Chapter Text
It’s the so-called normal guys who always let you down. Sickos never scare me. At least they’re committed.
- Batman Returns
“Ooh, a new toy.” Catwoman keeps her voice low, and it echoes in the domed atrium of the Gotham Natural History Museum. If San heard her talk out on the street, he’d never be able to place her—but in the dark like this, he knows all her cadences and tones. He hears the laughter there as she adds, “Something to… bat around?”
She swings her whip—and San, dangling from the end of it—back and forth through the atrium.
San lets himself be pulled on her line like a fish. The Batsuit distributes his weight evenly from the grip the electronic gauntlet maintains on the whip. He’s not exactly comfortable, but he can stay here for a while, and the cape’s hover function will catch him if she drops him or he falls.
She’s probably wearing herself out more than he is, holding his weight from the handle of her whip. That catsuit is plain black leather, not body armor and probably not hiding any tech or mechanics. She’s sort of miraculous for being able to keep up with him at all.
“I thought you liked your toys pretty,” San says, keeping his voice low and gruff.
“Oh, don’t put yourself down,” she purrs. “You’d look so cute in one of those collars with a little bell.”
Well, so would she. That’s why San is waiting here, suspended—the night’s light through the dome is giving him a much clearer view of her than he usually catches in the night’s shadows, and San is looking.
The silver light traces a smooth white line down the plane of her black-clad chest and stomach. A utility belt casts her hips and the juncture of her thighs in shadow, but the perfect roundness of her small butt lifts it up in back. The crease at the top of her thigh there, where a lover might cup a hand to pull her hips close, is tight where one of her legs points tensely straight down.
It’s something to see, for sure.
Catwoman cocks her head, questioning, and San has been looking too long. He steals the moment of her confusion to thrash his body and swing the momentum of the whip harder. The gauntlet lets go, the end of the whip slips free from around San’s wrist, and he lands in a crouch at the fossilized feet of the T-Rex in the center of the atrium. He triggers a sensor somewhere, and a cheerful electronic voice starts talking about the Cretaceous period.
San turns his face back up. From this angle, he can’t even tell which pane of glass is missing from the dome, and Catwoman is gone.
It’s closer to dawn than midnight, and the city is dark, dark, dark—moon set, half the streetlights broken, only the kind of places that don’t advertise with lights still open. No Bat-Signal, most importantly, so instead of heading to City Hall, San goes to Yunho’s apartment. In the suit, he can jump right up to the fourth-floor fire escape, and the lock on the window is still broken.
Yunho sleeps in the center of his bed, all limbs, so San has to tuck himself close on one side. “Hey,” he whispers because Yunho gets annoyed with him if he jumps right into the news.
Yunho wakes up shouting as usual, and San yawns as he waits for Yunho to get over it and sit up.
Yunho turns a lamp on and rubs his eyes. “You know, I could have had a girl in here.”
“It hasn’t happened yet,” San says. “So, about the new Catwoman.”
“New? Oh yeah, I’ve heard that theory.” Yunho grins. “That she’s a copycat.”
“Not a copycat.” In his best gravelly Batman voice, San says, “Don’t let puns get in the way of accuracy. She’s a protege. There was one Catwoman for a long time, and then there were two running around, and now there’s only the second one.”
Yunho nods, taking it in. “You think the first one handed over the whip?”
“No one’s been up close with both of them more than I have,” San says. “I don’t think, I know.”
“No, for sure,” Yunho says. “We appreciate the intel.”
“This isn’t the intel. I thought you already knew this.” Honestly, San likes working with Yunho, but he isn’t sure the police get anything done without his help.
“Oh.” Yunho manages to wilt and perk at the same time. “What’s the news, then?”
“You need to expand your suspect’s profile,” San says. “I don’t think you’re necessarily looking for a woman.”
Yunho’s jaw drops. His hair is all stuck up from sleep. “You think Catwoman is a dude.”
“I think that person could easily be passing as any gender they want,” San says. “But also, yes. I was comparing security footage of the two—” This is a half-truth, as San does nothing of the sort. Jongho was on the computer comparing the footage while San did taekwondo practice. “The new Catwoman definitely has a much flatter and broader chest.”
“Huh.” Absently, Yunho rubs a hand across his own chest, as if testing the shape.
“Not as broad as yours. Or mine,” San adds, with no small pride. “But there’s some power there. Actually, I was going to tell you it was enough to make me sure, but I got another good look tonight and—I’m a little confused by Catwoman’s butt.”
“Huh,” Yunho says again. That’s all.
“I mean, it’s not big,” San clarifies. “But there was a… generosity there I wasn’t expecting.” He considers the image in his mind once again, the play of light and shadow on Catwoman’s body in the dark. He holds his hands up, tracing the roundness from memory.
“So,” Yunho says slowly, watching San’s hands move, “in the morning, I’ll tell my captain that Catwoman might be literally anyone, and in particular let’s search for a man with a generous ass.”
“No, it doesn’t sound quite right when you say it like that.” San squeezes the air, racking his brain for the most accurate word. “I think you could say it’s pert. Or bouncy?”
Yunho rubs his hands up his face. “Please stop saying adjectives.”
“You’ve got it?” San claps his hands together, letting the vision fall away.
“Yes,” Yunho says. “I will let the captain know.”
San can’t go around smiling while he’s wearing the Batsuit—the boyish grin of Gotham’s most eligible young bachelor would be too easy to spot. Yunho doesn’t know who’s hiding under the mask, but San chose him as his police contact because they knew each other in high school. Yunho was charming and popular, and San was so angry all the time he got kicked out of their school, so Yunho probably doesn’t remember him very well—but San still takes care to hold his disguise, just in case.
He suppresses his urge to beam and instead pulls Yunho into an embrace. “Always happy to help, Detective Jeong.”
Yunho pats his shoulder. “Thanks, Batman. Hey, go get some rest.”
“It’s almost five,” San says. “At this point, might as well stay up, right?”
“Ah. Great,” Yunho says again. He turns, presumably to check for his phone or something, and San slips out the window. He takes a deep breath—even the dirty air in Gotham is sweet to him. It’s home.
“Oh, I forgot to mention.” San ducks back into the window as Yunho yelps. “Whoever it is, they got away with some gems from the natural history museum last night.”
San hates giving bummer news. He turns and goes before Yunho can respond.
San’s day gets busy fast—arriving home after sunrise, he only gets a short break before he has to be back in the city center to meet with the Choi Enterprises finance team, and then the work day spins away from him so completely he can’t even get home to change. Jongho sends a tuxedo from the manor by courier, and he doesn’t remember to send a pair of good cufflinks, so San has to use the backups in his desk.
The chaos is a lucky break in one way: San doesn’t have a chance to be nervous about his date until he’s walking up the sidewalk with sweaty palms.
Tonight is his third date with Wooyoung, which is… of course, San wouldn’t presume anything. It’s taken a long time to get to three dates since both of San’s double lives are busy, and unlike many of the people he dates, Wooyoung doesn’t make himself effortlessly available when San does have time. But their first date ended with a sweet, brief kiss outside the door of Wooyoung’s building, and their second with a longer, warmer makeout in San’s car, Wooyoung’s hand falling not-quite-carelessly into San’s lap. So things are following a nice progression, is all. A third date could be special.
He’s meeting Wooyoung for a drink before going with him to the Kim Group Foundation’s gala. He’s expecting they’ll be overdressed for the little bar Wooyoung mentioned, but he’s not prepared for how Wooyoung shines in the center of the dark room.
Instead of a tux, he’s dressed in layers of beautiful, touchable textures—a satin shirt with a long scarf under a shimmery blazer, and… are those leather pants? They’re leather pants.
The palm of San’s hand aches as he reaches for Wooyoung’s elbow. Wooyoung turns into him, lips landing softly on San’s cheek, and that's enough to take San’s breath away.
“Hey, you look nice,” Wooyoung says as San shrugs his coat off.
“You look—” San feels a little helpless. “Wow,” he finally says, like a dummy. So smooth.
Wooyoung just smiles, and there’s a little knowing edge to it, though he keeps his voice casual. “Ah, this mess? Well, I need everyone I work with to remember I’m not working tonight and I am not available to handle whatever little crisis comes up.”
Everything Wooyoung says is a complicated, multifaceted game, as if he’s performing strategically for multiple audiences. San is almost sure he likes the feeling of trying to keep up. This time, at least, the subtext feels obvious—the romantic glamor of a third date at a society party could dissolve quickly into banality tonight, since Wooyoung is a secretary for the chairman of the Kim Group, and he will technically be at work. That’s how they met—San went in for a meeting about contributing to the foundation’s new wing of the Gotham Central Library.
“Is it too weird, going to your job tonight?” San’s carefully cultivated reputation as a flaky playboy often comes in handy. “We can always play hooky.”
Wooyoung shakes his head. “I won’t let anyone try to make it weird, that’s all.” He leans closer again. “I want to go show you off.”
San’s breath catches in his chest, but Wooyoung is already turning away, sighing lightly. “It’s not my fault Hongjoongie can’t live without me. Should we get whiskey?”
“Whatever you want, I’m driving,” San says. “Soju will go better if you want to get shrimp snacks.”
Wooyoung likes shrimp snacks more than anyone San has ever met. It doesn’t take much thoughtfulness to notice, but Wooyoung still looks pleased as he orders the soju.
Wooyoung leads the conversation, easily filling the space with gossip about the gala’s planning and the other VIP guests. The conversation feels less about the content than the rhythm of it—Wooyoung’s bouncing tones, his swerving topics, the momentum of the evening heading toward the party and then past it.
They finish the last of the soju. As Wooyoung places his glass on the table, he holds San’s gaze. “Anyway, we don’t have to stay too late.”
San smiles, small. “We should get going soon, though, right?”
Wooyoung doesn’t even pretend to put up a fight as San goes up to the bar to pay. At the register, San turns back to watch Wooyoung stand and put on his jacket. He’s so pretty—the way the light finds the textures of his clothes in the dark, the long, fine lines of him.
Except there’s a pleasing interruption to those lines as he pulls on his jacket, the back hem lifting off the unexpected roundness of his butt in his leather pants.
San’s jaw drops.
San has seen that butt before. He’s been thinking about that butt—for important, civic-minded reasons—all day.
“Um, sir?” the bartender says, and San turns back to the counter. His heart pounds as he pays. It can’t be—it can’t be. San will turn around and the illusion will be broken, just the coincidence of leather pants in a dark room, too little sleep and too much worry.
But when San turns, Wooyoung has his jacket on and he’s standing perpendicular to San, facing the door, which means San can see the tightness of the crease at the top of his thigh, where a lover might cup a hand to pull his hips close.
San measures the space between them as he returns across the room. Wooyoung is too tall to be Catwoman, it’s impossible—except, no, it’s possible. Wooyoung is wearing dress shoes with a little heel, and Catwoman’s suit only has thin leather slippers with gripping claws. San, too, is in dress shoes, and the Batsuit has combat boots with soles thick enough to hold several tech enhancements. The suit bulks him up all over in ways that feel instinctive, part of his body—but he’s much smaller when he’s only San.
He feels very small, in fact, as he puts an arm around Wooyoung’s waist and imagines the shift of weight if he were to flip Wooyoung over to avoid a blow. Maybe he does recognize the angle—it’s hard to tell.
“I’m parked up the street, is that all right?” San asks. He pitches his voice low so that Wooyoung will match it when he answers, “Of course,” and maybe San recognizes Catwoman’s purr there, or maybe not.
San can’t tell, and as he’s considering, he stares at Wooyoung’s face in silence for a second too long. Wooyoung cocks his head just like Catwoman did when San spent too long staring last night, and something shifts into place so clearly that the night itself goes click.
Everything about it is obvious—his voice, his smile, his eyes, his body moving through the room. His legs, his hands, the strange draw toward him pulling in San’s gut. Wooyoung has been Catwoman as long as San has known him.
Hot anger and hotter shame roil in San’s chest as he follows Wooyoung into the street. He needs to take a pause before he does something stupid, something to give himself away. He takes out his phone. “Sorry, one second,” he says, trying to look vaguely busy and important as he gestures Wooyoung towards the car and walks a step behind him.
Can you run a picture of Catwoman against Jung Wooyoung from the Kim Group? he asks Jongho, not because he needs the confirmation but because he needs the time to take a few deep breaths.
Jongho is quick—San gets his reply as they approach the car. It’s an image made of two pictures superimposed, Wooyoung’s sharp jaw and soft mouth from a photo at one of these charity galas matching perfectly over Catwoman’s in a frame of security footage.
I’ll check a few more angles, but it looks like a match to me, Jongho writes.
Jongho knows that Wooyoung is the person San is out with tonight. Something about not being made fun of here, the solicitous lack of comment, feels worse than teasing would.
“Aren’t you worried about parking a car like that on the street?” Wooyoung asks.
San brought the Audi. It’s among the more understated of his cars, but the low, silver bullet of it still stands out.
While Wooyoung studies the Audi, San studies him. He’s got his arms crossed against the cold—San should have offered him his overcoat. Would have, if he weren’t distracted.
Maybe Wooyoung would realize something is wrong, notice San’s dour mood or his mistake with the coat, if he were thinking about anything besides stealing San’s car.
San feels like he’s on fire, breathless and sweating. Forget thieves, he wants to put a fist through the car’s window himself.
San flashes Wooyoung his dimples. They always work to distract from a smile that can’t reach his eyes. His voice is only a shade darker than normal as he says, “I have good security.”
Kim Hongjoong, the young chairman and CEO of the Kim Group, comes from generations of mob money. Since he took charge, he’s been cleaning up his family’s act, consolidating his businesses and bringing them in line with the law. Some of it has been observable to the public eye—he’s made significant improvements to the firetrap apartments his family owns without raising rents, and his foundation has been supporting the library system as an investment in both the city’s landmark buildings and its literacy rates.
He’s doing good work, as long as it’s for real and not a cover for some deeper, subtler crime. He and San might have a lot in common—two young heirs with big roles to play in the city’s future, working to correct the mistakes of their fathers. But San has kept his distance—he’s never been sure Kim Hongjoong is someone he can trust.
And it turns out Hongjoong’s personal secretary is Catwoman, so every paranoid suspicion San has had was probably correct.
When San walked into Hongjoong’s office, Wooyoung was instantly, beautifully flirtatious. That happens to San a lot, and, with a bad reputation to uphold, he generally goes along. But Wooyoung reeled him in and kept him interested with a rare power, a power San now understands as calculated expertise.
The ballroom of the Marriott Gotham Square is decorated in glittering whites and deep reds, florals and crystal on velvet. San takes it in with his instincts to check a room when he enters, but his mind is busy running scenarios to guess what Catwoman and Kim Hongjoong might want from him.
Catwoman is just a thief. San has been clear with Yunho not to call him to jewelry stores or mansion homes, that Batman is not interested in property crime. He only spars with Catwoman when she—he—Wooyoung—steals publicly owned antiquities from Gotham’s museums. San tries not to hurt him as they fight over artifacts.
Which has been happening more often, maybe as Wooyoung is seeking out chances to learn how Batman fights, taking notes alongside whatever he’s learning about San’s life on their dates.
It’s also possible this is a horrible coincidence, that Wooyoung didn’t know about San’s secret identity any more than San knew his. There’s no comfort in the idea. San is the richest man in Gotham, and Wooyoung is a master thief. If he isn’t interested in San for Batman, then he’s only after the heirlooms dotted around Choi Manor. The dullness of that is somehow even worse.
San forgoes the flutes of champagne being passed on trays and asks a server for whiskey with water—something he can hold without drinking to keep his wits about him. Wooyoung takes the champagne, though, and loops his other arm around San’s elbow as he beams around the room.
They move through the party in a large bubble of their own space. People tend to stare at San more than they approach him, and Wooyoung knows everyone in attendance, so as fast as he can greet each person, he’s waving to someone else behind them.
This reprieve from any actual conversation should be giving San time to think, but his mind is just spinning, fuming. He has worked so hard to control his anger and his strength. He’s given half his life to that practice. And now, stuck in this stiff suit on a pretend date he thought was real, all that work is dissolving into nothing.
So he lets Wooyoung lead him around the room, smiling his blank, stupid society smile and burning inside, until they stop abruptly in the center. “CEO Kim,” Wooyoung coos sweetly, “What a beautiful party you’ve put together.”
Hongjoong rolls his eyes—San doesn’t think Wooyoung addresses Hongjoong so formally most of the time, and he definitely knows Wooyoung did most of the work to put this party together—but that’s all the response Wooyoung gets.
Hongjoong angles himself away from Wooyoung and flashes a smile, winning but rakishly tilted, to San. “Thanks for coming. We really appreciate your support for the library.”
Hongjoong is a little guy who has learned how to craft himself a big presence. His jacket is tailored with broad shoulders and dramatic tails to fill space but a tight waist so he isn’t swamped. He looks up from under a wide-brimmed hat much bolder than San would ever wear indoors, and San walks around in bat-shaped body armor in his free time.
Basically, Hongjoong looks a lot like someone San is right to be suspicious of.
“Oh, yeah,” San says, acknowledging Hongjoong’s thanks a long second too late. “Sure.”
There’s a weird, flat pause in the conversation—San, preoccupied and barely holding onto his temper, can’t keep up his part.
San’s carefully cultivated reputation as an insipid society boy should be helping him now, except that he let himself get pulled in and dropped the act around Wooyoung, and Wooyoung will notice something is wrong if San can’t collect himself.
Hongjoong smiles like he’s rallying himself to do it. “Well, we’re getting the plans drawn up. Did Wooyoung show you the sketches for the Choi room?”
“I did not!” Wooyoung announces defiantly before San has to answer. “I told you, I’m not at work tonight. Sannie and I are on a date and you are being a drag.”
Wooyoung gestures to San’s face, as if this is the likeliest explanation for San’s unpleasantness. San flashes the dimples, mind whirring as he scans the pair of them like diagrams to a secret plan will manifest between them.
”All right, all right.” Hongjoong raises his hands. “We’ll have you back to the office to see when everything is finalized,” he adds to San.
San has spent a lovely afternoon in that office already, but now he wonders if it would be safe. “My staff can set something up,” San says as if he’s too important to consider it himself. If he decides it’s too dangerous, Jongho can put them off.
“I’ll tell my assistant tomorrow.” Hongjoong gives Wooyoung a pointed look as he turns back to the party.
Wooyoung puts his hand on San’s back. He’s been glued to San’s side since the bar, but somehow he slinks even closer. “Is everything all right?” he asks—voice soft, all guileless and sweet.
San should leave. What’s stopping him, really? In high school, he used to start fights when he felt like this, helpless and almost desperate to make the calm world around him as dark and confused as he was inside. He doesn’t have to feel like that anymore—he has money and strength enough to win any game, any fight. So it’s not fair and it’s not right and it doesn’t make sense that something about Wooyoung’s hand on his back makes him powerless to turn away.
“Am I being too unpleasant to show off?” San asks, pitching his voice low but still unmistakably sour. “I know you like your toys pretty.”
The realization that dawns on Wooyoung’s face breaks, impossibly, toward a smile. “Don’t put yourself down,” he says, grinning like he thinks they’re flirting.
He’s not surprised. He has known the whole time, playing some game that’s either petty, evil, or both.
San is shaking. If he lets himself say anything, he’ll start shouting everything, so he finally makes himself turn away—right into the server reappearing with his whiskey. She masks her surprise with an instant smile, and it takes about everything San has to make himself exhale and give a normal, polite nod as he takes the tumbler from her tray.
That’s enough time for Wooyoung to figure out he’s miscalculated and grab San’s elbow again. “There’s a staff office next door,” he hisses.
Whatever he wants to do there, talk or fight or worse, San isn’t interested. He yanks his elbow away, and starts to say so, but he’s interrupted by a shatter of glass. He turns toward the sound, a pane of the floor-to-ceiling windows that line one side of the room crumpling as it falls, and even in the speed of the moment he notices that Wooyoung does, too, tracking the sound precisely as others in the room get turned around in sudden panic.
A couple of warning shots send plaster dust falling from the ceiling and startled screams through the crowd as a dozen or so guys in clown masks pour through the broken window to fan around the room, weapons up. The Joker follows with theatrical timing, his sword cane held high at an elegant angle.
“Oh, fuck me,” Wooyoung mutters under his breath as Harley Quinn appears last, giving his baseball bat a complicated twirl before the Joker pulls him in close by the waist.
“Boys and girls and babes!” The Joker calls, jumping onto the nearest table as the room falls into a petrified silence. “Let’s see wallets, watches, and jewels, and no one has to get hurt.”
San tenses as the guys in masks begin to move through the room, collecting valuables. The Joker stays on top of the table, a colossal presence even in a huge room, and Harley darts into the crowd. Simple theft isn’t usually the Joker’s game—it might be a cover for something else.
And San could try to figure out what, if he weren’t stuck here. He keeps a lighter version of the Batsuit, made of fine, steel-hard technical mesh, folded into each car, so if he could get out of the room, he could be back in three minutes ready to fight. But he’s standing at the dead center of a motionless crowd and he’s the most high-profile person here, so he can’t even twitch.
It’s Harley, of course, and not one of the anonymous masked guys, who walks up to San. Harley takes the tumbler of whiskey out of San’s hand and knocks a mouthful back before throwing the rest over his shoulder. The crowd is giving him a wide berth, and everyone nearby jumps farther back as the glass shatters on the floor.
He grabs San’s wrist—it’s a strange sensation that his hand is so warm, so entirely human—and turns it over.
Since Jongho only sent the tux, San has on the backup cufflinks from his desk, plain stainless steel, and no watch at all. Underneath his perpetually smiling makeup, Harley looks unimpressed. “Rich people can be so cheap,” he says.
There’s a line to snap back—something about matching the quality of the company, maybe. Harley is honestly not not San’s type, and when San runs into him as Batman, he does indulge in a little banter.
But he can’t do that now, not only because it would be dangerous to give Harley that hint at Batman’s identity, but also because San is frozen. Staying quiet might be his best play, stuck in the center of the room, but it’s also the only play his body can access. The helplessness feels like drowning, his lungs getting tight.
“I bet you don’t even carry cash,” Harley says. “Let’s see.”
San takes out his slim card wallet—cash-free, Harley was right, and San feels a little smug in showing it. The Joker and Harley always make out with as much cash as they can, and then spread it all over Dockside on their way home. It’s one reason they avoid capture—their neighborhood protects them. The Joker’s public approval rating hovers only about five points below Choi San’s—not that San worries about that. Anyway, Batman has one of the consistently highest approval ratings in the city. Not that San cares. But if he did, that would be the end of it.
Batman’s approval rating is going to take a hit after tonight, though. San can feel the room starting to get agitated, wondering why Batman hasn’t come for them. The Joker is dancing around on his table, singing something nasty and meaningless in a low, sonorous voice, but underneath, whispers are starting to cut the quiet. If someone freaks out and instigates chaos, or the Joker breaks his promise not to hurt anyone, and San is still stuck here… oh, he can’t take it. He can hardly breathe.
Harley’s roving gaze catches behind San, where Wooyoung’s presence is shrunk down small. Harley’s eyes narrow.
Instinctively, San squares up his shoulders, making more space for Wooyoung to hide. Which, as soon as San’s brain catches up, is ridiculous. Obviously, Wooyoung can take care of himself, and has been in ways San still can barely get his brain around. But maybe that’s worse, if Catwoman and Harley are enemies or something, if there are dangers lurking here San also doesn’t know about.
Harley gives his bat a twirl and taps Wooyoung on the backside just enough to make him jump—San jumps, too, like he’s going to put himself in the way or do something else to protect Wooyoung. It’s useless instincts firing, and Wooyoung puts a hand on his elbow to stop him. Harley is already sauntering away.
The inevitable police sirens start to squeal in the distance, audible through the broken window. The Joker reaches for Harley with one arm and into his pocket with his other hand. San has enough time to open his breast pocket and retrieve a handkerchief with a little Choi Enterprises tech woven into the fabric.
Or two. As the Joker and his guys drop smoke bombs on the ground and the room disappears in a purple-black haze, San claps one handkerchief over his mouth and nose and pushes the other into Wooyoung’s hand.
That has to be the last of what he owes Wooyoung, and is probably much more, but he still feels a rush of guilty fear as he tears himself away and leaves Wooyoung behind. As the smoke blooms through the room, a nervous, brittle laughter follows—laughing gas. San has seen the Joker use it before, and it doesn’t cause any long-term harm, but it is eerily terrifying, especially when the smoke is this heavy and dark. San has to push his way blind to the doors as frightened bodies churn around him.
He manages by instinct and training, the handkerchief filtering the air to help him breathe and keep his head clear. He thinks, once, that he hopes Wooyoung figured out the handkerchief—and then he stops thinking about that.
In the hall, the space opens up, and the others that have made it out are moving toward the lobby. San springs the other direction, down the empty hall through dark conference rooms, and takes out his phone, pulling up Jongho’s contact without missing a step.
“Are you all right?” Jongho asks, but he doesn’t wait for an answer. “I’m three minutes out. There’s a loading dock in the back of the conference center.”
“I’m on my way,” San answers. His phone begins to ping with a compass app Jongho designed for him, guiding him through a small maze of staff halls and onto the loading dock.
It’s cold outside, and quiet except for the light rain tapping the cement. San shrugs out of his jacket and starts working on his bow tie. There’s a tiny zap as an electromagnetic field disables the security cameras, and then the rumble of the Batmobile’s engine a second before the car pulls into view.
Jongho jumps out as his hand is still putting it in park, opening his arms for the pieces of San’s tux as he strips. “Is the Joker working with Catwoman, do you think?” he asks.
San shakes his head, thinking of the strange, mean look on Harley’s face as he took Wooyoung in. “Maybe they were targeting him. I don’t know.”
The Kim family, Wooyoung or Catwoman or both, and the Joker and Harley Quinn—they all must fit together, but San doesn’t know how yet. This is the kind of web that sometimes forms as a coincidence in the tiny bubble of Gotham’s highest echelon, and sometimes means there’s a single, cohesive plot afoot to turn the whole city into a smoking hole in the ground.
San drops his tuxedo pants in Jongho’s arms, and Jongho empties the pockets before he dumps the tuxedo in the passenger seat of the Batmobile. San goes around the back of the car, but before he can slide in, Jongho says, “Boss?”
San looks up.
“I’m sorry,” Jongho says. “What a shitty night.”
San would love to crawl into Jongho’s arms and tell him all about it, but not while he’s in his underwear in a rainy loading dock and the Joker and his people are getting away. “I think it’s about to get worse,” he says, already dropping into his gravelly Batman voice.
He slides into the Batmobile’s trunk feet-first, and robotic arms clamp him into the Batsuit before they deposit him into the front seat.
Jongho throws a peace sign in the rearview as San peels away.
The empty streets around Gotham Square show no sign of the Joker and his band, and traffic on the expressway overhead is moving normally, so the trail there will be even colder. But that’s all right. San doesn’t need to spend tonight chasing the Joker’s shadow when he’s got another villain caught like—San smiles grimly to himself as the thought hits him—a mouse in a trap.
He stashes the Batmobile in an alley and scales a fire escape to the roof of an apartment building. He makes his way back to the hotel along the rooftops, watching the city scramble along below. When he gets to the hotel, he finds a dark balcony halfway down to crouch in, watching.
The hotel has been evacuated into the green park around the observation tower at the center of the Square. There are paramedics working around a line of ambulances, but their movements are organized and measured, not too fast—no serious injuries, or if there were, they’ve already gone to the hospital.
The laughing gas must have all cleared because people are standing around calmly. The busiest motion is around the food stalls—the gala never got time to sit down to dinner.
Kim Hongjoong in that big hat is easy to find at the center of the scene. He’s speaking to the police, along with Jongho, who will have made San’s apologies and taken his place as the most important person in the room. And behind Hongjoong, less involved in the conversation, Wooyoung stands with his arms crossed in front of his chest.
He’s easy to find, too—because of the subtle shine of his clothes, because the shape of his body has been the subject of so much of San’s careful study, and because San sort of physically can’t make himself look anywhere else. He turns on his mask’s binoculars and zooms in. Wooyoung is hunched and fidgeting. He has a bungeoppang from one of the stalls in one hand, and in the other fist, he’s still holding the black handkerchief San gave him.
The crowd disperses slowly as the police dismiss partygoers one by one. Wooyoung yawns in the middle of the park. Hongjoong speaks briefly to him, and then to one of the police detectives, and then Wooyoung starts walking away.
He moves quickly through the crowd, but it doesn’t matter. San feeds Wooyoung’s picture into another bespoke app and the city’s network of CCTV cameras start tracking him.
By the time San makes it back to the Batmobile, Wooyoung is on the subway. The computer’s data system, as well as San’s common sense, suggest he’s going back to his apartment, so San heads that way. He has the Batmobile stashed again and he’s waiting on a rooftop across the street before Wooyoung gets home.
Wooyoung lives in an old-fashioned building in a quiet neighborhood a little farther out from the city center than San might have guessed for someone so young and cool. San wondered about it from the first time he drove Wooyoung home—why here?
San hasn’t been inside the apartment—Wooyoung has always suggested a place to meet up, like tonight’s little bar, and never invited San up to say goodnight. San thought maybe Wooyoung was, like his place, a little more old-fashioned than one might expect. He was drawing things out according to a proper timeline or waiting for San to prove he deserved to come upstairs and touch Wooyoung in ways they could only share in private. A few hours ago, San was working himself into a foolish fit about their third date, wondering if that was the line Wooyoung wanted to cross.
But of course, the secret of Wooyoung’s apartment has nothing to do with any of that. It’s probably full of incriminating jewels and antiquities, all the treasures he’s stolen from Gotham’s museums and mansions. He was kissing San at the door and thinking of nothing except how to make San leave as fast as possible.
By the time Wooyoung comes up the street, the rain has cleared and left the night cold. Wooyoung walks fast, still hunched down into himself. San has a floor plan of the apartment building on his phone, and he watches until a light clicks on, pinkish and dim, in the two windows of Wooyoung’s top-floor apartment. Wooyoung’s head appears in one as cats—two, three, four, quick and sinuous shadows—jump from the roof down to the fire escape. Wooyoung empties a can into a dish there and stays, scratching one of the cats on its chin. He’s talking, but he’s got his chin in his hand and murmuring too softly for San to read his lips.
San loses count of the cats that cycle through from the roof and up the fire escape from the alley below. Wooyoung is kind of overcommitted to his bit, San thinks, waiting and watching as Wooyoung refills the food and keeps giving out scratches and little words.
Wooyoung wanted to talk. That’s where he was trying to take San, before they got interrupted. Chatting with the cats, he looks so sweet. Maybe he had something reasonable to say.
San shakes his head, fast like he needs to clear it. Sure, Wooyoung could have told him some more lies. Whatever.
Wooyoung drops one more can of food on the fire escape and then steps away from the window, leaving it open. Some of the cats jump into his apartment, and others jump out. San gets a text from Jongho: heading home, do you need backup?
San doesn’t answer—the combination of the read receipt and no answer will tell Jongho that San is fine and doesn’t need support right now. It’s extremely likely that Wooyoung is going to go to bed and San is going to sit here on the roof across the street and stare at his window all night, and San is fine with that. Some of the hot, trembling anger has started to subside, hardening inside him like cooling lava. He watches cats moving in and out of Wooyoung’s window and tries to focus on the environment so intensely that he can’t think at all.
Maybe it’s that focus that helps him hear a single kitten-soft step behind him. San whirls away as the tail of Catwoman’s whip lands where he was crouching.
Wooyoung, standing with his hip cocked in his full catsuit and mask in the middle of the roof, actually hisses. He looks sleek and wicked, black suit shining against the duller darkness of the city’s night. One of the cats winds around his legs.
“How did you finally figure it out?” Wooyoung asks. “It was the leather pants, wasn’t it?”
San’s not here to make banter. “I have to turn you in to the police,” San says.
“Sure,” Wooyoung replies evenly. “And once I get outed as Catwoman, everyone will believe me when I tell them who you are, too.”
San sighs, dismayed less by the threat—which of course he saw coming—than by Wooyoung’s ease in delivering it. “Maybe that would be for the best, anyway,” San says. He sounds almost as miserable as he feels.
Wooyoung’s head twitches toward a turn, just a little—that’s not the answer he expected. Another beat, and then he says, “Yeah. Maybe it would.”
But it’s another trick because the second San’s posture softens, Wooyoung snaps the whip again. This time San gets an arm up to block it, twisting his wrist so the end wraps around his gauntlet. He jerks it back and the handle slips out of Wooyoung’s grasp.
San tosses the whip over the side of the building. Wooyoung winces as it hits the ground below. “So you’re pretty angry, huh?” There are nerves in his voice now.
“It doesn’t matter how I feel.” San steps closer, but Wooyoung moves too, circling to keep the same distance between him. “I have to protect this city, whatever you and the Kim family are planning.”
“What? No.” Wooyoung’s posture changes instantly, hands up. “Hongjoong is legit. He doesn’t have anything to do with Catwoman.”
It is about San’s money, then. San takes a quick step closer, but Wooyoung is quicker circling back. San would really like to have the fight and get it over with. “You can tell a judge all about it,” he says. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Wooyoung takes one more step to the side. He’s not circling San, because this time San didn’t move—he’s trying to get to the edge of the building.
San shoots a grappling hook into the wall behind Wooyoung, running a heavy wire between Wooyoung and the edge he’s trying to get to, so close it nudges Wooyoung off balance. Wooyoung recovers and cartwheels over, but San is there to catch him before he can disappear off the roof.
His arm comes around Wooyoung’s waist, just like they were standing in the bar—except, as San noticed then, too, Wooyoung feels so much smaller now. The Batsuit is huge, bigger than either of them.
Wooyoung pushes his palm up and lands a good hit on San’s chin. But Wooyoung is used to fighting a different Batman, someone who was taking care not to hurt him or the valuables around them, and who was content to let the cops make the final capture. Someone who was half-flirting.
That’s not the person fighting tonight.
San takes the hit without flinching and grabs Wooyoung’s wrist. He wrenches Wooyoung’s arm behind him and pulls him close. He wraps his other arm around Wooyoung’s body and grabs Wooyoung’s chin to hold him still. The fingers of the gauntlet lock in place.
Wooyoung thrashes, but San doesn’t even have to sway to absorb his weight. He stays still as Wooyoung tries it again. Let him figure it out himself, San is hoping—let him give up. He doesn’t want to hurt Wooyoung any more than he has to.
Wooyoung flips his lower body up, and that throws his weight far enough off balance that San has to twist and let them fall. Wooyoung was trying to get over San’s head, to end up behind him, but San’s grip hasn’t faltered, and instead, Wooyoung is caught underneath him.
He really does feel so much smaller than San remembers from a few hours ago.
“If you don’t let go,” Wooyoung says, clearly making an effort to hold his voice even around a reedy note of fear, “you are going to have to kill me.”
He pushes to roll them over, thrashing with more power, enough to twist out of San’s grip. Maybe San lets go. Wooyoung ends up out of reach, crouched on the ground. San rises slowly.
“Who even are you?” Wooyoung asks. He sounds disgusted.
San has to laugh, though the sound comes out low and mean. “I thought you knew that the whole time.” He pauses. He shouldn’t have let go—now he’ll have to try again, to keep fighting. He wants to be done. He feels like he did as a teenager, stuck in school when all he wanted was to go home and be alone. That petulant, he adds, “I thought you liked me.”
“I did.” Wooyoung moves farther back as he stands. “You’re the one who’s changing your mind.”
San’s jaw drops. It takes him a second to answer, too astonished by that interpretation of this strange story. “You lied to me.”
Wooyoung rolls his eyes—his mask hides it, but San can tell from the way he rolls his head and shoulders, too. “If I did, it was the exact same lie you were telling.”
San scoffs. “You lie so you can get away with taking shit that doesn’t belong to you, just because you can. I have to protect the people I care about from the enemies I’ve made keeping this city safe. You think that’s the exact same thing?”
Wooyoung doesn’t answer, and San thinks, ha! He won that point.
But the moment stretches, Wooyoung staying silent and still, until San starts to falter, at least in his heart. Did he win that point? Is there something he’s missing?
Finally, Wooyoung says, “Isis.”
“Wha—” San is cut off by the hot, sudden blow of a yowling cat in his face, claws scrabbling at his mask. His heart squeezes, caught for a second in his old terror of the bats flapping around him, the strange squeaks and beating wings, and he can’t breathe with this thing on him—
By the time he flings the cat away, Wooyoung is gone.