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Being a college student was stressful, sure. Everyone knew that. Ask any higher education student and they would all probably say the same thing.
Being a Gotham University student, however, might as well be considered on par to attending the University of Hell.
Morgan Whitney was stressed out.
He initially thought that attending GCU would be a somewhat interesting experience. Hell- he got in for one! The most prestigious school in Gotham- of course Morgan was going to attend when given the chance. No matter what Gotham’s reputation was. And being from the middle of nowhere, bumfuck New Jersey, it just made sense to travel a few hours and attend a highly prestigious rich-as-hell school. Plus, he wasn’t that far from home and could always visit his mom and younger sisters during the holiday.
Despite how prestigious the school was and how much of an accomplishment he managed to get in with that abhorrent acceptance rate- he had received a lot of mixed responses when he told people he got accepted into Gotham University.
“Oh.. Gotham? That's… good!” “That school has a lot of impressive alumni you know. Bruce Wayne attended there- oh he dropped out? I forgot about that..” “The art program is… okay.. But wouldn’t you want to go there for something like business instead? That seems wiser.” “Didn’t know you could afford that! Er- uh- good job!”
Morgan didn’t really consider just how prestigious GCU actually was- and on top of being literally in Gotham.
To put it plainly, Morgan was struggling a bit. Tuition wasn’t that much of a shocker- the rich elite attend this school after all- and after financial aid and student loans he would be able to attend still, which was good (albeit being subjected to debt central). But the repeated muggings? He could barely leave his dorm on campus without getting cornered somewhere and threatened with some weapon of some sort. And on the way to class no less!
Morgan quickly learned that it is not a good idea to leave the house with the majority of your money.
Maybe he should’ve just gone to a community college after all.
Currently, the young adult sat on his small bed. He had it pushed up against the corner of his shared dorm and he managed to squeeze himself right on the edge against the wall so that his rear was practically sinking into the void behind the bed. He had his laptop discarded in front of him with it connected to several different cords, hooking it up to an art tablet he positioned on his lap. His long bleached blonde hair fell in front of his face and he frequently whipped his head to the side to encourage the curls to fall not directly in front of his eyes- but he was not successful with it most of the time. He’d go back to straightening his hair if it didn’t rain nearly every damn day in this city, effectively ruining any attempt at styling his hair.
His posture sank forward to the point he was the living embodiment of a terrestrial shrimp as he drew a circle over and over again on the display tablet he used. He watched as the circle appeared and reappeared as he continuously reached over to his laptop to press Ctrl+Z.
His roommate- what was his name again? Austin?- was out, probably making out with some girl or maybe on the off chance actually doing his own homework he always seemed to complain about. Morgan didn’t care where the guy was as long as he didnt bring girls back to passionately have sex with while he slept across the room.
Was Morgan doing his homework either? Absolutely not.
Someone had to be insane enough to actually sit down and read 44 pages of some stupid psychology textbook. Written by Jonathan Crane of all people- was this allowed? No way this was allowed. Morgan wasn’t even a psychology major either! Stupid general education classes.
Once he finally got a decent enough circle he began sketching guidelines for a face. Guidelines he was going to completely ignore but they were guidelines nonetheless. His emotional support guidelines.
As Morgan drew in his messed up position on his bed, his mind began to trail back to the impending dread of college worries. He thought back to his psychology class and that dreadful textbook. A textbook that was virtually impossible to find online. You’d think you would be able to find a textbook written by a criminal fairly easily in the corner of “free textbook PDF download” websites, but you would be shockingly incorrect. His only way to get his hands on it was to check it out at the campus library- when he tried all 15 copies were already checked out- or buy the damn thing for $187.
Morgan sighed, discarding his stylus somewhere and searched for his phone hidden in the sheets. No doubt swapping one lost item- his phone- in exchange for a new lost item- his stylus. When he found it, he opened Tiktok to mindlessly scroll to distract himself from college.
“Hey! You there!” His phone yelled at him as he opened the app. He was instantly blasted with his volume at full. He cursed verbally and quickly adjusted the audio. The first video on his feed was someone advertising their small business, saying how they were going to close by the end of the week and needed to sell all their stickers as soon as possible. Morgan liked the video and scrolled away without another thought.
That was, until he got the revelation that it had been awhile since he had advertised his own commissions online. If he managed to get a commission or two, that would greatly help his impending doom and inevitable purchase of that stupid textbook.
Exiting the app, he opened his photos to search through his folder of saved art. All of them were illustrations of various different characters- mostly fanart if he had to be honest with himself.
Morgan opened Twitter- or “X” but who actually called it that anyway? Drafting a tweet, he embedded his art from the folder and attached his prices, dropping a link in the tweet that led to more information.
He only had 70 followers- and granted nearly all of them were only following him because a few weeks prior one of his tweets ‘popped off’. He had shared a very very blurry image of what he assumed to be Batman looking all ominous from atop a building. He had seen that silhouette while walking home from the nearest corner store off campus. Off campus corner stores were cheaper and those pretzels slapped, sue him! It was only logical to quickly take his phone out and take a shitty picture like how every Gothamite seemed to do. Did he qualify as a Gothamite now? Probably not, but oh well.
He wasn’t sure if the image was even of Batman (last time he checked, Batman’s mask didn’t show off his hair and his costume-thing didn’t have blue on it, but whatever). If it wasn’t Batman then who could it be? Morgan assumed It was more likely some weird fucked up gargoyle statue in this weird fucked up gothic city, but the tweet had gotten around 1k likes regardless and was even reposted on reddit if he remembered correctly. Nevertheless, his small following was not following him for his art. He half hoped that one of them might see his tweet and be interested, but it was basically impossible to get commissions without a following. Morgan sighed and tweeted regardless.
not Arthur Morgan | comms open @Iiterallysomguy
hellooo local GCU student goes bankrupt asmr :’))) commissions are open !! dm if youre interested!!
more info: https://veryreallink_link.commissions.com
[Attached were four images of illustrations, one with prices beside a full body pose of a character with a hand outstretched. The body was sectioned into three, each section had a different base price beside it]
Morgan immediately regretted posting his tweet as his notifications went off suddenly. The bell icon in the lower right of his screen indicated 2 notifications- then 4- then 6. When he pressed it, only bots were in the replies advertising their own ‘commissions’. He should’ve censored the word commission, but it was too late and the damage had been done. He quickly hid those replies and hoped the rest (because there would be more bot comments to come, he was certain of it) would be marked as spam.
Sitting back against the wall and sinking further into the void behind his bed, Morgan began the treacherous search for his now missing stylus.
Two and a half weeks had passed and Morgan was now sitting in his psychology lecture. The professor- thankfully not Jonathan Crane- was talking about something related to brains or something. Morgan was trying his best to pay attention but he was worrying about his english essay due tomorrow. His boredom was getting so bad he had to consciously keep himself from picking at the acne on his face, settling instead on scratching lightly at the few chin hairs he had.
He debated pulling out his laptop from his bag to work on the essay mid lecture. He was toward the back and plenty of students took notes on their laptop so it wasn’t like he would be the only one working on a laptop. Besides, it would probably look like he was actually taking notes for once.
Instead, Morgan slipped his phone out from his pocket and opened it in between his thighs, using the lecture chair ‘desk’ to cover his phone as he lowered the brightness down to nearly 0. He didn’t care if the professor noticed him on his phone, he was quick to realize this wasn’t highschool and his professors rarely cared about students being on their phones. What he was concerned about was his peers looking over to see insanely timed nsfw art that would coincidentally show itself on his timeline as soon as he opened Twitter. It always seemed to pop up at the worst possible moments- most notably public transportation and lecture rooms.
Maybe this was a sign to not open Twitter in public? Perhaps. Was he still going to risk it anyway in hopes to cure his boredom? Yes.
When he opened the app, Morgan was greeted with two things. Firstly, a cute video of two kittens playing. Secondly, a little blue notification on the message section of the bottom right.
The message notification wasn’t awfully rare. His mutuals would on occasion send him some tweet about Batman (since they now knew he lived in Gotham) or send him the odd fanart of his favs. That was exactly what Morgan had been expecting when he clicked over to that section. However, none of his friends had sent him anything. Instead, at the top of the screen, there was an indicator that he had a message request.
Thinking nothing of it, Morgan opened the message request and nearly dropped his phone.
Bruce Wayne ✔@wayneoffical
What is your price for a logo?
11:23am
Morgan stared down at his phone, dumbfounded. He was almost certain his face gave it away as well as he was practically staring down at his crotch with a look of surprise. Bruce Wayne?? THE Bruce Wayne? Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist Bruce Wayne?
What was he doing in his twitter dms?
He quickly clicked the profile. It was terribly easy to fake being a verified celebrity now with the stupid twitter blue or whatever the fuck. But no- this account had a little gold checkmark and when clicked, it said affiliated with Wayne Enterprises. Morgan even brought up his phone's brightness to an acceptable level just to make sure he wasn’t mistaking things on the dark screen.
Bruce Wayne rarely ever used twitter. As far as Morgan was sure (much to his dismay), Wayne only ever really used Instagram and that was to post really strange stories that he probably shouldn’t be posting. Morgan was not a Wayne fanboy and did not like hearing about the bordering on salacious instagram stories. Even if Bruce Wayne was painfully attractive.
Bruce Wayne only ever used twitter to retweet the occasional charity event announcement, news article, or on the off chance he actually made an apology thread for some shit he pulled. Morgan briefly thought back to the old twtlonger apology Wayne had posted after he was caught not wearing a mask to a party back during the pandemic.
Scrolling down Wayne’s profile, Morgan saw the most recent retweet of some news article about something Morgan didn’t care about. That tweet was posted 6 days ago.
Which begged the question- WHY was BRUCE WAYNE messaging him?
Morgan didn’t reply immediately. In fact, even though the account seemed legit, had post history, was verified, and had an insane following- Morgan was waiting for some message along the lines of “Hey it’s Bruce Wayne from Wayne Enterprises I am stuck in Metropolis and don't have access to my bank account. Please send a donation so that I can get home to Gotham.” Bruce Wayne was the kind of celebrity to get his shit hacked, Morgan assumed. Poor guy probably clicked some link while inebriated and it led to this.
Which didn’t entirely make sense because why would the hacker purposely go out of their way to message Morgan, especially since Morgan wasn’t even following Wayne? He had no idea.
Slipping his phone back into his pocket after realizing he hadn’t been paying any attention to the lecture for several minutes, Morgan tried to zone back in on what his professor was saying.
Barely five minutes passed before Morgan was back on twitter, inspecting Bruce Wayne’s account for a second time. Again, the account seemed completely normal. There had been no spam tweets like what usually happened when a celebrity’s account got hacked. No strange behavior that Morgan could find whatsoever- apart from, of course, the message he received.
Morgan almost wanted to assume the message itself was a mistake. Maybe Wayne had somehow stumbled across his account and accidentally messaged him? Maybe he had been given the wrong account to contact for a commission- especially considering the fact that Morgan didn’t even do graphic design.
It was a strange puzzle. A puzzle that made him increasingly more anxious as the clock ticked by without a follow up message from Wayne. Morgan suspected he should probably reply first, or at the very least accept the damn request, but he was anxious to. He didn’t even know where to begin with a response. So he left the message request alone and ignored it as he idly scrolled through his feed to further distract himself from the lecture.
Morgan quickly turned off his phone when he scrolled far enough to get the tiniest glimpse of drawn muscles and shirtless men.
His brightness was up. Whoops.
Bruce Wayne ✔@wayneoffical
I’d like this digitized.
2:14pm
[Attached to the message was a crude silhouette outline of a bat. It was drawn on a white napkin with what appeared to be black pen. The drawing was lopsided, the left wing was larger than the right, and the lines themselves were more similar to scribbles with jagged lines than confident strokes. The napkin had a coffee stain in the upper right corner and the napkin seemed to be placed on a granite table. The background was impossible to make out but some corners of printer paper could be seen on the table next to the napkin.]
Bruce Wayne ✔@wayneoffical
But with it being symmetrical.
2:56pm
Morgan was on the walk back to his dorm from his English class when he checked twitter again to see more messages. He had been so caught up in English that he completely forgot about Twitter's existence. It had been a peaceful few hours without thinking about the hellscape that was Twitter- apart from the fact he was working on his essay. That had been far less peaceful.
Initially he had been hesitant to open the attached image Wayne had sent. It was blurred out as Morgan had yet accepted the request. Once he was safely under a tree and out of the way of walking traffic, he clicked to unblur the image. He nearly audibly laughed.
The bat was painfully… Batman shaped? It looked exactly like that one bat signal thing- or, well, as close as ‘exactly’ got when the drawing itself looked a bit like a child drew it, but Morgan was never one to insult art.
Regardless, the bat request was very odd considering the fact that- again- Bruce Wayne was messaging him. Why on earth did he want this of all things? And couldn’t he find an actual professional graphic designer? Considering Wayne’s influence, Morgan was certain about the fact that Wayne probably had an infinite amount of assistants who could find him a graphic designer or at the very least someone with actual experience under their belt. Not some random art student who doesn't even specialize with vectors. Morgan mostly drew hot men for crying out loud. Not little bat silhouettes!
Morgan shoved his phone into his pocket and pulled his oversized purple hoodie down to cover his pockets just in case someone tried to pickpocket him. He was not about to be seen with his head trained on his phone as he continued to walk back to his dorm. He won’t have a repeat of last week goddamnit.
After a painful session of ID card jimming into the card reader for 2 entire minutes, Morgan was back inside his dorm room. Austin was nowhere to be seen, thank god.
He dropped his bag lazily on his chair, the laptop inside making a loud thump that Morgan cringed at. He needed to be more careful- he couldn’t just get a new laptop like nothing.
Kicking off his shoes and sliding onto his bed, Morgan retrieved his phone from his pocket and decided then was the time to finally respond. Bruce Wayne’s first message was sent at 11:23am. It was now past 3pm and he felt guilty about not responding to Bruce Wayne.
Morgan hoped and prayed that because of the fact he didn’t accept the request until now, read receipts didn’t show.
not Arthur Morgan | comms open @Iiterallysomguy
Hello Mr Wayne! I’m sorry to tell you that I am not a graphic designer. Sorry!
3:21pm
Morgan Whitney was anxious. He noticed his hands were shaking a bit.
He had just replied to Bruce Wayne on twitter of all places, essentially declining a commission. He wanted to throw his phone at the wall and jump out his dorm window on the spot. Why couldn’t he have been a graphic designer!? This was an opportunity of a lifetime and he just threw it away.
Morgan ran a hand through his hair and reached over to attempt to pull his bag onto his bed without getting up. He stretched his body to its max, fingertips just barely touching the hem of his bag before he gave up with a huff and stood up to walk the singular step to grab the bag. When he sat back down, his phone lit up.
Bruce Wayne ✔@wayneoffical
But your profile says digital artist? I already have the design, can you not replicate it digitally?
3:23pm
Morgan now wanted to cry. He could replicate it digitally, it would just be in pixels and Morgan was almost certain Wayne wouldn’t want it in pixels. But hell, he wasn’t even sure if Wayne knew the difference. He inhaled sharply and typed out his message, then deleted it, then typed it out again- before deleting it again to try his final attempt at a reply.
Morgan had taken an intro to digital media class before…
not Arthur Morgan | comms open @Iiterallysomguy
I can! But it may not be exactly what you had in mind? I don’t specialize in graphic design, more so character illustration.
3:28pm
Five minutes passed and Morgan was worried Bruce Wayne would not reply at all. Perhaps he waited too long and missed out on his chance to talk properly with Bruce Wayne. Wayne was probably talking to an actual graphic designer at this point.
Morgan had an essay to finish anyway, he couldn’t be caught up with weird dms from weirder celebrities.
Bruce Wayne ✔@wayneoffical
How does two grand sound?
2:04am
Morgan nearly threw his phone across the room when he saw that notification slide down from the top of his screen, effectively blocking the minecraft parkour reddit story it was watching. He yelped before quickly shutting his mouth and biting the inside of his cheek, turning on his side to eye Austin’s bed. Austin was fast asleep, none the wiser to Morgan’s outburst.
He gulped hard and with shaking hands he opened twitter via the notification, only for a new message to pop up.
Bruce Wayne ✔@wayneoffical
Or three grand since this will be outside of your comfort zone?
2:05am
Morgan Whitney was stunned. He sputtered as his brain tried to conceptualize that amount of money for– a design he could probably replicate in less than a few hours? He had to re-familiarize himself with vectors and sure he wasn’t a trained professional graphic designer- but the design itself was simple enough. A lot of questions bubbled to the surface of his mind.
Was this a scam? Was ‘Bruce Wayne’ going to send him some weird ‘payment’ link and then have it actually skim and keep all of Morgan’s information?
Also why was Bruce Wayne up at 2am? It made sense for Morgan to be up- he was a college student after all. He had just finished his essay roughly an hour ago and was finally resetting his mind back to brain rot in order to calm down from the dread he felt for the last several hours it took him to write that damn essay. Though, he did take multiple hour long breaks in between. He gets distracted easily, okay! Sue him.
Regardless, Bruce Wayne being up at 2am was a bit odd but Morgan couldn’t exactly come up with an exact reason as to why it was odd. Wayne was known for partying and parties tend to be quite late.
Another thing, why 3 thousand dollars? For this? Was Wayne out of his mind? What did he even have in mind for this logo? Was this commercial? That would explain the price range- but why this??
Bruce Wayne ✔@wayneoffical
Four grand?
2:07am
Now Morgan Whitney was panicking. Clearly Bruce Wayne saw his read receipts and if he continued to not reply Wayne might start throwing more money at him like it was an auction. That made him more anxious than anything. Hurriedly, he replied.
not Arthur Morgan | comms open @Iiterallysomguy
No no! Thatssoskay!
2:07am
not Arthur Morgan | comms open @Iiterallysomguy
That’s okay*
2:07am
Bruce Wayne ✔@wayneoffical
So four grand?
2:08am
Morgan’s head was reeling. Did Bruce Wayne just randomly commission people thousands of dollars just for the hell of it and the fact he had money? That was the only thing that made sense.
not Arthur Morgan | comms open @Iiterallysomguy
For this, I feel 40 would be okay!!
2:08am
Bruce Wayne ✔@wayneoffical
40 grand?
2:10am
Morgan decided right there and then that he would die on the spot.
not Arthur Morgan | comms open @Iiterallysomguy
I mean 40$!
2:10am
Bruce Wayne ✔@wayneoffical
Don’t undersell yourself :(
2:11am
Bruce Wayne ✔@wayneoffical
Do you have an address I can send a check to?
2:11am
A frowny face? What world was Morgan living in right now where, again, Bruce Wayne was messaging him and now criticizing him about underselling his art? It was awfully late- maybe Morgan was dreaming and would wake up soon.
He hesitated for several minutes. Was he really going to give Bruce Wayne- who he still didn’t know was actually Bruce Wayne or not- his full name and address?
The answer was yes, of course.
Just because he lived long enough in Gotham to understand not to make direct eye contact with those around you or to make sure to have hidden pockets within pockets to hold things, didn’t mean he had all the smarts of an actual born and raised Gothamite. Plus, he was raised on the internet. He had probably given a dozen people his address at this point, what's one more?
Morgan replied with the mailroom address the university supplied him and a quick mention that 80$ would be okay instead of the 40$.
Bruce Wayne didn’t reply until way late in the afternoon with confirmation and a business email to send the finished design to.
After two days of communication via email and progress screenshots, Morgan had finished the design and sent it. He was thankful that he had gotten his essay done the other day- otherwise he would have been juggling too much work to handle. His other homework was easy enough that he could set aside time to work on the design.
The design itself was simple and Morgan actually ended up really liking the logo. He even made it a vector, so now Wayne could do whatever logo business he wanted to do with it. He still wasn’t sure why Bruce Wayne wanted the bat, but at this point he didn’t care. He had wanted to make sure he had made something to the best of his ability and it ended up looking cool. It still resembled the bat signal but it was a lot sharper and more angular in style and design, the wings were a lot larger as well, all things that Morgan liked. Whatever Wayne wanted to do with this, he hoped it was satisfactory.
And satisfactory it was.
Bruce Wayne emailed him his thanks for the logo and communication ceased there. Morgan was okay with that. He had so many screenshots of email history and dm history at this point to flex to the end of time- and he was so proud of the logo that he even filmed a short tiktok about the commission.
The video wasn't much, just him reeling over the fact he was still fairly new to Gotham and then assuming that people just happened to get commissioned by Bruce Wayne all the time here. He, of course, had no way of knowing if that was true or not but Gotham as a city was cryptic enough that he was willing to fully believe that Bruce Wayne was single handedly keeping the artist residents alive. Who was there to say that the man wasn’t? At the end of his tiktok, he shared the original drawing Wayne had supplied him and that was it.
The tiktok only ended up getting around 300 views and one comment that simply said “lmao” left by a private account named @dayfin. Whatever this dayfin was laughing at, Morgan had no idea. If he had to guess, it probably was over the fact he was still new to Gotham, but he couldn't be sure.
The Monday after the weekend, Morgan had received an email sent by the university informing him that he had received a letter. After his only class- calculus- of the day, he made sure to pick it up from the mailroom and open it in his dorm.
Austin was eating a bag of chips, sitting on his bed with his legs crossed. He muttered an incomprehensible acknowledgment with a mouthful as he reached greasy fingers into the bag. Morgan muttered a half-assed “Hey.” in response before dropping his bag on his bed this time around.
“Whar-us’at?” Austin asked, drawing Morgan’s attention back to him. “What?” He squinted, utterly confused on what his roommate said.
“Whar-us’at?” Austin strained again, gesturing to the letter before swallowing potato mush properly. “What is that?” He managed out, significantly clearer than the prior two attempts.
Morgan mused, not expecting Austin to actually engage in conversation with him, let alone be curious enough about his mail. He didn’t picture them to be that close. Shrugging, Morgan flashed him the envelope quickly, impossible to make any details out of it. “Money, I assume. I hope.” He told him. Austin nodded noncommittally and went back to eating his chips and mindlessly scrolled on his phone with his nongreasy hand.
Swinging his legs across the chair at his desk, Morgan sat down to inspect the envelope more thoroughly. It was addressed to him, obviously, and the return address was apparent to be a business address, of course. What was interesting was how everything was written. It looked all fancy.
He teetered on the legs of the chair, leaning with his back turned to Austin as he picked at the envelope in order to open it in a way where he could keep it if he really wanted to. Not so lucky for him, he tore the seal flap almost completely off. Cursing, Morgan retrieved the check from within the envelope and turned it over to look at it.
In that moment, Morgan teetered too far and ended up falling out of his chair, bumping his head against his bed frame with a loud “WHAT THE FUCK????” in the process.
Austin looked up from his phone and chips with a mixture of concern, alarm, and minor annoyance. “You good?” He asked, witnessing as Morgan held the check up to the ceiling light as he awkwardly propped himself halfway between the ground floor and bed frame, continuously slipping down with each attempt to get himself up.
“I- I- What the fuck?” Morgan sputtered incredulously, mustering all composure he had left in him to tuck his legs underneath himself and sit on his knees before standing up. His legs were wobbly as he pushed the bag on his bed to the side before sitting down. “Yeah no- I’m, I’m great.” He nodded finally and when he did, Austin lost interest again.
Morgan Whitney was astounded.
In his hands, he held a check addressed to him from Bruce Wayne.
A check with six thousand dollars written on it.
Three and a half months later Morgan was back at the nearby corner store. Again, he liked the pretzels, sue him!
Pretzel in hand and wallet hidden in an inner pant pocket, he left through the sliding doors.
It was raining, as it often was, and Morgan’s hair stuck to his face, covering a good portion of his eyesight almost as soon as he got out from underneath the overhang. He had given up on taking umbrellas with him weeks ago. What even was the point when it rained this often? It was more of a hassle to carry an umbrella around.
Not entirely thrilled to get his pretzel completely soaked in anything other than his saliva, Morgan chomped down on the soft bread and used his other hand to move drenched blonde curls away from his forehead. One of his friends had commented how his hair resembled ramen noodles when wet, and he had to agree with them.
Morgan hadn’t realized he made a critical mistake, however.
When he was distracted by both his pretzel and his hair, he had unknowingly made himself an inattentive target. Something you never wanted to do in Gotham. Morgan might as well have been holding his wallet out and waving it around like a paperboy, shouting for people to take it.
Before he knew it, Morgan was dragged into the alleyway next to the corner store by an impressive force. He grunted out, getting slammed into the brick wall and having the wind temporarily knocked out of him, causing him to nearly drop his pretzel.
Disorientated, Morgan looked up to see a man holding out a small blade, barely a knife. His face was partially obscured, but his eyes were sharp and focused as he waved the weapon out in front of him, making sure Morgan saw it.
“Listen man, I don’t have much on me,” Morgan muttered, almost woefully. He offered his pretzel. “I’m just a student.” Maybe he really should stop going to this corner store. He seemed to get, well, cornered- every other week at this point. He was more disappointed at himself than scared over being mugged.
Before the man was able to bring the blade to threaten Morgan further, a large shadow swooped down from seemingly nowhere and Morgan was confronted with a loud slam and blurry movement of a squabble. Stepping to the side against the wall and nearly tripping over his muddy shoes, Morgan stumbled far enough away to see- Batman?
Batman -as large as ever in person- now cornered the mugger, threatening him or otherwise being intimidating just by standing between the two of them. Morgan yelped out an odd sound, something mixed of surprise, admiration and relief over the fact he got to keep his pretzel- and life. Though, Morgan was contemplating maybe his life being taken wouldn't have been so bad considering he had a calculus test in two days.
Morgan recognized the situation as his cue to run away and get the hell out of there and he sure as hell was going to take advantage of the easy way out.
When Batman sidestepped to dodge a punch right as Morgan stepped back in order to turn around- he noticed something.
Right on the center of Batman’s chest was a metal plated bat shaped insignia. That wouldn’t be too shocking if it weren’t for the fact that Morgan himself had designed that particular shape. He knew he did! He only got a glimpse of it for a second but Morgan was certain it was the same sharp and angular style he had intentionally designed. It was at that moment that, for the second time in a few months, Morgan was hit with such raw emotion it left him genuinely speechless and incredulous.
He made sure to get the hell out of there.
Back at his dorm and freshly showered and huddled in his warm-ish bed, Morgan turned on his phone and opened tiktok.
The first thing he did was delete the video he made of being commissioned by Bruce Wayne.
It only got 315 views, anyway.