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“I’m home sweetheart!”
With your heart skipping, you quickly get into place. You know he doesn’t expect you to wait on him. You’ve got staff for that. But tonight, you sent all of them home and cooked dinner for him yourself. You want a special night with your birdie.
(You have to smile to yourself; he’d die if he knew you thought of him like that. Birdie. Like he’s a real penguin, innocent and cute and soft, and not the grizzled fighter he really is.)
And there he is, Oswald Cobblepot, dressed to the nines in a sharp suit with a crisp white shirt underneath…or at least, it would be crisp if it weren’t wrinkled and spotted in what you sincerely hope isn’t blood. He’s got a hell of a black eye and you wince internally; it must’ve been a bad day at the office. His shoes are all scuffed up. There’s a button missing from his jacket. His scarred face is shining with sweat. But beat-up as he is, he grins when he sees you standing by the stove in an apron (he thinks it’s hilarious when you wear that sort of thing for him) and then groans appreciatively when he smells dinner. Spaghetti with your home-cooked sauce, made with thick, fresh pureed tomatoes and extra garlic in the turkey meatballs. It’s his favorite.
“You’re just what a man needs at the end of a long day, you know that?” Oswald says with an uncharacteristically tender smile as he reaches over and brushes his thumb over your cheek. “All right, well, fix me up a plate, baby. You wouldn’t believe what happened today…”
And so it begins. You take his coat, put his umbrella in the rack, fix him a drink. He knocks it back before you’ve even finished plating the pasta. “The press is in love with frickin’ Batman,” he complains. “You wouldn’t believe it, baby. They think the sun shines right outta his ears. I hate him. The stupid nosy bastard won’t leave me alone.”
You hum in sympathy as you refill his drink. You knew he’d want more; lucky you made a whole pitcher. Sour peach bellini, his absolute favorite. Oswald actually grins and claps in delight when you set a heaping plate of pasta in front of him, topped with a half-gallon of tomato sauce and plentiful meatballs, and a generous sprinkling of parmesan cheese.
“That’s the stuff, sweetheart,” he praises you as he attacks his meal. “Mmm. Son of a bitch, that’s some good shit…” He gulps down three more huge bites before he continues with his rant. “Every time I turn around this jerk’s up my ass. He oughta buy a guy dinner first,” he complains. “Mmm, baby, this sauce is perfect. Anyway, today he busted up my club for no freakin’ good reason. He comes barrelling in when all’s we’re doing is workin’ like normal guys, see, and then—ah man, are those turkey meatballs? Damn you know how to spoil a fella, don’t you, baby—and then he starts yellin’ about how we’re giving money to the Riddler. To the Riddler, of all people!”
Oswald rolls his eyes heavily and wipes his mouth on the cuff of his sleeve. Red sauce imprints there and you inwardly say a prayer for Olga, your laundress. “As if I’d ever give money to Ed,” Oswald sulks as he moodily stabs at a meatball. “Ain’t like he’d take money from me anyway, the proud little bastard. He’s a grown ass man. If he wants money he can steal it just as good as the rest a’ us.”
He pauses there, and you take the opportunity to offer him a basket of fresh-baked rolls. He groans in delight, seizes a roll and bites into it without preamble. His strong teeth crunch through the crust and sink deep into the soft flesh of the bread beneath it. You shiver a little as he licks a faint dusting of flour off his scarred, plump lower lip. God, you love watching him eat.
“So naturally I gotta fight him, see. Defend my honor,” Oswald goes on, shamelessly talking with his mouth full as he continues to shovel in bread and pasta like he hasn’t eaten in months. “So then the asshole punches—mmmh, this is damn good—anyway he punches me right in the face, like a tool—God, I love your meatballs, sweetheart—and then he has the nerve to introduce himself with ‘I am vengeance,’ like we don’t all know who this douchebag is.” Oswald sighs heavily. “Is this what we consider progress now? Bunch a’ freaks runnin’ around in their BDSM gear punchin’ regular old honest workers like me an’ my pals?”
You have to bite your tongue to keep from laughing. Oswald is not a “regular guy.” He’s rich and smart and he has a hand in half the underworld operations in Gotham. But you figure at least he’s better than that asshole Bruce Wayne, who just sits up in his ivory tower and does fuck-all to help the city. At least Oswald gives people jobs.
He puts away three plates of spaghetti and six rolls, and two more drinks, before the meal is over. And okay, you can understand how this might not Do It for some people. After all, he doesn’t eat like a gentleman, not by a long shot; he shovels it in and talks with his mouth full and spills tomato sauce on his shirt and accidentally flings noodles at the wall when he gestures with his fork. But he’s your messy man and you love him.
This is peace, for you. Just sitting at the kitchen table, fancy dining room closed, staff all sent home for the night, a plate of home-cooked pasta in front of your man while he pours out all his troubles to you. His voice is rough and to most it would be anything but soothing. But to you his growl is like music. You love this man, you really do, and that he trusts you to take care of him, even just in a small way like cooking him his favorite meal, is everything.
He stands up and stretches at the end of the meal. With a sheepish little grin, he pulls a familiar soft-blue box from his pocket and hands it over to you. His nails are clean, but his knuckles are bruised. Your heart melts. God, how you love this man. “Almost forgot,” he says, just a shade too casually. “Picked up a little something today, saw it on the way home and it kinda just reminded me of you.”
You untie the white satin ribbon and lift the lid…and a gasp of startled delight comes out when you see inside the exact shamrock pendant you’ve been lusting over for weeks now. It’s on at least three of your pinterest boards. And Oswald, God bless him, he knew. “It’s perfect,” you tell him sincerely.
He kisses your forehead. “Come on, baby. Time for bed,” he murmurs, his voice low and full of promise.
*
The bedroom is cool and dimly lit and Oswald’s luxurious four-poster bed with silky-smooth purple satin sheets is calling your name. But no…not now, you have work to do first…
He lets you undress him down to his boxers and undershirt and set aside his dirty clothes. You bandage his bruised knuckles, dab vitamin K ointment on his bruised cheek. He smiles indulgently while you clip and file his nails, and rub soft lilac lotion into his callused fingers, before the both of you brush your teeth and wash your faces. He settles into bed and waits eagerly while you change into your pajamas. The ones he got you, of course. Soft and silky and touchable, just like the sheets, just how he likes you.
You crawl into bed and straight into Oswald’s lap, and he groans in delight as he feels your body settle against his. You straddle him and watch with big eyes as he takes the Tiffany box off the side of the bed, delicately extracts the pendant, reaches up and hooks it around your neck with the utmost care. His fingertips are rough, but his touch is light as he caresses your skin.
“I love you,” you tell him.
He presses his forehead against yours. “I love you too, baby,” he says, and you know he means it.
When you kiss, it is perfect. His scarred lips against your whole ones; his pitted skin against your smooth face. His meaty, thick hands on your waist, the heat of his skin burning through the thin fabric of your pajamas. He engulfs you with his touch, his arms closing around you as if to keep the rest of the world from touching your precious skin. His tongue sleekly glides into your mouth, warm and wet and tasting of his cinnamon toothpaste. He holds you, God, how perfectly he holds you. Tight and gentle all at once. Soothing, yet still arousing.
You know what will happen tonight. You know, and you want it. Most people think he’s ugly. They don’t even know. They don’t know how his eyes light up when he smiles, how his cheeks redden so prettily when he gets embarrassed, how his body is so warm and squeezably soft under all those layers of his suits. It’s okay, you decide as you kiss him. Better for you, after all, if people don’t know what they’re missing.
He is yours. To the rest of the world, he is the Penguin, a man not to be crossed. To you, he is Oswald Cobblepot, your husband, the man you love. They think he “keeps” you. Pays you to be his companion, his lover. You know better. They couldn’t pay you enough to stay away from your birdie. The thought of someone trying to take him heats your blood. You clamp your knees tight around his hips and growl in the back of your throat.
Oswald notices, of course. “You all right, sweetheart?” he murmurs against your lips.
You pull back to look at him and smooth your thumbs over his cheeks as you cup his perfect face in your hands. “I’m all right. More than all right, I’m happy,” you say, and your heart swells as your birdie’s eyes light up. He looks so childish right now, so undignified. So cute.
Penguins are cute. This penguin isn’t supposed to be. But you don’t care what he is or isn’t supposed to be. Right now, all that matters is the two of you. You kiss him again. You’re going to keep him, you think, for a long, long time.