Work Text:
Rain pounds the fire escape like bullets from a Tommy gun—relentless, explosive—and Selina stands still underneath the metal staircase, each droplet registering to her ears as if it were just as dangerous. The ones that fall through the cracks bounce off her umbrella to join the puddles by her boots, the growing blobs of mud and debris and the submerged, shimmering yellow of a broken headlight.
The divots in the cement meant that every time the sky poured, those same puddles regenerated, born anew and filthier than the previous iteration. Each heel passing through would kick the gravel in deeper until the landlord paid someone to fill them, if such a benevolent force existed. The rate things were going, that outcome seemed impossible, not something Selina would see in her lifetime; it was surely at the bottom of any Gothamite’s priority list, a goal as trivial as fixing tiny holes in the ground.
Selina didn’t care to know if the holes got fixed. She didn’t want to pass by this place ever again, or wear shoes that slowly pummelled the chasm deeper. What she desired most in that moment, in fact, was to leave, but she continued her waiting game, seeking confirmation her delivery was received.
She almost missed the slide of an apartment door opening, with how the gunfire rain subdued her hearing, but her ears remained alert enough to detect the noise despite this. There was even the sound of slipper-clad feet shuffling across carpet, though perhaps that was only in Selina’s mind.
Another sound, thirty seconds later, of a bag being unzipped; long enough for a million considerations to pass through an old woman’s mind, for her disability to explain the hesitation. Selina closed her eyes and pictured wrinkled hands as accompaniment. How wads of crisp money might feel so alien to them, as it once did to her.
She didn’t expect a hoarse voice to yell out, “This won’t change anything, you know!”
The woman might as well have been screaming into the abyss. She couldn’t possibly have detected Selina’s presence; she was hidden safely away at the side of the building, dry under her umbrella, obstructed by the metal webbing of the fire escape landing. And yet, it felt as if she was being addressed directly, like her identity was no secret at all.
There was a pause, so drenched with tension it was worse than words, and succeeded by violent tears indistinguishable from the rain drops.
“This won’t bring my baby back!”
Once more, Selina waited. This time, for Chantel’s mother to stop sobbing, to retreat back inside her apartment. She didn’t need to check if the woman would take the bag with her. She knew she would, because despite her proclamation, money changed everything. Always.
The door closed shut, and on cue, Selina did the same with her umbrella, slinging it across her shoulder like the storm was letting up. Staring straight ahead, eyes on the skyline hidden by Gotham architecture, she walked away, not bothering to circumvent the puddles flooding the street.