Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

              Catherine wakes up to the scurry of rats and the smell of piss. Which is unfortunately a very common thing for her in this life.

With a sigh, she sits up while rubbing her aching back.

Who would’ve thought that a bullet wound through the back would hurt like a bitch. Apparently not her because she had jumped in front of the gun with zero thoughts as to how much agony she would’ve faced.

Feeling along her spine, the best she could, she found that there was nothing there as usual other than a new scar. And by nothing she meant not even her shirt.

“Fucking bastards”, she swore as she jumped up to feel the rest of her. And yep, it was just as she’d assumed, they’d literally stolen the clothing off her back and left her completely naked to rot.

 Underneath her, she could feel her toes sink into a squishy material and she couldn’t help but wince when she thought of the amount of showering she was going to have to do to get rid of this stench. Still though, they could’ve left her some kind of decency by leaving her shoes on at least. She was a size 5 for God’s sake, it took forever for her to find a pair of sneakers that she didn’t need to tape up so they wouldn’t fall off.

With a few more cuss words, she slowly made her way to the wall where a beam of light was coming through. Reaching up, she tried to push at the roof above her and found her fingers a few inches short of it. She gave out another long sigh and she could just hear the universe laughing at her.

Fuck her for being short, she guessed.

Bending down, she began feeling around for anything that she could use to help her reach the ceiling. Ignoring the voice in the back of her screaming at the feeling of spoiled foods, she slowly dug through the pile under her.

It’s fine. It’s fine, she reassured herself, she’d scrub her nails with some alcohol to make sure they were fully disinfected. Her fingers came across something that wriggled and she felt horror consume her again.

Bleach she told herself. She’ll scrub her nails with bleach.

Finally, Catherine came across something that felt like a metal bat. She sent up a prayer of thanks to whatever deity had tired of watching her misery and stood up, only to be met by a pair of golden eyes staring at her in the dark.

“Chirp”

And Catherine has officially lost her mind. She stared in silence and contemplated her existence. Did that fucking person just chirp at her? They both continued to stare at each other, and she noted that the figure never even blinked. Yeah, no, she must’ve gotten a concussion when the muggers had dropped her in here and she was now hallucinating.

 She ignored the figure and started trying to wriggle the bat in between the crack to open up the roof. Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed the figure slowly come closer to her until it was practically right next to her.

A huff came out of her as she realized that she was still too short to reach and in response the thing next to her gave out another chirp.

She gave up. Dropping the bat, Catherine slowly turned to face the thing again. The thing, or she should say kid now, was at least two feet shorter than her and had his head cocked at her. His clothes were black and around his waist was a belt with daggers and multiple compartments that she was sure contained even more dangerous shit. The boy moved a step closer and catherine shivered as she saw the gold talons that encased his fingers. With slow, clumsy, movements, the boy reached up and Catherine cringed as the sharp edges of his talons brushed against her cheek.

“Chirp”

Catherine couldn’t help but question her life yet again because what the actual fuck was wrong with her?

              “Hi?”, Catherine questioned, and the figure only tilted his head at her while still creepily caressing her face. Good God, did this kid even speak English or only in bird? Looking at his weird clothing and eyes, Catherine could only guess no. With a heavy sigh, Catherine decided to give it a shot anyway.

              “Hey, can you speak English?” This time, the boy gives a visceral reaction of shivering. He slowly puts his hand down away from her face and finally opens his mouth to speak in the most eerie and creaky voice ever.

              “The court of owls has sentenced you to die.”

              Silence envelops the pair again, and Catherine can only bring herself to stare again. Despite the threatening words, the boy still looks normal, if not a little proud of himself. And Catherine’s never been in a situation like this before but maybe this is normal for half bird boys in Gotham?

              “Right, okay. That was not creepy at all.” she finds herself speaking out loud and the way the boy narrows his eyes at her, sends fear shooting up her spine. The boy steps forward and inwardly Catherine starts cussing herself out. Her and her fucking big ass mouth. Why the fuck would she think that was okay to say to a creature that carried daggers around. Bracing herself, she watches as the boy comes up to her and holds something out to her.

              It’s her wallet.

              Relief seeps through her body and as she slowly takes the tiny black purse from him, Catherine finds himself analyzing him again. She continues to stare as the boy steps back into a corner and curls up into himself.

He looks familiar.

Very familiar.

And as he turns around, she realizes.

“Hey you’re the boy I saved yesterday!”

The boy that had led her into this mess in the first place.

“Hey, you so fucking owe me for what happened yesterday! Who told you to jump into a mugging like that?” The boy looked up at her and gave a sad chirp.

His eyes glistened and Catherine could almost swear that he was giving her puppy eyes.

“Oh no, don’t you look at me like that” she makes her way to his corner and hunkers down in front of him with her finger in his face, all her past fears gone.

“I get that you were trying to save me from getting robbed, but I would rather just give up a couple bucks than get shot or beat up. If you had minded your own business like everyone in this god forsaken city does, then we all would’ve went our own ways with my pockets just a little lighter. Instead, you decided to play hero and almost got shot at and died. In fact, I did get shot at. And if it hadn’t been for the fact that this body is weird, I definitively would’ve died.”

The boy cooed at her and Catherine smacked her own face, slowly rubbing down it.

What was she thinking trying to talk sense to this half bird boy. He probably didn’t even understand what she had just said, and she was just wasting her breath. She should save her energy and instead just figure out how to get out of here instead.

Standing up, Catherine went to view the opening of the dumpster again and glared at it.

Stupid Gotham and it’s stupid vigilantes. Stupid muggers and their tendencies to drop bodies off in a dumpster. Couldn’t they get creative for once and dump her body in the forests outside the city for once, or an abandoned warehouse? Though she guessed she should be grateful that they hadn’t dumped her in the ocean this time. That had been a pain to get out of it. Dying every couple of minutes from drowning was apparently not conducive to swimming.

With a sigh, she sat down and closed her eyes. The moment she got home, she was going to sign up for a gym and build up her upper body muscles so that the next time this happened she would be able to actually pull herself up and out of the dumpster.

Shuffling from the corner distracted her from her thoughts and as she listened she heard a set of feet squishing their way to her side. There was a pause as the boy stopped in front of where she sat and suddenly, he gave a soft coo.

Annoyed, her eyes shot open and before she could snap at the boy she caught a look at what he was holding.

“Oh my god, a grappling gun? All this time you had a grappling gun?” She scrambled to her feet and pulled his hand closer to look at the gun, completely missing the way the boy stiffened. “Holy crap, please tell me you know how to use it.”

The boy nodded before chirping. She laughed while grabbing him in a hug and that was when she remembered that she was naked. In front of a little boy. Had been naked. In front of a little boy for the past half hour at least.

Squeaking in shame, she immediately let go of the little boy and scrambled to find something on the ground to cover herself up. Finally she managed to dress herself in a garbage bag and face the boy who had been staring at her in curiosity.

“Listen up, if a naked woman ever tries to hug you or touch you in any inappropriate ways again, I want you to run away and immediately tell an adult”, Catherine told him.

“Chirp?”

Ignoring the boy’s confusion, she went back to the beam of light and looked up at the roof.

“Hey, what’s your plan for lifting the lid of this dumpster huh? It’s pretty heav- “, and before she can finish her sentence she’s being picked up by a boy half her size and swung up and out of the dumpster.

By the time her brain catches up with reality, he’s already placed her down in front of the dumpster and two hobos, before he quite literally melts into the shadows and disappears.

The two hobos and her make awkward eye contact for a long moment before she finally decides it’s time to move. With a wave, Catherine begins her walk of shame to her apartment.

It’s only been a day since she had met the bird boy, and Catherine officially thinks she’s gone crazy.

Or at least crazier than usual.

She spent all day catching glimpses of golden eyes and tiny shadowy silhouettes all day but whenever she would try to make eye contact or chase the figure down, it would disappear. As if it weren’t enough that she’d been going crazy, she’d also had to pay dearly today for the distraction this caused in her with a bat to the head, a bat to her stomach and even a bat to her toes by the many people who had mistaken her, an EMT, to the person that had just injured them.  

Don’t ask her why so many Gotham residents owned bats. It was probably some kind of weird homage to their dear Patron, Batman.

But anyways, it was no surprise to her when the end of her horrible, no-good day was when she came across a robber in her house after her shift. Before she could even scream, there’s a bullet-hole in her chest and a black and gold blur drops from the ceiling on top of the robber.

Things get blurry after that, as dying happens to do that to your vision. But through her blackening vision on the floor, she watches Bird-boy shove a knife into the robber’s throat before dropping him on the floor and making his way to her.

He kneels down next to her and surprisingly, she can see worry on his face. His hands are held out above her as though he’s afraid to touch her.

“Chirrup?”  

Catherine manages to cough out a laugh at how much worry is put into that one sound.

“Sorry I don’t speak bird” The words come slowly out of Catherine’s mouth and she’s not surprised when they’re followed by a huge spit wad of blood. Chest wounds were so annoying.

The boys hands flutter as if he’s nervous and his eyebrows pinch together before he speaks again, this time in a hoarse quiet hiss.

“The court of owls has sentenced you to die?”

Aww the poor bird boy actually cares about her. She wants to open her mouth and respond, but she can’t. Her chest is burning and with every breath she feels blood bubbling inside her throat. That bullet definitely went through a lung.

She feels her eyes slowly closing and as the tension in her body fades, a set of sharp nails lay on her head and begin stroking her hair. A soft lullaby begins to fill the air and just as the last of her life leaves her, she recognizes it.

“Beware The Court of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime. They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed, speak not a whispered word of them, or they'll send the Talon for your head”

Bird-boy is a Talon.

Chapter Text

This time when Catherine wakes up, it’s to a mouthful of dirt and a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring at her. Which is honestly not the worst way she’s woken up before. It definitely ranked higher than the dumpster and ocean, and was much more dignified, though she’d have to take points off for the lack of coffin.

 Bird boy- no, Talon- her brain reminds her, squawks in delight. And before she can fully finish ranking her deaths, she’s being dragged out of a six-foot hole by the very tiny not-human. She hadn’t had a chance to admire his strength back in the dumpster when he’d saved her, but now as she’s being half choked by the sobbing Talon, she can’t help but feel really impressed. After all, how many six year olds could carry full-grown adults, even if they were very short full-grown adults. Sure, he obviously wasn’t normal and the part of her brain from before cringed at the very thought of the word “Talon” and yellow eyes, but it didn’t change the fact that he’s still very impressive.

“Mami?”

She’s instantly brought out of her reverie at the word and before she can remember the dirt still on her face, her jaw drops open to introduce even more dirt inside her mouth.

Quickly she spits it out on the ground and goes to rub her tongue with her hands, yet again forgetting the dirt and blood all over those appendages. The Talon watches the whole spectacle quietly on her lap, yellow eyes trained on her face as she goes through a whole another spitting spasm.

When she finally gets the taste of dirt in her mouth diluted- God, she’d die for some toothpaste and a toothbrush right now- she turns to the little boy in her lap and asks the question that had been running around in her head all this time.

“The fuck did you just call me?”

Talon is not unnerved by her cursing, and if anything, he seems to get even more comfortable in her lap at the words. He cocks his head at her and in a confident manner, repeats himself.

“Mami.” This time the words are even accompanied by a weird nuzzle under her chin, and Catherine can’t help but give up thinking for a few minutes. What the fuck about her would convince a monster of the night created to bring death, that she was his mother?

When she finally comes back to herself, the Talon has squished itself into the nook of her neck and chin, purring and nuzzling at the area. The scene would be adorable if it hadn’t been for the fact that they were both covered in blood and the boy still carried his murder belt along with his weird-ass gold talons. With a sigh, she slowly pulls away from the boy and holds him by the shoulders so she can make eye contact.

“Listen Kid, you’re cute and all, but I think you got something wrong okay. I am not your mom. If I were, I would remember giving birth to you and even if I don’t, we don’t look anything alike. You got black hair and- okay so I got black hair too. But I definitely don’t have yellow eyes, and you don’t have my black eyes. So, I really don’t understand how you came to this conclusion.”

The Talon tilts his head as if he’s considering her words and then gets off her lap to stand next to her instead. She watches as he pulls out a goddamn katana out of the abyss that is his murder belt apparently and holds it out to her. Catherine refuses to take it and instead just tilts her head back at the boy in consideration.

“The court of owls has sentenced you to die.” And with that phrase the Talon turns the katana on himself and cuts off his own head.

There’s only silence in the air as the Talon’s head falls to the ground and begins to pool a sticky black liquid. His head almost immediately begins to decompose when it hits the ground, and Catherine watches it in morbid curiosity. First the skin peels off slowly, showing the layers of tendons and tissues underneath that also melt away. Then the muscles and organs begin to ooze away as well, leaving a shiny skull. However, that too begins to decompose, and this really makes Catherine raise an eyebrow.

Underneath the strangeness of it all, she can’t help but go through the whole scene repeatedly. Had she just watched a damn kindergartner just kill himself? And it wasn’t even in a painless way, this had to be the most brutal version of suicide she had ever seen. So taken aback by the whole scenario is she, that she doesn’t realize that the body is still standing without its head until it takes a step towards her. She looks up at the movement and finds that she’s watching a reversed version of what just happened to the head. Instead of the body decomposing, it’s reconstructing itself a new head. The bones snap into place and Catherine watches as all the tissues and muscles grow back on it until she’s once again looking at the Talon’s face.

It's- disgusting, the back of her mind screams- but honestly, it’s more impressive. Her own body has never healed itself this quickly before, especially not after a beheading.

Talon stares at her and he again picks up his katana that had fallen during the whole process. He points the tip of it at her chest where the bullet wound scar still exists and then back at his throat again.

“Mami.” He says again confidently with a nod. And Catherine can’t help the laughter that works its way up her throat. She giggles and giggles, while the Talon just watches her curiously. Finally, when she’s on the edge of tears, she stops and smiles up at the Talon.

“Yeah, I can see where you came up with that conclusion now. We were both born to die, I guess.”

Catherine stands up, and brushes off the dirt on her pants before making her way to where the hole she had been in was. With no hesitation she begins to throw the dirt that had just been dug up, back in. The talon continues it’s curious watching of her for a couple minutes, before he joins her silently.

They both work silently until the hole is finally filled and tamped down. Then with a clap of her hands, she places them on the Talon’s shoulder and bends down to look him in the eyes.

“Listen, Kiddo. I am not your Mom. We might be similar but that doesn't have to mean we’re related. If anything, you probably were the victim of the same sick psycho that did this to me.” Talon’s eyes flashed gold and Catherine flinched. “Maybe someone even sicker. But anywho, you cannot stay with me. You can stay for a meal and shelter for a couple days but then we have to pick out a permanent solution for you. Capiche?”

Talon just stared at her before lifting a sharp claw and poking it at her chest. “Mami. ”

Catherine sighs and then let’s go of his shoulders to stand up. “Whatever little dude. Let’s just go home, I’m still exhausted from my last shift and I deserve to enjoy my day off in my apartment and not the middle of nowhere.”

Grabbing Talon’s hands, she threads her fingers though the claws carefully. Before beginning to lead him away and missing the way he stares at their intertwined hands.

It’s been three days since Talon started living with her, when Catherine realizes how weird the Talon actually is. Or at least how much weirder than she originally thought he was.

The boy never sleeps. Instead, she’s woken from her very light slumber every night by the boy opening a window and climbing up the side of the apartment to the roof. There, she watches, as he sits on the edge of the building and stares up at the moon as though he’s waiting for it tell him what to do. She contemplates telling him about the stairwell that leads directly to the roof to save herself from the heart attacks that watching him scale the side of the building gives her. But then she’d have to admit to watching him at night.

The same goes with eating. Every meal consists of him staring at his meal until he realizes she’s almost finished with hers and then he eats a few bites only to throw out the rest of the plate. She wants to tell him to eat more but this would require her to show that she cares, and she’d rather die again than do that.

Furthermore, she’s not really sure that he would take her words as the innocent advise it was and not as orders. She’d learned her lesson about watching her words when on the first day she had jokingly told the boy that he wouldn’t be allowed to leave the table until he finished his meal. The boy had sat at the table for hours until she realized why.

Outside of those cases though, he was as normal as a six-year-old with wack-ass eyes and powers could be.

He loved playing games and would constantly beg her to play Uno- the only game she truly had in her apartment. Talon always wins, but that was only because Catherine let him think that she couldn’t see him switch out cards when she turned her head for a second.

Despite hating to eat food, Talon surprisingly enjoyed making it and every meal was made by the two of them together. They would both put on their black aprons, wash their hands- and yes, Catherine had convinced him to take off the damn claws during cooking- then begin preparing the meal. Typically, she let Talon handle all the chopping but during the past couple of meals she had allowed him to help her season it- she had to hide her tears from how spicy her Rasta pasta had been, but he had looked too proud of himself for her to say anything.

He even helped her do dishes now. Truthfully, Talon was the perfect child. It didn’t help that when sometimes her thoughts became too real for her and the shadows started closing in, he would show up in her lap with a blanket and begin purring into her neck. It soothed unlike anything else she’s ever tried. He still called her Mami too.

But she still hadn’t changed her mind about him having to leave. She absolutely could not keep a child for long-term with her lifestyle and it didn’t matter how self-sufficient the child was. The only problem was where exactly she could leave Talon. Sure, she could dump him in the orphanage but with his looks he’d have a better chance on the streets at that point. Not to mention there weren’t too many normal families that would be willing or able to live with his strangeness.

These thoughts consumed her mind as she walked down crime alley from work yet again to her apartment.

One second, she was crossing the street and the next she felt the slightest shiver down her spine before she was frozen in place in a block of ice. Around her, she watched through the ice as others were frozen just like her. Some were stuck in a casual pose like her while others had their mouths wide open and ready to scream.

And she knew exactly who they were screaming at, the man who was at the center of every ice-related crime in Gotham: Mr. Freeze.

Chapter Text

Being stuck in ice is truly a strange experience. She wants to compare it to blood loss, the way the ice slowly leeches the warmth and life force out of you. Except the ice is excruciatingly slow. She would’ve been already dead 10 minutes ago if she had just been bleeding out. Instead, she’s stuck in pain observing the world around her through a blurry filter. She can still make out the shapes of other people running and getting frozen around her. Their screams are muffled slightly by the ice, but she still hears them all the same.

This was a horrible way to die, and she wonders if Mr. Freeze knows that. Wasn’t he supposed to have some kind of background as a doctor or something? Catherine distinctly remembered watching a Batman cartoon where Mr. Freeze’s sad backstory was that he was desperate to cure his sick wife or something. She’s not entirely sure how freezing random citizens ties into all this though. Wouldn’t being a law-abiding citizen give him more time to focus on his wife more?

Behind her manic laughter starts and She’s distracted from her thoughts when a man in a quite frankly awkward and bulky looking suit runs (really, more like waddled) past her. The sounds around her Intensify even more and she pays attention to the little dialogue that came through the ice barriers.

“-You’re- here! Now- still!- Could- Don’t- shy-“ The words are continuously cut off by loud booming noises and she’s just about ready to give up when she manages to catch the tail-end of a sentence.

“-my plans, Batman.” And her already spinning mind began to whirl around even faster.

Batman? Like the actual Batman?

Despite having lived in Gotham for the past 5 years, she has never seen the hero in the flesh before. In fact, she had never even heard of Batman till 2 years ago when he had started off as more of a pest than a hero. It had started with silent whispers in the narrows about a man that was constantly getting in the way of the small-time drug dealers and thieves there. Something she’s sure he thought was helping people with but only making life harder for the little people.  The Narrows were only criminals by circumstance. Most of them are born into debt or poverty that preceded generations. They truly had no other options other than crime and placing them in jail only further procrastinated their escape from whatever financial situation they were in.

Eventually, Batman became a big enough nuisance that he was a household name in the Bowery, Narrows and Crime Alley. And by household name, she meant the type that was cussed and spit upon. He still sort of was but after his first drug bust that his name brought down the Ivgene clan people were much more hesitant to place his name in their mouths.

Apparently not Dr. Fries though, she thought to herself as the hero and villain moved there fight to an open alleyway right in front of her. Dr. Fries was cursing at the hero as Batman managed to dodge all the shots from his freezer gun. All around the two of them, icicles and patches of ice formed in various spots, and she winced (or as close as she could get to that while frozen) as she watched Batman almost slip and fall on a rather well-hidden patch of ice. The man tilted back and forth on the ice in almost a comical manner before finally steadying himself into a wide leg stance.

This slight pause finally gave her a chance to see his uniform in full form and what she saw would’ve had her choking on her spit if she hadn’t been frozen.

The man was in what could only be described as a black and grey muscle suit made of the most textured leather she had ever seen with grey tights and black leather undies over the tights. Around his waist was a belt, a shade of yellow that truly reviled the sun. It stood out garishly on the gloomy costume and in Gotham’s general atmosphere honestly. Most people here opted for neutrals and the most colorful they tended to get was blue. She herself owned a nice sage green sweater that she wore out on special occasions and even just that got some weird looks.

The belt unfortunately was not the worst part of this outfit. No, that prize would go to the latex black cowl that featured pointy ears at least a foot long. Or at least she assumed they would be. Sometime during the fight, the structures that held up the ears must’ve been hit as they now only stood halfway up before flopping down like bunny ears.

And to wrap up this whole fashion disaster in a bow, his latex cowl was a gradient from black to dark blue at the cape. His boots and gloves are also the same color and fabric with the weirdest fins sticking out of them.  

She stared in abject horror as the hero dodged the blasts from the freezer guns with his ears and fins flopping at every movement and a weird squeaky noise filled the air as the latex rubbed against each other.

Catherine wouldn’t really call herself a fashion icon or even that interested in fashion itself, but this outfit could only objectively be called ugly. Everything just clashed in the worst way possible, and the ears took away any bit of intimidation the fake muscles could’ve ever given.

And even worse was the way the suit clearly weighed the man down. It was obviously too heavy for him and with every movement there was clear hesitation or evidence of extra exertion.

Catherine watched as the hero just barely avoided a shot by jumping over it and then tumbled to the floor from all the weight he was carrying. Sure, he hid it well by tuning the fall into a light roll and landing in a half kneel, but she had been watching the fight for a while now and could see how much the suit was hindering him.  The cape was throwing off his balance and the suit itself seemed to carry its own weight.

The fight dragged on for another five minutes before all of a sudden, the hero was thrown right at her frozen body. As soon as the body hit the ice, it shattered, and she felt all the air in her body leave as a 250-pound man (probably more with that stupidly heavy suit and cape) fell on top of her.

              God her ribs definitely had to be broken now if not at least bruised, she thought to herself as she tried to take a ragged breath through the pressure on her chest. Batman quickly got up and was running back into the battle before she could even fully wrap her mind around the fact that she was no longer frozen. Her body ached to the bone and every movement felt like it should be accompanied by a creaking sound. As she slowly stood up, she could hear her teeth chattering and every light breeze brought out a shiver in her.

While her super-healing worked on most things, the cold was not one of them.

She tried to rub at her leaky nose, but it only brought out even more snot before she gave up. Wiping the excess on her shirt, she turned around, and was met with the sight of Batman flying toward her again. Thinking quick, she leapt to the side, just barely giving enough berth for the man to fly past her and straight into a dumpster.

              The sight made her wince, and Catherine was reminded of how her last adventure in the dumpster ended up.  She had only gotten rid of the smell last week and she couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take the smell to disappear from a suit like that.

              Distracted by her own thoughts, and she had to stop doing that in the middle of fights, she completely misses the hero get back up and run back to the villain. She does not miss, however, when the same hero is flung back in her direction by the force of a ray gun. Batman is somehow reflecting it with his gloves, probably by the sheer ugliness of it, but the force of the blast itself pushes him upward and away, towards her direction.

              Catherine takes a moment to appreciate how cartoonish the scene looks, the physics is not physicking, before she’s yet again hit by the full weight of Batman.

              This time they both go flying into the dumpster and when she’s hit by the familiar smell of rotting food, all she can do is wryly smile. The man next to her groans and stands shakily up again, teetering back and forth like a toddler that just learned how to balance. Outside, she can hear Dr. fries’ cackles slowly get further away and the hero’s attempt turn even more desperate.

It’s pathetic, so pathetic that the words she’s been thinking come out of her mouth.

              “Oh for God’s sake, just sit back down. You’re not going to get him today.”

Even with the cowl on she can tell the man is annoyed by her outburst. His mouth is downturned, and even with the white-out lenses, she can tell the man is assessing her. He must deem her to be stupid because he ignores her advice and tries to walk to the edge of the dumpster only to fall back on his face again as his legs fail to support him.

              The scene is even more pathetic than the last and it motivates her to finally get up on her feet. Rummaging around the pockets of her jeans as she approaches the man on the floor, she finally finds her keys and turns on the penlight to shine it into the man’s eyes. She’s surprised when the glass clears at direct light and she’s able to see the hero’s blue eyes clearly. Catherine hadn’t expected the light to actually work.

              Assessing him carefully, she nods to herself and then grabs his arms to rip off his gloves and feel his radial pulse. The hand she holds is warm and bruised and for a second she remembers that this man that is known as invincible in the comics and newspapers of Gotham is actually only a human.

              A human that only existed in comics in her old world. A fictional human that she could now palpate and feel because she now was part of the fictional world too.

              “Do you feel nauseous?” She asks to distract herself from the beginnings of yet another existential crisis.

The man lying in front of her gives a jerky nod that she takes as a yes.

 “Does your head hurt?”

Another jerky nod.

              She sighs and slowly sits down into a crisscrossed position by the man, making herself comfortable in the pile of trash underneath her.

              “Ok so you have a concussion, your eyes are dilated and you have all the other symptoms. Which honestly shouldn’t be a surprise to you since I’m sure you get plenty of those. But the real issue is how we’re gonna get you out of here. I’m way too short and your way too heavy for me to pull you out of here. Not to mention dragging you all the way to your car or whatever. Unless you want me to call an ambulance?”

 Catherine was mostly just thinking out loud, but the idea of an ambulance has her pausing. It would honestly be the best idea as most of her coworkers were tall burly men that could easily drag the hero out and provide the care the man needs. And she’s just about to grab her phone out of her pocket when she notices Batman’s arm slowly moving down his body to his belt where he presses a button.

Nothing happens.

Catherine’s just about to ask the man what that was about when all of a sudden she hears the sound of a car beeping next to the dumpster. She stands up and makes her way to the end of the dumpster where she stands on her tippy toes and makes out the faint silhouette of a black car in the light of a quickly setting sun.

“This does not help dude.” A sigh escapes from her as she turns around to come face to face with the bat symbol. A yelp escapes her, but she pushes down the natural urge to push the man away. Looking up to meet his eyes, she’s a little surprised to see that his lenses are up now and he’ staring down at her.

It’s an intense look and she can feel her mouth drying out of nervousness. Licking her lips, she tries to come up with something to say to make the moment less awkward. Normally if a man were to stare at her the way Batman was, she’d assume he was into her.

But this was not that.

This was Batman scrutinizing and analyzing her. For what, she wasn’t sure but she hoped it wasn’t because he’d caught wind of her ability to not die. Coughing, she pulled as far away from the man she could, wincing as her back hit the wall.

“So like not that I don’t appreciate the eye-fucking or whatever this is but like I feel like we have way bigger problems here.” Catherine blabbers while she tries to avoid looking the man in the eyes.

She’s no naïve virgin or anything but this was the closest she’d ever gotten with anyone (other than her Talon) in a while. The last time she’d been this close to a man, had been years ago when she had first arrived in Gotham and had tried to drown herself in sex, drugs and alcohol to escape whatever the hell waking up in a fictional world constituted as.  

Glancing around, Batman’s hands catch her attention as they seem to tremble, making the fins shake too. He was clenching and unclenching his hands while his feet seemed to twitch forward towards her then back.

That was not normal for a concussion.

Now she was really concerned. If this was an actual neurological injury, which was highly possible with the way the hero had been thrown around, then they had to get out of here immediately.

Catherine reaches around her back to grab her phone in one of the back pockets of her jeans, when she’s suddenly pushed right against the wall of the dumpster.  

“Don’t” The word is terse and full of danger and yet she still feels a shiver of arousal go down her back. Biting the inside of her cheek to keep focus, she’s instead distracted again when Batman’s hand goes behind her back to grab at her phone.

Maybe she’s just been sex-deprived for too long, but for a second she feels a hand cup her ass before it finally grasps the phone and pulls it out. He tucks it into his eyesore of a belt before finally moving away from her. She can’t tell whether she’s regretful or relieved by the action as she’s finally able to take a breath of air without pressure against her chest.

There’s no way she’s attracted to Batman, especially not a Batman that’s dressed like some Dom from a bad BDSM porno.

“I don’t have a concussion.” The words are weirdly punctuated like they took some effort to spit out and she can see that Batman’s still clenching and unclenching his fists.

“Mhm and I’m supposed to believe that when your pupils are so dilated that your eyes look black? I don’t think so. Besides, if it’s not a concussion then it could be a neurological issue which is much more serious” Her hands automatically go to her hips as she says this and any sense of arousal she had before is gone. It had to be a bad concussion if the man was so far gone that he was trying to deny it.

“No”, the man grumbles, “I’ve had concussions before, and they’ve never been like this. This is something else.”

              She waits for more to come from the man but instead silence fills the space between them and she resists the urge to sigh. Glancing around, her eyes come to rest on the spot where Batman had originally fallen where a small broken round glass bottle lays with green powder spilling out.

Very familiar green powder in fact.

“Jesus” the word comes out of her as she finally makes sense of what’s happening.

“Be completely honest with me, is this something else you’re referring to a raging hard-on and the horniest you’ve ever been in your entire life?” She’s already pushing past the man as she talks to examine the powder better. Kneeling to get a closer look, she’s hyper-aware of the man standing over her and the way his legs just barely brush against her back.

“You recognize it?” And that’s probably the closest to ‘yes I am very horny’ she’ll ever get from Batman, she’s sure.

“Unfortunately, yes. It’s called Aphrodite’s crack and it’s pretty much a mix between crack and some aphrodisiac. It’s pretty popular nowadays. Makes for some mind-blowing sex if you can remember what happened the next day anyways”

The judgmental look the hero shoots her makes her wince and she knows she’s been caught.

“Also has a side-effect of removing the brain to mouth filter unfortunately. And since I’ve been in the same proximity as you, I’ve probably inhaled the same amount of dust as you. Usually, your only supposed to snort like a half teaspoon of it, but with the way you landed on top of it, I’m sure we’ve inhaled more than that.”

She ignores the suspicious stare Batman levies at her, and instead makes a show of brushing off her now-filthy jeans before standing up.

“Anyways, We need to get out of here and into some fresh air before we literally start mauling the clothes off each other. Though that would be an improvement over the monstrosity you’re currently wearing.”

Silence envelopes the both of them and Catherine tries her best not to smack herself in the face for the slip of words.

“You think my suit is ugly?” Batman’s the one to finally break the quiet and she’s not sure if each carefully articulated word is from offense or the powder.

“Yes” the words pop out without her permission but at this point she figures she’s too late to stop.

“It’s literally an eyesore and I’m not sure how stealthy you can be when you’re literally shining from all the latex. Why would you even pick latex anyways? Like that’s some kinky shit. And if you were going to choose latex at least stick with one color. Also, the belt does not help at all with the stealth thing either and it’s literally the most eye-burning shade of yellow ever. Not to mention how stupid you look with the long ass ears and fins on your gloves. Have you actually ever seen yourself fighting with those? Cause I’ll tell you right now you look fucking dumb. They’ve literally been flopping around at every movement and look like one of those toy headbands you can get from Disneyland with the springs.”

She takes a pause to wonder if Disneyland exists in this world when she finally realizes how close they are.

`Batman looms over her and with how close they are she’s practically enshrouded in his cape. Their shoes are practically touching and with every breath, she can feel the slightest contact of her chest with Batman’s.

His neck is bent down to look at her and she takes a moment to really admire the man’s eyes. Even with the dilated pupils, the blue of his iris stands out. They’re the type of blue she’s only seen once on the coasts of Jamaica.

Beautiful, she whispers in her mind.

They’re closer than before and she can feel his arms slowly slide around her waist, pulling her in close. The burning she’s been feeling eases at the touch and she allows the man to pull her up on her tippy toes, her chest completely against his. Closing her eyes, she feels the soft breath of the man in front of her fanning her face.

Just one kiss, she tells herself, one and then I’ll get out of-

Their lips softly touch and the electricity of it is blown away by  the sound of a very familiar voice.

“Chirp?”