Chapter Text
There was something in the air today. The taste coated her throat, chlorinated ozone. It was causing goosebumps to prickle up her bare arms, making her glance behind herself twice as often on her walk home from work. A late-night summer storm maybe, which would really ruin her night because she didn’t bring a coat or an umbrella. She'd been living in this cursed city long enough to know better than to trust the weather app that it would stay clear for very long.
Dark clouds were already amassing North towards Blüdhaven and evening was stretching its long, greedy fingers through the watery sunlight of the rare sunny afternoon. The shadows seemed longer than typical in the dimly lit street corners and alleyways, blotting out the sun's glow with the thick layer of smog over Gotham. Nothing like the sunny weather that graced New York City fairly often this time of the year. A pang of homesickness speared through her, memories flashing like slides of film of her brightly decorated apartment, full of plants and sunlight.
She squeezed her eyes shut for just a moment before picking up her pace, heels clicking sharply against the rough asphalt of the empty alley as she cut between buildings. She knew it wasn't the smartest idea ever but going around the buildings to the next street over would have cost her an extra seven minutes and she was growing more and more convinced there was an imminent disaster or attack on the horizon. Something. Whatever it was, a bad mood seemed to ripple through everyone Maria encountered today. The patients had been even ruder than normal, six violent ones on her rotation alone. By the end of the day she and the rest of the hospital staff each had permanently pursed lips and whale eyes.
She regretted taking her coworkers up on the offer of drinks after work, but Becca had been sooo insistent that it would lift all of their moods. And who could possibly refuse Becca? So she had made a quick stop at her apartment around 6 o’clock to shower and change into classy slacks, a top with an open back, and heels despite the definite rain to come and already aching feet from her long day. She had been on the go since 3 am, and she was pretty sure she had at least two more blisters since yesterday.
Whatever.
A girl liked to feel pretty sometimes, and what did they say? Beauty is pain?
Well, yes, sometimes.
When she finally made it to the bar that Becca and Roxy (and that asshole, Sean) had agreed on, Becca wasn’t even there.
Roxy just sent Maria a ‘what can you do’ shrug and carried on talking to the two pretty new girls from down in the oncology department. Sean was the only other person there, so Maria had the unpleasant experience of being forced to take the open seat next to him. He leaned back in his barstool triumphantly, crossing his arms and grinning at her.
"Hey," She greeted distractedly, realizing that it was now absolutely pouring outside, like Gotham herself had waited just until Maria had crossed the threshold into the bar to release her torrent.
"Well, aren't I just the luckiest guy in the world, sitting next to your fine—" he started running his mouth before she had even settled and she fully rolled her eyes in his face, getting comfortable in her stool to wait for Becca.
She leaned forward to get the bartender’s attention and quickly ordered a strawberry daiquiri. She needed the alcohol and the sugar rush if she was going to be stuck here with him while she waited for Becca to show up. He hadn’t shut his mouth since she had arrived, and he didn’t seem like he was planning on it soon.
30 minutes and one drink later, Becca still hadn’t shown and Maria was at her limit of listening to (possibly) narcissistic babble. She made extremely half-assed excuses to Sean, flashed an apologetic smile at Roxy— who flashed one back— and picked up her things.
The cold wet air of the city's twilight was like a balm to her throbbing headache as she pushed out the doors onto the street. She thought back to the downpour not a half hour ago and sent a quiet, silly little prayer-thanks to Gotham for not drenching her. Yet.
A bar like this in New York City might have outdoor seating, but the most this bar had was a crumbling sidewalk dimly illuminated by a flickering incandescent light overhead and the luminous reds, greens, and yellows of the distant street lights reflecting off of Gotham’s never-ending puddles. The ever-present smell of wet stone and decay was so strong this time of night when it wasn't raining.
Unease grew in Maria’s belly and she hesitated a couple steps outside the door as it swung shut behind her, cutting off the noise from within. Not completely, it was just very muted. She wondered offhandedly if the bar’s windows were bulletproof. More pressingly, however, Maria wasn’t sure if she wanted to make the walk home all by herself after dark. It had been nerve wracking enough during the light of day and now that light was almost gone, just barely clinging to the edges of the sky in shades of blue and purple against the oppressive cloud cover.
Just as she was about to go back inside and call an Uber, the door swung open again and Sean stepped out. Maria barely repressed a groan. He grinned at her, acting surprised, like he hadn’t literally followed her out here.
“Hey!” He sidled over to her, already talking again. “I thought you left! You know, not to invite myself along or anything but do you want me to walk you home?”
He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and Maria’s headache returned with full force.
She didn’t know if Sean was not picking up her very obvious hints or if he was weird, or both, but she wasn’t going to wait around long enough to find out. She was a nurse who had worked with trauma patients before, she knew that she was statistically much more likely to get assaulted by a man in Sean’s position than a random man on her walk home. Although this was Gotham.
“No thanks.” She gave him a thin smile.
To her surprise he finally gave up, backing off quickly. He awkwardly returned to the chatter and bustle of the bar’s interior with a half-hearted wave as the door closed, leaving her in near silence again. Somewhere in the distance, a siren began to wail.
Damn, so much for her realistic pessimistic viewpoint about Sean, right?
Maria allowed herself just one singular moment of guilt before turning on her heel and walking down the street.
She slid one hand into her purse, feeling for the reassuring shape of her pepper spray. Her fingers closed around the can; cold, solid aluminum.
She made it three blocks out of the five total between the bar and her apartment before she regretted not calling that Uber.
She had tried to cut through that alley again, only to find that this time, it wasn’t empty. She drew up short, heart speeding up in her chest.
There was a group of men, five or six maybe, leaning against the various crates and dumpsters against the blackened brick walls, crevices of moss eating their way up the crumbling bricks like spiderwebs. They were all clustered near the mouth of the alley. The one closest to her recovered from his clear surprise the quickest, dropping his cigarette and standing up from where he had been lazing against the wall.
She vaguely recognized the logo on his company shirt as some delivery company popular in Gotham. Blue collar workers on a smoke break then maybe? But that didn’t make sense, she knew they were between two towering office buildings after sunset. Hemmed in by residential and commercial areas, yes, but this was an odd place and time to have a smoke break.
“Sorry, excuse me,” she said politely, retreating back into the mouth of the alley.
The man who dropped his cigarette stepped forward at the same time, a slimy smile growing on his face.
“No, no, no, baby, don’t be sorry.”
The men behind him straightened as well, putting out their cigarettes. A couple of them dusted off their hands.
“What can we do for you?”
That churning feeling in Maria’s belly grew to a fever, settling on her skin as a cold sweat. She backed up several more quick steps out of the alley, her panic spiking when she stumbled on the rough ground in her heels.
The man at the front struck like a snake.
He lunged forward, snatching Maria by the wrist and dragging her into the dark.
Her other hand flashed out of her purse, spraying pepper spray right into his face. He coughed and retched, letting go of her wrist in shock. She stumbled sideways again, eyes flashing like a cornered animal as she brandished the can in a shaky hand.
The shadows in the alley were so, so dark and all she could smell or taste was death; dead things, dead leaves, dead water.
“Don’t touch me!” She gasped, right as the man she sprayed gasped out “You bitch!” and lunged for her again.
He was blind from the heat and the tears and his grasping hands missed her easily, but she could see the five other men in the alley who were eyeballing the confrontation with anticipation. The opportunistic greed of scavengers.
She desperately scanned over the enraged man in front of her, tripping back hard as she tried to stay away. One of the others stepped forward, watching restlessly, shifting like he couldn’t hold still as his friend grabbed aggressively and blindly for Maria.
Her bare back hit the wall, the rough brick making itself known for a second before her fear overwhelmed the pain.
She met the restless man’s eyes, pleading desperately with her gaze. Her heart sank when he grinned, rolling his shoulders under his huge jacket, half pulling a gun out of his pocket. His other hand settled near his crotch, adjusting his stance. The asshole that attacked her drew up, eyes watery and red but she watched his eyes focus this time, snakelike again. The taste of rot and decay had grown so heavy on the back of her tongue she gagged.
She looked around desperately for something, anything, any distraction she could use besides the shitty weapon in her hand. Her eyes were drawn immediately upward and she watched in shock as the shadows of the alley seemed to leap, reaching into the sky and blotting out the city's dim glow that decorated the undersides of the clouds—
A split second later, something massive dropped onto the man who grabbed her.
No, not something.
Someone.
Her attacker’s startled scream was cut off by a choked grunt as his head slammed into the pavement with a crack.
Maria barely had time to register that the huge shadow that had fallen from the sky had the outline of a man, and holy shit that’s the Batman, before he had hauled the man up by the front of his jacket and was beating him into a bloody mess against the wall a few yards away from where Maria still pressed herself.
The Batman didn’t stop hitting him with that heavily armored fist until the guy was well and truly unconscious, gushing crimson from the nose and mouth. Without even the slightest bit of hesitation, he opened his other hand and let him crumple, turning his back on the lifeless body.
He seemed to teleport, cloak flaring like actual massive wings toward the remaining men, who had been frozen in shock. They jolted, scrambled, three running for the opposite end of the alleyway. The remaining one— the one that had smiled at Maria— pulled the gun fully out of his pocket. He didn’t even bring it all the way up before Batman was on him, knocking the gun out of his hand. He twisted around, hooking an armored elbow around the man’s neck and grappled him to the floor.
It felt like time froze as the vigilante hovered over the man, engulfing him like a black cloud choking out a star in the sky. There was a strange crackling sound, and the man gave a gurgling scream as his legs- the only part of him Maria could see- jerked spastically.
The three men who ran had discovered at the end of the alley that the gates of both buildings had been pulled shut and padlocked, sometime within the last hour, effectively boxing them in. Maria distantly realized that she would’ve been trapped, too, if she’d tried to get all the way through to her apartment. She felt faint, gasping at decaying air.
There were panicked shouts and curses and then the men started running back towards where Maria was frozen against the wall, only to stop in their tracks, tripping over each other, when they realized the Batman was gone.
The gun had clattered onto the asphalt, coming to a stop a few feet away from Maria.
She slid down the brick, legs weak, hand clamped over her mouth as her back flared in pain. Her gasps, muffled as they were, seemed deafening.
Her attention was split now, and she only registered Batman’s reemergence when the screaming started again at the end of the alley and reached a fever pitch, before cutting off suddenly.
God, she was shaking so badly.
It wasn’t a decision she made, it just happened, but somehow she found herself on her knees cradling the pistol in trembling hands.
She rose up slightly as her thumb hovered anxiously on what she was pretty sure was the safety.
Batman was already done with the last of the men, speaking too softly for her to hear into what looked like a radio. He kneeled amongst the bloody, lifeless figures strewn across the rough asphalt, cloak shifting like a pool of ink.
She was safe now, she was pretty sure. So why didn’t it feel like it?
She pointed the gun down and away, still not certain what exactly to do with it but too scared to let it go.
The movement drew his attention, and the Batman’s head whipped around and fixed her with a milky white stare. He rose quickly, gracefully. His gloved hands were held slightly forward and out to the sides, palms exposed in what she was sure was an attempt to minimize his intimidation aspect.
She registered that and not much else as she locked onto his hands and drew in quick breaths.
There was blood on his hands.
All over his hands, actually.
She hadn’t even thought he was real, she thought he was some publicity stunt that Mayor Reál’s team had come up with! But now he was standing in front of her like Gotham’s shadows come to life, hands dripping with blood.
Dripping with blood, because he had just beaten six men unconscious.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, and she was surprised by how low his voice was. Modulated, yes, but low and gravely like stone scraping against stone.
She let out a slightly hysterical laugh, but she believed him somehow. He seemed to pick up on her wavering defensive posture, approaching her slowly before kneeling in front of her. She shied away from him a little bit, she wasn’t even sorry about it.
His hand came out to cover the top of the gun, and after a second Maria let him have it, unclenching her fingers from where they had gone white and numb against the grip. The smell of leather and blood overwhelmed most of the scent of rot and Maria couldn't help but slump in relief.
The gun was stripped with clinical efficiency, bullets tucked in a pouch somewhere near Batman’s hip, the actual pistol itself he set on the ground a handful of feet away.
Then his hands were back on Maria’s, gently flipping her left hand over to where he could see her wrist. She realized with a jolt that there was a ring of bruises pressed into her skin. Leather brushed her skin as he pressed long quick fingers into her bones, checking for anything broken probably. Seeming satisfied that she was just bruised, he gently pulled on her hand as he rose. She stood on wobbly legs and he stepped carefully around her. She realized after a moment that he was looking at the scrapes on her back. He shifted back in front of her a second later, so they couldn’t be too bad.
She could hear sirens approaching, registering for once out of the dim blur that usually disguised most of the city sounds to her.
“Cops are coming,” the Batman said.
His voice hummed in and out of her hearing, grinding and softening like a bad record. Her hearing was fuzzy, she recognized. He loomed in front of her, and the intensity of his presence was overwhelming.
And yet.
She wasn’t scared anymore. Unnerved and crashing from the adrenaline, yes, but scared, no. She wasn’t even sure if she’d ever been scared of him, he had just stopped those men from—
She tried desperately to collect herself, taking deep breaths over the panicked ones from before, hands coming up to grasp at her throat and chest protectively. Holy shit, if those guys had… if Batman hadn’t dropped out of the goddamn sky, she easily could’ve been mugged or killed or worse by those men. She could’ve been raped.
“What‘s your name?” Batman asked, low.
“Maria,” she rasped.
“Do you have someone you can call?” His voice didn’t change, but suddenly Maria remembered that she’d had her phone this whole time.
Shit, she was such an idiot. She should’ve had 911 on speed dial or something. She clenched her jaw and nodded.
Fuck, did she have someone to call? Her mom was several time zones away and her brother.. well. She didn’t know who had bailed him out this last time but it certainly wasn’t her.
She pulled her phone out of her purse with still-shaking hands. Tapping the screen, several missed calls from Becca popped up and despite it all, Maria felt her heart flutter.
She glanced nervously up at Batman but he was facing the mouth of the alley, watching something over her shoulder. She clicked on Becca’s icon, bringing the phone up to her ear.
Becca answered on the second ring, bless her.
“Maria! Thank god! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to flake on you guys, some asshole just totally fucked up my car. I wasn’t even driving the damn thing, just sitting in it eating some chips so I didn’t come drink on a totally empty stomach and anyway he just plowed straight into me. Did you go home? You should have, I know Sean was gonna be there and he really sucks—”
Maria couldn’t help the laugh she let out at Becca’s familiar rambling, although it had the edges of a sob.
Becca’s voice cut out immediately and suddenly there was a frantic note when she asked, “Maria? Are you okay? What happened, honey?”
To Maria’s shame, tears welled up in her eyes for the first time that night.
She looked up at the Batman again, but he had somehow moved down the length of the alley without her noticing, cuffing the unconscious men on the ground and rolling them onto their stomachs.
“I’m okay, just-“ Maria took a deep breath. “Some guys tried to attack me but uh. Hey, are you ok, did you get hurt when he hit you? Whiplash, or anything like that? Were you wearing a seatbelt when it—“
“—No, no, pinky promise there’s not even a scratch or bruise on me. What streets are you on? I can probably make it in like fifteen minutes if I run,” Becca was saying in her ear.
“I promise I’m fine, Becca, just.. just a bit scratched up and freaked out. I’m on Anderson and 34th, just past that weird government building.”
She paused as the sirens got dramatically louder and the alley slowly lit up with red and blue lights.
“Ok honey, I’ll be there in ten. Are the police there?”
When Maria hummed yes, Becca made a noise of relief and launched into a new wave of worried chatter. Maria turned, watching a handful of cops get out of their cars.
“I have to go, Becca,” she gently cut into the other woman’s words.
“—ok, good luck sweetheart. I’ll see you in a few.”
Maria tapped the end button, choked up.
When she looked up, the cops had made it into the alley and suddenly everything was blurred together. Red and blue lights reflected off the puddles on the ground, flashing all around her.
She looked back once more, into the far end of the alley toward the fence. It was dark again, darker than the deepest night.
Batman was gone.
She vaguely remembered being ushered to sit in the backseat of one of the cop cars, a paramedic breaking off from the ambulance to check her for head wounds and make sure she wasn’t bleeding out or anything.
Becca showed up right as they started to clean out the scratches on her back. Maria held her hand tight as the alcohol wipes burned. Road rash, essentially, they said. Not bad. Plus a couple of bruises. She’d gotten off lightly, all things considered.
Maria’s eyes drifted past the flashing lights of the ambulance and focused on the mouth of the alley. A handful of cops were making their way toward the cuffed men, bleeding onto the nasty cobbles and lined up on their bellies for the officers like sacrifices.
It started to rain again. Misting from above at first like spray from a waterfall and then harder, beating down onto the bloodied pavement. From deep in the shadows, far at the end past that chain link fence, luminous white eyes glowed back at her.
A cop stepped in front of the open door, breaking her view.
She sucked in a deep breath, Becca’s hand reassuring in its warmth.
The smell of rot had fallen away with the rain, leaving the new, scraped-clean scent of fresh earth.