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“One of these days I won’t be in heels when I run into you.”
She’d had a date. She’d had a date, and she’d dressed up for that date, and she’d gotten very nearly to the meeting spot he’d suggested, and who should she see across the way but the one person who could flip the situation so quick?
—alright. One of a few, anyway. At least it wasn’t someone with a higher body count.
And she’d just stood there like she didn’t think it would be obvious, like he wouldn’t see her, or like she could just continue on her merry way as if she wasn’t just a witness to one of Gotham’s ‘Rogues’ in plainclothes.
And now she’s sitting pretty in a dock warehouse that absolutely reeks of fish, and examining the snapped heel of what she thought were fairly sturdy shoes, prodding at the thin connection that keeps it from falling completely off.
Funny how things work out.
Except. Well, now she’s just bored.
She’s barely hindered right now, save the useless footwear, and the fact that he’s barely addressed her, since that first part, not even to make some clever quip or even a threat, it doesn’t feel as… what, dangerous as it should?
And yeah, she won’t complain that she’s not tied up this time, and if he’s content with – what, keeping her from running to the cops? – and leaving her be, she’s fine with that. Honest, truly, that part’s no trouble.
But geez, what’s a girl to do? A part of her feels ignored that here she is, taken away from her date and she’s just left to sit.
And, see, she’s more held by the threat of potentials, the knowledge that he could do something – that cane can collapse to frankly ridiculous proportions – than anything he’s said or, technically, even suggested so far.
Maybe she should have held out for a physical threat. Maybe it’s an off day for him and she could have just gone.
She groans, letting her head come to rest on her knee.
Ugh, her poor date. He’ll miss the movie at this rate. Granted, Gotham’s particular brand of crime means he’s more likely to accept her excuse of ‘sorry, sort of held hostage, couldn’t be helped.’
“Something the matter, Doctor?”
Oh, geez. She lifts her head enough to see him, angled cheek now pressed against her knuckles, though she makes no move to shift her position otherwise.
Arms folded, leaning back against a dilapidated table that’s probably rusted to the ground. Like her, he is waiting, but with more patience than she has at the moment.
And there’s no harm in it – there is, but it’s outweighed by the boredom– and so,“I left my date waiting.”
“Oh? That was the important business you had to attend to?” He says it lightly, if a little incredulously.
Had she not said that? Or no, the conversation went more along the lines of, “fancy meeting you here, funny thing, I’ve got somewhere important to be,” and he’d agreed except not because he’d linked his arm with hers and wham bam thank you ma’am, here she is.
“—yeah.” Somehow she feels a little embarrassed, which is ridiculous, so her words are more pinched than before, when she says, “He’s probably been waiting at the fountain for ages.”
“Gainsly fountain?” Now there’s more than just a little incredulity. “In the highest crime area in Midtown? Who meets at a place like that?”
“Romantics,” she snaps, though she hardly knows Jack and she thinks his reporting is hammy anyway.
“Ah,” he says, and he seems to settle in even further, “he sounds charming.” There doesn’t seem to be much mirth behind that thin show of teeth.
She weighs the possibility of answering; what she’s said so far is generic enough, but would it be dangerous to divulge anything else? It might not be worth it to risk opening that can of worms. At last she begins, “he—”
The chime of a ringtone, one of those irritating ones that comes standard with the phone that she keeps meaning to change, really, breaks the silence.
And he pulls the damn thing out of his jacket pocket. Answers it like it’s his.
“The woman you are trying to reach is currently indisposed. Kindly lose this number.”
He switches it off again with an air of finality.
“What—” her hand jumps to her side, ghosting over the – empty – pocket at her hip. “You took my phone?”
Of course he did. Of course he did.
“You couldn’t have even – let me handle that?”
He raises an eyebrow, and doesn’t that just exude smugness? “Why, Doctor Quinzel, could I trust you to do that?Would you really have played along?”
—yes. She should probably be startled to realize that, but there are rules, and she stays alive by playing by them. She makes a low, discontented noise instead. “Don’t s’ppose you’d give it back?”
He toys with it, tossing it up in the air a few times and then catching it again in his gloved hand. Show-off. “Now, now, you should know never to give something for nothing; what would you give me, doctor?”
She’s a trained psychiatrist. She’s spent years studying textbooks and conducting experiments and she’s dragged herself through grad school and internships. So if she resorts to middle school tactics, it’s entirely by choice. “Hmmm… I’ll be your best friend? No – make sure you get extra dessert privileges in the cafeteria? No, I’ll…”
He might be smiling, just a little, an upward twitch of his lips, which is probably why she finds herself continuing, “…give you a kiss?”
She realizes immediately that that – wasn’t actually something she’d meant to say out loud – but she won’t let it go to waste.
She tilts her head at a lower angle and bats her eyelashes exaggeratedly to enhance the effect. It’s cartoonish and embellished and oh, man, is that a smile? As he turns his head away?
Hell yes.
—the phone rings again. There’s a moment where she just watches him, meets his eye as he continues to catch the phone, and she can’t really be surprised when he just lets it ring out.
She breaks eye contact once the phone is silent again, looking away and puffing her cheeks out a little in a huff.
“Persistent, isn’t he?”
“I suppose he is.” There’s no one to blame but herself when she adds, “an’ I coulda found that out myself if you’d just let me go on.” It’s like carving a sign on her chest, blinking out in neon letters, “TALK TO ME” and maybe “I AM DESPERATE,” and she busies herself with toying with the strap of her unbroken shoe to give herself something else to look at. She doesn’t really want to see the smugness on his face if he takes the bait.
When he takes the bait. “‘Could have found out?’” he repeats. “You seem unsure.”
Yeah, there’s no way she can walk in these. She slips the shoe off to set it beside its match.
“Friend set it up for me,” she says after a pause. “He’s – I dunno, some—” she waves a hand. “—TV personality.” Jack Ryder. She’s seen him onscreen before and hadn’t thought much of him, but it was a chance to meet someone, and after a year here, she’d take the opportunity. “I don’t know him well.” Just talked to him through texts, and even those were sparse.
He makes a noncommittal noise, and then, “You know, you need to work on your bargaining skills.” By now he’s moved so he’s sitting fully on the table, and he gives the phone a little twirl to draw her attention to it.
“Oh yeah? How so? – ‘r wait, does that mean that you weren’t the teensiest bit swayed by being my best friend?” She’s sat still for long enough that there’s a series of audible ‘pops’ as she stretches and flexes.
He shakes his head. “No. You need to offer them something they want – and if they don’t want it, make them want it. Desperately.”
“Well, that I know.” She pushes herself to stand for the first time since she sat, dusts herself off, walks. “So if you’re so good at it – teach me somethin’ better, huh?” A slow path away from him.
Burgundy and black. It had been a nice color combination. Wasted now, and a little much for a first date, maybe, but worn for her benefit.
Burgundy tulle and black jacket and broken heels.
She picks the bobby pins from her hair, lets it fall. A controlled break. It eases the frustration.
The concrete is cool against her skin, cooler still for the tendrils of wind that thread in through the warehouse’s walls, and she wonders if he would stop her if she just kept walking, slipped through the ruined metal and left.
She doesn’t.
Her circuit takes her a few paces from potential freedom, and she starts to circle back, faces him again.
Intimidating isn’t typically what people think when they see her, and standing barefoot on the concrete floor isn’t helping. Still, she folds her hands in the pockets of her jacket and rocks a little, looking at him as she waits for a response.
“Not offering tokens of affection like a kindergartener is a start.”
“‘S it the kiss or th’ way I offered it that was worse?”
“The method,” he says, and his tone makes his disapproval clear. “It’s not a bad thing to offer, if it’s wanted. Anything can be made to be wanted, if you do it right. Even a kiss.”
“Anything, huh?”
“Anything.” He gives a decisive nod, and her lips pull up.
“Well, go on.”
He quirks an eyebrow again, a look of mild intrigue on his face.
She shrugs, one shoulder, and steps closer. Noncommittal, though her words speak to the contrary. “How am I supposed to learn if I’m just takin’ your word for it?”
“Are you sure you’re up for a lesson of that caliber?”
Step after step brings her closer still.
His current position does wonders for the height difference. She can go almost nose-to-nose with him like this. To his credit, he neither pulls away nor draws toward her, though she draws close enough to feel his breath.
“Mmhmm,” she says brightly, and sits beside him.
See, here’s the thing: this? Is unprofessional. But she’s not here in a professional capacity, is she? She had a date, interrupted, and she’s – allowed.
She’s sick of always having to compromise.
And he – doesn’t look half-bad like this. Certainly better than the gray Arkham jumpsuit, though that isn’t saying much. He’s not unattractive, but the way he carries himself now is definitely infused with less resentment than when he is within asylum walls – when she sees him most of the time, and that’s… a draw.
She can appreciate that, now that the urge to slug him has faded to a dull, if persistent, ache of instinct.
Idly, she wonders how many scars he has, or if he’s gotten lucky and remains mostly unscathed – but then, life around the Bat can’t leave someone without some wounds.
She allows herself this moment to let her gaze drag over him, meets his eyes and doesn’t flinch away. There will be no bashfulness here.
His look of interest is a little less mild now. “Say there’s something I want from you…”
“Mmhmm.” She pushes her hair back, away from her neck, and listens.
——-
“Alright,” she concedes, straddling him now and shaky, “so maybe there’s something to it after all.”
“Why even doubt?” he murmurs low against her skin.
She blows out a stuttering breath, mouth curving up even as she says, “screw y—ah.” She cuts off as teeth graze over the growing bruise. Her skin is littered – riddled – with purpling marks.
He chuckles, slow and deep. “Does that mean stop?” He’s pulled away to talk, and she makes a low, discontented noise.
“Don’t you dare.”
He traces up her sides, and gooseflesh raises along her arms, on the back of her neck.
And her phone rings.
He pulls away again, leisurely and unaffected. “Did you want to get that?”
She hisses at the loss of contact. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He is speaking against her, close but not quite touching and quietly like he knows she’ll strain to listen, the jerk. “It seems like it could be important.”
She groans. “Turn it off, drop it in the bay, I don’t – care,” she says, pressing into him. Pleading. He’d too smug for his own good, and she could think of better words to call him if she was capable of more coherent thought. “I don’t ca—aaare.” The word dissolves into a moan, a breathy plateau as he obliges, exacting painful, delightful pressure again halfway through it.
Another ringtone, and she groans, reaching to tug on his hair to keep him from breaking away and repeating the torture– and then she lets it fall. “That,” she says, breathy and perplexed, “is not my phone.”
“I know.” He reaches into a pocket and pulls out the offending object, glancing at the screen before replacing it. “It’s mine.” He straightens and begins to pull on his gloves.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” she breathes. He’s leaving.
“Afraid not.” There’s a note of smugness in his tone, so on impulse she – catches his tie just before he turns and tugs him back. It takes a bit of stretching and a bit more pulling, but she manages a quick press of lips. It’s not much, but it’ll have to do.
“Go,” she says, releasing him, “Cause mayhem. Be clever. Do your thing.”
He straightens his suit and dusts himself off, looking painfully more put-together compared to her. “So sorry to cut this short, but I think that demonstrates my point nicely regardless.”
“Yeah,” she says, voice a little muffled between her hands, “I think it did.”
Her own phone does not ring again until she’s halfway home, long past the docks and jacket pulled tight over her to shield herself from glances at the marks she’s surely doused in.
“Hey,” she’ll say, “sorry. Something came up.”
——-
(They capture him again, of course. Catch him and bring him back to Arkham.
It was a spectacular heist, and maybe that’s why he only makes it half a day more of freedom afterwards.
There’s little animosity in the session the day after that; a striking difference from the first time she met with him directly after being hauled back here, though there have certainly been more placid times since then.
The fading marks on her skin, darkest and most visible along her neck where there are still traces of purple, but peppering what can be seen of her collarbone, are uncovered.
The day before, she brushed concealer over them, did well enough to make it look as though the dark splotches were nothing but a trick of the light if they were too vibrant to cover up, but she has not bothered with it this day, and they catch his eye.
From his seat, he gives her a thorough examination, and if she’d gotten them under any other circumstance, she’d be put off by the attention, but then, there’s no reason to shrink back.
“What’s that look for?” she asks, though she knows.
He gives her another slow once-over, lingering on her neck and below, where her shirt is buttoned too high to see the rest of them, and folds his arms. “Nothing. You look lovely today, Doctor.”
She can’t quite find it in herself to frown, and only shakes her head, a hint of a smile growing.)