Chapter Text
The sky that domed Gotham was a near-perpetual dull sheet of grey clouds, while the light that hung above Edward most days was a stale sterile white. Half a cup of lukewarm coffee sat by his elbow, the sleek white mug limned in the light. Caged in a cubicle identical to its neighbors, pen in hand Edward was hunched over the loose papers that littered his desk, drowning his frayed senses in his numbers. Numbers were clean. Objective. A rare universal truth that existed outside the reach of humanity's greedy influence. Every sum was as clear as rain; he could almost feel the drops pattering atop his head and streaming down his face, washing him of the filth and corruption that clung thick and sticky to his skin. It all disappeared when he could darken his peripheral and live within the black-and-white truth of his work.
He could truly breathe when he was allowed to focus on the numbers.
Breathe.
"How is the Fossoway report goin', Rain Man?"
But he was never allowed to focus on the numbers. He was never allowed to breathe.
Edward reluctantly lifted his head and turned around, looking up at his team leader, Zach Morley. The grin on his spray-tanned face was as bright and artificial as the fluorescent lights that blared down above them.
"I finished it yesterday." He handed Zach the manila file. "I'm working on the Florent account at the moment." The row of pearls in his mouth expanded with his smile. Was there anything about this man that hadn't been touched by chemicals?
"Hot damn Ed, we don't have many cases this time of year. Take it easy for once, maybe get a hobby." With a chuckle at his own joke, he clapped Edward's hunched shoulder and stepped away. The glare of the office lights on his glasses concealed the glassy stare of the corpse that shared his eyes. If Zach had seen it, he might have been alarmed. But a part of Edward wished he had. Wanted him to see into the hollow contents of his husk of a body. A glimpse of what it was like to be the gum instead of the shoe.
The handprint burned into Edward's skin, the flesh crawling against the poltergeist of Zach's touch. 'Don't fucking touch me.'
He sucked in a lung full of air, tasting the chemicals of the air conditioner on his tongue, and dropped his eyes back to the papers on his desk. He glanced at the clock on the wall. Not soon enough. Time dragged on like hooks across his skin.
Breathe.
But try not to smell.
The train was always packed this late in the afternoon, and even when Edward tucked his elbows into himself and hunched his shoulders forward, hugging his backpack as close to him as possible, he still brushed against the two people beside him, who made no such efforts. Drowning in the sea of people every day, yet never given the relief of death. Air all around him, yet his lungs cramped painfully inside their cage of bones.
He kept his downturned eyes on his phone. The blank black and white crossword across the screen glowed brightly up at him, but the puzzle was a blur as he focused instead on the peripheral of his vision.
Waiting. For the next stop.
The train slowed to a quivering stop, shaking the contents. Edward pressed closer into himself to avoid touching those around him. A stream of bodies ebbed in after the others flowed out, and a smile pulled so subtly at the corners of his lips when he caught the sight of your sneakers. The last time he had smiled was this same time, yesterday.
You always took this car, but where you sat depended on the available space. This time, his reclusive luck seemed to be showing its shy face; your shoes settled right in front of him this time, filling the gap that resided there. He cautiously lifted his eyes up from the safety of his phone, catching you retrieving a new book from your bag.
Edward tilted his head to the side, watching you split it open as the train began to move again, the small smile on his lips curling further with endearment. Did you enjoy the last one? The silken locks of your (h/c) hair were, as always, slightly disheveled, subtly wind swept the only way a hectic day could, and wrangled in only by your fingers combing through the strands throughout the day.
He drank in those deep pools of (e/c) that were fanned by the canopy of long, dark lashes as they settled downwards toward your lap; he longed for their recognition but also feared he may drown in them if he was ever granted the privilege. Any moment they could break from the pages of the book and find him leering - the idea was as frightening as it was thrilling.
You rubbed the heel of your hand to one eye and then the other in a futile attempt to brush away the fatigue that hung heavily on your eyelids. 'Me too,' Edward thought. His arms coiled around his bag, hugging it tighter to his chest.
'Me too.'
He had first glimpsed you a few months ago, in the chilly months that bordered spring, and ever since that auspicious afternoon, you had become a permanent resident of his mind. Even when he would free himself of thoughts of this stranger on the train, they would inevitably re-encroach at the end of the day when he would compulsively scour the train until he spotted your reprieving face again. But this wasn't like any past fixation, you were a leavening presence in his addled mind; for a moment - this moment - out of each etiolated day, he almost felt like a normal person. This short moment on the train home was the only flicker of light from the long-dead light bulb that lit his dark life. Like a lone gem in the stripped coal mine that was this city, you seemed so out of place. Yours was a vivid visage among the washed-out faces that surrounded him every day.
It wasn't your looks that caused him to become this enamored, he was never so vapid; it was the familiarity. A recollection that pulled so frustratingly at the back of his mind, a seeking finger poised atop a book, tottering it teasingly against the bookshelf of his memory.
Had he seen you in a dream before? A face from a past life? That made no sense, he wasn't the kind of person that believed in such things... until he had found you. Now the prospect of serendipity was so tangible it was as though he was staring it in the eyes across the Gotham metro.
Edward was so curious to learn more about you that he had searched up the area you often boarded from and deduced you must be attending Gotham University. But this answer only begot more questions; what degree were you pursuing? What majors? Were you studying any minors?
More importantly, he didn't even know your name.
From the absentminded lifting of your hand, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, to the gentle flutter of your lashes as you blinked your heavy eyes, and the fidgeting of your feet against every bump in the tracks; he absorbed every movement, as though every minor flex or twitch of your muscles might hold some tiny clues to solving this newest mystery that has consumed him.
'Who are you?' You were a walking puzzle; a particularly intoxicating one, with such gentle features and a magnetizing softness that delineated every hill and valley of your body. A rubik's cube that his hands desperately craved to reach out and touch.
It always happened, every single day of the work week, yet it always happened too soon, taking him by surprise with a muddy deluge of disappointment when the train rattled to a stop.
He stood and drank in your image while he still could, savoring and imprinting. 'Look up,' he urged in his head. 'Look up and notice. Please. See me.' His scarred heart lept to life for a second when he thought he saw your lashes flicker, but before he could find out if the pleading of his heart had been heard, he nearly fell over when a thick shoulder had carelessly checked his own. He had to grab the handrail to stay upright, and as he scurried off the train, he hoped you hadn't seen him after all. Not like that.
Spilling back into the city, he assimilated with the blurry faces of the masses that begrudgingly inhabited it. Instead of heading home, he took his usual detour to the nearest bookstore. Dark, dingy, and hidden down a side street, the interior was more like a hoarder's home than a typical bookstore, with as many books (new and used alike) stacked on the ground as on shelves. It was rather out of the way from his station, but it was the only place he knew he would find it.
And after a lengthy excavation, he was retracing his steps back home. The street lamps slowly flickered to life, oozing their lazy yellow lights and disturbing the silent night with their groggy buzz. As he walked beneath them, the shadow on his heels was stretched across the street before it was shrunk and snuffed out, the reincarnation repeating until he came to his apartment. All the while he smiled to himself, his eyes tied to the book in his hand; you really liked this genre.
Edward's keys slipped into the lock, and he slipped into his home. As he stripped off his cardigan and jacket, setting his backpack onto the dining room table, he allowed himself to float through the same fantasy; sitting beside you on the train and striking up a conversation, your shared thoughts on the contents of the book the perfect accelerant to keep the discussion roaring like a warm fire.
He had never actually built up the courage to do so yet, of course, but he'll be ready when he does. Placing the book on his desk, he unbuttoned his dress shirt, stripping to just the t-shirt beneath it, and prepared a cup of noodles.
Setting his dinner on his desk, Edward sat down and picked up the book. Leaning back, he cracked it open and immersed himself in the ink world.
The graffiti that tagged the alleyway was weatherworn, but the purple spray paint still stood out boldly against the dreary grey of the brick, a remaining echo of the recently captured Joker. HAHAHAHA, it still silently cackled, even after his incarceration in Arkham. Who was it laughing at? You? The city? Or to some private joke only that madman and his small sect of jaded sycophants were privy to?
Somewhere within you, you understood the joke. You too were born within an apathetic set-up and raised by its cruel punchline. Maybe you should just throw your head back and laugh too. Maybe you would feel better. He seemed like a happy guy, perhaps he knew the truth of it - or maybe that was just the colorful makeup that gave that appearance.
The city had become much quieter after the Joker's arrest. Every night he had played conductor to an orchestra of chaos; screeching tires, the constant wailing of police and ambulance sirens, and sporadic explosions that more often than not appeared too close for comfort. Now the nights remained still enough, only the occasional police siren to give the guise that some protections did in fact exist in Gotham. Lifting your chin, you spotted the luminous flaxen glow of the bat signal permeating the pitch-black ocean above your head.
Rats skitter in the gutters and alleys while the bats fly high overhead.
Fingers ran across your scalp as your feet dragged across your apartment threshold. Your coat found the ground as you slunk in, your bag falling beside it a moment later. A sigh of half contentment and half exasperation drifted from your lips as you fell into your desk chair, but you had no time for rest as you immediately reached for the short stack of textbooks and notebooks that sat beside the window frame. Flicking on the gooseneck lamp that loomed over like a personal, pocket-sized sun, you flipped each open to the sticky noted chapter and laid both side by side. Your eyes traced the sentences while your hand propped your weary head up.
It wasn't until your stomach complained of its condition did you peel yourself from your books. A short trip to your kitchen later, you sat back down with a few rations and a fresh mug of coffee. Despite yourself, your eyes found the same sight they always had, latching onto the white glare that captured the sky.
It eclipsed even the moon, the glow that radiated from the sign masking the stars around it. It devoured your entire view of the city; Wayne Tower. Even from this side of the city, it still dominated the sky. A lighthouse extending out the guiding light that led home. Your eyes were already tired, and the incandescent light made them even more irritated as it pierced the black backdrop, so you pried them away, back to the soft warm glow of the lamp and your notes.
As if he had seen you watching from that obnoxious tower, your phone rang out, the tone muffled by the confines of your bag. You got up and treaded over, kneeling down. You already knew who it was, Bruce was the only soul who had your number, so you simply pressed your finger against the power button.
Even now that you were on your own, he still badgered you, calling every day, usually at times when you were supposed to be sleeping, as though you had his nocturnal sleep schedule.
'Bat indeed,' you mused as you put your phone back down. You could have stayed in the tower, with those tall thick walls to hide behind, with Bruce's protection and Alfred's constant support. But what life was that?
The country mouse or the city mouse?
A Gotham sewer rat.
The dry laugh acted more as a tired sigh as you returned to your studies. The irritation emboldened you and bolstered you against the ever-creeping fatigue that wrapped its heavy hands around your shoulders.