mythicbitchx @supremehaunter @ burning-alive  @lucy-roo  roseangel013bf

[gothamcitystories]

Submitted by Al Reinman;

Transcribed by Carter Albrecht

Like most GC natives, I hate this damned place in a special way only a Gothamite can. I grew up here. It’s gross, smells like a tire fire, the rich live in their high towers looking down on us all, I can’t walk to the corner to pickup a pack of smokes after dark, unless I’m packing at least my mag light(we’ll get to that), and we’ve got a new freakshow causing chaos every week. Don’t even get me started on the public transportation.

That being said, Gotham is MY town, y’know? Some out-of-towner says any of what I just said, I’m as likely as any Gothamite to knock their teeth in. See, I love this town as much as I hate it, in that special way only a Gothamite can. It’s hard to explain that to someone who isn’t from here.

So anyways, I work in sanitation. It’s not bad work, all thing considered. I do third shift tunnel walking. It’s a newer thing. See, after that Rat-King business, when that guy was kidnapped homeless people and forcing them to build something or other in the sewers, few years back, the city assigned Sani workers to do regular patrols to make sure nothing hinky is going on, y’know, like wannabe gangsters or shit like that.

Most of the guys hate tunnel walks. And I mean, that’s fair, there’s more of a chance to run into that big ass crocodile guy, or any of the other bozo’s Arkham can’t seem to keep ahold of. Of course I never saw the guy. Never saw much of anything, except a few teenagers playing thug. So I volunteer to do most of the walks. Got me one of those big metal flashlights, my mag, because you can bust a skull with those things, if you need to. I also have a piece, but we’re not supposed to carry while we’re on the job, so I usually don’t, unless one of the loonies is loose. This wasn’t one of those time, just so you know.

It was this past Halloween. I was kinda pissed because one of my buds was playing a show at The Hole, that dive over on Park. Well, I clocked in, and my super asked if anyone wanted to take the Walks tonight. I figured eight hours strolling was as good as I was going to get. My hand shot up, and into the tunnels I went. We’re not supposed to, but I like listening to podcasts while I walk. Vicki Vale’s Gotham Report is a favorite of mine. So I pop a headphone in, only one, I’m not stupid, and I start off into the dark.

Tons of concrete and steel kills any kind of cell signal, so I download my podcasts before I head down. This episode was an exciting one for me, because she was talking about an old Gotham legend. So if you grew up in GC, you were probably raised on stories about Solomon Grundy, who would emerge from the swamps to the north to gobble up kids who misbehave. Well, if you’re old enough. I hear kids nowadays are treated to threats of the Batman coming through their windows. Not sure which is a worse prospect.

Anyways Vale goes into the founding of Gotham, and the Five Families. Every kid learns about them in grade school, Alan Wayne, Theodore Cobblepot, Edward Elliot, Jeremiah Arkham, and Ezekiel Kane.

So story goes that the founders had contracted a cousin of Wayne, a guy by the name of Cyrus Gold. Gold was a merchant of some influence. The stories vary on the why, and the how, but some how, Gold was murdered, and his body dumped in that section of marshlands to the north, Slaughter Swamp.

So according to Vale, Theodore Cobblepot was into shady stuff way back when, and he had his eyes on Gold’s businesses. Old Theo was a cold dude from reports. His daughter, Millie Jane, she was fond of nursery rhymes, so old Theo would make men who crossed him recite them from memory before he wacked them. So Gold gets walked out to Slaughter Swamp. He’s blindfolded, and he’s reciting that old one, Solomon Grundy. Y’know, born on a Monday, etcetera etcetera. Theo pops him, plants him, absorbs his business.

Jump forward. The urban legend starts up, based on that version of the story. Kids say that if you say the rhyme in Slaughter Swamp on Halloween night, he’ll rise from the swamp and get you. You know how all those old stories, they never say what the ghosty or ghouly is gonna do, just that he’ll get you. I remember taking my first girlfriend out to Slaughter Swamp to summon Solomon Grundy. Lots of teens did it when I was in school, but no one I knew ever saw him.

Anyways, the route I took that night had an old disused outfall into Slaughter Swamp. Bruce had it redirected when he took over Wayne Enterprises a few years back, but the outfall is still open, and it’s a good spot to stop and have a smoke, about halfway through the route, so when I got there, I stepped out and had me a smoke.

I was on the phone with this girl I’d been chatting with, she does maintenance on the electricals running under the city, so we see each other at work sometimes. Anyways, I made this joke about being in Slaughter, and trying to summon Grundy. Just being funny, y’know. She’s loving it. She’s a Gotham Girl herself, but she never got taken out to Slaughter, but she’s egging me on, so I go for it.

It’s a simple rhyme:

“Solomon Grundy,

Born on a Monday,

Christened on Tuesday,

Married on Wednesday,

Took ill on Thursday,

Grew worse on Friday,

Died on Saturday,

Buried on Sunday,

That was the end,

Of Solomon Grundy.”

I wait. I say nothing, she says nothing. I’m hoping to build the tension and scream, give her a scare, y’know? Only, about the time I’m planning on screaming, my mag goes dead, so does my phone. Now the phone doesn’t surprise me. I carry a portable power bank for that, but with the concrete, you don’t get a lot of signal, so it doesn’t do much good, so I hadn’t hooked it up to charge. But the mag? Those batteries were brand new at the start of the shift. I always change my batteries before I go into the tunnels. Anyone who works underground will tell you there’s nothing more important than your light, y’know? And I always carry plenty of spares. Nobody wants to be down there in the dark. I always, ALWAYS put new batteries in before I start my shift.

There on the outfall, you get a bit of moonlight. More than in the tunnels. I’ll admit, I was spooked a bit, I should’ve had more than a few hours left on those batteries. So I was kinda rushing to get the old ones out and a spare pare in, and yeah, I let the old ones roll off into the swamp. I mean yeah, I was jumpy, but I wasn’t jumping at shadows, y’know? I’m a GC native. We’re tough stock, and hard to actually scare. Like really scare, y’know?

So the batteries roll off the concrete block in front of the outfall. Plop plop, into the swamp. Suddenly it gets real quiet. I mean dead quit. The owls, y’know, the ones on that preserve out there? Quiet. Bugs and night birds? Quiet. Hell, I don’t think I was even breathing, y’know? Just felt real tense. Your eyes play tricks on you at night. In the dark, you see things different, and out by the outfall it’s real dark, forest dark, y’know? Even with the super moon we had on Halloween this year, it was stupid, mind tricking dark out there. But I swear to you, there was fog rising from the swamp. And it wasn’t there before my light went out. Thick shit too.

Then I heard the splash. Like something big coming out of the water. I’ll admit that I was spooked. But I didn’t run or nothing. My eyes were adjusting to the dark, enough to make out the big shape moving towards me. I managed to fumble the new batteries into the mag about the time I asked:

“Who’s there?”

Thinking I’d stumbled on some teens playing a prank, y’know.

I got my light on right before the thing responded. Damn thing must have been nine foot tall, and wide as a truck. Dressed in the ragged, rotten remains of a suit. Sonovabitch looked like a jacked albino Frankenstein, like all rotted, deep sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, lumbering like it had a bad leg, skin and hair were bleach white, and the fingernails and teeth were all yellow and sick looking. And it spoke. Sounded about like rocks rubbing together. The thing lumbered towards me, hands outstretched, reaching as if to grab me, it rasped:

“Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday.”

I booked. I mean, I think it took me fifteen minutes to reach city limits? And I didn’t go back underground for months. It took me awhile to work up the nerve, y’know? But I’ve been thinking about it, and all the stories say Grundy only comes out on Halloween, right? So I should be fine as long as I’m not down there by Slaughter Swamp on Halloween, right? I should be fine.

Right?

[is-it-art-tho]

Summary: After a truly crappy week, Bats and Jim decide they could both use a breather.

Jim Gordon sighed as he leaned back heavily against the brick wall, slick with freezing rain that had just begun to fall. He popped his collar as a bitter wind sliced through his duster to cut straight to the bone. His old joints ached in protest against the cold and he hissed a cursed, rubbing his eyes under his glasses.

It had been an exceptionally rough week, the kind that made him long for the early days, back when the worst things he had to worry about were petty drug dealers and domestic assault cases. Back then, most officers didn’t even wear Kevlar half the time. They walked the streets armed with a badge and a rarely used gun and felt invincible, wholly confident in their ability to stand between the public and those who meant to do harm. Back then, the uniform and the badge had been enough – more than enough to discourage most crime, and where the uniform and badge failed, it didn’t take much more to straighten things out.

But now as he watched as a dozen officers struggled to drag Killer Croc’s unconscious body out of the harbor, he couldn’t help but scoff at the hellish circus the city had become. Now most officers didn’t wear Kevlar, not out of a sense of safety, but rather a sense of futility. Standing against Croc or Bane or even Freeze, Kevlar would only slow the inevitable.

Some time not too long ago, a new darkness had spilled over the city like rain, and a wicked breed of evil had crept up from the sewers in its wake, ushering a new, horrible era that even now he couldn’t begin to explain, let alone accept. It was the stuff of nightmares; the sort of horrors that now plagued the city on a near constant basis used to be considered “once in a lifetime.”

But this week - this godforsaken week - had been one for the books, even in Gotham.

Jim’s phone chimed and he spared a glance from the scene in front of him to peek at the notification. It was a confirmation message letting him know that Harley and the Penguin had been safely returned to Arkham. Croc was basically as good as done at this point, which left only Ivy to worry about. Last he’d heard, his guys had her cornered in a plant nursery at the natural sciences museum. It was by no means an ideal location for a standoff with her, but Batman was there too, which just about evened the odds as much as anything anyone could hope for. It was the only reason he wasn’t on his way there now. That, and the fact that he was fairly certain that even if he left now and blew through every stop on the way there, he’d get there long after the fight was over, for better or worse. Fights with Ivy were fierce, but rarely very long.

Jim sighed again and tapped a cigarette free from the pack. The gentle thump and scuff of boots on damp pavement behind him only proved his point, and he said without turning around, “Ivy?”

“Neutralized.” Batman stepped forward so that they were side by side, coughing slightly, his eyes on Croc.

The officers had been trying to work by sheer manpower alone for nearly twenty minutes before Bullock, sweating an irritated, finally shouted, “For the love of– just rig ‘im up to one of the trucks already!” Now a few chains were looped onto Croc’s pants, the other ends hooked onto the back of a fire engine, and they were slowly backing him out of the water.

Jim noticed Batman’s arm wrapped around his torso, clutching his side. He assumed the gesture was meant to be inconspicuous, hidden almost entirely under the thick cape, and knowing Batman, it could mean anything from a simple bruise to a punctured lung. Or worse.

Without another word, he shook free a second cigarette and held it out.

“I don’t smoke,” Batman said.

“Humor me.”

To Jim’s mild surprise, and perhaps underscoring his belief that this had in fact been a spectacularly awful week, Batman took the cigarette and held it while Jim lit both of them.

It didn’t escape the older man’s notice that the black gloved hand trembled slightly, and Jim knew enough about the insulation of the suit, having seen Batman stand comfortably in significantly harsher conditions, to know that it wasn’t from the cold.

Batman took a slow drag, the butt flaring then fading again in the darkness, and exhaled a cloud of smoke and condensation into the frosty air.

They stood like that for a while, wrapped in silence as they watched the officers work. Well, to be fair Jim was only half-watching the officers, one eye glued to Batman. He smelled faintly botanical, sweet like nectar but also bitter and sharp like vinegar and acid. Small patches of his cape were missing, ragged holes that looked reminiscent of burn marks, and a light dusting of gold covered most of his body. Pollen, Jim assumed.

So, she’d put up a hell of a fight then.

“You’re staring, Jim.”

The older man jumped like a child caught stealing a cookie and redirected his gaze to the scene. “Christ,” he muttered, rubbing his neck somewhat sheepishly. “Here I thought I was being slick.”

Batman dropped the cigarette and snuffed it into the wet pavement. “Was there anything else?”

“No, thank God. I think that’s everything.”

“Then you should get home. Get some rest,” Batman said, turning to leave.

It was one of the few times Jim had had the chance to actually watch Batman leave rather than be left talking to the open air. He watched the man reach for a grapple beneath his cape and felt something drop into the pit of his stomach as he thought about the ride home.

No, he couldn’t go home. It was something Jim had learned soon after he’d gotten married, back when he was still new to the job. He couldn’t go straight home after a rough night. No matter how much he might want to, he knew he needed to get his head on straight before he walked through the door. Make sure he was ready to interact, to be a father and a husband, to be with his family. Otherwise, the events of the night clung to him like smoke, wafting with him from room to room and turning him into something dour and unapproachable. It wasn’t fair to his family or anyone around him, and he’d learned that the hard way, but he’d learned it all the same.

But this was one of those unique nights where the thought of being alone was almost worse. The way his mind was racing, had been racing for the past few days, the last thing he wanted was to be left to his own devices. To think about all the ways he’d screwed up, all the people who had been endangered or worse because of a clue he’d missed, a decision he’d made too slowly or blown all together. He would sit and he would think and he would descend into self-flagellation until he was just about ready to hand in his letter of resignation and fling himself into the harbor. It was a well-trodden path at this point, and one he didn’t want to revisit.

So, in a last-ditch attempt to salvage what was left of the night, Jim found himself asking, “Where are you headed?”

Batman paused and tossed a curious look over his shoulder. It was hard to tell through the mask, but Jim got the feeling he had an eyebrow raised.

“Is something wrong,” Batman asked.

“No, no, I was just…” Jim took a breath and jammed his half-frozen hands into his pockets, feeling impossibly foolish. What was he doing? “It’s been a rough week,” he continued. “And I was just…” His sentence trailed off with another deep sigh. “Eh, never mind. It was nothing.”

Batman kept his eyes on him, appraising him the way Jim had seen him study countless crime scenes. It made him feel strangely vulnerable, almost nude.

“Are you hungry?” Batman asked suddenly.

And even though he was one of the most infuriatingly inscrutable men in the world, Jim knew him well enough by now to recognize this for what it was. A small lifeline.

“Starving,” Jim grinned, dropping his cigarette to crush it underfoot. “There’s a little hole in the wall on 4th.”

“McLaren’s?”

“That’s the one.” Jim was beyond amused by the idea that Batman might be familiar with the little mom & pop health code violation they called a diner. He imagined him strolling in for a milkshake at 2 in the morning, cowl and all, and having an autographed portrait added to the wall of celebrity customers.

Jim glanced back at the scene. They’d finally hauled Croc into one of the armored vans and were just beginning to clear out.

“We’re just about done here,” he said. “Give me about 10 minutes and I should– Goddammit.” He was talking to himself again. Perhaps the first time had been a fluke.

About thirty minutes later, Jim was pulling up in front of the little diner, the windows papered with sun damaged menu items and flashing neon lights, and the only place still open at this ungodly hour. A bell chimed as he stepped in, immediately blinded by the contrast from wintry night to bright fluorescent interior.

“Gordy!” the round man at the grill shouted by way of greeting.

“Pauly.” Jim was too tired to return the same vigor, but he offered a smile, tugging off his coat that was now heavy with rain and stiff with cold.

Without another word between them, Pauly threw a few extra ingredients on the flat-top grill to start preparing Jim’s usual.

In the back, a dark figure was hunched in the corner booth by a window, completely incongruous with the otherwise ordinary setting, like a Tesla in a Norman Rockwell painting.

He caught Pauly’s eye then, and Pauly shot him wary half-raise of an eyebrow as if to say, What the hell you got going on here? and Am I gonna have to update my insurance policy on this place? and Do you think he’ll sign a photo?

Jim just shrugged in a way he hoped was reassuring then made his way back to the booth and slipped in. Batman was leaning over a half-drained mug of coffee, his head in his hand, and though Jim couldn’t see his eyes through the white lenses in the mask, he could’ve sworn the other man was dozing off.

“Surprised you’re sitting with your back to the door,” Jim noted. “Thought you were too paranoid for that sort of thing.”

Batman simply gestured toward the chrome napkin holder, angled in such a way that he had a clear view of the entire restaurant behind him. Of course.

Jim chuckled and shook his head as Pauly came over with a glass of Coke. He held up a coffee pot, offering to refill Batman’s cup, but Batman held up a tired hand and Pauly returned to the kitchen.

“So,” Jim began, tapping his straw against the table to open it, “made it through another one.”

“Hn.” Batman rubbed his face in an exhausted and somewhat startlingly human gesture and coughed, groaning a little.

Jim was fairly certain he’d never seen Batman so openly… human before. Even after some of their worst scrapes when Batman was practically bleeding out or loaded with some sort of toxin, he had always stood tall, stoic, betraying not even a hint of weakness. After a while, it had only added to the legend of it all.

Batman: the man who did not sleep, who bled but did not feel pain.

He’d taken on a mythos, became something larger than himself. Jim had watched the transformation with his own two eyes, had seen the way the conversation shifted around him in the precinct and on the streets. In the months after Batman’s first appearance, he went from being the crazy man in a costume to the lurking force that hung over the city the same way clouds always seemed to – at once haunting and familiar.

He’d known all along that the stories of his exploits were overblown, but he’d let them grow anyway because he also knew how necessary it was that the city believed them, that they saw Batman as this otherworldly entity. It was the only way for any of it to work. Batman’s very name, the signal in the sky, they had to be backed by an unshakeable belief that he was something more than a man.

Because it wasn’t enough to be a good man. Not here; not anymore. Good men didn’t scare criminals, not the kind that stalked the streets of Gotham. And good men didn’t last long in these parts, besides. Harvey Dent’s presence in Arkham was a painful, permanent reminder of that fact. And it was Harvey Dent, along with other fallen or corrupted good men, who solidified the cynicism that clung to the hearts of most Gothamites like a parasite and made it nearly impossible for them to take any solace in the efforts or words of simple good men.

In a battle against devils, men simply did not do.

No, they needed something more, something greater. They needed a legend, a story whispered over barrel fires and on street corners, an ever-present threat to those who prowled the shadows and a hope for those searching for the light.

They needed Batman.

And Jim was mature enough to admit that he needed it, too. He clung to the stories, craved them the same way a child might cling to Santa Clause – a desperate last attempt at hope in this city that seemed to try its damnedest to crush it.

But now, sitting across from Batman and getting a chance to really look at him up close in something other than the dim lit of a rooftop or back alley, and seeing the drawn lines in his face and the weary drag in his voice, Jim couldn’t help but kick himself for being so foolish, so selfish. It was one thing for the city to believe the stories, but he didn’t have that luxury. He couldn’t. Because at the end of the day there needed to be at least one person out there who saw Batman for who he really was: just a good man trying to save the city from itself.

Someone had to see that – had to know that.

Otherwise, who would save the Batman from the city?

And when Batman coughed again and stretched his neck painfully from side to side, wincing as he did, Jim kicked himself again. He’d noticed from the first moment that Batman seemed worse for wear, yet never once had he suggested any medical intervention, however futile the offer might be. And he vowed in that moment to do better at remembering that this man before him was just that.

A man.

“You all right?” Jim asked in a belated attempt to do what he should’ve done almost an hour ago. And many times, before that. “If you want, I can get one of the guys to give you a once over.”

“I’m fine,” Batman said, his eyes scrunched.

Sitting here, Batman’s chest and arms were visible beneath the cape, and Jim could get a better read on the extent of the damage. The burns he’d noticed in the cape itself were also on his torso, leaving holes in the fabric that revealed the tough, lightweight armor beneath, and Jim recognized the telltale slashes across his chest and biceps left by Ivy’s thorny vines, some of them slicing clean through to the skin. There was a particularly deep gash across Batman’s left side, and when he noticed Jim staring, he let the cape fall a bit more to cover himself.

“Really,” he added with a slight edge in his voice.

Jim put up his hands in surrender. “Hey, listen. I’m not your mother. If you say you’re fine,” he shrugged, taking a swig from his Coke, and he could’ve sworn he saw some tension seep out of Batman’s shoulders, as if he’d been bracing himself for a battle on this issue.

Jim was a caring man, and he could worry and nag with the best of them, but he was also an old man, and tired. And the last thing he intended to do tonight on top of everything else was argue with another grown man about a damn checkup.

“What do you usually do after nights like this?” he asked, pivoting easily. “I’m assuming by the nervous sweats on Pauly’s collar that you’re not exactly a regular here.”

“No,” Batman granted. “Usually, I go for a drive.”

“Huh. I would’ve thought you’d just go right home. Crawl into bed and pass out.”

“Sometimes, but not always. Nights like this… I need to be alone for a while. Clear my head, wait for the adrenaline to wear off.”

It hadn’t occurred to Jim that the Batman might live with other people. He wondered what that looked like. A wife? A family? He found himself imagining the Christmas card – a smiling family in matching sweaters and then… Batman. His lips curled into a smile around the straw in his mouth.

But he also understood the sentiment exactly, and he nodded, saying, “I hear ya,” while suppressing the million questions burning at the back of his throat about Batman’s home life. Not the time, not the place, and not his business.

“Do you want to, uh… Do you want to talk about it?” he asked after a brief pause. “What happened, I mean?” Jim’s eyes flicked back and forth between his Coke and Batman’s face, suddenly feeling wildly out of his depth. He figured it was a necessary question to ask, especially given everything that had happened, but he felt impossibly unqualified to have the conversation with this man in particular.

“No,” Batman said after another moment, staring out the window at the sparse, pre-dawn traffic. If Jim were anybody else or any younger, he might have flushed with embarrassment.

Because of course Batman didn’t want to talk about it with him. What could he possibly offer by way of advice or comfort to the man who had saved the entire city – hell, the world – on multiple occasions; who had fought battles in different solar systems and gone toe to toe with aliens and demigods? Comparatively, Jim was a nobody, practically irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Self-pity wasn’t a familiar sensation for him, and he shifted uncomfortably in the overstuffed seat, cringing as the plastic covering whined beneath him.

“Not about tonight,” Batman continued.

Jim blinked, confused, and Batman went on a little hesitantly. “Let’s just… talk.”

“Oh.” The response felt incredibly lame coming out of his mouth and seemed to plop onto the table between them, but he was so caught off guard that he didn’t know what else to say.

It looked almost like Batman was suddenly unsure, because he immediately straightened in his seat, and his expression became more guarded, that familiar stoicism returning to his mouth and all of the apparent exhaustion evaporating in an instant.

“You’re right,” he said quickly, even though Jim hadn’t said anything. “It’s unnecessary. And you’re probably tired. You should go.”

Batman had just begun to slide out of the booth – wincing in pain as he went – when Jim reached out a hand.

“Hey, hey, wait a second. At this point I won’t be getting to sleep anytime soon, and I’ll bet the same goes for you. Now, I plan to sit here, eat my roast beef sandwich and maybe get an extra order of fries. I can’t force you, but if you wanna sit here with me and talk about something other than criminally insane meta humans and murder and armed robberies, I’d like that quite a bit.”

Batman held his gaze for a moment, still halfway between sitting and standing as Pauly returned and set two plates down on the table. A hefty roast beef sandwich pierced with a toothpick and topped with a pickle for Jim and a Philly cheesesteak for Batman. Jim couldn’t tell if it was his little speech or the food that pushed him over the edge, but Batman settled back into the seat, a little stiff, but apparently ready to stay for at least as long as it took to finish the sandwich.

Jim grinned as he watched him drag over a ketchup and squirt it into the center of the sandwich. The whole image was just so surreal he wouldn’t have been surprised if his alarm went off in a minute and he woke up only to realize the whole thing had been a dream.

“So then,” Jim said around a mouthful of bread and meat, “seen any good movies lately?”